How to Grow Production by 30% Teaching Agent Classes

Summary

Podcast Summary: Mortgage Marketing Radio – "How to Grow Production by 30% Teaching Agent Classes"

Introduction

In the February 19, 2025 episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio, host Geoff Zimpfer engages in an insightful conversation with Nate Joma, a seasoned Mortgage Loan Originator from Central Florida. The episode delves into Nate's innovative approach to growing mortgage production by leveraging agent classes, a strategy that has significantly boosted his business without relying on traditional methods like cold calling or open houses.

Guest Background

Nate Joma brings a wealth of experience to the table. With roots in the mortgage industry dating back to 2002, Nate has navigated various roles, including running a call center and establishing a net branch within a mortgage brokerage. After a hiatus from 2008 to 2019, he returned to full-time origination, adapting to the transformed landscape of the mortgage industry. Today, Nate averages six to eight units per month, translating to $1.5 to $2 million in monthly volume.

Nate Joma [02:40]: "I started in the mortgage industry way back in 2002...I've really only been full time originating again now about five years."

Leveraging Agent Classes for Business Growth

Nate's primary source of business comes from real estate agent referrals, a relationship fostered through his dedication to teaching agent classes. Unlike traditional loan officers who might focus solely on mortgage-centric topics, Nate differentiates himself by offering classes on diverse subjects that aid real estate agents in their business.

Nate Joma [07:08]: "I'm doing things that aren't necessarily mortgage related, but help them in their real estate business and position myself as an educator."

Nate emphasizes the importance of educating agents on topics beyond mortgages, such as social media strategies, AI utilization, and creative tools like Canva. This approach not only provides value to the agents but also establishes Nate as a trusted advisor rather than just another salesperson.

Unique Approach to Agent Classes

When discussing why he chose to focus on agent classes over traditional lead generation methods, Nate explains his eccentricity and strategic mindset. He believes in differentiation and has optimized his approach by tailoring classes that resonate with agents' needs, thereby fostering meaningful relationships and generating referrals organically.

Nate Joma [08:19]: "There's a lack of training for agents out there... I have to attract them with something different."

Overcoming Challenges

One of the significant challenges Nate faces is leveraging loan officers to attract audiences for his classes. To address this, he collaborates with both affiliated and unaffiliated loan officers, encouraging them to invite their agents to his sessions. This not only helps in filling seats but also provides loan officers with a tangible reason to engage agents, moving away from monotonous cold calls.

Nate Joma [09:34]: "I'm doing it for my agents as well... it gives them something to call and talk with them about."

Integrating Social Selling

Alongside agent classes, Nate employs social selling as a pivotal component of his strategy. He meticulously engages with real estate agents on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, fostering relationships by interacting with their content and initiating direct conversations through comments and DMs.

Nate Joma [16:29]: "I'm following them and then I'll get very deliberate about engaging with their content... I'm opening up a DM conversation with somebody."

This method complements his classes by keeping him top-of-mind with agents, ensuring continuous engagement and relationship building without the aggressiveness of traditional sales tactics.

Post-Class Follow-Up and Relationship Building

Nate places significant emphasis on post-class follow-up, systematically reaching out to attendees to gather feedback and further solidify relationships. This follow-up often leads to additional support, such as helping agents set up their Google My Business profiles or utilizing tools like Canva and AI technologies.

Nate Joma [26:20]: "I reach out to them and say, hey, what did you think about the class?... sometimes I have conversations with them and they're still in that apprehensive phase."

Furthermore, Nate maintains a private Facebook group for agents who attend his classes, facilitating ongoing communication, sharing future training topics, and gathering input on desired subjects. This community acts as an incubation tank, continuously nurturing relationships and providing value.

Impact on Production

Nate's approach has had a substantial impact on his business. In 2024, approximately 33% of his business—equating to about 20 transactions—originated from agent classes alone. This underscores the efficacy of his strategy in generating consistent referrals and business growth.

Nate Joma [21:24]: "That's probably going to represent somewhere between 20 to 30 transactions that funded last year from doing the classes."

Advice for Loan Officers

For loan officers looking to replicate Nate's success, he offers practical advice:

1. Identify Your Strengths: Determine what topics you can confidently teach that provide value to real estate agents.
2. Utilize Technology: Employ tools like Gamma for creating presentations and Canva for designing engaging slides.
3. Engage Strategically: Allocate specific times for social selling to build and maintain relationships without getting distracted.
4. Post-Class Engagement: Consistently follow up with attendees to reinforce relationships and seek opportunities for collaboration.
5. Diversify Class Topics: Focus on subjects that aid agents in their business beyond mortgages to stand out and provide comprehensive value.

Nate Joma [32:35]: "If you're a new loan officer and you're down with this classes thing, start by bulleting out everything that you can talk about... utilize AI to build out presentations."

Balancing Virtual and In-Person Classes

Nate recognizes the unique advantages of both virtual and in-person classes. While virtual sessions offer broader reach and convenience, in-person interactions foster deeper connections and allow for immediate, one-on-one conversations post-class. He advocates for a balanced approach, utilizing both formats to maximize engagement and relationship building.

Nate Joma [38:46]: "They're both invaluable tools and somebody should really try to do both. They're both different in the results that you get."

Collaborating with Affiliates

To enhance the reach of his classes, Nate has begun partnering with affiliates such as title companies, home inspectors, and appraisers. These collaborations expand his network, allowing him to tap into the affiliates' existing connections and invite a larger, more diverse audience to his trainings.

