This week, we're joined by Michelle Berman-Mikel. Michelle is CEO, Founder & Creator of Beyond the Method™ and Berman Media PD, Inc. from Phoenix, Arizona, which teaches Realtors and Loan Officers how to delve into the minds of ideal clients, leveraging crucial data to turn Instagram from a casual platform into a dynamic, lead-generating powerhouse. Michelle is also a national speaker and the host of the "Coffee and Questions" podcast, which explores the intersections of psychology, social media savvy, and business acumen.
Michelle is here to discuss: → Tactics used in her Beyond the Method™ coaching to help Loan Officers build better connections on Instagram and other social media platforms and utilize leverage. → The non-negotiables of content you should be posting (value and lifestyle), how connection is more important than volume, and personalizing communication. → How to get hyper-local on Instagram, and the amount of touch points you need to be able to convert a lead.
Berman Media PD Website: www.michelle-berman.mykajabi.com
Michelle Berman-Mikel's Instagram: @bermanmediasocial
Michelle Berman-Mikel's LinkedIn: @MichelleBermanMikel
Michelle Berman-Mikel's YouTube: @michellebermanmikel
Coffee & Questions Podcast: @Coffee&QuestionsPodcast
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
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(00:00):
to the Loans On Demand podcast,the show where we flip the real
estate status quo on its head andput loan officers into the
driver's seat.
We give you all the tools,
strategies, resources, and mindsetneeded to modernize your mortgage
business and thrive.
And my name is Luke Shankula, aka
Long Form Luke, and this is theLoans On Demand podcast.
Hey, what's going on?Welcome to the Loans On Demand
(00:24):
Podcast, the show where we helploan officers flip the status quo
on real estate agents and put loanofficers in the driver's seat.
And we're going to have a good onetoday because today we have
Michelle Berman-Michael.
She's the CEO of Berman Media PD
and the founder of Beyond TheMethod and really just the IG
queen.
So I'm excited to have her on.
We've kind of been connectedonline for a little bit and I've
seen some of her cool content.
She's connected to a lot of the
(00:45):
people that I know as well.
So man, I'm excited to dive in
today.
Thank you for being on the show
today.
Thanks so much for having me,
Luke.
This is going be fun.
Let's rock and roll and give us alittle background.
Obviously I introduced kind ofyour titles, but give us a little
insight into who you are, why youdo what you do Yeah.
I will try to do that as superfast as possible, because
sometimes that's an exciting longstory that I get into.
But I'll give you the fastrundown.
(01:07):
So I am originally from SouthernCalifornia, I was born and raised
right by Disneyland.
I've been with the city La Mirada.
That's where I was born andraised.
But I have always felt reallycalled to be independent.
And so I also basically justdetermined quickly that I was not
going to be a homebody and stay inCalifornia and I was going to go
far away.
Now, in that process, I have been
an athlete my entire life.
(01:27):
So I started competitively
swimming at the age of four, swamall the way through high school,
swam for a very competitive teamin Southern California alongside
Kevin Perry and ended up gettingrecruited to swim in college.
So I swam for Rutgers, actuallywent as far away as I could from
California without going out ofthe country.
But there was something reallydrawing for me about that and
getting out and being able tocreate my own human.
(01:49):
I ended up graduating in 2012 witha degree in journalism and
psychology with the thoughtprocess of I'm going to go write a
book.
I had always said I had a voice
and I felt like I had something tosay, but I wasn't really sure what
it was.
And I still to this day say that
the only difference is now I kindof know what it is.
But I graduated with this degreethinking if I'm going to write
about people, I have to understandpeople.
(02:09):
And I think you and I both canagree that most people go to
college thinking, I don't reallyknow how that's going to serve me
in the real world.
Well, fast forward, you know,
close to 10 years after owning mycompany, understanding how people
operate is exactly what I do.
And understanding how to make
people actually convert, if weunderstand them, is also a part of
what I do.
So that's kind of the fast
background.
On the personal side, I have an
(02:31):
amazing husband.
We just celebrated five years.
I have a two and a half year old.
He is everything.
His name is Knox.
So you guys will see lots and lots
of content of Knox on Instagram.
He is super cute, but I'm also
very biased.
On the other side of that, I am
not a swimmer anymore, but I am acompetitive CrossFitter.
So I just finished the Open, ifanyone is listening to this and
(02:51):
did it.
And I also run half marathons now
pretty frequently.
And my husband is a road marathon
runner and also has done severalultra marathons.
So fitness is a huge part of ourlife.
It's a huge part of our day today.
We literally kind of planvacations around trails and where
we can do things outside.
So that's a huge part of who we
are just on the personal it.
That's awesome.
(03:11):
You know, and obviously the familyis everything.
I mean, I have 4 kids myself.
So something that we'll probably
talk about a little bit today isthe type of content we're going to
be posting and stuff like that onthese platforms.
But I did want to touch real quickon what you talked about, though,
in terms of understanding people.
And I think when it comes down to
it, sales and marketing is allabout understanding people.
And as loan officers that arelistening to this, like that's
(03:32):
what it's all about, right?Like how do we actually understand
the people that we're talking toand selling to and putting content
out for?That is what actually the secret
sauce is to conversion isunderstanding people.
Then the truth is so many peopledon't take the time to understand
who their target market is andwhat their pain points are, what
their desires are, what keeps themup at night.
Put yourself in their shoes,right?
So many times we lose focusbecause we're so caught up in the
(03:52):
curse of knowledge, right?We know so much about the thing we
do.
We think everybody knows all the
things about it, and that's notthe truth.
So, man, I'm excited to dive into,you know, some of the things you
do.
So tell us a little bit about kind
of like what is the secret sauce?What is the thing that you do?
I you mean, obviously know, youhave a couple organizations that
you What run.
(04:12):
is the main thing?
What do you guys help loanofficers?
And I think you have buildrelationships that are based and
rooted in authenticity and rootedin this concept that we're talking
about, which is connection, right?We have to understand how people
operate in order to connect withthem on that level.
So in theory, if you zoom out,what we really specialize in is
(04:46):
outbound prospecting on theInstagram platform.
So yes, I can certainly teach youeverything and anything about
content.
And I do.
But my primary focus is the centerphase of what Instagram really
which is, is how do we essentiallyturn the content we're now
producing, the video content we'redoing, all the things into actual
money in our bank account orappointments that can lead to
money for us.
And in that phase, we focus on
data, basically, that we alreadyhave access to, right?
So most real estate agents, mostloan officers, regardless of what
side you fall on, they fall victimto this concept of more.
(05:11):
Yeah.
Need more engagement.
I need more followers.
I need more deals in the pipe.
I need all these things.
More, more, more, more, right?
And my word of the year or my kindof phrase of the year for my
organization is we don't needmore.
We just have to trust that what wehave is enough and we have to dig
into what we already have.
Right.
A loan officer that's listening tothis.
If you're listening to this, Luke,and you're thinking, well, how
(05:33):
does that apply to me?Well, look at the data you already
have access to.
Right.
So you have a big CRM.
Most likely you have following on
the Instagram platform.
You have a LinkedIn following.
Most likely you have a Facebookfollowing.
A lot of us here might also haveFacebook groups.
Maybe we have YouTube channels.
We have all of these other
platforms that we're utilizing.
But how many of the people that
are consuming your contentconsistently are you actually
connected to?And there's a big difference
(05:53):
between consuming and connecting,right?
So the data we have access to, Iteach you how to find it, connect
with it, and ultimately how to notonly find them, but then what to
say to them to create the funnelthat you need.
So right before we jumped on, Iwas on a call with a loan officer
who's been a client of mine forlike 60 days, not a long time.
He's got five appointments in thelast week through Instagram,
(06:13):
through this outbound prospectingmethod, right?
And he's a brand new loan officer,done maybe a handful of deals
total in his career, and it'sworking, right?
And it's not because he's uniqueor special or any different,
doesn't have better products,doesn't have better this, that, or
the other thing.
It's because he's working a system
that creates connection first, andthen that leads to appointments.
Yeah, we can dig a little deeper.
What I liked that you were talking
(06:34):
about though, was we all all havedata.
And you're right.
It's funny, because I do put out
YouTube videos every week.
And the video that I put out a
couple, I don't know, maybe abouta month ago was how to run ads to
generate leads.
That's my best performing video on
YouTube right now.
One of my worst performing videos
was how to convert more leads,right?
(06:55):
Like how to actually close moreleads, how to have better sales
processes.
And it's funny because I think
everybody thinks they need moreleads, more, more, more, like you
said.
Truth is most people actually need
to create better systems aroundconversion.
And that comes down to, you know,you talked about connection, which
is using these platforms as aconnection platform.
But I also think one of myfavorite quotes is little hinges
swing big doors, right?It's like, how do we improve the
pull through of what we have?And the numbers don't have to be
(07:18):
like exponential, right?We think like in order for us to
get you a, know, double ourbusiness, we need to do double the
amount of work.
And it's like, well, no, if we
just get 10% better contact rateand 10% better application rate
and 10% better pre-approval rateand 10% better, all of a sudden
that's like a, you know, a two,three, four X return.
And I find myself doing the samething, right?
I need more.
I need to post more social media
content.
I need to do this and do that.
(07:39):
It's like, I already have, I don'tknow, a couple of whatever
thousands of people in my databasethat we just need to nurture
better.
We send out emails and all that
kind of stuff.
But I love this concept because
I'm ADHD, if you can't tell.
Systems aren't my strong suit.
And so I'm actually super excitedto hear kind of some of the
strategies and systems that youutilize, because I find myself
doing a lot of connection, butit's just because I like to
connect with people, but notfollow a specific system or any
(08:00):
sort of process or any sort oflike, Hey, I'm going to do this
sort of religiously every singleday.
So I'm curious, what does thatlook like from a day-to-day basis?
You know, are you specificallytargeting specific people?
Are you just kind of going throughyour whole list and just combing
through that and just having, youknow, random conversations?
I mean, cause there's obviouslypeople out there that are teaching
stupid stuff, like asking dumbquestions, like, how are you
doing?And I'm like, yo, I'm never going
to respond to that Get them everyday.
Yeah.
Well, because like what's going to
(08:21):
happen next, you a hundred percentknow that the next question or the
next thing that's going to comeafter, how are you doing is here's
the thing I do.
You want to buy it?
You know?And so I have really picked up on
a lot of those sorts of vibes ofthe people that have called them
poopy prospecting, whatever youwant to call it.
But you know, there's a lot of badways of trying to connect with
people.
So I guess I'll leave it to you.
Like what is some of thosetechniques, strategies, like what
(08:42):
do you sort of daily basis looklike for a new loan officer, for
an experienced loan officer?What does that sort of look like?
Yeah.
So it's really built off of a
tracker.
So many years ago, I built Beyond
the Method.
Beyond the Method is the name of
the program that I created.
And for those grad school dropouts
who are listening to this, youguys will appreciate this.
I did all my undergrad, graduated,went to grad school, did all of my
graduate credits minus my 40-hourthesis.
And at the time, I was really madat myself because I was like, oh,
(09:04):
shit, I really should havefinished that.
But then I realized now thatbeyond the method really is the
thesis that I didn't pay a lot ofmoney to have a piece of paper
mailed to me for.
