Target Smarter, Close Faster: The New Way to Grow Agent Referrals

Summary

Mortgage Marketing Radio: "Target Smarter, Close Faster: The New Way to Grow Agent Referrals"

Release Date: April 23, 2025

Introduction

In the April 23, 2025 episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio, host Jeff Zimfer delves into a pressing challenge faced by Mortgage Loan Originators: optimizing agent referrals to grow business efficiently. Titled "Target Smarter, Close Faster: The New Way to Grow Agent Referrals," the episode features a conversation with Eric Levin, co-founder of Model Match. Model Match is a pioneering platform designed to revolutionize business development for mortgage professionals by leveraging data and intelligent matchmaking.

Understanding Model Match

Eric Levin begins by outlining the essence of Model Match, describing it as a comprehensive solution for full-funnel business development in the mortgage and real estate sectors. He explains,

“Model Match, I mean, I like to describe it as full funnel business development... from identification of opportunities through engagement, through a process of action, steps through better conversion, reporting, visibility, collaboration, all of the above.” ([02:44])

Levin emphasizes their background in recruitment and business development, which informed the creation of a platform that simplifies and enhances the process of finding and nurturing referral partnerships.

The Importance of Data and Intelligence

Jeff Zimfer highlights the platform's reliance on data as a form of intelligence, comparing it to the loan origination process:

“When you identify someone through intelligence... it's like a pre qual if I'm looking at it like alone, you know?” ([04:50])

Levin concurs, discussing how Model Match integrates vast datasets, including NMLS and real estate data, to provide actionable insights. This integration allows loan officers to pinpoint agents who not only align with their business goals but are also actively contributing to their referral pipeline.

AI and Curating Information for Efficiency

The conversation shifts to the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in enhancing the platform's capabilities. Levin explains how AI helps in curating and delivering relevant information without the user having to perform extensive searches:

“What it tells a story that you can then go tell to help either convert that agent into a new relationship or better yet, pick up more market share with someone you already have a connection with...” ([08:46])

He provides an example where a user inputs their NMLS ID, and the system identifies agents with direct or indirect connections, streamlining the outreach process.

Real-World Use Cases and Examples

Levin shares compelling use cases demonstrating the platform's effectiveness. One notable example involves a loan officer who discovered through Model Match that a top-producing agent was inadvertently sending government loan business to competitors:

“I said, well, I'm in Model Match right now, and I can see clearly that I don't get all of your business... ‘I didn't know that you wanted that business.’” ([14:10])

This revelation allowed the loan officer to address the issue directly, leading to improved referral flows and strengthened partnerships.

Another instance highlights a user who needed to refer a disabled veteran to a suitable agent. By using Model Match’s geographic and specialty filters, the user identified agents proficient in VA lending within the desired neighborhood, resulting in new referrals and expanded business relationships. Levin states:

“He ended up getting obviously an agent, a new referral, but he made a connection with two others that are now referring him business.” ([12:36])

Data Management and CRM Integration

Jeff raises the critical aspect of data management post-identification of potential referral partners. Levin explains how Model Match integrates seamlessly with existing CRMs and offers robust contact management features:

“You can filter, you can sort, you can report by any number of things... fully integrated with Gmail, with Outlook.” ([24:28])

This integration ensures that loan officers can manage their outreach and maintain organized records within a single platform, enhancing productivity and reducing the likelihood of missed opportunities.

Platform Features and Roadmap

Looking ahead, Levin outlines upcoming enhancements to Model Match, focusing on increased efficiency and deeper data integration:

“Everything we do moving forward is another step towards greater efficiency... we're pulling in over 400 million transactions into Model Match right now.” ([27:05])

Planned features include advanced geographic property searches, life event tracking, and expanded reporting capabilities that allow for comparative market analyses. These developments aim to provide users with even more precise tools to identify and engage with high-potential referral partners.

