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Imagine closing 10% more homes this year than last. Would that be helpful? Of course it would. What if the path to doing so wasn't 'More leads, more leads, more leads' but was rather better converting on the leads you have. This episode goes into KPIs and how agents can stop some of the leakage with small tweaks that produce really big results.
Show Notes
Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host, Justin Stoddart. I'm very excited about today. A very good friend of mine a very experienced mortgage loan officer who has been in the business for 17 years. He has been wowing people with value for a long, long time, Mr. Tony Gillard. Tony, thanks for being on the show today.
Happy to be here.
Let's set this up properly. You know, Tony, you run your business like a business and the topic of today is, is really one way in which agents can do that. And I think this term of lead generation is synonymous with real estate agents. More leads, more leads, more leads always seems to be the answer, but maybe it's not the answer. Maybe it's not about more leads, more leads, more leads. Maybe just maybe it's about better converting on the leads you have. We're going to talk some specific strategies around that. Tony, what are your thoughts on this concept of more leads, more leads, more leads?
Well, it's certainly a topic of discussion with every agent. I sit down, every agent, uh, they want more leads and when we start to peel back some of the layers of their business, we find that it's not necessarily more leads that they need, but more conversion on the activities and opportunities that they're already generating. And so, you know, especially when we start talking about like work life balance--can you do more with less? Can you do more things with fewer interactions or really is it a matter of just an equation of pouring in more leads? I don't think that it is based on the conversations that I'm having and specifically I'm just sitting down with the agents and finding out what their track record is and starting to, to ask the questions that are more business related. I know that a lot of agents are in the business because they're really good people.
People's personalities--they're outgoing. They have a servant's heart. And sometimes what is maybe lacking is just the lens, the business lens, looking at their operations and finding out the efficiencies that they could maybe tweak a little bit. And that to me all comes down to what's your longterm client plan because statistically we call this the other 98 because statistically 2% of your database or 2% of the people that you interact with are going to be ready to conduct business right now. And so we always ask, what about the other 98, what kind of client plan do you have in place to incubate these people over time? Just create a relationship of value so that you're the obvious choice when they come back around. And that's in a world of Zillow leads the lead part is really the weakest component of that funnel because the value proposition is being built by Zillow.
You know, they, they come into Zillow's funnel and that funnel provides them a really pretty platform with search tools, a lot of like information and recon, so to speak, for the buyer. And so all the value is being provided by Zillow. And by the time that that buyer wants to make a buying decision, the agent in that equation is the commodity. And so if you're not cheaper, better, faster, if you're not willing to open a door during dinner on a Sunday night, it just gets moved to the next one. And I feel like because of the activities that agents engage in on a really, really regular basis, there's so much opportunity in just those engagements that they're already conducting.
Whether agents are getting their business primarily via referral or via some online lead source, if they're actively growing their business, they're actively in real estate related conversations on a very regular basis, on a daily basis. What would you say Tony, would be the average as you've interviewed agents? What's the average number of real estate related conversations that an agent is in on on maybe an annual basis?
So I have my notes from the last interview that I just did and I'm referring to these because it's fairly common. This is a very kind of common breakdown that I'm coming across in these agent interviews. So this agent I recently sat down with, I asked how many families they helped last year. They said they had closed on 30 transactions last year you know, a mixture of listings and buy side and you know, so it's a decently medium producing type of agent. They were a single operator and I said, how many real estate related conversations of people that are looking to buy or sell do you think you had in order to help those 30 families? And as we started to dig deeper, you know, talking about open houses and barbecues and past client referrals, the networking activities that they engage in, we really kind of identified that they're speaking to about one person a day on a real estate related type of conversation.
Okay. So we're talking about five conversations a week, you know and I'll always kind of lead them down the path of like, well, do you take a couple of weeks off for vacation and so forth. And so in this particular case they had determined that they spoke to about 250 people over the course of that last year to have to help 30 families. Okay.
So about 10%, a little bit higher than that.
But if you look at it, the way that I often like to look at it is there were 220 people that either didn't do anything or did something with somebody else. Right. And so for me, that's where the opportunities are. There's 220 people that showed some level of interest in real estate. These are 220 opportunities that the agent spent time doing and what's in place? What system?
