Welcome to Mortgage Talk with Mark Harriston, the program that not only talks about mortgages, taxes, and interest rates, but Mark and his guest talk real estate trends and your home. He also answers your mortgage questions to help you make the right financing or refinancing decisions.
Now here's Mark Hairston, Happy to everybody, and welcome back to Mortgage Talk with Market And I'm your host, Mark Harriston, and very excited to bring on a good friend of mine life from Dallas, Texas. You're still in Dallas, Kyle, aren't you?
Well, you know Fort Worth the better sigh, there you go.
I was there last weekend. And so Kyle Draper is a good friend I've met about five or six, seven years ago, I can't remember, but he was down in Austin talking about video marketing for small businesses and I'm in the mortgage space obviously as a group of realters, and Kyle was on stage and did a phenomenal job. I was like, this guy really knows what he's talking about.
So I've been following him for a long time and actually hired him on a couple of cages to teach me a little bit more about video marketing, which is a big deal in small business right now between YouTube and reels and shorts and all sorts of things. So I want to introduce my friend Kyle Draper from Dallas or from Fort Worth, Texas.
Sorry about that, Hey, Mark, I'm honored to be here. Man, good, this is a long time coming. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, last time I saw you were in New Orleans at a conference. Had some I got always.
Good Cajun food together.
Amen. Amen, Well take us back a little bit to kind of kick us off today about your past, your story, kind of worry how you ended up here right now in your business.
Yeah, Mark, So I was a youth pastor and in my twenties, and so I thought I would do that my whole life, and all of a sudden, around the age of thirty, I just felt this calling to go be in the business world. And I didn't know what that meant. I'd never been in the business world before. The church gig was like my first real job other
than just summer jobs, you know, during school. And so God has a sense of humor, and I went from being a pastor, which I felt adored for, to roofing where no one cares, right, Nobody is like, oh, let me tell you my favorite roofer.
I hate RUF, that's right, and so I just replace so I can tell you that's true, you know.
And so I went from like feeling so proud of my profession to being embarrassed to even walk into a business networking meeting because I didn't want anybody to ask me what I did. But it was it was during that seasons as a roofer that Facebook Live came out, and so I started doing live video and I was on the roofs of houses doing videos. No one cared. My wife questioned all of the videos I was doing. And then one day what felt like wasted effort, a
healthstorm came through Oklahoma City. I got over one hundred inbound leads in twenty four hours, phone calls, text messages, emails, dms. Everybody's saying so and so said you're the best roofer. So and so shared your video with me and Mark that was my moment of like, oh my gosh, this works. Yeah, Well, what I've been committed to with zero fruit is now
becoming fruitful. And that just led down this journey of now teaching and educating realtors, mostly how to leverage video in their social media business, and then that led into the mortgage side, and I've started a couple other companies since then that we may or may not talk about. But if it wasn't for Roofing, I would have never wrote a book about social media. I would have never wrote a new book about video. And it's just played
such a pivotal role in everything I've done since then. Amazing, and uh man, we're having fun.
You know. It's funny because sometimes with video work, like you said, you're doing work, but you're not sure if anybody's paying attention until one day as storm comes through and a lot of people had been paying attention, you know.
And that's the you know, in our world in the mortgage space and then also in the real estate space. Like most people don't need what you do.
All the time, right, That's right.
They might go three or four years and they're kind of watching your stuff, but they're not necessarily engaged. And so you just assume people are gone, and then boom they get that itch to buy. Yep, the rates change, and now all of a sudden, you go, oh my gosh,
people that were paying attention. I didn't think we're paying attention, and it yields unbelievable dividends if we stay committed to the process, but most people don't because that instant gratification doesn't happen with video very often.
Yeah. I just closed alone for a good friend of mine from college. I say, good friend, I haven't seen Rick in a long time, and I didn't even realize he was living in Austin, And he called me because he'd been watching some video I did, you know, and he was boy a house in Gallason, now the Blue. I hadn't talked to Rick in probably thirty years, and we reconnected with some baseball games. We had a great time.
