August 8, 2024 • 33 mins
In this episode, we're joined by Michelle Donahue. Michelle is a Level 2 Mortgage Agent from Barrie, Ontario, who has been working behind the scenes at The VIP Club to improve it and take it to new heights. The VIP Club is a monthly contest marketing service that sends out curated emails to your database on your behalf with the goal of increasing open rates and engagement and generate you more warm leads for your mortgage business.
Michelle is here to discuss: → What the VIP Club is and how it helps Brokers, Agents, and Realtors with their database email marketing. → What Michelle has been improving at The VIP Club so far and how it has been a benefit for their clients. → Future plans for The VIP Club including a monthly webinar series showcasing how to improve your email marketing and also grow your database.
The VIP Club Website: www.thevipclub.io
To sign up for live events and coaching, visit: www.iamryanwiley.com
What is Strategy Hub? Visit here>>> https://get.mystrategyhub.ca
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the mortgage game.
(00:03):
I truly, truly believe that
building a mortgage business, asuccessful one, is like playing a
game.
There's winners, there's losers,
there's certain things you try.
Some of us are playing checkers
while others are playing chess.
I've had the ability to coach and
mentor hundreds of mortgagebrokers.
I myself built a very nicebusiness.
(00:26):
So now I want to distill all thatinformation, all the things I've
learned from that and bring itdirectly to you in a simple to
understand way.
I hope you enjoy.
Okay, welcome to the Mortgage GamePodcast.
West Coast Wiley here.
We have a special guest today.
For those listening, you'rewalking around on your podcast,
you got Wiley We have here.
a special guest For today.
those listening, you're walkingaround on your podcast, you got
your earbuds in, we're goingvisual.
(00:47):
So I'm trying to show more andmore stuff on social media to show
you, you know, how the sausage ismade type stuff, that authentic
content.
And so I'm starting to record all
of these podcasts.
So you will be able to find this
video here, along with many othersmoving forward on a YouTube
channel.
We're going to slice and dice and
using content.
(01:08):
It's absolutely something you
should look at doing, repurposingall the content you already do as
well.
So this is the first or second
time we've recorded this.
First time in this software with
Riverside.fm.
And today I have a special guest.
This is the second person i'veever had on the podcast very
important the first was my wife alot of you said that was your
favorite episode ever so withoutfurther ado i want to introduce
(01:30):
michelle donahue michelle sayhello hello hello she's like what
am i doing here, Ryan?Why are we doing this?
And this is a different formatthis week.
So just give you some frame whatyour expectations are for everyone
listening.
The purpose of this podcast today
is, so Michelle is the VIP of theVIP club.
For those of you who don't knowwhat the VIP club is, it's a
(01:54):
database marketing company that Iown, me and Jason Henneberry own.
Michelle has been brought in tofix things, make it better, take
the VIP club to new levels wehaven't been at before.
And she's been doing that andcrushing it behind the scenes.
And a lot of you use the service.
A lot of you have reached out and
said, this service is awesome.
It's gotten better.
(02:15):
I don't know exactly.
Can't put my finger on it, but
something's changed.
I feel it.
it's because Well, of Michelle.
yeah, So I wanted to introduce you
to Michelle.
We're going to have a conversation
with Michelle she has about, avery interesting perspective on
what we're doing here.
She brings a lot to the table.
We're going to ask her a bunch ofquestions and this will probably
be 20, 30 minutes.
And then we're going to get into
like, where was the VIP club?Where's it going?
(02:35):
What did we fix?What did we not fix?
What can we get better at?What do we actually do?
How are top brokers using it?So it's going to be informative.
And my main goal here is for youto just hopefully get a sneak peek
behind the scenes of what we'redoing at the VIP club and who
Michelle is, because she's the onepulling the strings.
It's not Jason and I. Okay of youbelieve that that is not the case
(02:56):
Michelle it's funny that shelaughed she's like okay so uh
Michelle a bit about yourself youare a mortgage broker okay level
two in Ontario sorry yeah Ontariosorry yeah I guess Ontario
Ontario.
And you're out of Barrie, Ontario.
Ontario Yeah.
I've been an agent for, I'm in my
10th year.
I wouldn't say I'm like a top
(03:17):
producer, like a medium, small.
But I pretty much have been, I
love the mortgage industry.
So the VIP is actually a really
good fit because it allows me tokind of take kind of the creative
side of, you know, stuff that welearn as being as an agent and be
able to apply it and help otheragents grow their business and
(03:41):
apply kind of all this otherlearning that I have from various
different things that I do.
And yeah, no, I'm just an agent
and was working with Canterburyfirst.
I wouldn't say just an say just anagent.
I would say, you know, you're not,you're much more than that.
And so you have a very uniqueperspective and the VIP club is
lucky to have you.
And those who use the service are
(04:03):
lucky to have you because you geta mortgage agent's perspective on
things.
Plus the, so you can bring in the
creative, like, what would you dofor your own business type
mentality and why you you, whyit's why you appreciate the VIP
club so much.
So can you tell me, how did we
hire you?How did you get involved with the
VIP club?So I actually had posted a post in
Facebook or in the I Love MortgageBrokering Facebook group.
or in the I Love MortgageBrokering Facebook group.
(04:25):
I was kind of just looking forsomething in addition to what I
was already doing.
And so I was very detailed in my
post and had a few interviews andgot connected with Jason
Henneberry and basically workedwith him, kind of assisting him.
I started off actually helpingmore at the strategy hub side.
I created two of the strategiesover there.
(04:50):
And then we kind of discoveredthat there was a need over at the
VIP club.
Just things were transitioning
over there.
And my skills would probably be
better suited over at the VIPclub.
And I was looking for a challenge.
So that basically allowed me still
to be a mortgage agent.
I didn't realize how much of a
challenge, but I was, I wasexcited to kind of dive into
(05:12):
something where I could put, youknow, all these other skills that
I have that you just can't reallyutilize as an agent.
There's only so much we can do asan agent, but yeah, I was able to
kind of hop over to the VIP cluband started there October of last
year.
Love it.
So okay.
Yeah, October of last year.
Okay.
I remember when Henneberry, Jason,
(05:33):
he saw a post in a Facebook group.
And he's like, Oh, I like the way
that's written.
And I'm looking for someone and he
goes, I'm going to reach out.
And then he's like, I hired a rock
star, man, partnering with a rockstar, And it was you.
And to get those words from him,that praise, I'm like, okay.
Cause he, you know, he crosses hisT's, dots his eyes.
(05:56):
He knows what he's doing.
He's built a lot of things.
He, he sees talent, recognizestalent, knows it when he sees it.
So you came on, you came in theVIP club.
And I remember the VIP club hadsome, let's say, it wasn't getting
the attention it deserved.
And it had a lot of blind spots
and pretty much threw you in thedeep end, okay, we had some other
staff that was in there where itwasn't really working anymore and
(06:16):
you had to come in and learn.
And so I want, I want you to walk
us through first couple of weeksin the VIP club and sort of when
you realized, oh my God, I likethe product, love the product, but
oh my God, there's a lot of thingswe need to fix here.
