Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Ep #2: Why You Need a Blog

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Ep #2: Why You Need a Blog · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
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Michael Irvingman, Jeff Zimper, welcome to mortgage marketing radio.
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Hey, thanks.
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Glad to be here.
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Yeah, you know, I've been waiting a while to actually try and get you on the phone.
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You're a busy guy.
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And for good reason, you know, I'm looking at your LinkedIn profile here.
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And I love the summary.
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It says you teach busy professionals how to generate repeat and referral business using
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social media marketing and technology automation.
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You think that's big today?
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You know what?
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It's interesting.
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I've always been a fan of technology.
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And you know, even through the course of my, in the real estate and mortgage industry,
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I was always into using technology to be able to streamline my own business.
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And so over the last five years, when we first took the opportunity with content marketing
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and how that might be applicable to especially driving repeat and referral business, you know,
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interesting enough, I thought maybe we were late to the party five years ago, but it's
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just everything has continued to move towards making it more and more valuable as a way
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to communicate the way people have bought into social media and continue to use that as
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a way to communicate with each other.
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Additionally, you know, even things like Google changing their algorithms to really focus
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on good quality content have really gone to, you know, point to even today how much even
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more important it is than it was five years ago when we started.
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Yeah, that's the great point.
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And I think anybody who's listening to this right now would probably agree, right?
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The one thing about technology is constant change.
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And that's one of the challenges of it is that the, you know, the little white bouncing
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ball is always moving about, you know, what to do, how to adjust to these different
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platforms like Facebook, Google, et cetera, that are always making changes.
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So, you know, to your point about, hey, you thought you were late to the game five years
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ago, well, heck, you know, six months or a year from now things are going to be even
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more different.
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So people need you, you know, I think no matter what time or what year it is that they're
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actually listening to this.
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So, you know, before we get into kind of the meetup, right, technology, building a repeat
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and referral business using social media marketing, which obviously is a very important topic
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in anybody's overall platform.
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It's always useful, I think, when somebody's listening, right, to somebody presenting information
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to get that quick background or so.
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You have a very interesting background, you know, I call it going from the Army boots
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on the ground to actually being an origin, a lone originator now, obviously an entrepreneur,
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with you are the founder, chief executive officer of mysmartblog.com.
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But how did you get to where he are today?
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What is that long and winding road?
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You know, mostly just showing up.
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I mean, that's in the day, what there was that old that's saying out there, and I don't
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know the exact quote, but it's like 90% success is just showing up.
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And I think that's relevant for me, you know, starting out, like I said, I started out
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right out of the high school, decided I wanted to go into the Army to have way to pay for
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college and spend a couple of years in the infantry over in Germany during Desert
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Slorm.
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And so that was, you know, a lot of that, that model that you just got a total line and
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show up every day and do the work and set a good foundation for me, moving forward.
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So, enjoyed the time living in Europe and ended up going to school, University of Oregon
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and graduated there with a degree in political science, which I've never actually used in
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any part of my career.
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And it was a good accomplishment, and I think that's, when I talk to my kids, that's
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what I tell them is, hey, go for the experience, a lot of fun, you enjoy yourself, you're
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able to learn some things, and the great confidence build or not to mention a decent resume
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item if you, if you intend to pass your resume out to other people to get hired.
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You know, that's a great transition for me.
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I ended up, you know, finding out for myself that I was much better off doing my own thing
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and, and being willing to take a little risk starting my own businesses.
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And even for, I know, we're catering a lot and we're obviously focused on the mortgage
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industry, which was my background, but, you know, I even looked at my experience in the
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mortgage industry at a hundred percent conditional officer, you know, I always owned my own
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business.
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Even though I might be hanging my license with another company, it was up to me to go
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out and show up every day to create and make things happen.
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And I really found that for me, that was the right environment.
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Moved on, started my own mortgage company, did that for ten years, and, and, and really
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enjoyed the industries, so much flexibility, great income opportunity, as long as you're
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willing to do the work and be innovative and separate yourself from the competition.
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And, of course, five years ago, you know, I found over time as Jeff, as you know, from
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my past, I had another technology company that was focused in real estate marketing that
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tied together transaction teams, just like the teachings of guys like Brian Baphini and
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Joe Stump in their coaching programs.
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That was my first experience with technology, along with the real estate mortgage space.
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And I decided to transition full time to technology just over five years ago when I started
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my smart block.
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So, it has been a process, but like you said, I think part of it is just being willing
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to take risk, being willing to, to show up every day and, and sometimes go through the
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difficulties of stubbing your toe, you know, if they'd try things and things don't work
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and you get laughed at and people tell you, you know, it'll never work.
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That definitely started when I started my smart block.
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People would tell me there's, there was, I talk about the social media elite that said
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that, you know, in order for it to be effective, you have to do it all yourself.
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They told me, you know, your cons have to never work.
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It'll never, it'll never.
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Well, five years later, we're, you know, I've had thousands of people all over the country
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do their daily content marketing work and, and proven that it does work.
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So, it's not in place to be.
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Yeah. So, what do you think, what lessons or what disciplines came out of your time?
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How many years have you spent in the Army?
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Just two and a half duty and then I was three years in the National Guard for that.