Conclusion

As the episode concludes, Jeff encourages listeners to explore Model Match by visiting modelmatch.com. He underscores the platform’s ability to streamline agent outreach, enhance data-driven decision-making, and ultimately drive business growth. Levin adds a final note on the platform's commitment to continuous improvement based on user feedback:

“I lean on people like you... a lot of times I find out that the answer is well we actually do that.” ([31:31])

Key Takeaways

• Model Match offers a data-driven approach to identifying and nurturing agent referrals, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness.
• AI Integration allows for intelligent curation of relevant agent connections, minimizing manual search efforts.
• Real-world use cases demonstrate significant improvements in referral flows and business growth through targeted outreach.
• Seamless CRM Integration ensures that data management and communication are streamlined within the user’s existing workflows.
• The platform continues to evolve with a roadmap focused on increased efficiency, deeper data insights, and expanded functionality.

For Mortgage Loan Originators seeking to optimize their referral strategies and grow their business intelligently, Model Match presents a robust solution backed by comprehensive data and innovative technology.

Learn More

To explore how Model Match can transform your mortgage marketing efforts, visit modelmatch.com and take advantage of their 14-day free trial to experience the platform’s capabilities firsthand.

Transcript

[Jeff Zimfer]

Have you ever spent hours chasing down leads only to realize you've been focusing on the wrong agents, the ones who aren't sending you any real business? It's frustrating, right? You know that you need to grow, but time and energy are in short supply. Well, imagine if you could pinpoint the agents who are already closing deals, some that are even tied to you right now. And know exactly where to focus your outreach to maximize results. You're listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio, the podcast that helps mortgage professionals ditch the old school tactics and get real results in a modern market. My name is Jeff Zimfer. I'm your host and coach in this journey of of modern mortgage marketing. And today on the show, we're diving into one critical question. How do you stop wasting time on the wrong people and start focusing on referral partners who are truly aligned with your goals? And to help us answer that, we're joined by Eric Levin, co founder of Model Match, a platform built from the ground up by recruiters and business developers who understand the real estate and mortgage game from the inside out. In this episode, you can look forward to learning three key things. Number one, how to identify hidden referral opportunities in your own past deals. Number two, why most loan officers are leaving business on the table without even knowing it. And number three, how to build a smarter, more intentional outreach strategy that actually sticks and produces. And there's something surprising. We'll uncover how a quick data search revealed a top agent was unknowingly sending government loans away from their preferred loan officer simply because no one asked the right question. So if you're ready to stop guessing and start connecting with the agents who can actually move the needle, then stick around for this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. Eric Levin, welcome to the show.

[Eric Levin]

What's up, Jeff? Thank you for having me, my man.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Hey, you know, just two amazing minds gathering together to talk about where are they?

[Eric Levin]

Where are they? I see one the U. I don't know where the other one is.

[Jeff Zimfer]

We're here to talk about all things mortgage, real estate data, big data, perhaps AI. We're here to talk about how Model Match helps make my life easier as a mortgage loan officer. How's that for a setup?

[Eric Levin]

I love it. Are we done? Is that it? Drop the mic.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Let's put a link in the show notes.

[Eric Levin]

Let's go.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Go check it out at Model Match. Com. What else do you need to know? No, seriously, this is a really timely conversation. I was just talking to somebody earlier about being focused with your sales related activities because we're all strapped for time. We all want to work more efficiently, we all want to be more productive, Right. And we don't want to spend our wheels working with people that we're not well matched with. So I think that's the first entry point for me setting you up for this conversation. And for those who may not be familiar, how would you describe what Model Match is and does?

[Eric Levin]

