Stop Chasing Views: How to Build a Video System That Fills Your Pipeline

Summary

Podcast Summary: Mortgage Marketing Radio
Episode: Stop Chasing Views: How to Build a Video System That Fills Your Pipeline
Release Date: July 9, 2025
Host: Jeff Zimfer
Guest: Mike Ferrassi, Founder of Red Button Media and Co-Author of Rethink Everything: The Power of Video for Business and Sales

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1. Introduction

In this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio, Jeff Zimfer welcomes back Mike Ferrassi to discuss a pivotal shift in video marketing for mortgage professionals. The focus is on moving away from chasing vanity metrics like views and instead building a sustainable video system that generates meaningful conversations and fills the sales pipeline.

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2. The Blueprint: Defining Your Audience Personas

Mike Ferrassi emphasizes the importance of defining your ideal viewer personas as the foundation for creating effective video content. Instead of targeting a broad and undefined audience, mortgage professionals should identify specific groups they want to reach, such as first-time homebuyers, real estate agents, financial planners, or parents of college-age children.

Notable Quote:
“If you make something for everyone, it actually resonates with nobody because you're not talking to anyone in particular.”
— Mike Ferrassi [07:14]

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3. Content Pillars: Multiplying Your Ideas

Ferrassi introduces the concept of the five content pillars: news, education, problem solving, storytelling, and local. By leveraging these pillars, professionals can multiply one idea into dozens of targeted posts, ensuring content diversity and relevance.

• News: Stay updated with industry trends and share timely information.
• Education: Provide foundational knowledge about mortgage products and processes.
• Problem Solving: Address common challenges and offer solutions.
• Storytelling: Share client success and failure stories to humanize your brand.
• Local: Focus on community-specific content to build local authority.

Notable Quote:
“Dividing your content between pillars evenly, especially when you start out, allows you to run a bunch of content organically.”
— Mike Ferrassi [15:16]

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4. Metrics that Matter: From Views to Conversations

The discussion shifts to metrics that truly impact business growth. Ferrassi advises focusing on conversations and engagement rates rather than the number of views. Conversations lead to relationships and referrals, which are more valuable than simply accumulating views.

Notable Quote:
“The North Star metric is conversations. If you don't want to track all the conversations that you have, I like to look at engagement rate.”
— Mike Ferrassi [19:34]

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5. Storytelling: Be the Guide, Not the Hero

Ferrassi highlights the power of storytelling and positioning oneself as a guide rather than the hero. By sharing client stories where the mortgage professional plays a supportive role, the content becomes relatable and trustworthy.

Notable Quote:
“You are not the hero. You are the guide. You are the trusty tool that the hero of the story uses in order to get across the finish line.”
— Mike Ferrassi [31:17]

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6. Platform Strategy: Where to Post and How

When it comes to platform selection, Ferrassi recommends starting with the platform where you already have a presence and are most comfortable. Consistency on one platform helps build a strong foundation before expanding to others. Baby-step your way to avoid burnout and ensure sustainable content creation.

Notable Quote:
“Start in your digital home. Are you spending most of your time on Facebook, on Instagram? Start posting there because you probably already have the most connections or followers.”
— Mike Ferrassi [38:29]

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7. Competing with AI: Staying Unmistakably Human

Ferrassi addresses the rising influence of AI-generated content and suggests ways to maintain authenticity. He advocates for including natural imperfections like "ums," "uhs," and real-life interruptions in videos to differentiate human-created content from AI. Emphasizing genuine interactions and spontaneous moments can help content stand out in an increasingly AI-saturated landscape.

Notable Quote:
“The content where I pulled out my phone while I'm walking my dog... Those little minute detail, the things that AI is going to get wrong about a larger environment.”
— Mike Ferrassi [46:40]

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8. Conclusion and Takeaways

The episode wraps up with actionable advice:

• Define Your Audience: Clearly identify who you're making content for.
• Leverage Content Pillars: Utilize the five content pillars to create diverse and targeted content.
• Focus on Conversations: Prioritize metrics that lead to meaningful interactions over vanity metrics.
• Narrate Authentic Stories: Position yourself as a guide through compelling client stories.
• Strategize Platform Use: Start with your primary platform and expand gradually.
• Embrace Authenticity: Incorporate human elements to differentiate from AI-generated content.

Ferrassi encourages listeners to adopt a strategic approach to video marketing that fosters genuine connections and drives business growth.

Final Notable Quote:
“If you're ready to stop guessing and start using video to book more appointments, you're in the right place.”
— Jeff Zimfer [00:00]

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Additional Resources

• Book: Rethink Everything: The Power of Video for Business and Sales by Mike Ferrassi and Kyle Draper
• Website: Red Button Media
• Connect with Mike Ferrassi: Follow on LinkedIn and Instagram

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For more insights and expert strategies on growing your mortgage business through effective marketing, tune into Mortgage Marketing Radio regularly.

Transcript

[Jeff Zimfer]

Have you ever spent hours filming a mortgage video only to hear crickets? No views, no clicks, no comments. Look, it happens to the best of us. But what if you could build a simple, repeatable system that turns those clips into real conversations with prospects and referral partners? You're listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast, the strategic marketing podcast for modern mortgage professionals. My name is Jeff Zimfer, your host and guide on everything from digital outreach to scaling your referral partnerships to close more loans. And today on the show, we're tackling a critical question. How do you move beyond chasing views and actually use video to grow your business? And to help us answer that, I've invited back Mike Ferrassi, founder of Red Button Media and co author of Rethink Everything. The Power of Video for business and Sales. So if you don't know Mike, he helps sales leaders and small teams turn video into consistent source of qualified leads. And in this episode, you're going to get three key takeaways. Number one, why define your ideal viewer Personas is the foundation for every clip that converts. Number two, how to use the five content pillars. That's news, education, problem solving, storytelling, and local. To multiply one idea into dozens of targeted posts. And number three, the metrics that matter. Why counting conversations beats chasing vanity views every time. And be sure to stay with us until the end, because Mike is going to unpack an unexpected surprise tactic to keep your content up. Unmistakably human, even as AI generated clips flood our feeds. So if you're ready to stop guessing and start using video to book more appointments, you're in the right place. Let's get into this week's show. Mike, welcome back.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Thank you, Jeff, for having me. This is awesome.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And welcome to Las Vegas.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah, it's been years. I think the last time I was here was 2019 for mastermind. Back in 2019, that was the last.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Time you're here for a Mastermind.