Nate Joma [39:33]: "I've started to add affiliates into some of those as well to try to bring in a little bit bigger of a crowd."

Conclusion

Nate Joma's innovative use of agent classes as a strategic tool for business growth exemplifies a modern, relationship-centric approach in the mortgage industry. By offering valuable, non-mortgage-related education, leveraging social selling, and maintaining diligent post-class follow-ups, Nate has successfully increased his production by 30%, demonstrating the powerful impact of education-driven marketing.

Notable Quotes

• Nate Joma [07:08]: "I'm positioning myself as an educator more so than somebody that's knocking on their door and asking for business."

• Nate Joma [09:34]: "This is that lead in to having that conversation. Hey, I want to invite you to this class."

• Nate Joma [16:29]: "When you're posting something online and you have people that are liking it and commenting on it and you aren't engaging with them, that's the same as you and I being in a room and somebody coming up to you and talking to you and then you just looking at them and walking away."

• Nate Joma [21:24]: "That's probably going to represent somewhere between 20 to 30 transactions that funded last year from doing the classes."

• Nate Joma [32:35]: "Start by bulleting out everything that you can talk about... utilize AI to build out presentations."

• Nate Joma [38:46]: "They're both invaluable tools and somebody should really try to do both."

Connect with Nate Joma

For those interested in implementing Nate’s strategies or seeking further guidance, you can follow him on social media:

• Instagram: @gagebynate
• LinkedIn: Nate Joma

Feel free to reach out and engage with Nate to learn more about leveraging agent classes to elevate your mortgage business.

Transcript

[Jeff Zimfer]

Foreign. Hey, what's up, my friend? Jeff Zimfer. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. So glad you are here. Okay, so this episode I'm interviewing Nate Joma out of Florida and I asked Nate to be on because he and I actually talked a few weeks back. He inquired about the platform I have for loan officers called my agent classes, where we equip you, the loan officer with a turnkey, plug and play platform to be able to go into your local market in person or virtual and teach classes to real estate agents so you can build your personal brand, attract agents at scale and drive conversations and referrals. If that sounds like a commercial for my age in classes, it is. What is kind of unique though is Nate is already crushing classes on his own. He's not a member in my aging classes. He's already figured a lot of this out on his own through his own blood, sweat and tears. And I thought it would be, you know, make sense to have Nate come talk about how he's leveraged aging classes to. I think it was last year he said it was responsible for over 20 loans in 2024 for his business. So break that in half. Let's say all you did was add 12 loans to your business this year. Right? Another loan a month. That's. So what is that worth to you, dollar wise? Right. That's probably worth upwards of at least 36,000 bucks or more. And so my question to you is, you've heard about classes, you've thought about them, maybe you've tried them in the past. And I thought it would make sense to hear there's no affiliation between me and Nate. I don't get anything for this. He doesn't get anything for this. It's just a useful conversation to bring to you, the listener, all about how to leverage agent classes to grow your production without chasing, begging, cold calling, all that fun stuff. So I hope you find today's clinic, how to get agent classes going in your business, useful for you. And if you feel that you'd like to learn more about leveraging agent classes, don't want to go through the hard work of creating classes and content and doing the marketing and promotions and registration and follow up and all that. If you want to learn more about what we do, well, click the link in the show notes for my agent classes to go learn more and I will see you on the other side. But so without further ado, hope you enjoyed this conversation with Nate. Check the link in the show notes to follow him and Contact him and let's get into this week week's show. Nate, welcome to the show.

[Nate Joma]

Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

[Jeff Zimfer]

It is a pleasure to have you here. Most listeners probably aren't familiar with who Nate is, but why don't you tell us real quick how long on the biz, kind of average production and anything else you want to share about yourself.

[Nate Joma]

Sure, yeah. So I started in the mortgage industry way back in 2002, and it was a great time. Back then. Things were a little bit different than they are today, obviously. I ran a small call center for a mortgage company from 02 to about 04. And then I decided in 04 that I really wanted to dive into origination. So I opened up a net branch for what was a mortgage brokerage business back then that was doing like a flat rate model, similar to a lot of the flat rate models that are out there today. I think they were probably one of the pioneers of that. And it was a lot of fun. I learned quite a bit, got to run my own business inside of their business. And then like Most people in 08, 09 found it incredibly difficult to continue originating. And I actually took a break from 08 till about 2019, the tail end of 2019, when I got my license again. So I've really only been full time originating again now about five years. And in the time that I was off, the entire industry had a huge overhaul, as you know. So I had to kind of start from scratch. And I didn't have the foresight to maintain any relationships with buyers, with agents. So I really was starting again from zero back in 2019.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, so we could say then you've been originating since 2019. Is that accurate?

[Nate Joma]

That would be accurate to say, yeah, with a little bit of experience prior that gave me a little bit of a boost. Possibly.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Sure, sure. Interesting. All right. And what do you want to share about your average units or anything like that? Just again, for context?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah. So the last couple of years, obviously we've had a little bit less action in the market. And I took that opportunity also to start to do a little bit of mentoring and coaching. Nonetheless, I'm still averaging six to eight units a month and somewhere between a million and a half, $2 million a month in volume.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And you're in South Florida, right?

[Nate Joma]

Central Florida. We get really prideful about North Florida, Central Florida, South Florida. No love lost for any of those other places. I mean, they're. They're great places, honestly. But central Florida is where it's at.

[Jeff Zimfer]

St. Augustine.