So let's talk a little bit about video work and between what's the difference between just posting content and really getting content to make the needle move a little bit? Well different?
So yeah, most people, Well, the difference is one works and one doesn't. Yeah, right, that's that is the literal difference. But most of us don't truly believe that social media works. We don't give genuine effort there, right, right. We figure out how to do enough to not feel guilty, but we don't ever do enough to actually win. Yeah, yeah, and so it's this weird you know, Teeter Totter.
That's what I've always admired about you over the years because you know, I'm one of those guys who sees you a lot on video and you do some markable stuff because it's always engaging. Part of it. You're just your personality and your presence, but a lot of times it's your message too, but that have to be real complicated. It's just that you're always there. So I think about
Kylin Rapra a lot. So I think I want to get this guy on my on my podcast and share this a little bit more with people because a lot of people are intimidated by getting on camera, even for a minute or two. I am too, Yeah, me too, me too, no question.
We're human beings.
So tell us a little bit about the different types of video between long form possibly in short form, and where do you find in the sweet spot?
Well, the so the sweet spot is, in my opinion, is when you can do what you're doing right now, where you're creating long form content.
And like this podcast, like right so we're going to.
Record twenty six ish minutes of content, and the beauty of long form content is now once you and I finished this interview, this can get chopped up into one hundred different videos, This can get chopped up into blog posts, this can get chopped up into you know, email campaigns, and so there's so much value in recording long form content.
Most people don't enjoy the long form content. It takes a little longer to do obviously, they don't trust there, they don't have confidence, and man, I feel like I could do something for thirty seconds, but gosh, ten minutes that just feels like such a long time. And so most people default to just short stuff, which are reels, TikTok you know, reels, tiktoks, YouTube shorts, all those things. And Mark, what's interesting is most people they they start
doing reels and tiktoks. They're chasing trends based on what the Internet tells them works, and then ultimately they create a bunch of content that nobody cares about, that doesn't position them as an expert. And so in our world, whether it's lending, real estate or small business down in the Austin area or anywhere that somebody is watching or listening to this, you don't need to know more people.
You need to know the right people, and so the game should really be built around long form content in my opinion, because that requires the least of your physical effort and then everything else springboards from there. It's pretty unbelievable what happens when we developed this ecosystem, Like you're like yours you now have.
Yeah, yeah, And I do want to for sure talk about your business because you know you're a prolific writer. And this is a book I just picked up called Rethink Everything, The Power of Video for Business and is a phenomenal book, and I just want to put that out there because you've done a lot of books. So let's talk about some of your some of your books and what what do you think you bring the table for the for the small business person typically.
So, yeah, Mark, I I wrote my first book two and a half years ago in the middle of the night in Mexico when I was woken up and God said, go write a book, and that's what I did, and that's how the Purple Book came to be. And it's all about social media. And then people started saying, man, Rethink Everything. That's such a cool name it is. I love that name, and and so I'm Mark. I'm not smart enough to come up with anything on my own.
So I needed people to tell me that. And then I was like, oh, you know what.
That is a good name.
Maybe there's more to this thing than just this measly purple book. And so now we have to rethink everything series, I know. So the the goal of this is to kind of be the New Age book for dummies and and and instead of calling people dummies, we're gonna love on people through the positivity side. And so we're seven books in. We've got six books in process right now. We've got another six that are already in line to come out next year. And so we're, uh, man, We're
just we're writing books. And I say, I'm not writing very many books. I'm partnering with the right people. So if you have any friends, we've got a book in them, you know, to talk to them.
Maybe you've got one, yeah, maybe so. And this one is for business and sales, So tell us about some of the other titles. Maybe our other area is that people may want to pick up and explore.
Yeah. So we've got a social media one that's the purple one. We've got a mortgage book specifically, that's our green book, Rethink everything you know about being a next generation loan officer. We've got our Red book, which is Rethink Everything you know about CRMs, and so if you're struggling with your CRM, if you've always had a CRM but never actually leveraged it, it's an incredible book. We have a Rethink Everything book for real estate sales, so
for realtors, that's our Orange book. We've got Rethink everything you know about the customer experience and so that's talking about for any small business, like how do we wow, how do we wow people? How do we surprise and delight them throughout the experience. And then we've got Rethink Everything you know about financial literacy for teens. It's our first teen book.
