Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / How to Call Agents, Get Referrals, and Close Over 250 Loans with Chris Coghill

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How to Call Agents, Get Referrals, and Close Over 250 Loans with Chris Coghill · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
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the real estate agents is essential for success.
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However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
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With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it
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can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections.
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Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
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Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
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And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
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with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
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To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
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of the case study today.
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You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million
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in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can, too.
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Don't miss out.
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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
1:03
Hey, listeners, what's up?
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It's Jeff Zimp for Thanks for tuning in to the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast.
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If the podcast is making a difference for you, it's why I do it.
1:53
Okay, so on this episode, we're going to do something a little bit different.
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I'm having a candid conversation with a Mortgage Law and Officer at Movement Mortgage.
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And as is often with my podcast, I sometimes prep.
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I sometimes don't.
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In this case, I didn't prep because I know my special guest and have known him for some
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time.
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I understand what he does in his business.
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However, part of this conversation, I didn't expect it to go there because that's what
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I love about these conversations.
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It can be organic, right?
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So one of the things we talk about is cold calling, right?
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And oftentimes cold calling gets a bad name, right?
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It doesn't work.
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It's ineffective.
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However, I know there's some loan officers who succeed with cold calling, right?
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And in this case, I think you'll be intrigued to hear how my special guest, Chris Cogill,
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from Movement Mortgage out of the Carolinas, approaches cold calling real estate agents.
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Then the other thing you'll hear of interest from Chris is how he's leveraging Asian classes
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to accelerate his engagement awareness and conversations and referrals.
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That's right.
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referrals from real estate agents.
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It is, I think by far, the number one way he gets engagement with realtors, ads, values
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and differentiates himself, I think he told me he gets an average of two to six referrals
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from every agent class he hosts.
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And by the way, he's hosting them via Zoom right now, right?
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So to give you an idea, if you haven't been focusing on real estate agents, if you haven't
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been spending time because you're busy with the revise, I get it, but listen, what are
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you doing to prepare for the change that's coming, right?
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Are your agent relationships slipping away?
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How do you show up differently and add value?
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How do you build a fence around your agent relationships and continue to keep those relationships
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sticky and give agents a reason why to be loyal to you?
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Chris talks a lot about that, about how he's using Asian classes, how he gets bus in
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the seats and all that.
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And listen, Chris is no slouch, right?
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Chris this year is already surpassed 250 units and over $85 million in production.
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So the guy's knows what he's talking about.
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Here's the key point.
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He's only been a retail originator for about a year and a half.
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What?
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That's right, about a year and a half.
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So you're going to hear his whole story.
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I appreciate you tuning in, listening in and there's links to the show notes.
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We mentioned resources in the podcast.
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Chris has a podcast himself for realtors and builders.
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You can check that out and everything else in the show notes links as well.
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So I appreciate you tuning in without further ado.
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Let's get into this week's show.
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Chris Goghill, welcome to the show.
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Hey, man.
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How are you?
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I'm living the dream, man.
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Thanks for being willing to be here.
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You're incredibly busy, mortgage professional at movement, mortgage, got to love movement,
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we could actually do a whole session about that.
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But let's let's talk about you and what you've been doing in your business this past year.
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You just want to share with the listeners, you just surpassed a milestone.
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Tell me what it is, what it means.
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Yeah, man, we just surpassed 250 families served for the year.
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Right now we're on to it for about 315 or so, which is which great.
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And obviously we're continuing to build that, but that puts us in a kind of a different
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category or I guess a higher tier of what movement calls president's club, which is kind
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of their sales conference or their recognition of their top performing loan officers.
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And so change makers being serving 250 or more families or 75 million in funded volume.
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And so we're very proud to hit that and continue into climb and grow within an amazing organization.
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Yeah, fantastic.
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How long have you been a mortgage originator?
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I started in November of 2012 and as a call center loan originator and so I'm about a year
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and a half into retail L.O. and doing things kind of on the 100% commission and build your
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business and your brand.
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So that's kind of what makes it even more exciting is, I mean, I obviously, I had that success
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in kind of the call center environment, but translating that into the retail aspect
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of things is very exciting.
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So you've been retail for a year and a half?
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Yeah.
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Wow.
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How do you go or would you do for what was your volume or units, your family's helped in 2019?
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Do you remember?
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So 2019, it was 45 million.
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Wow.
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And your average price is what?
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Well, my average price in 2019 was about 190,000.
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Right now it's about 256, 260,000.
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So what would you attribute, and by the way, for people listening, it's funny, some people
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don't know.
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Like we don't prep for these, man, there's no notes or nothing, you know, we're going
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off the cuff here.
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What do you attribute that to be fair?
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You invited me for, you invited me for a drink on Zoom.
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I didn't know this was happening, so yeah, this is not, this is not planned.
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This is ambush, right here, ambush.
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That's how I do.
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That's how we get the best recordings.
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What do you attribute that rocket ship growth to, man, that's a hell of a frigging trajectory
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there?
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You know, I mean, first of all, it is, it's an amazing brand behind what we do.
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I mean, it obviously sell, not having to sell against a brand is a huge benefit.
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There's a lot of, you know, causal marketing and things like that that you can do with movement.
