"SECOND HELPINGS: Serving Up Repeat Business"

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam. [00:00:36] Speaker B: All right, welcome back to Mortgage Me Marketing education activities and tips for mortgage loan originators. Once again, mortgage man fro in the house. Welcome. [00:00:46] Speaker A: What's up? Hey. [00:00:48] Speaker B: So, you know, I know last time you were here, you mentioned that your favorite steak was a overcooked chili's sirloin with a side of awesome blossoms. But you know what's funny is that I run the thing through chat GPT for our notes just for fun and it suggested a follow up question to someone who's been on the show. Might be, if you were a steak sauce, which one would you be and why? [00:01:14] Speaker A: I don't even stay. The names of the steak sauce probably is just go with a one, dude. The most standard plain, low class steak sauce there is. [00:01:25] Speaker B: I was talking to Some day. I said, they said, why do people give me a hard time for putting steaks? I said, because the steak should taste good. [00:01:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:31] Speaker B: Without having to cover it. So I guess if I, if I was a really tough, leathery steak, I'd just be ketchup. [00:01:40] Speaker A: Bunch of ketchup. [00:01:41] Speaker B: All right, so today actually, great topic, you know, with Mortgage Me with our themed names, we're talking about second helpings today and realistically getting deals for people you've already helped before. [00:01:54] Speaker A: Yep. [00:01:54] Speaker B: Which is a great, great topic. You've got experience in this. [00:01:57] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah, sure. So just recently, the last 12 months, we've realized that we've gotten more past client referrals than we've ever got in our whole entire career. And that kind of spurred me in my creating presentations constantly to help people like grow and give GUID through the mortgage process. We created a presentation which basically is called repeat and referral Business Boot Camp. [00:02:24] Speaker B: Okay. [00:02:25] Speaker A: And in that presentation we go over kind of all the things that we're doing that we think are spurring these additional clients to basically reach out and try and connect us with people that need a mortgage. So I'm just excited to kind of dive into that and give you guys some insight on what we're doing and some ideas and hopefully help you guys transition into getting more repeat business from your clients. Because it's just you've already worked with them and why would you not want that? [00:02:54] Speaker B: So, yeah, you know, it's funny is that, you know, so much time and energy spent. Right. To secure a client. A client. I know you'll talk about this, but that sounds transactional. [00:03:05] Speaker A: Right. [00:03:05] Speaker B: And ideally we're building friendships, relationships and, you know, so I guess for those of you that don't know about Tim, this is Mortgage manfro. Gentleman did 80 plus transactions. [00:03:20] Speaker A: 89 loans last year. [00:03:21] Speaker B: 89 loans last year. So I don't know where your year was. I know there's some that may have done more, but for most people, I talked to man's machine also, he shares his tips all the time. Shoot him a text. What number can they text you? [00:03:32] Speaker A: 909-837-8777. I will meet or talk with anyone that wants to connect, whether it be loan officers or real estate agents or anyone. [00:03:41] Speaker B: I mean, that Mustang sounds good and it's really cool because I've texted him before and he'll say a little calendar of what do you want to talk about? [00:03:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:49] Speaker B: And so I'm excited to hear more about this one. So let's dive into it. [00:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah. So I saw stat, which we've all seen these stats before, but this kind of was like, you know, the main point of my presentation that I put together. And it's 87% of people would use their real estate agent again. Only 12% do. And that's a powerful stat, man. I mean, because think about that huge disconnect. Like, why are only 12% of people basically using a real estate agent or a loan officer again after using them? I mean, you've helped them. Hopefully they've had a good experience. I would say most of the time they do. You've helped them achieve home ownership, you've helped them achieve a goal, and then all of a sudden they don't use you again. X amount of years down the road, right? [00:04:34] Speaker B: When I tell you, I remember when that stat came out from nar, and I think there's a little more to it where it was 87% of people would use a realtor again if they just knew who they were. [00:04:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:45] Speaker B: Was like part of that. Like, they don't even know. And I was sharing with you before we started. You know, my dad, pops was a realtor for years and I did loans, my dad did real estate. We would go canvas old school. We'd go dropping, you know, flyers at the doors, throwing notepads in the street. And I still remember, like going around the neighborhood. We marketed Alpha moment, right? And seeing this house on the corner had a for sale sign. And it wasn't. My dad was with the remax at the time, right? Wasn't ReMax. How dare them? How dare these people, you know, dismiss. Why did they. Why did they listen to this other person help them out three years ago and never talk to him again? You know, it's like, guess who can't Be too upset. [00:05:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it really comes down to like, five things is what I figured out. So, I mean, like you said, lack of follow up. So basically, after the transaction, guilty. Yeah, I mean, all of us are guilty. Right. I mean, we've all done it, we all continue to do it. But, you know, this hopefully spurs you guys to start thinking a little bit more about what you do after the transaction is closed. Right. So getting away from having the number two, which is a transactional mindset. You know, as real estate professionals, we have to basically consistently be generating new people that are looking to buy or sell a house or refinance a loan. So we're constantly looking for