Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Ep #83:How to Get Found Online, Attract Consumers and Win More Deals With Local Search

Transcript

Ep #83:How to Get Found Online, Attract Consumers and Win More Deals With Local Search · 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.
• 1:17
  Hey listeners, Jeff Zimper, welcome to this episode of mortgage marketing radio.
• 1:40
  How are you doing?
• 1:41
  I hope you are on track.
• 1:43
  By the time you're listening to this, we have surpassed the halfway point of 2018.
• 1:48
  Have you checked in?
• 1:49
  Are you on track heading towards your goals?
• 1:53
  What do you need to do differently moving forward for the rest of this year if you're not
• 1:56
  yet on track?
• 1:58
  If you are, if you're at at least 50% close to it, 50% or more of your target number of
• 2:04
  units and funded volume for 2018, congratulations.
• 2:08
  You've been doing some right things.
• 2:11
  You'll take your foot off the gas.
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  What you do now shows up 60 days, 90 days from now.
• 2:17
  Make sure you invest now.
• 2:19
  Make sure you plant those seeds now.
• 2:23
  Let's talk about planting seeds.
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  Let's talk about investing for the future with my special guest, Shane Cosser.
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  Shane is head of industry and general manager for financial services at YXT.
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  YXT.com.
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  YXT.
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  He leads all financial service-related activities at YXT.
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  He's a published author, award-winning speaker, and his research has been featured by leading
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  advisory firms such as Forester and Gartner, 18 years experience in financial services
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  in high tech.
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  Let me tell you, the guy knows his stuff.
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  Shane and I have a wonderful conversation, probably one of the most thought-provoking and
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  organic and instructive conversations when it comes to the digital landscape.
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  What do I mean by that?
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  Look at, let's face it, the digital landscape is changing.
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  Yes, it's always moving, but many of us are not necessarily adapting to the changes.
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  In this conversation, we talk about the new buyer journey, as he calls it, the next generation
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  customer journey and how the loan officer experience integrates into that.
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  What are the keys to success for today in surviving the digital landscape, the new customer
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  demographics, specifically in talking about millennials or first-time home buyers, digitally
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  savvy buyers?
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  Have we pivoted?
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  Have we adjusted?
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  Is our presence online set up and optimized for this new customer journey?
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  Specifically in this conversation, what we're really getting into is local search, local
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  search and reviews.
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  Let me ask you something.
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  If you Googled your name, what comes up?
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  Because what you'll find out in this interview, that is important how you show up and that
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  when people are searching, we're going to talk about the search terms, people are actually
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  typing into Google to look for you, such as like loan officer, near, me or whatever.
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  We're going to talk about how you can actually compete and win against the big boys when
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  it comes to showing up in Google search.
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  Google has these things called knowledge cards.
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  It's basically an online business card.
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  How are you showing up?
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  When you Google your name, is it professional?
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  On the right hand side, do you have that picture of you and your image with a bio and links
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  over to your website and so forth?
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  If not, is your competition?
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  So we're really going to unpack this topic of local search, some best practices on how
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  you keep your information up to date, what are the things to look for and showing up professionally
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  in local search.
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  We're going to talk about the steps to really adopt and embrace a digital business and
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  ultimately, how do you get chosen?
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  Really, that's why it's all about local search.
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  We're going to unpack that and show you some examples.
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  We're going to talk through all the different best practices for owning the page, so to
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  speak, when people search for your name, search for loan officer in your area, et cetera.
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  We're going to talk about the three steps to having that professional presence online.
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  This is a great episode.
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  It's a great education on digital, such as reviews, digital listings.
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  We're going to talk a little bit about some of the solutions that YX is involved in that
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  you can take advantage of, like Google My Business, listing management, local pages, et cetera,
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  local SEO, which again is really where the game at is for us as local mortgage professionals.
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  I'm really hoping you're going to enjoy this episode.
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  We provide some links in the show notes for you to check out more about YX, but it's
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  YX.com, Y-E-X-T, and just get ready for a learning lesson on becoming a digital savvy mortgage
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  originator and mapping out this next generation customer journey and getting chosen, getting
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  chosen in today's digital age.
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  What are the keys to success in that?
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  Without further ado, let us get into this week's show.
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  Hey, Shane, welcome to the show.
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  Hey, Jeff.
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  Thanks a lot.
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  Glad to be here.
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  Okay.
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  So give us the listeners who the heck is YX, what do you do, what are you all about?
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  Perfect.
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  Yeah, YX isn't a pioneer in digital knowledge management, that really means managing
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  your online presence, everything that customers are searching and trying to discover about
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  you.
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  Ultimately, the big takeaways people should think about, you know, if I'm walking down
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  my discovery, that translates into high quality leads that drive business.
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  Okay.
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  And tell us a little bit about some of the work you're doing in the financial sector,
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  perhaps specifically with mortgage companies.
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  Yeah, so within mortgage, so right now we are in, you know, 50% of all the financial
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  services, top financial services organizations in North America, which means, you know,
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  we're in the top big banks, you know, Wells Fargo, others, we are in the regionals, we
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  are in correspondence lenders, we're in broker dealers and we're kind of an individual.