Yeah, model Match, I mean, I like to describe it as full funnel business development. You know, it, whatever you're attempting to do, especially within this industry that we call housing, real estate, finance, you name it, mortgage. From identification of opportunities through engagement, through a process of action, steps through better conversion, reporting, visibility, collaboration, all of the above. You know, we, my partner, Drew Waterhouse and I started as recruiters. I mean we, we, we were 100% business development, you know, eat what you kill kind of thing, right? And along the way, early on, 20 years or so ago, I think both of us, independently of each other, were probably sitting in little cubicles just working really hard and then thought, there's gotta be a better way to do this. And not only that, but reaching a point where you think the people that we're helping should be better at doing this themselves. This doesn't have to be rocket science. And so, you know, the concept of Model match really just started off as how do you, how do you visualize business development when you're a human to human, right. People in our industry like to say that one of the things that separates mortgage, banking and real estate sales from maybe other types of sales is that there's such a trust factor involved. And I'm curious to get your take on that because obviously you coach and support a lot of high producing and successful originators and leaders in this industry. But you know, if that's the case, well then the process of business development is probably a little bit different than if I'm knocking on your door and selling you a widget, right. Or something that you have to have. The consumer has options, the originator has options, the agent has options. And so it takes time. But when we started developing this concept of model matching, which was really a process and a verb, before it was a SaaS platform, a software solution, it was let's take core competencies of an organization and match them up with opportunities. So the opportunity could be a loan officer, it could be a wholesale account executive, it could be a branch, it could be an acquisition, it could be non sales for that matter. But you're taking six specific core competencies and matching up those two things and then Once you identify people that somewhat match enough for you to feel like you should get to know them, how do you follow a process to ensure that you can convert and retain those opportunities? Well, why not manage it the same way you manage a loan traveling through the los? You know, when you identify someone through intelligence. And when I say intelligence, I don't mean my lack thereof in my head, but I mean data as intelligence. Well, that's like a pre qual if I'm looking at it like alone, right? It's not alone yet. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a pre qual. Once I'm caught in conversation with someone, I talk to Jeff for the first time, maybe at that point I consider them sort of in processing. They haven't agreed to anything yet, but we're getting to know each other a little bit better once they start agreeing to meet a time, a date and a topic. Now you're an underwriting. The value of the person at that level in the funnel is different than the value of the person that's at pre qual. It's very different. Same way you track a loan traveling through the los. Like I said, once you're at the offer stage now you're at clear to close. You know, once you hire someone, now you're at servicing retention. Right. And there's different things that have to happen along the way. Conceptually, Model Match was designed to create better efficiencies within that process. Where the gasoline got thrown on it though, is when our users came to us and said, I love it, it's holding me accountable. I have better efficiency, better conversion, better visibility into the value of my pipeline, but I don't know who to call. And so how did we solution that? Well, we went and invested in the NMLS data, the real estate data. We didn't, we didn't set out to be focused on being top of the food chain when it comes to data and market intelligence, but that is what happened.

[Jeff Zimfer]

So the market kind of directed the product roadmap.

[Eric Levin]

The market directed the product road. Man, I love that you said that too, because I was on a call with a company this morning who we partner with, but it's not full enterprise. It's relatively big company, well known company, and the president of that company is now we need to go enterprise. How do we, how do we pull this together? And there was a comment that he had made from one of the other executives that said maybe we should build it. And his comment was. And I took the, and I'M trying not to say just promote Model Match, but I do think it's something to think about when you think of your. Yourself as a trusted advisor. Maybe.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah.

[Eric Levin]

What he said was, what I love about Model Match is we kind of get the value of both because who they've become is because of the feedback from their enterprise and partners. And I love that he said that because that is true. It's. We're not a static platform where we're selling you numbers and then you go about your business.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Okay, love that. Love that. Set up six core competencies. That was a bit of, a. Bit of a glimpse into that. Let's. Let's dovetail this back into as. I'm having a lot of conversations with people around the country the past several weeks. We're now, you know, entering Q2 of 2025. You know, there seems to be a lot of this narrative around what's working. And it seems to be, and I don't want to sound cliche, but the word fundamentals comes back. Right.

[Eric Levin]

Always does.

[Jeff Zimfer]

And some people bag on that. And I get it, right, because we're in this new world and AI and things are changing so rapidly. But the bottom line is you opened up with talking about, what is it you said about this is a relationship business? What was that line? Do you remember putting it on the spot?

