Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Lead Generation for Loan Officers: Finding the Right Strategy

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Lead Generation for Loan Officers: Finding the Right Strategy · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
What is the recommended ad spend for somebody to actually see some results?
0:03
Our official training videos and everything that we talk about is $35 a day.
0:07
And the idea here, guys, is like, listen, with a lead gen company,
0:10
they're going to ask you to spend $35 a day, at least $1,000 a month an ad spend.
0:14
If you don't, it's probably not worth it.
0:16
Now, we have lead hackers who get away with spending $20 a day,
0:19
but I wouldn't recommend it just because they're successful.
0:21
Doesn't mean that you're going to be successful.
0:23
You know, the funny question that I get, Jeff, which I'm sure you get is,
0:26
what's the conversion rate?
0:27
Why do you think that there's a general blanket conversion rate
0:30
for every loan officer in America, like this guy over here,
0:34
he's been a loan officer for 20 years.
0:36
He's going to have a way different conversion rate than you.
0:38
Alex, welcome to the show.
0:40
Thanks for having me.
0:41
Hey, man, it's good to connect with you, especially on this topic of leads,
0:46
lead gen marketing, consumer direct versus referral partners.
0:51
We're going to unpack all that in a minute.
0:52
But before we do, what do you want to tell the audience about who you are and what you do?
0:57
Well, I could go on for days about that while trying to give you the short version
1:00
it might seem long, because I've been doing this a long time.
1:05
I've actually been in the mortgage lead generation space for seven years.
1:08
And my first company that I started was a mortgage lead generation company.
1:13
I was able to scale that to half a million dollars a month and under 11 months.
1:17
And we saw some success, but it was my very first time running a marketing agency.
1:23
And so I was learning operations on the fly.
1:25
And as you know, the housing market took a turn for the worst about three years ago.
1:31
And so we were a high ticket service charging anywhere from four to six thousand dollars
1:35
a month.
1:36
And so when the market turned, I mean, loan officers and mortgage brokers abruptly stopped
1:40
buying our services, everybody was afraid to spend money and rightfully so, right?
1:45
And so we went from about 50 deals a month to zero, right?
1:50
Started losing sales guys for lack of deal flow.
1:53
So I faced this huge problem in my business because we had no revenue coming in and a ton
2:00
of overhead expenses.
2:02
And so kind of solving this problem really seemed like an insurmountable goal.
2:07
Because in order to solve my business problems, I had to solve your business problems, meaning
2:10
the audience, right?
2:12
The problems of the mortgage brokers and loan officers.
2:15
And so like any decent entrepreneur, I had to pivot.
2:19
And that's how my company lead hackers was born.
2:23
You know, Jeff, we had a lead gen company.
2:25
We always used to say, man, if we could just take all the money, our clients are giving
2:30
us and put it directly into the ad spend, they would all be millionaires, right?
2:36
But we can't because we have all of these overhead expenses, office space, salaries, rent,
2:42
insurance, software, tools, right?
2:45
And so I realized that most mortgage brokers and loan officers don't succeed in lead generation.
2:51
And the reason why is because lead generation is fundamentally flawed, okay?
2:55
For a few reasons.
2:56
Number one is because of the monthly service fees, right?
3:00
And so when you enter into a contract with a lead gen company, you're basically signing
3:04
up for a race against that monthly retainer.
3:07
And the sales cycle is very long and mortgage, right?
3:10
Which puts most brokers and loan officers at a disadvantage, right?
3:14
Let's say, you know, a lead gen company charges you $2,000 a month.
3:17
Well, then by month three, you're already in the whole sixth grand, right?
3:21
Well, the problem is sometimes it takes 90 days to close alone, right?
3:23
So by the time you close your first loan, you're barely breaking even, then you have to keep
3:28
spending that 2K just to try and make a little bit of profit, right?
3:30
And so that's a problem.
3:32
On top of that, your marketing budget is diluted by that lead generation company's overhead expenses.
3:39
So automatically you're paying a 100% markup on the cost of leads at a minimum.
3:44
And so most people don't know a mortgage broker or a loan officer who has stuck with a lead gen
3:48
company for more than six months.
3:50
There's a reason for that, right?
3:51
People hate lead generation companies.
3:55
And the most important thing you can have in a movement is a common enemy.
3:59
And so we set out to destroy lead generation companies.
4:02
That's our mission.
4:04
We have a software that allows mortgage brokers and loan officers to launch their own mortgage
4:09
ads in less than three clicks.
4:11
They can do it on Facebook, Instagram and Google.
4:14
And so the question becomes, why pay a lead generation company thousands of dollars every
4:19
single month to do the same thing that you could do with just a click of a bond?
4:24
Yeah, I love that.
4:25
We'll talk a little bit more about what makes your platform different.
4:28
And you raised a couple of excellent points in there regarding the overhead, the cost,
4:33
all those things.
