Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Ep #109: Using Agent Classes, Video, and Personal Branding to Close 160 Loans

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Ep #109: Using Agent Classes, Video, and Personal Branding to Close 160 Loans · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
0:04
the real estate agents is essential for success.
0:06
However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
0:11
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Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
0:25
Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
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with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
0:39
To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
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of the case study today.
0:47
You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million
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in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can too.
0:56
Don't miss out.
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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
1:17
Mortgage Marketing Radio Brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute,
1:22
your number one source for truth in mortgage marketing.
1:47
You're holding yourself accountable.
2:12
The shift is a gift, so how well you do in a given environment, given market is determined
2:21
by your mindset and how you look at this market that we're in and entering and how this
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market continues to evolve.
2:28
One thing you know is that there are certain people, you can take them and put them in
2:32
any situation, any environment, and they will succeed.
2:35
Why?
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Because they have the mindset.
2:38
They've got the right mindset, so if you're concerned about this shift, perhaps change
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your perception of a change of beliefs about it and start looking to it as a gift.
2:49
So remember, the shift is a gift.
2:52
All right, speaking of a gift, how about giving yourself a gift, right?
2:57
How about adjusting the mindset?
2:58
How about learning some of the skills and strategies that you need to survive and thrive
3:06
during the shift?
3:08
What am I talking about?
3:09
Well, I'm talking about our Mortgage Marketing Pro membership, if you haven't checked
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that out yet, you can do so at MortgageMarketing.pro.
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Look, if you're interested in getting more successful, more efficient, more productive, getting
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more agents to notice you, respond to your message, agree to meet with you, and develop
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relationships and send you referrals.
3:31
Check out the Mortgage Marketing Pro membership because we've got a system in there that's
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been proven to do this for hundreds of loan officers across the country.
3:38
And it's built on the foundation of teaching agent classes, not your boring old lunch and
3:42
learns, but actually compelling classes that get agents' butts and seats and the loans
3:47
in your pipeline.
3:48
And you don't need to be an expert on the topics you're presenting.
3:50
We help you with all that.
3:52
So we give you the done-for-you PowerPoints and speaker notes and handouts and the video
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of tutorial teaching you how to give the class.
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We give you the custom flyers, right?
4:00
Keep the nuts.
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You just take the keys, put it inside the car, turn the engine over, and bam, you have
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got agents you're in front of consistently, getting relationships, meetings, and referrals.
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Don't believe me?
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Go read some of the testimonials at MortgageMarketing.pro and you'll see what else is included in
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there also.
4:16
All right, so let's talk about my special guest on this session of Mortgage Marketing
4:21
Radio, Katherine Peterson, out of Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
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That tiny little town, I believe about only 12,000 people, there's 340 agents in town
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and Katherine knows all of them.
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What's interesting is that, it's funny, I talk about Katherine, she's a big fish and
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a little pond and she's very humble in accepting that, but she is because her next closest
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competitor does 50% of the volume she does in her area.
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It was her volume in 2017, 50 million, 160 units, and her expectation is that she's
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going to grow in 2019 as well.
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I don't have a 2018 volume yet, but she's going to close out at more than that.
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The point is that she's got the right mindset.
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She looks to the shift as a gift and she's putting in the right strategies to succeed
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in the coming year.
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We talk about, on this episode, a key foundations of her success, low and behold, classes.
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She does a lot of classes for real estate agents, so you'll hear about how she does those
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in average of once a month.
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She also does pop-by consistently every single month.
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She does video, she's building out her brand, when you search Steamboat Springs Mortgage
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in Google, she comes up in the first three, depending on the day you search it.
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When I searched it during this recording, she came up number two and number three, I believe.
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Pretty cool, pretty strong.
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How does she do that?
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She does that because she's getting serious about content marketing, video and content
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that she's sharing online, so I put a link in the show notes to her Facebook page so you
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can see the video content that she's doing out there.
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She's a veteran.
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She's been in the business 15 years and just really just a phenomenal, great person, awesome
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human being.
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She cares a lot about her clients and she's passionate about this business, so I wanted
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to have her on to share best practices of what she's doing and how you can take some
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ideas from that and learn more about it.
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That is it.
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Let's get into this week's episode, shall we?
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My very special guest, Catherine Peterson.
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Hey, Catherine, welcome to the show.
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Hi, how are you today?
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I'm fantastic.
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It's Friday.
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No.
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I'm a Friday, don't pay.
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Friday, and as I was telling you, before we hit record, I got my special coffee from
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Sambalate here in Sumberland, Nevada.
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So if you live in the area, check out Sambalate, a little plug.
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It's good.
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It's good.
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No, I just had cheers.
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Oh, cheers.
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Yes, cheers.
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Let's do a virtual cheers.
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I like that.
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That's a nice looking cup, by the way, that looks like one of those homemade cups.
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Yes.
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My sister made it.
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It's awesome.
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All right.
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So for the listeners, tell us briefly, who's Catherine Peterson?
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Why?
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What is she all about?
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Why does she love doing loans?
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Great.
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Well, I am a mortgage banker in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, tiny little town, but great place
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to live for a resort town.
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And I have two girls, 13 and 10, which definitely keep me busy, and luckily my husband is obviously
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a ton of help.
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So that's great.
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And I really love doing loans because we love to help people capture their own little
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piece of Steamboat.
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I really love helping people really believe in education and making sure we spend enough
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time with our clients so that they, no matter what, they leave my office kind of in a better
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place than when they arrive, whether that be through education or just even their happy
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mood.
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So that's what I really love making loans come true.
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And so 15 years in the business, right?
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Yep.
