"THE SIZZLE STARTER: 5 Habits For New Loan Officers To Fire Up Business"

[00:00:00] Speaker A: SA. [00:00:30] Speaker B: Foreign mortgage ME Marketing education activities and tips for mortgage loan originators. Join once again, mortgage Manfro. Welcome. [00:00:45] Speaker A: What's up? Everyone should do that high five again and see. [00:00:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:50] Speaker A: Oh. [00:00:51] Speaker B: So the cool thing is that we actually read some instructions, so hopefully today will be a little better. Should sound better, I mean. Well, today's goal is to talk about habits for new LOS or current LOS that want more business. So once again, chat GPT has helped us out. We have the sizzle starter. Five habits for new loan officers to fire up their business. And speaking of firing up your business, what did you fire up for 4th of July last week? [00:01:21] Speaker A: We had some below par hot dogs that were burned and a charcuterie plate and some hamburgers and some really, really amazing carne asada from this place that I can't remember the name, but we. [00:01:36] Speaker B: Want to give them a shout out for the carne. [00:01:38] Speaker A: Yeah, it's allegedly world famous. So, yeah, if you're out there, I. [00:01:43] Speaker B: Don'T know if you remember seeing Tim buy carne asada. It's your. [00:01:47] Speaker A: I didn't buy it, but someone else did it. It's called like Larner C or something. I don't know. [00:01:51] Speaker B: My cardi said. Yeah, your Spanish, that's just the beat market. [00:01:54] Speaker A: Well, yeah, but that's what it's called. [00:01:56] Speaker B: Yeah, but either way, it sounds good. So subpar hot dogs. [00:02:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:00] Speaker B: Give me a description. What makes. [00:02:01] Speaker A: I mean, they were just shriveled and a little burned on the edges. They were left on the grill a little too long. So. Yeah, it was a. I still ate the hell out of them, though. [00:02:11] Speaker B: Yeah. I was gonna wear the shirt. I got. I got this like neon American flag hamburgers shirt at Walmart to rock for fourth of July. And I will wear it once a year now. [00:02:23] Speaker A: Okay. It's. It's that good or that bad? [00:02:26] Speaker B: It's like that bad that it's that good. [00:02:28] Speaker A: Perfect. All right, there we go. [00:02:31] Speaker B: So you know what kind of sides? Talk about sides. Our favorite steakhouse. What were the sides at the bar? [00:02:37] Speaker A: There was lots of chips and there was some Swedish fish. [00:02:44] Speaker B: They did this pickle challenge. [00:02:46] Speaker A: I don't know if you guys have seen this. I had seen it where you eat this pickle with all these things on it. And that was. That was interesting. [00:02:51] Speaker B: What things were on your pickle? [00:02:53] Speaker A: It was like fruit roll up and like some kind of sauces. I don't even know. So it's a thing with the kids. Allegedly. [00:03:00] Speaker B: But good for the kids. [00:03:02] Speaker A: What did you. [00:03:02] Speaker B: What did you do? I went over to a good friend's house, had a barbecue there. They actually had a pretty fancy spread. The food was cooked properly. Yeah, I made some potato salad, kind of followed my pop's old recipe. [00:03:13] Speaker A: Okay. [00:03:13] Speaker B: With a hit. Was happy about that, and made ourselves extremely sick on eating so much chips and dip before the food got ready. [00:03:22] Speaker A: Perfect. [00:03:23] Speaker B: It was home before it got dark so the dogs didn't freak out. So that was that good. All right, everybody, I'm sure you were excited about that, but. [00:03:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. [00:03:30] Speaker B: You know, you can always fast forward through that later if you like. [00:03:33] Speaker A: That might be edited out later. [00:03:35] Speaker B: It might be most of the part about the pickle. Tim's pickle is not very good. All right, so you know, here's the thing. We actually did a live event recently where we were talking and you had some good feedback. People were saying, like, if I was new to the business today, what would you tell me? How would I get started? And through that there was people that weren't new to the business but were like, hey, actually maybe I could implement that. So with that, Tim, what are your thoughts? [00:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah, so I kind of wanted to chat today and we had discussed this together about things that a new loan officer could do to basically speed up the process. We're lucky enough to be bringing on my son in law to our business in November and I'm going to make him, you know, successful within three years and I'm going to basically teach him everything I know. And I wanted to kind of share some information and some things I would do and I am currently doing right now to be successful that might be able to help you guys. So sounds good, little list here. [00:04:34] Speaker B: The list of five tips, five to success. [00:04:36] Speaker A: Sizzle, sizzle. I think probably, and this sounds crazy, but number one for me is morning routine. Like, and that could look different to everyone, you know, Everyone that I know that is successful has a repeatable morning routine and they, they stick to it like it's the frickin law or the Bible or whatever you want to call it. So, you know, my morning routine changes, you know, from time to time. I'll kind of like alter it. But what it looks like right now for me is I've written my goals out and I have those written down. I have 12 goals for the year and we talked about those on a previous. But I will actually write those down in a journal, like just reread them and write them down. I'll also write down in that same journal on the next page, like the things that I'm thankful For that day, I always start with my life and then I just raffle off things like, could be my cats, could be that deal we just locked down or whatever, or the opportunity. [00:05:31] Speaker B: So when you say the things you're grateful for, which obviously gratitude. Journaling people mention it. [00:05:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:36] Speaker B: You've had it work successfully. Are you actually journaling it? Are you writing it or are you. [00:05:40] Speaker A: Just writing it down? Okay, yeah, I write it down on the same page. I'll put the date at the top and I'll write down basically until I fill the page with things that I'm grateful for. It's usually about 10 or 12 things is what it equals out to. And sometimes I'm writing so terribly, you couldn't even read it. But I'm basically thinking and writing at the same time. [00:05:57] Speaker B: I'm always writing so terribly. Yeah, I'm like, who wrote this? [00:06:03] Speaker