4:34
Let me circle back to the first conversation you and I had, because I got introduced
4:39
to you by one of my members in my agent classes, Trevor.
4:47
And I remember I think you opened up with something to the effect of like, I know you don't
4:51
like running ads or something like that, right?
4:56
Because I'm obviously very bullish on the whole like the first pillar of referrals.
5:00
And I thought it was interesting.
5:02
So I guess that means my brand perception is working, right?
5:04
Because you got to become known for something, right?
5:06
One thing, one avatar.
5:07
Yeah.
5:08
And I agree with, and I think, and I even say this to like, if I have a demo with somebody,
5:15
I'll tell them if they're like, hey, I'm a new loan officer, I'm like, you shouldn't
5:18
start in the red.
5:20
You shouldn't start throwing money into like, you should close some deals first from referrals.
5:24
Maybe real to really like, that's how I would go.
5:26
I wouldn't just jump in a lead generation.
5:28
You only want to jump in a lead generation when you've maxed that out and you want to
5:31
scale.
5:32
Right.
5:33
And so I thought that was a good point and jumping off point for the conversation and
5:36
just to set the record state, which I know I did during our conversation.
5:38
And for everybody listening, just to be clear, I'm glad you said that.
5:41
There's different pillars of business, right?
5:43
And so referral partners is one of those.
5:45
And I love the fact that you just highlighted, because I was going to ask you the question,
5:48
how do you know when somebody is, is right for investing and paying for
5:53
some type of a lead generation?
5:55
They're currently closing loans.
5:56
It's as simple as that, right?
5:58
They're currently closing loans and so they have the money to snowball into it.
6:02
And I say this all my demos, right?
6:06
We're the only lead generation company that's endorsed by both the National Association
6:11
of Mortgage Brokers and the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts.
6:14
And so I feel like I have a responsibility to tell people the truth and do it.
6:19
Like we can't lie to people and be like, yes, sign up for this.
6:22
This is a good fit for you, right?
6:24
And so if it's not a good fit, we tell them like we're obligated to tell them, right?
6:28
And so here's when it's not a good fit.
6:31
You're just getting into mortgage and you don't have anything in the pipeline for any
6:37
friends and family.
6:38
You haven't even attempted to get realtor relationships.
6:41
Like these are all things that you should do at the beginning.
6:44
Your client acquisition cost at the beginning needs to be zero dollars, right?
6:48
And so if you start spending $2,000 a month in ad spend, before you know it, you could
6:54
be in the whole $67,000 and the reason that's going to have a negative effect on you aside
6:59
from the obvious, which is your bank account, but it's a lot harder to sell when you need
7:04
to sell.
7:05
Right?
7:06
It's a lot.
7:07
People can sense desperation.
7:10
And so you're putting yourself at a disadvantage in a bad environment to actually be successful
7:15
because your plan catch up the whole time.
7:18
All right.
7:19
So help for those listening, some people may have tried ads in the past.
7:24
Maybe some people are currently doing it.
7:26
But there's also, maybe this is just an narrative in my head, right?
7:30
So let me approach it this way.
7:32
Like when people throw realtors under the bus, right, as an obvious kind of scapegoat.
7:39
One of the answers I have back to that is like, you know, when they say, oh, realtors are
7:41
hard, realtors suck or whatever.
7:43
And I'm like, look at everything's hard.
7:44
Every channel is hard, right?
7:47
Leads, paid ads is hard, right?
7:50
It's about choosing your hard, but things can become easier if you've got the right systems
7:54
in place.
7:55
So where do you see, like if somebody's listening right now and they're thinking, hmm, I'm closing
8:00
three loans, five loans a month, is it right time for me for ads?
8:05
What do they need to have in place that you would want them to have in place before you
8:11
would consider they're ready?
8:13
Well, so if I'm doing like three to five loans a month, right?
8:17
And I have, let's say, one realtor that's passing me business, maybe two of them.
8:23
I know that the kind of the sales cycle is a little bit long because it's about relationship
8:28
building.
8:29
Well, then I, you know, you have enough money to scale here.
8:32
Here's what I say.
8:33
There's only three ways people can get leads, friends and family, realtors, or you can
8:37
just buy them, right?
8:39
And so friends and family, most people do not have enough friends and family to scale
8:44
their business.
8:45
They are not that popular, right?
8:46
And if they were, they wouldn't even be looking at lead generation in the first place.
8:51
And the second thing, realtors, great way to supplement your deal flow, not a good idea
8:55
to be relying on someone else for your business.
8:58
But buying leads is the only scalable and predictably scalable option.
9:04
And the reason I say that is because if I know that I close one loan for every thousand
9:09
dollars I spend in ads, that means if I spend two thousand dollars, I'm going to close
9:13
two loans, right?
9:14
And so you can have some predictability in your business.
