Welcome to the mortgage game. I truly, truly believe that building a mortgage business, a successful 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 mortgage brokers.
I myself built a very nice business, so now I want to distill all that information, all the things I've learned from that, and bring it directly to you in a simple -to -understand way. I hope you enjoy. All right. Welcome to the Mortgage Game Podcast. West Coast Wiley in the house with a five on the clock in the morning. Yeah, that's right. A busy day today. So what do you do? And I knew I had to make a podcast. I didn't have to, but I wanted to. I wanted to make a podcast today.
It was on the schedule, but I don't put this into the regular day because this makes no money. Right. So the money making tasks are your nine to five gig. Everything else falls in other times, nighttime, morning time. So I woke up a little earlier today to do the podcast. So that's just showing you what you do, how the sausage is made. That mentality should be the same with yours. A couple of things. So I launched a Facebook group, geez, I don't know, five years ago.
God, maybe six years ago now. God forbid we need another Facebook group. We don't. We really don't. There's too many. Some of them good. Some of them not so good, but either way. But I did and I never did anything with it. And so then I changed it to a marketing Facebook group maybe, I don't know, seven months ago. And then I didn't do much with it. You know, I didn't do much with it because it was the same old stuff I'm putting in there.
I didn't feel inspired to have the group because I talk about marketing on the podcast. I talk about it.
in my emails i talk about it in training i talk about it with the team i talk i talk about it all day long and so it just seemed like sort of fake to go start a group to just put the same stuff i'm already talking about in there with not really creating any type of movement and unique conversations because i'm having them in other areas of my life so i i felt uninspired by doing that so we put our heads together me and courtney and she came up to it
she's like why don't we do what we use every single day in the business and have been for a long time and we're extremely passionate about, why don't we bring AI into play with mortgage brokers? And I was like, oh, totally, totally. So we started a group called AI for Mortgage Pros. If you don't know what AI is, you don't stop listening right now. But you know what that is. So AI is, we're just at its infancy and the mortgage industry is just at its infancy.
The regular world, is light years ahead already. And I can only imagine it's evolving quite quickly. And if you're going to be one of those people that says, I don't need it, it's too confusing, don't, okay, cool. Then you keep paying people to do stuff for you that you don't need to pay them. Or you could just come into the group and learn from others and save yourself a bunch of time and money. So that's what we're going to do.
We're just going to create a spot where we can all share best practices and what we're doing. We'll lead the charge a little bit here and there, show how we're doing it and how we see other mortgage brokers doing stuff. And then it's just a place to have safe conversations around something that's so new to so many people. So yeah, AI for Mortgage Pros. There you go. No strings attached. Come on in and chat. You can find us on Facebook. Number two, there's a AMBA conference.
Yeah, that's a mortgage, Alberta Mortgage Broker Association, I believe, conference coming up in Calgary, downtown Calgary. And I believe that is, don't quote me on it. Doesn't matter. You can look it up. I think it's first week of June. And so there's a high likelihood I will be there. Um, so hopefully if you're going to that, uh, it'd be nice to meet you. So come and say hi. Um, but yeah, team Wiley's coming to Alberta.
Uh, and so that's all that's been in wheels have been in motion for a while on that. Um, and then next to Prairies, uh, and I'll be later this year and next couple of months. So we'll be in Ontario, BC, uh, Alberta and Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Okay, so I will be at the AMBA conference, 95 % chance I'll be there. So please come up and say hi. But keep listening to this and I'll fill you in. Let's get into today's podcast.
Before we do, though, I need to mention this is a special sponsor today because there is a five on the clock. Today's podcast is brought to you by Americano. Oh, perfect temperature too. Great. When you're the first one in there. They make the coffee perfect. Maybe they don't. I'm not sure. It tastes good though. Okay. Let's hear what I want to talk about today. So have you ever met someone and you've known them for six months, six years, and you're like, shit, I didn't know you did that.
