Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / How This LO Got 17 Contracts In One Month from Social Media

Transcript

How This LO Got 17 Contracts In One Month from Social Media · Mortgage Marketing Radio

• 0:00
  In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
• 0:04
  the real estate agents is essential for success.
• 0:06
  However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
• 0:11
  With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it
• 0:15
  can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections.
• 0:20
  Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
• 0:25
  Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
• 0:31
  And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
• 0:34
  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.
• 1:23
  Fire episode of mortgage market radio coming at you.
• 1:25
  Thanks for tuning in.
• 1:26
  A quick reminder as well.
• 1:28
  If you're enjoying these episodes and you haven't yet left us a review, appreciate
• 1:31
  you doing that.
• 1:32
  Just quick tap swipe in the mobile app that you're listening to this on your podcast.
• 1:37
  And they've a review and or share it with somebody else that you think might find this
• 1:40
  content useful.
• 1:42
  So before we get into this week's special guest, another success story from the streets
• 1:47
  of our mortgage marketing program members.
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  Let's just face it.
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  The market is shift.
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  Refires are long gone.
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  A benefit.
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  I saw a stat the other day that said something like 85% of mortgages are well under 6% from
• 2:02
  Redfin.
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  So obviously what's left?
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  What's next?
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  Virtuous business.
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  How you getting purchase business?
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  Look, there's a bunch of different ways to get it.
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  One way that is of course reliable and the shortest path, most efficient and least costly
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  path is you building profitable referral relationships with successful realtors in your local
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  market.
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  Yes, I know it.
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  There are challenges.
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  Look, don't show me a way to generate leads in business that doesn't have its challenges,
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  whether it's cost, whether it's overhead, whether it's infrastructure, whether it's time
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  from lead generated to for that lead to close.
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  Look, there's all different versions of hard.
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  You just got to choose your hard, right?
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  So getting agent referrals, although I would argue with you is the fastest route to
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  buyers in the market that are active and ready to convert.
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  How do I know that?
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  Well, because I've been doing this since 2003 and I've seen and heard it all and as much
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  as I love social media, video marketing and all that goes with that that is definitely
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  should be a pillar of your business.
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  What also should be a pillar of your business is the past client database and of course referral
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  strategies.
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  And I'm talking about real estate agent referrals today.
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  New success story coming in from one of our pro members, Jeremy Martin, what's up?
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  Jeremy just finished up another reals class, great turnout and he had an agent he's been
• 3:19
  inviting since he started teaching classes, finally showed up, came to the class because
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  another agent told that agent how much she has learned by attending Jeremy's classes.
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  It made his day Jeremy, it's making my day to what's happened since the class is that
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  he's already got two meetings set to follow up with those agents after this class.
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  Guys, that's fast.
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  That's what I call referrals on demand.
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  I haven't yet found a more successful route for attracting and converting agents to referral
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  partners than building your personal brand and leading with education, providing resources,
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  content information that makes a measurable difference or gives a competitive advantage
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  to real estate agents.
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  I meet with agents all the time in my local market.
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  I talked to the land work with loan officers all the time across the country who when they
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  lead with helping agents, teams, brokerages, solve the problems and challenges of the types
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  of things we provide for our pro members like Jeremy, how do I do reals?
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  How do I get started on a video?
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  How do I set up a YouTube channel?
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  How do I optimize my Google business profile and on and on and on?
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  If you become the conduit, the source, the hub for that information and follow our proven
• 4:36
  system in process, you will be generating referrals on demand.
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  You will build a personal brand that will allow you to become the dominant go-to lender
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  in your local market.
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  Don't believe me?
• 4:46
  You can go to mortgagemarketing.pro and go read the additional success stories that you
• 4:50
  have over there and learn more.
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  So without further ado, let me now introduce our special guest.
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  So I was introduced to our special guest.
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  I was actually speaking at the California Association of Mortgage Professionals the other
• 5:06
  day.
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  By the way, if anybody is looking for a compelling, funny, engaging and high-value speaker for
• 5:13
  any of your upcoming events, hey, yours truly, reach out to me, DM me on Facebook,
• 5:17
  Instagram, you know how to reach me.
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  So I'm at the camp event up in what was a daily city Bay Area of San Francisco and had
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  a rep from a mortgage company come up to me there and say, hey, have you heard about
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  Josh Thompson?
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  And I said, no, I haven't.
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  Who's Josh Thompson?
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  Oh, he's a lender here that has 121,000 followers on Instagram and he's only been active on
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  Instagram for about a year.
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  That's it.
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  I said, what get out of here?
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  You got to be kidding me.
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  No.
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  So I went and looked Josh Thompson up and I found out everything she said and more was true.
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  And I said, I got to get Josh on the podcast because he's doing some incredible things when
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  it comes to content.
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  And he's also generating actual business, business in the month of February.
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  By the way, this is February 24th, where I'm recording this, 17 contracts generated exclusively
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  from his presence online social media in the month of February, 350 applications in
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  the month of February, 700 leads in the month of February.
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  Guys, all of this is from the content that he's putting out completely free on Instagram
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  and TikTok.
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  Those are his two primary platforms and you're going to hear exactly how Josh got started,
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  how he got over some of the limitations and roadblocks and mindset that you probably
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  have.
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  And I have and you know, still struggle with struggle with putting content out there.
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  Well, Josh was able to get through those, get beyond those.
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  And he's been posting consistently now for roughly a year and now you've heard his results.
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  So first thing you want to do is listen to this episode and perhaps simultaneously go
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  look up Josh online at Instagram, mortgage data, three on on TicTac, mortgage TicTac, mortgage
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  data, three on TicTac and start to follow up, start to see what he's doing.