9:19
You should be doing all three, right?
9:22
Because you never want to be pulling one lever because if that lever falls apart, you're
9:26
screwed.
9:27
And so this is why I tell people that I think a big mistake people were making, especially
9:32
during my marketing agency's tenure, was everybody who was relying on refinances.
9:37
And so they became order takers.
9:39
And by the time it came time to close home purchase deals, they forgot how to do it.
9:45
Right?
9:46
So those relationships built in as well too, right?
9:49
Because that's more of a relationship based sale.
9:51
And so a lot of people who were just order taking and doing refinances, yeah, they made
9:56
a lot of money.
9:57
But that's probably the same reason why there's only, and I don't know if you look the subject.
10:03
Somebody had me Google this the other day, how many mortgage brokers there are left?
10:07
There's between mortgage brokers and loan officers, there's 95,000.
10:10
You want to know how many mortgage brokers are left according to Google?
10:14
20,000.
10:16
Insane.
10:17
Yeah, I mean, I always question the data, but yeah, but that's what shows up.
10:22
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I get it, I get it.
10:25
Okay, so let's deal with this narrative of like, you know, I've seen people comment on
10:31
lead gen companies in the past.
10:34
Hundreds of leads, you know, low conversion, blah, blah, blah, timeline is 12 or 18.
10:41
Like how do you address what I know?
10:43
You know what I'm referring to there?
10:44
I'm in there.
10:45
So yeah, I'll address a few of these at once.
10:47
Okay.
10:48
As to the audience, I hate to burst your bubble and I hate to be the bearer of bad news.
10:54
But bad quality leads when it comes to lead gen is unavoidable, okay?
10:59
We have a law in place called the Fair Housing Act.
11:02
You guys should know this.
11:04
You're mortgage brokers and loan officers, but somehow it goes over people's heads because
11:09
I want to be very clear about this, okay?
11:10
We have a law in place called the Fair Housing Act.
11:12
So what that means is you cannot target people on Facebook, Instagram or Google by the
11:20
three most important factors that we use to judge lead quality on.
11:23
And those factors are income, loan amount and credit score, okay?
11:28
It's not even an option that any of these platforms provide.
11:31
You guys think Facebook and Google want to be five billions of dollars and just blatantly
11:37
ignore housing laws?
11:38
Of course not, right?
11:39
Yet what most of you do is you jump around from lead company to lead company searching
11:45
for better lead quality, that doesn't exist, right?
11:49
And so most of the time when I ask a mortgage broker or a loan officer, what is your objective
11:53
when your buying leads?
11:54
Most of them say, well, the objective is to find the best quality lead.
11:59
Well, now we know better, right?
12:01
Now we know that that objective is school's goal.
12:03
So what is it, right?
12:04
What is the objective?
12:05
The aim of the game is not about finding better lead quality than what is it about, right?
12:09
And so it's about the same thing funny enough that every business has been about since the
12:14
beginning of time, business 101.
12:17
How do we acquire new customers for the lowest cost possible, right?
12:21
If we know that lead quality is left to chance because income, loan amount and credit score
12:26
all come in at random, well, then we know that the objective is simply, how do I save
12:30
on cost and get the most leads for my dollar?
12:33
Once they're in our ecosystem, we can then figure out which ones are the better quality
12:38
leads.
12:39
Now, I'm not getting into the specifics like, of course, you can build a funnel and ask
12:43
them, you know, questions and filter them out that way on landing pages.
12:47
But when you're talking about generating the lead, it doesn't matter what their credit
12:52
score is.
12:53
According to Facebook, I got to pay the same amount for every single lead, good and bad,
12:57
right?
12:58
And so to address the timeline, the timeline is one of the funniest things ever to me because
13:05
you got to just ask yourself this question because a lot of people, and this is how I explain
13:10
it, when you go into the mall and let's say you go to American Eagle, you want to buy
13:15
a pair of jeans, right?
13:17
And the sale, you know, you're going in there like, hey, I'm going to buy a pair of jeans.
13:20
I'm just want to go in there for the sales associate comes up to you and says, hey, can
13:25
I help you with anything?
13:26
What do you say?
13:27
Just looking man, just looking not interested, right?
13:31
It's the same thing with these phone calls, right?
13:33
And so like when somebody says, oh, like, cause I'll use that from some of our students,
13:37
hey, yeah, the lead, the lead said they weren't ready to move for another 12 months.
13:41
I'm like, ask yourself this question, would you click on an ad about purchasing a home
13:48
if you weren't ready to move for another gear?
13:51
Of course not, right?
13:53
Respects lie.
13:54
You just didn't build enough rapport on the call and I tell him, you know what you should
13:59
do?
14:00
Here's what I do.
14:01
Like if I'm calling, cause I've done this, I'm like, oh, you're not able to do it.
14:04
Like, and I'll call myself.