I actually, it was funny because I've watched your podcast and there's a reference that you've made a number of times and I think you and I were both at the same event where, Mr Lou Raja, the keynote speaker at that event said that "Systems beat intentions all day long." And I would take it even a step further where I think you could be the most well-intended human being, but without a system, I think it's just setting up for failure. And so the question for me then becomes what type of system do you have in place to help incubate those 220? For us in our model to help agents with their business is is just looking at the lost opportunity because if we could only, let's say based upon having a system in place, that agent can convert simply 10% of those lost leads, right? So 220 10% that's 22 additional transactions over the course of that 12 month period of time.
That's a massive impact on a medium producer's business.
And so like 10% that's not, that's not some unreasonable number, right? That's not unbelievable to think that somebody could do that and could convert 10% more of those conversations.
Well this was where it became interesting for me in preparation for today. I, this was last night, I just jotted down based on the notes that I'd taken and then I actually went into my own metrics. So we track our metrics. Our branch initiative is to track our daily activities and find out exactly what our conversions are. We've been doing this since October of last year, so this is a little bit of a transparent moment because I'm really hoping that through the efforts of our branch and the things that we're doing on our path to elite is to increase some of these conversion numbers.
But I just wanted to play these out based on this one agent that I spoke with, which seems to be a fairly common among agents I've spoken with, but when you take a look at those 22 deals with an average commission of about $7,000 that's on a, I think a $350,000 house. So average commission would probably be higher for most agents. I just wanted to be conservative. Twenty-two deals would represent about $154,000 in additional income or gross commission earned. And so I took my conversion metrics to apply to that simply as a funnel. Right? So in other words, if those people simply came into my funnel, how would that look? And so I did 20 conversations a month. My lead to prequal conversation is 22%. Okay? So if I had in a month period of time, I had 20 introductions of people that are interested in buying or selling real estate, then my 22% conversion to a prequal conversation would be 4.4 people--4.4 prequel conversations I would have in that model. My prequel conversation to application--and this is application as in the sense of like a contract. So we call it a little bit different, like a TBD is actually, a prequel conversation. The actual application would be a contract. So prequel conversation to contract. I'm at 58% since last October. So now that 4.4 turns into 2.5. So the 20 in one month out of this equation, which again, this is five calls a week, times four weeks, Five realtor engagements with people over five weeks, excuse me, four weeks is 20 people that they could introduce to me. So prequal, the prequal conversation to contract 58% that 4.4 turns to two and a half, my conversion from contract to funding is 82% within our coaching circle goals. The elite level is converting at about 85% so I have some room to tweak this and to improve on my conversions, but that 2.55 applications or contracts then turns into basically 2.09 funding.
So 20 came in, two came out. Okay. That's with my own specific conversion metrics, my key performance indicators. If you extrapolate that out over a year, that's actually more than a 22 deals that we had determined were lost in that lost leads conversation. So the math plays out and my encouragement, and this is what we're going through as a branch initiative for 2018 is not only knowing your key performance indicators, but really honing in on your key performance actions. And what we've identified daily, is that we record on a daily basis the calls that we're making outbound calls to partners, people that we work with to help generate business. Then how many conversations outbound are we making with our database? Those two will lead to these other events like a prequal conversation, like a contract and a funding, but those are daily metrics that we track.
So,. a word to anybody listening here. If you're envious of the KPIs, key performance indicators that Tony's put in place, he might be a good guy for you to have a conversation with and say, can you share with me the systems you've put in place? It won't be a direct correlation. I'm sure there's some things that you can teach agents on identifying what are the right KPIs for them and also how to have them set them up in a systematic way to where they can be tracking them and knowing their own numbers. Right?
Most definitely the big equation, or the big part of this equation is the client plan. You know, because oftentimes I think agents are really good at focusing on today's business and maybe the fortune's in the follow up on tomorrow's business and that's an area of opportunity where I think that there's quite a bit of leakage. And so yeah, it's, it's about identifying a longterm client plan where you're adding value, you're incubating these these relationships over time so that when they are in a position to make a buying decision, you're there obvious choice.
