Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Building The 'Billion Dollar Banker' Brand

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Building The 'Billion Dollar Banker' Brand · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
What's up, my friend? Welcome to the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. I am your host,
0:15
Jeff Zimffer. Hey, this is the place where mortgage professionals get smarter, faster
0:20
insight strategies and success stories to fuel your growth. In today's episode, we're
0:26
talking with Nicole Perone, aka the billion dollar banker. Nicole has over 15 years experience
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in the mortgage industry, including leading the number one Wells Fargo team in the country.
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What I love about our conversation today with Nicole is she brings a fresh perspective
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and powerful insights if you're looking to level up your game. I want you to listen
0:46
for three key takeaways and more, but these three ones are a highlight of our conversation
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from today. Number one, we're talking about diversification. Nicole emphasizes the need
0:55
for you to offer a wide variety of products and diversify your referral sources, especially
1:02
in this changing market. We're also talking about embracing the digital shift. What's the
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origin story behind the billion dollar banker brand? What is that all about? What's it mean?
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How has it impacted her business? From doing Zoom consultations to Instagram connections
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that drive relationships and referrals, Nicole reveals how she's using social selling
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to reach clients and partners nationwide. And she urges you the listener to build your
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online brand now before it's too late. And then lastly, speaking to personal brand, that's
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what we unpack a lot. Nicole shares her journey in creating the billion dollar banker brand
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why it's critical for success for you to have a brand in today's competitive marketplace.
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Not only will it open doors, but it'll help create lasting relationships, new business
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opportunities and conversations, just like it did for Nicole and I today. So if you enjoy
1:46
this episode, two requests. Number one, share it with somebody. Number two, if you're enjoying
1:51
the content, please leave us a review. There is a link down below in the description that
1:55
says rate this podcast, leave us a review, something like that. Simply tap on it and you'll
2:00
be taken to a page where we can leave us a review. And if you do leave a review, go over
2:04
to my Instagram, right? And just DM me and let me know that you left a review. I'll
2:09
look it up and then I'll give you a free gift for leaving us a review. It's a surprise
2:13
gift just for that. So I appreciate you tuning in guys. You're going to enjoy this episode
2:18
without further ado. Let's get into this week's show. Nicole, welcome to the show. Thank
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you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, it's great to connect with you.
2:27
I appreciate you reaching out on LinkedIn. That's partly what's so cool on LinkedIn. Sorry,
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Instagram. I've just been following you like crazy. So in this morning, I was feverishly
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on LinkedIn doing some messaging. But that's what's cool about today's world, right? Is
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we can really make a connection with anybody anywhere. And you know, we're reachable.
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So that's what brought you here today, where you are in the world. Actually, we haven't
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even covered that yet. I know, right? You're in New York, right? New Jersey. Close
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to the right. We're all right. All right. Across the bridge. That's it. I'm here in
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Vegas. So whenever you're in Vegas, right, we can show you the off strip. We're at where
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to go. That's the non touristy places. There you go. That's amazing. Yeah. So what do
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you want to share for the listeners? You know, obviously they heard the intro that I did.
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But what would you like to personally? So obviously, this is loan officers listening.
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You know, who is Nicole? What is she all about? What is she trying to do in the world right
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now? That's a great question. So, you know, I've been in the mortgage industry for a little
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over 15 years started in the broker world and then spent 13 years in my career at Web
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Wells Fargo where I rose the ranks. I, you know, before I left there, I was running the
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number one team in the country for Wells Fargo in Manhattan and private mortgage. It
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was incredible journey there. Loved my time. Loved the people. But decided to make a change
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into the correspondent side of the business where, you know, about 80% of the overall mortgage
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market is in the broker correspondent side. When you look at the 160 something thousand,
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I think was the last figure loan officers across the country, the banks, these big banks
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like the TDs, the Bank of America, the Wells Fargo, the Chases, they have about 300 retail
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loan officers each, ish around the country. So you look at the percentage of people that
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are working in the bank space and the percentage of people that are working as loan officers
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on the broker correspondent side. And it's just very clear where the direction of the market
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is going. So I'm super passionate about following the puck. I'm a leader in this business,
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been a leader for a while. I'm a producer as well. So, you know, I'm in the game with my
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team. But I came, I came over to cross country after visiting Cleveland, Ohio, Ron Lenhard
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RCEO is absolutely phenomenal, super impressive, amazing culture, progressive environment. And
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I'm looking to help change loan officers lives. I'm hoping to, I'm hoping to help them
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increase their business by being with the number one retail distributed mortgage lender
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in the country. That's my main goal. And now I'm getting my message out to people across
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the country, across all platforms, about everything else I do, about all the people I'm
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connected with. And I'm hoping that it just inspires motivates and spreads, spreads some,
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some excitement across the internet about what people can achieve. And so on both sides
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of the lane, I love seeing people achieve what's, what their full potential is in general
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in life. I think that's a big passion of mine. And I like to kind of lead the front in
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that, in that sense. Yeah, you're definitely leading out there with some content and media.
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But we're going to cover that in today's conversation for sure, building a personal brand.
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We're going to talk about the, uh, the billion dollar banker, right? Is that, is that the
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name? That's the name? Yeah, the billion dollar banker. Yeah. We're going to talk about
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that. Uh, well, it's definitely eye catching. It makes me curious. I want to unpack that
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in a moment. Um, but, but first, let me go back to something you said, uh, which is you
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made a change based on where you saw the industry heading. Um, what do you mean by that?
