Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Ep #17: Co-Marketing Best Practices with Total Expert

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Ep #17: Co-Marketing Best Practices with Total Expert · Mortgage Marketing Radio

• 0:00
  In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
• 0:04
  real estate agents is essential for success.
• 0:06
  However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
• 0:11
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• 0:15
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• 0:20
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• 0:25
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• 0:31
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• 0:35
  with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
• 0:39
  To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
• 0:45
  of the case study today.
• 0:47
  You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million
• 0:52
  in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can, too.
• 0:56
  Don't miss out.
• 0:57
  Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
• 1:17
  Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
• 1:19
  Brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth
• 1:24
  in Mortgage Marketing.
• 1:26
  Hey, listeners, Jeff Zimfer, your host for Mortgage Marketing Radio.
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  Thanks for tuning in to this week's show.
• 1:33
  And without further ado, let me get into who my special guest is this week.
• 1:38
  None other than Joe Wellu, he's a real estate industry expert and entrepreneur, founder
• 1:43
  of Total Expert.
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  Total Expert is a software platform for the real estate mortgage industry.
• 1:50
  And what's great about Total Expert, which you're going to hear through today's show,
• 1:54
  is if you ever wanted to really attract top producing real estate agents and all of us
• 2:00
  talk about, hey, become a value-added partner, become a thought leader, share valuable content
• 2:05
  and resources that helps the agent be more successful in their business, and that's
• 2:08
  all true and well.
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  And that's a great place to start, but what happens next, right?
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  What's next?
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  That's exactly where Total Expert comes in, because Total Expert has delivered the industry's
• 2:19
  first enterprise-grade co-marketing platform for lenders and real estate agents to collaborate
• 2:25
  and deploy marketing across the entire customer life cycle.
• 2:29
  So whether it's capturing and converting leads from Zillow, nurturing them through your CRM,
• 2:34
  doing open houses, getting known in your local community, you name it, Total Expert is
• 2:40
  the platform, lots of great tools in there for you to utilize to benefit yourself when
• 2:45
  it comes to attracting and capturing real estate agents and becoming a true value-added partner
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  and member of their team instead of just a vendor.
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  So I couldn't be more excited than to bring Joe Wellu, the CEO and founder of Total Expert
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  to this week's episode.
• 2:59
  I encourage you to take notes, listen closely, check out the resources and the show notes.
• 3:04
  There's a value-added download you get just by listening today, which is a daily action
• 3:08
  plan for you to more effectively partner with real estate agents.
• 3:12
  So hope you enjoy it.
• 3:13
  And by the way, if you like in these episodes, make sure you're subscribed on YouTube, YouTube
• 3:18
  iTunes, so that you don't miss another show.
• 3:23
  So without further ado, let's transition right into my special guest, Joe Wellu.
• 3:28
  Hey Joe, welcome to the show.
• 3:30
  Hey, thanks Jeff, happy to be here.
• 3:33
  It's a pleasure to have you.
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  It's a topic that has been on my mind for quite a while, and I know it's on the minds of
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  lots of our listeners as well, and that is co-marketing.
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  So in the intro, I share with listeners kind of an overall summary of what Total Expert
• 3:48
  is and what it's all about.
• 3:49
  But if you wouldn't mind maybe the quick background on how you got into this business, because
• 3:54
  I know you have a background in real estate and all that, but what kind of brought you
• 3:58
  to where you're at today with Total Expert?
• 4:00
  Sure.
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  So we started the company about five years ago, and we started out building really end-user-focused
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  individual agent, individual Luna officer tool sets.
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  And as we evolved, we realized that there was a lot bigger things happening in the space.
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  And the biggest piece that we saw changing was the way lenders and agents were working
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  together, the way those value propositions were happening and the MSAs and all of that
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  stuff kind of shaking out.
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  We looked at it and felt there was really an opportunity to build an enterprise user platform
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  that would both allow the organizations, the checks and balances and controls that they
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  need, and also really the sizzle to the end user, the Luna officers and the agents themselves.
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  So we've really evolved and iterated pretty rapidly, and it just spent a lot of time
• 4:55
  talking to our users, talking to our customers and finding out what they want, and so that's
• 5:00
  really led us to where we are today.
• 5:01
  Yeah, so let's talk about that, what they really want.
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  At the end of the day, on your blog, I'm reading, you have a headline that says real estate
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  agents want better co-marketing relationships.
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  So what does that mean?
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  What have you discovered?
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  What are they looking for?
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  Yeah, so I think a lot of agents are starting to realize that partnering with somebody that
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  is like-minded, that has the same level of customer service, that values the experience
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  given to the consumer.