[Mike Ferrassi]

It's the last time I was here.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And you're here again for the Mastermind summit, which is why we're all meeting up here. What I'm excited about is to talk about this new book, Rethink Everything. Camera two, you're the guy, you got the shot. You know it's video.

[Mike Ferrassi]

That's right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

So just like it says on your sweatshirt, I make content that makes you money.

[Kyle Draper]

That's right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

That's very different than making content that gets you views.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, cool. So let's jump in with. Let me start with. What's the intent of the book? What were you hoping to accomplish with this.

[Mike Ferrassi]

That book. In my mind, the way I wanted to lay it out was that is the blueprint for anyone who wants to use video content to enhance and boost their business and sales efforts.

[Kyle Draper]

Okay.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Rethink Everything. The title of the book, obviously it's under the Rethink Everything banner. My collaborator, Kyle Draper.

[Kyle Draper]

Yep.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Shout out Kyle. What's up?

[Mike Ferrassi]

Shout out to Kyle. Thank you for inviting me on this journey, brother. But he kind of said this thing was the Mike Ferrassi show. That's how he framed it. So that's how I took it and ran with it.

[Kyle Draper]

Nice.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Kyle's really good at the things that I suck at. For example, he's really good at telling people why they should make videos.

[Kyle Draper]

Okay.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah, get the non believers over the hump.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I can't stand talking to those people. It's 2025, man. If you're back there, stay back there. I need to take the people who know that this is valuable, you've already bought in and teach you how to do it most effectively so it doesn't take up so much of your time and it sets you up for commitment to a long term system.

[Kyle Draper]

Okay.

[Mike Ferrassi]

That's what this book is built around. The first three chapters are Kyle kind of telling you a little bit how and a few different ways to use videos that are not Instagram reels. Because video is a means of communication.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Sure.

[Mike Ferrassi]

And it's a marketing asset. It's not just a reel that you post and then it dies 24 hours later.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

The final 13 chapters are me laying out my content system for a single solo person to repurpose on their own. If they want to implement it for a team, you can do that also. But I really took this from the frame of mind of, okay, the person reading this book knows that there's value here. They might not know what to talk about. They might not exactly know what. What they should be saying, who they should be saying it to, what they should expect once they start actually posting this content publicly. And then just taking that and framing it in a way to where it can set them up systematically to continue it without it taking you as long as. As you think it will take you. Because there's a lot of misconceptions out there about video content. One of the misconceptions is that it takes a long time to produce and there are lots of different ways to go about it where that is absolutely true. But if you set yourself up systematically from a business mindset, that's not necessarily the case.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, so am I correct then to sum it up, to say, you know, referencing Kyle. Shout out Kyle. He's more the why. Are you the how?

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah, okay, that's exactly right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, so let's break this down then.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I love, like, the first words that I write in the book in chapter four are literally, thanks, Kyle. I'll take it from here. So, like that. Like it. And that's what you're trying to say.

[Jeff Zimfer]

You gotta cut off Kyle once in a while?

[Mike Ferrassi]

No, Kyle does a pretty good job of cutting off Kyle. So we don't have to worry about it.

[Jeff Zimfer]

He's watching this. He knows we're just kidding. We love him. Kyle's awesome, man. Very inspirational. He's my brother from another mother.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah, both of us. We're basically the same person. Are you backwards hat bearded? I think we're an inch of height of each other.

[Jeff Zimfer]

When you might root for different sports teams, I think.

[Mike Ferrassi]

But most likely I'm the California version. He's the Texas version. We got somebody for everybody in here.

[Jeff Zimfer]

It's Texas. I don't know. Well, that's a whole nother conversation. Let's get into some of the nuggets here.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, so you're the how, and you're for the people who already understand I need to be doing video. I don't need to be convinced anymore.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Correct.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, so then take that person. They're at the doorstep. They're like, I understand. I need to do a video. I get the why. Where do you start with them? On the how.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I start strategically on the how. So I like to think of any organic content, like business gps.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

A lot of people will shoot a couple of videos, and then they'll post it and they'll say, well, I'm not. I'm not really landing. I'm not really getting any traction with. With the people that I want to be getting traction with. I don't think this is working for me. And they want to quit, and they do quit, which is the worst thing that you can do is quit. Because we can get into consistency later. That's the dead horse that's been beaten by everybody. But that's kind of like saying, you know, hopped in my car and I didn't really know where I wanted to go. So from Las Vegas, I plugged in Los Angeles to the gps, and I was just so pissed off that it didn't take me straight to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But you didn't tell it where you want to go.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Specific content's the same exact Thing. If you want to resonate, if you want to connect with a specific group of people, you need to reverse engineer your content in order to land where with that group of people, instead of trying to, you know, you fall into the trap like a lot of beginners do, especially salespeople of. Well, my target market is everybody I could possibly be selling to. Yeah, well, that's not the best target market in the world because if you make something for everyone, it actually resonates with nobody because you're not talking to anyone in particular. Which is why content systems are so valuable, because that lets you scale up the volume of content that you're making. So that way if you're a mortgage professional and you have access to a great down payment assistance program, you can make a piece that talks about it to the first time homebuyers in your zip code and then you can make another piece that talks about it to the real estate agents. Because the context is completely different there, the messaging completely different. Maybe there's another piece that you make for the financial planners that you want to attract as referral partners. Maybe there's a piece that you make for the parents of college age kids because you want them to know about it. Because if their future grads are looking at becoming a homeowner pretty soon, maybe you're connecting with the parents so they can kind of pass on the word and let them know that these things exist. The message, the topic, so to speak, doesn't always have to change. Your audience member changes.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, but it sounds like there though is you've got from the same, you know, macro piece of content, you've got four micro, so to speak, and I.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Call it content multiplication in the book. So we first start with dialing in some target viewer Personas, not target client Personas. Because your target viewers could be referral sources, they could be people you want to recruit to your organization. So you dial in some target viewer Personas and then you dive into some content pillars. If you have five target viewers and five content topics, that's not 10 pieces of content, it's 25.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, so are you then back to my question about when you start with somebody, do you first start with identifying your viewer profile? Is that what you said?