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Where do you think why was behind that? I think that, you know, we saw historic time,
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you know, in our industry that just passed, right? With where rates went and then what
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happened after in the pandemic? And you saw a lot of banks make decisions, uh, specifically
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in the portfolio space, uh, that was, that was historic, right? The banks were letting
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go of loan officers across the country simply because they had too much portfolio business
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and it wasn't profitable. And so banks were worried about their deposits. They needed
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to get, you know, cash liquid. They needed to really beef up the, the books. And what
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you started to see as loan officers had to really become, uh, kind of like financial
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advisors, they had to get money and they had to bring the money over to the bank in
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order to really land at, at favorable rates. And it became this very competitive kind
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of commoditized world where we weren't offering a ton of products. We weren't, we weren't
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there to help as many customers as we can. We weren't there to serve the real, real
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state community. We're really there as an ancillary addition to the, to the, uh, bank, right?
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To the wealth platform. And so I think Wells Fargo specifically for a long time led the
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way in being like a mortgage company, uh, not just a bank, but I think, uh, I think
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we're almost done with, with, with mortgage companies that are inside of banks, you
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know, to work for a, a private company, uh, that only does mortgages. It's just, it's
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very refreshing. And so, you know, you just, the numbers don't lie, right? Where the business
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is going doesn't lie. There's, there's less of it out there. There's less of us out
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there. But right now, what you need is, you need the ability to build a brand because
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I think five years from now, you're going to regret if you didn't, you need the ability
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to be online and be digital. And, and you, you have to have a wide variety of products
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to serve all kinds of customers when the, when the, when the opportunity contracts, what
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you offer has to expand. Oh, that's interesting. Take when the opportunity contracts, what
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you offer has to expand. Yeah, because you get 10 referrals. You don't want to say, oh,
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I can't do FHA down to a 600 or I can't do renovation or I can't do home equity lines
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or credit or I actually, I can't do that, you know, that, that program with the down payment
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assistance for first time home buyers. I mean, you're turning away client after client after
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client in this environment for loan officers. I mean, you can't succeed that way. You just
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can't. So what you're saying is you need a large report fully of solutions to be able
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to offer? Exactly. You got to be able to help as many customers that hit your desk because
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there's less and less customers coming our way now with where the market is today.
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You know, and also I think from a consumer perspective, when you know, you want to know when you
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land on someone's desk that they're able to really tailor your needs to, to what's available,
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not just what they have. All right, let me ask this question here. I've seen some people talk
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about concentration or, or specialization in a product type. And one example of that would be,
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you know, becoming a, just, it sounds funny for me to say this, but becoming a conventional
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loan specialist, right? And what? So to unpack that a little bit, what I mean, like if it was
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this loan officer who did this scenario, and they looked at like the percentage of loans that
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they closed, what were they, right? How many were outside of the box, FHA versus conventional?
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What they found anyway, bottom line is like, Hey, 80% 90% of my business falls into this bucket
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conventional. And me getting muddy down in the waters of all these, you know, kind of one-offs
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and FHA and DPA and all this kind of stuff really negatively impacts my operational efficiencies
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and ability to scale. And wondering how you would feel about that based on like, you know,
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you think diversity of product line makes sense? Yeah, that's a great question. And I can,
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I can really understand why that loan officer would, would think that way because the reality is
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is 80% of the, you know, if you drew a pie, 80% of the market is, is agency business. I think
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though, you know, when you're competing, especially with referral partners, you know, sometimes,
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if everybody's walking in saying, I do conventional loans, it's like, okay, well, what's the difference
10:05
between you and somebody else? So then that person in particular would really need to differentiate
10:10
themselves from a service level perspective in a pretty strong way because the reality is,
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if I'm walking through the door and I'm talking about Renault and all these other things that I do,
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I think I might have the opportunity to brand myself as someone that can do all types of lending,
10:25
which I personally believe in, in, in strong diversification of products. I don't think anyone should
10:32
be the specialist of anything. I've just seen too many time. I mean, I ran one of the most,
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one of the biggest branches for Wells Fargo in Manhattan and private mortgage. And these guys
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in the height of 2021, we're doing $500 million, $400 million a year in business, five, six assistants.
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I mean, they're the best of the best that, you know, working with clients that are really tough,
10:54
really difficult customers and big pipelines. And the reality is, as I watch that business go from
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like the most wanted thing, everybody wanted to write two, three, four million dollar loans to being
11:04
something that like, oh my gosh, now Manhattan is 70% cash. Now there's a first republic and now there's,
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you know, all these other banks stepping on the scene, like crushing us in rate, we can't compete.
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It's impossible. Somebody else is offering a crazy asset under management discount and like,
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we can't eat that. You know, they already have their assets with Chase. They have their assets.
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So it became very commoditized. And then those wealthy clients, they pay cash one times times
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get hard. So 70% cash in Manhattan overnight. So I just think that I've seen renovation specialists
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that used to work for companies that that that's all they did was renovation. That was it. They,
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they would get all the referral business from all the other loan officers that didn't do it.
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And it looked good at the time, but I saw that business completely go away. You know what,
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renovations not profitable anymore. We're going to get rid of that product. I've seen reverse go away.
