"Setting The Table: Carving Out Your Year For Success"

[00:00:00] Speaker A: SA. [00:00:30] Speaker B: Foreign. [00:00:37] Speaker A: Hey, welcome to Mortgage Meet marketing education activities and tips for mortgage loan originators. Today, we are blessed with the presence of the one, the only mortgage manfro. [00:00:49] Speaker B: What's up, everyone? How you doing? [00:00:51] Speaker A: Hey, so before we get into today's topics, you had a shot at this last time. [00:00:58] Speaker B: I screwed up big time. I don't even know when I said Chili's or. [00:01:02] Speaker A: I think Tim had riblets from Applebee's for his favorite steak. [00:01:06] Speaker B: Favorite steakhouse, Mastros. Like, I could not think of it last time. Mastro's. And I mean, I love any steak from there. It's the best. And their pretzel bread is top notch. [00:01:17] Speaker A: Well, I'll tell you, I'm hoping one day. This podcast is so big that Mastros sends us free gift cards. Let's go for us to enjoy it. So what steak? I mean, if you're going to pick one steak over Mastros, what's a. What's a go to? [00:01:28] Speaker B: I mean, either ribeye or filet. [00:01:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And how is that being medium rare? [00:01:35] Speaker B: Come on, dude. [00:01:36] Speaker A: Oh, hey, that's good, man. I was. I had somebody that wanted burnt tips. [00:01:38] Speaker B: You know, that's. [00:01:39] Speaker A: That's mortgage barbecue. [00:01:40] Speaker B: The chefs will literally spit on that steak as it goes out. [00:01:44] Speaker A: I mean, not at Mastro's. [00:01:45] Speaker B: Not at Mastro, but lower establishments. Because we do want you to send us gift cards. Still. [00:01:52] Speaker A: Besides pretzel bread, what sides are pretty bomb there? [00:01:55] Speaker B: Oh, I mean, the fries are amazing. The Mac and cheese, I think they have like a lobster Mac and cheese or something. That's pretty good. The mashed. I mean, everything's good there. Mashed potatoes are amazing. [00:02:09] Speaker A: Pretty sure they have also, like, scallops at the ocean. Ocean one where it's pretty. Pretty awesome. [00:02:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:14] Speaker A: Little seafood with the steak. [00:02:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a good spot. [00:02:17] Speaker A: Good spot. [00:02:18] Speaker B: What's your favorite? [00:02:20] Speaker A: Dab's Kitchen, dude. You know, come on, dude. Yeah, I. I wish I prepared myself for this. My honest, I love cooking steaks on. We had a discussion before that. You know, my dad and I would grill every Sunday. [00:02:34] Speaker B: Where do you buy your meat to. [00:02:35] Speaker A: Be on Stats Stators. [00:02:37] Speaker B: Okay. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Yeah, you get. You get your steak at San Butcher Box. Butcher Box. Good. Well, and also, you know, locally to us here, if you over to the Claremont Butcher, right there's the corner butcher in Corner Butcher. Pretty phenomenal. [00:02:50] Speaker B: There you go. [00:02:51] Speaker A: So with that, let's get started. It's a new year. [00:02:54] Speaker B: Yes, it is. [00:02:54] Speaker A: We got some thoughts here. [00:02:56] Speaker B: 5. [00:02:56] Speaker A: Today we're going to be talking about setting the table Carving out your year for success. [00:03:01] Speaker B: Indeed. [00:03:02] Speaker A: And I got to say, ChatGPT, we love you for helping us keeping the names meat themed for every episode. [00:03:09] Speaker B: I can't even think or write or speak anymore. I just refer directly. This is actually ChatGPT communicating with you right now. [00:03:16] Speaker A: This is the first AI version of digital, so, you know, talking about success, carving it out. The idea is we're planning for the year, right? With our team in my office, we, God willing, we get it done usually in December, right before the year starts. And we talked about having, like, a calendar, you know, which, you know, right behind you there. That's not the actual calendar I'm using because that one is empty currently. But if you have a calendar for the year and you have an idea that in January, I want to do this, and then you break January down to four weeks and you have some. At least you have some sort of a plan. You know, what's Tim's plan? [00:03:56] Speaker B: Okay, so 12 coffee meetups. So once a month, I'm gonna be hosting a coffee meetup, and I've already scheduled those and put them in the calendar for certain days. I'm gonna be alternating between Laverne and Rash Cucamonga Paneras, because Paneras have good, big meeting spaces. [00:04:11] Speaker A: Cool. [00:04:11] Speaker B: I was going to do a local coffee shop, but if it gets too many people showing up, it's tough to find a spot to sit. And the goal is to get a lot of people there. [00:04:18] Speaker A: So real quick. So we're talking about. So you're opening this up to people. This isn't just one on one. Anybody wants to show up. Yeah, come out to the coffee. [00:04:24] Speaker B: I invited people from I or friends or just really have a. Come, come have a cup of coffee. I just did my first one today, which went well, and we talked about how important a vision or mission statement was and then just had chats after. So it was like an hour and a half of hanging out and a couple people showed up. Nothing crazy. [00:04:42] Speaker A: Nice. [00:04:43] Speaker B: I didn't advertise it very well, but I found that if I put something in my calendar, it happens, and even if it sucks, I'll get embarrassed and then I'll do really good the next time. [00:04:53] Speaker A: So I think that's the thing. It's like we started this podcast. You were our first guest last year. [00:04:57] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:04:57] Speaker A: And I did have taken any of them down. You know, we got one, a good friend of ours, Nick Paez. Shout out Ghost man. The ghost of pious. Because, you know, we didn't have camera. The lighting wasn't Good. But, but we did it, right? And we just kept going and it's like, okay, now, well, we're 1% better. And if we 100 years from now we get 1% better, that will be 100 better. [00:05:18] Speaker B: I, I mean if this the, the law of small improvements, 1% increase per day for 300 days is 37 better by the end of the year. That's Atomic Habits. [00:05:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. I mean, shout out to my daughter who's currently reading Atomic Habits. Very proud of her. [00:05:34] Speaker B: That's a good one. [00:05:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, the thing is, it's like one of the things they talk about in the book is like a plane taking off on LA or whatever, right. And it's like, okay, it's just off like one degree, but it's supposed to go from LA to New York. Well, it ends up in like you know, past Florida. [00:05:49] Speaker B: Right. [00:05:49] Speaker A: Or up in, you know, past New York or, you know, into Canada. So is a really big deal over the long haul. And the beauty is if you set your plan, you can revisit it. I think that's one of the issues. Right? It's not looking back at it. It's like, okay, this year I'm going to do this. Okay, great. Well, before the plane ends up in Florida, New York, you can make little adjustments along the way if you're not hitting them. [00:06:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And then I got four events that I'm going to be hosting. Live events at Grafton Sellers in Claremont where I basically, my first one's coming up on February 5th. It's called Supercharged 2025. [00:06:22] Speaker A: