Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Ep #11: Elizabeth Rose: Millennial Marketing and REALTOR Classes

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Ep #11: Elizabeth Rose: Millennial Marketing and REALTOR Classes · Mortgage Marketing Radio

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In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
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real estate agents is essential for success.
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However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
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With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it
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can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections.
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Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
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Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
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And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
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with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
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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.
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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.
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Don't miss out.
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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
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Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
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Brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth
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in Mortgage Marketing.
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Hi, Jeff Zimfer, your host of Mortgage Marketing Radio.
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Thanks for tuning in once again.
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And I'm so excited to bring my special guest Elizabeth Rose to the podcast this week.
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Elizabeth has done an amazing job with over 18 years actually in the Mortgage Business.
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She's a past speaker, article contributor coach for organizations I'm sure you're familiar
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with people like Mortgage Marketing Guide, loan toolbox, Scotsman's Guide.
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She is a certified continuing ed teacher for the Texas Real Estate Commission and she teaches
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continuing ed classes to real estate agents, financial planners and more.
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And she's also really doing some great things when it comes to building her platform using
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social media, blogging, video marking and so forth.
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So I wanted to just invite Elizabeth to kind of share the journey she's been on for
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the last 18 years and how she's really gotten to this place finally where her platform
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is paying off in a big way in that her business is, you know, really largely referral based
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and she doesn't compete so much on price anymore and has business coming to her on a pretty
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consistent basis from the different activities that I mentioned she's involved with.
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So a great opportunity to listen to somebody who's been out there doing it for 18 years
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knows what she's talking about.
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So I think you'll enjoy today's podcast with my very special guest Elizabeth Rose.
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So let's get into it.
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Elizabeth Rose, are you there?
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I'm here, Jeff.
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How are you today?
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You know, my saying is I'm living the dream because if I say it long enough, I'm going
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to believe it.
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Hey, I'm right there with you.
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Well, thanks for having me here.
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I'm excited to be here today.
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Yeah.
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So obviously you and I talked the other day before recording the session today and I think
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we've got a lot of great nuggets to share with our fellow loan officers here today and
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I definitely want to get right into that, especially in the areas of like adjusting to the
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millennial home buyer, how you're leveraging social media blogging and other things like
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that to really become, you know, what I call kind of a modern marketing loan officer if
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you will.
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We're going to dive into some good stuff, talk about Yelp online reviews and of course
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a lot about capturing realtors.
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But before we do, you know, for those that may not be familiar with who you are, you've
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been around for, you know, what would probably feel like forever in this industry, right?
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18 years essentially as an originator and a variety of capacities.
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You've done a lot of speaking and writing and teaching as well as, of course, you know,
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being a productive and profitable loan officer.
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But if you could give us the quick bio on Elizabeth Rose, who are you?
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How'd you get into it and, you know, the current update?
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Okay.
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Well, in some way, that do feel a little bit like a dinosaur from the standpoint of my
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tenure.
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But I'm still mentally in my mind, I'm somewhere in my 30s, so I refuse to get old.
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But I did get started originally in banking and finance right out of college in the early
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80s.
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So that, that dates me right there and, and then made the move over into the mortgage world
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in 96 and it was for me somewhat of a perfect marriage because of my banking background,
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which anybody who's ever worked in banking probably can attest to the fact that somehow it
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just gets in your blood and you don't know how to get it out.
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And back then, banking didn't pay very much.
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In fact, if you saw what my annual salary was, it's probably equivalent to a typical
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L.O.'s monthly income.
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So anyway, I bridged that gap or that transition into the mortgage world because I had this
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affinity for real estate, but I didn't want to work around the clock as an agent.
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So it just seemed like a perfect fit and I jumped right in and like most loan officers
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even today, my training was, here's a rate sheet, go sell.
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And you know, I, while I had already had a couple of mortgages under my belt, you
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know, my own residences, I still didn't really, I didn't understand the difference between
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an FHA and a conventional and I didn't understand anything about interest rates and you could,
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you know, get a higher rate and maybe get a, well, back then you probably didn't get
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a credit.
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The L.O. kept most of it, but I didn't understand any of those nuances.
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So I started just like everybody else, but it was unlike a lot of people, a very thought
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out conscious decision to get into, to this world.
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You didn't just stumble into it, like a lot of folks.
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Exactly.
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I actually chose this and, you know, I've had moments in my career where I've just kind
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of stopped doing my track and thought, what in the world were you thinking?
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Right, right, exactly.
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Wow, very cool, thank you.
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So bring us kind of to like current day in terms of, you know, where you're at with
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your business in terms of like, you know, just maybe average units monthly or annually
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and then where does most of your business come from?
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Is it referral past clients, real estate agents, what's that look like?
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Well, most of my business does come from realtors and I've been trying over the last
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number of years to shift that somewhat.
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I mean, I have a great database and I do get a lot of referrals from clients and of course
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past clients coming back, but still the bulk of my businesses from real estate agents.
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And I've been trying to shift that balance where it's more heavily weighted in my own
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sphere and my own collection or gathering of leads and referrals and not be so dependent
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on realtors.
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I would rather them be dependent on me, so I've been really focused on shifting that balance.
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So what do you mean when you say you'd rather the realtors be dependent upon you than the
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opposite of that?
