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What is a NextGen Mortgage Originator? · Mortgage Marketing Radio

• 0:00
  Hey, everybody. What's up, Jeff? Zimford coming to you once again for another episode of
• 0:08
  Mortgage Marketing Radio. Thanks for tuning in. Really, really appreciate you being
• 0:11
  here. If you are so inclined and want to scroll and find the place to leave a review for
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  the podcast, I greatly appreciate it. Let me know what and if you do, leave a review.
• 0:21
  Just DM me on Facebook. You can go over and find me at Mortgage Marketing Radio. Search
• 0:25
  up the group there. Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. That's just for listeners where
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  we do extra cool stuff. Just for you. Let me know what you left a review in there. I'll
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  put you on my short list as we're bringing the swag back. Hopefully that entices you
• 0:40
  a little bit to consider leaving a review if you've been enjoying this podcast, this production
• 0:45
  for some time. We are approaching 300 interviews and stay tuned for something pretty cool to
• 0:51
  do around that. Before I get into this week's special guest, I want to bring to you another
• 0:56
  success story from the streets. This one comes from Mitch Tuga. Mitch has been one of our
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  my agent class members for going on a couple years now. This is something that Mitch shared
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  with me some time ago. He recently presented one of our classes. How to get more listings
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  in a low inventory market. He presented it to an entire brokerage that invited you to
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  speak in front of a brokerage, right, of real estate agents. Of course, he says it went
• 1:22
  great since then he's been asked to return to that brokerage every single month. What
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  he does is he follows our system in our process. He puts in QR code at the end of the presentation
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  to invite agents for a conversation as a follow up to the information he presented. Now,
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  you hear me talk a lot about solving problems and becoming part of their business. If you
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  want to earn their business, we know agents today. Of course, one of the biggest struggles
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  is listings. So what if you showed up in your local market and presented some ideas for
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  them that maybe they already knew about, but just you reminded them and that motivated
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  and prompted them to actually apply to go take action on that one idea and you're the
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  person that got them to do that. What if you presented to them some ideas that they
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  didn't even know about, right, like this one cool video CMA idea we have where an agent
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  used this idea and listed $11 million in listings in just 90 days following this one idea.
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  What if once again, you were the person that brought that idea to them. Would you get
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  more yeses on your requests for meetings and conversations? Of course, you would. You
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  know the answer. And in Mitch's case, because he delivered value first, how to get more
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  listings in a low inventory market is then a 10 different ideas on that. And at the
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  end, put up a very subtle ask, right? Hey, if you guys want to go deeper, you want to learn
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  more about any your one big idea today, go ahead and hold the phone up to the screen, scan
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  the QR code and book a time on my calendars. We can talk further. What happened for Mitch?
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  Six agents immediately asked him. Would they would he be open to meet with them afterwards
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  to learn more to go deeper and ultimately to talk about working together?
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  You see gay guys and gals, the name of the game is let's move from Solister and vendor
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  to partner and here. And we have to help them solve problems. And leading with education
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  is the primary most effective, efficient way that you can do that at scale, just like
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  it did work for Mitch and many others. Would you like to see more success stories? Select
• 3:31
  to learn more about our platform, my agent classes, the mortgage marketing program membership.
• 3:37
  Very simple. You can click the link in your show notes that says learn more about agent
• 3:41
  classes. You can go to mortgage marketing.pro and grab a time on my calendar and let's talk.
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  This isn't for everybody. This is a work program. But it might be a fit for you if you're
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  willing to do the work, if you're coachable. And you're willing to follow a proven system
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  and path, just like Mitch and many others. Mortgage marketing.pro or technical link in
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  the show notes. Okay, so this week, my special guest is who's fast becoming a friend, a
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  person I have known now for, I don't know, multiple years. And we've engaged a number
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  of times over the years on different projects and strategies and just conversations. And
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  I think this is his third time back to the podcast. And for good reason, who am I talking
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  about? I am talking about Michael McHallister, who is the founder of empower L.O., which is
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  a digital marketing agency that helps mortgage professionals run ads direct to consumer,
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  right? Google paper click ads and those types of things to generate a steady stream of qualified
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  leads. And this conversation of Michael and I have is about the next generation loan officer
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  or what I'll effectively refer to as the next gen mortgage originator. Let's shrink it up and
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  just call it next gen, right? Because that's the cool thing to do. So what are we talking about
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  here? What is the next gen mortgage originator, right? It's one who possesses or embraces both
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  the traditional sources of business like database for four partners and online and combines that
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  with an online presence using digital tools and platforms to attract and engage consumers directly.