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There's a lot of different aspects to what the company does to allow for, you know, just
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a different type of conversation.
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But for me, it's just, it's about being real with people and connecting with people, right?
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The way I always put it is I want people to feel the way I felt when I bought my first house,
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which is when my neighbors think I'm crazy because I'm sitting there fist pumping the air,
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turning around, looking at this house after taking the trash out, being like, holy crap, I did this,
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you know, like I made this happen and so I want people to feel that and feel the energy
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and the home ownership process that I have, not just the, I don't ask a lot of transactional
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questions or anything like that.
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It's, you know, it's telling me about your dream home, telling me about the home and really
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trying to dig deep and get to know people more than anything, you know, and the other thing,
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you know, when I first started, I mean, it's just dial, dial, dial, dial, dial, I'm not
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scared of a no, you know, I mean, it's just picking up the phone.
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I want to hear no because that means it did my job.
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If I hear it maybe, it's still got to keep digging.
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So, you know, I mean, it's, it's really just understanding when have I heard a condition
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or when have I really heard, you know, a solid no, you know, I feel like a good job at
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that.
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But the other, the other part of it, man, that is the foot in the door strategy that
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you've helped us with so much where the agent marketing academies, I mean, so much of my business
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comes from that environment of putting people in a room, you know, and, and hearing the presentation,
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and you lay it out so easily, and now I, I suppose I'm just sitting here flattering yourself,
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but the, the, the point is, man, it, it really is super helpful for my business because
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it gives purpose, it gives content, so I'm not having to create it.
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It's not that I can't create it, but the time it's going to take me to do that is going
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to keep me from being able to be productive.
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So I can just rattle these things off, and, you know, people like the way I present it,
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which is really just more regurgitation of what you've already laid out, and it's, it's
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super effective.
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So why, why change it, why, why change the wheel?
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Yeah, well, hey, I know that, like we said, this isn't a setup, no one's looking for flattery,
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I appreciate your positive comments around that, and I wanted to have a conversation with
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you because I think it's, it's a tool like anything else, and people can use a tool, you know,
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in various ways, successfully or unsuccessfully, you seem to be very consistent.
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And for those listening, just for clarity, what Chris is referring to is, you know, this,
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this agent class platform internally at Movement Mortgage, which is a library of turn key
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done for you classes, that he just plugs and plays downloads and then teaches to real estate agents
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as a means to drive engagement and conversations. Is that a fair summary?
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That's a great summary. Yeah, it's, it's what realtors need to know, it's not a sales pitch,
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and that's the best part is it puts me in a room of people where I'm not sitting there,
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selling, hey, why use me, why use Movement Mortgage, I can strip all of that out of there,
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and, you know, I just tell people right out of the gate, this is not an infomercial,
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I know you sit through those every single day, you know, you have somebody come in here,
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and it's like, oh, wait, but act now, there's kind of that. And I just talk about, hey,
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we're going to talk about things that are little to no cost, but obviously to trade off to that
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is effort. And so you have to be willing, and you have to be vulnerable enough to say, I'm in
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this room because I want to learn, because I want to grow, and I just frankly tell people,
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in that room, do not come to me all polished, don't do it. Come to me with your vulnerability, come to
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me with your openness, tell me where you want to grow, and let me help you do it, because I've
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talked to a lot of realtors, I've talked to, you know, a lot of marketing gurus and everything
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to be able to help shed at least a little bit of light on what they're trying to do.
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So for your activities in terms of marketing or prospecting to agents, you're not cold calling?
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I call it, yeah, I call it call all day every day, for sure. I mean, I just have a list.
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I have a list I go through. I mean, it's just, I used to have kind of numbers that it's like, okay,
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I need to hit a certain amount. Obviously, now it's at a point where we've built a lot of
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relationships and everything that are providing self-sustaining referrals. So now it's really the
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growth model of continuing to touch base and dig deep on your existing relationships while also
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finding the time to continue to prospect. But it is time stamped in my day, it is blocked in my day,
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and it happens every day without hesitation. Obviously, if I get somebody on the phone,
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it's really not so much about how many people I can talk to anymore. It's how much time I can
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fill with actually talking and connecting with somebody on the phone versus what is the number of
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people that I talk to. So I'm curious about a couple of things here then, because I didn't know that
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you cold call. Considering, you know, you do such a great job with the classes as far as getting
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in front of real estate agents. So when I hear you say that, I'm thinking in the context of your
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previous life being in a call center, you probably have some pretty strong muscles for cold calling.
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Like you said, you're not afraid to take a no. But I'm wondering why cold call if the
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agent classes strategy is working so well for you? Diversification. To me, it's not about
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creating one avenue and riding on that. At some point, if you can't continue to deliver
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different content, which thank you again for delivering different content for us to spit out.
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But at some point, if you don't deliver something fresh, your message can become stale.
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And so it allows me to connect in a different way with agents that maybe won't come to a class.
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Maybe they have a different job or what I mean, so many different walks of life, so many
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different scenarios. I want to respect that and honor that and let people know you don't you don't
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have to come to the class. And if you don't come to the class, I'll come to you, right? And I can give
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you the I can give you this a pair down version over coffee. I can give you a pair down version
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on a one-on-one zoom. If you want to be more of a one-on-one setting, if you want to have it over a
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phone, people have different comfortability levels. And for me, it's about flexing to what they want
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and not necessarily creating my own thing and just saying take it or leave it.