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Well, first of all, I've never been really, I've never been the type of L.O. that walks
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around with my hand out saying, hey, what have you got for me today?
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But at the same time, my business has been referred to me by real estate agents and built
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some really great relationships.
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I just don't like being dependent on them.
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So you don't want to be overly dependent upon one channel for your business?
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Correct.
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Because for whatever reason it goes away, it falls off, they retire, then you've got to
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replace that.
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Absolutely.
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And then the other part of it too is, it has something to do with maybe the way realtors
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look at mortgage people in general, and so I've wanted to sort of change that stereotype
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for that perception in their mind and help them see, this is actually a partnership.
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This isn't you doing me a favor because you gave me a lead and now I owe you my life.
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So that's a great topic right there, I want to unpack that a little bit.
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How do you, how have you been changing that perception and what I call essentially changing
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the game, flipping the funnel?
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Well, I think a lot of it comes with the way you handle that lead or that referral as soon
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as you get it and it's just truly taking control and then the conversation back to the
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agent of, okay, I've spoken with this person, here's some things that I've instructed
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them, you know, we need to do, and just taking charge and showing them that this business
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isn't just fill out the application and that's all we do, that there's a lot of knowledge
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and expertise that goes into, certainly these days, into almost every transaction, there's
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no slam dunks anymore.
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So you're really, what you've got to do is demonstrate your value throughout that transaction?
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Absolutely, and I think if you have to do it from the very beginning of the transaction
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when you get that referral and then you have to consistently do it throughout and the
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other thing too that I think makes a huge difference in that is I've said for a long
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time, I would much rather make out the own phone calls than from a phone to ring, meaning
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I want to stay one step ahead of the agent, so I want to be proactive, I want to be calling
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them before they even think of the questions that they want to ask me next.
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Right, right, exactly, that's very good point, so being proactive and so you're obviously
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demonstrating, and everybody talks about, you know, what do you have to compete on with
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real estate agents, great rates, great service, you know, and everybody says, well, you
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know, great service is expected, right, it doesn't take, it's the minimum bar for entry
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if you will.
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Absolutely.
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But even with that said, though, it's wonderful to throw those platitudes around, everybody
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can have great service, but how many people actually do it?
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So what you're pointing out there is, you know, being proactive in making those calls
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to give them a loan file updates, status, whatever the case is, right, very proactively
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long before they're ever thinking about it, and you know this very well, is they're always
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thinking about what's going on with that loan.
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Absolutely, and I set this stage in the very beginning with both the listing agent and
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the buyer's agent, and I'll let them know they're going to hear from me every Tuesday
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with a status update, but if there's something that happens in between those Tuesdays,
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I'm going to be picking up the phone and calling them and letting them know.
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And so that way, it sets an expectation with them, and they know when they're going
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to hear from me, they know the milestones, so to speak.
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And then the other thing, too, is I always tell them, especially if it's a new relationship
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and they don't know me yet, but I'll tell them, I'm going to communicate with you quickly,
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whether it's good news or bad news, I'm going to tell it to you fast.
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So if something's going south, I'm not going to sit on it for a week, twiddling my thumbs,
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trying to figure out how in the world I'm going to save the deal for fixing problem,
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I'm going to tell you.
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So if there is bad news, deliver it quickly.
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Absolutely.
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And I think they appreciate that.
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Oh, they do.
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They're absolutely.
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You don't want to land mine after 11th hour.
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You mentioned something there about setting expectations.
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So do you have kind of an official onboarding process?
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Is that documented in an email in a, in a, some type of a handout?
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What does that look like?
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Like, take me through that.
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How do you really demonstrate that you are going to, you know, rock this realtor's world
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with their client referral?
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Well, I do a couple of things.
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I have the initial phone call setting the stage.
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And if they don't know me, if we don't have a relationship, I'm introducing myself.
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And I do this both with the buyer agent and the listing agent.
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Okay, great.
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And over the phone, I'll let them know when they're going to hear from me.
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And then even if I spoke to them in person and not left, you know, I didn't have
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to leave a voice message, I then follow it up with an email.
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And so I have a series of email templates that I created.
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And so I just pushed that out and I edited it to be a little bit more customized
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to that particular client and that situation.
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But I push that out to them.
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And then, you know, it's just, you just have to prove it.
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You just have to do what you say you're going to do walk the talk.
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Yeah. Um, so what do you find that that does when you're setting those expectations?
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I mean, I'm, I'm thinking, obviously, there's a few things that it does right off
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the bat in terms of the perception with the realtor, but it also does some things
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for you personally as a loan officer.
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But what do you find that that does when you're, you, I love that you said,
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taking control of the transaction, because you are, right?
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And a lot of love, yeah.
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So I'll just stop talking and let you answer the question.
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Well, I think, I think first we need to remember that without us,
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the transaction's not going to happen because they need the money and we're bringing
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the money. So we are in a position of, we should be taking control.
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We have a substantial amount of power and we just need to own it.
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And I don't, I don't mean be, um, be assertive in such a way that it's,
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a turn off, yeah, turn off and it's, it's distasteful, but, you know, be respectful,
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but still remember, you know, kind of own your power and, and, and be proud of
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what you do and feel confident in what you're doing and, and what you're bringing
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to the table. Right. That's, and then, um, and, and that's for what it does for
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me. Honestly, it has totally changed my life.
