Lead Generation for Loan Officers: Finding the Right Strategy

Summary

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Mortgage Marketing Radio – Episode Summary

Lead Generation for Loan Officers: Finding the Right Strategy

Release date: March 12, 2025
Host: Geoff Zimpfer
Guest: Alex (Founder, Leadhackers)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into lead generation for mortgage loan officers, comparing traditional referral-based growth against consumer-direct/paid ad strategies. Special guest Alex, founder of Leadhackers, joins host Geoff Zimpfer to unpack when and how paid lead generation makes sense, why most originators fail with lead gen agencies, and how transparency, process, and smarter tools can finally make paid leads work for mortgage pros at any scale.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Understanding Ad Spend and Lead Generation ROI

• Recommended Spend:

  • Alex recommends a minimum of $35/day ($1,000/month) as a baseline for sustainable ad campaigns ([00:03], [25:09]).
  • “If you don’t, it’s probably not worth it. Now we have lead hackers who get away with spending $20 a day, but I wouldn’t recommend it.” – Alex ([00:09], [25:14])

• Lead Gen Agencies: The Math Problem:

  • Agencies often ask for high monthly fees ($2,000–$6,000) on top of ad spend, making ROI hard for most LOs given the long mortgage sales cycle ([01:28], [03:45]).
  • “You’re basically signing up for a race against that monthly retainer… Sometimes it takes 90 days to close a loan, right? So by the time you close your first loan, you’re barely breaking even.” – Alex ([02:21])

2. The Case Against Outsourced Lead Gen Agencies

• Hidden Costs & Diluted Results:
  • Much of your marketing budget goes to agency overhead, not ads, effectively doubling your cost per lead ([02:51], [17:40]).
  • “Automatically you’re paying a 100% markup on the cost of leads at a minimum.” – Alex ([03:22])
• Longevity:
  • Most LOs quit agencies in under six months – due to razor-thin or negative profit.

3. When Paid Lead Gen Makes Sense

• Growth Stages:
  • For new LOs: Start with referral partners and friends/family, not paid leads ([05:12], [05:55]).
  • “You shouldn’t start throwing money into [ads]. You should close some deals first from referrals, maybe Realtor. That’s how I would go.” – Alex ([05:10])
  • Paid ads are for those already consistently closing loans and wanting to scale ([05:55], [08:13]).

4. Reality of Lead Quality (and the Fair Housing Act)

• Why ‘Quality’ Is Overrated:

  • Lead quality is essentially randomized due to Fair Housing Act limitations – you can’t target by income, loan amount, or credit score on major ad platforms ([10:45], [11:31]).
  • “Most of you jump around from lead company to lead company searching for better lead quality that doesn’t exist.” – Alex ([11:56])
  • The real objective: maximize lowest possible cost per new customer; filter for quality after they enter your process ([12:51]).

• Addressing the ‘Long Timeline’ Complaint:

  • Prospects often claim "just looking" or "not ready for 12 months" because of lack of rapport or defensiveness on sales calls ([13:27]).
  • “Prospects lie. You just didn’t build enough rapport on the call.” – Alex ([14:13])
  • Effective follow-up can change their tune ([14:27]).

5. Types of Ads and Funnels That Work

• Beyond DPA Ads:
  • While most companies stick to down payment assistance (“DPA”) ads, Alex’s community finds more success with:
    • HELOC: Direct-to-application using tools like Figure 8 ([15:19], [15:47])
    • DSCR Investor Loans: Investors generate repeat business ([16:11])
  • “Our most successful ads are HELOC… another huge one is DSCR… it’s the gift that keeps on giving.” – Alex ([15:47])

6. Leadhackers’ Model: A New Take on DIY Paid Lead Gen

• No Big Retainers:
  • Flat SaaS pricing of $297/month lets LOs direct more budget to actual ads ([17:40]).
  • “It’s a volume play… if you close one loan, it pays for itself for the whole year.” – Alex ([17:54])
• Prebuilt, Proven Ads & Landers:
  • Launch with 3 clicks; all landing pages, creatives, sequences are preset ([19:58]).
  • “It took me three months to learn Facebook ads. It'll take you three minutes.” – Alex ([20:34])
• Community & Support:
  • 60+ live coaching calls/month, twice-daily Q&As, advanced coaching, and CRM/ad training ([20:40]).
  • “If you have an issue, you can reach us every single day of the week.” – Alex ([21:22])

7. Systems for Lead Nurture and Conversion

• Follow-up Automation:
  • Instant SMS and email follow-up; multi-week nurture campaigns done-for-you ([22:00]).
  • Manual dialing is still crucial:
    • Double Dial: Call twice in a row to break through “Do Not Disturb” ([23:25]).
    • Strategic Dialing: Vary times systematically to find best contact windows ([23:56]).
  • “By process of elimination… your contact success rate should pick up substantially.” – Alex ([24:23])

