Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Why Referral Partners Are More Profitable than Paid Leads

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Why Referral Partners Are More Profitable than Paid Leads · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
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the real estate agents is essential for success.
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However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
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With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it
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can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections.
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Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
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Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
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And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
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with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
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To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
0:45
of the case study today.
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You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million
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in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can, too.
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Don't miss out.
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Go check it out right now.
0:58
Visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
1:03
Hey, hey, listener, what's up, Jeff Zimfer, host of the Mortgage Marketing Radio.
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Podcast.
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Thanks for tuning in.
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This is the place where we help loan officers get more agent referrals so they can become
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the go-to lender in their market.
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How do we do that?
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We help you implement a proven system for attracting agents, closing more loans without having
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a call call, pay for leads, chase, beg, borrow, agents now come to you on demand, like clockwork
1:50
every single month.
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It's called the Mortgage Marketing Pro membership and in there we do something called my agent
1:57
classes.
1:59
A couple of new success stories to share with you.
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This one just came across the wire just minutes ago literally from one of our power users
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Carmella.
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What's up?
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Carmella shout out to you.
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She just finished a class today, 28 of 30 agents showed up from that immediately booked
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four new one-on-one appointments to set up and go over some marketing strategies together
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out of be of better value and help agents, which is going to build that trust and loyalty
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and referrals.
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And if that wasn't enough, we got another one that came in hot off the presses as well,
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which is from Glenda, Glenda hosted one of our Instagram classes teamed up with the
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title company to help her fill the room.
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The title company did everything, hosted, marketed, paid for breakfast.
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What did Glenda get out of that?
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A couple hours of her time.
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Seven, booked meetings for the next week.
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That was 100% by the way of those who showed up.
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Folks, there's something amazing that happens when you show up to give, not take, when you're
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all about connection over conversion.
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Trust goes up, resistance goes down, relationships are accelerated, referrals happen.
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And more importantly, perhaps you begin to build a reputation, a brand becoming known
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as the premium and at mortgage professional in your area.
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Why?
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Because you do things differently.
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You have a unique, different attraction, right?
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Principle.
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You're not chasing, you're attracting, you're leading with value, which induces reciprocation
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and who isn't attracted by somebody who gives more value than anyone else in town.
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Want to learn more?
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Go over to mortgagemarketing.pro, check out the video, check out some of our new success
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stories over there.
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And do it quick because we're making some big changes to this platform, mortgagemarketing.pro,
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go check it out.
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All right, my special guest this week is a longtime friend, colleague, associate, fellow
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guitar player, Chris Johnstone, out of our neighboring country of Canada.
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Chris is a, what I'll call a marketing savant, he's owned a digital marketing agency for
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quite a number of years, has spoken on many stages and has worked within our field,
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the mortgage field for many of those years.
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And Chris has been on the podcast at least once, maybe twice before, and that's because
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he's always a wealth of knowledge.
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And on today's show, we're talking about why interesting, why referral partners are more
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profitable than paying for online leads, than running paid ads, might be something relevant
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to listen to, based on the success, success stories, I just shared with you, I can't
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talk today.
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So anyway, Chris and I kind of unpack the state of online leads, the challenges with
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the doing online leads and paid traffic, and not that it's right, something you should
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never do, but as a matter of when should you do it at what stage in your business and
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Chris is going to unpack that, then he'll tell us about some of how he's helping a lot
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of officers also get conversations with referral partners.
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And if you think something's there for you, well, then the links are in the show notes
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to go check out more of Chris's info.
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He's also got a podcast that the link to follow is in the show notes there as well.
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So let's do this.
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Let's get into this week's show, Chris Johnstone, welcome back to the show.
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Man, Jeff, thank you so much for having me.
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I always try to remember whenever I have somebody back on, first of all, it says, and this
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isn't coming from me as like some big, you go thing, but the fact that you're here again
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for a second time means the audience responded well.
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And you are somebody that's looked to as a source of knowledge and information that
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we need in our hungry for.
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So that's why I set that up properly.
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So here's let's do this for those who may not know who Chris Johnstone is.
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Who are you?
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And what do you do?
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Cool.
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So I run a company on the owner of Connection Incorporated and we book qualified sales
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appointments for people in the mortgage financial services and insurance industry.
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And we may be known as a digital marketing agency.
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So we have done a lot of Google, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram advertising in the past.
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And we've evolved over the last year and a half to two years to kind of go past lead generation.
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We still do a lot of that, but I had this kind of like amazing discovery while running
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the agency.
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And now we're just focused on qualified appointments that actually show up in your calendar and close.
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What was that amazing discovery?
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Well, online lead suck.
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Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water, right?
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No, you're right.
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So it was for me, I'm, I really care about our customers and I know everybody says that,
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but I'm one of those entrepreneurs that would stay up at night and I would have a client
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that just couldn't convert the online leads and we just bother me.
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And we're at a scale now where it had an impact.
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And so we would generate the leads and we've given to the clients and they wouldn't call them.
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So we partnered with a CRM company.
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We created our own little CRM to do text messages and emails and bring those voice
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mails to solve that problem for them.
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Like we used to just drive traffic.
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Like we'll get your rankings, we'll get your traffic.
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Then it was, okay, we got traffic and now we've got this lead conversion system that's
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going to convert those leads into conversations for you.
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And so we had, I remember vividly, I had a client that canceled, said these leads are
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no good.