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So, can you look back on that and extrapolate anything from your training, learning, discipline,
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boot camp, whatever, you know, takeaways from that that still carry through to you today
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for whether it's, you know, as you said, getting up and dusting yourself off or executing on what
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you know needs to be done. Is there anything, any, you know, kind of theme or cred still runs
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for you on that? Yeah, you know, that's a great question. And I'm, when you first asked,
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I was almost nervous because I was like, oh, what do I remember? But, you know, there is one really
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important concept that didn't make sense to me as an 18, 19 year old kid when I was in the military
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as much, because again, I sometimes had trouble with getting direction from people who, you know,
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were my superiors in the military, of course, it's like, you know, you do whatever they say no matter
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if you believe them or not. And so, I had some challenges with that, but I actually got a
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position I was driving for a battalion executive officer for about a year. And so, you know, moving
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up the ranks of the officer ranks, and again, I was at the time, 19 years old, a PFC in the Army,
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and I was learning a lot from him, just kind of life lessons. And at one point, you know, I also
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have this habit of questioning the status quo, questioning why we do things the way we do,
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and always looking for efficiencies. And that was just an ingrained trait for me as a young person,
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probably growing up in an entrepreneurial family, being around self-employment the whole time.
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I was looking for better ways to do things. And so, I would question sometimes the methodologies
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that were happening around, as we were, you know, going around in different operations through the military.
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And a great point that this guy, his name is Major Rackley, and he told me at one point, he said,
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you know, here's the thing, Michael, learning, you know, getting experience in life, anywhere you go,
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whatever, no matter what you're trying to learn, he said, you have to think of it as climbing mountain peaks.
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And you're only able to see what's in front of you. You're not able to see what someone who might
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be further down the road ahead of you can see because they've climbed more peaks at higher elevations.
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And this was specifically relevant to getting direction from, you know, we were getting
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directions of battalion, and of course you have brigade above that and then division above that.
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So, sometimes orders roll downhill, and at the level of battalion even, or maybe company level,
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which, you know, is a lot of the battalion level, you know, you look at it and you think, man,
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that just doesn't make any sense. Why are we doing things that way? But you're not seeing it from
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the level, maybe the brigade commander, or the division commander is seeing it, and all of those
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pieces of the level that they're looking at from seem that they make sense, at least seem to make sense,
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from their perspective. And you know, that, I call that peak peak learning now. And here's the deal,
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that anytime you look into something new, maybe you're not real familiar with it, it points to the
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value of actually finding an expert that knows more than you do, and understanding that it's time to step
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back, and actually let that experience, and that expertise, become at least somewhat able to direct
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you in the right direction, if that makes sense. Because all of us are experts at some level,
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in types of skills that we've developed over time, but we can't be experts in everything,
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and so many times there are people who have maybe climbed a certain peak to a higher elevation,
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and happen to have a different perspective because of the level of experience. And you know,
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that didn't, again, didn't make as much sense to me at 19 years old. You know, you kind of are so
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railing against some of that, but now, here I am, you know, after 25 years in business, and you
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look back and you think, yeah, you know, that does actually make sense. And even today, I seek out
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people all the time who are experts at what they do, because it makes my life easier to just
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trust that their expertise is coming from a perspective that will help me grow, and it will also help
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my business grow. And so I guess that's one of the really relevant things I pass on to people is,
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you're just getting started in your business, or if you really establish your 20 years down the road,
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always keep your mind open to people who may have more experience, even not necessarily age-wise,
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but in specific areas that you're trying to become better at, because they just might be a little
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bit further down the road and maybe have climbed a higher peak in that particular expertise,
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and can that pass on knowledge team? Wow, that's great. So that's interesting. So it's a great point
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in that, you know, we can't necessarily know what's the old saying, can't see the force through
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the trees. I mean, we're so nose down and trenched in our day-to-day business that, you know,
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sometimes it takes that outside force who can see, who's been to the other peaks, who's been
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through the valleys, you know, so forth, that can bring that additional context, if you will,
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to where you're at in your current life right now. So you're trying to say, yeah, and that actually
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relates well to, you know, the question I have around, you know, the obviously social media,
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you know, came on in a big way, I don't know, you know, what's it not been now 10 years maybe,
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but obviously he's picked up a lot of steam in the last, you know, half a dozen years.
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And so you've been in business 25 years, you've been in the mortgage space for, you know,
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a long time having owned your own brokerage, your mortgage loan officer. In your perspective,
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looking back on your experience of when you first started in mortgage business as, you know,
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as a sales and marketing professional, what's happened or changed to the traditional sales model
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that if people don't understand it or get it today, they really need to get and understand
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that the changes that have happened and are happening to the traditional way that we have
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conducted sales. Sure, yeah, you know, just going back in looking at the evolution of technology,
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and I'm going to be specific to the mortgage industry since we're obviously talking to mortgage
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loan officers right now. You know, we had a fear when when when digital technology first erupted
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on the scene, Elon came out, you know, there was this big fear that that online productivity was
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going to take over and eliminate loan officers jobs, you know, and the reality is that that just
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never came about. It never stopped the fact that a mortgage is one of the most important and
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largest financial transactions that people will ever get on in their life. And at the end of the day,
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as human beings, we want to have connection with somebody who we can trust. And, you know,
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as much that's happened in technology and changed and has caused change, some of those
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those those ideas or tendencies have stayed consistent as well. And I think that's a good thing
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that allows us to keep a function and add value in a way that technology can just never replace.