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What is the premise of your calls, your outbound quote, cold calls when you make them?
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What's the the ask if you will? And what are you trying to accomplish on the call?
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Yeah, I mean, for me, it's a very comfortable and telling people, listen, you might have
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somebody you work with. And that's right, keep them. I'm not here to call you to take one
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piece of pie from somebody's plate and move it to mine. My job is to have you grow your business
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and let me have an opportunity to earn the business we grow together, right? And so it's really
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about uncovering questions and covering what is their motivation because every realtor,
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whether it's a very successful realtor, whether it's a brand new realtor, some are more open
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to of delivering that content to you on a first call date or, you know, a fifth call date, right?
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I mean, it doesn't matter. At some point, they're going to open up and tell you either,
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dude, I don't want any part of you or this is what I'm actually trying to work on. This is how
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I want to grow my business. And so it's really just about understanding and uncovering what is it
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that they want. You know, somebody in my career once told me, right? It's not necessarily about calling
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and getting the deal, right? I mean, it's not necessarily about that. Maybe they truly don't have
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somebody that you can work with right now. And that's okay. But is there something that we can
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work on together? Is there an event they're trying to plan? Is there, you know, a home buyer seminar?
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Whatever it might be, what is it that they're trying to build in their brand? What is their target?
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What's their net, right? And how can we help grow that together?
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And how successful do you find cold calling to be to drive relationships that lead to business?
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It is probably the easiest, most effective thing I can ever do. I mean, pick up.
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There's a lot of people. So there's a lot of people listening right now that are saying what?
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Cold calling is easy and effective. I know. I know, man. It's crazy. But you'd be surprised
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at the amount of people like it's a contact sport. And so you have to be comfortable with it.
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They're going to read through your BS. If they're going to sit there and say, if you haven't polished
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up on your products and everything like that, you haven't polished up on what questions you might
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get asked. You're going to flound it, right? And so one of the things, because I, you know, before
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this year and a half I've been in retail, I wasn't even originating. I was managing loan officers
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for three years. So I was out of the game, right? I mean, and listening to calls with realtors and
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I'd sit there with a dry erase marker. My loan officer was on the cell phone and they had it
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on speaker phone so I could hear. And I'm just sitting there writing down their questions and saying,
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oh, go here, go here, say yes. They said this. Now pick up on this and say this. And so it helps
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obviously taking notes on what they're saying. But so many people just call to call because they know
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they need to. But it's the note taking portion of things and being able to bounce back on what
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they're saying and give them kind of like, okay, man, if I heard you correctly, you said this,
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this, and this are the most important thing to you. What else? Right? The other thing is we go into
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solution mode too quick when we're making cold calls. We're calling and trying to think of what is
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the solution? That's my ask, right? It's it's really call to learn. And by learning, you know,
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you'll find where you can earn their business. You'll find where you can earn their relationship,
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where you can earn their trust by truly genuinely wanting to hear what they have to say. To me,
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it's hey, listen, I work with a lot of people in the area. And so I wanted to make sure that you
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knew I was here. And you know, had I came from big banking, you know, some of my business partners
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came from big banking. And so it's it I use that as a segue to say, hey, you know, like you might
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be comfortable with this element. And maybe you didn't even know who movement mortgage was.
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Even though we're the sixth largest, you know, mortgage company in the country, do
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you know that, right? Did you know? Like what is it that we do? Why is it that we do it? And then
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what is that one, two, three niche items that we do offer, right? Especially now, down payment
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assistance and everything has kind of floundered that, right? But there are down payment assistance
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programs that are out there that mortgage companies can do. It just takes the loan officer to do
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a little bit of research and a little bit of digging to find out what is still out there.
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And then it's about getting out getting that message out to the masses.
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Is your approach though really like typically a two-step meaning, as you said, the first the point
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of the call initially is just to listen and learn, identify areas where you can potentially help.
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And then you schedule that next conversation, which is more solution oriented.
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I don't have a one-call resolution and two-call resolution type thing. I'm calling to start a
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relationship, right? And so for me, I want to be able to call you anytime I want. I want you to
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plug in your phone. So when I call, you say, hey, Chris, right? I mean, that's the goal, right? And
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if that takes one call, some people are going to be comfortable with that. Some people won't.
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So if I can get that done in the first call, then that is the goal. If I can't, that's okay too.
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It's just I'm going to call you no matter what on a rotation, have every realtor on a rotation,
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where they are going to get a call, every single summer going to get a call weekly,
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summer going to get a call by weekly, summer going to get a call monthly. But everybody will get
21:13
right to have 700 or 700 or 800 realtor on this roster, right? And I have them separated out by
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production. I have them separated out by their openness, right? They're, you know, just got different
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grades for them. So I can say, okay, what's their response? I keep meticulous notes on what they're
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saying. So I can call that back. You know, so it's really not about can I close it in one call or
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two calls? It's can I keep the conversation going? Because the more comfortable you are with them,
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the more comfortable and open they are, the more they're going to really trust you. You know,
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and then the only way to shorten a buyer's cycle or buying cycle for somebody, whether that be the
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realtor or the home buyer, is to get more of them. And so I just said, well, I've got I've got
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make a living here. So let me call as many people as possible. I'll cast a wide net. I'll see who's
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a, you know, biting on the line. And then I'm going to drill deep into relationships with those
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that are super open to it while continuing to cast a wide net for those that I still need to work on.