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  I think agents are, in fact, we've seen it really become an important component of who
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  they end up co-marketing with as that customer experience.
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  The web and everything really reduces the margin for error that any professional has now,
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  and it's so easy for somebody to pull the plug and go work with somebody else, both on
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  the mortgage side and on the real estate side.
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  So really like-minded partnerships, it's not as much about the money, it's not as much
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  about lead flow back and forth.
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  Of course, it's still about doing more business, but ultimately we see more and more people
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  focused on making sure there's a really smooth and consistent customer experience.
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  Okay, so let's take this word co-marketing.
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  That has different meanings to different people.
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  Let's unpack that a little bit.
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  What in your eyes is co-marketing, ideally?
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  Yeah, so co-marketing is actually a pretty broad term.
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  People tend to utilize it just in line with real estate agents and loan officers, but it's
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  actually deeper than that.
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  Co-marketing can essentially be any two companies or two brands or two professionals that
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  are let or like-minded and are wanting to target the same consumer, the same customer.
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  That's on a basic level what co-marketing is, and then of course you get into how are
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  the regulations set up and what not.
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  There's certainly very, very specific rules around because the original state space is
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  heavily regulated.
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  You've got to follow some certain rules and I think that's where a lot of people get
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  confused.
• 7:14
  Right, and obviously when people mention co-marketing, sometimes hair stand up on the back of the
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  neck because they're like, oh gosh, respawn, CFPB cracking down and as you alluded to earlier,
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  the MSAs are kind of being torn up and thrown away.
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  I think maybe for those listeners, most of the loan officers, they're sitting there listening
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  to this and they're saying, okay, co-marketing, the whole in-house lender thing, I don't
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  know, maybe kind of going away, we don't really capture a lot of business 20% typically that
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  way.
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  So, from your perspective, right, total expert, what do you guys see as the best methods
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  for co-marketing and maybe some actual use case examples?
• 7:53
  Yeah, for sure.
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  Number one, we always recommend that you need to tailor the approach based on your personal
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  business and how, where you focus, for example, if you're focusing in a jumbo market versus
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  an FHA market, you're going to be working with certainly different types of agents with
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  different types of needs and goals and what they're doing.
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  So, first of all, understand exactly who you're working with and who you're targeting.
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  From a co-marketing perspective, as a loan officer, the smartest thing that you can do is
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  look to align yourself and your brand alongside listing agents and people that are listing
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  agents are controlling the inventory in the market.
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  That's truly the point of sale.
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  And so, you want to partner with those listing agents and some of the most effective things
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  that we see happening in the marketplace, we see people doing targeted neighborhood
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  mailings, really getting out in the community, doing events, mailing consistently, really
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  to certain areas.
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  But it's really that blend of getting out and getting visible in the communities.
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  And that's a combination of open houses, events, sponsorships of other community type things
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  that are going on, certainly maybe some advertising.
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  We've seen people do billboards together.
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  We've got a customer that actually, they split the cost of a billboard on a major area.
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  So it doesn't have to be a one size fits all.
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  It's really unique to the market that you're in and the type of agent and the type of
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  loan officer that you're talking about.
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  What I know for certain is that it always works best when the goals and really the things
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  are aligned accordingly.
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  So both people are aligned at what they're trying to accomplish.
• 9:45
  Yeah.
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  And do you have any advice for, like you said, one of the keys is making sure you have
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  like-minded, right, people, and sometimes that's a challenge with agents and fellows.
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  Any advice around that, like-minded, how do we ensure we've got the right partner on
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  the board?
• 10:01
  That's a great question.
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  So what we, in some of the coaching and training that we've had the opportunity to do with
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  some really high quality top-notch producers out there and working with them and finding
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  out what works.
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  And what we noticed that the end result, the experience that you have, is always directly
• 10:20
  related to the quality of questions that you're asking up front and on an ongoing basis.
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  And what I mean by that is when you're starting to go into a relationship, let's say they
• 10:31
  want you to do a Zillow buy or they want to do a mailing together, you have to be willing
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  as a loan officer to ask really good quality and specific questions.
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  And what are they- what are they hoping to gain out of the partnership?
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  Is this a long-term play for them or are they just looking to extract a few dollars from
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  you?
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  If it's just about extracting money, that's not a good relationship to go into.
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  You want people that are thinking long-term and thinking big.
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  And I think the only way that you can really accurately determine that is if you're asking
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  high quality questions and listening.
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  And not to put you on the spot, but do you have any examples of those high quality questions?
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  Yeah, for sure.
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  For sure.
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  So one of the things that we look at a lot is we have a lot of customers that utilize our
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  platform to track Zillow leads.
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  And one of the things that we'll ask them is, we always recommend the loan officer is
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  asking, how many loan officers are you partnering with?