(06:39):
But my oh, there's God, a lot ofthings we need to fix here.
here.
Yeah.
So when I first came into thefirst thing it, I kind of
initially saw was that it justwasn't as organized as it maybe
could be.
Give me an example.
Give me an example.
Just, you know, so we have a
ticketing software program,Intercom.
And so when anyone requires anysort of support, be it, you know,
(07:01):
adding something to a list,changing a banner, help with their
campaign, they would send aticket.
These tickets were sitting justway too long.
And so that was the very firstthing that I addressed.
What I will say is when I kind offirst came in the first three
weeks, honestly, we're justlearning exactly what we did at
VIP club.
Because there's these, you know,
(07:23):
there's two different tiers ofthings that we do for people,
either a broker or a realtor.
And just trying to understand the
difference between the two andgetting to know, you know, who was
creating the content and thingslike that, and trying to just
basically just get it organizedand just understand the platform
itself.
Because our dashboard, we have a
client facing version, and then wehave our admin version of it.
And it took a little bit of timejust to even just learn the
(07:48):
technical side of it.
Because there's a lot that
actually goes into creating thesecampaigns, building the campaigns,
you know, allowing people topreview and modify their campaigns
and then sending them and thenfulfilling the gift distribution
at the end of it.
There's a lot that happens on a
one month cycle and then you startall over again the following
month.
So right away, the main thing was
(08:09):
we need to get organized.
And communication you as a if we
do not communicate with ourclients, was, know, broker, we
lose them.
It's just that simple.
And so that was the very firstthing that we had to fix was how
and when and how fast wecommunicated with people.
And then from there, we started tokind of address other needs that
(08:30):
were you know all the layers allthe layers of the onion back and
you start seeing you're like ohman and so one thing i want to
point out is what michellereferenced there all those things
if you don't know what the vipclub is it's a once a month we
(08:51):
send out a completely done for younewsletter with a kick-ass article
in it to your database on yourbehalf, branded to you.
You have the ability to put videosinside of it.
You have the ability to customizeit however you like.
You can put call to action, bookto your calendar, social proof,
reviews.
And the way we get engagement is
people enter a contest becauseyou're given really good prizes,
anywhere from a $25 gift card upto $1,000 gas cards.
And so that gets people enteredinto a contest and then they
(09:13):
answer questions and engagement.
So there's to you, the broker on
the outside looking in, you'relike, oh, it's a newsletter with a
contest with blah, blah, blah.
But to run a business behind, and
a lot of people don't realizethis, there's a lot of moving
parts.
You're dealing with software,
human beings, databases, brokerswho aren't tech savvy uh sales
support team on our side likethere's a lot of moving parts okay
(09:33):
so you understood the supportthing we weren't getting back in a
timely fashion on the support sidewhat was the next thing you saw
honestly the first six months werejust fixing things so i just i
really just took a deep dive intoour data and cleaning up the data
so that it was something, if we'regoing to provide stats, we needed
to be able to depend on the datathat we had.
(09:53):
And then just from there,identifying, just from working
within the tickets, I'm like, oh,here's another issue I see.
I don't like this process.
So then from there, it was
building processes so that, youknow, if someone wanted to change
their banner, here's the process.
Like, it's quick now.
Like, it's in and out within acouple hours now.
Whereas before, you know, peoplewould sit and not know if their
(10:17):
banner was updated.
Now, you know, there's that
quality assurance part of it thatwas also lacking.
So now people have to approvetheir banners before we can
actually send out their campaigns.
And the thing is, the way I kind
of looked at it was, we have ahuge responsibility, we are going
into people's databases on amonthly basis.
There's compliance that has to beadhered to, like, especially if
(10:39):
you're in Ontario as a broker asrealtors they have certain
compliance that they have toadhere to as well as we're
representing them we are literallypretending to be them and so we
had to make sure that what we weresending out was 100 accurate was
exactly the way they want it tolook.
And, you know, it was educationaland high quality.
And so the things that we fixedwere billing issues, you know,
(11:02):
banner issues, processes, who doeswhat, you know, and we clean on
the backend side, our developerhad to put in place a lot of
different code to be able to makesure that certain issues wouldn't
happen again or mistakes that werebeing made in our end wouldn't
happen again in the future becausenow we have a process for
everything.
And so things are always double
(11:24):
checked again because we are goinginto people's databases.
So everything has to be perfect.
And very rarely is it ever not
because it's very important thatwe get it right every single
month.
So your attention to detail,
everything you just said there, Ialways simplify things.
I go attention to detail.
I go you saw a support I go you
(11:45):
saw a support problem.
You came in and fixed it.
Turn around time on Then support.
you saw an attention you problem,
came in and fixed Turn around it.
time on support.
Then you saw an attention todetail problem.
And you said, we need to be betterthan this.
You need to come in here.
(12:06):
And so those of you, if you're not
using the service or if you are,like there's a lot of work that
goes into making sure yourcampaigns go out and they're like
tip top shape, like they shouldbe, like you thought they were
going to be we like, I hope youcan feel it through this podcast,
(12:26):
how much we care about gettingthat right.
And that wasn't until Michellecame along and recognized it
because she's an agent herself.
And she's like, this needs to be
right.
We're doing this on behalf of
hundreds and hundreds and hundredsof mortgage agents and brokers.
Like, oh, my God, we need to getthis right.
And we weren't.
We were hit or miss.
It was hit or miss.
And so now 100% confident that we
(12:46):
got that right.
So support, attention oh, my to
detail.
Was there something else that was
standing out when you came in anddid your six month where you saw
what we were doing?I think just just cleaning up the
feel of it as well.
Refreshing the branding on the
newsletter.
Like the brokering community is
small.
Everyone knows everyone, although
there's thousands of us acrossCanada.
We all know everyone.
So I wanted to make sure it was
(13:08):
something that I could be proudof.
If I see people out at, you know,events and conferences, I need to
feel proud of this product and theservice that we have.
And so 100%, we've been likeworking on templates, we've been
working on, you know, the abilityfor people to modify and things
that they can do, which we'll diveinto later.
But I would say the first ninemonths, quite honestly, was just
(13:30):
simply fixing the foundation froma technical standpoint, making
sure that everything functions theway we say it's going to function,
you know, better communication, orimproving the client facing
dashboard so that people haveaccess to not just their campaign,
but social media stuff, whichagain, we can dive into that
later.
But it was just really about
building the foundation so thateverything works as we are telling
(13:52):
people it's going to work.
And then putting like a fresh look
at it.
And again, I have a as an agent,
my perspective is when we'remining our database, we want to be
informative, yet be able to kindof speak in a way that is maybe
going to generate leads as well.
So the content had to match what
is currently happening in themarket that particular month.
(14:13):
Although we kind of plan ourarticles for the year, whatever is
happening that month or istrending or is being talked about,
the articles will shift gears andbe more about that.
Whatever is more relevant.
relevant.
Yeah.
Yeah.
More.
Build the foundation.
Now we're good to go.
So let's switch gears a little
here.
I believe email marketing is the
(14:35):
most number one underutilized toolas a mortgage broker in our
industry.
