March 14, 2024 • 41 mins
Today, we're joined by Tyler Hodgson. Tyler is the EVP of Growth at UMortgage from Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. A Marine Corps veteran, Tyler founded his own brokerage (NXT Mortgage) after funding only 12 loans.
Tyler is here to discuss: → The impact being in the Marines has had on his life and building his business. → The significance of sales, marketing and relationship building in the mortgage industry. → And how Loan Officers can get better use of social media and A.I.
Tyler Hodgson's Instagram: @chiefloanofficer
Tyler Hodgson's TikTok: @chiefloanofficer
Tyler Hodgson's Facebook: @TylerHodgson
Tyler Hodgson's LinkedIn: @TylerHodgson
Learn more about the Direct to Consumer LO Accelerator here.
Loans On Demand Website: www.loansondemand.io
Loans On Demand YouTube: @LoansOnDemand
Loans On Demand Instagram: @loansondemand
Luke Shankula's Facebook: @LukeShankula
Luke Shankula's LinkedIn: @LukeShankula
Luke Shankula's Instagram: @lukeshankula
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
podcast, the show where we flipthe real estate status quo on its
head and put loan officers intothe driver's seat.
We give you all the tools,strategies, resources, and mindset
needed to modernize your mortgagebusiness and thrive.
My name is Luke Shankula, aka LongForm Luke, and this is the Loans
On Demand podcast.
going on?
Welcome to the Loans On DemandPodcast, the show where we help
(00:25):
loan officers flip the status quoon real estate agents and put loan
officers in the driver's seat.
And I'm excited for today's
episode because today we haveTyler Hodgson.
I think I said that right.
He's the Executive Vice President
of Growth at YouMortgage.
His company has been on the Inc.
5000, I think three years in arow.
Welcome to the show, man.
Glad to have you.
Yeah, no, you.
Yeah, no, thanks so much for
having me here.
Excited to be on today.
And yeah, it's gonna be a goodconversation.
(00:46):
Awesome, man.
Well, give me a little background,
who you are, you know, what hasyou in the industry, what's
keeping you in the industry?And just who is Tyler?
Yeah, I mean, quick background.
I'm a Marine Corps veteran.
I was in the military and gettinginto the mortgage industry, I
actually kind of fell in it likeeverybody else.
I was buying for my VA loan,trying to use my VA loan for the
first time.
I got denied for the loan, but got
offered a job.
(01:06):
I got offered like an accounting
and finance admin position for asmall mortgage company.
And then ultimately they convincedme to get my license.
And I never pictured myself as asalesperson because I went to
college for accounting, went tothe green floor to blow stuff up.
So none of that really has to dowith mortgages or real estate
finance.
But yeah, ultimately got licensed
and realized I'm actuallypassionate about sales.
I'm passionate about mortgages andthe home buying journey.
(01:28):
And I love real estate.
And so things just kind of took
off from there.
And after a short period of time,
I'd closed 12 loans to my name anddecided I'm going to start my own
brokerage.
I'm going to do this myself.
I know everything there is to knowabout writing loans.
If you close 12, you can close anyand started my own brokerage,
started growing a team, addingmore loan officers and growing
(01:50):
over time.
As you mentioned, probably one of
my favorite like accolades is, youknow, being on the Inc. 5000 list
and doing that three years in arow.
So we grew really rapidly.
And I've just loved and enjoyed
the challenges of business andgrowing a team and seeing my team
grow and succeed as well.
And just kind of the journey I've
had as a leader.
And so here we are and continuing
(02:12):
to learn and improve every day.
And yeah, I'm happy to talk about
anything today.
Mortgages, you know, social media,
marketing, sales, leadership,productivity, time management,
accounting, CPA.
We can talk some CPA stuff if you
want.
Yeah, yeah.
We'll bore everybody with theaccounting stuff.
That sounds like a great idea.
Just kidding, man.
But no, seriously, what I was kindof interested to learn a little
(02:34):
bit is, do you think that being inthe Marines helped from the
perspective of, you know, you talkabout time management, you talk
about leadership, like, do youthink that played a part into,
let's be honest, 12 loans andstarting a brokerage, which is
already like a ton of work that isoutside of origination, right?
You have to do call reports, youhave to do licensing, you have to
worry about all that kind of crapand you close 12 loans.
So how do you think that being inthe Marines maybe had some impact
(02:57):
on the way you show up, the wayyou lead, the way you sort of run
your day to day or does it haveany?
Well, even before I was in theMarine Corps, I was always very
like disciplined.
I was an early riser.
You know, I like to just get stuffdone and organized.
I think the Marine Corps just likeput all that on steroids and
emphasize everything.
So yeah, I would say after the
Marine Corps, it just continued tolike, I just want to accomplish
the next thing, do the next task.
(03:18):
I did learn a lot of leadership
principles and stuff from theMarine Corps.
I saw both great leaders andleaders that I did not want to be
like, I almost learned people thatyou're like, I don't like that
person.
I've had bosses and stuff in the
past.
Well, like the Marine Corps has
got a lot of them.
So just, you get a lot of life
experience too.
(03:39):
I mean, in a few short years, in
your late teens, early twenties,you're experienced to a lot of
different life circumstances and Ifeel like quickly mature and grow.
So when it came to starting my ownbrokerage and building my own
business, I just didn't reallyhave any fear of like failing,
like worst case scenario, I just,you know, have a college degree, I
can go back to doing accounting,I've job security and stuff there,
I've got some money in savings.
(04:02):
So it was like, I'm just gonna do
this thing and try this thing.
And I think I can accomplish and
achieve whatever I want.
So yeah, I think some of those
principles, some of them lived inme I yeah, think some of those
principles, some of them lived inme already.
And then some, you know, grew fromthe Marine Corps and the
experience of the Marine Corpshave definitely contributed you
to, know, my success in businessand a mortgage today.
and Yeah.
(04:22):
That's cool, man.
I mean, obviously you can betaught discipline, but I mean, you
know, some of the discipline comesdown to like understanding what
you're doing things for.
And one of the things I've done to
try to be more disciplined,because I mean, I'm ADHD and all
over the place and hard for me tolike focus and do things.
So I have to sort of create habitsaround, I mean, my morning
routines, going to the gym, thingslike that, because I know those
things are going to help my mentalhealth.
(04:42):
And so, man, I love that you'vebeen able to learn from that.
But leadership, obviously, likegrowing a team, what I'll say is
growing a team has been probablythe hardest thing I've ever done.
Because prior to me starting mybusiness, I had never led anybody,
right?I mean, I were in the subway, and
I was a team lead, I guess that'sthe closest to leading people I
got.
And I played soccer my whole life.
And I was you a, know, captain ona couple teams.
But from that perspective ofactually, like, you know,
delegating and leading and givingup control and things like that,
(05:04):
that's one of the hardest thingsI've ever done is learn how to
delegate, man.
So talk me through kind of what
that looks like, from yourperspective.
Like, was it pretty easy to sortof do that right away or that take
some time to develop over time?is still like the hardest one for
me too.
Like, yeah, you just want to do
something right.
You want to do it yourself.
You're so used to doing yourself.
And the reason delegation is so
hard is because it does take moretime and effort to teach someone
else how to do it right initiallyup front than it does to just do
(05:25):
it yourself but when it becomesrepetitive and continuous then you
realize like well this is betterfor someone else to do it if i
train them once they can do it youknow many times over so yeah i
struggle with delegation becausei'm just control freak i like
things exact you know thatmilitary side of me so that's
something I'm still trying toimprove with.
And honestly, you know, early inmy mortgage career, I was like
self-processing all my own loansand like, didn't have an
(05:46):
assistant.
Like I didn't hire my first
assistant until like the end of2021.
So I went through the whole refiboom.
Like I closed over in 2020 myself,like with no processor and no,
I'll just do it on my own loans,you know?
And I know there's a couple other,you know, brokers and LOs out
there who've been like that.
It's like, I was just crushing
myself doing it, but I felt moreefficient doing that.
(06:06):
And really it's a lie.
Yeah.
I told myself, but it took me along time to like build the trust
in someone else to hand that offbecause it was so important to me.
And I think as business owners,that's why it's hard to delegate
because we do care about it somuch and nobody else ever care
about it as much as we do.
(06:26):
So yeah, constant struggle to
delegate.
So you're one of those mortgage
unicorns that is good at thedetails and also pretty good at
sales because that's not typicallya combination, which is why I
think the loan officer position isa very interesting position and
why a lot of loan officers getstuck in that sort of two to three
loan a month realm because they'renot really salespeople.
They should be, right?I mean, I talked about earlier,
marketing and sales is like themost valuable things you can learn
(06:48):
as a loan officer or as a human ingeneral.
If you want to get paid well overthe career, like learn how to do
marketing and sales, and you'realways going to have a job
somewhere because companies alwaysneed marketing and they always
need sales, right?Like how do companies grow?
And so it's an interesting thingbecause as a loan officer, you
have to be detail oriented, lookat all the guidelines, structure
(07:09):
things right generally.
And then you also have to, you
know, be good with people andhaving conversations and making
calls and all that kind of stuff.
And it's like hard to find people
that have both of those things.
And so like, you know, you just
see so many people that kind offlounder because really they maybe
shouldn't be loan officers.
Maybe they should be structuring
deals.
Maybe they should be like a, you
know, LOA or a junior LO orsomething like that.
That's kind of structuring loansbecause they love structuring
(07:30):
loans, but they're not so good atgetting it.
What would you say to someone likethat?
Like, you know, what are the, someof the strategies that you used to
grow?Cause over the time, obviously 200
loans closed, you clearly havefigured out some things on how to
market your business, do somesales.
What does that look like in Yeah,I agree with the unicorn piece.
And when I first started mybrokerage, unfortunately, I built
and structured the brokerage basedon my profile of an LO.
Because we didn't have a lot ofprocessing, we didn't have a lot
of support staff, because I wasjust doing it myself.
(07:51):
And so over time, we've shiftedour team and our company to add
more support for the LOs andrecognize like, okay, LOs focus on
sales activities.
You go find loans.
We'll give as much back endsupport as we can, you know, and
find that happy medium there.
So you can focus on the sales side
of it.
But, you know, I mean, I found a
lot of success.
Like I still don't picture myself
a salesperson.
Like I know I'm a salesperson.
I'm proud of it.
(08:12):
But when you hear the word
salesperson, you just think oflike the negative connotation.
Right, right.
Cold calling, door knocking, like,
you know, sleazy, like hair slicksuit kind of person.
And that's like not the case atall.
So where I found success is justreally focusing on...
It's a relationship-based typesales and relationship business.
And everybody who's listened tothis has probably heard this a
million times.
But it's like relationships and
(08:32):
just having great communicationand speed and building your own
personal brand and people knowingwho you are and what you do.
That's all sales and marketing is.
Do you know who I am?
And do you know what I do so thatwhen you need it, there's an
opportunity you think of me.
I'm very active on social media.
That is my personal brand.
That's who I am.
And I think anyone connected withme on social media probably has a
(08:53):
good sense and a good feeling ofwho I am and would trust me to do
their mortgage.
Even if they're mortgage people
themselves, they would probablypick one other loan officer, do
their mortgage.
I hope they would think of me.
And that's kind of the messaging Itry to portray out there in the
(09:14):
public.
So yeah, I mean, it's hard to nail
it down exactly of like, here'sone thing I did to, you know, get
successful as a loan officer earlyon and go from one to two deals to
four to five to six to eight.
But a lot of it also just has to
do with consistency.
Yeah, that's it, bro.
Consistency.
