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Which is Better? Realtors vs. Financial Advisors · Mortgage Marketing Radio

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Hey, what's up, my friend? Welcome to the first interview for 2025. On this episode, I'm
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featuring my friend Todd Ballinger. I believe it's at least his second perhaps, his third
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visit to the podcast. And so the appropriate time to be talking about this in the current
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market because we are in a transaction recession. Overall, transaction volume is down. There's
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a lot of shifting and moving movement going on in the industry, both on the realtor and
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mortgage side. And so Todd, I wanted to have a conversation with him about the difference
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between realtor versus financial advisor insurance professional as referral partners,
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plus and minuses. And most importantly, how do you add financial advisors, insurance professionals
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as a other pillar to your business as a source of your business? If you follow me for any
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time now, you obviously know that I'm bullish on realtors as referral partners for the obvious
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reasons of that they are focused on transactions and actively seeking opportunities for people
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buying and selling homes, which if your relationships are lined up correctly, thus benefits
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you. However, those markets can often be affected by cycles. And so it makes sense if you've
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ever thought about adding another pillar to your business, well, one pillar is the financial
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advisor side of things, which includes insurance, CPA and all that as well. And so there are
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a few experts that I know that I would use that term expert in the country for people who
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are well versed and steeped in that side of the business, such as financial advisors.
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So Todd's got a ton of knowledge and wealth about this. He's co-founded 10 companies. He's
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been in the mortgage business for decades, refers to himself as 84 years old. But more importantly,
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he is the founder of Barrow Smart University and founder of a program called the Certified
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Liability Advisor. He actually hosts a community of like-minded mortgage professionals. The links
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are in the show notes to all his stuff that we talk about here on the podcast. And if you're
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looking to get educated, if you're looking to get financially fiscally literate in a way that
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will help and equip you with approaching financial advisors and insurance professionals to have
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meaningful conversations that are going to generate opportunities for you. This is the podcast
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for you. And Todd is the guy to follow and get more information from. So with that said, remember
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that if you are still in a situation where you do need more or better realtor referrals,
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the best way to do that is by going one to many. Reaching realtors at scale with a value
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proposition that's attracting versus chasing. And that is through educational content and classes.
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What we do in the my agent classes community. A win of the week. I wanted to share with you one of
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our members or he shout out to you. He recently taught one of our classes. He had 13 people
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registered 11 showed up and had a top five buyer agent show up who he has tried to approach before.
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But never really got any engagement and post class. He was set up with all the realtors in the class.
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But one wanted to meet up set meetings with him, which he did with most. He's got referrals,
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closed transactions, and specifically from that top five buyer agent. And he is getting in front
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of agents at scale. Minimizing the ups and downs of this transactional cycle that we're in right now.
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So if you want to learn more about how we do that, you can go over to the link in the show notes,
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which is the my agent classes link in the show notes. Check that out and look at the other
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success stories testimonials we've got there. See if the program is right for you. So without
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further ado, let's get into this week's show. Todd Ballinger, welcome back to the show.
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Yeah, thanks for having me, man. Happy to be here. Happy to have you. First interview of 2025.
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And I like this because I think when we're entering a new year, I don't know about you or the listener,
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I do a lot of evaluating like, what do I want to do? Like, how do I want to show up?
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Who do I want to be? What's my business going to look like? All the business planning?
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And I think this is a relevant conversation. We have had a lot going on. Obviously, since you and I
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last talk, a new president, interest rates are different. But before we get into that, for anybody
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who might not be familiar with who you are and what you do, what would you like to share? I'm kind of
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performance coach meets financial literacy financial advisor person. And I'm kind of most famous
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for creating the first mortgage industry designation back in 1997, which was the certified
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mortgage planner. And then we added some other designations to that, the one our main one,
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CLA. But we've been big fans of that. My sort of goal has been sort of incorporating financial
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literacy and financial engagement into the lending process, which is something I'm sure we'll talk
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about if we talk about financial advisors and working with them today. And, you know, big picture.
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Before I leave the industry, I want to train a thousand loan officers to become liability
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advisors. So that's sort of my big, uh, I call it my last hurrah. So that answers the question
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for people curious about CLA certified liability advisors. That correct? That's right. Yep.
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Why don't you break that down briefly? What does that really mean?
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In, in, in, in simple terms, I use an analogy of the balance sheet that I think most people
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loan officers spent their lives, you know, looking at 1003s and that is a balance sheet, right? You
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have two sides. You have assets and liabilities. When I started my career as a financial advisor
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and I crossed the balance sheet. That was my first book ever. It was called Crossing the Balance
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Sheet. And it was a book about why I left the financial planning industry become a mortgage lender.