I know I have. And then you start and you're like, it happens all the time. I didn't know you were like a physics engineer. I didn't know you're an astronaut. That doesn't happen all the time, but you get the idea, right? How many times have you run into someone you've known for a long time or a while, and you didn't know they were a realtor? Very rare, right? Realtors put themselves out there. Well, I know mortgage brokers do not. It's a weird dynamic, right?
When you don't know, if someone's not in a forward -facing career, and they're not relying on commission, and there's no sales component, yeah, 100%. I don't know what you did for them. You know why? I didn't ask. I'm not expecting you to walk around and tell me, hey, I'm a school teacher. Nice to meet you. I'm Ryan. I'm a school teacher. I teach science. Thank you. Some days I don't want to get out of bed. Thank you. Nice to shake your hand. Nice to meet you.
If you have any kids in my district, I might teach them, maybe not. So that's not how that works. It's if I ask you. But the dynamic flips considerably. Like considerably. Feeding your family relies on people knowing what you do for a living. It's crazy. And so there's so many parallels between real estate agents and mortgage brokers. There are. There's a lot. Markets up, markets down. Like, I don't have to get into it. You know, prospect, follow up.
email, build a brand on social, stay connected to your center of influence, get referral partners, get yourself seen. It's the same shit. Brand yourself, be proud of what you do, all that stuff. I earn 100 % commission, eat what you kill, that whole mentality. There's so many parallels. But how many times do you not know that a realtor is not a realtor? Or sorry, did I say that right? I think so. How many times do you talk to someone and at some point, they get into it.
It's either you see it on their shirt, their jacket, their sweater. You see it on their car. You've seen them on social. Someone's mentioned they're a realtor. The conversation switches to real estate. And you can just tell they're a realtor and then it comes up. But they're always staying in front of you. Because guess what? They're not a secret realtor. They're not a secret agent. There's too many of you. Too many of you listening here are secret mortgage brokers, and I don't know why.
Is it imposter syndrome? Well, that's bullshit because you're already the smartest person in the room. If you can't hold your way through a conversation to a first -time homebuyer or around, what do you think interest rates are going to do? Or what do you think is going on with this and with the Trump tariffs? You can come up with your plane, Jane. You should have your go -to stuff. Come on. Too many of you, I guarantee you, I want you to look around. This is a question for you.
Look around your circle. Are you 100 % confident that everyone in your family knows what you do for a living? That every person you've worked with in the past 10, 15 years, knows what you do for a living. And take that with a grain of salt, right? Because I understand you might not be able to get, but you're the core people you hung out with. I'm not talking, you know, Phil down in the photocopying department. You know, the stapler guy down there.
I'm talking about the people you hung out with that you built a circle with, your work buddies. Right? Do they know what you do for a living? Does every parent... on your kids, whatever team, know what you do. There's an email list you get. Everyone gets emails and everyone's on the email. Even if you're not the coach or not an admin or you're not a team leader, whatever, you can reply all. And in your email signature, you have what you do.
And it could be Ryan at Wiley Mortgages, which was my email. With my email signature down there, with... Links to my social proof, my five -star reviews, right? Something like that. I'm not saying you reach out and you go, hey, guys, I'm a mortgage person. But you can pluck them off one by one. There's also ways you can advertise within the team stuff, right? I've covered that many times. But people need to know what you do all the time. Do you coach a team? Does every parent know what you
do? I coached my kid's soccer team. When I got their list going, hey, you need to go reach out to these people and give them the schedule. I sent from my, I wasn't even doing mortgages at the time. I wasn't, I was in coaching. And I responded from my, I still had Wiley Mortgages. I replied to all of them, here you go, I'm Ryan. I made a video. Oh my God, a video? Yeah, a video. I made a video of myself introducing who I am. Blah, blah, blah. And my email signature had all my mortgage stuff.
Guess what? Two parents, not off that email, but two parents throughout the journey of the season approached me and wanted me to talk about their mortgage. One was buying a construction property thing. They were doctors and they wanted to go buy. And I'm like, yeah, not my jam. I referred it out. Another one was wanting to talk about buying an investment program. I'm like, that is my jam. So I talked to them and I referred it out.
