Mortgage Marketing Animals Issue 2

THE LOAN OFFICERS’ INNER CIRCLE

MEMBERS ONLY EXCLUSIVE NEWSLETTER

LEADING LOAN OFFIC RS TO FREEDOM

ISSUE 2

BREAKING THE MAIN CHAIN

Many loan officers have their cellphone numbers listed on their business cards, and that creates problems.When you’re closing 0–5 loans a month, using your cellphone number won’t be an issue. But as soon as you get into the higher levels of production, closing 5–25 loans a month, your activity will increase tenfold.

to give that new phone number out to anyone other than your close family and friends. I get that you may be thinking, “Well, my Realtors are my friends.” True as that may be, refrain from giving your Realtors the new number; this is crucial. Once you have your second number, forward your old cellphone number to an assistant — or several — in your office. Then, ask your assistant to answer all incoming phone calls. The beauty of this method is that many of the people calling have questions regarding appraisals, surveys, or are inquiring if the borrowers sent their documents. Most of my time is spent out in the field getting new business, and I don’t have the answers they’re looking for. That’s why it’s so crucial to have an assistant to keep track of these goings-on. So now when a client calls your old phone number, they’re directed to the office, and your assistant can attend to them while you’re out in the field generating more business. One potential hazard that comes from this method occurs when someone calls my cell and they are expecting to speak with me directly.When an office assistant answers, the caller may think, “Wait a minute — I’ve just been pawned off.” To avoid making anyone feel unimportant or neglected, you need to let your agents know what’s going on.When I put this system into place, I speak with all of my real estate agents — preferably in a face-to-face meeting — and let them know what’s happening. It’s okay to do it over the phone, but I recommend an in-person meeting. Plus, touching base from time to time can help you gain referrals. I use a script we like to call the “Radar script.” It is inspired by the character Radar from the old TV show “M.A.S.H.” who has the striking ability to predict future events. So, you meet with your client, and you introduce them to this cellphone system through the following Radar script.

The problem with working off of your cellphone at this point is that it can have an impact on your future endeavors. For example, let’s say that you’re speaking with a real estate agent and your phone rings during the meeting. Do you take that call? Do you disrespect the person who is helping you feed your family? The answer in this scenario might be no, but it’s much more intricate than that. By not answering the phone, you disrespect the person on the other line by forcing them to go to your voicemail, which is never a good thing. To make matters even more complicated, that person could be one of the real estate clients. Ignoring their call is now not only disrespectful to the caller; it is to the real estate agent in front of you, too. Another problem with using your cellphone is that your day is filled with calls that interrupt and distract you. Personally, if I’m interrupted every five minutes by a call coming in, I can never get into the zone and concentrate. Because of this, I never get anything done, and my day becomes incredibly unproductive. I’m running a multimillion-dollar business, and we help thousands of loan officers across the country. It’s impossible for me to help each of these people by myself and answer their many calls on my cellphone. It would be completely impractical. To avoid this dilemma entirely, I’ve found a method that is extremely useful: Get a second number for your cellphone.We’ve done this, and I highly recommend it. Go down to your mobile phone company and tell them, “I need a new phone number attached to my current cell number.” It’s very important never

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Jack Roush is a multimillionaire who is a renowned race car engine builder. If you’ve ever driven around town, you might have seen mustangs with “Roush Mustang” on the side of them. Companies like Ford Motor have hired him to mass produce some of their high-end engines for consumer cars. However, what Jack is most famous for is building NASCAR engines for his race team. Jack owns five race teams that race on NASCAR on any given Sunday. He’s so well-known for building the best engines that Jack’s competitors buy them to race against him. They walk into his store, buy his engines, and then use their cars to race him — he’s that good! I was listening to an interview at one point, and an interviewer asked, “Jack, what is it that makes you so great? What makes you a world-class engine builder?” “It’s really quite simple,” he said. “Here’s what we do: We get an engine and put it on the engine block in the shop. We start up the engine, let it warm up until we can get it to full throttle — like putting a brick on the gas pedal — and then my team and I go get a cup of coffee. We don’t come back until that engine has blown up. Then we tear it apart and see what broke. Let’s say it’s a piston ring. I will build a better, stronger, and faster piston ring.” Jack and his team then put the engine back “I just wanted to meet with you and let you know how much I appreciate you and what an honor it is to work with you. You’re helping my kids go through college, and I’m forever grateful to you. I find myself thinking every day, ‘How can I help you even more?’ and this is what I’ve come up with. I just hired someone in the office named Melissa. She’s a new partner with me and is nothing short of amazing. She’s always in the office, working from 9–5 every day, and has an uncanny knack for knowing about issues or problems on a file before it happens. Melissa can identify complications that would, in the past, potentially delay a closing or lead to an unhappy client. She can ‘sense’ these problems way before the end of closing, giving us plenty of time to work on them so they never become an issue. Now, everyone is happier, and we’re converting more of those leads to closing, which makes you more money. She really is nothing short of amazing. “I have this quandary: If I’m in a meeting, like we are now, and got a phone call from one of your clients who’s ready to make an application, the last thing I want to do is disrespect you by