I think one of the things that you and I have discussed in the past is part of the equation is just simply maintaining communication with these people, right? It's actually staying in contact with them and remaining top of mind. The other component is actually adding value, right? The Zillow model. And of course we're picking on Zillow, but I'm okay doing that. There's this concept of Zillow owns the funnel and they're providing all the value, whether it be through a Zestimate, whether it be through approved lenders and real estate agents. They control the sales funnel and the agents in there don't control the customer. Zillow does. And so what ends up happening is that the agent becomes a commodity and you, and I've talked about this at length over the years and you've really taught me this, is that what ends up coming out the bottom of this funnel is an agent has to be, as you described, ready to respond in a matter of seconds and be an on call doctor without necessarily getting paid like one, right?
Like you've got to be ready to go at any moment and the client is not willing to wait for you because the value is not in you. The value is in what Zillow's provided them, which is a platform of all kinds of 'you's', right? All kinds of people and replace you with at any given moment. And so back to my original point is that it's not a matter of just maintaining communication with these people, but it's a matter of you starting to realize how important it is for you to control your own sales funnel and to be the Zillow and be adding value all along the way so that when they do come, when the time is right for them to make a decision, they're not just going to Zillow, they're not just going to realtor.com or whatever lead portal to get the commodity they're going to you because you have been the one adding value all this time. Right.
You know, I've been in this business long enough to be in the business before Zillow. And so, yeah, right. I freaked my kids out when I tell them I'm older than the Internet.
I've used that on my kids thanks to you and they love it.
There was a world before Zillow, and there is this world with Zillow that is relatively new. And I think agents had a tremendous amount of success. And to a degree, there's still a level of success that agents have with Zillow, but I do believe that the end consumer is getting maybe pickier. They'll utilize some of these tools, but then they'll go their own way because some of the conversations that I've had with agents that have had success with Zillow in the past is that they're seeing a degradation in the leads that they're getting to the point where it's not as lucrative as it once was, where they've had to seek other type of lead gen activities.
And the encouragement would be to do the things that you do that you love doing already. Because the beauty of our business in real estate is that everyone either needs to buy, sell or live somewhere. And so whether you're an enthusiast of mountain climbing or whatever the case may be, you have the ability to, to be in those spheres and to interact with people, engage with them, create relationships and, and then be available to serve them when they have those needs. And so I feel like what's going to occur because of all this massive disruption. It's not just Zillow anymore, right? I mean they're talking about all kinds of different players in this game. Trying to get a piece of this pie which dilutes a lot of these areas, but what is never going to be replaced is the human contact, the human connection, the trust, you know, the advisor role.
Being very knowledgeable in your marketplace, providing value and really the humanity of this business. Because while in some ways we are instant gratification, you know, push button, deliver--Prime, the Prime Life. I feel like when we get into the home, which is much bigger on the scale of emotional connection, I feel that people are starting to turn back to the human element and to seek those relationships and, and someone that's going to provide value to them longterm.
I agree. And I think, like you said, the advisor will actually sat with a gentleman today, who is in the insurance business and he said, we are planning a trip to Europe. And he said, "I was overwhelmed by how much there was to interpret. To the point to where I finally said, I just need a travel agent." And I thought, "Wait a minute, what? I thought those guys were extinct." And of course I know that they're not, but more information and more access to information doesn't necessarily solve the problem. Sometimes it actually makes it worse. And the role of advisor when people want a good experience, and they want a customized experience, not a "One size fits all for the masses experience, that we can deliver to you because our algorithm says so." But someone who really understands, not just where the family is at but where they're headed, they can give customized advice around that. That's a different story. And that's where I think the opportunity for real estate agents and mortgage loan officers really to shine in this information era in which we live.
I agree. In fact, I think the most telling part of that is when you hear a customer and, or an agent, say like "These clients have become my friends," or "My agent is now part of my life." You know, when you start to plan a system around developing and nurturing that relationship over time, I mean, imagine when you even socially stock them. Right? Maybe because I connect with all the kids that I went to high school with via Facebook prior to Facebook, I was unable to do that. The same is true with our network and our sphere and our clients, our past clients. And so when you see that they have a new baby, how impactful would it be to send them a onesy that just said, "Hey, thinking of you, congrats on your new baby." I had a situation where I was speaking with an agent and I said, "Who's your top referer? Like, let's just look at who sends you the most business and what can we do to deepen those relationships?" He told me it was a person that I was familiar with and so we socially stocked them and it turned out that he was that weekend at the University of Oregon, orienting his daughter for her first year in college. They were getting set up in the dorms and so on and so forth. So I said, open up Amazon right now. I know you can search this book that says "What to expect as a parent that has a child first year in college." I said, "This is his firstborn daughter. That's a massive impact on something that's easy and simple to do." And what if we started treating our clients like that? Weddings, birthdays, you know, rather than just a birthday call, do something that's a little bit more special. We get paid really well in this business and I think that it's incumbent upon us to give back. Many of us serve on a high level and provide value, but what would it look like if we all invested back in our clients to ensure that we deepen those relationships?