8. Conversion Rates, Myths & What Actually Matters

• Conversion Rates Vary Wildly:
  • No "universal" conversion rate – depends on experience, sales process, and work ethic ([25:09]).
  • “Why do you think there’s a blanket conversion rate for every loan officer in America?” – Alex ([25:16])
• Outsourcing Appointment Setting Rarely Works:
  • Loan officers themselves are always the strongest at converting their own leads ([26:13]).
  • “Nothing’s going to be better than the broker talking to the lead. People try and outsource it… it doesn’t work.” – Alex ([26:19])

9. Branding vs Lead Gen: What’s Actually Being Sold

• Ads: Generic but varied for compliance and direct-response effectiveness ([27:32]).
  • “When you’re running ads, we’re talking about direct to consumer marketing, not necessarily brand awareness.” – Alex ([27:56])
• Social media/brand awareness is separate (offered as a bonus tool).

10. Notable Success & Execution Stories

• Community Examples:
  • Trevor: $84 million annual volume through tight systems/processes ([28:50]).
  • Others with massive HELOC/DSCR production ([15:47], [16:11]).

11. Sales Team Management: Alex’s Takeaways from Alex Hormozi

• Best Practice:
  • Give the best leads to your top performers, worst to the bottom. “You’re squeezing out every last penny… and inspiring others to reach the top.” – Alex ([31:21])
  • “Who cares if you have turnover on your lower guys? The ones who make it through are battle-tested.” ([32:12])
• Cautions:
  • Avoid “irresistible guarantees” like “12 closed loans or your money back” – misleading and often impossible to legally fulfill ([34:15]).
  • “You can't guarantee results… They put stipulations in the contract so you can never hit that guarantee.” – Alex ([34:22])

12. Quick Fire Final Takeaways

• Awareness & Scaling:
  • “Not enough people know that you exist… need more people to be aware of what you offer.” – Geoff ([34:48])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Most mortgage brokers and loan officers don’t succeed in lead generation because lead generation is fundamentally flawed.” – Alex ([02:51])
• “Paid ads are the only scalable and predictably scalable option… but you should be doing all three [referrals, Realtors, paid leads].” – Alex ([08:13])
• “Prospects lie. You just didn’t build enough rapport on the call.” – Alex ([14:13])
• “The expertise guys is built into the community… we have 60+ live coaching calls a month.” – Alex ([20:43])
• “Nothing's going to be better than the broker talking to the lead... People try and outsource it... it doesn't work.” – Alex ([26:19])
• “Give your best leads to your best loan officers and your worst leads to your worst loan officers.” – Alex ([31:36])
• “You can’t guarantee results. And the people who fall for that, you just have to use some critical thinking.” – Alex ([34:22])
• “Not enough people know that you exist and you need to become more well known.” – Geoff ([34:48])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Ad Spend Recommendations: [00:03], [25:09]
• Agency Model Breakdown: [01:28]-[03:45]
• Referral vs. Paid Lead Readiness: [05:10]-[08:13]
• Lead Quality Limits & Fair Housing Act: [10:45]-[12:51]
• Effective Ad Types (HELOC/DSCR): [15:19]-[16:56]
• Leadhackers Model & Software: [17:40]-[21:22]
• Lead Conversion (Double Dial/Strategic Dial): [22:00]-[24:23]
• Branding vs DTC Lead Gen: [27:32]-[27:56]
• Lessons in Sales Team Leadership: [31:21]-[34:22]
• Scaling Awareness: [34:48]

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Conclusion

This episode offers a candid, practical perspective for loan officers considering paid lead generation—with clear advice on when it’s appropriate, how to avoid common agency pitfalls, and how process, automation, and ongoing learning can make paid advertising a predictable, scalable engine for growth.

For more details and resources, check out the show notes and demo links provided by Leadhackers.

Transcript

[A]

What is the recommended ad spend for somebody to actually see some results?

[B]

Our official training videos and everything that we talk about is $35 a day. And the idea here, guys, is like, listen, with a lead gen company, they're going to ask you to spend $35 a day, at least $1,000 a month in ad spend. If you don't, it's probably not worth it. Now we have lead hackers who get away with spending $20 a day, but I wouldn't recommend it. Just because they're successful doesn't mean that you're going to be successful. You know the funny question that I get, Jeff, which I'm sure you get, is what's the conversion rate? Why do you think that there's a general blanket conversion rate for every in America? Like this guy over here, he's been a loan officer for 20 years. He's going to have a way different conversion rate than you.

[A]

Alex, welcome to the show.

[B]

Thanks for having me.

[A]

Hey man, it's good to connect with you, especially on this topic of leads. Lead gen marketing, consumer direct versus referral partners. We're going to unpack all that in a minute. But before we do, what do you want to tell the audience about who you are and what you do?

