Best of 2022: Part 1

Welcome to the 10 Loans a Month podcast, where mortgage brokers become business owners. And now, your host, Scott Peckford. Hey, welcome to 10 loads a month podcast. I'm your host Scott Peckford and today I'm doing a best of episodes from the 10 loads a month podcast. We've basically taken

clips from a bunch of shows that had great response and downloads. And we've strung them together for you to be able to be like, oh, this is a great reminder for you and help you with your business. So before we jump into that, though, I want to give a shout out to our title sponsor, FINMO. FINMO is a Canadian mortgage application document collection.

mission platform designed specifically for Canadians. It is very easy for brokers to use, very easy for borrowers. It's got some really cool features. The first one is smart docs. So as the client's filling out the app, it knows what type of documents to ask for based on how they fill it out.

It's got a connection direct to Lender Spotlight. And so Lender Spotlight is a tool that's designed to help you search all the lender's rates and guidelines. And it's got smart submission notes. So it pulls key data from the application so that you're...

Android doesn't have to look for it. And it's also got a feature where before you hit submit, and if it knows what lender you're going to, it'll actually say, hey, don't forget about these policies. So you don't waste time sending in files and having them declined. It is extremely slick. Check them out at lendesk.com.

slash finmo, and they'll set you up with a free demo. All right. So I'm going to share with you three episodes that had some very good feedback in terms of from the 10 holds a month podcast. So the first one is from episode 55, three tricks for social media marketing. And in this clip, I share about why questions are more powerful than statements, how to get people to comment, and why contests are extremely powerful for creating engagement. Have a listen to this.

So I always think of social media as like a river. So if you imagine Facebook or Instagram, these platforms, there's content constantly being pushed in there. So it's like this river, you throw your content in the river. And then of course, if you wait five minutes, 50 minutes, five hours, it's gone. It's done. the river and of course you have to scroll and scroll and scroll to find it

And Facebook, the way their algorithm works is that they're like, hey, if this is interesting and engaging, because keep in mind, they want to keep you on there forever. If it's engaging, if people are engaging with that content, they're going to show it to more people. If you throw it in the river and nobody really pays attention to it, it just goes and disappears. So there are ways for you to what I call make the algorithm work in your favor.

by being very strategic about what you post, how you post, and how you interact with your posts. So first kind of example is questions are far more powerful than statements. So you can go on there and you can have some very interesting facts. You drop it, you know, on your feed and then it's gone like super quick.

You turn that same post into a question and all of a sudden people will engage with it and it'll be around more and more eyeballs will see it. People like to express their opinion. Back when I was a kid, I didn't ever get this, but like there was these magazines and a lot of the girls would have them and they'd love these like.

Which celebrity are you most like? Or what's your spirit animal? And people love this stuff. We want to learn about ourselves. So anytime we get to express our opinion or learn about ourselves, we typically are going to be more engaged in.

If we're just, you know, throwing crap on there. So that's the first sort of tip is questions are more powerful statements. The second tip that I'd give you when it comes to social media is get them to comment. So it's not enough to just throw some interesting pieces of content in your social media feed.

But if they comment, what happens is that every time somebody comments on a post, and especially if you comment back, it pushes it back up. Facebook's like, oh, people are interacting. What does Facebook want? People interacting, because that means that people are going to stay on Facebook longer.

So they can feed you ads every four or five posts. If you notice when you scroll, you're going to see an ad. I remember reading once before that, if you are not paying for the product, you are the product.

Your attention is the product. And so Facebook wants to keep your attention. So anything that's going to be engaging to you, they're going to put in front of you. If it's not engaging, they do not want you to see it. Which, by the way, is most of you guys, if you have Facebook pages, they get hardly any engagement. Facebook page, even if you have 5,000 people following it.

they may show it to 2% of your audience, maybe. And that's if the content is good. Most of the time, they don't show it to the vast majority of your audience unless you pay to put it there. So anytime that you can get them to comment, that's a good thing. So first, questions are more powerful. Two,

get them to comment as much as possible. And then three contests are incredibly powerful as well. You know, in the past, we've done a program called love 19, where we show people how to like build an email list by partnering with their local businesses and doing some giveaways. And so Kelly Benici, who did this with our program, she probably had.

the most engaged posts that I've ever seen. She did one was a giveaway for a local Johnson's greenhouse and landscaping. I think it was a $75 giveaway, not a ton of giveaway. And she had shared 83 comments in 67 or 68 shares. Insane numbers, right? So. Contests, people still love it. There's a reason radio stations still run contests, right? Because they work.

All right. Hopefully you got some ideas on that. I know that one of our coaches in our 10 loans a month Academy M, she built a $50 million a year business in three years, almost solely using social media. Not many people can say that. And she's fantastic. But in this next section, I talk about.