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You have to go fast.
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What goes fast?
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So I'm trying to clarify your path because people in this industry for a long time, some
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people can get jaded, burned out, whatever.
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What keeps you going, though, is it the connection with the borrower and the feeling you get
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by helping them educate them?
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Yeah, it's definitely, that's the biggest piece of it.
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I'm occasionally all crying and closing, which sounds like, but you know people so well
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that you get so excited about it.
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It's an emotional process.
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Wait a minute, you cry at a closing out of happiness?
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But also, yes, yes, I have more than once, sadly, but it's good.
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Look at my notes from the last conversation we had just to keep me fresh and honest.
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People are always curious.
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I know you're, you know, I would say you're on the list of top producers on the various
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organizations that rank those things.
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But quick summary from 2017, volume slash units, what did that look like?
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I roughly 50 million for around 160 units.
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Okay.
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50 million, 160 units.
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What's the population of where you live?
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About 12,000.
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12,000.
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That's some, you're scooping a lot of business out of 12,000.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, it is a small community.
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Would you have some second homeowners, but we primarily work with primary residence
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purchases and we're roughly 80% in our county, which even the whole county has 20,000s and
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it's a big county.
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So like square footage wise.
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How many realtors roughly in, you know, your patch there?
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Roughly 340 or 325 was the county yesterday.
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Wow.
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325.
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How many of those do you work with?
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Like 300 maybe.
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No, right?
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It's obviously some that aren't active, but we, there might be 2 or 3, I don't know in
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that way.
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But you know most of them, don't you?
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Yes.
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It's a small town.
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You see with the grocery store.
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What's your biggest, I'm really curious then, your biggest competition or in such a small
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area.
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I mean, because my perception is, is that, you know, other loan officers, whatever that
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you're like running into each other out and about wherever you go.
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Is that the case?
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That is the case.
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Yes.
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I see them all the time, but yeah, there's goods and bads.
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We actually work pretty well as a team.
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So if there's something I can't figure out, I'll occasionally call another L.O. and say,
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hey, yeah, like is there something that you have that I don't or what, you know, can
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you help this person because I can't or whenever else happens?
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I don't like to do that, but certainly we've gotten that call as well.
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So friendly competition.
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Yeah, we were pretty friendly competition, but you have to be at a little town.
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So it's not like it's not like New York City, you know, get the hell out of here.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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No, no, no.
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Oh, my gosh.
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It's not enough to do that.
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I don't think.
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Right.
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Right.
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Okay.
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So your main source of business?
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Past clients and real estate agents.
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Is it past clients above real estate agents?
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It's 50, 50.
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It's fairly even.
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There's, you know, a lot of times we'll, you know, we'll get the referral from multiple
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sources, but I would say that there's, it's pretty even past clients and, and, and
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realtors.
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Well, let's, let's kind of find a couple of nuggets here.
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What would you say is, you know, your most successful or, you know, source of business that
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is the constant go to for you for consistency?
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A few things first, really staying in touch with our past clients.
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We just recently did a whole team retreat on how to just pour love into our clients as
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much as possible from, you know, basically, them not even, them starting to even look
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for a house to the time that they, you know, move out of steamboat or even beyond that.
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So it's just how do we pour as much love as possible into them?
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And that's worked for us over the years.
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You know, we want to know everything about our clients and that helps us serve them better.
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So we really try to, for, for my bad service, anyway, we can.
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So that's really the go to this, that's brought us businesses.
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People will call us for, basically, anything that they need and not really keep some coming
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back.
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So, you do a lot to stay in touch.
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All right.
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So we have to unpack that a little bit because, I mean, I, that sounds really 30,000
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foot level.
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That's, that's awesome.
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And of course, people are like, well, what do you mean, stay in touch?
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How do, you know, CRM?
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Do you have, do you touch points direct mail?
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Right?
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Yes, we have a whole system that we do, but basically we're touching, uh, based with
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MV of phone three months, six months, nine months, 12 months, um, beyond in your views.
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We do Britney calls.
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We do just random like this, this last, right before Thanksgiving, we called every client
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that we closed in the last year, someone from my team actually picked up a phone and called
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or myself.
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And that was an awesome, awesome thing to do right before Thanksgiving.
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If you want to feel grateful, that's a good exercise.
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So just as little things like that, we try to do, um, I now carry around stuff in my purse
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when I see them at the grocery store.
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We've got just all things of, hey, here go buy yourself a cup of coffee or, hey, here's
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some hand warmers because it's zero outside today.
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Um, so all of those things that we can do just to, you know, kind of continue to pour
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that love in.
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And then, um, obviously, we do mail and all of that as well, but you do direct mail.
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Is that, yeah, it's our clients because that postcards newsletter is what is it?
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Both.
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We have postcards.
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We do, um, yeah, newsletters, but most of it, we try to make a little bit meaningful.
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So we do per pay postcard, we do, you know, every so often we'll do, hey, you know, it's
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time for this or time for that or how's this going?
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So we have a line out in the CRM.
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How do you manage the, um, the three, six, nine, 12 month outbound calls is, is that, um,
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I assume you're like, you know, putting some type of a trigger on your calendar or something
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like that.
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Yeah, it's triggered out through our CRM and then we do those through a, um, basically
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like a slide dial.
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Oh, okay.
14:14
All right.
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Got it.
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And so it's, it's a generic message and then it's put out on slide, dial slide broadcast.
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Yep.
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Okay.
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What's the RMB use?
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I'm curious.
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I have a proprietary system in our company that we use, so nice, very nice top secret.
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I like the name, but I don't like it meaning anything.