together again and repeat the whole process. “While all my competitors are afraid of breaking, here at Roush Industries, we embrace breakage. We encourage it because I’ll build a better, faster, and stronger machine.” Loan officers, I know you’re afraid sometimes to turn things over to your team. What if something goes wrong? What if it breaks? Well, it’s got to do that. Until you know what breaks, you don’t know what or where the weak link is. When something fragments, you build a better, faster, and stronger system, or hire a better, faster, and stronger person to do that role. However, you won’t know if that situation exists until you let that engine run to see what happens. We find, frequently, that the engine doesn’t break! Frequently, the engine runs just fine. We think it’s going to break, and it doesn’t. But sometimes it does break, and you have to be okay with that. You’ll find that sometimes, when it breaks, you may lose a deal or a referral partner. That’s going to happen. While we certainly don’t want it to happen, we understand that by losing that one deal or referral partner, we’ll gain the next 20 by figuring out what broke. We have to be okay with breaking the engine, or at least testing it to see if it will break, and when it does, we find out where it broke and build a better, faster, and stronger machine for that particular piece or situation. making that person leave a voicemail and wait. That will only decrease our conversion rate and reduce your income, and I would never, ever do that. You help me, and I want to help you. I want to move all your people to the front of the line. While we’re having coffee, if you have a referral who calls the office, Melissa is going to field that call and move them to the front of the line to get that ball rolling. That way, maybe even before we’ve finished our Danish here, that preapproval letter is sitting in your inbox. That’s how I want to help you because of how much you’re doing for me.” The client is going to be willing to work with Radar, but you better make darn sure to have Radar in your office. You can’t say you have someone to answer the important calls and then not have them there. If you’re thinking, “Well, I don’t have anyone in the office to help,” then stay tuned, because that’s what we’re going to talk about next month. Carl White

CARL WHITE’S JACK ROUSH STORY

A GREAT PHILOSOPHY

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HARPOON SCRIPT: FORMALLY THE STICKY NOTE SCRIPT SCRIPTS WITH SCOTT The following script is for a closed deal in the last two years with qualified real estate agents who were on either the buying side or the listing side of a purchase transaction.

Live:

Buying agent: “Hi , this is at . How are you doing today?” (Pause for them to answer.) “You may or may not remember, but you and I worked together on the file.” (Pause for them to remember.) “Well during a conversation the other day, your name came up! So I thought I would give you a call to see if I could treat you to a cup of coffee to catch up a little. Are you available ?” Listing agent: “Hi , this is at . How are you doing today?” (Pause for them to answer.) “You may or may not remember, but you and I worked together on your listing that sold at .” (Pause for them to remember. ) “Well, during a conversation the other day, your name came up! So I thought I would give you a call to see if I could treat you to a cup of coffee to catch up a little. Are you available ?”

If yes, schedule appointment. If no, refer to Thor’s Hammer Scripts for Rebuttals and Answers. “Hi , this is calling from . I am calling you because I was cleaning out some files and came across a note on the file. It said, ‘Follow up with , seems really cool.’ So I thought I would give you a call to see if I could treat you to a cup of coffee this week. Let me know what day would be best for you. Please call me with a day and time at . I look forward to meeting you.”

Voicemail:

Follow-up text to agent’s phone: “Just left a message on your voicemail. Let me know what time is best for you.”

