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Ask Me Anything #1: How to Follow-Up After Agent Meeting · Mortgage Marketing Radio

• 0:00
  Welcome to this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio Podcast, your host, Jeff Zinfur,
• 0:15
  thanks a lot for tuning in.
• 0:16
  Today we're diving into a real-world scenario that many of you might relate to building
• 0:23
  and maintaining relationships with real estate agents.
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  We've got a great question from a listener.
• 0:29
  This comes from our private group over on Facebook, a private community just for you, podcast
• 0:34
  listeners.
• 0:35
  If you haven't yet joined that private group, please go to Facebook and search Mortgage
• 0:39
  Marketing Radio.
• 0:40
  I'll link it up in the show notes as well, but it's a great way for you to get in there
• 0:43
  and enjoy the conversation.
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  I'm going to be taking more of your questions and featuring them live here on the podcast
• 0:50
  to give you a shout out.
• 0:51
  This is a great way for you to get your answers directly from me, considering this asked
• 0:58
  me anything version of the podcast.
• 1:01
  We had somebody who asked a question and I want to give a shout out to Natalia, what's
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  up?
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  Thanks for answering the question in the group.
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  The question was basically what is one question or challenge that you are facing or struggling
• 1:20
  with right now that you would like some assistance and Natalia shared her challenge.
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  Her question was, I had one excellent meeting with a realtor so far, nothing has happened.
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  How do you keep up and grow the relationship?
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  That was Natalia's question.
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  Look, I think this is an issue that we have often faced.
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  I know I faced it when I was originating is you don't have these meetings with agents
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  and then afterwards what happens, it goes dark, it goes quiet, maybe they don't respond,
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  if you wonder what to do next.
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  I think it's important that before you ever have a meeting with a real estate agent that
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  the context is set up properly.
• 2:00
  There's a few best practices that I wanted to walk you through.
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  I've got some questions that I asked in Natalia that she responded to as well.
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  I'm going to unpack this ask me anything mini coaching session with Natalia in the hopes
• 2:12
  that you find this useful and valuable for you.
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  Should you ever be faced with this situation?
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  Okay, so that was only one part of the question, right?
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  I couldn't really give an effective answer to Natalia without having some more context
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  because every answer I think is driven by context, right?
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  I went on to ask her about five more quick questions and I'm just going to rattle those
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  off for you quickly and then I'll give you the summary and answer to basically what
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  my recommendation is.
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  I asked Natalia back, number one, how did you get the meeting first and foremost?
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  How you get that meeting with the real estate agent impacts the overall context of the
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  meeting, the dynamic, how well you know each other or not, was there a referral?
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  So that's question number one is how did you get the meeting with the real estate?
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  Number two is what was the premise of the reason for the meeting?
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  Why did the real estate even agree to meet with you?
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  Why did you ask the real estate to meet with you?
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  So what's the expectation of the meeting, right?
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  That's very important.
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  Number three, she described the meeting as being excellent.
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  What about the meeting leads you to describe the meeting as excellent?
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  Why was it excellent?
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  What's the criteria you put around excellent?
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  Was there, did you guys have a great conversation?
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  Was it a wonderful meal or coffee?
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  Was there a promise of business to come?
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  Is that why?
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  Or is it just a general feeling of excellent, right?
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  Because feelings can sometimes not be accurate.
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  Number four, how did the meeting end and were any next steps discussed?
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  See, that's one of the biggest areas I think most originators drop the ball on is they
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  feel good.
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  They had a great meeting.
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  And it's just like, oh, this meeting went really well.
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  And cool.
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  Awesome.
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  You know, but there's no expectations.
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  There's no next steps that are actually formalized and articulated.
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  And that's a very important aspect of moving things forward or not, by the way.
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  Number five, did you look up or do you have a sense of the agent's transaction history?
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  For example, closing, slice side versus sell side, what do their existing lender relationships
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  look like?
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  Okay.
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  So I asked those five additional questions of Natalia, and I said, I'll take her replies.
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  And I will share my answers for the podcast today.
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  So number one, how did she get the meeting?
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  They have, they have been Facebook friends for a while and connected.
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  They are connected on Facebook as parents, Natalia, the loan officer suggested that they
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  meet.
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  She has solid production, both listing and selling.
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  I went on to ask her, but how did the meeting end?
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  Was there a next step, right?
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  And she said, the meeting ended amicably.
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  She told me that she is not, quote, married to any lender and complained about the one
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  who she has recently worked with.
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  She sent me one lead, and I'm still working on the lead to just give me a call.
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  This Realtor also invited Natalia to the networking group that the Realtor attends, and yes,
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  she can look up her transaction history through the MLS, which is why she said what she
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  did about the Realtor's production.
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  Now, I would definitely prefer a tool like RETR or MMI, and that's because there's some
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  additional things you can do in looking up transaction history, loan officer relationships
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  and loyalty that might exist, a variety of other things.
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  Are they heavy on the buy side, sell side, write all that stuff?
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  I always believe in going in informed versus blind in addition to doing some research online
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  on social media to find out some, some mutual interests, who they are, get a vote for
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  who they are, their style, et cetera, all that kind of job.
