Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / How this Loan Officer Went from $0 to $75 Million in Just Three Years with Shaun Herrero

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How this Loan Officer Went from $0 to $75 Million in Just Three Years with Shaun Herrero · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
0:04
the real estate agents is essential for success.
0:06
However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
0:11
With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it
0:15
can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections.
0:20
Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
0:25
Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
0:31
And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
0:34
with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
0:39
To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
0:45
of the case study today.
0:47
You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million
0:52
in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can, too.
0:56
Don't miss out.
0:57
Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
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Hey, hey, hey, listeners, what is up?
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What is up?
1:18
Welcome back to another episode of Mortgage Market and Radio.
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So here we are.
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We are going back OG style, traditional style.
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This isn't a live repurpose.
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This is me grab in a Zoom call, doing a one-on-one virtual podcast interview, back to what I love
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to do.
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One of the challenges of doing a live interview is you've got a lot of different other
1:39
moving parts going on, right, distractions.
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You've got the live going on in and of itself.
1:45
You've got managing the screens, bringing content in and out, managing a live audience
1:49
that might be attending.
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So it's a lot going on.
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So I wanted to kind of go back and forth a little bit and bring some more of just the
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straight up, you know, classic style podcast interviews.
1:59
And of course, there's still the video version of this over on the YouTube channel, which
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you can go search YouTube, mortgage marketing life, and you can go watch it there if you
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want.
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But most of you are probably listening on the audio version of this and I appreciate
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you tuning in.
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So before we get into this week's special episode, what I love about the conversation
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we've had is it relates to something that has a passion project of mine.
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And that is leading with education, leading with an educational platform.
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If you've heard my story, if you've listened to enough of these interviews, you've heard
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probably about 90% of the interviewees, the top producing originators.
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In some shape or fashion feature educational classes as part of their platform for real
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estate agents.
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Here's what you're all saying, yeah, but what about COVID?
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Yeah, I know.
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And here's what we've done.
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We've pivoted in a post-COVID world and moved those to an online format.
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And it's amazing to see the results and the acceptance rate that is happening for both
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loan officers, but also for agents as well who are raising their hand and saying, yes,
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I still want to get access to good information.
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I still want training and, you know, they're more comfortable joining a Zoom now than they
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have ever before.
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So how is this relevant to you today's session?
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Well, in a moment, you're going to hear my interview with my special guest.
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And one of the things that he does is a virtual, what he calls a relatable, realtor class,
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where he is bringing content, sharing content because prior to COVID, he was doing that
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in person.
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And what you'll hear is my special guest, Sean Herrero, with guaranteed rate, started
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off his career after being a wholesale representative for many, many years.
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Only in 2017 did he pivot and become a retail originator.
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He got off to a fast track, fast track, as a matter of fact, in 2017 or it was 2018, I
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believe, he wound up doing 150 units, 75 million, and his pace is just cranking.
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So listen, that is a fast clip to get up to that type of volume in units.
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And one of the primary ways that he built his business pre-COVID and post-COVID is an
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educational platform.
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Why?
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Because agents are hungry.
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Why?
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Because if we don't differentiate ourselves and show up differently, we're going to look
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like and sound like every other loan officer in town.
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And say it with me, same is lame.
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That's right, same is lame.
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So you need a way to differentiate and get attention.
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First and foremost, our number one goal is to become known and get attention.
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An educational platform has never failed in doing that since the dawn of man with more
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good origination.
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Now, if you haven't yet heard, we have the educational platform for you, the turnkey
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down for you classes, the zoom friendly, zoom post-COVID pivoted platform for you to be
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able to have an educational platform like Sean does and attract agents to you every single
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month, share value, share content, convert those conversations to one-on-one zoom calls,
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relationships, and referrals.
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If you want to learn more about it, you go to mortgagemarketing.pro.
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There's a short video we put up there.
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You can check it out, learn more there.
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That's all I'll tell you about that.
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You'll be happy to have you.
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It's not for everybody, but if you're ready and willing to make a serious commitment and
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investing in your future purchase business now, get ahead of the game, then that could
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be for you mortgagemarketing.pro.
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All right.
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So, back to my special guest, Sean Herrero, you heard me talk about him.
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We're going to go through a lot of really great concepts today, how he leverages video,
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how he leverages bomb bomb, how he leverages online reviews, how he leverages mortgage
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coach, and just his entire customer experience process kind of dissected and architected
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and how he manages to quickly scale to such volume, maintain that, and yet still has a very
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simple business practice.
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I think you're going to get a lot of learning from this as I have, and we'll put links to
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everything in the show notes, Sean's Instagram page, his YouTube channel, and things like
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that.
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So, without further ado, let's get into this week's show.
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Sean Herrero, welcome to the show.
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I know, and thanks for having me, Jeff.
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You bet, man.
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Thank you for being here.
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Thanks for reaching out and being persistent as well.
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I'm really thrilled to have you.
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Why don't you, for the listeners and or viewers, give them a quick background, who you are,
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how long you've been in the business, and then average production?
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Yeah.
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Sean Herrero, been in mortgage lending since about 2001, started off in wholesale.
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That evolved into more of like a business development role, for retail mortgage banks,
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and then said forget all that, started originating on my own January of 2017.
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It's 75 million last year, and I think tracking for, tracking for a hundred so far, so far
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so I can do this little easier this year with everything that's going on, but.
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For sure.
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Mark, it's lifting all boats, right?
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Yeah, sure.
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Give us a send, I know you're in California, but give me a sense of units roughly when
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you did that 75 or whatever you want to give it.
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Yeah, average loan about about a half million, so about 150 units.
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150 units.
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So, that is a pretty quick clip, starting from essentially ground zero, moving wholesale
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biz dev, retail originator, right, to hit that kind of units.
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That's pretty fast.
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Well, it's funny, because I kind of, I've always had big goals, and yeah, it's been fun.
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It's been a lot of fun.
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It was really what happened, really what drove me here was it's kind of coaching, mentoring,
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other originators, and the numbers weren't happening, right?
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I don't think they're putting out the effort, I'll put my money where my mouth is, and
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I'll just go originate on my own.
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My first year, I think it's about 30 or 35 million, I don't memorize my numbers like
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a lot of people do, but roughly 30, 35 million my first year, and it's been fun.
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It's been like the best decision I've ever made.
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That's awesome, man.
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Congratulations.
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I know you're working hard for that too, because you're in the Bay Area, very, very competitive
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market.
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Yeah, there's a handful of us out here.
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Yeah, there certainly are, and a few demanding realtors, I imagine, we're in the midst
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of the 2020 ReFive boom post-COVID, so I assume you're heavy on the ReFive right now.
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Yeah, I am.
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I mean, I'm not as heavy as others would be, because I'm just, I'm still kind of the
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new guy, so my book of business is smaller.
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It's only three years old, but I'm getting a lot more referrals and everything, so yeah,
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it's definitely been heavier on ReFives, and really, we were shut down for the first couple
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of months in the normal purchase season, and it just started to become purchase season
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now.
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I mean, the purchases are definitely picking up, but yeah, it's been a big ReFive year
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so far.
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Are you guys, I know it's changing every day, but are you guys, are the realtors allowed
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to do open houses again?
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Or is that rolled back?