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  So we really go up and down market and really focused on kind of, you know, managing online
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  online presence and starting to arm mortgage organizations as well as, you know, mortgage
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  loan officers, home lenders, you know, with the right kind of tools to compete today.
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  Okay.
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  Thank you for that.
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  Okay.
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  So when we last talked in preparing for this, this session today, we talked about the
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  mortgage buyer's journey, how would you describe that?
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  What is that today?
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  How is it different than it's been?
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  Yeah.
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  It's a great question.
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  So I think it's all about where consumers are and what we've seen is we've seen a big
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  shift and there's these shifts have happened in a few different areas, but it's important
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  to know for a mortgage loan officer because it'll help you figure out where you need to
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  make investments into kind of that digital presence.
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  So one is what we've seen is 73% of all high intent traffic is moving to what's called
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  online publisher.
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  So those are things like Google and Facebook and even Yelp today.
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  So a lot of mortgage loan officers are really maximizing the presence on Yelp because
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  consumers go to those sources to find the answers that they're looking for and it's much
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  simpler than navigating all these websites that exist out there and they see them as much
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  more credible.
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  So that's kind of the foundational piece as far as thinking about where to start that
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  journey and some of the shifts that's happening is picking those places that consumers are
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  to maximize your presence and maximize information about you.
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  Phone numbers, addresses, links to your website, etc.
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  Okay, so let's kind of connect the dots there.
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  So what you're saying is the buyer journey and people are going to these destination sites
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  who Google you mentioned Yelp.
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  So what does that look like?
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  I'm a potential home buyer.
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  I'm interested in entering the market and buying a home.
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  What am I going to do?
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  Enter some search terms into Google or Yelp?
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  Yeah, so right now, you know, national association of realtors published some research on this
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  and we also have some of our own research.
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  So 90% of home buyers are going online, 42% of them, that's the first step.
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  So when I'm deciding if I want to purchase a mortgage, that's the first place I'm starting
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  and we're seeing that trend only increase.
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  The other thing that's really interesting is not that they're not making phone calls,
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  right?
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  So that's kind of a fallacy.
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  But what we do see is that they are doing more online.
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  So as a consumer, the statistics that I've read, so Google has come out with some research
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  and they've stated that people are going to typically 11.8 places and some of the research
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  that we've done with our own benchmarking.
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  We're seeing a similar trend, so a little bit less around 8.9 different places that consumers
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  are going to determine who that first call will be to.
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  So that's an important, I think, takeaway for your viewers to think about.
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  Well, that's very interesting.
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  Anywhere between 8.9 to 11.8 places, consumers are going at the start of their journey of
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  buying a home.
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  Is that what I'm hearing?
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  Yeah, that's exactly right.
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  And you know, they're looking for information.
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  So what's happening also with Google is right now there's this kind of new channel called
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  local.
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  What does local mean?
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  So what that means is all of the online publishers, the Facebooks, the Googles, the
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  yelps, everyone out there, they're really, when you search for applying a mortgage loan
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  officer or find a mortgage, what's happening is it knows your zip code, right?
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  From a mobile phone, it can determine your address.
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  So it's using three things, locations.
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  So it'll serve areas around you.
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  So as a mortgage loan officer right now, it's really important to update your address
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  information into that branch, into that office that you work with, just to make sure that
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  you show up in those local listings, too, this is about relevancy.
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  So as I'm searching for things, I might search for warm, tail information.
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  Let me describe that in a nonmarketers vocabulary.
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  So what that really means is they're searching for deep information.
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  So I might search for language spoken.
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  I might search for products that you cover.
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  I might search for professional associations that your members have.
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  So consumers are more informed I would argue today than they've ever been.
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  And they're researching a lot of things online to shape, you know, what they're looking
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  for.
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  And so managing, you know, if there's three things you take away from this call, it's
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  manage your NAPH information.
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  So that's name, address, phone number, and hours, right?
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  Those are the three, four things that you want to manage in all these online places that
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  consumers are looking, which we'll translate to those leads for you.
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  Okay.
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  So there's a lot in there.
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  We can spend the whole call talking about that.
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  And you mentioned the long term.
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  So and that's an interesting topic of discussion right there because I'm always trying to get
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  a sense of, well, look, loan officers listening to this, right, they get the fact that people
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  are searching online and they want to come up in the Google search rankings.
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  Can you help me better understand, I don't know if you guys have any data on the actual,
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  you know, long-tailed search terms that people are entering.
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  For example, what I mean by that is, you know, if I'm here in Vegas and I'm looking
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  at buy in a house, you tell me, I mean, are people typing in something like just 30-year
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  mortgage rates or is it more so, you know, because the old adage is people don't want
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  a mortgage.
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  They want a home, right?
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  So are they really typing more so the home-related terms in than the mortgage or what
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  are you seeing on that?
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  Yeah, you know, I would say it's a mix, right?
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  So they initially are looking for a place that they can go near them.