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Uh, and that was actually done with a professor at the University of North Carolina back in 1993.
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And what we found was we could have a bigger impact on people on the liabilities side of the balance
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sheet. And we could the asset side because it was more expenses there. The house was 40% of the
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typical person's expenses. There were all these mistakes they were making there that were
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keeping them from getting to the asset side of the balance sheet where they could create. Well,
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so that's why we crossed it, but financial advisors, they own the asset side of the balance sheet.
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And that means any asset from, from cash, stocks, bond, securities,
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private, I mean, they don't say I'm going to just do this one little thing. I want to,
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I want to manage your assets and I want to do that for one purpose. I want to increase your wealth
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over time. Uh, what I realized on the lending industry side or what I'll call the left side of
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the balance sheet, it was a very narrow focus on like mortgage. And then that way we weren't
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managing liabilities. We were selling mortgage loans, right? So I was a financial advisor. I'd come
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to this industry in the lending side. And I said, well, I want to be, I want to be like I was
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over here, but I want to own left side of the balance sheet. So I want to look at credit card debt,
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home equity lines, any kind of borrowing. What's the thing? Because I believe ultimately people
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who own a home do so, not just because of the quality of life. There is a financial component to it.
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So we actually say there's house and home. Home is the experience that you have living in a house.
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And it's very emotional and it's very important. But house is a physical structure. It appreciates
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and depreciation. Depreciates. It has maintenance and costs. It's like that's sort of the logical
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side of living indoors. So home is really important. But we focus on the house. And you can show just
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like going to college, you'll make over $1.2 to $1.4 million more of your lifetime than someone
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to high school. We can see the people who own real estate versus renting end up being much
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wealthy or over time because of that compounding because of that wealth dynamic of appreciation and
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tax benefits and other things that are actually psychologically proven career advancement from
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the stability of owning your home versus renting. There's all these interesting things about that,
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which could be another topic someday. But at the end of the day, you want to live in a house.
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And once you live in a house, you have this experience called home. You can have an experience
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called home in a rental. It's still home to you, right? You make it home. But you can't,
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but owning the house versus say renting the house is a very different experience. So we said,
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look, we want to own that. That left side of balance sheet, anything associated with this thing.
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And that led us to the third side of the balance sheet. And that's real estate. And that sounds a
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little weird to say it's really a three-sided balance sheet. But real estate is something that we
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all have in common as well. You know, I live indoors. You live indoors. Most of us want to live indoors
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our entire life. And at some point, that's not going to be our parents. It's going to be a place
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that we pay a mortgage. And you always pay a mortgage. It's either your mortgage or your
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landlord's mortgage. Once you leave your parents' house, you are always going to pay a mortgage.
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The question then becomes which strategy creates the most wealth for me over my lifetime?
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And it is a 20 to 25 million dollar potential decision. A lot of people don't understand the magnitude
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of the compounding of living indoors. If you say starting at 21, I'm out of my parents' house.
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And for some people, it's 18, but let's say 21. You will live in a house until you're what?
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Yeah. So if it is until you die, yeah. Right? And so, and if you move into assisted living,
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guess what? Your mortgage payment is going to quadruple. Because now you're going to pay 10 grand
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amount to live indoors. So you're always in, you're just paying a commercial mortgage at that point.
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So you want to do that as lay in the game as possible. 72, we compound every seven years.
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What starts to happen is these decisions you make at 20 and 25, 30, 35 round real estate compounding,
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we have examples where you show that it's a 10, 20, 25 million dollar decision because of the compounding
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of wealth. Money doubles every seven years in a 10% say growth environment. So the last double
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is massive. Like if you're 72 and you've got 2 million, your next double by 79 is 4 million.
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And it's 79. If you have one more double, 86, that's 8 million. So these, these kind of,
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these decisions are really important. But the CLA, it's like understanding that not only is there
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a different game to play, but you could actively be impactful in a totally different way with a client.
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And by doing that, also you can start to create totally do referral models that you didn't know
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existed, you know, with all these other financial oriented people out there in the world. Okay,
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long answer. But yeah, we'll come back to CLA actually in a few minutes, we get more specific
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about that and send the value and why would somebody want to consider being a CLA, you know,
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benefits, all that kind of jazz. Let's pivot for a moment because, you know, back to like the
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start of the year, people are looking at their business plan, activities. How do I grow my business?