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  You know what I'm talking about when you hear that. And in this episode, Michael and I, we unpack
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  both the importance of becoming a next gen originator. And what is the process to get there? What
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  are the steps? What are the tools that are available for you to use? How can you embrace them?
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  So we're going to unpack and talk about obviously social media, personal branding, digital marketing.
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  We're going to talk about marketing automation and a platform he and I are both embracing big time
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  called high level. Some of you are aware of it. Some of you are not, but it is growing rapidly
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  in terms of the ability to scale, customize marketing campaigns, strategies and funnels at scale.
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  As a matter of fact, it is the platform that we use over at my age and classes when you are
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  promoting your age and classes, inviting sending out emails, text messages, landing pages,
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  reminders and confirmations and follow up. It is the platform we use where you go learn how to
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  teach our classes. All that's done on the backend on this program called on this platform called
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  high level. And if you want to learn more about high level, number one, listen to this episode.
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  But number two, we've got a link in the show notes that is going to direct you to a Facebook
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  group, which is just all about high level and mortgage loan originators. As a matter of fact,
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  it is the what's called the go high level, the ultimate mortgage marketing platform for mortgage
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  pros. That is a private Facebook group. There's a link in the show notes. If you can join that,
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  you don't have to be using high level to join that. You can just kind of, you know,
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  join a conversation, see what's happening in there, see how other originators across the
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  country are using high level. And by the way, whether you use high level or not, using your own
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  marketing automation platform, CRM, you'll get ideas and strategies in there as well that you can
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  apply and put into your own platform, whatever it is that you use. And so this is Michael and I
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  also talk about this ongoing partnership that this is kind of like our official announcement.
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  But Michael and I are officially partnered up and power L.O. and myself on the managing classes,
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  mortgage marketing pro platform to be able to more efficiently deliver, you know, educational
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  content to you, the originator at scale. So you can get more success stories just like the one I
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  just shared with you with Mitch about the Asian classes he was teaching. So we run that all on high
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  level. But more importantly, we're going to talk about next gen loan originator. What does it mean to
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  you? And the importance of you becoming one. And there'll be more ongoing conversations between
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  Michael and I on this podcast about digital marketing automation and becoming a next gen mortgage
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  originator. So without further ado, let's get into this week's. Yo, Michael, welcome back to the show.
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  Yeah, it's good to be back, Jeff. Thanks for having me. It's good to have you back. So today,
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  we're just having a candid, we're riffing conversation all about the concept of the next generation
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  or let's be cool and call it next gen. Yeah. The next gen mortgage loan originator. We want to unpack
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  what that means because there's a lot of buzz going around. There's a lot of obviously tech talk.
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  You host a wonderful group, which we're going to drive people to on Facebook, this high level group.
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  So, you know, I'm teasing that out a little bit, but we're going to share that link with people.
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  It'll be in the show notes, but it's a place to like, you're going to want to go after you hear
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  this conversation today. So, um, do you want to for those who may not know who you are? Just give
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  you a brief intro. Sure. Yeah, definitely. Um, my name is Michael McAllister. I'm the founder of
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  Empower L.O. Formerly Empower Funnels. We've been in the mortgage marketing space since I
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  as a loan officer left origination built a consumer direct system for my business and then
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  started building it for other mortgage companies, loan officers, etc. That was back in 2017.
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  Since then, we've we've expanded substantially into basically tailoring a software of really
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  accessible, really well known in the marketing community software called high level.
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  Some of your listeners might already be familiar with what that is. And I know that you're a
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  fan of high level. I'm a fan of high level. And honestly, just marketing automation in general,
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  using technology as a loan officer to improve your marketing as the context that we do it in.
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  But wait, but the more we work with loan officers, the more that kind of expands into, you know,
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  operational loan, loan and process communication, etc. So, um, yeah, short story long. I run
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  Empower L.O. where the experts on go high level in the mortgage industry. We do a little consumer
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  direct. And we work with you to deliver, in my opinion, the best value in the mortgage industry
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  in the form of my agent classes. So thank you, man. I appreciate that. It's good partnership.
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  More to come for you, people are wondering what the heck we're talking about there. So let's
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  get into the conversation here. And I wanted to have the conversation because, um, you know, I mean,
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  I wrote a book. I think it's gosh, two or three years back now with Disruptor Die, How to Survive
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  and Thrive the Digital Real Estate Shift. And I've been thinking about a new book, if you will. And
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  you and I were chatting the other day about this whole idea of the next generation loan officer.