Many people struggle with managing stress, and this lack of control can become a big factor of any business or career. How you handle stress will affect both your business and your physical health. In my business, American Mortgage Solutions, I close about 22–23 loans a month, and we’re aiming to hit 35–40 here soon. Now, you might be thinking that it seems like a stressful situation, but it isn’t. I want to take this time to share with you a few strategies that I put in place to keep me stress-free throughout the day. The biggest struggle I’ve had to overcome is finding a good team. It took me many years to get where I am now. The Freedom Club has made a massive difference for me in the past three years, helping me get to where I need to be today. The most significant thing I’ve learned is that you need to empower your team. You have to let your business run on its own, and then you have to let it break so you can fix it. I’ve been through the difficulty of hiring and firing. Some people were here two, three, four, or even nine months before I had to let them go because it wasn’t working out. BRADY WEBB EXPLAINS HOW TO STAY STRESS-FREE ENERGIZING YOUR MACHINE

Brady Webb is a member of our Freedom Club. He began his career in the lending industry with Wells Fargo in 1987. Being self- employed was always his dream, so in 1998, Brady founded American Mortgage Solutions. His mission has

always been to set a high standard in the mortgage industry by committing to quality customer service, honesty, and integrity. Brady loves educating, teaching, and coaching others. He consistently gives back by sharing what he has learned over his career to help his friends, clients, referral partners, and peers. Brady believes that living a balanced life between family, work, and friendships, is what’s important. When not occupied with running the business, Brady enjoys working out, hanging out on his boat, traveling, and spending time with the friends he has made coast to coast.

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ADVANCED FACEBOOK TARGETING HOW TO GENERATE HIGHER-QUALITY LEADS, MORE REFERRALS, AND MORE DEALS FROM YOUR REAL ESTATE PARTNERS WITH HYPER-FOCUSED TARGETING

There is a simple tool inside your Facebook ad account that can create a dramatic difference in the results that you get from your investment in advertising. It’s your audiences. This tool gives you the ability to target very specific groups of people with your Facebook ads, and it gives you

phone and call! When they see your ads on their Facebook and Instagram feed, your business gets a massive credibility boost, which is often enough to win you their business! You should also take the extra five minutes to set up an audience of people who have already liked your business page and watched your videos. 3. Offer to engage your Realtors’ past clients for them! (You’re already using Agent Legend LO to follow up on all their Facebook, Zillow, Commission Inc., and BoomTown leads, right?) Take the list of all the target referral partners that you are reaching out to and networking with. Show them ads that promote your ability to generate leads for them as well as your amazing three-step “compound communication” technique (Agent Legend LO) that will convert all of their leads for them! You can run simple text ads, but you will get a better response by shooting a weekly video talking about different benefits of working with you along with a market update. Video engagement is incredibly powerful for your brand, and the exposure you can get for a simple $5-a-day budget is incredible. 4. Try an advanced strategy. Take all of your real estate partners and BoomTown and Zillow leads from the past six months. Upload those past leads as a custom audience, and start showing them ads that promote your qualification tools. Our survey campaign and the chatbot work very well converting these warm buyers. You should also upload this list to your Agent Legend LO account and start our re-engagement campaign, which collects all of the low-hanging fruit sitting in those lead lists. (Make sure you have consent from those leads to receive communication from you and your real estate partner.) This is a simple way to get in front of leads who are entering the end of the buying cycle and will end up being high-quality leads for you! The next step is to add these audiences to your account and create another 1-percent, look-alike audience! This trains the Facebook pixel inside your account with even more of the common traits of real estate and mortgage buyers in your market, which helps you target higher-quality people over time! All of these strategies are designed to get you higher-quality traffic and better leads before you go to the general audience-

the control to choose who sees which ads. So, rather than using Facebook’s general targeting options, where you are competing with all the other mortgage companies, you get some nice, blue ocean where you can really build your brand and convert quality leads. Here are some examples of how to make this work. 1. Take all of your past clients and upload their names, email addresses, and phone numbers as a custom audience. Then create a series of four ads — testimonials, stories of success, mortgage tips, and direct calls to action — to refer you business. I also recommend showing this audience the new videos that you are making and posting on social. Set a very small budget, and Facebook takes care of making sure that your past clients never forget to send you a deal. 2. Take the same list of past clients and create a look-alike audience at 1 percent. You can then target the 1 percent of people on the network that match your clients when they start looking for mortgage information online! This creates a very small but warm audience of people that is very receptive to your ads and testimonials. 3. Retarget your website. Every single offer page and web property that you have online should have your Facebook and Google retargeting pixel on them. This simple piece of code allows you to show specific ads to people once they have been on your site! These are the highest-quality leads that you have in your business. They already know your name, your brand, or have been referred to you, and they are checking you out before they pick up the

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CRM TIP OF THE MONTH BY SUE WOODARD, TOTAL EXPERT

targeting options on Facebook. Keep in mind that this is still Facebook , and it is 100 percent a numbers game. The majority of the leads that you generate will not close. It’s supposed to work that way. That is why we have filters in place at every step of the conversion process. We target the highest-quality people, making them jump through hoops before they opt in. Then we use automation to do all of the follow-up so you only talk to borrowers when they want to talk to you! These targeting tips will have you mastering the first step of a successful funnel in no time! To your success, –Chris Johnstone

