Why Most Loan Officers Won’t Survive This Market

Are you working harder than ever and still falling behind? Hey, you're not alone in today's market. Many loan officers I talk to are feeling a little bit burnt out, right? And they're putting in a lot more effort than the normal return they're getting. So they're making a fraction of the income and putting in four times the effort with little to show. And if you've been feeling ignored by realtors, maybe you feel like you're stuck in a slump or questioning how long you can keep this up. This episode is for you. You're listening to Morgan's Marketing Radio, the podcast where we help mortgage loan officers not just survive but thrive and succeed in a modern mortgage world. My name is Jeff Zimper. I'm your host and I'm here to help you cut through the noise, build real referral relationships that are profitable and grow a modern mortgage business that lasts and one you enjoy. Today on the show, we're asking you the hard question, why are many loan officers struggling right now and why are some doing well and what can you do to fix it and to help us answer that? I'm joined by legendary real estate coach Tom Ferry, who's coached the top 1% of agents for many, many years and knows exactly what it takes to win in any market. So in this episode, we're going to talk about why your ego might be killing your momentum. We're going to unpack how to show real value with agents when they won't take your calls and you get ghosted and what is the mindset, the action and the skill sets that it actually takes to stand out in a commoditized industry. We're also going to dive into some simple tactical ways to shift your mindset, position your expertise and start building realtor partnerships that stick even when the market stacked against you. So if you're ready to stop struggling and start building momentum stay with us, this episode is for you. So what do you think the biggest challenge is from agents and lenders in this market? I would say broadly it would be like four times the work for you know 25% of the income. It's a hard pill to swallow. How do you respond? How do you you know the dealing with the frustration or the pushback on not adapting to the new world of like you know where the consumer is now and is going? And I've heard you use this term in the past called fading winter, right? They all struggle with it and what I tell people is whether you're a brand new agent or you're at the top of your game. First I have a lot of empathy for how hard it is to run a business, to do what you do and then try and add something new. How relevant or important you think it is for a loan officer you know you I think you've said a couple of times solve problems right for a list of agents and what are the problems they need to solve? He said look if you just help realtors do three things help them learn the strategies to get more clients to stay more relevant to what's working and to be more efficient with their systems and processes. Tom welcome back to the show. Jeff congrats man what are we like 370 shows in now? Yeah a lot it's a labor of love as you know anything when it comes to content when you're doing it for nine years? 100%. I think I was I got on YouTube in 2007 and I haven't stopped. Really? It's crazy. I give you credit. The funny story about that is I was on YouTube this is the big mistake I made I think in 2000 right around the same time and then it was so difficult I stopped and I'm just like let me just do podcasts what a mistake. Now we can talk about the mistakes so 2004 I start my company right left my pops started this new business and I was like okay how can I reach people I've got 5,000 people in my database and growing you know every single day launched my silly little first website and I started doing audio messages but we didn't call them podcasts back then just I would record an audio message with one of those old like globe things like directly into my laptop and then we would email it was every day and every day show hey you know today is August 7th you know whatever the year is super excited to be talking today the message today is with the thought is I did that for like three years then I'm like 2007 hits and I'm on the golf course and my buddy who's still a great friend today at park says hey man do you want to play golf with me in my pal and like Ed is a very eclectic individual and I'm singing to Ed if you're listening to show you know I love you but like four hours on the golf course with Ed that's a lot of time and then his buddy popped up and he's like hey I'm like hey I'm Tom nice to meet you and he's like I'm David I'm like David what do you do he's like yeah I work at Google and I was like kind of a big company I go Silicon Valley in New York you know Sydney where are you like New York I'm like oh you're a media guy and he's like yeah I like what do you do there and he goes I'm in charge of the homepage I was like well let me grab your bag yeah exactly and he literally I don't know three holes in he's like tell me about your business you know what do you do under your blogging this that I was like to be honest man I'm doing these audio messages and it's really been good and he he turned to me and he goes audio message is suck I was like I was devastated Jeff I was like what do you do this for like three years every day and I'm building up my audience and he's like what you're doing sucks and he's like we bought this company called YouTube oh well you should go get a camera and you should switch to YouTube so that was like I don't even remember like July 17th right like whatever it was 2007 I went that night I think went to Radio Shack right and you know to Radio Shack shout out I went to Radio Shack and I was like I need a camera for YouTube and it wasn't what it wasn't like one of these you know super fun video cameras classic oh yeah I got a bunch of those and I think that actually still has like a memory chip inside it we should probably pull