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  And what does that really mean? And, and, and who's going to survive and thrive, right? In the coming
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  years. And so I thought it would be good for the listeners to bring this conversation to the
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  surface. And then we have a chance to continue this conversation in the Facebook group via the link
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  we'll give out when we're done. But, um, what is, we, you and I both did a little bit of homework
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  on this to kind of prepare you. I'll be at did more than me. So close to you, you get the brownie
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  points. There you go. What did, what's your take away? How would you summarize what we mean when
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  we say next generation loan officer? Yeah. Um, I'm, I'm so excited to be talking about this
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  because it's like, I feel like this is almost like a manifesto for me where it's like I,
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  like I transitioned out of being a loan officer to bring the consumer direct system to more
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  loan officers because it was so frustrating to me that a company like Quick and Loans could have
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  a UVP in the marketplace that was just I know how to market consumer direct and all these other
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  loan officers and mortgage companies don't, right? Like it, it just peed me that that was the case.
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  And so this idea, like the fact that we've continued to stay in the mortgage industry and continue
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  to be involved enough with our clients to have an opinion on like, Hey, what is this next,
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  what is the next generation of successful loan officer? Not even just next generation,
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  loan officer, but next generation of top producer, right? What is the next next generation of top
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  producers look like within the mortgage industry? And for me, what it boils down to is effective use
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  of technology by the group of people that have probably been most resistant to it up to this point,
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  by the people that have been so focused on their borrower, their relationships with their
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  borrowers that they have almost like put their hands up like shunned technology and at some points,
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  you know, not necessarily entirely, but they're going to be a little bit slower to adapt technology
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  because they are so focused on on not on automation, not on making shit easier for myself,
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  but on delivering the best experience possible. So to me, the next generation of loan officers,
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  next generation of top producers is the marriage between those. It's the understanding from these
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  allows that are that are so dialed into what the best customer experience is going to be and
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  and how to deliver that for their customers and at what points in the process, it's so important
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  to over communicate on and how to leverage the right relationships within the loan process.
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  All of this stuff is something that good loan officers know today, but the top producers of tomorrow
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  are going to be the loan officers that have that knowledge and then look at technology as a tool
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  that opens the door to create more of those personality personalized experience, create more
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  of that one-on-one communication, those relationships that drive their business. So to me, again,
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  it's this marriage between technology and not being a technology enthusiast that just wants
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  to automate everything, but instead seeing technology as a tool to bring me closer to my borrower.
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  I like the fact that you really have this distinction of it's not about just making everything
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  easier and automating everything. As a matter of fact, that reminds me of a story I've been told
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  in the wild pops in my head, but it is in the book and I remember when I first moved to Vegas like
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  five years ago and we were shopping for a home and I'm out there over the weekend and we find
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  the one, the home and we go there realtor and I really didn't know anybody here at that time and
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  I'm like, okay, so who do you recommend? Typical buyer question and she refers me to two people
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  or whatever and it was a Saturday and so I reached out to these two people and then was interesting
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  because of course I was like, oh, this will be fun. I get to test and see how these people follow
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  up on a Saturday like what happens, right? And the one thing that I remember about it is the first
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  person I don't think I ever got a response from, but then the second one was I was, we wanted the
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  home so bad as a lot of buyers do. You jump through hell and fire to get your pre-approval and stuff
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  which I did. I got online and I'm really good. I completed the online app in its entirety,
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  like uploaded assets connected the bank, you know, the whole whole nine yards man and it was
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  freaking ready to go, right? And then what happened? Nothing. Nothing. Until Tuesday. Oh wow.
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  And in Tuesday, I got an email from somebody, I don't know who it was, I can't remember at this
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  point, it was obviously up to some type of an assistant or something like that. But it said
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  something like, you know, hey, thanks for submitting your application so and so, so looking to
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  forward, looking forward to work with you blah, blah, blah, blah and things just went south from
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  there. You know what happened like the next day or two days after that? I got the automated video
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  email that welcomed me to the team, like said, you know, we're in processing and by the by the way,
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  I hadn't had a single conversation with anybody yet. Like three days in and I'm getting these emails
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  and these videos as like, you know, we're freaking halfway down the road and I'm like, bro, I haven't
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  even talked to anyone yet. Yeah. So the point of that story is is automation can be great and useful,
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  but at the right time, right? And so time and cadence is all a factor of I think what you're saying
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  and part of what you're saying is like, not automation just for the exclusive exclusion or
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  exclusivity, I should say, of automation, but using it to improve the customer journey.
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  Yeah, 100% and and and sometimes that means like sometimes that means you have to hold to
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  conflicting beliefs like technology can make a process better and a technology can make a process
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  worse and sometimes it means sometimes it means being able to again, what this comes down to for
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  me is like opportunity cost of your time, right? So so for me, it's like automation can be used as a
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  way to automate things that don't have a high point of leverage on my individual time. For example,
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  a face-to-face conversation with a borrower. So it's like if I use automation and technology
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  correctly in these other areas of my business when it comes to building out, you know, building out
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  reports and and targeting, you know, agents and and you know, being able to create leverage through
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  offering classes to a group of 30 agents at a time instead of a one-on-one conversation.