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So I think history teaches us some lessons. And one of the things it teaches us is like, you have
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to be ready to pivot quick and you have to be very agile in this business. I even think I'll go
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further geographical diversity is really important too. Like I don't think loan officers can make
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living just in one county in their state anymore at the level that they want to, right? Like if
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you really want to get out there, I think you got to be in Florida, you got to be in California,
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you got to be New York, New Jersey, a loan officer that's just licensed in New Jersey running around
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one county. It doesn't make any sense to me anymore in this market. You don't think there's enough
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business in one zone backyard, right? Diamonds under your feet. Yeah, I mean, well, I think it depends
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on what you're what you're what your standards are yourself, how much you really want to achieve. Yeah,
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if you might think the 50% of loan officers, I think you're doing under $15 million a year. If
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that's where you want to be, there you go. That's the real, that's real point. Like I mean,
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if you want to do $100 million, right? Yeah, can you pull that out of your backyard? I think it
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depends on your backyard. You know, like Oklahoma might not be able to hit a hundred million.
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No, probably not. Probably not. And look, in this world, like, look, you're in you're in Vegas,
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I'm in New Jersey. We don't even know, we don't even know each other today. We're getting to know each
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other. Like you could be a realtor. I could have reached out to you as a realtor on on Instagram and
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said, Hey, why don't we connect? Why don't we collaborate? We could have this Zoom call. We could have
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an amazing conversation and me and you could do business together. And now now I've expanded now
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if Hurricane Sandy hits New Jersey, or if I'm a loan officer in Tampa or Clearwater and all my
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inventory is gone. And I can't land. And it's just a mashup where there's a major snow storm or
13:32
a pandemic in the middle of Manhattan. Now I can go plug into my Florida contacts or my Nevada
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contacts. And I could start upping that business and opportunity because I because I've expanded.
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I've diversified. I would agree. Over the years that I've been in the business, I've seen an
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increased number of loan officers diversify states and get licensed in multiple states. You know,
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there's there's two I know of top of mind. One, one, uh, Leslie O'Neill shout out, what's up Leslie?
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If you're listening, I think she's got licenses in six states. Shout out to Leslie.
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Dave Marzanki, if you're listening, California to Florida boy, these license didn't both states.
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Others that I can't just remember right now, but I'm definitely seeing it happen. So what you're
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saying is true. Um, the diversification and reaching into other states because what you reference
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there is the migration we're seeing, right? I left California six seven years ago and moved here to
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Vegas. Um, lots of other people are doing that, right? To other places. So yeah. And the other
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thing too, second homes, yeah, second homes, I'm looking for one right now and for anybody who's
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licensed in Idaho, you know, hit me up. But, uh, um, nobody said nobody. Hello, right? Exactly.
14:39
Here come the DMs, man. Um, yeah, exactly. This dovetails back into what you mentioned earlier,
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which is brand. And in this new world and post COVID, what we came out of, you know, one of the
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positives if that, you know, of that, if you will, is what we're doing right now is we're communicating
14:55
remotely the Zoom, right? And the ability to actually facilitate transactions,
15:01
their I say relationships remotely, right? Any, any experience you want to share with that of how
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that's evolved for you? Yeah. Absolutely. I, I see loan officers today that aren't as engaged as
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they should be on social platforms as a way to generate new relationships and meet new people.
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And I call it social selling. Uh, I think it's the new way to, you know, the loan officers that
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started back in the day, some of them are still doing this, driving around once a week and stopping
15:34
over at real estate offices. Well, instead of doing that, like just get online and start reaching
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out to people that you want to try to do business with and stay connected with them there.
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I think, you know, I just give you a couple great examples through, through hosting a podcast.
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And by the way, this could be done through any forum you decide to, if you decide to do video on
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something completely different. Maybe it's a hobby. Maybe it's products, but met an incredible guy,
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Eric Aramita, on Love It or Listed, HGTV, uh, amazing show. He did 10 seasons. We connected, uh, on
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Instagram. Uh, he saw, he saw the podcast. He loved it. We connected and he came onto the show.
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Eric has 180,000 followers. He's a licensed New York New Jersey realtor, super connected. Um,
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have a deal with him right now today. I would never have known him if it wasn't for, um,
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connecting on Instagram. So I think that, you know, it just, the possibilities are really endless
16:28
for branding yourself. It's free on marketing yourself online. It's free. Connecting with people is
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free. You have to spend any money on gas. You don't have to spend any money on donuts. You got to
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evolve in the way that you're doing business and, uh, you know, like, speaking of technology and
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utilizing it, even with customers, right? We just got done with a sales rally in Austin. One of the
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things I love about cross country is it's a true sales culture. And with all due respect to
16:52
companies I've been at before, uh, you can, you can become a lazy seller, you know? Here's my rate.
16:59
Here's my cost. My assistant's going to email it to you and let me know what you'd like to do,
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where I grew up in a world where you spent a lot of time on rapport before you started talking
17:10
about interest rates. You spent a lot of time on education before that and you spent a lot of time
17:15
face to face before you really got into those discussions. And so I think that, uh, we've taken
17:20
this culture back to a consultative sales approach where in sales, sometimes people think it's a dirty
17:26
word. It's an amazing word. Selling when you sell the right ways about discovering someone's needs.
