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How to Create Trust & Build Value With Realtors · Mortgage Marketing Radio

• 0:00
  Hey, my friend. What's up? Welcome to this episode of the Mortgage Marketing Radio
• 0:14
  podcast where on this episode, I'm being interviewed by my friend, Kelly Yale. Kelly has
• 0:21
  her own podcast, which you're going to hear more about on today's episode. We're going
• 0:24
  to link everything up in the show notes and Kelly flipped the script, turned the microphone
• 0:28
  around and started putting me in the hot seat, asking me questions about Mortgage Marketing
• 0:35
  referral partners, marketing strategies, technology, and how to map out a roadmap for you guys
• 0:41
  in the new year in 2025. And Kelly, she's got a ton of experience in the industry very
• 0:46
  well-respected. Over 15 years in this industry, she actually helped to build and integrate
• 0:52
  the CRM digital solution for the nation's largest retail lender. So she's got incredible
• 0:58
  marketing insights into behaviors of referral partners and home buyers to work with a lot
• 1:03
  of loan officers and companies. And so she, I think, is one person who is well equipped
• 1:09
  to go beyond the surface and dig deep and get at the meat of, how do we really stand
• 1:14
  out and differentiate ourselves across all platforms, whether that's for your referral
• 1:17
  partners, consumer director, otherwise. I hope you find this conversation insightful
• 1:21
  and inspiring as I did. And I'm going to turn the tables on Kelly and interview her on
• 1:25
  my podcast in a coming episode as well. So stay tuned for that. Before we get into this
• 1:30
  week's episode, I do want to ask you a question. It's almost 2025. My question is, are you
• 1:35
  ready for more realtor referrals? Would you like to discover how your current strategy
• 1:41
  for attracting referrals stacks up? And would you like to gain valuable insights to grow
• 1:46
  your referral network and increase your production? What if you could take a short quiz three minutes
• 1:52
  or less? And in that time, you would uncover the roadblocks and blind spots that you have.
• 2:01
  If you're not consistently generating referrals, hey, it may not be because realtors don't
• 2:06
  want to work with you. It could be because your strategy isn't working as well as it should
• 2:11
  be. And so that's why I spent two full days putting together these 15 questions, literally
• 2:16
  three minutes or less. That is the realtor referral scorecard. And it's a quick quiz designed
• 2:23
  to help you do the following things. Number one, uncover what's holding you back. Pinpoint
• 2:27
  opportunities for improvement gain actionable steps you can implement today. So in three minutes
• 2:32
  or less, you're going to know exactly where you stand in each of the following areas. They'll
• 2:36
  be a ranking in a score for each one of these. Your current level of realtor engagement,
• 2:41
  your current personal brand and visibility systems and process that you have or don't have
• 2:46
  in place, your ability to deliver value and have that be acknowledged and recognized by
• 2:51
  realtors. And then you follow up in relationship building. It's literally customized for you.
• 2:56
  And the output is going to be a curated set of ideas and strategies that you can implement
• 3:01
  right away. Boost your referrals, boost your engagement, your conversations, understand
• 3:06
  those key areas, those five areas, realtor engagement, personal brand systems, value
• 3:11
  deliverability, follow-up and relationship building. It's going to be a blueprint for
• 3:16
  you specifically. So if you want to get your customized report, here's what you can do.
• 3:20
  You can take the quiz, go over to realtors.scoreapp.com, realtors.scoreapp.com. And take the quiz.
• 3:34
  I'll also link it in the show notes. So if you're listening on your phone or wherever
• 3:37
  you can just scroll to the bottom and it says realtor referral scorecard or take the quiz
• 3:41
  or something like that, just tap the link in there and literally it'll be about two minutes
• 3:45
  is all. Now, I've already tested this and I've had a bunch of load officers who I know
• 3:49
  do this and they gave me great feedback in that it really helped them identify where their
• 3:55
  current benchmark is and gaining clarity on the easiest and most cost effective activities
• 4:00
  to improve their performance. So there's a lot you could be doing, but what you really
• 4:04
  need to do is identify your key growth levers and focus your time and effort on those.
• 4:09
  So the scorecard will help you do that. Once again, it's realtors.scoreapp.com. Check
• 4:14
  it out. Link in the show notes. Love to get your feedback on that. So yeah, go take
• 4:19
  the quiz and enjoy. So let's get into this week's show.
• 4:25
  Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Mines of Mortgage Podcast. This is Kelly
• 4:30
  Yale. And I am so delighted to welcome my guest today. This is Jeff Zinfer. He is the
• 4:37
  quote unquote chief truth teller. I had to keep saying that again and again. The Mortgage
• 4:43
  Marketing Institute. He has been in the business for a long while and he is going to talk
• 4:49
  to us today about some of the ways that loan officers and professionals can actually
• 4:55
  create relationships that are going to yield results in the future. Jeff, I'm so delighted
• 5:00
  to have you on. Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here with somebody who is also a
• 5:04
  truth teller. So this could be kind of salty. Maybe we'll see. I mean, it's not untrue.