[Nate Joma]

St. Augustine is in North Florida.

[Jeff Zimfer]

What the hell? It says St. Augustine on your redder profile.

[Nate Joma]

That's where Coast to coast is based. They're in St. Augustine, which is North Florida.

[Jeff Zimfer]

All right, all right, got it. Either way, lovely, lovely state. What is your primary source of business?

[Nate Joma]

The majority of my business is definitely going to be real estate agent referrals. I do have quite a bit of connection with my client database, which I work pretty well. But when I look back at how many transactions I've been able to get over the years, it's been from having quality relationships with agents and really just doing a great job of nurturing that.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, thank you for that. Let's get into the meat. You're here because. And this is going to sound for everybody listening. You know, I don't want this to come across self serving, but let me give you the context of how Nate and I got connected. Some of you listening to the podcast or watching this or whatever by now probably know I have this platform called my agent classes and it helps loan officers attract agents at scale to build referrals by teaching classes. Nate and, you know, arranged a call with me. We, you know, talked about my platform and what, what I, what I realized about Nate was he was already pretty advanced and already does a fair amount of classes. So I want to use this Nate as a. You mentioned you do some coaching. Let's coach the loan officers on. Let's take Realtors first as a referral partner. And of all the ways you could or you can get engagement with Realtors, are you leading with agent classes as the. And by the way, Nate's not a member of my platform. Just, you know. But, but are you leading with classes?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah, for sure.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay.

[Nate Joma]

All of us have to find something that makes us stand apart and differentiates us. And what that is for me is doing these agent classes. So the way that I have that designed is I've got a lot of things that are interesting for agents to learn about that have nothing necessarily to do with mortgage lending. So I think that's the starting point for most to have a level of interest because most loan officers want to kick it off with, let me tell you all about mortgages or all about products or all about this or that. And I'm doing things that aren't necessarily mortgage related, but help them in their real estate business and position myself as an educator more so than somebody that's knocking on their door and asking for business.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Well, where did you get that idea? Why did that come about or how.

[Nate Joma]

I want to say that I came up with it, but clearly, you know, I didn't invent the idea. No, it's a culmination of just talking with several other top producers throughout the industry, you know, from all different places, different corners of the country, and just realizing that that's one of the ways that you can make yourself stand out for sure, is just by helping agents with education on multiple things. So I do classes on being able to generate leads on social media, using AI to formulate some tasks and procedures, and maybe doing some social scripting with that. I do stuff on canva. I mean, there's. There's tons of different classes that we do, and all of it is geared toward helping real estate agents become more effective in the things that they're doing without hitting them with all of the mortgage jargon that every loan officer loves to start every conversation with.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Why? Why this, though? Why teach classes versus cold call, broker preview, open houses, you know, all the other things. And you may still do those to some or have. But why is this the lead for you?

[Nate Joma]

For me, it's because I'm a little bit eccentric when it comes to having things done a certain way. And I have spent a ton of time just going through and looking at ways that I can improve my business through different training modules and stuff. And I realized that in doing that, that there's a lack of training for agents out there. Until I became familiar with your product, I didn't even realize that there was more of a mainstream thing. I thought that I was just kind of collecting. And we've shared this. Like, I. I create all my own database, you know, from all these things. I do all of my own PowerPoint presentations, and I actually make them in Canva. But like, I. I'm doing it from A to Z all by myself. I thought that I was just kind of a lone wolf doing something different in my market. So it's good to know that there's actually an entire world out there that, you know, you kind of run, that does this for real estate and for loan officers. But I just found that this was something I was really passionate about, something that I grasped onto that made me a little bit different than other loan officers, primarily in my market, but most markets throughout the country.

[Jeff Zimfer]

What's been your biggest challenge in doing these classes?

[Nate Joma]

That's a good question. There's a couple of different things I would say that are challenging. The first is being able to leverage the loan officers to help bring the audience in, because I'm doing it for my agents as well. But I Have found that this is a great opportunity, especially for the loan officers that I either work with or do coaching with that they can use this as an opportunity to also bring their agents into the class and teach them a little something. And it gives them twofold opportunities to call and follow up with them. So if they're getting in early enough and they're scheduling the class maybe early enough with the agents, it gives them something to call and talk with them about. One of the things loan officers are constantly saying is, if I'm calling agents, what do I talk about? Well, this is that lead in to having that conversation. Hey, I want to invite you to this class. It's being run by Coast To Coast Mortgage or it's being run by Shorepoint Mortgage or whichever company. And it's going to be taught by this guy. You probably don't know this guy. That's okay, I'm inviting you. I know him and I'd really love for you to come. It's a free class. I can send you all the information if you're interested in coming by. So you can have that conversation with agents every week leading up to the class. So it gives you a purpose to have a phone call with an agent. You can use this for agents that you may or may not already have relationships with. Right. So you might have an agent that was a listing agent or somebody in your market that you want to have a relationship with. You can use this as an opportunity to call them without going through that standard scripting that most loan officers go through about coffee appointments and things like that. This is different. It's what sets you apart.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah. I was going to ask you if by you using classes as the main. I call it the tip of the spear.