Nice. [00:06:23] Speaker B: And basically it's diving into what my goals are for the year, how I came up with them. But it's not a goal setting event for other people. It's really just to show you guys what I'm planning and how I came up with that and then also how I plan to achieve that. So it's more of a deep dive into all the things I've learned over the past year through masterminding, learning, reading, listening to stuff. I've compiled everything that I think I'm going to basically need to achieve those goals. So it's a two hour event and we're probably going to sell out, so. [00:06:52] Speaker A: Nice. And just a heads up because Tim's very modest. Tim is a top producing loan officer here in the area. That's one of the reasons I respect him. Now I'm here because he's not just saying, oh, I hope I do this. The guy does it and he tries it. If it doesn't Work comes back at it. [00:07:09] Speaker B: 87 transactions, 45 million. [00:07:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:14] Speaker B: So nothing crazy, but. [00:07:16] Speaker A: Hey, nothing crazy. But I'll tell you, a lot of people can look at their numbers for last year in a tough market. That's pretty, pretty stellar, bro. [00:07:22] Speaker B: We were happy. We were happy with it. [00:07:23] Speaker A: Good job. Your wife's gonna keep you another year. [00:07:25] Speaker B: Yeah, she's. She selected, she opted for another year of this whole setup. [00:07:32] Speaker A: Well, that's cool. So you talked about doing a vision statement this morning with the group. Do you mind sharing yours? [00:07:37] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. I have two. So I think as a, like a loan officer, we have two different hats we have to wear. So basically we have the hat that we're, we're communicating and, and attracting clients. Right. And dealing with clients and helping them get mortgages. And then we're also need to be good at communicating and attracting real estate agents and referral partners. Right. So I created two different vision and mission statements. And if you don't know the vision statement is going to be the grand, almost unattainable goal, right. Like the, they use an example of the National Cancer foundation is a world without cancer. There's. That's their vision statement or something along those lines. Butcher that. But basically that's kind of almost impossible, right? [00:08:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:20] Speaker B: And if they were able to achieve that, they would put themselves out of business, which is good. Right. So, so basically my vision statement for the client facing side is creating a future where everyone has access to the education needed to make empowered real estate decisions. Okay. And then the way I plan to do that, which is the mission statement is it's like the marching orders to basically get that, that, that vision statement done is to give God educate with tools, lifelong support and resources to help everyone build wealth and stability through real estate. So that's the client facing vision and mission statement. And then for the referral partner facing statement, vision and mission, this one came about because I sat down with a real estate agent that was going through kind of a transitional, tough year. She was coming out of a relationship and all these different things were happening and, and she basically decided that she was going to win. Like, I'm going to make this happen. And, and we met and she inspired me, I inspired her. We met, started working together on a more regular basis. And in December we connected for coffee. And she said that she had her best year ever. [00:09:27] Speaker A: Sweet. [00:09:27] Speaker B: And she said that she feels that I was a large part of that, you know, And I'm like, well, I just was there to support you and you did all the work. You Know, but that kind of spurred this vision statement for the referral partner. So it's to help every referral partner achieve their best year yet every year. Right. So and then the mission statement for that. So how I plan to achieve that is to give God educate with unwavering support, exceptional service and follow up. That empowers agents to close more business with less effort to give them the ability to have their best year ever. [00:09:59] Speaker A: So very good. So everybody ding, ding, little nuggets there. Have a vision and a mission statement at your core beliefs. In my company we have that as well. What is our, what is our vision? What is our commitments? And then you kind of try to form everything around, around that. You know, I think that helps too. It's like you're, it's like you're guiding thing not to be as fully narcissistic. But you know, a year ago I want to do an iron man, right? [00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:23] Speaker A: And that was my at the time, 50 pounds heavier Keith. And people like there's no way you're going to do that. Nothing. Well, I don't really care because over here is where I want to go. And that was the entire year was my guiding core principle. So I think if we could find something like that for our business, for our relationships. [00:10:42] Speaker B: Have one for your life. Yeah, yeah. I mean you could have a bunch of them. I'm working on memorizing those so I don't have to read them off because I just really came up with them and I did use chat GBT to create them, but I made sure to not let it do all the work. So I would type in something that I thought was. And this is a chat GPT tip. You can say to not change it from its original way of what I can't think of the correct word. But basically asking it to not change it too much. Basically just make some suggestions on how to tweak it so it still sounds like you. Okay, so that's, that's what I did with that and I just kept refining it and tightening it up and eventually got to what I have there. So. [00:11:20] Speaker A: Well, and I'll tell you, I think what I've noticed too is if you enough people have used chat GPT now, especially some of the image creation stuff that you can look at and be like, yeah, smells, smells like chatgpt. [00:11:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:35] Speaker A: Which that's the cool thing is that if you do tweak it, refine it and if you stay within a thread, you know, I've used it where I'm like in the Same one always for my, my company. And it knows like about what you've asked before. And I definitely think like for mortgage me, we have one thread that we ask. Hey, hey, here's a topic we want to think of. Help us create like an outline around it and it keeps it within that, that mindset where it doesn't deviate all over the place. [00:12:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And chat GPT, what I kind of subscribe by is one chat. So basically whatever you're using that chat for, don't use it for 10 different things. Like if you're using it for social media, use it for social media. Using it for the mortgage me, use it for mortgage me. Because what I've noticed is it'll get confused if you ask it too many different things. Even though it's super smart, the responses will get more watered down a week. When you're using it for one specific thing, it really dials in on giving you some smart and some responses. So when I was deciding to do my vision and mission statement and my goals, I have one chat for that. Yeah. So kept it along the same framework and, and you know, tone, I guess. [00:12:38] Speaker A: Nice. So we talked about setting goals. You know, I think if you've worked anywhere where they kind of used to force you to do