[Mike Ferrassi]

Correct. That's where I start. Not only is that where I start people off in the book or in my content, if you follow me on the socials, but when I sign on a new client, that's the first step in our onboarding session is dialing in their tools.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Who are you trying to reach.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Exactly. Because unless you know who you want to be viewing your content, then you're not going to be able to make content that's in a meaningful way by them.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

You're throwing crap against the wall. That gives you some context and that you build strategy from that.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Correct.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Interesting. Okay, so first is who are you making content for?

[Kyle Draper]

Yep.

[Jeff Zimfer]

What mistakes do you think when you're dealing with loan officers, let's say coming in. You already mentioned one. I'm trying to reach everybody.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Do what do you find? Where the areas they most struggle with or trip up when it comes Content strategy or viewer.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah. Content delivery. Content strategy. The biggest mistake that I see, salespeople, not just mortgage sales, just people who sell things, is selling.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Selling. Meaning they're trying to sell that.

[Mike Ferrassi]

That's it. They can't, they can't get out of their own head. They have this amazing thing. I have this amazing book, Disrupt or Die by Jeff Zimfer. And I need to get it in as many hands as possible because that's how I pay my bills to. Instead of doing that. This is an amazing product. Camera two. Right. But this is an amazing product. A lot of people who do not own this should own this. But they're not buying a book. They're buying a solution to a problem. And that's where the messaging in our content needs to start. So many people freeze up when I ask the follow up question. The initial question is, what do you sell? Everybody has that answer. The follow up is great. What do your customers buy from you? They're buying a different solution to a different problem. And those pain points need to be identified and addressed through storytelling, through past experiences, through solutions that do exist, through myth busting, through all, all of these different tactics, addressing clickbaity, headlines, mortgage and real estate. That's huge. Right? Like there's a whole strategy, right. In becoming the news source for your audience as opposed to just being a part of the news story. What if you were the person who showed up every couple of days saying, hey, saw this headline the other day, really pissed me off because here's what's really going on in the market. You know what I mean? The local following that you can build around, being that expert, the person who brings real perspective to a kind of a niche market or a smaller audience. These are the ways that the solo loan officer, the small brokerage can compete with Rocket and being local. And the loan depots, because they have no choice but to expand nationally, but they don't have the resources to pour into Your kind of micro market.

[Jeff Zimfer]

So is that one of the key takeaways is if you can pepper in some local focused content?

[Mike Ferrassi]

Not of the book, but it's a key takeaway.

[Jeff Zimfer]

No, not of the book.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Well, what I'm thinking about.

[Mike Ferrassi]

So like Jerry Vaynerchuk calls it, being the digital mayor of your town.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yes.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Right. And I've always loved that concept. Like, it resonates with me. I mean, when it comes to. Especially we, we work a lot with mortgage and real estate professionals, man. Why doesn't almost every mortgage professional in every small city have their own podcast where they just interview small business owners in the area? Every real estate agent gets approached by mortgage people. And increasingly divorce attorneys are being approached, financial planners are being approached, things like that. But the mom and pop coffee shop down the street comes in contact with hundreds of people a day and they probably don't have a trusted mortgage professional. And if you gave them a little bit of a platform to promote their thing, they're going to feel like they owe you a favor. That's a great relationship. And then all of a sudden all the small businesses in your area are recommending you. Yeah, that's powerful.

[Jeff Zimfer]

What percentage of the total content types?

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Because we've got local, we've got market driven educational mortgage and all the different. Yes, the mom and pop coffee shop thing. Or just answer the broader question.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Can you ascertain a rough percentage of content type buckets for people when they think about the types of content they need to put out?

[Mike Ferrassi]

I like. So I, I lay out kind of five main pillars.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

You know, one is news, one is kind of just educational and not necessarily. We have this product. You need this credit score, you need this dti. This is the max loan amount. No, I'm talking about like this is what an adjustable rate mortgage is.

[Kyle Draper]

Okay.

[Mike Ferrassi]

You know, the very foundational type of stuff.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Sure.

[Mike Ferrassi]

So educational news, problem solving, success or failure stories, a little bit of storytelling and then kind of local. And I really like an even split of all of that stuff because it gives you a chance to try out multiple things. Because don't get me wrong, there is no like Pythagorean theorem that works every time.

[Jeff Zimfer]

That word's too big for this show.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Sorry, sorry. I got into a little bit. Got into a little bit of math.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Break it down for the people in the cheap seats, man.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Right. There is no E equals MC squared. Ah, got it.

[Kyle Draper]

Thank you.

[Mike Ferrassi]

There is no concept. There's no magic formula that exists and works for everybody. If there was Wouldn't have to write a book and we wouldn't have to try to sell it even if there was. Everybody's audience is different.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

So dividing your content between pillars evenly, especially when you start out, allows you to run a bunch of content organically. It's not pay to play. These platforms are free to access. You run it out there, you build a little bit of an audience, you stay consistent with it and then you start paying attention to it a little bit more. So you're tracking it and you're gonna start picking. That's it marketing. It's all a test, it's all an experiment.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Right?

[Mike Ferrassi]

Everything's an experiment.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Then you find something that jams or clicks or whatever and then you're like, ooh, all right, that hit a button.

[Mike Ferrassi]

There's a great quote that I heard one time. Science is just playing around with toys, but you're writing stuff down like that's like, that's like everything's an experiment. Right? Marketing is an experiment because everybody's audience is a little bit different.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

And like I live in Southern California. I'm not going to make a whole lot of first time home buyer content right now. When in the county that I live in, the median list price is $1.3 million. That's just not, it's not a thing. I'm going to make more content for self employed business owners to get a loan that they deserve by using tax returns instead of or bank statements instead of tax returns. Going a little bit of non QM solutions there for them. I'm going to make some content for investors especially. I live in a college town, huge for investors because there's not enough dorms and a lot of the local homes are rented out to students as seasonal investments and things like that. And these investors make a killing on that stuff. So my audience in my location would be different than the next person's audience and the next person's location. But when you're first getting started with your content, you have to run all types equally, at least for a little bit in the beginning. And then you're gonna see what stuff you get a higher engagement rate on. Oh, people seem to be liking this more. People seem to be commenting or dming more from the how does an adjustable rate mortgage work? What is a buy down? Like that stuff seems to be hitting in my area more sure. Than the news content. So then you start leaning in proportionally where you're seeing a bigger pickup.