14:06
And so when you're having that conversation and they say, yeah, I'm not ready to move
14:10
for another night.
14:11
I'll joke around and just throw it back to them and say, yeah, at least and I always click
14:14
on ads about purchasing a home when I'm not ready to move for another nine months.
14:18
You know, like just joke around about it or I'll even kind of play the guilt factor.
14:24
And so like if somebody says like, oh, no, like I'm not interested, I didn't fill out
14:27
a form or I didn't, you know, just looking or whatever it is, I'll say, hey, can you
14:33
do me a favor?
14:34
So I just started running Facebook ads and each one of these leads actually cost me $20.
14:41
And so I'm trying to figure out like why somebody would click on the ad if they're not
14:46
ready to like purchase a home.
14:47
You think you can give me some feedback?
14:48
And you know what they'll say?
14:50
What?
14:51
Well, you know, I am looking and boom, you got them, right?
14:56
And so you have to understand prospects lie.
14:59
Yeah.
15:00
They're getting a call they're automatically on the defensive.
15:03
What about the types of ads that seem to work or would be because, you know, the complaint
15:08
narrative to keep pulling on that thread seems to be that some of the other lead gen companies,
15:13
you know, are going with the DPA type ads, low down low credit.
15:18
What's your take on that?
15:19
Yeah, that's what, listen, the reason boutique lead gen companies go with the DPA ads is
15:24
because in the marketing communities and the classes and the courses that guys like
15:28
me used to take when I was a kid coming up, those are the ads that are provided.
15:33
Nobody provided HELOC and DSER ads and all that stuff as a boutique company, nobody
15:39
was doing that before.
15:41
Our most successful ads that we have in my community are HELOC.
15:45
We use something called figure eight.
15:47
We heard about it.
15:48
It's pretty cool.
15:49
And so what it is is it's an AI application that you can get approved in under five minutes
15:54
for a HELOC.
15:55
And so what we decided to do was run ads directly to the application and what would happen.
16:00
They would either get approved without even having to speak to the loan officer or they
16:04
even better, they would get denied.
16:07
If they get denied, we can call them up and get them on refinances, right?
16:12
And so a lot of people have been doing really like Mitch Chang, crushes HELOCs, Alan Parker
16:17
Duke, crushes HELOCs, Simon Glenn, Simon Glenn just became, he just won top one percent
16:23
at next to mortgage, which I think is great.
16:26
I mean, there's 2,500 loan officers there and he's a great at HELOCs.
16:31
Another huge one is DSER.
16:34
I love it.
16:35
Trevor loves DSER and the reason that we recommended is because it's the gift that keeps on giving.
16:41
Your customers are investors, which means they're not just investing in one property unlike
16:46
a home.
16:47
They're not buying one every 10 years.
16:49
And so if you get a DSER client, you could theoretically it's like the gift that keeps
16:53
on giving.
16:54
You can close more and more deals through them.
16:56
Yeah.
16:57
The other thing that I think is unique about you guys and you kind of alluded to this
17:01
earlier, but it's a very important point for people to understand.
17:04
And I know this very well because I'm actually spending money on Facebook ads as we speak.
17:09
And so you've got two costs.
17:10
You've got the agency overhead cost and then you get your ad spend cost.
17:14
But you guys have a bit of a fresh twist to this, which allows, as you said earlier,
17:20
frees up more capital for you to redirect that spend instead of towards the agency overhead
17:25
cost, which you're going to pay 1,000, 3,000, whatever it is, agency overhead costs for them
17:30
to kind of run the ads by the spots, all that stuff.
17:34
And therefore you've got less to drive towards ads.
17:36
But you guys kind of flipped that on its head a little bit.
17:39
Tell me more about that.
17:40
Yeah.
17:41
And so mostly generation companies, the service fee is more than the ad spend.
17:45
We do the opposite and then we do even more.
17:49
So we charge 2.97 a month.
17:52
And the reason for that is because people ask me, hey, why don't you go from charging $6,000
17:58
a month to $2.97 a month.
18:00
I said, it's a volume play.
18:03
And I know that they'll stay forever because if you close one loan, it pays for itself for
18:07
the whole year.
18:08
How do you get?
18:09
There's no, remember guys, all leads are created equal, right?
18:12
When it comes to those important factors that we talked about, it's all at random.
18:16
And so if that's the case, well, then what's going to make you more successful?
18:20
The cost of the service, if it's extremely low, well, then the time horizon on which
18:25
you can be successful is much longer.
18:27
So if a lead gen company is charging you $2,000 a month and I only have $4,000, I better
18:34
close a deal in those two months, right?
18:36
But with us, the time horizon is much longer.
18:40
And so you can rest assured knowing that, hey, my overhead costs aren't going to be substantial.
18:47
The reason most people fail is because again, lead generation, especially in the mortgage
18:52
industry, is fundamentally flawed because your marketing dollars have a 100% markup.
