Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / How to Grow Production by 30% Teaching Agent Classes

Transcript

How to Grow Production by 30% Teaching Agent Classes · Mortgage Marketing Radio

• 0:00
  Hey, what's up, my friend Jeff Zimfer. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the mortgage
• 0:14
  marketing radio podcast. So glad you are here. Okay, so this episode I'm interviewing Nate
• 0:20
  Joma out of Florida. And I asked Nate to be on because he and I actually talked a few
• 0:26
  weeks back. He inquired about the platform I have for loan officers called my agent classes where
• 0:32
  we equip you the loan officer with a turnkey plug and play platform to be able to go into your
• 0:37
  local market in personal virtual and teach classes to real estate agents. So you can build your
• 0:42
  personal brand attract agents that scale and drive conversations and referrals. If that sounds
• 0:48
  like a commercial for my agent classes, it is what is kind of unique though is Nate is already
• 0:54
  crushing classes on his own. He's not a member in my agent classes. He's already figured a lot
• 0:59
  of this out on his own through his own blood sweat and tears. And I thought it would be, you know,
• 1:03
  makes sense to have Nate come talk about how he's leveraged agent classes to I think was last year
• 1:09
  he said it was responsible for over 20 loans in 2024 for his business. So break that in half,
• 1:16
  let's say all you did was add 12 loans to your business this year, right? Another loan a month.
• 1:21
  So what is that worth to you dollar wise, right? That's probably worth upwards of at least 36,000
• 1:26
  bucks or more. And so my question to you is you've heard about classes you've thought about a maybe
• 1:32
  have tried them in the past. And I thought it would make sense to hear there's no affiliation between
• 1:36
  me and Nate. I don't get anything for this. He doesn't get anything for this. It's just a useful
• 1:40
  conversation to bring to you the listener all about how to leverage agent classes to grow your
• 1:45
  production without chasing begging coal calling all that fun stuff. So I hope you find today's
• 1:50
  clinic on how to get agent classes going in your business useful for you. And if you feel that
• 1:56
  you'd like to learn more about leveraging agent classes, don't want to go through the hard work
• 2:00
  of creating classes and content and doing the marketing of promotions and registration and follow
• 2:06
  up and all that. If you want to learn more about what we do, well, click the link in the show notes
• 2:10
  for my agent classes to go learn more. And I will see you on the other side. But so without further
• 2:17
  ado, hope you enjoyed this conversation with Nate, check the link in the show notes to follow him
• 2:21
  and contact him. And let's get into this week's show. Nate, welcome to the show. Thank you.
• 2:27
  Pleasure to be here. It is a pleasure to have you here. Most listeners probably aren't familiar
• 2:33
  with who Nate is, but why don't you tell us real quick how long of the biz kind of average
• 2:37
  production and anything else you want to share about yourself? Sure. Yeah. So I started in the
• 2:42
  mortgage industry way back in 2002. And it was a great time back then. Things were a little
• 2:49
  bit different than they are today, obviously. I ran a small call center for a mortgage company from
• 2:55
  O2 to about O4. And then I decided in O4 that I really wanted to dive into origination. So
• 3:03
  I opened up a net branch for what was a mortgage brokerage business back then that was doing
• 3:09
  like a flat rate model. Similar to a lot of the flat rate models that are out there today,
• 3:13
  I think they were probably one of the pioneers of that. And it was a lot of fun. I learned quite a
• 3:17
  bit. Got to run my own business inside of their business. And then like most people in 0809
• 3:23
  found it incredibly difficult to continue originating. And I actually took a break from 08
• 3:29
  till about 2019. The tail end of 2019 when I got my license again. So I've really only
• 3:34
  been full-time originating again now about five years. And in the time that I was off, the entire
• 3:40
  industry had a huge overhaul as you know. So I had to kind of start from scratch. And I didn't have
• 3:46
  the foresight to maintain any relationships with buyers, with agents. So I really was starting
• 3:52
  again from 0 back in 2019. Okay. So we could say then you've been originating since 2019.
• 3:59
  Is that accurate? That would be accurate to say. Yeah. With a little bit of experience prior
• 4:03
  that gave me a little bit of a boost possibly. Sure. Sure. Interesting. All right. And what do you
• 4:09
  want to share about your average units or anything like that? Just again, per context.
• 4:13
  Yeah. So the last couple of years, obviously we've had a little bit less action in the market.
• 4:19
  And I took that opportunity also to start to do a little bit of mentoring and coaching.
• 4:24
  Nonetheless, I'm still averaging six to eight units a month and somewhere between a million and
• 4:29
  a half, two million dollars a month in volume. And you're in South Florida, right? Central Florida.
• 4:35
  There's a we get really prideful about North Florida, Central Florida, South Florida.
• 4:40
  No love loss for any of those other places. I mean, they're great places, honestly, but
• 4:44
  Central Florida is where it's at. St. Augustine. St. Augustine is in North Florida.
• 4:49
  What the hell? It says St. Augustine on your redder profile.
• 4:53
  That's where coast to coast is based. They're in St. Augustine, which is North Florida.
• 4:57
  All right. All right. Got it. Either way, lovely, lovely state. What is your primary source of business?
• 5:05
  The majority of my business is definitely going to be real estate agent referrals. I do have
• 5:10
  quite a bit of connection with my client database, which I work pretty well, but when I look back
• 5:17
  at how many transactions I've been able to get over the years, it's been from having quality
• 5:22
  relationships with agents and really just doing a great job of nurturing that.