I mean, that's the hack that
people are looking for is what'sthe hack?
(09:35):
The hack is, well, you got to doit over a long enough period of
time that you actually get good atdoing it.
And you have to do it for a longenough time people actually know
about it because so many peoplelike, they may be a good loan
officer, but no one knows who youare.
If no one knows anything aboutyou, like it doesn't matter how
great of a loan officer or howgreat you can structure loans.
That's why I say sales andmarketing is the most important
(09:58):
thing.
And you're right.
I mean, sales has such a negativeconnotation because we think about
sales as the used car salesman,like you said, the sleazy guy.
But the truth is that ethicalsales is identifying a problem and
providing a solution.
That's all sales is right.
And so many people are like, I'mnot a salesperson.
I'm an advisor.
I'm a whatever.
And I'm like, no, I'm sorry, Mr.
Loan officer that gets paid $5,000
a deal.
You're a salesperson because if
you weren't a salesperson, youwouldn't get paid $5,000 a deal.
I'm sorry.
That's just the reality of the
situation.
(10:18):
Yes.
You're an advisor as well.
Yes.
You're an educator as well, butyou're a salesperson first,
because let's be honest, likeconsumers don't know as well as a
loan officer, if they should buy ahome, right?
Like if you know, they have goodcredit, good income, good down
payment, that's a good time to buya home, right?
If you're planning on staying inthe home for the next five years,
10 years, whatever it is,understanding the situation is
what matters.
And so many people think the sales
is pushing people into productsthat they shouldn't have.
And that's not true, right?It's identifying a problem.
(10:41):
If you're the person that canprovide the solution, great.
If not, point them a differentway, tell them they should wait,
tell them they need credit repair,tell them whatever, right.
That's true ethical sales.
And so I think people just need to
shift the way that they view salesas not a sleazy thing, because
it's true.
We've been conditioned to believe
that sales is a bad thing, right?I hate salespeople.
Well, you hate bad sales people'swhat you hate.
Right?So I know like you do a lot with
(11:02):
social media, you know, so whenyou were first getting started,
was it always kind of easy?Were you able to pick up a bunch
of deals right away?What did that all look like?
Cause I kind of like to hear alittle bit about the struggles.
Maybe you had struggles, maybe youdidn't, I don't know.
Maybe you were also a unicorn andyou never struggled.
I don't know.
not a I mean, I think I got, you
know, kind of lucky early on whereI met a couple of realtors who
were newer to the industry when Iwas newer to the industry.
And I like, you know, young andmotivated and hustling.
(11:24):
We're all trying to find clientsand deals.
And we kind of grew together and Iwas able to help mentor them and
teach them the loan side and themortgage side and answer their
questions.
And I've always had a lot of
success in like newer agents whothen become the more successful
they become, the more successful Ibecome, obviously, and loyalty.
Now you got to be able torecognize when like, hey, this
agent, like, is this a time suckor not ever progressing?
Or I just know this person isgoing to be a, you know, one deal
(11:44):
every couple months kind ofperson.
I'm in them as someone who I seewith a good growth trajectory.
When I first started out, it'slike, I didn't know anything about
social media.
Like, you scroll back to my social
media and look at posts.
Like my Facebook is still as
posted, you know, memories pop upand I'm like, I posted this in
2009.
Like, Oh my God.
I know dude.
I mean, I just delete it and start
from scratch.
Cause I don't want someone to
scroll back and see some of thestupid stuff I said, but it's
(12:06):
funny.
Cause there's a meme went around.
It's like, there's no one I haveless in common with than the
person that posted my post from 10years ago, It's bro.
like such a funny I meme.
a meme that went around that's
like there's no one i have less incommon with than the person that
posted my post from 10 years agobro it's like such a funny meme i
(12:26):
was like oh that's so funnybecause i'm like what the hell was
i thinking back then right it'slike this is like the dumbest but
i guess it's also like back thenit was like luke is feeling like
this or luke is and so you kind oflike post it from that perspective
it's kind of weird but anyway yeahthat's funny that you say that
because i talk about my earlyvideos and sometimes i'll show
people like hey check this outthey're like man, you're so good
(12:49):
at video.
I'm like, you have done thousands
and thousands of thousands ofvideos.
I've been on thousands of zoomcalls.
I met 113 recorded podcastepisodes.
I think this is number one, 14 orone 15.
I've done a lot of video.
Go look at my video from before.
I was hi, my name is Luke and I ama reverse mortgage loan officer.
I have a video like that.
We're going to look back at even
like these, like the poker thisvideo now, now, five or 10 years
from now, and you're that like,was dumb.
Yeah.
why did I say um so much?
Man, Why did I do that?You so one thing I do like, know,
recently you've been doing moretalking on stage, you know, some
of that type of stuff.
(13:09):
How do you develop your ability to
sort of, you know, get up onstage?
Is it, you know, you're practicinga lot or what does that sort of
look like, you know, for anybodywho maybe is listening that the
once I start to do some of that,I'm not a good like, outgoing
person.
I'm not a want to speak on stage
kind of person.
I remember like a college speech
class, like I would just blush andget red in the face.
Anytime a teacher would call onme, I'd have to like talk in front
of people.
So like, somehow just over the
years, by doing more and more andmore, I've progressed out of that
(13:32):
and got comfortable on stage.
I like being on stage for like the
adrenaline rush it gives whenyou're like presenting and like
just it's that elevated, you know,state.
Dopamine.
You know, I still get the fear.
But also just like after the fact,because it's really about like,
what can I give to the audience?What can I do to benefit them and
it's really cool after any kind ofpresentation if someone comes back
to you and validates that likesomething you told them really
(13:53):
meant something to them right soanytime after a presentation and
it could be like hey i spoke on abig stage in front of a bunch of
people when it was motivational orwhatever or even just like you
know i did a training class infront of a couple agents or a
couple LOs.
And they're like, wow, I really
learned something here.
And now I'm going to be able to go
take that back or even just like apodcast like this.
And I'm sure you get it all thetime.
Like someone listens, someonehears, they send you a message,
(14:13):
man, I really learned somethingand I appreciate that.
And so to me, that's what hasreally become like my passion of
just sharing knowledge and sharinginformation and trying to inspire
people so that they can, you Andbest they can be, or they can
potentially learn something fromme.
And so speaking on stage, it'slike, you got to take in small
steps and small chunks.
And I got better because I had to
like speak in front of clients.
(14:35):
I had to speak in front of
realtors, speak in front of my ownLOs.
Like we had our, you know, monthlyteam meeting, a weekly team.
I've got to present something, geton videos on social media and get
on camera and send your clientsvideos.
So over time, you're just going toimprove at it.
And, you know, back to theconsistency concept.
Right, right, right.
You're going to suck at first, to
(14:56):
be honest.
That's the truth.
There's no hack again.
What I love about you said though,
man, I literally just like a weekago, maybe two weeks ago, I had
someone jumping on a call with aguy and he says, right before,
right as we're getting started,he's like, by the way, your
podcast changed my life.
I was like, you're just going to
throw that in casually like that?Like, come on, man.
But you know, it was like prettycool because you know, the podcast
is a lot of work.
You know, obviously I love
actually doing the interviews, butgetting people booked and finding,
(15:19):
you know, podcast editor and aproducer and then getting all that
stuff set up at the beginning,especially is a lot of work.
Now I kind of have a really goodsystem and it's pretty easy for
me.
This doesn't take a lot of my time
other than our interviews orwhatever, 30 to 45 minute slots.
But yeah, it's a lot of work, butconsistency over time.
(15:39):
I mean, I'm 113, I think,published or 110 published.
I can't remember exactly wherewe're at.
And so that same guy has gonethrough like all basically started
at the beginning.
I said, why are you starting at
the first podcast?I sucked at those first podcasts.
And he's like, no, I wanted to seethe journey.
So he started the first podcastand basically worked his way up to
like 90 something podcasts.
I'm like, that's wild.
I don't know.
(16:00):
I've ever heard of anybody
listening to every single one ofmy podcasts, but thank you very
much.
So that's what it's all about,
man.
It is about impact.
That's such a little bit on yoursocial strategies.
What is your philosophy aroundsocial media?
What do you think makes peopleattracted to working with you via
your social Sales is aboutbuilding trust, right?
So we want to build trust.
And the only way that you truly
trust someone is if you feel likethey're authentic and genuine to
you.
If you feel like someone's fake or
disingenuous, then you're notgoing to trust them, obviously.
So the goal of social media to meis not lead generation.
(16:21):
To me, it's brand building andbrand recognition.
So I want to build that trust overtime by letting them know that I'm
authentic and I'm genuine and thisis who I am so that the people who
want to work with me, they'llchoose to work with me.
The people who like who I am, theywill do work with me.
And some people may not, and noteverybody's going to like me.
And that's because I don't needeverybody to like me.
So my social media strategy is alot about posting about just, you
(16:43):
know, who I am, what I'm doing,what this means to me, how it
makes me feel, ask for otherpeople's opinions.
What do y'all think of this?You know, add in my personality
and like, be funny.
And what i like i like the dallas
cowboys and i like playingvolleyball and i like real estate
and i like all these things youknow over time i think people are
just attracted to that they wantto know who you are and it helps
deepen those relationships so thatwhen it is time for them to buy a
house or refinance, or if they'rea realtor looking for a new lender
(17:04):
or a loan officer looking to joina new company, like they think of
you and they remember you and theyfeel like they know you and trust
you.
The weird part about social media
is like, I post a lot, give a lotof information about myself and
other people see that and consumethat.
So they know a lot about me.
I'll meet someone in person for
(17:26):
the first time.
And it's like, I don't really know
anything about them because theypost as much, you know, they may
interact on my stuff.
And like, I recognize their name.
I know who they are.
Yeah.
I don't know like personal thingsabout their, you know, I mean, I
post about my family.
I post about my daughter, my wife
and all that kind of stuff, myfriends.
And so it is a little weird whenyou meet in person and you're
(17:46):
like, but I, I don't know anythingabout you, but you know, all this
stuff about me.
So know anything about them I
agree, man.
Parasocial relationships, man, is
kind of the term for that.
Right.
Which is like, it's kind of likecelebrities, you know, you kind of
feel like, you know, celebritiesbecause basically their whole
lives are exposed.
Right.
It's the same thing, right?If you show up online and showcase
your life, people literally say,man, I feel like I know you.
(18:07):
And like, it's funny, my podcasteditor, she'll hear this, but she
told me the other day, she's like,I feel like I know you like really
well.
Cause I edit every single one of
your podcasts.
I know so much about you.
I know when you're going tostutter on a word.
I know like what things you'regoing to mess up on.
And I'm like, what?I'm like, that's crazy to think.
But it, you know, it's like peoplestarted to see that from that
(18:29):
perspective.
And that's, what's so powerful
about content.
But also the truth is so many
people think that posting businessstuff is what gets them business.
And I have actually found almostthe exact opposite is the business
type stuff is the least engagedstuff, the stuff that gets the
least engagement, but the stuffthat gets the most engagement is
family stuff is, you know,celebrating stuff, you know,
things like that.
And again, I mean, you know, be
authentic, be who you are.
And I hate that word authentic.
(18:50):
Cause obviously everybody throwsit around, but I love the idea of
true authenticity show up as whoyou are.
Cause a lot of people show up astheir perfect version or as the
version they want to showcase aspositioning.
And I've heard that I'm amarketer.
They say that all the time,positioning, positioning,
positioning.
I'm like, I don't care about
positioning.