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We're in a what I've heard referred to as a transaction recession. As a matter of fact,
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I was watching video yesterday that said that I think it was mortgage applications for purchases
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are down 10% this month, which is huge. So knowing the listener, the average listener is like,
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you know, law and officer mortgage professional needing to originate loans to grow their business,
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feed their family. I spend it because being a former originator, you as well, we both can relate
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to this. I spend a lot of my time thinking, how do we get people to deals faster, right?
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With those sources. And so you and I kind of before hitting record kind of played around with
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this, the battle of the referral partners idea, realtor versus financial advisor. And I want to
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unpack that a little bit. And maybe it makes sense to set the frame first and foremost, it's not one
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versus the other, right? It's both. But let's talk about some of the advantages and disadvantages.
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Let me let me see as I kind of have owned this setup. Let me frame this and then you can kind of,
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you know, jump in and play from here. I think the end of last year I was creating some content around
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the difference between a realtor versus a financial advisor. And here's the position I got
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took on that is who gets paid for actively seeking out clients for you, right? Realtor versus
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financial advisor, like a realtor gets paid when they sell a house, right? And so they're either
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finding somebody to sell a house or finding somebody to buy a house. And so therefore they are
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actively involved on a day to day week to week, hopefully, basis where they're going to be, you know,
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seeking opportunities, prospects, et cetera. My proposition was that if you've got your relationships
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lined up correctly, then you are the beneficiary of the activity of the real estate agent who's doing
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that consistently throughout the year. And the parallel to that was the financial advisor, right?
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Checking if I'm wrong. Obviously not focused on acquiring people to buy a house,
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but doing other things. So there we go. That's my first positioning. I'll allow you to respond.
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Cool. Cool. Cool. Yeah. So so right on. So the realtor's primary economic incentive is to close
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real estate transactions, right? Now, would you agree that they're going to get paid whether there's
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a mortgage or not? Yeah, absolutely. Right. And if every client walked into their office to
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buy a house paid cash, you could be completely disintermediate here, right? As a mortgage professional.
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So the realtor is out there advocating for themselves as we all are because they want to earn
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commissions and stuff. They use the loan officer because they have to and and it's because most
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consumers can't pay cash, right? So that's just one thing I would write there. The second thing is
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the realtor's themselves are not able to make markets. And by making a market, we're in a transaction
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recession because of inventory constraints in many markets. We're also there because of interest
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rate constraints. And I would even even say tax policy because a lot of the people that I know
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are stuck in their house because if they did sell it, the capital gains they'd have to pay even
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with the, you know, section one, you know, 61, 153, those kind of things for capital gains still
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leave them writing a hundred, 200,000 dollar check that that then reduces what they have to buy
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the next house, which is going to go from four to half percent to seven percent. So the shock of
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all that is such that they're really kind of handcuffed and stuck. So the realtor can advocate
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for customers and if that customer needs financing, then come to you as a resource, but they
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can't actively create a market that doesn't exist. And what one of the benefits, so this is kind
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of flipping to the financial advisor side is they may have a hundred, 200, 300 clients,
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you show them a reverse mortgage strategy that releases equity that can be used for long-term care
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and retirement planning and increase that customer's income and retirement. You suddenly are
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making a new market for yourself because they may have seven customers right now that need that
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particular help or an advisor whose client we're going to call the massive fluid. There's different
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criteria. There's sort of you starter, your Henry's high income, not rich yet, your wealthy,
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your family office type people. There's five or six categories of wealth in the United States
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that the advisors look at. But the massive fluid, which is the majority, we're seeing an
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AmeriPrize client come in with a hundred thousand dollars in credit card debt because they've been
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sort of thinking they were going to do something and then they didn't sell the house so they