Right. They knew what I did for a living because I put myself out there. And then I also use video every week. I'd give an update to the kids on, hey, great game this week. And, you know, Max, you played awesome. And I was the star of the show. And I love that tackle you made and blah, blah, blah. And OK, next week we got this. Don't forget, you know, bring your shin guards and your penny or your jersey. Otherwise, you can't play. Not my rules. Don't shoot the messenger league rules.
So don't be that parent. Make sure they show up. OK, anyway, like video, right? Builds instant trust. Why do you think people use their bank more than they use mortgage brokers? It's not because the bank's smarter. They might not even know. You might be the smartest mortgage broker out there, but nobody knows because you're a secret mortgage broker. Nobody knows. I personally know really smart mortgage brokers. that make 10 % of what they should, because they don't tell people what they do.
They don't want to bother people. I don't want to bother people. Okay, then you just live in that world where you're going to make your 150 grand a year. And I'm just, I'm saying, I'm not saying that in a bad way. Like that's, oh my God, I'm just going, they should be making a million dollars a year. They should. With the knowledge they have, they 1000 % should. And so why do people go to the bank? Well, the banks build up trust.
So if we're sitting over here and we're already in an isolated world, we're already building a business on an island and our competition is the bank. It's not brokers, but still, when people say, no, my competition isn't brokers, that's bullshit. My competition is everybody. So I'm just going to put that out there. Let's just get past that one. We have a good market share. I don't know what it is, 35%, 40%.
So you're kidding yourself if you're going to say mortgage brokers aren't your competition. They are. Let's just move on past that point. That's an old belief system. Whoever has the deal and I don't is my competition. That's just the nature of competition. That's sports. If you are in the league, And there's 32 teams and I'm one of the teams. The other 31 are my competition. They might be friends that I hang out with in the summer and off season and train with them.
They might be buddies I used to play with on other teams. But when we're playing our game, they're competition. I'm playing to win. Okay, so everybody's competition. So why do you think the banks, which is the main competition, but why do you think the banks have larger market share? Well, they have obviously brand. which many mortgage brokers have zero brand. Okay, well, you're never going to catch that brand, but they have trust built in. So how do we build up the trust?
How do we build up more trust? Well, people need to see you. If you're just sending emails to everybody and being like, and you don't have a social presence, and they don't get to see you talk and your mannerisms and how you like, because people, neurons start firing off. They're like, do I trust that person? I trust that person. Do I trust? You're looking for someone to like that's not the big fucking evil banks, right? Video helps you not be so secret. It helps get what you do out there.
Yet a lot of you don't want to be on camera. So then you revert back to hiding behind email, right? And then you revert back to just not telling people what you do and putting yourself out there. And so you've got no, I see a lot of secret brokers and this isn't just you not going out and telling people and shaking hands. Like you should make a challenge. I challenge everybody. You should tell one person a day what you do for a living. Like, oh my God, is that how low the bar is?
Tell one person that you're a mortgage broker, right? Go do it. I promise you'll reap the benefits, but get back on topic here. So the secret mortgage broker. So this, I challenge yourself once again to look around. Does every person know, like, why are we out there trying to convince strangers on TikTok to Book a call with us. God knows what their situation is.
When we have however many people in our circle and in the bigger circle and the bigger circle all around us connected somehow who don't know what we do. I've never understood that part. So I've already went through.
You've got your friends and your family and past coworkers and your... school circle and in your parent circle and your coaching circle and if you play beer league hockey or baseball or whatever the heck you do and if you're in a dog walking club or you're in a golf club or you take lessons and you're like right What do you do for a living? Hey, what are you most excited about right now? Oh, and then naturally they're going to ask you, hey, I'm a mortgage broker. Have your spiel or anything.
We're not going to get into that, how you sell yourself in a 30 -second elevator pitch. We're not going to talk about that. We're going to talk about just the mentality of a lot of secret brokers out there. And it hits from different angles. It hits from social media. And please, if you're on social but you're not making videos, you're not really on social. I don't know how to tell you. If you're putting up postcards. You're paying someone $100 a month, throw postcards up for you.