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And I was like, hey, would you mind just hopping on the phone with me where like I'm not,
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like I'm going to refund your money, no problem, away you go, but I just want to take
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a look at what was happening here to see if we can free this out.
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And we went in in the third conversation that I opened up with somebody who responded
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back and said, yes, I'd like to submit a mortgage application.
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When are you free?
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And he never responded to the lead.
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And I was like, okay, there's something wrong here.
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I'm trying to force blown officers to be lead conversion specialists and they're not.
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And I can't change that.
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So I can't expect them to change.
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The onus is on me.
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I'm responsible.
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How do I solve this problem?
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And so I ran the worst job ad in the world.
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I went on indeed, or zip recruiter, one of these sites and I literally wrote like a three
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word job ad, not three word, three sentence.
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It was like, if you know how to turn online leads from the internet into book appointments
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and you've got experience in the real estate and mortgage world, I would like to hire you
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for a job, please.
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And I had just as luck would have it, you know, sometimes when you're aligned on your
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right purpose, the right people show up at the right time.
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The first guy that applied for the job had just left one of the major national brokerages
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and was running their call center for them.
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So he called me up and he's like, you're generating leads.
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I know how to turn them into appointments, transformed everything.
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We would take 100 leads from Google and we'd book 35, 40 appointments from the leads.
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Just transformational.
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So that was really, really good.
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And then I had a friend of mine who's called me up and he's like, Chris, you guys are crushing
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it.
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His concierge's name was Lenny and he said, Lenny's like a part of our team.
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He actually attended their weekly meeting with their sales team to talk about the appointments
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he was booking and everything.
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They said Lenny is amazing, but I'm going away on vacation.
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I'm going to be gone for a month.
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I've got five loan officers on my team and I don't want their pipeline to dry up while
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we're gone.
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And although the Google ads and the appointments that you guys are generating for us is profitable,
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90% of my business still comes from my past customers and my referral partners.
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So what we want to do for this month is we want to take Lenny, we want to order a whole
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bunch more calls from you guys and we want him to call our past clients and our referral
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partners.
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Is that okay?
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Me being an entrepreneur.
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Yes, let's do it.
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Let's make the scripts.
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Let's do the whole thing.
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Well, they closed like funded nine deals from the phone calls that Lenny made for them
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that month.
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And my whole world, how I viewed, how to help our clients close deals change just like
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that.
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And so I made the realization that I've been solving the hardest to solve problem that
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exists in a business, turning a stranger from the internet into somebody who's moderately
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interested into a warm prospect into a consultation, then into a mortgage application and then
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into an actual customer.
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That is the hardest way to get a customer when we could just take the exact same assets
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that we had in the business and start calling past clients and qualify for our partners
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and five, six, seven, X, the response that our clients were getting.
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And so, you know, it's funny, yesterday I had a call with Parker.
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Parker is one of our clients and he called us at the very beginning of his career.
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So he's only been in the mortgage business for like 13 or 14 months.
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Got his license, the week that he got licensed, picked up his family, moved to a new state
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in a new city where he knew absolutely nobody and was brand new in the city, brand new
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in the mortgage business.
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He called us up because we were working with his dad and said, Hey, I heard that you guys
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can get a qualified list of referral partners, call those people and set me up appointments.
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I'm brand new in this marketplace.
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Can you do that for me?
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So he's been buying 400 calls or 400 contacts from us per month for a year.
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I spoke to him yesterday.
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He has 26 real estate agents that have referred him a funded deal in the last 12 months.
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All of them are currently sending him business right now.
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Five of them are actual not the real estate agents, but the broker and the broker is sending
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them different agents that come to the office.
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So he has funded $11.5 million in volume in the last 12 months from just the relationships
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that we set him up the appointments with.
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So that's the evolution of what we're doing.
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So yes, we can still run ads on Google and we're still generating a positive return on
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investment, but I've found that it's far more profitable for somebody that isn't calling
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their past book of business or they're not consistently calling their past book of business.
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I would much rather have that person come to me and say, look, don't worry about online
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ads yet.
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Like until you've got your database marketing dialed in and you've got at least one to two
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appointments a day with qualified realtors, financial planners, investment advisors, attorneys.
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I can tell you've got one to two appointments a day with those people.
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Don't mess with the online stuff because you've got all this low hanging fruit that's available.
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And I missed that fact for 10 years.
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So I'm not like on this podium, like, hey, look, I'm a genius, but I stuck around long
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enough to figure this out and it's been transformational for us.
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So that's kind of like who I am in that discovery journey.
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I love that.
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Thanks for walking us through that.
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You're obviously achieving results for your clients and you said something there when
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you close that out, which is the real lesson, at least for me, from that, which is this
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is kind of what I've been reaching as well for years is like because a lot of people
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look to like the online leads is like the easy button and I'm so tired of dealing with
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realtors and all the stuff that goes with that and they think, oh, I'll just spend some
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money and generate some leads.
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And what you're saying is after you use your number after 10 years of trying to do that,
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you've realized, wait a minute, the pyramid's inverted, we need we need to have past clients
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and referral partners at the top and those other colder lead sources towards the bottom.
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That's it.
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And the other thing that I think was a major realization for me is that a loan officer
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in my opinion, now sitting where I am with the knowledge that I have, they should not
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be making cold calls and they should not be chasing leads.