18:57
And so you're getting 50% of what you're actually paying for at most.
19:03
And if we know that all leads are created equal, you might as well cut out the middleman,
19:07
right?
19:08
The whole reason you're paying that lead generation company is you're paying for their
19:10
expertise.
19:12
But in the mortgage industry, their expertise are a new point because they can't get you
19:17
better income, better loan account, better loan amounts or better credit scores.
19:20
And so the only reason you would be using a lead gen company is because you don't know
19:25
how to generate your own leads.
19:27
But now you can do it with our software and less than three clicks.
19:29
And all the ads are pre-built to improve in and tested.
19:33
Yeah, I guess that's the other headwinds people would come up against when running ads,
19:37
which is the intricacies of working in with the Facebook ads manager and promoting on
19:42
meta, all that stuff, because that's like a separate skill set in and of itself.
19:47
So how do you facilitate that at such a low cost to you with somebody who doesn't want
19:54
to be a Facebook ads or I should to be saying meta ads expert?
19:58
Yeah.
19:59
And so again, it's a software that allows you to launch your ads in less than three clicks.
20:03
And so what we have is a library of proven, ready to use ads that are pre-built for you.
20:08
They're guaranteed to get you the lowest possible cost per leap.
20:11
And so if you wanted to launch an ad, you would simply select the ad you want, enter how
20:15
much money you want to spend a day, which is great because you're in control of your own
20:19
ad spend, put in your website and click launch.
20:22
Now we provide you landing pages and so you don't need a website.
20:25
They're already pre-built, embedded into your software for you.
20:29
And so it's just click and drag.
20:31
It took me three months to learn Facebook ads, it'll take you guys three minutes.
20:35
Hmm.
20:36
Really?
20:37
Come on now.
20:38
That sounds a little oversimplified.
20:39
That's what it is.
20:41
And here's the beauty of it.
20:43
The expertise guys is built into the community.
20:46
We have 60 plus live coaching calls a month.
20:51
Day alone, we've had five.
20:53
We have support calls twice daily, every single day of the week.
20:58
We have CRM trainings twice a week, where it's just a walkthrough of the CRM to get you
21:04
comfortable with it, walkthrough of all the features.
21:07
We have ads trainings three times a week.
21:10
We have sales trainings.
21:12
We even have advanced coaching because some of our power users were like, hey, I'm sick
21:16
of all these rookie questions, you know, I want the harder stuff.
21:20
And so we made advanced coaching calls.
21:22
And so, you know, if you were to partner with a lead gen company and you have an issue,
21:26
you're going to have to send an appointment with them, wait three days with us, you can
21:30
reach us every single day of the week.
21:32
Hmm.
21:33
Very interesting, very interesting.
21:37
Plus, okay.
21:38
So the other aspect of this whole D conversion thing, timeline, all that stuff is the conversion
21:43
and the, you know, multiple steps that are involved such as somebody clicks on an ad,
21:48
they opt in, they fill out your funnel, right, then we've got, we've got the text messaging.
21:52
We've got to do some phone calls.
21:53
We've got to do some longer term email drip nurture campaigns.
21:58
How do you help people do that?
22:00
So all of that, all of what you mentioned is built into it.
22:03
And so every single lead is going to be texted within minutes of them filling out a forum,
22:07
ensuring speed deleted at the highest level.
22:09
So there's text follow up, there's email follow up, all those emails are already prebuilt
22:13
for you.
22:14
Top 10, you know, top 10 best tips on buying a home, right?
22:17
These beautiful emails.
22:19
And so they're put into long term nurture sequences, but nothing's going to be dialing,
22:24
right?
22:25
And so, you know, we teach you strategies on dialing.
22:28
For example, when I ask a mortgage broker, if they're double dialing, they have no idea
22:33
what I'm talking about.
22:35
And so for example, if I call somebody, or if I get a phone call from a number that I
22:39
don't know, I'm most likely not going to pick it up.
22:42
Right.
22:43
But if they call me consecutively, I'm going to think, oh, this must be an emergency.
22:48
And I'm going to pick up the phone, I'll give you an example.
22:51
I was in the hospital with my father, he was in ICU.
22:55
I got a call from a number I didn't know, I didn't pick it up.
22:59
I got it the second time I was going to pick it up, and I said no, but they called me
23:01
a third time.
23:02
I picked it up.
23:03
I'm like, hello, I'm in the hospital with my dad like, hello, and it was Grand Cardone's
23:08
office.
23:09
And I'm like, you got me, you know, like they, they got me, they were trying to sell
23:12
me, obviously, some stuff.
23:13
But um, and so the other, the other factor for double dialing is because most people that
23:19
have their phone on do not disturb, and it breaks through the do not disturb if you
23:23
call twice consecutively.
23:24
Oh, really?
23:25
Yeah.