[Nate Joma]

Right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

To go into the local market, did you at some point shift to classes once you started to realize they were working for you? Did you stop doing certain things like cold calling or. Or open houses or anything?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah, I would say I cut back on those things quite a bit because the primary focus for me was working on getting them into these classes and then leveraging these classes to build rapport and relationships with them. So I still do a little bit of. I wouldn't ever say cold calling because the people that I am calling through a completely different system that we're probably not going to have time to talk about today. I always have at least a warm introduction to anybody before I call them out of the blue. But I do fewer and fewer of those and fewer and fewer open houses and broker opens and things because I have these other things that I'm doing and I do a tremendous amount of social selling as well versus the, you know, face to face knocking on doors. So my, my business is run a little bit differently and it's mostly done through the digital platforms.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Let's do this, if you don't mind. Let's run a brief clinic and let's break down how you get butts in seats. So let's take one of your classes. Let's take AI for example.

[Nate Joma]

Sure.

[Jeff Zimfer]

You're going to teach a. Are you usually teaching in person?

[Nate Joma]

So I will in some instances teach it. Live in a real estate office if that's what they want. If you have a specific broker or a specific company that wants to have butts and seats there and bring me in, I can do that. Most of the time I'm doing it virtually. I'm doing it through something similar to this, Jeff, where I get them on. It's a webinar type form and I go through the slides and I've got somebody that's helping me administratively, if you will, through the comments, asking questions or answering questions and flagging questions so that I can make sure I'm getting all those addressed.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, so how are you getting agents to show up? I'm going to set aside the in person versus virtual for a moment. But how are you getting those people to show up?

[Nate Joma]

So I'm doing it with my database. I'm sending it out to them, letting them know about it, giving them a webinar sign up link. But then I'm going to agents. I'm sorry, I'm going to loan officers, you know, both in our company and outside of our company that I've connected with. And I'm telling them to invite their agents in and throughout the presentation, at multiple points, I'm really building up that loan officer.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Sure.

[Nate Joma]

I'm telling these agents, you know, congratulations on working with a loan officer that's invested in your business to the point where they wanted to invite you to learn about this today. And throughout the presentation, I'm sprinkling in all of these things that make the loan officer look like the hero for thinking of their agent bringing them in. So the loan officers know this just because I've done it enough times that they know that it's there. There's an advantage to them getting their agents into the classes.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah. So you have your own database, you're promoting to, but then you have the other LOS as well. And so just for everybody listening, just I'm sure you can recognize that what Nate's doing is kind of a two, two pronged approach. You're doing it not just for yourself, but these loan officers, do they report to you? Are you. Are they under you from a regional or branch standpoint?

[Nate Joma]

No, I don't have any direct reports that are loan officers. So it's going to be other loan officers that are in our company and then other loan officers that really have no affiliation with our company at all, that I've just connected with and that they see value in this as well. And at the end of the presentation, I have the. The, you know, who came to the class, who stayed, how long they stayed. So I snippet that and I send it out to the lo that brought them in so that now they can have post conversations with those real estate agents as well. So the, the entire genesis of this thing is to educate them, but it gives you reason to call on the front end and reason to call on the back end. You're just constantly having reasons to call and follow up with agents. And you're pouring into them, you're educating them, you're giving them value.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Why. Why is this a recruiting angle for LOS that are outside of the company?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah, absolutely it is.

[Jeff Zimfer]

All right. Point out the obvious. You know, for those that realize that you know the other angle on that too. Real quick, Nate, you might know this already is like when. When I'm working with LOS in the field and they are trying to get an audience, you know, one of the angles that I. That I coach them on with a local real estate brokerage is, is that's a recruiting opportunity for the real estate broker.

[Nate Joma]

Exactly.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Particularly if you're going to be doing it in house, in local, on site.

[Nate Joma]

You know, so I've done that as well, Jeff, where I've had agents that have invited people that they are interested in bringing in that aren't affiliated with that company that come to the trainings. I did one on Canva and the real estate team was like, hey, could we do it at, you know, the back room of this barbecue place? And I said, yeah, I don't care where we are. You know, that's fine with me if you're going to invite everybody in and buy them barbecue. And all I need to do is train, like, sign me up. Who doesn't want barbecue and, you know, free training, right?

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah. It's a good combo, by the way.

[Nate Joma]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay. So that's partly how you get puts in seats. You said social selling as well. Want to just briefly explain what you mean by that?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah. So in my personal business, social selling is one of the tools that I employ to build relationships and I do everything very strategically. You probably have started to learn just from our conversations that we've had that I don't just do anything sort of willy nilly. There's always a plan, there's always a purpose in place. So when I am social selling, I am very scripted in what I'm trying to do. So I have certain agents that I want to find things that they've posted recently and engage with them. I have certain companies that I want to try to get in front of. So I'll go through their roster and try to find all of the agents that they have on Facebook or Instagram and I'll follow them and then I'll get very deliberate about engaging with their content. And I want to be careful to say I'm not forcing myself on them. I'm not asking for anything. I'm literally just being social. So the entire idea of social media is to be social. And if you're posting something online and you have people that are liking it and commenting on it and you aren't engaging with them, that's the same as you and I being in a room and somebody coming up to you and talking to you and then you just looking at them and walking away. It's essentially the same thing. So I'm a firm believer that you should not just post and kind of go about your day post and stick around for a little bit and engage with whoever's engaging with you 10 or 15 minutes and then do it again, maybe midday and then maybe do it again at the end of the day, but just get out there and engage with people. So when I get up in the morning, I have a plan in place for who I'm going to try to reach out to. In addition to that, I'm also going through the stories on Facebook or on Instagram and I'm trying to engage with them in that regard as well. Because when you're commenting on somebody's story, it actually isn't a public post, it goes into their DMs. So I'm opening up a DM conversation with somebody where we can go back and forth. It doesn't always go that way, but based on something that they posted. So I'm showing an interest in what they posted and that drives right into the DM where we can start the conversations.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah. And do you have a list of favorites in Instagram per se? Is that how you track some of it?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah, for sure.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, yeah, because I know that's like a management thing and keeping up with the people and, you know, but you, you obviously are very intentional. You're carving out social selling time, right? Yes, several. Several times throughout the day. Okay.