14:34
Yeah.
14:35
It's just an inhouse name, exactly.
14:37
Right.
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Um, okay.
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I'm looking at my notes and, uh, you do CE classes.
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Is that correct?
14:43
I do.
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Okay.
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Yes.
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I've done those for a long time for real estate agents.
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Um, and I know that, that you're a believer in this, which is very, uh, so I was getting
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frustrated with the, the, some of the crazy things I was seeing come through, um, my
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desk, as far as what was going on in the agent world when it involved lending.
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So we started doing, uh, mortgage 101.
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This was maybe 10 years ago, um, maybe 15, mortgage 101, and then I did mortgage 102 and
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I added USDA first time home buyer at JBA.
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We now have a contract, some lending class, which I developed with the managing broker,
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which is kind of my favorite class, because it's kind of overly geeky.
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And then, what else do we have, um, and, uh, I mentioned FHABA.
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So I, and I just created a rates class, um, rates and rates strategies.
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So that'll be fun.
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We just submitted that, I think yesterday, for the new year.
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So I tried to add a class a year, um, and I'll, I'll actually call it to this year.
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How do you do the classes?
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I've only once a month, all, if I have a new class, I'll try to hit every real estate
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office I can in steamboat and just go to their offices and provide a, and at lunch and,
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you know, do the CE there.
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And then we have a regular schedule of class just for anybody to come, luckily the board
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does it at their office, which is awesome, and they advertise that for me.
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So I'm pretty lucky that way.
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So you're lucky that way and the fact that you can actually get in a lot of these real
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estate brokerages to do a class.
16:18
Yep.
16:19
Yeah.
16:20
Um, that's really great.
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Um, some people listening are like, man, that's, that's awesome because, you know, there's
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a lot of closed offices out there, different parts of the country.
16:27
Um, you mentioned the rates class.
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I'm, I'm kind of curious what your angle is on that because I have a thought in my head,
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but how are you going to, as I put together yet, the rates class?
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Yeah, I, I finished the outline this week.
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So we're going to go through a historical, what happened with the meltdown, uh, now what's
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different as of October this year, and also go through, you know, kind of how rates are
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determined, economic factors.
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We'll talk about lines of resistance, all that things like that, but hopefully not get
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too technical, geeky.
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And then also go into some rate strategies like seller by down, cost awaiting that kind
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of stuff that are some great tools out there leveraging the mortgage coach platform.
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Yep.
17:10
Yep.
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Yep.
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Shout out to Mr.
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Savage.
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Gotta love that.
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That idea though, the rates class, cause uh, talk about positioning you as an expert, you
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know, I mean, that's one of the best classes to do that, especially when you're educating
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them over the timeline and history of rates, lots of opportunities there.
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I, I had this thought of, I don't know if you ever run into this and, and maybe not.
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I think it depends on the company you work with, but you know, sometimes realtors are like,
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they have these comments or beliefs about rates, like maybe your rates are high or, you
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know, whatever the case is, right?
17:40
And this is your chance to kind of like, kind of shut that conversation down.
17:43
Yeah.
17:44
Yeah.
17:45
Exactly.
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And explain it's on a market.
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It's not like, oh, we changed the rate today.
17:50
Right.
17:51
Right.
17:52
So yeah, no, I'm actually, it'll be really exciting, because I think it is a little bit
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of a mystery and that I think by here, agents tell say of, oh my gosh, I heard that, that
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rates are going up at the next Fed meeting.
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Yeah.
18:06
Oh gosh.
18:07
Okay.
18:08
Let's have a discussion around that.
18:09
Okay.
18:10
I brought it up a little bit in my mortgage one of two class, but now we really get to
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tie it in, especially with rising rates.
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Mm-hmm.
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Their clients are going to be asking about rates, the more that we can tell them, you know,
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the more tools we can give them to kind of fight that a little bit is going to be great,
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because there's a whole generation of people that haven't seen rates over five, which
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is crazy.
18:29
Yeah.
18:30
So they're, they're all having a small heart attack right now.
18:32
Yeah.
18:33
I had some guys say that to me the other day, it's something about buying a home, he's just
18:37
like, oh, you know, I don't know.
18:39
Rates are kind of getting high.
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I'm like, what?
18:41
Shut up.
18:42
You have no idea what high rates are, man.
18:45
You've been spilled so damn long.
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So crazy.
18:48
I think the, the staff I was looking at this week was since 1971 to now the average is
18:54
I think eight points.
18:55
Yeah.
18:56
Exactly.
18:57
That's exactly what I said to him, because I follow, right, I get a lot of my info from
18:59
the mortgage coach community and all that stuff too.
19:02
So yeah.
19:03
I mean, come on people.
19:04
Let's face that.
19:06
Awesome.
19:07
Yeah.
19:08
It's incredible.
19:09
Love that though.
19:10
I'm going to, I'm just, I'm big circle around that right here.
19:13
The other thing I love about that is, and this is obvious to you, but just as a heads up
19:16
to the listeners is, you know, positioning that class in a way that it's like, okay, guys,
19:22
you clearly demonstrated your expertise around interest rates.
19:24
And if you have a question or like you do the seller buy down or the cost of waiting
19:28
and all that stuff, and it's like, guys, you got a question about rates?
19:30
Call me.
19:31
You know what I mean?
19:32
Love it.
19:33
Love it.
19:34
I have a question all day.
19:36
Well, because of all the C classes, I get so many random question calls, which is great,
19:42
because that's what we want.
19:43
We want our agent to ask every single time.
19:45
And we'll even get calls and pay.
19:47
I got a settlement statement from somebody else.