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It's like private showing, so you can't, yeah, so you have to be pre-approved, or else,
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you know, a lot of the sellers say, if you're not, you're not just walking in my house
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to walk around my house, have to be pre-approved, has to be a private showing or a scheduled
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showing, you can't just go in on a Saturday and tour a bunch of houses unfortunately.
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How good is that, though, for us, like must be pre-approved.
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I love it.
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It's so much better.
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I made a video about that, actually, where I didn't understand how the new normal for
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buyers was to go home shopping when you don't know if you can afford it or not.
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You made kind of a sketch video where it went to the mall with a credit card that didn't
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work.
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I just got declined and was like, oh, I guess I should have made sure it worked before
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I came out.
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So, it's nice to have a block now that makes me kind of take that step first.
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Fantastic.
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So, in a normal market, what's your mix on purchase versus ReFive?
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I mean, it's been definitely been a lot heavier on purchase.
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I'd say probably more 70 percent purchase, just because my best friends in the mortgage
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business, my moms in the mortgage business, so the whole start with your friends and family
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thing didn't really work.
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For me, when I did start, it had to be all realtor referral right out of the gate.
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Cool.
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Love that.
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Thanks for kind of the housekeeping on that.
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So, that's a perfect transition into looking back like you were starting from ground zero.
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Your focus was Realtors, how did you present yourself to the market?
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Yeah, that's a good question.
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So, for me, I had a wholesale background, and so I'm used to talking to a lot of people
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at once.
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So, what I tried to do is schedule office meetings, and not just go to the one-on-one kind of
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coffee thing like everyone else tries to do.
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I like getting in front of a group of people, to give people that work well and then once
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that fall out.
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So, I tried to do as many office meetings as I could out of the gate, and really what
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it was was, I know I need to bring more value, because all these people already have lenders
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for the most part, so what do I do to create more value in their business, and that's kind
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of how I approached it.
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And how did you bring more value to some examples of that?
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I think, well, so number one, just coming from the wholesale side, I was the guy behind
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the scene solving everyone's problems.
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So, I know how to manufacture and underwrite a file.
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And I'm very grateful that I had that background, because I think that's most, a lot of people
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are good at selling and saying, yeah, give me the deal.
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And then it goes sideways, because they don't really understand the full in and out of
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it.
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So, I think there was, there was a lot of confidence there that they neither deals wouldn't
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go sideways.
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And a lot of it's marketing.
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I really love marketing.
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It's a lot of fun.
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I started with video earlier than most, and I would do presentations on video, on social
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media, on things like that, when, you know, what is 2017, it was kind of just kicking off
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for the most part.
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And it was just, you know, well time to get in front of people when we knew this was going
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to be the normal thing of using video and social media, but a lot of people just didn't
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know how to do it.
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So, you were presenting how to basically video, et cetera, in these offices?
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But, yeah, yeah, exactly, like marketing strategies, like classes, lunch and learns type
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stuff.
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Effectively, yeah, exactly.
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Like if companies had, you know, standard sales meetings, and they would have guest speakers,
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I'd come and do those, otherwise, and a lot of times, you know, the excuse will make
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for why we can't get into an office is, oh, it's a closed office, a lot of us get them
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out, right?
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So, I'm going to get, I want to get in front of a group of people, whether it's at a restaurant
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or in their office, but that has to be where I start, otherwise, I won't be able to ramp
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up as fast as I need to.
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Yeah, that's very interesting.
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And I followed a similar path.
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You may, you're probably not aware of this, but I think it's probably about eight years
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ago, because I've been in this business since 2003, similar though, I came out of an industry
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actually completely unrelated, and I'm starting from ground zero, but eventually did the
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same thing, which has realized law of large numbers with realtors, classes, events, you
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know, top of the funnel, sift, sort, sift, sort, and out the bottom comes those referral
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partners, right?
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Yeah.
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The same model, right?
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Yes.
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It still works today.
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It's fun.
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And it's just, you continue to shift, it's, you have to be nimble, it's a lot of fun.
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Have you pivoted that or how have you, right, since COVID, we can't go do meetings?
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Yeah.
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So I went, I started doing a lot more, so when COVID, so inherently a problem solver.
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So when COVID hit and real estate on the, what was it?
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The 16th was fine, and on the 17th real estate was closed, there was panic, right?
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And I try to help people through panic.
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So I started doing once a week workshops, and I have a pretty diverse area that I cover
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so I work in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, you know, uh, carbon, like a very broad area.
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So they're a lot bigger footprint.
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Yeah.
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And what's great about that is I put these calls together to say, look, we're all in
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this together.
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We're trying to figure out what to do.
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This isn't a, come listen to Sean talk.
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We all have to help each other.
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So I, I was doing those calls, and that kind of evolved into, um, a little program I called
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relatable realtor, where I was doing webinars or, you know, something similar to this with
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realtor.
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I thought we're doing things that were unique or innovative that other people could learn
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from.
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Um, and then, you know, marketing wise, the, the budget for lunch and learns all those
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things, it just had to go to online advertising.
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So I shifted into doing Facebook ads a lot more than I was in the past and, uh, yeah.
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So it's just, you take the situation and you don't complain about it, you, you adapt, you
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evolve and you keep going.
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So the relatable, relatable realtor was like an ongoing zoom kind of, would you bring
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special guests on there like agents or other people?
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Yeah.
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So what I did is, uh, they're, they're one of my friends is an agent in San Francisco
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and he is an incredible marketer, uh, it just an incredible, it does an incredible job.
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So I did a call with him, just talking about what he's doing with Facebook ads, you
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know, he likes funnels and all that.
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Yeah.
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And just because a lot of people don't understand how that works.
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And that's where, you know, what I was telling people is, if your business came from
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an open house, your buyer's agent and your business comes from sitting in an open house,
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what are you going to do now?
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You know, the open house is going to be a video and it's going to be a lead generation
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list, most likely.
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And that's ultimately, what were you looking for in the open house?
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You wanted their name and their contact info.
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Yeah.
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Well, you can get the same thing online.
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You can show the house online.
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You just have to get comfortable with it like it's not an option anymore.
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Just became the absolute necessity.
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Right.
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Right.
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Absolutely.
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That's what it goes.
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The real relatable realtor.
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Yeah.
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I am.
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I am.
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I am.
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So, um, and that name came from, I don't believe in sales.
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So I think the more authentic we are, the better, the sooner we'll attract the people that we
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want to work with and that want to work with us.
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So relatable realtor was, be more than a realtor, be relatable and just be authentic.
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You know, be yourself, um, and that's going to attract the right people.
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So that's where that came from.
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Um, I am doing them.
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I, I, I fell off for a second just, uh, as soon as school ended and I, you know, just
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we're constantly, uh, learning, right?
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It's like, okay, now the situation, okay, now schools out, now what does it look like?
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So I have, you have some young ones?
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What's that?
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You have some young ones at home?
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Yeah.
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So I'm a pretty big spread.
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I have a 17 year old, a 12 year old, and a two year old.
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Wow.
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So at a little surprise ending that's been an absolute.
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Well, the good news is the 17 year old, you're getting the training for when the other
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ones come up, right?
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Yeah.
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I mean, he's like, like another dad in the house, he's, they're both older, older boys
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are so helpful.
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So it's been, it's awesome.
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But it's just a lot of people in the house and, you know, juggling people from here to
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there.