those. But I think where we're missing the mark is to them, this is like their. They bought their house. You know, this is a big deal. Like, they want to feel like after the transaction's over, you're still there with them, answering questions, being a resource. And I think, you know, that's just a huge thing to not follow up and then to basically make them feel like it's a transactional mindset that you have. Right. [00:06:22] Speaker B: And then they may feel like even if they had a question, oh, I don't want to bother him, he already got paid, or whatever, they might be. [00:06:28] Speaker A: Thinking, yeah, yeah, we have to deal with that as well. I mean, there's so much competition and noise out there. I mean, there's real estate agents and loan officers that make a living literally just calling random people constantly, get a list of people they're consistently following up and hoping they get them on that one day when they might need that service. Right. Because I think what's the average amount of time I think is getting longer in between when someone buys a house and when they buy another house? As a loan officer, there may be opportunities for refinancing, but I think it used to be like five or six years, and now it's like. I think I saw a stat that's maybe it's like longer, like eight or nine years now. [00:07:02] Speaker B: Well, we'll go with eight or nine years because we verify nothing on mortgage. [00:07:04] Speaker A: Yeah, we don't verify. [00:07:05] Speaker B: So it just sounds like, hey, it's. [00:07:07] Speaker A: A while I saw something out there that sounded like that. So I think. [00:07:12] Speaker B: Well, the thing too is it's not necessarily just that house too. Right. I think that's one of the disconnects is that, you know, maybe an investment property, maybe a second home, or maybe they have a friend. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I just got a call from someone over the weekend and we helped him purchase a home about a year ago. And he's like, hey, do you have opportunity to do loans in Oklahoma? And we do have opportunities to basically facilitate loans in different states. And I'm like, yeah, we could help you. And he's like, oh, my friend is purchasing a home out there. She lives out here, she's moving out there. And she was going to use Rocket Mortgage Direct. And I just told her she's crazy and she needs to contact you. So called me verified. All of a sudden I get a group text message with her on there and we're already starting the process of helping her put together an application. So right there is just a key point. So it's not even necessarily like that that person is going to buy another house. Yeah. It's that you've done such a good job of staying in front of them and they had such a good experience and they feel like it's not a transactional thing that the second someone mentions, you know, real estate or mortgages, they think of you instantly and you've created this raving fan that's going to basically be out there working for you. [00:08:19] Speaker B: And that's the deal. Right? It's like, how often do you hear, you know, oh, I got a guy, or you know, yeah, hey, I got to do this. You want to be that guy or that gal that is the realtor, that is the lo that they always think of. [00:08:32] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:08:33] Speaker B: It's like it was Seinfeld's pretty funny. Someone's got a doctor, I'm going to the doctor. I got a guy, he's the best, you know, Well, I got a guy, he's the best. [00:08:40] Speaker A: Because everyone deep down wants to refer someone to their friends, you know, and if you're not in the right, you know, reminding them that you're available for all that kind of stuff, that's where you're missing the mark. And I think another number four on my list was changing circumstances. So, you know, people's circumstances are changing constantly. So you may have helped them purchase their home, you know, seven years ago when they were a first time home buyer and did down payment assistance. And maybe since then they've done really well in their job. And now all of a sudden they're the CEO of a company and they're selling this house and buying a $2 million house. If you're not basically in front of them reminding them that you're helping all different types of people by telling stories of helping those types of people on social media or through your CRM or Whatever they may feel that you wouldn't be a good fit out of 2 million dollar house because the house you helped them buy was 350 or 500 or whatever it was. [00:09:26] Speaker B: So yeah, it's like, it's like getting pigeonholed into a certain thing. Right. It's like, well, oh, you only do DPA or you only do. No, no, I do DPA today. I do your retirement vacation homes. I do all of it. Yeah. [00:09:38] Speaker A: So if you stay in front of them, reminding them that you can help all different types, that's. That could be an opportunity that you wouldn't miss when they go to buy their next move up house. I think like lack of value post sales, you know, you have to have things in place that basically will dive into that are going to add value to the client after the fact of they got their mortgage or purchase their home. So, so that's basically kind of like the layout and some of the things I think that people are missing the mark on, I think that we're doing at a high level now which is generating all these past client referrals. So let's see. So building relationships, not transactions. So I think like one of the big things that we've been doing recently is communicating in a way that is very excited for the client. Purchasing a home is like such an achievement. Right. Like, and I think because we are doing so many transactions over and over again, sometimes we get what you would want called jaded or basically just losing the fact that this is the biggest move this person has ever made. Right. [00:10:43] Speaker B: At that point. You know, it's funny because, you know, I've been in the wholesale industry for a number of years and wholesale. And she's kind of stepped back right. From dealing with consumers. And I remember talking to our team a couple years ago and saying, look, we need to remember it's not a loan number. Right? [00:10:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:58] Speaker