[B]

Well, I could go on for days about that, but I'll try and give you the short version. It might seem long because I've been doing this a long time. I've actually been in the mortgage lead generation space for seven years. And my first company that I started was a mortgage lead generation company. I was able to scale that to half a million dollars a month in under 11 months. And we saw some success. But it was my very first time running a marketing agency and so I was learning operations on the fly. And as you know, the housing market took a turn for the worse about three years ago. And so we were a high ticket service charging anywhere from four to six thousand dollars a month. And so when the market turned, I mean, loan officers and mortgage brokers abruptly stopped buying our services. Everybody was afraid to spend money and rightfully so. Right. And so we went from about 50 deals a month to zero. Right. Started losing sales guys for lack of deal flow. And so I faced this huge problem in my business because we had no revenue coming in and a ton of overhead expenses. And so kind of solving this problem really seemed like an insurmountable goal because in order to solve my business problems, I had to solve your business problems, meaning the audience. Right. The problems of the mortgage brokers and loan officers. And so, like any decent entrepreneur, I had to pivot. And that's how my company, Leadhackers, was born. You know, Jeff, when we had a lead gen company, we always used to say, man, if we could just take all the money our clients are giving us and put it directly into the ad spend, they would all be millionaires. Right? But we can't because we have all of these overhead expenses. Office space, salaries, rent, insurance, software, tools, Right. And so I realized that most mortgage brokers and loan officers don't succeed in lead generation. And the reason why is because lead generation is fundamentally flawed. Okay? For a few reasons. Number one is because of the monthly service fees, right? And so when you enter into a contract with a lead gen company, you're basically signing up for a race against that monthly retainer. And the sales cycle is very long in mortgage. Right. Which puts most brokers and loan officers at a disadvantage. Right. Let's say, you know, a lead gen company charges you $2,000 a month. Well then by month three, you're already in the whole six grand, right? Well, the problem is sometimes it takes 90 days to close a loan, right? So by the time you close your first loan, you're barely breaking even. Then you have to keep spending that 2k just to try and make a little bit of profit. Right? And so that's a problem. On top of that, your marketing budget is diluted by that lead generation company's overhead expenses. So automatically you're paying a 100% markup on the cost of leads at a minimum. And so most people don't know a mortgage broker or a loan officer who has stuck with a lead gen company for more than six months. There's a reason for that, right? People hate lead generation companies. And the most important thing you can have in a movement is a common enemy. And so we set out to destroy lead generation companies. That's our mission. We have a software that allows mortgage brokers and loan officers to launch their own mortgage ads. And in less than three clicks they can do it on Facebook, Instagram and Google. And so the question becomes, why pay a lead generation company thousands of dollars every single month to do the same thing that you could do with just the click of a button?

[A]

Yeah, I love that. We'll talk a little bit more about what makes your platform different. And you raised a couple excellent points in there regarding the overhead, the cost, all those things. Let me. Let's circle back to a conversation. The first conversation you and I had because I got introduced to you by one of my Members in my classes, Trevor. And I remember, I think you opened up with something to the effect of like, I know you don't like running ads or something like that, right? Yeah, because I'm obviously very bullish on the whole, like the first pillar of referrals, and I thought it was interesting. So I guess that means my brand perception is working, right? Because you gotta become known for something, right? One thing, one avatar.

[B]

Which, by the way, is something I agree with.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And I think, and I even say this too, like, if I have a demo with somebody, I'll tell them. If they're like, hey, I'm a new loan officer. I'm like, you shouldn't start in the red. You shouldn't start throwing money into, like, you should close some deals first from referrals, maybe Realtor. Like, that's how I would go. I wouldn't just jump into lead generation. You only want to jump into lead generation when you've maxed that out and you want to scale.

[A]

Right? And so I thought that was a good point and a jumping off point for the conversation. And just to set the record straight, which I know I did during our conversation and for everybody listening, just to be clear, I'm glad you said that. There's different pillars of business, right? And so referral partners is one of those. And I love the fact that you just highlighted because I was going ask you the question, how do you know when somebody is right for investing in and paying for some type of a lead generation?

[B]

They're currently closing loans. It's as simple as that, right? They're currently closing loans. And so they have the money to snowball into it. I'm not, you know, and I say this on my demos, right? We're the only lead generation company that's endorsed by both the national association of Mortgage Brokers and the association of Independent Mortgage Experts. And so I feel like I have a responsibility to tell people the truth and do it. Like, we can't lie to people and be like, yeah, sign up for this. This is a good fit for you. Right? And so if it's not a good fit, we tell them, like, we're obligated to tell them, right? And so, you know, here's when it's not a good fit. When you're just getting into mortgage and you don't have any. Anything in the pipeline for, you know, any friends and family. You haven't even attempted to get Realtor relationships, like, these are all things that you should do at the beginning. Your client acquisition cost at the Beginning needs to be $0, right? And so if you start spending $2,000 a month in ad spend, before you know it, you could be in the whole six, $7,000. And the reason that's going to have a negative effect on you, aside from the obvious, which is your bank account. But it's a lot harder to sell when you need to sell, right? It's a lot hard. People can sense desperation, and so you're putting yourself at a disadvantage and in a bad environment to actually be successful because you're playing catch up the whole time.