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So I got a little out of my rhythm for doing those, but I'm, I'm back on it now.
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We all did, man.
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Um, and this is a, this whole thing with a relatable realtor, the class is leading with
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that educational platform.
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It's like right up my alley.
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I'm curious.
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I assume, but I'd love you to articulate it for those that are listening.
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How do you convert those to agent conversations and referrals?
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So, so I try to use that to make sure that people get a really good sense of who I am and
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my confidence.
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And if they listen to the calls and they like the calls, but I'm just a goofball or whatever
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like, they're, I'm not their guide, totally fine.
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I do, I'd use the calls, I'll do like event bright to find new people.
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And then just you follow up afterwards, hey, how was the call?
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What do you think?
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What's going on?
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I'm more about them.
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Kind of gives me like a warmer entrance than just, you know, calling for you.
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The follow ups, nothing to rip, but the follow ups in mass, like you'll send out a mass
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email to all the RSVPs, you'll do them one on one, one on one, one's a choosy.
16:44
A little above.
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So I try to do weekly or biweekly updates that, and I use bomb bomb a lot.
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So everyone who subscribes to the calls, I will add them to my bomb bomb lists.
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So they're going to be biweekly biweekly updates.
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And then I'll reach out to them as well.
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So when there's new people coming in, hey, thanks so much, it's great to meet you.
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You know, what do you think of the call?
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What other things would you like to get?
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What are you struggling with?
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Like, I always want to come from a place of like solving problems.
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So with COVID, with everything that's going on, what's been hard for you?
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And how can I help?
17:15
Right.
17:16
Love it.
17:17
What do you average for agents who attend those?
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Um, anyway, 15 to 20 on average, yeah, perfect.
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And you get some repeats or is there like a third of new people coming in?
17:29
There's a lot of repeats.
17:29
I have a pretty, like my core group of realtors that I work with a lot, a large majority
17:34
of them will attend.
17:36
And I featured, I featured agents that I work with because that's what's fun.
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You find why you really get this, this specific thing.
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Other agents are great at this, but this is what I find.
17:45
And so I'll, I'll feature them.
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Um, but yeah, it's, it's pretty consistent and then I'll have people pop in and out.
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And it's just like a normal event, um, you know, 50 people sign up, 50% show up.
17:54
Sure.
17:55
Well, it's free event.
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It's low bar to commit all that.
17:58
Yeah.
17:58
And it's an online thing.
17:59
So it's really easy to blow that off.
18:01
Right.
18:02
Um, uh, let's see here.
18:04
The attendee is 15 to 20, it's once a month.
18:07
Is that correct?
18:08
Uh, yeah, I was doing it every two weeks.
18:10
I moved it to once a month.
18:11
Once a month.
18:12
Yeah, because we found our rhythm.
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At first, it was just pure problem solving.
18:16
Right.
18:17
How do we keep making money?
18:18
How do you guys keep selling houses in a world that you can't sell houses?
18:21
Yes.
18:22
And, and so I was doing it by week.
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We know it's once a month.
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Uh, I can relate.
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But I remember when COVID first hit and we did this class called, uh, your next 90 days,
18:30
how to pivot your business, right, to prepare for after coronavirus, I think I did 10 of
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those in one week.
18:35
Yeah.
18:36
Exactly.
18:37
Exactly.
18:38
And that's how it started.
18:39
It was just a day.
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I was at my office.
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The day we, we were like, Hey, you can't go to the office tomorrow on March 16th.
18:46
And I did a call and this was a, I had real tours and buyers, anybody.
18:50
I just put a thing out.
18:51
The market was going crazy.
18:53
If you're scared, if you're concerned, if you want to know what's going on, like this
18:56
is purely a Q&A, no, no schedule, but I'll show you what's happening and why I don't think
19:01
you should be worried and what I think it's going to look like on the other side.
19:03
That was day one.
19:04
Hmm.
19:05
I love it.
19:06
So I love that you're using Bob, Bob and as well, really kind of personalized the touch
19:09
there.
19:10
So you're building, you have a realtor database and that's who you're inviting.
19:13
You mentioned new people as well, event bright.
19:16
What do you mean by that?
19:17
So I'll run Facebook ads for those relatable, realtor calls and get more people to
19:23
sign up.
19:24
So when they click through, it goes to event bright.
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They register for the, for the session.
19:31
And then if they attend, I will add them to my bomb bomb lists.
19:36
And I like to spam people.
19:38
No, of course not.
19:39
Yeah.
19:40
Are you using a particular CRM in conjunction with that?
19:43
Not really.
19:44
I mean, I actually use bomb bomb almost as its own CRM for that purpose.
19:49
I use, we have our CRM, what's it called?
19:54
Total expert.
19:55
I think a lot of that.
19:56
But yeah, we use total expert at guarantee rate.
19:57
And that's great.
19:59
And so everything kind of funnels into that.
20:01
But from a marketing perspective, it's really a lot from bomb bomb.
20:08
You're pretty proficient with bomb bomb.
20:09
Do you also use it for like during the loan process, milestones, are you doing one-off
20:14
or is it like template it or using prompt?
20:17
I don't use prompt.
20:19
Yeah, prompt.
20:20
I don't like, I don't like scripts.
20:22
I like it.
20:23
Yeah.
20:24
So I don't, I don't use prompt.
20:25
I do use it for every single transaction.
20:28
And I haven't gone to the canned emails.
20:31
So everyone is, you know, starts off with either the buyers of the realtors or whoever.
20:35
But what I try to do is at the big milestones of the mortgage process is make sure everyone
20:39
knows what's going on.
20:40
So buyer, listing agent, buyer's agent, escrow officer, and just make sure they know exactly
20:46
where we're at in the transaction.
20:47
So they don't have to ask questions, never going to go out.
20:50
Is that the same video repeated?
20:51
No, I record it every time, and I probably should start making it more canned, but I just,
20:58
it feels unauthentic.
20:59
How long does it take you to do an average milestone video?
21:03
It takes me about two minutes to record it.
21:06
Two minutes to record it.
21:07
You've got it down pretty well.
21:08
Yeah, I mean, it's a 30 second video, two minutes to record.
21:11
You're using the phone, you're using the phone, the app, yeah, okay.
21:14
Exactly.
21:15
Yeah.
21:16
I mean, there's a lot of people in my audience who know bomb bomb, a lot of people have it,
21:18
a lot of people who don't, and I've heard, I'm sure you've heard over the years, you know,
21:22
some pushbacks, some complex issues about whatever, you know what I mean?
21:25
I'm just, I'd love to hear what you're saying, because you're just another example of who
21:29
has proven, look, you can, learning something new is going to be hard, but you can get good
21:33
at it.
21:34
Right.
21:35
Well, and I was fortunate.
21:36
So some of the other people that you've had as guests, like Barry Habib kind of took
21:41
me under his wing, 2010, and he was already doing his video updates.
21:45
And I was really nervous about video.
21:47
I didn't want to do it.
21:48
I don't like how I look.
21:49
I don't like how I sound.
21:50
And it looked great.
21:51
Man.
21:52
Come on.
21:53
He's like, you got to do it.
21:54
He's like, you got to do it.
21:55
And I remember I did a keynote presentation.
21:58
This was all a written like loan agent base, right?
22:01
That was who I was serving at the time.
22:03
Yes.
22:04
And I did a keynote and I did a voiceover on it.