[Eric Levin]

I thought it was awesome, but I can't remember what it was now.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Anyway. But the point being is, like, this is still, when it comes down to it, in terms of like your referral partners. And if you want to differentiate yourself, look, there's a transactional type of an approach in a relational. Right. And I myself as well as many of our listeners are relationally focused. Meaning if you're, you know, a transactional would be you're buying leads, big box, you know, you're running, running big funnels and spending money and got your systems and all that. And there's. It's a volume game. And not to say that you don't do volume as a, as a relational person, it's just a different approach, right? So it's like Ritz Carlton type volume. But what am I. What is this? What am I really saying? I'm saying is I want to use this conversation today to help loan officers be more focused and intentional with who their outreach is to who they're looking to partner with. And I think you guys really help save a lot of time and effort with that.

[Eric Levin]

Well, that's the focus, right? Let's put you in a position so that you can go into a platform and you can type in some key criteria and it's going to show you these are the agents that you need to be connecting with in your market based upon any number of things. Who they're with, where they do their business, what type of product mix they generally focus on, is most of their business cash or is most of their business finance, or what are the position, what are the percentages in those case? For sure, you know, what we've also found is, you know, you talk about AI and AI can mean a lot of different things, but what I like to think about is how much can we continue to listen to the user and then curate information for them so that they don't have to go search for it. So, for example, if all they have to do is plug in their NMLS ID as an example, and then a system will say, here's the 20 agents in your market that you have some direct indirect property buyer relationships with some connections. So when I show you the property details on the connection with that agent, it tells a story that you can then go tell to help either convert that agent into a new relationship or better yet, pick up more market share with someone you already have a connection with where you don't have to reinvent the wheel. So that's one example of efficiency.

[Jeff Zimfer]

No, I love that. And that's a great example because I want to, I want to kind of go deeper on that because there are, you know, several solutions out there for acquiring data on realtors, loan officers, etc. But what I think that I love about yours, that I've seen through previous conversations and through what you just highlighted there is like in, in, in another world, if I perhaps wasn't using Model Match to find that those associated relationships, I would have some search queries, I would have to go through a list and I would have to spend some time and effort finding those associated relationships. What you're saying is I can just enter my nmls and that will immediately connect me with deals I've closed on the listing agent side, the buy side. Right. Other things.

[Eric Levin]

That's right. Property connections, buyer connections over the last several years. So for example, you did a deal on a property several years ago, that property has now changed again. There's an agent that was involved as the property changed, but you didn't, you weren't involved in that transaction. Well, it's going to show you that story so that you can go back to that agent and maybe reference that property or reference that buyer to be able to engage, you know, Our brains are constantly thinking how can we curate and deliver that type of information? But then how can we also put the power user in a position that once they start going down the rabbit hole, they don't have to go anywhere else to keep going down the rabbit hole? You know, for. I'll give you an example. We. I heard a fun use case the other day where a user was utilizing Model Match to just identify agents that maybe they had some indirect connections with that they hadn't communicated with in the past. And it was, it was working well for them. But then all of a sudden they had, they had pre qualified a buyer that was a disabled veteran. So he thought to himself, well, I need to get this veteran an agent that they can feel comfortable working with. You know, I have an opportunity to refer this to an agent. Well, instead of just picking an agent that they've done business with in the past, he went into Model Match. He searched for agents in that area. So he took a pin on the map, stuck it on the map right where this neighborhood was, looked at the agents that had done transactions in that neighborhood, then filtered it by the type of agency because he felt like he knew which agencies that he felt more comfortable with. And then he filtered it by va. So he found the agents that are comfortable with VA lending. Right. And buyers. And he referred this person to three agents and let the, let the buyer make the decision. Well, so he ends up getting obviously an agent, a new referral, but he made a connection with two others that are now referring him business.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Wow.

[Eric Levin]

But he went down the rabbit hole just one extra step.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, well, that's called using data smartly. And it saves you all the, you know, manual labor of searching and getting on profiles or getting on Instagram and all that kind of stuff. That's really, really cool.