I want to showcase who I am,
right?I want to repel the people that
aren't like me and I want toattract people that are like me
because the truth is trying toappeal to everyone is a good way
(19:11):
to not be attractive to anybody.
Right.
Yeah.
I like that.
So, you know, from thatperspective, like, I know you talk
about business from time to time,but like, what would you say is
kind of your mix of types ofcontent, right?
Yeah.
You talk about your family.
And so why, right.
I talk about my family a lot,
right.
You posted about the whoop.
I actually reached out to you withtalking to you about the whoop.
Cause we were both, you know, Ihave the whoop.
I've had it since 2020 and not alot of people have It's it.
starting to get more popular, butnot as many people have I'm it.
(19:32):
like, He's cool.
got the whoop because we were both
you know i have the whoop i've hadit since 2020 and not a lot of
people have it it's starting toget more popular but not as many
people have it i'm like cool he'sgot the whoop oh yeah let's
compare notes your recovery todayyou're kind of dry again you must
a red recovery yeah yeah show meyour whoop man how'd you sleep
last night what's your deep andrem look like you know that type
(19:54):
of stuff and that's the type ofpower that you get and i've built
basically my whole business officeof organic social media and
obviously we do paid ads as well.
But my whole network of people
that I've grown over the last fiveyears has strictly been social
media, which is how powerful thisplatform is.
So from that perspective, how muchare you doing business stuff?
How much are you doing personaljust random stuff?
Yeah.
So I wasn't doing social media a
lot, a big step was to get to thepoint of like, I want to post
(20:15):
every single day.
Right.
So if you're not posting a lotcurrently, at least like make your
next goal to be like, I need topost once per day.
So I need to find something totalk about and share at least once
per day.
Sure.
Now I'm at the point where I'mposting like usually three times a
day, maybe twice, maybe fourtimes.
Sometimes like things just startpopping up and now it's like hard
for me not to post aboutsomething.
This will be such a great post.
And they used it so hard.
(20:36):
Like, what am I going to postabout today?
And it just like reveals itself tome.
The majority of my posts, like atleast once per day is pretty much
like, what am I doing like in mylife today?
It could be as simple as like, oh,I was at Starbucks and you know,
they misspelled my name on my cupand we joked about it.
And it was great to see theStarbucks people, you know, like
that's just a day in the life oryou know i'm here at this event
and connected with other people somuch fun like just what am i doing
could be family could be personalcould be a business event could be
at the office this is funnybecause one of my alos shared this
yesterday they're like welltyler's social media is like you
know he's always doing somethingthat's just so exciting and my
(20:57):
life's boring and the elo on myteam was like, do you know what
Tyler's life is?Like he wakes up in the morning,
he exercises, then he goesstraight to the office.
Then he's at the office for like12 hours.
Then he goes home and like putshis daughter to bed.
And then he goes to sleep at nineo'clock.
Like his life is boring.
Yeah, Not doing anything, but like
going to the office every day.
And like, you know, there's still
always something to post about ortalk about.
So you may think your life isboring or mundane or routine, but
(21:20):
like, there's still alwayssomething to talk about every day.
Other types of stuff I like toshare is, you know, shout outs and
recognition of others.
Sure.
People will engage better ifyou're giving shout outs of
others.
The other one is sharing, you
know, third party validation ofyourself.
So like testimonials, but not likeI created this Canva template of a
five star review and like, right,right, right.
And about me, super businessy.
Yeah, the super business.
Like if I get a legitimate textmessage or a message from someone,
(21:40):
like I'll screenshot that and likepost it.
Right.
Like that's the one way I can, you
know, humble brag on yourself.
Yep.
But you know, I try to keep thatto a minimum, but I, you do still
kind of have to share those thingsbecause it does create social
validation.
Right.
It's good.
These other people said it.
It's a of social proof that peopledon't understand is like, yeah,
man, there's a bunch of differenttypes of social proof that you can
use is that, you know, proof ofupward spiral, like just saying,
(22:01):
Hey, like a business is growing,right?
Another social proof is reviews,testimonials, things like that.
Or, you know, maybe you got, youknow, you know like the ink 5000
thing you talked about like thoseare different types of social
proof that doesn't have to bedirectly some sort of like
testimonial right and people arelike oh social proof is just
testimonials it's like no andtruth is no one wants to see that
super cookie cutter canva templatewith the freaking five star and
like most of the time people don'tengage in those things but they
(22:22):
will engage in like a man youtotally changed my life thank you
so much for helping me close thisloan.
Like that's a much better freakingscreenshot than like a fancy Canva
thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like if a client texts me, it was
like, that was bad-ass, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah.
Like people engage in that or, youknow, and then I also post like, I
keep to a minimal, anything that'slike news, mortgage guidelines,
updates.
I do sprinkle those in.
Cause like, especially if I feellike it's actually important and
(22:43):
relevant, I'm not just likeposting it for randomness.
I'm posting it because I'm like, Ithink people actually probably
should know something about this,but I've tried to also communicate
it in a way that's like notjust...
But But you conforming limits.
Yeah, yeah.
Everyone loves the loan limitEverybody loves the loan limits.
Like as if anybody even knows whatthe hell that means, which no one
does know what that means, by theway.
(23:06):
So if you are going to talk aboutthat, talk about it in a way that
actually helps people understandwhat you're posting.
Obviously, I mean, maybe you'reposting it for real today.
Just if that's the audience you'retrying to post to, they may
understand it, but the consumerdoesn't understand it.
Right.
I know you're doing a lot with AI
as well, man.
So talk a little bit about AI,
man.
I know that's a hot topic.
So how are you using AI to, Iguess, make your life easier?
(23:27):
Like are you using it in business,personal?
What's that sort of like?Yeah.
A little bit of everything.
Probably about two months ago is
when I actually like finallystarted like, okay, I'm going to
get on chat GPT.
I paid for like the chat GPT for
membership like for six monthsago, $20 a month is coming out of
the account.
And then finally I was like, I
just started using it.
Like, how do I actually start
using it?Because I think a lot of people,
and probably many people listeningto this is like, it sounds like a
(23:50):
good idea.
It seems great.
And we kind of talked about thisearlier, too.
Like, I'm sure there's all theseuses for it.
Like, how do I actually use it?So I kind of made a commitment to
myself kind of tying back to theconsistency theme.
I was like, I'm going to use chatGPT every single day, at least
once.
So like when I log in in the
morning, I just open chat GPT,just like open my email inbox and
my task list and my LOS.
I just open it up and it's like
(24:11):
going to use it for somethingtoday.
Even if it's something as simpleas, you know, help me pick a good
emoji for this social media postor help me write the social media
posts or write it longer, write itshorter.
It doesn't do a great job alwaysof...
It's not going to just perfectlywrite something for me.
Even though I created a custom GPTthat's supposed to take my voice
and my brand and try to write it,it's just not going to do it.
(24:32):
But it may give me one extra ideaor say something in a different
way that I'm like, Oh yeah, I likethat better.
Right.
I use it for mortgage guidelines.
So I uploaded the mortgageguidelines to my chat GPT and I'll
quickly search something there andI can get an answer more quickly.
in in the can be hit or miss ifit's truly accurate or not, but
quick enough for me to know like,Oh yeah, I recognize that's legit.
I'm not like fully trusted in ityet.
(24:52):
Probably the thing I like to dothe most is taking videos and just
taking the transcripts and uploadtranscripts to either let it
summarize it.
So now I can like review a whole
meeting that I missed or somethingquickly, or, you know, write a
caption or a post or a summaryabout this transcription.
One thing we've done internallywith our team is get all of our
like coaching calls and salestrainings and stuff.
And we upload all the transcriptsto a GPT.
And now like you could ask it aquestion, what's a good strategy
for an LO to talk to a realtor forthe first time?
(25:15):
Oh, well, you know, Tyler Hodgsonrecommends that you do this.
And you're like, oh, wow, likeit's getting a real answer from an
expert LO instead of just somegeneric thing that you may find on
Google.
Right.
But again, it's like, to me, isthat a real use case for an LO?
Like, is an LO going to go inthere and like type that in to
hear how to host an open house orhow to cold call a realtor?
Maybe not.
So a lot of it right now is just
kind of learning and testing.
(25:35):
And when can I use it?
When can I not use it?Things like Excel reports, I'll
just upload Excel or data and liketry to ask it something funky with
it.
Like, can you help me identify
this or that or, you know, certaintrends or thresholds or data
points or filter it into some way.
So yeah, I'm really just like at
this point, if I can try to usechat GPT every single day and try
some new things here or there,I'll kind of learn what works good
(25:58):
and what doesn't work.
Right.
And six months and 12 months and18 months from now, I'm going to
be really freaking good at chatGPT.
Just I'll probably look at what Idid in chat GPT initially and be
like, that was stupid.
That was dumb.
It's like our posts and ourvideos.
But two or three years from now,I'm going to be a chat GPT expert,
AI expert.
I mean, you know, I say chat GPT,
(26:19):
but you know, I'm talkinganything, you know, posts of AI.
And there's going to be loanofficers and real estate agents
that like they still haven'tcreated their account and logged
in and by the you know light yearsahead of them on using this tool
like we know it'll be a good toolnow it's just kind of learning
what is it best to use for wetalked a little bit earlier like
you know from your perspectivewhat do you use in ai for?
(26:40):
I use it a lot.
A couple of different platforms.
I use Opus Clip.
So basically these long form
podcasts, I actually upload a longform podcast to Opus Clip.
It edits it, turns it into shortfor me.
And so I can post that a couple oftimes a week and I don't have to
pay for an editor.
It's like, I don't know, a hundred
bucks a year for that platform.
(27:01):
It's not perfect.
Again, a lot of these platformsaren't perfect.
They're going to havehallucinations.
They're going to mess stuff up.
But man, a year ago, it would have
been considerably harder to edit along form podcast.
I tried having people find goodclips, but it was either like you
pay a lot of money to get theseclips done for someone who is
native to the US or you have tobasically pick the clips for them,
(27:21):
tell them exactly what they needto clip, exactly how you want them
designed, exactly what thetranscript is.
And it's like, okay, after all ofthat amount of time, I might as
well edit it myself.
So there's that platform.
I use ChatGPT almost every day aswell.
I use a combination of ChatGPTplus another platform called Cloud
to basically script out my YouTubevideos that I've been doing.
And so that's been pretty cool.
Again, none of this is 100%.
I use Cloud a lot for my long formposts.
(27:41):
Same as you, I upload, you know,transcripts and you know, go
ahead, look at other YouTubechannels and see, oh, this is a
good script.
I like the way they do it.
Upload, you know, basically getall the transcripts uploaded into
something like cloud, analyzetheir writing style, analyze their
speaking style, and able to usethat to basically create, you
know, better scripting and thingslike that.
Upload, youpload thousands ofviral TikTok clips or TikTok
hooks.
And then say, Hey, help me come up
(28:03):
with some more based off of whatyou've analyzed.
There's a lot of ways you can dothat.
I basically took the 5 toppodcasts that I had that I wanted
to do.
I took the transcripts, uploaded
them in there, and then was ableto create some booking emails that
I was going to start using.
But I've just been too busy with
just people that I found on socialmedia that I haven't even been
able to start using those, butsome pretty cool things that you
(28:23):
can do with it.
And ultimately it comes down to
what you talked about.
Cause I did the same thing when I
first started, I didn't like itbecause I was like the output
suck.
It doesn't speak in my voice.
Like I didn't know how tobasically program it, prompt it,
whatever you want to call it.
So there's some ways.