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So everybody has inbound leads and take the example of let's say you've got a bunch
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of really good Google reviews and you're ranked on the front page of Google and you're
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getting calls from Google or you've got before partners that are sending you leads or past
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customers that are sending you referrals.
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If you're letting those phone calls go to voicemail, that right there is the number one activity
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that you can do something about to make more money right now.
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So there's a fantastic stat floating around the mortgage industry.
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I heard Carl White say it and it's roughly 72% of mortgage consumers actually do business
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with the first lender that they talk to.
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So picking up your phone is the most important and profitable activity that we have in the
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mortgage business and yet most people as a general business practice will be too busy throughout
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the day to pick up the phone and then at the end of the day, they call all the people
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back that are in their voicemail.
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And so taking a concierge and making sure your phone never goes to voicemail, everybody
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gets a call in real time and any lead that you do generate that comes in from an online
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web form or a live chat or a Facebook ad and a DM, those people are responded back to
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within the first five minutes.
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If you can do those two things, you can transform the conversion on the leads that you've already
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got.
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So if you spend another dime on advertising, you can literally double the conversion from
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leads that come in into closings by just making sure nobody ever goes to voicemail and calling
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everybody back within the first five minutes.
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So there's two things there though, making sure nobody ever goes to voicemail.
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How do you do that?
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So what you do is you use a like we've got a CRM program that we use, but there's all
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kinds of software out here that do this and they can port your number.
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So what you do is you call your provider.
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If you've got a cell phone number that you've got out on all your stuff, you call your
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cell phone provider and say, Hey, I want to forward my phone number to this number.
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That number then rings your concierge and the concierge gets the phone call rather than
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you.
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And it's all tracked through your software.
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So you can see how many phone calls did I get?
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Make sure they actually pick up the phone.
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You can listen to the conversations, make sure the same quality is still there, but you
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never, never miss one of those leads.
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And then you said responding within five minutes as well was part two of that.
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So and that would be another case where you think somebody would need to delegate that.
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I believe so because in the mortgage business, we're all fighting fires all day long.
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We just don't have the bandwidth to be available when that happens.
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Just the two most profitable things you can do in the mortgage industry, again, in my
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opinion, is either be talking to borrowers and taking applications over the phone or talking
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to referral partners who can send you multiple applications that you can then take off, take
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on the phone and then put into your processing department.
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Those are basically the two things that you should spend your day doing because those are
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the highest leverage, highest dollar paid per hour activities that exist in the business.
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So you should wake up, you should do that for eight hours a day and have everything
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else delegated in the mortgage business.
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Just my opinion.
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No, I agree.
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I mean, you got to think about what's your, I've been listening to this book lately called
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Clockworkin.
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I believe it's the name of it.
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Somebody turned me on.
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It's basically about how to build a business that runs without you.
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And so of course, part of that comes back to systems and delegation and things like
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there's this concept in there that what is the QBR, the Queen B's role?
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He gives this cool little metaphor of like, in a beehive, what's the whole purpose and
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function of the beehive?
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It's to make sure the Queen B keeps producing eggs.
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That's it.
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And so every other thing that exists around that, I think that's happening with those
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B's exists so that Queen B keeps producing eggs.
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Side note, by the way, if the Queen B stops producing eggs or produces offspring that
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are weak or lazy, they kill the Queen B and they create a new one.
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I thought that was going to just be true nature's brutal, right?
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But at the same line of thinking of like business is like, what's your QBR?
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What's your Queen B role, right?
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It would be to generate opportunities, close loans, right?
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These little, you know, lay eggs, if you will, right, to continue that thread.
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And then so, yeah, anything that takes you away from that, right, whether that's using
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a service like you provide, whether it's using other software tech people, you hire people
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on your own team, it's like you got to be in your, your lane, right, of generation of
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opportunities.
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Yep.
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100%.
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And another little side note, this episode might get sticky because I'm actually an amateur
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beekeeper.
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Many people don't know that about me, but you want to talk to these, man, I got lots of
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knowledge.
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But I dig guys.
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Oh, okay.
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Any, but does that, is that true, right?
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Because I just heard this audio book.
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That's what happens.
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Totally true.
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And if, you know, they'll even kill the Queen if they feel that she's not laying enough
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eggs fast enough, crazy thing about it.
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So they have, so okay, there are all different kinds of bees that are in the colony and they're
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all specialized to their role.
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Just like in your business, you should have a concierge.
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Their only role is to qualify appointments to fill your calendar with a qualified appointment.
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Well, there are bees within the community and all they do is produce royal jelly.
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Royal jelly is required to make a queen bee.
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They will make like three or four or five queen bees all at the same time.
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They hatch and the first queen to come out goes and kills all of the other queen bees.
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Most often though, like the bees are very precise and they will make sure that they're all
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inseminated or germinated at the same time.
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So literally they will come out, fight to the death and the queen bee that wins, wins the
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colony.
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Get out really?
20:26
Yeah.
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Crazy.
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Yeah.
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Wow.
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So run your business like a bee.
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They do a pretty good job.
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I think that's a great analogy.
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And we, in my opinion, we should be that serious about our business.
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I mean, it's how we feed our families.
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It's how we send our kids' college.
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It's how we really lead the lifestyle that we want to.
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And man, the mortgage business is such a good business.
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I understand we're going through a transitional period right now and it's not exactly easy
20:54
right now.
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But on the other side, when we get there, there's no better business to create an incredible
21:01
life of freedom.