A: All the time I'm trying to figure out. I've been starting to put notes in instead of writing because it's been so bad, but also like, so self development in the morning as well. I'll read for between 15 and 30 minutes right now, currently, because I've got a lot of my plate. I'm only reading for 15 minutes. I used to read for 30 a day. But I want to continue to grow and read, so I basically make that a priority. I'm also, you know, meditating, my own version of meditating, which for me is basically repeating one of my five goals over and over again in my head for. For five minutes. So one goal for one minute, five minutes total. I just pick five that I'm feeling that day and do that. [00:06:43] Speaker B: I want to stop. One question you mentioned that you're reading. You were reading 30 minutes, now you're reading 50 minutes a day. [00:06:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:50] Speaker B: Are you reading paper books? Like, I have my shelf. Are we doing audiobooks? Like, what's your. Your. [00:06:55] Speaker A: I go through stages and it really depends on the book. The book that I'm reading now, I'm reading in paper format because I really want to digest it. And when I read, I read very slow. I take notes, like, because I know all these people that have read a million books and they don't know or do anything from those books because they're just firing through them. They may pick up a couple things. But when I read something, I really want to read it. And I mean, I have notes on my phone or on my computer where I basically take screenshots of pictures of the book. Because I'm going to talk a little bit later about What I do with those notes and further on in this little presentation we're doing. But I always make sure I'm, you know, and I could take notes as well on audible, but my brain works a little bit better at retaining when I'm actually physically reading it. [00:07:37] Speaker B: So that was my thought. And, you know, I know people love audiobooks if you're like long drives. Yeah, Well, I just struggle. I don't retain it. [00:07:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:46] Speaker B: I'm saying I want to read the. [00:07:47] Speaker A: Book on my mind. [00:07:48] Speaker B: Draw a line through it, highlight it, fold the page, you know. [00:07:51] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. Like notes that you never look back at, but, you know, the fact that your brain is basically doing those actions. And also, like, part of my morning routine is waking up at a certain time. So my goal now is to make sure that I'm actually functioning and working, starting my morning routine before 5am now, that could be different for everyone. Your morning routine could look totally different than mine. This is just what I do. That's been working for me. And I'll also do some kind of exercising every day, which is part of my morning routine. I usually try to knock that out in the morning as well. So, I mean, it sounds crazy to say that that literally is what is helping my business grow. And that's what I think a beginning loan officer should do. You would think I would say, like, learn these guidelines and do all these different things. But for me, the morning routine, like, just those parts and doing those things sets me up and puts the trajectory for the day going in a direction that's going to be a game. It was a game changer for me. [00:08:46] Speaker B: So you've already won something. I think that's the deal. There's a book, and I'm say it wrong, but guys like, you know, military guys, the first you do in the morning, make the better. Yeah, I personally, I've heard that. Do not do that. I'm horrible now. The dogs like to be on my bed. But the point is, it's those, you know, one, two, three successes in the morning. No matter what else happened today, you know, hey, I got a workout in. Hey, I. I prayed or I meditate or whatever. So, yeah, I. I could see how it helps. [00:09:13] Speaker A: Well, and I mean, I read a book that basically talked about how, you know, basically breaking promises to yourself can basically create the. A negative trajectory for the day. So if you tell yourself you're gonna wake up before 5am and you wake up at 501, you've already. You've already lost. Like, you've already basically had that first L of the day, like, and. And your day is going to basically continue to trend that way, and you're basically telling your brain it's okay to not hold up your end of the bargain. So whatever it is that you're gonna sell. [00:09:41] Speaker B: Was talking about that maybe Andy for Sal. [00:09:43] Speaker A: I don't know. Yeah, I've seen a couple different places probably, but. And that goes to this another point. Like, I used to have a much longer morning routine and I would get down on myself if I didn't complete my morning routine. And you know, you need to be realistic with the time that you have and the workload that you have and basically tweak it to make it where it's. It's achievable because you don't want to not get it done. So even if your morning routine is two things or one thing, I mean, whatever it is, you know, having that morning routine, making it part of your life, I think is something that I would just recommend someone doing right from the get go go. So do you have a specific morning routine or. [00:10:20] Speaker B: You know, I do. It depends when I'm in training mode, which I haven't been. We're just joking about. So it's getting a little tight, you know. [00:10:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:25] Speaker B: Next event's 115 days out, so I gotta get serious. But when I'm training, I will be up somewhere five, like 5:30 an hour in the gym, in the morning, hour at night. That's like the, the, you know, what do you say? The, the no negotiables. [00:10:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:41] Speaker B: And then reading, you know, reading something every day. And I've got a few books on my, my. Actually I think you might give me one. You give me the idea of one. The 12 week year. [00:10:50] Speaker A: Yeah, 12 week year. [00:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I got it. But so, you know, the, the reading the morning. I need to do better at the gratitude journal because I definitely think that's a huge thing. [00:10:59] Speaker A: Dude, it's so crazy how it's literally like four minutes it takes to do it. [00:11:05] Speaker B: Well, this is to say, so if you think of a morning routine, doesn't have to be long. It's hard if you're training and you're gonna. [00:11:10] Speaker A: If it's not long. [00:11:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I say it's like hard. If you say, well, I'm gonna go to the gym for an hour. That takes one full hour of your morning. But if you're like, I'm going to get up