Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Ep. 135: What's The Future of Real Estate Marketing?

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Ep. 135: What's The Future of Real Estate Marketing? · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
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1:18
Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
1:19
Brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth
1:24
in Mortgage Marketing.
1:25
Hey listeners, what's up?
1:28
This is Jeff Zimper.
1:29
Welcome to this episode of the Mortgage Marketing Radio Podcast.
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As always, I am so glad you tuned in and I hope you're going to be as equally as glad
1:39
as I am after you listen to this week's episode.
1:42
Before we get into that, I've got to give a shout out once again to one of our loyal listeners
1:46
who took the time to leave us a brief review online on the socials, wherever you're listening
1:50
to this podcast and it's by Freebird25, it gives us five stars, a podcast for all levels
1:57
of MLOs and Freebird25 goes on to say, I've been an originator for many moons and the content
2:04
and guests Jeff has on is fresh and has many takeaways.
2:09
Freebird25, shout out to you, bye bye baby, I'm a Freebird yeah, isn't that how the song
2:14
goes?
2:15
Something like that.
2:16
Hey Freebird, listen, appreciate you leaving the review, you've got a podcast swag box
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coming your way.
2:21
How do you get it?
2:22
You just PM me on Facebook, give me your shirt size, t-shirt size, and mailing address,
2:25
we'll get your podcast t-shirt and some swag.
2:27
Just as a thanks for leaving us a podcast review and once again, as always, this podcast
2:32
is brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing.pro membership where we are providing you with the tools
2:38
and resources you need to be a modern originator and balance both sides of this business, both
2:44
the offline and online.
2:46
What is it?
2:47
It's done for you agent classes, social media courses, skills training and more to help
2:51
you get more agent referrals, grow your business and become a modern mortgage originator.
2:55
You want to learn more?
2:56
There's a brief video we put up at MortgageMarketing.pro and if you didn't hear last week's episode,
3:02
that was featuring our mortgage pro member of the month, Liz Lefort, where she was talking
3:07
about as a member just in two months, right?
3:09
She's been able to generate an additional five purchase loans in her business at her
3:14
last agent class.
3:15
She had 40 real estate agents show up to learn all about Facebook ads and marketing and she's
3:19
just ignited her business in a big way.
3:21
So if you haven't heard that episode yet, go back and catch that one.
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All right, so let's get into this week's episode with my very special guest who I'm
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honored that he took time to be on our podcast and his name is Chris Smith.
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This is a USA Today best selling author and the co-founder of Curator, a social media
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digital marketing and sales coaching company and they have just exploded in the real estate
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space.
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In less than four years, Chris used the blueprint in his book, which I've read and there's
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links to all this stuff in the show notes.
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Everything you hear us talking about, his book, The Conversion Code is just a blueprint and
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a roadmap for connecting both the online and offline lead funnel sales process and conversion
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strategy that you need to have in place today.
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Chris and his team has grown Curator to over 10 million in annual recurring revenue.
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He's been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, many other publications, they're an Inc. 500
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company.
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And Chris has a really interesting cool background.
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He actually worked for two billionaires, Dan Gilbert and Lou Perlman, Dan Gilbert of
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Quick and Loans and Lou Perlman, who's the, you know, the fame is the band boys, right?
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He discovered like Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears and all that kind of stuff.
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But, you know, we talk a little bit about Chris's time at Quick and in the lessons he learned
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in terms of lead conversion, sales scripting, mindset and just lots of great takeaways and
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lessons there.
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And he also went on to work for Move, Move Incorporated and Dot Loop, which was acquired
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by Zillow.
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And now, of course, Chris is a highly sought after keynote speaker and is one of the most
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influential people in real estate today.
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And we unpack just, you know, a crash course in what's the current state of real estate
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and mortgage marketing?
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How do we adapt and pivot and some, some aha moments and discoveries in here, which I think
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you'll enjoy by listening to Chris.
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We talk about his next book coming out called Exactly What To Say When, which is going to
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be really exciting stuff.
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And we put links in the show notes for you to get on the early bird list for that as
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well.
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So without further ado, let's get into this week's show, Chris Smith.
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Welcome to the show.
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What's up, man?
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Pump to be here.
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Pump to have you here.
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Appreciate you making time.
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I know you're incredibly busy.
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For those listeners that may not be familiar with you, they got familiar with you in the
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formal interest.
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So they should know about you.
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We're going to put links to everything we say in the show notes, including your book,
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the conversion code.
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So, but here's the thing, right?
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My tagline is truth and mortgage marketing.
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And my goal on these things is to deliver more nuggets per minute than any other podcast
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out there.
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So, all right, dude.
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I wanted to start with this, the big headline, right, because you've been in this industry
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a long time.
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What a lot of people don't know about you, though, that I thought would be very interesting
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to unpack, first of all, is that, you know, I'm going to say you're one of us, because
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you've sold loans, you, you, and I dare I bring it up for some people in the audience listening,
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the Q word, the quick and word, right?