I think most of us have fallen
asleep at the wheel.
We don't understand the power of
owning that list and what you canget from that list.
can So what are your thoughts onthat, on email marketing versus
other mediums?Where do you stand on that?
So I think all of it is importantand all of it has a specific on
(14:59):
email marketing versus otherfunction.
mediums?Where do you stand on that?
So I think all of it is importantand all of it has a specific
function.
Social media obviously is going to
be really important to get yourface out there.
That's how you can maybe make newconnections with other people.
However, you don't really own yoursocial media.
You own your database and you ownyour emails.
(15:22):
That is something that you do havecontrol over.
Email marketing to me and likewhat VIP to me really represents
is our ability to reach ourclients in our database on a
monthly basis in a fun becausethere's only so much one can do to
make mortgages seem interesting.
There's only so much we can talk
(15:44):
about.
So we need something else that's
going to be engaging and havepeople actually wanting to open
your email.
So that was number one.
So why email marketing is a littlebit better is because we get into
people's inboxes every singlemonth in a fun and engaging way.
We teach them something,hopefully, but then the engagement
from the contest marketing portionof it allows you to have that
personal connection on a monthlybasis.
(16:04):
So on social media, to have thatpersonal connection, maybe in your
stories, someone's able to sendyou a private DM.
Whereas with our marketingcampaign, because of the way the
contest someone's works, able tosend you a private Whereas DM.
with our marketing campaign,because of the way the contest
works, someone has to, in order toenter the contest, they have to
answer a question.
And that question is between you
and your client that's in yourdatabase.
(16:26):
And the questions ideally areposed in a way that are going to
be not just a one word answer, butmore something trying to draw a
conversation from the person.
That particular piece is what
allows you to have that personalconnection with your database on a
(16:48):
monthly basis.
And some people are really great
with their questions and askthings that are very personal.
And they get very personalresponses back from people, I see
the responses.
And it allows you to really grow
that relationship with yourdatabase from like a personal
standpoint.
And, you know, as we know, people
do business with people they know,like and trust.
So on a monthly basis, you'resolidifying that relationship
(17:10):
through personal interaction.
That's not social media related.
So that to me is why VIP is sosuccessful is that piece right
there.
Yeah, I agree.
Giving out those contests, givinga thousand dollar gift card for a
gas, you know, gas card, we'll getan email open.
That's why we're around 44, 45%open rates, which is over double
the industry standard.
And it's not the same old boring
stuff.
And so it's interesting though, we
ask people questions in the VIPclub and they give you these
(17:32):
personal answers.
And I remember I used this service
for many years, probably seven,eight years in my own brokerage.
And I'd get these responses back,right?
I would start knowing more aboutmy clients than I did about my
friends because they were tellingme about their first dates.
And because these were thequestions because I wanted to
connect on a personal level.
(17:53):
But the part that a lot of people
are missing out on and a lot ofpeople listening to this who
actually use the VIP club aremissing out on is it were has to
come full circle.
So someone enters the contest and
they give you this awesomeresponse.
You need to acknowledge theresponse.
It comes right in your inbox.
(18:15):
It's just a quick reply back.
However you do.
By doing that, it shocks me how
many people are always trying toform relationships.
And they're out on social mediastarting from scratch, from cold,
starting to get these people topay attention to their posts and
getting comments and likes.
(18:36):
And yet you have these people
answering very personal questionsover here, coming right into your
inbox, and you're not bringing itfull circle.
You're not closing the loop onthat and continuing on with that
engagement.
So part of that broker is just not
You're not not connecting the two.
And the other part is us not
educating them and showing themyou need to go do this.
(18:56):
So we're going to fix that.
What do we have?
What have you and I decided to do?We are going to do a webinar
series.
So monthly, we are going to get
together and we're going tohighlight.
We're going to do a better job ofshowcasing just all the different
things that you can actually dowith your email campaign.
I don't think most people realizehow much they can customize this
and how much they can inject theirown things like video, you know,
(19:18):
testimonials, their own like copybasically into these campaigns on
a monthly basis.
So we're going to teach people how
to really utilize the service sothat they're getting a better
return on investment.
And just also highlight some of
the things that our top brokersare doing, because we say our open
rate is around 40 to 45%.
But we have brokers who are like
(19:38):
around 55, 60%.
And we have engagement, which is,
you know, where someone isactually clicking and having a
conversation with you.
So yes, we're getting everyone to
open the emails.
But what's really important is the
engagement piece.
And that's the part where our
people are talking with theirdatabase.
And that's hovering around 20%,anywhere from 14 to 20% just
depends really honestly on thesize of the database.
(19:59):
And that's hovering around 20%,anywhere from 14 to 20%.
Just depends really honestly onthe size of the database.
But we're also going to teachpeople how to grow your list
because the more successful youare at growing your list and your
database, the more successful weare because you're going to want
to continue to use our service.
Love it.
Love it.
Yeah, we decided, we said this is
(20:21):
something I've been wanting to dofor a while.
I just never got to it.
And now me and Michelle are going
to do that.
So once a month, 30 minutes, call
the webinar series.
Sure.
We're going to come in andeducate.
We're going to show you bestpractices of other top brokers.
And then Michelle's going toactually physically show you, go
(20:43):
into the account, show you in theportal, click here, do this, do
this.
This is why you do this.
We're super excited.
That'll be a library of best
practices we're going to build up.
It'll let you get way more open
rates and higher open rates, moreengagement out of your database.
We're super excited.
Here's the thing.
(21:04):
Email marketing is not dead.
It's just not being done right.
And most of you who are staying intouch with your database, you're
sending the same old boring shitthat your network sends you, your
brokerage gives you.
And it's like the blah, blah,
blah, fluffy, fluffy, fluffy, sameold boring stuff.
And I fall asleep before I evenget to the second paragraph.
And there's no engagement.
So we've cracked the code on it.
(21:24):
We've done a really good job ofcracking the code on how to get
engagement from your database.
What we haven't done a good job at
is explaining to you exactly howto get the most out of that.
The blueprint on how to crack thecode.
We've given you pieces of it withthe service, but we haven't
actually held your hand and showedyou.
We're going to change that.
we haven't actually held your hand
and showed you we're going tochange that so we're super super
(21:45):
super proud of that um okay let'sshift gears off of that let's
shift gears off of why the vipclub so awesome stop talking about
that um we were built on it is aproprietary software that was
built on top of mailchimp and soearly on MailChimp was free for
your first, I think, thousandcontacts that you see to upload
your database to MailChimp.
It's your MailChimp account.
We were built on top of it.
(22:10):
And then MailChimp started to
raise the prices.
And they started just going, hey,
now we want 20.
Now we want 30.
Now we want $70, whatever that is,based on the number of contacts.
So our clients would foot the billfor MailChimp.
And we said, this isn't right.
We need to get full control.
So MailChimp just can't pull theplug on us.
And we need to take that cost offyour play.
So what were we planning to dothere?
(22:32):
I know what we're planning to do.
I want to hear in your words.
And where are we at on that?So we are in the end of beta
testing broker mail.