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  And that's usually what they're creating is a short list.
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  The second thing that they're looking for is reviews.
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  So, you know, reviews, there's citations that you're actually a good person to work with
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  that you follow up.
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  And that's really important because if we look at some of these, you know, these broad
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  economic dynamics that, you know, are facing mortgage right now, you know, we are seeing
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  that, you know, refinances down, you know, home inventory is the lowest it's been in 20
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  years, people are buying homes faster than they have in seven years.
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  So it's kind of a foot race, right?
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  And so you want to make sure that as soon as they look at those reviews, if they have
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  information to be able to contact you with, and then therefore you can start to kind of
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  follow up and, you know, make sure you kind of outrun your competitors around.
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  What do you mean people are buying homes faster than they have in seven years?
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  I think it's really has to do with inventory and the scarcity of inventory on the market.
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  So they're getting active much more quickly because of lack of inventory?
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  Yeah, they're, they're, they're becoming more prepared because they realize these, these,
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  you know, homes are just coming up and they're off the market and sometimes hours, and,
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  and certain, uh, geographies.
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  So just like San Jose, Dallas, it's those of the, we're seeing a lot faster turnaround
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  in those markets.
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  Oh, yeah.
• 14:46
  No, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  You've got to be prepared in today's market if you're expected to win that house you
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  want.
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  Um, alright, so I'm sorry, but I got to hang out here for a second because I really want
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  to understand this.
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  And I think the listeners to do as well, I'm messing around with search terms while we're
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  talking right here.
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  As for instance, I typed in buying a house in Las Vegas.
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  Yeah.
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  Would that would be an example of a, of a type of a search term, the shopper would put
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  in?
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  Yeah.
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  That certainly would be.
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  And so that would be like the first kind of step in a journey is to inform these, these
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  research questions like what, what is a checklist of what I need to do, um, when buying
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  a house, what are the things and considerations?
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  What should I be prepared for or what are the different types of loans that are available
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  out there?
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  Um, so all of that educational material, then secondly, it starts to shift to, okay, I have
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  a sense of what I'm looking for now, who do I go to?
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And that's where they start doing what we would say, initially what we're discussing is
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  unbranded search terms, right?
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  So it doesn't have company or your individual name in it.
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  Right.
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  So they're not really, they're kind of going through this discovery process in this research
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  process.
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  When they're done with that, now, which is over to these branded terms, which is like,
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  I want to find a mortgage loan officer near me.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  I want to find somebody who speaks Spanish and you should, everybody I would encourage
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  you to type that right now, um, and see who shows up.
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  And what you'll see is you'll see kind of two things.
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  One is, as, as you do these unbranded search, is you'll see kind of, if you go to Google
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  and do this, you'll see like a map, right, and you'll see several different organizations
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  listed.
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  And that, you know, again, that's local, right?
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  So they're looking at things, relevant, local, open, that, managing their information and
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  keeping it up to date, otherwise you won't show up in there.
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  And then as you start to go to maybe a branded search, movement mortgage, or, you know,
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  a map with movement mortgage, and you type that in, you should be coming up with what's
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  called a knowledge card, and just think of a knowledge card that's a technical term
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  for what Google calls an online business card.
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  So it has a picture of your face, it has, you know, the reviews, it has your phone number
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  right there, and what, it's like structured answer within Google.
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  So it's no longer these like ten blue links that you've seen in the, the results it's
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  all about, it's all moving to structured answers.
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  And so then with that knowledge card or the online business card, what does a loan
• 17:19
  officer need to do to ensure they show up and have that professional representation?
• 17:24
  Yeah, there's, so there's a few things you can do.
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  So one, the first is to go to a Google My Business account and, you know, create and claim
• 17:35
  your listings.
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  And, you know, these online sources use as a signal for, wow, somebody's actually
• 17:41
  managing their information, therefore it's probably going to be a lot better than those
• 17:45
  that aren't managing it.
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  You know, and go to Google, go to, you know, Microsoft, go to Yelp, go to Bing, go to all
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  these different kind of online publishers that are relevant and, and make sure your information's
• 18:02
  update and correct.
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  Now, one of the challenges, so we've done this scan and we did a scan of, you know, just
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  five thousand eight hundred and thirty four more at Google's loan officers and organizations.
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  And we found over almost sixty percent, fifty eight percent of all their information was,
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  you know, it was just missing.
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  They weren't even showing up.
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  Yeah.
• 18:23
  And then another, you know, thirty, forty percent of it was, was wrong, like wrong phone number,
• 18:27
  wrong name.
• 18:28
  So, those are, those are just, you know, you put all this work into developing your brand
• 18:33
  in the market, you built this amazing network, you know, with realtors, you know, with insurance
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  agents, with lawyers that are actually referring to you.
• 18:43
  And, and that's what we refer to as that hindsight intent traffic.
• 18:47
  And then they go to these online publishers and they don't find you or you have a negative
• 18:51
  star, those are going to be a massive drop in your business.
• 18:56
  It's just, you can literally fix this within 48 hours.