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And so what's changed though massively, what's really, you know, rocked the world in terms of change
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is how our consumers, our potential clients, customers choose to educate themselves about the
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processing general. So not at the time they're going to decide who they're going to use the right
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to loan application, but it's how they go out and they access and accumulate knowledge related
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to the idea of buying a home or refinancing a home that's really shifted and has created this
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necessity almost to have easily accessible information available to people online. And at the end
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of the day, that's what that's what's really, you know, shifted. I think what we, you know,
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the use that term paradigm shift was really changed the world of marketing is the level of access
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that people have literally packing around a super computer in their pocket and can access at any
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moment anything they want in the world. And so really what that brings back to is at each individual
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loan officer in order to carve out their, you know, relevance in a local market has to, at the same
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time that things offline are happening like they get those traditional referrals, someone mentions
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their name in conversation, which is exactly those who all want to have happen more often,
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that those are the things that turn into real good transactions that close you ended up with a
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commission check. You know, at the end of the day, what consumers have been trained to do is pull
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up their phone, look at that person, what they look like online and they start making a decision
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of their professionalism based on what they can see. And that points to important things like third
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party testimonial evidence, you know, high quality design that gives a professional image, a good,
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you know, relevant content that makes them look like an expert in their space, but not just an
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expert in their space, also relatable to the average person. All of those things,
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in inferring our social media is how do you connect with people, well, you know, in marketing,
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one very basic tentative marketing is that the hardest thing to do is to get a potential client
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to come to you, the easiest thing to do is reach out and get to them where they're already hanging
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out. And so all of those things are what has shifted. It's the way that people have chosen to
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receive communication has changed. And we as a group of salespeople, as a group of business owners,
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absolutely have to buy into the idea that we're going to make those tools available to people and
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then do a good job of communicating on a consistent basis, which drives top of mind awareness
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at the end of the day. That's what builds trust and credibility. And that, by the way,
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all, you know, interestingly enough, I mean, I guess if my own benefit relates back to the idea
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of content marketing and blogging as a structure in order to be able to make that happen.
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Yeah. And so that's a good question is if we can clarify, you know, why a blog and or what's
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the difference between a blog and a website, then how do they fit into our overall strategy
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that aligns with what you just described, right? That's how people now seek you out.
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Right. Right. So, you know, why a blog? Well, you know, a blog really is a type of website.
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It started out just a kind of single page websites way back when they first came out. And it was
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a way for the average person to publish online to be able to easily publish information online.
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We don't have any no programming language, which is like HTML. And then obviously we can't
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just know things like database driven websites, PHP and mySQL. And all that kind of crazy stuff
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that most loan officers absolutely have no interest in. But blogging became a simple little way
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to be able to go out and actually self-publish content on the web that was as easy as maybe working
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with Microsoft Word. And the difference of what has evolved though, and it's bigger than just that,
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because what happened is that the internet changed around 10 years ago into this whole world
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that we now call Web2.0. And a lot of times people wonder, what does that Web2.0 mean?
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Well, Web2.0.2 in 2.0 means it's two-way communication. It means the web transition from what was
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much more of a billboard environment where companies could put it up whatever they wanted. It was a
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one-way conversation of whatever a company wanted to say about themselves or an individual
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one to say about themselves. And it just blasted that out to the world. It was more of a,
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the people couldn't actually participate in the conversation. But Web2.0 came about when we
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started to understand with the web, it created opportunities to get feedback from people. And
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that's things like Amazon really took advantages early on by being able to track what people did
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and then make suggestions based on what people that were looking at a particular product,
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but also be interested in. They were also able to use ratings and reviews to share with us
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what third party, you third party, the evidence of what average people thought about a product. And
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I call that the democratization of advertising because it really took power away from companies
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in the sole ability to tell people what their product was like or their service was like
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and really put it back in the hands of the consumer. And that started this two-way conversation
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happening. And again, the difference of blogging or blogs basically, especially companies like WordPress,
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which is the fastest growing website development platform in the world, it coincided with this
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idea of two-way communication and allowed average people to get information out to the web.
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Now, here's what's important. Is that whole two-way communication piece happened at the exact
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same time? It was birthed at the exact same time that social media also erupted on us and engaged
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people this opportunity to create connections with each other and communicate individuals
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irrespective of large companies that have massive budgets to put big technology together.
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So all of that stuff working together. Now, again, this isn't happening over the course of 10 years,
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has now ingrained the idea that content is a good way to get to know people online as a way
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to be able to start the process of building relationship. And so, again, we get back to why
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I have a blog. Well, it's just the easiest way to be able to, again, publish content. And here's
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the good news. You don't actually have to write the content and publish it yourself. It's a good
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way to be able to share content, but most importantly, is it's the only type of platform that can
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effectively distribute content from that site, from that center of the hub, out all of these
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different environments, things like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and YouTube, and Google Plus.
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Just lots of different social networks. You can actually distribute content or work in tandem
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with your blog. So you have one point of entry and be able to distribute stuff through a lot of
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different networks. And that, of course, is where those folks are hanging out. So the reason that
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you have a blog is it's a single point of communication. Use the opportunity to get that communication
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into the onto the web, more importantly, it automatically distributes that content out where
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your potential clients, potential customers, and your current sphere of influence are hanging
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out and they're willing and interested in receiving communication from you.