by five. Well, that takes 30 seconds. Just get up by five. [00:11:20] Speaker A: Right. [00:11:20] Speaker B: And then if you're going to do your gratitude journal, like you're saying. [00:11:23] Speaker A: And it's five minutes. [00:11:24] Speaker B: Five minutes. You could have a morning routine that's 30 minutes and be great. [00:11:27] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I mean, and part of my morning routine as well that I've integrated was like some mobility training, which is like I do 12 to 15 minutes of that, like, every morning, even if I'm going to work out. Like, I got up this morning before my hike and I stretched, you know, I. [00:11:42] Speaker B: Did you do potato bound this morning? Yeah, I did see a text on that. I ignored it. There was a big crew there. [00:11:48] Speaker A: I didn't see you, but that's okay. But yeah. So morning routine, figure out what that is. If you ever want to bounce any information, ideas off of me, I'm here for you guys. But that's something that, to me, when I basically said my morning routine is going to happen every single day, five days a week, during the work week, then that's when my business really started changing. [00:12:09] Speaker B: Good point. So you have a different routine for the weekends? [00:12:12] Speaker A: I don't do. I just roll on the weekends, dude. Whatever happens, happens, you know, so sometimes I'll get up and do some stuff, but I need that mental break from the grind because, you know, I'm probably not getting enough sleep and, you know, I try to go to bed at a decent hour, but I need those. The weekend is where I recharge. That doesn't mean that I don't do some of the things I do in a morning routine. I'm just not regimented and down on myself if I don't get it done. [00:12:34] Speaker B: So that's actually good to realize too, because I think a lot of people are, you know, I've been guilty or accused of this being like, all or nothing. Right? So it's like, well, not me too. It's just like. And then when a mob is like, ah, yeah, yeah. So balance, that's. [00:12:49] Speaker A: That's. Yeah, balance is another one. But that's a whole nother podcast. [00:12:54] Speaker B: So. [00:12:54] Speaker A: And then number two for me, which this totally connects in with the reading, is educate yourself. So earlier on in my career, I feel like I made connections with people from either being a guy that would take them out and party or have a good time or invite them to my house, to my little get togethers, take them out for beers. When my life shifted to not drinking and. And not doing any kind of negative, you know, inputting any negative things into my body, like, I had to reevaluate. [00:13:24] Speaker B: Great way to describe, hey, not putting any negative things into My body. [00:13:29] Speaker A: That's what it is. It comes down to whatever. [00:13:31] Speaker B: Tim 2.0 is a better guy. [00:13:33] Speaker A: No negative things in my body. That could be information. Drugs, alcohol, whatever. Uh, but I had to figure out a way to basically, you know, continue to grow or seek out new relationships. And, you know, unbeknownst to me, I. I connected with Christian Fuentes. He had this accountability call, which, you know, that could be something that, you know, maybe someone that's just getting into this morning routine could do. I don't do it anymore. But part of the accountability call said, you have to read 30 minutes a day. [00:13:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:00] Speaker A: And I didn't read. I mean, I would read some stuff here and there. I listened to some books, but I was not like a daily reader. And oddly enough, I got a package in the mail was right around my birthday when I was making that transition. And it was Atomic Habits, like, from an old real estate coach that basically said, like, hey, here's Atomic Habits. You know, you should read it. I think you'll enjoy it. [00:14:21] Speaker B: That's so cool. He just shipped it to you, dude. [00:14:23] Speaker A: And I had not talked to him in, like, five. In, like, multiple years. And, you know, basically I was like, man, like, I don't know who you or what you believe in, but that was like a freaking sign or something coming right to my doorstep there. So I started reading Atomic Habits, and that was a complete game changer. And I was so impactful in my life because, you know, a lot of people have heard of Atomic Habits, but I digested it the way that I basically told you. I read it, I wrote it, I lived it, I basically incorporated it into my life. And then every single time I was running into someone, I was talking to them about Atomic Habits. And a lot of people know what Atomic Habits are, you know, the book, the premise of it, but they haven't really dug into all the specific details. So this is where the second educate yourself, then educate your partnership. So instead of going out and educating my real estate partners or trying to create relationships with real estate partners, hey. [00:15:12] Speaker B: They were real estate partiers. [00:15:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Now they're real estate partners. But basically what I do is I'll read a book, I will take very detailed notes, and then I will create a small presentation. And basically, I want to base. Get in front of those realtors and share with them how that book has impacted my life. Right. And basically encourage them and give them the bullet points of that. So without talking about any loan programs or anything. Now, it's assumed that you're good at Your job, right. Like table stakes, that's the minimum. Like you're good, you have a follow up system. You know your stuff, you know, so this may be like a little bit above like the very, very beginning but this still could be incorporated for those people. But it's assumed that you're good at your job. So now we're, we're out there trying to get connections and get leads. So for me what's worked, what's different than what everyone else is doing is basically they're I'm going out and I'm saying hey, have you read Atomic Habits? Yeah, I did a million years ago, right. I have it on audiobook I never listen to. I put together this awesome presentation. This book has absolutely changed my life. I'd love to take you to coffee or get on a zoom and show you all the details. [00:16:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:16] Speaker A: And that just opens up doors for conversations. And if you basically have the ability to break it down in a very understandable format when you present this to the real estate partner, this could change their life, dude. And if this inspires them to read the book and make some of those changes and start growing as a person, then all of a sudden you gave before you received, right. Or you gave. [00:16:38] Speaker