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It's changed my world. Um, I don't, I don't find myself having to deal with
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fires. I, my stress level is, uh, and maybe part of this is, is being in the
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business for as long as I've been and being of a certain age where you start
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realizing, hey, nobody's life is at stake here and the building's not burning
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down. But even still, you know, even though I, I am probably a lot calmer
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now than I was when I was 20 or in my 30s, uh, it really does bring a lot more
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peace to my day and to every transaction. Right. Well, in part of that, I think
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is because you, um, have a certain path, you know, it's, it's, I remember
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hearing this metaphor once, um, about, you know, similar to being a pilot
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when you're going through purchasing a home, the transaction. And so you're
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the captain and then your passengers are actually the home buyer and, uh, the
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realtor and one word argue, hey, maybe they're the co-pilot. And the, and the
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answer is no, they're not, um, because you're the one that's in control of the
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transaction now. Um, and when it comes to the financing, because hey, they've
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got the purchase contract. They've signed all that, you know, working out
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whatever the last minute contingencies there are on that. But now you're the
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person responsible for getting that sucker to close and you kind of set it up
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when you're taking control. Like you talk about, you know, you kind of set that
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metaphor of like, look, I'm the pilot. And I love the fact that this, this
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just trainer actually even said he goes, we may run into some turbulence along
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the way, but just know that, you know, uh, I am the pilot. I'll get us safely
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to our destination, uh, you know, so setting up that whole framework. And so
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that, you know, kind of to your point is that gives you this, this confident
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certainty, not only showing up with how you would talk to and engage with
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realtors, but like you just said, um, certainty that you've got a process
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that you're going to follow. So any of those turbulence issues are going to be,
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you know, minimized and smooth out because you actually have a process. You're
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not winging it.
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Absolutely. And I love that you bring up that analogy because I read that
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many, many years ago and I thought it was so fitting because we all know
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that, you know, it's not always smooth sailing. And there is turbulence. And
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if you just set the stage in the beginning of, hey, you know what, I'm asking
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you for all this documentation, but once we get into what's my processor gets
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that or once we get into writing, we might need some more things and don't be
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alarmed. It's not unusual. Right. Right. Or when we get a conditional
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approval, that's not a bad thing. That's normal. You don't get a final
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approval, typically on the first half. Yeah. And so that's all about setting
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the expectations. So great stuff there. And I've seen people actually kind of
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type up, you know, a one page document, if you'll like a PDF that sets those
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expectations about, you know, what you just laid out, things that are required,
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but also, you know, as we go through this process, you know, these things may
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happen or whatever. Just so, hey, there's no surprises. I told you this up
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front. Right. And, but you know, what is still amazing, you can tell people
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things and put it in writing and somehow they didn't know that. Oh, yeah.
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But at least then you can come back and say, well, it was in such and such
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document. It was in this email. And you can politely do that and sort of calm
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people down without being too ugly about it. Exactly. Oh, that's such a
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great point. Because here's the thing, if you don't have a process and it's not
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the expectations aren't set up for the for the, you know, the good and then the
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potential turbulence, if that's not set up in advance, then you do have a more
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stressful situation because you didn't forewarn them. And you can't come back
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and as you just pointed out, elegantly say, I understand this is a, you know,
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frustrating, Mr. and Mrs. Byer, or Realtor, but however, if you remember back
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to our initial conversation, I did say that, right? These are the potential
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things that could happen during. So it just makes it easier for you to actually
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deal with that.
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Absolutely. And it also allows me in that phone call or that conversation when
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they're falling apart with frustration and maybe even outright anger,
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rage and anger, to be able to just sit there calmly and go, OK, I hear you,
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I understand. I know you're frustrated. Yeah. We talked about this. Right.
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So in that way, you don't, you don't, your blood pressure is not through the
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roof because you know, you know, you did what you needed to do and they knew.
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And so you just, it's a lot easier to rain them back in.
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Absolutely. So the key point here is offset expectations clearly, both the good
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and the potential bad. I have it in writing, you know, send that talk
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because you can refer back to that and to kind of smooth out that process.
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So good stuff. Let's, let's transition a little bit. You are one of the reasons
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why I wanted to bring you on the podcast is because even though you quote,
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unquote, age yourself, right? You're, you're still a modern mortgage
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originator because you're doing a lot of relevant stuff in today's world,
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such as blogging and social media. You know, you've done speaking before and
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some training through like mortgage marketing guide and people like that.
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And so I wanted to briefly talk about something you and I touched on when we
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originally connected, which was adjusting to the millennial home buyer,
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knowing that millennials are growing segment of the first, first time home buyer
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population. But so if anybody wants to check out your blog,
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it's Elizabeth Rose blogs.com. And I want to just kind of, you know,
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revisit that chat you and I had the other day, which is, you know,
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obviously you made a choice to get started with blogging. It's been a long road
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for you there as well. Lots of learnings and stuff. But you were talking to me
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about the other day about how you're finally starting to see payoff from,
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you know, the blogging and the content sharing that you're doing out there.
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What, I guess originally, why did you recognize that you needed to have a
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better presence online and share relevant content?