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didn't refinance or whatever but they keep and suddenly the advisors saying look I got a client
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here's a situation they got a 600,000 out of our house with 200,000 on mortgage but they got
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a hundred thousand credit card debt right that's that you can make a market because if you educate
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an advisor on what that does for that client consolidating that that we just did a case yesterday
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the average EPR on the debt was over eight percent for the client they had a four and a half percent
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you know first mortgage like a nine percent second mortgage and then a hundred thousand credit
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card debt it was around 24 percent. You wait that out right a seven percent mortgage is a great
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deal when you're paying you know eight and a half nine percent on all of a sudden so that creates
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an opportunity to make a totally new market which is what you're saying is spot on if you're in
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a transaction recession you want as many possible opportunities for transactions as possible
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and that means you've got to go out and see people that you haven't seen before because my
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guess is if the realtor and I've seen different statistics I think we're down close to a third of
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the industry professionals that are still in the mortgage industry right now compared to we were
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in 2021 I mean we're down to about 84,000ish you know people and they're given up their licenses
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are not doing a lot of the renewals and stuff they're exiting or re-retiring a lot of people came
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back and they'll re-retire again so the people are still in the industry are going to be calling
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those realtors so it's sort of a red ocean if I'm calling if I got five people in my community
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calling the same coal banker agent so you got to do that but you got also be calling people that
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no one's calling on right now the blue ocean is is sort of this other group I love that I love
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the context what I wrote down then is you said realtors don't make markets so what I wrote down is
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the loan officer needs to make their own markets absolutely because making making a market the
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trend if we have the thing we call it the three major pivots in our in our our little program and
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the first one is moving from selling mortgages to becoming a liability advisor the second one is
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moving from from engaging the market to making a market and it's a it's a major mindset shift
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when you realize this loan officer got in our program in December he's called him 23 financial
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advisors so far that he's met with eight of them have referred him alone so far a refund probably
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if they can solve or something or typically like that console vacation property reverses debt
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consolidation is actually a big one I don't know all the context but I know a couple of them because
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he sent me some of the cases is we've been kind of we played with these case studies in our in our
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community but he's like this is just mind chain it's mind blowing to me because that means if I go out
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and talk to hundred advisors this year right while I'm I still have a realtor base that I'm working
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within supporting but they're doing what they can do to survive I know I'm going to get my shots at
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that this gives me something to actively be growing because if I can get to 100 didn't buy that same
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metric I should have 32 referrals coming in on an ongoing basis from a hundred advisors compared to
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the 23 sending me a right roughly you know a third sure all right well let's unpack that a little
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bit yeah talking about pillars and sources and we already established the fact it's not one versus
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the other it's it's both but as you well know well let let me let me let me well this is I'll just
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say it so a lot of loan officers don't know how to approach financial advisors this is one of the
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things you help them do so let's maybe give them some quick tips or like you said this person
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the LL called 23 financial advisors like how what did they do what did they say what should you
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sit for what should you not say like aren't these my the perception is they're difficult to reach
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they can be and so let's let's define advisors there's three groups of advisors when we think of
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advisors the easiest to reach is the insurance agent otherwise just by insurance would type of
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insurance do you mean that would be like Northwestern Northwestern Northwestern Mutual New York
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life things like that but people that primarily focus on that niche of life insurance annuities
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things like that universal life all that kind of stuff yeah exactly exactly turn life you know
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depending on your your company and their culture many of them are also financial advisors but
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this group are they're credible sales people the average insurance agent used to talk to 50
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people a week to make their you know quota you know so to speak as as a producer so when you meet