[Kyle Draper]

Hmm. Okay.

[Jeff Zimfer]

So it starts with identifying who you're trying to reach. Right. Your viewing audience. And then you're gonna get a little bit more strategic. Slash. Tactical. Yes. With the types of content, the buckets of. Of types of content you talked about.

[Mike Ferrassi]

That's right. And when it comes to, like, a lot of people think timelines. Oh, how long is that going to take? Like, it's not going to be short. This is not like sales.

[Jeff Zimfer]

How long is what gonna take?

[Mike Ferrassi]

How long is, like, a content strategy going to take to start working, to start seeing?

[Jeff Zimfer]

Sure. Like, how long do I have to do videos before it pays off?

[Mike Ferrassi]

That's right. That's right. Because everybody's looking for the magic bullet, the magic wand.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And what do you say to that, by the way?

[Mike Ferrassi]

I say six to 12 months before you start seeing a meaningful lift in conversations. We're not looking for lead generation. We're not looking for closed loans to automatically hit in your DMs. That is not what we're looking for. We're just looking to generate conversations with people we wouldn't have otherwise been able to have conversations with. Because that's where relationships come from and that's where referrals and business come from.

[Jeff Zimfer]

What was it you said at the beginning? Most people are optimizing for views versus.

[Mike Ferrassi]

A lot of people are optimizing it for views, which. Which leads them into creating a. A broader content set for a broader audience.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

They're trying to appeal to everybody so they can get a bunch of views. Because dopamine's a powerful thing.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah. And that's right. That's been the metric.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I fall victim to that sometimes, too. Oh, why am I not getting enough views on this? I put so much effort into that one. It's like, well, dummy, maybe you just posted it at the wrong time of day. Yeah, so try it again two weeks later in the morning instead of in the evening. Like, sometimes that can be the difference. It might not be the content.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Well, what is the North Star then? What if it's not views? What's the North Star metric?

[Mike Ferrassi]

Conversations. Conversations. Yeah, I like Conversations One. If you don't want to track all the conversations that you have, I like to look at engagement rate, which would be your.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Your views, how long they're watching you.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Not necessarily length, but likes and comments.

[Kyle Draper]

Okay.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Divided by the number of views you're getting. So for every 100 views, how many people are liking or commenting on this particular piece of content?

[Jeff Zimfer]

Is the holy grail? Shares or is there a holy grail?

[Mike Ferrassi]

If you ask Instagram CEO, it is.

[Jeff Zimfer]

You don't necessarily he.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I mean, he's, he's been on record saying that shares are the biggest mess.

[Jeff Zimfer]

It's hard to get shareable content, though.

[Mike Ferrassi]

It's very difficult.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

The vast majority of shareable content there isn't necessarily education based. It's.

[Jeff Zimfer]

It's entertainment.

[Mike Ferrassi]

It's entertainment. It's a quick hit.

[Jeff Zimfer]

People falling off their patio.

[Kyle Draper]

That's right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

The American Funniest Videos type of stuff.

[Jeff Zimfer]

You know, so stuff we love to share.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah, I like, I like comments. I like DMs.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah. There's more realistic in our world.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yes, exactly. Because we don't need millions of views to be wildly successful.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Which is a great point. And let's riff on this for a second, then we'll get into the three E's. Because it's relevant to the views. Because that was the metric for a while.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Is how do you know if your content's. Oh, it's views. It's, you know. You mentioned comments as well.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

But let's riff for a second on. You mentioned you don't need a million followers. Speak to the changes in the algorithm where it used to be about followers but now it's about the content. And you can do. You can have the right conversations that feed your business without a large following.

[Mike Ferrassi]

So I have proof of this literally in, in, in my phone right now. So I have, I have a YouTube channel. It's passion project.

[Kyle Draper]

Okay.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Hardly anybody business wise knows about this.

[Jeff Zimfer]

I don't think I know this.

[Mike Ferrassi]

It's. It's a YouTube channel. I'm a watch nerd. I love.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Oh, really?

[Mike Ferrassi]

I love watches.

[Kyle Draper]

Really?

[Jeff Zimfer]

You're sporting a good one today.

[Mike Ferrassi]

It's, it's, it's, it's decent.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And so, so the Apple, you're like, no, dude, this doesn't qualify.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I don't, I don't wear smart watches.

[Kyle Draper]

No.

[Mike Ferrassi]

No.

[Jeff Zimfer]

All right, go ahead.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Not huge on that, but I, I commend what Apple has done with those because it's gotten a lot of people used to wearing something on their wrist when they didn't before. And a lot of Apple watch users have turned into mechanical watch enthusiasts.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Well, it's created a lot of engagement, this watch.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah. Brought a lot of people into the hobby.

[Jeff Zimfer]

All right, keep going.

[Mike Ferrassi]

So it's pretty cool. Anyways, so I have a YouTube channel where I review mostly budget entry level mechanical watch.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Like 500 or less or what?

[Mike Ferrassi]

Typically a thousand or less. A thousand or less. And, and most of the ones that I review are in the 1 to 300 range.

[Kyle Draper]

Okay, cool.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I just hit 5,000 subscribers on that channel. That's a pretty cool idea. But three weeks ago I posted a watch review that has over 60,000 views. Now. In the last month, that channel has seen 118,000 views and 5,400 hours of watch time.

[Kyle Draper]

Wow. Nice.