[Eric Levin]

Oh man. Can we talk about that for just a second? I love that you just said that because I definitely agree that a platform like ours, which it does, should show social media links. Like we should pull those things in the background so that you can go to their LinkedIn page, their website, their Facebook page, you name it. And also contact information, email addresses, phone numbers and all that is happening. But I sometimes get a little sideways when I hear about the importance of that connection to social media. Because the connection to social, in my opinion, isn't important, important at all if you don't have a plan for them what you're doing within that social media connection. What are you actually accomplishing? Or do you just get to look at their great pictures and Videos and now you have a new friend on Facebook or whatever. So, you know that goes back to your comment, right? About the fundamentals. Those things should help you build a story so that when you do engage with them, you're further. You're further down. The trust funnel is really where you are.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, I love that. So I'm on your website and we'll of course link this up modelmatch.com for people who want to learn more. More at the end of this. But you have something on there and I might be putting you on the spot, so I apologize. But you're talking about giving loan officers the carrot and the stick and where the closest dollar is right now. Might be something like we were already talking about. Rekindle forgotten arrangements. Find agents sending buyers to other brokers and remind straying ones about prior agreements. Can you tell me a little bit more about what that is?

[Eric Levin]

Well, it kind of goes back to. Wouldn't you like to have visibility into those that are cheating on you? Right, the ones that the agents say, I send you all of my business, when in fact they're not sending you all the business. The funny thing is sometimes. Sometimes they actually think they're sending you all the business, and they're not. Here's an example. I think you and I talked about this the last time we spoke. User of Model Match calls me up one day and says, I'm really happy with you about something, and I'm really ticked off about something. So I said, all right, which is it going to be like? Give me the good news first.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Right?

[Eric Levin]

So. So. So the good news was that he went into Model Match and he saw that his top agent was not sending him all of her business. And this is a pretty big producer and a pretty big agent. And as he drilled down, he realized that all of the govy business was going to other companies. He was getting all the conventional, essentially, but the govy business was going somewhere else. So he picked up the phone and he called her and he said, hey, I thought I was your guy. What's the problem? Is there something I could do to better compete with these companies? And she said, I don't know what you're talking about. You get all my business. And he said, well, I'm in Model Match right now, and I can see clearly that I don't get all of your business. And he named the companies where he sees the business going. And her comment was, I didn't know that you wanted that business. Because he had never presented himself that way. And she had remembered from the past, how he presented. So I said, well, this sounds great. What are you ticked off at me about? And his response was, well, I looked at her volume over the last two years and I did the math. I said, well, don't be ticked off at me. You'd be ticked off at yourself. Just be glad that you can fix that, that going forward. So that's, that's one example, you know, another example that we're seeing huge lift from right now. And, and you mentioned something earlier about, you know, big, big box consumer direct call centers. You know, the beauty that if you own your own data, you own your own intelligence, you now have the ability to compete with those companies as well. You really can be your own servicing retention portfolio. You can be your own consumer direct. What we discovered, you know, a while back was that we were, we were giving all the transaction details to our users. So you can go back to 2017, essentially the beginning of when NMLS was being recorded, and see all properties you've ever done a transaction with. Custom date ranges, you name it, and then you can filter by agent, filter by market, filter by type of product. Okay, that's great. Well, this was really cool. For rebuilding your database or going back and refreshing your database, we're also showing things like, has the, is this person still current in their property? Have they refinanced? Did they refinance with you? Did they refinance with somebody else? And if they did refinance of somebody else, you can do the drill down and see where you lost that opportunity. But better yet, why not put the originator in a position to ask for one more thing? I'm going to build a list for my past transactions. Hypothetically, go back to 2019, pull all of your FHA or VA loans, see the ones that are still current in their home, and then be able to see things like rate loan to value equity, payoff amount, what's the valuations in their neighborhood, a number of email address, phone numbers, contact information for the borrowers. So you could then pull 10 or 20 that meet very specific criteria, pick up the phone, make 20 phone calls, there's a pretty good chance you're going to get a new loan out of those 20 phone calls. And so instead of model match or a data tool just being about identifying new opportunities, what about taking advantage of all the old opportunities that you can make sure that you never lose and pick up a new loan along the way?

[Jeff Zimfer]

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.