As a mortgage loan officer (MLO), one of the best sources of purchase referrals is one that I discovered sitting right under my nose: my internal network.Who? I’m glad you asked. The list is endless, but it could include underwriters, processors, other coworkers, title-company or closing agents, appraisers, vendors, investor and mortgage-insurance representatives, and hey, maybe even competitors.Where referral partner and client relationships are usually sought out and “courted,” internal network relationships are much like family. You don’t usually choose them; they are just there when you arrive. So we might take them for granted and not include them in our customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing efforts — but I’d encourage you to think about them differently. If you have been in the mortgage business for any length of time, you have undoubtedly been asked for an opinion on a wide variety of housing-related topics that may not necessarily be in our particular wheelhouse. These could be questions about estate planning, homeowners insurance, or tax implications — the list goes on and on. And you likely have a list of qualified professionals as your business partners to whom these questions can be referred. Now, think about it. You can bet your bottom dollar that anyone who is a part of the housing-related industry, such as processors, underwriters, investor or mortgage-insurance representatives, and title or closing agents, are being asked questions by their neighbors, friends, and family who need to be referred to a mortgage professional.Why? Because most consumers really do not understand the specific differences between each of the positions in our industry. So when it is time to consider a home loan, they generally will turn first to any person who they know has some kind of knowledge of the business. Instead of the underwriter or title representative responding to these questions by simply stating that they are not a loan officer, we can position ourselves to be the one LO who springs to their mind and gets these referrals. Take a few hours and add all of your internal contacts to your CRM. Then send them a copy of your newsletters and holiday mailings just like you would to any other valued client or business partner. Be sure to let them know that you would like to have their referrals and would be honored to work with their family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. It worked for me, and it will work for you, too!

WHAT FREEDOM MEANS TOME

TAMMI LINDLEY (FREEDOM CLUB MEMBER)

When you’ve decided to no longer accept that life is drudgery and insurmountable minutia and you take active steps to move beyond the mundane into what really makes you thrive, you are experiencing freedom. Freedom is the decision to live today, embrace risk, accept the challenge, and dominate it so that tomorrow’s doors are more open and available. Freedom is the oxygen generated by a thousand small decisions to embrace true productivity and not mere busyness. Freedom is about leaving the cage of excuses and savoring the surprise of what’s beyond the next horizon.

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MAKE YOUR AGENT MEETINGS SUCCESSFUL

Irene Duford has been a Coach in The FreedomClub for 6 1/2 years.She is passionate about helping Loan Officers live their dreams.Having in-person meetings with agents is a great way to grow your business. Irene shares with us strategies that have worked to help convert agents from an appointment to referrals.

personally makes the post-coffee calls, because the LO is the one who the agent met with and started the relationship with.Calling each week and using the set process helps the LO deepen the relationship.That is what leads to referrals. WHENCALLINGTOSETAPPOINTMENTS: Do you ever have female agents hesitate to have a meeting with someone they don’t know? Some women Realtors do not want to meet with people (especially men) they don’t know.This is a legitimate concern for women in the world today. I would not agree to meet with someone I don’t know just from a phone call.But I would meet them at my office where others are present.Agents take out people they don’t know all the time.The smart ones take precautions. ANOBJECTIONANDASCRIPT FOR THIS SCENARIO Objection: “I don’t meet with anyone I don’t know.” Answer: “I totally understand. How about if we meet at your office? I’ll bring your favorite daytime beverage right to your office. Google me or check me out on Facebook so you can get to know me a little before we meet. Does Tuesday at 9 or Thursday at 10 work better for you?” RIGHTAFTER THE APPOINTMENT IS SET Email the agent thanking them for the meeting and add a link to your website with reviews. ADAYAFTER THE APPOINTMENT IS SET Send a short video introducing yourself and thanking the agent for setting the meeting. Let them know you’re excited to meet them and to hear about what makes them so successful. Then add them to your Agent Mastermind weekly emails. (You can remove them later if they are not a good fit.) THEDAYBEFORE THEMEETING Call the agent, send a text, or record them a video to confirm your appointment.Say something like, “I can hardly wait to meet with you tomorrow at (the time and place). I’ve been looking forward to it since we set the appointment. I clearedmy calendar to make sure nothing gets in the way.” Some LOs like to text and add a fun picture with it or even a meme. Be yourself, and use your own personality while communicating. THEMORNINGOF THEMEETING Call the agent, send a text, or record them a video again to say, “I am looking forward to meeting you today at (the time and place). I want you to know howmuch I appreciate your time. It’s always great to meet with successful agents in our community.See you there!” Once again, be yourself, and use your own personality. DURINGTHEMEETING Make it all about them.Use the acronym FROG to help you remember to ask questions about their family, recreation, occupation, and goals.Starting with occupation gets them talking about their