[Nate Joma]

I have to have time during the day to originate too. So it's not just hanging out on Facebook and Instagram all day, but I do it at certain pockets throughout the day. And when I'm on, I try to stay focused on why I'm on. I don't try to go in and just start digging through everything.

[Jeff Zimfer]

That's part of the problem, the rabbit hole. The stuff shows up, you know. Hey, podcast family, are you tired of chasing down real estate agents for referrals? Making cold calls and feeling like you're just not getting the results you deserve? What if in just 90 days you could double your agent referrals and finally lock in that consistent monthly income you've been striving for? My Agent Classes is the ultimate program designed to help you effortlessly attract, engage and convert real estate agents into top referral partners. We've done the hard work for you. You'll get a full library of turnkey done for you presentations, a marketing automation platform to streamline the entire process. Plug and play marketing email flyers, social media posts, text messages, weekly coaching and accountability calls, plus access to a private community of high performing mortgage pros from all over the country sharing what's working in today's market. And to top it off, we'll even load you up with 200 producing agents in your local market to help you get started fast. So stop chasing agents and start building meaningful relationships that lead to real consistent business without the stress of cold calling or feeling undervalued. And don't just take my word for it. Head on over to MortgageMarketing Pro or check the link in the show notes and you can read real success stories from mortgage pros just like you. So if you're finally ready to grow your agent referrals without chasing and have fun doing it, check out MortgageMarketing Pro today. Okay, so how would you out of your production for last year, 2024, are you able to assign a percentage roughly to sourced from agents that were at your classes?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah, definitely. I have a very good tracking system for who came to my classes, how many times they've come, if they've invited other people, and then I use that as well to see if I have these 10 or 15 agents that have come to a couple of classes, are we getting business from them? So I do have tracking on that for sure.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And any idea in terms of what that marketing activity represents for your overall production? You know what I mean? Can you say, like, oh, 40% of my business came from classes or whatever?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah, it's. It's going to be a little bit lower than that. When I look back at what 20, 24 looked like, it was about one third of our business. So 32, 33% of my business came from doing these classes. And then the rest of it really was just from the engagements throughout the course of the month or throughout the course of the year.

[Jeff Zimfer]

All right, let's nail that down a little deeper. So does that mean that's what, 10 loans? 20 loans? You think that 30%?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah. I don't have the number right in front of me, but if I was to put the 33% against what I did last year, I would say, yeah, that's probably going to represent somewhere between 20 to 30 transactions that funded last year from doing the classes.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I know you know that, but I'm getting very specific for the listener right now. Because if you just said it was what was what, 20 loans? 30 loans.

[Nate Joma]

Call it 20. I'll be very conservative and say 21.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Let's just be super conservative. 20 loans. Let's even be more conservative and say you added one loan a month, right? I know that's. What is that? That's 12. Okay, so let's cut even in half. Like, if you're not doing classes right now and you've thought about it for some time or you've tried it here and there over the years, and if all it did for you was net you an extra 12 loans, like, do the math, right? I mean, what's the average? I know when I ball park average commissions on loans, I use three grand as an average commission. I know that's low for some people, for sure. I mean, but what the hell? That's a hell of a raise.

[Nate Joma]

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. If you can't put another $36,000 in your pocket from doing these classes, then maybe, maybe you're not in the right business.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Well, so listen, classes aren't new, right? It's nothing new. It's not sexy. You know, people might poo poo on realtors, which we can jive on that for a few minutes. But why? What's your take on? Because I have this thing. Oh, classes aren't right for everybody. But the other day I was having a conversation with somebody and I said, you know what if you're in sales, shouldn't you be expected to be able to present to a group of people? Isn't that like 101 for sales?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah. No matter what you're selling, if you can't present that thing to a group of people, I don't know how successful you're going to be in your sales career. So again, we're not necessarily in our doing, we're not necessarily coaching on mortgage related things. So maybe you're not comfortable with AI or chat, GPT or you know, all the other things you, you can still get in front of a class of agents and teach them about the things that you are comfortable with. Right?

[Jeff Zimfer]

Right.

[Nate Joma]