That's the part that we're kind of ending with here is that control the sales funnel. Know your numbers so that you can serve people at a high level, right? And not so that you can turn and burn and get the JD power for most loans done in a year, but so that I can serve people at a really high level. And I think when that becomes the purpose behind the KPIs is because I know that when I bring people into my world, their world gets better. And if you really truly believe that, feel that, and I think that agents that listen and that are part of the Think Bigger Real Estate Community feel that way... that they generally feel like they can make an impact in people's lives for the better; That they can help improve their lives.
And if that becomes underlying purpose, great. Then how do I just get my arms around more people? How to bring more people into this mechanism that allows me to serve them at a high level, not just pour into them around areas of their life, like key milestones in life, but also be that key trusted advisor that gives them the customized advice. So anyway, it's good stuff, man. I really appreciate what you have to share and in modeling really how to mesh great humanity with a great business mind. And I think that's what's needed. That's the way forward. And I appreciate you sharing what you've shared. It's good stuff, man.
My pleasure. Always great content on your show. So I'm honored to have been invited. I appreciate it.
Yeah, you bet. Should people want to get in contact with you and learn more about these KPIs and learn from you. What's the best way to do that, Tony?
Tony@my mortgageguytony.com. A little bit of a mouthful, but pretty easy to find.
I love it. Good stuff. Tony@mymortgageguytony.com. If you have questions and want to learn from this guy now, I've learned a ton from him over the years. So, I appreciate you man, very much. And thanks everybody for tuning in to another episode of the Think Bigger Real Estate show and I look forward to our next episode and give me and Tony some love. If this has been helpful, please share it, comment on it, like it, all that good stuff. And thanks again, Tony.--appreciate you!
Happy to be here.
Let's set this up properly. You know, Tony, you run your business like a business and the topic of today is, is really one way in which agents can do that. And I think this term of lead generation is synonymous with real estate agents. More leads, more leads, more leads always seems to be the answer, but maybe it's not the answer. Maybe it's not about more leads, more leads, more leads. Maybe just maybe it's about better converting on the leads you have. We're going to talk some specific strategies around that. Tony, what are your thoughts on this concept of more leads, more leads, more leads?
Well, it's certainly a topic of discussion with every agent. I sit down, every agent, uh, they want more leads and when we start to peel back some of the layers of their business, we find that it's not necessarily more leads that they need, but more conversion on the activities and opportunities that they're already generating. And so, you know, especially when we start talking about like work life balance--can you do more with less? Can you do more things with fewer interactions or really is it a matter of just an equation of pouring in more leads? I don't think that it is based on the conversations that I'm having and specifically I'm just sitting down with the agents and finding out what their track record is and starting to, to ask the questions that are more business related. I know that a lot of agents are in the business because they're really good people.
People's personalities--they're outgoing. They have a servant's heart. And sometimes what is maybe lacking is just the lens, the business lens, looking at their operations and finding out the efficiencies that they could maybe tweak a little bit. And that to me all comes down to what's your longterm client plan because statistically we call this the other 98 because statistically 2% of your database or 2% of the people that you interact with are going to be ready to conduct business right now. And so we always ask, what about the other 98, what kind of client plan do you have in place to incubate these people over time? Just create a relationship of value so that you're the obvious choice when they come back around. And that's in a world of Zillow leads the lead part is really the weakest component of that funnel because the value proposition is being built by Zillow.
You know, they, they come into Zillow's funnel and that funnel provides them a really pretty platform with search tools, a lot of like information and recon, so to speak, for the buyer. And so all the value is being provided by Zillow. And by the time that that buyer wants to make a buying decision, the agent in that equation is the commodity. And so if you're not cheaper, better, faster, if you're not willing to open a door during dinner on a Sunday night, it just gets moved to the next one. And I feel like because of the activities that agents engage in on a really, really regular basis, there's so much opportunity in just those engagements that they're already conducting.