And you know, I guess a littleshout out, I am dropping a video
(28:43):
on Monday, which by the time thispodcast drops, it's been there.
So go to the loans on a man,YouTube channel.
There's going to be a chattraining that will probably blow
people's minds because you'rereally, I mean, this is a lot of
things that I've learned is like,you have to ultimately train it on
who you are, right?Talk about the business, what your
business name is, you know, giveit like the pains and the desires
of your market, you know, likelittle things like that.
Frameworks for like TikTok videosneed to have a framework.
(29:04):
You need a hook.
What's the hook.
The hook is like the first part ofthe video.
That's going to get peopleenticed.
So you tell it, Hey, follow thisframework.
I want to teach you the frameworkto do viral Tik TOK scripts.
So, you know, you do a hook bodycall to action and you tell
exactly what it should be in eachof these sections.
All of a sudden the outputs getway better than they're just
generic outputs.
So thinking about it from that
perspective, like you have totrain it to get the outputs.
(29:26):
The problem with it is if youdon't know what a good TikTok is,
you don't know what a good hookis.
You don't know good marketing.
You're just going to think it's
good.
So like my suggestion is you got
to get good copywriting.
You got to get good at
understanding what a good TikTokis.
Most people are doing, hi, my nameis Luke and I'm a mortgage broker.
You've already lost the consumer.
You've already lost the person
(29:47):
viewing because you talked aboutyourself for eight seconds and no
one cares about you.
They care about what is it in it
for me.
So again, just some of those
things there, it's like AI is alittle scary because it's going to
just have people putting outcrappy content because they don't
know what good content looks like.
And that's the scary part to me.
So Yeah.
It's not going to be smart enough
(30:07):
to turn crappy content into goodcontent.
Well, and crappy content into goodcontent.
Well, and people need to know,like people need to know the
difference between good and badcontent.
So I have done a lot of studyingfor copywriting.
I've written social media postsfor years.
So what I was able to do is I wasable to upload my own version of
all of my posts that I'd done.
So, Hey, emulate this and just
basically do something like, Hey,what did you notice about the way
you wrote it versus the way Iwrote it?
You know, what can I tell you towrite exactly like I do?
(30:28):
And over time, it got better.
What I found was Cloud just did a
lot better job right out the boxwithout needing all that
additional prompting.
So I started using Cloud a lot
more for that type of style posts.
But there's an unlimited chatbot
that you can build with AI thatliterally has good conversations
back and forth.
It takes a little bit of work, but
you can do it.
There's an endless possibility,
man, with AI.
And there's people that are much,
much, much, much smarter than methat are doing crazy things with
AI.
I'm just using the products right
out of the box, but some peopleare programming their own bots,
(30:51):
things like that.
I have a buddy who created his own
basically like underwriter, right?So kind of like what you do with
the GPT, but just better, right?He built it into the backend of
open AI and he has like all of theguidelines uploaded for Fannie,
Freddie, all that kind of stuff.
So it's like pretty legit almost
every single time.
You can kind of train it over time
to get better and all that kind ofstuff.
So again, there's an unlimitedamount of ways that you can use AI
(31:13):
and it's pretty exciting, but kindof scary at the same time.
It is what it is.
So I like to sort of like closing
these podcasts out with some sortof strategy tactics, something
that loan officers can go outthere today, or let's just say you
were getting started again today.
What would you suggest a loan
officer to go out there today totry to get business basically as
soon as possible?So this is something I did just a
couple of weeks ago that hadpretty good success.
And it seems basic.
It seems simple, but I searched
(31:34):
some real estate agents usingRedder.
You can use MMI, Modex, Redder,whatever one of the softwares you
want to look up, agent production.
And I found some agents in
different counties that had acertain number of buy sides in the
last six months and last 12months.
I was really focusing on thosewhere I saw they didn't have as
much in the 12 months as they didthe six months.
So they're more up and coming, youknow if you try to send a cold
call or email blast whatever tolike a top agent hey they already
(31:55):
have someone they're establishedwith someone right here you are
they're maybe not going to respondto it but if you can do an
analysis pull like twospreadsheets maybe chat gpt can
help with this i did try to chatgpt and i had too much data.
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm trying to figure out how to
do it in AI.
But if I take a 12-month list and
a six-month list, and I say, pointout to me the names that appear,
you know, they have more per monthon the six-month list than they do
the 12-month list.
That shows me someone who's in an
uptrend.
(32:15):
And then I messaged those people
and I just said, hey, you know,sorry for the random friend
request.
I sent them a friend request.
Social.
Yeah, social.
And then waited for them toaccept.
I came back two days later andlike saw who all accepted.
So I sent maybe 10 friendrequests, got maybe 10 accepted,
maybe eight.
And then I sent those ones
messages and said, I was pullingsome production data.
You know, I saw you're one of thetop ranked realtors in the County,
you know, great job.
Sorry for the random friend
(32:35):
request.
I just like to be connected with
other top performers in the area iassume that we'll probably run
into each other sometime soonerlater on a transaction whether the
same buyer or a different buyer orsomething like that and i got
really good response from thosethree of them were like oh where'd
you get that list from likeespecially if they're newer they
don't really know where to findthe production they're like oh how
high ranked was i they may notrealize like they were number six
(32:57):
in the County in the last sixmonths.
Cause they're like such a newrealtor.
They may not know how high theyranked.
So I then scheduled a follow-upzoom meeting with them.
I'm like, let me show you, I'lllog you in.
Like I logged into my redder andlike type their name, like show
them their production and showthem where they ranked.
And like that just built me a acouple new relationships that I
didn't really have.
And so now I'm just, I'm true and
false to those relationships.
So that's probably a good way to
(33:17):
like, just filter, find kind ofthis target audience, you know,
using some data and then try toconnect with them and, you know,
continue to progress them throughthat sales process of like
building this relationship, givingthem some value and see if you'll
be a good fit to work together.
Man.
I love that.
That's a unique one that I haven't
heard so far in terms of that.
Because I mean, you talked about
earlier, like you work with peoplethat are more up and coming and
what most people try to focus onagain is sort of the top producers
(33:42):
and all those guys are getting hitup by everybody.
And the other thing too, is like,why don't we work with a new
agent?I'm like, well, you don't know if
that agent is going to be the nextbig thing.
Right.
And so I like the way you did that
with the six versus 12 months,because that really does show
who's actually growing in thismarket.
Because a lot of people, man, youpull up their 12 or 14 month
(34:05):
production and they look prettygood.
But then you look at the last 6months, like, oh, maybe not so
much.
They had a bump over there still
towards the end of 2022.
They were still doing some decent
business, but 2023 kicked them inthe teeth.
And so they may not have adjustedor they may still be... I mean,
unfortunately, in this market, alot of people just hoped that it
would change and they hoped thatthe rates would come down.
(34:25):
They hoped that the inventorywould stop and they didn't really
change the way they were doingbusiness.
And honestly, I feel like thepeople that got affected the least
by the downturn have been thepeople that were consistent on
platforms like social media,especially loan officers, because
a lot of loan officers got sort ofstuck with the fact that they only
had five or 10 agents that theyworked with.
And while that worked really wellin everything up until 2021, it
didn't really work in 22 and 23.
(34:46):
Because all of a sudden, those
five agents are down 60% in theirproduction, which means you're
down 60% of your production, andyou have nowhere else to get the
deals from.
And so I mean, one of the things
that I talk about all the time islike, you need to have a
consistent way to get business.
If you want to be referral only,
again, I'm a marketer.
I love referrals.
You need to have a systematic wayto get more referrals.
(35:07):
How do you do that?You need to have more
conversations with more realestate agents regularly.
Stop depending on four people.
I mean, unless you just want to be
up and down and not have anycontrol of your business.
But I don't know.
My recommendation is always be
reaching out to new real estateagents.
Yeah.
I'm constantly replenishing my
pool of agents because some of myagents who were my top producers
two, three, four, five years ago,they're not anymore.
(35:27):
Like they're doing more listingsor they just not hustling or they
get so much rev share from theirbrokerage.
They don't need to do I got toalways be adding more Yeah,
absolutely, man.
So if someone wanted to learn a
little bit more about you, connectwith you online, what's the best
place for them to find you?Connect on social.
I'm most active on Instagram andFacebook.
My Instagram is at Chief LoanOfficer.
Facebook, you can search my name,Tyler Hodgson.
And I'm on LinkedIn and TikTok aswell.
But primarily Facebook andInstagram is where I do most of my
(35:50):
Tyler And I'm best, on LinkedInHodgson.
and TikTok as But primarilyFacebook well.
and Instagram is where I do mostof my best content, I feel like.
So I encourage everyone to just,hey, if you want to learn social,
watch what other people are doing.
If you're seeing posts and you
notice you like them and youinteract with them, watch what I'm
doing and just copy what I'mdoing.
Copy any of my posts if you wantto.
right, right.
(36:10):
Yeah.
Well, and what I'll say is this islike, also when you first get
started with something like socialis don't expect the same results,
right?Like maybe you got 30 comments or
whatever, you know, 40 likes on apost, but it's like, the truth is
you've been building theconsistency.
You've been building sort of thatreciprocal relationships with
people by engaging with theircontent over time.
And so thinking that you can justput up a post pretty similar to
what Tyler put, you're going toget crickets mostly, but it's
okay.
My big takeaways from today was
obviously we had a lot of sort ofvalue bombs in here, but it came
(36:31):
down to consistency, consistencyin video, consistency in speaking
in front of people, consistency insocial media.
Like all of this stuff comes downto consistency over an extended
period of time.
And that's when people win, right?
It comes down to doing thefundamentals over and over and
over again.
And I know that sounds unsexy, but
that's the hack.
That's the Can I add one more
thing that like...
Yeah, absolutely.
We didn't mention this the wholetime, but I just thought of it.
(36:51):
And like, when we're talking aboutsocial media, we're talking about
content creation and what are youposting?
And like, to me, that's only halfof my social media strategy.
The other half is me engaging.
So you can't just get on social
media and just post and engagewith everybody else.
Like Luke, you're great at this.
Like you're always commenting on
people's stuff.
You're sharing stuff.
You're responding to the peoplewho commented on your comments.
So just as much as I know, I needto post a certain amount of times
(37:14):
per day.
I also have to log on and like
comment on people's stuff.
And I just see it in scroll.
It's like, if I see it and I stopand I read it, I'm going to
comment and I try to get somewhatdecent comments.
So don't forget, it's not justposting.
It's also engaging with thosepeople as well.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
Right.
The infamous post and ghost that
people talk about, right.
It's like so many times we think
that, Oh, we just post and like,and I see people like, you know,
and I get it.
Like sometimes you kind of get
(37:34):
busy and stuff, but some peoplelike just never respond to
comments.
And I'm like, who do you think you
are?Like these people are commenting
on your post and you don't respondto their comments ever.
Like I get it.
Sometimes you're not going to
respond to every single comment,but like, I just think that's
disrespectful to people.
Most of the time, this is like a
congratulations.
I don't always have to go through
like, you know, thank you to like500 people that said that.
(37:56):
Right.
It's just like, all right, I'll
just love your comment.
I love your comment.
I love your comment.
But yeah, I agree, man.
Engaging with people.
I mean, that's the way you build
relationships.
You don't build relationships by
just posting and, you know, beingon your high and mighty horse.
I just post content and I'm acontent creator, but I don't
respond to people.
(38:19):
Maybe at a certain level, you can
get away with that.
If you grow to a certain point
where you really don't havecapacity and you're going viral
every time or whatever, but that'snot what's going to typically
happen in the mortgage industry.