So now I get paid to do it, right?
So beyond the method is thisprocess of all of what we talked
about, right?It's a three phases content and
prospecting.
And then what I call the Instagram
flywheel is phase three.
But the prospecting piece, if you
put a magnifying glass on top ofit, it really looks like a five
(09:26):
day, two week rotating cycleGoogle sheet, right?
Imagine like the sexiest Excelspreadsheet you can imagine in
your mind, that's pretty much whatit is.
And each of the five days of theweek, we have a very specific
category for the loan officer toattack, right?
Now, not every loan officer is thesame.
You Luke obviously do things alittle bit differently than a
traditional loan officer, right?As compared to someone like the
gentleman that I was referring tothat I was on a call with before.
(09:47):
That's all he does, right?Loans, everyday loans, realtor
relationship creates a loan.
So for you, it might look
different, but in general, thefive day tracker day, number one
or Mondays is what I call realtorday.
So this is a very important day.
And I really want people, if
you're listening to this, to takenotes rapidly because like you,
Luke, I don't have ADHD, but Italk really fast and I'm very,
very high D. So I tend to justlike go right through it.
(10:10):
But realtor day specifically, ourjob on this day is to connect with
agents that we are already workingwith.
So if you are a loan officerlistening to this, you probably
have 30 to 50, maybe a biggernumber of agents that you can
consistently rely on.
Right.
If that number is less, that'sfine.
Doesn't matter.
But on Mondays, what you're going
to do is you're going to go findthem and you're going to click the
(10:32):
little person with the plus signbutton in their profile.
Let's say I'm looking at yourprofile, Luke.
I'm a loan officer trying togenerate you, Luke, the realtor,
or the connections that you mighthave as the realtor.
I'm going to go to your profile,look at your bio.
In there, you'll see following.
In the middle, you'll see message,
then contact.
And then next to that is a little
person with a plus sign button.
(10:52):
If you click on that, Instagram is
going to give you this big, giantdropdown of a whole bunch of other
accounts that are similar to you,or that I might know because of my
relationship with you.
So this is where that concept of
leverage comes in.
So what we do is we go and we
connect with all of those peoplethat Instagram is recommending to
us based off of our super strongrelationship with that particular
(11:14):
agent that's already sending usdeals or already actively working
with us.
Now, in doing so, we don't send
them a message right out of thegate saying, hey, by the way, I
work with Luke and you shouldreally work with me too.
Right.
We're definitely not doing that.
Please don't do Please don't dothat.
If you're listening to me rightnow and you do that, I'm throwing
a We're excommunicating you.
Yes, exactly.
But what you will do, the initialform of contact, what it looks
(11:34):
like is go to their account, liketheir first piece of content,
comment on something, open theirstories if they have one and
engage authentically.
Now, I don't have time to get into
like the message structure of whatdo we say and all of that.
But initiating contact that way,once they then respond, I use
voice notes for that initialresponse to their response.
Now, Luke, I've always noted you,I think, right out of the gate,
but that was a little bitdifferent.
So out of the gate swinging with avoice note and say, Hey, Luke, you
(11:58):
probably don't know me, but I workwith such and such realtor.
And I was on Instagram.
And when I clicked on his profile,
it recommended that I startfollowing you and I'd love to take
you out for coffee.
Like don't do that.
Right?So initiate contact based off of
what they're sharing, Right.
So if they posted a picture of
them eating Girl Scout cookies,then talk about the Girl Scout
cookies, ask them a couple ofquestions about the Girl Scout
cookies, let them respond, turn itaround and then send a voice note
(12:21):
and leverage the relationship withthat first realtor that you
initially found them throughlooking up.
So you can say something like, youknow, I've loved chatting with
you, blah, blah, blah, insertacknowledgement of Girl Scout
cookies.
And then you can say, by the way,
I actually came across you becauseI'm connected to X person.
And I just wanted to reach out andsay, hey, we might have some
synergy if you're open to adiscussion.
(12:42):
Nice.
Right.
So that's Mondays.
Mondays is leveraging your
pre-existing realtor relationshipsto create new ones.
So the way I always describe thisis really scaling your existing
community, right?Through this term of leverage.
And I'll say leverage a Realquick, just to touch on this is
like, theoretically, I mean,obviously you guys do a lot of
Instagram.
Theoretically, this would probably
work on any social platform thatyou're prevalent on, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
That's kind of what I figured.
You could probably do this with
LinkedIn.
Again, if you use these platforms,
(13:03):
I'm just curious.
I feel like these strategies would
probably work almost across anysocial platform.
I guess Again, you'd probably dothis with LinkedIn.
if you Again, use these I'mplatforms, just I feel curious.
like these strategies wouldprobably work almost across any
social platform.
Again, I guess you'd have to make
sure that you can find theconnections.
You can't always find that on allthe platforms, but this is cool
because I think this could be kindof platform agnostic.
(13:24):
I think IG is the sort of theplace to be now.
I'm a big Facebook guy.
And so I'm trying to get into IG.
I'm trying to get into LinkedIn.
I'm trying to get all these other
platforms, but it's just, it's sodifferent.
It's so much work, but Iappreciate that.
So, all right, let's get intoTuesday.
So Tuesdays is what I call yourdream 100 day.
So on this day, you're going tohave your dream 100 agents.
(13:47):
It might not be agents for me andyou, Luke, it might be podcasts,
right?Getting our names on podcasts.
It might be events, right?Doing and speaking at different
events is a huge part of how Imake money.
Just I'm assuming similar for you.
So I have a dream 100 list of
events, connections that I want tomake that can lead to other
opportunities.
So for you as a loan officer
listening to this, maybe that's ahundred agents.
And the way that I would recommendit is it's a hundred agents that
you're maybe not necessarilyworking with right now, but they
fit your filter.
Now, this is an important thing
because when you're prospecting onInstagram, there's a million
(14:08):
realtors out there, right?And there's a million realtors in
your area out there on Instagram.
You don't want every single one of
them stop trying to do that,right?
So create a filter and whateverthat filter looks like for you,
right?So if you're a brand new loan
officer, you don't have anyrealtor partners, then maybe the
onesie twosie realtor is a goodperson for you to help build a
relationship with.
Now, if you're a really
established loan officer, youdon't want that guy, right?
No offense to that realtor, butyou don't want that, right?
(14:28):
To determine what your filter is.
And then obviously think outside
of the box, right?Vendor partners, CPAs, insurance
agents, divorce attorneys,whatever that might look like for
you, every loan officer isdifferent, right?
If you're recruiting, I work witha lot of LOs that are actively
recruiting other loan officers andthey are terrible at it in their
sales breath, especially LinkedIn.
Okay.
I mess with people on LinkedIn nowbecause I just think it's funny.
(14:49):
But like, if I get one of thosemessages, I actually respond back
and I'll say something stupid.
Like, does that actually work for
you?Like, It's funny because, you
know, I'm a little bit of apitcher marketer sort of approach.
I did that on LinkedIn as well fora long time.
Recently, I switched up my intromessage to like, oh, here's a
thinly veiled message requestwhere as soon as you accept my
request, I'm going to send you apitch.
(15:10):
Ha ha.
And then I just kind of like joke
about it.
Just like basically make a joke
because of how everybody works onthere.
It's worked so much better to likeget connections and have people
responding.
And if you were, and I said, PS, I
basically just send cat memes anddad jokes.
And it's just been so much betterof a connection request than what
I was And what you did was createa personal connection.
(15:30):
You made fun of yourself in that,which makes you a real human.
We'll talk about that.
I'm sure.
But the other day is Wednesday.
So I'm just going to keep us
moving through the five.
But Wednesday is CRM day.
So what this looks like for mostof my loan officers, I will say is
their listing agent day.
So they pull all of the agents on
the listing side of theirtransactions out of their
database, and they go find them onInstagram.
(15:52):
Now, why is this so important?Because guess what?
You've already done a deal withthese people, just not them
directly, right?Because you were helping the
buyer's agent.
So you were the one that
facilitated the loan to make thateven happen in the first place.
So almost every loan officer Iknow has a solid list of agents
that were on the listing side, butthey're not doing hardly anything
with them other than emailingthem.
And if we have time, we'll talkabout emails, but your emails also
(16:15):
suck.
So we can fix that.
But talking to the listing agentson Instagram, building a
connection, building, you know,this personal relationship first
is really what Wednesday is allabout.
Now, Thursday and Friday are alittle bit different.
So Thursday is LinkedIn day.
So you're going to try to find all
of your connections on LinkedIn,make sure you're connected to them
on Instagram.
Most of us, especially LOs
typically tend to use LinkedInreally heavily or Facebook really
heavily, and they haven't crosspollinated over to Instagram.
So don't just go on a follow,follow, follow spree.
(16:35):
Please don't do that.
Instead, connect with them first.
And when I say connect, I mean,comments on something, respond to
a story, let them follow youfirst, then continue the
conversation for 24, 48 hours.
It's kind of like the 24, 48 hour
golden rule, if you will.
And then once they are continuing
the conversation with you, evenafter they started following you,
then you follow them back.
So this is psychology or
psychological warfare, if youwill.
I'm a big nerd on the psychologyaspect of things, because if we
(16:58):
don't understand how peopleoperate, we can't sell them
anything, right?the lean out method.
We talked about that, too.
Even like in dating and stuff like
that, if you show you're notinterested, people, you know, are
like, they're more interested,right type of thing.
So not that I know much aboutdating.
was gonna say, I married myhusband two months after we met.
So not a good example of that one.
But yeah, my best friend still to
(17:18):
this day says that all the time,she's like, you are batshit I
still cannot believe that youactually called your shot.
crazy.
And I was five years later and a
Here like, we well, in allseriousness, baby.
go. No, Thursdays are fun for LOsin the sense of it's an easy
demographic where they've alreadyprobably put a lot of time and
effort and energy into theLinkedIn platform.
They just haven't taken the timeto move it to the Instagram space.
(17:39):
And then Fridays is re-engage day.
So what re-engage means is all of
the conversations that you hadMonday through Thursday, you have
a lot of people to respond to.
Because if you do this right, you
should wake up every day to amultitude of messages that need to
be continued, right?Or a multitude of conversations
that need your attention so thatyou can keep them going.
(18:00):
And then Fridays gives you theopportunity to do that, right?
So if you and I talked on Monday,Luke, you responded, and then I
got busy, or my kid was sick,which he was this week, right?
Then I got distracted and maybedidn't respond to you.
But that doesn't mean that theconversation we had been having
wasn't good.
It just means that I got busy,
right?Think about how we text our
(18:21):
friends, how many group texts arewe on?
And you get a bunch of responsesand then you're in the middle of
dinner and then you forget torespond altogether, right?
It's very normal, it happens.
So Fridays is that day.
It allows us to continue theconversations.
Now, why this is important is theaverage conversation takes five to
seven touch points to convert,right?
Which means we have to talk tosomebody back and forth, back and
forth multiple times before we canthen pitch them, quote unquote, or
(18:42):
in this case, say, Luke, I'vereally enjoyed our conversation.
I think the next best step for usis actually to jump on Zoom or
jump on a quick call this Mondayat 10 a.m. work for you, right?
So we can't do that if we haven'tbuilt the relationship first.
So that's week one.