23:26
And so it's great for contact to success rate.
23:28
Those are things that are important, right?
23:31
Strategic dialing as well, certain hours, like their systems that you can use to, by process
23:36
of elimination, eliminate times of availability so that you are making, you are being efficient
23:41
with your dialing.
23:42
So for example, most people, they dial sequentially.
23:46
So let's say I have a list of callers, I'm just going to start at the top and go from
23:49
the bottom, right?
23:50
And instead of doing it, and the problem is, is you just keep doing that over and over
23:54
again, you're praying and spraying, right?
23:57
And so what we call strategic dialing is, all right.
24:01
So let's say it's Monday, I'm going to call this lead at 9 a.m. on Monday, right?
24:07
And then I'm going to call them at, let's say, 9 30 or 10 o'clock on Tuesday, right?
24:13
If they're not available in that time window, I'm crossing it out, I will never call them
24:16
on that day again.
24:18
And I'm going to, yeah, Wednesday and Thursday, I'd move between 12 and 1.
24:23
And then Thursday and Friday on 5 and 6, and I'm crossing those times out and I'm never
24:28
calling them at those times again because what I'm trying to do is figure out their availability
24:33
by process of elimination.
24:34
And so there's critical thinking that goes into my dialing, but over time, what's going
24:39
to happen is you're going to have a lit, like your context success rate is going to substantially
24:45
pick up because you are not calling these people at times that they're not available.
24:50
You're only calling them at the times that could be available.
24:53
And so you're, by process of elimination, over time, you know, your data is going to
24:58
be way, your context success rate should pick up substantially in about, you know, if you're
25:02
doing it consistently, it's going to pick up.
25:05
What is the recommended ad spend for somebody to actually see some results?
25:10
Our official training videos and everything that we talk about is $35 a day.
25:14
And the idea here, guys, is like, listen, with a lead gen company, they're going to ask
25:18
you to spend $35 a day, at least $1,000 a month an ad spend.
25:21
If you don't, it's probably not worth it.
25:23
Now we have lead hackers who get away with spending $20 a day, but I wouldn't recommend
25:28
it just because they're successful.
25:30
It doesn't mean that you're going to be successful.
25:32
You know, the funny question that I get, Jeff, which I'm sure you get is, what's the
25:35
conversion rate?
25:36
Why do you think that there's a general blanket conversion rate for every loan officer in
25:44
America, like this guy over here, he's been a loan officer for 20 years.
25:49
He's going to have a way different conversion rate than you, right?
25:52
Right.
25:53
This is the magic lead, man.
25:54
Exactly.
25:55
And that's what they want is they want closed loans.
25:57
They want done for you loans.
26:00
And that's a mistake I made with my, my first agency is we try to do everything for them
26:05
outside of wiping their butt and we had a bunch of unhappy customers.
26:08
And now we empower them to do it themselves and people are much happier because they're
26:13
getting results.
26:14
They're much more consistent.
26:15
Nothing's going to be better than the broker talking to the lead.
26:19
People try and outsource it.
26:20
Yeah, let me get a VA to call all my leads.
26:23
What do you think's going to happen?
26:25
Listen, I can say this, I'm Hispanic.
26:27
My father's from Ecuador.
26:29
He's got the thickest accent of all that all of all time.
26:31
What do you think's going to happen when they hear a voice from the Philippines or they're
26:37
not going to show up to the appointment?
26:38
There's no credibility there.
26:40
They're going to be worried that it's a scam, unfortunately.
26:42
That's just the reality of it, right?
26:44
And so people try and outsource too much work when they really should be doing it themselves.
26:51
Like in our community, I have very candid conversations with our community and I'll say,
26:57
like, oh, yeah, my VA, I'm like, you're VA.
27:01
Dude, I looked at your MMI, like, who do you think you are?
27:04
You're barely closing any loans.
27:05
Why do you think you need a VA?
27:08
Like, what are you doing?
27:10
You should be doing this yourself so you can teach the VA how to do it.
27:14
But clearly, you don't know how to do it.
27:15
You're wondering why all my VA isn't being successful.
27:18
How do you expect your VA to be successful if you haven't made the roadmap and been successful
27:23
in it?
27:24
Yeah, that's such an interesting good point.
27:28
Are the ads branded or are they generic?
27:32
So the ads are not branded.
27:34
It'd be really tough to kind of brand it for everybody in their own.
27:37
At that cost level, yeah.
27:38
Yeah, at that cost level, for sure.
27:41
And so the ads are generic.
27:44
I guess you could call them that, but they're all unique.
27:48
Every ad is different.
27:49
They have different value propositions.
27:52
They look different.
27:53
The colors are different.
27:55
And so when you're running ads, we're talking about direct to consumer marketing, not necessarily
28:01
brand awareness.
28:02
You want brand awareness.
28:04
Social media posting is good.