It's from episode 57, how to business plan like Jeff Bezos. So there's this concept of a flywheel. And honestly, it was a game changer for my own businesses. And I recommend anybody with a business to build one. So in this episode, and Jeff Bezos did it many years ago.

and it came from this book by Jim Collins, Good to Great. So I would encourage you to also check out that book, but just have a listen to how you can apply this to your mortgage business. A couple of things I talk about, why business plans are useless, business planning is useful, how a flywheel works, and then... Literally my entire business plan that I built my business with seven figure training company is a sticky note and that's it. It's really that simple. Have a listen.

So he has a method that he's used for business planning that I've learned about and I've applied it to my own business. And last year was the first full year that I actually had it applied. The results have been ridiculous. And so I'll get into that in a second.

Before I do, a couple of things about most business plans. The problem is that I think it was Dwight D. Eisenhower who said business plans are useless, but planning is priceless. So I want to say that one more time. Business plans are useless, but planning is priceless. So you need to be thinking. You need to be thinking, okay, where am I going to pivot?

But the act of actually writing out a 15 or 20 page business plan is kind of useless. And the reason is, is because you don't actually look at it again. So often you write that thing out and then you never see it again. The second thing is, is that you can't make good decisions, let's say 10 months from now.

the best time to make a decision that comes up 10 months from now is probably nine and a half months from now when you have more information. So often things change. And as you've seen, even what happened last year with COVID, you know, you have all these great plans and vision and then all of a sudden, bam, something happens and your whole plan.

It's tossed out the window. And so you want something that's more flexible that can adapt to the changing environment. The other problem with business plans, I think, is it's just too complex. So people go so deep into them. And when you start to do that, you're really doing a lot of guessing. Like you're just kind of, well.

I remember one time a partner and I, we started a business and, you know, we had a great spreadsheets. Everything on paper looked amazing. It was like, oh, this is going to print money. Of course, we didn't have a clear plan of attracting clients and how to convert them and any of that stuff and ended up losing a bunch of money. But the spreadsheets look great. And so...

That's what often happens with business plans is you can have this great looking plan. It looks good on paper, but it doesn't actually work in the real world. And then, as I said before, you rarely spend any time looking at it once you've got it done. So you spend all this time crafting this thing up and then never look at it again.

like what was the point of all that effort? So I believe what you should do instead is what I call the plan like Bezos method, actions that built on each other and then created this logic of momentum that pushed the company up and to the right. And so Jim Collins was like, well, how do I teach this or explain this? And so he came up with this metaphor of a flywheel. And so if you don't know what a flywheel is, a flywheel is essentially this really heavy disc.

that it's very hard to get started. But once it gets spinning, it actually picks up its own momentum. And if you look up Amazon flywheel on Google, you'll find examples of that. But essentially, Amazon created a flywheel, which created a momentum and their business. It is exactly the same today as it was back in 2000. This is like 20 years later, you'd look at it and go, that's exactly what they're doing. And it's incredibly powerful.

So does it work? So I'll just tell you some of the things that we've done in the last year. So I had my entire business plan and I showed this to a guy once who's running a very large company. And I'm like, do you want to see my business plan? He looked at me with these wide eyes. You're going to show me your business plan. I'm like, look, here it is. And I showed him my business plan on literally it's on a sticky note.

And you may be thinking, that's insane, Scott. How can you run a seven-figure business from a sticky note? Truth is, is that once you have an understanding of the actions that make the biggest difference, and you use that as a filter for deciding what to do, what not to do, you don't actually need to have a complex plan. I just look at it and go, okay, is it doing one of these things? Nope. Drop it. Is it doing one of these things? Do we have the time cycles? Can we fit it in?

You know, if somebody on my team that can do it, fantastic, let's do it. And so I showed him and he was just like, oh, I can't believe you just like showed me that. I'm like, yeah, you know, I'd show anybody because once you understand the mechanism of it, it really makes a lot of sense.

All right, in this last section, I talk about why most new brokers fail. And it's from episode 65. And so there's a very high percentage of failure, unfortunately, for new agents, new mortgage brokers in the mortgage industry. And so I talk about some of the reasons for that, the barrier to entry, the wrong assumptions people have, and also the lack of a plan. listen to this and we'll wrap up this episode.

Well, the truth is that the failure rate is extremely high. No different than when people get into life insurance or financial planning. And there's a variety of reasons for that. But I'll break down why I think for mortgage brokers. So the first I'd say.

I believe the reason most new mortgage brokers fail is the barrier to entry is extremely low, like really low. It's almost harder to become an Uber driver than to become a mortgage broker in some provinces. And so you can be licensed in a week or two.

And so you don't really have to have a ton of motivation. You're like, yeah, I kind of feel like maybe this is something I should do. I hear they make a lot of money. So why not? What the heck? You go take your course and then you don't have a hot clue what you're doing. You literally don't have a hot clue.