22:06
And I was like, I was really nervous and proud of myself.
22:08
I sent it to him.
22:09
He's all just one liner.
22:10
Great.
22:11
Get your face on there.
22:12
And I was like, oh, man.
22:13
And then you go numb.
22:14
You just start doing it.
22:16
And now, and that's what's so great about COVID,
22:18
like if we look for silver linings, everyone is using Zoom now.
22:22
So the excuse of, I don't like how I look or how I sound.
22:25
I don't want to do video.
22:26
Sorry, not an option anymore.
22:28
And they're over it now, which I love.
22:30
That's been great.
22:31
Yeah, there's a lot of people still working through that,
22:33
unfortunately, but yeah, you raised a good point,
22:36
which is this is what I told Realtors in that class.
22:38
I mentioned to you is with COVID, that's all you had.
22:42
This is all you had left was the phone or your laptop.
22:45
And if you haven't adjusted, adapted to use
22:50
these modern communicates, if not now, when, you know?
22:53
Because it's all BS now.
22:55
It's all your excuses are gone.
22:57
Right.
22:58
And that's what I love is it's always,
23:00
there's a reason why I'm not doing these things.
23:02
It's like, no, no, no, reason is excuse.
23:04
That's the same thing.
23:06
And that's what was, again, I try to always look
23:08
for the silver linings and everything.
23:10
And with this, there were so many loan agents, Realtors,
23:14
who knew they needed to use video,
23:16
who knew there was value in it,
23:18
but we're just so scared to take that step.
23:20
And I'm just gonna stick with what I know because it works.
23:24
And then March 17th, it didn't work anymore.
23:26
And yeah, and it was great.
23:29
And that's what, and it was like, you know,
23:32
you being on the same boat,
23:33
being kind of ahead of that curve,
23:36
you became the resource.
23:37
You know, it's like, now I don't have a choice,
23:39
I just wanted all these workshops for us in the past.
23:42
How do we keep this going?
23:44
Exactly.
23:44
What, to what degree would you attribute your success
23:47
with Realtors, you know, your pipeline
23:50
from the relatable Realtor classes that you do?
23:54
Not a lot because I just, it was always a concept I had.
23:57
And I would always say, be more than a Realtor, be relatable.
23:59
And then it just kind of started ticking on.
24:01
So I wouldn't say it's a large percentage yet,
24:03
but I also haven't been consistent with it enough yet.
24:07
It is a COVID-19 project.
24:10
Well, I mean, how else do you currently meet Realtors today?
24:14
Well, that's it, like that it's that.
24:15
And then I mean, you get, when you get a contract,
24:18
you have the listing aging, you have the buyer's aging.
24:19
I am getting a lot more buyers correctly
24:23
that, and then I get to find and get introduced to a Realtor.
24:26
So that's helpful as well.
24:28
But, and I'm not, I'm not the guy that's trying
24:31
to work with 100 Realtors.
24:34
I'm a quality over quantity.
24:36
I just, I can't give people the value
24:39
and the attention I think they deserve
24:41
if I'm working, trying to work with everyone.
24:43
Agreed, agreed.
24:44
So how many core Realtors do you work with, you know,
24:47
your A players?
24:48
I'd probably say 10.
24:50
10?
24:51
Yeah, maybe 10.
24:53
And there's just, we just, we keep it really consistent
24:56
and we're true partnership.
24:57
Yeah, that's awesome.
25:00
Okay, love that.
25:00
Thanks for the background on that.
25:01
I've popped over to your YouTube channel
25:04
because for a guy who started out, quote, shy on video,
25:07
you're doing some pretty impressive things on YouTube, man.
25:10
Thank you.
25:11
Thank you, yeah.
25:12
Gotta do it.
25:13
Do you have a, a all-in go-to social platform?
25:18
Is it YouTube?
25:19
Is it something else or?
25:20
I like Instagram and I like YouTube.
25:22
I like Instagram for branding.
25:26
And I like YouTube for education.
25:29
So what I'm trying to do with YouTube
25:30
is create an educational platform.
25:33
The large majority of my clients, I would,
25:36
I would say very close to 100% of my buyers
25:38
are first-time loan buyers.
25:40
And we get the same questions over and over.
25:43
And I just thought, well, if my clients
25:45
are asking me these questions,
25:47
there's probably lots of people have the same question,
25:49
but they haven't asked yet.
25:51
So I try to use YouTube to build a library of information,
25:56
which I think just builds credibility.
25:59
Back to Instagram for a second.
26:00
What's your Instagram handle?
26:02
It is Adventure Lender.
26:04
All right, so everybody listening.
26:07
I'm gonna bring up right here.
26:08
Here it is.
26:09
I can't believe I don't follow you yet.
26:11
There we go.
26:12
There we go, cool.
26:13
All right.
26:14
Yeah, and obviously in your demographic first-time home
26:16
buyers, they are of course on Instagram in a large way,
26:21
but also back to YouTube.
26:22
We'll come back to Instagram if it's relevant,
26:24
but back to YouTube.
26:25
But I think that's an area that's overlooked
26:26
by a lot of L.O.'s.
26:28
I mean, what have you learned about YouTube since doing it?
26:34
Like, you could pass on to people considering it.
26:36
I like YouTube because it is.
26:40
So this is something that I learn kind of creatures
26:45
of habit as we are as lenders.
26:48
We don't like online lenders.
26:51
We don't like Quicken.
26:52
I don't like Bankrate.
26:53
I don't like this.
26:54
I don't like that.
26:55
And there was a, we would get angry, right?
26:57
Like, oh, I can't believe my buyer is going online.
27:00
And it's like, we have to become online lenders.
27:03
That's where I'm starting.
27:04
So it's not, it doesn't do me any good to be upset about
27:07
how things, what things are.
27:10
I just need to be there.
27:11
And so I need to be on YouTube, YouTube's owned by Google.
27:14
Hopefully if somebody Googles, how does an FHA loan work?
27:18
My video somehow populates it.
27:19
It's free attention.
27:21
And I just think it's a necessity for everyone to be online.
27:25
You have to have a bunch of reviews.
27:28
If you don't have reviews, if you don't have content online,
27:32
then people aren't going to find you.
27:34
Right on.
27:34
So I'm sharing your page right now for those that are listening.
27:37
You're going to miss out on this.
27:38
But if you want to see it, you go to my YouTube channel,
27:41
Mortgage Marketing Live on YouTube.
27:42
And you can actually see this.
27:44
Or of course, just look up Sean's channel, which
27:48
is Sean Herrero, basically your name.
27:50
Just get on YouTube and search his name.
27:52
I'll put links in the show notes too.
27:55
So as I was scrolling this thing, a couple of things
27:57
jumped out at me.
27:57
Obviously, I'm looking at your more recent videos.
28:00
Of course, view counts is one thing that I take a notice of.
28:04
And I look at this, and I like this one right here.
28:07
This is from three months ago.
28:09
So what was that when COVID first started,
28:11
housing market?
28:11
Yeah, you can tell by the from the mustache,
28:14
we did a hey, if we're going to be stuck at home,
28:17
let's all grow mustache.
28:18
It was like, I kind of do a lot of videos.
28:19
I don't know if this is going to work.
28:21
And we didn't know we'd come this long either.
28:23
But here's what's interesting.