Are you looking for a proven process that will help you convert agents you meet with to agents who actually refer you clients? Imagine spending your work day visiting Realtors, establishing friendships, deepening relationships, and receiving great referrals from it.Can you picture what that kind of life would look like? Here is a process (with a checklist) that many FreedomClub members are using with great success. FACEBOOK’SCUSTOM,AUDIENCE-TARGETEDADS: A custom audience is a type of audience you can create made up of specific people you want to see your ads on Facebook.This puts you right in their viewwhen they are on Facebook.You will hear many people say, “You are everywhere!” You target simple ads to the specific audience you’ve created on Facebook.This is great for agents on your list for Thor’s Hammer (pre- and post-meeting) to see you before and after the meeting. It warms up the crowd. It is also great for past clients and other people in your networking circles, business people, people in your circle of influence, and others who can refer you. THE AVERAGE STATS FORGETTINGCOFFEE APPOINTMENTS: If you place 30 calls over 12 weeks, you’ll meet with around 10 people, which is 33 percent of those you called. Out of those meetings, you should form about 2–3 new Realtor relationships. That’s 25 percent of the people you met with for coffee and followed up with for 12 straight weeks. Remember that these are averages. The results are dependent upon your follow-up. For every 30 people you call, you can expect one appointment per week. If you need to go on six appointments, you need six sets of 30 (or a total of 180) people you are calling.This is only possible with a caller and appointment setter.One set of 30 is the maximum one loan officer (LO) can do without a caller and a great loan partner. Once you start meeting with agents and do the right follow-up, you will get leads andmight not be able to follow up withmore than 30 agents per week consistently for 12 weeks. To get higher numbers, you need to call a bigger list, utilizing a freedom caller who is superior at setting appointments. I have seen the best results convincing agents to send referrals when the LO

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... PAGE 6 CONTINUED Now after a few tries, I’ve finally gotten better at hiring people who are the right fit for the right job. By doing so, it’s helped me do more for the company. I can go out into the field and participate in money-making activities, and I can trust that the people back at the office will help my clients. Realize that you can’t do it by yourself. At my office, we call about 140 agents every Monday, and there’s no way I could do that on my own. You need to get a good, reliable team that cares about your business as much as you do. When you have a great team working by your side and you’re out bringing revenue into your business, you’ll be far less stressed. I remember back in the day when I had a decent-sized deal falling out of my pipeline and was averaging 2–3 deals a month. It was incredibly stressful. The fewer deals you close means you have that much more pressure riding on each one. I would be up till 3 a.m. wondering how to make up the loss in my income if one deal didn’t go through. Stress does so many horrible things to your body, and it can keep you from sticking to any semblance of a routine, like going to the gym before work. I’ve found that working out can relieve a lot of stress in its own right.Now that I have empoweredmy team, I am free to keep my morning workout routine without stressing over the next deal. I’m a creature of habit, and I’ve been going to the gym for 10 years. success story. Listen carefully to get to know them. Listen for the “one thing” they mention they’re interested in or associated with and take a mental note of it.This will give you an idea of something you can send them later to show you were listening.Make sure it’s something that matters to them. Make sure you always have a call to action at end of the meeting if you are a goodmatch with the agent. The call to action is either to A.) get a deal right then or B.) ask if it is okay for you to call them from time to time.The scripts are on your membership website. DEVELOPINGTHE RELATIONSHIPAFTER THEMEETING In the car, jot down things you remember about the agent in your phone notes, so you don’t forget, and email those notes to yourself to have a record for your customer relationshipmanagement (CRM) for future reference. Right after the meeting, call or send them a text from the parking lot. Thank them for meeting with you, andmaybe mention something simple you noticed about them, to show you listened. Find the “one thing” by figuring out what you can send to them that shows you were listening.Then send it with a personal note. MAKE SURE TODOTHESE THINGS: • Friend them on Facebook. • Add them to your monthly mailer list.

It’s a great way to unwind,meet different people, and plan out your day. If you’re thinking about starting this type of healthy lifestyle, treat it like any other routine in your life. Forming a workout routine is very similar to learning to make realtor calls and >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8

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