I'm not going to tell anybody to start teaching people on things that they don't either use or believe in themselves if they're not comfortable talking about. But all of us sell loans. You should be able to talk intelligently about the bare minimum. Do a mortgage 101 class for a new real estate team. Right. New agents don't know a lot about mortgages and they need somebody that they can trust to help them understand it because the Internet isn't doing them any favors.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Well, how about get started with cost of waiting leverage the tools that you guys have. How about seller concessions? How about go ahead, do a DSCR loan? You know, I mean, yes, I think there are some of those baseline topics for mortgage that you can get started with. But I love what you said is, you know, teach something that you're comfortable with. Like hopefully there's other things outside of mortgage that are business related that also real estate agents would benefit from social media like your. Let's, let's. Let me ask you this question. How do you, or have you faced imposter syndrome on teaching any of these topics like AR or whatnot and how do you get over it?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah, I mean I definitely have. I think it's natural for some of us to feel like imposters sometimes because it's not what we do day to day. And the only way that I've been able to really get over it is to say that I may not be an expert in these areas, but I am advanced in these areas and I'm more advanced in these areas than 99% of the people that are in the class with me. So even though I'm not an expert in these areas, I'm still able to give them value by teaching them something that they didn't already know. And if somebody can walk away with one or two things in that class that they are going to be able to put into action that's going to help them in their sales. Then I feel like I'm not an imposter. I'm actually doing them the service that I set out to do.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, yeah. We like to say you're two steps ahead of the person in the room and that makes you credible enough. Or the other day I heard somebody say, I'm a student of this topic and I'm here to learn just like you. And I've just gathered together some information that I think has been helpful for me and hopefully is for you too. And that's the context and setup. And then everybody's relaxed, like, okay, cool, you know, not loan officer's not saying he's an AI expert.

[Nate Joma]

No.

[Jeff Zimfer]

How do you then let's take them to post class. Do you want to articulate a little bit about your post class, follow up what that looks like?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah. So again, I look back at the roster and I see who attended. So we'll start with the ones that attended and I'll reach out to them and say, hey, what did you think about the class? What was the takeaway that you had from the class? What is one thing that you'd think you're going to be able to put into action or to implement with them? So it's just asking them questions that are pertinent to the conversation that we had in the class and then helping them get ready. Sometimes I have conversations with them and they're still in that apprehensive phase where they learned a lot, they learned something. It's pretty cool to them, but they're not sure how to start. So then that gives me another option to say, hey, do you want to come by my office? Can I come by your office? And I can help you get started. So a lot of relationships I've started with that. I've gone to their office, we've sat in their conference room, we've screen shared. I've helped them get their Google my business profile set up. I've helped them get started with Canva. I've helped them get the premium AI, you know, chat or cloud or whichever one they're going to use. And so those are ins for me to be able to chat with them. For the ones on the roster that signed up that are going to get the replay that did not come in person, I'm calling and having a conversation with them saying, hey, we missed you on the conversation, or, you know, we missed you on the webinar. I'm sorry that you weren't able to attend, but you will be getting the replay. It's going to be going out to you later today. If you have any questions at all that you didn't have a chance to ask on the webinar, you know, certainly, please give me a call. I'm happy to do a one on one with you. And it's the same thing from that point forward. Try to get into their office, Try to get them into my office and just continue the conversation. And then at the end, or maybe not the end, but at some point during every presentation I'm teasing the next class I'm doing as well. So when I'm having these conversations post class, I'm also reminding them and inviting them to come back into that class. And that's kind of how I'm coaching the loan officers that I work with too, to have those after webinar conversations. Because again, every loan officer is always looking for what do I talk to the agents about? I'm going to call them, I'm going to reach out to them, I'm going to message them, what do I talk about? There's always something that you can talk to them about. If it's not something that they've posted that you're commenting on, it's some of this class stuff or maybe there's something going on in the market or something, some new loan program or some change. There's always some conversation that you can have.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And how do you have any mechanisms to stay in front of this growing cadre or group of agents? Some people do Facebook groups. Do you do anything?

[Nate Joma]

I do have a private Facebook group that I invite all of the agents that work with into. So any agent that's attended one of the webinars that wasn't invited by an ello. So the rogue agents, if you will, I invite them into the private Facebook group that I have. And in that group I'm teasing these trainings that I'm doing. But then I'm also adding value, you know, every week or every month with things that are going on, I'm sharing ideas, I'm asking questions, I'm trying to get information from them on what classes they would like to see. So I use that as well, you know, a little bit of a, I guess closed crowd crowd source to say, what classes would you guys like to see? Because I'm not, I can't read an agent's mind on what they want to learn about.

[Jeff Zimfer]

So I ask them, yeah, that's very smart. And it's kind of like an incubation you know, tank where it. Where you're this. Because the whole thing is, how do I stay in front of agents? Social media is one. This is another way. Let's bring this dotted line then to. For those listening who are wondering, yeah, but, Nate, how do I. When does the ask come for the deal? Like, how does that. And I know lots of answers to this, but I want to hear, how do deals show up for you through this whole thing?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah, it's. It's very. I wouldn't say. It's not, like, very direct. Like, I don't go to them and say, hey, do you have any leads? Or, hey, are you working with any buyers? Like, I've just never really done that. So when I get to a point where I feel like I have a rapport with an agent, I'll usually ask them if there's anybody in their office that is looking for a great loan officer to work with, because that's a very easy way to flirt with the idea of, hey, maybe you and I should work together, without saying to them, hey, you and I should work together. Because, again, I would like for everything to be very casual. I don't ever want to come across to them pushy. So usually when I have that conversation with them, they'll tell me a name or they'll say, hey, you know, maybe you and I can work together. So just by sort of teasing that conversation, I'm either going to get somebody in their office that they think I should work with, and then that gives me a reason to reach out to that person if I'm not already following them, or they are going to work with me. And now we've kind of started this conversation about, hey, maybe we can work together. Maybe we should work together. So I take that and just kind of run with it.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Smart, smart. Very subtle. Very kind of Trojan horse. Tell me if you've had this happen, because I know I've seen it happen multiple times, is the idea of reciprocation, which is, you know, people feel compelled to reciprocate when they've gotten something of value from you. And what I've seen happen more often than not is they're reciprocating referrals to you just by the sheer nature that you help them. Do you see that happen?