So broker mail is the new
platform.
So for anyone that wishes to move
over, so this is really great forpeople who are paying for
MailChimp currently.
We can, with the click of a
(22:52):
button, move you over to a newplatform and it would be
completely free for you.
We're picking up the cost.
Like it's not free.
Free for that, not free for us.
Free for that, not free for us.
Yeah, yeah.
We're paying for it.
Okay.
Yeah, it's quite a bit.
But what's great about it is there
are some little features that aregoing to be available over there
that are not available onMailChimp.
On the broker side, I'd like to beable to add periodically some
(23:15):
economic updates.
So there's like a little couple
little extra spots that we can adddifferent pieces of content that
are more graphics, or like images.
Broker mail, for those who are
connected with Strategy Hub, andyou're a Strategy Hub elite
member, you actually then can alsohave access to BrokerMail to do
your own mailouts as well.
So that's another feature.
(23:35):
To build your own drip campaign,To build your own drip campaign,
your own one-off Bank of Canadathing.
So you can house your database andall your marketing efforts in
BrokerMail, which is what webuilt.
Yeah, exactly.
And it's a really like,'s um the
look and feel of it is really niceit's very clean um what i use it's
it's what i use to any of you ifyou're getting emails from me i
(23:57):
use broker mail that's what i doyeah yeah and it just has less
glitches um we actually like vipmarketing is actually i believe
the eighth largest account withMailChimp worldwide.
That is how many emails we send ona monthly basis.
yeah basis.
We're huge.
But despite that, our clients,some people have really large
MailChimp bills on a monthlybasis.
And so we need this to beaffordable for people so that
(24:20):
they'll want to continue using theservice.
And so this is a really greatoption for people who want to make
the switch.
Some people won't because they
have a whole bunch of other stuff.
It's a business expense for them
and they might stay over atMailChimp and that's okay.
We can, it's business as usual forthem.
But any new customer coming on, weautomatically are setting them up
over at BrokerMail.
And then we are going to open it
(24:41):
up to everyone.
We just wanted to beta test for a
few months with, you know, 50 orso people just to make sure that
we didn't have any glitches.
And if anything came up that we
were able to address it on asmaller scale versus a ton of
(25:02):
people.
So are you comfortable with where
we're with where we're at on thattransition over broker mail?
Yes.
Yes.
We, Phil, there's just one moremonth where Phil...
Phil's our developer, by the way.
Yeah, Phil, we have some new
things coming in that are going tobe new features for our clients.
Those won't be live until theSeptember campaign.
So I do want to have one moremonth of those particular features
(25:24):
to make sure that we are solid andthen we can fully open it up to
everyone.
Love it.
I hope it's coming through thepodcast here.
You're listening, you're watching.
I hope you're feeling something.
What I mean by that is I hopeyou're feeling the love.
I hope you're feeling that theeffort and energy that we're
putting on our end to reduce yourcost, get better open rates, more
(25:48):
engagement, different angles tomarket, stronger quality articles,
more graphics, more timelyinformation.
Like, I hope you feel that becausewe were there, we're just an okay
company.
And we were coming along and
people used it because the servicewas good.
Now we're on a next level.
And that's not because of me.
That's not because of Jason,although it's more Jason than me.
(26:10):
It's because of you.
And so like, I just hope that's
why I wanted you to have you onthe podcast.
I wanted to let people know, like,this is a real business and we're
just getting started.
And not a lot of people know about
us, even though we have hundredsand hundreds.
And I don't know how many peopleuse the VIP club right now.
Do you have an idea?We're around 700 or 700.
Okay, so we have 700 peoplerelying on us to market to their
(26:32):
database.
relying on us to market to their
database.
That's not a small, it's a million
dollar company, right?And we're a company, we're just
getting started.
But I wanted, that's the whole
purpose of this.
I want you to walk away going,
okay, the money I'm spending, I'mgetting it.
It's only going to get better.
Or if you're not using the service
going, wow, what I'm sending isquite frankly, I'm getting it.
(26:55):
It's only going to get better.
Or if you're not using the service
going, wow, what I'm sending isquite frankly, I'm kind of
embarrassed to even mention whatI'm sending compared to what
you're talking about.
And we're not going to get into
all the bells and whistles we'redoing in the VIP club.
We'd be here forever.
(27:16):
We're not going to get into that
on this thing.
We're going to save that for
webinars and stuff like that.
But I just want you to feel love.
I want you to know it's a living,breathing thing with people behind
the scene, busting their goingtheir ass, working crazy hours,
meeting deadlines, having all thestress on their shoulders.
(27:41):
And that's you.
And that's the team we've
surrounded you with.
And so that was the big purpose of
this.
And so I know Jason feels the same
way.
Jason, I'm just looking at you
going, thank you, Michelle.
Well, as much as I did take all
the credit, like Helen, Jason'sson, who's like a super kid.
(28:01):
as I did He's he's like incrediblycreative and has some really
amazing ideas.
So it's really been Helen and I
that have done this jointly.
So it's really been Kellen and I
that have done on a monthly basis.
But it's that the people behind it
genuinely care.
We like your success is our
success, because if you're notsuccessful, you're going to leave
us.
So we need to make sure that we
are making you successful.
(28:21):
And that's what the webinar series
is going to be about is how do wehelp our agents utilize this
better to be more successful?And yeah, so maximum maximum ROI.
Yeah, yeah.
Love it.
Well, I've ROI.
I've got, I've got a list of all
bunch of things I want to talkabout.
And I didn't know where this wasgoing to go, but I also want to
keep this at 30 minutes.
(28:41):
We are at 30 minutes.
And so I think we're good for now.
So like I said, we could talk all
day about this, but you and I havea lot of passion about this.
The average broker is just like,okay, I get it.
You guys are awesome and you lovewhat you do.
And it's a great service.
I'm sold good enough for me.
And then they carry on to the nextthing in their business.
And that's cool.
That's actually what we want you
to do.
We want you to do that and leave
this stuff to us.
So Michelle, is there anything
(29:02):
else that you want to say?Anything else about what's coming
in the pipeline or any last thingyou wanted to leave the listeners
with before we go?I would like to say like if anyone
who's like left VIP, keep an eyeon us because we have, we've
really turned the corner and thequality is substantially better
than it was in the past.
And we have such great ideas that
(29:22):
we're going to implement.
It all takes time because there's
beta testing that goes along witheverything.
And but over the course of thenext six months, we have some
really neat ideas and things andimprovements that we're going to
make to the dashboard.
And I really honestly, it's it's
it's such a great service.
(29:44):
It's such a great service.
(30:07):
And for people who you can eitherset it and forget it, or you can
use this as part of your marketingstrategy, especially going into
2025, considering that, you know,2023 and 2024 kind of were slower
for us as brokers.
And if you're looking for like a
unique way to really get newbusiness and you need help with it
and you don't want to start fromthe scratch and build everything
(30:30):
yourself, well, we've built it foryou and you just reach out and it,
you don't want to start from thescratch and build everything
yourself.
Well, we've built it for you.
And you just reach out and we getyou started.