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one a dollar relationship with them you're meeting someone that's growing their network by 200
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people a month because that's the nature of that industry credibly lucrative industry if you can do
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it and do well at it but heavy sales so they're simple in that you know I used to sell insurance
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Jeff but if I said hey Jeff do you care about your family and you know if if something happened to
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you would you want them to be taken care of everyone answers that question the same way right the
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problem is I got a pay for insurance and that reduces my current lifestyle by transferring money
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for something I hope never happens so the insurance agents isn't is in a cash and cash flow
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business and a loan officer freeing up debt and consolidating debt and and helping to refinance
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the lower rates all those things that's all a found money strategy you become an incredibly
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viable partner so really simple conversation it's just I can help you and your clients you know
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find cash flow cash and cash flow they may not know is there by just simply saving them money
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and what's your biggest expense housing so that I'm that's I own that side of the balance sheet
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I'm gonna try to find them money I'm asking them to reduce their lifestyle I'm asking them to
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let me look at their financial situation to see if they're making mistakes that I can potentially
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help them with they would free up cash flow for them and guess what by freeing up cash flow for them
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it makes your job easier so we start with life insurance agents then you have CPAs enrolled
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agents and accounting professionals that's another group that their group as an industry are being
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asked to get their securities and insurance licenses that that's an industry that's in transformation
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they believe the opportunity of doing a third of the year of really working hard to in returns and
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a third of the year kind of maintain your business a third of your taking off there's a big
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opportunity there so you're seeing this sort of cultural shift in the CPA and accounting industry
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and they're fun because they have a huge base of clients and they know all their financial stuff
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those clients often call say what you know they find buy house or buy a vacation property and
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with their tax benefit I mean these are conversations that they're having and they're in a
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position so I've got someone you should talk to the third group is the traditional financial
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advisor anything of Schwab and a mayor prize and Merrill Lynch and Raymond James and Edward Jones
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but you also have independent registered investment advisors you have all these classes of sort of
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niches of financial advisor but they are the ones that are meeting with clients on a regular
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ongoing basis they're actually required by law and your KYC know your customer to meet based on
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assets and other needs on a regular basis and the calls of that the core conversations really simple
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you on the right side of the balance sheet the assets of the balance sheet you're a more your
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financial advisor I'm a liability advisor that's why we position it that way I manage the left side
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of the balance sheet I manage the clients largest expenses and guess what their largest asset because
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84% of Americans have more wealth in their house at retirement than they have and all their qualified
23:28
and non-qualified plans because typically by the time you retire you've got a six to seven or
23:33
thousand dollar house with a mortgage paid off the average person retire in corned a vanguard
23:38
has about 246 thousand dollars in retirement savings right so that's a lot of wealth tied up in the
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house it needs to be and probably will be managed at some point even if it's just by default have
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no choice you know I can't eat my house reverse mortgages and things are going important so
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you're positioning to say I understand what you do that's important because most loan officers
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don't understand what financial advisors do so by learning and understanding what they do and
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they're focused and then understanding what you do you're just really announcing a collaboration
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that is win both of you and that's and that's just like it's win win for the realtor if it wasn't for
24:17
the lender all the people that can't pay cash couldn't buy houses for the financial advisor who's
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getting a 1% fee annually to manage his assets yeah now I've got additional value add and services
24:28
in part of my team that I can bring into this conversation well okay so you have an opportunity
24:34
to coach loan officers listening right now and let's just say it's it's a crash course so of like
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okay okay here's the dues and do not back to your example of this LO called 23 financial advisors
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there's a certain probably best practices protocol whatever how to approach and I know this because
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I've done things on the divorce attorney side and there's a very specific how to and I'm not to
24:55
approach so I imagine there's some similarities but what would you own articulate for anybody listing
25:00