The only difference with week two.
So I just described all the waythrough Monday through Friday.
Week two, the only difference isthat Tuesdays and Thursdays are
(19:02):
different.
So Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and
week two are the exact same.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are what we
call brand awareness days.
So quite simply, that just means
follow and engage with all of thesmall businesses, all of the local
people in your local kind of fivecities that we talk about.
Because a lot of times people arelike, how do you get hyperlocal on
Instagram?Well, it's so easy if you actually
understand what to do.
(19:22):
Right?
So I tell everybody, pick your topfive cities that you sell in or
that you want to be selling in.
Find a bunch of hashtags related
to those individual cities.
Find a bunch of geotags, which is
a very underrated part of theInstagram platform and engage in
those places.
Now, if you look up hashtag Austin
Realtors, right?Or just Austin Small Businesses or
hashtag Austin realtors, right.
Or just Austin small businesses or
Austin TX even, right.
You're going to look up and you're
(19:43):
going to see a ton of content,right?
Like that hashtag Austin TXhashtag.
The last time I looked at this fora client, it had like 590,000
uses.
Like it was a massive hashtag.
So if you're the loan officerlooking at this hashtag and you're
like, well, who do I engage with?Right.
Here's where the psychology piececomes back in.
Our eyes are naturally drawn tothings that we like or that we're
attracted to.
Right.
So for me, I'm not a golfer.
(20:04):
I don't care about golf.
It's not something that I enjoy.
I'm terrible at top golf.
Don't invite me.
Right.
Unless you want to go to the barand have a drink.
Cause like, I would rather do thatat top golf.
I'm not going to engage on Topgolfcontent or golfing content.
What am I going to be naturallydrawn to, right?
The CrossFit side of things, beinga mom, different food.
I love cooking.
I don't want to say I'm a chef
cause I'm totally not, but I'm abig macro cooking person because I
(20:27):
love eating really well.
And I love serving my husband in
that way by feeding him.
So that's the type of content that
I'm naturally going to be drawnto.
So if you are opening the hashtagAustin TX, and you see a ton of
content, let your mind, let youreyes go to where it's going to go
so that you're engaging on thingsthat you actually care about.
Because what will happen is you'llend up having better
(20:47):
conversations, you'll be moreinvested in the conversations to
continue them.
And ultimately, it's going to just
serve or fill your cup a littlebit more than it would if you're
just, oh, Michelle told me I haveto do this.
And this is painful.
We don't want that.
So that's the only differencebetween week one and week two.
But hopefully that was helpful.
I know that that was a lot of
information.
helpful.
So if you're listening to this,you're probably gonna have to
(21:08):
listen to like three times andtake notes and, you know, slow it
down a little bit, you know,because I know both of us speak
very, very quickly.
So, you know, maybe don't listen
to this podcast on 2x speed.
I listen to a lot of stuff 2x
speed, but I never can quitelisten to myself on 2x speed
because it's fast.
It's already pretty fast.
Yeah, it's kind of funny,especially when I'm excited and
(21:31):
explaining stuff.
You know, it's pretty funny.
But that is fire.
That is obviously tons and tons of
value.
And for loan officers, I mean,
this was just like the play byplay.
we don't have the scripting andstuff like But it I this was just
like the play by play.
Like, yeah, obviously, that.
doesn't, mean, Like, yeah,obviously, we don't have the
scripting and stuff like But that.
it doesn't have to be that crazy,
because you don't really needspecific scripting.
It comes down to just engagingwith people.
(21:52):
And this is what we talked abouton all the platforms, obviously on
Facebook.
But one thing that I've learned
with Facebook platform thatapplies to every other platform is
I've built relationships withpeople on this platform.
So it's so hard for me to go toother platforms, because I don't
have that like, relational equitythat I've built over the last five
years of posting content,providing value, engaging with
people, building relationships.
I go to these other platforms, I
post the same exact content in theright format, but the same exact
(22:13):
content get like no engagement.
I'm like, man, this sucks.
This platform sucks.
Like, no, this platform doesn't
suck.
It just, I haven't built
relationships.
I don't have a following.
I don't have any of that stuff.
So it's just pretty interesting
that, you know, the same conceptsthat I talk about, even for
something like Facebook is theexact same thing you're talking
about on something like Instagram.
You've just created a process
that's awesome.
Like, to be honest, it's an
awesome process.
Now, obviously from what you're
(22:33):
talking about, the most importantpart is outreach, is having the
connections, is the engagement.
And I think that's one of the
pieces that most people miss outon a lot is they think it's just a
bunch of content.
We talked about posting and
ghosting a lot.
But I assume that content is also
a piece that needs to happen,right?
That you can't not have anycontent on your page.
So do you recommend any sort ofcadence on that?
Is it like once a day?Do you have any sort of
(22:55):
suggestions on that front?Yeah, I mean, I can talk about
content all day.
And I have a big belief system
around the pillars.
I think everybody sort of
describes them slightly different.
What I will tell you is the two
main pieces of content that I willtell you about, and I'll leave the
whole four pillar concept out.
Maybe we'll just do another show
loop and we'll get into that sideof it.
But because I do know that thereare a lot of other very talented
people out there that talk aboutpillars of content.
So I think you need to do whatworks for you and what you're
going to do in the first place.
But there are two main pieces of
(23:15):
content that I would recommend asnon-negotiables and I'll explain
why to both of them.
So number one is what I call value
series.
So I coined the term close to five
years ago when I developed Beyondthe Method.
Value series is how a loan officeror how a real estate agent,
whoever, you don't even have to beeither one.
You could just be a business ownerlistening to this, right?
Value series is how you buildcredibility.
(23:35):
It's how you get to talk aboutthings in a way that sets you
apart.
Now, how to do that, right?
How many meetings has a loanofficer gone to and said, here's
why I'm different.
And you're like, okay, I've heard
that 74 times from every otherloan officer that's taken me out
to lunch, right?So how you are different actually
has nothing to do with theproducts you sell, has nothing to
do with your rates, has nothing todo with your systems behind the
scenes, because everybody's goingto say the same thing for the most
(23:58):
part.
They want your business.
But how do you stand out?How do you become different?
That's how value series gets tiedinto this.
So the concept of value series asa whole is one topic divided into
five sub questions.
Each of those five sub questions
is a video of 90 seconds or less.
So you have a maybe 10,000 feet
above the ground topic and you areputting a magnifying glass on top
of it and making micro snapshotswithin that, right?
So there's five sub questions thatfulfill that one topic.
Now, let me give you an example ofa couple of clients that I've
(24:20):
recently done this for.
So I have a client who is been in
the mortgage industry since 1973.
The guy's been through all of it.
He's seen all of it, right?He hasn't used Instagram.
It's not been a platform of hischoice until very recently.
He also came out of the wholesalespace into the mortgage broker
space.
So he didn't have a database.
He didn't have access to any ofwhat he had previously.
So I ended up talking to him forabout 45 minutes.
We came up with the concept ofarcheology.
(24:41):
He loves archeology.
Him and his wife are diehards.
They travel all the time.
They have an RV and they go to all
these really cool places aroundthis concept because it's
fascinating to him.
And I said, okay, how do we tie
that into what we do for work?Right.
And he's like, I don't know.
And I said, well, what is the
premise of archeology?Right.
It's studying how our world wasbuilt, right.
Or kind of the foundations behindhow animals became what animals
became.
Right.
(25:01):
And the evolution of these overtime.
Right.
So if you think about it, how can
you tie archeology into mortgages,the evolution of the home buying
transaction or the evolution ofthe mortgage process.
But here's where a value seriesgets really fun.
I told him, I said, go out to oneof the sites that you regularly
visit, record your video contentthere, right?
Stop doing the fancy.
I'm sitting in a podcast studio
with E-roll behind me of peoplethat don't look like me and stock
(25:24):
photos off Google, right?So if you're actually doing it in
a place where it is a passionproject of yours, you're going to
get way more views, people aregoing to be like, where the heck
are you?And it's a story parallel, right?
So tell a story about archaeologyand how that ties into even the
foundations of homes, right?The difference in how a home was
built in 1973 versus how a homewas built in 2024.
There's a lot of fun ways to tiethat in.
(25:45):
So pillar one, I'm talking aboutvalue series specifically allows
you to share your knowledge, yourexpertise in your space, which we
all have, right?But tie it into a passion of who
we are because people want that.
People want to relate to you and
you will build a sphere of peoplethat are just really into what
you're doing.
And just real quick, just to your
point is people don't really wantto hear the conforming loan
(26:06):
limits.
Like they don't want to hear that.
But if you are able to tie theconforming loan limits into
whatever archaeology somehow andtell a story about it, like that's
pretty cool, right?Like using analogies and using
parallel stories, because again,stories is what's actually going
to get people to take action andto understand it because people
don't understand what a conformingloan limit is.
I pulled that out of my hatbecause that's one of the worst
(26:27):
things that loan officers do istalk about conforming loan limits.
No one knows what that means.
Realtors probably don't really
know what that means.
And consumers definitely don't
know what that means.
And so you're just posting that
for no one.
Importantly, no offense to the
loan officer, but I don't reallycare.
agreed.
It doesn't really affect me, but
it doesn't really immediatelyaffect, hey, if I can go see this
house, that's what I care about.
(26:48):
Can I afford to go see this house
or can I not?Right, right.
Like at the end of the day, that'swhat it comes down to.
So I think mortgage professionalsas a whole do a bad job at
understanding that the consumerdoesn't need the definition of
amortization.
I don't care, right?
Because it doesn't mean anythingto me in the actual act of buying
a home.
It doesn't change the act of me
(27:08):
going and doing it, right?And so I think what you have to
focus on is how do you initiallybuild the connection in the first
place and then find your tribe,right?
So this particular gentleman, he'snot going to be for every single
agent.
He's also not going to be for
every single consumer, but thepeople that are going to choose
him are people that are fascinatedwith how his brain works and are
fascinated with the way that hetalks and articulates things and
(27:31):
are probably into similar thingsthat he's into.
And that's the beautiful side ofthis is let's build a community of
people that want to work with us,right?
How beautiful is that if we can doit?
So stop trying to be everythingfor everyone because you're not.
The second one is lifestylecontent, right?
So lifestyle content is exactlywhat it sounds like.
It's stuff from your camera roll,right?
So who are you as a human being?Now, this is really important
(27:56):
because this ties into how weprospect.
this is really important becausethis ties into how we So when you
asked me the question at thebeginning of this part of the
where you said like in howimportant is that?
I'm sure you have an Now,Lifestyle content is the
foundation of how we prospect.
So if there is nothing on your
account that has anything to dowith who you podcast, then I'm not
going to hire content, Because Idon't at the end of the day know
(28:18):
who you opinion.
are and I'm not going to hire
right?Because I prospect.
at the end of the know who you areand I'm not going to feel
connected to you.
are, you.
Right.
you, don't, day, And it also
becomes second to that, right?Like let's pretend I'm trying to
prospect you, Luke, and I'm DMingyou and I am talking to you about
my kid, right?Like my son Knox.
And you go to my account and yousee nothing but business,
business, business, business,boilerplate template that some
in-house marketing chick postedfor you on your behalf.
(28:39):
Are you going to give me the timeof day?