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Do you look at your numbers at all in terms of calls to conversions, etc. That kind of stuff?
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I used to, you know, I mean, now it's it's really, I mean, you kind of develop the craft or you
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develop kind of this pitch that ends up being, you know, somewhat unanimous across the board to get
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people to to somewhat open up to having a conversation with you. For me, it's it's just about
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getting people on the phone. If I can get you on the phone and I can get you talking at the end of
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the conversation, we're going to at least know I'm really passionate at what I do. And I really
23:06
care about people in the process and and making sure that we do things. We do them ethically. We do
23:12
them, you know, in a way that creates value. It eliminates just the number type of feeling to
23:21
an individual while also providing, you know, great, great, great cost and, you know, a lot of
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programs, right? So it's understanding where where do you fit within your competitors and everything
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because I, you know, I'll ask them, who do you use? And then I'll never, ever, ever talk bad about
23:42
another lender because they trust them. And if I break them down, then I'm all the sudden telling
23:49
this realtor that they're making a bad decision in their life. And now I'm the one having to
23:55
clean up their mess, right? As I, that never is going to do well. So I, it's just always man,
24:03
celebrate what they're doing. And then, you know, listen, man, it takes time to do the research on
24:09
the agent. What are they doing? Well, where can you call if there's a success metric, right? Top
24:15
100, whatever it is, right? Whoever the realtor is, is calling and congratulating. And people
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love to be congratulated. So I, I mean, I too, right? I mean, who doesn't? And so it's just a matter
24:29
of reaching out and saying congrats because sometimes you call them and they're like, man, I didn't
24:35
even know. I didn't even know about that. Well, yeah, you are. So you're trying to gather some
24:41
information, something tangible, a connection point on an agent before you call. Like, I know what
24:47
I used to do is like, look at their social media profile or find some commonality, right? That kind
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of stuff. Oh, yeah, man. I mean, it is the biggest form of flattery. You don't want to be creepy
24:57
with it. You don't want to call somebody and be like, Hey, man, I saw you want to Dartmouth. What's
25:01
up? That's not, that's not right. But I saw social media profile and somebody's son was
25:11
planned dark baseball. And so anyway, it's, it's the first college that came to my mind. But,
25:18
you know, there's a broker and charge here locally that went to a school close to the California
25:25
high school that I went to. And so it was easy for us to eventually connect over time. I didn't
25:32
let it out of the bag right up front. Sure. But I know the level of questioning to be able to create
25:41
a moment of connection, right? As get them to uncover, right? I mean, where you from, right? You get
25:48
them talking about that. And, and all of a sudden, you, you walked them through the door. Right.
25:57
And then all of a sudden, they, they're going to feel like, Oh, man, like I, I have some sort of
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connection to this person. Yeah, one of the techniques I would use in doing some recon on these
26:08
agents ahead of time says to not sound so creepy would be I would say, Hey, look, you know, Chris,
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I hope you don't mind, but in prepping for my call to you, I did a little research on you. And
26:18
here's what I found. I found you, right? Whatever. Like horses, you're a Patriots fan, whatever,
26:23
some poor, poor, a point of connection, right? Because first of all, they appreciate that you did
26:27
some work ahead of time, right? And you can pick out that one thing to kind of bring to the surface
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instead of just randomly, you're just a number, you know? Right. Yeah. Because you get to ask,
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you'll get to ask, well, how'd you get my number? Why don't you call me? Right? I mean, that,
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that will come up. Yeah. Well, I pulled up the remax website and just started dialing. So,
26:52
I mean, who knows, right? Or a listing they have, like, you know, you mentioned California. So I know
26:57
in SoCal, when I was working in SoCal, you know, I would use to call and like when there was these
27:02
incredibly impressive listings or that had an amazing pool or a backyard, I'd be like, hey,
27:06
man, saw that listing. You got, wow, that's an amazing view. Congratulations. That's an awesome
27:11
property. You know, just flow love, man. See, and you went, you went the great route, right? You
27:18
went the route of, of, you know, let me go with these really nice looking homes. I went the route of,
27:26
I've got to do what I have to do to earn the right to do what I want to do. And that means
27:33
manufactured homes, right? So I went out and I sold, I pulled up Zillow, I pulled up listings on
27:41
manufactured homes, double wides, right? And said, there's so few lenders that will sell that
27:48
pitch that and, and, and grind their teeth on that type of property because they think it's harder.