those out and and that was like the rest of history and so you just switched that fast that day and I knew as you know doing what you do I knew like two years in I won't name the competitor that called me and said you need to stop I remember I was like coming from LA I'm down coming down the 405 and I'm like I need to stop like what are you talking about he's like you need to stop giving away everything that we're all charging 300 400 500 dollars for and you're giving it all away for free and I was like okay noted totally appreciate your feedback and look look for to see you the next gig whatever click I hang up and I called my wife and I'm like well that answers that we're doing the right thing we're doing the right thing like this is this is gonna work out exactly well that's that's amazing story you're on the golf course this guy's like a little something called YouTube yeah you might want to look into it I was like no I like how he said we just bought a little company called YouTube and I was like I remember like Charlie with my finger you know the the dance dance video and I was like I don't know about I don't know well agents and loan officers go on there and watch right right I was like okay I think I'm sure you go for people log on and actually watch right right now right as you know it's like living room you know exactly that's where other was your TV right exactly that's a great story okay let's get into so obviously our audience today is loan officers in real estate agents kind of the theme for today is how loan officers in agents can team up and create confident home buyers in a waiting for rates to drop market sure so let's do a reality can we just say in any market in any market right no yeah as you know this market has some extra challenges which we're gonna talk about but let's let's talk about what you think because you obviously have an incredibly wide lens and a deep lens with your coaching clients so what do you think the biggest challenges from agents and lenders in this market I would say broadly it would be like four times the work for you know 25% of the of the income that's a hard pill to swallow but like Jeff we're in year well we're what 33 months in to six and a half to seven and a half interest rates so it's not that dissimilar from say 2009 to 2012 right like we had a couple of years where we felt like we were like crawling through glass yeah and and you know everything was just different and hard coming off two and a percent interest rates and the pandemic environment at 6.9 million transactions you know times two right it was just the this crazy experience and now here we are kind of more in that slam it out fight it out the you know the top is the consolidation is happening everywhere like the number of agents that are listing and selling all the houses it's like 90,000 people are literally controlling 61% of the market in the first six months so so it's just it's harder but but the thing I keep saying everybody is man if it was easy like there'd be three million agents and there'd be you know a few million more loan officers this is the time in history when all businesses that are going to become great in the next market this is where the market's made so I know that's not encouraging for anybody to hear other than I just did a research piece and I think for my for my friend listening I would encourage you to do the same on your local marketplace so I was obsessed with what can I say to my clients to give them not just like a glimmer of hope but like the harsh truth about what happens in the real estate market the cycles of it so I did this you know chat to be tea grok perplexity I went across all three and I'm like basically I forget what my exact problem what I wanted to know was over the last five decades what was causing home price appreciation what caused the market to turn and go down how long were we in the trough what were the main triggers but I want to know decade by decade so so I can look not and just say hey two thousand seven eight nine we're kind of but instead you know in 1981 when the rates were like 19 percent you know what happened was and then in the economy and then we boomed again so what's fascinating is the number one thing I got from it is every market recovers and the only question maybe for our friend listening is where are we in that cycle and and what we know is if you do the right activities today if you're making more conversations building more relationships following up because sales cycles are longer you know for two or three years if you're doing all those right things you're basically putting yourself in a place of momentum and you and I both know there's there's no standing still in business you're there in momentum or you're losing momentum and I guess what I say sort of broadly to everybody is you have to do today three four times the work to get the same pay used to get but I promise you by putting those reps in now when the market turns if I can get you to just keep doing two times the rep you'll make four times the money so it's just it's just the hard truth so as longevity like you know one of the key plays we gotta we gonna run is just stick with it don't give up I mean you know what I say to everybody what's your alternative how many months can you go right now without a paycheck he I mean really like how many months can you go so I mean if you if you got if you got 24 months in like turn this podcast off and you know just go sit on the beach and do whatever you want to do and like when the rates go back to like 5.6 and 5.9 which they always do right and then and then everybody becomes a law officer and everybody becomes an agent and and you're you're basically back in that rat race again so so I say this is the time where the best people separate themselves from everybody else because they're just willing to put their head down and do the work I don't mean to overcoat here but I have like so many because I'm I'm getting ready