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  Are you working with four or five different companies and trying to cover 90% of your spend?
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  Or are you doing things in a- what I consider to be in some of this personal opinion depending
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  on who you talk to?
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  But in a more appropriate way to where you're splitting things up and you're doing it
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  in a proportional basis, agents that are simply about covering every cent of expense they
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  can get by with, that's not a great partnership.
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  It just never works.
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  When they're trying to align with three or four different companies and extract and partner
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  on sharing costs on those, that many different people, it just convoluted and it never works.
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  So I always recommend asking that.
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  I always also recommend asking how many listings they carry.
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  We see a, if you take some of the biggest agents in the country and really the people that
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  do the most buy side transactions, there's always a correlation between the amount of
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  buy side transactions they do and the size of the listing inventory.
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  So I want to know upfront, if I'm going in and we're going to partner together, I want
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  to know immediately how many listings that agent or team, it doesn't have to be precise.
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  But on average, how many listings do you guys carry and if they don't have any listings,
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  I'm not probably wanting to invest in much money alongside that particular agent.
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  There's other things we can do.
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  We can do some open houses together.
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  We can set up some programs to really do, first home buyer, home buyer seminars, things
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  like that.
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  But you don't necessarily have to go out and invest money right away with an agent that doesn't
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  have listing inventory.
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  So to return on that investment, the likelihood of capturing buyers is just simply less.
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  Yeah, absolutely.
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  It's all about qualifying up front instead of hopping into bed too quickly, right?
• 13:17
  That's absolutely correct.
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  So I'm putting myself, obviously, loan officers are listening to this as I keep eluding
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  to.
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  And so I think knowing what total expert does from a 30,000-foot view level, maybe we could
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  drill down a little bit and talk about some of the specific channels online offline that
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  you can allow loan officers to co-market with with.
• 13:40
  Sure.
• 13:41
  Sure.
• 13:42
  Absolutely.
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  So we cover both digital and print media and a pretty broad level, actually.
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  We have a certain part of our platform.
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  We've got some patent pending technology inside of our platform that allows mortgage
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  company or our bank to determine what the pro-rata space is on any given marketing asset.
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  So they can upload a digital file and this could be of a billboard, this could be of a
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  newspaper ad, really anything that could be an print ad or really even a digital ad.
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  So if it's a landing page, if it's not a landing page that's hosted on our platform and
• 14:20
  it's hosted on another platform, for example, they just want to determine the pro-rata spend
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  or the pro-rata expense.
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  They can do that through systems.
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  So it really gives them a broad range of co-marketing that they can do.
• 14:34
  And let me just clarify something specifically regarding what I mean by pro-rata share.
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  People can co-market together, realtors and loan officers can co-market together, but
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  each person has to pay their proportional share.
• 14:48
  Also known as paying a pro-rata share of brand space.
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  And so our tool allows that.
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  What can be deployed directly through our system?
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  We can deploy flyers and postcards.
• 15:01
  We're connected to be able to fulfill direct mailings, neighborhood mailings, landing pages,
• 15:07
  single property websites.
• 15:09
  We've got an open house tool that's a sign-in form that works digitally for open houses.
• 15:16
  And then we've got some, we connect directly to Zellow or Zellotek partner.
• 15:22
  They're a great partner of ours, and we connect directly to them so that in segments
• 15:27
  of the country to where those leads are working and converting, and we always recommend
• 15:32
  agents and loan officers track that and spend their money with what's working and do less
• 15:37
  of what's not.
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  But we're connected directly to Zellow, so if they're buying leads together, they can collaborate
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  on those leads.
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  So we really cover a pretty broad spectrum.
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  And I would say we tend to lean towards the side of helping them with not just capturing
• 15:54
  and aggregating leads, because we can connect to any lead source they have, but also the
• 16:00
  branding side.
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  And being targeted in your community, getting that brand out there, if you have what we call
• 16:07
  a mega brand, if you work with a large lender that has a strong brand in your local community,
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  or even if you don't, and you want to partner with an agent that has a strong brand, that
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  can play into it as well.
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  But you want to leverage that brand and get recognition.
• 16:23
  Well, it could go either way, right?
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  If the loan officer is, let's say, doesn't have that well-known household name brand,
• 16:29
  but the realtor does, there's that intrinsic benefit there.
• 16:33
  Absolutely.
• 16:34
  So okay, so I'm looking at your site here, as you mentioned, you got an open house tool
• 16:39
  automation.
• 16:40
  One of the things I'll ask you is CRM.
• 16:41
  So automated open house lead capture and follow up directly from your CRM.
• 16:45
  So you guys have a CRM built in as well?