So yeah, be consistent and engage,
man.
So thank you so much for your time
today, Tyler.
That was a fantastic episode.
And for anybody who is listeningthat is interested in flipping the
status quo on real estate agents,go to flipthestatusquo.com.
Thank you so much for your timetoday, Tyler.
That was a fantastic episode.
And for anybody who is listening
and that is interested in flippingthe status quo on real estate
agents, go to flip the statusquo.com.
(38:40):
Thank you so much for listeningand have a great day.
Thank you for tuning into theloans on demand podcast on loans
on demand podcast.com.
podcast, the show where we flipthe real estate status quo on its
head and put loan officers intothe driver's seat.
We give you all the tools,strategies, resources, and mindset
needed to modernize your mortgagebusiness and thrive.
My name is Luke Shankula, aka LongForm Luke, and this is the Loans
On Demand podcast.
going on?
Welcome to the Loans On DemandPodcast, the show where we help
(00:25):
loan officers flip the status quoon real estate agents and put loan
officers in the driver's seat.
And I'm excited for today's
episode because today we haveTyler Hodgson.
I think I said that right.
He's the Executive Vice President
of Growth at YouMortgage.
His company has been on the Inc.
5000, I think three years in arow.
Welcome to the show, man.
Glad to have you.
Yeah, no, you.
Yeah, no, thanks so much for
having me here.
Excited to be on today.
And yeah, it's gonna be a goodconversation.
(00:46):
Awesome, man.
Well, give me a little background,
who you are, you know, what hasyou in the industry, what's
keeping you in the industry?And just who is Tyler?
Yeah, I mean, quick background.
I'm a Marine Corps veteran.
I was in the military and gettinginto the mortgage industry, I
actually kind of fell in it likeeverybody else.
I was buying for my VA loan,trying to use my VA loan for the
first time.
I got denied for the loan, but got
offered a job.
(01:06):
I got offered like an accounting
and finance admin position for asmall mortgage company.
And then ultimately they convincedme to get my license.
And I never pictured myself as asalesperson because I went to
college for accounting, went tothe green floor to blow stuff up.
So none of that really has to dowith mortgages or real estate
finance.
But yeah, ultimately got licensed
and realized I'm actuallypassionate about sales.
I'm passionate about mortgages andthe home buying journey.
(01:28):
And I love real estate.
And so things just kind of took
off from there.
And after a short period of time,
I'd closed 12 loans to my name anddecided I'm going to start my own
brokerage.
I'm going to do this myself.
I know everything there is to knowabout writing loans.
If you close 12, you can close anyand started my own brokerage,
started growing a team, addingmore loan officers and growing
(01:50):
over time.
As you mentioned, probably one of
my favorite like accolades is, youknow, being on the Inc. 5000 list
and doing that three years in arow.
So we grew really rapidly.
And I've just loved and enjoyed
the challenges of business andgrowing a team and seeing my team
grow and succeed as well.
And just kind of the journey I've
had as a leader.
And so here we are and continuing
(02:12):
to learn and improve every day.
And yeah, I'm happy to talk about
anything today.
Mortgages, you know, social media,
marketing, sales, leadership,productivity, time management,
accounting, CPA.
We can talk some CPA stuff if you
want.
Yeah, yeah.
We'll bore everybody with theaccounting stuff.
That sounds like a great idea.
Just kidding, man.
But no, seriously, what I was kindof interested to learn a little
(02:34):
bit is, do you think that being inthe Marines helped from the
perspective of, you know, you talkabout time management, you talk
about leadership, like, do youthink that played a part into,
let's be honest, 12 loans andstarting a brokerage, which is
already like a ton of work that isoutside of origination, right?
You have to do call reports, youhave to do licensing, you have to
worry about all that kind of crapand you close 12 loans.
So how do you think that being inthe Marines maybe had some impact
(02:57):
on the way you show up, the wayyou lead, the way you sort of run
your day to day or does it haveany?
Well, even before I was in theMarine Corps, I was always very
like disciplined.
I was an early riser.
You know, I like to just get stuffdone and organized.
I think the Marine Corps just likeput all that on steroids and
emphasize everything.
So yeah, I would say after the
Marine Corps, it just continued tolike, I just want to accomplish
the next thing, do the next task.
(03:18):
I did learn a lot of leadership
principles and stuff from theMarine Corps.
I saw both great leaders andleaders that I did not want to be
like, I almost learned people thatyou're like, I don't like that
person.
I've had bosses and stuff in the
past.
Well, like the Marine Corps has
got a lot of them.
So just, you get a lot of life
experience too.
(03:39):
I mean, in a few short years, in
your late teens, early twenties,you're experienced to a lot of
different life circumstances and Ifeel like quickly mature and grow.
So when it came to starting my ownbrokerage and building my own
business, I just didn't reallyhave any fear of like failing,
like worst case scenario, I just,you know, have a college degree, I
can go back to doing accounting,I've job security and stuff there,
I've got some money in savings.
(04:02):
So it was like, I'm just gonna do
this thing and try this thing.
And I think I can accomplish and
achieve whatever I want.
So yeah, I think some of those
principles, some of them lived inme I yeah, think some of those
principles, some of them lived inme already.
And then some, you know, grew fromthe Marine Corps and the
experience of the Marine Corpshave definitely contributed you
to, know, my success in businessand a mortgage today.
and Yeah.
(04:22):
That's cool, man.
I mean, obviously you can betaught discipline, but I mean, you
know, some of the discipline comesdown to like understanding what
you're doing things for.
And one of the things I've done to
try to be more disciplined,because I mean, I'm ADHD and all
over the place and hard for me tolike focus and do things.
So I have to sort of create habitsaround, I mean, my morning
routines, going to the gym, thingslike that, because I know those
things are going to help my mentalhealth.
(04:42):
And so, man, I love that you'vebeen able to learn from that.
But leadership, obviously, likegrowing a team, what I'll say is
growing a team has been probablythe hardest thing I've ever done.
Because prior to me starting mybusiness, I had never led anybody,
right?I mean, I were in the subway, and
I was a team lead, I guess that'sthe closest to leading people I
got.
And I played soccer my whole life.
And I was you a, know, captain ona couple teams.
But from that perspective ofactually, like, you know,
delegating and leading and givingup control and things like that,
(05:04):
that's one of the hardest thingsI've ever done is learn how to
delegate, man.
So talk me through kind of what
that looks like, from yourperspective.
Like, was it pretty easy to sortof do that right away or that take
some time to develop over time?is still like the hardest one for
me too.
Like, yeah, you just want to do
something right.
You want to do it yourself.
You're so used to doing yourself.
And the reason delegation is so
hard is because it does take moretime and effort to teach someone
else how to do it right initiallyup front than it does to just do
(05:25):
it yourself but when it becomesrepetitive and continuous then you
realize like well this is betterfor someone else to do it if i
train them once they can do it youknow many times over so yeah i
struggle with delegation becausei'm just control freak i like
things exact you know thatmilitary side of me so that's
something I'm still trying toimprove with.
And honestly, you know, early inmy mortgage career, I was like
self-processing all my own loansand like, didn't have an
(05:46):
assistant.
Like I didn't hire my first
assistant until like the end of2021.
So I went through the whole refiboom.
Like I closed over in 2020 myself,like with no processor and no,
I'll just do it on my own loans,you know?
And I know there's a couple other,you know, brokers and LOs out
there who've been like that.
It's like, I was just crushing
myself doing it, but I felt moreefficient doing that.
(06:06):
And really it's a lie.
Yeah.
I told myself, but it took me along time to like build the trust
in someone else to hand that offbecause it was so important to me.
And I think as business owners,that's why it's hard to delegate
because we do care about it somuch and nobody else ever care
about it as much as we do.
(06:26):
So yeah, constant struggle to
delegate.
So you're one of those mortgage
unicorns that is good at thedetails and also pretty good at
sales because that's not typicallya combination, which is why I
think the loan officer position isa very interesting position and
why a lot of loan officers getstuck in that sort of two to three
loan a month realm because they'renot really salespeople.
They should be, right?I mean, I talked about earlier,
marketing and sales is like themost valuable things you can learn
(06:48):
as a loan officer or as a human ingeneral.
If you want to get paid well overthe career, like learn how to do
marketing and sales, and you'realways going to have a job
somewhere because companies alwaysneed marketing and they always
need sales, right?Like how do companies grow?
And so it's an interesting thingbecause as a loan officer, you
have to be detail oriented, lookat all the guidelines, structure
(07:09):
things right generally.
And then you also have to, you
know, be good with people andhaving conversations and making
calls and all that kind of stuff.
And it's like hard to find people
that have both of those things.
And so like, you know, you just
see so many people that kind offlounder because really they maybe
shouldn't be loan officers.
Maybe they should be structuring
deals.
Maybe they should be like a, you
know, LOA or a junior LO orsomething like that.
That's kind of structuring loansbecause they love structuring
(07:30):
loans, but they're not so good atgetting it.
What would you say to someone likethat?
Like, you know, what are the, someof the strategies that you used to
grow?Cause over the time, obviously 200
loans closed, you clearly havefigured out some things on how to
market your business, do somesales.
What does that look like in Yeah,I agree with the unicorn piece.
And when I first started mybrokerage, unfortunately, I built
and structured the brokerage basedon my profile of an LO.
Because we didn't have a lot ofprocessing, we didn't have a lot
of support staff, because I wasjust doing it myself.
(07:51):
And so over time, we've shiftedour team and our company to add
more support for the LOs andrecognize like, okay, LOs focus on
sales activities.
You go find loans.
We'll give as much back endsupport as we can, you know, and
find that happy medium there.
So you can focus on the sales side
of it.
But, you know, I mean, I found a
lot of success.
Like I still don't picture myself
a salesperson.
Like I know I'm a salesperson.
I'm proud of it.
(08:12):
But when you hear the word
salesperson, you just think oflike the negative connotation.
Right, right.
Cold calling, door knocking, like,
you know, sleazy, like hair slicksuit kind of person.
And that's like not the case atall.
So where I found success is justreally focusing on...
It's a relationship-based typesales and relationship business.
And everybody who's listened tothis has probably heard this a
million times.
But it's like relationships and
(08:32):
just having great communicationand speed and building your own
personal brand and people knowingwho you are and what you do.
That's all sales and marketing is.
Do you know who I am?
And do you know what I do so thatwhen you need it, there's an
opportunity you think of me.
I'm very active on social media.
That is my personal brand.
That's who I am.
And I think anyone connected withme on social media probably has a
(08:53):
good sense and a good feeling ofwho I am and would trust me to do
their mortgage.
Even if they're mortgage people
themselves, they would probablypick one other loan officer, do
their mortgage.
I hope they would think of me.
And that's kind of the messaging Itry to portray out there in the
(09:14):
public.
So yeah, I mean, it's hard to nail
it down exactly of like, here'sone thing I did to, you know, get
successful as a loan officer earlyon and go from one to two deals to
four to five to six to eight.
But a lot of it also just has to
do with consistency.
Yeah, that's it, bro.
Consistency.
I mean, that's the hack that
people are looking for is what'sthe hack?
(09:35):
The hack is, well, you got to doit over a long enough period of
time that you actually get good atdoing it.
And you have to do it for a longenough time people actually know
about it because so many peoplelike, they may be a good loan
officer, but no one knows who youare.
If no one knows anything aboutyou, like it doesn't matter how
great of a loan officer or howgreat you can structure loans.
That's why I say sales andmarketing is the most important
(09:58):
thing.
And you're right.