[Mike Ferrassi]

For all that. YouTube has paid me $330.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Like this is not monetizable in a meaningful way. Sure. But if I'm a mortgage professional, if I'm a real estate agent.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

And I can build something that gets me a thousand subscribers and 20,000 views in a month and 1,000 hours of watch time. That long of people in taking your messaging is going to result in people reaching out to you with questions. And if you can convert one of those questions into a deal, then all of a sudden you've eclipsed like three years of my YouTube earnings. Because even though I'm getting so many more views, but also with my relatively small channel, I can get hundreds of thousands of views. I have one short on that channel. It has 380,000,000,000 views on a channel that at the time I posted it had like 1200 subscribers. Because the algorithms and AI being integrated into them.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Are at the point now to where they are transcribing every video in the background, whether you put captions on it or not.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

So when somebody has interests, especially on TikTok, they're, they're, they're just ahead of meta in the algorithmic type of stuff. But the TikTok for you page is, it knows how fast you scroll, it knows how long things are on screen for. There's rumors that there's some eye tracking technology out there that's baked in. I don't know if that's true or not, but I've heard rumors. All I know is that if you're on TikTok and you watch a video for 25 seconds and you watch another one for three seconds, you will see more videos that look like that one you watched for 25 seconds than the ones that you watched for three seconds. Regardless of how many followers the account who posted it has.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Because it's a merit based algorithm, not a follower based.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Exactly. Which gets back to the content, which is why the content is so important now.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Now more than ever before, you can start fresh, brand new account, zero followers, zero subscribers, zero anything. And start getting a meaningful amount of audience members.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Well, I've seen it happen for sure on YouTube. Smaller channels are getting promoted and we'll, before we wrap up, we'll talk about platform choices and Things like that. But I think that hits the point home for anybody who's listening or watching is you don't need thousands and thousands of followers to to build a business. By the way, YouTube AdSense is for most people, listening, not a business model.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

The business model is you driving conversations through your content.

[Mike Ferrassi]

That's right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Whatever platform that's going to be. So it's about content over followers. And just you're not too small, you're not too late. As a matter of fact, this is the time to double down on content. Quality content. Hey, are you tired of cold calling realtors and feeling like you're getting nowhere? With my agent classes, you don't have to chase agents anymore. We hand you a done for you system of ready to teach presentations, plug and play marketing, and even 200 producing agents to invite. So you can double your agent referrals in 90 days or less. Plus you'll get weekly coaching and a community of loan officers sharing exactly what's working right now. Here's a quick win from one of our members.

[Travis Newton]

Been part of my agent classes for a little over a year and totally changed my business. I grew at least 25% and that was during a pretty down market and have only grown every single month that I've kept doing it. Community is great. Show up to the Friday calls. It's awesome. Have fun with it. Teach as many classes as you can. Just do more, do better.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Are you ready to stop chasing and start attracting agent referrals on demand? Book a call at MortgageMarketing Pro or hit the link in the show notes. Now back to our show. So let's then riff a little bit on production.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Sure.

[Kyle Draper]

Meaning.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Because I think you have it in your book. Right? Quality versus quantity.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah. Yeah. So quality versus quantity is actually talking about views, is it?

[Jeff Zimfer]

All right, we're back to views.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah, back to views. That's the people chasing views equation. All right, don't chase.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Don't chase views.

[Mike Ferrassi]

View quantity. Chase view quality.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, that's view quality. All right, so let's then let's talk about those things.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Like, would you rather have 13 million views and have two people reach out to you about what you actually do?

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Or 1300 views and have five people reach out.

[Kyle Draper]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, so then I've been spending a decent amount of time evaluating what I do. Content production, like the content I want to put out. Because I'm going to refocus a lot of time on YouTube myself personally.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Great.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Because of a discovery mechanism and regarding a podcast, podcasts are pretty Hard for discovery audio only.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yes.

[Jeff Zimfer]

So that's why I'm pushing a lot of stuff over to YouTube and learning a lot about content and the type of content. Now, that said this, I mean, really, the thread of conversation when it comes to what we're talking about here is content's got to be nailed down.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Which goes back to the buckets you talked about the production.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Consistent messaging.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Consistent messaging. Even though your topics will vary.

[Mike Ferrassi]

They don't even have to vary. You can do the same topic I used to do when I was. When I was doing this for. For mortgage brand.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I would. I would publish a short about how you don't need 20 down to buy a house every Tuesday of every week. Oh, really?

[Jeff Zimfer]

And you get a new audience.

[Mike Ferrassi]

New people are always finding you.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

There's a reason that, you know, Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Alex Hormozi. There's a reason that your favorite band. Right. All these people that speak and play on the biggest of stages, there's a reason they say the same stuff all the time. Because the audience is different at every tour stop. Right. There's a reason they play the same set list all the time. The audience is always different. So as you're building audience through your content, if you have the stuff, and this is one of the content pillars, core content, the stuff that's like really at your core, that's true to you. It's a foundational business principle. It's part of your ethical makeup. It's just something that you really believe. Everybody needs to know. Why is it that in that NAR study in 2022 did 70% of the entire country still think you need 10% or more down payment to buy a house? Why? Why make it my mission to get that knowledge out there.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

If you do that over and over and over again, more people will get that message. If you do it once or twice and then stop because you get bored of it and the audience members that find you five and six months from now aren't going to get that from you.

[Jeff Zimfer]

It was just popped in my head with stories. And I know you, you know, you talk about sharing success stories and failure stories. Stories, clients, client stories. What I thought about there is how many loan officers let. You now are listening who have closed a buyer at less than 10% down and have not talked about that as a story.

[Kyle Draper]

You know what I mean?

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah. Like, that's.

[Jeff Zimfer]

To me, that'd be a really obvious of like, let me tell you, I just worked with this.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Need a little more Coaching with their storytelling, probably. Let me tell you here.

[Jeff Zimfer]

But isn't that an easy to go to bucket?

[Mike Ferrassi]

Let me give you the example. Right. Okay. All right, straight to camera two. Hey, I'm Joe Blow. Ello at ABC Mortgage. And I just closed a loan in four days. So what? That's not a story gives a shit.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Nobody cares.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah. Why? Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Why did you have to close that loan in four days?

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Was it a family who had a deal fall out, but they needed it to close in four days because that beat the registration deadline in this school in the district that they wanted their kids to attend? Those are the human stories that people want to hear.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

The chest thumping.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Look at me.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Oh, my gosh, nobody cares. And it makes you look slimy and salesy. It's not good. You are not. Shouldn't be looking at you because you know this. You are not Luke Skywalker. You are his lightsaber. You are not Indiana Jones. You are his whip. You are not Captain America. You are his shield. You are the guide. You are the trusty tool that the hero of the story uses in order to get across the finish line. It's not your finish line. It's theirs. So if you can tell those human success stories from the hero's perspective and maybe toss in a little bit about how you guided them across that finish line, then you're really starting to hit on something.

[Jeff Zimfer]

So one simple takeaway from that awesome example would be if you just position yourself more as the guide in the story, not the hero. Because the client is the hero.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yep.