27:55
And it's not. You just need to get titled the way quickly, right? But the thing is,
28:02
man, it's just, I, I went out that as one of the niches that says, man, we can do it. I know how
28:09
to do it. I know what to get. So let me pitch that, right? Some people do that through renovation
28:14
or some will do that through multifamily properties and things like that, right? Well,
28:20
you know, I'm not going to go and, and say, I'm the reverse mortgage expert in the world. I'm
28:26
not like I don't, I mean, I'll learn, I'll learn how to do it, right? I mean, I'll always say yes
28:32
and, and then learn very quickly. But yeah, man, I went, I went after the, the, the, not so glamorous
28:40
route. Hence, hence why my first year was 190,000 average versus this year is being 260 in terms
28:49
of average volume. That's a great point, though. It's a great lesson. You know, I remember classic
28:55
sales training, marketing, right? Is, is, go where the market is underserved and they clearly are
29:00
in that space you just mentioned and there's other markets as well. I think that gets to the bigger
29:05
point, too, is like, especially if you're calling, call calling agents, what makes you unique and
29:10
different than the other 10 calls they got that day? Like, are you just, oh, I got great rates and
29:15
great service? You better, I think today more than ever, we have to be known for something. Yes,
29:21
we want to deliver. Yes, we want to be, Chris is the guy whose word is gold. But when you're
29:26
first building your business, you've got to kind of like have something that people can latch onto.
29:29
You agree? Yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, what I did was I actually took out and said, okay,
29:36
what are the, what are like the three or five things that are, that are niche products that
29:41
movement offers or that I offer, both from, you know, either my personal philosophies and or,
29:49
you know, products, right? Because you got to, you got to sell personal and you got to sell
29:53
the products as well. So I took one of those big like charts that, that, you know, you can,
30:00
the 3M or whatever charts that had the sticky side on the back and I threw it up on the wall
30:07
and I wrote with a big dry erase mark on it. I should have used the Sharpie since it was paper,
30:13
that's what I had. And so I wrote on there, you know, hot homes, $100 down, you know, manufactured
30:20
housing, you know, maybe one down payment assistance program, you know, just different things that
30:26
I could go out and let people know because one of the questions that I got most frequently was,
30:33
well, what makes you different, right? What, what do you offer? You know, and so I tell people,
30:39
listen, you know, if you have your lender, that's awesome. But at some point, you're going to have
30:47
one of your clients say, I didn't connect with that person's message. I didn't trust what they
30:55
had to say. I didn't, there was some key, you know, missing feature or benefit to the sales
31:03
presentation that created a lack of trust or the need to feel like I need to shop around
31:09
better rate or whatever it is, right? And so I was able to tell people, listen, if you have that,
31:16
let's start there, right? Let's start there. You keep what you've got. And then if you've got
31:22
somebody that says, you know what, I still need more and need to do digging, I'm finding your second
31:28
up, right? Let me be your number two. And, and earn your way into that, right? Because not everybody's
31:36
business goes to the same person, right? Sometimes it does. But there are clients that just won't
31:45
gel with your message or their message. And so you've got to be able to be comfortable fitting in.
31:50
I think too often loan officers call an act like they've got to get it all or it's not successful.
31:56
So on an average cold calling day, how many outbound calls are you making? Are you using a phone
32:02
burner or is it just manual lifting? So I plugged all of the phone numbers into my Google
32:11
contact. So that way, it would sink over to my iPhone. And so then I just tell Siri, you know,
32:18
call, call Heather, call Monica, call, you know, whatever it is, right? And so I'm not having to,
32:24
I used to manually dial the numbers. And so it's just, I look at it and say, how to shave off
32:30
seconds of my day? How do I become more efficient in my day? Right? Because, you know, they talk
32:36
about the brain being incapable of multitasking and technology. And it takes the brain five minutes
32:44
to fully catch up to what it's doing to become fully productive in that moment in technology.
32:51
So I break that down and say, what is five minutes in the course of a year? And the course of a
32:56
business year is two and a half days, right? And so if I am ineffective in technology for five
33:03
minutes, which happens way more than once, if I do it twice, now, now I'm a week behind my
33:09
competition that's time blocked and figured things out. So, you know, I used to, I used to hit,
33:15
you know, 50 calls a day, right? And just dial dial dial, right? And it's 50. I'm going to hit 50
33:20
people a minute. And then it became less about that. I mean, my conversion of getting somebody on
33:25
the phone was, was, you know, about 40% of people were eventually getting on the phone, you know,
33:32
some days better than others where you walk home, you're like, all right, cool. I really knocked it
33:36
out of the park. You know, I got 60% of people to pick up phone. But then it became less about that
33:42
and more about how many conversations do I need to have to hit the target that I want and breaking
33:48
it down. Obviously, doing that through your AMA, agent marketing academy business planning
33:55
classes out there was able to say, okay, how do I break down my conversion numbers? How do I make
34:01
sure that, you know, I'm fine tuning how many conversations do I need to have on average to get
34:06
to an application? And so if more or less became the contacts for and not saying how many calls,
34:13
how many communication, how many back and forth conversations do I need to have?
34:19
Yeah, for sure. That's a great point, by the way, too, for everybody listening to the conversation's
34:23
goal. That's fun. I remember I was talking to a big real estate agent, Tim Smith out in Orange
34:28
County, California, Coldwell Banker. I think he's number one agent for Coldwell team, perhaps.
34:32
But, you know, big time agent, you know, tens of millions of dollars. Anyway, still today,
34:38
it's got a huge team, everything. Still today, he has a conversations goal, like every week.
34:43
And it's not about calls, it's about how many meaningful, so you might have a conversation,
34:47
five conversations a day, it might take you 20 calls to get five conversations, but that's the goal.