B: It's Jimmy and Susie Smith and they've got one kid who's going to be growing up and swinging in that tree and the cat has one eye. Like we went into this elaborate thing or like, like how much detail there is there to remind yourself because you're 100% right. If they feel like you're only there for the transaction, you're done. Or do they feel like you're their guy, you're part of the family, part. [00:11:19] Speaker A: Of the team, part of the. So when we communicate, we're extremely excited constantly, every step of the way. I mean you got pre approved, like oh my gosh, this is amazing. Great step. You Know, this is so good when you're talking to them and going over the pre approval, be excited, be pumped up about everything that's going on, every little step of the way. You know, they write their first offer right, like, oh my gosh, this is a great. This is so great. You know, you got to basically be genuine, but basically be excited and almost over the top because that kind of like excitement raises their excitement and they basically understand that you understand what a big deal all this is throughout the process, whether it be ordering the appraisal, the appraisal came back, your loans approved, you know, we got conditional approval or we got clear to close. Now we're funding the loan. I mean, all these different things are. [00:12:10] Speaker B: Hey, we got pulled for random QC hot. [00:12:12] Speaker A: Yeah, these are all exciting things. [00:12:15] Speaker B: Exciting thing, new condition to close it. [00:12:17] Speaker A: And I think being excited and thankful is. Is one of the things that we're doing at a high level that's basically generating all these people that want to have those feelings where they want to basically refer us after the fact, right? [00:12:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:29] Speaker A: And doing that creates like these deeper connections, you know, learn everything you can about the client. Like you were jokingly saying, like, there was a cat with one eye and their kid was this at the other. We used to have like a intake form where they'd fill out their favorite color and stuff and that literally we got away from that. But what we do do is like, anytime something comes across that we might want to notate, either just put it in the contact, like the person, like in the notes. Huge Lakers fan, you know, originally from Michigan, whatever, like all these little things. So that way it's hard for us to remember that with all the clients we work with, hopefully. But if we're going back and we're basically reconnecting with them and we have a little notes on their contact that says all, a couple little bullet points. You know, that could be a good way to basically have a deeper conversation or a better conversation. So keep. I keep it super simple. You could go over the top, but just literally in my contact, on my phone, I have little notes about each person that I think makes sense. Tactical empathy is something that. Tactical empathy. Tactical empathy. So basically what that means. [00:13:35] Speaker B: Hang on. Don't be sad yet. I don't have. I don't have time to care for you right now. [00:13:39] Speaker A: Yeah, well, tactical empathy, actually. So the definition is like the way that I explain it to people is always seeing things from their side of the street. So I read a book called Full Fee Agent, which is all about Basically negotiating your full fee as a real estate agent. But it really came. It hit home when all these changes were happening with the real estate agent compensation, all the signatures you have to get up front and all that. And basically what you. What tactical empathy is to me is always seeing things from their side of the street. So basically, the normal way that most people communicate is there. Your clients on one side of the street, you're on the other side, and you're screaming across the street trying to explain to them why they should see things your way. Right. Tactical empathy is when you walk across the street, stand shoulder to shoulder with the client, view things the way that they're viewing them, and then make suggestions and help guide them through the process. So when you have that tactical empathy, there's this chemical reaction in your brain that creates a connection with that person. That's. That's. That's doing tactical empathy at a high level that basically just makes them want to return the favor and be more connected to you. And another thing is creating high five moments. So anytime you could ever, like, you know, when you do a high five, that's like a celebration. Yeah. [00:14:58] Speaker B: That's like Mel, Whatever. [00:15:00] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:15:01] Speaker B: High five habit. Cool book, too. [00:15:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:03] Speaker B: Starting out, she high fives herself in the mirror every day. [00:15:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:06] Speaker B: Herself. Right again. No one else here. Boom. And that is a great way to start because it just. How do you not get excited? High five. [00:15:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I was weak. [00:15:15] Speaker B: You almost got me in the face. [00:15:17] Speaker A: So, like, obviously we're not seeing clients face to face all the time, or maybe not even ever. But if the way we're communicating and the way we're basically going back and forth is creating what feels like a high five moment, I feel like that creates a deeper connection as well. [00:15:31] Speaker B: For sure. [00:15:31] Speaker A: So when you're building those relationships, not transactions looking for the high five moments, being excited throughout the process is basically going to make them carry that emotion on beyond the transaction and think of you more often. When eventually there's an opportunity, you think about that too. [00:15:46] Speaker B: And like, where do we normally see high five? [00:15:48] Speaker A: Like, where. [00:15:49] Speaker B: Where do you think of it? You think it's like sports. Right. And what is the most important thing when you're in sports? The team. [00:15:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:56] Speaker B: Right. It's together. It's not