[Kyle Draper]

Right? Yep.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Whenever somebody gets to the summit of Mount Everest, you never hear the Sherpa's.

[Kyle Draper]

Name.

[Mike Ferrassi]

But they're the ones who have done it multiple times.

[Kyle Draper]

Wow.

[Mike Ferrassi]

You know, that's good.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, so tell stories. You're the guide, not the hero. Okay. What are the three E's?

[Mike Ferrassi]

Three E's are educate, entertain, and emotions. Those are the three things that you can do to grab somebody's attention and hold it in your content.

[Kyle Draper]

Okay.

[Mike Ferrassi]

A lot of people focus on education because we expert in things all day, every day, and that's the easiest thing. But almost anybody who's posting content now can hit on one of those E's in any given piece of content that they want.

[Kyle Draper]

Okay.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Attacking multiple is really how you can make your content stand out. I like to focus on emotion first. That emotional reaction in the first five to 10 seconds, maybe it's in your hook. Huge. My favorite way to do that is problem identification and just relating to the problems that your target Audience has, hey, are you looking to buy your first house in Orange County, California? Sucks, doesn't it? I live here, too. Like, it's expensive. It's crazy. That identifies a problem and empathizes with them and lets you know. Lets them know that you understand. And that gives you permission to then say, but it might not be as tough as you think. There's a couple solutions to this, one of which almost completely overcomes your down payment. Shoot me a DM or give me a comment with the word zero down and I'll reach out to you personally so we can have this conversation. Because you're not going to want to miss out on this. Keeping it high level, including a feel free to reach out to me. Call to action, very important. But what we did was elicit an emotional response by identifying their problem and then educate them about a solution to that problem. You don't always have to give them all the details of the solution. You just have to let them know that there is one, because they probably don't know that.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And that's a technique. That is a tactic, I would say, which is, yeah, you're selling the problem more than the solution. The solution is correct. DM me, let's grab a call.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Correct. The solution is you don't need all of that down payment to buy a house, like, in your back pocket solution. You know it's a product, you know it's a down payment assistance program. You know it's a grant, whatever it is that you've identified. But the way that you get people's attention off the bat is to elicit that emotion. And the most effective way to do that is by problem identification. Because as human beings back to our caveman days, we are wired to run much faster away from pain than towards pleasure. Like, oh, these berries look great. I would like to taste those berries. But if that tiger eats me, I'm not gonna get to. So I'm gonna run away from the tiger faster than I run towards the bush. You know, like you identifying those pain points that you solve through your problems. Great tactic to use in your hooks in the openings to kind of gain some viewer retention there and then follow that up with some education. And if you are bold and you want to try to entertain, do so. Yeah, I'm going to ask you about that. Even if you become the mortgage guy around the corner who's full of terrible dad jokes, it's better than not being known. And everybody tells a bad joke and it goes over poorly, so it makes a human more relatable. Too.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

But if you want to toss in a joke, if you want to, maybe you're. Maybe you're in a funny place. I don't know. I used to, I used to record some videos for mortgage companies literally in front of dumpsters.

[Kyle Draper]

Oh, wow. Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

It was an arbitrage that they were executing on low FICO score borrowers. And Sarah did like our most mortgage lenders telling you that your credit belongs in there.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Oh, see, that's good.

[Mike Ferrassi]

You know what I mean?

[Jeff Zimfer]

That's a good tie in.

[Mike Ferrassi]

But it was, it was stuff like that. It was like, is this guy really in front of a real life dumpster? It's like, yeah, real life dumpster. Like that's, that's kind of.

[Jeff Zimfer]

But let me. So here's the question. How do you deal with or address the more analytical people? Because there's a fair amount of analytical people in the mortgage industry.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yes.

[Jeff Zimfer]

I would say different than real estate side.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

So those that maybe don't have that lane of like, oh, I can piece these two together or you know what I mean? They're all about numbers, products, structure, deals, things like that.

[Mike Ferrassi]

So lean into it or outsource your content creation.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Because when it comes to analytics and math, like there is nothing that turns the general population off faster.

[Kyle Draper]

Sure.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Than when you start to give them math to do.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Like dto.

[Mike Ferrassi]

No, don't do it. Don't do the. One of the best ways credit. My friend Dan Green, who explained DTI the best I've ever heard it and I've stolen it from him, said if you spend $43 a month or less out of every 100 pre tax dollars you make on your mortgage payment and stuff that shows up on your credit, you qualify. And like, there's no percentages, there's no math, there's no like that's. The key to solid communication of those complex topics is, I don't want to say dumbing it down. It's just ultimate simplification.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

If you can say it to a fourth grader and they will understand it. And this works B2B. Also, I always made the joke that if, hey, when I was in product management, I was like, hey man, my daughter's in third grade. If I can explain it to her and she understands it, then I have a chance that a loan officer can understand it too. All due respect, obviously, but those are the types of things that you got to think about. So when you get into the real analytical side of things, that could just be a different target audience. You could just Be dealing with a more affluent.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Well, let's say you're up in the Bay Area and there's a lot of engineers and stuff like that.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Exactly. Then you can break stuff down systematically. Then you can dive deep into the numbers. Then you can. You just have to adjust your expectations based on the audience that you're targeting.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, let's riff on this a minute. I'm just keeping an eye on the clock when I'm sure I get a couple things in platform choices. Any directional advice for those that are, you know, like where should I post? You know, all that.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah. So the simple answer that everybody and everybody's going to give you is everywhere.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah. Right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

We know that's not right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Post it everywhere. And the trouble with it is that it is right. But what nobody is saying.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yes.

[Mike Ferrassi]

What nobody is saying is you shouldn't start there.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Well, you can't if you're just a one man shop.

[Mike Ferrassi]

It's a real easy way to burn out in two weeks.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

So start in your digital home.

[Kyle Draper]

Okay.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Where you hang out already.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah. Are you spend most of your time on Facebook, on Instagram? I'm a LinkedIn guy. I know you're big on LinkedIn. We're both big on YouTube. Wherever you are most comfortable digitally, start posting there because you probably already have the most connections or followers there.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

And you will be most comfortable with that platform and its tools.