28:05
We have a social media planner.
28:06
You can plan out your social media for the entire year.
28:09
It'll automate all your posts.
28:11
But that's not what we sell.
28:12
It's like just a bonus.
28:15
But direct to consumer marketing, I'm just worried about the lead.
28:18
Right, right, exactly.
28:19
Wow.
28:20
That's really cool.
28:21
Obviously, you guys, from looking at the testimonials on your site, and the fact that you guys
28:26
were the top aim, top name, recommended partner, and the fact that you've kind of turned
28:32
traditional agency marketing pricing structure on its head.
28:36
That's what really got my attention.
28:37
And the fact that one of our fellow colleagues, Trevor, spoke very highly of you, and he was
28:44
in our community as well.
28:47
That's amazing.
28:48
Incredible.
28:49
Yeah.
28:50
He's a guy who executes.
28:51
Yeah, he's a, and you know what I love about Trevor being our coach.
28:55
I look at him and he will have no problem with me saying this.
28:58
If you met Trevor, you would be like, no, he's not good at sales, because he's a pretty
29:03
monotone, right?
29:04
Right, right.
29:05
Whatever is monotone.
29:06
But you want to know what makes him so great is the systems and processes.
29:11
That's what makes him great.
29:13
And that's how you know his systems and processes work because when you meet him, he's not, he's
29:17
not like this captivating, engaging, like enthusiastic person, right?
29:23
And he crushes, I mean, 84 million in volume in one year, like, and it makes it that much
29:30
more impressive if you get what I'm saying.
29:32
He's organized and he's got systems and processes that he know works.
29:37
And so I think that makes him an even better teacher because a lot of these brokers might
29:42
have better raw talent than he does as far as when it comes to the sales aspect.
29:47
No, I can definitely appreciate that.
29:49
It reminds me of the two days I went and spent with Hermosi here in Vegas on site for that
29:54
two day scaling.
29:55
Yeah.
29:56
Did I tell you my Hermosi story?
29:57
No, what is it?
29:58
I didn't tell you that.
29:59
I don't think so.
30:00
So I'm friends with Alex and how it became friends with them is this was when I had my
30:05
agency.
30:06
And I remember sitting in the office and Alex Hermosi post a story that says, hey, me and
30:13
Leila are going to be having dinner in Colorado tonight.
30:15
We're going to choose four people to come with.
30:17
You have to prove to us that you're making at least a million a year in revenue.
30:20
Yeah, your company is doing that.
30:22
And then you have to tell me why you should be invited.
30:25
So I messaged him, I sent him a screenshot on my payment processor and I said, you should
30:29
pick me because I'm willing to drop what I'm doing right now and fly to Colorado.
30:34
And he texted me back and said, can you make it before six?
30:39
I drove straight to the airport, bought a ticket on the way and went to Colorado, had dinner
30:45
with him and Leila and four other people.
30:48
And it's so funny.
30:49
You know, he makes it a thing to really remember people's, remember people's names.
30:53
I saw him like a year and a half later and he goes, Alex Machucco, good to see you.
30:57
Like he remembered my name and everything.
31:00
And so that's that's a thing for him.
31:01
He really tries to remember everybody's name he meets.
31:04
And so next time he sees you, he'll call you about your full name.
31:06
Like that's his thing.
31:08
But so, but he's a good guy.
31:10
What would you say, you're one key takeaway for those listening relevant to our conversation?
31:15
What would be, you know, from out the world of Alex that you might want to share with
31:19
the listeners?
31:21
This goes out to branch managers, but that's okay.
31:26
It's something that I thought was really, really fundamental and I agree with this.
31:32
It hits home for me because I've ran tons of sales teams, some successes, some failures.
31:37
And so there's actually this video that Alex came up with maybe a few months ago, but
31:42
it was, it was such good insight.
31:44
And so I think what a lot of branch managers do, and this might give context for people
31:49
who are just starting in mortgage too.
31:52
But I was talking about like my, my friend owns kinfo, home loans and agave home loans,
31:57
Marshall and Cody and I was talking to them about this because most people, what they do
32:01
if they're in a managerial position is they want to play it fair to everybody.
32:05
And they think that playing fair to everybody means everybody gets the same lead quality
32:09
across the board.
32:10
Let's give everybody the same opportunities and see who, who flourishes, that's how you
32:16
should do.
32:17
What you should do is give your best leads to your best loan officers and your worst leads
32:22
to your worst loan officers.
32:24
Because what you're doing is one, you're making sure you're squeezing out every last penny
32:28
of what you can possibly get, right?
32:30
And so you're making sure you're getting all the meat off the bones.
32:32
And at the same time, right, people, like if you got your best guy making, you know,
32:39
half a million dollars a year, people will work for free just for the chance to make half
32:44
a million dollars a year if they can see somebody doing it.