B: It's always a huge one. Right Is you know I think in my business, right if I talk to people and you know I was in the title business before and in title reps some of the hard work people out there they the wrong way. But a lot of times it's just showing up in the office, it's like do you have any for you have anything for me? What are you giving to me? Right. And I'm sure many realtors feel that with and I don't mean to pick them up, not in industry. Industry I was in, I remember going in and asking and asking for a deal and then started to realize, well what if I provided value first? I think I was a Jeffrey Gittermer, another great author of his books. So I think it's give the value then. Yeah, you are a partner. You should, you should have an opportunity deal. You just come in vegan. It's kind of like wow, yeah, everyone's. [00:17:22] Speaker A: Doing the same thing. And I mean even if you don't feel comfortable or you don't want to put together a presentation, you could basically take three or four things from the book and just drop them in conversations. Like one of the big things with Atomic Habits is that if you improve 1% a day for a year, you're 37, 37 times better. Than when you started the year. So you can incorporate that into conversations. Like, you know, like this real estate agent that I've connected with recently, and he Instagram messaged me and said, hey, I want to start reading. And I basically bought Atomic Habits and I brought it to the hike this morning and handed to him. And I said, Dude, 15 minutes a day. Like, don't try and overdo it. Like, just do 15 minutes a day. You've 100 for sure at 15 minutes. If you commit to that, you can grow it from there if you want to. But, you know, the whole idea of it is, is chunking things down into little or sections, getting committed to doing that, and then going from there. So, like, you just learn these things. You can integrate them into conversations, and it makes you valuable even if you don't get in the meeting with them yet. Eventually you will be able to. So I read only like seven books. Seven or eight books a year at the most. [00:18:29] Speaker B: Yeah, well, which once you get out of high school, you probably beat 95% of the population. [00:18:33] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. You know, people read like 20 bucks a year, dude. And I'm just like, I can't. I can't grasp and implement all those things like that that, you know, quick. So. So yeah, so educate yourself, then. Educate your partners. This has been like the. The groundwork that I laid was starting to learn, and this is only over the past, like, less than three years. And this has been what's catapults me to, like, really decent levels of origination is creating these relationships based on education. [00:19:00] Speaker B: Yeah, let me, let me ask this. So you're talking about education, in this case, reading books to enhance your craft. Do you also put time in there to educate on, you know, program guideline, changes, things like that. Is that like, part of your calendar? [00:19:14] Speaker A: I mean, shockingly, no. Like, I don't, Like, I know them all. Like, I'm, for the most part, I keep, obviously keep track of all those things, but, like, that's not necessarily that important to real estate agents now. If there's a big change that comes out and something that greatly affects them. Like, I'm about to record a video about this new law that Pat. The bill that passed with the changes for the homeowners and different things is important. You know, put that information out there and talk about that. But I'm not going out talking about dscr. Like, I mean, I do have presentations on that, you know, because I want to mix those in, but it's not something that I'm out there pushing, like, hey, you should look into dser. It's great. Like, I created a presentation that's called. Gosh, I can't remember what the name of it is, but it's more. It's. It's basically saying, like, here's what investors could do to buy homes. Like, you know, it's not like you. [00:19:59] Speaker B: Have a few options that in. [00:20:00] Speaker A: Right. [00:20:01] Speaker B: So I think one of the things is that, you know, you're fortunate the longer you're in business to have had transactions. And I talk to AES and LOS all the time and the one thing I've noticed is you really learn the guidelines when a deal goes. I mean, that's how you learn. And the one thing that sucks, it's gonna happen, it's how you deal with it. But the cool thing is when you stack 20, 25 years of scenarios, you have that. So the one thing I would share for someone who's new, who's, you know, learning their education of it is to have a mentor like your, your son. Lot very fortunate because you, you don't know what you don't know. When you get to hear someone explain stuff, that's the best education there. [00:20:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, I'll never forget. Quick story. Like, the first deal I got where I was actually going to get like a nice payday was this deal and, you know, I locked the rate in and I'm dancing around singing about how much commission I'm going to make around the office and all this, that the other. And the go deal goes into underwriting, it comes back and it says suspended, dude. And I say suspended? What is that? [00:21:06] Speaker B: That's not a good thing. [00:21:07] Speaker A: I didn't even know what that was, honestly, because I was that new and come to find out that the guy had child support on his pay stub and I didn't even know to look for that. And you know, basically, essentially I had to reduce the commission to make like almost nothing to get the rate to a point where he qualified with the child support. So what do you think? I look for the first time every time I look at a deal. Freaking child support, dude. I asked that question every time I look at the pay stubs. [00:21:31] Speaker B: So. But you know, it's funny, the pay stubs, that's a whole separate thing we talk about. But what a great place to see if they've got maybe a 401k. [00:21:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:38] Speaker B: Money. So, yeah, separate topic. [00:21:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a separate podcast, but educate yourself and educate your partners. You know, really learn the things that you're reading. You Know, go slow, take notes. So you can basically recite these things when you go into offices and talk to people. Which leads me to my next topic, which is snack boxes, which is something we talk about. Now, this sounds extremely cheesy, and you might think I'm absolutely crazy because I've been in the business since 2007. But when business got tough and rates got higher and. And basically, you know, things were hard. I started basically buying boxes off