And you think like, yeah, I got my social dialed in. And deep down, you know you don't. Deep down, you're just like, I got that. It's good. I'll do that later. I'm going to go over here and go into a Facebook group and check out some stuff instead. I'm coming at you hard here. I hope some of you are resonating with this. If your profile picture is like a letter or like a Superman in a cape, why isn't it you? Why isn't your face? Right? If your face isn't on your
website, like why? Anytime I see that, I know mortgage workers who have that. And I'm like, well, that's not good. That's not good. This person wants my sin number and trust them with my largest amount of debt. And they don't have a face on a website or their profile. or no videos on social, like you drop down massively in my books. And I'm not like, I'm not just this outlier person. I'm like, so if I'm thinking it, there are millions of other people thinking it.
If I don't see your face, like the trust game, right? This podcast brought to you by American. Oh, so good. It's the trust game. So like, this is a simple, This is such a simple game we're at. Yeah, you complicate the fuck out of it. Go and have conversations with people. That's it. If you have no leads, three, four hours a day, start conversations with people. I don't care how. Don't get caught up in how exactly, where, what, when do I do? Just go do it.
I've given you 18 different ways to go do it. It means not enough. If you don't have business, it means not enough people. I'm trying to really dumb down the formula. If you don't have enough business, much like me, if Strategy Hub does not have enough students, it's because not enough people know what we do. So then we have to go fix that. And we always want more students. So we always know what we know. That's like a big push for us. We need to get more people to know what we do.
So how do we do it? We start conversations. You do paid ads where you create content. We're all three. Those are the only ways.
to get business right so for you not enough people know what you do for a living okay and then once they do know what you do for a living you start a conversation know what you do for a living like put yourself out there and that's such a simplistic way of saying it but your face needs to be out more people people need to know you're too secretive and i'm not sure why and so then we get into mindset issues So if you're too secretive,
then you're just like, well, I don't have the confidence to put myself out there. Get it. Totally get it. Yeah. It doesn't mean I agree, but I get it. If you're like, I don't like, like I'm self -conscious. Totally get it. Yeah. I don't agree, but I get it. Got it. Then I need to look for inspiration. I need to change what I'm self -conscious about. I need to work on myself. So what's your work on yourself? I know some people that are just not in good shape.
And they've told me, that's why I don't put myself out there. And my business and my life is suffering because of it. So you don't have a mortgage business problem. We've got like other problems here. This is all connected. It's all interconnected here. So I challenged them. challenged them. I said, hey, if you were 20 pounds, were 20 pounds, like less weight, and you did more in shape, whatever your definition of, if that was, Like, how would that, what do you think would happen?
Oh my God, I'd be like more comfortable in my home life. I'd be more confident. I would put myself out there more in the business. And like, like there's stuff here, right? See, there's a roadmap. It's interesting. And so I'm not saying when I say you're a secret agent, I'm just trying to point out, I'm not going, Hey, go and push through that wall. I'm going, why don't we go fix the other problems instead of putting
band -aids on it? and go, hey, I'm going to go do 10 opens a day, but I'm still self -conscious, so I'm never going to go on video. And it's a time and a place because I heard you, Ryan, and so I'm going to go do it. I'm going, hey, maybe it's a lot deeper than that for you. And I'm just using that as an example because I know two people who have shared really close things with me, and that's the root of it.
Their business is a fraction of what it could be because they don't want to build a brand online. fraction of what it could be because they don't want to build a brand And they don't want to put themselves on camera. And they don't want to go out and put themselves out there because they're self -conscious about how they look. Whoa, that's deep. Still at five on the clock in the morning for me, right? So this isn't just about like mortgage tips and strategies. And like, this is real life shit.
And so whatever your thing is, in that instance, and then in the conversation I mentioned, if that was the case, right. So what do you think? So if you go fix, what's the one problem you can fix that fixes a lot of other problems? Well, with this person, when I was talking to them, we reverse engineered and it boiled down to that. Boiled down to, wow, if I make better choices here, it opens up the world over here and solves a lot of problems and will help me go work on my brand.