goals, you know, they said they got to be smart. Right. Specific. [00:12:49] Speaker B: Measurable. [00:12:50] Speaker A: Measurable. Attainable. Is it attainable? This is how we like to do it here though. We don't track anything realistic and time activated. [00:13:00] Speaker B: Okay. [00:13:00] Speaker A: And if attainable is not attainable, maybe that's not the right one, but it would make sense. Maybe Attractive, attractive goals. Yeah, well, they should be attractive to motivate you. Right. But you know, specific. Did you set specific measurable tasks? [00:13:14] Speaker B: I did. [00:13:15] Speaker A: So. [00:13:15] Speaker B: But I have like kind of an interesting way of going about it. So I have one goal that is basically my production goal. Right. So I have 2025 is going to be my best year yet. That's my, that's my mantra. But the, the number one goal that I have on this here is to close a minimum of 156 transactions that will generate $1.251 million in commissions. Okay. And basically the reason I picked that goal after only doing 87 transactions last year is because the last four months of the year we were trending on average of 12 transactions. So we had picked up considerably towards the end of the year. So I'm like, we're going to keep going and we're going to go for 13 transactions. This month we were going to close 11. So the goal is just to keep that moving in that direction. So that is a large jump but I feel like it's totally obtainable. And the commissions that I figured was based on our average commissions from all 87 transactions. We divided the amount of money we got brought in. That's the average 8,000 something or whatever times that by 156, that's 1.251. [00:14:18] Speaker A: That's that's the thing too is knowing your numbers. Yeah, right. If you don't know your own numbers it's going to be really tough. So you know, if you look at what you did last year exactly like Tim did, break down what was average earnings per transaction and then you can build a framework around. Yeah, because I, we did something similar at my office where we said okay, what is a number that you want for the lifestyle you want? And back into it with the same kind of metrics and then what are the tasks to do to get. [00:14:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:45] Speaker A: X number of transactions. [00:14:46] Speaker B: So I mean I came up with 12 goals and then the following 11 goals are going to be like the fuzzy, like operational, like the ways I'm going to move through the world to basically achieve these. And then I'm going to talk to you guys about my 12 week year goals that are actually the numbers breaking down. So number two is win the morning, own the day. So your morning is probably your most important thing, at least for me. And my morning consists of waking up before 5am I try to wake up before 4:30. [00:15:12] Speaker A: I hate it when you text me. [00:15:14] Speaker B: I know it's yeah, you see my posts and then basically so I'll wake up before 4:30. I'm going to write down all of my goals which I'm listing here. I'm going to write down the things I'm thankful for. I'm going to basically do 30 minutes of self development. I'm going to post on social media, I'm going to work out and that's my, that's my winning like formula for the day real quick. [00:15:37] Speaker A: We can see that you wore this shirt so you could flex the trial. [00:15:40] Speaker B: Yeah, he's, he's in working hours. We're hitting it. So digest positivity to shape my beliefs and drive my actions. So what I've noticed is what you input into yourself, whether that be food, whether it be people, whether it be information will drive your thoughts and actions. Right. [00:15:58] Speaker A: For sure. [00:15:58] Speaker B: And your beliefs. So if I'm digesting positive anything then what comes out is going to be good stuff. So I'm going to specifically be Mindful of digesting positivity, I'm going to radiate excited energy daily to inspire and elevate and energize anyone that I interact with. So one of the things, the feedback I got from this year from a lot of people was that I was very excited about life, about business, about everything, really. And it was not an act. I, I was like, I, I. And I still am very excited about, like, the prospects of, of the future. So I, that energy attracted the right people that have helped me start to attain some of my goals. Right. So I'm going to continue to do that. I'm gonna basically add value to all immediately. So when you meet someone, you need to ask them questions and figure out how you can add value for them without worrying about how you're going to get value out of the situation. So John Maxwell is someone I've been following a little bit more this year or last year, and he looks all about just like, ask, let's ask these questions to figure out, what can I do? How can I help you? How can I help you? And when you come from that mindset, good things happen. Right. You attract the right people. [00:17:11] Speaker A: Well, I forget who said it, and it may have been maximum, but they're saying, like, everybody has similar things, but, you know, if you help others, you know, enough people get what they want, need, you'll be blessed with everything beyond. [00:17:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The second that you start basically doing that, is my business completely shifted because I stopped asking what's in it for me? [00:17:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:31] Speaker B: You know, lead by example. This is a big one. So if I'm out here, you know, pounding my chest, saying, I'm waking up early and I'm going five for five, and I'm going to do my morning routine, like, if I'm not, you may not necessarily know that. Right. You. I could lie and say that I'm doing it, but when I look in the mirror, I'm gonna see a liar and I'm not gonna believe myself and it's gonna come off and it's gonna just change the whole way that I'm operating. So I'm not. Like, today, my mortgage meetup was not great. Like, I didn't have a ton of people there because I didn't do the work. Right. But I'm gonna be honest about it and say, hey, I'll do better next time. Right? [00:18:04] Speaker A: So the coffee meetup. [00:18:05] Speaker B: So I need to. Yeah, the coffee meetup. Not this one. This one's, this one's going great. Great. Number seven is create Deeper relationship. I feel like one of the things that we do as people of the world is always looking for the new next thing and we have amazing things right in front of us that we're not nurturing and deepening. So, you know, I'm looking at the people that I already have in my wheelhouse and I'm trying to basically intentionally connect with them on a more regular basis and build those deeper relationships because that's what's going to get you through. Okay. [00:18:36] Speaker A: In that point, you know, everybody could look at that, look at your past clients, look at your current referral partners before you skip over them. I've shared this many times. People might be sick of it, but my dad and I used to go door to door. He was realtor. I was now low and we did a phenomenal job, I would say closing a deal. And then we'd be going around the neighborhood, right. Dropping off flyers and stuff and notepads and still throw not badads out there. But we see notepads. [00:19:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:01] Speaker A: And then we go by like, why? Ask the car, why'd they list with them? They were like, that was the last time we talked to him. [00:19:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:08] Speaker