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Some mixed emotions for some listeners out there.
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But you sold loans at quick and quick and mortgage, didn't you?
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That's right.
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Yeah, I was in the belly of the beast is what I think you're trying to say.
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Exactly, man.
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All right.
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So, but what I wanted, why I wanted you here, because I think you bring a unique perspective
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both for Morgan and real estate side, and you're doing a ton of stuff in the real estate
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business with like, you know, digital technology and marketing and lead Jan and all that kind
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of jazz.
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We're going to get into the quick and take a minute, but I want to start with Chris, what's
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the current state of real estate and mortgage marketing?
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Sure.
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Well, it's usually about five years behind where it should be.
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And that's always the current state.
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Our industry is sort of equally excited to change and try new stuff and equally kind of
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bad at it, right?
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So, you know, you kind of get caught up in the day to day and you're kind of doing your
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job.
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And I just feel like sometimes like social media or video or content or email or blogging
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or LinkedIn or Twitter or stories is not your job as an L.O.
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Like I wasn't even allowed to do that a quick and you because I was supposed to be calling
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people.
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And so when you have a machine in place where it's a hundred calls a day, five conversations
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a day, two credit pulls in a loan every single day.
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You don't really have time to tweet, man.
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And so I understand how the most successful people also have the least amount of time to
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adapt.
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But that's where it gets dangerous.
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That's where you can get leapfrog to give you a good example in my world.
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You think loan officers don't like quick and realtors don't like Zilla, like the Z word
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is more aggravating.
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But why don't each industry like each entity, they're jealous.
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They might call it, they suck, they're about at service.
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What they're really saying is they're getting all my leads and I can't compete.
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They don't deserve it because I care more.
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Right.
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Like get the hell out of here.
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They out marketed you.
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They out branded you.
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They out systems you.
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They out technology you and you've been catching up ever since.
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The brokers in the real estate space are trying to catch up now.
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And the loan officers in the mortgage space is trying to catch up now.
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And bank rate and lending tree and quick and major life a little bit harder.
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Deal with it.
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My life's a little bit harder too.
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I write books.
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Go read my reviews.
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There's people that say I suck.
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Go read your reviews of your podcast.
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There's people that say you suck.
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So welcome to the internet.
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All right.
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All right.
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All right.
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Cool.
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I love that.
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So let's play a little devil's advocate here.
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Okay.
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So cool.
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We're pissed off because quick and eight are launched.
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Zilla ate our lunch.
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Whatever.
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They got better and more efficient work.
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There's no way we can compete at that level.
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Right.
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They're going to outspend us right 100 fold or whatever.
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So that's absolutely not true.
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All right.
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Break it down for me then.
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How do we compete with that?
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It's very easy.
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It's actually super easy because they are never going to be the local digital mayor.
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They are never going to be able to create unique hyper local content and relationships
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at scale.
9:15
Okay.
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But they are going to be like Amazon, right?
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They're going to be this layer that authors have to live with.
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That's, you know, when I do a book, I got to deal with Amazon takes my money.
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What do you want me to do?
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Dude, go put my book on freaking iBooks only.
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Like, you have to adapt to the change and then you have to fucking fight back.
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Yeah.
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That's what's missing.
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Zestimates suck.
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Where's your version?
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Why do people like quick and it's fast.
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It's easy.
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I promise of it is the loan tracking software, the frickin' affiliation with QuickBooks,
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which they trust, the speed, the commercials, people like them for a reason.
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Yeah.
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And so if you can't get past your bitterness to get better, I'm taking notes, dude.
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I'm taking notes and I'm fighting back.
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That's my advice.
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No, I love that.
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I agree with that.
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So it's interesting.
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I don't know if you've seen, this is some of the kind of threads I've been following
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on social about the Ibuyers, the fleecing of America because they're making lesser
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offers and people are losing equity.
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What's your take on that?
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We already have written articles, done email campaigns, done ad campaigns and lead generation
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and education.
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In every market, we have curator clients in the newsfeed and put significant budgets
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behind it.
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Have you?
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So your answer is, what are you doing about it?
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How are you?
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Exactly.
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Yeah.
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Do something.
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So, okay, are you trying to say there's a hidden cost to selling your home, the Silicon Valley
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way?
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Is that what you're trying to say?
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Because that's the name of the article we wrote six months ago.
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And that's the name of the ad we put out.
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And that's the name of the emails we did.
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We're doing something about it.
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We're not just bitching about it.
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And you can fight back.
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So screw that mindset that quickens going to crush me.
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Yes, they have a bigger budget.
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Yes, they're going to generate more leads.
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Yes, they're going to do ads and things on the Super Bowl that you can't.
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Who cares?
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Mm-hmm.
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What do you think?
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What do you say to the people who still have their heads stuck on the sand?
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I was like, you know what I mean?
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That's a bunch of noise, that kind of stuff.
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Hey, I've been doing it X, the 17 years, not in my area.
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You know what I mean?