34:53
Exactly. Yep. Yeah, so that's how many conversations. Yeah, um, what I was going to,
35:02
so conversations, that is ultimately the goal. Uh, okay, cool. The other thing I wanted to bring
35:07
up real quickly, just mentioned this is you obviously have a pretty well-honed, um, cold calling
35:12
muscle, if you will, from your days as call center, but also you believe it's a, you know, a key part
35:18
of your overall success. Um, do you revisit, probably for you, yes, daily, what I'm thinking is this,
35:25
is here's what you and I both know about cold calling. The numbers are low, yes, conversion,
35:30
connect rates and all that kind of stuff, but when you do get somebody on the phone, it can be pretty
35:35
magical, but I think where most people fall short is they have no intention behind the call,
35:41
they have very little for scripting, um, and they make it all about them, right? So,
35:47
how do you stay sharp in terms of scripting or what to say? Yeah, I mean, I write it down,
35:52
right? I mean, that's, that's, I, I have kind of my, my script, I don't, I don't script it,
35:59
but I bullet point it out, right? And I say, by the time I get off the phone, these are the things
36:05
that I want to have uncovered, but it's, it's that, uh, that weight, right? Why am I talking?
36:13
You know, type of method because I, I really want to understand what it is that they're saying,
36:21
and I truly want to invest in what they're saying and, and think about that so I can then respond
36:28
organically to what they're, what they're saying and not so much. Well, let me just, let me,
36:34
whatever you're going to say, it doesn't matter because I got to get on to my next bullet point.
36:38
Mm-hmm. Like you've lost the connection, right? And so at some point I, I will tie it back if
36:45
there's time, but if they take it on an, on an tangent, awesome, man, that's, that's the best
36:51
possible thing that could happen because they're comfortable enough to continue the conversation,
36:57
they've opened up in a way for you to uncover things that you maybe wouldn't have if you just
37:02
stayed to your, to your script or to your bullet point. So it always starts with the bullet points,
37:08
but it doesn't always end with, with them. You know, and I find the works really well,
37:14
is if you are naturally curious about that person, about learning about them, right? And that's,
37:21
that to me is like, if I have that curious kind of vibe on, I'm like, you're like, it was you,
37:25
you and I have never really spoken in great depth before. And so I'm curious. And that's why this
37:29
interview flows. There's no notes. There's like one thing I wrote down. And they were just like,
37:33
let's just have a conversation human to human, you know? Right. Yeah, absolutely. No, it's like
37:40
you said, this is not a planned thing at all. It's just, yeah. And that's, this is, you didn't,
37:47
you didn't tell me there was a podcast going on. So you, you just asked me to come on Zoom with you,
37:55
and so that's, this is the best example of a cold call, right? Is, is you, you didn't give me
38:03
the agenda or anything like that, right? I said, yeah, sure, right? And that's me picking out the
38:09
phone. Yeah. And so, so to bring that full center for everybody listening, I'm cognizant
38:14
at the time here too. But really, all you heard was, I know you're doing well with agent classes.
38:21
It's been at least six months since you and I kind of exchanged, you know, messaging.
38:25
And then I'm like, I need to catch up because I saw you got the Change Makers Award, you know,
38:28
what I mean? And I'm like, I need to catch up and find out is Chris still doing classes post
38:33
COVID in, you know, via Zoom. And then you send me like your graphics, you're doing the Alexa
38:38
Flash briefings class. And so you pivoted and you're doing them over Zoom, right? Yeah, I mean,
38:44
and it's, it's fantastic. I, you know, I, I ended up, because in person, I can, I can only,
38:50
the room is only so big, right? Or, you know, sometimes it's an office that wants to have it.
38:55
Sometimes I'm doing it in a, you know, a third party location, but, you know, I was doing
38:59
up to four a month of, of just a marketing academy class, it's right? And it's, and it's great.
39:07
And I'm pulling, you know, sometimes there's six people in a room. Sometimes there's
39:12
three people in a room, right? But on Zoom, I can do one a month or two a month and I can bring
39:19
everybody in to one place, right? Regardless of affiliation, regardless of where they are,
39:25
and allow that to be organic, right? And you can control. Do you have them on mute? Do you
39:31
not? You can still do the gestures, right? Like, show hands, right? And you can still do all
39:37
of that on Zoom and, and get that. Of course, some people don't have their cameras on,
39:41
but some people have great virtual backgrounds. And, you know, you get this additional layer of
39:47
insight. And then, of course, you get the people that registered, you get the people that,
39:52
registered and didn't show up, you get the people that registered and do show up, and you get
39:56
the people that didn't register and show up, right? And so, you get all of these different
40:00
people and it allows you to have so many different conversations because you get all of this data
40:07
through Zoom to say, here's who showed up and then it tells you how long they stayed, which
40:13
was also awesome because in person, nobody gets up and walks out of the room, you know, at least
40:21
not yet. But, you know, I think I had that happen once to me, right? And so,
40:29
it may have happened. I said, I must have said something that I said something that offended
40:37
somebody once. Correct. Yeah. Those comedians that know how to call out someone that's
40:45
exiting our room are very sold at what they do. But yeah, man, it's been fantastic. And,
40:54
you know, I mean, we're getting anywhere from two to six referrals out of every Zoom,
40:59
agent marketing class that we do. And it's just wonderful. And agents give me the best feedback
41:07
in terms of they look forward to it. And, you know, I mean, they really, they keep asking, when's
41:14
the next one? What's the next one on, right? And they really want to engage in the content.