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It's about helping them understand things. It's about navigating them through a process. It's about
17:35
walking them through so they make the best decision for themselves. It's not about just giving
17:40
them what they think they, you know, they want like, oh, okay, yeah, the rate today is X and then
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three weeks go by and they still haven't locked in and they don't even have a contract and
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they're working with someone else because that day the rate was, was why and it was better.
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So meeting with customers over Zoom is something that I think I would recommend people to do. It's,
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it's a strong way to build rapport. You can share insights with one another. You can show them
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around your screen. You got to talk about your history in the business. What you do, your service,
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your goals before you get into anything associated with price or rate, you have to spend time there.
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So leverage technology to do Zoom, to create relationships, to deepen the ones that you have.
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This is like to me, this is like a lunch. I don't do lunch appointments anymore. I do podcasts,
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right? I do Zoom calls. I mean, sometimes I'll go to networking events and things like that.
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I'm still very involved in that stuff, but I'm not, I'm not sitting down for a two hour lunch
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in the middle of the day for $150 anymore. Yeah, and the people you want to work with,
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they don't have time to do that either until you get to that stage where it's appropriate to,
18:42
all right, let's dig in, right? Let's break bread and all that. Exactly. Are you integrating
18:47
this, you know, Zoom or whatever experience into your, or you recommending or coaching loan
18:52
officers that they integrate Zoom into kind of like that, you know, initial discovery process?
18:58
Yeah, 100%. We speak about it a lot here, and it's a, it's a huge part of what we do.
19:04
There's some people that their whole day is just filled with zooms because that's every call,
19:09
whether it's a pre-approval, it's like, hey, you know, Jeff, let's hop on a quick Zoom call.
19:14
When you have some time to be in front of a camera, let's connect. I want to tell you about me,
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who I am, what we do here. I want to learn about you. You have any take on, on how that?
19:23
There's something. Yeah. Not that I'm just curious, like, do you have any, you know, not,
19:28
not official feedback or data from the streets? I mean, because I've definitely floated,
19:33
and there's other L.O.s out there, you know, who like, shout out Denise Donahue, right? Now,
19:37
the shout out, like she does that a lot with her process. The consumer adoption of that,
19:43
any, any quick take on that. It's consumers that will willingness to get on, is it?
19:48
Yeah, I would say it's like a super normal thing. I think we have had more discomfort
19:55
with it. You overthink it. I think it's just like, it's normal. Right, it's in our mind. It's like,
20:00
oh, I'm going to ask somebody to get on camera on their, like, at home, like, it's almost like,
20:05
it's our own, like, pre, it's our own, an ability to evolve quickly and just, like, make it normal.
20:10
Like, hey, let's jump on a Zoom later. If someone's like, no, no, I don't do Zoom, or I don't want to be
20:14
on camera. Fine. If they don't want to be on camera, they don't have to be. But that's how you
20:17
set it up. So I think the reception is extremely high. And I'll say this, like, I have a lot of
20:22
loan officers I talked to about coming on to work here across country. And that's, that's the
20:27
predominant part of what I do is I work with loan officers, try to help them see what we have here
20:32
behind the door, walk them through all the rooms in the house, and then let them make a decision
20:36
about what's best for them. So I really do think people might think where they are is good. It's
20:40
okay, but it could be amazing and great somewhere else. I think we owe it to ourselves to figure
20:44
that out. But I'll tell you this, that, you know, people don't work with the companies that have
20:49
the most competitive rate, right? It's not. If that was the case, betterrate.com would have the
20:54
most market share in, you know, in the country. And so some people are very hesitant to make a
21:00
move because they feel like my rates are really, really, really sharp here. And it's just so great
21:05
right now. And I got to tell you, I think that the success that I've seen the people here have
21:10
with a rate that's sometimes an eighth higher, a quarter higher, sometimes it's, sometimes it's
21:14
better. Sometimes it's not. But I think people need to get back to understanding what their value is.
21:21
As someone said to me the other day on my podcast that they, they're a flipper. They buy and flip
21:25
houses. And they said that, you know, think about when you trade a car in, right? Most people that
21:30
have a used car, they want to buy a new one, they trade it in. They don't detail it and take
21:35
pictures of it, put it on car gurus and wait four months for it to sell because that's not as
21:40
convenient as taking it to the dealership and trading it in, right? And they know they're going to
21:45
get less money when they go and trade it in, but they do that because it's more convenient because
21:49
it's easier and it helps them with this process that they're going through. So there's something
21:54
to be said about service and convenience and the experience you give someone and there's a price
22:00
for that. And so I think we get very comfortable with having that conversation here. And I think
22:04
when you can have it and look at someone, I think it helps them understand what that really,
22:09
what that really is, it helps you convey your message and your passion.
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I agree. I think to take away from that little session there is adaptability.
22:17
Both in terms of product suite, right? And then personal brand, which we're going to unpack now,
22:21
but also being, you know, that term modern mortgage advisor,
22:25
and the ability to have these connections without necessarily needing to be in person.