• 19:00
  Okay, I love that.
• 19:01
  And I've been playing around while you're talking here.
• 19:03
  So, and I'm going to put links to all this in the show notes.
• 19:05
  But for those people that are listening and, and want to set up your, your knowledge card
• 19:10
  as Google calls it, you can go to google.com forward slash business.
• 19:15
  And that's, you know, one way to get started.
• 19:16
  So I'll put a link to that in the show notes.
• 19:18
  But I think I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, we talked about being a modern
• 19:22
  mortgage originator and in today's world, what you're saying is if you don't have that
• 19:26
  online presence, look, that's, that's, it's really interesting to say you, you know,
• 19:32
  people are going to up to almost 12 places online as they're evaluating, deciding who they're
• 19:40
  going to contact as a service provider.
• 19:43
  So, so what we're saying then is the more places you can have a professional presence online,
• 19:48
  the more likely as you're going to win.
• 19:50
  Yes, exactly.
• 19:51
  And, you know, and the most amazing thing about this, Jeff, is, it's free, right?
• 19:55
  I'm telling you right now, when, when most of the loan offers I'm talking to are used to
• 20:01
  paying five to $50 to try to get a lead.
• 20:04
  And the problem with those leads is like, these distribution lists that everybody gets.
• 20:08
  So it's like, it's like dialing for dollars.
• 20:11
  It's like our race to pound the phone.
• 20:12
  And there's so many people calling it that the quality of those leads, I would argue,
• 20:19
  inferior compared to what we're talking about right now.
• 20:22
  Sure.
• 20:23
  Rebusiness.
• 20:24
  I intend traffic coming to you.
• 20:26
  Then, you know, once you start to fix this, there's other things that you can do to continually
• 20:31
  optimize your presence online.
• 20:34
  And that next step I would definitely recommend would be reviews and managing reviews.
• 20:40
  Well, yeah, let's talk about that in a second.
• 20:42
  I want to close out that loop on those local search terms because I did type in mortgage
• 20:47
  loan officer near me and to your point, right?
• 20:50
  What first comes up is, and this is, this is what's cool is not at the top three are the
• 20:55
  usual suspects like, you know, lending tree and Zillow and all that stuff, and quick, and they're
• 21:00
  not on that list.
• 21:01
  So when I type in mortgage loan officer near me, I'm getting individual mortgage loan officers.
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  And as you pointed out, I'm also getting that map, which shows the loan officers near me,
• 21:12
  which is, you know, as you said, local search, and then there's links to their website, etc.
• 21:16
  But on the, and then next I'm getting Yelp, the best 10 mortgage brokers in Las Vegas is what's
• 21:21
  showing up next.
• 21:22
  So let's then talk about that.
• 21:24
  What are some advice tip strategies for, you know, optimizing our online reviews?
• 21:30
  Yeah, so, you know, if I was to kind of create the three steps,
• 21:34
  yes, right?
• 21:35
  So, you know, first, you know, create that listing, play me listing, manage your information.
• 21:41
  Two, you're going to want to link that to your website profile, right?
• 21:48
  So, and you could work with your IT teams to kind of make sure that, that page, that web page,
• 21:55
  with IT is really optimized.
• 21:57
  You know, there's some simple things that needs to be very fast, like having a picture there,
• 22:01
  having mobile friendly, mobile friendly, 100% secure, right?
• 22:05
  Like security is actually a really important thing, HTPS.
• 22:09
  So, it's just these little things.
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  And then, you know, then we start to now look at first party reviews.
• 22:16
  And so, what happens is if you're not managing reviews, you're only going to be getting the
• 22:21
  negative ones out there.
• 22:23
  And, you know, we have an expression in Yaks, which is called hug your haters.
• 22:29
  And that means, you know, being able to respond to those reviews.
• 22:33
  I'm sorry, you had that experience that, you know, I'd like to figure out a way to correct
• 22:38
  that. It's surprising how many people will actually go back and change their route, their response,
• 22:44
  just because you're listening to them, and you're acting to them.
• 22:47
  You know, secondly, you have to kind of do this.
• 22:51
  You can't cherry pick just good reviews.
• 22:53
  It's actually against a lot of terms of service for these online publishers.
• 22:57
  But what you can do is, through a process, it's just a really
• 23:02
  appreciate if you leave a review for me, right?
• 23:05
  And make that a standard kind of process.
• 23:08
  So, the result of that is, I would argue that, you know, you're doing your job right.
• 23:14
  Like, most people have an fantastic experience, and we're willing to leave those reviews,
• 23:20
  which by the way, in a lot of research that we've recently done, reviews, it was interesting
• 23:25
  for the first time in some of the research.
• 23:27
  So, this was for another industry, this is for sure, it's but still financial services.
• 23:31
  And I think the correlation would be the same, is that online reviews
• 23:36
  was the most authoritative source.
• 23:39
  It was more authoritative than the website, and it was just slightly more authoritative than
• 23:45
  an actual person, referring to you, which was really interesting, right?
• 23:50
  So, this is some of the first time we've seen that shift.