41:20
And, and, you know, it's not just for newer agents, but you can use it. And one of the things that
41:27
I used is, is for brokers in charge to use it as a recruiting tool, especially doing it in person.
41:34
It is, man, what if we, what if I do this in your office, but we open it up to other agents, right?
41:40
And we can bring them in. And then that gives you somebody in the room that you can talk to,
41:45
right? Because what's a broken charge is goal is to hire people, right? And a lot of their
41:50
payings are coming from, from hiring people. And so if I know that, right? Who's going to,
41:57
who's going to pitch me? Who's going to promote me? Well, I want it to trickle down
42:02
from, from the broker in charge. So if I can get to them and I understand what their goals are,
42:07
and what their mission is, then I can, then I can better create and establish rapport with that
42:14
person. So they end up telling every new agent that they bring on to say, you got to use Chris.
42:21
He is the guy. You want something done? You want it done right? And be communicated effectively,
42:26
and want it done on time you call Chris. How are you getting agents butts in Zoom seats? What's
42:32
your kind of process there? Oh, man. So, you know, I, I call them. I still cold call and go over
42:38
that anytime there's a meeting you're cold column. You know, I, I text every single one of them.
42:47
And I now send bomb, bomb video emails to them. I post it on social media. And then I send it
42:56
to brokers in charge and ask them to send it to their teams. So that way I end up getting,
43:02
you know, they put it on their private Facebook groups and everything like that because at some
43:07
point I've had that broker in charge in one of my classes. So they can see how it goes and know
43:13
that it's not me just pitching them on movement mortgage or anything like that. It's a very small
43:19
portion of what I do is talk about the company I worked for or anything. It's just about
43:25
giving back to them, you know, unbiased and, you know, just really not caring so much about
43:35
me in the room. It's it's asked questions. I'm just the message deliverer, right? And you can
43:43
ask anything about this topic or anything else. And if it takes it off to a tangent, then obviously,
43:48
I'll pitch that we've got another class on that, right? That'll be the next class I do. Most of
43:54
the, most of the next classes that I do from study saying something in the room that they can tie
44:00
back to, this is why we're having it. And if you raise your hand, so it's natural, it's organic,
44:08
but it's it's a multi media pronged approach, right? Call text, email, especially now video
44:16
email I've been doing and social media posts, right? So and then the broker in charge cascading
44:24
it down. Yep, love that. You know, it's funny when I see people, you know, have lackluster
44:29
results with their classes. I mean, that's the first place I decide to inspect is, yeah, what's
44:34
your invite process? Because you can't just send an email blast and think that people are going to
44:38
see it, you know, and I mean, to your point about the calls, it's a perfect reason excuse to make
44:44
calls if you have call reluctance. Oh, man, yeah, the first when I first really started getting going
44:51
as a loan officer in retail was I got into, I immediately jumped into the deep end with agent
44:58
marketing academy classes and said, this is a purpose, right? Hey, man, I'm calling to invite you
45:04
to something that is for you. It's not about me, right? And, and, and it really opens them up.
45:12
Some people are like, no, not interested. And some people are like, yeah, that sounds great.
45:16
But just because they're not interested in that one topic doesn't mean that they're not interested
45:21
at all. So you can still go back to the well every single time and and grab more buckets of water.
45:29
So it's just a wonderful tool to use. And, man, it has really helped us get where we are in terms
45:38
of family served in terms of volume because it builds trust in the room. You become the content
45:45
expert. And so when they want to build their Facebook page, they want to build their LinkedIn
45:50
page, they want to, you know, circle prospect, whatever it is, you become the expert that they
45:56
reach out to to say, I want to know more, right? And, and you're able to advocate for them and
46:06
the conversations that end up flowing from that is educational in nature. And when you become
46:12
their educator, you, you trust people on that. What do you think about loan officers though who
46:21
don't see themselves as taking on that role of being coach, educator, right? Content provider.
46:27
They see them. That's not my, I'm a loan officer, you know? What do you say to that?
46:32
I think you're, you're missing the picture, right? Is the, what, where my take is, right? I mean,
46:40
you want an organic way to connect with people, right? What is a loan, if you want to be a loan officer,
46:47
man, do what I did, go sit in a call center and receive leads and be tied and capped on your pay
46:54
and go in and work certain hours and do all of that because you're missing a skill set that you
46:59
need, right? And those are, you know, that call center environment can be more like a hamster wheel
47:05
of, you know, just getting on and running and running and running. But it's for somebody that might
47:10
have a limited capability in their day, right? But it doesn't mean that, you know, there are bad
47:17
people that work at a call center. I mean, that's not what I'm saying. But if you're going to be in a
47:21
retail L.O. position, you know, why, why do you even want to call yourself a loan officer? Why?
