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How to Grow Your Agent Referrals with CE Classes · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
0:04
real estate agents is essential for success.
0:06
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1:18
Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
1:19
I'm 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 Zimfer, your host for another edition of the Mortgage Marketing Radio
1:31
podcast.
1:32
Thank you for tuning in.
1:34
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1:37
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1:42
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1:44
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1:49
grateful for that.
1:51
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1:54
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1:55
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I'd love to have you in there and we keep the conversation going there.
2:20
And also don't forget that I do have a new book coming up.
2:24
It's over there on the desk.
2:25
I can't reach it from here.
2:26
Anyway, it's called Disrupt or Die.
2:27
How to survive and thrive.
2:28
The digital real estate shift.
2:30
Have you not heard, please?
2:32
And would you like to get an advanced copy of that before it becomes available to the
2:35
mass public?
2:36
Here's how you can do that.
2:37
Go to getdisruptordie.com.
2:40
Getdisruptordie.com.
2:41
And the book will be released here in the month of March.
2:44
We've got some really great bonuses for people that are on that advanced list, like a free
2:48
companion course.
2:49
And we'll be doing a lot of things where you can make that available as a gift to your
2:53
realtor, referral partners, et cetera.
2:55
And even some custom branding for anybody who might be interested in that.
2:59
So if you want to learn more about that, obviously hit me up.
3:02
I already gave you the email, you know, where to do that or just message me on Facebook.
3:05
It's probably one of the better places to reach me.
3:08
All right.
3:09
On today's episode, what we're doing is we are featuring a member of the month.
3:13
So I was doing this for a while last year.
3:15
We took a break from it, but I'm bringing it back and the member of the month, what does
3:18
that mean?
3:19
It means that you may or may not know that we have a pro membership as well.
3:23
That's an exclusive private group, a membership for those mortgage originators who want to get
3:27
maximum agent referrals and minimum time without cold calling, without chasing, without begging,
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without doing the Zillow co-pay leaves and things like that.
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And following a proven system and process that will maximize your exposure to agents and
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your conversion and referral rates as well.
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How do we do that?
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We do that by providing a done for you turn key platform of teaching agent classes.
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If you want to learn more about that, you can go to mortgagemarketing.pro.
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Mortgagemarketing.pro is where you can learn more about that, a little video put up on
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that and that should give you some more details on that.
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So with that said, what I'm doing on this episode is featuring one of my special two actually,
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two of our members, Ryan Phillips with Associates title and Ryan Miracle with Roof Off mortgage.
4:11
They have really leveled up this agent class platform.
4:15
They've taken the turn key done for you classes that we give them and they're now, they've
4:19
created a brand in their local marketplace and it is called next level continuing education.
4:26
And they are averaging right now over 50, more like 75 agents in attendance at each of
4:34
their classes.
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They do ones per month.
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They do them at the library for free.
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They have partners that they've teamed up with that have actually covered lunch and other
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expenses.
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They've gotten what they do is they get each of these classes CE approved by the state board
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and they've been given the entire database of real estate agents by the state because they're
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offering CE classes.
4:53
Uh-huh.
4:54
Hink, wink, wink.
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That's a little bit of a hint.
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Kind of a bonus there.
4:57
But they've created a unique format and now what they are doing is teaching a three hour
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real estate CE with lunch.
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And they so who's involved here, we've got Ryan Phillips, as I said, from associate's
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title, right?
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So he's teaching a session, a section and get an agent's get a credit, Ryan Miracle
5:13
from rural mortgage teaches this section and they get a credit and then they've teamed
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up with a financial advisor who teaches financially related educational topics such as B financially
5:22
fit for today and tomorrow and they get a credit for that.
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So agents have decided, look, if I'm going to come, I'm coming all in, I'm coming for
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three hours, give me three credits, give me lunch, I'm good.
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And this has really impacted their business in a positive way, which you'll hear them
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explain.
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Plus, they've created a thing, a brand, they've are, you know, as you've heard Gary Vaynerchuk
5:40
perhaps talk about, right, today you need to become a brand, you know, I become the
5:43
digital mayor, right?
5:44
And your back end is mortgage, real estate, title, et cetera.
5:48
And that's what they've done and perfected quite well here.
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And so that's why I wanted to have them on as special guests because if you're looking
5:54
to perhaps get started with classes and by the way, you know, everybody starts at square
5:59
one.
6:00
So you might not come out of the gate and doing a three hour, right, three credit CE platform.
6:05
And that's okay, right?
6:06
It's all about the law of large numbers and how do you accelerate and scale the quantity
6:10
of agents that you're connecting with, but also how are you differentiating yourself?
6:14
How are you creating value?
6:15
Do you have a system for accelerating and converting, right?
6:19
The realtor prospecting you're doing and doing it in a different way that nobody else
6:22
really does it because who wants to take the cold calls every Monday and Tuesday?
6:26
Who wants to do the coffee talks, you know, over and over and over again, right?
6:30
So do something unique and different.
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That's what these guys have done.
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So I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
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I think it's a great education in leveraging a platform like education.
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If that's your thing, cool, and if not, that's cool too, we appreciate you either way.
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So without further ado, let's get into this week's show, Ryan and Ryan.
6:49
Welcome to the show.
6:50
Thank you, sir.
6:51
Thank you.
6:52
Yeah.
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With associate's title, Ryan Miracle grew off mortgage, Compass Ohio.
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All right.
6:58
So Ryan Phillips, associate's title, Ryan Miracle, Roof Mortgage, Columbus, Ohio.