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  And then simply swipe into point, the idea you like and making their own, all right.
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  And so that's it.
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  Listen to this episode, enjoy it.
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  Go to Josh's Instagram, DM him, let him know you heard about him on the podcast here
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  and hope you enjoyed this episode.
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  So let's get into this weeks show Josh, welcome to the show.
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  Thank you Jeff for having me.
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  I appreciate it.
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  Thanks for hopping on with short notice as well.
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  I know we both have crazy schedules and calendars.
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  And so I always appreciate people who are busy doing a lot like you are making time.
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  So for the listeners who aren't familiar with Josh Dobson, who is he?
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  What does he do?
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  All right.
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  So well, I'm a mortgage loan originator, a person foremost.
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  Second, I've tried to grow my business through social media.
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  So many people would refer to me as a micro influencer.
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  I do a lot of social media.
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  What I like to call entertainment, more so than anything else, we're trying to educate
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  but also entertain at the same time because education can be kind of boring.
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  And a lot of our listeners and the people that follow us like to be entertained while
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  also learning about the process, buying a house, getting a home loan, because it's not
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  really a fluffy subject, not really something that's real pretty.
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  So we try to try to make it a little bit nicer to listen to.
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  All right.
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  You've been originating or in the business for 22 years?
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  Oh, yeah.
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  So I've been doing loans for about 20 years.
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  So I graduated in college in 2004.
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  So the year off, I was going to go back to law school, took my own sets, got applied,
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  was going to law school, jumped into this business with my mother and my stepfather at
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  the time who were originating.
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  So this was 2004.
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  I gravitated towards it.
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  I loved it.
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  I enjoyed the process, the numbers part of it, helping people, talking to people.
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  So it became kind of more of a love for me.
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  And I decided to make it my career instead of going back to law school.
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  So 20 years, bounce back and forth between pro grids and retail lenders, you know, kind
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  of the same story.
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  Most lenders have been doing it this long, you know what I mean?
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  Yep.
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  Yep.
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  Okay.
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  Awesome.
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  Well, people call it a Bay Area, but it's Modesto, California.
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  We're back in the central valley of California.
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  Yeah.
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  See, I wouldn't call that the Bay Area.
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  Exactly.
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  Right?
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  But some people might say, you know, the East Bank, you know, I try to get away from that.
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  I'm in the heartland of California.
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  Oh, no, no, no, no.
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  Modesto is not.
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  I mean, this is coming from a guy who's lived up and down entire California coast.
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  So I know what you're talking about.
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  Yep.
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  Plus my son goes to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.
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  So, no, the area of, you know, driving through the back roads very often.
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  Not a lot to see, a lot of farmland.
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  So you were brought to my attention, as I mentioned you a moment ago, by your mortgage insurance
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  rep.
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  And she's mentioned to me that, hey, have you heard of Josh Thompson?
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  What's he's doing on Instagram?
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  I'm like, no, and then she brings me you to your channel and you have 121,000 followers
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  at the time of this recording on Instagram.
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  And yet you've only been on Instagram a year, is that right?
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  So I mean, we've been on Instagram a little bit longer, but we really haven't done anything
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  as far as social media, marketing, recording videos for probably maybe a year.
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  I would say I'm closer to above eight months.
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  So yeah.
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  So what got you on, like, is there a story behind that?
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  Yeah, I guess there kind of is.
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  So I mean, being in the business for 20 years, I've seen a lot of ups and downs.
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  I've seen changes in the markets and how things work, where business comes from.
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  And so I would say probably towards the end of last year, I realized that the market was
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  getting ready to ship.
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  We were going to see kind of a slowdown in the markets, especially here in California,
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  prices rising, interest rates rising.
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  I figured some things were going to start to change.
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  So I wanted to expand my reach, knowing that the old model of chasing after real estate
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  agents locally works well and good when the markets are hot, but when it starts to slow down,
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  it becomes kind of anemic, becomes very difficult to survive as a one officer and a single
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  breadwinner for your household.
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  So I looked at the opportunity on social media that I saw, which was, I feel like it was
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  a great way for you to reach more consumers and connect with them on a more personal level.
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  So instead of the old model where you're chasing after real estate agents looking for referrals,
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  I figured I could put the script and get directly to the consumer and get them before
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  they're off shopping for houses and then put them in the place where they need to be,
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  which is shopping for houses after they've been pre-approved.
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  And the first place you went was Instagram?
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  So yeah, I mean, we looked at all of the different social media channels.
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  Instagram at the time was flipping two reels, so video content before they had just been
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  a picture app and that really didn't lend itself to what we were trying to do, right?
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  So with the advent of video and video becoming more prevalent in social media, we saw an
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  opportunity to start creating videos that drove traffic, that drove engagement and those
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  videos, obviously, with the personal touch of me being in the video, communicating and
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  getting across different messages, it just seemed like the right fit to be able to
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  grow an audience, but also grow a following to help us drive consumers to become homeowners.
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  So prior to deciding to get on Instagram, timing of reels and all that stuff, video, had
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  you prior to that done much with video?
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  So if you go back and you look at our Instagram page, if you go back just before this all
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  happened, a lot of it was just the carousels and the pictures, really hadn't done a lot
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  of video.
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  Like I said, it was just kind of one of those things where we saw an opportunity, and again,
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  another aspect of it was TikTok, right?
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  So TikTok also became very popular, and TikTok was another platform where it was a lot
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  of short-followed video content, and it's a lot easier for someone who's starting out
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  to really get involved in short-followed video content because it requires less information,
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  it also requires less work, right?