for my annual conference like all this research in my head and all these points but like try this on it's the choice Jeff it's the choice that people have to make today are they gonna choose ego or economics and I say choose economics over ego you and I both know because of our background right like the ego is lazy the ego is trying to protect you from things that aren't gonna happen and fear and you know like saber two tigers coming out of the woodworks and trying to kill us the ego doesn't want you to make phone calls the ego says things like at this point in my career really really I have to do that like really if I have to talk to one more agent or one more loan officer or one more buyer one more seller so the ego is just saying all these things to you that are just suppressing you for actually going to do the work so what I'm literally like I've talking to one of my clients she's 87 years old her name is Maxine gallons if I shout out to Maxine down in the Hoya I'm having another banger year she's been selling real estate I think longer than I've been alive and I've been her coach for like 27 years and I and I literally say to her like I know you don't need to work financially you know you're you were passed out a long time ago but I know the things that drive you and I won't disclose that on the show but like I know the things that drive you so you have to make the choice like is your ego going to win today or is it going to be the economics and the economics is real simple do whatever it takes to help the client and get the money do whatever it takes as long as it takes whatever it takes and the ego says I don't like showing videos the ego says my customers don't want to get a text message for me your ego says you know direct mail doesn't work because I tried it once or you know doing events or you know all these new agents what your ego is just constantly criticizing complaining and comparing show me one area in your life where those three things create joy create happiness create growth in your business it doesn't so it's a it's a head game to some degree right the battle it's always a head game it's I mean yeah my son sells houses in Hoboken New Jersey and so this morning I'm talking to him and he's like I got the offer accepted and he's all fired up right he's got to do two deals before he gets to my event and I was like hey if you can't I always look I love and let you tell him like if you can't you got to change your last name like it's just you know the same working but but he tells me he's like he's like man I got this deal an escrow and looks like it's gonna go well and like I'm really excited and you have been working so hard I'm like Stephen I don't want to hear it you can hear it I don't want to hear it's so it's so easy yeah it's so easy to to take a small victory and shut it down and we're in an environment today where a small victory isn't enough I mean I'm preaching the choir right like every loan officer knows what I'm talking about right you you know that this is the market where you basically secure as many transactions as you can because when the market turns your refi business makes you all your money yeah right and like that I mean it's it's rich and kind of rich and then it's really rich and it's kind of rich so if you don't do it now we all know what happens wow there's a lot in there okay so it makes me curious real quick I'm going to take a side side route here about Maxine okay or or other agents that have been around a long time because I was doing an event the other day we talked about that and there was an agent in the room who was quote unquote successful right and I'm curious you know because you interact with so many different people how do you respond how do you know the dealing with the frustration or the pushback on not adapting to the new world of like you know where the consumer is now and is going and I've heard you use this term in the past called fading winter yeah right so I'm curious about somebody like Maxine like because she's you know what I mean you're saying Maxine you don't want to get on the she even need to get on video you know what I mean she okay so or to do the modern things right because she's got this base of such a long history of clients of course of course I got so many thoughts because Maxine I mean you know you know I mean literally in the last 24 hours two of the top brokers in Beverly Hills right who are great friends and great clients right I won't be a name dropper but you you would know who they are the number one person in Newport Beach in Laguna Beach who's a long time client and friend Maxine right I won't say the name but another New York City like I've clients everywhere right the number one guy in auto Ontario Canada I spoke to this morning they all struggle with it and what I tell people is whether you're a brand new agent or you're at the top of your game first I have a lot of empathy for how hard it is to run a business to do what you do and then try and add something new so I don't knock anybody for it I get it I mean man this year we changed all the systems all the software in my company and Brandon was it fun no thank you very much my producers like no it still drives me insane but I know on the other side of it you know that the efficiencies the gains it's all going to be there but going through it is hard so I have a lot of empathy for people that know that they should maybe redo their bio for AI know that they should be blogging today to show up in the world of AI search GEO versus SEO know that they should redo their website know that they should make their calls but like I have empathy for it's hard it's hard to do all this stuff and it's hard to balance you know how much content you put out how much time you get with your friends yeah spouse I'm married I got two you know two boys that are you know young men now like I got all my pals and I got my team and I got officers it's it's it's hard so I guess my first thing is