22:31
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you're doing, which is building this brand, which is billion dollar banker. That definitely,
24:04
when I saw that come across my feed as that definitely interrupts my pattern and I'm like,
24:08
well, all right, time out. What's what's what's building your dollar banker? What's she doing there,
24:12
man? What's she? What's she building? Like tell me about that. Where did that? What was the origin
24:17
story of that? Yeah, it's so it actually started with me. It evolved. But what it started with me
24:24
thinking like, you know, our industry, we haven't done a very good job attracting talent into
24:30
the mortgage business, attracting new talent for every 10 people that leave. There's like nobody
24:35
that comes in, right? Unless it's like somebody's child, they're convincing to work on their
24:39
team or something like that. You're not seeing people, you know, run to, I want to be a mortgage
24:44
banker. Right. But conversely in the real estate industry, yeah, like they don't even know what
24:48
bankers look like. Like if they were to, if I were to ask someone to draw me what a banker looks
24:53
like a mortgage bank, I don't want to see what the picture would look like. Old white guy. That's
24:57
what it looked like. Yeah, like, you know, disheveled suit or something. Yeah, I don't know. But,
25:03
but so we conversely think about real estate, right? Think about what real estate has done to make it
25:08
an exciting place for new young professionals that want to work hard to come into that, that this
25:15
atmosphere of real estate. And so the one of the shows that had done that is Million Dollar List
25:20
thing, right? And I jokingly said, like someone needs to make a show called The Billion Dollar Banker,
25:26
you know, and because at the time our team, we had teammates that were doing a billion dollars
25:31
in business. I had, I mean, our, our office funded 2.1 billion dollars, a group of 16 loan officers
25:37
in one year. So it just like, and to me, I'm like, we're like, we're servicing all these agents,
25:44
like the big time agents that are on these Million Dollar Listing shows, we're working with them
25:48
on deals. We're doing, like, this is fun, like the drama, the excitement. So it kind of started with
25:53
the idea, like, wouldn't that be cool if someone could make mortgage banking sexy, right? Like,
25:58
someone could turn it up and say, like, wow, that looks like I would love to do that. I would love
26:01
to make that kind of money. But I don't think anyone has really, really done that. And it wasn't
26:06
about like, I would be the one to do it. It was just, I love the idea. I love the sound of the
26:09
billion dollar banker. And so being that I funded billions of dollars of business in my career,
26:15
I've managed billions of dollars of business. I said, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to see
26:18
if this name could work for our handles and for our branding. And then as time went on, what
26:23
it started to mean to me and represent to me, because I was in this transition in my career,
26:27
is that like, I can accomplish anything. I can be anybody. I could do anything. I can create
26:33
anything. And that name now, it signifies like my ability to take a risk and take a chance
26:41
and to be vulnerable and the step outside my comfort zone and to really try to do something
26:46
that I've never done before, right? To leave a great position at an amazing company and to
26:52
decide to start fresh and new and see who wants to come with me and pave a path and make a
26:58
decision for myself and believe in myself. So when I see that logo, it's a representation of
27:03
transition and opportunity for me and most of all potential. And so it just, it makes me excited.
27:09
And I love it. And it's catchy. So yeah, that works. Yeah. And there's a strategy you have with
27:15
this now as well around content, right? Yeah. Yeah. So we obviously have launched the the
27:22
the billion dollar banker podcast. And on the host of the show, and we shoot an amazing studio,
27:27
we've had some incredible guests, our missions to just inspire and empower people through the stories
27:33
of others, people's trials and tribulations and to help these these other individuals, these guests
27:39
share their message and and to continue to create value for our audience. And it's been it's an
27:45
evolution. It's a constant feedback loop when you're doing these things. It's you got to be vulnerable,
27:51
put yourself out there. And I think, you know, it ultimately, if you just keep with it like any
27:56
like any other activity you do in life, it'll pay off through time. Okay, a couple of questions
28:02
then. Let's let's go a little bit deeper here. I'm looking at your Instagram page right now. I got
28:06
your YouTube up in the other tab over here. What's when did you launch the podcast? Seven months ago.
28:15
Seven months ago. So what's happened thus far in terms of like you mentioned that one individual
28:21
from the show saw the podcast or whatever, but what's bubbling up for you? You think since launching
28:26
the brand and the content strategy. Yeah, I think, you know, some things are just brand plays where
28:33
people I'll be places and people will say, you're the billion dollar bank like that. You're the
28:38
billion dollar banker. Like I've seen your stuff. I've seen your show. It's so cool. I love it. Like
28:43
you do mortgages, right? Like so that when someone says that to me, like what it means is like,
28:48
okay, because some days you wake up and you're like, is this really working? Right? Like, you know,
28:52
I spent a lot of time doing this. So and then when you have a moment like that, you're like, okay,
28:56
it's working because I'm branding myself. Someone saw me. They know who I am already. And that,
29:02
you know, for a realtor to say that, especially like she's like, you know, I would love to work with
29:06
someone like you. Like that's just amazing. I didn't pick up a phone. I didn't go to an open house
29:10
or brokers open. I'm just pouring myself into these videos and something's coming up. So there's
29:16
there's the brand opportunity that comes from that. There's the collaboration opportunity that comes
29:21
for people like you and I where I can say, hey, you know, I have 40,000 followers and growing.
29:27
You know, I'm literally can offer you something of pretty, pretty substantial value and vice
29:32
versa, right? Because you have all these followers too and say like, wow, like we can cross collaborate
29:38
amongst our communities and share one another's message and literally just help each other out
29:42
and help our audience out. So it's just kind of a win-win all around. And I think ultimately,
29:48
as your audience continues to grow and you look back three years, four years, five years after
29:52
doing it, you're going to say like, wow, I've had people come up to me now and say, I would love
29:58
for you to coach me. I'm like, how do you do this? Like, do you, can you, can you do some trainings?