• 16:48
  Yeah, we do.
• 16:50
  We did not start out with trying to be a CRM company.
• 16:54
  And we built out some really basic lead management tools.
• 16:58
  And we have evolved and iterated to a point where we have several very large customers
• 17:06
  that are implementing our solution as an enterprise level CRM.
• 17:10
  It's very, very customizable, so they can configure it and add the workflows and things
• 17:16
  like that that they want and get the reporting structures they need.
• 17:20
  So we do have a full CRM out of the box, they can connect it to lead sources and collaborate
• 17:27
  and follow up and do drip campaigns and those types of things.
• 17:30
  But it's actually a lot more powerful than that because we can connect to really internal
• 17:34
  systems and things like that.
• 17:35
  So a question, I'm sure people are wondering, you've gotten obviously, what about integrating
• 17:39
  to third-party CRMs?
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  Is that also available?
• 17:42
  Yeah, it is actually.
• 17:44
  We will connect and pull data and push data into anybody's third-party sites that are
• 17:51
  out there as long as they allow it.
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  In fact, we've got customers that have their own proprietary CRMs and they want to just
• 17:58
  utilize our engine strictly for co-marketing, which is totally fine with us.
• 18:03
  We solve that need really well.
• 18:05
  And so all the co-marketing stuff originates, starts and gets captured inside of our system
• 18:09
  and dashboard.
• 18:10
  And that data can be moved right over into their system of record that they're used to
• 18:14
  using.
• 18:15
  So the other vendor, of course, has to be willing to connect VA API, but we've yet to
• 18:22
  find somebody that's not willing to do that.
• 18:24
  Yeah, very interesting.
• 18:25
  That's powerful to do it either way.
• 18:28
  Okay, so I like what I hear, right, I'm a more professional.
• 18:32
  I want to differentiate myself amongst the other LOs out there.
• 18:35
  I want to provide value to my agent relationships.
• 18:40
  How would I package this up and enter a conversation or kind of present?
• 18:46
  And I like the title Total Expert, right?
• 18:47
  I think that relates to what you're trying to equip them to do.
• 18:51
  But how would I essentially present this to a realtor?
• 18:56
  Yeah, so it, again, depends on the scenario and the situation.
• 19:01
  We are very much into thought leadership and teaching.
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  Our tool set really puts all the pieces and gives you a lot of flexibility.
• 19:09
  So what we always recommend, we've got a presentation or alongside of open houses and how to
• 19:18
  really increase your business just on open houses.
• 19:22
  And that's a lunch and learn type of presentation that a loan officer can do.
• 19:27
  And as a part of that presentation, they can get connected with a free co-marketing profile
• 19:32
  inside Total Expert and start working together.
• 19:36
  So it's just a great, that's a great strategy that we have followed is doing educational
• 19:41
  type things instead of trying to sell, quote unquote, sell them on something.
• 19:47
  We have a series of really three, four different webinars that we've done and we're working
• 19:53
  with some of the companies that are customers of ours, packaging those into 20, 30 minute
• 19:59
  lunch and learns to where if you've got a big franchise, real estate office, maybe 30,
• 20:05
  50, 100, 200 agents there.
• 20:07
  You call the broker and say, I'd like to teach a 20 or 30 minute course on open houses.
• 20:13
  And I tell you they love that because the more and more training their people can get
• 20:19
  without them having to put effort into it, it's just a win-win.
• 20:22
  So generally you'll get an audience and that tends to be one of the best strategies.
• 20:26
  If it's somebody that you know and you've been working with them, one of the things that
• 20:31
  I always like to suggest is saying, hey, you've got lots and lots of leads flowing kinds
• 20:38
  of different directions and you're not keeping them all in one place.
• 20:43
  Why don't we look at centralizing everything and actually helping you track what's working?
• 20:48
  Do more of what's working and less of what's not.
• 20:51
  So that's a conversation you can have with the top producer, somebody that you know.
• 20:54
  Yeah, it's funny.
• 20:56
  You mentioned that because before we started the recording, we were talking about a mutual
• 21:00
  loan officer we have in common, Michael Stellar out of Colorado.
• 21:03
  Yeah.
• 21:04
  And one of the things I do, you may or may not be aware of, is actually do some done-for-you-power
• 21:10
  points for loan officers and Michael had mentioned to me, hey Jeff, you need to put one together
• 21:14
  on database marketing that he can teach a lunch and learn to agents.
• 21:17
  And what that made me think of what you just said right there is, you know, you got leads
• 21:20
  all over the place and that seems to be one of the recurring themes.
• 21:24
  L.O.'s are giving feedback on is that, look, these agents aren't that great at managing
• 21:29
  their data.