A: Today we closed escrow. So I mean, admittedly that was a fault of ours, was the follow up. So I love that. Like get, don't forget. [00:19:15] Speaker B: Yeah. The ones you've already done the work to get them. [00:19:19] Speaker A: And I think this. [00:19:20] Speaker B: So this year we have the most amount of past client referrals we've ever had. We had 83 direct referrals from past clients over the. The period of 12 months, which is the most by far that we've ever had since we've been tracking them. And we started asking ourselves why, like, why did we get more referrals than we did before? And I think a lot of it had to do with social media because I'm starting to be communicating with people, but also the excited energy of helping people. A lot of the referrals came from clients that we were working with currently or just closed because they had such a positive experience and we were so excited for them. So, you know, having that positive energy out into the world where you're just like, if someone's buying a house, you know, we're jaded because we're doing a bunch of different transactions. But we got to remember this is the biggest thing they're ever going to do in their life. [00:20:01] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:20:02] Speaker B: So we're just, you know, over the top excited. And it's literally translating into people being excited about referring other people. So they have that, that type of experience, this is a big one. Multiply my time with automations, systems and structure. So basically going after and looking at ways that I could focus my attention on something and create a system or an automation that's going to give me free time in the future. Okay, so they call it working double time part time for full time free time. Okay, I love. So you guys say one more time double time part time for full time free time. It's from a book called Procrastinating on Purpose by Rory Vaden. And basically it just means that, you know, there's no such thing as balance in your life. Like if you're trying to level up, you got to basically focus on something with intensity to basically create that opportunity for you to be have that free time later. So I'm where I have like a whole plan on, on how to make that happen for me. [00:21:04] Speaker A: And we will be checking back in with Tim every couple months and seeing, you know, see how it's all playing out, what we can share and learn. [00:21:10] Speaker B: Invest in myself to fuel growth. So I've been investing myself over the past three years and I've grown more than I could ever imagine. So I'm going to continue to invest money in training and coaching and in education. Whatever it is that I can. If there's an opportunity, I'm there and I'm going to, I'm going to pony up whatever the cost because I've noticed that it's hard to write the check. But I've never regretted writing the check ever once. If I, if I'm truly committed to it and I'm the type of person that when I pay to play, I don't want to, I don't want to waste my money. [00:21:40] Speaker A: I think that's one of the things that has worked for others too is like if you invest, whether it's a tool assistant, a personal coach, trainer, I mean, look at, from a fitness aspect, right? A lot of people beginning of the year finally get in shape and they hire a trainer. That trainer may likely tell you things you learned last year when you hired the trainer. You already knew. [00:21:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you already knew it. [00:22:00] Speaker A: The difference is they're reminding you because you're, and you're thinking like, dude, I just paid this person a couple hundred bucks. Why am I not going to listen to them? So I think it's huge. [00:22:08] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's a big one. So. And also like I took a look at systems that I was paying for, I wasn't using. I just cut them at the beginning of the year. Literally like I cut. I wanted to sign up for this coaching program and I needed to free up some cash but I didn't want to increase my monthly budget. So I'm like, I have a spreadsheet with all my logins and the cost for each thing and I went through and I'm like not using, not using, not using, not using, not using cancel. [00:22:31] Speaker A: And it pro tip nugget right now, beginning of the year, you're looking for more money. Look at all the stuff. I mean I can even tell you right now, just Netflix, Hulu, Spotify and I use lollies and a lot of them I haven't turned on. Right. I don't watch hbo. [00:22:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:46] Speaker A: Somehow it was still being charged. [00:22:48] Speaker B: Right. I was able to free up 379 bucks a month that gave me some money towards the coaching that I wanted to do. Just on stuff that I literally said like next month I'm going to use. [00:22:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:57] Speaker B: You know, Very good. So multiple actually do the most important thing first. This is. If this is one thing like that you get from this whole entire chat, it would be do the most important thing first. Because we are very, very good as people of the universe and convincing ourselves that we need to do all these other things and the things that we actually need to do to get business. Okay. So what I've realized is that the way that I generate leads and business is by meeting with real estate agents. So what's the most important thing for me to do? Meet with real estate agents. Right. So I need to basically contact them and ask them for meetings. So I'm going to talk a little bit more about my strategies with that or the numbers I'm working on. But that's the number one thing which drives relationships, which drives leads, which drives pre approvals, which drives open loans, which drives closed loans. That's it's the first nugget that has to happen. And even if I've already got that relationship, then it reverts back to I'm asking to meet with them to deepen the relationship. [00:23:56] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. I think that's a real important thing because it's real easy to get a few loans going. Something pops up and it is the most important thing you think at that second, because this agent's counting on you, families counting on you, how many parties to the transaction escrow all the people. But the thing is, if you said I'm going to spend one hour from 10 to 11 prospecting making these calls, making sure that the people I dealt with before know, I'm here to support them. The world will not end in that hour, Right? No, but what will happen is the. You'll see, you have a resolution. I'm sure either way to the challenge was presented. But then it'll be late in the day. If you do it now, it's, oh man, you know, I'm just gonna go home. [00:24:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:38] Speaker A: So that's huge. [00:24:39] Speaker B: I'm good at talking myself out of doing stuff. So I try and I try and get that stuff done and then only create, sustain, and amplify momentum. So momentum. I'm, I have just. I feel like I'm a train running down the track, you know, and put something in front of me. I will literally blast through it right now because I have so much momentum and I don't want to lose that. So everything that I do all day long, I'm thinking, does this increase, sustain or amplify my momentum? You know, actually it's the wrong words, whatever. But they can also sustain, amplify, or create. [00:25:15] Speaker A: Yeah, they're your words, Tim. Whatever you want. [00:25:18] Speaker B: And then run my business like a business. So last year I was pretty freaking loosey goosey and we did well, but I wasn't having daily pipeline meetings. I was only, you know, having conversations upon needing. I let the team run the business, which is not the right way to do it. And we didn't have any major hiccups or. But I think we could have been way more productive with some more guidance from the front, leading by example. Right. So what I've enacted now is we're having a, a daily pipeline meeting, which I know is not something I should have been doing anyways, but I wasn't doing it, so I'm doing it now. Right. 