one I have empathy for then I say to most people I just say look you don't have a time management problem you don't right you have a prioritization problem so can we can we narrow down the priorities to maybe just one or two things that this year we can really do well and and stop trying to do 50 little things throughout the year and let's pick like one or two and if we can just pick the right one or two and then we can go really deep on those one or two what'll happen is in 26 you're going to look back and go wow that was another you know 30 million in loans or you know 30 million dollars in volume for an agent so so I AI have a lot of empathy because it is hard I run a business you run a business it's hard right anybody that says otherwise is lying there ass off you don't have a time management issue it's prioritization you got to pick one or two priorities yeah what's going to get you the most leverage right what's going to get you the most growth what's going to get your brand to be the biggest what's going to get you the most money like it's whatever the priority is and then you got to pick those two and you got to go all in on it because that's what works right now yeah it's good strategy profit levers focus because there's a lot we could do but we can't do everything so we got to pick one thing that will have the most work exactly exactly okay all right awesome conversation there let's get back to loan officers and agents let's try this one if you were a loan officer today calling an agent putting on the spot like what would be your pitch be what would your approach what would you say let's say this is an agent who you don't yet have a relationship with maybe a close to deal six months ago you know but you know their player and you want to get some some time with this agent what's the value prop okay so in fairness so I coach 1700 title execs right and personally right in in some groups some some groups same exact thing personally I say is just acknowledge that what you offer is a commodity mm-hmm that they could go to pretty much any other title company and essentially get the same air right for the same price and I say the same things to my mortgage friends I'm like look you know we're all we're all selling the same commodity and you know commodity even for you and I like time for someone to watch our show right like it's it's commodity it's been commoditized so so the thing that I say is first and foremost before I go see a prospect I go to Chancho BT I go to Groc I go to whatever my favorite thing and I'm like tell me the history of Jeff tell me everything you need to know about him right tell me like everything you can find online to give me an opportunity to build a relationship because until you can build rapport connect with them on something that's interesting go a little bit deeper and not talk about their last transaction which is but oh I saw you recently took a listen congratulations like okay you're like the ninth person that said the same thing to me you with me so I want to find something that's different and unique and stands out because what I offer is a commodity so here's what I know and and if you can connect with this it will help you tremendously it is so hard to be a good agent in today's environment and every loan officer knows the same thing so I could say the same but we're talking about agents if a good agent is with you their phone is ringing nonstop they're putting out fires every single day every one of their sellers is pissed because they didn't get enough showings last week right all their buyers are also being marketed to by somebody else and even though you have a buyer brokerage agreement signed it like it's just it's it's very challenging so the game is can I identify a Trojan horse that I can show up with sneak in and offer some real solutions to their problems okay it's the only way I've been able to like create substantial large business relationships I identify they have this problem I've got a solution but you can't just walk in and go hey you know problem I got a solution right because that's it that's the USP right that's the oldest pitch on the planet right so I guess what I would say to the to the you know loan officer is do your research on this person go to their zilla profile go to their business page not to observe what is great but to observe what is missing right see if you just took the example of GEO generative engine optimization versus search engine optimization if you took the time to actually look at there are certain websites that when I do a search for like you old school Google you know like best real estate agent near me right and what do you know you get you get zillow realtor homes redfin right like that's what you get every time but if I go to perplexity and I type in like they don't type in best realtor near me or they're like I have an ocean front house in Corona Del Mar and I'm thinking about selling my home and I'm looking for somebody that specializes in five to ten million dollar properties in my area who can really do a banger job like what do you got that's what people talk to like AI today right and when that happens they're going to show up or they're not and if you can show the agent how to show up and I can give you the hack you ready it's two things number one they love structured contact all search engines there is lazy as we complain about some people you got to make it easier for them ready so the agent you want to work with doesn't have a profile and fast expert doesn't have the right profile on zillow on their Google business page on Instagram Facebook that that that all it linked in all this stuff but specifically this is the funny part yelp which most of us hate because yelp is basically just it's the negative review site right but if an agent can be positioned to be one of the top 10 agents in that zip code in that county in that city which they can can pretty easily on yelp right if they're on that list now you