It will make me more confident to build referral partners, put myself out in my circles and blah, blah, blah. Ah, interesting, right? So there's a lot of reasons why you're a secret mortgage agent. And for those of you who don't have, you're not self -conscious of certain things. Some of you, it goes the other way and you're just fucking lazy. And it can't be like, you know how many people I run into? I'm going to do it, man. I got this. Yeah, let's go. And like, yeah.
A month later, you're like, yeah, no, I just, yeah, I didn't. I'm not doing that. But I'm doing this thing now. Okay, cool. So do people, just let me get back to, do all those people know what you do for a living still, though? They don't know. Okay, so you're going to go do that now? Okay, got it. You don't need a shiny thing. If you have advanced mortgage strategies, you might be like, Ryan, but the shiny thing is cash damming and hour of the paycheck and debt swap and RSP versus rental.
one property away and all things to talk about. Well, those are strategies. Those are strategies to up your game, your craft as a mortgage broker. Those aren't shiny things. Shiny things, when I say shiny things, and I want to break this down for you because I think some people misinterpret, however I said that, hope I said that right, things. When I say, hey, and they're off the next shiny thing, it means they're just not doing the basic boring shit that makes money.
And they replace it with a shiny thing. But at the end of the day, nothing they do over with the shiny thing will make the money because what they're not realizing is the basic boring shit that builds a network and keeps you in front of people and keeps social media warm, all those people and keeps them engaged and keeps your email list warm. And all that creates all the opportunity for the shiny thing. But everyone skips that step. Not everyone, but majority.
So I'm all about, I don't like calling them shiny things because they're, especially the advanced mortgage strategies. Those are strategies that set you apart from anybody. And it's awesome stuff you need to know. But if you're not doing the boring work, it's going to fall on deaf ears, right? Because you can't, you have all these things, but there's nobody to do the things on. It doesn't make sense. So let's just break that down, the
clear definitions of it, okay? So I see a lot of agents cutting corners. And instead of just sitting back going, hey, I'm just going to make my mission. I'm going to start there as a baseline. I'm going to go back to prospecting 101. That should be next accountability group. Prospecting 101. Telling people who know your name or have seen your name what you do for a living. Let's build on that. You've got all those people I already told you, those in -person people.
And then you've got your online people, right? People who engage with your content, people who watch your stories. Something we did the other day, I'm going to share here. It's a podcast brought to you by Americana. I'm just going to share out, I don't know if it's a hack, but it's like, I know a lot of people, you're trying to put reels out for Instagram and then you put your stories out, which are the ones that live for 24 hours and they go away. And to me, I still don't have a clear.
I do, but I don't. An idea of like what should go where. Sometimes I have like a really good thing I want to put on the story. And, but I'm like, oh, that should live on the real forever too. But I'm like, but I need a story. And I'm like, so do I take a picture of my dog or do I take a picture of what I'm cooking? And I'm just like, ah, this is exhausting. I'm like, even just thinking about it, I'm like, is this where I'm at right now?
Is this my life? And I'm like, yeah, because if that's the cost of getting to where I want to go, if me being inconvenienced, with trying to figure out on my camera reel, what goes where, if that's the cost to, you know, live, have my family live a spectacular life. Yeah, I can make that. I can 100 % do that. So then I get out of my own head again. I'm like, okay, just go power through. Let's go. So here's for you though. If you're creating content, do this.
So if you put a reel out, I know this is a huge sidebar. It's okay. If you put a reel out.
that lives on your grid right so instead because if you make a 60 second reel let's say and you go to share that to your stories after it only lives there for 15 seconds versus if you do it the other way start recording inside instagram record the story can be up to 60 seconds maybe that's changed by now but i know it's for sure it's minimum 60 seconds record it in there you can even put clickable links on the story which you can't do on the reel That will go to like your URL or whatnot.
Post the story, get the engagement from whoever's watching it. And then before it goes away, actually, as soon as you put it there, push it into your highlights. And then once it's in your highlights. then you can make it into a reel and now it lives on your grid forever. And now you've got content, the 24 -hour content on your story for a full 60 seconds. And then you also have ongoing content on your reel.