7am Every day. We're meeting with the pipeline, with the team. We're going everything. We're going over the pre approvals, any questions that they have. And what I realized is that in that 20 minutes that we're going over, that we're doing, we're, we're taking care of the questions that may have took up an hour to an hour and a half, where they have to stop what they're doing to answer my question. And then right after I do that, I do my updates for my, my clients. So because I'm, I'm fresh on what's going on and then we're good. Right. And then I update it the next day as well. If something comes up or if there's something major, obviously I'll jump in. [00:26:20] Speaker A: But when you think about that though. Right. So you know, so many times something comes up and you don't call the realtor partner or the borrower and they call you, hey man, what's going on? Not a big deal. Right. Except what's the better experience? Yeah, you reach out to them first even if there's an issue, you know, and I got a problem on this. Make that it's, it's eat the frog first I think was a book or. Yeah, one of the books kind of like if they do the important thing first. If you got an issue or challenge, just attack it head on. Right now. Had deals where all this loans are going through. Let me call them right now. And then maybe more often than you find the solution when you approach it right away rather than people getting all frustrated. [00:27:02] Speaker B: Well, and I think also too what's also helped so far this year I've noticed is I do my updates right after that meeting which is about 7:20. No one's reaching out to me before 7:20. [00:27:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:12] Speaker B: So that means that they're getting an update before they have to reach out to me which also makes us look good. And then if there's an issue that I have to call someone then I'm going to tackle, you know and I would probably, I wouldn't call someone at 7:20, you know, because I don't know if they're up yet or whatever. But I'd tackle as soon as possible. But these are just simple updates by text message or email. Send those all, it hits them before they have to hit me. And then we look good. Right. So that's basically the. Oh, and we're doing a business planning. So with my, my loan officer assistant, we're meeting next Tuesday to basically go over three things that I did good, three things I did not so good. And then three things she did good and three things she did not so good. I think I had better words than that. I can't remember them right now, but maybe I said need improvement or something. Right. But basically that's going to give us the opportunity to give some constructive criticism and figure out how we can operate in a better way. Right. And then you know, I'm also learning some stuff, reading some books and listening to some stuff about leadership so I can be a better and run my business a little bit better like running, looking at my P and L every month and, and keeping track of other stuff. [00:28:16] Speaker A: So that's like that, is that the, the part of like run it like a business? Right. I've been in this industry a long time like 28 years. I've met a lot of realtors and I can't tell how many people don't really look at it as a business. They think, what do you do? I sell houses. Okay, that's cool. What's the plan for it? Somebody needs a house. I solved them, you know, I mean, but is that your business plan or. I'm an elo. What do you do? What someone calls me? A loan. Do you have a plan? No, no. Building business out there, whether you, you hate them or love them, bank, whatever, they have a business plan. Yeah, look at the P. L. Hey, we tried this. Or is it making sense? Are we making money? Are we wasting money? I think if everybody took that glimpse and didn't wait just at the end of the year to go, did I make more or less money? Okay. Businesses don't wait till next year to decide whether they had a good year, right? [00:29:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:08] Speaker A: They have a plan, they follow it. So again, just a note, run your business like a business. It is a business. You know, this isn't, this isn't just a joke, right? Totally. [00:29:18] Speaker B: So basically that's the fuzzy kind of fun goals or, or ways I'm going to operate. And then the, the hardcore numbers are, are all tied around my 12 week year. For those of you who don't know what a 12 week year is, you break up the year into 12 week periods and then you, you do intense focus and tracking weekly with a weekly accountability meeting with a group of people that are focused like you are. So the way that the numbers break down for me is that my goal every week is to directly request in designated times 30 meetings per week. So I'm going to be reaching out directly to a real estate agent or a referral partner and asking for a meeting of some sort. Right. And then the goal is to have eight meetings specifically with someone and then shoot for 30. You make it okay. That's the goal. And then the weekly lead count is, is, is 20. We're shooting for 20 direct referrals and then we're shooting for. Actually I think I Did I up that. Oh, I can't remember. It says 20 on here. I think I might have to 25. But weekly completed pre approvals is 5. So I didn't track my pre approvals last year. I just. So I'm doing that this year. That may be low or high. [00:30:33] Speaker A: I don't. [00:30:33] Speaker B: It's not high, but I'm starting with, with, with five that I'm tracking per week and then I'm shooting to open four loans and close three. So if I close three, that'll equal the 156. [00:30:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:44] Speaker B: So it gives me a little opportunities for clients to back out or hopefully. But sometimes people will use someone else or whatever. Hey, it happens once in a so often. But so that's kind of the hardcore numbers and this, what I found that was super strong with the 12 week year is that when you're reviewing your, your, your numbers weekly instead of monthly, you have time to write the ship, you know, change the, the, the direction of the plane. Because if it's Wednesday and I know I need 20 leads and I have six, I gotta get on the freaking phone, you know. And, and if it's, you know, there's, there's not a lot you can do for, for funded loans. Right. Because those are kind of processes but you know, making sure that you're on track for those. And then loans opened. Obviously we're working things that we really can control are the meeting requests, the, the weekly meetings and the leads that come in and the pre approval. So. [00:31:37] Speaker A: Well, I think that one of the big things I always thought is, you know, identify what actions got you the business. Right. Or yeah. Research what actions could get you the business. Do the actions. You know, I always say I don't celebrate the day I got a new loan, right. I celebrate the, the, or the week that I've got, you