• 5:26
  Okay. Thank you for that. Let's get into the meat. You're here because, and this is going to sound
• 5:32
  for everybody listening. You know, I don't want this to come across self-serving, but let me give
• 5:36
  you the context of how Nate and I got connected. Some of you listening to the podcast or watching this
• 5:40
  or whatever by now, probably know I have this platform called my agent classes, and it helps
• 5:44
  a lot of officers attract agents at scale to build referrals by teaching classes. Nate, and you know,
• 5:52
  arranged a call with me. We talked about my platform, and what I realized about Nate was he was
• 5:57
  already pretty advanced and already does a fair amount of classes. So I want to use this Nate,
• 6:03
  as a, you mentioned you do some coaching. Let's coach the loan officers on, let's take Realtors
• 6:10
  first as a referral partner, and of all the ways you could or you can get engagement with Realtors,
• 6:17
  are you leading with agent classes as the, and by the way, Nate's not a member in my platform,
• 6:21
  just you know, but are you leading with classes? Yeah, for sure. Okay. All of us have to find
• 6:28
  something that makes us stand apart and differentiate us, and what that is for me is doing these
• 6:33
  agent classes. So the way that I have that designed is I've got a lot of things that are interesting
• 6:39
  for agents to learn about that have nothing necessarily to do with mortgage lending. So I think
• 6:46
  that's the starting point for most to have a level of interest because most loan officers want to
• 6:50
  kick it off with, let me tell you all about mortgages or all about products or all about this or
• 6:54
  that, and I'm doing things that aren't necessarily mortgage related but help them in their real estate
• 6:59
  business and position myself as an educator more so than somebody that's knocking on their door
• 7:07
  and asking for business. Well, where did you get that idea? Why did that come about or how?
• 7:13
  I want to say that I came up with it, but clearly, you know, I didn't invent the idea. No,
• 7:18
  it's, it's a culmination of just talking with several other top producers throughout the industry,
• 7:24
  you know, from all different places, different corners of the country and just realizing that
• 7:29
  that's one of the ways that you can make yourself stand out for sure is just by helping agents
• 7:34
  with education on multiple things. So I do classes on being able to generate leads on social media,
• 7:42
  using AI to formulate some tasks and procedures and maybe doing some social scripting with that.
• 7:50
  I do stuff on Canva. I mean, there's, there's tons of different classes that we do and all of it
• 7:55
  is geared toward helping real estate agents become more effective in the things that they're doing
• 8:01
  without hitting them with all of the mortgage jargon that every loan officer loves to start every
• 8:06
  conversation with. Why, why this though? Why teach classes versus cold call, broker preview open
• 8:12
  houses, you know, all the other things and you may still do those to some or have, but why does this
• 8:17
  the lead for you? For me, it's because I'm a little bit eccentric when it comes to having things
• 8:24
  done a certain way and I have spent a ton of time just going through and looking at ways that I
• 8:31
  can improve my business through different training modules and stuff and I realized that
• 8:36
  in doing that that there's a lack of training for agents out there until I became familiar with
• 8:43
  your product. I didn't even realize that there was more of a mainstream thing. I thought that I
• 8:47
  was just kind of collecting and we've shared this like I create all my own database, you know,
• 8:53
  from all these things. I do all of my own PowerPoint presentations and I actually make them in Canva,
• 8:58
  but like I'm doing it from A to Z all by myself. I thought that I was just kind of a loan wolf
• 9:04
  doing something different in my market. So it's good to know that there's actually an entire
• 9:09
  world out there that, you know, you kind of run that does this for real estate and for loan officers,
• 9:14
  but I just found that this was something I was really passionate about. Something that I
• 9:19
  grasped onto that made me a little bit different than other loan officers, primarily in my market,
• 9:25
  but most markets throughout the country. What's been your biggest challenge in doing these classes?
• 9:34
  That's a good question. There's a couple of different things I would say that are challenging.
• 9:37
  The first is being able to leverage the loan officers to help bring the audience in,
• 9:44
  because I'm doing it for my agents as well, but I have found that this is a great opportunity,
• 9:49
  especially for the loan officers that I either work with or do coaching with that. They can
• 9:55
  use this as an opportunity to also bring their agents into the class and teach them a little
• 10:00
  something and it gives them twofold opportunities to call and follow up with them. So if they're
• 10:06
  getting in early enough and they're scheduling the class maybe early enough with the agents,
• 10:11
  it gives them something to call and talk with them about. One of the things loan officers are
• 10:14
  constantly saying is, if I'm calling agents, what do I talk about? Well, this is that lead in to
• 10:20
  having that conversation. Hey, I want to invite you to this class. It's being run by coast to coast
• 10:25
  mortgage or it's being run by Shorepoint Mortgage or whichever company and it's going to be taught by
• 10:31
  this guy. You probably don't know this guy. That's okay. I'm inviting you. I know him and I'd
• 10:36
  really love for you to come. It's a free class. I can send you all the information if you're
• 10:40
  interested in coming by. So you can have that conversation with agents every week leading up to
• 10:46
  the class. So it gives you a purpose to have a phone call with an agent. You can use this for agents
• 10:51
  that you may or may not already have relationships with. Right. So you might have an agent that was a
• 10:56
  listing agent or somebody in your market that you want to have a relationship with. You can use
• 11:01
  this as an opportunity to call them without going through that standard scripting that most loan
• 11:06
  officers go through about coffee appointments and things like that. This is different. It's what sets
• 11:10
  you apart. Yeah, I was going to ask you if by you using classes as the main, I call it the tip of
• 11:18
  the spear, right, to go into the local market. Did you at some point shift to classes once you
• 11:25
  started to realize they were working for you? Did you stop doing certain things like
• 11:30
  co-calling or open houses or anything? Yeah, I would say I cut back on those things quite a bit
• 11:35
  because the primary focus for me was working on getting them into these classes and then leveraging
• 11:41
  these classes to build rapport and relationships with them. So I still do a little bit of I wouldn't
• 11:47
  ever say cold calling because the people that I am calling through a completely different system
• 11:52
  that we're probably not going to have time to talk about today. I always have at least a warm
• 11:56
  introduction to anybody before I call them out of the blue. I do fewer and fewer of those
• 12:02
  and fewer and fewer open houses and broker opens and things because I have these other things
• 12:08
  that I'm doing. I do a tremendous amount of social selling as well versus the face-to-face knocking
• 12:13
  on doors. So my business has run a little bit differently and it's mostly done through the digital
• 12:20
  lab. Okay. Let's do this. If you don't mind. Let's run a brief clinic and let's break down how
• 12:25
  you get butts in seats. So let's take one of your classes. Let's take AI for example. Sure.
