61: The One Gift That Will Always Create a ”Wow”

Welcome to the 10 Loans a Month podcast, where mortgage brokers become business owners. And now, your host, Scott Peckford.

Hey, Broker Nation. Today I'm going to be talking about what's one gift that will always create a wow. Recently in our Facebook group, Karen posted, hey, let's talk realtor appreciation gifts for a second. What is a gift that you've given to a realtor that's wowed them?

This will be a once a year thank you gift. I've been racking my brain here and have a few ideas, but perhaps one of you could share a wow gift. All right. And so Karen was looking for a way and, you know, what I think she was doing, trying to look for like the one gift that would be the ultimate gift or maybe just for some inspiration.

And when I think about this, it's kind of like saying, what's the one gift that would wow a teacher? Like it just depends on the teacher, right? Some of them want something different. Some of them want a coffee cart. Some of them would like a plant. Or what's one gift that would wow your mother-in-law?

Who knows? Maybe, maybe it's less of your presence in my case with my mother-in-law. But what I would say is that like, there isn't really one gift that can wow everybody. So there's a great book called Giftology and it's a really short book and it's written by this guy who's really developed the whole system around this. And there's kind of three keys from that book. And then I'll get into sort of my thinking on this as well. So basically, he says.

Personalization is what turns an ordinary gift into extraordinary one. So personalizing the gift is really important, right? He also says, you know, the big takeaway is unexpected and unconditional gifts leave the deepest impressions. So if it's unexpected and unconditional, people go, wow, that was really nice of you. And then the best gifts delight more than just the recipients. So it's kind of there's a.

viral effect. When I think about giving gift, there's three things that I think about that are really important to apply. If you want to create a wow for the client or for the referral source or for whoever you're sending this to. First is to be specific.

Second is unexpected. And finally, to be timely. And this reminds me of a conversation I had with Petrus Engelbrecht, who is a realtor with Sotheby's, and he was Scott Stratton's realtor. And so I'll give you a little background. Scott Stratton is a...

author, speaker, and runs a podcast. He's a pretty influential guy in the online space in terms of just, you know, building good customer experience. Listen to this quick story from Petrus. We're just going to clip it in here and then I'm going to come back and share with you my thoughts. On the morning of the 18th of September 2014, at the morning session, I was not an agent yet when I heard Scott speaking at this conference.

And by the afternoon, I was because I got the email to say, congratulations, you're now an agent. So he was going on about a very – if you want to call it that bad experience that he and his wife had had in Las Vegas. Because he's a keynote speaker, he goes there very, very often. And he had had a very bad experience looking at property there.

didn't get the service that he deserved, that anybody deserved. And I sat there and I thought, well, Sotheby's is a global company. I'm sure it would have been better handled if it was a Sotheby's agent. I'm sure. If I reach out to him, he goes there often. It would be just my pleasure to introduce him to one of my colleagues there. I'm sure they're all good. And then I started thinking, how did I reach out to this guy?

To be honest, a very dangerous move because he makes no secret about it that some of the things that agents do, he does not appreciate. But he lets people know. He lets people know. It's like fodder for him for his next podcast. If you do something wrong, it's going to be on his podcast and it won't be good for your career.

Your very new fledgling career will come to an end. But I want to, I still need to reach out to him. How do I do that? So I started listening to his podcasts and he had two podcasts at that stage. was more focused on Las Vegas. What do you do if you're over 30? What is fun to do there? So it's the Vegas over 30 podcast. And I listened to that. And then he went on about a...

a donut shop that was so spectacular. They found it on Yelp. It basically had a five-star rating, which is near impossible with thousands of people having voted for it. And he absolutely loved those donuts. And if you could have that, but now that we don't have that because it's like a mom and pop and he's in Ontario. And I thought, wait a minute. I know that my wife has friends. They're in Las Vegas this weekend.

Let me do the following. How long after you saw him speak that you heard the show? This was constantly on my mind. I think I made work of this literally within a week. you know, the impact of these things will, you know, if you don't do things timelously, I believe, the impact is next to nothing. So you have to move really quickly. That we know. And so I thought, okay, let me get those donuts here.

So I called up one of my colleagues at Sotheby's in Vegas, and Ike was kind enough to go and buy it, take it through to the hotel of my wife's friends. They flew it back on a Sunday. That Sunday evening, I went to Mississauga, 12 o'clock at night, got the donuts, and the next morning, 7 o'clock, basically fresh donuts on his doorstep, did a bit of Google investigation, knew where he lived, and I just left it.

there I don't ever door knock I don't cold call so I just left it there with a note I actually tweeted him which is another thing that I prefer doing is I always communicate with people on their preferred method of communication so I just tweeted him to basically say there's something on your doorstep. And my timing was exceptional, turns out, because he was literally on his way with Alison, his wife, to go and do a podcast recording that morning.

So I got a bit of an edit time right there. And then what I do then is I proceed to keep in contact. I keep touching my clients. I always try to do it in a wild fashion. Always trying to establish myself as an expert in that area. And when the time is right, they will approach you. So he was one of the people that I delivered statistics about his specific area to his doorstep. Like I said, there's a beautiful swag bag.

with tissue paper, with a magazine, and statistics about his specific area, what cells there have been, and so forth, with a beautiful covering letter to say, here are some statistics. If you ever need my help, please let me know. And lo and behold, about a month or two later, I got a notification on my Facebook page.