know, three or four new loans, whatever. I'm not celebrating that week for the new lo. I'm celebrating the week for 20 outbounds a day. You know, five face to face. That's the only thing you can do, correct? Celebrate that. You know, if, if I have a checklist for that, I'll do all these things. Hey, today I did great. Maybe I can go have a beer today. If I didn't do anything today and I got a new loan today, it's not the day to celebrate. Right. Yes, you're happy and you take care of it, but celebrate the, the activities. Right. Not the result. [00:32:24] Speaker B: Well. And also don't get discouraged from lack of results. [00:32:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:27] Speaker B: If you're doing the work right. So. And then maybe if you're doing the work and you're not getting the results and we need to take a look at like what's the better. What are you doing wrong? You know, what do we need to tweak to basically? Because I feel like so many people get discouraged when the results like I started out last year with a goal of doing, I believe it was 123 transactions or 121 transactions and we closed three in January. [00:32:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:50] Speaker B: Like, you know what I'm saying? It's not gonna get us there. And we did five, we did seven, we did four or whatever. And then we. But I didn't get discouraged because I knew I was doing the right stuff. And then basically towards the end of the year, we started cranking those 10, 12. We had a month where we did 16 loans in one month. [00:33:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:08] Speaker B: And. And basically because I just stayed focused on the things I knew I needed to do to generate the opportunities to get the loans, and then I knew they would fall into place, so I didn't get discouraged. [00:33:18] Speaker A: Well, it's also. That's really important to have faith in what you're doing. [00:33:21] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. [00:33:22] Speaker A: Because I, like you said, I know a lot of people, if they did every single call, every single action that they were supposed to do for 30 days relentlessly and got zero results, it's really, it's. I would agree with you, but even if you got 10% of the result you wanted, so you got something and you're really disappointed, don't stop. Right. It's always that. Every true success story ever heard is. I remember there was like a. I don't really see, like, picture the guys, like, you know, digging with an axe and like, he turns around. Yeah, yeah, he turns around and like, oh, man, there was the gold, you know, and just keep going. Yeah, just keep pushing because the gold is there if you do the work. [00:34:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, you got to commit and you got to be all in and you got to know what you're, why you're doing, what you're doing. Which kind of leads me to the my word for the year or my why. Really? So everyone has their why, right? And, you know, my one word, why is security. So whenever I feel off track, I remind myself of this. It's why I work relentlessly, wake up early, and tackle the tough, tough tasks every day, to ensure that the people that I love and care about are secure. So I just. All I do is think about security. Like, I'm trying to get security. I'm trying to get financial security. I'm trying to get, you know, where we don't have to worry about anything, you know, so that's why I work so hard. And, and, you know, that was another part of my goal planning process. So now we've checked all the boxes of, of the Tim Manfro gold planning thing, but that's kind of how I came up with. And I worked on that over about a 30 day period. And now I'm basically just rocking and rolling. [00:35:00] Speaker A: Well, you know, you touched on a lot of good things. Now from a technology standpoint, we're touching it. Is there any like digital app, CRM system that you, that you've had success with that you could share or. [00:35:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So Chat GPT, basically we all use it for the wrong things, probably most people at least. So what I realized was that a couple different things. So I have a chat that I've created for text messages. And basically what I've done is I've took every single text message that I send on a regular basis to people that I had saved in some kind of spreadsheet and basically I took those and I inputted them into a chat and I basically asked that chat to remember each specific text message by a specific name. [00:35:50] Speaker A: Okay. [00:35:51] Speaker B: And then what I do is when I have a, an inbound lead that someone sends me, I request that they send them via text. But eventually it does get to text message. And if someone sends me a lead, I know that I have the open lead text that I go into ChatGPT and I say, real estate agent Aaron, client Becky and Sean, real estate open lead text. And then basically ChatGPT takes those names and types out a really, the perfect text that I wanted, I copy and paste it, put in the thing and send it. [00:36:20] Speaker A: Nice. [00:36:20] Speaker B: Okay. It takes like two seconds. And you know, if I have like an open email or a congratulations, your offer is accepted, I have a text for that. And then I go, congratulations, offer accepted, text agent so and so client so and so pop types out all the bitching emojis and everything I send it, it's customized. So I basically took the time to, to multiply my time by basically taking the, the, the focused effort to create that chat that has like 30 something text that I basically can reference and basically creates them and makes them perfect every single time so I can just copy and paste. I've also realized that chat GPT is really good at reading PDFs, simple PDFs. So when we were, when we had that little dip in interest rates and we had, we had refinance opportunities, one of the things that takes us a very long time, or used to, was that we would type out a very detailed email that explains all the refinance options. [00:37:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:18] Speaker B: So what I did was I took that email and I put it into its own specific chat for refinances. I had ChatGPT learn that email. And then I had ChatGPT. I uploaded a PDF of the little estimate that we sent or the multiple estimates options. And then I asked ChatGPT to take that estimate and create that email with that information. So it actually was able to decipher that I was providing three different options. It pulled the payments, it pulled the closing costs, it pulled all the relevant information. So all I have to do is upload a PDF into ChatGPT and I've already taught it how to pump out the perfect freaking email with links, to set up calls with all the different things and it happens in baby about 35 seconds and basically types out the most perfect email that I copy and paste and I send out and it's all broken down. It's perfect, it's never failed. [00:38:08] Speaker A: Nice. [00:38:09] Speaker B: I've also done that. Well what I'm working on right now, which is one of the things I'm doing with automation. So we, we get the same questions over and over again. So what do I provide for the transaction history? Right. Or what do I do for this? What I do for that? So I'm currently have a list of all those things and I'm recording a video for each one and I basically am going to upload it on YouTube and then I'm going to type out my perfect explanation of each thing and then basically I'm going to have Chat GPT learn each one. And then every time that we're