7:03
Yes, we are.
7:04
All right.
7:05
Welcome to the show.
7:06
And as the people learned during the intro, Ryan Miracle, right?
7:10
And by the way, could you get a better last name?
7:12
I could try.
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I mean, have you used that at all?
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Like I pull off miracles in the mortgage.
7:17
Yeah, but being the mortgage industry sometimes you get phone calls that, hey, I heard
7:23
you can do miracles.
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And that's not necessarily the type of clients I want to track.
7:27
That's right.
7:28
You're like, let's clarify.
7:31
That's awesome.
7:32
All right.
7:33
So do me a favor.
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We'll start with Ryan Phillips.
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Just give us a quick summary.
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How long have you been in the title business?
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I started in 1994.
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So a little over 25 years.
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I've been doing every part of the title business.
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I started my own company in September of 2008.
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About the best time I could start a company.
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I think we opened on Monday and the stock market crashed on Thursday.
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And then it's been up, up and up since.
7:58
That's awesome.
7:59
Air survivor.
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Congratulations.
8:01
Thank you.
8:02
All right.
8:03
Mr. Miracle, give us your quick tenure in the industry.
8:06
Yeah.
8:07
Sure.
8:08
So I jumped right into real estate out of college in 2005.
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Did new build thing for just till 2009 just after the crash and then jumped over to consumer
8:19
direct with a large bank and was there during the refi boom shortly after the crash and
8:25
then got tired of being a number and then transitioned over to the broker side, which is a
8:30
completely different animal.
8:31
So that was about 2011 and not been their sense.
8:34
OK.
8:35
Fantastic.
8:36
Well, we're glad you're here.
8:37
And of course, Ryan Miracle, as a matter of fact, I probably go like RM, RP, maybe that's
8:41
how I'll differentiate.
8:42
How does it go?
8:43
Last names to it.
8:44
Does matter.
8:45
And to what works, whatever works.
8:50
So Mr. Ryan Miracle, you are, as people learn in the intro, you are one of our pro members
8:56
as we call it and our mortgage marketing pro membership, which is the kind of done for
8:59
you library of Asian classes.
9:02
And is that how you guys originally connected by tell me how your relationship, what's the
9:06
genesis of it?
9:08
Well, I mean, we started the CE thing about two issues ago and it didn't really take
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off.
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So I bowed out for about a year, but they kept working on it.
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And then when they asked me to come back, Philips was part of the group, as was two financial
9:23
planners.
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So at that point, they were looking for a new lender to help pull some weight.
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And then so that was about this time last year, March, last year.
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And that's when the group that we have right now is up and running.
9:41
Okay.
9:42
So the financial planner has actually introduced us and then what we can do in this sense.
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So about two years.
9:48
Yes, sir.
9:49
Okay.
9:50
And if I signed up for your product about a year ago, yeah, yeah.
9:54
Yeah, yeah.
9:55
And so the financial planners though are the ones who introduced the two of you to each
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other.
9:59
Yes, sir.
10:00
And that was, did they already have the CE educational platform?
10:03
Yeah, they had already gone through the compliance, but we jumped on and did the marketing
10:09
stuff with you right and I tied up the marketing stuff.
10:11
Right.
10:12
Right.
10:13
And so the financial planners, the platform was it or is it theirs that what's called next
10:17
level continuing education?
10:19
No, it was just, I think they just had it under their names originally.
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And then when I jumped on board, I looked at branding and tried to make the whole image
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cohesive.
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So working with my marketing department at Rua, they helped us kind of craft this brand
10:36
at this next level, and then it just kind of keeps evolving from there.
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I like it.
10:44
So, so Mr. Phillips, is that mean we have to give Mr. Miracle credit for the right, you
10:49
know, next.
10:50
Absolutely.
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He's 99% of the show.
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I don't know about that.
10:54
No, that's awesome.
10:56
You guys are a great team, but now I'm looking at the, and we'll put links to all this in
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the show notes.
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I'm looking at your event right page right now, which is next level continuing education.
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So just to be clear, give us the format of kind of like the frequency of your CE platform,
11:12
just describe it what it is.
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Have you?
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We try and pick the second Thursday of every month.
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We do a class once a month.
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We usually do three hours of electives, and we try and keep changing it up.
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We might do two or three months in a row with one class, but then just keep it new.
11:31
And then that keeps the agents coming and, you know, they can almost fulfill all their
11:34
electives with us, and they just have to go get the boring law classes somewhere else.
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Exactly.
11:40
Now, you have a, your approach is unique, which is partly why I wanted to bring you guys
11:43
here, is that you actually have, if I'm correct, at every class, you have three different
11:51
presenters.
11:52
Yes.
11:53
So what we did is, so I mean, the one thing that we're really focused on is competing
11:57
with ourselves and constantly evolving, because there's other CE providers in our market,
12:02
but they'll only do an hour to hear.
12:05
So what we did was, obviously, we wanted to have as many of us in the group present as
12:09
possible.
12:10
So we're all pulling weight.
12:11
We're all getting equal gains out of it.
12:13
So we went, we started out with one hour, then we went to two, then we went to three.
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I don't think we've experimented before yet, but we found that three hours is a good
12:21
sweet spot, because it allows them to cram it.
12:24
The realtor's allows them to cram it as much CE as possible, and it allows us to have
12:28
a captive audience for three hours.
12:30
Yeah, they've said, if I'm going to come down here, go for it.
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If we're going to show up, might as well just do three hours and get it done.