[Member of My Agent Classes]

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 job 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 [e-mail] or hit the link in the show notes. Now back to our show. You mentioned housing data in your local area. What are some of the things you can assist with? If I'm a loan officer I'm looking for for deals opportunities and just to give you a bit of context on it quickly is you know I think of in the past working with title companies where I can pull housing data based on how long somebody's been in the house. You know there's certain algorithms that allegedly determine when somebody is more likely to sell those types of things. But what kind of housing data could I get using your system?

[Eric Levin]

So that's a great question and very well timed. So we're very close to to a an update within model match that's going to allow the user to do geographic property searches in a particular market. So you can go in instead of just looking at your transactions or any NML SID transaction or any real estate agents transactions to now go into the market itself and say, you know, hey, show me every property in Charlotte, North Carolina that meets this criteria within any customized date range. Then be able to look at those properties and take action on those properties. What we're not pulling in right now are life events, but that is something that we're looking at doing down the road.

[Jeff Zimfer]

What would be some of the criteria is there like nods? Is it assumable loans? Is it loan type? What is it?

[Eric Levin]

These are more things like product rate, loan to value. Are they still currently in the home? Have they refinanced already? Who is the original lender? What was the original specs on the loan? What's the current loan to value? What's the current Equity. What's the current payoff? What, what's the valuations within the neighborhood or the market that they're in so that you could really do a very pinpointed approach on. These are properties that I want to start taking action on in a particular market.

[Jeff Zimfer]

All right, let me. Let's get a little bit tight tactical back to the referral partner side of things. Maybe keep going with a couple of use cases or examples of. I'll give you the same scenario. So let's just say I've wrapped up Q1. It wasn't where I wanted it to be in terms of numbers. You know, I got a long Runway ahead of me to finish out 25 with some, some big goals. I know I need to grow my. I always ask this question of loan officers. Do you need more agents or better agents? And the answer is both. So if that's where I'm at and I need to get better at identifying the agents that are doing the business and I'm going to develop some type of an outbound strategy for that, take me into your world. How would I log in? What would I do? And your system to help with that?

[Eric Levin]

Well, I'll give, I'll give a use case that came up recently when I was traveling and speaking at an event in Idaho not that long ago. So this company was talking about their goals for the rest of the year. You know, how much they want to grow in volume for the rest of the year. And that was going to be a combination of new headcount, new loan officers, new branches, as well as an uplift with the originators that they currently have. So I threw up a statistic on the screen and the statistic was in major metro markets. So decent size MSAs, the top 20 agents in those markets refer on average to almost 18 different originators.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Pregnant paused on purpose.

[Eric Levin]

Exactly. Right. Well, and I can tell you the owner of the company where I was speaking, I saw, I sort of felt him choke a little bit. Now, here's the beauty with that statistic. The gap between you and your goal might actually be just as simple as looking at the agents who are already referring you business and increase your market share by 5% with each one. That's it. And how is that going to work? You drill down, you look at the properties that they're generally involved in. You consider what's your value proposition. You know, if you're really strong VA and you're only picking up a small percentage of this agent's VA business target va, if there's something Else that you're doing with co branding or co marketing campaigns, target those campaigns. If you feel like doing a lunch and learn and providing some additional education might get you one more unit a quarter, do that. I mean, there's a lot you should know your agents well enough, but the data will kind of be the roadmap or the guide to show you what to focus on. So, Jeff, for just a second, if you think about it as an originator, let's say there's, you know, 20 agents that's on that, that are on that list. If those 20 agents would send you two more units a year.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yep.

[Eric Levin]

I mean, there you are. You probably just surpassed your goal. It doesn't have to be rocket science. It doesn't always have to be I need more agents. Many times it's as simple as you just need to get more market share from the agents you already connected with. You've done the heavy lifting. They trust you enough to send you loans.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, no, such a great point. And I've definitely proved that out with various conversations I've had with loan officers who do, you know, 100, 200 loans a year. And if you look at their, their production count from how many, how many realtors did they get those 100, 200 loans from? It's about a hundred, 150 agents, you know what I mean? Sometimes half of that. But, but to your point earlier, most of the high, high unit loan officers work with a large group of agents and they're not getting right, 20 deals a year. In most cases, they're getting 3, 4, 5, 8 times however many agents they're engaged with.