No, not Just I mean, yeah, I'mlike, who is this person?
They're trying to get for me.
And they're talking to me about
their kid.
And I go to their account.
And I see literally nothing toattest to that.
So the connection that we'retrying to build is now gone, No
congruency.
There's no congruency in the
messaging either right there.
Because you're like, on one side,
(28:59):
you're talking about on the other.
And I understand some people are
scared to post their kids.
And so you know, I get I talked to
people about that all the time,because there are lots of people
that have that weird, I don't feelcomfortable talking about my kids
posting my kids.
I respect that as a mom, I fully
respect it.
But what the point is, is, if I'm
(29:21):
talking about a half marathon inmy DMS with somebody, and they go
go to my profile and they seenothing about running anywhere at
all ever, then they're going to belike, I'm confused, right?
So the connection is missing.
So the personal content creates
the opportunity or builds thebridge from, hey, we're having
this conversation in our DMs.
Maybe I'm into this conversation.
Maybe I'm not.
But then I click on your profile
and I look at your account and I'mlike, wow, this person is exactly
(29:44):
who they say they are.
I feel like this is somebody that
I actually like.
Now you are more inclined to
actually respond to me.
You're also more likely to see the
content that I do post aboutbusiness because I'm focused on
building the relationship with youpersonally first.
So the whole concept of personaland business being separate, throw
that out the window and never openit again, never even ask the
question again, because it's gotto be both.
(30:26):
And I think to your point a littlebit before about like the kid
situation, everybody's got theirline, right?
Or sort of their boundary thatthey're willing to go.
If you're a big hunter, maybe youdon't post a dead animal, but
maybe you post out in front of thecar with your camel on getting
ready to go on the trip.
Sure.
Right.
I'm married to a green beret.
So we have a lot of guns in ourRight.
But house.
maybe I'm not going to post all of
that.
Maybe I'm going to talk about my
husband being who he is becauseI'm super proud of him.
I'm a proud wife of that.
Right.
So finding your line is animportant piece to this, but you
can't not do it because if you'renot doing it, you're basically
shooting yourself in the foot.
If you want Instagram to work for
you, if hell, you want any socialplatform to work for you you, have
to be willing to do Because it.
if you're not doing you're it,
basically shooting yourself in theIf foot.
you want Instagram to work foryou, if hell, you want any social
(30:46):
platform to work for you you, haveto be willing to that.
I 100% agree.
And I think so many people are,
they think that what is going toattract business is posting
business stuff.
And what I've found is it's almost
the exact opposite, right?Like the pillars I typically talk
about, I have three typicalpillars.
And it's like, you've broken it upinto sort of like a better
structure.
But I talk about family and like
just life.
(31:06):
I talk about thought leader stuff.
And then I talk about sometimes mybusiness, right?
I say no more than like 10 to 30%of your post should be like
promoting your business, right?I give value then leads back to my
business, but I very rarelyactually talk about my business.
And I think I need to do a betterjob of actually doing that because
that's one thing that I don't dovery often, like one in every I
don't know, I don't even know thepercentage, I'm actually talking
about the business and having anoffer out there.
(31:28):
Right.
And so you know, there's also that
side of it that I may be a littlebit better.
But in general, I find that peopleare more likely to engage with you
if you are a human being, becauseultimately, that's what social
media is about is about beingsocial and about sharing who you
are.
And I know the word authenticity
gets thrown around a lot.
But the truth is, like, you're
(31:49):
going to be found out if you'renot who you are online, like you
are in person, right?And so like, if you meet me in
person, you're gonna find out I'mthe same crazy dude, probably even
crazier in person, to be honest,you know, people get a little
overwhelmed, I'm six foot four,I'm loud, I'm obnoxious, I have
high energy.
And that's who I am online most of
the time too.
(32:09):
Right.
I just kind of speak my mind and Isay things.
And I was talking to a guyyesterday and he's like, you know,
I just don't want to offendanybody.
I don't want anybody to be like,you know, mad at me.
And I said, why?I said, who cares?
Like, just be who you are.
And if you be who you are and you
say your truth, like I evenbrought up a Bible verse.
I'm like, it's like the Bibleverse that says, like, if you're
lukewarm, I'll spit you out.
Like if you're just in the middle,
(32:30):
if you're vanilla, like you're notgoing to attract anybody.
Yeah.
You have to be who you are.
Right.
Like if you post guns or whatever,
like, okay, there might be thepeople that are like, I'm against
guns and they're not going tofollow you, but that's okay.
That's probably not your idealclient Yeah.
Right.
I think being okay with that is
half the battle.
Right.
And I think that the authenticitypiece, and I'll speak just about
myself.
I mean, I assume you're a high D
just from our conversation so faralready.
If you haven't done that, you needto find out and then tell me.
So I've done the test fivedifferent ways and I'm a very high
DI, right?Which essentially means I'm very
(32:50):
assertive.
I'm a little bit more of the type
of person to make the mistake andthen learn from it versus be so
structured so that I don't makethe mistake.
That's just my personality.
I also don't operate on any other
wavelength other than 100%.
So I crash sometimes.
I'm doing better at not doingthat, right?
Like I went and did a 45 minutelike infrared red light sauna
session this morning because mybusiness coach is like, you really
(33:10):
have to start to take care ofyourself or else you cannot
operate like this.'s funny is asan athlete we're taught like
especially a competitive athletewe do that right we work out we
eat we recover we work out we eatwe recover we sleep right so like
we're really good at that whenwe're athletes but then when we
translate that into like runningcompanies we're terrible it so
right but i say all of that to saythat as a very high DI female,
especially, right, I can come offas very hard or sort of
(33:31):
intimidating, right?And people might say, oh, I'm a
little bit nervous about workingwith her because what if she yells
at me, right?Well, the personal pieces to us
soften that blow, right?So I went through very severe
postpartum depression.
I had my son when we were in
Arizona.
My husband now works for the
military.
So we found out we were moving to
Louisiana when I was 37 weekspregnant.
I lived in Arizona for sevenyears.
I had tons of family and friendsvery nearby.
I had a really big CrossFit andgym community that I was very
(33:53):
ingrained with.
And finding out that we had to
move across the country to a statethat nobody wanted to live in, in
a place where I knew no one,especially in a town with 5,000
people where I came from Phoenix.
It was really a culture shock.
And on top of that, my husbandwent from being home all day
because he was getting hismaster's after being medically
retired to now he's gone for 12hours a day.
Now he's gone for 12 hours a day.
And I had a brand new And
two-week-old.
I had a brand new two week old.
(34:14):
Holy shit, Holy shit.
The trifecta of all of that was
right?awful, But I really focused on
sharing it and being veryvulnerable and opening my soul
really up about it and leaninginto my faith and talking about
it.
And the people that came out of
the woodwork, the people thatheard me on podcasts that sent me
messages saying, Michelle, like, Ireally don't have a lot of money,
but I know I need to hire somebodyand you're it like I need to hire
you, right?Or the opposite of, you know, I've
interviewed 15 social mediacompanies, and I just listened to
you on XYZ podcast, and you're it,right?
(34:34):
Being able to talk about thosethings makes me as a very high D
female, very, very approachable tothe general consumer.
So it's really shifted myperspective of like, what am I
willing to share?And what am I not?
Because at the end of the day, Ithink we're all in the same boat
going through different crazyparts of life together, you know,
and funny enough, I just checkedand I have taken this and I am a
DI.
So that's funny.
That's funny.
(34:55):
I knew that I just went and
searched my email because I'mlike, I think I actually have
taken the disc So profile.
I went and I'm looked.
like, I'm a yeah, So that's DI.
That's funny.
I just funny.
went and searched my email because
I'm I think like, I actually havetaken the disc So profile.
I went and I'm looked.
like, yeah, I'm a DI.
(35:15):
So that's funny that you actuallyknew that.
So yeah, it's amazing becauseyou're right.
I do the same thing on.
So, I mean, I do mostly Facebook,
but I'll talk about the hard timesof business and stuff like that.
People reach out.
I talk about going through
depression.
I talked about like the hard times
and all that kind of stuff.
And I had people reaching out, not
even so much about business, butit's just about like, you know,
connecting and like saying, Hey,thank you for posting that.
(35:37):
Right.
Like it just makes me feel like I
had people reaching out, not evenso much about business, but it's
just about like, you know,connecting and like saying, Hey,
thank you for posting that.
Right.
Like, it just makes me feel like Iunderstand people are going
through the same thing.
I'm like, it is.
It's, I mean, we're in a toughmarket, you know, in the mortgage
(36:02):
industry, mortgage and realestate, we've just come out of not
even come out.
We're still in a tough time.
Right.
And so understanding that is huge.
And, you know, that's a massiveopportunity to showcase that
you're actually a human and bevulnerable.
And you don't always have to shareeverything you're going through at
the time you're going throughthose things.
You can share it in the futurelessons learned and things like
that.
But I know we're running out of
(36:23):
time here.
So Michelle, what's the best place
for people to find you online?Where can people connect Yeah, the
easiest place is Instagram.
That might seem silly to say, but
truth, I answer all my own DMs.
So feel free to reach out to me,
Berman Media Social on Instagram.
My favorite thing would be for you
to tell me that you heard me righthere on with Luke and let me know
because I love getting toscreenshot that and sending it to
the person that I was interviewingwith.
So that's a good way of saying toLuke that people are listening.
(36:47):
But more importantly, the easiestthing I can say to you guys, if
you're listening to this andyou're like, what do I do?
What's next?And how do I make this make sense
for me?I do one hour private coaching
sessions all the time.
So it makes it really easy for
people to figure out how to gettheir feet wet because I think it
can be really overwhelming.
And so we've really leaned into
that to alleviate some of Nice,nice.
Cool.
Is there one thing if you could
(37:08):
tell someone one thing to do rightnow?
I mean, we talked about a lot oftactics, so it might just be
implement one of the things wetalked about.
But one thing that you wouldrecommend for a loan officer to
implement right now to try to getbusiness?
because why do I say that?We are consumers of information,
(37:29):
right?As humans, we like to consume,
consume, consume, but how many ofus are actually doing what we are
supposed to be doing?So I think changing your mindset
from, and this is the questionI'll pose to you, it's rhetorical
in the sense of, if you know youhave to make calls anyway, right?
In order to generate business foryourself, how would your calls
change or what would your callslook like if let's say you had a
list of 20 people in front of you.
And next to each of the 20 names,
you had three to five bulletpoints about who that person was,
maybe a passion of theirs, andmaybe one other fun detail about
them.
And then you picked up the phone
and called them like, how wouldthat change the conversation?
And again, it's rhetorical in thesense of if you're listening to
(37:51):
this, ask yourself that question,because that's what prospecting on
Instagram and doing it correctlycan do for your calls.
Love Yeah, that's amazing.
And obviously getting some insight
from their profiles is awesome.
So thank you so much for your time
today, Michelle.
Masterclass in IG prospecting.
Honestly, like I said earlier, youcould implement this into any of
the other platforms.
I really believe that you could do
this with LinkedIn, Facebook, anyof these platforms use similar
they're strategies.
a little Obviously, do this with
any of LinkedIn, these Facebook,use similar strategies.
platforms, Obviously they're alittle bit different in platform,
but you literally gave us aplay-by-play, day-by-day process.