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  If I can create leverage through technology and areas of my business that are not going to
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  suffer from using technology, I can I now have more time that I can invest into having that face-to-face
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  conversation, having that video phone call, whatever. So the online app was great. It was a great start
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  to the experience, but what would have what would have been capitalizing on that is like if the minute
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  that the application got submitted, if you were getting connected or getting a video call or you
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  something with the loan officer, some real touch point personalized for you and the problem is
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  is that that loan officer depended on technology to make his job easier, but then he didn't use that
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  extra time and space that he had in his business as a way to create that more personalized experience
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  and leverage that technology to go even further. Yeah. Did you have a definition that you wanted to
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  share about next-gen loan officer and what does that mean for you to actually articulate that a
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  little bit? I mean, it might not be Websters. It might not mean Websters. It doesn't exist.
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  But I'll just read the first part of my little manifesto thing that I wrote here. I said to me,
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  the ideal, and I'm looking over here, I'm looking at my screen over here for those that are watching
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  the video, but to me, the ideal next-generation loan officer is someone who values relationships,
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  but in the context of solving problems and adding real value. This is another component of it as well.
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  I think there's a book right now called The Challenger Sale. It's a fairly... I don't know if
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  it's a fairly new or just got popular again recently, but anyways, it's a similar concept of
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  gap selling and it's the idea of selling based on, hey, you have a problem, I have a solution,
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  let's fill the gap there. Versus, there have definitely been points in time in our industry,
• 18:31
  where relationship-based selling was truly relationship-based selling, where all you had
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  as far as all you had to secure that referral partner was the relationship, was their personal
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  opinion of you and the time that you've spent together and whatnot. I don't think that that's
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  going to be the case going for. Yes, we have to be good at relationships. Yes, we have to be
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  good human beings, decent human beings that do things right, but in the context of adding real
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  value and solving problems, I don't think it's going to be good enough to be just a great guy,
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  a great social guy, woman, and get business. Anyways, I'm sorry, let me finish. They use
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  technology tools that enhance the borrower's experience and are focused on creating impactful
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  connections throughout the mortgage process, not just on providing educational content,
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  which is also a necessity, but it doesn't provide value differentiation anymore. Providing educational
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  content on an automated basis is now a baseline. It is no longer a differentiator. It is no longer
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  good enough to do that and say that you have good marketing in place. That was the last part of that.
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  Well done. You've done your work, man.
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  There's a couple of key words that I heard in your manifesto. One is connection,
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  impactful connection. Actually, we were the two words back-to-back. Correct.
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  And I think that illustrates the story that I just shared is that they made a connection with
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  me with that automated process, but it wasn't impactful as the metaphor was damaging because
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  it was automation used incorrectly. It was trying to, at scale, deliver the same thing for
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  everybody. And that's where you get in a bit of the complexity. However, the other thing that I
• 20:20
  wrote down, and I just love this, is that you also mentioned relationship. So my definition,
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  just off top of my head of next-generation mortgage originator, is one who embraces the more
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  traditional aspects such as referral partners, relationships, fear of influence, all those
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  traditional things, but also who can integrate the more modern tech customer journey that we're
• 20:45
  talking about social engagement, the automation aspect of it. But a bottom line is it all circles
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  back to impactful human connections. And the other thing that I wrote down is with all this
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  automation, because a lot of people using automation incorrectly and at the wrong time and creating
• 21:08
  negative brand engagement. The real thing to focus on with being next gen and technology is
• 21:17
  being more human. And there's the same one of my authors, favorite authors, Mark Schaefer,
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  wrote a book called The Marketing Rebellion. And in that book, he says that the most human company
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  will win. I chat GPT, we're all using it. I don't know about you, Michael, but I'm starting to see
• 21:34
  where I can actually recognize when it's an output from chat GPT. Yeah, yeah, 100% and there's
• 21:41
  going to be times when that's okay, like customer service. Let me talk to an AI who's going to
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  deliver this customer service better than our usual customer experience, which is really poor.
• 21:53
  And you go through 17 different voice mails and all this kind of stuff. Well,
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  that's going to be refreshing where you get to request. Would you like to talk to an AI or to a
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  human, right? Well, you're going to be given a choice, right? Let's see how that plays out.