He's very good with technology, obviously. He's a social media guru. And he said, won't you help me? Help us. There's a property right now that's for sale. Come and help us, please. We want to make an offer. Didn't get the first one, got the second property right after that. So as he says in his talk, it's possibly one of the easiest deals that an agent ever had. But to his point, you know, he talks a lot about establish yourself as an industry expert.

Stay in front of your client and when the time is right, they'll come to you. Right. And this is literally a case study of what he teaches. So what Petrus did, there was a perfect example of something that was specific. So Scott loved the donuts, right? It was unexpected. He didn't ask for them. That wasn't even a thank you necessarily for doing business. He's got his foot in the door. And then it was timely. He had just seen him speak.

And it just become a realtor. Of course, I know this at the time. And he used that timeliness to be like, hey, I saw you speak. And so the whole thing, I think, just ties right into a perfect example of you're going to create a wow. You've got to be specific, be unexpected, be timely. So I'll give you a couple other examples from the mortgage space.

So in the past, things that I have done is I met with clients once and they were telling me they're thinking about buying or they're thinking about selling their place, moving to Hawaii with their family for a year. So that's pretty cool, right? And I could be like, oh, dang, if they move to Hawaii, I don't get a mortgage. You know, ooh, boo, poor me. And they wanted to take their kids.

I went on Amazon, got them a book, things to do in Hawaii with your kids, sent it to them, said, hey, this is if you guys decide to go. They end up going. They were completely thrilled with the book because it was specific. It was unexpected. It was timely because they hadn't decided yet. And then they end up going and come back. I end up doing like.

four mortgages for that family they absolutely loved me after that for her her parents and it was only 20 bucks we're talking there wasn't the dollar amount that matters it's more important to be specific than it is to spend a pile of money So another example is actually recently a guy named Brian, a mortgage broker who owns an office. Him and I were having an interesting conversation and I was joking with him. I'm like, hey, man, you know, if you like it, you should have put a ring on it.

when was my Beyonce, whatever. And so then I get a letter from him and he's like, Hey, why don't you come to our mortgage, like companies, like team meeting stuff, come to my team meeting. And, you know, I said rings can get lost, but handcuffs are better. And so he sent me a pair of handcuffs with like fur on them, right? Just as a joke. And I'm like, man, that is hilarious. So we had just had a conversation. He sends me this in the mail.

It's specific. It's unexpected. It's timely. Creates it. Wow. So another kind of example of this is DVD, who's one of our coaches after that first initial meeting with the client.

In order to create that moment of wow, they had a great conversation. He's very good at that. Out from his office, his assistant actually does a forum sense of scratch and win. Hey, looking forward to helping with your mortgage. I got a feeling this is going to be a lucky one. And it's a dollar scratch and win. But there's a perceived value because everybody.

with lotto tickets and scratch and wins there's a perceived value of much higher that's kind of some things to think about specific unexpected and timely are going to get you the best bang for your buck

And finally, a couple of don'ts. So things I don't recommend, don't put your logo on it. Like even when Petrus dropped the donuts off, instead of leaving a note, hey, I'm Petrus Realtor, I got these. He messaged him on his preferred medium.

right? Twitter, whatever it was and said, Hey, just dropped off some donuts for you. He's going to know you're a realtor. He's like, who is this dude? Why would he do this? Oh man, you're cool. So he wasn't expecting anything back. Right. Another thing is don't send what you love. I see people are like, Oh, I send out a flower thing. Cause I love it. It's like, well, what if they don't love it?

And, you know, I remember one time I bought my wife for Christmas a pot set. This was not a good idea. She thought we were going to Hawaii for Christmas. And this was when we were first married. For some reason, she got her head, we're going to Hawaii.

I haven't taken her yet. I will take her, I promise. So she opens up this pot set and she looks at me like, what the flip is this? I was like, oh no, I screwed up, right? I was like, well, you like cooking. Yeah, but I don't want a pot set for Christmas. So anyways, that was a bad thing.

and don't attach any strings to it so the three don'ts are don't put your logo on it you know i think you can do it if it's fun cheeky maybe you'll be very careful about that most people don't want to wear stuff with your name on it Don't send just what you would love and then don't attach any kind of strings to it. So as a quick recap for this episode.

If you're going to use gifts with realtors, referral sources, make them specific, make them unexpected, make them timely. You're going to get the biggest bang for your buck. You'll create an amazing wow, and you'll really impress your client.

So if you're listening to this and you're a mortgage broker and you're like, man, I want to create an amazing mortgage business, I recommend you go check out 10 Loans a Month dot com. We have an academy with some amazing coaches and every coach has something very specific that they coach on. So they all have a particular.

as I say, a particular set of skills, a particular thing, a niche that they're good at. So you can come and learn that. I guarantee you there'll be things that will be unexpected that you will learn. And of course, if you want to grow your business, it'll be timely. See how I did that? I just tied that all together. So go check out telemonesamonth.com. Thanks again for listening to this episode. and yeah I will be seeing you on the next show this is an I love mortgage brokering production