[A]

All right, so help for those listening. Some people may have tried ads in the past. Maybe some people are currently doing it. But there's also. Maybe this is just a narrative in my head, right? So let me approach it this way. Like the. When. When people throw realtors under the bus, right? As an obvious kind of scapegoat. One of the answers I have back to that is like, you know, when they say, oh, realtors are hard, Realtors suck, or whatever. And I'm like, look at. Everything's hard. Every channel is hard, right? Leads, paid ads is hard, right? It's about choosing your hard. But things can become easier if you've got the right systems in place. So what do you. Where do you see? Um, like if somebody's listening right now and they're thinking, hmm, I'm closing three loans, five loans a month. Um, am I. Is it right time for me for ads? What do they need to have in place that, that, you know, you would want them to have in place before you would consider they're ready?

[B]

Well, so if I'm doing like three to five loans a month, right? And I have, let's say, you know, one realtor that's passing me business, maybe two of them, and I know that the kind of the sales cycle is a little bit long because it's about relationship building. Well, then I, you know, you have enough money to scale. Here's what I say. There's only three ways people can get leads. Friends and family, Realtors, or you can just buy them, right? And so friends and family. Most people do not have enough friends and family to scale their business. They are not that popular, right. If they were, they wouldn't even be looking at lead generation in the first place. And the second thing, Realtors, great way to supplement your deal flow. Not a good idea to be relying on someone else for your business. But buying leads is the only scalable and predictably scalable option. And the reason I say that is because if I know That I close one loan for every thousand dollars I spend in ads. That means if I spend $2,000, I'm gonna close two loans. Right. And so you can have some predictability in your business. You should be doing all three. Right. Because you never wanna be pulling one lever. Because if that lever falls apart.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You're screwed. Right. So this is why I tell people that. I think a big mistake people were making, especially during my marketing agencies tenor, was everybody was relying on refinances. And so they became order takers. And by the time it came time to close home purchase deals, they forgot how to do it. Right. They didn't have those relationships built in as well too. Right. Because that's more of a relationship based sale. And so, you know, a lot of people who were just order taking and doing refinances, yeah, they made a lot of money. But that's probably the same reason why there's only. And I don't know if you look this up, Jeff, somebody had me Google this the other day. How many mortgage brokers there are left? There's between mortgage brokers and loan officers, there's 95,000. You want to know how many mortgage brokers are left according to Google? 20,000.

[A]

Hmm.

[B]

Insane.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I always question the data, but.

[B]

But that's what shows up.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get it, I get it. Okay, so let's deal with this narrative of like, you know, I've seen people comment on lead gen companies in the past. Hundreds of leads, you know, low conversion, blah, blah, blah. Timeline is 12 or 18. Like, how do you address what I, you know what I'm referring to there?

[B]

So I'll address a few of these at once. Okay, guys, to the audience, I hate to burst your bubble and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but bad quality leads, when it comes to lead gen is unavoidable. Okay, we have a law in place called the Fair Housing Act. You guys should know this, your mortgage brokers and loan officers. But somehow it goes over people's heads. Because I want to be very clear about this. Okay? We have a law in place called the Fair Housing Act. So what that means is you cannot target people on Facebook, Instagram or Google by the three most important factors that we use to judge lead quality on. And those factors are income, loan amount, and credit score. Okay. It's not even an option that any of these platforms provide. You guys think Facebook and Google want to be fined billions of dollars and just blatantly ignore housing laws? Of course not. Right? Yet what most of you do is you jump around from lead company to lead company, searching for better lead quality that doesn't exist, right? And so, you know, most of the time, when I ask a mortgage broker or a loan officer, what is your objective when you're buying leads? Most of them say, well, the objective is to find the best quality lead. Well, now we know better, right? Now we know that that objective is fool's goal. So what is it, right? What is the objective? If the name of the game is not about finding better lead quality, then what is it about? Right? And so it's about the same thing, funny enough, that every business has been about since the beginning of time. Business 101. How do we acquire new customers for the lowest cost possible, right? If we know that lead quality is left to chance because income, loan amount, and credit score all come in at random, well, then we know that the objective is simply, how do I save on costs and get the most leads for my dollar? Once they're in our ecosystem, we can then figure out which ones are the better quality leads. Now, I'm not getting into the specifics. Like, of course, you can build a funnel and ask them, you know, questions and filter them out that way on landing pages. But when you're talking about generating the lead, it doesn't matter what their credit score is. According to Facebook, I got to pay the same amount for every single lead, good and bad, right? And so to address the timeline, the timeline is one of the funniest things ever to me because you gotta just ask yourself this question, because a lot of people, and this is how I explain it. When you go into the mall and let's say you go to American Eagle, you want to buy a pair of jeans, right? And the sale, you know, you're going in there like, hey, I'm going to buy a pair of jeans. That's what I'm going in there for. The sales associate comes up to you and says, hey, can I help you with anything? What do you say?

[A]

Just looking, man.