• 12:30
  You're going to teach AI. Are you usually teaching in person? So I will, in some instances,
• 12:36
  teach it live in a real estate office if that's what they want. If you have a specific broker or
• 12:42
  a specific company that wants to have butts in seats there and bring me in, I can do that.
• 12:48
  Most of the time I'm doing it virtually. I'm doing it through something similar to this, Jeff,
• 12:52
  where I get them on. It's a webinar type form and I go through the slides and I've got somebody
• 12:58
  that's helping me administratively if you will through the comments asking questions or answering
• 13:04
  questions and flagging questions so that I can make sure I'm getting all those addressed.
• 13:11
  Okay. So how are you getting agents to show up? I'm going to set aside the in person versus
• 13:16
  virtual for a moment. Yeah. How are you getting those people to show up?
• 13:20
  So I'm doing it with my database. I'm sending it out to them, letting them know about it,
• 13:24
  giving them a webinar sign up link. But then I'm going to agents, I'm sorry, I'm going to
• 13:29
  loan officers, you know, both in our company and outside of our company that I've connected with
• 13:34
  and I'm telling them to invite their agents in. And throughout the presentation at multiple points,
• 13:40
  I'm really building up that loan officer. I'm telling these agents, you know,
• 13:45
  congratulations on working with a loan officer that's invested in your business to the point
• 13:51
  where they wanted to invite you to learn about this today. And throughout the presentation,
• 13:55
  I'm sprinkling in all of these things that make the loan officer look like the hero
• 14:00
  for thinking of their agent bringing them in. So the loan officers know this just because I've
• 14:04
  done it enough times that they know that there's an advantage to them getting their agents into
• 14:10
  the classes. Yeah. So you have your own database, you're promoting to, but then you have the other
• 14:14
  L.Os as well. And so just for everybody listening, just I'm sure you can recognize that what Nate's
• 14:20
  doing is kind of a two pronged approach. You're doing it not just for yourself, but these loan
• 14:26
  officers do they report to you? Are they under you from a regional or branch standpoint?
• 14:32
  No, I don't have any direct reports that are loan officers. So it's going to be other
• 14:36
  loan officers that are in our company. And then other loan officers that really have no
• 14:40
  affiliation with our company at all that I've just connected with and that they see value in this
• 14:45
  as well. And at the end of the presentation, I have the, you know, who came to the class,
• 14:52
  who stayed, how long they stayed. So I snip it that and I send it out to the L.O. that brought
• 14:56
  them in so that now they can have post conversations with those real estate agents as well. So the entire
• 15:03
  genesis of this thing is to educate them, but it gives you reason to call on the front end and reason
• 15:09
  to call on the back end. So you're just constantly having reasons to call and follow up with agents
• 15:14
  and you're pouring into them. You're educating them. You're giving them value.
• 15:19
  Why is this a recruiting angle for all L.Os that are outside of the company?
• 15:25
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 15:28
  And you know, for those that does not realize it, you know, the other angle on that too,
• 15:31
  I wrote quick, Nate, you might know this already, is like when I'm working with L.Os in the field
• 15:37
  and they are trying to get an audience, you know, one of the angles that I that I coach them on
• 15:41
  with the local real estate brokerage is, is that's a recruiting opportunity for the real estate broker.
• 15:45
  Exactly. Particularly if you're going to be doing it in in in house in local on site.
• 15:50
  Yeah, you know, because so I've done that as well, Jeff, where I've had agents that have invited
• 15:54
  people that they are interested in bringing in that aren't affiliated with that company that
• 15:59
  come to the trainings. I did one on Canva and the real estate team was like, hey, could we do it at,
• 16:05
  you know, the back room of this barbecue place? And I said, yeah, I don't care where we are,
• 16:09
  you know, that's fine with me. If you're going to invite everybody in and buy them barbecue and
• 16:13
  all I need to do is train, like sign me up, who doesn't want barbecue and, you know, free training.
• 16:18
  Right. Yeah. That's a good combo, by the way. Yeah. Okay. So that's partly how you get put
• 16:24
  in seats. You said social selling as well. I want to just briefly explain what you mean by that.