• 5:13
  And one of the things that I so respect about you is that you're brave enough to say the
• 5:18
  things because not only does it take a lot of bravery to say things that aren't happy
• 5:25
  and shiny all the time, but it also takes courage to be able to say like the winds are
• 5:31
  shifting and I see that and I want to help. You know, how do you feel like most people
• 5:38
  interpret sort of being told the truth? It's funny. Just a week ago in the background
• 5:46
  in my house, somebody was watching that movie. The title escapes you right now with Jack
• 5:51
  Nicholas, Tom Cruise, the military movie. Oh, yeah. I know. For some reason, I can't
• 5:59
  think of it. I know, but but that line, you can't handle the truth. Yeah. I think some
• 6:06
  people can handle the truth. I think people don't sometimes like the truth because that
• 6:10
  means they have to change. And this is this is me speaking to myself right now. Let's
• 6:15
  just face it, like change, change sucks, change is hard, change is difficult, but change
• 6:20
  is probably the one thing that's constant. I mean, some things don't change and then
• 6:24
  other things do change. Let me say this one last thing and then I'll hand it back to you.
• 6:28
  Change of change and the truth. I love little quotes and snippets, but this one stood out
• 6:34
  from your while back. Somebody was asking Jeff Bezos, what do they focus on at Amazon?
• 6:41
  So they can, you know, stay ahead of the curve, competitive, you know, technical, technological
• 6:47
  trends and all that fun stuff. And you know, he said, he said, actually, what we focus
• 6:52
  more on at Amazon is what doesn't change. And he followed it up with saying, what doesn't
• 6:57
  change is people will always want now you listening, feel in the blank. In Amazon's case,
• 7:03
  people will always want excellent service, right? Good price, efficiency, process. Those
• 7:09
  are things that will never change no matter what happens to technology. So I thought that
• 7:14
  might be relevant. I mean, it's an excellent quote, but you know, if you think about it from
• 7:20
  a mortgage professional standpoint, I would argue that many do not understand what that
• 7:28
  customer journey is and should be. Because to your point, Amazon knows, listen, people
• 7:36
  want an easy way to do something. They want to be able to cash out quickly. They want to
• 7:40
  be able to rely upon a two day turnaround for their package and that they're going to
• 7:44
  get the right package and that they're going to review the package and be super happy.
• 7:48
  But that's no different than anything we're experiencing in mortgage, right? We find this
• 7:54
  human being, we understand who they are, what their goals are. We put together a plan
• 7:59
  for them that says, you can do this. Then we stay with them and show them exactly how
• 8:05
  to do it. And at the end, they have this amazing house and you're this trusted guide for them.
• 8:11
  And that is a really great relationship to take into the future. So technically, it is
• 8:16
  the same kind of process.
• 8:19
  Yeah, I love that. And I think people listening to this right now should probably ask yourself
• 8:24
  as we're heading into this, you know, end of the year, new year planning where a lot of
• 8:27
  people do this right now is maybe it's time to optimize or reevaluate your customer experience,
• 8:33
  your process. What because people will to your point in getting a mortgage, how long
• 8:39
  have we been talking about making that more efficient and everything like that, right?
• 8:43
  There's been some progress on that, but it still comes back to, I think, the individual
• 8:48
  L.O. listening to this right now is the captain of that ship, if you will. And they're the
• 8:53
  one that gets to some degree direct in control. What is the customer experience? And I think
• 8:57
  many have not optimized for that yet.
• 9:01
  I completely agree. And you know, you and I are both pretty passionate about the relationship
• 9:08
  between the loan officer and the real estate agent, right? And for many years, I talked
• 9:14
  to, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of realtors every week on behalf of loan officers.
• 9:21
  And the one thing that, you know, when we first started sort of that relationship
• 9:26
  curation, we had so many different loan officers kind of telling us what it should be, right?
• 9:32
  Oh, I want to have rates in there. I want to have this in there. I want to check in
• 9:36
  the recipe in there. And I was like, we're not doing any of that. And the reason that is
• 9:41
  is because the only thing that mattered to me from the years 2014 till today is how is a loan
• 9:47
  officer going to help create value for that realtor? And how are they going to help build
• 9:53
  the business of that realtor, right? Of course, you're going to represent both of your
• 9:59
  brains and the transaction. Of course, you're going to be doing as much as you can to make
• 10:02
  people proud of that. But the reality of how you build those relationships is truly saying,
• 10:08
  here's what I can give to you. I don't have to ask you know what I do. But this is how we're
• 10:14
  going to build our business together. I would love to know sort of how you feel. But like,
• 10:18
  what, what are the main elements that loan officers need to put into that relationship with
• 10:24
  their realtors?
• 10:26
  This is a great question. I mean, this itself could be an entire discussion. I think, and it's
• 10:33
  funny because I do a fair amount of thinking about this. And I recently just posted a question
• 10:37
  inside my Facebook group, which was asking what's the, one of the main challenges you have.
• 10:41
  And one of the responses from the L.O. was I just, I had a, I had a excellent realtor meeting.
• 10:47
  And I haven't heard anything since. Like, how do I convert? How do I, you know what I mean?
• 10:53
  Like, it's good. They've gone dark, so to speak. And so I had this person, this back and forth
• 10:58
  with this loan officer in the Facebook group asked her additional five questions. And I got some
• 11:02
  context. So I think first and foremost is there's, maybe this is just social and maybe it's the
• 11:09
  thread or the feed. Even to that example, we were talking about before we hit record of, it's so easy
• 11:16
  to now a day's vilify the real estate agent.