Amazon and filling them with snacks from Costco and putting stickers on the boxes saying, here's my latest presentation. And I would walk into offices and drop them off. Right. And the whole idea was to give me an excuse to walk in, because I don't as. As confident and as knowledgeable as I am, I don't necessarily feel comfortable walking into an office with nothing. I just don't, like. I don't want to walk in and be like, how are you doing? [00:22:37] Speaker B: Like, that's the point. You're given something. [00:22:39] Speaker A: I could. But. Yeah. [00:22:41] Speaker B: I'll tell you what's so funny is that. Well, I love the idea so much. We stole it from my. Yeah. And then he's mailed glasses. You remember when I lost my glasses in a box? You know, it's funny is I was talking to someone the other day, and if I didn't need glasses, but. And I said, you know, we did these boxes, and I literally. We had, like, in the office, we, I think, put together 20 Emerson. Put it in there. I said, man, I lost my glasses. And I got more comments on that. Right. More people texted me, did you really lose your glass? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And I say, there's a bonus if you find them, you know, but that could almost be a fun way to do it, you know, throw a little, like, golden ticket in the 20th box. [00:23:16] Speaker A: Yeah. What ends up happening is, you know, the first couple times I dropped them off, really, it was just kind of like, hey, here's some snacks. And then that was it. And I'm not in there, like, you got anything for me? Whatever. I'm just, like, literally popping in there. And then all of a sudden, they start seeing you, and you start coming on the same day, and you're consistent. And then all of a sudden, before you know it, they eat. Someone gets their favorite snack that's in your box, and then they. They know you're coming on this day, and they want to hoard those snacks for themselves. So then all of a sudden, they're coming in and they're sorting through the box, grabbing out what they want. And all of a sudden, before you know it, they start having conversations. And all of a sudden, before you know it, you know you're getting a referral. And all of a sudden, before you know it, you're just there. Right. And. And so it's not necessarily the snack boxes. It's. That's the. The tool to basically make you consistent on going in. And you know, we're blessed to have been very busy. And I kind of got away from the snack boxes and I went back and they're like, where's the snacks been, dude? [00:24:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:07] Speaker A: And these are people that I know personally, but they want the snacks, man. You know, you know, so one little. [00:24:12] Speaker B: You know, took it, took it. Maybe pro tipped it a little bit was you can go online very easily and order small stickers. [00:24:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:20] Speaker B: So like I'd get some mortgage, man. For once I know you put on the top of the box. We started putting on every item because here's what happens. They take this out of the box, put it over here a little, I mean, just cheap. Use my roll stickers like I did. Super cheap. [00:24:33] Speaker A: See, we did do that, but we were doing so many snack boxes that literally became like. So depending on what. Because I. What I did was I bought printing labels. So like labels for. You can get the. Just like I print the. The sheets to go on the, on the top of the boxes. I bought these little like name tag labels and you could design it in the system to put whatever you want on it. Right. So we did do that, but it got to the point where we were doing so many. It was like this extra step that we didn't feel necessarily was like. So it just depends, you know, everyone's different and it's not a bad idea. But for us, we did it and then it just got too much because we were doing like 24 boxes a week and there's like 12 things in each box. I mean, it's a lot, you know. [00:25:13] Speaker B: And just a little idea of what's in these boxes. We're talking cup of Noodles. Yeah, whatever. [00:25:18] Speaker A: Noodles. [00:25:18] Speaker B: Like we did that. Which is so like cheesy about tell you when you go to an office and someone is working there. Yeah. Maybe a TC or something. They haven't eaten lunch today. They're stoked, you know. [00:25:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:28] Speaker B: Granola bar jerky. [00:25:29] Speaker A: Yeah, jerky. Or little Ritz like Cheez. Its like, I mean you just go to Costco and you spend a couple hundred bucks. I think we figured it out. And like, I mean each box was like five Bucks. So, I mean, shot better than us. [00:25:43] Speaker B: We were at 10 bucks a box still. Yeah, there's not that mine don't have. [00:25:46] Speaker A: That many things in it. It was just like. Yeah, I mean, I usually drop two boxes off like at a time. So that's kind of the same thing, like 10 bucks. But, but yeah. So the snack boxes is the, is the tool to basically get you in the offices regularly. And I mean, even if they have a lending partner they work with, now you're just dropping snacks off. And eventually good stuff happens if you stay consistent enough and you're good at your craft and you have good things to talk about, like the educational things from the books and stuff. [00:26:13] Speaker B: So I know one thing on this next. You know, a lot of people, you know, old school, they reps and drop off donuts or whatever. I think these are way more successful than donuts because donuts, they go bad after one day. One day it's gone. These boxes, they've got a shelf life of, well, stuff's probably out of there within a week. But it's a lot better than just that, you know, here's donuts. Oh, this is first drop donuts. [00:26:32] Speaker A: It's grab and go, you know, see if they could put in their car or whatever. So I, I, it's worked well for me, so I'd love to get feedback on that. [00:26:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:41] Speaker A: This next one is basically the whole premise of the presentation we did over that you hosted for all the mortgage brokers that you guys work with. And it's called perfect your pitch. [00:26:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:52] Speaker A: And essentially we get asked the same freaking questions over and over and over and over again by clients, by real estate agents, by all the people that we come in contact with. And I'm guilty of this. Prior to, you know, having this realization that you need to have a locked and loaded response for the most common questions, like, ready to absolutely roll. [00:27:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:16] Speaker A: And it has to be rehearsed and it has to be like, flow smoothly and you