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And we've kind of ran with that sense, and it kind of allows for a lunch break in there
12:40
somewhere pretty easy, and it's pretty easy for us to just roll one hour to the mat.
12:46
So each of you take an hour?
12:47
Okay.
12:48
Roughly.
12:49
Is this something that they have to pay for?
12:51
No.
12:52
As we do it all at libraries, and then all the presenters, Ryan, me, the financial planners,
12:57
we're all using this as a platform to get business, so we're not charging any money.
13:01
So the only thing what we've been doing of late is we pull in other companies, whether
13:05
it be home warranty companies, home inspection companies, they buy lunch.
13:10
Right.
13:11
Yeah, works out well.
13:13
And so you've been doing it as next level for roughly a year and a half?
13:18
About a year.
13:19
About a year.
13:20
And when you started out, how's it grown from when you began to where it is now, in terms
13:26
of like attendance and awareness and all that?
13:29
We're packed at every event is it's not the only way we could grow it more, I think, is
13:33
if we found a free auditorium that we could do it, we the last event, 90 RSVPs in two days
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or three days or something like that.
13:44
So a lot of last year, we were at 50 to 75 RSVPs depending upon our venue and our venues
13:51
are the public libraries, and we're lucky enough that they just retooled those within
13:56
the last couple of years.
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So they're great, the tech is great, everything works nice, parking is usually pretty good,
14:02
and it's free if you're a member.
14:04
Now what we're kind of running into now is we're outgrowing the spaces, so we're now trying
14:09
to find different alternatives.
14:11
So answer your question, I mean, we would start out at 50 to 75 RSVPs and it would take
14:16
us about two, three weeks to get enough RSVPs to sell out.
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The last four classes, which once again once a month, we're starting out with 75 and we're
14:28
selling out within 24 to 48 hours, and then we have to usually up it and make sure that
14:33
we have enough room in the room to facilitate how many people would show.
14:37
And we've been packing them in, they've been standing room or, you know, four to five
14:42
people at a table.
14:44
It's in the libraries, like Ryan said, the libraries here are great facilities, super nice,
14:50
but we are hitting capacity with a lot of the rooms they have to offer.
14:55
When you started out though, what were your reservation counts looking like?
15:00
Well we started out with our target being 50 to 75 depending upon the room, and we've
15:06
averaged pretty much from the beginning at 55% show-up rate.
15:10
So depending upon what our RSVP count is, 55% is a pretty good gauge of what we're looking
15:16
at.
15:17
Yeah, that's a great show, right?
15:18
So I'm trying to address, and you know this is some people starting out with classes,
15:24
you know, the quote success, although I don't like to judge it by the numbers, is all over
15:28
the board, right?
15:29
Some people start out in their first class as five.
15:30
Some people have, like, you know, like 40, you really, you came out of the gate getting
15:35
40, 50 people showing up?
15:37
Um, 20, 30 at best, in the last nine months, I don't think we've done less than 40 though,
15:43
have we?
15:44
No, yeah.
15:45
It's been a minimum 40 at least for the last nine months.
15:46
Yeah, but when we started out, it was much smaller than we were right now, right?
15:51
So for those listening, what do you think that you could share with them that you might
15:54
do differently or that you've learned along the way to maximize attendance and show rates?
15:58
Well, one of the things that I think has really helped is we've, and we one had the contact
16:04
information for all the realtors in town.
16:06
So that's kind of a side benefit of teaching CE is at least here locally, they, they allow
16:12
you access to their name phone number or name and email.
16:16
So we have the name and email for all the realtors in town.
16:19
So we have that kind of audience.
16:20
So the board of realtors, if you teach CE, gives you the data.
16:23
Yeah, exactly.
16:24
Yep.
16:25
So we would upload that to you.
16:26
Not to interrupt.
16:27
I'm just curious.
16:28
What do they give you for info, name, phone number, email, the whole soup to nuts?
16:32
What kind of a broker or salesperson, you know, good bit of, good bit of info.
16:36
The state gives us pretty much everything with their phone number.
16:39
So but through the event bright, we're able to collect their phone number.
16:43
So therefore we have that information after that.
16:46
So we uploaded to the CRM and then send out the invite.
16:51
And then four class.
16:52
So once we've gathered the invites, we download it from event bright, and then I go through
16:57
the list and create a drip campaign on a node.
16:59
We're going to kind of high level.
17:01
But it's basically we're creating two text messages that go out the day before class.
17:05
It's a hey, don't forget you signed up for CE tomorrow.
17:08
And then the one the day up, they actually gives them the address.
17:12
So all they have to do is click on, click on their phone and it takes them right to the
17:15
event.
17:16
So we don't want to have them have an excuse not to show up.
17:19
So is that the primary means of promoting and getting bus and seats is email and text?
17:24
Yes.
17:25
Any phone calls go out at all?
17:27
No.
17:28
Not yet.
17:30
The text features, you know, because Ryan is such a wizard with the CRM, the text feature
17:36
personalized.
17:37
Hey, Bob, don't forget you signed up for a CE class tomorrow.
17:42
And you know, he thinks that Ryan just texted him alone.
17:46
Yeah, no, I love that.
17:48
So there's a lot of good lessons in there, right?
17:51
Personalization is key, but also you're leveraging automation because look, your full time
17:55
job is not event promoter.
17:57
Nope.
17:59
Very, very cool.
18:01
How long?
18:02
Let me think about this.
18:03
On average, I'm sure you've got a streamlined a bit more, but how much time do you put into
18:08
those mechanics of promoting an event prior to your class?
18:13
Well, for the email, we use the same email every single month.