• 23:53
  And I think it's because reviews are also being used to determine prominence,
• 23:59
  which is one of the ranking factors for, you know, if you show up in the order that you show up.
• 24:04
  So, reviews are being to determine prominence, where you show up on Google, you mean?
• 24:09
  Yeah, so there's three factors for Google, right?
• 24:13
  So, one is location, like, are you, you know, are you in that consumer that is searching for it?
• 24:20
  You know, two is relevant, like, are you actually a mortgage loan officer?
• 24:23
  Like, do you work in this business?
• 24:26
  You have all that kind of content that we've discussed, and you've been upkeeping your profile.
• 24:33
  And the third is prominence. And prominence, all, you know, this changes a lot of times, right?
• 24:38
  So, they're constantly tweaking these algorithms, but prominence is really your online reviews.
• 24:45
  What are people saying about you?
• 24:47
  And so, that's becoming a increasingly important signal because
• 24:54
  today, we talk about these online publishers tomorrow, we'll be talking about voice, right?
• 25:00
  And when somebody says, hey, Alexa, Siri, find me the best mortgage loan officer.
• 25:07
  How are they going to determine best?
• 25:09
  Well, they're going to use, you know, stars in this prominence thing that I'm talking about.
• 25:13
  So, get ahead of that.
• 25:15
  It's a, you know, really important factor now.
• 25:18
  It's going to be even more important for being able to compete and all of these kind of online
• 25:25
  experiences to drive leads to you. And then the other thing that you raised is a point,
• 25:29
  which I'm really glad you did, is you didn't actually see the usual digital suspects, right?
• 25:35
  Right.
• 25:37
  Why? Because they can't compete with, they don't have a physical location, right?
• 25:41
  So, this is, this is actually the best thing that you can start doing to really drive
• 25:48
  your portfolio of business because imagine all of those online competitors,
• 25:53
  mortgages like a top five most expensive term in all of these paid media models.
• 25:59
  I think it's over, it's close to 50 bucks per CPC, right?
• 26:03
  Really, really expensive and most people cannot afford to continue to do that.
• 26:08
  So, you're seeing more competition in that channel as you're getting more digital competitors,
• 26:13
  which is just fine because you've got this thing called local that will really help differentiate
• 26:19
  you. And, you know, if you can be digitally savvy within that local arena,
• 26:26
  then you have the ability to really start doing some magnificent things with your portfolio of
• 26:31
  business. Absolutely. Okay, question about prominence. It's the rankings, it's the stars,
• 26:36
  it's, it's, I assume, you know, what percentage of your stars are, right, four and five,
• 26:43
  the quantity of those, right? That's right.
• 26:47
  To what degree does, in terms of prominence ranking on Google, for example, and overall search,
• 26:53
  what degree does content come into play? And specifically, what I mean is, you know,
• 26:58
  I'm a big advocate for, as I'm sure you're familiar with like Gary Vaynerchuk talking about,
• 27:02
  you know, you're now a media company and your backend is real estate or mortgage. And so,
• 27:06
  produce content to be relevant. What, what degree is, is content impacting prominence?
• 27:13
  So content, content is important. And so the one thing I will say is, anybody that, you know,
• 27:19
  is acting like they know per facts of what all of these algorithms are doing.
• 27:27
  They're constantly changing and they're constantly testing things. I think Google stated,
• 27:32
  in some research that they have 5,000 updates a year, right? Now there's probably only 20,
• 27:38
  that really matter. And there have been a lot of these observations that have, you know,
• 27:44
  passed the test of time. And content is definitely one of those.
• 27:49
  Why? Because think of it, it's like, it's filling in blind spots in this customer journey.
• 27:55
  And it's making sure that you're relevant to the conversation by, you know,
• 28:00
  sitting down with pen and paper and thinking about, what are all these questions that a customer would
• 28:06
  want to ask? And then start to develop content that you link to your profiles and you start to
• 28:13
  become the authority on in that marketplace. So, you know, that's the perfect way to think about
• 28:20
  that is, how do I create this content that will ultimately drive that journey to me,
• 28:25
  not online journey and experience? Yeah. Yeah. And I'm actually, you know, doing kind of a live
• 28:31
  test of this, for instance, I'm on Yelp like we've been doing and I, you know, see these individual
• 28:35
  mortgage broker loan officer reviews. And so, what am I going to do? I'm going to be a consumer,
• 28:40
  like, I'm going to click on this guy's reviews. And obviously, if he's smart, he's got a link to
• 28:45
  his website, which he does. And I've clicked on it and I go to his website. And I guess this
• 28:51
  gets back to our, the buyer journey is, this guy's actually done a really good job. Like,
• 28:56
  on his review, my gosh, he's got like 50 of them on the destination page. That's pretty amazing.