• 21:30
  They're terrible at it.
• 21:31
  I was for a long time and had a lot of successes in agent, but I was really terrible at that
• 21:38
  part of the process and we could have been a lot more profitable.
• 21:42
  Had we earlier in my career, had we had systems and became organized and the hardest part
• 21:48
  is just deciding to do something and getting it set up.
• 21:53
  We handle a lot of that for the agents when they start working together and they're going
• 21:58
  to put everything in our system, we'll actually work with them and getting all their data
• 22:02
  in one place.
• 22:03
  It just helps if you can simplify one of the most powerful things you can do in our industry.
• 22:09
  Both real estate and mortgage side is simplifying focus and bringing all your leads into one
• 22:14
  place allows you to do that.
• 22:16
  Well, I think this is interesting because I'm definitely one who preaches adding value
• 22:22
  and, as you said, educating and teaching and thought leadership.
• 22:27
  Not only are you becoming a thought leader by aligning yourself with total expert as a loan
• 22:31
  officer because you can do some of those things, but you're actually now able to deliver
• 22:36
  on that, which I think has been the struggle for many loan officers is they're like, yeah,
• 22:40
  that's great to get up there and talk about lead management and increasing your digital
• 22:44
  conversion and all that, but how am I going to actually deliver the next step?
• 22:48
  That's the action.
• 22:49
  Yeah.
• 22:50
  And that's where you got you are that next step.
• 22:52
  That's right.
• 22:53
  That's right.
• 22:54
  Because it sounds to me, there's like you alluded to a few different things, single property
• 22:57
  websites, open house tools.
• 23:00
  You do anything with social media to capture and convert leads there?
• 23:03
  Did I lose you?
• 23:07
  Some in a big way over the next six months, but today we certainly do some things on social,
• 23:14
  all of our single property sites are social ready.
• 23:18
  You can just click the social icon and it'll post directly into LinkedIn, Twitter and
• 23:23
  whatnot.
• 23:25
  If they do a website with us, if the agent does their website through us, then we connect
• 23:32
  their blog directly to their social channels and that will auto post, they can auto post
• 23:38
  their blog post simultaneously onto their social outlets.
• 23:43
  So we're integrated with a couple of different things there on social.
• 23:46
  Wow.
• 23:47
  Very cool.
• 23:48
  All right.
• 23:49
  So we didn't talk about, and you know, you guys obviously are well established professional
• 23:54
  company.
• 23:55
  You've already addressed the compliance question, but it sounds like from the platform
• 23:59
  management, like you mentioned, the pro rata, right, making sure that people are paying
• 24:03
  their equal share.
• 24:04
  Is that how you address any compliance concerns?
• 24:07
  So the compliance side, we don't dictate policies and procedures for mortgage companies in
• 24:14
  terms of what they need to do, what we do, wow, we provide them a very flexible framework
• 24:21
  so that they can allow co marketing to happen at scale and enforce their policies, procedures,
• 24:28
  approval flows, and those types of things.
• 24:31
  The reason most co marketing doesn't happen today inside some of the most conservative
• 24:36
  lenders is it's just really unattainable to think that they could possibly track all
• 24:42
  the moving parts.
• 24:44
  What we do is we bring all that together and allow them to do it at scale.
• 24:48
  So if they allow for say, mailings to happen, they can do the approval request, the work flows,
• 24:56
  the documented approval processes, and then document and track the payments for each side.
• 25:02
  So the agent paid their fair share, the loan officer paid their fair share, and they've
• 25:07
  got a digital recording of that transaction.
• 25:10
  So we store all of the documentation in the cloud forum so they have enterprise reporting.
• 25:15
  Wow.
• 25:16
  What are you typically seeing in terms of who your customers are on the mortgage side?
• 25:20
  Is it individual LOs?
• 25:22
  Is it companies?
• 25:23
  Yeah, mostly today we're dealing with companies either at a branch level and up.
• 25:29
  We do have a few individual loan officers depending on which configuration they're looking
• 25:34
  for.
• 25:36
  But a lot of the reporting and the integration stuff that really makes us incredibly valuable
• 25:43
  is really done at the branch level and higher.
• 25:46
  And a lot of the deals we're working on right now is at the enterprise level.
• 25:51
  So we're going in at corporate and helping them put in play their entire co-marketing strategy.
• 25:58
  They've got an idea of what they want to do.
• 26:01
  Where does the engine that executes it?
• 26:02
  So we certainly have individual loan officers that utilize our product and whatnot, but
• 26:07
  I would tell you that the majority of what we do is working with the brands at a higher
• 26:12
  level.
• 26:13
  And what do you see typically happens once they structure that for their individual loan
• 26:17
  officers?