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Well, that's a good question. And honestly, I'm not sure that I recognized it
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initially. I think I jumped in because it seemed fun. So speak,
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working at mortgage market guide, I had the opportunity to be involved in a
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lot of the content creation. And I was very diled into the daily market update
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and talking about the mortgage bond market and how it affected interest rates
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and pricing and was actually doing a lot of training throughout the US on that.
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And I loved talking about it. And so about that same time,
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Facebook, you know, what was the one before Facebook? Oh, I can't remember.
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It was one before Facebook. Yeah, there was a shoot. I can't think of the name of it now,
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but my space. Oh, yeah. Yes. So, you know, my space had been around.
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But then Facebook came out and Facebook was starting to take a foothold
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and people were actually getting involved on it. And I got in, got in there.
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And, but it was a play toy. It was a, right. It's a sandbox.
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You're basically experimenting. Exactly. And, but then it started evolving.
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And as it did, I was throwing more and more interested. And quite frankly,
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the mortgage industry was going through, you know, the early, early days of the meltdown.
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And, you know, mortgages were few and far between people weren't doing anything.
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And I was actually exploring, trying to figure out, what do I do next?
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What's the next generation of me? And I was thinking, you know,
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I was really wanting to build on my, my training background and do more speaking and training,
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what I learned in the process was that companies just were not going to spend money on that.
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So, I guess it was sort of like my fix was to just start writing.
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And so I started writing. And as I told you in our earlier conversation,
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one day I kind of woke up and realized that nobody was reading what I was writing.
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It was all about me. I was writing about what I wanted to write about.
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And what I wanted to talk about and what, you know, got my juices flowing.
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Nobody else was interested in that. And so then I, you know, took a couple of steps back,
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trying to figure out, well, I want to have an audience. I want to get the message out,
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but what is the message and who is the audience? So then I then I actually started
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flying tuning it. And my hope was, because I was following a lot of social media people,
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you know, and of course everybody was brand new at it. But I was following these new experts
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and trying to watch what they were doing and see how they were building their tribes and so forth.
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And I was like, I want to do that. I want to do that. Because even then I was of the mindset of,
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I want to get to the consumer before the agent does. And I realized, you know, okay,
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my problem is I don't have a shiny object. They have a house and a set of keys to that house.
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It's their shiny object. I can't compete with that. So what do I do? How do I get in front of them
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and bring value in the early stages? And as it's evolved, you know, I've been very fortunate
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that as we were going through this time period, I have two millennial children.
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And so I was paying attention to what they were doing and the questions they were asking and
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and they bought both of them bought their first home at the age of 21.
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Wow, really? Yeah. Yeah, they were drinking the Kool-Aid.
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They knew where to get alone from, right? Yeah, they did. They did. And so, you know,
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they were good little models for me, so to speak. You know, I can watch what they were doing,
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where their interests were, how they looked at things that were so differently than the way I
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looked at them in my 20s. And so, you know, I realized, okay, they're information seekers,
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they're knowledge seekers, even in areas that are not their world. You know, so they're wanting
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to get a mortgage and they're diving in with both feet, trying to understand everything.
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And so, I thought, okay, that's what I need to do. That's how I need to communicate,
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and that's the information I need to communicate. I need to break it down.
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Right. Yeah. I mean, one, especially at 21, right? They're very young, so they're still figuring
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out their way. Even for the older millennials, it's the first time they're doing this and
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they may have some friends and family that have done it, but you're to your point about their
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information seekers. So, and this is, this is their world, right? The place that they go online,
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they're in that space of, hey, I'm going to buy a home sometime in the next could be six months,
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a year, whatever. But do you find that they do their research, like, for, like, long and advanced,
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and they consume a lot of info? I do. And one of the things that I've noticed, and I've really
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noticed it in the last six or nine months, is people calling me and saying, I want to buy a home
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next year. And I, I need to find out what I need to do now. And what I need to do to get ready.
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And, and it's a totally different conversation than what we're accustomed to, because, you know,
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you go back 10 years and people were picking up the phone saying, hey, I wrote a contract.
26:46
Just put it off. And then they find out their credit score is, you know, 450.
26:55
Oh my gosh, that's awesome. Uh, yeah. So in that, you know, if they're like a year out, right? That
27:01
says a lot of things. One, the thing that jumps out for me right away is as mortgage loan officers,
27:06
most of us aren't prepared to nurture the relationship for that long. And we don't have the
27:10
means to do that in most cases. Most loan officers, and you can comment on this,
27:15
are weak in the area of, of lead nurture database marketing, uh, dripping content over, over the time.
27:22
And that's why, right? As I said earlier, your blog and what you've done for content marketing
27:26
there, I think, right, really resonates with that millennial market. Yeah, I, I will say that
27:33
I think mortgage originators do a far better job than most real estate agents in their, um,
27:42
database management, you know, having email campaigns or dripping on people and what have you.
27:48
I do think that we are wired a little bit differently than they are and we do a better job there.
27:54
But I don't know that many of us, and I'm still not where I want to be in this area, but I don't
28:02
think that most of us really have something in place to keep us tied to somebody for 12 months.
28:09
That's a long time. Yeah. So, you know, you've got it, you, if you find that you start getting those
28:15
type of phone calls and have those kind of conversations, then you need to get real busy and figure out
28:21
what you're going to do to remember to stay in front of that person and remember to be with them
28:29
that 12 months until they're ready to make a decision because you do want them to come back to you.