19:50
But at least then they're calling me as a gut checkup.
19:54
They're not using you.
19:55
And it's so annoying.
19:56
And then we have that opportunity to say, okay, next time when you see that come through,
20:01
this is some things you can say to your client to make them use us instead.
20:06
Awesome.
20:07
Okay, so sometimes I'm just like, you know, randomly thinking here real time, with the
20:14
agents, the settlement statement made me think of this.
20:17
Do you have agents who still do the like three card approach with you or try to?
20:22
Yes.
20:23
Absolutely.
20:24
How do you deal with that, if at all?
20:27
Why do I tell them that that's always a tough question on the fly.
20:31
But generally what I will say is, A, if I'm referring you, do you want me to give them
20:37
three agents as well?
20:38
That's one thing I do.
20:40
The second thing is that, you know, we, you know, kind of stress that, hey, how would
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you feel if they used the other agents or the other lenders on here and what differentiates
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us?
20:55
So great.
20:56
But you also send it with, this is, this is what I, you know, my favorite and why just
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a little bit of background around it, or please Google all three of these people and then
21:05
make your decision because I'm going to win the Google War.
21:07
So other strategies that they are just out of it, we have a C class that's taught by
21:14
somebody up here in May.
21:16
They are like, basically tell them that they're going to lose their license if they don't
21:20
do that.
21:21
So I've got some agents that are pretty crazy.
21:23
Yeah.
21:24
Try to go around that a little bit.
21:25
This is to me, such a line of BS.
21:27
I know.
21:28
I know.
21:29
Could lose your license if you just give one referral, please.
21:31
And not only the key is, it's not going to impact you as long as I do my job and my reputation
21:37
stands up.
21:38
So it's, I get it if you were, if I was your one and then we didn't close, it was the
21:44
deal.
21:45
Yeah.
21:46
I mean, once you've proven yourself, yeah, they can trust you.
21:50
Okay.
21:51
So while at the top of mind, you mentioned you're going to win the Google War.
21:54
I love that.
21:55
That's awesome.
21:56
And I think I know what you mean by that, but why do you feel so confident in saying that?
22:02
Well, if I try to make sure that whatever comes through on steamboat mortgage, if you
22:08
do that, or Catherine Peterson mortgage, if you Google that, you're going to see a good
22:14
reviews, good websites, Microsoft video, videos that we do, can face that.
22:21
So we try to just really watch that.
22:25
You know, if you're not Googling yourself once a week, you, that's problematic.
22:28
Excellent.
22:29
Yeah.
22:30
So we try to watch that pretty, pretty tightly and make sure that we're going to stand
22:36
out above the rest in that.
22:38
Yeah.
22:39
No, I just Googled you, like I said, or Google the phrase steamboat mortgage.
22:43
And yeah, you are coming up number two in the Google server.
22:49
You know what's a bummer?
22:50
Is the number one?
22:51
I created that website.
22:52
Which one?
22:53
Which one?
22:54
Which one?
22:55
Which one?
22:56
It's a bank.
22:57
It's a bank.
22:58
It's not USAAA or?
22:59
No.
23:00
No.
23:01
That one's on our panic.
23:03
You know, it's crazy about Google as you know, it changes every day.
23:05
But hey, your number two and number three.
23:09
Oh, good.
23:10
And that's pretty awesome.
23:11
Okay.
23:13
No, that rocks.
23:14
Yeah.
23:15
And you're probably in there even further.
23:19
So how do you do that?
23:20
What are your strategies to show up in Google?
23:23
Certainly.
23:24
You know, it's all the keyword.
23:26
It's other, you know, being in enough sources that it pulls you through.
23:30
It's, you know, posting enough, staying relevant.
23:34
All of those things, I think are posting where you have a blog or something or?
23:38
I know a little bit, but we've got, we don't have a YouTube channel.
23:42
Oh.
23:43
Do Facebook.
23:44
We do.
23:45
I've got an Instagram.
23:47
I've, you know, we've got all of that website stuff.
23:51
All right.
23:52
We're live without a net.
23:53
We're flying real time here.
23:54
I love this.
23:55
So YouTube.
23:56
You just started a YouTube channel, but you've been doing videos for quite a while, haven't
23:59
you?
24:00
Yes.
24:01
Yes.
24:02
What made you decide to have, you know, jump on YouTube?
24:06
You.
24:08
Well, so, so we started doing a whole series of Facebook videos.
24:13
I wanted some content that was more real and relevant than just kind of the standard
24:17
boring post.
24:18
So we did these little snippets of videos and have been posting those on Facebook.
24:22
So that gives us some good YouTube content to get that out.
24:26
So the key is now trying to get that YouTube channel out there, but at the same time, the
24:30
Facebook videos are definitely getting a lot more hits than anything else that we post.
24:36
So steamboat specific always does the best, and then those videos are definitely great.
24:42
Steamboat specific does the best.
24:44
So meaning if it's, if it's like about steamboat itself and living in steamboat, the videos
24:54
you're doing, are they only on your business page, personal as well, what are you doing
24:58
there?
24:59
I typically will share them to my personal page also.
25:02
I do have some separation of the two, but I still try to share them personally and stuff
25:06
and I get the hits on both.
25:08
I don't share them every time.
25:09
I try to be a little bit careful because they'll Facebook algorithms will start to not
25:14
show those if you do it too much.
25:16
So to be a little bit careful, but the secret code, oh my gosh, I wish we, you know, the
25:23
secret code of Facebook, like, oh, and they show what?
25:27
Yeah, I know, right?
25:28
This is a constant thing.