18:18
We just changed the back end link that goes behind a click here to sign up.
18:23
So we already have the list primed, we already have the email written.
18:27
Now probably the biggest challenge is finding a sponsor each month, but once again, we're
18:34
getting traction with that happening on its own.
18:37
And then downloading the list from event bright and then plugging in the drip campaign
18:41
on the back.
18:42
And so right now, we're all as a group spending probably an hour prepping for one event,
18:48
which gets 50 more or more 50 more leads now the beginning, it was much more than that
18:55
because we were learning and throwing up, failing, and fixing, but yeah, so I mean, it's
19:01
getting a lot easier as we grow.
19:04
And don't don't allow me to finish this before we want to talk about the feedback form
19:09
and like the cool thing that happened there with you, but I'm curious, like, and maybe
19:15
this is just my own kind of learning curve here.
19:17
So you get access to the database of real church and your local community because you're
19:20
teaching seeds.
19:22
Was there any warming up or did it just go like, boom, email, hey, here's a class coming
19:26
up.
19:27
And we hit him with both barrels right away and the response was, was okay, but the longer
19:34
we had that list, the more that they warmed up and the lower our subscribe unsubscribe
19:39
rates have gotten.
19:40
Yeah, I think we had one real jerk that, you know, threatened this, threatened that, you
19:46
know, stop emailing me, blah, blah.
19:47
That was it.
19:48
I think we only have one person do that.
19:50
And then now it's it.
19:51
And anyone else quietly unsubscribe, but we don't, we get way more positive feedback than
19:57
we do negative.
19:58
Yeah.
19:59
You don't worry about it.
20:01
Do, are there any additional communications that go out other than your event related
20:04
things?
20:05
As far as to that database?
20:08
No.
20:09
So once again, we don't want to burn out our list.
20:11
So we're very careful to make sure that, like you said, we're respectful of them.
20:16
Yeah.
20:17
Cause God forbid you start spamming them, then it gets back to the board and et cetera.
20:20
And then you're done.
20:21
Yeah.
20:22
Yeah.
20:23
Right.
20:24
This mark.
20:25
Okay.
20:26
Cool.
20:27
So that covers that.
20:28
There we go.
20:29
Do you need to fix anything there?
20:33
No.
20:34
Just get it.
20:35
Okay.
20:36
All right.
20:37
No worries.
20:38
Actually.
20:39
Okay.
20:40
So tell me about like before and after, give me a before and after, like how were you
20:45
prospecting and marketing to agents before?
20:47
What was the results there and what's the difference now with these classes?
20:51
You.
20:52
Usually it was the other side of the transaction, the non directing client that I was going
20:56
after, you know, the in central Ohio, the seller chooses or the seller's agent chooses
21:01
the title company.
21:02
So I was going after the buyer's agent through the transaction.
21:06
Now this is giving me another avenue to show value and show them I have something they
21:10
need.
21:11
And it's made quite a bit of difference of just being known in the community if nothing
21:16
else.
21:17
So you know, I, I coach fourth grade basketball and I go out to do the team introductions
21:22
the other day and the coach on the other team comes out and says, I was just in your
21:25
CE class.
21:26
Maybe it was a realtor from Keller Williams and so it, you know, he starts to get around
21:32
and then you just kind of a face they can trust or a Facebook who business with.
21:36
Yeah.
21:38
I mean, just like look a lot of lenders, they struggle with exposure and sameness and
21:42
trying to break out and be different in their market.
21:46
So before this all happened, it was cold calls every week working the listing agent on
21:50
the other side of the transaction, peer intro, there's those kind of things.
21:55
So it was the real like boots on the grand hand to hand combat kind of thing.
21:59
What this has done is it's allowed all of us to break out of that sameness and go to very
22:03
distinct.
22:04
I wouldn't say word to iconic it, but that's the goal is to have this be something that
22:09
we are recognized for for more than just real estate, yeah, we have something different
22:15
to offer.
22:16
Yeah.
22:17
Yeah.
22:18
Well, so first of all, congratulations to you guys for putting in the effort and having
22:20
the awareness that you, you know, a platform to help you rise above the noise was was a
22:26
smart thing to do.
22:27
But also, I don't want to just brush over the importance of kind of the lessons that
22:30
we're hovering around here, but we're not driving too deep on and that is back to the
22:34
branding of this thing.
22:36
Next level continuing education, whereas a lot of people, quote, do classes, do lunch and
22:40
learns or whatever, but they never make it a thing, right?
22:43
And our years consistently, like the third or second Thursday of every month or yeah,
22:47
yeah.
22:48
Right.
22:49
And so that's another thing that makes it something substantial.
22:53
So the point is this for those listening or watching is as you get going, right, I think
22:58
it's useful to consider coming up with a name, right?
23:02
There's the agent marketing alliance, whether it's the next level, whatever, obviously,
23:07
you don't plan on expanding in all 50 states, right?
23:09
Yeah.
23:10
We haven't saturated this market yet.
23:11
Yeah.
23:12
Yeah.
23:13
We're still, you know, even a year in 40, let's say average 45, uh, realtors per, you
23:20
know, we're only staring down, but 600 realtors and there's 8,000 in the central Ohio market
23:25
alone.
23:26
And we have had plenty of repeaters too.
23:28
So, you know, it's, it's, we're, we only have a toe hold, even with as well as we're
23:32
doing with it.
23:33
Right.
23:34
So the secret is, if you're going to leverage agent classes, right, for example, um, whether
23:38
they're seat year or not, um, and you're going to play the long game, right, create some
23:43
branding around it.