28:24
The title of this video is this 2008 all over again.
28:27
And you've got 2,000 plus views on that in the last three months.
28:33
Were you intentional about that?
28:34
Were you getting a lot of questions?
28:35
Why that video?
28:37
Exactly.
28:37
So when I hear something over and over and over again,
28:40
I'm going to make a video about it.
28:41
So everyone's like, oh, the market's going to crash.
28:43
Real estate's going to fall apart.
28:44
This is 2008 all over again.
28:47
And I just wanted people to understand the difference.
28:49
I worked at Countrywide in 2008.
28:51
That was one of the top wholesalers at Countrywide.
28:55
So when the ship went down, it's kind of like,
28:57
I don't have options to go somewhere else.
28:59
Being number one at the worst company,
29:01
probably isn't a good thing.
29:03
So, but it gives me a great perspective
29:06
of what I saw then versus what's going on now.
29:09
And that's what that video talks about.
29:11
And there was some funny comments on there.
29:12
I love the trolls on YouTube are great.
29:15
It's just how I'm wrong about this and that.
29:17
But I mean, so that's what I try to do.
29:20
If I hear a lot of questions,
29:23
and enough people are asking this,
29:24
I should probably make a video about it.
29:25
Well, here's another example.
29:26
What is a no-cost refinance, 1.6,000 views?
29:31
And that one was, you know, clients are calling.
29:34
I heard rates went down.
29:35
I want a no-cost refi.
29:37
I want a no-fee refi.
29:38
Michael Kid, there's no such thing.
29:40
Well, the other lender said there is.
29:41
I'm like, no, you're just getting a higher interest rate.
29:43
And that rate comes with a credit
29:44
that's covering your closing costs.
29:45
They're just not giving you full disclosure.
29:47
And so in that video,
29:50
I showed people how I try to be funny.
29:51
I try to just be myself in all these videos,
29:54
but see that terrible mustache.
29:58
Well, there's mortgage coach presentations
30:02
kind of into that.
30:03
Like this guy that asked me if I live in a van
30:04
was my favorite one.
30:05
Oh really?
30:06
It stopped for a quick.
30:07
I did one.
30:08
I was talking about how great housing was.
30:10
And I'm like, he's from a guy that's in a van.
30:14
I love it, the internet trolls.
30:16
Yeah, so I just, you know,
30:19
I want people to be really well educated.
30:21
And if you do want to know costs alone, yeah,
30:23
if you're going to move out of your house
30:24
in a couple of years, 100% you know costs.
30:27
But if this is a long-term play,
30:29
that's one of the most expensive mortgages you can get.
30:33
And speaking of mortgage coach,
30:34
what's your belt?
30:36
Do you have a belt level?
30:38
I think whatever the top one is.
30:39
Black belt?
30:40
You got a black belt?
30:41
I think of the master.
30:42
I forget.
30:44
Dave showed me where I find it.
30:45
And I forget, but there's only, forget.
30:50
There's one one like of their modules I don't have.
30:53
But I'm at the, I'm like top of the class
30:56
with mortgage coach.
30:57
You're a grand master.
30:58
Yes, that's what it is.
30:59
Yeah.
31:00
That's awesome, man.
31:02
How many TCA's is that roughly, do you know?
31:04
I have no idea.
31:05
It's got to be a few thousand, right?
31:07
Yeah, for sure.
31:08
I don't pay attention to the, I just keep calling.
31:11
Like I was talking to my teammate the other day.
31:13
She's like, you know, where are you at?
31:14
You're to date for your goal.
31:15
I was like, I don't know.
31:16
And she was like, what do you mean you don't know?
31:18
And I'm like, it doesn't matter.
31:19
We just have, if I'm at my goal, we're not going to stop.
31:22
We're just going to keep going.
31:24
So I just, it's the numbers aren't as important as just.
31:27
It's such a great tool to use, to educate people
31:29
and illustrate how things work.
31:31
So I just, I just keep charging ahead.
31:33
Amen to that.
31:34
You know, you reminds me of other people
31:36
I've talked to in terms of goal setting.
31:39
And everybody has their own approach to this.
31:41
But it's something that I've heard before.
31:44
Somebody that I had on who basically said the same thing,
31:46
which is he focuses on the activities instead of the result.
31:50
And as long as he's doing the activities,
31:51
the result takes care of itself.
31:52
Right, right, exactly.
31:54
And that's what, so I'm a big fan of Avanchanard
31:57
from Patagonia.
31:58
Let my people go surfing is my favorite business book.
32:01
I just big rock climber for a long time.
32:03
You know, to watch Yvonne be a dirt bag rock climber,
32:05
leaving out of his car and build this business is incredible.
32:10
But he's so dedicated to what he believes in and his people.
32:14
And so Patagonia's philosophy is make the best product,
32:17
cause no unnecessary harm or something like that.
32:20
And I just always love that.
32:22
So mine, I wanted to kind of take something from that.
32:26
And I came up with provide the best, shoot, I forgot it,
32:30
provide the best solutions, make a difference
32:33
in the life of others.
32:34
And I'm like, if I just do that,
32:36
everything else will happen on its own.
32:37
I don't need to order anything else.
32:39
Just be the best solution.
32:42
Make a difference in their life.
32:43
And everything else will fall into place.
32:46
Love that.
32:47
So this one is your probably your biggest one, right?
32:49
In terms of views?
32:50
I don't know what happened on that one.
32:52
That's crazy.
32:53
That's an anomaly, man.
32:54
Yeah, and it doesn't, the video doesn't, I don't know.
32:57
I mean, this was right in the March 20th, right?
33:00
We went on leave on the 17th.
33:02
It might have been just well time
33:05
when everything was going sideways.
33:07
I don't know how that has that many views.
33:09
So for those that can't see it,
33:11
this video we're talking about,
33:12
published on March 20th of this year, 2020,
33:14
the video title is March 20th mortgage rate update
33:17
would evolve a little week, 38,000 views.
33:21
Wow.
33:23
Which is interesting is the comments, you know what I mean?
33:26
Yeah, I'm saying that there wasn't a lot of engagement
33:29
with it.
33:30
I don't know what happened on that.
33:31
Like then there's out of 30, you know, almost 39,000 views,
33:34
there's five, no thumbs down, so that's good.
33:36
But there's only five thumbs up.
33:38
I don't know, I saw that and I never really dove into it.
33:42
Do you use TubeBuddy, you know what that is?
33:44
I don't use it.
33:45
I know what it is, but I don't use it.
33:47
It might be interesting to check out.
33:48
Yeah.
33:49
If you're getting, if you really want to kind of like level up,
33:51
you know what I mean, in terms of like keywords
33:53
and stuff like that.
33:53
Yeah, I've played with it.
33:55
I just didn't have the time to keep playing with the keywords,
33:58
but that's kind of what I was thinking of.
33:59
So when I'm making these videos,
34:01
what are people searching for right now?
34:03
Mortgage rate for sure was happening back then, right?
34:05
And I got a lot of, I got a lot of leads out of these videos
34:09
back in the first week of COVID.
34:11
You did, that's what I was going to ask you.
34:12
So it did generate some leads.
34:14
Yeah, and the hard part was they were coming
34:16
from all over the country.
34:17
And so now I'm getting licensed in multiple states.
34:20
I just got Virginia.