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  So before everybody was on YouTube, and YouTube requires a lot longer videos, so it requires
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  a little bit more content with the advent of the short-followed video content.
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  It gave us a platform to be able to create a lot of content and get a lot more information
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  out there in a short amount of time with a little bit less work.
• 13:39
  Yeah, but Josh, many people have seen what's happened with Instagram, Reels, the short-form
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  video thing, and yet they've still sat on their hands and done nothing.
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  What's different about you that you decided to take hold of that, because you heard from
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  sure heard all the quote excuses or reasons why I don't want to get on video or whatever
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  the thing is, right?
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  How did you deal with that mentally or whatever?
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  In all fairness, I've done a lot of research, and a lot of the research says people don't
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  get started because of the psychology of it, whether it's the, I don't look good or I don't
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  sound good. For me, I think as I've grown personally in myself and with all of this within myself,
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  I became aware that it didn't matter, I don't necessarily care what other people think I
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  look like or what I sound like. For me, it became about the consumer.
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  So I realized, after having thousands of conversations with clients throughout the years,
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  I realized there's a lot of this information out there, so a lot of lack of education
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  when it comes to finance, when it comes to buying a house, when it comes to getting financed by
• 14:50
  a house, right? So I saw a niche, I guess you could say, being able to provide a level of education
• 15:00
  that was entertaining, that would help consumers actually get the right information.
• 15:06
  You seem to be a somewhat entertaining guy, meaning you've got a lively personality.
• 15:12
  Well, you know what's funny is I don't think I really do. I guess it's just when the camera turns
• 15:16
  on, I have fun and I realize that if not really anything, you can say that's really wrong.
• 15:22
  Well, that's great, man. You just saw this opportunity, this short form content comes out and
• 15:26
  you're like, hmm, I think this is going to be something to your point earlier about a better way
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  to connect and engage with people, video, and that was roughly a year ago or so. And I am going
• 15:36
  back in your feed here, by the way, trying to get back to those old images. I do have to go back
• 15:41
  quite a ways because you've posted a hell of a lot of content. Well, yeah, I mean, that's one of
• 15:44
  the other things about it is that as we were doing this, we engaged with a lot of other content
• 15:51
  creators and got a lot of information on what and how to do it. So when we're talking to other
• 15:58
  influencers and we're talking to other people in the mortgage industry that want to get into the
• 16:02
  the space of social media, we try to explain it consistency and repetition. It is a great way to
• 16:10
  get comfortable on the camera, get comfortable with video, and really engage your customer.
• 16:17
  You have at this time of us recording this 1,000, 1,100 posts. How often you posted to Instagram?
• 16:25
  So currently, our schedule is two times a day. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. So
• 16:32
  look, I just actually prior to this got off a webinar I was doing with a real estate agent,
• 16:36
  Levi Lasek out of Texas who's built a one hell of a YouTube presence.
• 16:40
  And we had a bunch of LOs and realtors on there. And as I'm sure you are well aware,
• 16:46
  often people go to immediately the noise or the story. They tell themselves in their head about,
• 16:53
  well, shit, how you doing to a day? Like, oh my god, I don't have time or like, you know,
• 16:57
  how do you edit? What about the filter? What about like all these what ifs?
• 17:00
  Right. It's a lot of overthinking. Yeah. I mean, and honestly, I think that's a lot
• 17:06
  of what gets what gets involved people's way is overthinking about it. Because I mean,
• 17:13
  if you look at it, our video editing and content's gotten a little bit better over time,
• 17:17
  the quality. And that's just again, repetition. But starting off the process is the best way
• 17:25
  to do it. I mean, we started with, I mean, heck, I mean, I think I've been through like four or
• 17:29
  five different mics. We add lighting. We do different lighting. So I think it's just a matter
• 17:35
  of trial and error and what you're comfortable with. But you have to start somewhere. I mean,
• 17:40
  you really can't just sit on the sideline and make excuses. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm
• 17:46
  I'm at fault for this quite often. I've been working on and trying to get started on my own
• 17:51
  podcast. They haven't started recording much of it. I'm going to have done a lot of individual
• 17:56
  videos for long form content for YouTube. But at the end of the day, it's just a matter of getting
• 18:02
  started and trial and error, like you said. Okay. So twice a day, and I'm looking at your content,
• 18:11
  and I'm just thinking in my head, like the audience of the questions they would probably be asking
• 18:15
  you if you're here, you know, do you have a team who does your editing? Give me kind of a structure
• 18:21
  of like, you know, your content strategy. How you go from idea to what I see here? Okay. So yeah,
• 18:28
  I mean, a lot of it is spending some time. So we spend about an hour every day on Instagram,
• 18:35
  not to interrupt, but when you say we who's right. So it's me and one other person. My social media
• 18:40
  manager is also my mother. Okay. Cool. Family family orientation. So she actually does most of
• 18:48
  the video editing. We collaborate with as far as the content is concerned, the messaging,
• 18:55
  and then kind of the content calendar. So I mean, we try to plan out as much of this as possible so
• 19:00
  that we were not stuck because a lot of people will get stuck. They'll, they'll, you know,
• 19:06
  you've got the trending videos, you have the talking videos. There's lots of different ways that
• 19:11
  you can create content. So we try to do a lot of it or all of it. And so collaboratively we will
• 19:19
  spend about an hour on social media, whether it's Instagram or TikTok, we'll look at other
• 19:23
  influencers content. We'll see kind of the messaging, how it's playing out. It's a lot of market
• 19:31
  research just because you can always recreate the wheel, but recreating the wheel sometimes ends up
• 19:38
  with a lot of frustration just because you miss the mark. So the other great thing about this is
• 19:46
  with the number of repetitions that you do, you really start to learn what your voice is and how
• 19:52
  your voice can impact consumers and the people that are listening. So I mean, we have probably about
• 19:59
  20 to 30 different messages that we like to repeat, whether it's specifically to a specific
• 20:07
  type of person, but we've found that these actually play well and they reach a lot of consumers.