I always find it funny when I tell people this, but it takes longer and costs more money to become a hairstylist than to become a mortgage broker. I'm nothing against hairstylists because actually my one daughter actually might do that. And I think it's a fantastic career. But they become a hairstylist. It's $10,000 to $12,000. It's 10 months, tons of training. And when they're done, they actually know how to cut hair.

When you take your mortgage licensing course, you do not know how to do a mortgage when you're done. You don't know how to find a mortgage. You don't know how to fund a mortgage. You literally know just barely enough to be able to speak the language. That's it.

And so the failure rate is extremely high because the barrier to entry is really low. And so then people just come in, they dabble at it and then they leave. The problem is, though, that I think that for the consumer that's out in the public.

If they're dealing with some of these folks who have not been properly trained, it makes mortgage brokers look kind of stupid. It's like, man, you guys must not know what you're doing. I don't worry with that too much because I focus on what I can control, which is being really good at my job. But the truth is, is that there are a lot of people out there.

a cab driver and they're a mortgage broker. And you're like, okay, that's awesome. But are you going to be the person to advise me on my largest debt that I ever have? How really? effective are you going to be at that? And how much knowledge are you going to have? I always think, you know, like my business partner, Jules, who she did a hundred million last year. And if she's competing against a part-timer, she's going to eat their lunch.

all day every day she's in this everyday focus dialed in they have no chance they literally have no chance so it's the first very entry so the second is is that When people get into the mortgage business, they have a wrong assumption about what we do. They kind of think, well, if I'm a mortgage broker, I'm going to go and get you the best rate. Or, you know, it's going to be everybody that I know needs a mortgage. So of course, they're going to use me. These things are not true, by the way.

The reality is that a mortgage broker is a technical sales job. I want to emphasize the word sales. it is very much you have to develop sales skills you know when you talk to a mortgage broker that 10 000 mortgage brokers that came into the you know it was probably higher than that was one company but let's say the 12 to 15 000 mortgage brokers that came into ontario in the last year

You all have access to the same products, the same rates. For the most part, everything is pretty much vanilla. And so why is somebody going to use you versus someone else? This is why sales is so important. And when we say a technical sales job, so when somebody sells high-end computer systems or sophisticated computer systems, you need to understand the systems or how the machines work, but then you also need to know how to sell it.

People come into this industry thinking that all they need to do is they just want to help people. And that's fantastic. good i hope you do want to help people but if you don't learn how to do sales you're not going to be helping anybody especially yourself all right so first barrier to entry second they don't understand that it's a sales job the third is they have no plan on what to do

So they basically dabble in a lot of non-essential things. I see mortgage brokers, you know, they're new, they're excited. And they're like, give me your opinion on my business card. Doesn't matter. Like, does not matter. You don't even need a flipping business card. First off, who uses them anymore? And it's not like, oh, my gosh, I got to remember that mortgage broker, Susie, that I met at that lunch and learn I better pull a business card out of my what.

my wallet that I never carry. So business cards don't matter. Logo design doesn't matter. Website stuff doesn't, none of that stuff matters. Like that is non-essential. What you need to do is have a plan for where am I going to get clients from? I recommend most new people build a referral-based business because you don't have the money. and sophistication to build a advertising-based business. I've been doing a podcast on that a couple episodes ago where I talk about should you pay for leads.

And yes, maybe, but for most new people, absolutely freaking not. You shouldn't, you're going to just waste your money because you don't know what you're doing. So you spend your time on non-essential things and then you end up, you know, six months, 12 months go by, depending on what you have for a runway.

You know, maybe you've got a significant other who can support you to figure it out. But there's a lot of time I've got to create this perfect social media post. Nobody cares, you know, and so you can spend all this time on stuff that really is not going to move the needle. And I think that's the big mistake I see people making when they're new is they're just really.

doing non-essential things and they have no plan. So they wake up Monday morning and like, what do I do today? What do I do tomorrow? I don't know. And what should I do in the next day to get my business going? It's a little bit of a shotgun approach and some people find success, but a majority of them don't.

All right. Thanks again for listening to this episode of 10 loads a month podcast. This was our best of series that we did in the last six months. Some episodes that we thought had great response as well as some good content for you. Hopefully you guys have found that useful. Last thing I'd say is if you're listening to this.

you're an experienced broker doing a hundred K plus a year, and you want to scale your mortgage business, I would encourage you to go check out 10 loans a month.com. We have an Academy there. We only open it a few times a year. And when we do, it's awesome. We've got some fantastic coaches. These are all very experienced mortgage brokers who have.

a superpower, a very particular set of skills, as Liam Neeson would say, and they coach on that specific thing to help you in your business. Go check out 10loansamonth.com. That's number 10. Thanks again for listening to this episode. This is an I Love Mortgage Brokering production.