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Those naysayers?
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Yeah.
11:29
Mm-hmm.
11:30
Well, first of all, they're wrong.
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Okay.
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So they're wrong because if they're complaining about how it is and they're romantic
11:37
about how it was, they've already started to lose.
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Mm-hmm.
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So you better be prepared with my world, man, you tell me, and I'll ask you, this is your
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space, Brad.
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You know, I've been in it, but I'm not in it right now.
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Here's my question to you.
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If you're consulting a large mortgage company in a large city, would you tell them to buy
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leads from Zillow, Bank rate, and lending tree or not?
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That is a good question, and to be honest with you, from a mortgage side, I'm going to
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have to say my gut answer to that is no.
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Okay.
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So on the real estate side, that would be the same as you saying, do not buy Zillow leads,
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correct?
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I think where I personally stand, and I'm not saying I'm an expert on this, but I think
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it's a different conversation for the real estate agent than the lender.
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Mm-hmm.
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Right?
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Because, I mean, if it depends on the context we talk about, because I buyers, we know they're
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doing.
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Bank rate don't have really good leads, because I know quickens getting lower my bill leads
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too.
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So that's my whole point.
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It's like, you can compete and fight, like I mentioned, through content, right?
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Yeah, yeah, right.
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You can also co-opitation.
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Right.
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My client and the other building named Veronica Figaroa, she's not really excited that
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Zillow is buying homes, but she's listed in the ones they don't.
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You see what I'm saying?
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Yeah.
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That's what I'm getting at.
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There's a lot of people just frigging throw Zillow out of the bathwater, right?
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Like, agents because of a whole about I buyer thing, but like you and I both know, they're
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generating thousands of listing leads for the ones that they don't take.
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So are you getting yourself in the flow of that as a real estate agent?
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Let's have your cake and eat it too.
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If you think you're feeding the beast and you're going to put yourself out of business,
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you're just too, like, egotistical to understand that you don't matter that much.
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Like, the industry might go away, and the I buyer might work, but has nothing to do with
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you.
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Like, get your paper right now, be their partner, be their enemy, do something.
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What I learned about lending when I was at Quicken was that we wanted the mortgage rates
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moving.
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We didn't necessarily care if they were higher low.
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We wanted them changing because when things change, it creates new conversation opportunities.
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And so if things are changing with I buyer, or if things are changing where these technology
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companies, quite frankly, are coming in and acting like their local banks and stealing
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all your leads, because I mean, let's be honest here for a second.
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If I'm open door and I'm Zillow, and I'm getting the leads that are saying, buy my home,
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you don't think I'm going to start getting those loans too when they buy the one after
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they sell them that one?
14:13
Like, careful, guys, careful, you see what I'm saying?
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So we can get really apocalyptic, but again, do something about it.
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Fight back.
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What's your instant offer?
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What's your lending tree?
14:23
Right.
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What's your bank rate widget?
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Let me give you a specific question then, mortgage related when it comes to Zillow, right?
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Because now we know they are a mortgage lender.
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And you alluded to this just a moment ago, they're getting all the eyeballs for traffic.
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People are stopping there on their journey, et cetera.
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And they're going to get an offer to get a home loan, a prequel, whatever.
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And so I'm having these debates and conversations with lenders who are paying Zillow for leads
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or partnering with real estate agents.
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And there's this right-growing fear of Zillow or growing discussion around, stop giving
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Zillow money if you're a lender because now you're feeding your demise, your conversation.
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What do you say?
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I just said it.
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So even as a lender, you think still cool, just keep throwing money at Zillow.
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I mean, I think there's either fight back or throw money, that's what I said, right?
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So either fight them or cooperate with them.
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The difference is you can't be so idealistic to think that there's only one shade of white
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and black, man.
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There's different shades of gray.
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So one of the shades of gray is you get their leads and you say they suck in your market.
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Right?
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One of the shades of gray is your marketing is non-existent.
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And so you've got to use all their leads, right?
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And what if they move to, by the way, you don't think it's coming in the lending world
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where instead of paying per lead, you're going to pay out of that mortgage, origination fee.
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You see what I'm saying?
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Because Veronica down the street here was paying thousands and thousands of dollars for
15:52
multiple, multiple years.
15:55
And then they said, we'll just do a commission share.
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They literally let realtors that look up Op City after the call, that's a realtor.com
16:04
zone.
16:05
They're letting realtors pay zero for the leads.
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In exchange for a more traditional referral fee of 25% of the sale is commission.
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They're really smart.
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They did the math.
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Right?
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So if I'm right now, as an example, I do go all in.
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This is why I would usually try not to go all in on anything, so if I'm saying, because
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if you do go all in on just buying all your leads from one place, and then they change
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that term and you don't like that new term that you've got to give them a percent of
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every loan you close, your boiler room gets really bored right away, because that was
16:47
your whole funnel, you know what I mean?
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So I'm more of a, I remember talking to Ben Kenny and Tom Fary and some of the gurus
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in real estate, you want your pie to have many, many, many, many pieces.