[Nate Joma]

I do, yeah. For sure. I've had a lot of agents that have come through the class that it doesn't happen right away, but over the course of the next couple of months, they start suddenly calling me and saying, hey, I've got somebody that Needs to get pre approved. You know, are you available to meet with them tomorrow afternoon or hey, you know, this Saturday I'm doing this open house. Do you mind, you know, bringing some materials over to the open house? And so it's great when you suddenly start getting invited to go to the open houses versus you showing up at the open houses. Right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Interesting. This is very cool. Okay, what would you say? So you got a loan officer in front of me. Let's recap. Or in front of you, I should say. And I'm a loan officer. I'm like, okay, Nate, I'm down with this classes thing. I'm tired of chasing. Where do I start? Like, how do I get started with teaching classes?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah, very simply, if you're a new lo that is new to this rather and you're not sure where to get started, I would ask you what. Couple of things. If I was to take you and put you in front of a room right now, would you be able to.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Talk about that puts fear in a lot of people.

[Nate Joma]

Okay, well, you're not actually getting in front of the room, Jeff. So if I was to put you in front of the room, what sort of things do you think that you would be able to talk about?

[Jeff Zimfer]

All right, you want to role play this a little bit? Is that, is that we're doing okay?

[Nate Joma]

We can.

[Jeff Zimfer]

No, let's do it. It's fun. Well, I think I could talk about some. How about newsletters and email marketing? I could probably talk about that.

[Nate Joma]

Okay, so specifically, let's talk about the email marketing. If you were to start doing some email marketing, what sort of things would you reach out to them about in that email? Is it going to be loan related things, real estate related things, technology related things? What do you want to capture their attention regarding?

[Jeff Zimfer]

In terms of what content can I share with real estate agents?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah, if you're going to do email marketing, what. What content is going to be in that email that somebody's going to open it?

[Jeff Zimfer]

Right. So I should probably have been more specific. Let me say database marketing. Email is part of that. So I think what I, you know, like there's this question, what could you stand up in front of a room at moment's notice and talk to somebody about. For me, database marketing is definitely one of those things. And so if I'm going to think about teaching a class to real estate agents, that would be like a wheelhouse. I would probably reach into pretty easily and help them better understand how to market to their past database.

[Nate Joma]

Perfect. And in doing so, you're going to teach them how to cultivate repeat business from the existing database that they already have.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Right, right, right.

[Nate Joma]

So these are people that they've already sold their house to, they've already purchased a home with. So now they're getting in touch with them and they're finding ways to be able to get in front of them more consistently and then very cleverly asking them for referrals as well.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's, there's. Yeah, I could, I could help agents do that.

[Nate Joma]

Great. Okay, so then that's a perfect class that you should teach agents about. So what I would start with is bulleting out everything that you can talk to them about. And then you can either start to build out a presentation slide or there's some software that you can get on the Internet that will actually build out these presentations for you. So if you're somebody that is not very skilled at being able to build out presentations, but you can talk about these things, then you can utilize AI that's already on the Internet that builds out the presentations for you. And then you just need to be able to talk intelligently about that and teach them.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah. Is there a particular one you like?

[Nate Joma]

There's a couple that I like, yes.

[Jeff Zimfer]

I mean, I've been using Gamma lately.

[Nate Joma]

Gamma's the one I was going to suggest. Yeah, I really like Gamma. I feel like you can get in there after it creates the presentation and tweak it really good.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, I'm glad. So that's a point for me. I'm a content snob when it comes to content. I'm going to put in front of real estate agents. And I'm sure you've already realized this. You've seen Those posts of AI will generate your slide deck in 30 seconds in five minutes. I'm like, no, it won't. It'll suck.

[Nate Joma]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Well, actually, yes, it will and it'll suck and people will not like it. So I've found. Tell me if you agree with this. It's great for the outline and the framework, but the actual content that's gonna be relevant for the attendee. That's where you need the customization.

[Nate Joma]

Absolutely. Yeah. I use Gamma to give me some ideas. I use it more of like a creative tool and then I build everything out in Canva. Right now I haven't gotten to the point where I've had an interest in spending an extra hour or two tooling with what's in Gamma versus just taking what they're showing me and saying, hey, that's Not a bad idea. Or hey, I like that layout. And then just kind of duplicating it on my own.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, yeah. It'll be interesting to see how it evolves, but. All right. Okay. So other than the activity of classes to get realtors, are the other primary activities that led to your, you know, your fundings, the social selling, or anything else you want to share?

[Nate Joma]

Yes. So it's primarily been the social selling, aside from doing the agent classes. I've made a lot of new relationships over the years just by doing what I shared earlier, which is just engaging with them and not doing what the other ellos, you know, are doing by just constantly dripping things that they don't really care about on them and just showing up as a human. I think in order for us to really be effective at selling, whether it's with an agent or even a buyer, we have to show up to them as a human and be relatable and have like that one to one rapport. I feel like our industry, we're hard programmed or hardwired to just constantly be in sales mode, which isn't a bad thing, depending on how you tweak that mode. Because I feel like I'm constantly in sales mode too, but I'm not constantly trying to sell somebody actively. A lot of it is passive selling that results in the act of selling after you build the rapport with them and kind of bring down those walls. Nobody wants to be sold, but nobody minds having a conversation with somebody that they find interesting about a topic that they find interesting.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah.