[Jeff Zimfer]

You got to get reps. That's right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Once that becomes a muscle that you work every day that you don't even think about anymore, at that point, add in an extra platform.

[Kyle Draper]

Okay. All right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

And. And baby step your way into posting more. If you are creating zero pieces of video content per month, don't try to start going daily. Start with like once or twice a week on one platform.

[Kyle Draper]

Right, Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

If you're already posting twice a week, take it up to Monday, Wednesday, Friday on two different platforms.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

It's really important to baby step your way forward and look out for your future self with stuff like this because it's really easy to find yourself burnt out a lot quicker than you think. And the worst thing that you can do is burn yourself out. The second worst thing that you can do is not track your lead attribution that I've seen happen. Like if you're not. When you make contact with new people, actively ask them, hey, have you seen any of my social media content? And make note of it if they say yes. If you get a referral actually had this happen to somebody. A loan officer was doing content for A little over a year was actually working for them. They were getting a bunch of referrals, but they didn't know it because they met three really top producer, top producing real estate agents their area through their content. They didn't notate it or log it anywhere. And every single referral that they got from those three agents, mentally, was just referral business.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Not social media, not attributed to the content strategy. A little over a year later, they figured, well, content's not working, I'm not getting any business from it. So they stopped. Guess where the business from those three agents went to someone else away. Because they originally connected on platform and when they were off platform, they weren't top of mind anymore.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Interesting.

[Mike Ferrassi]

And they shut down a strategy that was actually working for them because they weren't keeping proper attribution details. And it doesn't have to be huge, it just has to be enough.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

How'd you hear about it still that, hey, yeah, this is working.

[Jeff Zimfer]

How'd you get here today?

[Mike Ferrassi]

And I like to tell people to ask it two to three times throughout the sales process as. Because even if your content isn't working to bring new people into your sales funnel, if it's helping work people through your sales funnel.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah, right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

It's just as valuable.

[Jeff Zimfer]

All right, quick question then.

[Kyle Draper]

On.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And this may change based on platform. Like, I think about this in the context of Instagram. A lot of people that I know have asked about agent content versus consumer direct content.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yes.

[Jeff Zimfer]

You can specify it per platform if you like. But what do you say to that?

[Mike Ferrassi]

Agent Content vs Consumer Direct on Instagram specifically.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Let's just take Instagram specifically.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Okay. So Instagram's a tough place to be.

[Kyle Draper]

Why?

[Mike Ferrassi]

There's just so much content.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

A lot of people are posting the arbitrage that existed on Instagram five, six years ago.

[Jeff Zimfer]

But there are people that are doing well, of course, on Instagram.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Of course. And those people that are doing well are finding their tribe and being happy with what they have within that. So I think the key to success on Instagram is again, like with anything laser, focus on a target viewer base and then maybe a little active outreach, finding people that exist in that target viewer base, follow them, I guess, interact with them.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Not to interrupt you, but I think it comes back to strategy. For instance, one, one of my clients, I work with, Travis Newton up in Oregon, if you know him, soon as you want, shout out Travis, what's up?

[Mike Ferrassi]

Reach out Travis. I don't know.

[Jeff Zimfer]

You should know, Mike, for sure, we'll get you the book for sure. At a minimum.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

He made a conscious choice in that the content he was posting on Instagram was intended for Realtors.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Because he wanted to build his Realtor base, which he has and he gets tons of referrals. His business is up 40%, I think. So he's making a conscious choice and.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I think that's what it comes back to.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And we said at the beginning of strategy, who are, who's your ultimate viewer you're trying to reach? However, as you so intelligently pointed out, it's hard to grow on Instagram and reach consumer direct.

[Mike Ferrassi]

It's difficult.

[Jeff Zimfer]

So is the better, smarter play, you know what I mean? To get the local Realtors in your, you know, content strategy because you're. That's going to pay multiples versus I'm trying to get, you know, lots of.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Consumers for the quickest wins.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Attacking referral business is going to work faster.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

It's just, it just makes sense.

[Jeff Zimfer]

But it's okay to mix it up a little bit on your feet.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah. There are fewer people creating. There are fewer mortgage professionals creating content for Realtors.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yes.

[Mike Ferrassi]

So your competition is, is far less.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Good point.

[Mike Ferrassi]

And Realtors on that platform will appreciate it even more so because you're speaking in their terms. And a lot of the Realtor focused content that you post is going to have overlap to a consumer direct audience also, especially if you're talking about investment properties and stuff. A lot of your investment content that's targeted towards real estate agents.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Your real estate agent might be the borrower.

[Kyle Draper]

Sure.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Self employed as well.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Those types of loans.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I, I really like the, the B2B messaging strategy above and beyond.

[Jeff Zimfer]

When you think about it.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Each one of those prioritized higher than.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

The consumer faces about the ROI on the customer air quotes.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Which is. So I have a consumer.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And that has how much, how much potential does that have to feed me additional business versus if I land a Realtor. That's right, Right. Or whoever other financial referral partner.

[Mike Ferrassi]

And for the people who have the resources, be it time or money, you know, wonderful equation.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

It's either going to take your time or it's going to take you money. If you have the resources to throw at both audiences and you really want to be the go to in your market for both of those audiences, then maybe it's a whole content strategy for B2B and referrals and a whole content strategy for B2C and they exist on separate Instagram profiles that are customized for each audience.

[Kyle Draper]

Okay.

[Jeff Zimfer]

All right, cool. So for the last few minutes we've got left, let's jam for a few minutes on AI baby.

[Mike Ferrassi]

AI.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Like I'm reading these things that, you know Tom Bilyeu, the co founder of Quest Nutrition.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

He's obviously a big influencer now. So one of the things I've seen him post a lot lately is that, you know, within what, three years, call it, 90% of the content is going to be AI on social media. And so he's talking about building communities. But I wanted to talk about in the context of what, what's your hot take on competing with AI? Whether that's the, you know, robot, you know, the fake. Whatever. Whatever you call it. You know what I'm saying?

[Mike Ferrassi]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

The avatar. That's not me, but it is me.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Correct.