Love it.
Love it.
Okay.
Well, much love.
Michelle, appreciate it.
I appreciate you taking time to do
this.
And for those of you listening, I
hope you got something from there.
(30:51):
Switched it up, interviewed
someone today.
I'm only going to throw these in
there once in a blue moon.
I just thought it was definitely
warranted.
And so Michelle, I appreciate you
coming on for everyone elselistening.
Hopefully you got some out of thatand peace out until next time.
Welcome to the mortgage game.
(00:03):
I truly, truly believe that
building a mortgage business, asuccessful one, is like playing a
game.
There's winners, there's losers,
there's certain things you try.
Some of us are playing checkers
while others are playing chess.
I've had the ability to coach and
mentor hundreds of mortgagebrokers.
I myself built a very nicebusiness.
(00:26):
So now I want to distill all thatinformation, all the things I've
learned from that and bring itdirectly to you in a simple to
understand way.
I hope you enjoy.
Okay, welcome to the Mortgage GamePodcast.
West Coast Wiley here.
We have a special guest today.
For those listening, you'rewalking around on your podcast,
you got Wiley We have here.
a special guest For today.
those listening, you're walkingaround on your podcast, you got
your earbuds in, we're goingvisual.
(00:47):
So I'm trying to show more andmore stuff on social media to show
you, you know, how the sausage ismade type stuff, that authentic
content.
And so I'm starting to record all
of these podcasts.
So you will be able to find this
video here, along with many othersmoving forward on a YouTube
channel.
We're going to slice and dice and
using content.
(01:08):
It's absolutely something you
should look at doing, repurposingall the content you already do as
well.
So this is the first or second
time we've recorded this.
First time in this software with
Riverside.fm.
And today I have a special guest.
This is the second person i'veever had on the podcast very
important the first was my wife alot of you said that was your
favorite episode ever so withoutfurther ado i want to introduce
(01:30):
michelle donahue michelle sayhello hello hello she's like what
am i doing here, Ryan?Why are we doing this?
And this is a different formatthis week.
So just give you some frame whatyour expectations are for everyone
listening.
The purpose of this podcast today
is, so Michelle is the VIP of theVIP club.
For those of you who don't knowwhat the VIP club is, it's a
(01:54):
database marketing company that Iown, me and Jason Henneberry own.
Michelle has been brought in tofix things, make it better, take
the VIP club to new levels wehaven't been at before.
And she's been doing that andcrushing it behind the scenes.
And a lot of you use the service.
A lot of you have reached out and
said, this service is awesome.
It's gotten better.
(02:15):
I don't know exactly.
Can't put my finger on it, but
something's changed.
I feel it.
it's because Well, of Michelle.
yeah, So I wanted to introduce you
to Michelle.
We're going to have a conversation
with Michelle she has about, avery interesting perspective on
what we're doing here.
She brings a lot to the table.
We're going to ask her a bunch ofquestions and this will probably
be 20, 30 minutes.
And then we're going to get into
like, where was the VIP club?Where's it going?
(02:35):
What did we fix?What did we not fix?
What can we get better at?What do we actually do?
How are top brokers using it?So it's going to be informative.
And my main goal here is for youto just hopefully get a sneak peek
behind the scenes of what we'redoing at the VIP club and who
Michelle is, because she's the onepulling the strings.
It's not Jason and I. Okay of youbelieve that that is not the case
(02:56):
Michelle it's funny that shelaughed she's like okay so uh
Michelle a bit about yourself youare a mortgage broker okay level
two in Ontario sorry yeah Ontariosorry yeah I guess Ontario
Ontario.
And you're out of Barrie, Ontario.
Ontario Yeah.
I've been an agent for, I'm in my
10th year.
I wouldn't say I'm like a top
(03:17):
producer, like a medium, small.
But I pretty much have been, I
love the mortgage industry.
So the VIP is actually a really
good fit because it allows me tokind of take kind of the creative
side of, you know, stuff that welearn as being as an agent and be
able to apply it and help otheragents grow their business and
(03:41):
apply kind of all this otherlearning that I have from various
different things that I do.
And yeah, no, I'm just an agent
and was working with Canterburyfirst.
I wouldn't say just an say just anagent.
I would say, you know, you're not,you're much more than that.
And so you have a very uniqueperspective and the VIP club is
lucky to have you.
And those who use the service are
(04:03):
lucky to have you because you geta mortgage agent's perspective on
things.
Plus the, so you can bring in the
creative, like, what would you dofor your own business type
mentality and why you you, whyit's why you appreciate the VIP
club so much.
So can you tell me, how did we
hire you?How did you get involved with the
VIP club?So I actually had posted a post in
Facebook or in the I Love MortgageBrokering Facebook group.
or in the I Love MortgageBrokering Facebook group.
(04:25):
I was kind of just looking forsomething in addition to what I
was already doing.
And so I was very detailed in my
post and had a few interviews andgot connected with Jason
Henneberry and basically workedwith him, kind of assisting him.
I started off actually helpingmore at the strategy hub side.
I created two of the strategiesover there.
(04:50):
And then we kind of discoveredthat there was a need over at the
VIP club.
Just things were transitioning
over there.
And my skills would probably be
better suited over at the VIPclub.
And I was looking for a challenge.
So that basically allowed me still
to be a mortgage agent.
I didn't realize how much of a
challenge, but I was, I wasexcited to kind of dive into
(05:12):
something where I could put, youknow, all these other skills that
I have that you just can't reallyutilize as an agent.
There's only so much we can do asan agent, but yeah, I was able to
kind of hop over to the VIP cluband started there October of last
year.
Love it.
So okay.
Yeah, October of last year.
Okay.
I remember when Henneberry, Jason,
(05:33):
he saw a post in a Facebook group.
And he's like, Oh, I like the way
that's written.
And I'm looking for someone and he
goes, I'm going to reach out.
And then he's like, I hired a rock
star, man, partnering with a rockstar, And it was you.
And to get those words from him,that praise, I'm like, okay.
Cause he, you know, he crosses hisT's, dots his eyes.
(05:56):
He knows what he's doing.
He's built a lot of things.
He, he sees talent, recognizestalent, knows it when he sees it.
So you came on, you came in theVIP club.
And I remember the VIP club hadsome, let's say, it wasn't getting
the attention it deserved.
And it had a lot of blind spots
and pretty much threw you in thedeep end, okay, we had some other
staff that was in there where itwasn't really working anymore and
(06:16):
you had to come in and learn.
And so I want, I want you to walk
us through first couple of weeksin the VIP club and sort of when
you realized, oh my God, I likethe product, love the product, but
oh my God, there's a lot of thingswe need to fix here.
(06:39):
But my oh, there's God, a lot ofthings we need to fix here.
here.
Yeah.
So when I first came into thefirst thing it, I kind of
initially saw was that it justwasn't as organized as it maybe
could be.
Give me an example.
Give me an example.
Just, you know, so we have a
ticketing software program,Intercom.
And so when anyone requires anysort of support, be it, you know,
(07:01):
adding something to a list,changing a banner, help with their
campaign, they would send aticket.