34:20
I'm working in Colorado or in Nevada.
34:23
So it's like, I got to keep going.
34:25
That is an excellent point.
34:26
I want to pause on for a second,
34:27
which I know a lot of people aren't necessarily thinking of
34:30
and it's funny you say country wide,
34:31
because when I started in 2003, that's where I started.
34:34
Was John Bianchi your regional?
34:37
No, I don't even remember.
34:38
Somebody else.
34:39
Donabletso was mine.
34:41
Yeah, yeah, I remember blood.
34:42
So yeah, I love her.
34:43
She was wonderful.
34:45
Anyway, the point is this is what I'm trying to say
34:46
is back then, like 2003 and when I started,
34:50
there was no concept of like doing loans out of state.
34:54
It's pretty much, I served my backyard and that's it.
34:57
And I do think that still should be your primary focus
34:59
because it is real local focused.
35:00
However, what we're seeing, and I'm seeing more now
35:03
with you and other people I'm talking to is
35:05
they're getting licensed in other states.
35:07
Why?
35:07
Because now we can reach across states
35:10
by having these online platforms and things like that.
35:12
So we can grow our business outside of our local market.
35:16
Well, and I think it's a necessity
35:18
because your local market is leaving.
35:20
I'm getting with companies now saying
35:23
that remote is our new normal
35:24
and you're not coming back to an office.
35:27
Okay, and this is what I'm seeing San Francisco,
35:29
Silicon Valley, housing's ridiculously expensive.
35:33
I have to live here to avoid commute.
35:35
Twitter just said I never have to come back to the office.
35:38
And I've been stuck in this condo with no balcony
35:42
for four months.
35:43
I'm moving a lot of my clients
35:44
for moving like the Sacramento area
35:47
because they get a lot of house for their money.
35:49
It's closer to Tahoe
35:51
and then you have people leaving the state.
35:52
So your clients are going other places
35:56
and if you're not licensed there,
35:57
it's hard to have them continue to be your client.
36:00
Mm-hmm.
36:01
So it's a long project.
36:03
I mean, I don't know if I'm gonna get licensed
36:05
in every state, but strategically looking at where
36:08
a lot of my people are moving to, that's where I start.
36:11
Well, let's, I mean, you can pull,
36:13
there used to be this joke that you could pull
36:15
U-Haul reports, whatever,
36:16
it shows how many people are leaving California, you know?
36:18
Right, right.
36:19
What states they lead the U-Haul in?
36:21
Yep.
36:22
And so those are, let's face it,
36:23
those are the Southwestern states.
36:24
Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Texas, Colorado.
36:28
Yep.
36:29
Idaho, Oregon, Washington.
36:31
My brother lived in Santa Cruz.
36:33
He's in Portland now, my stepdad's in Portland.
36:36
I have a realtor who just bought a place in Ben.
36:39
His developer just bought a place in Ben.
36:42
So I'm gonna surround myself with those states
36:46
and then just from a VA, I love helping veterans.
36:50
That's why I did Virginia
36:52
just cause there's a lot of Navy out there, so.
36:54
Mm-hmm, very cool.
36:56
Um, yeah, and by the way, the last point on that is
36:59
these people are now reachable both organically free,
37:02
like your YouTube channel and paid, right?
37:05
With ads and targeting and things like that that you can do.
37:07
So, I mean, the days of, you know,
37:10
it used to be crazy to think of a $100 million producer,
37:13
you know, but I think I'm not gonna say,
37:16
I was gonna say that's more achievable now
37:17
than I think it was before.
37:20
So I agree, and that's what's so interesting is
37:22
that's in my mind, in 2017 it was,
37:24
I'm gonna do 100 million.
37:26
And that number was just like the number we all talked about
37:29
for some reason, that was a magical number.
37:33
And it is much more attainable than I think a lot of people think.
37:37
And maybe, right, maybe just more attainable now.
37:41
The other thing is learning from our losses.
37:43
So I had one client, right at the beginning of COVID,
37:47
I think he came from Zillow,
37:50
we started doing the rate game and then he applied.
37:54
And then he went to another guaranteed rate lender
37:57
that he found on Zillow, and that guy was in Florida.
38:01
That specific buyer didn't care about local,
38:03
didn't care about anything.
38:04
It was just, this is purely a transaction and nothing more.
38:08
And I could throw a temper tantrum about losing.
38:10
And I don't really look at it as a loss.
38:13
We weren't gonna, it just wasn't gonna happen.
38:16
But I can learn from that and go, okay,
38:17
so what is someone's value?
38:20
What do they think is the value of a mortgage lender?
38:23
I don't get to determine that.
38:24
They get to kind of figure that out.
38:26
Everyone's gonna find something different in that.
38:29
So is that to say that you oftentimes,
38:32
I'm curious because you use mortgage coach so much,
38:35
do you find that that has, that resonates with people
38:39
at different levels based on the person?
38:41
Yeah, so that's a really good point.
38:43
So with mortgage coach, I use it for every single client
38:47
every single time.
38:49
And if I get a new lead, so if somebody says,
38:51
hey, Sean, I wanna refinance.
38:52
Send me your mortgage statement.
38:53
I'll build out a side-by-side comparison for you to review.
38:56
Full disclosure, full transparency,
38:58
you will have everything you need.
38:59
Well, I've coached a lot of my competition
39:01
and I've lost a lot of deals
39:03
by using mortgage coach that early on.
39:06
And I got to a point where I did get into that.
39:09
This is a mad, you know, and it was the wrong approach.
39:14
I decided I'm gonna do the right thing.
39:16
And if they go somewhere else,
39:18
I helped them make a better decision.
39:20
And you never know why people go other places.
39:23
It's just, it's not necessarily,
39:24
I think rates are for the most part of commodity.
39:27
So maybe it's not the rate, maybe they,
39:29
maybe the mortgage coach was too much information for them.
39:31
Maybe it overcomplicated things.
39:34
But if I think it's the right thing, I'm gonna keep doing it.
39:39
Hanging out in the local discussion for a minute
39:41
versus local doesn't matter.
39:44
I don't have any data on this yet,
39:45
but you know how realtors often will endorse
39:47
the loan officer because they're local, you know.
39:50
Somebody right here, somebody in the backyard.
39:52
I think appraisal, that may have a bigger impact on that
39:55
than, you know, the lender.
39:57
But I don't know, we're just spitballing here.
40:00
I'm wondering to your point about the consumer
40:03
that example you gave to what degree
40:06
they're gonna care less in the future
40:08
about where their lender is located.
40:10
I think it's kind of a combination.
40:11
So I had a client consultation yesterday,
40:14
somebody from Google, they both work at Google,
40:17
they want to buy in Silicon Valley,
40:19
local was important to them and they were referred
40:21
to your point, they were referred to me by their lender.
40:23
They were already pre-approved at Wells Fargo,
40:26
but they wanted to support small
40:28
and they wanted to support local.
40:29
So yeah, that was what we did there.
40:33
And I think, again, it's, I think to some people,
40:36
it's really important to some people's not important at all.
40:38
Yeah, I think that's the key point there,
40:40
because we can wax philosophically on this.
40:42
And I think to your point, like if you're doing it
40:44
in your area with very technically savvy people,
40:47
people are used to doing a lot online,
40:50
that's gonna be more comfortable for them.