28:34
You don't want to invest time and do it over and over and over again to just lose people to someone
28:42
else. Sure. All right. So, let's talk about how you manage your social media, your blogging and
28:47
things like that for content sharing. You share a couple of tools with me that you, you use to help
28:52
automate that and get more done in less time, if you will. So, how do you, how do you essentially
28:58
automate? I don't know if that's the word for you, but go ahead. Yeah. I think that probably is,
29:03
that's the word I would use. Okay. And it does make it sound a little bit sterile, but I use,
29:10
I used to use exclusively Hootsuite and whether, which is a great tool, absolutely great tool. You
29:18
know, you can, you can schedule stuff, you know, a year out if you want to. And so I was using that
29:25
across all my platforms and then I stumbled across a platform called Meet Edgar. I think it was
29:33
last summer. And it really intrigued me because it talked about how you could build a library.
29:41
And then Edgar would just go grab stuff out of your library. And I thought, man, that is so great
29:46
because I do have a lot of evergreen content. Now, granted also have stuff that, you know, has a
29:53
30 day window or shelf life. And then some stuff, it's, it's only good for today. Right.
29:59
But so I start, I looked into that and, you know, the disadvantage of Meet Edgar is that does not
30:06
cover all the various platforms, but it does cover the three primary ones, which is Twitter, Facebook,
30:14
and LinkedIn. So what I did is, in Meet Edgar, what's really cool is you basically start with a
30:22
blank template of a calendar, just the weekday, so Sunday through Saturday. And you can go on there
30:30
and you can make a calendar appointment, so to speak, calendar like you do in your outlook and say,
30:37
on Monday at 8 o'clock, I'm going to send to these three platforms, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,
30:47
something from my file cabinet, if you will. It's a blog post. And then at noon, I'm going to send
30:55
something promotional. And at 6 o'clock, I'm going to send something that's, you know, real estate
31:03
oriented. And then you go build those file cabinets and you can build, you know, you can label on
31:08
whatever you want to and put whatever content you want in. But as you add content, it stays in there.
31:15
And so then when that, that slot comes up on the calendar, Edgar reaches into the file cabinet and
31:22
grabs the next piece and pushes it out. So it really does save a lot of time with having to schedule
31:31
and reschedule and go find stuff. And even if it's stuff you've used before in the past,
31:37
even if it's your own material, you still have to redo it. So it saves a lot of time with that.
31:43
Now I still have to use Hootsuite because I'm on Google Plus and so I'm pushing out to that.
31:51
You're the one. I'm the one. You're the one left on Google Plus.
31:55
You know, it's like I haven't left. But I can't say that I've done anything with it. But you know,
32:04
here's the cool thing about it is that it really does help stuff float to the top and that organic
32:11
searches on Google. Yeah. No, I'm kind of joking. I don't see any interaction on Google Plus.
32:19
Well, and I think that's really the point, right? It's so, so you know, go where your audience is,
32:24
right? And so unfortunately, Google, Google Plus has its challenges. And in terms of engagement
32:29
on Google Plus, it doesn't really compare to the other. Right. It certainly doesn't. Yeah.
32:34
You know what? You just inspired me. I made notes. I'm going to actually do a full-blown blog post
32:38
on the various social automation tools and the differences. So like Hootsuite, Mead Edgar,
32:43
there's another one called Coast Schedule. There's Buffer. There's a ton of them. But I'm just
32:47
going to focus on kind of the core ones because people need to know and understand that.
32:51
And then of course, there's the full automation version of that where people are posting content
32:55
on your behalf. So that's a whole other area that people need to consider. So let me ask you this
33:02
then. What's been happening for you lately? Because you've been putting content out for quite a while.
33:06
People looking at this whole blogging thing and it's like, you know, the excuses you hear
33:09
I don't have time. I don't know what to write. You've clearly dealt with the time issue by being
33:15
able to automate some of this and blocking out time. So then it posts for you later. But let's just
33:19
talk about the payoff here just for the sake of time. What have you seen bubbling up for you
33:24
finally, you know, with some consistent posting now? Well, I've seen a lot of things happen.
33:30
In the last year and a half or maybe even two years, I've had a lot of my content, primarily my
33:38
blog posts. I've had other parties out there share my stuff repeatedly. And most of them are
33:48
publications of their own. So they're sharing my content. I'd never will forget like the first time
33:55
I got like a little Twitter notification that this organization had shared my content. And I
34:01
I was literally blown away. It was like I've won the lottery. I was like, oh my god, it finally
34:07
happened. Something happened. People like me. Yeah, they like me. And since then, you know,
34:17
I have several groups that regularly share my content. And granted, it's going all over the place.
34:24
I mean, I've got a group from Minnesota that shares my stuff. I've got a group out of Florida
34:31
that shares my stuff. And I don't do mortgages in those states. But that's okay.
34:38
You know, it's really just about getting the word out. And you know, I guess I want to get it out
34:44
here locally. And I want business here locally. But still at the end of the day, if you really do
34:52
love what you do and you really do want to share your information, then you want to share it with
34:56
everybody. Well, and it goes back to our point earlier though about millennials, for example. And
35:02
so how do people buy today, right? Where do they go first? They look online. And so they're
35:06
going to type in very specific search terms. Where are you in Texas? What part of Texas?