know, basically, like, I mean, what are some of the questions that people ask? Like just throwing out, like, well, you. [00:27:26] Speaker B: Know, it's like, hey, what makes you different than, you know. [00:27:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So I mean, for me, what I do is I go ends, I say, well, for me, I'm a correspondent mortgage broker. What that means is that I can shop with the 53 different banks that we're approved with and look for the best interest rate for your clients. And I'll tell a little story compared, you know, on the back end of that, hey, I used to work for A more big mortgage bank. And they were awesome. Right. They had control of everything. But we could only like give one interest rate. Right. Like, we only had one option. Whatever the rate was that that company had is what we gave them. Now, you know, a lot of times I'll know if these people work with mortgage banks or not, you know, So I kind of tailor make what I say, but essentially, like, that's my little pitch that I do. Right. [00:28:06] Speaker B: Well, I think part of it too is it's the, like, you know what you're like, master your message. [00:28:11] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [00:28:12] Speaker B: That's something. When I was looking up ideas is what you do. Master your message. And it was so funny because that's what was suggested by the Internet. [00:28:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:19] Speaker B: Is that what you're talking about is. And having multiple messages? [00:28:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:23] Speaker B: So it's the first introduction or it's the, you know, if you're talking to a borrower as opposed to a realtor. So if a borrower calls you up and says, hey, I got this quote online, Tim, from some company. What can you do better? [00:28:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Having that locked and loaded response, you know, that you're basically going to look at it and figure out if they are getting a better deal or not. The way that I always approach those types of situations is, hey, if they're giving you something that I can't do, I will wish you the best of luck, you know, because I want to get a look at that and make sure that I'm basically able to examine and then make the comparisons between what we're offering you and what they're offering you. Right. Because that gives you at least a shot. If you don't ever get a chance to see it, you're kind of fighting blind. So for me, that's like, that's my response when someone comes up with that. So I'm trying to pull up this little presentation. So. [00:29:09] Speaker B: Well, I'll tell you, I remember two years ago when I originated the retail side, someone would tell them, tell me they got this great deal. I'd say, well, great, let's look at that. Send me the loan estimate. You know, back in the day, for me, it was send me the gfe, you know. [00:29:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:21] Speaker B: And I'd be like, oh my gosh, look at how much is in this call. That's, you know, that's crazy. And now you can kind of see, you know, how you can, you know, if they give you the opportunity to look at it, you can poke holes in the other offer. [00:29:32] Speaker A: And I mean, what's the most common question Someone asks, is it a good time to buy? Like, I mean, we get that all the time. Right. And for me, like, my response is, well, is it a good time for you to buy? Right. And then I go through the, the process of saying, well, can you afford to live where you want to live? Do you have the money for the means to, to qualify? Do you have the money for the down payment? If you have all those three and you're planning on living in the properties, your primary residence, it's an absolutely great time to buy, regardless of what's going on outside of that. Right. [00:30:01] Speaker B: So. [00:30:01] Speaker A: But if I didn't have that locked and loaded, then I might stumble over my words. And then they start losing confidence. [00:30:07] Speaker B: It's always a great dinner. When's the best time to buy real estate? Five years ago. [00:30:10] Speaker A: Yeah. When? [00:30:11] Speaker B: The second best time? Today. [00:30:12] Speaker A: And then is it a good time to sell? I've always wanted to invest in real estate. What do you do for a living? Right. Like, so these are all questions we get all the time. So, you know, as a new loan officer, I swear I, I told, I think I told this story on here before, but the first time that I ever cold called a realtor, basically they said, you need to call real estate agents. I was like, well, I don't know any real estate agents. Like, well, here's a list of real estate agents. Call them. And I called the first one I called. I said, hey, I'm Tim Manfro. And they're like, okay. And I'm like, I think you should send me business, because that's what they told me to say. And they said, why? And I literally went into a cold sweat, dude. I had no answer. [00:30:46] Speaker B: You're like, what? They were actually talking to me, like. [00:30:49] Speaker A: Wanted to die, like, because I had nothing to say. And I mean, this is like what happens to new people. They don't have those responses set up. So, like, perfecting your pitch. This applies to any job, any situation. You know, you could be perfecting your pitch when you're meeting clients out and about. Like, you know, when you're new to real estate or loans, you know, a lot of people are going to ask you specific questions. Like, and you got to have those often loaded answers. Realtors are going to ask the same questions over and over again. So just make sure that you have your own version of those questions ready and locked and loaded and ready to flow. [00:31:18] Speaker B: And I'll tell you, the point about being rehearsed, too, is that people can smell desperation. Yeah. I mean, it's it's sad, you know, but it's true. Right. I've seen, you know, the AES where two AES are making calls, they be saying almost the exact same thing, but the confidence comes through on one call, the tone, the energy, and the other one's not there. And that's why if you have this pitch and you know it and you live it and you breathe it, like, oh my gosh, this guy's good. He's good. Yeah. If you're like, well, you know, one of the. Somebody told me once, you know, it's like not ready. It's kind of like they're already tuning you out. [00:31:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, I think another thing too, like part of the presentation I just looked at, it says like, you need to learn how to listen. [00:32:02] Speaker B: So like, listening is so hard for me. [00:32:04] Speaker A: I know, me too, dude, I'm terrible. [00:32:07] Speaker B: But I'm getting better. [00:32:08] Speaker A: So you need to ask open