like, I won, we won. I think that's awesome because they didn't get the house by themselves. The realtor, the lo. Everybody work together, which. That's awesome. [00:16:08] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, in all the communications we do, I mean, I probably say it like an annoying amount of times. But I always say thank you for giving us the opportunity to be part of your team. Yeah. I mean, because we want to make them understand. And that's also putting the real estate agent in there as well. Like on the group text messages saying, like, you know, thank you again for the opportunity to be part of your team or your journey. And that's creating that, that deeper connection as well. So that leads to like, the other stat which I think connects with the first one is 91% of all realtors never contact their buyer, seller after closing. [00:16:40] Speaker B: If you're guilty, put a thumbs down in the chat. [00:16:43] Speaker A: I mean, think about. [00:16:43] Speaker B: Oh, no, don't thumbs down our chat. That might be bad. [00:16:45] Speaker A: Think about it though, dude. You close and then only 9% of people actually reach out again. And in some way. [00:16:53] Speaker B: Any contact. [00:16:54] Speaker A: Any contact. [00:16:55] Speaker B: And this is actually a stat that is verified national association of Realtors. This isn't our normal random. [00:17:01] Speaker A: Made it up. Yeah, this is a real, actual stat. So. And I think that's something that if you just even think about that even a couple times every year or once a year is better than nothing. And you may be in the right place at the right time as opposed to someone else who just randomly calling them. [00:17:17] Speaker B: So hang on. That for once, it reminds me something. So Tim Cahill, who was a buddy of mine, mentor of mine, he shared something at one of our other podcasts that when he got into the business, he was at this seminar and he was taking notes and they said, you know, look around after the exact number I have to look at the podcast. We don't verify anything, but he said something like, like 10 or 20% of the people in the room would only would do these like three, four things. Is it like a group of like all the top producers in the area, looked around the room. He's one of the top producers. There's other ones there. And only I think it was 20% of the people would do these like four things. That's crazy. In a room of 100 people, only 20 are gonna do it. This is like equally crazy, right? So if you're a realtor and only 9% are bothering to follow up with their past clients, you being the one that does puts you in probably the top 10%. That's crazy. [00:18:08] Speaker A: Of the nation. [00:18:09] Speaker B: What an easy, easy takeaway. [00:18:11] Speaker A: All you got to do is reach out and take time. And I mean creating. I'll talk about creating those opportunities, I think in a, in a little bit later in the presentation. But actually it's right here. [00:18:22] Speaker B: So this one's asking, you oversee. [00:18:23] Speaker A: This one's called, this slide's called stay in touch. Okay. So you need to add value, not check in. Okay. So that's something that like I think about on a, on a consistent basis. Like so many times we send like just checking in. It's like, yeah, dude, your mom or your grandma checks in on you. You're like, you want to check in, you want to add value. So you want to be reaching out, but you have to schedule this personal value add communication. Right. So like for us personally, the way that we have it set up and we've been doing now is so we close the transaction. Okay. And then basically a month after the trip, we do all the congratulations and all the great stuff. We're excited for you, all that. So a month after the transaction closes, we basically reach out and try to schedule a call or get them on the phone and we want to remind them that their first mortgage payments come in the mail. [00:19:08] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:19:09] Speaker A: Congratulate them again. Right. [00:19:10] Speaker B: Hey, that's, that's one that the lender appreciates. [00:19:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:14] Speaker B: Remind them they have a payment. [00:19:16] Speaker A: I mean, so many times like, you know people, they're getting so many different things. It's just just an extra little value add to basically call and make sure they get their mortgage statement, see if they have any questions and have that conversation. A month's pass, they're still excited about the house. It's really always a really pretty quick, easy conversation. And then basically we have a three month checkup after. And on that checkup we're going to call and remind them about the supplemental tax bill. Okay. So we may have talked about the supplemental tax bill before, but you know, no one remembers that. We're going to want to basically make sure they understand like that's technically their responsibility. They're going to get these bills. Make sure you reach out to us and let us know if you ever get a refund from your current lenders escrow impound account. Do not take that check. Like, you know, call us, figure it out. Because as people know, sometimes those mistakes happen. But basically having that. And then we have a one year check in after that. Okay. And then we check in once a year after that scheduled where we'll reach out with a phone call. And a lot of times they don't, people don't answer. So we'll leave a message or send a text message after. But even if they don't respond, it's still the process of basically having that scheduled where I just pop up and I know the people that I need to reach out to for that, that time period. Right. [00:20:25] Speaker B: And what are you doing there? Do you have like a CRM that's telling you, hey, it's been a month or do you just like write it down in Excel? [00:20:33] Speaker A: I mean we use Google Calendar. Basically you don't have to pay for that. You put it in. And one of the, one of the process of closing out the loan is that they go in and put those in my calendar and then I know when they come up, I need to basically reach out to those people for those, those time frames. You put the yearly one on automatic repeating. Yearly. Yeah. And then the other