• 26:18
  Is that something that the company, I'm sure it varies, but typically it's a company
• 26:21
  kind of footing the bill.
• 26:22
  Are they sharing goods?
• 26:24
  Yeah, I think it depends on the company.
• 26:27
  We see both.
• 26:28
  We have companies that charge the loan officers some kind of a tech fee.
• 26:33
  Obviously, we do volume-based pricing, so just like every other software company, so
• 26:38
  the more seats that you buy, the pricing tends to go down.
• 26:43
  And so we have companies that we see that charge the tech fee and collect that from the
• 26:49
  loan officers.
• 26:50
  And then we have companies that I'm guessing they simply pay for it and those loan officers
• 26:57
  maybe don't make as much money as they do it.
• 27:00
  Some other companies, but they get a lot more tools paid for for them.
• 27:04
  I'm not familiar with how the compensation rules work in the mortgage side, but we do
• 27:08
  see both.
• 27:09
  Sure.
• 27:10
  Well, and it's a great point when it comes to recruiting standpoint, give up a few basis
• 27:14
  points, but help me be more successful, right?
• 27:17
  Yeah.
• 27:18
  A hundred percent agree with that.
• 27:19
  And what's amazing to me is some of the companies that we walk into and I don't pay much,
• 27:24
  I don't get into the weeds on this too much, but you certainly hear things and you hear
• 27:28
  well, they're paying X, which is higher than anybody else in the market.
• 27:32
  And then what we realize is that the loan officers are really running their businesses in
• 27:38
  a chaotic and disorganized way because they're not utilizing any tools and systems because
• 27:44
  they just don't want to pay for it, right?
• 27:47
  So you end up with sort of a mess versus implementing strategy.
• 27:54
  What we see is really game changing for mortgage companies is when they're providing a marketing
• 28:00
  coordinator type support function for those loan officers.
• 28:05
  So keep the loan officers out doing what they do best, which is face to face with their
• 28:10
  agents, closing business, and then provide that administrative support at a regional branch
• 28:16
  division level.
• 28:17
  Right.
• 28:18
  Absolutely.
• 28:19
  Just to equip them with the right tools, right?
• 28:20
  Yeah.
• 28:21
  Exactly.
• 28:22
  So you had a recent announcement on your blog, an integration partnership with leading video
• 28:27
  messaging app bomb bomb.
• 28:29
  That's right.
• 28:30
  Yeah.
• 28:31
  Congrats.
• 28:32
  Thank you.
• 28:33
  You're really excited about that.
• 28:34
  It's a great tool.
• 28:35
  And can you tell me a little bit about how your users are going to be using that?
• 28:39
  Sure.
• 28:40
  Inside our platform, like I mentioned, people can connect our engine to Zillow leads or any
• 28:48
  other lead source that's out there.
• 28:50
  And so once those leads flow into our platform, loan officers and agents can send an email
• 28:57
  directly from our system, both automated emails as well as individual emails and messages
• 29:03
  from our system direct.
• 29:05
  And then it catalogs all the correspondence for that particular leader contact.
• 29:10
  And so bomb bomb, we built it into our product.
• 29:13
  So they can actually record a quick video message.
• 29:16
  If you think about how powerful it is to be face to face with a consumer, you know, if
• 29:21
  you're a loan officer and you know, they're going to shop you on rate really hard online.
• 29:27
  If you can give them a video and say, Hey, I just want you to know, I'm going to be here
• 29:31
  every step of the way, making sure that we get you to the closing table in a smooth,
• 29:37
  smooth as possible.
• 29:39
  This is just a purely shopping on rate, you're not going to have that personal attention.
• 29:44
  So it really personalizes and humanizes the experience.
• 29:47
  And so video for us, our philosophy as a software company is really integrating with what
• 29:55
  we consider to be best in class products, best in class features.
• 30:00
  And bomb bomb clearly was at the top of that list for video.
• 30:03
  So yeah.
• 30:04
  So it's the full functionality of bomb bomb, meaning you can actually, as you mentioned,
• 30:08
  made it emails, you can actually schedule your series of personalized videos to go out
• 30:12
  at a specific cadence using your platform.
• 30:15
  That's right.
• 30:16
  And so that's just bundled into your platform, right?
• 30:19
  That's right.
• 30:20
  Yeah.
• 30:21
  It's built right in now.
• 30:22
  The platform and you connect via, they have a key that you type in.
• 30:25
  It's an API key that you type in inside their bomb bomb account.
• 30:30
  We have it under our integration settings.
• 30:32
  They just type it in and it connects the accounts.
• 30:34
  Yeah.