So if you're listening to this, goback and listen to this again,
(38:12):
take a bunch of notes, implementwhat she talked about today
because this was fire.
Michelle, thank you so much for
your time today.
And loan officers, if you are
looking for some help on flippingthe status quo, learning how to
get direct to consumer and marketto the go to consumer,
flipthestatusquo.com.
Thank you so much for some help on
flipping the status learning howquo, to get direct to consumer and
market to the consumer, go toflipthestatusquo.com.
Thank you so much for listeningand have a great day.
guys.
Thank you for tuning into the
Loans On Demand podcast onloansondemandpodcast.com.
to the Loans On Demand podcast,the show where we flip the real
estate status quo on its head andput loan officers into the
driver's seat.
We give you all the tools,
strategies, resources, and mindsetneeded to modernize your mortgage
business and thrive.
And my name is Luke Shankula, aka
Long Form Luke, and this is theLoans On Demand podcast.
Hey, what's going on?Welcome to the Loans On Demand
(00:24):
Podcast, the show where we helploan officers flip the status quo
on real estate agents and put loanofficers in the driver's seat.
And we're going to have a good onetoday because today we have
Michelle Berman-Michael.
She's the CEO of Berman Media PD
and the founder of Beyond TheMethod and really just the IG
queen.
So I'm excited to have her on.
We've kind of been connectedonline for a little bit and I've
seen some of her cool content.
She's connected to a lot of the
(00:45):
people that I know as well.
So man, I'm excited to dive in
today.
Thank you for being on the show
today.
Thanks so much for having me,
Luke.
This is going be fun.
Let's rock and roll and give us alittle background.
Obviously I introduced kind ofyour titles, but give us a little
insight into who you are, why youdo what you do Yeah.
I will try to do that as superfast as possible, because
sometimes that's an exciting longstory that I get into.
But I'll give you the fastrundown.
(01:07):
So I am originally from SouthernCalifornia, I was born and raised
right by Disneyland.
I've been with the city La Mirada.
That's where I was born andraised.
But I have always felt reallycalled to be independent.
And so I also basically justdetermined quickly that I was not
going to be a homebody and stay inCalifornia and I was going to go
far away.
Now, in that process, I have been
an athlete my entire life.
(01:27):
So I started competitively
swimming at the age of four, swamall the way through high school,
swam for a very competitive teamin Southern California alongside
Kevin Perry and ended up gettingrecruited to swim in college.
So I swam for Rutgers, actuallywent as far away as I could from
California without going out ofthe country.
But there was something reallydrawing for me about that and
getting out and being able tocreate my own human.
(01:49):
I ended up graduating in 2012 witha degree in journalism and
psychology with the thoughtprocess of I'm going to go write a
book.
I had always said I had a voice
and I felt like I had something tosay, but I wasn't really sure what
it was.
And I still to this day say that
the only difference is now I kindof know what it is.
But I graduated with this degreethinking if I'm going to write
about people, I have to understandpeople.
(02:09):
And I think you and I both canagree that most people go to
college thinking, I don't reallyknow how that's going to serve me
in the real world.
Well, fast forward, you know,
close to 10 years after owning mycompany, understanding how people
operate is exactly what I do.
And understanding how to make
people actually convert, if weunderstand them, is also a part of
what I do.
So that's kind of the fast
background.
On the personal side, I have an
(02:31):
amazing husband.
We just celebrated five years.
I have a two and a half year old.
He is everything.
His name is Knox.
So you guys will see lots and lots
of content of Knox on Instagram.
He is super cute, but I'm also
very biased.
On the other side of that, I am
not a swimmer anymore, but I am acompetitive CrossFitter.
So I just finished the Open, ifanyone is listening to this and
(02:51):
did it.
And I also run half marathons now
pretty frequently.
And my husband is a road marathon
runner and also has done severalultra marathons.
So fitness is a huge part of ourlife.
It's a huge part of our day today.
We literally kind of planvacations around trails and where
we can do things outside.
So that's a huge part of who we
are just on the personal it.
That's awesome.
(03:11):
You know, and obviously the familyis everything.
I mean, I have 4 kids myself.
So something that we'll probably
talk about a little bit today isthe type of content we're going to
be posting and stuff like that onthese platforms.
But I did want to touch real quickon what you talked about, though,
in terms of understanding people.
And I think when it comes down to
it, sales and marketing is allabout understanding people.
And as loan officers that arelistening to this, like that's
(03:32):
what it's all about, right?Like how do we actually understand
the people that we're talking toand selling to and putting content
out for?That is what actually the secret
sauce is to conversion isunderstanding people.
Then the truth is so many peopledon't take the time to understand
who their target market is andwhat their pain points are, what
their desires are, what keeps themup at night.
Put yourself in their shoes,right?
So many times we lose focusbecause we're so caught up in the
(03:52):
curse of knowledge, right?We know so much about the thing we
do.
We think everybody knows all the
things about it, and that's notthe truth.
So, man, I'm excited to dive into,you know, some of the things you
do.
So tell us a little bit about kind
of like what is the secret sauce?What is the thing that you do?
I you mean, obviously know, youhave a couple organizations that
you What run.
(04:12):
is the main thing?
What do you guys help loanofficers?
And I think you have buildrelationships that are based and
rooted in authenticity and rootedin this concept that we're talking
about, which is connection, right?We have to understand how people
operate in order to connect withthem on that level.
So in theory, if you zoom out,what we really specialize in is
(04:46):
outbound prospecting on theInstagram platform.
So yes, I can certainly teach youeverything and anything about
content.
And I do.
But my primary focus is the centerphase of what Instagram really
which is, is how do we essentiallyturn the content we're now
producing, the video content we'redoing, all the things into actual
money in our bank account orappointments that can lead to
money for us.
And in that phase, we focus on
data, basically, that we alreadyhave access to, right?
So most real estate agents, mostloan officers, regardless of what
side you fall on, they fall victimto this concept of more.
(05:11):
Yeah.
Need more engagement.
I need more followers.
I need more deals in the pipe.
I need all these things.
More, more, more, more, right?
And my word of the year or my kindof phrase of the year for my
organization is we don't needmore.
We just have to trust that what wehave is enough and we have to dig
into what we already have.
Right.
A loan officer that's listening tothis.
If you're listening to this, Luke,and you're thinking, well, how
(05:33):
does that apply to me?Well, look at the data you already
have access to.
Right.
So you have a big CRM.
Most likely you have following on
the Instagram platform.
You have a LinkedIn following.
Most likely you have a Facebookfollowing.
A lot of us here might also haveFacebook groups.
Maybe we have YouTube channels.
We have all of these other
platforms that we're utilizing.
But how many of the people that
are consuming your contentconsistently are you actually
connected to?And there's a big difference
(05:53):
between consuming and connecting,right?
So the data we have access to, Iteach you how to find it, connect
with it, and ultimately how to notonly find them, but then what to
say to them to create the funnelthat you need.
So right before we jumped on, Iwas on a call with a loan officer
who's been a client of mine forlike 60 days, not a long time.
He's got five appointments in thelast week through Instagram,
(06:13):
through this outbound prospectingmethod, right?
And he's a brand new loan officer,done maybe a handful of deals
total in his career, and it'sworking, right?
And it's not because he's uniqueor special or any different,
doesn't have better products,doesn't have better this, that, or
the other thing.
It's because he's working a system
that creates connection first, andthen that leads to appointments.
Yeah, we can dig a little deeper.
What I liked that you were talking
(06:34):
about though, was we all all havedata.
And you're right.
It's funny, because I do put out
YouTube videos every week.
And the video that I put out a
couple, I don't know, maybe abouta month ago was how to run ads to
generate leads.
That's my best performing video on
YouTube right now.
One of my worst performing videos
was how to convert more leads,right?
(06:55):
Like how to actually close moreleads, how to have better sales
processes.
And it's funny because I think
everybody thinks they need moreleads, more, more, more, like you
said.
Truth is most people actually need
to create better systems aroundconversion.
And that comes down to, you know,you talked about connection, which
is using these platforms as aconnection platform.
But I also think one of myfavorite quotes is little hinges
swing big doors, right?It's like, how do we improve the
pull through of what we have?And the numbers don't have to be
(07:18):
like exponential, right?We think like in order for us to
get you a, know, double ourbusiness, we need to do double the
amount of work.
And it's like, well, no, if we
just get 10% better contact rateand 10% better application rate
and 10% better pre-approval rateand 10% better, all of a sudden
that's like a, you know, a two,three, four X return.
And I find myself doing the samething, right?
I need more.
I need to post more social media
content.
I need to do this and do that.
(07:39):
It's like, I already have, I don'tknow, a couple of whatever
thousands of people in my databasethat we just need to nurture
better.
We send out emails and all that
kind of stuff.
But I love this concept because
I'm ADHD, if you can't tell.
Systems aren't my strong suit.
And so I'm actually super excitedto hear kind of some of the
strategies and systems that youutilize, because I find myself
doing a lot of connection, butit's just because I like to
connect with people, but notfollow a specific system or any
(08:00):
sort of process or any sort oflike, Hey, I'm going to do this
sort of religiously every singleday.
So I'm curious, what does thatlook like from a day-to-day basis?
You know, are you specificallytargeting specific people?
Are you just kind of going throughyour whole list and just combing
through that and just having, youknow, random conversations?
I mean, cause there's obviouslypeople out there that are teaching
stupid stuff, like asking dumbquestions, like, how are you
doing?And I'm like, yo, I'm never going
to respond to that Get them everyday.
Yeah.
Well, because like what's going to
(08:21):
happen next, you a hundred percentknow that the next question or the
next thing that's going to comeafter, how are you doing is here's
the thing I do.
You want to buy it?
You know?And so I have really picked up on
a lot of those sorts of vibes ofthe people that have called them
poopy prospecting, whatever youwant to call it.
But you know, there's a lot of badways of trying to connect with
people.
So I guess I'll leave it to you.
Like what is some of thosetechniques, strategies, like what
(08:42):
do you sort of daily basis looklike for a new loan officer, for
an experienced loan officer?What does that sort of look like?
Yeah.
So it's really built off of a
tracker.
So many years ago, I built Beyond
the Method.
Beyond the Method is the name of
the program that I created.
And for those grad school dropouts
who are listening to this, youguys will appreciate this.
I did all my undergrad, graduated,went to grad school, did all of my
graduate credits minus my 40-hourthesis.
And at the time, I was really madat myself because I was like, oh,
(09:04):
shit, I really should havefinished that.
But then I realized now thatbeyond the method really is the
thesis that I didn't pay a lot ofmoney to have a piece of paper
mailed to me for.
So now I get paid to do it, right?
So beyond the method is thisprocess of all of what we talked
about, right?It's a three phases content and
prospecting.
And then what I call the Instagram
flywheel is phase three.
But the prospecting piece, if you
put a magnifying glass on top ofit, it really looks like a five
(09:26):
day, two week rotating cycleGoogle sheet, right?
Imagine like the sexiest Excelspreadsheet you can imagine in
your mind, that's pretty much whatit is.
And each of the five days of theweek, we have a very specific
category for the loan officer toattack, right?
Now, not every loan officer is thesame.