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Wow. That's a great answer, man. I think, you know, the one, well, let me ask you this as well,
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because I get what you're saying. And obviously, I think still what lingers is this. Okay, so I
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understand a blog, you know, connects me on social media, allows me to have that two-way
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communication. It's a way for me to share and distribute content. So does that then mean I don't
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need a website? Because I still have like, you know, my company website's got a link to me on
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there. So I should have something like completely separate or on my own that allows me to do all
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those things you just said. Is that what I'm hearing? Well, here's the, yeah, here's the thing,
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is most, most company websites. And for the right reasons are built on old technology. And
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they're built on the old technology because there's the purpose for it. In other words,
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those traditionally built websites that are database-driven websites using things like PHP and
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MySQL to be able to grow them and scale those websites. There's a purpose for it. You can,
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you can replicate, you can replicate a lot of really, I can call you, put a million dollars
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for the technology and functionality into a website platform and then you can replicate it for
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thousands of people at virtually zero cost by using that type of structure. So there's a purpose
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for doing those types of things and that's why companies generally gravitate towards those types
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of websites. Now, here's the problem is those types of websites, and this gets right down to the
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ones and zeros of programming, is those types of websites, website platforms simply don't have
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the ability to do what we're talking about in terms of distribution of content that site by
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WordPress do. And the reason is that the WordPress again evolved. It was created and has evolved
21:52
in combination with social networks. So it was built in order to interact. There is no bridge
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between the two. There's no, like physically they're just separate. So here's the best
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application is you have to see what's the purpose of the technology that I'm using. And the
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purpose of blogging and content marketing is really considered out there. It's pushing content
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out to the world, getting information out to people, distributing it in a way that's easily
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for them to access in a way that they choose to receive communication. There's a real specific
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purpose there. It's almost like how we use mail newsletters, right? The postal service every
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month out to our client base, the same thing is happening with blogging and content marketing,
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especially distributed through social media. So there's a very specific purpose for it. That
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doesn't mean that you can't cross like a blog website, go down the right foundation like WordPress,
22:39
over to your main website and link the functionality together. So it's kind of a seamless interface
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for the consumer once they're on your site. It's easy to do that. And there's good reasons to
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continue to keep your company website because of all that secure technology, like an online
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loan application, which is an industry in and of itself trying to keep up with the changes there
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and make sure that everything is secure. Most companies that focus in one area or they don't
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want to try to be everything to everybody is just too difficult. So it's a good idea to keep
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that company website. Use the functionality that's available there and just cross link the two
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together. So if you really look at your content marketing strategy as its own kind of standalone
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silo, there's purpose for it. And here's the good news. It's always to help people on the web. It's
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not either or, it's and more. The reality is the more indexable sites that you have. I mean,
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through a certain reach to reasonableness, right? You don't want to overdo it here. But there's no
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downside to having two different websites on the internet as long as both well done, have content
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that's relevant and interesting and won't run people off and won't say hit the site. So you know,
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it's like it isn't really either or it's and more. You really have to step back and say,
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what's the purpose of the tools that I'm using? And let's make sure that I'm investing in the right
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type of tool in order them to execute. And so hopefully that answers clearly enough. But really
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it's probably best strategy. No, it's a great answer. And I pressed you a little bit on that
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just because I know some people still struggle with that answer. So very well done.
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Which leads us to the next discussion and observation. I'm sure you have that I've seen out there.
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I know more many mortgage originators are still on the fence about or maybe have done,
24:19
have dipped their toe in the pool. But essentially, you know, why don't more loan officers use
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blogging or integrate the various platforms we've talked about social media, Facebook, etc.
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So what do you see as the most common challenges or reasons why objections, if you will?
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More loan officers aren't really taking advantage of this type of platform.
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Sure, sure. You know, we obviously, we obviously talked, had this conversation with
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thousands of people all across the country. And so, you know, we have a pretty good idea of what
24:53
most people don't. And it really comes down to three things. I'm going to go through those,
24:57
those three will be real quick. The first one is softly darn expensive in most cases. You
25:01
start going out and trying to find a developer to build a full WordPress based website. And I'm
25:06
talking to a real developer that actually develops a product that works and it's designed well,
25:10
you know, so it makes you look like a professional. You know, it can be thousands of dollars,
25:14
two to three thousand dollars would not be uncommon to spend just to get a site built. And the big
25:19
problem is once it's built, and even if you're willing to write a check, they hand it off to you
25:23
and then it's left to you to actually, you know, go process of maintaining it. So maintaining
25:27
website, taking care of all the security, you know, stuff updates, the platform updates, and then
25:33
you get into things of who's going to write the content and when is it going to be written and
25:35
who's going to upload it and who's editing it to make it look professional. And then, you know,
25:39
doing all the social media stuff as well. So both it's expensive in time and in money when you
25:44
first get started, but then it also becomes expensive in time when you're trying to maintain it
25:48
and it competes with all the other more important things that you need to do on a daily basis
25:52
in order to keep those loans moving through the pipeline and deliver, you know, world-class service
25:56
to your clients. So it becomes this expensive factor that runs a lot from the very beginning.