ended questions and get them to tell you how you can help them. Right. So we should basically have rehearsed questions that basically are going to guide the conversation in the direction you want. Right. You know, ask them about their last transaction or whatever. Like, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but basically having the questions you need to ask people in certain situations to basically keep the conversation going. And then you always want to give yourself opportunities to do what you say you're going to do. So whether that be a large thing or a small thing, like, by the. [00:32:39] Speaker B: Way, I love this. I implemented it after you mentioned it. [00:32:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, dude, when you talk to someone, how many times as you said, oh, whatever. Like I read this book and then I'm like, oh, I'll send it to you. And then like they never send it. [00:32:50] Speaker B: Right. [00:32:51] Speaker A: Like, right. So what I would do is I would say, oh, atomic habits is amazing. Like, you know, I'll send it to you in the next 18 minutes. Right? [00:32:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:59] Speaker A: And then basically when you basically go to your car and you send that book to them, you say, boom, 15 minutes. Right. Or 14 minutes or 12 minutes or eight minutes. [00:33:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I like the idea was that it was like a weird number. It's not like, hey, I'll send this to you in 15 minutes sometime next week or. Yeah. [00:33:15] Speaker A: You know, because. And that works with clients and everything. Like, I always have a timeframe that I'm telling people I'm gonna do things because, you know, building trust and rapport is basically building a block at a time. And the smaller things count the same as some of the bigger Things. So if you can just start not checking those boxes, eventually you're gonna have done what you said you're gonna do so many times. Of course they're gonna trust you. [00:33:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So that was really, really huge. I was sharing that actually with. With my buddy Cam, which said, look, if I'm gonna say I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna pick a wacky amount of time, you know, in the next 19 minutes. Yeah, I'm gonna send you logins for the site. [00:33:51] Speaker A: Right, Exactly. [00:33:52] Speaker B: And hey, I told you, I do 19 minutes. Got done in 15. [00:33:56] Speaker A: Yep, yep, for sure. And then. And then basically, so perfecting your pitch, that's super important. And I think, like, again, number five for me is social media. So social media is such a powerful tool because you're able to have the ability to tell stories and have those stories live on for basically ever. Right. [00:34:17] Speaker B: And so make sure you're telling good stories. [00:34:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:19] Speaker B: For some of your social medias, you guys might want to go have a friend look at it and delete a few things. [00:34:25] Speaker A: I'll never understand some people that in the real estate business that post, like, videos making fun of, like, their clients, like, you know, essentially talking badly about your experiences with not a specific client, but just in general, like. So for me, I try to keep everything positive. Now, I may make fun of things, but I never make fun of the clients. Right. I never make put us in a bad light as loan officers or real estate agents. It may be like jokingly different things, but for social media, you know, the direct message aspect of that for me has been very powerful. It's been a little challenging to connect sometimes with certain real estate professionals, but I found that if I add them on on Instagram and I start liking and commenting and maybe sharing their posts, if I go to direct message them, I pretty much normally will get a response and then that the conversations can start there and eventually leak out into the real world, you know, so using social media now, you have to post and you have to basically be putting things up. I share a lot of stories. I do. I was sharing a lot of reels. I've gotten a little away from that. I want to get back into it, but. But basically that is one of the big things that I think helped me get connected with a lot of real estate agents that I either lost contact with and also works for clients. So going in on social media and basically adding all the realtors, you know, following all the realtors that you want to try and work with. Right. And making sure that you're liking commenting and sharing on all their stuff. Not to a creepy amount, but, you. [00:35:55] Speaker B: Know, we were joking. They said, well, you know, someone has said like what time do you, you do this when we, we had the, the hypervent. And you know, in my mind, because I'm always smartass, I'm like, probably not at 2 in the morning. I mean, depends on what you're saying it to. [00:36:11] Speaker A: You're like, what are you doing that. [00:36:12] Speaker B: That would probably love to see your new listing. You know, but I think that one of the things. But you can do it at five. [00:36:19] Speaker A: In the morning and it's okay. Like, I mean, yeah, I'll do. Because a lot of times if you direct message them or something, it's not going to ping their phone. They'll just see when they open it it. But yeah, you know, it's really worked well for me. But you have to be, you have to be guided with it. So you have to basically get a spreadsheet or keep track of the, the contacts that you've had with people and basically make sure you're hitting the same people on a regular basis, like within an acceptable amount of like, you know, comments and likes and stuff like that. Nothing too crazy. [00:36:48] Speaker B: Well, I know you share. That's what I was going to ask you to share. You basically took like Excel spreadsheet. Here's the people, here's the, here's the last time I interacted. It's not like it's some. That's it calculated algorithm. [00:36:58] Speaker A: You know, that's like basically you create a date thing and I just state stamp it. And then I know that I had some kind of interaction with that person and I just hit them in ascending order. And the ones that are the longest out, I'll make sure I go in and connect with them. And then all of a sudden, before you know it, they're liking and commenting on your stuff. And you're sharing Instagram messages and you're more likely to be able to invite them to things or connect to them them outside or, or whatever. [00:37:23] Speaker B: So were you, you know, you mentioned social media. Now I see a lot of your stuff on Instagram, so I, I would think you're heavy on Instagram. Do you have a balance between them? Do you use all of