25:30
Okay, so the videos you're doing, and by the way, I'll put links to your Facebook page
25:33
and all that stuff in the show notes for those who want to go look at it.
25:35
But your videos are what I would call professional videos, right?
25:39
I mean, yeah, they're not, they're not the handheld mobile phone, which is there's nothing
25:43
wrong with that.
25:44
But for your educational videos, it looks like they are kind of that more professional,
25:48
right?
25:49
Set up.
25:50
Yeah, but they're, they're all just ad live.
25:53
I didn't want to.
25:54
Well, because you know your topic so well.
25:55
That's right.
25:56
That's right.
25:57
You know, the stuff I talked about already, anyway, so they're all, they're all ad live.
26:02
I didn't want them to be like so edited, but I also wanted them to look good.
26:07
Oh, yeah, and they do look good.
26:09
I mean, it's a combination of like you've got the animation, right, with the question
26:13
on it.
26:14
And then it cuts to you being on the camera, right, which is good.
26:17
And you've got some nice views on some of these.
26:19
Looks like your two most popular so far are what affects your mortgage rate and are you
26:24
ready to buy?
26:26
Hmm.
26:27
Interesting.
26:28
Um, who's the market at where you're at the first time home buyer?
26:32
Well, you said, would you got you said renters or something like that or second home buyers,
26:36
right?
26:37
Yeah.
26:38
We have some second home buyers.
26:39
We've got a lot of just locals who are looking to buy.
26:42
So that's, that is for some home buyers.
26:44
That was really my focus when I got into this market, because no one was helping for
26:47
some home buyers and steam boats.
26:49
We really do open to that first.
26:51
And then, um, but we've got a pretty wide mix.
26:54
We'll do stuff that's super rural.
26:56
That's, um, all in.
26:57
Yeah.
26:58
I love the market.
26:59
Um, what's the average price of a home there?
27:04
Roughly 550.
27:05
Wow.
27:06
All right.
27:07
So it's high.
27:08
Yep.
27:09
Yep.
27:10
We have a lot of 50% cash, which root all in this time.
27:12
We got a lot of rich people buying homes there.
27:14
Right.
27:15
That's right.
27:16
Yes.
27:17
Lots of people that unfortunately, um, I, I wish they needed new more.
27:20
It's, it, those are my comps, though.
27:22
So it's all good.
27:23
Right.
27:24
Are you close to a ski resort?
27:26
Yes.
27:27
I can see it from my window right now.
27:28
Which one?
27:29
Me no.
27:30
Oh, I've done steamboat.
27:31
Hello.
27:32
Yeah.
27:33
Awesome.
27:34
Awesome.
27:35
That's great.
27:36
Are you a skier?
27:37
I'm, I'm a skier, but it's, it's not that pretty.
27:39
I'm a lot better at doing loans, but I'm a skier.
27:41
I wasn't trying to, ever year, it's like, you need to take lessons, but I can get down
27:47
the hill, but my kids are better than you, by far.
27:49
Of course, right?
27:50
They're more nimble and their bones don't break as easily.
27:53
Right.
27:54
Exactly.
27:55
They don't have a fear thing going on.
27:56
Oh, yeah.
27:57
On that 50-year-old, 53-year-old snowboarder going very just cautiously down the hill, you
28:01
know?
28:02
Right.
28:03
I mean, no rush.
28:04
I always tell the kids, you guys go ahead.
28:05
Go without me.
28:06
I'm coming.
28:07
I'll catch up.
28:08
Yeah.
28:09
Don't hang by.
28:10
All right.
28:11
Back to business here.
28:12
I want to unpack a little bit my notes from like how you generate your business.
28:16
Um, I wrote down also Popeyes offices.
28:18
So you're doing Popeyes?
28:19
Yeah.
28:20
Right now we've got those, uh, those little handwormers that we're doing, but we certainly like
28:25
to just swing in every so often and say hi and hopefully have something with us.
28:30
Now, is it you out and about your team?
28:33
Who is it?
28:34
Most of the time it is me.
28:35
Um, I'm really the face of the business and I like it to be me 95% of the time.
28:41
If there's an event, I can't attend or something like that else than someone from my team,
28:45
but normally it is me.
28:47
And how consistently do you do, do you do those?
28:50
Uh, it depends on the season, obviously when we're crazy, it happens a little bit less
28:54
consistently as we all know, but we try to get out at least every month.
28:58
Okay.
28:59
So once a month.
29:00
And you kind of now, this may sound like, you know, I'm like overkilling on the details,
29:03
but, you know, I really want the listeners to really understand this.
29:06
How do you plan those out, meaning, uh, obviously seasonality is one, October, it's pretty
29:11
obvious, right?
29:12
What you do, Halloween theme stuff.
29:13
But how far in advance are you planning that out, buying your stuff and all that?
29:18
Well, we generally do it almost a year at a time.
29:22
So we'll plan it.
29:23
We'll map it out for a whole year on calendar.
29:25
Smart.
29:26
Smart.
29:27
Yeah.
29:28
Because I also, we don't really have a lot of great stores.
29:30
So you have to plan around trips to other places sometimes, right?
29:37
Oriental trading is, uh, you know, like company, it's a great resource.
29:41
Yeah.
29:42
Super best friends.
29:43
All those little chachkis, um, Oriental trading people for those of you listening, um, okay.
29:52
So we got agents, you're doing CE classes, um, do you do any non CE classes?
29:58
You mean like, uh, just classes for buyers, that's it?
30:00
Yeah.
30:01
So we've done both classes for first time home buyer with just ourselves and also partnering
30:07
with an agent.
30:08
So we've done both those.