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But I can tell you, if you're going into the next cycle and you haven't taken this
21:07
downtime to write the scripts, put the systems in place, understand what your hierarchy
21:13
looks like and what people you need and what roles as you grow and expand, you're going
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to fall back into, let's rewind 16 months when our biggest problem in the mortgage business
21:23
was you couldn't hire enough processors to process the refinances that were falling
21:28
out of the sky.
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Now is the opportunity to take the business structure, put it in place so that you've
21:35
got a plan so that when the time comes, you can scale rapidly, quickly, profitably and
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take advantage of the new market that's coming because us here, we've got market share
21:47
coming to us.
21:48
And this is the time to plan and put the systems in place.
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And I've done the math backwards on a mortgage business and you paying somebody to pick
21:58
up the phone, to qualify your leads to fill your calendars so that you're only spending
22:03
your time on money making activities.
22:05
If you pay that person 20, 22 dollars an hour and I'm talking about North American based
22:10
people, I'm not talking about outsourcing to the Philippines or anything like that.
22:13
We are North American based people, 20 bucks an hour, let's say that person can immediately
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start making you 75, 85, 100 dollars an hour.
22:24
Everybody looks at it like I can't afford to hire somebody.
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You can't afford not to hire somebody because if they're not doing it, you're the person
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that has to be on the phone called calling realtors, cold calling insurance agents, cold
22:38
calling wealth managers.
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And the time that you spend doing that is taking time away from building systems, taking
22:45
applications and actually meeting with the referral partners.
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All right.
22:50
So let's unpack a couple of things before I forget for those who want to know what that book
22:52
is.
22:53
It's called Clockwork by Mike Calowitz, find that on Amazon, Clockwork, a pretty cool
22:59
book.
23:00
Okay.
23:01
So.
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He also wrote profit first.
23:03
Sorry.
23:04
And also very highly recommended.
23:06
Yeah.
23:07
Profit first.
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I think I have that book too.
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It's right over here, but I jumped to that one for whatever reason.
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Okay.
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So let's deal with the loan officer and real estate agents as well.
23:18
I'm sure you've come across this, which is you're going to talk to my potential clients.
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My precious, referred, you know, like I don't know if I can trust somebody else talking
23:35
to my clients.
23:36
How do you overcome that?
23:38
Yeah.
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Absolutely.
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First off is scripting is is very important, but the certification process where I should
23:46
say the training process, if you're going to go out and do this on your own, that training
23:50
process is very important because you need to instill in that person the culture, which
23:57
you greet your customers with.
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And in my professional opinion, that system has to be built, whether it's you doing it
24:07
or whether it's a concierge agent that's doing it, because if you're just winging it
24:12
on every single phone call that comes in, we've got good days, we've got bad days, we've
24:17
got, you know, some days you just don't feel like picking up the phone.
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Now, so a whole lot easier if you just pick it up and you know your script, right?
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And you as the business owner, you're going to know your script down cold in two weeks.
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That concierge agent, we hire people who already have at least one year's experience with professional
24:34
appointment setting.
24:36
And I will tell you the first experience that you have with a true expert when you've
24:40
got the right hire and they pick up the phone and you hear them for the first time, you
24:44
be like, oh, oh, that was good.
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Why didn't I do this sooner?
24:49
This is incredible.
24:50
Like they can sound just like you, they can put that best foot forward, but you can't
24:57
just hire the person and be like, okay, here's a, here's a word document, good luck.
25:01
You've got to take the time to allow them to shadow you.
25:04
How do you speak to your clients and they can create the system for you?
25:08
That's the beauty of this thing.
25:09
That's what I did at Connection Incorporated when we started with our concierge agents.
25:13
It was like, hey, here's your zoom link and you're going to be on the background for eight
25:16
hours and you're going to listen to this guy, yeah.
25:19
And what I want you to do is every time I book an appointment, I want you to have written
25:23
down what questions did I ask, what process did I go through, and then I want you to structure
25:29
this script so that you can repeat it.
25:32
And all of a sudden I realized we've got seven talking points that we talk about all
25:36
of the time over and over and over in the business.
25:39
I didn't even realize it because I just kind of go with it, but now the most powerful
25:44
stuff that I've got, the values that we want to convey in the business are all written
25:50
down.
25:51
They're hit every single time.
25:52
Nobody misses anything and these people are just cheerful and happy to be on the phone
25:56
and they do a better job than I would.
25:58
And so when you look at it that way, it's creating an extension of yourself.
26:03
And even if they only do it 80% as good as you can, they have freed up eight hours
26:09
a day of your time so that you can focus on those leveraged opportunities.
26:14
So let's say there's 10 phone calls and they missed two of them.
26:18
Well, you just had eight really good phone calls that you didn't have to do that are
26:23
growing your business while you're focused on doing other things.
26:27
And I think this might be helpful.
26:30
So I'll run through the numbers, Jeff, if that's okay with you.
26:33
So a concierge agent should make around 150 phone calls a day.
26:38
Some days it's a little bit lighter, some days it's a little bit more.
26:40
It depends on how many people pick up the phone, but an average is 150 calls per day.
26:45
They should speak to between 30 and 40 people a day and on average a full time concierge agent
26:50
books, five qualified appointments a day.
26:54
And those could be applications that come through your past customer database or that
26:58
could be referral partners that are already pre-qualified because you've vetted the list
27:02
that the concierge agent is calling before they make the calls.