• 30:35
  Listen, in terms of a takeaway here, something that I'm on your website, I'm looking at some
• 30:39
  of the resources you have, and I haven't talked to you about this before.
• 30:43
  But I know there's a daily action plan on there to grow your business as a free lender
• 30:48
  download.
• 30:49
  I wanted to, if you're okay with that, first of all, put the link to that in the show notes
• 30:53
  for anybody.
• 30:54
  But anything you want to highlight in terms of what they would learn or get when they
• 30:58
  download that?
• 30:59
  Yeah.
• 31:00
  So I'm actually not sure which version we have about our site and how to be honest with
• 31:05
  you.
• 31:06
  But I would tell you that what we've done with a lot of the content, we've got a lot
• 31:09
  of content both on our site.
• 31:13
  We have a lot of content on slideshare.
• 31:15
  Okay.
• 31:16
  We link them there.
• 31:17
  So we've got a lot of presentations there.
• 31:19
  And then we've got some of our webinars and things like that on YouTube.
• 31:22
  We have a lot of content around best practices.
• 31:25
  And what we try to do is we try to work with the very best people that we can find that
• 31:32
  are succeeding at a high level and learn from them what's working and making sure they
• 31:38
  of course are okay with us sharing best practices.
• 31:41
  And we found the more successful the person is, the more willing and actually happy to
• 31:48
  share they are.
• 31:49
  Right.
• 31:50
  You know, it's the people that don't do much business that are sort of have that scarcity
• 31:54
  mindset that don't want to talk about what they're doing.
• 31:56
  But the biggest top producers are always really loving to talk about it.
• 32:00
  So we put a lot of that content out there and people we don't ask anything for it.
• 32:06
  We just give it all away.
• 32:07
  Well, yeah.
• 32:08
  That's a great way to build trust with your audience.
• 32:12
  So I'll definitely put a link to that in the show notes.
• 32:16
  That is totalexpertink.com slash lender, dash action, dash plan, but it'll be in the
• 32:22
  show notes there.
• 32:23
  All right.
• 32:24
  So closing out, lots of great stuff happening there for the platform.
• 32:27
  We've said it bomb bomb.
• 32:28
  What's on the horizon for you guys as far as next?
• 32:32
  We've got just a fantastic roadmap for our platform and we could probably do a whole
• 32:38
  other show.
• 32:39
  But I'll give you a couple of tidbits.
• 32:43
  We've got a lot of the the pieces to provide that consumer experience.
• 32:49
  We've got a front end consumer portal that is in beta testing right now that will will
• 32:55
  allow the consumer to collaborate with the loan apps for the agent, the total company
• 33:01
  all in one place.
• 33:02
  So that's a big part of one of our releases.
• 33:04
  And we are always iterating the platform for ease of use and functionality.
• 33:12
  We just did.
• 33:14
  We completed.
• 33:15
  We haven't released it yet, but we completed integration with Microsoft 365.
• 33:21
  We actually released part of our Google integration.
• 33:25
  So we integrated with Gmail, Google Calendar and part of that part of the first part of
• 33:29
  that release has already been taken live.
• 33:32
  So those are some things that we've got in the immediate future.
• 33:36
  And then we're also looking at doing probably box before the end of the year as an integration.
• 33:43
  And then we've got a list of just several other best in class products that we're moving
• 33:48
  quickly.
• 33:49
  So.
• 33:50
  Good.
• 33:51
  Lots of stuff happening there.
• 33:52
  Yeah.
• 33:53
  Sure.
• 33:54
  We can talk about like the title says, total expert all summed up in one solution to really.
• 34:00
  And I think this is what might take away from this is like we alluded to is it's great
• 34:05
  you want to add value to agents, you want to become that co-marketing partner.
• 34:09
  But up until total expert, it's been a very fragmented kind of experience and pretty difficult
• 34:14
  to present the total solution.
• 34:16
  But seems like you guys have got it all together.
• 34:18
  Well, thank you.
• 34:19
  I appreciate the feedback and I will tell you this.
• 34:22
  It's been a journey and we're just getting started.
• 34:25
  So we are we're having fun and we've got just a fantastic team, a great group of investors,
• 34:30
  which has really allowed us to hire some of the very, very brightest people.
• 34:35
  And that's that's makes it has made the difference for sure.
• 34:38
  Absolutely.
• 34:39
  So how if people want to connect with you personally and how and where would they do
• 34:42
  that online?
• 34:43
  Yeah.
• 34:44
  Email is the best way for for people to connect with me directly.
• 34:47
  Joe at totalexpertink.com is my direct personal email and I make it a point to answer generally
• 34:56
  almost every email that comes in I answer personally.
• 35:00
  So even if it takes me a couple of days, I generally will always get to it.