These tickets were sitting justway too long.
And so that was the very firstthing that I addressed.
What I will say is when I kind offirst came in the first three
weeks, honestly, we're justlearning exactly what we did at
VIP club.
Because there's these, you know,
(07:23):
there's two different tiers ofthings that we do for people,
either a broker or a realtor.
And just trying to understand the
difference between the two andgetting to know, you know, who was
creating the content and thingslike that, and trying to just
basically just get it organizedand just understand the platform
itself.
Because our dashboard, we have a
client facing version, and then wehave our admin version of it.
And it took a little bit of timejust to even just learn the
(07:48):
technical side of it.
Because there's a lot that
actually goes into creating thesecampaigns, building the campaigns,
you know, allowing people topreview and modify their campaigns
and then sending them and thenfulfilling the gift distribution
at the end of it.
There's a lot that happens on a
one month cycle and then you startall over again the following
month.
So right away, the main thing was
(08:09):
we need to get organized.
And communication you as a if we
do not communicate with ourclients, was, know, broker, we
lose them.
It's just that simple.
And so that was the very firstthing that we had to fix was how
and when and how fast wecommunicated with people.
And then from there, we started tokind of address other needs that
(08:30):
were you know all the layers allthe layers of the onion back and
you start seeing you're like ohman and so one thing i want to
point out is what michellereferenced there all those things
if you don't know what the vipclub is it's a once a month we
(08:51):
send out a completely done for younewsletter with a kick-ass article
in it to your database on yourbehalf, branded to you.
You have the ability to put videosinside of it.
You have the ability to customizeit however you like.
You can put call to action, bookto your calendar, social proof,
reviews.
And the way we get engagement is
people enter a contest becauseyou're given really good prizes,
anywhere from a $25 gift card upto $1,000 gas cards.
And so that gets people enteredinto a contest and then they
(09:13):
answer questions and engagement.
So there's to you, the broker on
the outside looking in, you'relike, oh, it's a newsletter with a
contest with blah, blah, blah.
But to run a business behind, and
a lot of people don't realizethis, there's a lot of moving
parts.
You're dealing with software,
human beings, databases, brokerswho aren't tech savvy uh sales
support team on our side likethere's a lot of moving parts okay
(09:33):
so you understood the supportthing we weren't getting back in a
timely fashion on the support sidewhat was the next thing you saw
honestly the first six months werejust fixing things so i just i
really just took a deep dive intoour data and cleaning up the data
so that it was something, if we'regoing to provide stats, we needed
to be able to depend on the datathat we had.
(09:53):
And then just from there,identifying, just from working
within the tickets, I'm like, oh,here's another issue I see.
I don't like this process.
So then from there, it was
building processes so that, youknow, if someone wanted to change
their banner, here's the process.
Like, it's quick now.
Like, it's in and out within acouple hours now.
Whereas before, you know, peoplewould sit and not know if their
(10:17):
banner was updated.
Now, you know, there's that
quality assurance part of it thatwas also lacking.
So now people have to approvetheir banners before we can
actually send out their campaigns.
And the thing is, the way I kind
of looked at it was, we have ahuge responsibility, we are going
into people's databases on amonthly basis.
There's compliance that has to beadhered to, like, especially if
(10:39):
you're in Ontario as a broker asrealtors they have certain
compliance that they have toadhere to as well as we're
representing them we are literallypretending to be them and so we
had to make sure that what we weresending out was 100 accurate was
exactly the way they want it tolook.
And, you know, it was educationaland high quality.
And so the things that we fixedwere billing issues, you know,
(11:02):
banner issues, processes, who doeswhat, you know, and we clean on
the backend side, our developerhad to put in place a lot of
different code to be able to makesure that certain issues wouldn't
happen again or mistakes that werebeing made in our end wouldn't
happen again in the future becausenow we have a process for
everything.
And so things are always double
(11:24):
checked again because we are goinginto people's databases.
So everything has to be perfect.
And very rarely is it ever not
because it's very important thatwe get it right every single
month.
So your attention to detail,
everything you just said there, Ialways simplify things.
I go attention to detail.
I go you saw a support I go you
(11:45):
saw a support problem.
You came in and fixed it.
Turn around time on Then support.
you saw an attention you problem,
came in and fixed Turn around it.
time on support.
Then you saw an attention todetail problem.
And you said, we need to be betterthan this.
You need to come in here.
(12:06):
And so those of you, if you're not
using the service or if you are,like there's a lot of work that
goes into making sure yourcampaigns go out and they're like
tip top shape, like they shouldbe, like you thought they were
going to be we like, I hope youcan feel it through this podcast,
(12:26):
how much we care about gettingthat right.
And that wasn't until Michellecame along and recognized it
because she's an agent herself.
And she's like, this needs to be
right.
We're doing this on behalf of
hundreds and hundreds and hundredsof mortgage agents and brokers.
Like, oh, my God, we need to getthis right.
And we weren't.
We were hit or miss.
It was hit or miss.
And so now 100% confident that we
(12:46):
got that right.
So support, attention oh, my to
detail.
Was there something else that was
standing out when you came in anddid your six month where you saw
what we were doing?I think just just cleaning up the
feel of it as well.
Refreshing the branding on the
newsletter.
Like the brokering community is
small.
Everyone knows everyone, although
there's thousands of us acrossCanada.
We all know everyone.
So I wanted to make sure it was
(13:08):
something that I could be proudof.
If I see people out at, you know,events and conferences, I need to
feel proud of this product and theservice that we have.
And so 100%, we've been likeworking on templates, we've been
working on, you know, the abilityfor people to modify and things
that they can do, which we'll diveinto later.
But I would say the first ninemonths, quite honestly, was just
(13:30):
simply fixing the foundation froma technical standpoint, making
sure that everything functions theway we say it's going to function,
you know, better communication, orimproving the client facing
dashboard so that people haveaccess to not just their campaign,
but social media stuff, whichagain, we can dive into that
later.
But it was just really about
building the foundation so thateverything works as we are telling
(13:52):
people it's going to work.
And then putting like a fresh look
at it.
And again, I have a as an agent,
my perspective is when we'remining our database, we want to be
informative, yet be able to kindof speak in a way that is maybe
going to generate leads as well.
So the content had to match what
is currently happening in themarket that particular month.
(14:13):
Although we kind of plan ourarticles for the year, whatever is
happening that month or istrending or is being talked about,
the articles will shift gears andbe more about that.
Whatever is more relevant.
relevant.
Yeah.
Yeah.
More.
Build the foundation.
Now we're good to go.
So let's switch gears a little
here.
I believe email marketing is the
(14:35):
most number one underutilized toolas a mortgage broker in our
industry.
I think most of us have fallen
asleep at the wheel.
We don't understand the power of
owning that list and what you canget from that list.
can So what are your thoughts onthat, on email marketing versus
other mediums?Where do you stand on that?
So I think all of it is importantand all of it has a specific on
(14:59):
email marketing versus otherfunction.
mediums?Where do you stand on that?
So I think all of it is importantand all of it has a specific
function.