• 29:02
  So, what I'm looking for though is content, you know, and I mean, how, because what I'm getting at
• 29:06
  is this, the buyer journey. So, okay, great. This is how it starts, right? Local search, I try and
• 29:10
  find loan officer near me. Okay, cool. There's the Yelp comes up, some reviews, or maybe I go to
• 29:15
  their website first. But the real point is, you know, where's that engagement happening? Because,
• 29:21
  as you know, the worst thing to do is have a disconnect, right? If you've got them to a destination
• 29:28
  page and you don't have that means of engagement, which content would be an example of that, then
• 29:32
  you're losing. You're right. Yeah, I think the one thing that's really interesting is what we've
• 29:39
  seen is it's almost becoming best in class to be one click away from, you know, from that online
• 29:47
  publisher from Google, from Yelp, et cetera, where, you know, you're starting to be the
• 29:53
  authority of all these different answers. You come up in Google and you get that like knowledge
• 29:58
  card, that business card online. And then right there, I can either call you, I can get driving
• 30:03
  directions to you, or I can click to the website with a call to action on it to, you know, say,
• 30:09
  hey, I'd like to set up an appointment, contact me. So, so that's, you know, it's really about
• 30:17
  removing friction and, you know, friction is kind of two things. One is removing the steps and
• 30:22
  removing the time it takes for, you know, consumers to find and interact with, they want with you.
• 30:30
  So, yeah, well, what's the best practice then for a loan officer's listening who maybe up till now
• 30:36
  haven't really maximized online reviews? You know, you mentioned earlier about asking people to
• 30:44
  do that, but you know, what would you suggest and how that should integrate into the overall
• 30:49
  customer process? Yeah, so I think, I think first of all, just look at what people are saying about
• 30:54
  you. Just go do some research and just like, what if they don't have any?
• 30:59
  Well, if they don't have any, then another thing that you want to do is you kind of want to do
• 31:03
  some competitive research, initially, I'd recommend. And, you know, just, you know, type certain things
• 31:10
  like home lending near me, mortgage loan officer, near me, see who's showing up, you know, see what
• 31:15
  people are saying about? Do they have one review? Do they have 50 reviews? The reason I state that
• 31:19
  is every single zip code will have a different competitive footprint to it and it'll help you
• 31:29
  understand what you need to do to win, right? So, look, if a lot of other mortgage loan officers
• 31:36
  have like 3.5 stars, which is not bad, then, you know, that's what you need to get, right?
• 31:43
  What do you mean that's not bad? That sucks in terms of perception.
• 31:46
  Well, you would be amazed. I mean, again, we're dealing with a arena where, you know, 16%
• 31:52
  practically at MLOs aren't showing up. That's true. 46% have wrong names, wrong addresses,
• 32:01
  phone number is even like the phone number is wrong. Like, oh my god, like, that's the easiest
• 32:05
  thing to fix, right? So, isn't it getting to a point though? Because I know this is like in terms
• 32:11
  of me, or I do a lot of door dash and, you know, Uber Eats and all that, or other services,
• 32:16
  but isn't it getting to the point where, I mean, if you don't have that, it's 4.5 stars, man,
• 32:21
  or more, you're not getting picked. You know, I kind of, yeah, it's really interesting.
• 32:27
  There's been a lot of discussions around this and of course, you would get a lot of point of view.
• 32:31
  So, should you want the Holy Grail 5 stars? Yes, absolutely. Go for it. But the thing I would
• 32:39
  equate with reviews is with the ranking, what you start to see is people are going to pick the
• 32:44
  highest stars in their area. And so, it's kind of like two people being chased by bear. You just
• 32:50
  need to run faster or have more stars than your competition. And quite frankly, then you will
• 32:56
  get chosen to be at least on that short list of people that they call on the interact with.
• 33:01
  Especially if they're looking at those reviews on their, you know, quality reviews.
• 33:06
  So, like, this person was really professional. They were very timely.
• 33:11
  You know, I was really racing to closest, you know, jumbo loan.
• 33:17
  For this dream house that I had and, you know, ex-personal is amazing. It just kind of handhold
• 33:22
  of me through those experience. Those kind of reviews will just make your business. They're
• 33:29
  better than any marketing content that you can ever create. Right. People will trust them more
• 33:35
  as a signal, all of those different dimensions. So, what would you advise at the end of the
• 33:40
  transaction and how people secure those online reviews? I mean, one idea I've suggested,
• 33:46
  obviously, is make that part of your post-closing process and email with links. But I know there's
• 33:50
  some considerations with Yelp in particular. If you're linking over versus organic.
• 33:56
  Yeah, I think you nailed it. It's just be consistent. Have it be part of your process. A lot of
• 34:01
  times you can work with your organization and they will set that up within the infrastructure
• 34:09
  of, you know, setting out that email to say, hey, how did I do? I mean, they're already doing a
• 34:14
  lot of that information anyways with surveys to measure customer satisfaction and this
• 34:20
  become a process on that. So, there's a few extra steps around that, but we do have a blog on our
• 34:26
  website around that with a lot more detailed information that people can go to. Does Yelp have
• 34:34
  a service which helps to facilitate this process of gathering and posting on the interviews?