I mean, sales has such a negativeconnotation because we think about
sales as the used car salesman,like you said, the sleazy guy.
But the truth is that ethicalsales is identifying a problem and
providing a solution.
That's all sales is right.
And so many people are like, I'mnot a salesperson.
I'm an advisor.
I'm a whatever.
And I'm like, no, I'm sorry, Mr.
Loan officer that gets paid $5,000
a deal.
You're a salesperson because if
you weren't a salesperson, youwouldn't get paid $5,000 a deal.
I'm sorry.
That's just the reality of the
situation.
(10:18):
Yes.
You're an advisor as well.
Yes.
You're an educator as well, butyou're a salesperson first,
because let's be honest, likeconsumers don't know as well as a
loan officer, if they should buy ahome, right?
Like if you know, they have goodcredit, good income, good down
payment, that's a good time to buya home, right?
If you're planning on staying inthe home for the next five years,
10 years, whatever it is,understanding the situation is
what matters.
And so many people think the sales
is pushing people into productsthat they shouldn't have.
And that's not true, right?It's identifying a problem.
(10:41):
If you're the person that canprovide the solution, great.
If not, point them a differentway, tell them they should wait,
tell them they need credit repair,tell them whatever, right.
That's true ethical sales.
And so I think people just need to
shift the way that they view salesas not a sleazy thing, because
it's true.
We've been conditioned to believe
that sales is a bad thing, right?I hate salespeople.
Well, you hate bad sales people'swhat you hate.
Right?So I know like you do a lot with
(11:02):
social media, you know, so whenyou were first getting started,
was it always kind of easy?Were you able to pick up a bunch
of deals right away?What did that all look like?
Cause I kind of like to hear alittle bit about the struggles.
Maybe you had struggles, maybe youdidn't, I don't know.
Maybe you were also a unicorn andyou never struggled.
I don't know.
not a I mean, I think I got, you
know, kind of lucky early on whereI met a couple of realtors who
were newer to the industry when Iwas newer to the industry.
And I like, you know, young andmotivated and hustling.
(11:24):
We're all trying to find clientsand deals.
And we kind of grew together and Iwas able to help mentor them and
teach them the loan side and themortgage side and answer their
questions.
And I've always had a lot of
success in like newer agents whothen become the more successful
they become, the more successful Ibecome, obviously, and loyalty.
Now you got to be able torecognize when like, hey, this
agent, like, is this a time suckor not ever progressing?
Or I just know this person isgoing to be a, you know, one deal
(11:44):
every couple months kind ofperson.
I'm in them as someone who I seewith a good growth trajectory.
When I first started out, it'slike, I didn't know anything about
social media.
Like, you scroll back to my social
media and look at posts.
Like my Facebook is still as
posted, you know, memories pop upand I'm like, I posted this in
2009.
Like, Oh my God.
I know dude.
I mean, I just delete it and start
from scratch.
Cause I don't want someone to
scroll back and see some of thestupid stuff I said, but it's
(12:06):
funny.
Cause there's a meme went around.
It's like, there's no one I haveless in common with than the
person that posted my post from 10years ago, It's bro.
like such a funny I meme.
a meme that went around that's
like there's no one i have less incommon with than the person that
posted my post from 10 years agobro it's like such a funny meme i
(12:26):
was like oh that's so funnybecause i'm like what the hell was
i thinking back then right it'slike this is like the dumbest but
i guess it's also like back thenit was like luke is feeling like
this or luke is and so you kind oflike post it from that perspective
it's kind of weird but anyway yeahthat's funny that you say that
because i talk about my earlyvideos and sometimes i'll show
people like hey check this outthey're like man, you're so good
(12:49):
at video.
I'm like, you have done thousands
and thousands of thousands ofvideos.
I've been on thousands of zoomcalls.
I met 113 recorded podcastepisodes.
I think this is number one, 14 orone 15.
I've done a lot of video.
Go look at my video from before.
I was hi, my name is Luke and I ama reverse mortgage loan officer.
I have a video like that.
We're going to look back at even
like these, like the poker thisvideo now, now, five or 10 years
from now, and you're that like,was dumb.
Yeah.
why did I say um so much?
Man, Why did I do that?You so one thing I do like, know,
recently you've been doing moretalking on stage, you know, some
of that type of stuff.
(13:09):
How do you develop your ability to
sort of, you know, get up onstage?
Is it, you know, you're practicinga lot or what does that sort of
look like, you know, for anybodywho maybe is listening that the
once I start to do some of that,I'm not a good like, outgoing
person.
I'm not a want to speak on stage
kind of person.
I remember like a college speech
class, like I would just blush andget red in the face.
Anytime a teacher would call onme, I'd have to like talk in front
of people.
So like, somehow just over the
years, by doing more and more andmore, I've progressed out of that
(13:32):
and got comfortable on stage.
I like being on stage for like the
adrenaline rush it gives whenyou're like presenting and like
just it's that elevated, you know,state.
Dopamine.
You know, I still get the fear.
But also just like after the fact,because it's really about like,
what can I give to the audience?What can I do to benefit them and
it's really cool after any kind ofpresentation if someone comes back
to you and validates that likesomething you told them really
(13:53):
meant something to them right soanytime after a presentation and
it could be like hey i spoke on abig stage in front of a bunch of
people when it was motivational orwhatever or even just like you
know i did a training class infront of a couple agents or a
couple LOs.
And they're like, wow, I really
learned something here.
And now I'm going to be able to go
take that back or even just like apodcast like this.
And I'm sure you get it all thetime.
Like someone listens, someonehears, they send you a message,
(14:13):
man, I really learned somethingand I appreciate that.
And so to me, that's what hasreally become like my passion of
just sharing knowledge and sharinginformation and trying to inspire
people so that they can, you Andbest they can be, or they can
potentially learn something fromme.
And so speaking on stage, it'slike, you got to take in small
steps and small chunks.
And I got better because I had to
like speak in front of clients.
(14:35):
I had to speak in front of
realtors, speak in front of my ownLOs.
Like we had our, you know, monthlyteam meeting, a weekly team.
I've got to present something, geton videos on social media and get
on camera and send your clientsvideos.
So over time, you're just going toimprove at it.
And, you know, back to theconsistency concept.
Right, right, right.
You're going to suck at first, to
(14:56):
be honest.
That's the truth.
There's no hack again.
What I love about you said though,
man, I literally just like a weekago, maybe two weeks ago, I had
someone jumping on a call with aguy and he says, right before,
right as we're getting started,he's like, by the way, your
podcast changed my life.
I was like, you're just going to
throw that in casually like that?Like, come on, man.
But you know, it was like prettycool because you know, the podcast
is a lot of work.
You know, obviously I love
actually doing the interviews, butgetting people booked and finding,
(15:19):
you know, podcast editor and aproducer and then getting all that
stuff set up at the beginning,especially is a lot of work.
Now I kind of have a really goodsystem and it's pretty easy for
me.
This doesn't take a lot of my time
other than our interviews orwhatever, 30 to 45 minute slots.
But yeah, it's a lot of work, butconsistency over time.
(15:39):
I mean, I'm 113, I think,published or 110 published.
I can't remember exactly wherewe're at.
And so that same guy has gonethrough like all basically started
at the beginning.
I said, why are you starting at
the first podcast?I sucked at those first podcasts.
And he's like, no, I wanted to seethe journey.
So he started the first podcastand basically worked his way up to
like 90 something podcasts.
I'm like, that's wild.
I don't know.
(16:00):
I've ever heard of anybody
listening to every single one ofmy podcasts, but thank you very
much.
So that's what it's all about,
man.
It is about impact.
That's such a little bit on yoursocial strategies.
What is your philosophy aroundsocial media?
What do you think makes peopleattracted to working with you via
your social Sales is aboutbuilding trust, right?
So we want to build trust.
And the only way that you truly
trust someone is if you feel likethey're authentic and genuine to
you.
If you feel like someone's fake or
disingenuous, then you're notgoing to trust them, obviously.
So the goal of social media to meis not lead generation.
(16:21):
To me, it's brand building andbrand recognition.
So I want to build that trust overtime by letting them know that I'm
authentic and I'm genuine and thisis who I am so that the people who
want to work with me, they'llchoose to work with me.
The people who like who I am, theywill do work with me.
And some people may not, and noteverybody's going to like me.
And that's because I don't needeverybody to like me.
So my social media strategy is alot about posting about just, you
(16:43):
know, who I am, what I'm doing,what this means to me, how it
makes me feel, ask for otherpeople's opinions.
What do y'all think of this?You know, add in my personality
and like, be funny.
And what i like i like the dallas
cowboys and i like playingvolleyball and i like real estate
and i like all these things youknow over time i think people are
just attracted to that they wantto know who you are and it helps
deepen those relationships so thatwhen it is time for them to buy a
house or refinance, or if they'rea realtor looking for a new lender
(17:04):
or a loan officer looking to joina new company, like they think of
you and they remember you and theyfeel like they know you and trust
you.
The weird part about social media
is like, I post a lot, give a lotof information about myself and
other people see that and consumethat.
So they know a lot about me.
I'll meet someone in person for
(17:26):
the first time.
And it's like, I don't really know
anything about them because theypost as much, you know, they may
interact on my stuff.
And like, I recognize their name.
I know who they are.
Yeah.
I don't know like personal thingsabout their, you know, I mean, I
post about my family.
I post about my daughter, my wife
and all that kind of stuff, myfriends.
And so it is a little weird whenyou meet in person and you're
(17:46):
like, but I, I don't know anythingabout you, but you know, all this
stuff about me.
So know anything about them I
agree, man.
Parasocial relationships, man, is
kind of the term for that.
Right.
Which is like, it's kind of likecelebrities, you know, you kind of
feel like, you know, celebritiesbecause basically their whole
lives are exposed.
Right.
It's the same thing, right?If you show up online and showcase
your life, people literally say,man, I feel like I know you.
(18:07):
And like, it's funny, my podcasteditor, she'll hear this, but she
told me the other day, she's like,I feel like I know you like really
well.
Cause I edit every single one of
your podcasts.
I know so much about you.
I know when you're going tostutter on a word.
I know like what things you'regoing to mess up on.
And I'm like, what?I'm like, that's crazy to think.
But it, you know, it's like peoplestarted to see that from that
(18:29):
perspective.
And that's, what's so powerful
about content.
But also the truth is so many
people think that posting businessstuff is what gets them business.
And I have actually found almostthe exact opposite is the business
type stuff is the least engagedstuff, the stuff that gets the
least engagement, but the stuffthat gets the most engagement is
family stuff is, you know,celebrating stuff, you know,
things like that.
And again, I mean, you know, be
authentic, be who you are.
And I hate that word authentic.
(18:50):
Cause obviously everybody throwsit around, but I love the idea of
true authenticity show up as whoyou are.
Cause a lot of people show up astheir perfect version or as the
version they want to showcase aspositioning.
And I've heard that I'm amarketer.
They say that all the time,positioning, positioning,
positioning.
I'm like, I don't care about
positioning.
I want to showcase who I am,
right?I want to repel the people that
aren't like me and I want toattract people that are like me
because the truth is trying toappeal to everyone is a good way
(19:11):
to not be attractive to anybody.
Right.
Yeah.
I like that.
So, you know, from thatperspective, like, I know you talk
about business from time to time,but like, what would you say is
kind of your mix of types ofcontent, right?
Yeah.
You talk about your family.
And so why, right.
I talk about my family a lot,
right.
You posted about the whoop.
I actually reached out to you withtalking to you about the whoop.
Cause we were both, you know, Ihave the whoop.