23:44
Because this is now, you guys are now becoming, oh, uh, you know, almost local celebs in
23:48
some ways, right?
23:49
In the realtor community.
23:50
Mm-hmm.
23:51
That's the idea.
23:52
And getting showered with gifts and cars and all that, right?
23:54
Oh, wow.
23:55
Wow.
23:56
Well, they can give us stuff.
24:00
We got, yeah, yeah.
24:01
Yeah.
24:02
How many repeat attendees do you see on average, um, we'll have maybe three to five of
24:08
the class.
24:09
Good.
24:10
We had one guy that came to every single class we did.
24:14
We had to take him off the list.
24:15
I think we just, he was just coming for lunch, but nevertheless, it was, you know, those
24:19
of you really like this or maybe really like Ryan, I don't know.
24:22
Those are the agents who have no business, right, or they just, that's right.
24:26
Get the lunch.
24:27
Um, tell me then about how you're converting attendees to meetings or how you convert
24:33
this to business, which your process post event.
24:35
Well, I mean, before, so to your credit, you have the feedback form and that is pay dividends.
24:42
But before that, um, I tried to just call everyone who was on the list.
24:47
So if we had 45 people, I would spend however many hours trying to call them, taste
24:51
down 45 realtors, but I didn't really have anything to talk about.
24:55
So once I switched over to the feedback form that actually gave me, if had me filter out
25:00
the people who didn't want to talk to me, so either they weren't producing or didn't
25:04
find value when I had to offer or they already had a loan officer.
25:08
So I'm not going to chase someone who's not interested in talking to me.
25:10
So the, the feedback form has really allowed me to filter out from like a class of 50,
25:15
so to speak.
25:16
I'll end up with like 20 feedback forms of people who actually want to talk.
25:19
So it really cuts down on my, my back end and I have something to talk to them about.
25:25
And for me, it's a process.
25:26
It's an ongoing process for me.
25:27
I have sales reps that I'll pass out the list to and let them do the follow up, but it's
25:32
an ongoing system of one that you know, I know how much it does for my branding.
25:37
So I'm kind of satisfied with that.
25:39
And then it helps me be a loop, you know, the real or be a loop war lead for either me
25:45
or my sales reps.
25:46
Just I've got a little bit of a, I've already shown them value just to get in front of them
25:50
to show more values is the real goal and calling them after the fact is, you know, really
25:57
the means of doing that.
25:59
Great.
26:00
Well, it's a difficult question to answer whenever I ask the question about like getting
26:04
specific on referrals back to you and things like that, but can you at all speak to like
26:09
what impact this has had on your business over the last year in terms of deals and things
26:14
like that?
26:15
Specifically, you know, I can say I got this deal out of that.
26:19
It never seems to work that way.
26:21
I think whether it be coming at them with my service or pricing, the value I add with
26:26
the continuing education, it's a three to five pronged effort that produces results.
26:31
So point at any one particular one would be difficult, but nevertheless, it's a valuable
26:37
piece of puzzle.
26:38
Yep.
26:39
So my wife has a really high business acumen and that's something that I didn't have
26:42
coming into the business.
26:43
So she taught me how to run a P&L and my lead and lag indicators.
26:47
So part of that P&L is knowing how many referrals I'm getting from specific silos or
26:52
verticals.
26:53
So for next level specifically, as I grow a realtor relationship, I have them logged
26:58
on a P&L and any lead they give me, it goes on to the P&L so I can track to see how many
27:03
leads I'm actually getting from the efforts.
27:06
So if that realtor ends up growing into a relationship, that's kind of a amount of the crossroads.
27:11
Do I take them off the P&L?
27:12
But I did find that relationship from that next level silo.
27:18
So that's sourcing new relationships?
27:20
Yes.
27:21
Yep.
27:22
Yeah.
27:23
You know, most of these people, I wouldn't even be able to get past the gatekeeper at their
27:27
office to get in front of them.
27:30
This goes right around all of that trouble and you know, it's them to recognize my face
27:34
or recognize at least what I'm doing without having to walk into their office and be down
27:39
the door.
27:41
Well, we all know that part of the battle is, yeah, first getting attention, right?
27:45
And standing out and differentiating somehow and then getting them to respond.
27:49
And so that's why I think you've bought into, like I have, is the class is makes a lot
27:53
of sense because, hey, it's a wide net strategy, right?
27:56
So it's a law of large numbers, we're putting a lot of people in the top of the hopper.
28:00
Secondly is, as you well know, there's a lot of things that happen simultaneously
28:03
while you're teaching the class, the positioning aspect, the building of trust, so the resistance
28:08
is down, the rapport, the likeability, everything about a relationship is accelerated when
28:13
you're in person face to face there.
28:15
And then, of course, the value delivered, then the reciprocation kicks in and they feel
28:19
like, my gosh, these guys are doing such a great thing.
28:21
I want to go back.
28:22
Yep.
28:23
Yes, sir.
28:25
Okay, so in terms of you guys feeling comfortable presenting, right?
28:31
Are there any hurdles you had to jump through over there?
28:36
You know, just the speaking in front of a large audience is that everybody, you know,
28:40
some of the most people fear that more than death, I think, and that's really it, because
28:45
the material's being laid out for us, it makes it a lot easier when I'm not coming up
28:52
with the lecture or every bit of it.
28:54
You know, we plug in our own pieces and parts and things like that, but that makes it
29:00
a lot easier when it's all laid out for it.
29:02
The one thing that I found is like when you're getting up and speaking, you have to kind
29:06
of perform a little bit.