You Luke obviously do things alittle bit differently than a
traditional loan officer, right?As compared to someone like the
gentleman that I was referring tothat I was on a call with before.
(09:47):
That's all he does, right?Loans, everyday loans, realtor
relationship creates a loan.
So for you, it might look
different, but in general, thefive day tracker day, number one
or Mondays is what I call realtorday.
So this is a very important day.
And I really want people, if
you're listening to this, to takenotes rapidly because like you,
Luke, I don't have ADHD, but Italk really fast and I'm very,
very high D. So I tend to justlike go right through it.
(10:10):
But realtor day specifically, ourjob on this day is to connect with
agents that we are already workingwith.
So if you are a loan officerlistening to this, you probably
have 30 to 50, maybe a biggernumber of agents that you can
consistently rely on.
Right.
If that number is less, that'sfine.
Doesn't matter.
But on Mondays, what you're going
to do is you're going to go findthem and you're going to click the
(10:32):
little person with the plus signbutton in their profile.
Let's say I'm looking at yourprofile, Luke.
I'm a loan officer trying togenerate you, Luke, the realtor,
or the connections that you mighthave as the realtor.
I'm going to go to your profile,look at your bio.
In there, you'll see following.
In the middle, you'll see message,
then contact.
And then next to that is a little
person with a plus sign button.
(10:52):
If you click on that, Instagram is
going to give you this big, giantdropdown of a whole bunch of other
accounts that are similar to you,or that I might know because of my
relationship with you.
So this is where that concept of
leverage comes in.
So what we do is we go and we
connect with all of those peoplethat Instagram is recommending to
us based off of our super strongrelationship with that particular
(11:14):
agent that's already sending usdeals or already actively working
with us.
Now, in doing so, we don't send
them a message right out of thegate saying, hey, by the way, I
work with Luke and you shouldreally work with me too.
Right.
We're definitely not doing that.
Please don't do Please don't dothat.
If you're listening to me rightnow and you do that, I'm throwing
a We're excommunicating you.
Yes, exactly.
But what you will do, the initialform of contact, what it looks
(11:34):
like is go to their account, liketheir first piece of content,
comment on something, open theirstories if they have one and
engage authentically.
Now, I don't have time to get into
like the message structure of whatdo we say and all of that.
But initiating contact that way,once they then respond, I use
voice notes for that initialresponse to their response.
Now, Luke, I've always noted you,I think, right out of the gate,
but that was a little bitdifferent.
So out of the gate swinging with avoice note and say, Hey, Luke, you
(11:58):
probably don't know me, but I workwith such and such realtor.
And I was on Instagram.
And when I clicked on his profile,
it recommended that I startfollowing you and I'd love to take
you out for coffee.
Like don't do that.
Right?So initiate contact based off of
what they're sharing, Right.
So if they posted a picture of
them eating Girl Scout cookies,then talk about the Girl Scout
cookies, ask them a couple ofquestions about the Girl Scout
cookies, let them respond, turn itaround and then send a voice note
(12:21):
and leverage the relationship withthat first realtor that you
initially found them throughlooking up.
So you can say something like, youknow, I've loved chatting with
you, blah, blah, blah, insertacknowledgement of Girl Scout
cookies.
And then you can say, by the way,
I actually came across you becauseI'm connected to X person.
And I just wanted to reach out andsay, hey, we might have some
synergy if you're open to adiscussion.
(12:42):
Nice.
Right.
So that's Mondays.
Mondays is leveraging your
pre-existing realtor relationshipsto create new ones.
So the way I always describe thisis really scaling your existing
community, right?Through this term of leverage.
And I'll say leverage a Realquick, just to touch on this is
like, theoretically, I mean,obviously you guys do a lot of
Instagram.
Theoretically, this would probably
work on any social platform thatyou're prevalent on, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
That's kind of what I figured.
You could probably do this with
LinkedIn.
Again, if you use these platforms,
(13:03):
I'm just curious.
I feel like these strategies would
probably work almost across anysocial platform.
I guess Again, you'd probably dothis with LinkedIn.
if you Again, use these I'mplatforms, just I feel curious.
like these strategies wouldprobably work almost across any
social platform.
Again, I guess you'd have to make
sure that you can find theconnections.
You can't always find that on allthe platforms, but this is cool
because I think this could be kindof platform agnostic.
(13:24):
I think IG is the sort of theplace to be now.
I'm a big Facebook guy.
And so I'm trying to get into IG.
I'm trying to get into LinkedIn.
I'm trying to get all these other
platforms, but it's just, it's sodifferent.
It's so much work, but Iappreciate that.
So, all right, let's get intoTuesday.
So Tuesdays is what I call yourdream 100 day.
So on this day, you're going tohave your dream 100 agents.
(13:47):
It might not be agents for me andyou, Luke, it might be podcasts,
right?Getting our names on podcasts.
It might be events, right?Doing and speaking at different
events is a huge part of how Imake money.
Just I'm assuming similar for you.
So I have a dream 100 list of
events, connections that I want tomake that can lead to other
opportunities.
So for you as a loan officer
listening to this, maybe that's ahundred agents.
And the way that I would recommendit is it's a hundred agents that
you're maybe not necessarilyworking with right now, but they
fit your filter.
Now, this is an important thing
because when you're prospecting onInstagram, there's a million
(14:08):
realtors out there, right?And there's a million realtors in
your area out there on Instagram.
You don't want every single one of
them stop trying to do that,right?
So create a filter and whateverthat filter looks like for you,
right?So if you're a brand new loan
officer, you don't have anyrealtor partners, then maybe the
onesie twosie realtor is a goodperson for you to help build a
relationship with.
Now, if you're a really
established loan officer, youdon't want that guy, right?
No offense to that realtor, butyou don't want that, right?
(14:28):
To determine what your filter is.
And then obviously think outside
of the box, right?Vendor partners, CPAs, insurance
agents, divorce attorneys,whatever that might look like for
you, every loan officer isdifferent, right?
If you're recruiting, I work witha lot of LOs that are actively
recruiting other loan officers andthey are terrible at it in their
sales breath, especially LinkedIn.
Okay.
I mess with people on LinkedIn nowbecause I just think it's funny.
(14:49):
But like, if I get one of thosemessages, I actually respond back
and I'll say something stupid.
Like, does that actually work for
you?Like, It's funny because, you
know, I'm a little bit of apitcher marketer sort of approach.
I did that on LinkedIn as well fora long time.
Recently, I switched up my intromessage to like, oh, here's a
thinly veiled message requestwhere as soon as you accept my
request, I'm going to send you apitch.
(15:10):
Ha ha.
And then I just kind of like joke
about it.
Just like basically make a joke
because of how everybody works onthere.
It's worked so much better to likeget connections and have people
responding.
And if you were, and I said, PS, I
basically just send cat memes anddad jokes.
And it's just been so much betterof a connection request than what
I was And what you did was createa personal connection.
(15:30):
You made fun of yourself in that,which makes you a real human.
We'll talk about that.
I'm sure.
But the other day is Wednesday.
So I'm just going to keep us
moving through the five.
But Wednesday is CRM day.
So what this looks like for mostof my loan officers, I will say is
their listing agent day.
So they pull all of the agents on
the listing side of theirtransactions out of their
database, and they go find them onInstagram.
(15:52):
Now, why is this so important?Because guess what?
You've already done a deal withthese people, just not them
directly, right?Because you were helping the
buyer's agent.
So you were the one that
facilitated the loan to make thateven happen in the first place.
So almost every loan officer Iknow has a solid list of agents
that were on the listing side, butthey're not doing hardly anything
with them other than emailingthem.
And if we have time, we'll talkabout emails, but your emails also
(16:15):
suck.
So we can fix that.
But talking to the listing agentson Instagram, building a
connection, building, you know,this personal relationship first
is really what Wednesday is allabout.
Now, Thursday and Friday are alittle bit different.
So Thursday is LinkedIn day.
So you're going to try to find all
of your connections on LinkedIn,make sure you're connected to them
on Instagram.
Most of us, especially LOs
typically tend to use LinkedInreally heavily or Facebook really
heavily, and they haven't crosspollinated over to Instagram.
So don't just go on a follow,follow, follow spree.
(16:35):
Please don't do that.
Instead, connect with them first.
And when I say connect, I mean,comments on something, respond to
a story, let them follow youfirst, then continue the
conversation for 24, 48 hours.
It's kind of like the 24, 48 hour
golden rule, if you will.
And then once they are continuing
the conversation with you, evenafter they started following you,
then you follow them back.
So this is psychology or
psychological warfare, if youwill.
I'm a big nerd on the psychologyaspect of things, because if we
(16:58):
don't understand how peopleoperate, we can't sell them
anything, right?the lean out method.
We talked about that, too.
Even like in dating and stuff like
that, if you show you're notinterested, people, you know, are
like, they're more interested,right type of thing.
So not that I know much aboutdating.
was gonna say, I married myhusband two months after we met.
So not a good example of that one.
But yeah, my best friend still to
(17:18):
this day says that all the time,she's like, you are batshit I
still cannot believe that youactually called your shot.
crazy.
And I was five years later and a
Here like, we well, in allseriousness, baby.
go. No, Thursdays are fun for LOsin the sense of it's an easy
demographic where they've alreadyprobably put a lot of time and
effort and energy into theLinkedIn platform.
They just haven't taken the timeto move it to the Instagram space.
(17:39):
And then Fridays is re-engage day.
So what re-engage means is all of
the conversations that you hadMonday through Thursday, you have
a lot of people to respond to.
Because if you do this right, you
should wake up every day to amultitude of messages that need to
be continued, right?Or a multitude of conversations
that need your attention so thatyou can keep them going.
(18:00):
And then Fridays gives you theopportunity to do that, right?
So if you and I talked on Monday,Luke, you responded, and then I
got busy, or my kid was sick,which he was this week, right?
Then I got distracted and maybedidn't respond to you.
But that doesn't mean that theconversation we had been having
wasn't good.
It just means that I got busy,
right?Think about how we text our
(18:21):
friends, how many group texts arewe on?
And you get a bunch of responsesand then you're in the middle of
dinner and then you forget torespond altogether, right?
It's very normal, it happens.
So Fridays is that day.
It allows us to continue theconversations.
Now, why this is important is theaverage conversation takes five to
seven touch points to convert,right?
Which means we have to talk tosomebody back and forth, back and
forth multiple times before we canthen pitch them, quote unquote, or
(18:42):
in this case, say, Luke, I'vereally enjoyed our conversation.
I think the next best step for usis actually to jump on Zoom or
jump on a quick call this Mondayat 10 a.m. work for you, right?
So we can't do that if we haven'tbuilt the relationship first.
So that's week one.
The only difference with week two.
So I just described all the waythrough Monday through Friday.
Week two, the only difference isthat Tuesdays and Thursdays are
(19:02):
different.
So Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and
week two are the exact same.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are what we
call brand awareness days.
So quite simply, that just means
follow and engage with all of thesmall businesses, all of the local
people in your local kind of fivecities that we talk about.
Because a lot of times people arelike, how do you get hyperlocal on
Instagram?Well, it's so easy if you actually
understand what to do.
(19:22):
Right?
So I tell everybody, pick your topfive cities that you sell in or
that you want to be selling in.
Find a bunch of hashtags related
to those individual cities.