I love that.
And then we have the Blue one that's about video. We've got an insurance book coming out. We've got a networking book coming out. We've got an AI book coming out. We uh, We've We've got a lot going on.
That's amazing. You know. I remember listening to a guy named Jay Abraham years ago about building business, small business or any business for that matter. He says there's only three ways to increase a business or to larger business or grow business. First of all, you got to increase a number of customers number one. Number two, you've got to increase the uh, the conversion rate of those prospects to business. You know, if ten people walk in the door,
how many people are going to buy something? And thirdly, you have to increase the number of times they come back to buy more, you know, And you're covering all those bases, it seems like in some of these books, you know, because video marketing, video marketing is is is coming out of the you know, if you have the dark side. It used to not be very popular, but you're bringing to the forefront in lots of different ways. And I love that, you know.
Yeah, well, And and what what I love about what you said that Jay Abraham said is the power video covers all three of those.
It sure it does.
The power video helps get new people. Using video in your processes is going to increase the amount of people that say yes, right, and then keeping people connected to you through the power of video is going to ultimately keep them coming back more often and then bringing other people when they do.
Yeah, exactly, And that's that's your CRM conversation. You've got a database of customers but if you don't contact them through some platform, whether it be email or phone calls, you know, Viddie is a great way to do that.
Absolutely.
So you know, let's talk a little bit about if your brand new to video. Let's say you're you've got a small business and it could be a roofer. Let's take a roof for as example. See yeah, because there's a lot of competition in roofing. You know, how would somebody get started. I think they need to be talking to some of your taking some of your courses beyond with me.
Yeah, give me all your money and I will get you squared away with video. But mark it to me. It's really simple. So the reason people struggle a little a little pre pre story before we I fully answer the question. The reason we struggle so much with this is because most people see video as public facing and and so now me telling you to go fail publicly while you learn to get good. That's not fun, Like.
Nobody wants to do Nobody wants to do that.
You know, I don't want somebody to sign it. Like if in my first six months of marriage somebody's like, hey, we want to pay you to come follow you all around, be like Oh, I don't know about that, Like, I don't even know what I'm doing, and I'm gonna put this out there.
I still don't know years no me either.
And so we've got so we've got to change the playing field. The playing field is not public. The playing field is you can get better at video in private. M And so what I mean by that is what what everyone should do right now that is a novice at video is you just need to practice in private. Yeah,
how do I recommend practicing in private? Twelve years ago, when I started thinking about doing video, I realized that I need a lot of practice, and so I had this random idea to tell my wife, Hey, every time you text me, I'm going to respond with a video. And I didn't know what I was doing at the time, but Mark what happened is in thirty days, I sent my wife like one hundred and forty videos and we
won't speak to how annoyed she was. But guess who was really confident about video at the end of those thirty days, Kyle Draper I was, and none of those ever made it to the internet. So we can get good at this in practice. And so pair up with your spouse, pair up with a buddy. Y'all commit to sending videos back and forth to one another for thirty days, and now you will step onto the playing field of the Internet of business with this newfound confidence for the hardest thing there is to do.
It's a great idea in our world. I love that, you know, and you may may or not remembered this, but when I saw you down in New Orleans at a conference, we went to lunch, yeah, and with share of my wife, and we're walking back to the hotel. You say, let's do a video. I said, what do you mean to do a video? We're just walking. He goes, It's called a walking video. You just talk and walk. And I love that. You know, we did a little video right there. It's fun. I wouldn't have thought of that that.
I want to know the science mark behind that type of video. What I have discovered is it if I can keep my brain busy, I have less time to worry about myself. And so if I'm sitting at my desk, and you know, you're sitting in studio and from this environment, there's a lot of pressure to do video really well. Right here, when when you've got all the things ready, yeah, yeah,
now the pressure's on. But if I just go outside and walk because it's a pretty day out and now I do video, my brain is looking around for cars, my brain is looking around for other people. My brain is so preoccupied with the environment that I'm in it doesn't have time to overthink the video that I'm about to do.