• 16:29
  Yeah. So in my personal business, social selling is one of the tools that I employ to build
• 16:35
  relationships. And I do everything very strategically. You probably have started to learn just from
• 16:42
  our conversations that we've had that I don't just do anything sort of willy nilly. There's always
• 16:46
  a plan. There's always a purpose in place. So when I am social selling, I am very scripted in
• 16:53
  what I'm trying to do. So I have certain agents that I want to find things that they've posted
• 17:00
  recently and engage with them. I have certain companies that I want to try to get in front of. So
• 17:07
  I'll go through their roster and try to find all of the agents that they have on Facebook or
• 17:12
  Instagram. And I'll follow them. And then I'll get very deliberate about engaging with their
• 17:17
  content. And I want to be careful to say I'm not forcing myself on them. I'm not asking for anything.
• 17:24
  I'm literally just being social. So the entire idea of social media is to be social. And if you're
• 17:30
  posting something online and you have people that are liking it and commenting on it and you aren't
• 17:37
  engaging with them. That's the same as you and I being in a room and somebody coming up to you
• 17:42
  and talking to you and then you just looking at them and walking away. It's essentially the same thing.
• 17:48
  So I'm a firm believer that you should not just post and kind of go about your day, post and stick
• 17:54
  around for a little bit and engage with whoever's engaging with you 10 or 15 minutes and then do it
• 18:00
  again maybe midday and then maybe do it again at the end of the day. But just get out there and engage
• 18:04
  with people. So when I get up in the morning, I have a plan in place for who I'm going to try to
• 18:11
  reach out to. In addition to that, I'm also going through the stories on Facebook or on Instagram.
• 18:19
  And I'm trying to engage with them in that regard as well. Because when you're commenting on somebody's
• 18:25
  story, it actually isn't a public post that goes into their DMs. So I'm opening up a DM conversation
• 18:34
  with somebody where we can go back and forth. It doesn't always go that way. But based on something
• 18:40
  that they posted. So I'm showing an interest in what they posted and that drives right into the DM
• 18:45
  where we can start the conversations. Yeah. And do you have a list of favorites in Instagram
• 18:50
  per se? Is that how you track some of it? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, because I know that's like a
• 18:56
  management thing and keeping up with the people. But you obviously are very intentional. You're
• 19:00
  carving out social selling time, right? Yes, several several times throughout the day. Okay.
• 19:05
  I have to have time during the day to originate too. So it's not just hanging out on a Facebook
• 19:08
  and Instagram all day. But I do it at certain pockets throughout the day. And when I'm on,
• 19:12
  I try to stay focused on why I'm on. I don't try to go out and just start digging through everything.
• 19:18
  That's part of the problem. The rabbit hole. The stuff shows up, you know? Uh-huh.
• 19:22
  Hey podcast family, are you tired of chasing down real estate agents for referrals, making
• 19:26
  cold calls and feeling like you're just not getting the result you deserve? What if in just 90 days,
• 19:32
  you could double your agent referrals. And finally, lock in that consistent monthly income you've
• 19:37
  been striving for. My agent classes is the ultimate program designed to help you effortlessly
• 19:42
  attract, engage and convert real estate agents into top referral partners. We've done the hard work
• 19:48
  for you. You'll get a full library of turnkey done for you presentations, a marketing automation
• 19:53
  platform to streamline the entire process, plug and play marketing, email, flyers, social media
• 19:58
  posts, text messages, weekly coaching and accountability calls, plus access to a private community
• 20:04
  of high performing mortgage pros from all over the country, sharing what's working in today's market.
• 20:10
  And to top it off, we'll even load you up with 200 producing agents in your local market to help
• 20:15
  you get started fast. So stop chasing agents and start building meaningful relationships that
• 20:20
  lead to real consistent business without the stress of cold calling or feeling undervalued.
• 20:26
  And don't just take my word for it. Head on over to mortgagemarketing.pro or check the link in
• 20:31
  the show notes and you can read real success stories for mortgage pros just like you. So if you're
• 20:37
  finally ready to grow your agent referrals without chasing and have fun doing it, check out mortgage
• 20:42
  marketing.pro today. Okay, so how would you out of your production for last year, 2024?
• 20:49
  Are you able to assign a percentage roughly to sourced from agents that were at your classes?
• 20:55
  Yeah, definitely. I have a very good tracking system for who came to my class is how many times
• 21:00
  they've come if they've invited other people. And then I use that as well to see if I have
• 21:06
  these 10 or 15 agents that have come to a couple of classes, are we getting residents from them?
• 21:11
  So I do have tracking on that for sure. And any idea in terms of what that marketing activity
• 21:17
  represents for your overall production? You know what I mean? Can you say like, oh, 40% of my
• 21:22
  business came from classes or whatever? Yeah, it's going to be a little bit lower than that.
• 21:26
  When I look back at what 2024 looked like, it was about one third of our business. So 32,
• 21:31
  33% of my business came from doing these classes. And then the rest of it really was just from
• 21:38
  the engagements throughout the course of the month or throughout the course of the year.
• 21:42
  All right. Now that down a little deeper. So does that mean that's what? 10 loans, 20 loans,
• 21:49
  you think? That 30%. Yeah, I don't have the number right in front of me. But if I was to put the 33%
• 21:56
  against what I did last year, I would say, yeah, that's probably going to represent somewhere
• 22:00
  between 20 to 30 transactions that funded last year from doing the classes. And I'm not trying to
• 22:05
  put you on the spot. I know you know that. But I'm getting very specific for the listener right now.
• 22:09
  Because if you just said it was, what was what, 20 loans, 30 loans?
• 22:13
  Oh, 20. I'll be very conservative and say 20 loans.
• 22:16
  Let's just be super conservative, 20 loans. Let's even be more conservative and say,
• 22:20
  you added one loan a month, right? I know that's, what is that? That's 12. Okay.
• 22:25
  So let's cut even in half. Like if you're not doing classes right now and you've
• 22:30
  thought about it for some time or you've tried it here and there over the years.