29:08
So normally, I'm pretty low key on the disprofile, my high S and a high C. So I am not a traditional
29:13
salesperson, but getting up in front of people and talking, you have to almost perform,
29:18
you have to almost a moat 10 to 20% more than you normally would in crack jokes and try
29:23
to get people to engage.
29:24
They're actually like looking people on the eye instead of over their head.
29:27
So it's a learning curve, but you learn what works and what does it.
29:32
Yeah, so it's good skill practicing overall for being better presenter, et cetera, building
29:37
that confidence.
29:38
And they say if you can speak in front of a group and one on one's a piece of cake, you
29:42
know?
29:43
All right.
29:44
So I'm on your Facebook page here for next level, continuing education, and you guys do a
29:47
great job with video.
29:48
When did you decide to bring in or when did you start video, like video tape video, sounds
29:56
so I was gonna say video tapeing really, does anybody grow them anymore?
29:59
I'd say.
30:00
I'd say recording.
30:01
As soon as he joined the group, he is.
30:04
At first it was him.
30:05
He was doing all the video and you know, he did a marvelous job about it, but we kind
30:09
of decided, let's take that burden off of him and then we brought in videographers, but
30:13
you know, he is a AV nerd and loves all this stuff.
30:18
And so he made it, he made it pretty easy to video at first, and then it just got to
30:23
be too big of a job.
30:25
So then that's what we brought in the videographer.
30:27
Yeah.
30:28
And you don't have to get super specific, but I'm just trying to get a sense because people
30:35
are listening, right?
30:36
I'm trying to cover all context or angles.
30:38
People could be coming from video or sounds expensive.
30:41
Okay.
30:42
So I actually got a tip from one of my realtor partners that, okay, so here in town we
30:47
have a art university, it's called CCAD.
30:52
And they have graph designers, potters, fashion people, but part of that is videographers
30:57
as well.
30:58
So they have a job board that you can place job descriptions on.
31:02
And then we found Josh, our videographer, from CCAD.
31:07
He was just looking for side work outside of school.
31:09
So as far as cost is concerned, I think we spent, was $300 for two different, yeah.
31:16
So this is at the same time we onboarded our first sponsor.
31:19
So we offloaded the food costs to our sponsor.
31:24
And then we took on the cost for the videographer.
31:26
I mean, the video is really clean and we used all the time.
31:30
And the nice thing is it's created an asset for us so that way we can use it over and over
31:35
again.
31:36
Well, yeah.
31:37
The video is great.
31:38
I'm looking at that.
31:39
I mean, there's a little poltergeist time in there about the Ibuyers.
31:42
That's pretty cool.
31:43
Yeah.
31:44
That's great.
31:45
And he's doing that editing for you?
31:47
Well, so Josh did our big video that was in the main library.
31:51
A lot of the other small promo videos, like the one we did with Karen Carr and the one
31:58
for the poltergeist one that you saw.
32:00
So I'll just find an hour in the office and then duck into a corner and then start shooting.
32:06
So that video, the Poltergeist video was for Halloween class and it was for your disruptor
32:14
diet class.
32:15
So I played heavily on the like a zombie kind of theme in the video.
32:21
Yes.
32:22
So yeah, I just got, I found a dark corner in the office and then just lean back and lean
32:26
forward a couple of times to try to figure out the lighting and exposure.
32:29
But yeah, it was really, that's probably my favorite one I've ever shot.
32:32
Yeah, that's a good one.
32:33
And you have testimonial videos from people after the class, very professionally.
32:37
And then like the more recent one I remember that I've seen, which is the promo video,
32:42
which is all the nice cuts and shots of the class and people registering in the class,
32:46
just filling up.
32:47
And I think you put that on hyperspeed as well.
32:49
Yes.
32:50
Yeah, that's really cool.
32:51
So you're really, I mean, creating this kind of like we talk about, like you've dairy
32:54
V, right?
32:55
You've got to become a media brand today and you're back end as mortgages or a title.
33:01
Yeah.
33:02
Oh, wow.
33:03
Okay.
33:04
Now I see you doing the dark, dark shade.
33:06
That's really cool, man.
33:07
Great job.
33:08
By the way.
33:09
Thank you.
33:10
Fantastic.
33:12
Have any kind of private group for these people yet?
33:15
That's kind of our next evolution.
33:17
Yeah.
33:18
So we don't have a Facebook group yet, but we're thinking about creating like breakout
33:22
mastermind classes for, for like a deeper dive in the words of you just did one the other
33:29
day for a Facebook.
33:30
Right.
33:31
Did a, did a kind of a workshop hands on rather than a lecture?
33:35
Yes.
33:36
Definitely needs some tweaking.
33:37
It was, we, I went into it telling them they were all guinea pigs and it was kind of
33:43
just a, we have to, when you're doing a workshop, it's your skill levels you have here and
33:49
skill levels you have here.
33:50
And you know, one woman, one woman, we had to show her how to get on the Wi-Fi and the
33:54
other woman knew everything she knew, you know, everything we could teach her.
33:57
So it's just, we got to come up with a, a way to bridge that gap and to separate the
34:04
newbies from the professionals.
34:06
Hey, man, I salute you because I've done that twice now, try to do a, what did we call
34:11
that, a hands-on lab.
34:12
Yeah.
34:13
It was more like a hands-on blood bath.
34:15
Oh.
34:16
Pretty, because to your point, people are all over the, all of the map, for instance, I'm
34:19
actually leading one right now, which is five agents helping them set up their first Facebook
34:24
ad.