[Eric Levin]

Well, you know, going back to the, the, how can you pick up more market share? There was a user that told us they were putting a campaign together where they were pulling all the agents that they had done transactions with over the last 24 months. And then they, then they scrubbed that against the agents where they actually physically went to the closings. And they were able to identify a fair amount that they had not gone to a closing with yet. And so all they did to start was, these are the, These are the 10 agents where I'm going to start going to the closings. And what, what did they find? They found that that agent started referring them more business.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Yeah, no, that's, that's a good, good play for sure. Take, let's take this a step further. Okay. So we're talking about leveraging your platform. Scrub data, find targeting agents. Right? Who are you aligned with? All the stuff we talked about already, I know this sounds like a, a layup for you easily. But like, I really geek out on this stuff. And I think, and I think, I think, you know, in a continuum, meaning, you know, we've got somebody who can access data and agent information and do all the things we talked about. But then for many there can be a drop off because it's like, well, what do I do with that now? How do I manage it? How do I organize it? You know what I mean? And I think whether they're using your CRM, CRM, you've got one built in, or they're using their own. How are you seeing Ellos now use that data once they have it?

[Eric Levin]

Yeah, great question. So we started off without data. We started off no NMLS data, no real estate data. It was, it was fully actionable. It was 100% actionable. First, identify opportunities in other ways. You know, many times looking at the other side of a transaction, getting a name and contact information, typing it into a pipeline into your, into your funnel, so to speak, and then beginning to take action on that. When the data came after, it really became very easy to identify opportunity opportunities and then push them into what we had already built, which was a contact management platform that really was the foundation of Model Match, where now you can segment by projects, you can segment by the type of people. Once you pull them into those projects, you're picking up contact information, social media links. We're fully integrated with Gmail, with Outlook. So you can text directly from the software, you can build text sequencing from the software, you can make fun phone calls from the software. So if you're really a power user and you want to now manage everything you're doing inside of the same environment where you're pulling in intelligence, you can absolutely do that. You can filter, you can sort, you can report by any number of things, what stage they're in, tags that you may be adding, you know, tag somebody, priority tag somebody, govy tag somebody, you know, top agent, whatever you want to tag them. But then also partner with everybody on your team inside of that pipeline. Be able to communicate with each other inside. Again, Jeff, think of it like the loan traveling through the los, right? You wouldn't be in a system where the loan officer can't communicate with the underwriter.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Right.

[Eric Levin]

You wouldn't be on different systems. So same concept with the contact management platform and the reporting environment that we built. However, this, you know, this is the mortgage industry. What we also recognize is there are CRMs that companies have invested in and they like to use some of Them, they've built themselves, some of them off the shelf. So we've opened up integrations to be able. Able to directly plug in to those CRMs as well as well as, like I said, Gmail, Outlook and other functionality. Also, you know, the power users aren't just identifying opportunities and then on by the, you know, flying by the seat of their pants, engaging with them, they're actually tracking it and then looking at their conversion rates and then building validating stories out of those things so that when they communicate with the next agent or the next recruit for that matter, they actually have a story to tell.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Wow. Very, very cool, man. What's on the roadmap for you guys? You've got some releases coming. There's a little stuff I think maybe behind the scenes. You guys were. You and I were talking about on the last call A.I. something related there. But what do you want to. For the listeners who are now curious, they're salivating. They're like, okay, I'm curious. We're going to talk about like pricing and how this builds out in a second, but anything you want to share before we switch into that?