40:52
In other places of like Iowa, whatever, like you said,
40:54
it depends, do they value local, you know what I mean?
40:57
And what is the market like?
40:59
And I have to look like cash offers.
41:01
Well, you have to close in two weeks.
41:02
I don't care which jumbo, FHA, whatever, two weeks
41:06
is often times what we have.
41:08
That's a lot of times where local matters, right?
41:12
But if you have like these Ben 45-day escros
41:15
feel like a vacation.
41:16
And they did actually on one of the two
41:18
that I'm working on now, the listing agent was concerned
41:22
that the lender was not local and was to your point again,
41:24
worried about the appraisal.
41:26
Not really worried about anything else.
41:28
And I was like, well, odds are we're not gonna need an appraisal.
41:31
We got to waver sure enough, but you just have to overcome that.
41:34
You know, I responded right away and showed them,
41:37
sit using those things, using to be like, I'm on it.
41:39
You're gonna get more communication
41:41
than you would from your local guy anyways.
41:43
So I don't want that to be a deterrent
41:45
from my client getting the property.
41:48
It's cliche and it's overused,
41:50
but it really comes back to your customer experience
41:53
and building that trust.
41:54
And what is that like from the outset,
41:57
from the first conversation and that point on,
42:00
that's what's gonna determine really,
42:02
I think if they go with you or not.
42:04
No, 100% and that's another thing I did.
42:06
Because again, I've been in this industry for a long time,
42:10
but I am somewhat the new guy on the origination side.
42:12
And as I was building what I felt my client experience should be,
42:17
and then you know, you hit these spurts
42:19
where I was losing deals.
42:20
They didn't care about any of that.
42:21
And like Wells Fargo was buying all jumbo loans
42:24
for a long period of time.
42:26
And you know, Silicon Valley,
42:27
that's first time buyers buying homes for $2 million.
42:31
You know, I got, that's kind of when I hit my mad grumpy phase.
42:36
And it was like, well, if they don't care about the client experience,
42:37
I'm not gonna do all of this.
42:38
And then it was just like, that's the worst thing you could ever say.
42:41
Because all we are is our client experience.
42:44
Mmm, I love that.
42:46
That's a meme right there, man.
42:47
Instagram, that sucker.
42:48
That's, you know what I mean?
42:51
It's what do we, so we want referrals.
42:53
We, if you get a bad review, you're finished.
42:55
So your customer experience is the only thing that matters.
42:59
Absolutely, so real quick before we end out here,
43:01
I want to segue, seeing as you've mentioned reviews twice.
43:05
Tell me about your process, because I see you have them on Zillow,
43:08
I see them other places.
43:09
Do you have a go-to spot?
43:10
And then how do you get them?
43:11
So Yelp seems, so the first thing I did is I Googled my name
43:14
to see where I showed up the most.
43:16
And Yelp was my first.
43:19
So I always ask for a Yelp Google and Zillow review.
43:23
I don't really bother with Facebook.
43:24
I don't think anyone cares about my Facebook business page.
43:27
So those are my three that I focus on.
43:29
And I always ask for all three.
43:31
Yelp, of course, you know, I can't stand
43:33
because they block so many.
43:37
But those are the three I ask for.
43:38
So Google and Zillow, I would say, would be the two biggest.
43:41
And I agree with you on Yelp and besides that,
43:43
I think the consumer behavior, you know,
43:46
in terms of where they're trending towards mortgage
43:48
or real estate-related views is getting less on Yelp than it was.
43:52
All right, but you send people, you give them a choice
43:55
or actually ask, now what do you do?
43:56
Do you link over there?
43:57
Is that what you do in an email?
43:58
Yeah, basically.
43:59
So I always tell everyone, I won't have a great experience
44:01
because I am going to ask you to, you know,
44:03
the internet is my resume now.
44:06
So I'm going to ask you to give me a review.
44:08
And at the end, I'll send an email with a hyperlink to all three
44:12
and just say, I would love all three.
44:14
But if I can only have one, I'll take whatever one you want to do.
44:17
You know, I'll take what I can get.
44:18
Thank you so much.
44:19
And I don't ask for a five star review.
44:21
I just say, give me a review.
44:23
It's a realtor on Instagram the other day, did a post saying,
44:28
please go to Zillow and give me a five star review.
44:32
Friends, family, whoever, but they haven't worked with you.
44:34
That's not, that's disingenuous.
44:36
That's not authentic.
44:37
That's not what I want to be.
44:38
The reviews I have are real client experiences.
44:42
And if they didn't have a good experience,
44:44
they would have written it.
44:45
Yeah, for sure.
44:46
And do you tend to track those like, you know,
44:48
like how many do you get and all that?
44:49
I try to, yeah, I try to have a checklist, you know,
44:51
because they'll follow with people,
44:52
hey, I know you're busy, but you know, me a lot to me.
44:55
I try, I don't want to overdo it.
44:57
But I try to follow up a couple times to get as many as I can.
45:00
All right.
45:01
I got a question for you.
45:02
I've had this debate a number of times with people
45:05
about the long-term impacts or whatever
45:08
of sending people to Zillow to leave reviews.
45:12
And I mean, have you heard of that whole?
45:15
No.
45:16
Like some people are like, you're sending people
45:18
to your competition.
45:20
It's the internet.
45:21
People are going to find what they want to find.
45:22
You know, and I don't, that's a lack of confidence.
45:25
You know, if you're worried that some random lender on Zillow
45:29
is going to beat you, one, you are doing something wrong
45:35
that you're scared, right?
45:36
Maybe you're charging too much or something.
45:38
Or two, I don't know, that's a weird one to me.
45:42
I've never heard of that.
45:44
I agree.
45:44
It's a little bit tough to deal with.
45:45
But I love the point you made is that that might come
45:47
from a scarcity mindset.
45:48
And if you're not coming, because what are you saying?
45:50
They're going to go to Zillow.
45:51
It's post-transaction.
45:52
You've already closed them.
45:53
You already have the relationship.
45:54
What are you going to do?
45:55
Never market to them again?
45:57
And the argument is like, oh, Zillow's going
45:58
to take your customer to what?
45:59
When they buy in seven years, I mean, come on.
46:03
But I just like, I had a client.
46:04
And again, I look at a, come from a place
46:06
of everything is my fault.
46:07
Good, bad, different, it's my fault.
46:09
I had a client follow it up with her to refinance.
46:11
She's like, we just refinanced.
46:12
I didn't even think to come back to you.
46:14
That's my fault not hers, you know?
46:17
Ah, so all right, that opens up this ugly can about quick
46:20
and then, you know what I mean?
46:22
Now, you're with G-Rate, I know.
46:23
But I'm sure you see the healthy debates
46:25
about people sending brokering business to quick inn
46:27
and you're finding your demise.
46:29
You got any opinions on that?
46:31
So what I understand about that is you broker to quick inn
46:33
and then ultimately, you're going to do that deal once
46:36
and then quick inn just so it's them like crazy.
46:38
Is that how it works?
46:38
That's the argument, yeah.
46:40
Okay, so people are going to find quick inn
46:42
if they want to, quick inn spends plenty of money
46:44
to make sure people find them.
46:46
Quick inn in my world, it's really easy to overcome them
46:51
because what here's what's real, I love psychology.
46:54
Here's what's interesting about quick inn.
46:56
Push button, get mortgage.