• 11:20
  100% I mean, it's always been, but now it's even easier because people have this social media
• 11:25
  thing or whatever they think that's going to be their saving grace and holding grill. Even with
• 11:28
  all the potential of social media, and there are definitely some applicable activities people
• 11:35
  should be doing around that. But I don't think it's like get rid of the foundation of your house
• 11:43
  just because you got these new bright shiny lights that go on and make the pool a cool at night
• 11:48
  when it's all lit up and, oh, let me just focus on that and let me forget like, you know, what's
• 11:52
  this house built on? Right. So you and I were talking about data before in like real world and
• 11:57
  results. And like, this is where I think I've, I guess I've agreed to be not as sexy as some other
• 12:04
  people because like I'm still talking about realtors as should be a a significant pillar of your
• 12:10
  business. Many have under, again, I'll use that word under optimize that. But why do I say that?
• 12:15
  It's not because I'm friggin in love with realtors. If there was a more repeatable scalable low-cost
• 12:23
  high converting source aside from realtors, I would be talking about that as the number one thing.
• 12:30
  But there's not currently. So show me something else. So it's like I might have gone completely
• 12:37
  out the reservation with this answer. But I believe in business like you got to focus on what works,
• 12:42
  what's going to bring the business in, pay the bills, build my foundation, get a guarantee me
• 12:46
  X amount of transactions and opportunities per month. I still believe that that's realtors first
• 12:51
  and foremost number one. I'll stop. I totally agree with you. And then here comes, you know, the ugly
• 12:57
  truth. I can't tell you the number. And I'm sure you know of meetings I've had with mortgage
• 13:04
  professionals see sweet anybody in the last three years where they've gone, just hate my, I hate
• 13:11
  realtors. I don't want to work with them anymore. And I'm like, did you just, okay, well,
• 13:17
  that's a fascinating take. If you're not planning to go consumer direct, how exactly do you plan
• 13:24
  to create more business in the future? And then they say, oh, I mean, I know I had to work with
• 13:28
  my realtors. I just hate it. And I'm like, you know what, here's the thing about a relationship,
• 13:34
  right, a marriage, a best friendship, a family relationship. You are just as responsible for
• 13:40
  pouring into that relationship as your agent is. And y'all have been through the shit in the
• 13:48
  last three years, four years, five years for real estate agents. Good Lord. I mean, it really
• 13:53
  started at the beginning of 2020 for them. I don't understand what you're expecting from that
• 14:00
  realtor relationship. And if you're not going to say, hey, I want to clear up expectations and
• 14:06
  build our business together. How did I not show up for you in the right ways? And how can I show
• 14:11
  up for you in the right ways? And are you open to hearing my feedback on some of the things we've
• 14:17
  seen and establishing sort of a new path forward? Yeah, I love that. I love that. You said two key
• 14:23
  things in there. Expectations. It's the same thing I said back to that loan officer. I asked her,
• 14:28
  what did you expect? Most people leave the scene of that meeting with zero expectations,
• 14:33
  right, set, articulated, right, mapped out. A lot of like she said, you know, I felt like it was
• 14:42
  a good good meeting. I'm like, well, what made you feel like it was a good meeting? What the hell
• 14:47
  was your criteria for a good meeting that it felt could that you had a good conversation? It was
• 14:51
  a great coffee. Like, well, what means, you know what I'm saying? 100 percent. What is the criteria?
• 14:57
  But I also feel like even the pitch, right? And I mean, I don't know what you're I started in 2012
• 15:02
  with this, right? So like understanding the pattern of how to work with realtor's, understanding
• 15:09
  what's important to realtor's when it comes to picking a lender, right? Changing sort of the norms
• 15:15
  we used to believe, like I have to give three lenders out to each of my people. And none of that was
• 15:20
  true. It was all just in how we presented as an industry to real estate agents. And when my
• 15:27
  loan officers used to go into these meetings, right, they used to love like a PowerPoint on that
• 15:31
  iPad and all the things. And they get into this meeting and they're talking to each other.
• 15:38
  And then it's like, hey, we like each other. Okay, cool. Bye. And my point was always like,
• 15:44
  my business, the last three minutes of that meeting are going to be the most important.
• 15:49
  And during those three minutes, you need to say, what is one deal that we can work on today?
• 15:55
  So I can show you the kind of value that I bring as a mortgage professional.
• 16:01
  How should we plan for the next 30 days to collaborate more? Would a meeting next week be the
• 16:07
  first smart move for us? And how can I bring value? I mean, I think the problem is it's the
• 16:16
  casualness of it all, right? You know, and I think back to, I'm just bringing up that conversation
• 16:23
  thread if I need to reference it. But I think back to some time I spent in corporate sales
• 16:28
  before getting into mortgage, like I was in the comm space and selling internet-related services.
• 16:34
  And that's actually how I got into mortgages when that whole thing imploded.
• 16:38
  So I got a call from a friend and said, hey, man, want to do subprime loans over the
• 16:42
  course. That sounds amazing. What the hell? Look at that wrong.