I've had it since 2020 and not alot of people have It's it.
starting to get more popular, butnot as many people have I'm it.
(19:32):
like, He's cool.
got the whoop because we were both
you know i have the whoop i've hadit since 2020 and not a lot of
people have it it's starting toget more popular but not as many
people have it i'm like cool he'sgot the whoop oh yeah let's
compare notes your recovery todayyou're kind of dry again you must
a red recovery yeah yeah show meyour whoop man how'd you sleep
last night what's your deep andrem look like you know that type
(19:54):
of stuff and that's the type ofpower that you get and i've built
basically my whole business officeof organic social media and
obviously we do paid ads as well.
But my whole network of people
that I've grown over the last fiveyears has strictly been social
media, which is how powerful thisplatform is.
So from that perspective, how muchare you doing business stuff?
How much are you doing personaljust random stuff?
Yeah.
So I wasn't doing social media a
lot, a big step was to get to thepoint of like, I want to post
(20:15):
every single day.
Right.
So if you're not posting a lotcurrently, at least like make your
next goal to be like, I need topost once per day.
So I need to find something totalk about and share at least once
per day.
Sure.
Now I'm at the point where I'mposting like usually three times a
day, maybe twice, maybe fourtimes.
Sometimes like things just startpopping up and now it's like hard
for me not to post aboutsomething.
This will be such a great post.
And they used it so hard.
(20:36):
Like, what am I going to postabout today?
And it just like reveals itself tome.
The majority of my posts, like atleast once per day is pretty much
like, what am I doing like in mylife today?
It could be as simple as like, oh,I was at Starbucks and you know,
they misspelled my name on my cupand we joked about it.
And it was great to see theStarbucks people, you know, like
that's just a day in the life oryou know i'm here at this event
and connected with other people somuch fun like just what am i doing
could be family could be personalcould be a business event could be
at the office this is funnybecause one of my alos shared this
yesterday they're like welltyler's social media is like you
know he's always doing somethingthat's just so exciting and my
(20:57):
life's boring and the elo on myteam was like, do you know what
Tyler's life is?Like he wakes up in the morning,
he exercises, then he goesstraight to the office.
Then he's at the office for like12 hours.
Then he goes home and like putshis daughter to bed.
And then he goes to sleep at nineo'clock.
Like his life is boring.
Yeah, Not doing anything, but like
going to the office every day.
And like, you know, there's still
always something to post about ortalk about.
So you may think your life isboring or mundane or routine, but
(21:20):
like, there's still alwayssomething to talk about every day.
Other types of stuff I like toshare is, you know, shout outs and
recognition of others.
Sure.
People will engage better ifyou're giving shout outs of
others.
The other one is sharing, you
know, third party validation ofyourself.
So like testimonials, but not likeI created this Canva template of a
five star review and like, right,right, right.
And about me, super businessy.
Yeah, the super business.
Like if I get a legitimate textmessage or a message from someone,
(21:40):
like I'll screenshot that and likepost it.
Right.
Like that's the one way I can, you
know, humble brag on yourself.
Yep.
But you know, I try to keep thatto a minimum, but I, you do still
kind of have to share those thingsbecause it does create social
validation.
Right.
It's good.
These other people said it.
It's a of social proof that peopledon't understand is like, yeah,
man, there's a bunch of differenttypes of social proof that you can
use is that, you know, proof ofupward spiral, like just saying,
(22:01):
Hey, like a business is growing,right?
Another social proof is reviews,testimonials, things like that.
Or, you know, maybe you got, youknow, you know like the ink 5000
thing you talked about like thoseare different types of social
proof that doesn't have to bedirectly some sort of like
testimonial right and people arelike oh social proof is just
testimonials it's like no andtruth is no one wants to see that
super cookie cutter canva templatewith the freaking five star and
like most of the time people don'tengage in those things but they
(22:22):
will engage in like a man youtotally changed my life thank you
so much for helping me close thisloan.
Like that's a much better freakingscreenshot than like a fancy Canva
thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like if a client texts me, it was
like, that was bad-ass, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah.
Like people engage in that or, youknow, and then I also post like, I
keep to a minimal, anything that'slike news, mortgage guidelines,
updates.
I do sprinkle those in.
Cause like, especially if I feellike it's actually important and
(22:43):
relevant, I'm not just likeposting it for randomness.
I'm posting it because I'm like, Ithink people actually probably
should know something about this,but I've tried to also communicate
it in a way that's like notjust...
But But you conforming limits.
Yeah, yeah.
Everyone loves the loan limitEverybody loves the loan limits.
Like as if anybody even knows whatthe hell that means, which no one
does know what that means, by theway.
(23:06):
So if you are going to talk aboutthat, talk about it in a way that
actually helps people understandwhat you're posting.
Obviously, I mean, maybe you'reposting it for real today.
Just if that's the audience you'retrying to post to, they may
understand it, but the consumerdoesn't understand it.
Right.
I know you're doing a lot with AI
as well, man.
So talk a little bit about AI,
man.
I know that's a hot topic.
So how are you using AI to, Iguess, make your life easier?
(23:27):
Like are you using it in business,personal?
What's that sort of like?Yeah.
A little bit of everything.
Probably about two months ago is
when I actually like finallystarted like, okay, I'm going to
get on chat GPT.
I paid for like the chat GPT for
membership like for six monthsago, $20 a month is coming out of
the account.
And then finally I was like, I
just started using it.
Like, how do I actually start
using it?Because I think a lot of people,
and probably many people listeningto this is like, it sounds like a
(23:50):
good idea.
It seems great.
And we kind of talked about thisearlier, too.
Like, I'm sure there's all theseuses for it.
Like, how do I actually use it?So I kind of made a commitment to
myself kind of tying back to theconsistency theme.
I was like, I'm going to use chatGPT every single day, at least
once.
So like when I log in in the
morning, I just open chat GPT,just like open my email inbox and
my task list and my LOS.
I just open it up and it's like
(24:11):
going to use it for somethingtoday.
Even if it's something as simpleas, you know, help me pick a good
emoji for this social media postor help me write the social media
posts or write it longer, write itshorter.
It doesn't do a great job alwaysof...
It's not going to just perfectlywrite something for me.
Even though I created a custom GPTthat's supposed to take my voice
and my brand and try to write it,it's just not going to do it.
(24:32):
But it may give me one extra ideaor say something in a different
way that I'm like, Oh yeah, I likethat better.
Right.
I use it for mortgage guidelines.
So I uploaded the mortgageguidelines to my chat GPT and I'll
quickly search something there andI can get an answer more quickly.
in in the can be hit or miss ifit's truly accurate or not, but
quick enough for me to know like,Oh yeah, I recognize that's legit.
I'm not like fully trusted in ityet.
(24:52):
Probably the thing I like to dothe most is taking videos and just
taking the transcripts and uploadtranscripts to either let it
summarize it.
So now I can like review a whole
meeting that I missed or somethingquickly, or, you know, write a
caption or a post or a summaryabout this transcription.
One thing we've done internallywith our team is get all of our
like coaching calls and salestrainings and stuff.
And we upload all the transcriptsto a GPT.
And now like you could ask it aquestion, what's a good strategy
for an LO to talk to a realtor forthe first time?
(25:15):
Oh, well, you know, Tyler Hodgsonrecommends that you do this.
And you're like, oh, wow, likeit's getting a real answer from an
expert LO instead of just somegeneric thing that you may find on
Google.
Right.
But again, it's like, to me, isthat a real use case for an LO?
Like, is an LO going to go inthere and like type that in to
hear how to host an open house orhow to cold call a realtor?
Maybe not.
So a lot of it right now is just
kind of learning and testing.
(25:35):
And when can I use it?
When can I not use it?Things like Excel reports, I'll
just upload Excel or data and liketry to ask it something funky with
it.
Like, can you help me identify
this or that or, you know, certaintrends or thresholds or data
points or filter it into some way.
So yeah, I'm really just like at
this point, if I can try to usechat GPT every single day and try
some new things here or there,I'll kind of learn what works good
(25:58):
and what doesn't work.
Right.
And six months and 12 months and18 months from now, I'm going to
be really freaking good at chatGPT.
Just I'll probably look at what Idid in chat GPT initially and be
like, that was stupid.
That was dumb.
It's like our posts and ourvideos.
But two or three years from now,I'm going to be a chat GPT expert,
AI expert.
I mean, you know, I say chat GPT,
(26:19):
but you know, I'm talkinganything, you know, posts of AI.
And there's going to be loanofficers and real estate agents
that like they still haven'tcreated their account and logged
in and by the you know light yearsahead of them on using this tool
like we know it'll be a good toolnow it's just kind of learning
what is it best to use for wetalked a little bit earlier like
you know from your perspectivewhat do you use in ai for?
(26:40):
I use it a lot.
A couple of different platforms.
I use Opus Clip.
So basically these long form
podcasts, I actually upload a longform podcast to Opus Clip.
It edits it, turns it into shortfor me.
And so I can post that a couple oftimes a week and I don't have to
pay for an editor.
It's like, I don't know, a hundred
bucks a year for that platform.
(27:01):
It's not perfect.
Again, a lot of these platformsaren't perfect.
They're going to havehallucinations.
They're going to mess stuff up.
But man, a year ago, it would have
been considerably harder to edit along form podcast.
I tried having people find goodclips, but it was either like you
pay a lot of money to get theseclips done for someone who is
native to the US or you have tobasically pick the clips for them,
(27:21):
tell them exactly what they needto clip, exactly how you want them
designed, exactly what thetranscript is.
And it's like, okay, after all ofthat amount of time, I might as
well edit it myself.
So there's that platform.
I use ChatGPT almost every day aswell.
I use a combination of ChatGPTplus another platform called Cloud
to basically script out my YouTubevideos that I've been doing.
And so that's been pretty cool.
Again, none of this is 100%.
I use Cloud a lot for my long formposts.
(27:41):
Same as you, I upload, you know,transcripts and you know, go
ahead, look at other YouTubechannels and see, oh, this is a
good script.
I like the way they do it.
Upload, you know, basically getall the transcripts uploaded into
something like cloud, analyzetheir writing style, analyze their
speaking style, and able to usethat to basically create, you
know, better scripting and thingslike that.
Upload, youpload thousands ofviral TikTok clips or TikTok
hooks.
And then say, Hey, help me come up
(28:03):
with some more based off of whatyou've analyzed.
There's a lot of ways you can dothat.
I basically took the 5 toppodcasts that I had that I wanted
to do.
I took the transcripts, uploaded
them in there, and then was ableto create some booking emails that
I was going to start using.
But I've just been too busy with
just people that I found on socialmedia that I haven't even been
able to start using those, butsome pretty cool things that you
(28:23):
can do with it.
And ultimately it comes down to
what you talked about.
Cause I did the same thing when I
first started, I didn't like itbecause I was like the output
suck.
It doesn't speak in my voice.
Like I didn't know how tobasically program it, prompt it,
whatever you want to call it.
So there's some ways.
And you know, I guess a littleshout out, I am dropping a video
(28:43):
on Monday, which by the time thispodcast drops, it's been there.
So go to the loans on a man,YouTube channel.
There's going to be a chattraining that will probably blow
people's minds because you'rereally, I mean, this is a lot of
things that I've learned is like,you have to ultimately train it on
who you are, right?Talk about the business, what your
business name is, you know, giveit like the pains and the desires
of your market, you know, likelittle things like that.
Frameworks for like TikTok videosneed to have a framework.
(29:04):
You need a hook.
What's the hook.
The hook is like the first part ofthe video.