27:08
But where do you draw the line?
27:09
For example, you know, I know you've interviewed Wally Ellibary recently, and I, and he's
27:15
a big advocate of the mortgage efficiency calls and things like that, right?
27:21
We also refer to as the annual mortgage reviews, you know, the, he's got this amazing
27:25
plan.
27:26
As I'm sure you know, the 30, that's the 90, the six months, right?
27:30
Yep.
27:31
Should those calls, though, be being done by the individual loan officer who has the relationship
27:36
if we're talking past clients?
27:38
So the actual meeting with the client should either be done by the loan officer, but then
27:45
once you scale, it's either your L.O.A., your loan officer assistant or somebody that's
27:49
in that role that knows how to do that.
27:53
But the person who calls the client to make that first point of contact, explain the value
28:01
of why that's so important, getting the referrals from that person so that they can call the
28:08
referrals and get those and actually booking the appointment should all be done by a concierge.
28:13
Because I mean, just think about how much time it takes to actually get an appointment
28:18
with a client on your calendar.
28:20
Does Tuesday at four work for you?
28:22
No.
28:23
Another email.
28:24
Okay.
28:25
Great.
28:26
How about Wednesday at five?
28:27
No.
28:28
Here's my calendar link.
28:29
Wow.
28:30
The link is broken.
28:31
I can't act like you can go back and forth seven to eight messages with a client before
28:33
you can just get them booked into your calendar.
28:36
It's just like take the example of going to the doctor.
28:40
Nobody expects to show up for surgery day and have the doctor greet them at the front
28:43
door.
28:44
Hey, welcome.
28:45
Here's your little booties that you put on and go check in, right?
28:48
And you go to the check encounter.
28:50
You'd be freaked out if the doctor was sitting on the other side of the wicket being like,
28:53
here's your paperwork.
28:54
Don't forget to fill out form three, right?
28:57
The doctor, the person who owns the business, the expert, the person who is put in that
29:02
level of authority to take care of that client, they show up at just the right time for five
29:08
to ten minutes to do that highly specialized thing and then systems and people take care
29:14
of everything else.
29:15
It happens in the law office.
29:17
It happens with really good financial planners.
29:20
It happens in almost every high level business that we associate with except the mortgage
29:25
industry.
29:26
And I don't know why that is, but a lot of reasons why I mean, you know, number one,
29:35
most of them are running, they're basically just a salesperson, not running a business.
29:43
Number one, number two, they're control freaks, so they feel like they need to be in control
29:47
of all those things.
29:48
And they believe that they can do it better.
29:51
And by the way, that might be true, but you talked about earlier, which is what that book
29:55
talks about as well, clockwork and profit first is, if somebody can do it, 80% is good
30:00
as you, you know, and that frees you up for the, right?
30:03
The Queen B roll to be able to produce the eggs more often, aka loans, opportunities,
30:10
or actually have a little bit of margin in your life.
30:13
And you've got like, like, because what you're talking about here, this is a process for
30:16
people to take on psychologically, 100%.
30:20
Because it's all about mindset.
30:21
It's all about like, how do you see yourself?
30:22
And it's all about like being open to, to, in a lot of practitioners, you know, this
30:27
as well, reading the book, emith, Michael Gerber.
30:29
A lot of people are, are, are tacticians, they're great at, right, performing a task.
30:34
And then they're like, oh, I'm going to start my own business, or I'm going to be an
30:37
L.O.
30:38
Great at taking apps.
30:39
I'm great at solving problems to get the loan done.
30:44
But that's not a business, right?
30:47
That's just doing it right.
30:49
Yep.
30:50
And I'm, I'm, I'm hanging out here and pausing pregnantly, purposefully, there's three
30:55
peas in a row, because I think those that are listening to this right now, some get
31:01
and some they're like, you know, this makes sense, but I don't have the money to do it,
31:04
or whatever the thing is that comes up in their head.
31:07
And then some are listening, going, I don't know if I agree with that.
31:11
I don't know if I want anybody else talking to my customers, you know, and, and what I
31:15
would propose to you, if you're struggling with that side of it versus the financial
31:18
side, is what do you want your business to look like, you know, I mean, do you want to
31:25
stay at three to five loans a month, or do you want to go to 10, 20, 30?
31:35
Which is totally attainable in today's marketplace, if you're talking to the right people.
31:40
And so Jeff, I had a really interesting conversation with, I love to network.
31:47
My wife is a phenomenal entertainer.
31:49
So we bring, you know, people and so she does a really great fundraiser every year for
31:55
the project that she's involved in and the charity that she runs and I get to meet all
31:59
these really interesting entrepreneurial people that we've come together with in our community.
32:04
And I had a conversation just a couple of months ago with a plumber.
32:09
And so he comes up to me, he's like, Hey, Chris, thanks so much for having us.
32:11
I'm a plumber.
32:12
And I was like, Oh, great.
32:13
Awesome.
32:14
Like what type of plumbing do you do?
32:15
And he's like, well, I guess I'm not really a plumber.
32:19
And we had this really interesting conversation because he was a plumber and he used to be
32:22
the guy that would get the call and they did 24 hour servicing.
32:25
So he would get a call at 2 30 at night.
32:28
And there's some apartment building with a clog toilet and he'd go get in his truck and
32:31
he'd go do plumbing, right?