• 22:33
  And if all it did for you was net you an extra 12 loans, like do the math, right? I mean,
• 22:39
  what's the average? I know when I ballpark average commissions on loans, I use three grand as an
• 22:44
  average commission. I know that's low for some people. For sure. I mean, but what the hell? That's
• 22:49
  a hell of a raise. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. If you can't put another $36,000 in your pocket from
• 22:55
  doing these classes, then maybe maybe you're not in the right business. Well, so listen, classes
• 23:02
  aren't new, right? It's nothing new. It's not sexy. You know, people might poo poo on realtors,
• 23:09
  which we can we can jive on that for a few minutes. But why what's your take on? Because I have
• 23:16
  this thing, oh, classes aren't right for everybody. But the other day, I said, I'm in a conversation
• 23:20
  with somebody and I said, hmm, you know what? If you're in sales, shouldn't you be expected to be
• 23:26
  able to present to a group of people? Isn't that like 101 for sales?
• 23:32
  Yeah. No matter what you're selling, if you can't present that thing to a group of people,
• 23:36
  I don't know how successful you're going to be in your sales career. So again, we're not necessarily
• 23:42
  in our doing, we're not necessarily coaching on mortgage-related things. So maybe you are not
• 23:47
  comfortable with AI or chat GPT or, you know, all the other things, you can still get in front
• 23:54
  of a class of agents and teach them about the things that you are comfortable with, right?
• 23:59
  Right. I'm not going to tell anybody to start teaching people on things that they don't either
• 24:03
  use or believe in themselves that they're not comfortable talking about. But all of us sell loans.
• 24:08
  You should be able to talk intelligently about the bare minimum, do a mortgage 101 class for a
• 24:14
  new real estate team, right? New agents don't know a lot about mortgages and they need somebody that
• 24:18
  they can trust to help them understand it because the internet isn't doing them any favors.
• 24:23
  Well, how about get started with cost of waiting? Leverage the tools that you guys have.
• 24:28
  How about seller concessions? How about, go ahead, do a DSCR loan, you know? I mean, yes, I think
• 24:35
  there are some of those baseline topics for mortgage that you can get started with. But I love what
• 24:40
  you said is, you know, teach something that you're comfortable with. Like, hopefully there's other
• 24:44
  things outside of mortgage that are business-related that also real estate agents would benefit from
• 24:49
  social media. Let's let me ask you this question. How do you or have you faced imposter syndrome
• 24:57
  on teaching any of these topics like AR or whatnot and how do you get over it?
• 25:02
  Yeah, I mean, I definitely have. I think it's natural for some of us to feel like imposter
• 25:06
  sometimes because it's not what we do day to day. And the only way that I've been able to really
• 25:12
  get over it is to say that I may not be an expert in these areas, but I am advanced in these
• 25:19
  areas. And I'm more advanced in these areas than 99 percent of the people that are in the class
• 25:24
  with me. So even though I'm not an expert in these areas, I'm still able to give them value
• 25:30
  by teaching them something that they didn't already know. And if somebody can walk away with one
• 25:35
  or two things in that class that they are going to be able to put into action that's going to help
• 25:40
  them in their sales, then I feel like I'm not an imposter. I'm actually doing them the service that I
• 25:45
  set out to do. Yeah, we like to say, you know, you're two steps ahead of the person in the room.
• 25:51
  Yeah. And that makes you credible enough or the other day I heard somebody say, I'm a student
• 25:56
  of this topic, right? And I'm here to learn just like you and I've just gathered together some
• 26:00
  information that I think has been helpful for me and hopefully is for you too. That's the context
• 26:05
  and setup and then everybody's relaxed like, okay, cool. You know, not loan officers not saying he's
• 26:09
  an AI expert. No. How do you then let's take them to post class? Do you want to articulate a
• 26:17
  little bit about your post class follow up what that looks like? Yeah. So again, I look back at the
• 26:21
  roster and I see who attended. So we'll start with the ones that attended and I'll reach up to them
• 26:26
  and say, hey, what did you think about the class? What was the takeaway that you had from the class?
• 26:31
  What is one thing that you'd think you're going to be able to put into action or to implement with
• 26:36
  them? So it's just asking them questions that are pertinent to the conversation that we had in
• 26:42
  the class and then helping them get ready. Sometimes I have conversations with them and they're still
• 26:48
  in that apprehensive phase where they learned a lot, they learned something, it's pretty cool to them
• 26:52
  but they're not sure how to start. So then that gives me another option to say, hey, do you want to
• 26:57
  come by my office? Can I come by your office and I can help you get started? So a lot of relationships,
• 27:03
  I've started with that. I've gone to their office, we've sat in their conference room,
• 27:07
  we've screen shared, I've helped them get their Google, my business profile set up, I've helped them
• 27:12
  get started with Canva, I've helped them get the premium AI chat or clot or whichever one they're
• 27:19
  going to use. And so those are ends for me to be able to chat with them for the ones on the roster
• 27:24
  that signed up that are going to get the replay that did not come in person. I'm calling and having
• 27:29
  a conversation with them and saying, hey, we missed you on the webinar, I'm sorry that you weren't
• 27:35
  able to attend but you will be getting the replay, it's going to be going out to you later today.