34:25
Okay.
34:26
All right.
34:27
Yeah.
34:28
Well, you know, for six weeks, by the way, once a week, once a week in person for six weeks.
34:33
Okay.
34:34
Yeah.
34:35
Yeah.
34:36
Believe me, I'm there to rethinking this whole thing right now, but step one is set up is,
34:42
yeah.
34:43
We've got a great idea in mind, you know, we'll, we'll talk to you about six months or
34:46
a year to see, see how it works out, but we've, we've got to sit down and, and organize
34:51
our thoughts to what we have to solve that problem that you're talking about.
34:55
I think we have a basic system, but once we get it down, we'll share it with you.
34:59
Yeah.
35:00
For sure.
35:01
I'd love it.
35:02
It's well experimenting.
35:03
And since he is this duplicatable, right?
35:05
Because it is a certain set to do that lab thing.
35:08
You guys do any virtual meetings, I'm curious, it's relevant in the context of where we are
35:13
right now today, right?
35:14
Right?
35:15
I saw that stuff.
35:16
And then virtually you're planning on doing honestly, that's a heck of an idea.
35:21
I mean, because we still, that's a concern is the class is waning because of everything
35:25
that's going on.
35:26
You said you're venue was canceled.
35:28
Right?
35:29
Yeah.
35:30
Like 12 hours before 90 people were set to show up.
35:33
Yeah.
35:34
Okay.
35:35
Well, so this has just come so fresh off of our call this morning and in the membership,
35:38
is that, you know, that's my, was my suggestion is to reach out to your agents.
35:42
If that and indeed it happened to you is, you know, try and convert that to a virtual
35:46
like a zoom, you know, it's going to be much smaller, but at least you still get to make
35:51
that, you know?
35:52
We have to, we have to see if the state allows it.
35:54
We haven't even gotten that far yet to see what this, this state of Ohio will allow us to
35:58
do.
35:59
You know, do they have to sign in person to we had, you know, they ask who keeps the records
36:04
and who you know.
36:05
So if we're doing all virtual, that's a little bit of stuff that's up in the air that
36:09
will probably have to clarify on the state and see what they'll accept.
36:12
I agree.
36:13
For CE, you're right.
36:14
It's a different conversation.
36:16
I'd look at it from the standpoint of it's an opportunity to still kind of, you know,
36:20
check in and have that FaceTime ad value pour in.
36:23
You probably get much less attendees because it's virtual and all that kind of stuff and
36:27
you got to work out the kinks that's, you're like learning, well, building the plane while
36:30
flying there.
36:31
Yes.
36:32
Right.
36:33
But you get to see it, so to speak, right?
36:35
For when you, you can go back to that venue and just say, Hey, people, sorry to cancel
36:39
it.
36:40
And so we're just going to do a mini version of this today, but we'll do the full
36:43
blown CE thing when we can get back in the venue.
36:45
That's a great idea.
36:46
Thank you.
36:47
Yeah.
36:48
Good to shot.
36:49
What else is on your horizon?
36:50
What else are you doing that you're excited about this year for 2020?
36:54
What else is related or not or just anything?
36:57
I think just kind of diversifying our class offering.
36:59
Yeah.
37:00
Then moving the classes around the city, we've kind of, you know, it seems like you get a
37:03
different dynamic of a group depending on where you are, but library we choose in the
37:09
city.
37:10
So just bouncing around from downtown to the suburbs to wherever it seems to bring
37:16
it totally different dynamic to each group.
37:19
Hmm.
37:20
Interesting.
37:21
Are there any other types of events like social events or anything for agents?
37:26
Just with groups that are already established, you know, whether it be the local area real
37:30
at our association or what it might be because I, you know, I don't know how things aren't
37:34
biggest, but here, the local realtor groups are very well attended and very well organized
37:41
and very social.
37:42
And I've been to in the last six months, I don't know, probably an average of five or
37:48
six social events just organized by these real estate groups.
37:52
So, you know, you can jump in and help sponsor or help organize those, but as far as doing
37:59
stuff on, on my own, other than small group outings, nothing for me.
38:04
You don't really have a need to because your pipeline is still full from these events.
38:09
Well, yeah, you know, I have 50 realtor's a month, that's a lot to, a lot to keep track
38:14
of right there by itself.
38:15
A lot of warm leads get in front of.
38:18
I guess before we go, that brings up one other thing I wanted to better understand is,
38:24
are you then, is the goal to, like you said, use the feedback form Ryan, use the goal to then
38:29
convert the right attendees to face-to-face meetings?
38:33
Yeah, so based upon having some stats of who's the performers and who's not, I can kind of
38:38
cherry pick who I want to work with.
38:39
And at this point, the volume's coming in well enough to where if someone's going to be a jerk
38:44
or a personality's don't mesh, I don't have to be pigeonholed into working with them exclusively
38:51
or begging them for business like I could just move on to the next person.
38:56
Right, right.
38:56
And our lunch guy that, you know, we already discussed, he did five deals in a year, so we knew
39:02
already, we really, you know, calling on him might not be that fruitful.
39:08
Just giving crackers next time he shows up.
39:10
Well, I think at one point, he wasn't on the email list and still came.
39:15
Yeah, he still showed up.
39:16
He found us on November.
39:19
He's googling, yeah, yeah.
39:21
And your classes, are they built out for the next several months?
39:24
We're only 30 days out of the time.
39:27
I think that's the next evolution is we want to make this a streamline and low maintenance for us
39:31
as possible, so that's probably another step that we are thinking about taking.