[B]

Just looking, not interested, right? It's the same thing with these phone calls, right? And so, like, when somebody says, oh, like, because I'll hear that from some of our students, hey, yeah, the lead said they weren't ready to move for another 12 months. I'm like, ask yourself this question. Would you click on an ad about purchasing a home if you weren't ready to move for another year? Of course not, right? Prospects lie. You just didn't build enough rapport on the call. And I tell them you know what you should do? Here's what I do. Like, if I, if I'm calling because I've done this, I'm like, oh, you're not able to do it, like, and I'll call myself. And so when you're having that conversation and they say, yeah, I'm not ready to move for another night, I'll joke around and just throw it back at them and say, yeah, listen, I always click on ads about purchasing a home when I'm not ready to move for another nine months. You know, like, just joke around about it or I'll even kind of play the guilt factor. And so like, if somebody says like, yeah, oh no, like I'm not interested, I didn't fill out a form, or I didn't, you know, just looking or whatever it is, I'll say, hey, can you do me a favor? So I just started running Facebook ads and each one of these leads actually cost me $20. And so I'm trying to figure out like why somebody would click on the ad if they're not ready to like purchase a home. You think you give me some feedback and you know what they'll say?

[A]

What?

[B]

Well, you know, I am looking and boom, you got them. Right. And so you have to understand, prospects lie. Yeah, they're getting a call, they're automatically on the defensive.

[A]

What about the types of ads that seem to work or would be because, you know, the complaint narrative to keep pulling on that thread seems to be that some of the other lead gen companies, you know, are going with the DPA type ads. Low down, low credit. What's your take on that?

[B]

Yeah, that's what. Listen, the people. The reason boutique Legion companies go with the DPA ads is because in the marketing communities and the classes and the courses that guys like me used to take when I was a kid coming up, those are the ads that are provided. Nobody provided HELOC and DSCR ads and all that stuff. As a boutique company, nobody was doing that before. Our most successful ads that we have in my community, our HELOC, we use something called Figure 8. We heard about it, it's pretty cool. And so what it is is it's an AI application that you can get approved in under five minutes for a heloc. And so what we decided to do was run ads directly to the application. And what would happen, they would either get approved without even having to speak to the loan officer, or they, even better, they would get denied. If they get denied, we can call them up and get them on refinances. Right. And so a lot of people have been doing really like Mitch Chang crushes helocs. Alan Parker Duke Crushes. He, like Simon Glenn. Simon Glenn just became, he just won top 1% at Nexa Mortgage, which I think is great. I mean there's 2500 loan officers there and he's, he's great at HELOCs. Another huge one is DSCR. I love, you know, Trevor loves DSCR. And the reason that we recommend it is because it's the gift that keeps on giving. Your customers are investors, which means they're not just investing in one property, unlike a home, they're not buying one every 10 years. And so if you get a DSCR client, you could, theoretically it's like the gift that keeps on giving. You can close more and more deals through them.

[A]

Yeah. The other thing that I think is unique about you guys and you kind of alluded to this earlier, but it's a very important point for people to understand. And I know this very well because I'm actually spending money on Facebook ads as we speak. And so you've got two costs. You've got the agency overhead cost and then you've got your ad spend cost. But you guys have a bit of a fresh twist to this which allows, as you said earlier, frees up more capital for you to redirect that spend instead of towards the agency overhead cost which you know you're going to pay 1,000, 3,000, whatever it is, agency overhead costs for them to kind of run the ads, buy the spots. Right, all that stuff. And therefore you've got less to drive towards, towards ads. But you guys kind of flipped that on its head a little bit. Tell me more about that.

[B]

Yeah, and so, you know, most lead generation companies, the service fee is more than the ad spend, we do the opposite and then we do even more. So we charge 297amonth. And the reason for that is because, you know, people ask me, hey, why'd you go from charging $6,000 a month to 297amonth? I said it's a volume play. And I know that they'll stay forever because if you close one loan, it pays for itself for the whole year. How do you get. There's no, remember guys, all leads are created equal. Right. When it comes to those important factors that we talked about, it's all at random. And so if that's the case, well then what's going to make you more successful? The cost of the service. If it's extremely low, well then the time horizon on which you can be successful is much longer. So if a lead gen company is charging you $2,000 a month and I only have $4,000, I better close a deal in those two months. Right. But if with us the time horizon is much longer and so you can rest assured knowing that hey, my overhead costs aren't going to be substantial. The reason most people fail is because again, lead generation, especially in the mortgage industry is fundamentally flawed because your marketing dollars have a 100% markup and so you're getting 50% of what you're actually paying for at most. And if we know that all leads are created equal, you might as well cut out the middleman. Right. The whole reason you're paying that lead generation company is you're paying for their expertise. But in the mortgage industry, their expertise are a moot point because they can't get you better income, better loan account, better loan amounts or better credit scores. And so the only reason you would be using a lead gen company is because you don't know how to generate your own leads. But now you can do it with our software in less than three clicks and all the ads are pre built and proven and tested.