ones you just manually put in one and three months out. Also having like, you know, homebot is something that I use at a high level. If you guys don't know what that is, it's a, it's like a monthly digest that comes that tells people what the value of their house is. [00:21:08] Speaker B: And I get it. I think you stuck me on. [00:21:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:11] Speaker B: But it's, it's pretty cool. And it's about your own house. So you kind of see it like, okay, this is, it's how much. I think it shows like how much equity you may have. [00:21:19] Speaker A: There's all kinds of stuff that you can play with Airbnb and it tells you refinance rates and all that stuff for national situation tells you how much equity you've had. You can edit it. It's really strong. So we also basically are going to sign them up for that. And then a text message goes out warning them that that email is going to come. And the people that basically open that email usually once a month, it's going to hit them every month. And that's just another constant reminder. Then we also have our CRM which basically we sign them up for like the standard CRM. Like you know, it goes on to infinity. So we're hitting them with those check ins Homebot and the CRM. And then also this is something like that, you know, we don't do yet, but we are moving towards doing. So I want to make sure it's clear like anytime I'm not telling someone to do something, I want to make sure I notate the things that we're working towards or things we're actually doing. So those first things we're actually doing, I think something strong that I've seen other people do like specifically like Chris Fox and there's a few other realtors out there that do it. Doing community events, like he has a Santa. Basically you Know, Santa comes and they take pictures and they rent out a space and they have a bounce house. So that's his like, flagship event. [00:22:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:29] Speaker A: So every single year he's inviting all of his clients to that event. It's not necessarily that they're all going to go, but it just gives them an excuse to basically invite him to something. [00:22:37] Speaker B: You know, there's a. I don't know if it was in a book or something I ran into because sometimes it's hard to remember. But essentially there was a lo. Who did. Excuse me, two. Two things he did every month. This was. This was his entire business plan. He would do a lunch and learn with real estate agents once a month. And he would share value topics like we're talking here today. And then he would do a mixer with his past clients once a month. All this guy did. And mind you, person who killed 100 plus transactions. [00:23:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:06] Speaker B: A year. Right. And at the event that he would do once a month, the mixer say, hey, you know, did a loan for Tim. Say, Tim, I want you to come on over to this. You know, we're doing Taco Tuesday. It doesn't have to be anything crazy. Why don't you come over? And by the way, I got you two. Two spots rsvp, right. So that now Tim's like, hey, can I bring my buddy? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Bring your buddy. Well, guess what? That buddy is the referral. Yeah, right. That's. I thought was so cool because, like, yeah, it's okay if I bring my friend. Yes. That's actually the reason we're doing it. Because you mentioned earlier in our unverified stats, it's seven to nine years before you're doing anything with me. I really want your buddy or your co worker. So I think that's. That's huge. Like. [00:23:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, like you said, like, I think in our heads we. We create all these. And I'll put it out there. Like, I will do a community event before the end of the year. I haven't done one yet, but something simple like coffee with a realtor. Like, I know there's Jojo and Scott who work on the Mitch Stein team are doing. And they. I did this presentation for them and they decided to do a monthly coffee mixer. [00:24:09] Speaker B: There you go. [00:24:10] Speaker A: And they basically every single month they go to a different coffee place and they basically offer to buy whatever clients show up. They're having somewhere between like maybe 8 to 12 to 15 people show up. They're buying coffee people. [00:24:23] Speaker B: And I'm sure. So they are real Stages. And they're inviting people they sold houses to. [00:24:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Or friends or. Yeah, it doesn't even necessarily have to be people they sold houses to. I think some of the people showing up are just their friends or whatever. But, yeah, the thing is, they're spending whatever they're spending. Let's say it's 150 bucks a month, 200 bucks a month. If no one shows up, you pay zero bucks. They're not. [00:24:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The cost is. The cost is based on who shows up and they show up. It's worth it. [00:24:47] Speaker A: So. And they've had some really great conversations. This is a newer thing that they're doing, but it's really. I'm seeing it working firsthand, and it's super simple. And all they did was just put it in the calendar and then they basically got to advertise it. Then I think the. Mainly they're advertising it on Facebook, just putting it out there, hey, we're going to be at this place. It's not. Not some kind of like crazy expensive thing. It's just. And then the people that see it, that can't go. At least they're seeing it. [00:25:12] Speaker B: Exactly. You know, it's funny because, you know, believe it or not, as we record this day, Tomorrow is day one of Q2. [00:25:19] Speaker A: Right. [00:25:19] Speaker B: And I remember we sat down and the funny thing is the importance putting these on the calendar. And I thought about this today when we were, you know, meeting up after I had to reschedule, is we, at the beginning of the year, set a calendar ourselves. And every other month we're going to do a podcast together, no matter what. And it's crazy how vital, because this is third one. [00:25:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:38] Speaker B: You know what I mean? And it's because it's on the calendar. So just use the calendar. And