Social media obviously is going to
be really important to get yourface out there.
That's how you can maybe make newconnections with other people.
However, you don't really own yoursocial media.
You own your database and you ownyour emails.
(15:22):
That is something that you do havecontrol over.
Email marketing to me and likewhat VIP to me really represents
is our ability to reach ourclients in our database on a
monthly basis in a fun becausethere's only so much one can do to
make mortgages seem interesting.
There's only so much we can talk
(15:44):
about.
So we need something else that's
going to be engaging and havepeople actually wanting to open
your email.
So that was number one.
So why email marketing is a littlebit better is because we get into
people's inboxes every singlemonth in a fun and engaging way.
We teach them something,hopefully, but then the engagement
from the contest marketing portionof it allows you to have that
personal connection on a monthlybasis.
(16:04):
So on social media, to have thatpersonal connection, maybe in your
stories, someone's able to sendyou a private DM.
Whereas with our marketingcampaign, because of the way the
contest someone's works, able tosend you a private Whereas DM.
with our marketing campaign,because of the way the contest
works, someone has to, in order toenter the contest, they have to
answer a question.
And that question is between you
and your client that's in yourdatabase.
(16:26):
And the questions ideally areposed in a way that are going to
be not just a one word answer, butmore something trying to draw a
conversation from the person.
That particular piece is what
allows you to have that personalconnection with your database on a
(16:48):
monthly basis.
And some people are really great
with their questions and askthings that are very personal.
And they get very personalresponses back from people, I see
the responses.
And it allows you to really grow
that relationship with yourdatabase from like a personal
standpoint.
And, you know, as we know, people
do business with people they know,like and trust.
So on a monthly basis, you'resolidifying that relationship
(17:10):
through personal interaction.
That's not social media related.
So that to me is why VIP is sosuccessful is that piece right
there.
Yeah, I agree.
Giving out those contests, givinga thousand dollar gift card for a
gas, you know, gas card, we'll getan email open.
That's why we're around 44, 45%open rates, which is over double
the industry standard.
And it's not the same old boring
stuff.
And so it's interesting though, we
ask people questions in the VIPclub and they give you these
(17:32):
personal answers.
And I remember I used this service
for many years, probably seven,eight years in my own brokerage.
And I'd get these responses back,right?
I would start knowing more aboutmy clients than I did about my
friends because they were tellingme about their first dates.
And because these were thequestions because I wanted to
connect on a personal level.
(17:53):
But the part that a lot of people
are missing out on and a lot ofpeople listening to this who
actually use the VIP club aremissing out on is it were has to
come full circle.
So someone enters the contest and
they give you this awesomeresponse.
You need to acknowledge theresponse.
It comes right in your inbox.
(18:15):
It's just a quick reply back.
However you do.
By doing that, it shocks me how
many people are always trying toform relationships.
And they're out on social mediastarting from scratch, from cold,
starting to get these people topay attention to their posts and
getting comments and likes.
(18:36):
And yet you have these people
answering very personal questionsover here, coming right into your
inbox, and you're not bringing itfull circle.
You're not closing the loop onthat and continuing on with that
engagement.
So part of that broker is just not
You're not not connecting the two.
And the other part is us not
educating them and showing themyou need to go do this.
(18:56):
So we're going to fix that.
What do we have?
What have you and I decided to do?We are going to do a webinar
series.
So monthly, we are going to get
together and we're going tohighlight.
We're going to do a better job ofshowcasing just all the different
things that you can actually dowith your email campaign.
I don't think most people realizehow much they can customize this
and how much they can inject theirown things like video, you know,
(19:18):
testimonials, their own like copybasically into these campaigns on
a monthly basis.
So we're going to teach people how
to really utilize the service sothat they're getting a better
return on investment.
And just also highlight some of
the things that our top brokersare doing, because we say our open
rate is around 40 to 45%.
But we have brokers who are like
(19:38):
around 55, 60%.
And we have engagement, which is,
you know, where someone isactually clicking and having a
conversation with you.
So yes, we're getting everyone to
open the emails.
But what's really important is the
engagement piece.
And that's the part where our
people are talking with theirdatabase.
And that's hovering around 20%,anywhere from 14 to 20% just
depends really honestly on thesize of the database.
(19:59):
And that's hovering around 20%,anywhere from 14 to 20%.
Just depends really honestly onthe size of the database.
But we're also going to teachpeople how to grow your list
because the more successful youare at growing your list and your
database, the more successful weare because you're going to want
to continue to use our service.
Love it.
Love it.
Yeah, we decided, we said this is
(20:21):
something I've been wanting to dofor a while.
I just never got to it.
And now me and Michelle are going
to do that.
So once a month, 30 minutes, call
the webinar series.
Sure.
We're going to come in andeducate.
We're going to show you bestpractices of other top brokers.
And then Michelle's going toactually physically show you, go
(20:43):
into the account, show you in theportal, click here, do this, do
this.
This is why you do this.
We're super excited.
That'll be a library of best
practices we're going to build up.
It'll let you get way more open
rates and higher open rates, moreengagement out of your database.
We're super excited.
Here's the thing.
(21:04):
Email marketing is not dead.
It's just not being done right.
And most of you who are staying intouch with your database, you're
sending the same old boring shitthat your network sends you, your
brokerage gives you.
And it's like the blah, blah,
blah, fluffy, fluffy, fluffy, sameold boring stuff.
And I fall asleep before I evenget to the second paragraph.
And there's no engagement.
So we've cracked the code on it.
(21:24):
We've done a really good job ofcracking the code on how to get
engagement from your database.
What we haven't done a good job at
is explaining to you exactly howto get the most out of that.
The blueprint on how to crack thecode.
We've given you pieces of it withthe service, but we haven't
actually held your hand and showedyou.
We're going to change that.
we haven't actually held your hand
and showed you we're going tochange that so we're super super
(21:45):
super proud of that um okay let'sshift gears off of that let's
shift gears off of why the vipclub so awesome stop talking about
that um we were built on it is aproprietary software that was
built on top of mailchimp and soearly on MailChimp was free for
your first, I think, thousandcontacts that you see to upload
your database to MailChimp.
It's your MailChimp account.
We were built on top of it.
(22:10):
And then MailChimp started to
raise the prices.
And they started just going, hey,
now we want 20.
Now we want 30.
Now we want $70, whatever that is,based on the number of contacts.
So our clients would foot the billfor MailChimp.
And we said, this isn't right.
We need to get full control.
So MailChimp just can't pull theplug on us.
And we need to take that cost offyour play.
So what were we planning to dothere?
(22:32):
I know what we're planning to do.
I want to hear in your words.
And where are we at on that?So we are in the end of beta
testing broker mail.
So broker mail is the new
platform.
So for anyone that wishes to move
over, so this is really great forpeople who are paying for
MailChimp currently.
We can, with the click of a
(22:52):
button, move you over to a newplatform and it would be
completely free for you.
We're picking up the cost.
Like it's not free.
Free for that, not free for us.
Free for that, not free for us.
Yeah, yeah.
We're paying for it.
Okay.
Yeah, it's quite a bit.