30:09
Okay.
30:10
Yeah.
30:11
So that is, that's awesome.
30:13
So small community, how many, uh, average attendance of your agents to your CE classes?
30:19
It depends on the class.
30:20
So we'll have the biggest one we probably have is maybe 20, 25 and, you know, occasionally
30:28
I'll have three.
30:29
Yeah.
30:30
Right.
30:31
So it can be varied just depending.
30:32
Actually, once I had one and then we like bailed and went to breakfast and he's actually
30:36
an awesome.
30:37
That's awesome.
30:38
Yeah.
30:39
Love that.
30:40
So what the ever can't complain about that either?
30:43
What percent, I'm trying to understand because I, the way I look at classes as you probably
30:47
know is, you know, top of the funnel, right?
30:49
So as for me, marketing and prospecting to agents, you know, I don't do the call call
30:53
thing.
30:54
Been there, done that.
30:55
It's just not fun.
30:56
So I'd rather like do that, the reverse prospecting and track people in of those classes
31:00
that you do.
31:01
It's a tough question to answer, I know, but roughly, I don't know whether it's like
31:05
you can tell me like a number of agents or percentage like, how many, what weight would
31:11
you give to that activity to converting agents to referral partners, how, how critical
31:17
is it?
31:18
I'd say it's, it's key and, and the reason is is because two things.
31:22
So one, a new agent comes on, right?
31:25
Well, what happens is managing brokers are now saying, oh, you should take Catherine's
31:30
101 class.
31:32
So then even before we even know they exist, they show up at a class sometimes even before
31:37
they get their license.
31:39
So then I know, okay, there's this new agent and you can kind of get an idea, you know,
31:42
you have this feeling if they're going to be, they're not, you know, it's not always
31:46
100%, but sometimes I'll really click with someone and I know, okay, I need to put this
31:51
person on my radar and get them in the funnel of, you know, marketing depend and having
31:55
a coffee or kind of getting them into the fold of marketing.
32:00
So it's huge.
32:01
We've gotten some awesome, awesome agents out of classes and it's, it's great to because
32:05
you think we just have the new ones, but there's times when there'll be an agent who's been
32:09
around for 15 years, 20 years who shows up at a class because they need that CE or they're
32:15
just curious on what's going on in lending and all of a sudden I'm like, oh, I've been
32:19
trying to get this agent to sit down with me and now here they are.
32:23
So this is my change.
32:24
So it does give you an hour of time with them, even if it's in a group, you can still
32:28
make an impression on them.
32:30
So it's pretty awesome.
32:31
Yeah.
32:32
Well, I mean, it's a whole different impression when you are at the front of the room teaching
32:35
the class, there's a lot that goes into the influence factor, the branding and all that
32:40
kind of stuff, the perception you are not seeing as the average loan officer when you do
32:44
it.
32:45
Yeah.
32:46
Are other L.O.s doing that in town as well?
32:48
Classes.
32:49
No.
32:50
One has tried and it didn't, I know they did it directly to buyers, but they did it just
32:56
here in the last month, which is not the best time for a person home by our class season
33:01
wives, but that's really been it.
33:04
There's a couple title companies that have brought in people like 1031 class things like
33:10
that.
33:11
But that's really it.
33:12
So I've been pretty lucky in that arena that no one's stepped on my toes, but I've also
33:16
put the fear in them.
33:17
I hope so.
33:18
Now, maybe I should go work in New York, right?
33:22
Exactly.
33:24
So you are a, you know, with all due respect, I hope you get where I'm saying this is,
33:28
you're a big fish and a little pond.
33:30
I don't know if I would say that, maybe I'm a little modest, but at the same time, we
33:35
want to be, we want to be the only person that they think of every single time.
33:38
I appreciate your modesty, but you're a big fish and a little pond.
33:41
You're the only loan officer in your town doing classes, right?
33:46
Your brand, I would venture to guess your brand awareness is greater and I don't know,
33:52
but I'm just guessing your brand awareness is greater than almost any other L.O.
33:57
in town.
33:58
Yeah.
33:59
I have a task.
34:00
Yes.
34:01
Hey, it's not bragging if it's true.
34:04
Thank you.
34:05
I should break that down somewhere.
34:07
No, I mean, that's awesome.
34:10
That's the real key, isn't it?
34:12
As an L.O.
34:13
With the noise, I mean, you know, you're in a smaller town, so you've got perhaps less
34:16
noise, but you still have noise.
34:19
You still have, hey, why should I work with you?
34:22
Call that, but you've built your mouse trap, a better mouse trap, if you would.
34:27
Yes.
34:28
That is correct.
34:29
Yeah.
34:30
How difficult is it in your, so you're submitting your CEO approval to the state of Colorado?
34:36
Yes.
34:37
How difficult is that?
34:39
Here, it's actually not that bad.
34:41
We have to, I did, you do have to do a resume with speaking experience.
34:45
It took me a little bit of time just to kind of work on when I did my first one a long time ago,
34:50
but I think there were desperate proceeds back then.
34:54
So I don't know if that's the case anymore, but, so that's, but overall, it's getting in the
34:59
outline.
35:00
It needs to make sense and sound logical, and I believe that's, it's not brain science.
35:05
So you submit an outline.
35:07
You don't submit the PowerPoint.
35:09
No.
35:10
Interesting.
35:11
Have you ever gotten them to ask you to change this or that?
35:14
No, when they change their rules about, I used to have a class on credit, and they don't
35:19
allow that anymore because they changed how they, the credit classes, but that was fine.
35:23
We had a replacement class we were working on the meantime.