[A]

Yeah, I guess that's the other headwinds people would come up against when running ads, which is, you know, the intricacies of working in with the Facebook ads manager and you know, promoting on meta, all that stuff because that's like a separate skill set in and of itself. So how do you facilitate that at such a low cost to you, you know, with somebody who, you know, doesn't want to be a Facebook ads or I should be saying meta ads expert.

[B]

Yeah, and so again it's a software that allows you to launch your ads in less than three clicks. And so what we have is a library of proven ready to use ads. They're pre built for you. They're guaranteed to get you the lowest possible cost per lead. And so if you wanted to launch an ad, you would simply select the ad you want, enter how much money you want to spend a day, which is great because you're in control of your own ad spend, put in your website and click launch. Now we provide you landing pages. And so you don't need a website, they're already pre built embedded into your software for you. And so it's just click and drag. It took me three months to learn Facebook ads. It'll take you guys three minutes.

[A]

Really? Come on now that sounds a little oversimplified.

[B]

That's what it is. And here's the beauty of it, the expertise guys is built into the community. We have 60 plus live coaching calls a month. Today alone we've had five. We have support calls twice daily every single day of the week. We have CRM trainings twice a week where it's just a walkthrough of the CRM to get you comfortable with it, walkthrough of all the features. We have ads trainings three times a week. We have sales trainings, we even have advanced coaching because some of our power users were like, hey, I'm sick of all these rookie questions, you know, I want the harder stuff. And so we made advanced coaching calls. And so, you know, if you were to partner with a lead gen company and you have an issue, you're gonna have to set an appointment with them, wait three days with us, you can reach us every single day of the week.

[A]

Very interesting, very interesting. Plus okay, so the other aspect of this whole lead conversion thing, timeline, all that stuff is the conversion and the multiple steps that are involved, such as somebody clicks on an ad, they opt in, they fill out your funnel. Then we've got the text messaging, we've got to do some phone calls, we've got to do some longer term email drip nurture campaigns. How do you help people do that?

[B]

So all of that, all of what you mentioned is built into it. And so every single lead is going to be texted within minutes of them filling out a form, ensuring speed delete at the highest level. So there's text follow up, there's email follow up. All those emails are already pre built for you. Top 10, you know, top 10 best tips on buying a home, right? These beautiful emails. And so they're put into long term nurture sequences but nothing's going to beat dialing, right? And so, you know, we teach you strategies on dialing. For example, when I ask a mortgage broker if they're double dialing, they have no idea what I'm talking about. And so for example, if I call somebody or if I get a phone call from a number that I don't know, I'm most likely not going to pick it up. But if they call me consecutively, I'm going to think, oh, this must be an emergency and I'm going to pick up the phone. I'll give you an example. I was in the hospital with my father, he was in icu. I got a call from a number I didn't know, I didn't pick it up. I got it the second time, I was going to pick it up and I said no, but they called me a third time. I picked it up like hello, I'm in the hospital with my dad, like hello. And it was Grant Cardone's office and I'm like, you got me. You know, like they, they got, they were trying to sell me obviously some stuff but. And so the other, the other factor for double dialing is because most people they have their phone on do not disturb and it breaks through the do not disturb if you call twice consecutively.

[A]

Oh really?

[B]

Yeah. And so it's great for contact success rate. Those are things that are important, right? Strategic dialing as well. Certain hours like there's systems that you can use to by process of elimination eliminate times of availability so that you are making, you are being efficient with your dialing. So for example, most people, they dial sequentially. So let's say I have a list of callers, I'm just going to start at the top and go from the bottom. Right. And instead of doing. And the problem is you just keep doing that over and over again. You're praying and spraying.

[A]

Mm.

[B]

Right. And so what we call strategic dialing is. Alright, so let's say it's Monday. I'm gonna call this lead at 9am on Monday, right. And then I'm gonna call them at let's say 9:30 or 10:00 clock on Tuesday. Right. If they're not available in that time window, I'm crossing it out. I will never call them on that day again. And I'm yeah, Wednesday and Thursday I move between 12 and 1.

[A]

Mm.

[B]

And then Thursday and Friday I'm 5 and 6. Yep, I'm crossing those times out and I'm never calling them at those times again because what I'm trying to do is figure out their availability by process of elimination. And so there's critical thinking that goes into my dialing. But over time what's going to happen is you're going to have a lit. Like your contact success rate is going to substantially pick up because you are not calling these people at times that they're not available. You're only calling them at the times that could be available. And so by process of elimination over time, you know, your data is going to be. Your contact success rate should pick up substantially in about, you know, if you're doing it consistently, it's going to pick up.

[A]

What, what is the recommended ad spend for somebody to actually see some results?

[B]

Our official training videos and everything that we talk about is $35 a day. And the idea here guys is like listen, with a lead Gen company, they're going to ask you to spend $35 a day, at least $1,000 a month in ad spend. If you don't, it's probably not worth it. Now we have lead hackers who get away with spending $20 a day, but I wouldn't recommend it. Just because they're successful doesn't mean that you're going to be successful. You know, the funny question that I get, Jeff, which I'm sure you get, is what's the conversion rate? Why do you think that there's a general blanket conversion rate for every loan officer in America? Like this guy over here, he's been a loan officer for 20 years. He's gonna have a way different conversion rate than you. Right, right.