about the dos and don'ts when you're considering seek to understand before you seek to be understood
25:09
that's one of your classic seven habits of highly effective people but it is foundational
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financial advisors will meet with you just because they hope you'll become their client
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that's same with insurance agents right so you can get in to see them and meet with them and you
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don't want to come in and say look I got it you know I got to play devil's advocate here right yeah
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because I'm putting myself like I'm this is why I'm saying you've got to be well prepared trained
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scripted whatever like if I'm gonna call 23 financial advisors what's my pitch right what's to
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say oh they're gonna be willing to meet with you because I think as you well know and I don't
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mean to put you on the spot but this is just you know I got to get very tactical these financial
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advisors yes there's various levels of savviness right but in general they're pretty savvy and if
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they've been around for a long time they're they they hear this the pitch through the right veil
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of like you know just want to meet want to be more valuable whatever so I imagine there's a fair
26:04
amount of resistance not interested whatever so how do we overcome that okay so all right so you
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said kind of crash course so I'm gonna take you if if so we have this thing called the fast course
26:17
financial advisors success training and the first thing that we have you do and I'm gonna tell
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anyone that's doing this is you want to go and warm and how do you go and warm you call every
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customer you have today and you ask them simple question I am looking to help my clients who need
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financial advice and I'm curious do you have someone that you currently work with today
26:44
that provides financial advice that you would recommend if they say yes I'm gonna ask for the name
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and then you know I can look up the number but I want to the name and who they were the okay you
26:54
you know Jake Jacob Martin over it Edward Jones great do you mind if I give him a call is it okay
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if I let him know that that I talked to you and you you made a referral and last question I got
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to ask you this on scale one to 10 how do you rate Jake this is like the this is the most important
27:10
part because seven is like the f word in in survey ratings right if if there is like fine so seven
27:18
or below they really have no no real relationship with that person they would be happy to exchange
27:23
them for someone else eight nine or 10 tells me that there's something there that Jake's doing that
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this person really values and they're probably a pretty good a partner so you tell me Alex Jake
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you know I give him a nod he's really good right Jake how is this tied balance I'm just talking to
27:40
glorious swanson and we're putting together a list of financial advisors that we can work with
27:47
our clients who need financial literacy after if she had someone she recommended she said yes she
27:52
gave me your name I can tell you she ranked you a nine out of ten I you know there's no you
27:58
tends for God right nine is pretty solid I rarely hear that from other people that I talk to
28:06
would you be open to meeting with me for half hour and let me understand the type of people
28:11
that you're looking to work with because I understand some advisors you know Maryland say one
28:17
a million dollars in assets ever Jones will work with anybody they're just starting out you know
28:22
$200 a month together I don't ever want my client to be in a situation if I refer them to you
28:28
that you tell them I'm sorry this is not who I work with I want to scream my clients because I have
28:33
their financial statement from the loan applications that they're doing but I want every client I
28:39
work with to work with a financial advisor I think it's important at least have a relationship
28:43
could we get together for half hour just talk a little bit about what you do who you're looking for
28:48
and by the way we have an interview forum that we give people for that just so you know really
28:52
good questions to ask but that is a very high conversion rate because you're coming and warm from
28:58
an existing client they've already told you that you know they like you a lot and you're saying I'm
29:03
looking for people like you right now the benefit of that on the flip side is I call a client they
29:09
have no one I actually tell Jake when I'm meeting with Jake by the way when clients tell me they have no
29:14
one I'm gonna say I just met with the guy the other day that we're John's names Jake you got a
29:19
nine from one of my other clients would you be open to talking to Jake is that something that you
29:24
know you would be interested is it's a hub mentality but what you're starting to do is you're connecting
29:29
realtors and financial advisors and clients around a common need which is to create some wealth
29:34
over time for when they aren't working so we call retirement but that's really the hard of it
29:39
and there's all these other layers to how you go deeper and deeper but if you just call every client
29:44
put them in a sorting hat up I have someone I don't and then ask on a scale of one to 10 how are they
29:50
and know in your heart that if it's eight nine or 10 you want to meet them and if it's seven or
29:54
below you want to replace them because if it's a six I'm gonna call them back and say look I hate
29:59
to do this you told me you were working with someone at you know Raymond James you gave him a six
30:06
I've been talking to clients and they all love this one guy is a nine would you want to meet with
30:10
him I'd be happy to make the introduction if you don't that's fine but I'm never gonna call that
30:15
sticks advisor anyway right so I'm not like I'm worried about alienating but I'm gonna make that
30:19
recommendation if I can and that's where I'd start if you got a hundred clients and you end up with
30:25
30 advisors from those calls you've got a foundation to start building on and networking and then
30:31
the other simplest tip I'll give you and this is this is for anything that you do you never leave
30:36
a conversation without two names if you do that you have an unlimited network of potential
30:43
opportunity and the simple question is Jake I really enjoyed my time with you this was fascinating