[Eric Levin]

Everything we do moving forward is another step towards greater efficiency, towards the ability to do more business in the same amount of time or the same amount of business in less time, towards the curation of information. We're also building out pretty large reporting platforms inside of Model Match so that you can go in and do comparative analysis from geographic market to geographic. So think of the enterprise now, a CEO, a president maybe ahead of digital marketing that wants to work on some campaigns. All of that happening inside of the app. Something else I'm really proud of. And Jeff, remember you're talking to a dude that could barely use his iPhone, however many years ago. This was the concept and the idea might have come from myself and from Drew, but it's the wizards like our head of product, Thomas Eelbinder and his development and engineering team, all in the United States, all W2 employees that understand this business and understand the user. What I'm actually most proud of is that our platform never has a summer break. We're always evolving, we're always adding new features, but we've also made some really hard decisions, financial decisions, timing decisions to be able to build and rebuild in such a way that puts you, the user, in a position where you have no performance issues. I think I just saw that we are pulling in over 400 million transactions into Model Match right now. And so for the user to be able to say, I want to see this this, this go. And for it to populate quickly. You can't do that if you're not built from the ground up on your own SaaS. It can no longer be just data visualization.

[Jeff Zimfer]

Right. Okay, so let's do this for the listeners who want to learn more. Right. There's a link in the show notes modelmatch.com what I like about this is that, is that you've got various options for people across the board based on where they're at, whether they're just wanting to start out and get access to data, you know, and of course, depending on who's listening, maybe you have a platform available from your company that's great. Hopefully you're using it. But if you don't, the. This is why I wanted to bring Eric on is because I've seen probably most of the platforms and it's very impressive the way you guys have integrated it all into one. Seamless, like your user dashboard. The UI is like crazy easy, simple, beautiful. So shout out to your designers and engineers for that. But you've got different plans that people can enter at, so I want to encourage people to go check it out. Like, it's, it's like if you want to get started just on a, on a, you know, on a base level to get some basic transaction data, it's definitely there. And if you want to scale up and do other cool automations and integrations and texting and all that, well, that's there too. Depends on where you're at and what you need. But I think my headline is why I wanted to bring you to the conversation is again, go back to kind of what I opened up with is, you know, how efficiently are you working with your time? Right. We only have certain amount of time in the day. I think you said this earlier, is working with the right people who are doing the right. The transactions. Right. And so that's the first place you got to start with is your outbound efforts. Are those going to be right of your highest and best use?

[Eric Levin]

Yeah, for sure. Are they matched to you, your criteria and your company's criteria? And thanks for bringing up the various plans. You know, we, we, we don't have a sales team. You know, we're completely product focused right now. We're not at conferences spending 20 grand to set up booths and hand out koozies. Like, we're not. If you want a koozie, Jeff, I'll go get that created and I'll send you a koozie, my man. But, but I'm not, you know that's not. We're spending our money on the technology. We're trying to make all of our investments pushed back into the app to create more efficiency for the user. And along the way what we found was we had people calling us saying bry, I'm, I'm not with a company that has an enterprise solution. With Model Match I need, just need these couple of things. It's like you go to the pizzeria and you're like I don't need the whole pizza, I need, I want a slice of cheese right now. Well, our wizards on the engineering and development side were able to permission control our technology in such a way where we could offer that if all you want is local real estate data as an example, well, you could sign up for that and you could get it. What we find though is that around 80% upgrade within the first 30 days because they start using and adopting the platform enough where they want the other things. Jeff. Right. They want the integrations, they want the export functionality. We, we also provide full export functionality in our, in our premium level. So the other thing that we offer is a 14 day free trial. So if somebody wants to go test drive the machine, they could, they can do that 100.

[Jeff Zimfer]

That's what I recommend y'all go do modelmatch.com link in the show notes. Eric, thanks so much for a bringing this technology to life for our colleagues in this industry and then for making time from your busy day.

[Eric Levin]

Thank you. And look Jeff, I lean on people like you. When you hear from those that you coach and you consult and you think boy it sure would be cool if Model Match did X. A lot of times I find out that the answer is well we actually do that. I just need to show you how you can do it within the platform. But sometimes it's that we don't do it and that becomes a use case that then we stick on the roadmap and before you know it, voila, voila.

[Jeff Zimfer]

There it is. Well listeners, you know what to do. Check the link in the show notes and hope you enjoyed this episode. We'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. Okay, that's it for today's episode. Before we wrap up, I just wanted to remind you about my agent classes. Your proven system to double your agent referrals in just 90 days. Imagine never having to cold call again. Instead building real lasting relationships with top producing agents who want to send you business with done for you presentation, 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.