30:02
And I've actually started a coaching program now where I'm teaching people how to step out and
30:08
get into the social media world. I'm teaching people how to stay accountable with those activities
30:12
because I think there's a real need for people to have help in that space that aren't, you know,
30:16
just aren't sure how to help themselves. And then a lot of mortgage opportunity and realtor
30:21
relationships and amazing people. So like I said, Eric Aramita, who love it or list it,
30:26
was on our show, was amazing. He had 10 seasons on HDTV, phenomenal, phenomenal guy and
30:32
has had a ton of success. We just had John Steingraver, who was on A&E's 24-hour flip,
30:39
which was a great show about how he's a real estate investor who's flipping houses in 24 hours. So
30:46
just some incredible people just had Max Trumblion, who's a life love coach, who has a tremendous
30:51
following on Instagram and beyond. He hosts retreats all over the country. So I'm learning things,
30:58
our audiences learning things. People are getting to know who I am. I'm helping other people expand
31:03
their network and vice versa. And it's just, it's just been a win-win all around. It's a great
31:07
place to create community and I'm loving doing it. I really am. Yeah, there's so many opportunities
31:14
that come from it. I'm curious from a content strategy standpoint because I've had multiple
31:21
conversations with LOs over the years around the content focus. And yours isn't specifically
31:29
mortgage-related all the time from what I can gather, correct? And tell me about what your
31:34
thought is around content. So well, I think everybody has to follow what they feel like is most
31:42
comfortable for them and what they think is their path, right? Because some people might not feel
31:48
comfortable doing a podcast, might not feel comfortable on video, but some people create amazing
31:52
videos and you never even see their face, right? So I think you've got to tailor it to what's best
31:56
for you. But I do think similar to when you sit down on a sales call with someone, if you and I
32:02
went out to lunch and I said, hey, Jeff, can we go out to lunch? I'm in the mortgage business.
32:06
You're your realtor. I would love to connect and see if we have some synergies and you say yes
32:11
and we sit down. I'm not going to spend the smallest amount of time talking about the mortgages,
32:18
right? I'm going to spend most of the time trying to get to know who you are, you get to know who I
32:23
am, or what I'm interested in, what you're interested in. And so I kind of look at content the same
32:29
way. People start to get to know you, they start to get to know who you are, and then inevitably
32:36
like they know what you do, right? And at some point, there is a sales process to this. There
32:40
is the asking for the business. There is hopefully finding what problems people have and presenting
32:45
solutions. And I think that's why a lot of these podcasts inevitably, you know, you offer a
32:49
program, you offer a coaching program or you offer a service or a product. And so there is an
32:56
element to all this that's there's monetization 100% and those strategies we've been kind of
33:02
working on now. And in the coming months, we were opening up the opportunity for sponsorships
33:06
for 2025 where, you know, if you're a local business and you see our show and people you know
33:13
have been on it and you want to advertise on the show, we're opening up those opportunities. And
33:18
I think, Jeff, honestly, I think it's the greatest place that local businesses can spend money
33:23
instead of being at a trade show with a table and a couple pamphlets for 50 or 100 people,
33:28
sponsor a podcast. I think that's the best place you can spend sponsorship money today, even beyond
33:34
newspapers and magazines. I think that's the new wave. Yeah, that's a great point. When you think
33:41
about it, what are these people that are potential sponsors, businesses, colleagues and affiliates
33:45
within the industry? They're all looking for reach, right? And so this goes back to why you're building
33:51
a personal brand. Why you should be a content creator in this new world is because you're building
33:57
an audience, right? You're building a community is the latest buzzword people are moving away from
34:01
audience and now using community, but you're right, but I get it. It's true, right? It's,
34:05
I heard this saying the other day that content is no longer can community is the queen and she rules
34:10
the place. So I agree though. It's a good reminder. Yeah. Right. I mean, you're, you've got various
34:17
communities. You've got your Instagram, you've got your, you know, Facebook or YouTube or whatever.
34:21
These are all, you know, quote unquote audiences slash communities. But that's the point. I think
34:25
is to take this quote audience eyeballs attention and then migrate a percentage of those two a community
34:31
engagement, you know, over time, you're building this trust and all those types of things. And so
34:36
you're going to have relationships outreach down in the DMs, right? Bubble up all from that.
34:42
And it's just beginning for you. Just just starting for you right now. I was going to say your point
34:46
about the sponsors is as if you compare that to like traditional advertising, even even Facebook ads,
34:53
the advantage for you being at the, at the, the helm of this community, right?
35:00
Is you have reach of an audience who's engaged and we know who the audience is. And so that's what,
35:06
whatever the quote unquote sponsor, person, guest host, that's why they're like, yeah,
35:11
you have a podcast, you have an audience, I want to get my message out there. And just the
35:15
symbiotic relationship of what comes out of that, not all the time, of course. But I'm sure you're
35:21
already seeing it where people are like, hey, this is really cool. Hey, welcome. Oh, you do this,
35:25
like, yeah, let's meet. I got a deal here. Like it's already happening for you, right?