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You want your fence to have many, many, many, many panels.
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And I think that would be my advice for your audience, whether they're in the yellow side
17:07
or working with agents, you really want to say, I've got Zillow and a blog and a good
17:13
email strategy and some SEO working and I'm doing paper click and I'm getting some referrals
17:18
from Instagram, not to mention my past client marketing's on point.
17:24
I'm building my brand, I'm growing my database, I'm working my leads, right?
17:30
Like if you start doing all of those, you win trivia pursuit.
17:35
Yeah, right.
17:36
Okay.
17:39
When you, when you, your book, the conversion code, when that come out 2016, 17, which
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country are you referring to for the release date?
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Are you referring to Brazil, Poland, India, Japan?
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I'm not sure which, which continent.
17:57
Worldwide, maybe it's been, it's been out for about three years.
18:01
All right.
18:02
So what I'm getting to is this is you were very bullish, obviously, on Facebook advertising,
18:07
right?
18:08
And a lot of things have changed and evolved.
18:10
What you're, how do you feel about Facebook running ads today?
18:13
Yeah.
18:14
Facebook is the internet.
18:15
Still the internet.
18:16
Yeah.
18:17
And what's funny about that is like, I, I didn't say in my book that people wouldn't
18:21
get mad at the internet, right?
18:23
Right.
18:24
Right.
18:25
I didn't say the internet would have changed, you know, and I didn't say the internet
18:28
wouldn't evolve.
18:29
But let me be very clear, because most of the people listening and watching don't know
18:33
what they're talking about, I do.
18:37
If you need traffic to your website, and if you need leads for your business, Facebook
18:43
is by far the best place to still do that, period, end of story, 2019 edition.
18:51
Now, the change, which I think is really relevant, two huge changes since I wrote the book.
18:57
Number one is that if we're saying Facebook is Google, right, Instagram just became Google
19:04
images.
19:05
So I'm saying Google, Google, Facebook's the new Google, Instagram's the new Google
19:10
images.
19:11
There's, there's just people not pages, right?
19:13
People and people pages and pictures.
19:17
So, but I think you may have seen the story on this.
19:22
Do you know who owns Instagram by any chance?
19:26
A little company called Facebook.
19:29
So, I'm pretty sure I'm going to stick with my prediction, Facebook is the internet.
19:37
Now, if you're not using Instagram as well, it's sort of like being in 2013 and saying
19:44
Facebook's dumb, right?
19:46
It's sort of like that moment where Twitter was dumb and hard to figure out.
19:50
And Facebook was a little complex to understand the value prop.
19:56
That's Instagram today for many people.
19:59
The other thing that changed is stories are a phenomenon and they are overtaking the
20:05
newsfeed in popularity, which is a really big deal.
20:09
It's a very, very big deal that that's the case.
20:12
And that ironically like literally like flips marketing over because if you've even been
20:20
like me, like active on social, active on YouTube, active on Twitter, active in blogging,
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I've been kind of a content machine.
20:27
I consider myself a media company.
20:30
Yeah.
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Well, all of a sudden I got to do vertical media.
20:35
And after doing horizontal media for a decade, the story format and kind of having to learn
20:45
a new way to post the decade in is also the other thing that if and when the conversion
20:52
code 2 came out, it would start with stories and Instagram, meaning those are the two big
20:58
things that truly took off between the time I finished the last book and today.
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Beyond that, not a lot's changed.
21:09
I mean, I work with thousands of business owners and dozens of large companies.
21:15
They're still trying to crack the conversion code.
21:18
Yeah.
21:19
Okay.
21:20
Is that something that's hard to do?
21:23
Crack the conversion code?
21:24
It depends on where you're at today.
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So if you're starting with a, if this is your current strategy, a lot of white space.
21:33
Yeah.
21:34
Like think of it this way.
21:35
If you need my whole book, it's going to take a while because the first part of the book
21:41
is about capturing leads through great marketing tactics.
21:45
That could be its own whole book.
21:48
So if you need section one, you're going to have a while to really get that in place and
21:54
get it right.
21:55
There's some tactics that in there you can do on day one.
21:58
It's a really build the conversion code marketing machine.
22:02
That's not an overnight thing.
22:05
Section two is about now that you have marketing happening, being much more efficient with
22:11
your follow up and your focus when you follow up.
22:16
And that's more through like email and text and CRM and like lead tracking and stuff.
22:22
So what I'm getting at is if you've got the marketing and the funnel and the leads coming
22:27
in, it's actually incredibly quick to apply the conversion code to the back end of that.
22:34
If you don't have the marketing piece and you have to build that and you don't have the
22:38
team behind it, the last part of my book is about sales.
22:44
You can start using the advice in section three on your next call.
22:48
Right.
22:49
You can use the tactics in section three, which is, okay, the marketing's working.
22:55
The appointments are being set.
22:57
Now I want to win on the phone.