And then if you're going in and doing your opens like you should be doing every day, like I do five a day minimum. I don't need to. I go into who's engaging in my stuff. So then you can go into your stories and see who's watching, who left a comment, open them. Thank you for the comment. Thanks for helping out. I loved your answer. I love your comment. Anyways, I appreciate it. Whoever liked your stuff, go open them. Whoever watched your stuff, go open them.
But you're feeding your own engagement by doing it this way. So if you were already going to do a reel, throw it into a story, then a highlight, then back to the reel. So when the dust settles, you're where you were at anyways. But you created all this engagement for you to go open. Yeah, that's how the game's played, kids. That's how you do it smarter. Okay, so back to the topic, we're almost on this podcast, secret mortgage agent.
So I mentioned this many, many times before, I'm going to keep talking about it, because too many of you are trying to build this referral based business, which is based on trust. And you're trying to get clients to refer you back. And you're trying to get referral partners to refer you back. And you're trying to get people in your center of influence to refer you back. Nobody fucking knows what you do. Like, duh. Go tell them. Stay in front all the time. Be everywhere.
Just because you put one video out every three days does not mean everybody saw it. Put out three videos a day. Your chances go up. I don't know. Do you disagree with me? I don't have business. I know I either need to pay ads. I'm not going to do. Make content or start conversations. And I need more business, Ryan. Okay. How much content are you making? I'm making three reels a week. Okay. I got something for you. I'm going to give you a secret here. Go make one a day. Go make six a week.
Really? Yeah. More people will know what you do. Don't tell anyone, though. That's my own secret. I'm going to sell a course on it. How many people are you having conversations with this week? Oh, I called 20 people. Cool. Okay. Okay. This is my secret number two. Call 40 people. And then when that doesn't work, call 80 people. Yeah, 80. There's a rule of 100. Spend 100 bucks a day on ads. Talk to, start 100 conversations or do 100 minutes of content. Choose, pick your poison. Pick your lane.
Pick one. Which one are you going to pick? But it's right in front of you. So I can tell from personal experience, and we all know this, when you get out there and you get the momentum going and it's, and I was going to say easier said than done, but it's not. It doesn't get easier than that. Stop being in the bushes, hiding out. People walk by. Need a mortgage? Hey, hey. Oh, no, no, no. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Hey, do you need a... Sorry, sorry, sorry.
I shouldn't have said mortgage because I'm Canadian and I don't want to offend anybody. Hey, do you need help getting the money for a house? Is that a mortgage? Yeah, yeah. Are you a mortgage broker? Depends who's asking. Like, come on, come on. I want to shake people sometimes. So it comes down to this. I have conversations daily, mortgage brokers, and we always go back to basics. I'm like, what are you doing?
And everyone's looking for the next secret thing, the next formula, the next thing on top of the thing. And I always back to basics. I'm never going to get away from this ever. You're going to listen to this podcast a year from now. You're going to hear me talk about the same shit. Did you talk to people? What did you say? It doesn't matter really what you say. Did you talk to people? Did you start conversations? Did you make content? Did you make content? Did you talk to people?
Which bucket are you spending your time in? Just keep doing it. I don't know how to do it. It's confusing. Go figure it out. Go figure it out. Much like you tell your kids. Go figure it out. Right? You don't lay it out for your kids. I'm not laying it out for you, although I have. I have. And it doesn't work as well. The more I lay out for people, the less they feel they've earned it. So I got to be more general. But anyways, you get the idea. You get the point. Secret mortgage agent.
Go back to realtors. You know they're a realtor. Go get that vibe and energy, right? Realtors are always auditioning for stuff. They have to build up trust with people. But they have to build up less trust. Being a realtor is more of a popularity game. We have to build up trust because it's people's finances. So we need to be less secretive. We need to break down those barriers and get them to know us versus our biggest competition, which is the bet. That's it. I'm done.
I got to get on with my day. Enjoy your day. Peace out, everyone.