• 20:15
  And so that's really important for us because we'll try to get our message out there and platforms
• 20:19
  push different videos based on the amount of information that you get. So if you're producing content
• 20:25
  that's great and educational, but nobody's watching it, it has no impact. So we've learned to look for
• 20:32
  different aspects of how messages come across and how they play with the consumer and on the
• 20:40
  social media platforms. So we have different messages for different platforms. We have different
• 20:46
  content for different platforms. We really, again, it's market research and then trial and error.
• 20:53
  Repetition. A lot of your content, at least at brief glance, appears to be education related.
• 20:59
  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're literally doing as much of it as we can as far as
• 21:04
  entertainment. Like I said, one of the words that I like to coin and phrase and use a lot of
• 21:07
  entertainment, right? So it's education, but it's also entertaining. Um, and
• 21:15
  well, your mom's are crediting. First of all, she's doing a really good job.
• 21:18
  Yeah, I tell her all the time. She's done an amazing job. And for a boomer,
• 21:22
  people get shocked all the time. I didn't want to say it. I already didn't want to say it,
• 21:27
  but I was just like, my mom's not a boomer. But like if she was ever to edit a video,
• 21:31
  there'd be like, oh my god, the world's ending.
• 21:34
  Well, it's been, it's been, it's been something new for her. Because I mean, like I said,
• 21:38
  when we decided to go down this path, um, there was a conversation I had with her. I said,
• 21:42
  look, I feel like this is where the market's headed. Yeah.
• 21:45
  Like it's a great way for us to get in front of more consumers and on their knee,
• 21:50
  your home. So we sat down, we went on the podcast. She's been learning different ending techniques
• 21:57
  to use for a different path. Yeah, she's doing a role. Yep. That's really awesome. I'm just
• 22:03
  really impressed. You know, most of the time I tell people the outsourced are editing, you know.
• 22:09
  Yeah, I mean, there's some great, there's some great websites, right? I mean, there's fiber,
• 22:12
  there's upwork. There's a lot of different ways to get videos edited. Um, I guess I was just
• 22:17
  fortunate that I had my mother who is willing to learn new stuff. Um, and, uh,
• 22:25
  sometimes I think she loves it. Sometimes I think she's, she's overwhelmed at times.
• 22:30
  But for the most part, we have fun doing it. And I think, I mean, I, I, I looked at some research
• 22:35
  yet again. I guess a lot of, um, influencers have a happier life. Um, just because we spend a lot
• 22:43
  of time creating fun, happy content, um, and we can communicate. So we're, we're, we're getting
• 22:50
  to dump a lot of what we hear, feel and experience every day and get it off our chest on social media.
• 22:57
  So it's, it's a great platform and it's a great way to really help mentally as well.
• 23:02
  You know, before we get to, I'm going to make a note for myself, just business, right,
• 23:06
  deals that have come by your way through through social, um, I just had this thought as I heard you
• 23:12
  describing that. You know, this too is, I wonder if part of the challenge of people making
• 23:19
  bridging the gap between seeing the video and seeing people like you and others and everybody
• 23:23
  seeing as I know, I know, I know I know I should do, but I, some people doing some people don't
• 23:27
  bridge this gap. And let's remember that in the mortgage industry, we have a lot of, um,
• 23:32
  analytical people, right? These high seas and things like that on the disc profile. Yeah.
• 23:38
  And I'm going to, I would get, I don't know how many are creative versus, but you're clearly
• 23:42
  creative. I can tell by how you show up on camera, you're comfortable on camera, you have a
• 23:46
  personality is engaging and humorous, all those things. I mean, not everybody has that
• 23:52
  is a personality, you know what I mean? No, yeah. So I'm more like, what do you, how would you coach
• 23:58
  them to say you can still do this? So we all have our own voice, right? And we all have a voice,
• 24:05
  we all have a way we come across it. If you look and you follow some of the other influencers that
• 24:09
  are from the mortgage base, not everybody is fun and engaging or, you know, they all have different
• 24:15
  personalities and they all do well. You know, I, we've got something coming up here this afternoon
• 24:22
  where I'm going to jump on another call with a couple of other influencers and one of them is
• 24:26
  very pragmatic, very, and you might say dry, but she had the great following. And it's because
• 24:35
  she, the way she comes across with her message, it plays to other consumers. Not everybody likes
• 24:43
  my content, not everybody likes everybody else's content. There's people out there for you,
• 24:47
  it's just a matter of reaching them. That's an excellent reminder, by the way, everybody,
• 24:51
  if you didn't catch that, it was the same thing that on the earlier call I was on today,
• 24:56
  leave I about the YouTube channel when people see other people in their town producing content,
• 25:01
  right? And they're like, oh, so and so's already done it. And the point you just reiterated,
• 25:06
  which is there, there are people out there just for you. Like some people will like John,
• 25:10
  some people won't or Josh, but some people won't, you know? So that's, there's enough to go around
• 25:17
  as the point. And just there really is. And I mean, honestly, the market or at least the group of
• 25:23
  people that I've met through social media, the one officers, we're all here in it to help each other.