them or what's your. [00:37:35] Speaker A: I've noticed that for me, most of the people that I want to work with or connect with are on Instagram. [00:37:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:40] Speaker A: So I do post on the other, you know, LinkedIn and Facebook and all that stuff, but I don't really like track it as much. So really most of my focus is on Instagram, so. [00:37:51] Speaker B: Which is kind of nice. I mean, to me most stuff I would do is, is we have a lot on LinkedIn and Instagram. [00:37:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:57] Speaker B: I feel like if I don't have to manage 20 different sites and I could have some success with the most common one. It's a good start. [00:38:05] Speaker A: Right. Well, keep it, keep it simple. You know, I mean, I feel like we make things too difficult. You know, it doesn't need to be some kind of rocket science. You just liking and commenting on things and sharing stuff. Like I'll share people. People's like open houses or listings or whatever and just put it out there on my page. Now I'm lucky to built up a following so it's kind of like people look at it as like a helping them out, which it is. But you got to start somewhere, you know, so. [00:38:28] Speaker B: And if I wanted to follow you, I would look for at mortgage. [00:38:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And you could copy exactly what I'm doing. So. And follow me around and I mean we, I, I know we said five things, but I think this leads into number six. So like the natural progression would be then, now we're going to have events, right? We're going to create events. We're going to create like a coffee meetup. Like I have coffee with mortgage Manfro coming up next Wednesday. And for me that is just something that I invite everyone to. I mean I literally had someone's mom show up to it once. I mean mostly it's like real estate agents but. And like referral partners. But it's something that I do on the third Wednesday of every month. I put it in my calendar at the beginning of the year. Just like we put this in our calendar the beginning of the year it gets done. You know, I've had no one show up and I've had, you know, know 12, 13 people show up. And my goal before the end of the year is to have 25 people to show up. One of those. And essentially what I do is I buy coffee for them and I sit down and I talk about whatever it is I want to talk about. [00:39:21] Speaker B: I'll tell you, I believe in this world of all the social, it leads to the face to face, the people still deal with people. [00:39:29] Speaker A: If you do it right. [00:39:30] Speaker B: If you do it right. Loyalty comes from face to face. Yeah, I believe, you know, and I agree what it's worth, you know, so leveraging these opportunities and I've seen the success for los or you know, in the Wholesale account executives. You know, I see out there that work with brokers. Getting people together and sharing together is huge. So how do you set it up? You know, you teed it up with going into the offices. If I could summarize, right, you had a plan. [00:39:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:55] Speaker B: You got up, you started doing it, you went in, you dropped boxes off, you built some little connection. You shared value. Shared educated. [00:40:02] Speaker A: Then I started on social. Yeah. [00:40:03] Speaker B: And now you got them into real life. That's the. Yeah, that's the 10 second version. All of it, how it works. [00:40:08] Speaker A: And it all started with just with basically. What is that thing? [00:40:13] Speaker B: Oh, so this is. You should time yourself. Okay. [00:40:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:18] Speaker B: Podcast almost outside of mine. [00:40:21] Speaker A: My thing, dude. No, it's not my thing. But yeah, the timing thing is amazing too. That might be a different podcast, but yeah, the events turn into relationships and it's worked super well for me. So, yeah, I mean, those are the things I would do. Whether you're brand new or you're someone who just wants to grow your business, I think those are the most impactful things that I've done over the past three years to basically, you know, still be. Continue to kick ass even though things are slower for most. [00:40:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Funny thing. So before, every time, before we get together and talk about anything, I will run we have like a feed in in Chat GPT for the podcast. We theme it out. So just to share with you. It's really funny because I didn't know exactly what Tim was going to talk about. Top five tips. So what they suggested was master your message. [00:41:07] Speaker A: Okay. [00:41:08] Speaker B: Well, you call it a perfection pitch, right? [00:41:10] Speaker A: Perfect. [00:41:10] Speaker B: They said consistent prospecting. We call it dropping off boxes. [00:41:14] Speaker A: Yep. [00:41:15] Speaker B: They said get face to face. So this is every algorithm in the world of Chat GPT telling you the number one thing to do. Even with chat GBT said get face to face. And then they did talk about you building your systems and learning the loan. We did say that's kind of table stakes. Like you need to be if you're that new. Look, take advantage of some training. Some of the title company MI companies have online training to help you with that. Income and calculations and guidelines. Definitely invest that extra time in yourself if you don't have that yet to get up to this level. [00:41:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:48] Speaker B: And then one thing that I would say is maybe in this next week, if you watch us, follow us, say hi to us, pick one of these things and do it. [00:41:59] Speaker A: Do it. [00:42:00] Speaker B: You know, whatever it is, just do it. [00:42:02] Speaker A: I mean, I don't know what your thoughts are on Nike. I'm not a huge Nike fan, but. [00:42:05] Speaker B: That, that slogan's not bad. [00:42:07] Speaker A: The slogan kicks ass, dude. Just do it. You know, like so that's, that's basically, if I could leave you guys with one thing, that would be that. [00:42:14] Speaker B: And I'm going to leave you with this because it's always meat related. The best cuts come from consistency, seasoning and a little heat. Don't just sizzle. [00:42:25] Speaker A: Serve. Yes. [00:42:27] Speaker B: All right, brother. Thanks again. One day. I know, I never know. One day I'm gonna get hit in the face. Mortgage me marketing education activities and tips or mortgage loan originators and we are going to come up with a mortgage meet up real soon. So look out for that because we're going to share what we're talking about here with a room full of anybody who wants to show up. Thanks again. [00:42:44] Speaker A: Talk to you soon. Later.