these aren't expensive tools. We're talking Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, like, just set it and it pops up. [00:25:51] Speaker A: You got to do the work. You got to reach out. But I mean, you'll. You'll. [00:25:53] Speaker B: It. [00:25:53] Speaker A: Maybe it won't be perfect at first. Another thing that. So my friends, a property owns property management company, and they sent us this list of all their preferred vendors. And there was like maybe four or five pages of vendors and roofers, plumbers, all the things that you would need as a property manager. All the same things you would need as a homeowner, Right? Yeah. So another great way to reach out and add value is basically ask people if they need any vendors. Right? You have these trusted people, this list. Now, you don't provide Them the list. Because if they provide you pride in the list, they don't need you. Right. But basically it gives you an excuse to reach out and say, hey, like, are you thinking about doing anything you might need, like a plumber or, you know, how's the house going? Then that's. You start having conversations of what they're doing. They're remodeling, they're doing this, they have problems with plumbing. Whatever it is, you're, you're become a resource at that point. And then enough times they're referring people, then they're always just going to think of you when something like that happens. Right. So I, I just took the list from the guy that, you know, was, was the property manager. [00:26:54] Speaker B: It was good enough for their property management. It's priced good. They probably show up on time or else they wouldn't be using them. So. [00:27:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So I mean, create that list. And that also gives you the opportunity, if you don't have the list, to reach out to vendors and create that list and basically create those relationships with those people. [00:27:09] Speaker B: So that point on the list too is that everybody on that list also could be a home buyer or need a loan or something as well, Right? [00:27:17] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, huge. I think also too, like, social media is a tool that a lot of us use, but maybe not as effectively as you could. I think that it's a very, very powerful tool to connect with past clients. I've done presentations about how I'll text a client or a real estate agent or whoever it is a million times. They never respond. And the second I go on Facebook or Instagram and I message them, they're literally typing back before I can even finish my message. Like they're on there constantly for some reason or another. Communications on Instagram and Facebook seem to be more readily replied to than other communications. And I have no idea why. [00:27:58] Speaker B: I know why. Because you ever see people with their phone is stuck in their hand? [00:28:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:02] Speaker B: And they tend to do this, you. [00:28:03] Speaker A: Know, so a way to stay connected with those people is basically have a list of your top clients. And I, I personally do this. I go and I find them and basically I'm going to like and comment and keep track of what's going on in their life. I have a certain amount of time that's scheduled every week. I just do one hour, dude, it's not that much time. And I'll literally scroll, but with a purpose to try and find past clients to like comment and share their stuff and basically message them. And that's. You would Be blown away. I think in the last, like, probably month or two, I've had multiple people reach out on social media requesting information about interest rates, quotes and stuff like, and before that would never happen because I wasn't using it effectively. [00:28:44] Speaker B: Well, I don't think that, and I know that I get for this, but I, I don't believe that just putting a post on social media today is gonna take you to the next level, be the top lo or realtor in the country. I do believe that when you add that to everything else you're doing, it's critical. [00:29:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:03] Speaker B: That's my opinion, for what it's worth. [00:29:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:05] Speaker B: And again, not, not vetted in any way, shape or form, but my own personal experiences like that, it's like, okay, you know, I've had people in my line of work that email them, talk to them, whatever, you know, and then nothing. Put a picture of me, barbecue and a steak and the. In the comments or some, oh, when you're going to invite me over, you know, whatever. What's great, they're seeing it in a different light. [00:29:27] Speaker A: But you have to have it scheduled or it won't happen. If you're just blindly doing it every so often, it's not going to be as effective as if you're. I mean, I have a neighbor that I helped with their third loan and we communicate on social media probably three or four times a week. She just says this, that the other. She moved to La Verne and she was from Diamond Bar, so she doesn't know the city as well as I do, obviously. [00:29:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:49] Speaker A: And she's, oh, what about, you know, I'll post something. She's like, oh, is that restaurant good? Or whatever, I'll see something. She'll send me a community event. Hey, you going to wine walk? So I mean, there's all these little relationships that are just basically getting, you know, kind of growing from these communications with social media, also creating shareable educational content. Like, so the idea is creating a content that someone's going to want to share with their database because that's how you expand your reach. [00:30:15] Speaker B: So what'd you get on the Dumb and Dumber one? Oh, because I remember that was like one of the first ones. I remember seeing you. [00:30:21] Speaker A: That one got like 400,000 views or something crazy. And a million shares. And I've had a couple go super mega viral. But I mean, really like creating that, Creating that information that people, they think is funny or educational that may want to share. Right. And then don't be scared to ask them to share. I mean if you've helped someone purchase their home using a first time home