32:34
And so he came back and he's like one of the transformational moments that I had as an
32:40
entrepreneur is I hired my first business coach.
32:43
I did not have the money for a business coach, but I knew that I wasn't going to be a plumber
32:46
for the rest of my life.
32:47
Like this guy's an entrepreneur, like a legit, super successful entrepreneur.
32:51
He owns the largest plumbing country in like our part of the province is massive.
32:57
And he said, the business coach got on me on the very first call, he says, what do you
33:01
do?
33:02
He said, I'm a plumber.
33:03
And he said, no, you do marketing and sales to sell plumbing services.
33:10
That's your job.
33:11
You're not a plumber.
33:13
And he said, I had this light bulb moment where it was like, whoa, like I can only get
33:19
so good at the plumbing aspect.
33:23
But if I can figure out how to get four times more phone calls to my cell phone, I can
33:29
have guys or girls on trucks doing the plumbing.
33:34
And I don't have to be the guy that goes out at 2 30 in the morning, but I still get the
33:38
paycheck.
33:40
And he's taken that to 15, 20, whatever it is, trucks out there.
33:45
And all he does is I'm not a plumber.
33:47
I'm a sales and marketing specialist that sells plumbing services.
33:52
And so in the mortgage industry, we're not loan officers.
33:55
We're not loan takers.
33:56
We're not loan processors.
33:58
We run sales and marketing businesses that sell mortgages and that provide financial
34:03
services.
34:04
And I think if we can get that across today, I think we've done a pretty good job.
34:09
Yeah, if all we can do is make a shift in mindset to start changing how you see yourself,
34:12
your role, a couple of quick points on that.
34:15
And that's a great example, by the way, of kind of what we talked about being the tactician.
34:20
There's only so many things until that you can unclog personally.
34:23
And if you ever want to grow and scale and make more money, you've got to remove yourself
34:26
from the equation.
34:27
Yeah.
34:28
Same with a member I was listening to that book we talked about and he was talking about
34:31
like everybody seen that picture of Jeff Bezos sitting at his desk back in the early
34:35
days.
34:36
And back in the early days, Jeff Bezos used to have books shipped to his garage, right?
34:40
And so he was like the intermediary.
34:42
He was shipping, taping, sending, like he did it all.
34:46
Why?
34:47
Because he had to when you first started out.
34:49
Now, do you think if he had never outsourced all the roles and functions of fulfilling on
34:55
the outcome, filling the blank that you, Amazon would be what it is today?
35:00
Of course not.
35:01
Obviously.
35:02
And the last point is, I've interviewed, I know you have to, but I've interviewed a bunch
35:06
of top producers.
35:08
And when you get to the only way, most of these people that I'm thinking about when I ask
35:13
them what their loan process is, there are, I'm going to try and guess what they're
35:19
just with the percentages, but it's a total guess.
35:22
But all right, let's just say that the majority of people who are doing 100 million a year
35:28
who are doing 30, 40, 50 loans a month have removed themselves from the front end.
35:36
And they're only, I think of Denise Downey here, for example, who I recently had in
35:40
our small group.
35:41
And people are, I'll also surprise when they hear, like your example of the surgeon,
35:48
they show up for a very specific task for a very short, brief period of time.
35:54
And then they're out.
35:56
And that is how you get to scale because there's no other way to do it.
36:01
So how do people start though, like, because we got people listening who are like, yeah,
36:06
I'd love to do that.
36:07
Yeah.
36:08
That sounds great.
36:09
But what do I do next?
36:11
Yeah.
36:13
In my opinion, the first is the marketing and sales and getting to a point where you
36:19
can reliably and consistently get referrals into your business because then you've got
36:26
the deals in order to create the process.
36:30
The worst thing that you can do is spend all of your time trying to architect the perfect
36:35
mortgage fulfillment process when you don't have deals to run through it.
36:39
Because then you're spending time being the tactician with no business.
36:45
It's got to start with making the phone calls.
36:48
If you've got a past customer database, I don't care if it's five people or it's 500 people,
36:53
but if those people have not gotten a phone call from your office in the last 90 days and
36:58
you're not calling them four times a year, 100% start right there, right?
37:03
That task number one.
37:06
I believe everybody should be doing, and again, this might be a different conversation,
37:11
but you should be leveraging social media.
37:13
Your personal social media, you should be friend requesting all your clients as they
37:17
come in so that you can have direct message conversations with them so that on the annual
37:21
mortgage checkup, you can reach out through DMs and just say, hey, just checking in.
37:26
It's time for your annual mortgage review.
37:28
Can we get you booked in for a quick call?
37:30
Our concierge agents that are using DMs are getting even better responses than phone
37:35
calls and text messages.
37:36
So implement that into your marketing, but you will get results right away.
37:39
Just start reaching out to your past clients through those channels and asking them for
37:43
repeat business, referrals, and five star reviews on your Google profile.
37:47
Those are the three things that you need to be doing with your database.
37:49
Do that first.
37:51
Do that while getting a qualified list of realtors in your local marketplace.
37:57
It is a different list today than it was just nine sure it wants to go.
38:02
You'll get that data.
38:03
You can get it from MMI.
38:04
You can get it from Modex.
38:05
You can get it from our company, but get that list of qualified real estate agents and
38:10
you need to be working and setting up enough appointments where one per day, you just need
38:17
to meet with one qualified referral partner per day.
38:21
I will save doing the math on the spot.