• 27:40
  If you have any questions at all that you didn't have a chance to ask on the webinar, you know,
• 27:44
  certainly please give me a call, I'm happy to do a one-on-one with you. And it's the same thing from
• 27:49
  that point forward, try to get into their office, try to get them into my office and just continue
• 27:54
  the conversation. And then at the end, or maybe not the end, but at some point during every
• 28:00
  presentation, I'm teasing the next class I'm doing as well. So when I'm having these conversations
• 28:05
  post-class, I'm also reminding them and inviting them to come back into that class. And that's kind
• 28:11
  of how I'm coaching the loan officers that I work with too to have those after webinar conversations
• 28:17
  because again, every loan officer is always looking for what do I talk to the agents about.
• 28:22
  I'm going to call them. I'm going to reach out to them. I'm going to message them. What do I
• 28:26
  talk about? There's always something that you can talk to them about. If it's not something that
• 28:30
  they've posted that you're commenting on, it's some of this class stuff. Or maybe there's something
• 28:34
  going on in the market or something, some new loan program or some change. There's always some
• 28:39
  conversation that you can have. And how do you have any mechanisms to stay in front of this growing,
• 28:47
  you know, Cod Gray or group of agents? Like some people do Facebook groups or do you do anything?
• 28:54
  I do have a private Facebook group that I invite all of the agents that work with into. So any
• 29:00
  agent that's attended one of the webinars that wasn't invited by an LO, so the rogue agents,
• 29:06
  if you will, I invite them into the private Facebook group that I have. And in that group,
• 29:11
  I'm teasing these trainings that I'm doing. But then I'm also adding value every week or every
• 29:16
  month with things that are going on. I'm sharing ideas. I'm asking questions. I'm trying to
• 29:21
  get information from them on what classes they would like to see. So I use that as wealth of,
• 29:26
  you know, a little bit of a, I guess, closed crowd source to say, what classes would you guys
• 29:32
  like to see? Because I'm going to not, I can't read an agent's mind on what they want to learn
• 29:36
  about. So I ask them. Yeah, that's very smart. And it's kind of like an incubation, you know,
• 29:41
  tank, where where you're this, because the whole thing is how do I stay in front of agents,
• 29:44
  social media is in that one. This is another way. Let's bring this dotted line then to for those
• 29:50
  listening who are wondering, yeah, but Nate, how do I, when does the ask come for the deal? How
• 29:56
  does that? And I know lots of answers to this, but I want to hear how do deals show up for you
• 30:03
  through this whole thing. Yeah, it's, it's very, I wouldn't say, it's not like very direct. Like,
• 30:11
  I don't go to them and say, hey, do you have any leads or, hey, are you working with any buyers?
• 30:15
  Like I've just never really done that. So when I get to a point where I feel like I have a
• 30:21
  rapport with an agent, I'll usually ask them if there's anybody in their office that is looking
• 30:28
  for a great loan officer to work with. Because that's a very easy way to flirt with the idea of,
• 30:35
  hey, maybe you and I should work together without saying to them, hey, you and I should work together.
• 30:40
  Because again, I would like for everything to be very casual. I don't ever want to come across to
• 30:45
  them pushy. So usually when I have that conversation with them, they'll tell me a name or they'll say,
• 30:51
  hey, you know, maybe you and I can work together. So just by sort of teasing that conversation,
• 30:56
  I'm either going to get somebody in their office that they think I should work with. And then
• 31:00
  that gives me a reason to reach out to that person if I'm not already following them. Or they are
• 31:05
  going to work with me. And now we've kind of started this conversation about, hey, maybe we can
• 31:09
  work together. Maybe we should work together. So I take that and just kind of run with it.
• 31:14
  Smart, smart, very subtle, very kind of Trojan horse. Tell me if you've had this happen. Because
• 31:21
  I know I've seen it happen multiple times is the idea of reciprocation, which is, you know,
• 31:26
  people feel compelled to reciprocate when they've gotten something of value from you. And what I've
• 31:30
  seen happen more often than not is they're reciprocating referrals to you just by the sheer nature
• 31:35
  that you help them. Do you see that happen? I do. Yeah, for sure. I've had a lot of agents that
• 31:42
  have come through the class that it doesn't happen right away. But over the course of the next
• 31:47
  couple of months, they start suddenly calling me and saying, hey, I've got somebody that needs to
• 31:51
  get pre-approved. Are you available to meet with them tomorrow afternoon? Or hey, you know,
• 31:56
  this Saturday, I'm doing this open house. Do you mind bringing some materials over to the open
• 32:01
  house? And so it's great when you suddenly start getting invited to go to the open houses
• 32:06
  versus you showing up at the open houses, right? Interesting. This is very cool. Okay.
• 32:17
  What would you say? So you've got a loan officer in front of me. Let's recap.
• 32:22
  I'm in front of you, I should say. And I'm a loan officer. I'm like, okay, Nate, I'm down with
• 32:26
  this class's thing. I'm tired of chasing. Where do I start? Like, how do I get started with teaching
• 32:33
  classes? Yeah, very simply, if you're a new LO that is new to this rather and you're not sure
• 32:40
  where to get started, I would ask you what couple of things, if I was to take you and put you in
• 32:45
  in front of a room right now, would you be able to talk about? That puts fear in a lot of people.
• 32:52
  Okay. Well, you're not actually getting in front of the room, Jeff. So if I was to put you
• 32:55
  in front of the room, what sort of things do you think that you would be able to talk about?
• 32:59
  All right. You want to roleplay this a little bit? Is that what was that we're doing? Okay.
• 33:02
  We can. No, let's do it. It's fun. Well, I think I could talk about, how about newsletters
• 33:09
  and email marketing? I could probably talk about that. Okay. So specifically, let's talk about
• 33:15
  the email marketing. Okay. If you were to start doing some email marketing, what sort of things
• 33:20
  would you reach out to them about in that email? Is it going to be loan related things, real estate
• 33:25
  related things, technology related things? What do you want to capture their attention regarding?