30:48
let me ask you who do you trust for real estate like where would you send your mom if she was buying
30:56
a house or you know wanting to say relocate and then who would you trust for tax advice right if
31:04
I talk to five people and I follow this rule I'm gonna I'm gonna end up with 10 people to talk to
31:09
if I talk to 10 people and I follow this rule I'm gonna have 20 to talk to and there's something
31:14
magic about your territory blooming in front of you to where you're suddenly going I don't have time
31:20
to get to all these people and that's a great feeling as opposed to I don't know who to call
31:25
and don't have anyone to call because I don't want to use the phone book I'm calling the tax
31:30
advisors I just met with Jacob there was John who was referred to me by Jeff Zempler who is one
31:35
of his clients man he's a great guy clients rate him in nine guess what he told me you were the guy
31:42
he'd go to for tax advice would you be willing to spend 30 minutes with me and just let me understand
31:48
a little bit more about why he recommended you and what he's doing and that person's like yeah sure
31:52
come on let's come you know let's let's meet right same thing and that and you just keep if you
31:57
just did nothing but that there's there's an incredible opportunity right there I love that that's
32:02
a very simple and brilliant strategy at the same time it's easy to execute on everyone listening I
32:08
would assume has at least some clients to call right of a various number and that is a fantastic
32:14
way I think to kick off the the rest of the month of January as you're listening to this maybe
32:19
whenever you're listening to it make the calls but that's brilliant thank you that's what I was
32:23
looking for tactical baby I think thank you for helping that refine my sure that's what I do
32:30
that's what I do put the loan officer hat on you're like yeah yeah just man what can I do today you know
32:37
absolutely okay let me ask you this question along the same vein of you're talking to these
32:42
perspective buyers that are buying a house right we've got people at various it'll vary based
32:46
on the individual but in general you know because because we I've heard of that you know cross
32:52
selling the 10 or three hey who do you have a finite I love the ranking system do you have any
32:58
non scientific data on when you ask that question of those buyers or clients and you find out it's
33:05
a six and you're like hey I've talked to this person you know got a nine et cetera
33:09
any any you know tea leaves are like insights on resistance of like hey no no no I'm good you know
33:17
what I mean or anything back on the yeah we we actually teach so we call it the wealth team and
33:22
the wealth team or page five of the application whatever you want to call there's
33:26
of her different people using different versions of it I am going to be talking to your realtor
33:31
it is possible I may need to talk to your financial advisor your CPA your homeowners insurance agent
33:36
that you want me to work with on the homeowners and stuff like that so if I could real quickly all
33:41
I'm and we have a one page worksheet it just says is this the six people your attorney so in other
33:46
words you're packaging it as I'm gathering who are the people in your life that are going to be
33:51
in this transaction or that you would typically call on if we do need to call them I just want it
33:56
just feels like it's part of the loan application process you don't want it to feel like weird and
34:01
like you know you're doing some I just want to know what these people are and I'm asking the same
34:05
thing let me get them down okay I know I know Rick I've done ton of closings with him and I'll
34:09
glory it remax she's fantastic I've worked with her before you know Jake I've never met Jake
34:14
for he's at Edwards Jones I'm still going to ask him on scale one to 10 I gotta just ask how do
34:18
you how do you how do you feel about them as a partner because again that is that is my sorting
34:22
hat for for knowing how strongly I want to meet with him and it's part of my script but are you
34:28
going to ask that as a realtor unless say the whoever's representing you know if you don't have
34:31
relationship with the realtor you're going to ask them to rate the realtor as well no no this is
34:37
just for the client just for the client yeah because I'm going to use that client thing if if there's
34:42
six people in my list and they only give me three names because that's all they have I get to come
34:46
back and fill in those other three blanks entire well I'm sitting around I'm going I got some
34:51
dude I got my folder I got all these people in there I'm like let me call up this client yeah I
34:55
know she didn't have anyone here is see if I can make an introduction again just the power of the
35:00
goodwill that comes from working to introduce people to each other you know we have a saying your
35:05
network is your leading indication of your net worth if your network is growing your net worth
35:12
can't excuse my double negative it can't not grow right I mean you know I mean look at how people
35:20
get paid and athletics and stuff today why is that because the television the internet and the
35:24
the network of people that watch you has grown exponentially it's the same in the industry you
35:31
add a hundred people you didn't know this year to your network you will not make the same money
35:35
next year it just yeah I mean they're good market conditions but you're going to have new referrals
35:39
and new things come up that you never match well I love the example you gave as well because you
35:44
know you're spending your network and like the phrase I love is conversations leads to contracts
35:49
and so you're just simply having more conversations you're a lot absolutely I'm starting over more
35:53
it's a hay-drawn collider you're in it you want to be colliding with as many possibly as you can't
35:59
a hay-drawn collider you know like wait a minute wait a minute we just go into science class here
36:05
yeah I love physics I think of myself in like an atom bouncing around I want to bounce into
36:09
as many problems as possible because then I'm going to be more valuable yeah right yeah people
36:15
could not work with you they would I mean it's really simple it's funny and that parallels
36:20
back let's bring this back full circle and we'll kind of wrap up here for second time but the
36:24
parallels back to what we opened up with about agent versus versus financial advisor and it's
36:28
both and it comes back to what you just said your personal network example that I love to give is
36:33
becoming five mile famous and so what I say to people is if there's a billboard in town with your
36:38
picture and logo and everything up on it and take the realtor example like financial advisor exact
36:42
and every realtor drove by that billboard every day how many of them would recognize your face
36:47
and it's probably very very few and so that's the biggest problem you face is we're in a transaction
36:51
recession there's less deals to go around so you need to meet more people have more conversations as
36:57