26:05
The second thing is it links to it and I mentioned is it's time consuming. If you try to do all this
26:10
yourself, if you were going to try to learn how to build these things yourself, you're going to
26:13
sit down and write content yourself, that becomes a real, it sucks up a lot of your time.
26:18
And I think a lot of people just aren't willing to spend that kind of time to be able to do this
26:23
because it's not like a typical advertising format where you can say, hey, I'm going to spend
26:28
next dollars, I'm going to spend the next money and you get a certain number of leads based on
26:32
the dollar spent. And this is one thing, maybe we can get a little deeper into this. You really
26:36
have to reformat the idea of why you're doing this in the first place and what success looks like
26:41
when you're doing it. So it's hard for people to like get a tangible, pungent idea in their mind
26:46
of what the investment should be and how much time or money they should spend. And in the last
26:51
piece, the third thing is it's just too darn difficult for a lot of people. A lot of us who are in
26:55
the sales industry, we're drawn to that because we like interactions with people, we like conversations,
27:00
we like helping people through a process. And a lot of times we don't like sitting in a computer,
27:06
banging on a keyboard at 2 o'clock in the morning, not being able to figure something out. I always
27:09
call that the 2 a.m. bang head against the screen moments, you know. And for any of us that have
27:15
tried extended technology, we all know, you know, know those moments and how frustrating they are.
27:19
So it's just it's technical in nature and it's not something we really focus on. And that really
27:24
pointed to the opportunity. Honestly, when I started the company, it came out of a high level
27:28
consulting conversation with a very high producer down in Texas. And you know, he was trying to find a
27:35
way to reach these opportunities there, but he was doing that. He was trying to build his own
27:39
technology and trying to coordinate graphic design and do all this stuff. And quite frankly,
27:42
he was fed up, you know, he was just tired of, he saw the opportunity because he was about ready to
27:46
give up. And because of my experience, both in the industry and with technology, we talked about
27:50
it and I said, I think we can build a solution. And we did and we launched it and it ended up,
27:54
we saw it worked and so it ended up with a creative, very big company. And I think that happens
27:59
more often than not, the not is companies that created based on, there's a void in the market.
28:03
There's something that needs to be filled and it really answered those issues of being a low
28:07
cost way to be able to get started and have something that really looked great and performed,
28:12
and requiring zero time investment at all. And then also though, you know, not having that
28:17
technical difficulty factor because we just do it all for people. That's not trying to have a
28:21
commercial there. I'm just saying that those are the three main things that happen in the last one
28:26
to segue. I mentioned is this issue of framing what success looks like. And I don't know if you
28:33
want to be completely deeper in that or not, but that's actually a really critical factor.
28:38
Yeah, I was going to ask you that. That was a nice nugget. I was going to ask you, you know,
28:41
you talk about framing your success. It's in also, you know, what expectations should someone have
28:46
if they are, you know, deciding to launch a blog? Sure. So here's the thing is that I get
28:53
this question all the time. So in fact, I was just talking to really someone this morning about it.
28:56
And they say, you know, if I invest in this, how long do it will be until I get to the top
29:00
range, you know, search engine rankings? Or, you know, how long's that to wait until I get
29:05
lead in the door? They're going to be able to close. And so my standard answer on that is that, you
29:10
know, there are strategies in online marketing that you can definitely go through. Searching
29:14
optimization is one of them, getting to the top of the search engines, things like
29:18
doing online regeneration that's purely simply online. But here's the reality of it. In statistics
29:23
approved in the sort of years, over 75% of all transactions nationwide are done through
29:27
reading referral business. That's fear of influence marketing. Getting the soldiers in your local
29:31
market about talking about you in the offline conversations. That's what's happened historically
29:35
in the past, what's happening today and what's happening in the future. Less than 10% of all
29:40
transactions close from purely online-generated leads. And so there isn't a huge market of those
29:45
that are available. They're very expensive to get to. It's like fishing in a very small pond.
29:50
And not taking advantage of the very big pond. Now here's the challenge. I'm in online marketing
29:55
and online media industry. So it sounds kind of counterintuitive that I'd be telling people, hey,
30:01
online marketing, purely online marketing is really not the right strategy. And the reason
30:05
I'm saying that is that it's not framing the conversation correctly because the best application
30:11
of your online marketing strategy really is to support and amplify what you already know works
30:15
offline, at least at the beginning level, right? So when you're first framing, when you're first
30:20
building like what your initial strategy is going to be, you have to look it and say,
30:24
when I look at my business, I'm already successful in the industry. I'm already doing a certain
30:27
number of transactions a month. And I simply want to grow that or I want to maintain my position
30:32
or continue to grow my business. How is my current business happening? And if you're honest with
30:37
yourself, you're going to look at it and you say the last seven out of ten transactions came
30:40
from a referral or repeat business or I was at a networking event and met somebody. It was a
30:45
relationship that caused that deal to happen. And so when we look at how we use blogging and marketing
30:52
online, at least at a foundational strategy, how do we then get that to happen more often?