Whether agents are getting their business primarily via referral or via some online lead source, if they're actively growing their business, they're actively in real estate related conversations on a very regular basis, on a daily basis. What would you say Tony, would be the average as you've interviewed agents? What's the average number of real estate related conversations that an agent is in on on maybe an annual basis?
So I have my notes from the last interview that I just did and I'm referring to these because it's fairly common. This is a very kind of common breakdown that I'm coming across in these agent interviews. So this agent I recently sat down with, I asked how many families they helped last year. They said they had closed on 30 transactions last year you know, a mixture of listings and buy side and you know, so it's a decently medium producing type of agent. They were a single operator and I said, how many real estate related conversations of people that are looking to buy or sell do you think you had in order to help those 30 families? And as we started to dig deeper, you know, talking about open houses and barbecues and past client referrals, the networking activities that they engage in, we really kind of identified that they're speaking to about one person a day on a real estate related type of conversation.
Okay. So we're talking about five conversations a week, you know and I'll always kind of lead them down the path of like, well, do you take a couple of weeks off for vacation and so forth. And so in this particular case they had determined that they spoke to about 250 people over the course of that last year to have to help 30 families. Okay.
So about 10%, a little bit higher than that.
But if you look at it, the way that I often like to look at it is there were 220 people that either didn't do anything or did something with somebody else. Right. And so for me, that's where the opportunities are. There's 220 people that showed some level of interest in real estate. These are 220 opportunities that the agent spent time doing and what's in place? What system?
I actually, it was funny because I've watched your podcast and there's a reference that you've made a number of times and I think you and I were both at the same event where, Mr Lou Raja, the keynote speaker at that event said that "Systems beat intentions all day long." And I would take it even a step further where I think you could be the most well-intended human being, but without a system, I think it's just setting up for failure. And so the question for me then becomes what type of system do you have in place to help incubate those 220? For us in our model to help agents with their business is is just looking at the lost opportunity because if we could only, let's say based upon having a system in place, that agent can convert simply 10% of those lost leads, right? So 220 10% that's 22 additional transactions over the course of that 12 month period of time.
That's a massive impact on a medium producer's business.
And so like 10% that's not, that's not some unreasonable number, right? That's not unbelievable to think that somebody could do that and could convert 10% more of those conversations.
Well this was where it became interesting for me in preparation for today. I, this was last night, I just jotted down based on the notes that I'd taken and then I actually went into my own metrics. So we track our metrics. Our branch initiative is to track our daily activities and find out exactly what our conversions are. We've been doing this since October of last year, so this is a little bit of a transparent moment because I'm really hoping that through the efforts of our branch and the things that we're doing on our path to elite is to increase some of these conversion numbers.
But I just wanted to play these out based on this one agent that I spoke with, which seems to be a fairly common among agents I've spoken with, but when you take a look at those 22 deals with an average commission of about $7,000 that's on a, I think a $350,000 house. So average commission would probably be higher for most agents. I just wanted to be conservative. Twenty-two deals would represent about $154,000 in additional income or gross commission earned. And so I took my conversion metrics to apply to that simply as a funnel. Right? So in other words, if those people simply came into my funnel, how would that look? And so I did 20 conversations a month. My lead to prequal conversation is 22%. Okay? So if I had in a month period of time, I had 20 introductions of people that are interested in buying or selling real estate, then my 22% conversion to a prequal conversation would be 4.4 people--4.4 prequel conversations I would have in that model. My prequel conversation to application--and this is application as in the sense of like a contract. So we call it a little bit different, like a TBD is actually, a prequel conversation. The actual application would be a contract. So prequel conversation to contract. I'm at 58% since last October. So now that 4.4 turns into 2.5. So the 20 in one month out of this equation, which again, this is five calls a week, times four weeks, Five realtor engagements with people over five weeks, excuse me, four weeks is 20 people that they could introduce to me. So prequal, the prequal conversation to contract 58% that 4.4 turns to two and a half, my conversion from contract to funding is 82% within our coaching circle goals. The elite level is converting at about 85% so I have some room to tweak this and to improve on my conversions, but that 2.55 applications or contracts then turns into basically 2.09 funding.