• 16:47
  Right. But think about like, you know, sales scripting and intentionality. And like you said,
• 16:52
  setting expectations in next steps and actually mapping too many people treat it too casual because
• 16:58
  I don't know what because it's so easy to get in front of this
• 17:03
  account, a realtor you're trying to sell versus in the Fortune 1000 world trying to sell
• 17:08
  that a Fortune 1000, it's not easy to get in front of them. It's not easy to get a response,
• 17:12
  right? They got a lot of people chomping at the bit for them. So you've got to be really structured
• 17:17
  and good with your process, both pre, during and post, like you just alluded to.
• 17:23
  Well, you know, you and I are both obviously marketing nerds. You know, in our world,
• 17:30
  we have ICPs, right? So we understand what our ideal customer profile is.
• 17:37
  For a mortgage originator, you should have, I don't know, a clear dozen of those written out,
• 17:44
  but at least three of them should be around your referral partners because if you don't have
• 17:50
  any data on this agent, if you go in this meeting blind, then you're doing exactly the
• 17:57
  opposite of what we tell you to do all the time with your customers, period, right? Look
• 18:01
  them up on social, get the data from Redder, from MMI, from somewhere, know what they're closing,
• 18:08
  know the things that you can do to change that trajectory and come prepared for that.
• 18:14
  You know, that's knowledge of your customer is so important. But if you're running after
• 18:22
  a realtor who closed three deals in 2024, right? And you're going to give them an hour of time
• 18:28
  and you're going to put all this work into it. Is that your ideal customer? I don't think it is.
• 18:33
  I think you should be very clear on your expectations, who they are, what you can bring to the table
• 18:40
  and really prepare yourself for the meeting. Instead of just being like, let's go grab coffee,
• 18:46
  here's your coffee. Tell me more about you. Yeah. Yeah. You also touched on there about
• 18:52
  approach, right? So I have this slide, which has a pyramid on it. And at the bottom of the pyramid
• 18:58
  is solicitor. And the next wrong is vendor. The next wrong is partner and peer. And the next
• 19:05
  very top of the pyramid is a mentor. And so if you're listening to this, ask yourself,
• 19:13
  what do you think the perception is of you from the real estate agents, your prospecting,
• 19:17
  as a solicitor and vendor or partner to peer? Now, you may think, oh, I'm a partner to peer
• 19:23
  because I have these great loan products and we can close in six minutes. And I can,
• 19:28
  here's what I know from working with realtors, or let me just ask you, ask the listener as well,
• 19:33
  when somebody leads with products at price, is that the definition of a partner?
• 19:38
  No. No. Right. That's a vendor. That's a solicitor. I'm here to sell you something.
• 19:44
  And I'm using my value proposition based on my products and price, which unfortunately, it's
• 19:49
  not very competitive at all. So then how are you going to get attention? How are you going to
• 19:54
  approach these realtors? It can't be just on products and price. No, I couldn't agree more.
• 20:00
  And I totally agree with everything you just said. Hey podcast family, are you tired of chasing down
• 20:05
  real estate agents for referrals, making cold calls and feeling like you're just not getting the
• 20:10
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• 20:15
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• 20:21
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• 20:27
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• 20:36
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• 20:47
  all over the country, sharing what's working in today's market. And to top it off, we'll even load
• 20:53
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• 20:59
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• 21:03
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• 21:09
  Head on over to mortgagemarketing.pro or check the link in the show notes and you can read real
• 21:14
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• 21:19
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• 21:25
  If we looked at realtor relationships, much the same way that we do, let's say on match.com,
• 21:35
  right? We're swiping and we're seeing, what is it about this person that you're learning,
• 21:42
  that you understand, and that's going to make you this great partner? But that's all well and good
• 21:48
  because you can swipe to the cows come home and you can have all the coffees that you want and
• 21:52
  do all the things. But how are you really showing up, right? If you walk in and you're like,
• 21:58
  so I take phone calls from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. So I have really clear boundaries
• 22:03
  and also you're mostly going to be working with my assistants and it's like, wait a second,
• 22:09
  what are you pitching me? If you go in and you're pitching, I want to help homeowners. I want to
• 22:15
  help people who want to buy homes and I want you to partner with me in that. What are your strengths?
• 22:21
  What are your weaknesses? How can I help? And if you have something that you don't have,
• 22:26
  like, sort of dialed in, how can we collaborate to dial it in? You know, those are good.
• 22:33
  Let's back to approach, which is what's the premise of the reason for the meeting?
• 22:38
  You know, like you said, it's like, hey, like the script that's so common is like, hey,
• 22:43
  like, you know, I looked you up, you know, you're obviously a producing agent. I'd love to get
• 22:47
  here's the line that gets me. I'd love to get together and learn more about your business.
• 22:52
  You know, it's just like, that's the pick your brain line. I mean, anybody who's a decent
• 22:57
  realtor, right, is like, dude, I don't have time to tell you about my business. Is there something
• 23:03
  you want to offer to help me? Okay, then I'll be open to listening to that. But the fact that,
• 23:08
  what am I going to do just sit here and spew out my whole freaking life history to you? And
• 23:12
  well, it's like, I'd love to learn about your business. What is that? All that is is like,
• 23:17
  I'd love to sell you on. 100%. It's so, so true. And that's, you know, look,
• 23:23
  if I sit down and a meeting with someone and they say, hey, Kelly, you know, I've really
• 23:30
  admired you as a real estate agent over the last few years. You know, when you got that listing
• 23:35
  over in, you know, North Charlotte, I saw that you sold that in three days. I mean, that's
• 23:42
  incredible. And you went over value. I was really impressed by that. You know, what was, you know,
• 23:46
  what was the key to selling that house? And do you have something that are sitting on the market
• 23:50
  longer? You know, what do you do when those, when there's more challenging listings come up?