Find a bunch of geotags, which is
a very underrated part of theInstagram platform and engage in
those places.
Now, if you look up hashtag Austin
Realtors, right?Or just Austin Small Businesses or
hashtag Austin realtors, right.
Or just Austin small businesses or
Austin TX even, right.
You're going to look up and you're
(19:43):
going to see a ton of content,right?
Like that hashtag Austin TXhashtag.
The last time I looked at this fora client, it had like 590,000
uses.
Like it was a massive hashtag.
So if you're the loan officerlooking at this hashtag and you're
like, well, who do I engage with?Right.
Here's where the psychology piececomes back in.
Our eyes are naturally drawn tothings that we like or that we're
attracted to.
Right.
So for me, I'm not a golfer.
(20:04):
I don't care about golf.
It's not something that I enjoy.
I'm terrible at top golf.
Don't invite me.
Right.
Unless you want to go to the barand have a drink.
Cause like, I would rather do thatat top golf.
I'm not going to engage on Topgolfcontent or golfing content.
What am I going to be naturallydrawn to, right?
The CrossFit side of things, beinga mom, different food.
I love cooking.
I don't want to say I'm a chef
cause I'm totally not, but I'm abig macro cooking person because I
(20:27):
love eating really well.
And I love serving my husband in
that way by feeding him.
So that's the type of content that
I'm naturally going to be drawnto.
So if you are opening the hashtagAustin TX, and you see a ton of
content, let your mind, let youreyes go to where it's going to go
so that you're engaging on thingsthat you actually care about.
Because what will happen is you'llend up having better
(20:47):
conversations, you'll be moreinvested in the conversations to
continue them.
And ultimately, it's going to just
serve or fill your cup a littlebit more than it would if you're
just, oh, Michelle told me I haveto do this.
And this is painful.
We don't want that.
So that's the only differencebetween week one and week two.
But hopefully that was helpful.
I know that that was a lot of
information.
helpful.
So if you're listening to this,you're probably gonna have to
(21:08):
listen to like three times andtake notes and, you know, slow it
down a little bit, you know,because I know both of us speak
very, very quickly.
So, you know, maybe don't listen
to this podcast on 2x speed.
I listen to a lot of stuff 2x
speed, but I never can quitelisten to myself on 2x speed
because it's fast.
It's already pretty fast.
Yeah, it's kind of funny,especially when I'm excited and
(21:31):
explaining stuff.
You know, it's pretty funny.
But that is fire.
That is obviously tons and tons of
value.
And for loan officers, I mean,
this was just like the play byplay.
we don't have the scripting andstuff like But it I this was just
like the play by play.
Like, yeah, obviously, that.
doesn't, mean, Like, yeah,obviously, we don't have the
scripting and stuff like But that.
it doesn't have to be that crazy,
because you don't really needspecific scripting.
It comes down to just engagingwith people.
(21:52):
And this is what we talked abouton all the platforms, obviously on
Facebook.
But one thing that I've learned
with Facebook platform thatapplies to every other platform is
I've built relationships withpeople on this platform.
So it's so hard for me to go toother platforms, because I don't
have that like, relational equitythat I've built over the last five
years of posting content,providing value, engaging with
people, building relationships.
I go to these other platforms, I
post the same exact content in theright format, but the same exact
(22:13):
content get like no engagement.
I'm like, man, this sucks.
This platform sucks.
Like, no, this platform doesn't
suck.
It just, I haven't built
relationships.
I don't have a following.
I don't have any of that stuff.
So it's just pretty interesting
that, you know, the same conceptsthat I talk about, even for
something like Facebook is theexact same thing you're talking
about on something like Instagram.
You've just created a process
that's awesome.
Like, to be honest, it's an
awesome process.
Now, obviously from what you're
(22:33):
talking about, the most importantpart is outreach, is having the
connections, is the engagement.
And I think that's one of the
pieces that most people miss outon a lot is they think it's just a
bunch of content.
We talked about posting and
ghosting a lot.
But I assume that content is also
a piece that needs to happen,right?
That you can't not have anycontent on your page.
So do you recommend any sort ofcadence on that?
Is it like once a day?Do you have any sort of
(22:55):
suggestions on that front?Yeah, I mean, I can talk about
content all day.
And I have a big belief system
around the pillars.
I think everybody sort of
describes them slightly different.
What I will tell you is the two
main pieces of content that I willtell you about, and I'll leave the
whole four pillar concept out.
Maybe we'll just do another show
loop and we'll get into that sideof it.
But because I do know that thereare a lot of other very talented
people out there that talk aboutpillars of content.
So I think you need to do whatworks for you and what you're
going to do in the first place.
But there are two main pieces of
(23:15):
content that I would recommend asnon-negotiables and I'll explain
why to both of them.
So number one is what I call value
series.
So I coined the term close to five
years ago when I developed Beyondthe Method.
Value series is how a loan officeror how a real estate agent,
whoever, you don't even have to beeither one.
You could just be a business ownerlistening to this, right?
Value series is how you buildcredibility.
(23:35):
It's how you get to talk aboutthings in a way that sets you
apart.
Now, how to do that, right?
How many meetings has a loanofficer gone to and said, here's
why I'm different.
And you're like, okay, I've heard
that 74 times from every otherloan officer that's taken me out
to lunch, right?So how you are different actually
has nothing to do with theproducts you sell, has nothing to
do with your rates, has nothing todo with your systems behind the
scenes, because everybody's goingto say the same thing for the most
(23:58):
part.
They want your business.
But how do you stand out?How do you become different?
That's how value series gets tiedinto this.
So the concept of value series asa whole is one topic divided into
five sub questions.
Each of those five sub questions
is a video of 90 seconds or less.
So you have a maybe 10,000 feet
above the ground topic and you areputting a magnifying glass on top
of it and making micro snapshotswithin that, right?
So there's five sub questions thatfulfill that one topic.
Now, let me give you an example ofa couple of clients that I've
(24:20):
recently done this for.
So I have a client who is been in
the mortgage industry since 1973.
The guy's been through all of it.
He's seen all of it, right?He hasn't used Instagram.
It's not been a platform of hischoice until very recently.
He also came out of the wholesalespace into the mortgage broker
space.
So he didn't have a database.
He didn't have access to any ofwhat he had previously.
So I ended up talking to him forabout 45 minutes.
We came up with the concept ofarcheology.
(24:41):
He loves archeology.
Him and his wife are diehards.
They travel all the time.
They have an RV and they go to all
these really cool places aroundthis concept because it's
fascinating to him.
And I said, okay, how do we tie
that into what we do for work?Right.
And he's like, I don't know.
And I said, well, what is the
premise of archeology?Right.
It's studying how our world wasbuilt, right.
Or kind of the foundations behindhow animals became what animals
became.
Right.
(25:01):
And the evolution of these overtime.
Right.
So if you think about it, how can
you tie archeology into mortgages,the evolution of the home buying
transaction or the evolution ofthe mortgage process.
But here's where a value seriesgets really fun.
I told him, I said, go out to oneof the sites that you regularly
visit, record your video contentthere, right?
Stop doing the fancy.
I'm sitting in a podcast studio
with E-roll behind me of peoplethat don't look like me and stock
(25:24):
photos off Google, right?So if you're actually doing it in
a place where it is a passionproject of yours, you're going to
get way more views, people aregoing to be like, where the heck
are you?And it's a story parallel, right?
So tell a story about archaeologyand how that ties into even the
foundations of homes, right?The difference in how a home was
built in 1973 versus how a homewas built in 2024.
There's a lot of fun ways to tiethat in.
(25:45):
So pillar one, I'm talking aboutvalue series specifically allows
you to share your knowledge, yourexpertise in your space, which we
all have, right?But tie it into a passion of who
we are because people want that.
People want to relate to you and
you will build a sphere of peoplethat are just really into what
you're doing.
And just real quick, just to your
point is people don't really wantto hear the conforming loan
(26:06):
limits.
Like they don't want to hear that.
But if you are able to tie theconforming loan limits into
whatever archaeology somehow andtell a story about it, like that's
pretty cool, right?Like using analogies and using
parallel stories, because again,stories is what's actually going
to get people to take action andto understand it because people
don't understand what a conformingloan limit is.
I pulled that out of my hatbecause that's one of the worst
(26:27):
things that loan officers do istalk about conforming loan limits.
No one knows what that means.
Realtors probably don't really
know what that means.
And consumers definitely don't
know what that means.
And so you're just posting that
for no one.
Importantly, no offense to the
loan officer, but I don't reallycare.
agreed.
It doesn't really affect me, but
it doesn't really immediatelyaffect, hey, if I can go see this
house, that's what I care about.
(26:48):
Can I afford to go see this house
or can I not?Right, right.
Like at the end of the day, that'swhat it comes down to.
So I think mortgage professionalsas a whole do a bad job at
understanding that the consumerdoesn't need the definition of
amortization.
I don't care, right?
Because it doesn't mean anythingto me in the actual act of buying
a home.
It doesn't change the act of me
(27:08):
going and doing it, right?And so I think what you have to
focus on is how do you initiallybuild the connection in the first
place and then find your tribe,right?
So this particular gentleman, he'snot going to be for every single
agent.
He's also not going to be for
every single consumer, but thepeople that are going to choose
him are people that are fascinatedwith how his brain works and are
fascinated with the way that hetalks and articulates things and
(27:31):
are probably into similar thingsthat he's into.
And that's the beautiful side ofthis is let's build a community of
people that want to work with us,right?
How beautiful is that if we can doit?
So stop trying to be everythingfor everyone because you're not.
The second one is lifestylecontent, right?
So lifestyle content is exactlywhat it sounds like.
It's stuff from your camera roll,right?
So who are you as a human being?Now, this is really important
(27:56):
because this ties into how weprospect.
this is really important becausethis ties into how we So when you
asked me the question at thebeginning of this part of the
where you said like in howimportant is that?
I'm sure you have an Now,Lifestyle content is the
foundation of how we prospect.
So if there is nothing on your
account that has anything to dowith who you podcast, then I'm not
going to hire content, Because Idon't at the end of the day know
(28:18):
who you opinion.
are and I'm not going to hire
right?Because I prospect.
at the end of the know who you areand I'm not going to feel
connected to you.
are, you.
Right.
you, don't, day, And it also
becomes second to that, right?Like let's pretend I'm trying to
prospect you, Luke, and I'm DMingyou and I am talking to you about
my kid, right?Like my son Knox.
And you go to my account and yousee nothing but business,
business, business, business,boilerplate template that some
in-house marketing chick postedfor you on your behalf.
(28:39):
Are you going to give me the timeof day?
No, not Just I mean, yeah, I'mlike, who is this person?
They're trying to get for me.
And they're talking to me about
their kid.
And I go to their account.
And I see literally nothing toattest to that.
So the connection that we'retrying to build is now gone, No
congruency.
There's no congruency in the
messaging either right there.
Because you're like, on one side,
(28:59):
you're talking about on the other.
And I understand some people are
scared to post their kids.
And so you know, I get I talked to
people about that all the time,because there are lots of people
that have that weird, I don't feelcomfortable talking about my kids
posting my kids.
I respect that as a mom, I fully
respect it.