35:12
I'm in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Yeah. So people are typing in things like, you know, mortgages
35:16
in Dallas Fort Worth, perhaps, or other mortgage related terms. And you know, the whole goal there
35:20
is right for you to get found. Number one, but number two, if you're getting referred from agents,
35:25
financial planners, whatever, those people are still going to go online and check you out. So the
35:30
fact that you've got this history now of content that you've been publishing immediately positions
35:36
you as an authority and as someone who's professional and, right, you begin to build that trust
35:42
and credibility factor, which is established mostly today. You know, if you don't already know
35:48
the person online initially. Absolutely. Yeah. And the study show that, and I hate to like
35:56
grab this down to studies, but millennials millennials are doing a tremendous amount of research
36:02
online. And there has been several studies that show that they place more value and more trust
36:12
in a third party testimonial or review that's online than they do with anything marketing related
36:21
that you might do. Sure. Well, because the perception is there. Yeah. It's more authentic. It's
36:26
from someone other than you. Right. Of course, you're going to be your biggest fan. Absolutely. And
36:30
they'll go looking for you. They'll go looking to find out not only do you have a website? Are you
36:35
online? What kind of material do you have? But what is everybody else saying about you? And you know
36:41
what? If you're the greatest L.O. in America and nobody saying anything about you, then nobody
36:47
knows you're the greatest L.O. in America. Yeah. Exactly. So you've found some benefits then with,
36:53
you know, online reviews, social testimonials, that kind of stuff like Yelp.
37:00
Absolutely. And I was, you know, tickled when that started coming to path two. I started working
37:06
on that last, well, probably about two years ago and initially started, or maybe longer than that,
37:14
started on Google Plus. And then I changed organizations and my Google Plus page got shut down
37:20
all those reviews and I was heartbroken. So I had to start all over again and learned
37:26
to do it a little differently to make sure that it stays with me forever. And so
37:33
been building them again for the past two years. And this year, I'm starting to see payoff. I've
37:39
already received, and this doesn't sound like a lot, but when it starts, it starts. And you know,
37:45
you're just happy that it started. I've already gotten, I think, six or seven inbound inquiries
37:52
from Yelp, Zillow, and Homes.com. Now, I have a lot of reviews on, I have a lot of reviews on
37:59
Facebook. I have them on Google Plus, but it's been Zillow Homes and Yelp that I've gotten the
38:06
people. You have a presence on Zillow? Not much of one, but I do. Oh, that's great. That's all.
38:15
And I need to spend some time there. I just have it.
38:19
Yeah. Well, exactly. You'll get there. Hey, but that's great. It shows that obviously,
38:24
there's the payoff there. Okay. And we can do obviously, I mean, we could spend an entire hour
38:29
talking about those various channels themselves. But for the sake of time, I do want to make sure
38:35
we cover one more topic because I think you're doing some really cool stuff in the area of realtors.
38:40
And as you know, capturing realtors is a constant point of frustration for a lot of loan officers.
38:48
So, you and I talked the other day, one of the channels or things or tools you use to be able
38:55
to get yourself in front of agents and to convert some of them to referral partners is teaching classes.
39:01
So I want to make just get your quick opinion on what's the value and when I say classes,
39:06
you know, it doesn't necessarily mean CE. You and I talked a little bit about that.
39:10
CE may not be the way to go for a variety of reasons. But for you, what's been the benefit,
39:15
you know, and that you've gotten out of teaching classes in terms of you being more successful with agents?
39:22
Well, it's been tremendous. And I've done both LCE classes as well as just lunch and learns.
39:30
And I think that anytime you can get in front of an agent and you're not asking them for their
39:37
business, you're not telling them you want to earn their business, you're not talking anything
39:41
about that. And all you're doing is sharing information and you're teaching them something.
39:48
You're giving them something of value and you have an hour or two hours in front of them face time.
39:55
And they are seated right there in that little chair and they're not going anywhere.
40:02
And they are glued to everything that you're doing and saying. It's just a perfect, perfect
40:08
opportunity for you to showcase your knowledge, your skills, your willingness to help your
40:14
personality. You know, it's a lot easier for your personality to come through when you're with
40:20
somebody for an hour or two hours and they actually have a chance to get to know you and to
40:25
decide if they like you. And we all know that people do business with people they like.
40:32
We tend to run away from people we can't stand. If somebody's a jerk, you're not going to do
40:37
business with them. But this gives you an opportunity to do that. Whereas picking up the phone and
40:43
calling them and saying, hey, can we have coffee or kind of take you to lunch or can I come
40:48
meet you in your office? First of all, they're probably not going to take that phone call.
40:53
And if you leave a voice message, they're going to delete it. It's just too hard to get those
40:59
kind of appointments. But when they're coming to hear something about a topic, now you have them
41:06
as an audience for an extended period of time. And it's just it's a beautiful thing.
41:11
Yeah, I think that's a great summary of all the different benefits of that.
41:15
Particularly what I like that you said is, you know, when you have that attention span for an
41:19
hour or whatever the case is, you can do so many different things that you can't do in the
41:24
usual situation, which is, you know, when loan office is trying to do the traditional stuff,
41:28
you talked about call calling, whatever, hey, give me a chance or hey, I got great rates, you know.