• 23:54
  It shows that you cared enough about that person that you're in front of to have actually done
• 24:00
  some work. Yeah, I love that you mentioned Redder and MMI, because that can give you some really
• 24:07
  intelligent talking points and demonstrate you've done your research. So you've got the social
• 24:11
  media, you know, reconnaissance is what I call it. And that's what I used to do all the time,
• 24:15
  is I would, and this is before Facebook kids, was like, look up what I could on the realtor,
• 24:19
  right, to get some intel. But nowadays it's so easy to get intelligence on people. Like you said,
• 24:25
  the amazing data on transactions are around, you know, price of, what is it, listing to sell,
• 24:32
  ratio, actions, type of clients you tend to work with, etc. You can show up with so much data and be
• 24:39
  like, so Kelly, if you don't mind, I did do a little bit of research before our meeting here today,
• 24:43
  just as preparation. And so I've learned a lot about you. I hope you feel that's okay that I show
• 24:47
  up prepared. What are you going to say? No, please come and just, you know, buy me coffee and then
• 24:53
  just try to get life. Like everyone's busy, man, no one has time to unless, at that stage of the
• 24:59
  relationship, okay, it's, you can't just, let's get together and rub elbows unless some context
• 25:05
  around, there's a connection or, you know, you both went to frickin, you know, fair amount high
• 25:09
  or something, and I don't know, right? But generally, people want to make good use of their time.
• 25:13
  You know, one of the things that I, I tried to concentrate on in my business and I don't know
• 25:18
  who came up with this philosophy, I write, give them credit, is, is this activity adding value
• 25:25
  to the future of my business? And if we're solving for that in a realtor loan office or meeting,
• 25:32
  are you adding value to the future of their business? Is this hour of their time going to be
• 25:39
  well spent? Because if you waste it, that's why you don't get follow-up. Yeah, and you better
• 25:45
  be prepared. Yeah, and you know, let's, let's backtrack a little bit because we're talking, you know,
• 25:50
  we are obviously, this is something we're both really passionate about. But for the, for the people
• 25:55
  who are out there and you're looking for these new relationships, these new collaborations with
• 26:00
  real estate agents, I, I always tell people, start at social, start on LinkedIn, start on Facebook,
• 26:08
  follow them on Instagram. Don't jump, don't dive in their DMs, start liking, commenting, seeing
• 26:18
  things, building them up, become a cheerleader, become an advocate. And then once you've established
• 26:24
  some rapport with that person, then really set your intentions in that message to reach out and say,
• 26:31
  I am not going to waste your time, but I do want to build your business. And I think I have some
• 26:35
  extraordinary ideas. I would love to present those to you and hear really what your pain points are
• 26:40
  and how we can grow together. Yeah, 100%. Love that. And I think that also speaks to why you do
• 26:47
  need to have a presence on social media of some kind. For sure, you better have some content
• 26:52
  because that's how people are judging you today to do in a business context of is, you know,
• 26:59
  the old saying is like, if I can't look you up, how do I know you? Oh, yes, right. And so
• 27:05
  I was going to find when I look you up, you know, it's funny, quick, quick side note. I had a,
• 27:10
  well, I was doing a conversation with somebody, I can't remember what it was, but anyway, this person,
• 27:14
  we're doing an audit of this person's Instagram channel channel. Did I just say channel? I did.
• 27:21
  Instagram profile. And this is a mortgage professional. And I'm browsing his Instagram.
• 27:28
  And on the bio, there's nothing about him being a mortgage professional in his content. There's
• 27:34
  nothing about being anything related to housing finance, anything at all. It's all the, you know,
• 27:40
  local stuff, the coffee shop, whatever, some dad stuff and things like that. And I'm like,
• 27:47
  I don't even know what you do. And he goes, well, my coach told me that I shouldn't be featuring
• 27:54
  any content about mortgages because no one wants to see that unless they're quote unquote in
• 28:01
  the market, right? And I'm like, all right, well, I disagree. Like fire your coach immediately.
• 28:09
  Yeah, because if I only have one shot to decide, do I want to follow you or not?