• 25:29
  None of us are really cut through. We all have each other's backs. And a lot of times,
• 25:33
  we will collaborate and we'll talk about things because we all have different clients,
• 25:37
  we all have different customers that we can play to. And there's just so much out there that it's,
• 25:43
  I mean, hey, I'm fortunate enough there's not a lot of people in the Central Valley that are
• 25:47
  doing this. But even if there was, like I said, this is a national thing. We have a very broad
• 25:53
  reach. And so there's plenty of people out there to connect with. All right, let's talk about the
• 25:59
  thing everybody wants to know, are you getting business off of Instagram or social media?
• 26:05
  Yes, I am getting a ton. So when we started this, this was simply just for me to drive traffic,
• 26:13
  to try to get leads, to try to get contracts, to try to get closed loans, right? It's gotten to
• 26:20
  the point now where our company is developing what we call our influencer division. So there's
• 26:26
  me and another influencer who are joined teams. And we are driving traffic and leads. So
• 26:35
  well, one second, let me look back. This month, I had an email come out this morning.
• 26:44
  According to statistics, we have some team applications or 17 contracts from social media
• 26:56
  in the month of February. We have 350 applications per February. And we had close to 700 leads.
• 27:10
  And is that one of those those sources? How many of that's insta versus other places?
• 27:15
  So that would probably be about, for me, it's about 75% TikTok, 25% Instagram.
• 27:22
  Really? We are shocking people's perception of TikTok right now.
• 27:26
  Well, and I mean, that's the other thing is that the other influencer, I would say a majority
• 27:31
  of his leads and his applications are coming from Instagram. So again, different clients,
• 27:38
  different customers, different platforms have different messages with different results.
• 27:42
  You know what's so interesting about this? And this is part of the challenge for I think some
• 27:47
  people sometimes they have to decide, you know, what platform to quote go all they're on. And I'll
• 27:52
  definitely take your input on this after I do this little riff here. Because I'm going to assume
• 27:56
  you probably dedicated focus time early on to perhaps Instagram or TikTok first. But for example,
• 28:01
  again, just because it's fresh into my mind, you know, on a call earlier about YouTube. And,
• 28:05
  you know, Levi making the positioning YouTube as being, you know, what he said basically was,
• 28:12
  you know, I don't sit down with my wife and go, Hey, honey, let's, let's sit down and get on
• 28:17
  TikTok or get on Instagram and see what's for sale if we're thinking about buying homes.
• 28:22
  Now, maybe the mortgage journey is a little bit different. But his point was, as you well know,
• 28:26
  that YouTube is search engine, it's research. People are getting in there in the early
• 28:30
  stages of research. And that's why he tends to favor YouTube. But at the same time,
• 28:37
  clearly, you're getting business from a non-search platform that isn't really research oriented.
• 28:44
  It's more entertainment oriented. So what do you say to that?
• 28:48
  So I mean, that's, that's a great question. And in all fairness, I would disagree.
• 28:54
  I mean, TikTok and Instagram would be considered a search engine. If you look at TikTok,
• 29:01
  if people search for information, they search for how do they search? They just go to the search
• 29:07
  like right now, just type in search and you know, just like you can on YouTube, right? If you
• 29:10
  go to YouTube, right, you still have to go to the search bar to search for whatever it is you're
• 29:15
  looking for. So when you go to TikTok, if there's something that you're there to learn about,
• 29:19
  you can search for it in their search bar, just like you can on YouTube. So it is its own search
• 29:24
  engine. And the other part about it is that with the changes in SEO and Google and all of that,
• 29:32
  you can be on the internet, you can be searching in Google and end up on TikTok.
• 29:37
  So it's not necessarily, yes, I agree. YouTube's a great search engine and it's one place that I'm
• 29:44
  putting more emphasis and work into because of the long form content. But again, short form
• 29:49
  content is a little bit easier to get into and it has the same search engine optimization as YouTube
• 29:56
  and same characteristics with the ability to search through it. So I mean, at the end of the day,
• 30:01
  it just comes down to, you know, what you're doing. Don't get me wrong, I would not put all of my
• 30:07
  cards in one basket. If you look at a lot of us in the influencer arena, we're on all social media
• 30:14
  platforms and the reason is is that it will increase your brand awareness, but it also is important
• 30:21
  because again, different platforms have different followers who have different people looking for
• 30:27
  different things. Different audiences. Yeah. And so that so it goes back to this saying long time
• 30:32
  ago that I put in my book, for those of you who haven't got my book, you know what to do.
• 30:38
  And the saying was, everything works just not everywhere all the time for everybody
• 30:45
  in the same way. So for, and by the way, the filter through which that was said through Levi and
• 30:50
  tons of respect. So that's just Levi and who he is. And that's how he's going to approach,
• 30:58
  you know, something like buying a home or researching a product or something. He's not necessarily
• 31:02
  going to go to Instagram to research, you know, the hot coffee maker. What's the best coffee maker
• 31:06
  out there, right? Yet the numbers, your results are proving that you, and you're not the only person
• 31:15
  I've talked to, obviously, you can get business. It doesn't have to be. And I think this, I'm just,
• 31:19
  you know, long winded here going back to circling the question I asked people when they're trying to
• 31:24
  decide, where do they focus their attention is, where do you already hang out? Which social platform?