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  But the point being is how do we then, I mean, if everybody's going to have this technology,
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  right, then what's going to make us different? And how do we still stand out and have that human
• 22:18
  connection being a next gen originator? Yeah. I mean, that is the million dollar question, right? That
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  is where my focus on this definition really comes from is making sure to be clear about that
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  human element that has to come into play. Because in a world of AI's, like you said, the most
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  human wins. In fact, I have a book sitting over there, maybe by its same author or that you were
• 22:46
  referencing, but it's literally called the most human wins or something like that, something along
• 22:53
  those lines. Similar idea. Again, the idea here is that, like, if everybody else has access to
• 22:59
  these tools, I mean, quick and loans, rocket mortgage, like they're going to get even better at
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  leveraging these tools, which means we need to get even better at finding those key places to
• 23:10
  have those impactful connections and protecting the hell out of them, right? Like, for some people,
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  this is the 10 out of three. I don't necessarily agree with this with this component, but I think
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  this is a really good example of this mindset and of protecting an area that requires impactful
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  human connection. I've got a buddy of mine, Ryan Chapman, who swears that as an originator,
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  your number one job is to take loan applications. He thinks anybody who sends somebody to an online
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  10 out of three is messing up, basically. We've debated this over the years. We've been debating
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  this for six, seven years now. And there is an L, like, there's, I will never trying to convince him
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  to feel differently about that because what I value is that he has defined this part of the process
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  as being a part of the process where he can create an impactful connection and he's protecting it
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  for that reason. And so if it's your 1003, it's your 1003. If it's, if it's Ellie going over the
• 24:11
  Ellie with the borrower, then it's going over the Ellie with the borrower. If it's, you know,
• 24:15
  if it's the prequel, if it's, if it's while they're shopping, whatever it is, like, you just have to
• 24:21
  identify where those points are for your loan process and where you're going to create those
• 24:25
  impactful connections and then do so. And, and when you're doing it, realize that like,
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  no amount of, like, like, you're not going to be able to trick them. Like, you're going to have to
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  have to make it personal. Like, it does, I don't think it matters if it's a voice note, if it's a
• 24:41
  video, if it, whatever, like, don't try and game this step, find those pieces that you're going to
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  protect and truly protect them with that human element and don't, don't compromise on those
• 24:54
  components of your process. Don't be willing to like, move that line at all of like,
• 24:59
  this much automation is okay. No, protect that shit and deliver your human connection.
• 25:06
  You see, as the biggest challenge or challenge is then facing, you know, we've got
• 25:12
  a bit of an older demographic in the mortgage space. Yeah, there's, we see younger people coming
• 25:16
  in all kinds of stuff, but generally, on average, right, most people are skewing 40 plus,
• 25:21
  probably on the high side of that even. So is, is the challenge adaptability or what do you think
• 25:28
  the biggest challenge is? Yeah, I mean, I think in a general sense, like that word can definitely
• 25:33
  be used to describe it. I think really what it comes down to, like the number one hurdle that I see
• 25:39
  is, is, like, a combination of, like, commitment and organization. So it's like, it's like,
• 25:47
  either non-existent organization now and a commitment to organize and get organized and stay
• 25:53
  organized, moving forward or, you know, it exists right now, but it only exists because I got all
• 25:59
  this shit together so that I can make this switch in my CRM or whatever, but I don't actually
• 26:03
  have any sort of commitment going forward to, like, making sure that I stay this organized. But
• 26:08
  at the end of the day, like, what makes good automation possible and those valuable, like,
• 26:16
  human connections, what makes those able to happen at scale and with leverage is by having good
• 26:24
  data integrity, meaning, like, your loans and process, you know exactly where your loans and
• 26:30
  process are all the time. Your every lead, every interaction that you get that you, you know,
• 26:36
  that you consider to be a prospect or an opportunity put it in your fricking CRM. And this is,
• 26:41
  I mean, we've been taught, like, the industry has been shoving this down our throats, like, since
• 26:45
  I got into the business eight, eight, nine years ago, and I know that it had been happening for
• 26:50
  decades before then, only the difference today versus now is I feel like CR, or today versus
• 26:56
  then is I feel like CRM's for a long time. We're there for the benefit of our company and not
• 27:00
  necessarily for our benefit. Whereas now we have these tools like high level where there is so much
• 27:08
  for us to benefit from in keeping our records up to date, keeping our contacts, where our contacts
• 27:13
  need to be keeping an eye on every loan we have in process, every prequel we have out. It's
• 27:20
  organization and its commitment to staying on top of that. If you can do that without focusing on
• 27:26
  any of the like ancillary features of a marketing automation software, if you can just,
• 27:31
  even if it's just with a fricking spreadsheet, if you can do it with a spreadsheet right now,
• 27:36
  then in my opinion, you're ready to make that jump like the the implementation of the technology
• 27:41
  has gotten easy enough that as long as you're organized and you're committed to staying organized,
• 27:45
  I think it's you're ready to make that jump. You're ready to like start taking managing that
• 27:49
  more seriously. So back to this thread of the customer journey. We know that on average,
• 27:56
  right? I mean, I don't have the stats in front of me, but in terms of the average application,
• 28:01
  shopping around whatever, I always equated to like the hummingbird, the consumer journey. They're
• 28:07
  going a few different places. They're extracting what they can from those different sources. So
• 28:11
  you listening right now, if you're wondering if next generation loan officer includes having a
• 28:16
  social media presence, you bet it does. Does it include having a fully optimized Google business
• 28:21
  profile with active reviews on there? Yeah, you bet it does because they're they are going around
• 28:27
  to these and they're collecting information, different pieces of information from different sources.