• 33:31
  In terms of what content can I share with real estate agents? Yeah, if you're going to do email
• 33:35
  marketing, what content is going to be in that email that somebody is going to open it?
• 33:39
  Right. So I should probably have been more specific. Let me say database marketing emails
• 33:45
  part of that. Okay. I think what I, you know, like there's this question, what could you stand up
• 33:49
  in front of a room at Moments Notice and talk to somebody about? For me, database marketing is
• 33:53
  definitely one of those things. And so if I'm going to think about teaching a class to real estate
• 33:57
  agents, that would be like a wheelhouse. I would probably reach into pretty easily and help them
• 34:02
  better understand how to market to their past database. Perfect. And in doing so,
• 34:07
  you're going to teach them how to cultivate repeat business from the existing database that
• 34:12
  they already have. Right. Right. So these are people that they've already sold their house to,
• 34:17
  they've already purchased a home with. So now they're getting in touch with them and they're
• 34:20
  finding ways to be able to get in front of them more consistently. Right. And then very cleverly
• 34:27
  asking them for referrals as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's, yeah, I could, I could help
• 34:32
  agents do that. Great. Okay. So then that's a perfect class that you should teach agents about.
• 34:38
  So what I would start with is bulleting out everything that you can talk to them about.
• 34:43
  And then you can either start to build out a presentation slide or there's some software that you
• 34:48
  can get on the internet that will actually build out these presentations for you. So if you're
• 34:53
  somebody that is not very skilled at being able to build out presentations, but you can talk
• 34:58
  about these things, then you can utilize AI that's already on the internet that builds out the
• 35:03
  presentations for you. And then you just need to be able to talk intelligently about that and teach
• 35:08
  them. Yeah. Is there a particular one you like? There's a couple that I like. Are we? Yes. I mean,
• 35:16
  I like, I've been using gamma lately. Gamma is the one I was going to suggest. Yeah. I really like
• 35:21
  gamma. I feel like you can get in there after it creates the presentation and tweak it really good.
• 35:26
  Yeah. I'm glad. So, so that's a, you know, a point for me. I'm a content snob when it comes to
• 35:31
  content. I'm going to put in front of real estate agents. And I'm sure you, you've already realized
• 35:34
  this. Like, you know, you've seen those posts is like, you know, AI will generate your slide deck in
• 35:38
  30 seconds, you know, in five minutes. I'm like, no, it won't. It'll suck. Yeah. Exactly.
• 35:45
  Well, actually, yes, it will. And it'll suck. And people will not like it. So I've found,
• 35:50
  tell me if you agree with this. It's great for the outline and the framework, but the actual
• 35:55
  content that's going to be relevant for the attendee. That's where you need the customization.
• 36:01
  Absolutely. Yeah. I use gamma to give me some ideas. I use it more of a like a creative tool.
• 36:06
  And then I build everything out in Canva right now. I haven't gotten to the point where I've
• 36:12
  had an interest in spending an extra hour or two tooling with what's in gamma versus just
• 36:18
  taking what they're showing me and saying, hey, that's not a bad idea. I like that layout.
• 36:21
  And then just kind of duplicating it on my own. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see
• 36:25
  how it evolves, but all right. Okay. So other than the activity of classes to get realtors,
• 36:33
  are the other primary activities that led to your, you know, your fundings, the social selling
• 36:39
  or anything else you want to share? Yes. So it's primarily been the social selling aside from
• 36:44
  doing the aging classes. I've made a lot of new relationships over the years just by doing what
• 36:50
  I shared earlier, which is just engaging with them and not doing what the other L.O.s, you know,
• 36:57
  are doing by just constantly dripping things that they don't really care about on them and just
• 37:02
  showing up as a human. I think in order for us to really be effective at selling, whether it's
• 37:07
  with an agent or even a buyer, we have to show up to them as a human and be relatable and have like
• 37:14
  that one-to-one rapport. I feel like our industry, we're hard programmer, hardwired to just constantly
• 37:22
  be in sales mode, which isn't a bad thing depending on how you tweak that mode. Because I feel like
• 37:29
  I'm constantly in sales mode too, but I'm not constantly trying to sell somebody actively. A lot of
• 37:34
  it is passive selling that results in the act of selling after you build the rapport with them and
• 37:41
  bring down those walls. Nobody wants to be sold, but nobody minds having a conversation with somebody
• 37:46
  that they find interesting about a topic that they find interesting. So you have to just meet them
• 37:51
  on that same level and try to find ways that you can build rapport with them. One of the first
• 37:57
  things I learned when I got into sales years ago was that a sale is the transfer of enthusiasm from
• 38:03
  one person to another. So when you're selling somebody or you're working with a new buyer or a
• 38:09
  new real estate agent, you just have to find something that you can transfer the enthusiasm with
• 38:15
  them on. So it may not be real estate or mortgage related. It might be something completely different.
• 38:20
  But then once they get to know you a little bit more, they'll have those conversations with you
• 38:24
  and it's not as awkward and it's certainly not forced at that point either.