But what's great about it is there
are some little features that aregoing to be available over there
that are not available onMailChimp.
On the broker side, I'd like to beable to add periodically some
(23:15):
economic updates.
So there's like a little couple
little extra spots that we can adddifferent pieces of content that
are more graphics, or like images.
Broker mail, for those who are
connected with Strategy Hub, andyou're a Strategy Hub elite
member, you actually then can alsohave access to BrokerMail to do
your own mailouts as well.
So that's another feature.
(23:35):
To build your own drip campaign,To build your own drip campaign,
your own one-off Bank of Canadathing.
So you can house your database andall your marketing efforts in
BrokerMail, which is what webuilt.
Yeah, exactly.
And it's a really like,'s um the
look and feel of it is really niceit's very clean um what i use it's
it's what i use to any of you ifyou're getting emails from me i
(23:57):
use broker mail that's what i doyeah yeah and it just has less
glitches um we actually like vipmarketing is actually i believe
the eighth largest account withMailChimp worldwide.
That is how many emails we send ona monthly basis.
yeah basis.
We're huge.
But despite that, our clients,some people have really large
MailChimp bills on a monthlybasis.
And so we need this to beaffordable for people so that
(24:20):
they'll want to continue using theservice.
And so this is a really greatoption for people who want to make
the switch.
Some people won't because they
have a whole bunch of other stuff.
It's a business expense for them
and they might stay over atMailChimp and that's okay.
We can, it's business as usual forthem.
But any new customer coming on, weautomatically are setting them up
over at BrokerMail.
And then we are going to open it
(24:41):
up to everyone.
We just wanted to beta test for a
few months with, you know, 50 orso people just to make sure that
we didn't have any glitches.
And if anything came up that we
were able to address it on asmaller scale versus a ton of
(25:02):
people.
So are you comfortable with where
we're with where we're at on thattransition over broker mail?
Yes.
Yes.
We, Phil, there's just one moremonth where Phil...
Phil's our developer, by the way.
Yeah, Phil, we have some new
things coming in that are going tobe new features for our clients.
Those won't be live until theSeptember campaign.
So I do want to have one moremonth of those particular features
(25:24):
to make sure that we are solid andthen we can fully open it up to
everyone.
Love it.
I hope it's coming through thepodcast here.
You're listening, you're watching.
I hope you're feeling something.
What I mean by that is I hopeyou're feeling the love.
I hope you're feeling that theeffort and energy that we're
putting on our end to reduce yourcost, get better open rates, more
(25:48):
engagement, different angles tomarket, stronger quality articles,
more graphics, more timelyinformation.
Like, I hope you feel that becausewe were there, we're just an okay
company.
And we were coming along and
people used it because the servicewas good.
Now we're on a next level.
And that's not because of me.
That's not because of Jason,although it's more Jason than me.
(26:10):
It's because of you.
And so like, I just hope that's
why I wanted you to have you onthe podcast.
I wanted to let people know, like,this is a real business and we're
just getting started.
And not a lot of people know about
us, even though we have hundredsand hundreds.
And I don't know how many peopleuse the VIP club right now.
Do you have an idea?We're around 700 or 700.
Okay, so we have 700 peoplerelying on us to market to their
(26:32):
database.
relying on us to market to their
database.
That's not a small, it's a million
dollar company, right?And we're a company, we're just
getting started.
But I wanted, that's the whole
purpose of this.
I want you to walk away going,
okay, the money I'm spending, I'mgetting it.
It's only going to get better.
Or if you're not using the service
going, wow, what I'm sending isquite frankly, I'm getting it.
(26:55):
It's only going to get better.
Or if you're not using the service
going, wow, what I'm sending isquite frankly, I'm kind of
embarrassed to even mention whatI'm sending compared to what
you're talking about.
And we're not going to get into
all the bells and whistles we'redoing in the VIP club.
We'd be here forever.
(27:16):
We're not going to get into that
on this thing.
We're going to save that for
webinars and stuff like that.
But I just want you to feel love.
I want you to know it's a living,breathing thing with people behind
the scene, busting their goingtheir ass, working crazy hours,
meeting deadlines, having all thestress on their shoulders.
(27:41):
And that's you.
And that's the team we've
surrounded you with.
And so that was the big purpose of
this.
And so I know Jason feels the same
way.
Jason, I'm just looking at you
going, thank you, Michelle.
Well, as much as I did take all
the credit, like Helen, Jason'sson, who's like a super kid.
(28:01):
as I did He's he's like incrediblycreative and has some really
amazing ideas.
So it's really been Helen and I
that have done this jointly.
So it's really been Kellen and I
that have done on a monthly basis.
But it's that the people behind it
genuinely care.
We like your success is our
success, because if you're notsuccessful, you're going to leave
us.
So we need to make sure that we
are making you successful.
(28:21):
And that's what the webinar series
is going to be about is how do wehelp our agents utilize this
better to be more successful?And yeah, so maximum maximum ROI.
Yeah, yeah.
Love it.
Well, I've ROI.
I've got, I've got a list of all
bunch of things I want to talkabout.
And I didn't know where this wasgoing to go, but I also want to
keep this at 30 minutes.
(28:41):
We are at 30 minutes.
And so I think we're good for now.
So like I said, we could talk all
day about this, but you and I havea lot of passion about this.
The average broker is just like,okay, I get it.
You guys are awesome and you lovewhat you do.
And it's a great service.
I'm sold good enough for me.
And then they carry on to the nextthing in their business.
And that's cool.
That's actually what we want you
to do.
We want you to do that and leave
this stuff to us.
So Michelle, is there anything
(29:02):
else that you want to say?Anything else about what's coming
in the pipeline or any last thingyou wanted to leave the listeners
with before we go?I would like to say like if anyone
who's like left VIP, keep an eyeon us because we have, we've
really turned the corner and thequality is substantially better
than it was in the past.
And we have such great ideas that
(29:22):
we're going to implement.
It all takes time because there's
beta testing that goes along witheverything.
And but over the course of thenext six months, we have some
really neat ideas and things andimprovements that we're going to
make to the dashboard.
And I really honestly, it's it's
it's such a great service.
(29:44):
It's such a great service.
(30:07):
And for people who you can eitherset it and forget it, or you can
use this as part of your marketingstrategy, especially going into
2025, considering that, you know,2023 and 2024 kind of were slower
for us as brokers.
And if you're looking for like a
unique way to really get newbusiness and you need help with it
and you don't want to start fromthe scratch and build everything
(30:30):
yourself, well, we've built it foryou and you just reach out and it,
you don't want to start from thescratch and build everything
yourself.
Well, we've built it for you.
And you just reach out and we getyou started.
Love it.
Love it.
Okay.
Well, much love.
Michelle, appreciate it.
I appreciate you taking time to do
this.
And for those of you listening, I
hope you got something from there.
(30:51):
Switched it up, interviewed
someone today.
I'm only going to throw these in
there once in a blue moon.
I just thought it was definitely
warranted.
And so Michelle, I appreciate you
coming on for everyone elselistening.
Hopefully you got some out of thatand peace out until next time.
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