47:29
Why? Like, I, that's not what I want to be known for. I want to be known as a person who cares for
47:35
other people, right? And, and that's my, that's, you have to understand your why. You know, I mean,
47:42
that how, how are you going to get the business? Why do you want the business? And, and some people,
47:49
listen, they're better at dialing for dollars. And maybe they just want to go and buy leads and do
47:52
all of that. And it's not for everybody. And that's the beauty of retail is there are a bunch of
47:57
different ways to do it. But I imagine if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably sitting
48:03
here listening because there's a, you know, you need to do it, but you don't know how you need to
48:08
do it or, or what the right approach is. And it's, it's just get going. Just get started, right? It's,
48:15
it's you get in front of a room and you can be amazed at the results that you get.
48:19
Hmm. Love it. Love it. All right. Listen, you've been very gracious for your time. And I want to close
48:24
this out by asking a question. So as a podcast guy, I just bought a bunch of these cards, which is
48:30
called the pod deck and pod decks. It's supposed to give us an interesting or unique question to ask
48:37
our host, our guest at the end. So let me pick one up here right here and see what it is.
48:45
This is completely off the cuff, random, right? As expected here with this show, no pre-production,
48:49
whatsoever. And next time I'm going to prepare for these, but here we go. Are you ready? Are you
48:59
ready? Here we go. If you had to delete all but three apps from your smartphone, which ones would
49:08
you keep? Oh my god. It could be three. One to three. You want to throw that question out? You
49:16
want a better one? That's like deep think or question. Oh, that's fine. Okay. All right. That's fine.
49:23
All right. I need I guess Instagram because that's not a mobile friendly or that's not a
49:35
computer device. It's mobile. I can use on the computer. So I've got it. I've got to keep
49:42
Instagram and let's see here. I got it. I got to keep my email and my text and Instagram email
49:53
text. That's kind of a crappy question, isn't it? Let's do this. You can throw out another one.
50:00
You can throw out another one. Yeah. Let's throw out another one. Let's see. What would be your
50:05
best? The other way I do promote the other way I do promote agent marketing Academy is actually
50:11
through my podcast, which is master builder. And so it's all paired down versions and everything
50:19
of different content that movement has AMA and everything like that to use it as a way to invite
50:26
people. So I use that as another medium as well. You have a podcast. Who's the audience? Focus
50:32
Realtors. Realtors. It's all all realtors and some home buyers and everything. And so I use it
50:40
for realtors to both educate themselves on how they can build and master their own business,
50:48
loan officers that are looking to learn about products and programs. And then also for realtors,
50:55
I have certain episodes that are there and intended for them to turn and share that content
51:02
with their home buyers. Why is having a good credit score important? What is the difference between
51:07
a condor or a town home? But then there's how to circle prospect using LinkedIn. There's different
51:13
things out there that I use. And then we can segue that into if you want to know more about this.
51:21
Come and see me at an agent marketing academy class. Come and see me, come and call me,
51:25
email me. So it's just, I want to be omnipresent as you so well put it is just people consume
51:36
content in different ways. And so you have to strip down the barriers of the way you want to
51:41
deliver it and just deliver it to everybody else. You're not selling yourself, you're selling
51:48
someone else. So anyway, what's the name of the podcast? Master builder. Master builders,
51:54
is it on iTunes, all that stuff? Yeah, every, every listening platform. Oh, cool. I'm going to
52:01
put a link in the show notes. That be okay. Yeah, go for it. Absolutely. We'll get you be in the
52:07
number one downloaded podcast next week. That's awesome. Very smart. There's my shameless plug.
52:13
Yeah, I wish I had known about that earlier. Had I prepped, right? We would have known.
52:18
Where's my drum beat for that? Yeah, there we go. So let's end it with this question. I'm glad I found
52:24
this knowing that you're a musician. Here we go. Which band or artist that are alive would play
52:30
at your funeral? Oh, my lord. Come on. Just go with the first one. My son's, here's the problem.
52:39
My son's name is Lenin after John Lenin. But my daughter's name is Dylan after Bob Dylan.
52:46
And so I, I'm torn. It's like, what kid am I going to upset? But so I guess I'll go with
52:55
who's the first born kid with Lenin? So the Beatles. So the Beatles would play at your funeral.
53:03
I love that. I love that. The alive, the alive, the alive group I would get is one of,
53:10
it was one of two things. Either Zach Brown band or Glynkwin 82 would be the alive
53:16
groups that I would call from. That is some musical diversity there, my friend.
53:22
Yes. Yes. Love that. All right, Chris. Listen, I know you're busy. Thank you for making your time.
53:27
I'm going to put links to your podcast in the show notes. I appreciate you so much with the
53:32
share and grats and all your success in helping families around the country. Country.
53:36
You're a very, very, you know, and I appreciate you having me. You bet. All right. Listeners,
53:39
if you like this episode, you know what to do. Hey, this is how it goes sometimes. It's Friday
53:43
when I'm recording this. Appreciate you guys tuning in. And we'll see you on the next one. Bye for now.
53:56
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in the last 12 months. And we'll provide that list uploaded into our platform for you so you can
55:16
get off to a fast start in reaching actually productive agents. So what are you waiting for?
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You can check out more at mortgagemarketing.pro. See more of the success stories there.
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And if you feel compelled to do so, book a call. We'll have a chat. We'll see if it's a fit.
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Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your mortgage business to the next level right now.
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Head over to mortgagemarketing.pro.