[A]

Because it's the magic lead man they.

[B]

Want is they want closed loans, they want done for you loans. And that's a mistake I made with my. My first agency is we try to do everything for them outside of wiping their butt. And we had a bunch of unhappy customers, and now we empower them to do it themselves. And people are much happier because they're getting results. They're much more consistent. Nothing's going to be better than the broker talking to the lead people. Try and outsource it. Yeah, let me get a VA to call all my leads. What do you think's gonna happen? Listen, I can say this. I'm Hispanic. My father's from Ecuador. He's got the thickest accent of all the. Of all time. What do you think's gonna happen when they hear a voice from the Philippines or they're not going to show up to the appointment? There's no credibility there. They're going to be worried that it's a scam. Unfortunately, that's just the reality of it. Right. And so people try and outsource too much work when they really should be doing it themselves. Like in our community. I have very candid conversations with our community, and I'll say, like, oh, yeah, my va. I'm like, your va, Dude, I looked at your mmi. Like, who do you think you are? You're barely closing any loans. Why do you think you need a va? Like, what are you doing? You should be doing this yourself so you can teach the VA how to do it, but clearly you don't know how to do it. You're wondering why all my VA isn't being successful. How do you expect your VA to be successful if you haven't made the roadmap and been successful in it?

[A]

Yeah, that's such an Interesting. Good point. Are the ads branded? Are they generic?

[B]

So the ads are not branded. It'd be really tough to kind of brand it for everybody in their own.

[A]

At that cost level.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, at the cost level, for sure. And so the ads are generic, I guess, you know, you could call them that. But they're all unique. Every ad is different. They're all. They have different value propositions. They look different, the colors are different. And so, you know, when you're running ads, we're talking about direct to consumer marketing, not necessarily brand awareness. You want brand awareness. You know, social media posting is good. We have a social media planner. You can plan out your social media for the entire year. It'll automate all your posts. But, like, that's not what we sell. You know, it's like just a bonus. But, you know, direct to consumer marketing. I'm just worried about the lead.

[A]

Right, right, exactly. Wow, that's really cool. Well, obviously, you guys, from looking at the testimonials on your site and, you know, the fact that you guys were the, you know, top aim, top NAM recommended partner, and the fact that you've kind of turned traditional agency marketing pricing structure on its head, that's what really got my attention. And the fact that, you know, one of our fellow colleagues, Trevor, spoke very highly of you. And, you know, he was in our community as well.

[B]

That guy's incredible.

[A]

Yeah. Now he's a guy who executes.

[B]

Yeah, he's a b. And you know what I love about Trevor being our coach? I look at him and he'll have no problem me saying this. If you met Trevor, you would be like, no, he's not good at sales. He's pretty monotone. Right? Like, he's. Trevor is monotone. But you want to know what makes him so great is the systems and processes. That's what makes him great. And that's how, you know, his systems and processes work. Because when you meet him, he's not. He's not like, this captivating, engaging, like, enthusiastic person. Right. And he crushes, I mean, 84 million in volume in one year. Like, and it makes it that much more impressive, if you get what I'm saying. He's organized and he's got systems and processes that he know works. And so I think that makes him an even better teacher because a lot of these brokers might have better raw talent than he does as far as when it comes to the sales aspect.

[A]

No, I can definitely appreciate that. You know, it reminds me of the two days I went and spent with hermosi here in Vegas on site for that two day scaling. Yeah.

[B]

Did I tell you my Hermosi story?

[A]

No, what is it?

[B]

I didn't tell you that.

[A]

I don't think so.

[B]

So I'm friends with Alex and Layla. And how I became friends with them is this was when I had my agency and I remember sitting in the office and Alex Hermosi posts a story that says, hey, me and Layla are gonna be having dinner in Colorado tonight. We're gonna choose four people to come with. You have to prove to us that you're making at least a million a year in revenue. Your company's doing that, and, and then you have to tell me why you should be invited. So I messaged him, I sent him a screenshot on my payment processor, and I said, you should pick me because I'm willing to drop what I'm doing right now and fly to Colorado. And he texted me back and said, can you make it before six? I drove straight to the airport, bought a ticket on the way, right. And went to Colorado, had dinner with him and Layla and four other people. And it's so funny, you know, he makes it a thing to really remembers people, remember people's names. I saw him like a year and a half later and he goes, alex Machuco, good to see you. Like, he remembered my name and everything. And so that's, that's a thing for him. He really tries to remember everybody's name he meets. And, and so next time he sees you, he'll call you by your full name. Like that's his thing. But he's a good guy.

[A]

What would you say your one key takeaway for those listening relevant to our conversation? What would be, you know, from out the world of Alex that you might want to share with the listeners?