31:00
And the way that you do that is exposure. It's building top of mind awareness with both your
31:04
current spirit of influence as well as then expanding that and growing your audience. We call that
31:08
building local celebrity. And you do it by being present in the areas that people are already
31:13
spending their time and paying attention. So that seems like why Facebook becomes important
31:17
because it really still is the 900 pound gorilla in the social space. And there are great ways to
31:22
be able to get inexpensive traction and a lot of traffic using things like simple Facebook as once
31:27
you have a content marketing strategy put in place that's happening and you get to leverage all of
31:33
that. And the good news is all of that relates back to continuing to deepen relationships with people
31:39
and continuing by creating that top of mind awareness is what ends up having them when they go to work
31:43
and they hear someone that needs to buy, sell or refine into house. Your name comes up with them
31:47
in that conversation. That's because of your phone or ring. So at the end of the day, it's kind of
31:51
circular in nature. But what the best evidence that your online marketing strategy is working,
31:56
especially in the content marketing space or social media marketing space is that you end up hearing
32:01
offline about it. You end up hearing people saying, man, Jeff, I don't know what you've been doing,
32:08
but I see you all the time. I see you everywhere. You know you're in my Facebook news feed. I see you
32:13
in, I'm linked and you have updates. You know, I get your email newsletter that can by way
32:18
automatically be tied to your blogs and send out great quality content consistently and do it
32:22
completely automatically. So that's the best indication that your online and social media marketing is
32:28
working. And here's the thing. When you look at the difference, if you were going to spend, if
32:31
someone looks to come to me and say, hey, I want to run an online regeneration campaign. I want to
32:37
build online sales funnels in order to do that. And by the way, the reason that we know how to do
32:40
that, this is a large way of how we market my smart blog. So I've become an expert over the last
32:45
five years in running these online sales funnels. But if someone were to come to me and say I want to
32:49
run in a mortgage industry, I want to run online sales funnels or I want to get to the top of the
32:53
search engines, we'd be talking about a budget of thousands of dollars a month. And I'm not talking
32:57
one or two. I'm talking three, four, five, ten thousand dollars a month in order to
33:02
promote a tell that we can effectively build that system and then run enough traffic through it
33:06
to get leads that end up at the end of the day converting into sales. And by the way, there's also
33:11
an incubation factor on that of anywhere from six to twelve months. So you'd have to be spending
33:15
that budget every month for six to twelve months before you really start to see tangible evidence
33:19
of success. You can compare that with literally spending a couple hundred dollars a month in a
33:24
budget on a good quality content marketing strategy. In addition to running maybe a hundred or
33:30
two hundred dollars a month worth of Facebook ads, get really high quality targeted focus traffic
33:36
coming through the absorbing good quality content which builds a relationship with them and
33:40
start to elevate those offline conversations which can turn into transactions right away.
33:45
You can run that campaign for years, a couple of years, even in most places in the country on
33:50
one transaction after a couple of years of doing that kind of exposure, you know, it will either
33:55
have paid for itself for likely doubled the investment over that entire time. And by the way,
34:00
you've covered the base that you know needs to happen anyway. You don't want to do it yourself
34:05
and you can just outsource and automate the process. So it's really framing that. Just understanding
34:09
that the best, again, the best evidence of success of your online marketing is really hearing about
34:14
it offline. If you start hearing back that people are seeing you and you're getting people saying
34:20
that they're seeing your content out there that you know your systems are working.
34:25
Yeah, that's a great point and a great kind of summary of the big picture overall strategy because
34:30
it's really multiple things are happening simultaneously there. You know, one of the things that
34:35
just clearly you're pointing out in your offline strategy is you've got to make sure that you are
34:40
driving awareness for your online presence when you are engaged offline, networking, meeting with
34:45
agents, face-to-face, past out of base, lunch, coffee, whatever it is out at a party, you know,
34:51
on your business card, whatever it is that you're using, you know, as a kind of a leave behind or
34:57
obviously in your talk track, right, directing people to your online presence, your blog,
35:02
your Facebook site, whatever it is. The cool thing about a blog is as you referred to earlier,
35:06
it's really, you know, kind of the hub of everything and it's a single point of destination
35:12
that you can drive people through that connects them to all those other
35:15
ancillary properties like Facebook, for example. So that, you know, you can connect and engage
35:21
in a deep way there versus just a static website which really doesn't offer much engagement.
35:27
Yeah, let me branch out. I wanted to mention one thing because I've mentioned this to
35:32
clients before too and it's just something that's important, especially, you know, you never know
35:36
who's going to hear this, but you know, a long time ago, so I was a member of Loan Toolbox when
35:40
it first came out, September being those guys did such a great job putting that together and
35:44
you know, there was a perfect loan process, I don't know if you remember that, but I'm sure you
35:47
can do it actually. But it was like this educational thing and there was like a page five of the
35:51
103 at the time, you know, where it was, you know, there's set of questions that you take people
35:55
through to deepen your relationship with them with an application. Let me tell you something that
36:00
a lot of people ask us, you know, how do I leverage social media more? I don't really don't want to
36:04
have to participate into that much. I see it as a distraction. But how I do it, the point is when
36:09
you have someone sitting there at your desk going to take in loan application, what if it's just
36:12
even a approval call? A great way is to develop a script where you start to engage people in
36:17
social media and linking up with them in some way right at that point at first contact. So if
36:22
I'm sitting there with someone at my desk and I have an email newsletter program put in place,
36:27
then I'm immediately as part of my talk track, like you just said, at the end, going to say,
36:31
hey, a great way for us to stay in touch in a way that I deliver big quality content over time
36:36
is to my email newsletter. How do we just get you signed up right now? And you actually go to
36:40
your website and fill it out with them sitting there. And they're now lined up. Same way is like,
36:45
if you're worried about people, enough people, life in your Facebook page, while you're at
36:49
application, have them pull up their phone, pull up Facebook because you know that it's on there,
36:53
have them go directly to your Facebook business page and like the page right there.