• 28:15
  You know, I'm not going to follow you because you got your dad stuff and all that kind of jazz
• 28:20
  because I don't know you. And you're not that good, quite honestly, with the dad genre of content,
• 28:25
  my friend, right? Whatever that. I mean, that's one of the funniest parts about sort of doing
• 28:30
  what we do, right? That we've seen so much, you know, we've seen noncompliance. We've seen crazy
• 28:38
  stuff. I had a realtor who was tagged in a picture when Facebook first came out of her in college,
• 28:45
  smoking out of an ET-bong. I mean, there's a originator wanted to work with us on social. I
• 28:54
  looked at us and he married a stripper. His entire feed is him and the stripper. And I'm like,
• 29:01
  I'm for it. I mean, I don't care what anyone does for a living, but like I just want to make sure
• 29:07
  we're both seeing your profile in the same way. I think for a lot of female realtors, that probably
• 29:15
  isn't going to be like, they're like, go to follow because this is not, you know, this is not
• 29:20
  exactly content for everybody. But it's so funny how many strategies people or feedback people
• 29:28
  will go to a conference or they'll read a book and all of a sudden it's like, because as we all know,
• 29:33
  in case you haven't noticed, every mortgage originator is now a content creator because they
• 29:39
  love to put that in their title. But if you're creating content, it can't make it a mix. You
• 29:45
  know, it's got to be professional. It's got to be personal. It's got to be fun and interesting
• 29:49
  because at the end of the day, you are in sales.
• 29:55
  Doing this, right? And we actually compared that side by side to another mortgage professional
• 30:00
  who, you know, had the bio, what is she's top 1% female originators in her state or something
• 30:06
  like that. But it was very clear on like, this is the bio. This is the resume. And she had the
• 30:10
  personality too, which is, you know, Lake bomb dog mom. No, no, no, but yeah, no, okay,
• 30:22
  I'm talking about Katie grind actually. Yeah, shout out Katie. But anyways, it's like, if I'm
• 30:29
  possibly in the market any time in the next year, for a mortgage, right, or buying a house or
• 30:35
  moving to the, whatever, well, now I know what you do instead of, huh, you know, dad shit and
• 30:40
  old freaking, whatever, puppies and dogs and, you know, and, and, and yes, people connect them,
• 30:45
  don't get me wrong, Kayla, if you're listening. Well, I love the dogs, but she has the other
• 30:50
  piece too is the point. She happens to be a mortgage professional who, who actually loves dogs as
• 30:55
  well. So now it's just it's not, oh, just dog lover cool. I'll never think of her for real estate or
• 31:00
  mortgage, right? Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, I'm in the business, apparently, of marketing really
• 31:07
  successful blondes who love dogs in this industry. So I mean, it's weird for me to say, but yeah,
• 31:13
  people look, people, people want to have digital intimacy with you. I mean, that's the end of it,
• 31:20
  right? I want to be able to have a relationship with you without having to put in a ton of work
• 31:24
  and energy into understanding what it is you do and who you are. And if we can find a way to,
• 31:30
  to establish sort of those, those connections with the right people, that's huge. But anyone,
• 31:38
  any loan officer can go onto Instagram and follow all of the realtors in their area and start
• 31:45
  slowly, but surely just showing up a little bit more, right? It doesn't have to be this enormous push
• 31:53
  to like totally change the game. But I would argue that it's kind of antiquated to think about,
• 32:00
  well, here's my 10 referral partners. And this is where I get my business. And I just sent out a video
• 32:05
  on Mondays telling them how the market's doing. And then when they get people, they sent them to me.
• 32:10
  I think the the reciprocity is one of the most key elements for the loan officers and the
• 32:16
  realtors moving forward because realtors are definitely going to be able to bring in, you know,
• 32:22
  buyers. But loan officers who are paying attention to their own database have referrals to get
• 32:29
  out. And there should be some expectation of that reciprocity. Yeah. And again, the presence on
• 32:36
  social media, that can be another source of business for you. It won't necessarily be as instantaneous
• 32:42
  as a quality realtor can be. But at least it will be a, you know, you're planting seeds.
• 32:48
  What you're doing. So make it clear. Neither of us are saying no to social media. We're just saying
• 32:53
  put it in the right context. Oh, no, I'm first of all, I'm all about B2B sales. But it's hard to
• 33:00
  be B2B like LinkedIn is perfect for B2B sales. But you don't have the kind of realtor engagement
• 33:07
  on LinkedIn that you will find on Facebook and Instagram. That's more industry to industry.
• 33:13
  And realtors are not spending a ton of time on LinkedIn. So if you're going to be doing anything,
• 33:18
  you have to be on Facebook and you got to be on Instagram. And you can say all day long that you
• 33:22
  got to be on TikTok. But you do and you don't like if you're really going to take it seriously.
• 33:28
  Yes. Okay. Because that means your pump and video content that people are going to love or
• 33:34
  you are like really comfortable and with being vulnerable enough to show people your whole world.
• 33:41
  You know, because that's really the only way to, in my humble opinion with video, to be successful
• 33:47
  in a video only platform. Instagram gives us the ability to find our audience pretty fast.
• 33:55
  If you want to go only videos, you have stories, you have reels. But you know, I do feel like
• 34:00
  it is sort of the middle ground between Facebook and TikTok, right? Like it gives you kind of a good space.