[Nate Joma]

So you have to just meet them on that same level and try to find ways that you can build rapport with them. And so, you know, one of the first things I learned when I got into sales years ago was that a sale is the transfer of enthusiasm from one person to another. So when you're selling somebody or you're working with a new buyer or a new real estate agent, you just have to find something that you can transfer the enthusiasm with them on. So it may not be real estate or mortgage related. It might be something completely different. But then once they get to know you a little bit more, they'll have those conversations with you. And it's not as awkward and it's certainly not forced at that point either.

[Jeff Zimfer]

What is your take on virtual versus in person? I'm assuming based on how you describe you're doing this on behalf of other LOs, et cetera. And that's an easier way to get butts and seats, so to speak. But what's your Quick take on in person versus virtual.

[Nate Joma]

I like doing them both. I think they're both very different. When you have an in person, there's a lot more one to one connection because you can meet with these people after the webinar, you can have conversations with them. When it's virtual, it's a little bit more of a challenge because you go from having that captive audience that you don't necessarily interact with, especially like in a webinar versus like a, like a normal zoom, you can kind of have that back and forth. But in a webinar you're the speaker and you have to promote people to be speakers. Otherwise they can just communicate, you know, in text form. So you have to follow up with them from there. So I think they're both invaluable tools and somebody should really try to do both. They're both different in the results that you get.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah. Interesting. And are you teaming up with any affiliates for your events in any way? Like a title escrow, that kind of stuff?

[Nate Joma]

Interesting that you bring that up. I haven't in the past, but that's actually what I've started to do for some of the stuff I have moving forward. So I've already got a bunch that are scheduled out which, I mean, obviously I haven't gone to the future and train them yet. So I'm going to be adding affiliates into some of those as well to try to bring in a little bit bigger of a crowd, if you will, because I can only leverage so much. So if I'm bringing in a title person or a real estate, you know, home inspector rather or a real estate appraiser, then they have a network that they can invite into the training as well because they're a sponsor. And so I've been working with my affiliate partners on helping them also leverage that to create phone calls and engagement.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, it's a very smart strategy locally. Do you have a place in person yet chosen for the trainings? Yeah, for the trainings, no.

[Nate Joma]

So the ones I have scheduled all are all right now virtual. But any. Anytime that a loan, anytime that a real estate office wants me to come by and do a training with them, I've got a ton ready to go.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Sure. How far in advance are you scheduling your classes?

[Nate Joma]

The in person ones or just.

[Jeff Zimfer]

No, the virtual. The virtual.

[Nate Joma]

I usually try to do about 30 days notice so that there's at least three or four phone calls if you do one a week to kind of bring the bodies in.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Are you building out though your actual curriculum like a quarter at a time or something. You know what I mean?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I try to make sure I have it ready in advance so that if there's anything that needs to be changed, I can make those simple tweaks, those shorts.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And you're also promoting your next class while you're in your current one. So you've got to have that kind of already built out and scheduled. Okay.

[Nate Joma]

Yeah. You need to be at least one class ahead so that when you're doing the class for January as an example, I'm talking about the February class. I'm inviting them and I'm telling the loan officers as well. When you're having the follow up conversations with them, remind them about the February class. Try to get them enrolled in that class. Ask them if there's anybody else in their office. Office or you know, any friends that they have that didn't come that might be interested in that. So that leveraging those. Those conversations to get them to then introduce you to more people.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay. This has been a nice clinic on how to leverage classes to get in front of realtors in terms of an activity. Let's let me close out. This is me curious. Like rank this rank classes versus other activities as a means for you to scale the brand of Nate in his local area.

[Nate Joma]

I would say that it's probably number one because you can use the classes for all of the other social things that you have going on. And it's only a once a month thing. So I think if you think of it in terms of like it's one big event that you then have all these smaller events around which are the engagements and the phone calls and the. And so forth. So I think it's very important that you're doing something in terms of the classes. And it doesn't again, have to be AI or any of that stuff. You can do classes on mortgage things, on real estate things, but I have found in my business that it's better for me to find things that are not mortgage or real estate related that I can use to teach them how to use that in real estate.

[Jeff Zimfer]

That's awesome. Fantastic. I know you're busy. Thank you so much for making time today for people who want to connect with you. And I'm confident people are going to hit you up. Where do we send them? What's your Instagram and socials?

[Nate Joma]

Yeah, so you can find me on almost all of the socials orgagebynate or on LinkedIn. You can search Nate Joma and I'm probably the only one that comes up, you can find me on there as well.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Absolutely. And of course, we'll link that all up in the show notes. I would definitely say follow Nate. Follow what he's doing on the socials. Look, if. And by the way, reach out, let him know what the big takeaway for you was today. And if you like this episode, hey, leave us a review. A review. Nate, thank you so much for being here.

[Nate Joma]

Awesome. Thanks so much, Jeff. I appreciate it.

[Jeff Zimfer]

All right, listeners, you know what to do. Share this episode. Like it? Leave us a review. We'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. Okay, that's it for today's episode. Before we wrap up, I just wanted to remind you about my agent classes. Your proven system to double your agent referrals in just 90 days. Imagine never having to cold call again. Instead building real lasting relationships with top producing agents who want to send you business with done for you presentations, marketing automation, weekly coaching. It's all designed to make growing your business easier and fun. So if you're ready to take control of your agent referrals and grow your income, visit MortgageMarketing Pro or check the link in the show notes. And while you're there, don't forget to check out the success stories from other mortgage bros who've already seen incredible results. Thanks for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.