41:36
I see there's no real other reaction a realtor can have other than to say the same BS excuses
41:41
they usually give, which is I already have a lender, all my buyers are cash. They're just trying
41:45
to get rid of you because they're either a busy in the moment, b, right? You're coming at them
41:52
the way every other loan officer has ever come at them. So they're immediately putting their walls
41:55
up and just saying, dude, you got nothing for me. It's the same old story I heard before.
42:00
So the only way to break that pattern is to flip the funnel, change the game, right? And the way
42:04
you do that, like you just said is, hey, man, have an hour or two in front of them,
42:09
delivering some extreme value, then they're going to be that much more receptive to that,
42:14
you know, invite to work together. Absolutely. And it gives you the perfect layup to be able to call
42:21
them the next day and ask for their feedback, possibly set an appointment to meet with them to
42:29
get to know them more, but it gives you a great excuse to call. And they're going to be respectful
42:35
to the phone call because you just shared all this information with them.
42:40
Yeah. And you've got actually, it's a warm call now, right? It's not a call call.
42:43
Absolutely. There's a bit of rapport there. So before we close out that topic too,
42:47
in terms of topics that you found resonated with the agents, any specific ones that jump out for you?
42:57
You know what? It's funny. I have stayed away from, I don't talk about mortgage products
43:03
because quite honestly, do they really care about what you can do with the FHA or VA?
43:10
They may care about, you know, one time close, but those are still kind of hard to find.
43:17
I've talked a lot about the market, the housing market and the mortgage market and where it's
43:22
headed, doing some sharing with them, how it really works and how you can take today's data
43:31
and sort of look down the road a little bit to see where we're headed. So you can maybe prevent some
43:37
of those, I don't know, difficult, unexpected, you know, rates changing, skies falling, the market
43:46
fell apart. So I've talked a lot about that and then I've done a lot of stuff, you know,
43:54
whether you're blogging, tweeting, posting on Facebook or speaking to realtors,
44:00
you've got to talk about what they're interested in. You've got to step into their world
44:06
and stop focusing on our world. And I think as a mortgage originator, sometimes we get so wrapped up
44:14
in our world, we forget that nobody else is. And so, you know, what I have found is that in doing
44:23
these lunch and learns and so forth is, you know, go talk about it. If you're strong with something
44:29
in social media, go talk about that. If you have, you know, a great databaseing platform and you've
44:38
been able to build email campaigns and get lots of referrals, go talk about that. Go talk about
44:43
something that actually they can plug into their business and maybe make a difference
44:50
because that's when you're going to get their interest and their engagement.
44:53
Yeah. So you've just got to take whatever you have, you know, that's your strong suit and go talk
44:59
about it. Absolutely. And if you're wondering, you know, hey, I don't have a strong suit like that,
45:05
well, you know, get the proper training education, spend the time to develop that strong suit
45:10
because it's going to pay dividends. Absolutely. And you know, I think there's a lot of resources
45:15
out there too that are available to us. And it's just a matter of, you know, taking some time
45:21
and diving in and learning it. And the other thing too, that I would encourage people to do.
45:27
And I think it's possibly a little bit different than most people of my generation would do in this
45:37
field. I think people that are sort of in my age group, you know, the older group of mortgage
45:43
originators, I think we've probably for the most part have a tendency to do things the way we've
45:49
always done things and expect to get the same results. And we only look at maybe our peer group
45:55
or maybe some other mortgage people around us, you know, in that outer circle to get ideas.
46:02
And I say, look other places, look to see what other other industries are doing and how they're
46:07
marketing, how they're approaching their client, how they're talking to their client.
46:12
You can get so much so much from that, you know, look at social media people and how they're
46:18
interacting and engaging and how they're communicating. There's there's tons of stuff out there.
46:24
And I think you just have to get outside your box, so to speak, you know, think a little bit
46:31
differently and join the new digital world. Absolutely. Get engaged to both online and offline.
46:41
That's the real key message here and share relevant content that, you know, people are interested
46:46
in more so than what you're interested in. And that content, the relevancy changes based on
46:51
the audience. For instance, if it's a millennial, yeah, first time home buyer, they're going to
46:55
want to know about mortgage programs and what they, it's a matter of fact, you know, it's funny. I
46:58
just talked to my brother the other day and he's spot, I don't know, one or two homes in his life.
47:04
Yeah, well, let me just put it this way. He was unaware, as you know, like most people are,
47:10
what the time frame is on coming back into the market after a bankruptcy foreclosure short sale,
47:17
whatever, completely unaware of it, right? Was thought it was the traditional, hey, you got to
47:22
wait the seven years, 20% down, all that kind of stuff. And I'm like, no, it's not the situation at
47:28
all, right? So that's just, you know, the point about educating and millennials, they're going to
47:32
want to know that kind of info, realtors. Yes, that is somewhat relevant to them. But what to your
47:38
point, Elizabeth is, you know, step into their world. What are they struggling with? What are the
47:42
issues and challenges that you can help them overcome? Usually it's in the areas of business related
47:47
issues. Absolutely, you know, and I think you can, you know, if you're a good marketing person,
47:53
maybe you can help them come up with some different ways to market their properties. Now, it depends
47:59
on what market you're in. Right now, in Dallas, Fort Worth, nobody needs help marketing properties,
48:03
because they don't last 24 hours. But, you know, if you're in a market that's maybe more normal,
48:10
help them with, you know, how they market their properties, help them with their open houses.