• 28:32
  So you do need to be present at the places that these people are at. And then you do need to have
• 28:40
  systems or technology in place to be able to move that person from that channel they're on.
• 28:46
  Social media, Google, whatever to your quote unquote funnel or to your own, you know,
• 28:52
  the customer journey that's specific with a with a specific intention that may have may have a
• 28:57
  questionnaire may have a quiz, a survey, a form right to be able to collect relevant information
• 29:02
  about that person leading up to that first point of engagement call or whatever it is. And I think
• 29:08
  that's where I people you and I are both working with loan officers who are looking to put those
• 29:13
  pieces together and they're not finding it really from the traditional mortgage platforms that we
• 29:19
  all know out there and could name. But they are able to do it not to sound like a commercial
• 29:25
  for high level, but let's just face it, you can do that on this platform called high level.
• 29:30
  Yeah, yeah. And high levels and high levels, not the only one too. I mean, like this is a rising
• 29:35
  rising tides float all boats, right? So like high level, although in my opinion, it's like the best,
• 29:40
  the easiest to use. We've been using it for four and a half years with loan officers and it's
• 29:45
  also the evil we know in some ways, right? But Zoho HubSpot and and, um, uh, shit, there's like
• 29:54
  copper CRM and like, like the more this technology hangs around, the more it's going like you're
• 30:00
  going to see it everywhere. The question is is like how, like, how much do you want this to be
• 30:07
  an advantage for you? How much do you want this? Like how bad do you want to be the next generation
• 30:11
  of top producers instead of waiting around for that to be the next generation of average producers
• 30:18
  are what's doing that. And now I'm going to implement it now that there's this software over here
• 30:22
  that does it this software over here that does it in this software over here that does it. So
• 30:26
  again, if you have a software that allows you to manage all of your your contacts in one place and
• 30:31
  execute all your entire marketing strategy, including posting social, emailing, text messaging,
• 30:37
  if you and organizing your database and being able to trigger, you know, pipeline stage changes
• 30:42
  and send video, like if you have a platform that does all of that by all means, then just use the
• 30:47
  one that you've got. But the point, like the, I think the point that I'm trying to make to listeners
• 30:52
  is I think that, uh, too many loan officers are looking at some of these features as being like,
• 31:00
  like a nice to have or a negotiable when they're evaluating their mortgage CRM choices,
• 31:05
  when really like the focus should be on finding the platform that A is giving me the most options
• 31:11
  now to market my business, but also who's shown that they're committed to staying ahead of that curve,
• 31:17
  which is another reason I really like high level is because every CRM in the mortgage space,
• 31:21
  like they're here for one reason and one reason only and it's to get bought by Black Knight someday
• 31:25
  basically, right? Like that, I mean, at the end of the day, like everybody in one of those mortgage
• 31:30
  CRM companies is talking about acquisition, acquisition, acquisition, that's all they're talking
• 31:33
  about, they're worried about what the investors want, what their, you know, what their VC funds
• 31:37
  want or whatever their venture capital funds want. And whereas this platform was built for marketers
• 31:44
  and not necessarily just for the mortgage industry. So there's definitely some work that you got
• 31:49
  to do to navigate that and we help out as much as we can. But this platform was built for marketers,
• 31:55
  buy marketers and their development cycle and how often they're adding new features and shit,
• 32:00
  it's just I've watched that long enough to be like, okay, I'm down with jumping on that train
• 32:06
  and making sure that any LOs that are following me are doing the same. Yeah.