So 20 came in, two came out. Okay. That's with my own specific conversion metrics, my key performance indicators. If you extrapolate that out over a year, that's actually more than a 22 deals that we had determined were lost in that lost leads conversation. So the math plays out and my encouragement, and this is what we're going through as a branch initiative for 2018 is not only knowing your key performance indicators, but really honing in on your key performance actions. And what we've identified daily, is that we record on a daily basis the calls that we're making outbound calls to partners, people that we work with to help generate business. Then how many conversations outbound are we making with our database? Those two will lead to these other events like a prequal conversation, like a contract and a funding, but those are daily metrics that we track.
So,. a word to anybody listening here. If you're envious of the KPIs, key performance indicators that Tony's put in place, he might be a good guy for you to have a conversation with and say, can you share with me the systems you've put in place? It won't be a direct correlation. I'm sure there's some things that you can teach agents on identifying what are the right KPIs for them and also how to have them set them up in a systematic way to where they can be tracking them and knowing their own numbers. Right?
Most definitely the big equation, or the big part of this equation is the client plan. You know, because oftentimes I think agents are really good at focusing on today's business and maybe the fortune's in the follow up on tomorrow's business and that's an area of opportunity where I think that there's quite a bit of leakage. And so yeah, it's, it's about identifying a longterm client plan where you're adding value, you're incubating these these relationships over time so that when they are in a position to make a buying decision, you're there obvious choice.
I think one of the things that you and I have discussed in the past is part of the equation is just simply maintaining communication with these people, right? It's actually staying in contact with them and remaining top of mind. The other component is actually adding value, right? The Zillow model. And of course we're picking on Zillow, but I'm okay doing that. There's this concept of Zillow owns the funnel and they're providing all the value, whether it be through a Zestimate, whether it be through approved lenders and real estate agents. They control the sales funnel and the agents in there don't control the customer. Zillow does. And so what ends up happening is that the agent becomes a commodity and you, and I've talked about this at length over the years and you've really taught me this, is that what ends up coming out the bottom of this funnel is an agent has to be, as you described, ready to respond in a matter of seconds and be an on call doctor without necessarily getting paid like one, right?
Like you've got to be ready to go at any moment and the client is not willing to wait for you because the value is not in you. The value is in what Zillow's provided them, which is a platform of all kinds of 'you's', right? All kinds of people and replace you with at any given moment. And so back to my original point is that it's not a matter of just maintaining communication with these people, but it's a matter of you starting to realize how important it is for you to control your own sales funnel and to be the Zillow and be adding value all along the way so that when they do come, when the time is right for them to make a decision, they're not just going to Zillow, they're not just going to realtor.com or whatever lead portal to get the commodity they're going to you because you have been the one adding value all this time. Right.
You know, I've been in this business long enough to be in the business before Zillow. And so, yeah, right. I freaked my kids out when I tell them I'm older than the Internet.
I've used that on my kids thanks to you and they love it.
There was a world before Zillow, and there is this world with Zillow that is relatively new. And I think agents had a tremendous amount of success. And to a degree, there's still a level of success that agents have with Zillow, but I do believe that the end consumer is getting maybe pickier. They'll utilize some of these tools, but then they'll go their own way because some of the conversations that I've had with agents that have had success with Zillow in the past is that they're seeing a degradation in the leads that they're getting to the point where it's not as lucrative as it once was, where they've had to seek other type of lead gen activities.
And the encouragement would be to do the things that you do that you love doing already. Because the beauty of our business in real estate is that everyone either needs to buy, sell or live somewhere. And so whether you're an enthusiast of mountain climbing or whatever the case may be, you have the ability to, to be in those spheres and to interact with people, engage with them, create relationships and, and then be available to serve them when they have those needs. And so I feel like what's going to occur because of all this massive disruption. It's not just Zillow anymore, right? I mean they're talking about all kinds of different players in this game. Trying to get a piece of this pie which dilutes a lot of these areas, but what is never going to be replaced is the human contact, the human connection, the trust, you know, the advisor role.
Being very knowledgeable in your marketplace, providing value and really the humanity of this business. Because while in some ways we are instant gratification, you know, push button, deliver--Prime, the Prime Life. I feel like when we get into the home, which is much bigger on the scale of emotional connection, I feel that people are starting to turn back to the human element and to seek those relationships and, and someone that's going to provide value to them longterm.