• 38:30
  What is your take on virtual versus in-person? I'm assuming based on how you describe you're doing
• 38:36
  this on behalf of other fellows, et cetera. That's an easier way to get bots and seats, so to speak,
• 38:42
  but what's your quick take on in-person versus virtual? I like doing them both. I think they're both
• 38:48
  very different. When you have an in-person, there's a lot more one-to-one connection because you can
• 38:52
  meet with these people after the webinar. You can have conversations with them. When it's virtual,
• 38:58
  it's a little bit more of a challenge because you go from having that captive audience that you
• 39:02
  don't necessarily interact with, especially like in a webinar versus like a normal zoom, you can
• 39:08
  kind of have that back and forth. But in a webinar, you're the speaker and you have to promote
• 39:12
  people to be speakers. Otherwise, they can just communicate in text form. So you have to follow up
• 39:17
  with them from there. So I think they're both invaluable tools and somebody should really try
• 39:22
  to do both. They're both different and the results that you get. Yeah, interesting. Are you
• 39:28
  teaming up with any affiliates for your events in any way? Like a title, that kind of stuff.
• 39:33
  Interesting that you bring that up. I haven't in the past, but that's actually what I've started
• 39:37
  to do for some of the stuff I have moving forward. So I've already got a bunch that are scheduled
• 39:42
  out, which obviously I haven't gone to the future and trained them yet. So I'm going to be adding
• 39:47
  affiliates into some of those as well to try to bring in a little bit bigger of a crowd, if you will,
• 39:52
  because I can only leverage so much. So if I'm bringing in a title person or a real estate,
• 39:58
  a home inspector, rather, or a real estate appraiser, then they have a network that they can
• 40:03
  invite into the training as well because they're a sponsor. So I've been working with my
• 40:08
  affiliate partners on helping them also leverage that to create phone calls and engagement.
• 40:13
  Yeah, that's a very smart strategy. Locally, do you have a place in person yet chosen?
• 40:20
  For the trainings? Yeah, for the trainings. No, so the ones I have scheduled all are
• 40:24
  all right now virtual, but any time that it alone, any time that a real estate office wants me to
• 40:30
  come by and do a training with them, I've got a ton ready to go. Sure. How far in advance are you
• 40:36
  scheduling your classes? The in-person ones are just no, the virtual, the virtual. I usually try to
• 40:42
  do about 30 days notice so that there's at least three or four phone calls if you do want a week to
• 40:47
  kind of bring the bodies in. Are you building out though your actual curriculum, like a quarter
• 40:52
  at a time or something? You know what I mean? Yeah, I try to make sure I have it ready in advance
• 40:57
  so that if there's anything that needs to be changed, I can make those simple tweaks, those short
• 41:02
  and you're also promoting your next class while you're in your current one. So you've got to have
• 41:06
  that kind of already built out and scheduled. Okay. Yeah, you need to be at least one class ahead so
• 41:10
  that when you're doing the class for January as an example, I'm talking about the February class.
• 41:15
  I'm inviting them and I'm telling the loan officers as well. When you're having the follow-up
• 41:19
  conversations with them, remind them about the February class, try to get them enrolled in that
• 41:24
  class, ask them if there's anybody else in their office or you know any friends that they have that
• 41:29
  didn't come that might be interested in that. So that leveraging those conversations to get
• 41:34
  them to then introduce you to more people. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay. This has been a nice
• 41:41
  clinic on how to leverage classes to get in front of realtors. In terms of an activity, let's
• 41:47
  let me close out this is me curious, like rank this, rank classes versus other activities
• 41:52
  as a means for you to scale the brand of Nate in his local area.
• 42:01
  I would say that it's probably number one because you can use the classes for all of the other
• 42:08
  social things that you have going on and it's only a one- a month thing. So I think if you think of
• 42:13
  it in terms of like it's one big event that you then have all these smaller events around which
• 42:19
  are the engagements and the phone calls and so forth. So I think it's very important that you're
• 42:24
  doing something in terms of the classes and it doesn't again have to be AI or any of that stuff.
• 42:30
  You can do classes on mortgage things on real estate things but I have found in my business that
• 42:36
  it's better for me to find things that are not mortgage or real estate related that I can
• 42:42
  use to teach them how to use that in real estate. That's awesome. Fantastic. I know you're
• 42:48
  busy. Thank you so much for making time today for people who want to connect with you and I'm
• 42:51
  confident people are going to hit you up. Where do we send them? What's your Instagram and socials?
• 42:58
  Yes, so you can find me on almost all of the socials at mortgage by Nate or on LinkedIn. You can
• 43:05
  search Nate Joma and I'm probably the only one that comes up. You can find me on there as well.
• 43:10
  Absolutely. Of course, we'll link that all up in the show notes. I would definitely say follow
• 43:13
  Nate, follow what he's doing on the socials. By the way, reach out. Let him know what the big
• 43:19
  takeaway for you was today. If you like this episode, hey, leave us a review. Nate, thank you so
• 43:25
  much for being here. Awesome. Thanks so much, Jeff. I appreciate it. All right, listeners,
• 43:28
  you know what to do. Share this episode. Like it. Leave us a review. We'll see you on the next one.
• 43:32
  Bye for now. Okay, that's it for today's episode. Before we wrap up, I just wanted to remind you
• 43:37
  about my agent classes. You're proven system to double your agent referrals in just 90 days.
• 43:42
  Imagine never having to co-call again, instead building real lasting relationships with top
• 43:48
  producing agents who want to send you business with done for you presentations, marketing automation,
• 43:53
  weekly coaching. It's all designed to make growing your business easier and fun. So if you're
• 43:59
  ready to take control of your agent referrals and grow your income, visit mortgagemarketing.pro
• 44:04
  or check the link in the show notes. And while you're there, don't forget to check out the
• 44:07
  success stories from other mortgage pros who've already seen incredible results. Thanks for listening,
• 44:11
  and I'll see you on the next episode.
• 44:34
  you