going to send out a pre approval or we're going to send out a condition request, I'm going to have my team run it through Chat GPT and what Chat GPT is going to do is it's going to rewrite it perfectly, it's going to make sure that it's explaining exactly what we need, exactly the way that I want it. And it's also going to include the link for each video automatically. So all they have to do is type out a general email of what we need put into Chat GPT. It's going to rewrite it the perfect way and it's going to have the links and all the different things that they can email out send. So that's a couple different ways I've been using Chat GPT. [00:39:09] Speaker A: What about. So obviously if you don't know and from our first time, Tim is Mr. Chat GPT, do you use any sort of a CRM system to store your. [00:39:19] Speaker B: Surefire, which is like a super old, like, I mean, I don't even know like who uses that anymore, but it works for us for what we use it for Surefire. [00:39:28] Speaker A: You might want to give them a free month, you know. [00:39:29] Speaker B: Yeah, they ain't give me nothing but so like yeah, that's, that's, that. That may be something that I focus on getting a little bit more dialed in in the future because we don't. We use it just very simply. We send out some emails and if I need to send it, it tracks people's interest rates and if they list their house for sale or notify us and it does all these different things. So I would be a good resource for CRMs really because I'm just kind of using the most simple one you can use. [00:39:57] Speaker A: There was another tool you told me about a while back that you would put in. I think it would give like some email updates to people. [00:40:06] Speaker B: I don't remember that one. [00:40:07] Speaker A: But some sort of bot something. [00:40:09] Speaker B: This thing is cool. So this is a digital recording device. What cloud? And basically what happens is it's chat GPT enabled. So what you do is you hit this button here and then it's going to start recording your out loud meeting or if you flip this switch it'll record your phone call on the, on the digital recorder on the outbound. [00:40:33] Speaker A: Hey, sweet. And again we do nothing with compliance or legal recommendations here. So maybe check. Yeah, yeah. [00:40:41] Speaker B: But here's what I'm using it for. So basically I'll record the phone call conversation that I have with a client initially. Right. They're not giving us their Social Security numbers or anything. It's just general questions. Right. And I'll take that, I'll take that information that it records and basically it puts it into an app with a really perfect transcript. I take the transcript, I roll it over into ChatGPT and I've created a chat that basically I've asked to pull all the relevant information that I want for my team to realize what I'm trying to do. And it creates the most insane like look at this dude, you're gonna die when you see this. [00:41:16] Speaker A: Hey, some little tech tidbits for everybody today too. No idea that thing existed. I can't imagine what. So basically I had on it. [00:41:26] Speaker B: So if you see here, I mean it pulls every single possible thing that they we would basically talked about and what we need it gives it a recap that I can send to the real estate agent. So I'm getting these really, really dialed in notes that I can put into you see some of them are really long. [00:41:42] Speaker A: Yeah, well you guys couldn't see it but it's basically explaining, you know, what they said. Yeah. Jobs. [00:41:48] Speaker B: Any kind of details of what's next. [00:41:50] Speaker A: Yeah, what's next? Paycheck, subs w how much they put. [00:41:53] Speaker B: Down, what price point, where do they want to buy? I'll. So instead of having to take the notes, I just sit there and let it record it. And then I basically. And I don't know if maybe I'll be arrested for this or something, but, I mean, it's no personal information. It's literally no personal information. So that's been something that's been really powerful for the team because they're getting the most detailed notes that are done the exact same way every time, for sure. And it works well, I'll tell you. [00:42:17] Speaker A: That, you know, the more detailed the notes, the more you share with the team and everyone's on the same page. It definitely helps. [00:42:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:24] Speaker A: So. [00:42:24] Speaker B: So what else? [00:42:25] Speaker A: That's pretty cool. That. That's a pretty good takeaway right there. That's a neat little. [00:42:29] Speaker B: It works. [00:42:30] Speaker A: Good technology tidbit. [00:42:32] Speaker B: Let's see what other apps and stuff. I mean, still using HomeBot at a high level. [00:42:36] Speaker A: That's the one, I'm saying. The bot thing. [00:42:38] Speaker B: Homebot. Yeah. [00:42:39] Speaker A: Yeah. I was like, something bought. [00:42:41] Speaker B: So homebot's a. A weekly, well, actually monthly digest that goes out to homeowners that you have closed loans for, and it tells them what their house is worth and it gives on how they could basically gain wealth through real estate, get more equity, access their equity, remove their mortgage, insurance. There's all these different Airbnb things you can search for properties. And what I basically noticed was that my clients were using it at a very high percentage. So I have, I think, personally, I send out about 1200 of those a month and 89% of people open the email. [00:43:18] Speaker A: And I think, like, That's a pretty amazing. [00:43:20] Speaker B: 56% of people use the system. [00:43:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:24] Speaker B: So what's of interest? [00:43:25] Speaker A: It's them. Right. It's specific. [00:43:27] Speaker B: Specific. [00:43:27] Speaker A: Your specific home. Here's what's going on in your specific neighborhood. So, yeah, that's. [00:43:31] Speaker B: So what I realized was that we're in a. We're in a high rate environment. So when the rates drop, there is a section that basically kind of tracks the interest rates for them and it notifies them when they probably would be in a position to refinance because it knows what interest rate they have and all that stuff. [00:43:47] Speaker A: Sure. [00:43:47] Speaker B: So I'm thinking, okay, in the future, when rates do drop and it makes sense, then we're going to be getting a lot of people inquiring through this. So I'm like, well, what do I need to do? I need to go out, I need to partner with as many real estate agents as possible to get as many emails going out as possible. So you're going to be blown away by this. So I focused on this for a year and a half and I teamed up and every real estate agent I get teamed up with I have to pay 25 bucks a month, which adds up. So the cost is big. But every single month I have over 51,000 emails going out and when the rates drop, it's we're loaded because we're going to be getting so much inbound stuff. So I personally have over a thousand. And then with the realtors that I've teamed up with and I can't see their personal stuff unless they reach out, their client reach out, reach out to me. So they upload their own database and then basically their clients get it and it's co branded with me and I pay the fee and they don't pay any fee or a very low fee. [00:44:43] Speaker A: I think they split the fee according to Raspberry. Yeah, they pay a few thousand fifty. [00:44:46] Speaker B: No, no, it's. However it's set up, they, they pay their own fee, I don't pay any of their fee, I