23:00
Every person listening to this, every person that watches this, they can
23:04
win on the phone better today because of section three.
23:08
So to do the whole thing, I think it's going to take some time.
23:12
If you've got the marketing and the leads stuff happening, sections two and three are way
23:17
faster to do.
23:18
And if you actually have, like I go to some companies, like I went and worked with homes.com.
23:25
Homes.com has I think 250 inside salespeople throughout the country selling products to agents.
23:33
And they had the marketing and the leads and the systems and they had the sales people
23:39
and they had the sort of call it, here's who to focus on.
23:42
They had sections one and two.
23:45
There are salespeople really needed some help with section three, the script.
23:50
Like, okay, I've got the guy on the phone and in the first 30 seconds, he says, I'm already
23:55
using Zillow.
23:56
Thanks anyway.
23:57
Oh crap.
23:58
Kind of like a quick one.
23:59
What are the rights?
24:01
So, so there's an art to the conversation with and internet late.
24:06
Right.
24:07
And if you've got the marketing and the systems setting you up like a quick and a curator
24:12
does for you, then it's really easy to use the conversion code because you get to go
24:17
straight to the sales part.
24:19
Yeah.
24:20
And it was funny and reading your book.
24:22
I get a sense that you are really passionate about sales and marketing obviously.
24:26
But what I didn't know or wasn't so clear to me is that you seem to be a freaking
24:30
sales animal.
24:31
You love sales.
24:32
I'm one of the best salespeople in the world.
24:34
Yes.
24:35
And where I really shine where others don't is selling to large groups.
24:41
That's actually an incredibly different skill than selling one to one.
24:46
Like, I started in the boiler room with Lou Pearlman selling boy band auditions.
24:53
Okay.
24:54
Like I go way back.
24:55
I know I look young and I look like I'm going.
24:58
But I go way back.
24:59
You're 40, man.
25:00
Happy believing.
25:01
Yeah.
25:02
Thank you.
25:03
But I'm in Orlando.
25:04
It's the boy band Britney Spears capital of the world and I worked for the guy that discovered
25:07
that.
25:08
Right.
25:09
And so to be selling vacations and then to go sell loans and then to go sell software and
25:17
then to go sell sponsorships to conferences, right.
25:21
Whatever it may be, I've just figured out that there is a science to sales.
25:25
There is a better way to have a conversation with someone that's interested in buying than
25:30
most people have.
25:31
Mm-hmm.
25:32
So, yeah, man, like when we started Curator, I did all the sales myself.
25:35
I closed three deals yesterday, more of a B2B enterprise, large partnership at this point.
25:43
But, you know, I hang up with you in about 30 minutes later, I'm doing a sales webinar
25:47
today where two or three inner people are interested in Curator.
25:52
And yeah, I have a better closing rate and a better pitch and a better set up and
25:57
I tell better stories than most people.
25:59
But it's just because I put in the 10,000 hours.
26:02
Right.
26:03
I went from the boiler room doing inside sales, calling internet leads for years.
26:07
Yep.
26:08
Then I went into offices doing outside sales for years.
26:12
Mm-hmm.
26:13
And then I went on stages doing sales and keynote speeches for years.
26:18
Yep.
26:19
So, if people want to know how to get good at sales, it's learn it and love it for a long
26:26
time.
26:27
Mm-hmm.
26:28
And then what I just learned is that like the difference between selling alone and a
26:31
piece of software is not that different.
26:34
And the difference between selling over the phone and in person is not that different.
26:38
And the person between selling one to one into a group is not that different.
26:41
But they are all different.
26:42
Mm-hmm.
26:43
But wherever you're at in your career, just get better at that one.
26:47
Yeah.
26:48
And your learning will help you if you decide to get into a different product in the future
26:53
or maybe trying to get outside, get out of that boiler room, you know, get out and see
26:58
some sunshine.
26:59
You know what I mean?
27:00
Mm-hmm.
27:01
Well, there's a couple of things specifically in your book, tactically, when it does, you
27:04
know, part three of the book is about sales and scripting, which I've always been a big
27:07
believer in and some people have resistance around that because it's, you know, quote,
27:10
hey, not natural, whatever.
27:12
But you reference Quicken, right?
27:14
Hey, I just want to know what the rates are.
27:15
A lot of our listeners obviously get that question a lot.
27:18
Hey, man, I just want to know the rates.
27:20
And you've got this process called ARP, right?
27:22
Acknowledge, respond, pivot.
27:24
And I love the fact that you actually say, be first and talk to them the longest, right?
27:29
I think that's really cool because a lot of people feel pressured as just like get the
27:32
answer and get, allow them to get off the phone.
27:35
You disagree.
27:36
Completely.
27:37
Yeah.
27:38
Like you say, as an order taker, that will be like working in McDonald's versus a good restaurant.
27:43
Like if somebody says the number four sold out, like do you want a number three, they're
27:49
not a salesperson.
27:51
That's good.
27:52
Customer service.
27:53
But I think you said at Quicken, your average time conversation was like 30 minutes.