38:24
But if you do one appointment a day and you do that for just 10 months, you will have
38:30
40 referral partners sending you business by the end of a 10 months period of time.
38:35
If you do just one appointment a day.
38:38
So in the beginning, you might have to be the one that's making those calls, but your
38:42
goal is I don't stop calling referral partners today until I get one qualified appointment.
38:47
And that's your job.
38:48
Is that in person or virtual appointment or both?
38:52
Either or.
38:53
And I'll tell you, the realtors are just as open to either or.
38:57
So we have some clients that are booking in person appointments.
39:01
Most of them are happening over Zoom.
39:03
Some of them are in office.
39:04
There's all kinds of different variations of that.
39:06
And the offer that we give is also different.
39:09
But I don't want people to get mixed up in the different offers that we offer.
39:14
I've got a great training that shows you all the different offers.
39:17
But it is the work of picking up the phone.
39:20
Because if you want to figure out your script, call somebody.
39:23
You'll figure it out real quick, right?
39:25
It only takes five conversations until you're like, oh, hey, I know what to say, because
39:29
you're not going to call somebody and be like, yeah, you got to figure it out.
39:35
And along those lines, I'm going to, all right, let me press you a little bit if I can
39:38
on that with the last couple of minutes we have is, can you give us a sense of what is
39:42
said to be able to schedule an appointment for a loan officer?
39:46
What gets the realtor to say yes?
39:49
Yep, absolutely.
39:50
So that comes down to the offer.
39:52
And so in the beginning stages of the script, it's just an opener.
39:57
And I will speak from the aspect of a concierge making the call, not you making the call yourself.
40:01
So ring ring, hey Jeff, this is Chris Johnstone calling from Chris Johnstone's office.
40:06
How are you?
40:08
Everybody fine.
40:09
What do you want?
40:10
You know, we've heard some really great things about you in the industry.
40:13
As a matter of fact, we've done the research.
40:15
And the reason that we're calling you today is because, and then you insert the offer.
40:21
There are three basic offers that we see working really well in the marketplace right now.
40:26
The first is what I call a platform presentation.
40:30
So that's either an invitation for them to be a featured expert on a webinar that you're
40:35
hosting.
40:37
So you know, Chris, the loan officer is hosting a webinar next month.
40:42
And he wants the best specialist in the moral in the real estate industry to come on and
40:46
talk about what are home prices doing right now?
40:49
What's happening with inventory?
40:50
How to sell a home in today's marketplace and how to buy a home in today's marketplace?
40:54
Would you be willing to be our featured expert?
40:57
So you're offering them a platform.
40:59
If you have a podcast, invite them to be on your podcast, but it's a podcast or it's
41:03
a webinar and you're offering for them for free to come on and be on that platform with
41:08
you.
41:09
It's very simple to run some very basic Facebook ads to hyper targeted traffic in a local
41:15
marketplace and get webinar registrants for that webinar.
41:19
The reason why I love that strategy so much is the realtor will promote the webinar to
41:25
their list of past clients.
41:27
They'll promote the webinar on their social media.
41:30
So you're hoovering in the leads that they've got in their database and their personal
41:34
connections to show up on the webinar where at the end, you get to do a mortgage presentation
41:39
of the things that they need to have, you know, three C's of credit, that sort of thing.
41:43
And then at the end, it's if you would like to move forward, the thing you need before
41:47
you speak to the real estate agent is to know how much home you qualify to buy and what
41:51
your rate and payment is going to be.
41:52
And I help you with that information.
41:53
So let's set up a quick call.
41:54
You do a call to action on the webinar.
41:57
Consierge agent calls everybody who's registered for the webinar books more appointments.
42:01
But that webinar offer is phenomenal.
42:03
I absolutely love it.
42:04
So that's offer number one that you give to the realtor.
42:05
I'll put you on my platform.
42:07
Number two, we call the irresistible offer.
42:11
This tends to work really well with top producers because they're all trying to grow their
42:16
businesses right now and a lot of them are investing in marketing and advertising.
42:21
They're on social media.
42:22
They're generating leads and you say, Hey, has your conversion on your online leads?
42:25
Not great.
42:26
I'd like it to be better.
42:27
Great.
42:28
Do you call your leads within the first five minutes and do they get at least seven phone
42:31
calls from your office when you're working them?
42:33
The answer is no.
42:34
Hey, great.
42:35
Well, I've got a piece of software and a concierge agent.
42:39
And that person will work all of your leads for you.
42:42
I'll get them prequalified for mortgage and then refer them back to you.
42:46
Does that sound fair?
42:47
So Parker, the gentleman who I was talking about earlier in the presentation who has 26
42:52
new referral partners now at the end of the year, that's the offer that we're using
42:55
in his business.
42:57
So not only has he gotten 26 new referral partners, each of which have sent him a deal, he's
43:03
also getting lists of 100, 200, 300, 400 leads that he doesn't have to pay for from each
43:10
of those partners.
43:11
The concierge is working the leads and generating applications from the leads to then refer
43:16
back to the realtor, but those are also deals that he gets in his mortgage business as
43:20
well.
43:21
So that's the irresistible offer.
43:23
And then the third is the good old, I like you.
43:27
And we call this the mastermind.
43:30
So basically it's, look, what Chris is doing is he's networking with the top professionals
43:36
in this marketplace, realtors, financial planners, investment advisors, attorneys.