32:47
And so you inspire all the lower guys, but at the same time, it's like, you know, the,
32:53
the, and I talked to this.
32:54
Well, what if like we'll probably have a lot of turnover over here?
32:58
Who cares?
33:00
Who cares if you have turnover on your lower guys, but I'll tell you what, the ones who make
33:04
it through, they're going to be battle tested and hardened and they're going to be in a
33:09
better position to close all of these leads.
33:12
And so this is the best way to do it financially for a, for a company when you're running a sales
33:16
team is because, you know, he even tells a story about, he met with the top seller guy
33:23
was doing like two million a year, and then he had a meeting with his boss and he was
33:27
like, Hey, give me all the good leads.
33:29
Like this guy over here, he's not going to close them, all close them.
33:32
And what ended up happening was the, the, the company, like he started it in, in just
33:37
that location, that location increased sales by 30% and then he didn't nationally and
33:41
made tons of money, right?
33:43
And so because Alex asked him, like, how did you go as a sales guy to make like two million
33:47
a year from 200,000 a year, two, two million a year?
33:50
He's like, I convinced my boss to give me all the good leads.
33:53
And what happened was is, is the company, as a result of it, did much better, right?
33:58
And so, you know, that was a valuable lesson that I think I learned recently from Alex.
34:02
Obviously, I have a ton of it.
34:04
The worst lesson, I think, that he's ever talked, Jeff, that you're going to, this will resonate
34:08
with you is create an offer so good that people feel stupid saying no.
34:14
Why is that the worst lesson because I'm sure you've seen the ads 12 guarantee closed loans
34:19
are your own.
34:20
Yeah.
34:21
I'm not just lying.
34:22
I'm not going to mention any names, but there's a lot of companies who did that.
34:25
One of them specifically got put out of business because of it.
34:28
And so you can't guarantee results.
34:31
And the people who fall for that, you just have to use some critical thinking.
34:34
This guy doesn't know me.
34:35
How is he going to guarantee your results?
34:37
What they do is they put a lot of stipulations in the contract so that you can never hit
34:41
that guarantee.
34:42
It's like, yeah, your money back if you accomplish ABCDEFG, right?
34:46
And so that's how they get you.
34:48
Well, just to close this out, my hot take from an Alexism, if you will, which I've applied
34:55
to my business, which is why I started running ads, dotted line like I did, this wasn't set
35:01
up to be this way, but was it, you know, simply not enough people know that you exist.
35:07
And you need to become more well known and more need more people need to be aware of what
35:12
you have to offer.
35:13
We're in a transaction recession.
35:14
Right.
35:15
We've got this attention economy.
35:16
And that's what I find of the hundreds of LOs I talked to over the course of a year
35:20
that they're just, they're too small, they're too little secret agents.
35:24
And they're wondering, how do I break out of this and add more loans?
35:26
Well, get more referral partners, scale your reach.
35:28
And if you've got the budget and the wherewithal, invest in ads to reach more people at scale.
35:33
That's it.
35:34
No magic formula there.
35:35
So I think that's good timing.
35:37
So for people who want to learn more about what you do, I know we've got a website set
35:40
up for them.
35:41
We're going to put that link that up in the show notes.
35:44
What is that URL handy once again?
35:46
I think I got it right here leadhackers.io slash NNI and what are they going to see when
35:51
they go there?
35:52
What they're going to see is an eight, I think it's like eight minutes, right?
35:56
That BSL and then everybody that's watching this, we're actually going to give you a free
36:01
trial.
36:02
So you could go in, see the software.
36:04
So guys, if you wanted to, you could sign up for this, steal all of the ads and then cancel.
36:08
But you won't once you get in, you see how easy it is.
36:12
We actually onboard you and walk you through launching your first ad.
36:16
And so we'll hold your hand through it all.
36:20
And so sign up for a free trial schedule and onboarding again, we're not going to charge
36:23
you for the onboarding.
36:24
It's free.
36:25
Go in there.
36:26
Launch your ad.
36:27
You'll start getting leads within 24 hours at the latest and see what it's all about.
36:34
Okay.
36:35
So that's leadhackers.io slash MMI.
36:38
We'll link it up in the show notes as well.
36:40
Alex, thank you so much for making time, man.
36:42
I think this is a useful conversation.
36:44
Yeah, it's an honor to be here.
36:46
I've watched a few episodes now.
36:48
And so you're doing something incredibly special and useful for the mortgage community.
36:54
So on behalf of the audience, we thank you.
36:58
Appreciate it, man.
36:59
So listeners, you know what to do?
37:00
Check the link to the show notes.
37:02
Go check out the video.
37:03
Do the free demo.
37:04
Learn more.
37:05
Start advertising.
37:06
Reach more people and your pipeline will be more full.
37:09
That's it.
37:10
We'll see you on the next one, everybody.
37:11
Thanks for tuning in.
37:12
Bye for now.