buyer program, you might want to do a post about that and then request those people to share it with their, you know, hey, share this with anyone that may be in your similar situation. Right. Debunking myths that we're talking about. You know, popular news that's in the mortgage or real estate world. Like basically creating posts so they could share that out. The messaging magic is, I mean I can't tell you just how powerful that is and its own officers too. Like I created relationships with real estate agents that I probably never would have got from messaging them on Instagram. [00:31:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:13] Speaker A: And it's, it's, it's really powerful. [00:31:14] Speaker B: So I will say one thing that you, you talked about one of your, your things. It's actually one of the things, you know, what is it that you, you know, we talk like high payoff activities and things. What is it you have wanted to do in your business and haven't done up till now? Right. It's a really good question. Makes people think. And you touched on it where you said, you know, community events, like I haven't done it yet and I need to. But you do the hikes and the walks because I've been on them and those are cool too and the dialogues, the conversations that we get to have. [00:31:46] Speaker A: Priceless. Yeah. So a lot of that's been more Realtors focused and I want, I need to start doing more what's going to be more past client focus. So, so add value but always call to action. So like I said, share this post with someone who is similar to you or whatever. You know, you could always do value checks like so let's say as a real estate agent you have access to the MLS and you know where that person lives. This is maybe not something necessarily do as a loan officer, but you know, this presentation was geared towards real estate agents as well. But if a property goes for sal sale in the area of a past client, so maybe you have a hit list of all the people that you want to hit. All you got to do is create a search and see what properties are for sale around that client and basically reach out and say hey, like this properties came for sale. Do you have any friends that might want to live by you? [00:32:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:37] Speaker A: How you loving your place, all this stuff? That's a good question. [00:32:40] Speaker B: Would you like your mother in law to move next door? [00:32:42] Speaker A: Dude, the conversation started with the value of your house. Right. You know, when it comes to Homebot, like you can Reach out to them and ask if anyone else might benefit from that. You maybe necessarily didn't do the loan for that other person. But they may like homebot so much that they may be willing to refer their friends to you to basically put into homebot and they could start getting it. [00:33:02] Speaker B: Question Homebot because I know you've used it a lot. What's the price structure of that? Is it like an annual monthly, assuming it's relatively cheap. [00:33:11] Speaker A: If you're just going to basically create your own, your own list of people that you're emailing it out to, I want to say it runs like 350 to 400 bucks a month just for the base like ability to add your clients to it. I think up to a thousand clients. And then where it gets more expensive is when you start co sponsoring realtors, then you're going to be the mortgage person that's shown up when they're saying their HomeBot digest out. So I think I have, I mean I have like an uncut. So I have 47000 emails that go out a month between all the real estate agents that I sponsor. I think my bill's thousand bucks a month or so but I mean that's pretty priceless too compared to how many. [00:33:50] Speaker B: So basically like you know, four bucks a lead or somewhere, somewhere around there is probably the math. [00:33:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:33:55] Speaker B: So if you did a loan for someone or you sold them a house, probably worth investing $4. [00:34:01] Speaker A: Yeah. This is just not for everyone. But I think it's a good tool to get started but you have to use it and you have to be consistent with it. Closing gifts so we basically have one closing gift that we send to every single person that closes and we right now what we're sending out is this charcuterie board that we bought on Amazon. It's really cool. It has all these different things to pull out and after the transaction closes we'll send that charcuterie board out and basically send a handwritten letter or note that says it's great working with you. And I address it from myself and from the real estate agent that referred the people over. But you could also ask them, hey, do you know anyone else that might want one of these? Hinting joking to the. [00:34:40] Speaker B: I'd ask someone how the hell to spell it. [00:34:42] Speaker A: Yeah, don't make me try and spell now. [00:34:48] Speaker B: Does it have like your logo or info or something on it? [00:34:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean not on the board itself. We just buy it from Amazon. We just put the card in. I, I mean we spend like 50 bucks or something? Yeah, like you're crazy. And it's like 12 bucks a ship or whatever. [00:35:00] Speaker B: Then when they whip that out to have their house or whatever, and it's. [00:35:03] Speaker A: Like, oh, we get a lot of good feedback from that. Yeah, for sure. And that preferred vendor list thing as well, like, hey, do you know anyone else that may need vendors for certain things? So you're trying to get the client's head starting to think about people that they could connect you with. Right. By asking those questions. So I mean like one thing that we do or the things that we do that are strong, we're, we're very good at following up during, before the transaction happens and after. We create a really enjoyable experience by the most enjoyable experience we can. Getting loans hard. But we try to figure out the pain points and make those easier, which makes people's transactions smoother, which makes them happier, which makes them more likely to refer you extremely excited and thankful through all stages of the process and beyond. We do send cookies when an offer gets accepted. We went on Etsy and we basically