• 34:06
  Well, yeah. And you can find consumers there as well, right? So your content can be a double-sword,
• 34:11
  double-edged sword, they're a thing. So you're right. Go where your audience is. And we're talking a lot
• 34:15
  largely about realtors here today. So that would be Instagram Facebook. In, you know, I'll take your
• 34:21
  LinkedIn thing. I agree with that. But as you know, with LinkedIn, you can do some certain
• 34:25
  targeted outreages and things like that. But LinkedIn from what I'm seeing is people or LOs are
• 34:30
  using that more for financial advisors and different things like that. I was just talking to somebody
• 34:35
  last week who she's a reverse specialist and if you know Christina Harms. And so she uses LinkedIn
• 34:42
  to promote her webinars to financial advisors, right? Crushing it, doing really, really well. And they
• 34:47
  respond well to that. So comes back to who's your target market, right? And then how are you going to reach
• 34:51
  out? You know, if we can put like some little things into the world, right? I think that some of the
• 34:56
  things that we learn today is don't, I'm not asking everybody to niche their marketing. I'm
• 35:02
  truly not. But have an idea of what you're looking for for 2025, right? I want real estate agents
• 35:09
  who are doing four deals a month. I want to be in front of consumers who have an intent to buy in
• 35:14
  the next 12 months. I want to focus on first-time home buyers and this is how I'm going to do it.
• 35:19
  And really figure out who you want to market to and how you want to market to them. And I think
• 35:27
  if people spent a week on that, they would profoundly change their business. Yeah, it's an exercise
• 35:35
  I'm going through as well here at the end of the year, right? Evaluating my content strategy,
• 35:40
  who specifically am I trying to reach? Who's my avatar? Where are they? Like for me, I have not
• 35:46
  really focused on LinkedIn. It's been a place to just throw stuff and that's been my mistake.
• 35:51
  I've been too heavy. I think now re-evaluating my strategy on Instagram and Facebook because it was
• 35:56
  easy. That's where I'm hanging out. But now I'm actually re-evaluating it. Like I said, and I was
• 36:02
  actually intrigued by YouTube for a variety of different reasons. But actually just as of earlier
• 36:08
  today, when it comes to the podcast, I've decided to pull back and not necessarily make a huge
• 36:13
  investment into YouTube for a variety of reasons, which is too lengthy to get in here now in terms of
• 36:18
  like content and discoverability and all that kind of jazz. So for me, moving forward,
• 36:23
  you're going to see me a lot on LinkedIn. I will say this truly. One is that we are so desperate
• 36:31
  for thought leadership that isn't some horrendous chat DPT post. I don't know. In the ever evolving
• 36:42
  landscape of mortgage, it's an unleashing a robust strategy. I can't even, and I'm like,
• 36:51
  do you guys not see what you're doing? I don't even grasp it. It gets on my nerves so badly
• 36:58
  every day because I'm like, I'd rather you not put something up than put something up that you
• 37:03
  literally shoved into chat DPT, never personalized, and just didn't care about because it doesn't
• 37:08
  make you a thought leader. It makes you a tech follower. So if we're thinking about thought leadership,
• 37:15
  and I don't care that you want to rewrite or even write in chat DPT, not yourself out or all the
• 37:21
  long, but at least come back and say this, rewrite it to a certain extent, make it personal,
• 37:27
  make it come from your experience, throw some stuff in there. But as a thought leader,
• 37:32
  I would love to challenge the industry, but I know that that's silly because they don't like
• 37:38
  to be challenged. But I would love more people to start being authentic. Authentic not only in what
• 37:48
  they post, but in the opinions that they have, because we clearly all have ideas about the future,
• 37:57
  but it can't just be, we hire the best loan officers with the best talent because we have the
• 38:01
  best culture and the best leadership, and we're going to coach you into being, okay, be realistic with
• 38:06
  me about what the next six months of the world look like. You know, I think that's, I agree with
• 38:13
  all of that, and people should have a strategy. It's funny. I was watching an interview last night
• 38:20
  on YouTube with Tom Billu from Impact Theory. He has some amazing guests on there. It was a super
• 38:26
  deep dive conversation on AI, and one of the comments of the guest was of most of the business leaders
• 38:35
  can't tell you what the world is going to look like in the next five years. Maybe one year.
• 38:41
  That's how far out the forecast is going. I have prided myself since I entered, not before I
• 38:50
  entered this industry. I had one of the first four social media companies in the country. I feel
• 38:56
  like I understand from a marketing aspect, like where things go, and I kind of pride myself on
• 39:01
  this little crystal ball. I was, I was an annoying, outlying, disruptor my whole life in mortgage,
• 39:10
  but I was always like, yeah, but remember how a couple of years ago I told you, and I have zero
• 39:17
  idea of what's going to happen next. I couldn't be more incorrect right now. I thought we probably had
• 39:24
  like a three to five year window where technology would meet origination, and we would like be super
• 39:30
  collaborative in there. And then like five years from now, it likely wouldn't be something everybody
• 39:35
  was doing anymore. Now, because rates remain so high in 2024, I don't know where origination meets
• 39:44
  technology. I don't know where the race begins and ends, and I don't know if there are companies
• 39:50
  who are going to be smart enough to say we have to do this a different way, and we can't wait
• 39:57
  to catch up. Yeah. I think the one, and I know this sounds cliche, and it's one of those
• 40:04
  friggin soundbites, but I do still believe it. You know, that this business will still come down to
• 40:11
  connection and interaction with the human at some point, simply because of the size of the transaction,
• 40:16
  and all the issues that are involved with it. So, you know, take that to heart and know that that's
• 40:22
  going to be, I think, the last mile, as they say, like all the technology and everything can get you
• 40:27
  to a conversation like this here today, let's say it was just, you know, content, social ads, whatever,
• 40:34
  friggin trigger, all the stuff that can get you a conversation. At the end of the day, what really
• 40:39
  matters is the conversation that you have about person. I agree. I'm fascinated by this, you know,
• 40:46
  it's hard because I'm on, I technically am more on the technology side than I am on the
• 40:51
  origination side. There's no other way to really look at that for me, right? I've always looked
• 40:56
  at technology as being this foundational support for what we do in sales, but now I'm curious,
• 41:05
  because I look at it and I think if you tell someone, if you told someone that their mortgage
• 41:10
  costs them $15,000, they would be like, no, no, I just go to the bank and then I beg them for
• 41:18
  the money and then they pat me on the head and they give me the check and I'm like, thanks, bank,
• 41:22
  and I'm like, okay, so if people really understood how much it costs them and then you stick a step
• 41:29
  back and you say, hey, Jeff, you know, for $5,000, we can not only do it for you, we will have a 100%
• 41:35
  guarantee that you will have a fantastic transaction. You will have all of your questions answered and
• 41:39
  you will keep more money in your pocket. Well, now we're really getting somewhere, but we have,
• 41:46
  you know, the whole real estate too, real estate mortgage, it's all like, don't look behind the
• 41:51
  curtain, you know, just look at the odds, it's fine, but there also are realities, which is, you know,
• 41:58
  people are going to start figuring out how to manufacture loans for less and the people who are
• 42:02
  really smart are going to go, hey, we've got a database of a couple million people and we've got
• 42:07
  these great relationships. And so let's streamline this and make this really effective and be able to
• 42:13
  really give an amazing experience without having to create this enormous profit margin.