• 31:30
  Right. You know, where do you get your information from? Yeah, start there. Yeah, where do you
• 31:35
  enjoy going on and saying, Hey, I'm going to flip through this and find out some more information
• 31:39
  on this, right? That's a great place to start because you're comfortable. You've seen a lot of
• 31:45
  the messaging, right? Again, we talk about this because on social media platforms, where it's
• 31:49
  YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, different platforms have different messages that work. So if you're on
• 31:54
  a specific platform because you enjoy it, it's most likely the messaging there. It's your,
• 32:01
  your brain. That's the way you think. And most likely, both fit the same clientele that you're
• 32:06
  looking for that you would meld well with. Interesting. Here's the question I've been wanting to ask
• 32:13
  somebody, and this is completely off from left field. So, you know, with TikTok, right? One of
• 32:19
  the reasons you said, Oh, you know, if you look at us influencers, we're kind of spreading our
• 32:22
  content around. A, different audiences, but B, in TikTok's particular case, like you never know
• 32:30
  what social platform might not be here, right? Oh, yeah. Like all the stuff in China and all they
• 32:35
  like, who was one day? That could be shut down, maybe. Yeah. I mean, so that was, I mean,
• 32:43
  obviously, we didn't really know that that was going to happen. And we do a lot of TikTok content.
• 32:47
  So I would say we probably do three to four times a day on TikTok. But in all fairness, it's one
• 32:54
  of those things where we've kind of tried to do it all places as much as possible. But again,
• 33:01
  we have to tweak the messages depending on the platform. Okay. So you set it now three times
• 33:06
  a day on TikTok or whatever, twice a day on Instagram. And again, it's the listeners are like,
• 33:12
  dude, how do you do that? Well, most people are asking that question from the context of being an
• 33:19
  originator. Are you no longer in the, you know, the typical day to day activities of an originator?
• 33:26
  I spend almost all my day originating lows, whether I'm reviewing applications, credit reports,
• 33:33
  inputting contracts. Obviously, I have a team. So my processor, my loan partner, they help me
• 33:38
  when things get into contract and we're on a tight timeline. But as far as the leads and everything
• 33:43
  are concerned, I'm handling all of them at this point. We are trying to find additional loan
• 33:49
  officers who maybe would like to work leads and figure out how to get applications closed
• 33:56
  to help because obviously, you know, I spend probably seven hours of every day working on the leads,
• 34:04
  the applications, the credit and the customers. But I take at least an hour every day to create
• 34:12
  content. And a lot of times what we do is we do batch. So we'll take and we'll time block
• 34:19
  three hours on Thursday. And we will go in. And as we've done our market research, we will save
• 34:27
  videos that we like. We'll save. Because again, we do trending. So trending audios will save the
• 34:32
  audios that we like. And what we'll do is we'll go record all of these videos, whether the
• 34:39
  trending ones or their talking ones. A lot of the trending ones are really easy to do because we
• 34:44
  can batch and bunch of them. And then we add the message later. But the talking ones, obviously,
• 34:50
  that's more of us going, hey, we really need to get this message out. So that comes from me working
• 34:56
  files. So as I'm working files and we run into issues, things where people didn't realize that
• 35:02
  this was the case. Or there was a lack of education and a lack of information. I'm writing this
• 35:07
  stuff down as I'm working on it. So that way, then I can create videos around it to offer up
• 35:14
  entertainment and education about the process or something that we, as we're going through it,
• 35:19
  somebody didn't know. So the market research comes from doing the loans too.
• 35:25
  All right. Yeah. Exactly. The content you get from talking to people.
• 35:30
  Yeah. I've said it at Nazi. I might feel like in the last day of just doing people like,
• 35:34
  what do I talk about? Well, how about the top five or 10 questions you get, right? I mean,
• 35:38
  that's five or 10 videos right there. Yeah. I mean, it's endless. There's a boundless amount
• 35:44
  of information that people just don't know. And I mean, don't get me wrong. It's not everybody.
• 35:50
  So you'll have the same message a bunch of times or you may have it only once. But it's all
• 35:56
  information that is being missed or not being taught that you could create content around them to
• 36:03
  help somebody figure that out and know that. Yeah. For sure. All right. So in terms of lead
• 36:09
  generation stuff, 17 contracts. What was the apps? 350 apps? Is that what I wrote down?
• 36:19
  350 applications. That's crazy. I was like double checking that number was correct.
• 36:23
  Yeah. That's for February. Yes. So I mean, we've done close to
• 36:31
  three to 4,000 applications since we really started this whole social media thing. Okay.
• 36:37
  That's what I wanted to better understand is you're kind of like lead,
• 36:41
  you know, social media inquiry thing process. There's a kind of a link in bio. You
• 36:46
  use snip feed. Other people use like link tree. Is that how you move people forward in the process?
• 36:52
  Yeah. So a lot of like I said, a lot of our content is centered around different things.
• 36:57
  So one of the programs that we offer we call our blueprint blueprint to home program.
• 37:02
  It used to be our road to home program. So it's changed. The messaging changed a little bit.
• 37:06
  That's thanks to my boss. But that is for those who aren't necessarily ready to buy it right now
• 37:12
  that either need credit help. So they know that their credit's not where it needs to be and they need
• 37:17
  some advice on how to get there because that's a lot of a lot of people in this in this country
• 37:22
  just don't know how to fix their credit or get their credit where they need to.
• 37:26
  But it also gives them a chance to work with us to figure out where they need to be in order to buy
• 37:32
  a house. And we give them the timeline. We set them up on an app. The app allows them to send goals.
• 37:38
  Create a savings account that they can autograph into to start saving for a down payment.
• 37:43
  Track things like their red payments which we can use to help them qualify for a home loan.
• 37:47
  There's a bunch of different aspects in the app that we help them with the blueprint to home
• 37:51
  that gives them that helps them strengthen their final within the timely and the day to be able to
• 37:56
  purchase house. So a lot of people who are, you know, I'm in my lease for another 64 months.
• 38:00
  I'm already a buyer right now. That's great. Here's how we can do it. So we'll take your application.