you said expand your network and and you know they could go into you know asymmetric indoor let's just
37:05
call it non correlated referral sources if all my referrals are coming from agents I'm in a
37:13
correlation wave when there's a transaction economy when rates go down when rates go up what I
37:18
want is I've got that wave and I want another wave this non correlated and financial advisors are
37:25
calling because my clients are getting divorced they have this situation where she wants to keep
37:32
the house he does it we're trying to figure out and we take her off the topic we take him off can
37:35
we do the loan how do we do that right that's an advisor referral to a to a liability advisor that
37:41
says I get to refer out to a realtor for house I get to do this so these life events I'm making
37:46
an addition because we're having a kid and we've decided we can't afford to move right now which is
37:50
not a non common conversation with your advisor referrals these are all non correlated to the
37:56
realtor who's not going to be in any of those transactions so you're building a safer less volatile
38:01
business by adding non correlated referral sources because you've got more opportunities for these
38:07
transactions throughout the year that nothing to do really with enters if you you just sold your
38:12
business for $12 million and your whole life you wanted to beach house and you come to your advisor
38:17
and you've got $12 million and advisor is going to say no go pay cash and advisor we've talked to
38:24
is going to say you might be better off taking a strategic mortgage loan for 1.6 million and investing
38:31
that 1.6 million because over the next 30 years you'll get that house plus two more houses for free
38:37
just based on the average cost of borrowing and the average return over that 30 year period now
38:42
the class like wow so I get the house for free after 15 years and I get another one free after 30
38:48
they start to learn to talk about these things in a win-win way because as an advisor that means I
38:52
retain that 1.6 billion to manage which is 1% a year that's 16,000 a year at income to me to manage
38:58
that money versus just typically saying just pay cash it's no big deal right so you're also
39:04
teaching the back to making a market you're teaching them how to help themselves create more assets
39:10
to manage over time while also doing good for the client because they just don't think about
39:15
these things traditional right I love it and the latter and we talked about this you know in the
39:19
very beginning just do remember that you know I don't know how many licensed realtors there are
39:24
I'm sure it's shifted just like in the mortgage industry it shifted quite a bit but if you look
39:29
right now in the financial you know sort of space there's about 1.8 million insurance agents 1.4
39:36
million accountants and 600,000 licensed financial advisors it's about 3.8 million professionals
39:44
that are in the business of calling on clients to manage a wealth and wealth creation just from
39:50
hitting a target with your eyes closed that gives me if I'm calling on a million to 2 million
39:55
realtors I've got another close to 4 million people here I could be building relationships with
40:00
that actually you're touching the clients on a more regular basis 100% with accounting professionals
40:05
is at least annually with financial professionals is typically quarterly insurance agents it's annually
40:11
you get a lot of touches in there for that particular group well let's do this people
40:15
unsure curious we've educated them we've probably enticed and teased them among the value of
40:20
going after financial advisors or revisiting that if you've tried in the past you've got this
40:26
amazing community we want to invite people to participate in right would you mind just briefly
40:30
telling people what it is and then we'll put a link in the show notes so they can check it out
40:35
absolutely so you know we do we have newsletters we send out every Friday we have materials I have
40:40
a book that I'm happy to share their road a lot of contents all free and then we have a community
40:45
where you can join for free and just learn from us we have a community is paid as well where you
40:49
can get coached and and learn this stuff more intimately so we'll share that circle community
40:54
with with your listeners they can come join they can ask questions they can access resources
40:59
that we have in there as well as get our newsletter and some other resources just helpful to them
41:03
I mean again you'll learn stuff hanging out with us that just like today you wouldn't have
41:08
Lauren had you not been on this call with Jeff and and had us in your ear for 30 40 minutes
41:13
but over time I thought people just hang out and they started to get better at managing their own
41:18
stuff because they start thinking about their own wealth and the fact that wait a minute I don't
41:21
even have a financial advisor why don't I have a financial advisor or why haven't I decide I'm
41:26
going to manage my wealth because there's a decision there that has to be made and the decisions
41:30
again compound over time so come join the community use the link that Jeff's going to share and
41:36
you know we'll connect you with some of the things that we're doing yeah you've got a lot of
41:40
content in there learning content and this is where you can kind of you know the entry point with
41:44
Todd and the other things he does and he's just a wealth of knowledge and education we'll put a link
41:48
to your website as well borrow smart university dot com in there but definitely you've been around
41:53
for a long time in the industry before come on man you look good for 80 something thanks man thank
42:00
you I appreciate anyway everybody thank you for tuning in hope you got some value I would say
42:05
take the lessons from today's episode on how to approach financial advisors add them as a pillar
42:10
of your business make the call to your past clients like today right now and ask the question you
42:15
used the script that Todd gave you so Todd wants again thank you man I'll say thanks yeah thank
42:19
for having me then appreciate it all right listeners you know what to do if you like this episode
42:22
share with somebody and or leave us a review we'll see you on the next one bye for now okay that's
42:26
it for today's episode before we wrap up I just wanted to remind you about my agent classes
42:31
your proven system to double your agent referrals in just 90 days imagine never having to co-call again
42:37
instead building real lasting relationships with top producing agents who want to send you business
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with done for you presentations marketing automation weekly coaching it's all designed to make growing
42:48
your business easier and fun so if you're ready to take control of your agent referrals and grow your
42:54
income visit mortgage marketing dot pro or check the link in the show notes and why you're there
42:58
don't forget to check out the success stories from other mortgage pros who've already seen
43:02
incredible results thanks for listening and I'll see you on the next episode