have to pay my own fee. And then if there's a fee, they pay their own fee. Yeah, but, but basically, yeah. So when rates drop, we're already trying to work on some kind of automation to field the leads that are going to be coming in because I think it's gonna be big. So. [00:45:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, there's some pretty valuable stuff so far. [00:45:08] Speaker B: Sweet. [00:45:09] Speaker A: Yeah. I'll tell you what, I don't think that I got anything that could touch a candle to that. I did have something we talked about, just briefly because I think you shared. We're on a call and it's something that was brought to me by a close friend of mine, which was that. Oh, the quadrant, the Covey time management matrix, which basically breaks down the four quadrants of urgent, important, not urgent, but important, urgent, but not important, and then neither urgent nor important. You were using this as well, right? [00:45:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, something similar to that. Procrastinate on purpose. That book by Rory Vaden was talking something and it was, it was a different version of that, but this is kind of like. [00:45:48] Speaker A: I'll show like a little thing here and then we'll put a link to it. They can't see it, but. Yeah, they can't see it. But basically on this one, if your top box is urgent and important, this is your quadrant run. These are crisis emergency meetings, last minute Deadlines, pressing problems, unforeseen events. Next box. Things that are not urgent but important, which my colleague told me that's the box he wants to live in. Because it should never, in his opinion, get to the point where if it's important, why is it now urgent. Yeah, Right, that's camera. Yeah. Cameron Akbar. Shout out. [00:46:21] Speaker B: Well, stuff comes out. Sometimes it does. [00:46:23] Speaker A: Sometimes. But for the most part. [00:46:24] Speaker B: Most part, yeah. [00:46:25] Speaker A: If it is important and not urgent, that's the time to act accordingly. [00:46:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:29] Speaker A: Below that is something that's urgent but not important. Right. These are things that are like needless interruptions, irrelevant meetings, other people's minor issues. This urgent to them, it's not important to you. [00:46:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:41] Speaker A: Don't live in that box. Right. And then the last quadrant is, you know, the non urgent, not important, trivial work avoidance, excessive relaxation we talked about earlier. If you're excessively relaxing, I'm wasting gossip. Yeah. Anyways, funny off camera. Yeah, about that, but. So the point is, you should never be in quadrant four. You probably should avoid quadrant three. In a perfect world, you never be in quadrant one. You would always be in that important box. Quadrant two, that's not urgent, but it's important. If you focus there and either delegated or ignore the other. The other ones below that, you'd have a lot less in the other one. [00:47:19] Speaker B: I think it all comes down to. Everyone talks about time management, but you can't manage time because time happens whether you manage it or not. The clock is ticking right now. We can't change that. So it's managing yourself and managing what you apply your effort into. And this is a good guide for what, where to focus your energy. Like I said, do the most important thing first. Right? Yeah. So this will help you kind of figure out what's the most important thing right now. Because sometimes you think something's important, but eventually if you procrastinate on purpose, which like, is not procrastinating but purposely saying that I can do that later, that's something I can do later. Sometimes that problem or that situation works itself out or, you know, needing to do it and you could have wasted time when you could have been calling realtors or, or working on a loan or whatever it is that is, is important to you or in that, that quadrant that you want to be working on. [00:48:09] Speaker A: So whether that's a point is the procrastinator purpose or the Covington matrix. Basically that's. You're. You can take this square however you want to do it and say, okay, where does this fall? Okay, I Got this. This is a new lead from. From a realtor. Well, that's probably. And it would probably be. I. I might say it's urgent as well. Maybe that falls. [00:48:31] Speaker B: Right. [00:48:32] Speaker A: Because you want to get them right away, but you also want to be prepared. Right. [00:48:35] Speaker B: So, yeah, I would say new leads for me would fall into the box too. [00:48:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:40] Speaker B: Because I feel like one of the worst looks is when you send a lead and it takes you forever to call. Yeah, I mean, I just find a way to call, you know, obviously, if you're in a meeting or whatever. I mean, but, like, the next thing you should do after you get a lead is call. [00:48:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think also delivering, like we touched on board. Deliver. Deliver bad news fast. Rip the band aid. You know, if there's something that's an issue, you get ahead of as soon as you can. The sooner you do it a. It's less stress. I've had that where they go, man, did I tell them this deal's not working? Oh, man. Oh, yeah. I don't want to deal with this. You know, now you just ruined your mindset for everyone else too. [00:49:18] Speaker B: Story last time about when I. I don't think I did. I'll tell it real quick, but I had a loan where we came down to the end and there was something that the underwriter asked for when it was in the funding stage. They had already signed docs and we. [00:49:32] Speaker A: Were so take the fun out of funding on this one. [00:49:35] Speaker B: And they asked for this thing, and I can't even remember specifically what it was. It was VA loan, and it was like, specific to va, maybe a repair that they thought was missed or not done or something. And dude, I stressed out over it for two days. I was like. I was like tripping. Like, I'm going to figure out this way to figure it out and I'm gonna, like, type this. So I typed this, like, beyond epic email with all these, like, illustrations and freaking boxes and arrows and different things. And I finally hit send, right? And I send the email and they're like, oh, that was already done. Here. Here's the thing. So I look like a total freaking. Because I like sent this crazy email apologizing for all these things and they already were aware of it and already took care of it. So if I would have just got. Just. Just called my job. [00:50:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:21] Speaker B: Right away. I would have saved two days of stress, which I lost out on probably prospecting and being effective because I was worried about this one thing, you know? So. [00:50:30] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I'll tell you what. Tim. Appreciate you, brother. Thank you for coming. I know you're gonna kill it this year. We'll be out on the trails. [00:50:37] Speaker B: Yes, sir. [00:50:38] Speaker A: Some Sunday hikes. [00:50:39] Speaker B: I'll make it more than a mile and a half this time. [00:50:41] Speaker A: He was. He was coming out of some sort of. [00:50:44] Speaker B: Allegedly. [00:50:44] Speaker A: Allegedly. These have benefit me day. All right, thanks, everybody. Mortgage me marketing education activities and tips for mortgage loan originators. We're looking forward to kind of kill it here in 20. [00:50:55] Speaker B: Let's.