• 42:23
  Yeah, I know, right? You would think technology, but did I recently read that the cost of
• 42:28
  producing a loan has not come down? It's actually $11,000. Like correct in that.
• 42:33
  So, yes, but do companies really do mortgage companies solve for the main problem? Because I see
• 42:45
  people just talk about recruiting non-stop, right? Gotta get those big elbows in, gotta get those
• 42:51
  big elbows in, we're still recruiting, we're still hiring. Are you fixing?
• 42:55
  Well, that's just trying to throw numbers at the problem, right? A production and revenue.
• 43:02
  But I do think, yeah, technology will always bring efficiencies to the market. Just a matter of
• 43:09
  what does that look like? How long will it take? And really, who do you have to do it and how do
• 43:14
  you trust it and how do you have systems speak on your behalf? I mean, these are all enormous hurdles
• 43:19
  that do have to be solved, but it is, you know, I gave a presentation last week at MBA,
• 43:26
  not at MBA, but I was in a homebot. And I was trying to explain the one to many concepts,
• 43:32
  right? And it's not that people don't understand it. It's that you are going to have a lot more
• 43:38
  success in life if your audience is much larger, but the connection feels shorter.
• 43:45
  And so if you're always thinking about how is every single human being eventually going to do
• 43:52
  business with me and not this is, I'm going to go this way with this realtor and I'm going to go
• 43:57
  this way with this referral that I was sent, if you look at every person as having the capability
• 44:03
  of doing business with you in the future, how are you moving the needle on those relationships to
• 44:08
  create value in the future? Yeah, well said. Yeah, you know, there's a few big buckets right
• 44:18
  to close out. I know we got to go, but like the big buckets, we kind of danced around in this
• 44:23
  conversation, which is passed my database, optimized for that, quality referral partners,
• 44:29
  optimized for that, and then you got your consumer direct kind of holy grail thing. And I don't
• 44:33
  mean running ads at that point. Ads is like the last thing on the list, but consumer direct with
• 44:38
  your own kind of outreach and content. Yeah. And so, you know, working you optimize. Yeah, I think,
• 44:43
  I think, you know, anyone who is interested in these kind of things followed Jeff, you know,
• 44:49
  listen to the kinds of things that he is saying because you can trust that he's never going to pull
• 44:54
  the wool over your eyes. He's not interested in it, right? He's going to say the truth. He's going
• 44:58
  to say what you need to do and how you need to do it. And if I can challenge the listeners today
• 45:06
  to do something really special for yourself, spend some time figuring out who you really want to
• 45:13
  market to in 2025 and then put your little marketing hat on and decide how you want to show up.
• 45:20
  I think that'll change the game for a lot of people. We probably are still going to be in the weeds
• 45:25
  a bit in this industry for the next six months. Take that time to really develop into the person
• 45:32
  and the professional that you want to be. Yeah. Love that. We appreciate you joining me today.
• 45:39
  I just so adore your take on everything. And so I really appreciate you joining us today.
• 45:45
  My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Okay, that's it for today's episode. Before we wrap up,
• 45:50
  I just wanted to remind you about my agent classes. You're proven system to double your agent
• 45:55
  referrals in just 90 days. Imagine never having to co-call again instead building real lasting
• 46:01
  relationships with top-producing agents who want to send you business with done for your
• 46:05
  presentations, marketing automation, weekly coaching. It's all designed to make growing your
• 46:11
  business easier and fun. So if you're ready to take control of your agent referrals and grow your
• 46:16
  income, visit mortgagemarketing.pro or check the link in the show notes. And while you're there,
• 46:20
  don't forget to check out the success stories from other mortgage pros who've already seen
• 46:24
  the incredible results. Thanks for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.