48:17
And I'm not talking about just showing up to hang out with them, but help them, you know,
48:21
with the marketing materials are getting a word out or, or thinking of other ways they can
48:27
do an open house and be different from everybody else. Right. And just the fact that you're trying
48:32
to help, I remember my real-to-friend Walter Sanford years ago told me, just the fact that you're
48:37
trying to help, even if they don't use the ideas, the fact that you tried to help sets you apart
48:43
from probably 80-90% of the other loan officers. Absolutely. Cool. Well, this has been awesome.
48:49
I've learned a lot. How do, where do you want to direct people to find out more about you? Check
48:53
out your blog, that kind of stuff. Well, they're more and welcome to go to my blog. It's Elizabeth
48:59
Rose blogs and it's with the S on the end. So, ElizabethRoseBlogs.com, they can find me on Twitter,
49:06
one, and that's the numeral one, one Elizabeth Rose, and on Facebook. So, I'm everywhere.
49:15
I was, somebody asked me recently about giving my phone number out, and if I was okay with giving
49:22
my phone number to someone, and I was like, well, yeah, and it's all over the internet, so you're
49:28
not too hard to find. You're not too hard to find. You're better be okay with it. Yeah, and speaking
49:32
of that, great job on Twitter. You've got over 3,000 followers, over 1,100 likes,
49:37
almost 1,000 people following you, 13,000 tweets. So, you are rocking it on the social media
49:44
world, congrats. Well, I will tell you, thank you. I will tell you that I, of all of them,
49:50
Twitter is my favorite. And I think it's the one that intimidates people the most, but I love it.
49:57
What real quick, what do you love most about it real quick?
50:02
Bite size. I definitely have, I feel like I have more control over my new speed,
50:08
because I choose who I follow, and like you just mentioned, I only follow like not even 1,000
50:13
people, but I'm very selective with who I follow. So, what I'm doing is I'm filtering what I see.
50:20
And then, I don't know, it's quick and easy. It's like sending a text message.
50:28
And I don't think there's near the drama on there, but there is on Facebook. But once again,
50:34
I think that probably has to do with, you have 140 characters, and then being very selective
50:40
with who you follow. Yeah, and of course you can share images, which then essentially,
50:45
a picture is worth a thousand words. So, you're doing some good stuff sharing infographics and all
50:49
that. And I will just a circle back to something that you said about the, the L.O. out there who
50:59
maybe thinking, yeah, I know I probably need to do all that stuff, but I have no idea what to say.
51:05
I think in the mortgage world, it's a different day every day. And there's so much,
51:11
I mean, if you just pay attention to what's going on in your day, you'll find things that you can
51:15
say. And Twitter is also a great place to curate content. Yes, good point. So,
51:22
great, great. So, clarify what you mean when you say curate content.
51:26
You can just, you can scroll through your newsfeed real quickly. And once again, it does depend
51:32
on who you follow, but you can find great articles with regards to real estate,
51:38
mortgage, anything about the financial market, anything that's newsworthy.
51:44
Some of it is evergreen and some of it is like right now happening. So, if nothing else,
51:52
start by just taking somebody else's stuff and retweeting it. At least it gives you exposure.
51:59
Exactly. So, identify in terms of if you're going to curate content, who are those sources that
52:04
you could curate and easily repurpose their content in the various categories.
52:09
Mortgage-related information, for realtors, that's relevant there as well because, as you said,
52:16
Elizabeth Twitter is kind of a newsfeed, if you will. So, more newsy type information there.
52:21
But also, you can share relevant kind of ancillary information. And as far as the general mortgage
52:29
market goes as well. The other thing you can do too, we're going longer than I plan, but the other
52:35
thing you can do is you can have two different Twitter feeds. I don't your thought on this is, but
52:39
you can have one that's completely consumer focused and then one that's completely real estate agent
52:43
focused. Absolutely. You can do that on Facebook as well. So, you can tone your message
52:53
to whatever your audience is and you can split your audiences up.
52:56
Yeah, because obviously there would be some kind of different messaging there. But
53:00
that's a class for another day. So, we get some people asking about that. We'll do that again.
53:06
I don't feel... All right, well, I know you're busy. You've got things to do. People to see
53:10
loans to close and blogs to write and all that stuff. So, once again, for those who want to
53:16
check out your blog and what you're doing there, it's ElizabethRoseBlogs.com with an S on there.
53:22
And I just can't thank you enough for taking time and sharing some great ideas and value
53:27
with our audience. I appreciate it. Well, thank you. I really appreciate you reaching out and
53:32
inviting me to participate. This has been fun. It's our pleasure and I know we'll stay in touch.
53:37
And once again, this is Jeff Zimfer, your host at Mortgage Marketing Radio brought to you by
53:42
Mortgage Marketing Institute. If you liked today's episode or any of the others, please leave a
53:47
comment, give us a rating on iTunes, subscribe, and as always, I appreciate you and looking for
53:53
to bring in you more truth in Mortgage Marketing. Thanks. Bye for now.
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