• 34:40
  Yeah. So, what we really solve is, you know, we've talked about, you know, digital knowledge
• 34:46
  management. And so, you can manually go to, you know, 150 different publishers out there
• 34:53
  and update your information. Or you could use a product like Yaks where you update it once in
• 34:58
  it, updates it for you and all those different publishers. Secondly, we do manage, you know, that
• 35:05
  webpage experience, right? So, what that perfect experience for when I go to Google and I see my
• 35:12
  business card in there and I click it and it goes to that optimized page. So, we do manage that
• 35:19
  website presence and then we also manage a lot of the reviews. So, if you think about it, we are,
• 35:26
  our focus is just to make sure that you show up everywhere and that that experience is perfect everywhere.
• 35:32
  Whether it's your website, a mobile device, a chatbot, a lot of times we're moving to, you know,
• 35:40
  assisted voice devices, which is, you know, Amazon, the connected car, the connected home.
• 35:48
  So, even things that quite haven't hit yet, we're actively building those
• 35:54
  integrations so that you, it could automate that experience, which is the other thing that we've
• 35:59
  heard from top producers, you know, from mortgage loan officers, is the number one
• 36:05
  ask that they've had of the organizations and businesses that they work for is army with these
• 36:11
  digital tools that I can be successful and I can focus my time on, you know, managing that customer
• 36:17
  relationship versus doing all these manual tasks because they can be quite burdensome over time.
• 36:24
  Okay, so let's talk about voice because it's hot, it's sexy, people are curious, and then of
• 36:30
  course there's some people that probably need to connect the dots, bridge the gap for how
• 36:38
  voice is going to, you know, be part of this customer journey specific to the mortgage space.
• 36:45
  So, and then of course there's some fear and trepidation behind that as well, right?
• 36:48
  About just the big players being able to win with voice because the perception is it's going to
• 36:55
  take money to, you know, win with that voice strategy. Any initial comments to that?
• 37:02
  Yeah, so one thing, you'll hear the statistic a lot in both the comm score and gardener have come
• 37:11
  out with research and stated, you know, by 2020, 50% of all searches will be done over voice
• 37:19
  and specifically that was the comm score, what gardeners very close to that. And so what you will
• 37:26
  see is as consumers start adapting new technology channels, obviously they're going to spend less time
• 37:34
  in these other ones. Now, it doesn't mean you should stop managing your website or even print
• 37:39
  email and everything that you're doing. It just means that it's going to become a predominant
• 37:45
  channel where consumers are and where they're going to do that research. You want to make sure
• 37:50
  you're showing up. The same tips that I've told you around managing all these micro experiences
• 37:55
  in these online publishers are the same exact tips, you know, by line that will help you compete
• 38:03
  in those voice arena. And so it's important just to manage your online presence, you know,
• 38:08
  really make sure you get that map, age, information, name, address, you know, phone numbers,
• 38:13
  hours, making sure that you people can reach you and they can get a hold of you and they can interact
• 38:20
  with you. And then, you know, following up on those communications are kind of like, you know,
• 38:26
  it's the one, two, three punch. So, so what does that look like in the real world? So I have Alexa
• 38:31
  in my kitchen. Sometimes, you know, she needs to shut up. But if I say, hey, Alexa, find a
• 38:38
  mortgage loan officer near me. Yeah. I could just imagine all the people listening to this channel
• 38:44
  right now and going off in their house, finding their competitors. So what does Alexa then go to
• 38:54
  Google and all these other destinations to pull that info? So there's there's two things to think
• 38:58
  about specifically as we approach voice. So when we're looking at voice, there's, you know,
• 39:06
  what's called skills and skills are things that like I'm curating these experiences, you know,
• 39:12
  with these online publishers to kind of manage my information. And then there's voice search.
• 39:18
  And voice search is just, you know, claiming your data and putting it out there for them. So in
• 39:24
  2012, Google created what was called a knowledge graph and started to identify, look, people are
• 39:30
  asking Google all these questions. I need to understand the relationships of these things. So,
• 39:35
  you know, I have this concept of a mortgage loan officer who belongs to a branch who's in a region
• 39:41
  who has these different products. So even as of July of last year, they came out and they came out
• 39:48
  with a standard that's actually published on their website where they started to say, we are going
• 39:53
  to start looking at financial professionals. And again, it's really about managing your
• 39:58
  information around there. So the voice search, those things, those structured answers that you're
• 40:04
  seeing, that's a voice search. And then the skills is something that you would more work with your
• 40:09
  kind of corporate IT team on to kind of be branded searches where, hey, you know, movement mortgage,
• 40:17
  I'd like to find somebody so you're kind of triggering it and it's developing a skill. And then
• 40:22
  you're kind of creating those answers to those questions. But for this group's benefit, I would
• 40:30
  I would encourage them to focus on the voice search stuff, which is all those tips that we've been
• 40:35
  giving you throughout this session. Okay, so what you're saying is still move forward with all the
• 40:40
  tips we talked about and when voice continues to evolve and become prominent back to that original
• 40:46
  question. So Alexa, for example, is going to hit the power listings network, if you will, right?