• 38:04
  We'll do a soft credit poll. This gives us enough information to tell you kind of what you qualify for.
• 38:09
  But it also gives us information that we can tell you, hey, if you did this, this, and this with your credit,
• 38:14
  this is where your credit score would be. Here's the programs you would be eligible for.
• 38:18
  Here's what you qualify for based on your income. If you were to pay down this debt,
• 38:22
  you could qualify for this. Or if you were to save up this much money, here's how much you could buy,
• 38:26
  and here's how much you could qualify for. So it's kind of our catch-all for those that are
• 38:31
  necessarily ready to buy a bank income who you need. Credit help. Money help with saving for a down payment.
• 38:36
  We're just diggering out how to do when you come up with it.
• 38:40
  So that's one of the reasons that are in our 50s. It's a big one for our leads because people
• 38:46
  are very interested in putting out their credit. But then we have, you know, easier typical
• 38:52
  doing business systems programs, FHA, USDA, ADA, so we're talking about that all the time.
• 38:59
  So when they're getting to our 50s, they're seeing those and they can go and click on those
• 39:04
  and those are follows, right? So they're describing their information to us and then we're pulling
• 39:07
  up with them. But I would say, probably, those are the 60% of the people that I message with
• 39:14
  our databases because I'm in and I'm direct messaging out of social media accounts from myself.
• 39:22
  They're going directly to the application because they understand that without the application,
• 39:26
  there's a lot of information that I'm missing that I can't help them decide whether or not they're
• 39:30
  going to be all work. So is most of the lead flow in the DMs or over in your SNP feed?
• 39:36
  So I would say probably about 60% of the applications are coming directly from DMs.
• 39:44
  The other 40% are those that are going in through the lead funnels and that we're following up
• 39:49
  with after they've done the lead funnel to have a conversation whether they're asking questions
• 39:55
  because it's interesting, right? So different social media platforms have different ways that you
• 40:01
  can direct message or you can't. So TikTok, you have to follow and they have to follow you to be
• 40:05
  able to direct message them. So it's very difficult people to direct message you on TikTok unless
• 40:10
  I'm actively following them and they're following me. So again, we can let them hop over to
• 40:15
  Instagram. They can message me there or they can just hop onto the SNP feed and make a 15-minute
• 40:21
  phone call appointment with me or go through one of the funnels and then reach out and then we
• 40:25
  connect with them then. Yeah, so on your the one where it's the home program there to kind of
• 40:35
  get on the path towards home ownership, obviously they're going to some kind of funnel. What's
• 40:38
  this is me now geeking out? What's the back end of the CRM on that if I can ask? So lead pops is
• 40:44
  the funnel. I'm a big fan of lead pops. Once that happens it's going into verse which is bot
• 40:53
  system where there's automated text messaging going back and forth between the consumer who's
• 40:58
  just filled out their information and then currently we're playing it into what we call daily AI
• 41:05
  where it's being mirrored so that I can step in if the box is unable to answer the questions
• 41:11
  and manually take over the conversation from there. Yeah, daily.ai CRM I believe if I recall.
• 41:19
  That is it. We are in the process of working with a couple of different other CRMs to possibly
• 41:24
  change that though so that we can live and host everything in one CRM. Right. Yep, simplify your life.
• 41:31
  What is the most popular, most utilized funnel of the ones you've mentioned that are on your
• 41:41
  SNP feed here? I would say it's probably the blueprint or the road home.
• 41:45
  Road home because people want to understand hey can I qualify? How much? All that stuff. So a lot of
• 41:50
  first time home home buyer stuff. Exactly. Yep. Okay, very interesting. Love that. What's been
• 42:01
  has anything shocked you or surprised you on either side of the coin positive or negative on
• 42:07
  your social journey? I guess probably the one thing that shocked me the most is the amount of
• 42:12
  engagement that we get and I guess more so just the lack of information that's out there I
• 42:20
  guess for them. It's either we have a lack of education in our school system for financing and
• 42:30
  understanding credit or we're not teaching it because a lot of the consumers that I talk with
• 42:36
  they just don't know anything about credit or they don't know anything about finance.
• 42:40
  So I think that's probably the biggest shocker to me and it's probably been the one piece that's
• 42:45
  driving me to do more and more and to want to do a podcast and to want to hop on conversations
• 42:51
  like this is so that we can try to help educate as many of the consumers that we can.