43:43
And what he's doing is putting it together so that all of us can refer business back
43:47
and forth together.
43:49
And he feels like you would be a phenomenal candidate to join the mastermind.
43:55
And he just needs 10, 15 minutes of your time to see if you're a good fit.
44:00
And so again, the reason why I love that offer is because it elevates you and it puts
44:04
you in the position of running a mastermind and being the person that they need to reach
44:09
out to in order to be qualified by, which again, it's super hard to make that call.
44:14
If it's you making the call to the real estate agent, it's hard to be like, you know, I'm
44:18
the guy running the mastermind, but I'm also the guy that's calling you and inviting
44:20
you.
44:21
And the concierge makes the call, it's like, oh, hey, business systems, they've got
44:26
staff, they've got employees, that sort of thing.
44:28
So the mastermind offer is also a fantastic offer to get out there.
44:31
And then I'm not discounting just the coffee offer.
44:35
I'm just like, hey, we've heard great things about you.
44:36
I'd love to take you out for a cup of coffee and see that still works.
44:39
I know a lot of people think like it's too basic, simple works.
44:43
So even if you just do the coffee appointment, just make the calls.
44:47
That's where the results come from.
44:49
Wow.
44:50
That's cool, man.
44:51
That's true.
44:52
Those are three things people could do immediately in their own market, different versions of
44:57
that.
44:58
If you don't have what you think you need to fulfill on that, right?
45:01
Which of those three could you implement today?
45:03
That's the real question.
45:05
Right.
45:06
The mastermind is super easy because literally all it takes is just calling professionals
45:11
in each marketplace.
45:12
I will share this with our listeners.
45:14
So we make a lot of appointments with financial planners, wealth managers and attorneys.
45:21
They're very difficult to get on the phone because they all have gatekeepers, right?
45:25
It's not like the mortgage industry.
45:26
You've got to go through their concierge, right?
45:29
So what we've been doing is we've been using a system on LinkedIn in order to reach out.
45:34
And there are like, there are more of them on LinkedIn than there are on Facebook and
45:39
Instagram and that sort of thing.
45:41
And those DMs go directly to their cell phone and bypass all the gatekeepers.
45:45
So we're actually booking more appointments by opening up those conversations through LinkedIn
45:49
or through the concierge.
45:51
So the concierge is using LinkedIn to book the appointments.
45:55
And that's how we're getting through to financial planners and some of those other ones.
45:58
But all it takes is one professional in each of those niches.
46:01
There's seven of them and all of a sudden you're at the middle of all of the referrals
46:06
from all those people.
46:07
All the referrals come to you.
46:08
And then you refer them out to all of the other people that you've set the relationships
46:11
up with.
46:12
Yeah.
46:13
That's pretty cool.
46:14
Another version of this, I've seen personally been involved in.
46:17
I'm sure you've seen this as well as the mastermind.
46:20
You could also be somebody who does a quarterly panel, right, in your local area and just brings
46:25
in five, six subject matter experts.
46:27
You could mix it up with the type of industries that you talked about.
46:30
But again, it's kind of like somebody, what's that phrase from GaryVee where you're like
46:35
the hot thing at the high school reunion or whatever, you know what I mean?
46:39
Like it's all, it's all I have no experience with that.
46:45
But figuratively, I guess it's like, you know, it's kind of like that digital mayor concept.
46:49
But in this case, you're putting yourself at the center of all these like, you know, incredible
46:53
engagement opportunities.
46:55
So the mastermind cool of something is something people could do right now for sure.
46:58
All right.
46:59
For those people, we're for a second time.
47:01
We want to learn more about what you guys do over there.
47:05
Tell us how do people connect with you.
47:06
Yep.
47:07
So we put up a website with a free training that walks through in detail what we've sort
47:12
of discussed today.
47:13
It's mortgagemarketingclass.com.
47:15
It's a fantastic outline of how to implement these systems.
47:18
So mortgagemarketingclass.com.
47:20
My name is Chris Johnstone.
47:21
You can find us on all of our socials.
47:24
And I would love to shout out the podcast if that's okay.
47:26
Yeah, please.
47:27
Yeah.
47:28
So it's called loan officer wealth.
47:30
And it's a fantastic listen.
47:33
And again, I'm Chris Johnstone on all of the socials and love to have a conversation.
47:38
All right.
47:39
I'm going to put links to all of that in the show notes and I've sat in on your webinar
47:42
by the way.
47:43
So it's great content.
47:44
If anybody just wants to kind of like kick the tires a little bit, right?
47:46
You go to that website, mortgagemarketingclass.com, link in the show notes, and no risk
47:51
at taking a peek under the hood and seeing what's in there.
47:53
So always great to chat with you, Chris.
47:57
Thank you so much for bringing your wisdom and serving the industry like you do.
48:00
Awesome.
48:01
Thank you for having me.
48:02
My pleasure.
48:03
Listeners, you know what to do.
48:04
Check the links in the show notes.
48:05
Hey, if you like this episode, leave us a review.
48:07
And we'll see you on the next one.
48:08
Bye for now.
48:30
Hey, guys, what's up real quick?
48:35
You've heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before and I just want to quickly
48:38
remind you of that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchased
48:42
loans.
48:43
You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business.
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Let's just face it, agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase
48:50
business for you.
48:52
Well, good news.
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Our mortgage marketing pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without
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49:02
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50:13
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