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Jeff Zimpfer
Foreign. Hey, my friend, thanks for tuning in to the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. Coming back at you with another voice notes episode. So if you're not familiar, I think it was towards the end of 2024, early 25, I started recording these kind of one offs voice notes when I'm calling them. These are simply what I'm thinking about, what I'm working on, what's kind of top of mind for me. And so what I do is try and I try and post these consistently every Friday. So you've got something perhaps to carry you through the weekend in addition to our regular podcast episode that is usually posted previously during the week. So this week is actually a culmination of something I've been thinking about for quite a long time. And the reason being is because I'm getting a little tired of the narrative, a little tired of the narrative that you may have seen in your social media feeds, whether it's ads, whether it's posts, and this is pretty much anywhere I go. And the narrative is, this is something around the effect of, you know, stop chasing real estate agents. Real estate agents are not a high ROI source and it usually paints a lot of loan officers in a negative light, right? Which is something around that of desperation, right? And trying to create this negative narrative, you know, regarding having realtors as a source of business. And I wanted to just kind of, I guess, give you my opinion on that because you can agree or disagree with my opinion, right? But, but look, there's a lot of this narrative around chasing referrals like it's, you know, 1999. One loan officer prays their agents don't leave, right? Another loan officer brings desperation to the table. And I'm just tired of the narrative. I'm tired of the narrative that it's one or the other. I'm tired of the narrative that building a solid base of referral partners is not a good thing. I disagree. And I don't just disagree because it's my opinion. I disagree because it's based on fact. So the real question is, why does it have to be one or the other? Why can't it be both? You know, a few years ago I was using this term called hybrid loan officer. And a hybrid loan officer to me means one who is both actively engaged in the, quote, traditional, right, foundational sources of business in this industry, which is going to be referrals, past clients, database, things like that, sphere of influence, but also somebody who is actively engaged in the right, more modern methods and sources of business, such as social media, right? Direct marketing activities, perhaps running some ads, right? Creating marketing funnels, lead generation, things like that. So it's that you're not so reliant exclusively on referrals. And so here's the thing, right? I don't disagree with the premise that loan officers should diversify their sources of business because the worst number in marketing is one. And when that one source becomes disrupted or goes away, therefore so is your business and you're impacted by that. What I disagree with and take issue with is the narrative that's being built to make the perception is, is that if you're a loan officer with these people posting and running ads, the perception is, is that if you're a loan officer and you are, you are quote all in or you spend amount of time on referral strategies from realtors, financial advisors, others, that you are a dying breed, that you are fading away, that the purely referral loan officer is dying. And once again I'll take a look at the conversations now of over 300 plus that I've had with some of the most successful originators in the country. And what I'm seeing is, is that when I ask them what their number one source of business today, it still is going to be largely referral partners, specifically real estate agents, past client database and then further down the list is other activities, right? Whether that's social media leads, whatever. But the percentage of people that are actually consistently building their pipeline from just organic social media in my personal experience is quite low. Now is that to say that it's not relevant that people shouldn't be pursuing it? That it doesn't have its place and its purpose? No, that's not saying that at all. Here's what I know. It takes time, it takes a whole new level of skills, you know, mastering content and video and posting and showing up consistently there. And I would say that the reason why there's this lag between results showing up from those methods, right, digital modern type methods than the traditional methods is because of the turn time and the Runway. The lag time that it takes for those results to actually show up versus if you need now business today, business, you know, the quickest, shortest path to obtaining a high quality, high converting buyer in today's market is still going to be from a referral source such as a real estate agent, financial advisor, et cetera. That's what I'm focused on. I'm focused on the now business. I'm focused on where can I fill my pipeline with deals that are going to close in the next 30 to 90 days, yes, sometimes longer. And then the other pillar, of course to pursue still is the, I would say more modern types of activities. Thus the hybrid loan officer situation. So don't be misled, don't be led to feel like you're, quote, missing out, falling behind the times if you're spending, right, a certain percentage of your activities and attention on pursuing referral partners. Look, real estate agents are still the alpha referral partner. If you need now business. If you want to build your pipeline right 30, 60, 90 days from now, a healthy amount of attention and focus on the right real estate agents, right, who are active and performing will pay off for you if you're approaching it in the right way, which is what we talk about on the podcast and it's what we do in our community over at my agent classes, which you can learn more about. As a matter of fact, the podcast that was dropped earlier this week is you should have listened to by now with Nate out of Florida, talks about how Nate gets a 30% of his business. So roughly $10 million, I believe of his business comes from teaching agent classes. He's not chasing, he's not cold calling, he's not running to coffee, he's not begging. Right. He's leading from a position of strength and he's attracting. And if that's something of interest to you, then check the link in the show notes for managing classes. But more importantly, listen to the podcast discussion I have with N where he breaks down diversification of sources and I think it's a really great lesson in what I'm talking about here today. So with that said, I hope this gave you something to think about. I'd love your feedback and thoughts on this. If you're listening on Spotify, you can leave me a question or a comment on Spotify because they show the questions there. Otherwise you can follow me on Instagram DM me, let me know what your question is there and I look forward to connecting with you soon. Until 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 pros who've already seen incredible results. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you on the next episode.