• 35:05
  So yeah, feel free.
• 35:06
  Anybody that's listening to to reach out to me personally.
• 35:09
  Love to hear about what you're doing in your local markets and we also love suggestions.
• 35:14
  You know, on things that are missing, missing from the industry and we've actually been
• 35:18
  able to really improve our product just by listening to the people in the trenches.
• 35:22
  So absolutely.
• 35:23
  And you do have a lot of great content out there, whether it's clear slide, you know,
• 35:27
  on Twitter, people can follow you at totalexpertink.
• 35:30
  Obviously, your website is totalexpertink.com, correct?
• 35:36
  That's right.
• 35:37
  Yeah.
• 35:38
  Yeah.
• 35:39
  So check it out.
• 35:40
  Lots of great content.
• 35:41
  Hillmarketing tips for loan officers.
• 35:44
  So I would encourage anybody listening to this.
• 35:46
  You want to better understand how to rise above the noise of track agents and, you know,
• 35:50
  if you're an individual loan officer, hey, share this podcast with your manager, right?
• 35:55
  Your production manager, whatever it is to get them, you know, engage with Joe and the
• 35:58
  team over there to learn more about totalexpert because, you know, today it's all about who
• 36:04
  has got the better mouse trap, if you will, the more value to add to those agent relationships.
• 36:09
  You know, we don't have to go on in on Joe.
• 36:10
  You already know the talk rack is not about rates, services and donuts and all that.
• 36:14
  That's a minimum.
• 36:15
  That's the men.
• 36:16
  That's table stakes.
• 36:17
  Exactly.
• 36:18
  So you really got to be, hey, it's funny, years ago, I used to work with a guy named Walter
• 36:23
  Sanford was a top realtor in the country back then.
• 36:25
  One house a day, he sold every day for like 16 years straight.
• 36:29
  And, you know, it came back to this is that he chose to work with and this is, you know,
• 36:34
  from top producing agents, believe it or not, I know some loan officers questioned this
• 36:38
  belief.
• 36:39
  It's like, well, what value am I going to add to an agent or, you know, they don't need
• 36:42
  help with lead gender or whatever.
• 36:44
  And the point is, is that, you know, first of all, that's not true and don't make any
• 36:47
  assumptions like you had shared with Joe, you were an agent before, even top agents still
• 36:52
  struggle with certain areas of their business.
• 36:54
  And the real big headline there is, look, if you're not adding value, you really need to
• 36:59
  become a true business partner is what I'm getting at.
• 37:01
  That's what Walter Sanford always taught me was like, you know, become a true business
• 37:04
  partner.
• 37:05
  A team, an actual member of their team, not a vendor, right, but an actual member of
• 37:10
  their team.
• 37:11
  Precisely.
• 37:12
  Show up.
• 37:13
  Show up.
• 37:14
  Be, get out in the offices and the open houses and be a member of the team.
• 37:21
  That's a great way to say it.
• 37:22
  Yeah.
• 37:23
  And, you know, with a platform like Total Expert, you now have a really solid, you know,
• 37:28
  value proposition that you can bank on, right?
• 37:32
  You can really get behind not, you know, kind of in a questionable, little off in the
• 37:36
  dark, stand alone, kind of fun, yeah, we're not a gimmick, right?
• 37:39
  There were a lot of tools and software out there that's just some, you know, one feature
• 37:44
  and it's a gimmick, we believe in there's not a one size fits all.
• 37:48
  You've got to have a flexible platform and everybody has different needs at different
• 37:52
  points of their career.
• 37:54
  And so what we've found from the loan answers that we talk with is they can pretty much
• 37:59
  walk into any real estate company, any real estate office and add value to the relationship
• 38:05
  in a, of course, a compliant way based on the flexibility of our system.
• 38:10
  Yeah.
• 38:11
  No doubt about it.
• 38:12
  I would feel very proud to walk in there waving the Total Expert flag.
• 38:17
  We thank you for that and really appreciate the feedback.
• 38:20
  Yeah.
• 38:21
  Our pleasure.
• 38:22
  So again, everybody, thank you for listening.
• 38:23
  If you like today's episode, make sure you subscribe to it on iTunes.
• 38:27
  You don't want to miss another one and leave your comments below.
• 38:30
  Make sure you reach out to Joe, we'll put all the links and resources in the show notes
• 38:35
  as I said.
• 38:36
  And thank you very much for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
• 38:39
  This has been your host, Jeff Zimffer.
• 38:42
  We will see you on the next one.
• 38:44
  Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
• 38:56
  On more truth in Mortgage Marketing, get more free training and resources at MortgageMarketingInstitute.com.
• 39:03
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