46:57
Everything's convenience, they make it sound simple
47:00
or not simple, they make it sound easy.
47:02
It never advertised being the lowest rate.
47:06
They never advertised being the cheapest,
47:08
but somehow we put ease as being cheaper.
47:13
When in all examples, ease is more expensive.
47:16
And so if people, you know, if somebody goes to quick inn,
47:20
I usually win because I beat him on rate and fees.
47:24
And those are the type of people
47:25
who are usually going to quick inn,
47:27
that's what they're most interested in.
47:28
So I just haven't really had an issue with that.
47:31
Interesting, all right, good debate though.
47:33
All right, before we close out here,
47:34
what are you doing post COVID,
47:38
the rest of this year or looking into 2021,
47:42
anything you plan on initiating
47:44
or adding to your business?
47:46
Yeah, so I'm gonna go, I try to keep things very simple,
47:50
Facebook, I'm gonna go heavier on Facebook ads,
47:53
doing something with ad works,
47:55
which is Google, lead generation basically, Google ads.
47:59
So please do stuff.
48:01
Yeah, I have to.
48:02
I just think that's kind of an necessity
48:03
and the budget, like we were talking about earlier,
48:05
the budget that I had for events
48:07
and all the socializing I love to do,
48:09
don't really get to do it much.
48:10
So it's those two things,
48:11
doing the realtor workshops like we're doing now,
48:15
that's kind of it, those are my three things.
48:17
And then what I do,
48:20
perhaps client-wise for the database,
48:21
is I do mortgage reviews using mortgage coach,
48:25
to either tell people they already have the best mortgage
48:26
or we can do better.
48:27
So those are my four things.
48:30
What type of ads have you been running on Facebook?
48:33
I've been doing VA ads.
48:35
The big problem in the Bay Area is,
48:37
veterans don't get the attention they deserve.
48:38
So that's one thing I'm trying to overcome.
48:41
So I do a lot of VA ads,
48:42
a lot of first time buyer ads.
48:43
Those are my people, you know, I don't have a-
48:45
Like in a first time home buyer ad, what would it say?
48:48
It depends.
48:49
So if it's like a workshop,
48:50
if I'm going to do a home buyer workshop on Zoom as a webinar,
48:54
I did one where as a picture for my sister's wedding
48:57
was my son when he was really small and her daughter,
49:00
and they're both, she's in a white dress,
49:01
he's in a tux from the wedding,
49:04
but they're looking at each other,
49:05
and it's put a little caption like,
49:06
honey, I think we should take the next step.
49:08
And then I use that as like a first time home buyer type,
49:10
you know, it's a little cute kids,
49:11
it catches their attention,
49:13
and then it's, you know, I did one during COVID,
49:15
like this could be the best time to buy in history.
49:19
Are you designing these yourself,
49:20
or you have an agency or?
49:22
I do, I love, I kind of,
49:24
I was a, after I ate when everything fell apart,
49:27
I was shooting photos for the modeling agencies
49:28
since I'm in San Francisco.
49:30
Roughly one or less.
49:31
I got a part C side.
49:33
So I try to design it myself, but that just takes time.
49:37
But they're really simple,
49:38
because it's really, people are scrolling through so fast.
49:41
You have like a couple, a half a second
49:42
to catch their attention.
49:44
And then it links out to Eventbrite, they register,
49:47
I got their contact info now.
49:49
If they show up to the webinar or not,
49:50
you know, hopefully they do,
49:51
but then I'll put them into my bomb bomb drip campaigns.
49:54
Okay, really quick.
49:55
I want to unpack that a little bit,
49:56
because I've been looking at that exact thing,
49:59
virtual or online home buyer seminars.
50:02
You're running ads for that?
50:04
Yes.
50:05
And you're doing some targeting?
50:07
Very, very small targeting.
50:08
It's very limited what we're allowed to target.
50:10
So I'm curious what you're doing, yeah.
50:12
Yeah, so 18 to 65 plus,
50:15
I can't be counting, or I'm sorry,
50:17
I can't be zip code specific, but I am counting specific.
50:20
So the radius, you're doing 15 mile radius
50:22
or just doing a county?
50:24
Or I'll do straight county, yeah.
50:25
County, okay, got it.
50:27
Depends on the ad, but I tend to do county.
50:31
Some interests, like maybe Zillow,
50:33
mortgage calculator, whatever.
50:34
Yeah, and then what I'll do is if you have for interest,
50:38
I use a lot of life events.
50:40
So just married, new kid,
50:42
the things that kind of trigger,
50:44
it's time to buy a house, right?
50:46
So I'll use those as my targets.
50:49
The life events is mainly what I use now,
50:51
since everything else kind of went away.
50:53
So how have the Zoom first time home buyer
50:58
things been going?
51:00
They're okay, they could definitely eat better.
51:03
You definitely get a lot of interest.
51:05
I use the lead generation sheet in Facebook now,
51:07
they've done a much better job with that.
51:09
Then it used to be, so I'll use that.
51:12
The people that I actually show up,
51:13
it's just like a real home buyer seminar.
51:14
They, the amount of interest is far less than that.
51:18
Tire kickers.
51:19
Yeah, and, but when they do come in,
51:22
it's a, it's a pretty solid close ratio.
51:26
I had one, this was a live one.
51:27
This was like a very humbling experience
51:29
where I think when we do these events,
51:31
we all have this vision of being on stage
51:34
in front of tons of people.
51:36
And I had one I was doing at the realtor,
51:37
and she's like, there's only two people,
51:39
you know, I'm like, oh, let's cancel it.
51:40
It's on a Saturday.
51:40
We'll spend time with their family.
51:42
They're really adamant about doing it.
51:44
And I was just like, this is ridiculous.
51:45
Like, I don't want to go do anything.
51:47
I helped both of them, and then one of their friends.
51:49
All right.
51:50
Who am I to say that my time is far more valuable than theirs?
51:55
Like, I'm the one that said I'd be there,
51:57
and now I'm the one trying to back out.
51:59
And so that was, that was a good learning experience for me.
52:01
Interesting.
52:02
Well, let's keep the dialogue going
52:03
regarding the virtual home buyer events,
52:05
because I think that's just another example
52:07
in this post-COVID world.
52:09
That's how people are going to want to engage,
52:10
plus you can expand your footprint,
52:12
and it's all about building the funnel,
52:13
along with you have some automation and stuff behind that.
52:15
You know what I mean?
52:16
Right.
52:17
Put them in a CRM and all that kind of stuff.
52:18
Okay, cool.
52:19
So if anybody wants to connect with you personally online,
52:21
you mentioned Instagram once again.
52:23
Give your handle.
52:24
Instagram is Adventure Lender, and then Sean Herrero,
52:29
if you Google me, all those things come up.
52:31
So however anybody wants to,
52:33
if anyone has questions about anything,
52:34
I'm happy to help anyway, I can.
52:36
Awesome.
52:37
We really appreciate you making time to be here, man.
52:38
I think this is going to be great conversation.
52:40
No, thanks for having me.
52:41
This has been great.
52:42
You bet.
52:43
And let's just do what you do.
52:43
If you like this episode,
52:44
hey, do us a favor, leave us a review.
52:45
You know where to find us.
52:46
And I appreciate you.
52:48
We'll see you on the next one.
52:49
Bye for now.
52:50
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