found a cookie vendor that was willing to ship nationwide or whatever you want to call it. And what they do is they cook fresh cookies and then they have a note that we basically they write on our behalf that says, it's gonna be sweet working with you. It's addressed from the real estate agent and from us. And it's a nice little touch. It cost us about 35 bucks. But basically they get that. We send that out the first couple days, the transactions goes into escrow. [00:36:27] Speaker B: So this is, this is offer accepted, offer accepted. [00:36:30] Speaker A: Cookies go out. Basically they get those. It's going to be sweet working with you. And then it's a nice touch. The real estate agents like it. And then a lot of times the people, you know, they're, they're pretty stressed at that like seven day mark, everything's kind of going crazy and they get the cookies and it's just a nice little excuse for them to give their kids or have one or whatever it is. The closing gifts are automatic. Those happen. We do car. We have a service that sends four cards a year. House anniversary, happy holidays, around Christmas time, it's a groundhog's day. And then birthday cards, and those are automatically, pay one fee, put their information in a system that's automatically happened for seven years. You know, and those are like some of the things that we do that I think are really generating those past client referrals. Now this is a quote from Bruce Lee. Long term consistency trumps short Term intensity. Okay. So like I'm telling you all these things that basically are a good idea for you guys to do. Right. But. [00:37:31] Speaker B: But don't do it just once. [00:37:32] Speaker A: Yeah. The whole thing is like, you know, it's going to be overwhelming. It's a lot. Maybe you pick like one or two things and start doing those consistently. We built this up over time and it's basically created this really enjoyable experience that I think has probably been doing this consistently for three years or so. And now we're really reaping the benefits of all these past client referrals. I think we closed 18 deals last year that were all directly referred from past clients, which is a lot of money. You know, when it comes down to it, from doing these little things, when. [00:38:03] Speaker B: That thing about consistency, it's. We've all seen. I've worked with, I've worked with people in the past that I probably looked at said, man, I'm smarter than him or her. Like, why are they getting more business or more consistent? Their consistency is the machine, you know. And the beauty of this is if you put this into systems CRM, paying a fee, I mean, the Homebot one, you do it once, you don't have to do it again. Right. The postcards, that's four years. You do it once, you'll do it again. So just have these tools on your checklist. You close alone. Here's the. That you do. [00:38:38] Speaker A: That's it. [00:38:39] Speaker B: Be consistent. [00:38:39] Speaker A: And then it just happens. It comes up on the schedule or it automatically happens. And I put this little thing in here. I don't know if you can see it, but it basically says, you won't do this. Change my mind. Right. It's like a famous meme or whatever. [00:38:54] Speaker B: 100%. That's exactly what talk about. Tim K. Yeah. [00:38:57] Speaker A: So you won't do this. [00:38:58] Speaker B: So how many of you here are going to list this and still be the 10% or the 91%? Realtor. [00:39:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:04] Speaker B: That doesn't follow up the client. [00:39:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean it's, it's just. I talk to people all the time and, and basically give all these great ideas and tell them about things that we're doing. And I would say most of them don't ever do any of it because it all seems too overwhelming. But if you could just start doing some stuff consistent, like the atomic habits, like 1% better over a year, which is right there, 37 times better after 365 days of that. So just get a little bit better each. Each time each transaction put new things in Start adding those things and then eventually you'll have all these things happening and you'll look back and be like, why wasn't I doing this before? [00:39:42] Speaker B: Well, I'll tell you, it's like any big project, you know, how do you eat an elephant or whatever, you know, it's like, how do you build an ADU that's been a pain in the ass for like the last three months, you know, working on. But you start in one space. [00:39:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:55] Speaker B: Doing the iron man with. With one. One step. [00:39:58] Speaker A: Right. [00:39:59] Speaker B: How do you build to be, you know, 80 plus transactions a year, do 10 deals a month. Right. One deal, one idea, repeat one idea. When you repeat, grow. Now I think the one thing that always. It shocks me but a. I still feel like I'm 20. Don't look it with my Santa Claus in full fledged, but you know, it's amazing what we know after time, right? Like, it's just crazy. I mean, how long you been in the business? [00:40:30] Speaker A: 2007. So what is that? 3, 4, 7, 7. 18 years. [00:40:37] Speaker B: 18 years, yeah. I mean imagine 18 years ago, you, you know, you wouldn't do this. [00:40:44] Speaker A: No. [00:40:44] Speaker B: You know, I mean, that's just it for dear life. [00:40:48] Speaker A: So. [00:40:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:49] Speaker A: But if you could start doing these things consistently, it will benefit your business 100% guaranteed, like no doubt. [00:40:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what with that. Thanks again, brother. Always appreciate it. [00:40:59] Speaker A: Yes, sir. [00:41:00] Speaker B: High fives. [00:41:01] Speaker A: Hey, guys, do better than that. [00:41:03] Speaker B: I just keep wondering how many views we get if you hit me in the face like, oh, yeah, but mortgage me. Marketing education activities and tips for mortgage loan originators. Again, thank you for joining us. Look forward to the next visit when we hear about maybe we'll discover a new steakhouse. Maybe we'll go out and maybe we'll do one live. [00:41:23] Speaker A: Never know. [00:41:24] Speaker B: We should do that. All right, thanks everybody. Take care.