• 32:11
  Well, look at this. So you definitely need to get educated first of foremost, which is we just
• 32:16
  wanted to start the conversation here. And if this turns out to be an interesting topic that you
• 32:20
  wanted us to go deeper on and have more frequent conversations around this next generation loan
• 32:24
  office discussion, what does that look like? Bring in actual loan officers that are actually,
• 32:28
  you know, embracing this and living it. You know, let us know. There's a place we can drive people
• 32:34
  right now, right? The Facebook group. Do you have that link handy, by the way? Yeah. Yeah,
• 32:39
  100% I can get that. In fact, I might even have a permanent link for it. It's like GHL for
• 32:45
  mortgage pros or something. But yeah, basically it's a Facebook group where all it is are people,
• 32:51
  it's administered by us at Empower and all it is is a group of people that are using either
• 32:57
  this high level platform or considering using the high level platform. Some people in here
• 33:01
  aren't using it, but are using something similar. And it's basically just, yeah, all talk around
• 33:07
  this next-gen marketing stuff. It is Facebook.com slash groups slash ultimate GHL for mortgage pros.
• 33:14
  It'll be in the description, obviously, but for anybody who's just ancient. Yeah, well,
• 33:18
  listening right now, you want us to go scroll back to the episode, the links in the show notes.
• 33:22
  So you can just tap right there and request to join the Facebook group. And that's a way to
• 33:25
  stay connected in this continuing conversation. More lots of good resources we put in there,
• 33:30
  like different content, playbooks, all that kind of jazz. We do a lot. What do you go live once a week?
• 33:33
  Yep. Live once a week every Tuesday. Another weekly video that we drop explaining all of like the
• 33:40
  updates that have gone on in the last week with high level specifically. So allowing you to kind of
• 33:45
  stay ahead of the curve. Again, even if you're not using high level, other LOs are like you're going
• 33:50
  to want to see, you're going to want to at least stay tuned on the development cycle so that you
• 33:53
  can decide when that point is reached where it's like, ah, okay, that's the feature I was waiting
• 33:58
  for. Now I'm ready to make the jump. Right. And I can tell you for me personally how I've been using
• 34:03
  high level for the last two years. Some of some people know some people don't. You know, we have
• 34:06
  this whole platform. Michael and I work together on collaborate on. We've partnered on. It's called
• 34:11
  my agent classes. And what that is is essentially helping a lot of officers leapfrog from solicitor
• 34:16
  and vendor to partner and peer when they're wanting to get engagement with real estate agents that
• 34:21
  lead to conversations and referrals. As many of you know, the traditional methods of co-calling and,
• 34:26
  you know, I've done it all open houses broker-previewed you name it, right? Buy a bottle of champagne
• 34:30
  for the listing agent. All those work, but they don't work that effectively or at scale. And they
• 34:35
  put you at a disadvantage position, as mentioned, solicitor vendor, whereas if you become a partner
• 34:40
  and peer and actually become part of their business by leading with education, that changes the
• 34:46
  dynamic, the narrative. And all of a sudden, you are seen as an equal, right? And not as a vendor,
• 34:50
  in a place to get something. And therefore, what happens is trust goes up, resistance goes down,
• 34:54
  and then referrals are accelerated and facilitated on a much more frequent basis. And you have the
• 35:01
  ability to engage in, you know, brokerages in boards of, you know, realtor boards in large teams,
• 35:07
  etc. Like the success stories we have are off the charts. However, the point is, is that
• 35:13
  a lot of people know of lunch and learns in classes. And that's great. Most people do them
• 35:17
  haphazardly once in a while. But if you do it as actually a system, like the system is the solution,
• 35:24
  and you do those repeatedly and follow a proven system, the way we leverage high level to do that
• 35:29
  is we handle all the reservations, the confirmations, the landing pages, the email reminders, the SMS
• 35:34
  text reminders, the complete realtor funnels, and, you know, nurture campaigns and ghost did get,
• 35:40
  you know, it's the amount of stuff that we do in there to help facilitate conversations. That's
• 35:45
  why I personally got started with high level. And now this kind of partnership between Michael and I,
• 35:50
  where we can actually fulfill the definition of the next generation originator,
• 35:55
  originator, which is both sides of those traditional, you know, as we said before, but also
• 35:59
  embracing the modern tech tools. For me, the over the last two years, even though like you said,
• 36:04
  any platformer CRM has its challenges and a learning curve. But I'm glad I took the challenge,
• 36:11
  because now, right, the impact we're able to make on behalf of loan officers, helping them get
• 36:17
  results is what I love the most. Yeah, 100%. And for those listening, like the one thing that I love
• 36:23
  about this partnership with you, Jeff is like, it gives people a story or a use case. It gives people
• 36:28
  like an exact game plan on how to use high level and like be successful with it. It's like, like,
• 36:34
  even if you don't want to use any of the other features of high level and you just want to run
• 36:38
  these classes, it's going to allow you to dip your toe and get exposure to these tools that you
• 36:43
  might hear other people talking about or see people online talking about. It's going to get you that
• 36:47
  exposure in a controlled environment that allows you to just kind of like tip toe into adoption
• 36:53
  of maybe some of the other features and high level later on. But right out of the gate,
• 36:58
  so like on your onboarding call, we're scheduling your first class, you've got everything you need to
• 37:01
  be able to do like do that first class. And it's all inside of high level. So that's that's something
• 37:06
  I think is really cool for your listeners that aren't sure. I've or maybe they tried signing up
• 37:13
  for high level and didn't know what to do with it or anything. It's like to sign up for my agent
• 37:17
  classes and get all of that preloaded and exact use case of like, hey, log in do this every day.