just help that agent generate more opportunity if you get him to sign up on fast expert they're going to get more opportunity you with me on this not because those sites are incredible it's just for whatever reason yeah the AI search seems to look for structured content top 10 list what I tell the really good agents by the way and really good loan officers is if I'm a loan officer let's say I've got a team of like eight loan officers on my team I'm going to publish once a month the top eight loan officers in Orange County California and it's only going to be my eight salespeople and the order rank will just change over and over again and I'm going to take that blog and I'm going to publish on my Google business page my website and on my LinkedIn profile and then guess what happens the next time someone who's the best mortgage loaner that you know that you're going to show up because they love lists they love structured content so so if I'm a loan officer I'm going to use that as a tool the second thing is to acknowledge that the AI the way it works at least today Jeff and you know we're time stamping this is today if your bio says for example this is why I do us all the time when I get like hey we you talked to this guy and like have a conversation this gallon I'm like sure I go to their Instagram bio and it's like you know mom dog lover you know love puzzles enjoy wine sell houses now and then right and then I'm like wait a minute like you're the number 13 agent in the state like why doesn't it say you know 22 years of helping buyers and sellers sold more than 4,000 properties have over 805 star reviews now I just gave you pretty much the exact bio that they should have because the AI is lazy so if I'm like who's the best agent in my marketplace they're going to go well Jeff has 800 transactions 355 star reviews Jeff's going to show up on the list that makes sense so so not only does their bio need to shift I would walk in with a problem that the agent didn't know that they have right and here's what's interesting I was talking to Neil Patel about this you don't fall in Neil Patel you should and EIL and then Patel PATL he bought a company called answer the public dot com which I've been obsessed with forever and I was actually really excited that he bought it Neil and I were chatting about the reality is today if you look at the way generative engine optimization works you might only get a tiny amount of traffic to your website from it but the intent is so strong now I'm giving you Neil's quote that it represents like 50% of the transactions that you do from this tiny amount of search because the person searching on AI is such high intent so I'm taking my kids in my wife and we're going to go to Europe after my event so I go to Google and I'm like you know one of the top 10 things I should do when I go to you know this part of Europe right and you get a stupid list of offers and recommendations and each one of those there's another click and it's Google's so antiquated yeah I do the same exact thing in Groc and it's like you know I'm like hey you know who I am you know I'm into cool fun things I'm going to be in Marbella Spain where should I go well you should definitely check out the new Nobu and it gives you like all this real world actionable insight right or that's that's what's happening right now so if I'm a loan officer long answer I'm going to take this to the agent but I'm not going to take it to a brand new agent I'm going to take it to the mid-tier agent that doesn't get a lot of they don't get a lot of love you have made like they've they've had three listings sold and like seven buyer sales this year they're in the hunt of the 400,000 that are controlling the industry but the very highest producer I'm going to get some success with these people now to work my way up that would be my approach okay long answer sorry no that's that's good that was a that was a nice ride hey are you tired of cold calling realtors and feeling like you're getting nowhere with my agent classes you don't have to chase agents anymore we hand you a done for you system of ready to teach presentations plug-and-play marketing and even 200 producing agents to invite so you can double your agent referrals in 90 days or less plus you'll get weekly coaching and a community of loan officers sharing exactly what's working right now here's a quick win from one of our members I joined it because I was tired of doing business the way that regular loan officers have been doing it in my market which is just making the the core calls every Monday and Friday check in with real estate agents I had done that for years and seemed like everybody was doing that I need something different and I wanted to find a way that I could work with the agents that I want to work with I wanted to find a way that I could have a captive audience every month every couple weeks where I could find agents that were like-minded and that wanted to work with me as well so it's probably brought in I'm just guessing here but it's probably brought on in the three years I've been back with the program is probably brought on it's probably say about 40 million dollars in volume since then right and it's led us some massive relationships and I wouldn't be able to do those things without this program the value of these Friday calls are so incredibly valuable for all of us I get upset if I miss it on a Friday the cost of this program is what is worth it just because of these Friday calls that were on where we help coach each other we're just here to help each other add value to our real estate partners are you ready to stop chasing and start attracting agent referrals on demand book a call at mortgage marketing dot pro or hit the link in the show notes now back to our shop so what what I'm hearing in there let me try and bring this down for us to perhaps take and put into action is and I think you're 100% right because this is what I've seen work so let's give some tactical