27:57
Yeah.
27:58
20, 30, 40.
27:59
We call it 2020.
28:00
So what we would do is we'd go really deep for 20 minutes and make it all about them.
28:06
And then we would get that credit poll and we'd get that sort of mini commitment to
28:13
where they weren't going to disappear on us, right?
28:16
Because they wanted to know what their rate would be.
28:19
They want to know what their payment would be.
28:21
Right.
28:22
And so we would go 20 minutes all in on them.
28:25
And then we would actually call them back like 15 or 20 minutes later after we would sit
28:30
with our manager and come up with like the best way to present the right loan to them.
28:34
So it was sort of like 20 minutes all in on them, 20 minutes to prepare your pitch.
28:40
And then the last 20 minutes was pitching, closing, and either battling for or getting
28:46
the payment or the denial.
28:49
And by breaking that down, it's either that or it's like maybe a 40 minute call.
28:55
And so it gets incredibly difficult to like slowly crescendo to that point where they
29:00
want to buy if you talk to them for an hour, but you can get them like really pumped in
29:06
20 minutes and then kind of excited enough to give you their income and their credit.
29:12
And then you start over in the second part and then you just build them right back up
29:16
and another five or 10 minutes to get them more excited than the cost of the loan and
29:20
you close them.
29:22
So it's not a straightforward 20, 40, 60.
29:26
It's situational.
29:27
Now we'll say there were some people at Quicken that were very talented at the one call
29:30
close where they actually just were able to sort of figure out the loan and the right amount
29:38
and the right terms and they could just go all the way through.
29:43
But it was actually very rare.
29:46
And those people usually weren't really closers.
29:49
They were more consultants doing math with their pocket protector and they didn't actually
29:53
sell a lot of loans, so they just wanted to be somebody's friend for an hour and a half
29:58
and then they would sign.
29:59
You know what I'm saying?
30:00
And I ain't got time for that.
30:01
I'm not trying to go too long.
30:02
Yeah.
30:03
Yeah.
30:04
Well, in your book, you talk about how you called more than 10,000 internet leads working
30:07
at Quicken and this is back when the rates are over 7%.
30:12
And that you wrote more loans in your first week at Quicken than most of their season bankers
30:16
wrote in their entire month.
30:17
What do you think attributed to that trajectory huge success quickly?
30:24
Three things.
30:26
I was confused, right?
30:28
I was pumped about getting that job.
30:30
I had worked in the restaurant business my whole life and to wear a tie and to be in a
30:37
nice office in a downtown like a Cleveland, Ohio.
30:42
Got it.
30:43
Mentally, I was just pumped.
30:45
I just felt like, okay, this is my first real job.
30:48
So that was part of it.
30:49
Part of it was that I got that job because my girlfriend was pregnant.
30:54
My wife of 12 years now, but you don't really know that that's going to be how it turns
30:58
out.
30:59
And so the reason I left was because my wife had gotten pregnant.
31:03
My girlfriend at the time and I just had this weird dang in my head that changed, which
31:08
was like, okay, now you have to provide for three people, not one.
31:14
And so my goal became to sort of triple my income and sales was definitely a path to
31:21
being able to do that.
31:23
So I had the right motivation, I had the right mindset, then the last thing would just be
31:28
your tone.
31:29
This is something people really struggle with.
31:34
People like I think somehow I sound trustworthy, which I know is a weird thing to say, but
31:39
you got to remember on the phone, you don't see the person.
31:45
And so when you're on the phone and you're not seeing the person, it's just a little bit
31:49
awkward.
31:50
And so if they don't feel your vibe, if they don't, if you don't sound smart and trustworthy
31:59
and confident and humble, like it's a really hard thing to explain.
32:03
I've got a chart in my book about the importance of tone, because without physiology, that's
32:10
all you got left.
32:12
And so I would say that I've always really thought a lot about my voice.
32:16
I know people are born with a certain voice, but what I found is that if you don't have
32:21
a natural sort of DJ quality kind of a voice, you need to pretend you do when you're working.
32:30
So there's actors, right?
32:32
You do a lot of these actors, you know, if you meet them day to day, they're sort of
32:37
introverted and they're sort of quiet and then they get up into a scene and they go really
32:41
big.
32:42
And you have to understand that if you don't have an excited, enthusiastic, infectious tone
32:49
and you're doing phone sales, you're never going to be an elite salesperson.
32:54
It's really that simple.
32:56
So you might need to kind of turn it on when the light goes on and then sort of turn
33:05
it off when you clock out.
33:07
But I can promise you that the person on the other end of the phone wants to hear somebody
33:12
that's excited, somebody that's confident, somebody that's sharp, articulate, somebody
33:18
that's soothing.
33:20
And you're born with like, I've had clients say, I sound like a bitch when I talk, you
33:26
know, or like, and it's like, I don't want to judge if that's true or not because everybody
33:33
picks up a tone different.