I agree. And I think, like you said, the advisor will actually sat with a gentleman today, who is in the insurance business and he said, we are planning a trip to Europe. And he said, "I was overwhelmed by how much there was to interpret. To the point to where I finally said, I just need a travel agent." And I thought, "Wait a minute, what? I thought those guys were extinct." And of course I know that they're not, but more information and more access to information doesn't necessarily solve the problem. Sometimes it actually makes it worse. And the role of advisor when people want a good experience, and they want a customized experience, not a "One size fits all for the masses experience, that we can deliver to you because our algorithm says so." But someone who really understands, not just where the family is at but where they're headed, they can give customized advice around that. That's a different story. And that's where I think the opportunity for real estate agents and mortgage loan officers really to shine in this information era in which we live.
I agree. In fact, I think the most telling part of that is when you hear a customer and, or an agent, say like "These clients have become my friends," or "My agent is now part of my life." You know, when you start to plan a system around developing and nurturing that relationship over time, I mean, imagine when you even socially stock them. Right? Maybe because I connect with all the kids that I went to high school with via Facebook prior to Facebook, I was unable to do that. The same is true with our network and our sphere and our clients, our past clients. And so when you see that they have a new baby, how impactful would it be to send them a onesy that just said, "Hey, thinking of you, congrats on your new baby." I had a situation where I was speaking with an agent and I said, "Who's your top referer? Like, let's just look at who sends you the most business and what can we do to deepen those relationships?" He told me it was a person that I was familiar with and so we socially stocked them and it turned out that he was that weekend at the University of Oregon, orienting his daughter for her first year in college. They were getting set up in the dorms and so on and so forth. So I said, open up Amazon right now. I know you can search this book that says "What to expect as a parent that has a child first year in college." I said, "This is his firstborn daughter. That's a massive impact on something that's easy and simple to do." And what if we started treating our clients like that? Weddings, birthdays, you know, rather than just a birthday call, do something that's a little bit more special. We get paid really well in this business and I think that it's incumbent upon us to give back. Many of us serve on a high level and provide value, but what would it look like if we all invested back in our clients to ensure that we deepen those relationships?
That's the part that we're kind of ending with here is that control the sales funnel. Know your numbers so that you can serve people at a high level, right? And not so that you can turn and burn and get the JD power for most loans done in a year, but so that I can serve people at a really high level. And I think when that becomes the purpose behind the KPIs is because I know that when I bring people into my world, their world gets better. And if you really truly believe that, feel that, and I think that agents that listen and that are part of the Think Bigger Real Estate Community feel that way... that they generally feel like they can make an impact in people's lives for the better; That they can help improve their lives.
And if that becomes underlying purpose, great. Then how do I just get my arms around more people? How to bring more people into this mechanism that allows me to serve them at a high level, not just pour into them around areas of their life, like key milestones in life, but also be that key trusted advisor that gives them the customized advice. So anyway, it's good stuff, man. I really appreciate what you have to share and in modeling really how to mesh great humanity with a great business mind. And I think that's what's needed. That's the way forward. And I appreciate you sharing what you've shared. It's good stuff, man.
My pleasure. Always great content on your show. So I'm honored to have been invited. I appreciate it.
Yeah, you bet. Should people want to get in contact with you and learn more about these KPIs and learn from you. What's the best way to do that, Tony?
Tony@my mortgageguytony.com. A little bit of a mouthful, but pretty easy to find.
I love it. Good stuff. Tony@mymortgageguytony.com. If you have questions and want to learn from this guy now, I've learned a ton from him over the years. So, I appreciate you man, very much. And thanks everybody for tuning in to another episode of the Think Bigger Real Estate show and I look forward to our next episode and give me and Tony some love. If this has been helpful, please share it, comment on it, like it, all that good stuff. And thanks again, Tony.--appreciate you!
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Justin Stoddart
What is Think Bigger Real Estate?
The road to success for real estate agents is well-marked. The road to significance is not. Here, we help you to Think Bigger than just your business. We inspire you to seek success AND significance, income AND impact. We do that by interviewing the biggest thinkers and highest achievers in the real estate industry, extracting the secrets to having it all.