[Jeff Zimfer]

You know, all that humans seek.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Humans, sure.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Ever since we existed.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

And that's not going to stop anytime soon. It's, it's in our DNA. So what I am finding just in paying attention to myself when I scroll through a feed of any kind, tick tock, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, whatever, we are live time, actively building internal AI filters for ourselves.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Like we're just looking at bullshit detectors. We have to be, because. And if you want to prove it and you're not doing it, go to any post that looks kind of cool and hop into the comments. And one of the first five comments is probably going to say, ah, this is AI or is this real? Or some. Something along those lines. Because everybody's trying to weed out the, the noise. And I think that we are being conditioned to classify AI generated content as noise. And I have a theory that especially on social media, I think two to three, maybe five to six years from now, the talking head person talking to you person to relate to type of content that's going to do the best is going to be the stuff that you literally can't fake. Because the prompts are so specific, it would be time prohibitive to do so. So it'll be the content where I pulled out my phone while I'm walking my dog. I address that. I'm walking my dog, I show my dog, I'm walking around. There's houses in my neighborhood, maybe there's a street sign that actually exists in the background. The little minute detail, the things that AI is going to get wrong about a larger environment. Those things I think are going to start performing better than things that look like the stuff we're watching right now. Because the, the podcast studio the lot like this looks and sounds.

[Jeff Zimfer]

This could be a fake background. We could be AIs 100%.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I, I saw a clip from a podcast where Jesus Christ was interviewing the devil the other day.

[Kyle Draper]

My God.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I saw another one where a gorilla was vlogging in the woods about how he thinks he can beat up 100 men.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Or whatever. Yeah, like, like these things are out there now.

[Kyle Draper]

Right?

[Mike Ferrassi]

And you know that they're fake because those are audacious purposely.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, yeah, but they're good.

[Mike Ferrassi]

They look good, they sound good. And if anybody hasn't look up the recent demo that Google showed off about their AI video creation stuff.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Unbelievable. And there's rumor that that's going to be rolling directly into YouTube.

[Kyle Draper]

Really?

[Mike Ferrassi]

It's possible that you might be able to create a short straight in YouTube. So it's like, okay, well here's, here's the trash. Anybody can post anything. So it's about finding ways to differentiate yourself and identify yourself as real. I've already started in my content sessions with clients when I'm coaching a client through making their content. That's what, that's what we do. Red button media content systems. And it all starts with a one hour content session once a month with me where I coach you through making your video content. I've started instructing our editors to leave in some of the ums and us and the awkward pauses and the fumbles over words and things like. Because those are the things that AI will not do for much longer after it starts replicating our stuff from a couple selfies in our camera roll.

[Jeff Zimfer]

It's made me think about. And this is back to what Bill, you said. You know, he's the whole community's thing. And then people debate, well, audience or community, what's the difference? And I think the difference is connection and engagement is the difference. And then like he talked about actually live streaming making a comeback because it's pretty hard to replicate that.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Ferrassi]

So I can't, I can't disagree with that. Yeah, yeah. Live is, Live is great.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Even if it's like you said, the live walking the dog, whatever. It's, it's just some type of a real in, you know, in your life experience. Could be a live stream we do officially set up and we can tell it's live because. Hey, Bill, see you in the chat. Like, you know, that's right. All that.

[Mike Ferrassi]

That's right. Or, or you maybe, maybe you pull out your phone and make a couple shorts while you're in the city and it's Busy because you know there's going to be a couple cars randomly honking or you're going to get interrupted and bump in, bumped into when you're walking down the street. Like those type of real.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Some people make an argument that AI will be able to duplicate that.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I'm. I'm sure I will be able to duplicate that. But the odds of that passing somebody's BS filter is, is going to be much higher than something where it's a gorilla talk.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, I think there's, there's, there's amazing applications for AI.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I agree.

[Jeff Zimfer]

In the right context, of course.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I, I mean it's never, I don't want to say never. Never say never. I can't say that it's never going to replace us because I still say thank you to chat GPT every time I use it.

[Jeff Zimfer]

You are wasting so much computing power.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I know I'm wasting computing power and I feel like our computer overlords appreciate.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Appreciate and invade. This is the guy who said thank you.

[Mike Ferrassi]

That's right. I want to, I want to be on the side of the, of the.

[Jeff Zimfer]

People that were appreciating the whiny who never cared.

[Kyle Draper]

Right.

[Jeff Zimfer]

All that kind of stuff.

[Mike Ferrassi]

That's right. We'll be in the thank you camp.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Well, look, for those who want to connect with you more, tell us how they do it.

[Mike Ferrassi]

If you are a founder, a CEO, a sales leader, an executive who knows that this digital visibility through content is important, but you don't have the time for that stuff, hit me up over@hitthered button.com. that's my website. That's what we do. We specifically implement and strategize around content systems for founders, executives and sales leaders. For people who are looking to kind of DIY it. But the best kind of DIY meaning with a little bit of help, head over to Amazon and pick up, rethink everything. The power of Video for business and sales. Very specific and very meaningful title. This is not just about video. This is video for business and sales.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, it's, it's a, it's like we said at the beginning, it's no longer just about the why even though the Y is in here. From Kyle. Shout out. Once again, Kyle.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Too many shout outs. Take that one back. Never mind Kyle.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Delete that. Delete that.

[Mike Ferrassi]

Oh, and I'm Mike Ferrassi on. On Instagram or not on Instagram? LinkedIn, LinkedIn. I'm the Mike Ferrassi on Instagram. But that's not where my main audience is. I'm an Instagram. I keep saying, you got me in this Instagram mode, man. I'm a LinkedIn first guy.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yes.

[Mike Ferrassi]

That's my digital home. So find me there, shoot me a connection request, I will accept it and let's chat. Whatever. Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

What I always ask the listeners and viewers to do is I'm gonna link all your stuff up in the show notes, but get on, check out his website red button. But also go to LinkedIn, follow him and DM him and say, what's your one big takeaway from today's conversation? I want anybody listening or watching to let you know what that is.

[Mike Ferrassi]

I would love that. That'd be fantastic.

[Kyle Draper]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimfer]

All right, Mike. Well, we have an event to go to. Mastermind Summit, man.

[Mike Ferrassi]

That we do.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Let's do it. Everybody listening. You know what to do. Follow Mike, hit the red Button, get on LinkedIn, and if you like this, share it with somebody else who you think might find value. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you on the next one.

[Kyle Draper]

Bye for now.

[Jeff Zimfer]

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.

[Kyle Draper]

Sam.