33:35
That's the other reason tones tricky because like sometimes, you know, you can say the
33:40
same thing to your wife and it doesn't go the same way, like, how's it going good?
33:44
Yeah.
33:45
How's it going good?
33:46
Yeah.
33:47
Same word, right?
33:48
So if you feel like your tone is not called it razor sharp, you've got to be willing
33:54
to kind of fake that and turn that up and, you know, there's a movie I remember years
33:59
ago called, I was like about a bunch of waiters.
34:01
I think it was called waiting or waited.
34:03
Yeah, yeah.
34:04
Full of actors.
34:05
Yeah, there was, there was a girl in the movie and she was a server.
34:08
And then when she would get back into the kitchen, she was a nightmare.
34:12
And she was like a little tornado.
34:14
Yeah.
34:15
And as soon as she would come around that corner, hey, how are you guys that you sort
34:20
of have to be able to do that to be great at this job.
34:24
Well, you have to remember it's a performance, right?
34:27
I mean, just like public speaking, as you know, it's a performance.
34:29
And like you said, I think the study, I forget who is credited with it, but it's the 738
34:36
55, right?
34:37
Yeah.
34:38
It's actually about how do you create an emotional response and so on.
34:45
So it's what they found is that to create an emotional response, your tone and your body
34:50
language are more important than what you say.
34:54
And in sales, of course, anyone who's been in sales and done a lot of sales, like it
35:00
is usually a very emotional process, especially if you're buying a home or maybe you're refinancing
35:06
a huge loan where you have all this debt that is a part of that process that you're eliminating.
35:12
So buying people buy on emotion, but they don't buy until that logic makes sense, you know?
35:19
And that's where that tone can really help.
35:22
You got to equally be able to be kind of their best friend, but then you got to be able
35:26
to get into that closer mindset and rattle off those terms and ask for that credit card
35:31
and ask for that social more of like a professional.
35:35
So it's a dance, basically.
35:36
Yeah.
35:37
Yeah, exactly.
35:38
And be prepared, right?
35:39
You know, scripting I think is important, right?
35:41
And the whole reason for that is because like you talk about in your book is that you should
35:45
maintain control of the conversation.
35:47
You should be in charge.
35:49
And oftentimes the person asking the questions, right?
35:51
They maintain control of the conversation.
35:54
100%.
35:55
The person who is asking the questions is in control.
35:59
And my next book is coming out very soon.
36:02
It's called exactly what to say.
36:05
And the guy that I co authored it with, he has this really smart little clip that I always
36:11
remember, which is the worst time to figure out what to say is while you're saying it.
36:18
Yeah.
36:19
He meant to that.
36:20
That's awesome.
36:21
Man, I'm making notes here, because I want to put, we're going to put links in the
36:24
show notes to help people can get on a list for that book or whatever, okay?
36:27
Great.
36:28
Exactly what to say.
36:29
Okay.
36:30
Cool.
36:31
Yeah.
36:32
I'm kind of back to, you know, what I see is your sweet spot, which obviously is kind
36:34
of, you know, modern marketing, if you will, digital media.
36:37
So I took a survey, a poll in one of these, you know, Facebook groups with 100,000 agents
36:41
and all that kind of stuff.
36:42
And the question was, my last transaction came from.
36:46
And the majority of responses was pass client referral, social media, paid and organic,
36:52
and then right, door knocking, yard sign, et cetera, et cetera.
36:56
You deal with a lot of people.
36:57
But before we hit record, you talked about how Curator, your company, which is amazing,
37:01
you guys are, what ink, ink 500?
37:03
Yeah.
37:04
The 300 and third fastest growing company, the year that we made that list.
37:09
Yeah.
37:10
And so you guys, I think you referred to it as the Ferrari of, you know, marketing tools
37:14
and solutions that you provide, which, which, by the way, obviously there will be a link
37:17
in the show notes, but please, people that are listening or watching, go check it out,
37:21
curator.com, C-U-R-A-Y-T-O-R.
37:25
There's a lot of tons of great information and free content there as well as on your YouTube
37:28
channel.
37:29
We'll put a link there also.
37:30
I've learned a ton just by watching you guys.
37:31
But here's the thing where I'm curious, just to kind of, what I'm getting at is this.
37:36
You kind of alluded to this, I think, early on, which is the state of where we're heading
37:42
for real estate industry marketing is in for everybody.
37:48
And some people are going to be left by the wayside.
37:50
Yeah.
37:52
And is that because they just choose to not adapt, right?
37:55
And realize that the attention is, like, for instance, door knocking, right?
37:58
Do you still think that's a relevant strategy?
38:00
Yeah.
38:01
You do?
38:02
Mm-hmm.
38:03
And it's actually more effective when you do digital before you do it and after you do
38:07
it.
38:08
Okay.
38:09
All right.
38:10
Got it.
38:11
I like peanut butter and jelly, man.
38:12
Everybody always asks me if peanut butter is good.
38:13
You know what I'm saying?
38:14
It's not always the or, you know, it's like, geez.