so how this would play out in the real world would be let's take that idea you just shared about how to show up in AI related search the various sites I guess what we're saying and let me ask it this way is how relevant or important you think it is for a loan officer you know you I think you've set a couple of times solve problems right for a list of agents and one of the problems they need to solve remember you remember Walter Sanford right right right there you go this is shout out from the back of the day so watching on water and long beach California yeah of course so Walter told me when I was you know an originator he said look if you just help realtors do three things help them learn the strategies to get more clients to stay more relevant to what's working and to be more efficient with their systems and processes like and that's what you just laid out that it's an idea that I can bring to an agent say hey were you aware that this is the new search right on it no what is that now exactly like if you think that would be a viable pitch for a long officer listening or watching right now like if you just did your research and prepared a quick little you know talking point around that maybe you did a DM whatever it is maybe did a call I don't know it's no different from to 100% no from an agent today that would call an expired listing and be like Jeff I was on looking at your property you know in the MLS and there was like seven misses and whether you choose to hire me to you know to fill the hole and actually get the property sold at the minimum I'd love to get like five minutes whether you just to show you of the 10 things that you have to have to market a property in today's environment your agent missed like seven of them right just that kind of hook that's that's so shout out to all of F and F which is fidelity financial that's who I'm coaching those 17 hour title execs and this is exact kind of stuff we're working on with them and they're like we're in a very flat market yeah and they're getting increase in agents that are doing more transactions aka more title and escrow for them another mortgage etc they're getting a nice lift by going into agents offices or making phone calls and identifying a very specific problem that they can bring a solution to and you know does it always get you the business no but hey but that's the game right that's the yeah I mean you're never going to get a get a hundred percent but it's also a different pitch than most people are showing up with exactly you know which is the coffee though what I want to learn about your business right all that stuff my hey do you want to know the rates no I can't get those anyone I'm good thanks let me guess they're flat yes right I love the answer which is rates are going to do one of three things go up stay the same or go down yes that's it by the way every day come on seven right like we're all rolling the dice do you know the app palm agent I've heard you talk about it many times yeah for every loan officer check out palm agent so my buddy Jeremy Davis funny his mom was a real sedation for heavy holiday like 400 years ago in Texas yeah came home one day to her husband who is a preacher and says you know talking to buyers it's just really hard for me to you know get this and it's always sometimes hard this is just like 26 years ago it's hard for me to call my loan officer and you know actually I paged him the beeper went off I haven't got a response yet like it was there during those times so now he's got this calculator and there's hundreds of calculators we don't want agents to become loan officers we don't want that but we want an agent to be able to say well hey one right this offer if we get it to one buy down this is what it means and then if we can make this adjustment this is what it means right and it just empowers agents and that's one of those like obvious misses that a lot of loan officers like well I don't want to give that power away right because that's my thing no you're actually empowering them to be able to educate their buyers and sellers right in this case they're really their buyers and like that's a match made in heaven and I'm not an investor I don't own the company but I think I'm responsible for getting I don't know a hundred thousand people on that app just in the last two years nice because I'm just I'm I'm obsessed with the consumer wants free perfect and right now and if I can't do free I got to do this close I can't do perfect and I got to do it right now and that app things like land glide right which is another cool app like what about that house like who owns that house and the agent's like like I don't know is a bad idea you go to land glide you literally like oh that's actually owned by Tom Ferry I mean it's like every lot in the United States every every every plot of land in the United States where it's LLC or whatever it is but like those kind of tools that a loan officer could bring you an agent to make them more empowered more intelligent look better in front of their customers and ultimately you know I don't know help more help more clients do more deals okay let me let me I don't own either one of those companies I want to acknowledge but I love them I know Jeremy I hope it doesn't sound self-serving for some of the people here this but we're talking about how helping a loan officer is getting in front of real estate agents right and I know you're a big believer in the one to many approach right because you can call call like you know you can slug it out but I remember when I first started with agents I needed to get in front of as many agents as I possibly could of course because it's a numbers game yeah right you're gonna get the good the bad and all that kind of stuff so what do you think about the idea of a loan officer building this platform right I always talk about their running for mayor right so they've got to become well-known you know the whole thing yep but they're leveraging this