Right, you're just talking about life, you know, or are where you are? Are you know? And there may be a certain point to it that just talking.
Yeah, well, so me, you and me, you and your wife were walking down the street and it's like, let's go, let's do this, let's.
Just have fun, and I'll forget it.
Also, it allows for you to be seen in a different light because that's a different version of us than studio version of us.
Right, that's right, that's right. And that speaks to another question about personal storytelling. You know, to be a little more vulnerable about your personal life in building trust. Is that a hot topic these days as opposed to just being professional but being kind of real with people who I really am.
Yeah. AI has wildly changed this conversation because now you know, AI video is coming to the place where it's pretty darn hard to tell the difference. And so now what I think we're gonna notice, Mark, is the only way we'll know the difference is if you make a mistake in your video, because that mistake would have never happened
if it were AI. And so I think we're seeing this weird turn where like you almost are better off messing up in your video and leaving it there so that people know it's really you, then editing everything out and people go, was that really Mark or was that Ai? Does that seem pretty perfect? And so more than ever, like as a society, we just crave authenticity. We crave anything that we believe to be real because we're so
used to interacting with things that aren't. And so if you can be that real lender, that real realtor that real small business owner that shows up in the messy, you're going to stand out and win so much more because we're craving it now more than ever.
I think so too. I think society is, you know, and also when it comes to trying to be perfect, you know, I think people appreciate when people flub up a little bit. You know. As an example, I love to watch I'm a big Seinfeld fan, you know, over the year. Yeah, I've seen probably most all of them. But what I love to watch is the bloopers. You know, sometimes they'll post their bloopers and that's almost as funny as the regular show. You know.
So my family are big Marvel or a big Marvel family, so we love all the Marvel movies, and so on every Marvel movie they do a GAGRIELI. So whenever a new Marvel movie comes out, like, my kids are like, Okay, the movie's over, can we watch the gag Gril Because those are the little bitty moments we're full. Goes from being the god of thunder to a human being, right, and in those little bitty moments, I can go man,
Me and Chris Hemsworth are kind of the same. Now we're not right, there's zero similarities that are in the two of us. But we're looking for that moment of how do I take this celebrity superstar and bring them down to a level where they're relatable. And it is through the mess ups. I love that, not through the takes that went really well. I love that, And so we've got to adopt that into what we do.
Yeah, and there's a certain if you will celebrity status too. You talk about celebrities just being on video, like when people saw you maybe on those roofs, you are a roof expert, you know, and and when they contact you like, this is the guy I have to use, you know?
Aste I love that. Well, here's what's cool about the Internet. It's also the frustrating thing about the Internet. We are allowed to become known for or whatever we talk about the most. M So right now I live before Worth. But if I decided today I'm gonna start doing videos about all the different hot dog products in Austin a year from now, I'd become known as like the Austin hot dog guy.
Ye would.
If you want to know anything about hot dogs in Austin, you better not reach out to anybody other than Kyle. And it's not because I took a course on Austin and then took a course on hot dogs. It's because I just showed up and started talking about it.
Yeah.
Yeah, And so I was Actually I was meeting with a friend of mine yesterday who's been in the mortgage world five years, but she's always been in marketing and she just became an l O six weeks ago. Wow, so she knows more about our industry than the typical six weeks in Lo. Sure, but at the end of the day, if a realtor were to ask her, like, oh, how long have you been in Lo, her answer is
six weeks? And so I told her, I said, vow, why are you not post more of your podcast that you do that positions you as the expert.
Yeah.
If somebody stacked you up against the ten year veteran and they're not good on social and then you're over here with a podcast in a studio, you might actually be dumber than that person, but the world will think you're smarter because we just assume, oh, dude, Mark has a podcast, he must be crushing Yeah.
Yeah, that's funny. Whether that's true or not, time will tell.
I guess you know, but that's what people mean, Bro, you're crushing it. Yeah, And I go, why do you think that? In all of them? Mark say, dude, I just see you all the time, so they associate being visible with success. Whether that's true or not, I'm not trying to change their opinion.