• 40:52
  To pull that data of local voice search. Yeah, that's correct. Okay. Interesting. Interesting.
• 41:00
  There's a lot of emotions that come up with this stuff as I'm sure you know. Yeah, it's a lot of
• 41:05
  things to need to manage. And ultimately, that's why, you know, technology is becoming a key element
• 41:13
  of empowering mortgage loan officers to be able to compete by removing some of the complexity out of
• 41:20
  that. So it's also why I must, you know, top performing mortgage loan officers, it's almost the
• 41:27
  number one requirement, you know, of a business that they kind of help them with these technologies
• 41:36
  to be able to compete in these local environments. So yeah. Yeah, because it's, you know, obviously,
• 41:42
  I hear a lot of the discussion about displacement technology disruption kind of, you know,
• 41:46
  getting rid of the loan officer automation, taking over because, right, let's face it,
• 41:50
  computers can do loan apps faster, praises, all that kind of jazz. I guess in closing it out then,
• 41:56
  what advice would you have for the loan officers listening on how they stay relevant and not be
• 42:05
  displaced knowing that technology is, you know, kind of tipping away? Yeah, that's a great question.
• 42:11
  My answer to that would be focus on locals, a channel, right? So things in your local environment,
• 42:17
  because it's still a referral business. Yeah, right. You know, mortgage loan officers,
• 42:24
  big book of their business is coming from those referrals from, you know, those one to two
• 42:29
  realtors that they develop relationships with. They are developing their brand in that local
• 42:36
  community by sponsoring Jimmy's baseball event or Pete tonight at the school or, you know,
• 42:42
  networking in that community. So that technology will never be able to compete with in the near future.
• 42:52
  So you have to think about strategically knowing that and knowing that local is the biggest
• 43:00
  place for me to differentiate in this crowded arena. And more and more of these online publishers
• 43:07
  are starting to, you know, to focus on that channel. If you go to a mobile device, you don't see
• 43:15
  all the blue links. You actually just get those structured answers. So it's even more pronounced
• 43:20
  on a mobile device. And as a desktop, then we're seeing 60 to 80% of all the kind of careers
• 43:27
  are being done on mobile today. Right. So that's only going to continue. So I would leave the team
• 43:32
  with just really think about leveraging local and managing their information on those channels to
• 43:38
  generate high quality leads. Okay. Got it. It's funny when I, when I teach classes to agents, you know,
• 43:44
  I talk about this perception versus reality concept and I post them a question. I'm like, well,
• 43:48
  let's let's take Susie over here realtor. If I see her everywhere, so to speak, right, online,
• 43:54
  she's got content, she's got reviews. If I see her listing signs in the neighborhood, if she's
• 43:58
  out and about the community, right, my perception is she's successful. Yeah. Do I know if she's
• 44:04
  successful or not? No, but my perception is and that's really kind of the first step is in this
• 44:10
  perception. Yeah. No, I agree. Okay. So in closing out, I know you've got some options for people
• 44:16
  listening that want to learn more about YXT.com. We'll put a link in there, but you know,
• 44:21
  we've got loan officers at various levels. We got your individual individual person. We got teams.
• 44:25
  We got some executives listening. There are packages and plans and programs if people want to
• 44:30
  learn more over on the website, right? Yeah, even for the individual, you can go out and sign up,
• 44:36
  create your account and, you know, you're off to the races. There's lots of material out there
• 44:42
  around, you know, managing reviews, you know, steps around updating your information.
• 44:48
  Some of this research that we are presenting around, you know, how to win in local.
• 44:54
  So definitely use, you know, get go to YXT. I have a blog out there and then also my LinkedIn
• 45:01
  account, I post a lot of this information on there. Yeah. You've got a lot of, I'm going to put a
• 45:07
  link to your LinkedIn profile in the show notes as well because you're right. You got a lot of
• 45:10
  content. And I think that's another big takeaway from today's session. Hopefully this has been
• 45:14
  educational. It's been educational for me. So for those listeners, educate yourself, right?
• 45:20
  Immerse yourself. This is, it's here. It's coming and you can either adapt and pivot and ride
• 45:26
  the wave or be left behind. So yeah. I nailed it. Yeah, awesome. All right. Well, look, I know you're
• 45:33
  busy as you're getting ready to head off for the weekend and unplug, which is awesome, disconnect.
• 45:39
  We all need to do that. So I appreciate you being here so much, man. This has been fantastic.
• 45:44
  Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity and, you know, look forward to conversations and follow-ups.
• 45:50
  Take care. Yeah. You bet. And listeners, as always, thank you for tuning in. If you like this
• 45:54
  episode or any of the others, hey, leave us a link of rating, a review, wherever you're listening,
• 45:59
  iTunes, Stitcher. Who knows on the inner webs? But look for the resources and the show notes for
• 46:05
  everything we talk about here today. And as always, we appreciate you. So see you on the next one.
• 46:10
  Bye for now. Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio. One more truth in mortgage
• 46:16
  marketing. You get more free training and resources at MortgageMarketingInstitute.com.
• 46:35
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