platform of like we mentioned earlier teaching agent classes with these ideas we're talking about here of course solving problems with these ideas one to many that's that a viable you think for an L.O. who wants to scale their reach well it hasn't worked for me right yeah uh the the answer is of course and and then I know what happens is the ego pop bomb out really good in front of people why would an agent listen to me and you know why would an agent listen to me well if I do an invitation and nobody shows up right what who said it was something like you'll never regret going right like Jeff invites me to go climb a mountain you're never gonna regret that you know like Brandon says hey let's let's try this new idea you're never gonna regret that the only thing you're gonna regret is in action sitting on the couch doing nothing you're always gonna regret that so I'm a huge fan whether it's on zoom or face-to-face or you call a broker manager and say could I come deliver this to your agents you know to the MLS to the board to the association there's so many ways to reach people the only thing I'm gonna caution the loan officer on is to be very very mindful of who you're trying to attract because if you just put it out there so here here's I don't know if you've seen this step but I because of my partnership with F&F I get access to some pretty incredible real-time data so in the first six months of the year one million sixty five thousand agents have done no closings really now Jeff if you and I were business partners we're not gonna put both MLS IDs in so I say all right between teams business partners there's only fourteen hundred teams like really in the country but there's a lot of husband and wife mom and dad son yada yada yada yada yada so I say take take a hundred thousand off that but that still means there's nine hundred and sixty five thousand people that have not had a closing this year so when we oftentimes advertise or push the word out who's most likely to show up people got the free time right people at that time right so again I think it's very important to message who is your message for who is it not for so if you want to do a thing called you know come one come all new agents let me show you how like that's okay right but then what happens is the message is now for them right and if a top producer shows up they're like what am I doing in this room you know Craig suing sure Craig's longtime buddy former loan officer built a show called American Dream TV right so just for I've invested like a hundred twenty five companies that's why I'm very transparent like with like these are all companies that I wish I bought but Craig is done a wonderful job and so he will go into a marketplace anywhere in the US they go in the MLS and they're like here's the top fifty people hey we have something that is exclusive for only someone at your level that wants to elevate their brand you know come join us for a three hour session to learn how you can be on TV what that would look like how to impact your business and we'll have lunch and every city he goes to he gets twenty twenty five thirty thirty people but they're all people that are doing a lot of business and those people are all looking to create some degree of separation between themselves and the next agent to the right or left the ones that are actually selling houses a mortgage is a commodity and you can make the argument today when you get to the top of all these great agents they've also been commoditized I can go to Zillow and I can find twenty agents in my marketplace that have thirty forty fifty eighty a hundred reviews so why this one versus that one right so they're looking for that same degree of separation so that's a good example of you know what if you did something that was so hyper focused that the only people that actually could do it would be an agent who has a marketing director right a team lead that has at least one person in charge of marketing in their business that you could literally say come to this event yeah actually don't send your marketing director so he or she could learn how to ABC one two three if you just push a message says just come one come all hmm you know what you're going to get so I'd say be very targeted today I like that approach and of course smart strategy you know very well is team up with the title reps in your local market 100% and they know who has no escrow's lots of escrow's right is growing is not growing so I mean I'm it's funny because I obviously have a lot of mortgage friends and I have this huge relationship with you know F&F which it's just like 50 brands across the US and literally when we go into marketplaces and we do events it's both of them working in unison and I'm constantly saying you all need to create better relationships yeah right because you got your like a good loan officer has ten fifteen really good model match agents where a good title title escrow they can have like 75 or 80 you with me so I'm like you you all need to connect more well what I find is the loan officers actually don't have enough of the right model match I'm with you I'm with you I'm talking like you know that I was with a J.J. Mazzo yesterday right he's got a new book coming out so it was on my show and right right you know I mean you know he's he's a baller he's he's a monster yeah yeah ones are getting after yeah but you know and look I'll do respect but I talked a lot of loan officers at various levels and and oftentimes you know I'll ask them how many agents are in your database right ten you know oh yeah he's like they're not even building their own database like they should be consumers right he's not all that stuff so but again I have empathy for him because it's yeah it's hard it's hard it's hard you ever heard the phrase it's all hard choose your hard I think I have a t-shirt that says that yes I actually heard something this morning that really resonated which was like pain and suffering is the only