Well, year before we got on today, Kyle, you were telling me that a lot about what you do is around encouraging people to you know, thirty day challenges, challenge people a little bit more to get started. Tell us more about that work too, because people just they'll just not do it.
We are basket cases of emotion, right, We're human beings, like we were wired to feel things, some of us more extreme than others, and whether we are willing to admit it or not, like we want to be liked by other people it because that's what human beings need, Like, we need.
That reection for sure.
And so part of this, like this is why one of my nicknames is the video marketing therapist, because when you start trying to do video, it exponentially increases all of the insecurities that you possess. You are instantly fatter, older, stupider, Your hair is worse than it's ever been before. Right, Like everything about yourself that you are nervous about or ever feel insecurity for it goes to the nth level.
Yeah yeah, right, And so this is.
Why most people chase virality because that if I can go viral, then that from the world standards, is that pat on the back. Right. So the hard part of all this is that what I've seen is for you and I to do this consistently we have to overcome making it about us, and we have to make it about what it does for others.
Yeah.
Good point, because if we only get on here to be great, the moment insecurity sleeps in, like you and I don't want to do this anymore. But if we're getting stories from people, if you have people in Austin that start going, man, I love your show. Man, I got to tell you the story about episode five. This is where I was, and this is the outcome because of your episode. Now it's easier to wake up going man, we're helping people. This is serving people.
It's fun too. After a while that.
That's the only way I've is it's either got to be fun or it's got to be serving or both. Without those two things one or both, you're never going to overcome your own ego.
Yeah, good point.
So that's got to get tapped into.
I love that. We've only got a couple of minutes. So let's talk a little bit about the future. Because you've done, you touched on AI. But AI is not going to be going away. It's only getting more and more. So where do you see things in the next year. If somebody really wanted to kind of jump into this. Do you have you have any expertise around AI at all?
Or do you have I don't have expertise from the level that you should pay me for what I'm about to say. But we we live in it, and all of my companies, I'm in AI every single day. And and you know, I'll tell you what what what we tell everybody is AI isn't going to replace you, But someone doing your job using AI is they absolutely will.
Yes.
And and so this isn't a I'm gonna go bury my head in the sand because I'm afraid of this taking my job. This is a mate. If you're the loo if you're the loan officer that doesn't understand AI, you're going to lose.
You're in trouble. You are in trouble for sure.
And and it's only going to get crazier. And but the the only thing that as of now, AI will never fix or be able to overcome is that it's it can't do a relationship. Yes, And so it's all the more reason why we have to show up more often than we do, because we will get out technology, but we cannot get out relationship. Buy these bots, buy these big companies and and so what you are doing right now, what we're doing right now, this.
Is this is not AI. This is a real deal. You know, absolutely, me and Kyle it is chatting over over video. But we got just a few seconds left. Give us some closing thoughts about video marketing, why it's so important, and havey'ple jump in closing thoughts?
Is this the average human? The average adult in America sees over five thousand brands a day, wow, driving in their car, walking the aisles of a grocery store, right being on our phones and seeing ad after ad after ad after ad, five thousand brands a day. Guess what yours is supposed to be one of those? And so not only for many of you, are you not one
of those five thousand? But even if you were one of those five thousand, is that enough when there's five thousand other people vying for people's time?
Love it?
And so video isn't about what it does immediately, It's about what it does over time. And you've got to be more top of mind with people.
Well, brother, great to be with you, man, Our time is up. Unfortunately, we may have to agree to this in the future to keep going to part two. But the meantime, thanks again for your time and I've learned a lot as always from Kyle Draper and we'll be in touch.
This has been Mortgage Talk with Mark Hairston. Mark is a mortgage advocate with Texas Mortgage Source LLC, offering personalized mortgage solutions, fast customized quotes, great rates, and service with integrity. Contact Mark at Markhirston dot com. Mark Hairston dot com. You can call our text Mark at five one two seven eight nine sixty nine sixty seven. That's five one two seven eight nine sixty nine sixty seven and come back next week for more mortgage talk