• 5:36
  Those are just report building talking points.
• 5:39
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• 5:43
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• 5:52
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• 6:01
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• 7:02
  But let me come back front and center to now my prescription, if you will.
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  Okay, so let's talk about the real challenge that Natalia shared is that she had this
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  quote unquote, excellent meeting with a realtor and so far nothing has happened.
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  Well, I guess my first question is, what do you expect to happen, right?
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  You said she sent you one lead, this realtor, and yet you can't get that route, that lead
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  to call you back yet.
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  Well, I don't know the total premise of the conversation, but I think that's why it's
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  important to have context around what is the next steps.
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  Like if she shared with you, this realtor shared with you that they are unhappy with
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  the lender that they had just recently worked with, obviously I'm going to unpack that
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  and why?
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  Tell me about that situation.
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  Tell me about that experience, what was what was not pleasant about it, because I want
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  to understand and I want to ask that real estate, they said, well, if you could change anything
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  about the way that transaction went down with that other lender, like what would you
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  change?
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  What would you make a difference?
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  What would you improve?
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  What would you keep the same?
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  Right?
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  Ideally, if you had a magic wand, right, and you could magically have the ideal mortgage
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  experience and lender partner magically appear in front of you, how would you describe
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  that person?
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  What would be their attributes?
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  What are some of the best practices you'd want to see from them?
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  What would the transaction look like, the follow-up, the touch points, et cetera?
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  So I want to unpack that from them, and then I want to, at some point, I'm going to circle
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  back, for example, let's just take the situation of like, this quote unquote lead hasn't
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  responded yet to Natalia's outreach referral from this real estate agent.
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  Well, I'd say after two or three attempts, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going
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  letting the realtor know right away, hey, right, Sally at Remax, I really, really appreciate
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  that referral the other day.
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  You just want to let you know I've made three attempts to reach out to that referral
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  and no response yet.
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  What I really want to do is get context on that referral.
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  I think there's a big weakness when it comes to referral handoffs between realtor to
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  lender.
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  The handoff is usually weak and half-assed, meaning, oh, here's Bill and Mary.
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  They're looking at buy-in, you know, I talked to them three weeks ago, whatever, here's
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  their information, go ahead and give them a call.
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  Like in a perfect world, I want an introduction, a text thread introduction from the realtor
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  to that potential buyer with me on that thread, and I want the realtor introducing me as
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  part of the team.
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  And if the relationship's not there yet, right, then at least I want the handoff, because
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  there must be a reason why this realtor already referred this lead over.
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  I mean, you know, there's a rare chance that it would be like, you know, we've all heard
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  in the past of like, you know, hey, let me just throw this lead at you to whatever, let's
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  see what you can do with it.
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  But again, I'm going to put this back on the loan officer like, and this isn't like throwing
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  an Italian under the bus because I didn't have this conversation live in the Italian,
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  but I'm really curious to know what pre-qualifying did you do with the realtor about that referral
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  in the first place?
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  It's like, what did you know about the referral?
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  Um, who they are, their age, you know, what does the rule, I want to get as much information
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  as I possibly can about that referral from the real estate agent before I call.
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  And as I said, I want the introduction and I want the tee up from the realtor period.
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  If they're not willing to do that, why number one, number two, maybe the relationship
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  isn't there yet between the two of you, right?
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  Or number three, maybe it's a junk lead, right?
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  And they're just trying to do you a solid or whatever get you shake you off their back.
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  I don't know.
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  It seems like the Italian has a good rapport with this realtor and all that kind of stuff.
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  So I'm going to assume that that's not the case.
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  But first and foremost, I'm circling back to that realtor and I'm letting them know,
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  hey, I tried to call this client two, three times.
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  And by the way, what, how did you outreach, um, it doesn't say specifically because that
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  wasn't the context of this conversation.
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  So it's a little unfair to Natalia if she's not here to have this conversation with me.
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  Perhaps if you'd like to be featured, by the way, if you're listening to this right now
• 10:57
  and you say, hey, I'd like to be featured with, you know, for an ask me anything hot seat
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  coaching call, right, where we take your challenge issue or whatever it is an unpack it during
• 11:07
  a conversation with me and you on the podcast.
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  Hey, let me know DM me get on Instagram DM me on my name, Jeff Zimper jump into the Facebook
• 11:15
  group and mortgage marketing radio message me, let me know that you'd like to have a ask
• 11:20
  me anything live conversation and we can reuse that on the podcast with your permission.
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  Okay, so let me just go through some of the other things here.
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  Um, again, the premise for a meeting is like, I see the connection, the social connection,
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  that's awesome.
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  I'm going to come back to like, what are the next steps?
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  How did the meeting end?
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  I think it's a critical part.
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  Um, and what drives how the meeting ended and what that, what are the next steps are
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  driven by what was the general context of the meeting, the conversation?
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  Was it all social or were there some aspects of business where you identified some areas
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  of opportunity?
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  It sounds like there's an opportunity with the lender situation from that realtor because
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  they said they're not happy with the current situation.
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  Okay, great.