35:29
Yeah, it is. I mean, it's just, like I tell other loan officers now, like this is just another
35:34
sales activity now, you know, add it to the, add it to the calls, add it to the database outreach,
35:41
add it to the lunch appointments, maybe substitute it for lunch appointments. If you can,
35:45
but I mean, anyone can jump on live, anyone can jump on a zoom and do something similar to this,
35:50
and they meet someone interesting, you know, send it out. Or I tell loan officers to take
35:55
things you're doing today anyway, and just publicize them. Just there's so many people that even,
36:01
you know, you look at a dad, an email database as an example. Most loan officers, they don't,
36:05
they don't email their personal contacts. They don't email their friends they went to college with,
36:09
or high school with, or their local community, their neighbors, the people they go to school sports
36:15
with and all that stuff. They don't, people at the gym, none of those people, but all those people
36:19
are on their Facebook, on their Instagram, right? And many of them don't even know what you do,
36:24
because they're not really looking at the flyer you posted or like whatever, whatever information
36:29
that is irrelevant, but they'll look at your video. They'll look at your video and you're like,
36:33
hey guys, I'm at this amazing open house today. I just wanted to show you, I'm with my,
36:37
my coolest realtor in the world over here. Come take a look with us. They'll look at that, right?
36:41
They'll look at the presentation that you're giving in front of a real estate office. Put that on
36:45
video. Get set up, tripod, hire a cameraman. We need to spend money on marketing and we need to
36:51
be marketing companies first and everything else second and that's, that's in any business and I'm,
36:57
I'm an entrepreneur, I own other businesses and I can't tell you how much comes from
37:02
lead generation, social media and the marketing spend. I mean, it should probably be 20% of what
37:09
everybody's spending their money on should be marketing. I love that you just said that and if I
37:15
can for a moment, I'm going to riff on a post that I put in a private Facebook group that I have
37:20
for loan officers that comes from Alex Hermosi. I'm sure you know who Alex is. I'm not going to go
37:27
through the seven points, but you just highlighted a couple of them. Number one, nobody knows you
37:31
exist. You need to advertise more. Period. Like big takeaway right there. I'll tell you what's
37:39
so funny about that Nicole quick side note is, you know, after doing this podcast for eight years,
37:46
you think you're reaching people? I got a lot of work ahead of me, you know what I mean? It's just
37:54
like there's just so many people to reach and that's why the consistency and you've got to constantly
37:59
put yourself out there because people forget your term memory. Like if I don't, out of sight, out of
38:03
mind, right? Crazy. You know what you're probably learning so much as you go along the way and
38:10
everyone I talk to that's doing podcasts today. I'm like, we need to start a podcast community,
38:15
a podcast or community where we can share. A recovery group. Yeah, ideas and philosophies and
38:22
like it's just like anything else. Like, you know, I tell loan officers that used to do open
38:26
houses as a way of building relationships. It was like, you can't just judge it off that one
38:30
open house. Look, look, do it consistently for three months and see what comes of it, right?
38:35
And so this is a long term thing and I know you know that and realize that and that's why
38:39
we reached out to you and wanting to be on your show and and be involved and you give great
38:43
content, good information. I like how it's very targeted too. I like how it's targeted to this
38:49
market. Well, I'm a former LL right for 10 years and so I totally, I have a ton of empathy and
38:56
understanding, right? And I'm still connected. I still do a lot of things in the market such as you
39:01
mentioned a moment ago, presentations, teaching classes and workshops. I want to get a little bit
39:06
tactical for a minute on the referral side, the realtor referral side of things because whenever I,
39:10
you know, it's it's funny, you know, when we talk about these new media kind of modern strategies
39:15
of content and podcast and video and all that kind of stuff and it's all useful and has its
39:20
relevancy. I always like to dig a little bit deeper on somebody like you to find out, you're like
39:25
one of the questions I always ask is like, what's your primary source of business? And I've asked
39:29
that of like hundreds of top producers. So I'd be curious to get your hot take then on where you
39:35
in terms of activities, right? How you balance the traditional classes, workshops, whatever,
39:42
going to the open up versus like this new, you know, kind of media thing.
39:48
Yeah. And so well, I think it can all be one thing, right? It's all it all can be one thing. I just
39:54
talked to a loan officer the other day and said, should I just don't know what to do? What content
39:58
should I do? If I do content, I'm like, let's just start with this. How about everything you do
40:03
already? You document it document document your phone calls that you make to realtors in the
40:08
morning, document your open house visits, document your brokers opens, document your office visits,
40:14
document your presentations that you're doing two, three a month of those. So like that's net time.
40:20
There's nothing I told her there's nothing else that no additional effort at all other than you
40:25
calling right now a camera person and saying, I want to spend a thousand dollars a month and have
40:30
you follow me around for 10 hours a month or whatever it is. Let's say a cameraman charges a
40:35
hundred dollars an hour. Here across country, we have an in-house video editor, which is amazing.
40:40
So, you know, anyone that's done video editing, you know, that saves a tremendous amount. I mean,
40:44
I probably have 60, 70 videos edited clips edited a month. I mean, that would be at 15 dollars
40:52
a clip, let's say. That's expensive. So I think I think you have to think about it about like what
41:00
you're doing today. How can you document it? And then how can you add a little something in between?
41:06
How can you add a little something extra in between? Like maybe just your walk in the morning and
41:10
talk to people about what's going on in the market or, you know, something that happened industry-wise,
41:15
you know, or education. I mean, you look at like the TikToks of the world now. It's like, that's
41:20
where people Google now. That's like, you know, how to make spaghetti. You don't Google it and read
41:26
an article. You watch a 15-second video and like, now you know how to make spaghetti.