way to grow and it was the it's the sea of the video and he basically said my whole culture is predicated around the joy and understanding of what pain and suffering provides and it sounds horrible but if you think about it like a startup is nothing but pain and suffering right start if you're if you're a brand new loan officer in a marketplace in a marketplace like this there is nothing but pain and suffering but outside of that what do you get wisdom you don't get wisdom from winning you get wisdom from loss from getting beat up from having things not go your way from making a thousand calls and getting only one yes that's where all the insights come from so it's you know easy to say but listen I'm eating my own dog food every day I'm making calls and try and shit that is absolutely not working and in many cases costing me a lot of money and time but I know if I don't do it if I don't take the swing you know there's no standing still you're either in momentum or you're losing it or green and growing that's it ripen rotting right right I like do you have the embrace the sock t-shirt yet or I don't but I do like that we're gonna get you that one yeah some of the whole office yeah yeah I love it I love it all right we got to land this plane here so coming up you are going to be at the sales mastery event with Todd Duncan October 14 through 17th in Dallas yes for anybody listening or watching what do you want to tell them if like they're thinking about coming why is this year different or special first while I've been friends with Todd for a long time yeah and I'm super excited about the new partnership and the fact that it's also down the street from where I live in Dallas does make it slightly easy so you know what it is this goes back to that earlier point right there's no regret in going you know what I mean like I give people the example all the time because I go to conferences all the time I attend a conference called abundance 360 it happens in Los Angeles it's run by a guy named dr. Peter de Amandas it's about AI it's about robotics it's about human longevity is absolutely nothing to do with my industry but I go because I know when I'm there for three days it's not always what's being presented on the stage it is just the fact that I finally have the time to sit and to think in an environment where everybody else is sitting and thinking about how to improve the quality of your business right to make sure that you're on the cutting edge I liken that to what I talked to people like hey you should come to this event they're like tell them I was there I was with you last year and I'm like well is anything changed you know a lot has changed and I'm like and I tell my friends like you know when you come to a Tom very event that it isn't always who's presenting on stage it's who's in the room it's the conversations at the breaks it's the insights at dinner like it's all of that so again like I would say to you it's the same thing coming to Dallas coming to this event spending a much of time with a bunch of great people meeting a bunch of new people expanding your network but mostly 2026 they say is going to be better but it's only going to be better for the people that have the new tools you know you can't run this like yeah in every market cycle right in every market cycle there is there's fundamental plays at work but now there's these new plays and I would argue like a lot of what I'm going to be talking about is certainly generative engine optimization and you know why now you need to not like delegate AI to somebody else on your team if you're not spending an hour a day right now doing deep search to understand the zeitgeist where things are going how I can create more efficiency how can I scale myself how can I improve my brand how can I be a better husband how can I be a better friend like everything is available yeah right and I find that most people first of all have a lot of these tools like sitting you know three slides over on their iPhone that's the first mistake so so I think again there's what I'm going to talk about there's what all the other great presenters are going to talk about but it's really about being in the right room yeah having time to think having time to plan having time to strategize because I think 2026 for some of us is going to be like big wave surfing yeah and for others it's going to be a struggle no totally agree yeah and you've got to have the skill set in the mindset yeah we able to put those ideas in action 100% yeah love it okay so that's like October 14th through 17th Dallas I will be there you'll be there with Todd Duncan and so many other people as well hey man I know we're out of time but I really really appreciate this a lot I appreciate you two man so episode 100 and now episode three something something and so congratulations to and hey for my friends out there thanks for taking time to watch this Jeff is the man he does a great job yeah thank you for tuning in everybody if you like this episode hey by the way share it with a real estate agent who you work with or want to work with get some ideas here and leave us a review if you found value here so appreciate it see you on the next one bye for now okay that's it for today's episode before we wrap up I just wanted to remind you about my agent classes your proven system to double your agent referrals in just 90 days imagine never having to co-call again instead building real lasting relationships with top-producing agents who want to send you business with done for you presentations marketing automation weekly coaching it's all designed to make growing your business easier and fun so if you're ready to take control of your agent referrals and grow your income visit mortgage marketing.pro or check the link in the show notes and why you're there don't forget to check out the success stories from other mortgage pros who've already seen the incredible results thanks for listening and I'll see you on the next episode