• 37:23
  It's a really cool environment for then you to be able to say, okay, well, while I've got this tool,
• 37:27
  let me let me see how this works. Let me see how this works. And so yeah, that's just something I'll
• 37:33
  throw, throw out there. Matter of fact, we have a, I've got to do this and then we'll wrap up. But
• 37:37
  I had a testimonial come in just yesterday. Janelle, if you're listening, what's up, Janelle,
• 37:42
  appreciate you. She taught the video marketing class. 21 agents attended. 21. Like her first class.
• 37:52
  For your how long would it, it's not her very first class, but it's, you know,
• 37:55
  it's she had 21 agents in a room. Yeah, long would it take you to have your first conversation
• 38:00
  with 21 agents, right? If you're cold on this stuff. Anyway, she goes on to say left the class
• 38:05
  with a hot referral that she though the realtor got while sitting in the class at the beginning of
• 38:11
  the class. So by the time the class ended, there was so much value established, the realtor was so
• 38:16
  attracted to want to reciprocate to Janelle, right? And then one last thing, she also got another
• 38:22
  referral from another agent from a different class. Janelle hosted previously. So literally one class
• 38:30
  she can't even finish the class. And she's got two leads coming in. And this was even before
• 38:35
  she followed up with any of the 21 that attended. So leverage scale, law of large numbers, put it in
• 38:43
  your favor. Michael, she had the Facebook group. If you also want to learn more about the classes,
• 38:47
  you can go to mortgagemarketing.pro, check it out, video, testimonials, and you can book a call
• 38:51
  with me there. So this is just the beginning. Next, Janelle officer. I hope so. I love this man. I
• 38:59
  could talk about this forever. Yeah. And I'd love to get some feedback from people. So however you
• 39:04
  want to leave feedback, right? You can obviously reach me on social media. Michael, what's your
• 39:08
  handles? Are you on the social bro? You better be next, Jen. Ish. Ish. I'm on social ish. I'm on
• 39:13
  Facebook. I'm in that Facebook group all the time. I like threads. I really like threads, but
• 39:17
  threads doesn't like me very much. I don't give very much engagement on threads, but that's a cool
• 39:21
  and that's like old school Twitter. So yeah, Michael, Michael McAllister, Empower L.O. should be
• 39:27
  pretty easy to find though. We'll put all the links in the show notes so you guys can follow,
• 39:31
  you know, all the stuff you want to do there and appreciate your feedback too. So I think there's
• 39:34
  this is this is one of those topics where we're just opening the box on this. We haven't taken
• 39:38
  all the toys out yet, but more to come on that. So thanks for joining me on this conversation. One
• 39:43
  for next Janelle officer. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm sure everybody listening agrees. I
• 39:49
  hope so. All right. Hey, we'll see you on the next one. People you know what to do. Follow the
• 39:52
  links in the show notes and until the next one. Take care. Bye for now. Hey guys, what's up?
• 39:57
  Real quick. You've heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before and I just want to
• 40:00
  quickly remind you if that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchased
• 40:05
  loans. You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it, agents are still
• 40:10
  a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you. Well, good news. Our
• 40:15
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• 40:20
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• 40:25
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• 40:30
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• 40:41
  your class, getting agents butts and seeds, partnering with affiliates, real easy, but that's not
• 40:47
  all. You'll also get access to our weekly mastermind calls with top LOs, authors, speakers and
• 40:53
  coaches to learn the best strategies to grow your business right now in today's market.
• 40:59
  And as an extra bonus for limited time for all new members, you'll get access to a database of
• 41:05
  200 agents in your local market that have closed anywhere to from 8 to 50 transactions in the last
• 41:11
  12 months. And we'll provide that list uploaded into our platform for you so you can get off to
• 41:16
  a fast start in reaching actually productive agents. So what are you waiting for? You can check out
• 41:22
  more at mortgagemarketing.pro, see more of the success stories there. And if you feel compelled
• 41:27
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• 41:32
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