35:26
So that's been the only thing that's ever, you know, changed or they've never really asked me to change anything in the
35:32
outline ever, but I also read the guidelines thoroughly, so that does help too.
35:36
That does help.
35:37
Yeah, but no, it's, it's actually hasn't.
35:40
Okay.
35:41
All right.
35:42
All right.
35:43
Doing it.
35:44
I'm going to go back to, to, to giving you some props here, because I wrote down from my notes.
35:49
If, if I understand what my notes say, this was a while ago, your, your next competitor does 50% of the volume you do.
35:56
That's correct.
35:57
All right.
35:58
Come on.
35:59
You're a big patient, a little pop.
36:01
I mean, you're trying to be humble, but you know that's a compliment, right?
36:06
Yeah.
36:07
Yeah.
36:09
What really changed my business a lot is when I, because for a long time, I operated just solely and I wasn't part of any.
36:17
I did mortgage coach, um, all that kind of stuff.
36:20
That was kind of, I was going to the old program and all that.
36:23
But, um, yes, the really cool one that you could manipulate, but that was a really long time ago.
36:30
All right.
36:31
All right.
36:32
So go ahead.
36:33
I'm sorry.
36:34
I was going to interrupt you.
36:35
Sorry.
36:36
I have to do this.
36:37
Yeah, with the disc.
36:38
Yeah.
36:39
Oh, my God.
36:40
Yeah.
36:41
Exactly.
36:42
And by manipulate, I don't mean it a bad way.
36:44
I mean, like, you do really cool, like craziness.
36:47
But now they like have built into make it more like.
36:51
Oh, it's awesome.
36:52
It's awesome.
36:53
But yeah, you and I were pioneers, man.
36:54
I was, I was back there in my countrywide office downloading that sucker, you know?
36:58
Oh, one hundred percent.
37:00
Yeah.
37:01
I was, I was really.
37:02
So, uh, but I was really the standalone office and standalone person.
37:07
I still really am.
37:08
So finally, I got kind of hooked into a whole bunch of communities.
37:11
Did a whole bunch of yellow round tables.
37:13
Yeah.
37:14
You know, sales mastery.
37:15
All that.
37:16
They're really.
37:17
I could bring different strategies into our market because I think.
37:20
When, when you are so isolated in such a little town, it's so.
37:24
Thank you.
37:25
And so that's been really, really great.
37:27
I mean, you have to figure out how to put together a team and all that stuff.
37:31
Because I, you know, it's, it's hard to do that when you're, you know, just by yourself.
37:35
Yeah.
37:36
It's been a really, really, really good thing for me to change my circle of influence.
37:41
But that's a great point is that you have to expose yourself to other ideas and communities and all that exists on Facebook now as well.
37:48
So get out there and learn from other people.
37:51
You mentioned your team real quick.
37:53
Tell us about your team.
37:54
What does that look like?
37:55
So there's five of us.
37:57
Total.
37:58
And I've got someone that helps me on the prequel side.
38:01
We have some really complicated prequels in this town as you can imagine with self-employed, seasonal, all that fun stuff.
38:07
I get super excited when I have a W2 employee who's on salary.
38:11
Like, what?
38:12
You're not even.
38:13
So.
38:14
So that's, it's great to have that extra help up front, help with follow up a little bit as well.
38:19
And then once we start the loan, we've got a loan coordinator.
38:23
I have a processor slash.
38:25
A genuine processor in our office that submits and does be a reason all that fun stuff.
38:30
And then we've got lovely duty who does really everything, but she kind of steps in in all parts and also helps me with marketing.
38:37
So she's a little bit of everything that that's what we love her for.
38:40
So yeah, that's our awesome.
38:42
So you're the sole originator.
38:44
Yes.
38:45
Yes, we do have three licensed.
38:47
Sure.
38:48
More licensed.
38:49
I'll everyone online.
38:50
But yeah, but I'm the sole originator.
38:52
Yeah.
38:53
Then what do you spend most of your time doing?
38:55
Making phone calls, going to offices.
38:58
That stuff meeting with clients.
39:01
Anything we can do face to face voice voice.
39:04
I try to spend most of my time planning.
39:06
That's certainly part of it.
39:08
Planning.
39:09
Yes, strategic vision and all that stuff.
39:11
At what point, just a quick rollback on your career, when did you get your first assistant to help you with the processing and all that stuff?
39:18
To for you up to continue that.
39:20
It was a while ago.
39:21
It was maybe like two years and sort of a while ago.
39:27
Now definitely that's that's changed throughout the years.
39:30
I think what really helped is when I uploaded the loan process on to somebody because that is not where I function best.
39:37
Yeah.
39:38
That's been huge.
39:39
I'm really got a problem solving.
39:40
So obviously something really goes wrong.
39:42
I mean, but the day to day, like, oh, you're missing page seven of seven.
39:47
Yeah, on those bank statements.
39:49
Yeah.
39:50
Okay.
39:51
Hey, one thing I want to bring up to just that I think might be helpful for other people in little towns is.
39:56
What's really served me probably the best in a small town is ethics and accountability and really falling through.
40:05
So I can't mess up and I can't mess up once.
40:08
And if you do, it just eat everybody knows everybody knows.
40:12
So you've got to be who you are 100% of the time.
40:17
And that's it.
40:18
You can't be that an authentic person ever.
40:20
And so it adds a lot of pressure, but it's also really awesome because you get reputation is so big in all towns.
40:27
So that's something that I think is just really good in any community.
40:32
But especially in a small town, that will set you apart above all else.
40:36
So just something to kind of think about in your own businesses.
40:39
Look, but I think it's just a thing that's something we don't think about enough, I think.