• 42:56
  Well I can tell you for sure I know you're a dad of three young children mine are 21 and 18
• 43:02
  and they of course recently come through high school and the school they go to they actually
• 43:06
  give them the day Ramsey education right so there's some good to that meaning
• 43:12
  wise dad watch out for that but the I had a conversation or a debate with my older son about
• 43:19
  yeah he's like you know oh why don't need a phyco score I'm like hold on let's let's time out
• 43:24
  why do you think you don't need a phyco score it's like all said well Dave says this Dave says
• 43:28
  that you know I'm like well let's talk about the real world and you know why that's actually not
• 43:33
  100% accurate son you know so they're either not being fed their information or some of it's not
• 43:38
  necessarily 100% accurate for operating in the modern world right yeah and I think there's a there's
• 43:45
  a obviously one of the things I try to teach my children is there's balance right yeah we don't take
• 43:50
  everything from one person and that's right there's life experiences too not only just the education
• 43:58
  I mean no get me wrong I could go into a rabbit hole when it comes to the education and
• 44:05
  where we think we are and what information we've been provided and how that changes as we get
• 44:10
  into the real world and we we adjust our our thinking but I applaud their school for even giving
• 44:18
  them Dave Ramsey right because that's going to give them information on budgeting and how to kind
• 44:24
  of deal with finances hopefully they're not going to be living paycheck to paycheck but yeah
• 44:29
  you're right like there's there's other aspects of it that that doesn't teach that they could get
• 44:34
  from somewhere else and that's kind of where I feel like I would like to be able to come in for
• 44:37
  those types of people to explain like look you're right dead is bad there's a lot of dead is bad
• 44:43
  but there's also some good dead and in order to have good debt you have to have good phyco scores
• 44:49
  and so in order to have good phyco scores you have to understand how to
• 44:53
  work the system because it is a system you know the phyco scoring model is a is a is a system that
• 44:58
  has to be worked it's a profit maker is what it is yes you know that's why that's not going
• 45:06
  anywhere anytime soon no you know we've heard about the alternate phyco scores for years and
• 45:10
  still haven't really seen them well I mean we've got the vantage score I mean that's what
• 45:15
  experienced eco-faxing transient went and created once they heard that we were going to an
• 45:18
  alternative to the phyco score model so that they didn't lose their money but I mean it's there
• 45:24
  and it's not really any better than the phyco score model it's very similar it just has different
• 45:30
  impacts on different things you know what I mean right but you still need to have an established
• 45:35
  history of paying off debt yeah you still have to be you still have to show that you can borrow
• 45:39
  money and pay it back right exactly all right I noticed I see Homebot somewhere in your funnels
• 45:45
  I'm curious to what degree that's part of your overall process so Homebot is for those of our
• 45:50
  clients who are literally already closed it gives our clients the ability to keep track of a
• 45:57
  conservative estimate of value for their home they can track their mortgage payments they can
• 46:04
  track their mortgage balances kind of play with different things it's a tool so yeah that's
• 46:09
  kind of where we're at with that one so now I mean I see you it's in your funnel about like you
• 46:13
  know what's your home worth CMAs and all that is that much of a thing for you not really I mean
• 46:19
  I'm sure you probably talked to plenty of real estate agents recently there's not a lot of people
• 46:23
  interested in selling their houses because they have their 2% interest rate what's your home worth
• 46:30
  less than last month how's that right yeah but a lot more than it was last year true true all
• 46:36
  perspective right 100 percent no I'm just curious because I do see some people using that as part
• 46:42
  of a lead capture process obviously it's for existing homeowners but you know it can be used for
• 46:48
  people that are out shopping so a lot of our customers who are coming through the funnels have
• 46:53
  the opportunity to jump in and start using it to start searching for homes we don't really push
• 46:58
  too much because we want to make sure that our clients are pretty approved before they start
• 47:02
  shopping for houses yes 100 percent okay any big plans for changes you're making this year in 2023
• 47:10
  to your content strategy to channels to types of content honestly I think it's a lot of more of
• 47:17
  the same gonna spend a little bit more time working with the longer form content creating some more
• 47:24
  informational educational maybe some pieces that might be able to help I mean we're working on
• 47:31
  a class right now there's a lot of first time home buyer classes out there but most people don't
• 47:36
  know where to find them so because we have a platform where a lot of people have found us
• 47:41
  and they feel comfortable and can trust us we're planning on creating some sort of first time
• 47:47
  home buyer class to give them the ability to go out on our social media platform start playing
• 47:51
  around with it and maybe learn a little bit more about the process that way is that going to be
• 47:56
  like you on video and stuff educational content I think people get enough of me on video I'm
• 48:00
  planning on making it a little bit more fun a little bit more interactive kind of like a interactive
• 48:07
  slideshow with some video yeah I mean there's there's no reason to recreate the wheel there's a
• 48:14
  lot like I said there's a lot of first time home buyer classes online so I've gone out and took
• 48:19
  a look at a lot of them so we've got a lot of the same information we're just going to try to play
• 48:23
  with it to see how we can make it more engaging and a little bit more fun so that way people can
• 48:28
  actually finish it and feel like they've learned something yeah I was doing some research on that as
• 48:33
  well rocket used to have one I forget what the name of it was and if they they changed it it used
• 48:39
  to be like on this thinkific platform fannie Mae as you probably know has one so I'm looking
• 48:45
  at some doing some stuff there as well let's compare now it's perhaps yeah I would love to
• 48:49
  I mean I like I said I I love to collaborate because like I said I hit I there's a lot of stuff I
• 48:54
  don't know and I love to get more information and work with other people because the the more we
• 48:59
  collaborate the the better off our consumers will be and the more information they're going to have
• 49:06
  all right well this has been awesome I do appreciate you making time and you're busy probably
• 49:09
  keeping you from making videos or at least talking to some somebody wanting to do alone with you
• 49:14
  so in the show notes people I'm going to put links it's mortgage dad of free for Instagram
• 49:20
  and TikTok of course it's the same because Josh is smart he knows about brand continuity so it's
• 49:26
  mortgage dad of three over on Instagram as well and then loan behold from correct same on YouTube
• 49:32
  yeah it's everywhere my friend there you go man smart so those are all the places you can follow
• 49:37
  Josh anything else you want to tell the listener before we sign off honestly everybody have fun
• 49:43
  enjoy life and don't sweat the the media because most of it's just fear mongering keep going
• 49:49
  and enjoy life right on all right Josh we appreciate it very very much links will be in the show
• 49:54
  notes people if you like this episode you know what to do leave us a review or share it with somebody
• 49:58
  and until the next time we'll see you on the next episode bye for now
• 50:43
  you
• 50:46
  so
• 51:10
  hey guys what's up real quick you heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before
• 51:14
  And I just want to quickly remind you if that you're in a place in your business where you simply need
• 51:19
  more purchased loans, you need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it,
• 51:23
  agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you.
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