36:57
In addition to sending out right after that application, send out a LinkedIn connection request
37:01
if they're on LinkedIn and get connected. Here's the reason why is once you have those connections
37:06
in place, people rarely disengage. They rarely stop those connections. And the beauty of an
37:13
content marketing and social media and dripping content over time, the same way again, going back
37:17
to the newsletter, mailed newsletter, which far and away over 15 years, the most effective
37:22
advertising mistake that I ever did because I did it consistently. If you simply put those
37:27
linkages in place and then you have a strategy that automatically drips on and through those
37:33
networks on a consistent basis, people generally will never disengage and you'll have another way,
37:37
another avenue to stay in front of them consistently. But you have to take action. You have to actually
37:44
even us as a company, we'll automate the entire process on the back end. But what we can't change
37:50
is there has to be a level of execution on the front end, which continues to grow that database,
37:55
grow that sphere of influence because the larger that sphere of influence is and the more consistently
38:00
you communicate with them, develop that top of mind awareness, build credibility over time,
38:04
the more effective all of those advocates in the marketplace are going to become.
38:08
And I just want to make that point that as I take away, if you do nothing else,
38:13
if you have a your Facebook page and LinkedIn profile set up and you don't want to set up a blog
38:18
at least start connecting with people through these social channels and figure out a way to
38:23
consistently develop content or get content or information out and be updating people through
38:28
those networks because it's incredibly powerful. There's no additional costs. It's not like
38:32
Lichten and stick in a stamp anymore. And it is the way that 9 out of 10 people are choosing to
38:39
receive communication these days. Yeah, that's a great point. And you know,
38:46
that's funny. You mentioned the mail newsletter. I know this people still out there doing hard
38:51
copying newsletters. I think it's like you said, it's the what's the preference for how they
38:55
receive communication. Oh, one thing I wanted to point out too, we talk about success metric and
38:59
how do you measure success in social media. And you know, like you said, some people look at it as
39:03
noise and distraction or whatever. And the other thing I see people do is, you know, they get all
39:07
down and bummed out if they don't get a bunch of likes on their page, whatever. And we should probably
39:11
at some point circle back and do a class just on Facebook itself because there are some strategies
39:17
for getting, you know, top of mind exposure in Facebook. It may it may not be just having a
39:22
static page, right? There's other things that we can do, such as running very expensive targeted ads
39:27
that come up in the feeds. But I would just say, and I'm sure you would agree to this as well,
39:30
you know, as far as success metric, don't judge your success based on what you're talking about
39:35
Facebook specifically, you know, how many likes you're getting or whatever because that's not
39:39
the success metric. The success metric is, right? Having that online presence at destination,
39:45
so that you can stay engaged right through relevant content and all that would be, right?
39:52
Know that you're in that stream of awareness, if you will, where most of the people are
39:59
living and searching online today. So you can be top of mind when, you know, mortgage-related
40:04
stuff comes up for them, or they know somebody at work, friend, relative. If you're not in, if you're
40:09
not, you know, oh, if people don't know you exist, you're that old thing we call secret agents,
40:13
right? So when I was teaching classes at real estate agents, this real estate agent trainer,
40:19
one of the times asked this question, he goes, what's what's better to be well known or to be worth
40:23
knowing in your business? And the right answer is both. Obviously, you want to be a quality
40:28
individual and be worth knowing, but the truth of the matter is, you got to be well known. Like you
40:34
said, I see you everywhere, right? You're in my Facebook feed, you got your newsletter,
40:38
you're on the LinkedIn profile, so on and so forth. So if you're not, you know, if you're not,
40:44
if people don't know you exist, then how can they ever, how can you ever be top of mind when it comes
40:48
to, right? Getting mortgage referrals, etc. Exactly. Yeah, I know that's such a great point.
40:55
You know, it is. Yeah, so all right. So we're almost out of time here. I know you're busy,
41:00
you got another appointment stack death. I want to kind of close it out because this was only
41:04
a class in and of itself. So thank you very much for sharing. I guess one of the things I think
41:09
about is, you know, you as an entrepreneur, you're busy, obviously, managing a lot of things,
41:14
spending a lot of different plates. What is for you? How do you manage, you know, because we've
41:20
talked about this with the loan officers, right? It's like they, you know, they don't do social media
41:23
because they got too many other things on their plate to do, loan closing, spending, etc.
41:28
What's a productivity tool or a habit or a daily ritual that you use consistently that has a
41:35
big impact on your daily productivity? Well, I tell you, crap done, Michael. Yeah, yeah. Luckily,
41:43
I have a good team of people. It's one of the things that helps support me on a daily basis.