40:44
No, that's good.
40:45
Those are kind of the intangibles, I think.
40:47
Yeah.
40:48
Because that's a personal responsibility.
40:50
So, and that's a really good point now that I think of it because I know from talking to lots of loan officers, both, you know, in my role at movement.
40:58
And like externally is that one of the constant things I see that keeps an LL from going to that next level is they don't treat it.
41:06
Seriously, they don't treat it as a profession.
41:09
You know what I mean?
41:10
Yes.
41:11
Yeah.
41:12
And really understand that that we're incredible responsibility you've been given to.
41:16
It's not just a, you know, this I'm preaching to the choir, but for the listeners.
41:20
It's not about like, hey, what the loan program per se, that's part of it.
41:25
But it's really about the impact you're going to make in that person's life.
41:29
Yes.
41:30
Yeah.
41:31
There's one of those three products.
41:32
We have the that and selling them real estate.
41:34
It's like, what else has that big of an impact of a purchase they make?
41:38
Yeah.
41:39
You know what I mean?
41:40
We are so lucky and they trust us with this crazy information.
41:43
Like, they're social and why they were late on this thing.
41:46
And what happened when that happened?
41:49
You know, so we get some crazy stuff.
41:52
And especially in a small town, we know everybody and everything about everybody.
41:56
So we really have to take that seriously.
41:58
Yeah.
41:59
That's what's right.
42:00
We're very influential in a small town when you know that much about everybody.
42:03
You know, and the grocery store.
42:07
Hey.
42:08
Did you know?
42:10
Gosh.
42:11
Yeah.
42:12
We probably have more secrets than most.
42:17
All right.
42:18
So in respect to your time and know your business, let's close out with 2019.
42:22
I'm sure you've already kind of begun the business planning process.
42:25
We're going out of the new year.
42:27
Anything's you're doing differently more of less of for the new year?
42:31
It's it's just all about that personal touch.
42:34
So for us, we're tracking a little bit more of our clients, personal interests,
42:38
and really trying to hone in on those, you know, sending more handwritten cards
42:43
and making more phone calls and just really touching them a little bit differently.
42:47
That's really what's going to set everybody apart is things really continue to go more and more digital.
42:52
So we just want to be, hey, we're we're your hometown lender and we are here, you know, constantly.
42:59
And we know what's going on in your life and we care about you.
43:02
So those were just kind of the key things that we're trying to market really almost individually.
43:06
And I think that that'll help us stay connected to our clients a little bit more and a little deeper.
43:12
Okay, I love that. Yep, yep, it's all about personal connection.
43:15
That is the differentiator, especially in a tech first world.
43:19
We've got to still keep that human connection.
43:22
What about you in terms of your business?
43:24
You know, are you looking at the market in terms of planning your production and volume?
43:29
Or is is that impacting what you're planning to do to fund?
43:33
Are you kind of you want to do more next year?
43:36
What are you doing there?
43:38
I want to do more.
43:39
I'm going to ignore what everybody else is saying and just work on what I can do and what I can control.
43:45
So I'm still planning to have a better year next year than this year.
43:49
And this year was better will be better than last year.
43:52
So if I can just keep growing and I've got a really great team in place.
43:56
We had a lot of changes this year with we moved our office and did a bunch of stuff.
44:00
So we're really positioned well that keep growing.
44:03
Yeah, I love that.
44:04
And that's a hallmark of a highly productive, highly successful person is the mindset.
44:09
Right?
44:10
Because to your point, you basically said you're going to control what you're going to you can control.
44:13
Which is what you do every single day of all that noise and the mark of the sky is falling and all that kind of stuff.
44:19
Here's a phrase somebody shared with me the other day might have been Tom Ferry.
44:22
He basically, you know, the phrase is the shift is a gift.
44:27
So this market shift that everybody's talking about.
44:29
People with the right mindset like you, like other people listening, that's a gift.
44:33
And that's an opportunities like when there's blood in the streets, that's the time to double down and invest.
44:39
And the last downturn was phenomenal for business.
44:43
I mean, that sounds crazy.
44:44
But we had so many L.O.'s in town and I think lost like two a month for a while.
44:50
So it was, which was great.
44:52
So it really does weed out the good and the bad.
44:56
And it also sets experts apart.
44:58
Because if we know what we're talking about, that'll show a little more.
45:01
Yeah, the tide is out.
45:03
We see who's swimming naked.
45:05
Right.
45:06
Right.
45:07
But yeah, it's not a bad thing.
45:08
It's a good thing.
45:09
Awesome.
45:10
All right.
45:11
Now for those listening who want to connect with you, where should they go?
45:13
Is it Facebook?
45:14
Yeah, Facebook.
45:15
I've got a business page there.
45:17
Like we've never talked about.
45:18
You can always Google me.
45:20
That's right.
45:21
Yeah, I'll put a link in the show notes to your Facebook page.
45:23
But it is Catherine Peterson, Fidelity Mortgage.
45:27
So thank you so much for being here.
45:29
We appreciate you shooting.
45:31
And as always, let's stay in touch.
45:34
Absolutely.
45:35
All right, listeners, as well.
45:37
Thank you for tuning in.
45:38
We appreciate you if you like this episode or others.
45:40
Let us know by leaving us a little love on the inner webs with a review.
45:43
If you don't mind.
45:45
Thanks for tuning in.
45:46
We'll see you on the next one.
45:48
Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
45:51
One more truth in Mortgage Marketing.
45:53
Get more free training and resources at MortgageMarketingInstitute.com.
46:18
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46:23
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46:25
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47:52
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