That's going to get peopleenticed.
So you tell it, Hey, follow thisframework.
I want to teach you the frameworkto do viral Tik TOK scripts.
So, you know, you do a hook bodycall to action and you tell
exactly what it should be in eachof these sections.
All of a sudden the outputs getway better than they're just
generic outputs.
So thinking about it from that
perspective, like you have totrain it to get the outputs.
(29:26):
The problem with it is if youdon't know what a good TikTok is,
you don't know what a good hookis.
You don't know good marketing.
You're just going to think it's
good.
So like my suggestion is you got
to get good copywriting.
You got to get good at
understanding what a good TikTokis.
Most people are doing, hi, my nameis Luke and I'm a mortgage broker.
You've already lost the consumer.
You've already lost the person
(29:47):
viewing because you talked aboutyourself for eight seconds and no
one cares about you.
They care about what is it in it
for me.
So again, just some of those
things there, it's like AI is alittle scary because it's going to
just have people putting outcrappy content because they don't
know what good content looks like.
And that's the scary part to me.
So Yeah.
It's not going to be smart enough
(30:07):
to turn crappy content into goodcontent.
Well, and crappy content into goodcontent.
Well, and people need to know,like people need to know the
difference between good and badcontent.
So I have done a lot of studyingfor copywriting.
I've written social media postsfor years.
So what I was able to do is I wasable to upload my own version of
all of my posts that I'd done.
So, Hey, emulate this and just
basically do something like, Hey,what did you notice about the way
you wrote it versus the way Iwrote it?
You know, what can I tell you towrite exactly like I do?
(30:28):
And over time, it got better.
What I found was Cloud just did a
lot better job right out the boxwithout needing all that
additional prompting.
So I started using Cloud a lot
more for that type of style posts.
But there's an unlimited chatbot
that you can build with AI thatliterally has good conversations
back and forth.
It takes a little bit of work, but
you can do it.
There's an endless possibility,
man, with AI.
And there's people that are much,
much, much, much smarter than methat are doing crazy things with
AI.
I'm just using the products right
out of the box, but some peopleare programming their own bots,
(30:51):
things like that.
I have a buddy who created his own
basically like underwriter, right?So kind of like what you do with
the GPT, but just better, right?He built it into the backend of
open AI and he has like all of theguidelines uploaded for Fannie,
Freddie, all that kind of stuff.
So it's like pretty legit almost
every single time.
You can kind of train it over time
to get better and all that kind ofstuff.
So again, there's an unlimitedamount of ways that you can use AI
(31:13):
and it's pretty exciting, but kindof scary at the same time.
It is what it is.
So I like to sort of like closing
these podcasts out with some sortof strategy tactics, something
that loan officers can go outthere today, or let's just say you
were getting started again today.
What would you suggest a loan
officer to go out there today totry to get business basically as
soon as possible?So this is something I did just a
couple of weeks ago that hadpretty good success.
And it seems basic.
It seems simple, but I searched
(31:34):
some real estate agents usingRedder.
You can use MMI, Modex, Redder,whatever one of the softwares you
want to look up, agent production.
And I found some agents in
different counties that had acertain number of buy sides in the
last six months and last 12months.
I was really focusing on thosewhere I saw they didn't have as
much in the 12 months as they didthe six months.
So they're more up and coming, youknow if you try to send a cold
call or email blast whatever tolike a top agent hey they already
(31:55):
have someone they're establishedwith someone right here you are
they're maybe not going to respondto it but if you can do an
analysis pull like twospreadsheets maybe chat gpt can
help with this i did try to chatgpt and i had too much data.
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm trying to figure out how to
do it in AI.
But if I take a 12-month list and
a six-month list, and I say, pointout to me the names that appear,
you know, they have more per monthon the six-month list than they do
the 12-month list.
That shows me someone who's in an
uptrend.
(32:15):
And then I messaged those people
and I just said, hey, you know,sorry for the random friend
request.
I sent them a friend request.
Social.
Yeah, social.
And then waited for them toaccept.
I came back two days later andlike saw who all accepted.
So I sent maybe 10 friendrequests, got maybe 10 accepted,
maybe eight.
And then I sent those ones
messages and said, I was pullingsome production data.
You know, I saw you're one of thetop ranked realtors in the County,
you know, great job.
Sorry for the random friend
(32:35):
request.
I just like to be connected with
other top performers in the area iassume that we'll probably run
into each other sometime soonerlater on a transaction whether the
same buyer or a different buyer orsomething like that and i got
really good response from thosethree of them were like oh where'd
you get that list from likeespecially if they're newer they
don't really know where to findthe production they're like oh how
high ranked was i they may notrealize like they were number six
(32:57):
in the County in the last sixmonths.
Cause they're like such a newrealtor.
They may not know how high theyranked.
So I then scheduled a follow-upzoom meeting with them.
I'm like, let me show you, I'lllog you in.
Like I logged into my redder andlike type their name, like show
them their production and showthem where they ranked.
And like that just built me a acouple new relationships that I
didn't really have.
And so now I'm just, I'm true and
false to those relationships.
So that's probably a good way to
(33:17):
like, just filter, find kind ofthis target audience, you know,
using some data and then try toconnect with them and, you know,
continue to progress them throughthat sales process of like
building this relationship, givingthem some value and see if you'll
be a good fit to work together.
Man.
I love that.
That's a unique one that I haven't
heard so far in terms of that.
Because I mean, you talked about
earlier, like you work with peoplethat are more up and coming and
what most people try to focus onagain is sort of the top producers
(33:42):
and all those guys are getting hitup by everybody.
And the other thing too, is like,why don't we work with a new
agent?I'm like, well, you don't know if
that agent is going to be the nextbig thing.
Right.
And so I like the way you did that
with the six versus 12 months,because that really does show
who's actually growing in thismarket.
Because a lot of people, man, youpull up their 12 or 14 month
(34:05):
production and they look prettygood.
But then you look at the last 6months, like, oh, maybe not so
much.
They had a bump over there still
towards the end of 2022.
They were still doing some decent
business, but 2023 kicked them inthe teeth.
And so they may not have adjustedor they may still be... I mean,
unfortunately, in this market, alot of people just hoped that it
would change and they hoped thatthe rates would come down.
(34:25):
They hoped that the inventorywould stop and they didn't really
change the way they were doingbusiness.
And honestly, I feel like thepeople that got affected the least
by the downturn have been thepeople that were consistent on
platforms like social media,especially loan officers, because
a lot of loan officers got sort ofstuck with the fact that they only
had five or 10 agents that theyworked with.
And while that worked really wellin everything up until 2021, it
didn't really work in 22 and 23.
(34:46):
Because all of a sudden, those
five agents are down 60% in theirproduction, which means you're
down 60% of your production, andyou have nowhere else to get the
deals from.
And so I mean, one of the things
that I talk about all the time islike, you need to have a
consistent way to get business.
If you want to be referral only,
again, I'm a marketer.
I love referrals.
You need to have a systematic wayto get more referrals.
(35:07):
How do you do that?You need to have more
conversations with more realestate agents regularly.
Stop depending on four people.
I mean, unless you just want to be
up and down and not have anycontrol of your business.
But I don't know.
My recommendation is always be
reaching out to new real estateagents.
Yeah.
I'm constantly replenishing my
pool of agents because some of myagents who were my top producers
two, three, four, five years ago,they're not anymore.
(35:27):
Like they're doing more listingsor they just not hustling or they
get so much rev share from theirbrokerage.
They don't need to do I got toalways be adding more Yeah,
absolutely, man.
So if someone wanted to learn a
little bit more about you, connectwith you online, what's the best
place for them to find you?Connect on social.
I'm most active on Instagram andFacebook.
My Instagram is at Chief LoanOfficer.
Facebook, you can search my name,Tyler Hodgson.
And I'm on LinkedIn and TikTok aswell.
But primarily Facebook andInstagram is where I do most of my
(35:50):
Tyler And I'm best, on LinkedInHodgson.
and TikTok as But primarilyFacebook well.
and Instagram is where I do mostof my best content, I feel like.
So I encourage everyone to just,hey, if you want to learn social,
watch what other people are doing.
If you're seeing posts and you
notice you like them and youinteract with them, watch what I'm
doing and just copy what I'mdoing.
Copy any of my posts if you wantto.
right, right.
(36:10):
Yeah.
Well, and what I'll say is this islike, also when you first get
started with something like socialis don't expect the same results,
right?Like maybe you got 30 comments or
whatever, you know, 40 likes on apost, but it's like, the truth is
you've been building theconsistency.
You've been building sort of thatreciprocal relationships with
people by engaging with theircontent over time.
And so thinking that you can justput up a post pretty similar to
what Tyler put, you're going toget crickets mostly, but it's
okay.
My big takeaways from today was
obviously we had a lot of sort ofvalue bombs in here, but it came
(36:31):
down to consistency, consistencyin video, consistency in speaking
in front of people, consistency insocial media.
Like all of this stuff comes downto consistency over an extended
period of time.
And that's when people win, right?
It comes down to doing thefundamentals over and over and
over again.
And I know that sounds unsexy, but
that's the hack.
That's the Can I add one more
thing that like...
Yeah, absolutely.
We didn't mention this the wholetime, but I just thought of it.
(36:51):
And like, when we're talking aboutsocial media, we're talking about
content creation and what are youposting?
And like, to me, that's only halfof my social media strategy.
The other half is me engaging.
So you can't just get on social
media and just post and engagewith everybody else.
Like Luke, you're great at this.
Like you're always commenting on
people's stuff.
You're sharing stuff.
You're responding to the peoplewho commented on your comments.
So just as much as I know, I needto post a certain amount of times
(37:14):
per day.
I also have to log on and like
comment on people's stuff.
And I just see it in scroll.
It's like, if I see it and I stopand I read it, I'm going to
comment and I try to get somewhatdecent comments.
So don't forget, it's not justposting.
It's also engaging with thosepeople as well.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
Right.
The infamous post and ghost that
people talk about, right.
It's like so many times we think
that, Oh, we just post and like,and I see people like, you know,
and I get it.
Like sometimes you kind of get
(37:34):
busy and stuff, but some peoplelike just never respond to
comments.
And I'm like, who do you think you
are?Like these people are commenting
on your post and you don't respondto their comments ever.
Like I get it.
Sometimes you're not going to
respond to every single comment,but like, I just think that's
disrespectful to people.
Most of the time, this is like a
congratulations.
I don't always have to go through
like, you know, thank you to like500 people that said that.
(37:56):
Right.
It's just like, all right, I'll
just love your comment.
I love your comment.
I love your comment.
But yeah, I agree, man.
Engaging with people.
I mean, that's the way you build
relationships.
You don't build relationships by
just posting and, you know, beingon your high and mighty horse.
I just post content and I'm acontent creator, but I don't
respond to people.
(38:19):
Maybe at a certain level, you can
get away with that.
If you grow to a certain point
where you really don't havecapacity and you're going viral
every time or whatever, but that'snot what's going to typically
happen in the mortgage industry.
So yeah, be consistent and engage,
man.
So thank you so much for your time
today, Tyler.
That was a fantastic episode.
And for anybody who is listeningthat is interested in flipping the
status quo on real estate agents,go to flipthestatusquo.com.
Thank you so much for your timetoday, Tyler.
That was a fantastic episode.
And for anybody who is listening
and that is interested in flippingthe status quo on real estate
agents, go to flip the statusquo.com.
(38:40):
Thank you so much for listeningand have a great day.
Thank you for tuning into theloans on demand podcast on loans
on demand podcast.com.
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