[B]

This goes out to branch managers, if that's okay. It's something that I thought was really, really fundamental. And, and I agree with this, it hits home for me because I've ran tons of sales teams, some successes, some failures. And so there's actually this video that Alex came up with maybe a few months ago, but it was such good insight. And so I think what a lot of branch managers do, and this might give context for people who are just starting in mortgage too, but I was talking about, like, my friend owns Kinfolk Home Loans and Agave Home Loans, Marshall and Cody. And I was talking to them about this because most people, what they do if they're in a managerial position is they want to play it fair to everybody and they think that Playing fair to everybody means everybody gets the same lead quality across the board. Let's give everybody the same opportunities and see who. Who flourishes. That's not what you should do. What you should do is give your best leads to your best loan officers and your worst leads to your worst loan officers. Because what you're doing is one, you're making sure you're squeezing out every last penny of what you can possibly get, right? And so you're making sure you're getting all the meat off the bones. But at the same time, right, people, like, if you got your best guy making, you know, half a million dollars a year, people will work for free just for the chance to make half a million dollars a year if they can see somebody doing it. And so you inspire all the lower guys. But at the same time, it's like, you know, I talked to this, well, what if, like, we'll probably have a lot of turnover over here. Who cares? Who cares if you have turnover on your lower guys? But I'll tell you what, the ones who make it through, they're going to be battle tested and hardened, and they're going to be in a better position to close all of these leads. And so this is the best way to do it financially for a, for a company when you're running a sales team is because. No. And he even tells his story about, he met with the top seller guy was doing like 2 million a year, and then he had a meeting with his boss and he was like, hey, give me all the good leads. Like, this guy over here, he's not gonna close them all. Close them. And what ended up happening was the, the company, like, he started it in just that location. That location increased sales by 30%. And then he did it nationally and made tons of. And so because Alex asked, like, how'd you go as a sales guy to making like 2 million a year? From 200,000 a year to 2 million a year. He was like, I convinced my boss to give me all the good leads. And what happened was is the company, as a result of it, did much better. Right? And so, you know, that was a valuable lesson that I think I learned recently from Alex. Obviously, I have a ton of it. The worst lesson I think that he's ever taught Jeff, and you're going to. This will resonate with you, is create an offer so good that people feel stupid saying no.

[A]

Why is that the worst lesson?

[B]

Oh, because I'm sure you've seen the ads. 12 guaranteed closed loans are your money back.

[A]

That's Just lying.

[B]

Yeah, I'm not going to mention any names but there's a lot of companies who did that. One of them specifically got put out of business because of it. And so you can't guarantee results. And the people who fall for that, you just have to use some critical thinking. This guy doesn't know me. How is he going to guarantee results? What they do is they put a lot of stipulations in the contract so that you can never hit that guarantee. It's like yeah, your money back if you accomplish abcdefg.

[A]

Right, right, right.

[B]

And so that's how they get you.

[A]

Well, just to close this out, my hot take from an Alex ism, if you will, which I've applied to my business which is why I started running ads haha, dotted line like I did. This wasn't set up to be this way but was, you know, simply not enough people know that you exist and you need to become more well known and more need more people need to be aware of what you have to offer. We're in a transaction recession, right. We've got this attention economy and that's what I find of the hundreds of fellows I talk to over the course of a year that they're just, they're too small, they're too little secret agents and they're wondering how do I break out of this and add more loans? Well, get more referral partners, scale your reach and if you've got the budget and the wherewithal, invest in ads to reach more people at scale. That's it, you know, no magic formula there. So I think that's good timing. So for people who want to learn more about what you do, I know we've got a website set up for them. We're going to put that link that up in the show notes. What is that URL handy once again I think I got it right here.

[B]

Leadhackers IO MMI and what are they.

[A]

Going to see when they go there?

[B]

What they're going to see is an eight I think it's like eight minutes, right, that VSL and then everybody that's watching this, we're actually going to give you a free trial so you could go in, see the software. So guys, if you wanted to, you could sign up for this, steal all of the ads and then cancel. But you won't. Once you get in, you see how easy it is. We actually onboard you and walk you through launching your first ad and so you know, we'll, we'll hold your hand through it all and so you know, sign up for a free trial schedule and onboarding. Again, we're not going to charge you for the onboarding. It's free. Go in there, launch your ad. You'll start getting leads within, you know, 24 hours at the latest, and, you know, see what it's all about.

[A]

Okay, so that's Lead Hackers IO mmi. We'll link it up in the show notes as well. Alex, thank you so much for making time, man. I think this is a useful conversation.

[B]

Yeah, it's an honor to be here. I've watched a few episodes now, and so you're doing something incredibly special and useful for the mortgage community. So on behalf of the audience, we thank you.

[A]

Appreciate it, man. So, listeners, you know what to do. Check the link in the show notes, go check out the video, do the free demo, learn more, start advertising, reach more people, and your. Your pipeline will be more full. That's it. All right, we'll see you on the next one, everybody. Thanks for tuning in. Bye for now.