But what the point is, is, if I'm
(29:21):
talking about a half marathon inmy DMS with somebody, and they go
go to my profile and they seenothing about running anywhere at
all ever, then they're going to belike, I'm confused, right?
So the connection is missing.
So the personal content creates
the opportunity or builds thebridge from, hey, we're having
this conversation in our DMs.
Maybe I'm into this conversation.
Maybe I'm not.
But then I click on your profile
and I look at your account and I'mlike, wow, this person is exactly
(29:44):
who they say they are.
I feel like this is somebody that
I actually like.
Now you are more inclined to
actually respond to me.
You're also more likely to see the
content that I do post aboutbusiness because I'm focused on
building the relationship with youpersonally first.
So the whole concept of personaland business being separate, throw
that out the window and never openit again, never even ask the
question again, because it's gotto be both.
(30:26):
And I think to your point a littlebit before about like the kid
situation, everybody's got theirline, right?
Or sort of their boundary thatthey're willing to go.
If you're a big hunter, maybe youdon't post a dead animal, but
maybe you post out in front of thecar with your camel on getting
ready to go on the trip.
Sure.
Right.
I'm married to a green beret.
So we have a lot of guns in ourRight.
But house.
maybe I'm not going to post all of
that.
Maybe I'm going to talk about my
husband being who he is becauseI'm super proud of him.
I'm a proud wife of that.
Right.
So finding your line is animportant piece to this, but you
can't not do it because if you'renot doing it, you're basically
shooting yourself in the foot.
If you want Instagram to work for
you, if hell, you want any socialplatform to work for you you, have
to be willing to do Because it.
if you're not doing you're it,
basically shooting yourself in theIf foot.
you want Instagram to work foryou, if hell, you want any social
(30:46):
platform to work for you you, haveto be willing to that.
I 100% agree.
And I think so many people are,
they think that what is going toattract business is posting
business stuff.
And what I've found is it's almost
the exact opposite, right?Like the pillars I typically talk
about, I have three typicalpillars.
And it's like, you've broken it upinto sort of like a better
structure.
But I talk about family and like
just life.
(31:06):
I talk about thought leader stuff.
And then I talk about sometimes mybusiness, right?
I say no more than like 10 to 30%of your post should be like
promoting your business, right?I give value then leads back to my
business, but I very rarelyactually talk about my business.
And I think I need to do a betterjob of actually doing that because
that's one thing that I don't dovery often, like one in every I
don't know, I don't even know thepercentage, I'm actually talking
about the business and having anoffer out there.
(31:28):
Right.
And so you know, there's also that
side of it that I may be a littlebit better.
But in general, I find that peopleare more likely to engage with you
if you are a human being, becauseultimately, that's what social
media is about is about beingsocial and about sharing who you
are.
And I know the word authenticity
gets thrown around a lot.
But the truth is, like, you're
(31:49):
going to be found out if you'renot who you are online, like you
are in person, right?And so like, if you meet me in
person, you're gonna find out I'mthe same crazy dude, probably even
crazier in person, to be honest,you know, people get a little
overwhelmed, I'm six foot four,I'm loud, I'm obnoxious, I have
high energy.
And that's who I am online most of
the time too.
(32:09):
Right.
I just kind of speak my mind and Isay things.
And I was talking to a guyyesterday and he's like, you know,
I just don't want to offendanybody.
I don't want anybody to be like,you know, mad at me.
And I said, why?I said, who cares?
Like, just be who you are.
And if you be who you are and you
say your truth, like I evenbrought up a Bible verse.
I'm like, it's like the Bibleverse that says, like, if you're
lukewarm, I'll spit you out.
Like if you're just in the middle,
(32:30):
if you're vanilla, like you're notgoing to attract anybody.
Yeah.
You have to be who you are.
Right.
Like if you post guns or whatever,
like, okay, there might be thepeople that are like, I'm against
guns and they're not going tofollow you, but that's okay.
That's probably not your idealclient Yeah.
Right.
I think being okay with that is
half the battle.
Right.
And I think that the authenticitypiece, and I'll speak just about
myself.
I mean, I assume you're a high D
just from our conversation so faralready.
If you haven't done that, you needto find out and then tell me.
So I've done the test fivedifferent ways and I'm a very high
DI, right?Which essentially means I'm very
(32:50):
assertive.
I'm a little bit more of the type
of person to make the mistake andthen learn from it versus be so
structured so that I don't makethe mistake.
That's just my personality.
I also don't operate on any other
wavelength other than 100%.
So I crash sometimes.
I'm doing better at not doingthat, right?
Like I went and did a 45 minutelike infrared red light sauna
session this morning because mybusiness coach is like, you really
(33:10):
have to start to take care ofyourself or else you cannot
operate like this.'s funny is asan athlete we're taught like
especially a competitive athletewe do that right we work out we
eat we recover we work out we eatwe recover we sleep right so like
we're really good at that whenwe're athletes but then when we
translate that into like runningcompanies we're terrible it so
right but i say all of that to saythat as a very high DI female,
especially, right, I can come offas very hard or sort of
(33:31):
intimidating, right?And people might say, oh, I'm a
little bit nervous about workingwith her because what if she yells
at me, right?Well, the personal pieces to us
soften that blow, right?So I went through very severe
postpartum depression.
I had my son when we were in
Arizona.
My husband now works for the
military.
So we found out we were moving to
Louisiana when I was 37 weekspregnant.
I lived in Arizona for sevenyears.
I had tons of family and friendsvery nearby.
I had a really big CrossFit andgym community that I was very
(33:53):
ingrained with.
And finding out that we had to
move across the country to a statethat nobody wanted to live in, in
a place where I knew no one,especially in a town with 5,000
people where I came from Phoenix.
It was really a culture shock.
And on top of that, my husbandwent from being home all day
because he was getting hismaster's after being medically
retired to now he's gone for 12hours a day.
Now he's gone for 12 hours a day.
And I had a brand new And
two-week-old.
I had a brand new two week old.
(34:14):
Holy shit, Holy shit.
The trifecta of all of that was
right?awful, But I really focused on
sharing it and being veryvulnerable and opening my soul
really up about it and leaninginto my faith and talking about
it.
And the people that came out of
the woodwork, the people thatheard me on podcasts that sent me
messages saying, Michelle, like, Ireally don't have a lot of money,
but I know I need to hire somebodyand you're it like I need to hire
you, right?Or the opposite of, you know, I've
interviewed 15 social mediacompanies, and I just listened to
you on XYZ podcast, and you're it,right?
(34:34):
Being able to talk about thosethings makes me as a very high D
female, very, very approachable tothe general consumer.
So it's really shifted myperspective of like, what am I
willing to share?And what am I not?
Because at the end of the day, Ithink we're all in the same boat
going through different crazyparts of life together, you know,
and funny enough, I just checkedand I have taken this and I am a
DI.
So that's funny.
That's funny.
(34:55):
I knew that I just went and
searched my email because I'mlike, I think I actually have
taken the disc So profile.
I went and I'm looked.
like, I'm a yeah, So that's DI.
That's funny.
I just funny.
went and searched my email because
I'm I think like, I actually havetaken the disc So profile.
I went and I'm looked.
like, yeah, I'm a DI.
(35:15):
So that's funny that you actuallyknew that.
So yeah, it's amazing becauseyou're right.
I do the same thing on.
So, I mean, I do mostly Facebook,
but I'll talk about the hard timesof business and stuff like that.
People reach out.
I talk about going through
depression.
I talked about like the hard times
and all that kind of stuff.
And I had people reaching out, not
even so much about business, butit's just about like, you know,
connecting and like saying, Hey,thank you for posting that.
(35:37):
Right.
Like it just makes me feel like I
had people reaching out, not evenso much about business, but it's
just about like, you know,connecting and like saying, Hey,
thank you for posting that.
Right.
Like, it just makes me feel like Iunderstand people are going
through the same thing.
I'm like, it is.
It's, I mean, we're in a toughmarket, you know, in the mortgage
(36:02):
industry, mortgage and realestate, we've just come out of not
even come out.
We're still in a tough time.
Right.
And so understanding that is huge.
And, you know, that's a massiveopportunity to showcase that
you're actually a human and bevulnerable.
And you don't always have to shareeverything you're going through at
the time you're going throughthose things.
You can share it in the futurelessons learned and things like
that.
But I know we're running out of
(36:23):
time here.
So Michelle, what's the best place
for people to find you online?Where can people connect Yeah, the
easiest place is Instagram.
That might seem silly to say, but
truth, I answer all my own DMs.
So feel free to reach out to me,
Berman Media Social on Instagram.
My favorite thing would be for you
to tell me that you heard me righthere on with Luke and let me know
because I love getting toscreenshot that and sending it to
the person that I was interviewingwith.
So that's a good way of saying toLuke that people are listening.
(36:47):
But more importantly, the easiestthing I can say to you guys, if
you're listening to this andyou're like, what do I do?
What's next?And how do I make this make sense
for me?I do one hour private coaching
sessions all the time.
So it makes it really easy for
people to figure out how to gettheir feet wet because I think it
can be really overwhelming.
And so we've really leaned into
that to alleviate some of Nice,nice.
Cool.
Is there one thing if you could
(37:08):
tell someone one thing to do rightnow?
I mean, we talked about a lot oftactics, so it might just be
implement one of the things wetalked about.
But one thing that you wouldrecommend for a loan officer to
implement right now to try to getbusiness?
because why do I say that?We are consumers of information,
(37:29):
right?As humans, we like to consume,
consume, consume, but how many ofus are actually doing what we are
supposed to be doing?So I think changing your mindset
from, and this is the questionI'll pose to you, it's rhetorical
in the sense of, if you know youhave to make calls anyway, right?
In order to generate business foryourself, how would your calls
change or what would your callslook like if let's say you had a
list of 20 people in front of you.
And next to each of the 20 names,
you had three to five bulletpoints about who that person was,
maybe a passion of theirs, andmaybe one other fun detail about
them.
And then you picked up the phone
and called them like, how wouldthat change the conversation?
And again, it's rhetorical in thesense of if you're listening to
(37:51):
this, ask yourself that question,because that's what prospecting on
Instagram and doing it correctlycan do for your calls.
Love Yeah, that's amazing.
And obviously getting some insight
from their profiles is awesome.
So thank you so much for your time
today, Michelle.
Masterclass in IG prospecting.
Honestly, like I said earlier, youcould implement this into any of
the other platforms.
I really believe that you could do
this with LinkedIn, Facebook, anyof these platforms use similar
they're strategies.
a little Obviously, do this with
any of LinkedIn, these Facebook,use similar strategies.
platforms, Obviously they're alittle bit different in platform,
but you literally gave us aplay-by-play, day-by-day process.
So if you're listening to this, goback and listen to this again,
(38:12):
take a bunch of notes, implementwhat she talked about today
because this was fire.
Michelle, thank you so much for
your time today.
And loan officers, if you are
looking for some help on flippingthe status quo, learning how to
get direct to consumer and marketto the go to consumer,
flipthestatusquo.com.
Thank you so much for some help on
flipping the status learning howquo, to get direct to consumer and
market to the consumer, go toflipthestatusquo.com.
Thank you so much for listeningand have a great day.
guys.
Thank you for tuning into the
Loans On Demand podcast onloansondemandpodcast.com.
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