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  We already heard me talk through some questions about how to unpack that.
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  Um, next, what I want to do is find out more about their business.
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  I want to ask this realtor, hey, here we are Q4 2024.
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  What are your goals for the end of this year?
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  How about through 2025?
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  What are your plans?
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  I want to better understand what are they trying to achieve.
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  Um, and I want to listen for ways that I can help them through ideas, strategies, suggestions,
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  different things like that, right?
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  Because I want to plan a next meeting.
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  I want to plan a next meeting with a clear agenda that addresses that real estate agent's
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  current challenges and opportunities, and especially any that they mentioned during
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  the meeting.
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  For instance, oh, I want to add 10 transactions.
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  Oh, I want to, you know, get more listing, get more buyers.
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  Oh, I want to specialize in this niche.
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  Oh, I want to get better at social media.
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  Oh, I want to improve my presence online.
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  I want to get, you know, more organic leads, et cetera.
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  Now, how do you get, how do you get this information?
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  Well, you've got to get good at your needs analysis.
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  Get good at asking questions.
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  Be really curious, actually care, actually care about how you can impact a real estate
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  agents business by asking simply relevant questions that they're struggling with and
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  that they need help with.
• 13:18
  You know, I shout out to my friend, Wally Ellibary, who said, when, you know, at one point
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  in his career, he decided to become the best realtor he could without ever selling a
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  home.
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  What does that mean?
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  It means Wally invested in the knowledge in gaining the information and the knowledge
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  and the training and the resources so that he could provide that to his real estate agents
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  when he did have a needs analysis interview.
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  And they said, hey, here's my biggest problems for frustrations and challenges.
• 13:40
  Wally had a bag, a toolbox of solutions, and he could share with them because that's
• 13:46
  called being a being a partner, not being a vendor.
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  A vendor can close alone.
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  A vendor can follow up on a referral, right, and, and, and all that stuff.
• 13:53
  That's not really unique and different.
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  Your customer experience, your service level, sure, that can be unique and different.
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  But really, what's unique and different is when you help somebody solve problems.
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  And that creates loyalty, that creates connection, that creates partnership, and that creates
• 14:08
  somebody willing to advocate for you, by the way.
• 14:10
  So maybe a good question to ask is, are you delivering value at the level?
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  That compels real estate agents to actually advocate for you versus do the minimum when it comes
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  to referring you, right?
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  So those are some of my initial thoughts.
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  Let me just review one more quick time here in terms of the challenges, right?
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  The premise of the meeting, you've got to set the premise for the meeting, how you get
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  the meeting, that obviously, obviously sets the context and hopefully in a future podcast
• 14:43
  recording like this, we'll have a different context for somebody who was not connected via
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  social, via parents, et cetera, and things like that.
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  But maybe it was a more direct outreach to something like that.
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  You know, again, once the meeting described as excellent, how do you know it was excellent?
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  What's your criteria for a good meeting with real estate agents?
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  As I said before, how did the meeting end?
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  What are the next steps?
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  Do you have a specific plan?
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  Do you close with saying, hey, I want to, I want to thank you for sharing some of
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  your challenges and goals with me for your business in the upcoming new year.
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  And I think I've got two or three ideas that might be able to help you overcome some of
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  those challenges and help you reach your goals.
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  I'd love to get back together in two weeks and actually go over some of those ideas
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  and see what you think.
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  Would you be open to that?
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  They say, sure, you get out your phone, they get out their phone and you're scheduled
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  that next meeting two weeks from that day right then and there.
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  Don't leave the scene without having that meeting scheduled.
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  You guys with me on that?
• 15:39
  Okay, cool.
• 15:43
  And of course, have you looked up the agent, their transaction, their production level
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  and things like that?
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  You've got to be informed, right?
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  You can't go in blind and just bring it and hope that it works out.
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  I think that's one of the reasons why many originators are frustrated so often is
• 15:55
  they don't actually prepare for this meeting effectively enough to maximize their
• 15:59
  time with the real estate agent.
• 16:02
  So that said, if you would like to be featured as a, you know, hot seat on the podcast,
• 16:07
  take your question.
• 16:09
  I'll even bring you on the, on the recording here.
• 16:11
  And you know, and I can have a live conversation or you can just submit it in the
• 16:15
  podcast, Facebook page or DM me on Instagram.
• 16:17
  I hope you got some value from here today.
• 16:19
  Wherever you're watching or listening to this, leave some comments below and I'd love
• 16:22
  to see you on the next episode.
• 16:24
  Thanks for tuning in.
• 16:25
  Bye for now.
• 16:26
  Okay, that's it for today's episode.
• 16:27
  Before we wrap up, I just wanted to remind you about my agent classes,
• 16:32
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  your presentations, marketing automation, weekly coaching.
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  It's all designed to make growing your business easier and fun.
• 16:52
  So if you're ready to take control of your agent referrals and grow your income,
• 16:55
  visit mortgagemarketing.pro or check the link in the show notes.
• 16:58
  And while you're there, don't forget to check out the success stories from other
• 17:01
  mortgage pros who've already seen incredible results.
• 17:04
  Thanks for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.