41:32
I have a saved Instagram recipes, you know, so there we go. See? There you go, exactly. And you
41:40
don't need to be like 19 to do this. You could be, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, doesn't matter.
41:46
That's where people are. So you want to make videos about educating people. You know, I think these
41:52
are all the things that you're having conversations about already. Use it as a tool to like, hey,
41:56
I'm going to explain this one product. And then the next time I want to solicit for this product,
42:01
I'm going to have my list of accountants or financial advisors or realtors. And now you take that
42:06
one message and you can take that and you could spread it to thousands of people. When I send an
42:11
email out, it goes to 6,000 people. So if we did this today at lunch, Jeff, nobody would hear about it.
42:18
It would just be our little conversation. But now your followers plus my followers plus 6,000
42:24
people in my email are going to hopefully somebody's going to click on this a lot more than just me
42:27
and you at least. Which reminds me, gotta take a photo, right? For the stories. All right, real quick,
42:35
before we run out of time, I want to talk about on my whiteboard, I have Be Brilliant in the basics.
42:41
I want to get your quick hot take on the mistake that what I want to make sure people listening
42:48
are not hearing Nicole's not saying a band in quote unquote what works. Do not abandon the
42:54
relationship building. Let's take realtors for example, because it's easy to throw the realtors
42:57
under the bus. And a lot of people are saying consumer direct buy leads, all that. Look,
43:01
there's a hundred ways to do the business. But you obviously, you know, your experience and wide
43:05
breadth of access to loan officers. Do you think the, how do I say this? Where would you rank the
43:15
importance of realtor relationship to referrals even in this modern market?
43:24
I still think that historically the top producers in this industry, the ones that I've managed,
43:34
most of their business comes from realtors. But I do just the same way I believe in the diversity
43:39
of products, I believe in diversity of referral sources. Because again, like everything changes,
43:46
it could change overnight. One day they could be like, no more realtors, you know, like, I mean,
43:51
the likelihood is maybe very slim. But what if, what if that was the case? What if it was like,
43:55
hey, you know what, you know, Zillow's going to sell your house now. We've banned realtors. It's
43:59
so now what? You don't want to like recreate the wheel at that point. You want to have accountants
44:04
you're working towards relationships with. You want to have builders like, I can't tell you how many
44:09
loan officers I've coached from dependency on realtors to builders when we have inventory challenges.
44:15
That's another example. You know, you just like where we are today. You might have 50 realtors you
44:21
work with. And most of them you're talking to today are like, there's nothing to buy. There's nothing
44:25
there's no houses. I don't know what to do. It's just been the worst year ever. So what do you do?
44:29
You got to figure out a solution. So I think builders, financial advisors, accountants, realtors,
44:35
you got to have a good spread of all in New York when I worked in Manhattan, majority of our
44:40
our team, their business was their past clients. Like 30, 40% of their book was past client business.
44:46
In the city, people tend to move a little bit more, move up, move out, second homes, etc. So
44:52
don't discount your book of business either. It should be a pretty even split between
44:57
a bunch of different things. It's the same thing like your product should be.
45:00
Diversification, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, cool. We are unfortunately out of time,
45:06
but this has been incredibly amazing. I'd love to have you back, perhaps in 2025,
45:10
sometime, and do an update. I want to put links to everything that I have in the show notes
45:15
for people to go follow you, but what would be a couple of shout outs where they can go right now
45:19
if they're listening? Yeah, please check us out on YouTube at Billion Dollar Banker,
45:25
and also an Instagram at Billion Dollar Banker. Everything's at Billion Dollar Banker,
45:30
and we're just going to continue to put out content. Hopefully you guys love it and can stay connected,
45:34
and as time goes on, there'll be much more that we continue to share. It's going to be a little
45:39
break now for two months. As everyone should be taking a little bit of a reprieve from working
45:43
in the business, start working on it. Think about next year, think about your vision, your plan,
45:48
reach high for your goals. Don't settle. Know that you can achieve anything you really set your
45:53
mind to, and if you're looking for more leadership, more direction, and you just want to do more,
45:59
I'm always here to talk. That's awesome. Yeah, thank you so much. I would definitely encourage you
46:03
guys to go follow her via all the links in the show notes. She's got some amazing content and
46:07
incredible leader as well. Nicole, thank you so much for making time. Jeff, thank you for having me
46:12
on your amazing show, and I look forward to watching your journey and seeing you again soon.
46:17
My pleasure, listeners, you know what to do. Follow the links in the show notes. Leave us a review
46:21
and we'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. Okay, that's it for today's episode. Before we wrap
46:25
up, I just wanted to remind you about my agent classes, your proven system to double your agent
46:30
referrals in just 90 days. Imagine never having to co-call again instead building real lasting
46:37
relationships with top-producing agents who want to send you business. With done-for-you presentations,
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marketing automation, weekly coaching, it's all designed to make growing your business easier
46:48
and fun. So if you're ready to take control of your agent referrals and grow your income,
46:52
visit mortgagemarketing.pro or check the link in the show notes. And while you're there,
46:56
don't forget to check out the success stories from other mortgage pros who've already seen
46:59
incredible results. Thanks for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.