39:35
Just make it like a lunch appointment almost for us.
39:37
Yeah, it's something that's not not too involved.
39:41
Right, right.
39:42
Exactly.
39:42
You have seen some of our members do that where they build out six months on their calendar for class.
39:47
Library is only this book 60 days out, so that's kind of that.
39:50
You know, if we want to keep those free venues, keep the cost on this low,
39:54
it's kind of a thing there is, you only have 60 days out.
39:59
That makes sense, awesome.
40:00
Well, cool guys, this has been very helpful.
40:01
Great education in how you're leveraging this platform of next level,
40:04
continuing education classes to really maximize, optimize, right?
40:10
The amount of realtors you're in front of and probably you're speeding up,
40:14
what is usually a slow process is sifting and sorting realtors, you know?
40:19
Can I add one thing?
40:20
Yeah, please.
40:21
All right, so I think we kind of glazed over the fact that there's more than just the two of us.
40:27
So the good thing is, and for the people that are listening,
40:30
that they want to take this step and do events, my suggestion is to find
40:34
rock solid partners that you would count on to pull their weight.
40:39
So there's not one of us who's pulling an uneven share of weight.
40:43
So all of us have our responsibilities, and since there's four of us,
40:46
it's not overwhelming for any of us.
40:48
Like, for example, we lost our reservation two days ago, 12 hours before class,
40:52
all of us hopped on a call and we got it figured out within an hour.
40:56
So we were able to pivot locations, but that wouldn't have happened if we didn't have a team to
41:02
kind of fall back on.
41:04
For anyone who's wanting to take this step, find your partners.
41:07
Don't try to do it yourself.
41:08
You don't have enough time in your day, and you wouldn't be able to protect your dollar per hour
41:13
if you're dumping in massive amounts of effort on your own.
41:15
You have to find partners, and then it'll go so much better, so much faster.
41:20
And it allows for more diverse classes.
41:22
Yes, yeah.
41:23
Yeah, for sure.
41:24
That's great points to the diversity.
41:25
And we really haven't gone deep on that.
41:27
But the third player who's not here in the room is your financial planner.
41:32
So he's in an hour out of each of your total three hours,
41:36
and helping them with financial planning, right?
41:39
Yeah.
41:40
Yeah, very good, very good.
41:41
Awesome.
41:42
That's a great combo.
41:43
Each state, of course, is different when it comes to CE requirements and things like that.
41:46
What did you guys have to do to get approval?
41:49
Well, we had everything pretty well dialed in before we started approving classes.
41:53
So we went to the state and found it exactly what we needed.
41:56
So now a new class approval will take a week.
41:59
Yeah, that's just as long as it takes them to review it.
42:01
That's it.
42:01
Really, I print off your PowerPoint, tell the state how long I intend to spend on each slide,
42:07
long as it adds up to an hour, hour and 20 minutes,
42:11
and it's relevant.
42:12
It's usually good to go.
42:13
Yeah.
42:14
Wow.
42:14
That's awesome.
42:14
And make it nice with the CE approvers because they are going to take care of you.
42:18
Yeah.
42:19
Was it hard to have those initial conversations with them and reach the right people?
42:24
Once again, I was coming in on the back end, so they already had that relationship established.
42:29
But yeah, they are really good at making friends with people that they work with.
42:34
So he was already in love with the group when I jumped in.
42:38
Nice.
42:39
Great.
42:39
So just snap down your piece and you're good to go.
42:42
Very cool.
42:43
All right, gentlemen, listen, it is Friday.
42:46
So I've got to let you go.
42:47
You probably have pressing engagements to get to.
42:50
Closing.
42:51
Closing.
42:51
Closing.
42:52
Yeah, right.
42:52
We'll have two more closings to do.
42:55
If anybody wants to reach out to you, I'll put links in the show notes.
42:57
But just to Ryan Phillips, where would people connect with you?
43:00
Because occasionally title reps float through here and hear this.
43:02
So you want to get Ryan Phillips as soon as he gets title.
43:06
You can be I can be reached on my cell at 614-419-2418 or via email at
43:11
Ryan at AssociatesTitleinc.com.
43:16
All business like your typical superstar title rep.
43:19
I love it.
43:21
Miracle, how about you?
43:23
Yeah, I probably just direct people to my email.
43:25
So it's RyanRYAN.miracle.
43:27
And my R-A-C-L-E at Ruof.
43:30
R-U-O-S-F dot com.
43:32
So Roger, umbrella, ask your friend Frank.
43:35
I love that.
43:35
That's great.
43:36
And I'll put if you don't mind, I'll put a link in the show notes to your
43:39
event brain page.
43:40
Is that okay?
43:40
Peace.
43:41
Perfect.
43:41
Yeah, yeah.
43:42
Have people check it out because your format's really nice.
43:44
And it looks good and all that stuff.
43:45
So again, can't take you enough for making time from your busy day to be here.
43:48
Thank you both.
43:49
And I appreciate y'all.
43:51
Hey, being members.
43:53
Yeah, thank you, thank you.
43:54
Thank you for making a music.
43:55
Yeah, exactly.
43:56
That's all.
43:57
My pleasure.
43:57
And listeners, do you know what to do as always?
43:59
If you like today's episode,
44:00
hey, leave us a little love wherever you're listening to this.
44:02
Leave us a review that helps us reach more people.
44:04
We appreciate you and we'll see you on the next one.
44:07
Bye for now.
44:09
I'm going to be listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
44:11
One more truth in mortgage marketing.
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