38:17
Well, I mean, you know how this is like people, I understand, I understand.
38:20
Like, the way I think of myself and this probably will go over people's heads
38:24
because if they're not real estate agents, they might not know Mike Ferry.
38:27
Oh, sure.
38:28
Yeah.
38:29
Mike Ferry is a legendary sales coach.
38:31
He's like a Zig Ziggler.
38:33
He's like a Jordan Bell Ford.
38:35
He's like a Grant Cardone.
38:36
He's just this no nonsense fastball traditional sales coach.
38:41
Mm-hmm.
38:43
And I feel like I am equal parts Mike Ferry and Mark Zuckerberg.
38:48
Mm-hmm.
38:49
So I, and you said this, I'm a sales guy, you're a sales guy, so I like Mike a lot.
38:55
But I like Mark a lot.
38:57
And I think that's probably what differentiates me from the world that most people consume.
39:03
People are either all about marketing and all about branding and all about content, right?
39:09
Or they're all about expires and fizz bows and ads.
39:14
And I actually think the best companies do both.
39:17
They take an inbound marketing mindset and then they apply an outbound sales philosophy.
39:25
And that's really where the clients we work with, double triple quadruple and already
39:30
very successful business.
39:33
They're good at their piece.
39:35
They add our piece, combined.
39:38
It's really magical.
39:39
But at the end of the day, the people that are going to fail by not adapting are the people
39:43
that would just fail in general.
39:46
If you have a budget, hiring curator, hiring a local marketing person, going on sites like
39:53
freelancer, going on sites like 99 designs, you know, we have marketers that we pay almost
40:02
six figures.
40:03
But when our clients use their services, it's like a thousand bucks a month and they do
40:08
Facebook and blogging and email and they do all of the marketing for like 250 to 300 bucks
40:15
a week.
40:17
So what will happen in my opinion is that like if you're a real business or you're semi successful,
40:23
you're going to just invest in getting help with these things.
40:28
If you're not a real business and you've got more time than money, you shouldn't really
40:33
be challenging people's advice anyways.
40:38
I like that, I like that, that's cool.
40:40
All right, awesome.
40:41
So look, I know you're busy for a sake of time.
40:43
We're going to have to end it here.
40:44
Like I said, I'm going to put links in the show notes to your upcoming book,
40:47
exactly what to say next, which sounds like incredible.
40:50
Like, you know, talk about a talk track scripting dialogues, how to create connection,
40:55
rapport, how to overcome ejections, all that stuff.
40:57
Man, it looks really cool.
40:58
For those that don't know, he was showing me kind of the cover of and stuff before we went live.
41:01
So, but if you want to get on that list, check the show notes, all that stuff people will be in here.
41:06
Chris, for anybody who wants to learn more, obviously about Curator,
41:09
go to Curator, follow you on the socials, whatever, right?
41:11
Yeah, Curator.com slash Chris, they can read more about my books.
41:16
They can follow me on Instagram.
41:20
I'd love to keep up my YouTube channel.
41:22
Most popular speeches are on that one page.
41:26
And then, you know, people know how to use the internet.
41:28
They can track me down if they thought I did a good job.
41:31
Yeah, and listen, I recommend for anybody listening, right?
41:33
Who's in all my audiences in sales.
41:35
So, if you don't have Chris's book yet, you've got to get it.
41:37
Because obviously, we didn't have time to go into everything here today.
41:40
But part three, alone, like, which is all about a lot of that dialogue and scripting.
41:44
That's going to hold you over until his new book comes out,
41:48
which is, you know, he's got some cool stuff in there.
41:50
About the two-step lead stock, which I love.
41:52
You have some great ideas in there about how to prep for a call.
41:55
And I love, I love, I think this is what, this is funny, man.
41:58
Because what I love about you is, like, first of all, you're no BS, right?
42:01
Love it.
42:02
And you have this sign on your wall, I guess,
42:04
a quick one when you're there back in the day.
42:06
Dig deep or go to sleep.
42:07
That's right.
42:08
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
42:09
So, what I took away from that is a sales guy.
42:10
And I try and coach people on this as well.
42:12
He is, um, do the research before you're going to call somebody.
42:15
Like, in my world,
42:16
long office, there's calling real estate agents,
42:18
friggin' spend 20, 30 minutes and, you know, get online, learn about them,
42:22
what are their interests and all that kind of stuff.
42:23
So you have some type of connection point when you're calling it.
42:25
Great advice.
42:26
Yeah.
42:27
Yeah.
42:27
Amen to that.
42:28
All right, so let's end it up here.
42:29
People appreciate you listening.
42:30
Chris, as always, keep doing what you do.
42:32
I made you do an awesome stuff.
42:33
Thanks for having me on.
42:34
And everybody, as you know what to do, we appreciate you tuning in.
42:37
If you like this episode, please leave us a review.
42:39
And we'll see you on the next one.
42:41
Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
42:44
One more truth in Mortgage Marketing.
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