41:50
But, you know, here's the thing is, you know, as I built this company over time, I really focus
41:56
on, and by the way, the core of my smart blog is automation and efficiency. And we use tools
42:02
like infusion soft and, if I know you're familiar with infusion soft, as a tool that runs our entire
42:07
business. And lots of the stuff that you would normally require additional bodies, we actually are
42:12
able to automate processes that do the work for us through technology. And that, I think, has
42:19
probably going, there's two things. Number one is, I go back to what has been consistent through my
42:24
the entire process of my career, 25 years of the different things that I've done. And that's
42:28
simply I show up, you know, so many times, you know, people would, you know, in the mortgage
42:33
industry, hiring and training, loan officers, sometimes it's a revolving door. And, or, you know,
42:37
you see people coming in and out of the industry and they want to go play golf midweek and they want
42:40
to, you know, do have fun and do all this different stuff. And you know, I was always that guy that
42:44
was just steady at it, you know, he just show up to work, you know, treat it like a real job.
42:48
And, and not to say you shouldn't have fun and free up some time to go do, there's some time
42:52
flexibility that comes with doing a great job and building the right type of business for the
42:55
great foundation. But showing up has been critical for me. That's just the one thing that I've
43:00
always have done well was being able, being willing to go through and, and either every day and
43:05
solve problems and how people get through their problems and, and, and do the work. But the other
43:09
thing that's most important, I think, even, you know, well, it's not most important. It goes hand
43:13
in hand with that. Is it, you really want to be able to achieve a high level of success. You have
43:17
to focus on the highest investment you see your time. And for me, I'm an innovator. So, I look for
43:21
gaps in the market and I find solutions for those. And then I do, I try to figure out the best way
43:25
to tell that story. Now, getting an impunch in the keyboards, although I did that at the beginning
43:30
of the company I had, because there was no one else who couldn't pay anyone to do it. So, I had to
43:34
do it initially, but then it's understanding that you have to get other people to do the things that
43:38
aren't in the highest investment you see your time, so that you can continue to focus on what those
43:42
really high dollar activities are. And then, and then execute only on those things. It's possible.
43:47
It's not to say that sometimes you have to wear multiple hats and things change, but you really
43:50
want to focus on that. And so, the number one way, by the way, that you can do that, even better
43:55
than hiring great people is finding tools, especially technology tools that will streamline and
44:01
automate processes that are repeatable. And if you get what I'm saying there, it's the number one
44:07
thing that can lead you to literally growing a multi-million dollar company, even if that's a
44:11
multi-million dollar brokerage or multi-million dollar production, you know, pipeline in your mortgage
44:17
business. But you really have to find out what are the most important things that have to happen
44:21
on a consistent basis, and then what types of tools can I use that eliminate the failure point of
44:27
a human being have to interact with it. And that, of course, is one of the basic tenets of our
44:34
business, is what we provide to our clients. But it's also what we do internally. We say what
44:38
things are going to happen on a consistent basis, and how can we put a process in place so that it
44:42
will happen exactly the same every single time, and no one has to actually physically get involved with it.
44:48
If that works, you know, and again for us, we use software called FusionSoft. We have other
44:54
tools, like scheduling tools that we use that tie together with our calendaring application,
44:58
and allow someone for instance to go to our website and schedule a demo. They can just pick a
45:02
ton that works on their calendar, automatically syncs up with our calendars, and lock it in for
45:07
somebody. So using tools like that, technology tools to drive productivity is I think the most
45:14
important thing. Okay, great. And before we close it out, how do people find you if they wanted to
45:20
learn more information about my smart blog and you know, look into potentially blogging?
45:27
Yeah, well, the best thing I think, go to mysmartblog.com. It's our website, and we've got a ton of
45:31
information there. It's available to you. Lots of testimonials. We use, we really believe in that
45:36
third party testimonial evidence, ratings and reviews. You know, we have audio testimonials and
45:41
video testimonials there. So lots of ways to be able to hear what other people are saying about
45:45
their experience with our company. And then of course, there is the opportunity right on the website
45:49
as well. Just click a button to schedule a demo. I'd be happy to get someone online with you and
45:53
do a screen share. And I get all your questions answered of how this can help you grow your
45:58
repeat in the firm business as well. Awesome. Well, as you know, my intent here with
46:03
Morgan's Marketing Radio is to provide direction, to provide, you know, access to tools and resources
46:10
that I personally have vetted out that I believe do make a difference. Our authentic and our
46:17
worth, you know, taking a further look at. So not only do you provide one of those tools in
46:21
mysmartblog, but you also provide, as I think everybody's heard today, tons of education
46:26
and context around, you know, is this the right tool to execute in my individual business as a
46:34
mortgage professional. So if anybody wants to find out more about Michael, obviously you now
46:38
know how to do that in mysmartblog. So thanks, Michael, for making time. I know you're busy.
46:43
And as I said, we'll probably circle back in the near future if we get enough people
46:47
letting me know they want an extended Facebook class or something like that.
46:52
Yeah, you know, I'd love to do it. Obviously, you and I have talked about this before, but
46:57
yeah, very inexpensive ways to be able to get very targeted local traffic that's segmented
47:02
breathically. And it's really, it's the biggest opportunity out there for people to take advantage
47:08
of even today. So you'd love to do it if people are interested. Let Jeff know and I'll be happy
47:12
to come on and share some of the things we found over the last few years.
47:16
You bet. Well, thanks everybody for listening to mortgage marketing radio and we'll see you
47:21
on the next one. Make today a great day. Bye for now.
47:25
Hey guys, what's up? Real quick. You've heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before.
47:29
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47:33
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in reaching actually productive agents. So what are you waiting for? You can check out more at
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