In this powerful episode of Lykken on Lending, David Lykken sits down with social media prospecting expert and author Michelle Berman-Mikel to unpack the discipline, mindset, and daily actions that fuel real business growth in today’s noisy digital world. Drawing from her competitive swimming background and her bestselling book The Black Line, Michelle reveals how the same focus required to swim mile-long races translates into a tactical, repeatable prospecting system—one message a day, 365 days a year—that has transformed the pipelines of mortgage professionals nationwide. Michelle’s vulnerability, her faith journey, and her practical frameworks like the Drivers & Levers Assignment make this episode a masterclass in authenticity, consistency, and building opportunity through meaningful online relationships.
[David] Michelle, welcome to the podcast.
[Michelle] Oh my gosh, David, thanks for having me. This has just been something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. And even more so since we played cornhole together.
[David] Yes, we were at Sales Mastery, folks, and Michelle I’m going, I nailed the right partner. She is a competitive person, and we still kind of got blown out of the first or second round. So anyway, there were some good cornholers there. But anyway, it was fun being with you. And I’ve known you and I’ve been an admirer of your competitive side, but really admire what you talk about in this book. This book is so good, and we talked about it in the intro, but I can’t wait to get to let our listeners get to know you. Also, one of the things is you do a lot of public speaking. So, listeners, as you’re listening to this, if you like what you hear, consider to have Michelle come in and speak to your organization. It’s dynamic and you’ll be in you’ll enjoy it, and it’ll move the hearts and minds of their people and get results. But Michelle, this started long, long time ago. Your competitive nature, I want to hear about your swimming. I admire parents that get up early, early, early and take their kids to whether it be gymnastic, the pool, or whatever, but they really supported you. Tell us about the journey you’ve been on to where you’re at today.
[Michelle] Oh my gosh. Well, just first of all, thank you for all of that. And I’ll tell you, like many young children, I would say I had a pretty simple, normal childhood, right? I don’t know that it was crazy unique in any capacity, with the exception of I lived in a pool. So from the age of five, I started swimming competitively, and the story goes that I was actually at swim practice with my mom, who was there with my older sister, and my sister was also a competitive swimmer. She was minorly, she swam all the way through high school, but did not go on to swim through college. But I was with my mom at practice one day, and I apparently was being annoying and kept running around the pool deck, and my mom looked at the lifeguard and was like, Can I throw her in? And the lifeguard was watching me the whole time, of course, but my mom literally threw me in and let me swim across the pool. And that’s how my swimming career started. And I kind of always say that, you know, the black line on the bottom of a pool, which I know we’ll talk about the black line as a book here soon, but the black line on the bottom of the pool taught me discipline long before I even knew what the word meant. And going on past that, I started swimming very very competitively up until about 12, and then I started to realize I can’t do other sports if I want to do swimming 100%. So I actually retired, quote unquote, right, from all the other youth sports and officially became 100% swimming. That’s all I did. And at the age of 13, I was averaging about 10,000 meters a day in the training, which is roughly six miles if you do the math on conversion there every day, right? Monday through Friday, and then Saturdays were sometimes longer, usually swim meets, sometimes shorter, just depended on the Saturday. But six days a week, I was in a pool and I very quickly became known as the Miler, with anybody familiar with the sport of swimming, you know that it’s the longest event on the swimming program. Then later on got recruited to swim for Rutgers, where I ended up swimming all four years and was a mile specialist. So the swimming world for me, you know, over 20 plus years of being in a pool taught me so much. And I have a saying that my dad said, which you read about in the book, David, where at the end of every race, my dad would ask me one question, and that was the only question ever. Even if I won the race, or even if I got dead last in the race, the question was, Michelle Honey, was that the best you could do today? And when I was younger, it used to piss me off, frankly, because it was kind of like, Dad, didn’t you just see me win? Or dad, didn’t you just see me get last? And no matter what, it was always the same question.
[David] Same question.
[Michelle] And, you know, at 35 years old now, I look back on that and I remember writing in the writing process of the book, I was like, what’s the theme here for me? And it was so blatantly apparent to me that my dad was treating me or priming me for a very successful career many, many years later. And it all started with an accidental throw-in because my mom was annoyed that I was running around the pool deck.
[David] I love how that is. That’s literally throwing you into the deep end and letting you sink or swim and you figured it out. That’s so good. You know, why do you think the black line at the bottom of the pool is such a powerful metaphor for life and business?
[Michelle] Well, I know. I mean, as I mentioned earlier, I really think that the concept of the black line came from this just belief that nobody was gonna do it for me, but the book itself, came the analogy came and became the book because of what discipline really means. If we actually define the word discipline, we know that it’s not a noun, right? It’s not a person, place, or thing. It’s a verb, it’s an action, it’s a thing that we have to do in order to get to the other side of the pool, in this case, figuratively to do a flip-turn, turn around, and come back and eventually complete whatever the race is or the practice or whatever the distance is. So the black line analogy, I think, really teaches people how to move with purpose. And again, for me, with discipline being the central theme there, it also helps us really focus on how to stay focused when the world around us gets really, really loud. And especially in a very noisy social space where everyone is fighting for any form of attention. I also think it’s how we show up when motivation is nowhere to be found. And as I say a lot, you know, motivation comes from movement. When we do something, that’s where motivation comes from. And also just how to keep going when failure feels like a full body reminder that something has to change.
[David] That is so true. When you say full body, I’m thinking about the I turned just turned 75 and I ran my first 5k. And I go there was times where it my body was telling me I was I’m about ready to have a full body failure. It felt like it.
[Michelle] Absolutely.
[David] Well, I think a lot of people today are feeling like they’re having full body failures because they’re not getting the results they want. And you take in your swimming career and turned it into a very powerful, very effective media company, and where it’s speaking, it’s books, you do the podcasts. I want to get into the application to the business and specifically social media because we’re all needing to do new business. You spoke at Sales Mastery, what a powerful event that was. You rocked the stage. I mean, people were moved and couldn’t wait to get back to get your book and buy it and bring it home. And so I suspect you are gonna get very, very busy. I remind everyone if you want her to come speak, her calendar is already filling up in 2026. That’s gonna be so you need to get in and get a hold of her. So, how does the black line approach change the way entrepreneurs and professionals think about social media? at least from the perspective prospecting side. Some people use it just social media, just hey, this is what’s going on with me, but converting that to a real effective prospecting tool. Talk about that.
[Michelle] Oh my gosh, it’s my favorite thing to talk about for sure because I have never gone viral. I have never had a video just explode. I do not have the most followers of any of the keynote speakers that would be on stages or you know, social media coaches or whatever. And I don’t care, right? Because for me, at the end of the day, my calendar is booked full of calls with people that I don’t know because of opportunities that I’ve created on my own, right? through social or with social being the vehicle, you and I being exactly a reflection of that. So, you know, what prospecting is through social, and I always say I’m not a social media coach, I’m a social media prospecting expert, right? That is by definition what my title is. And it’s really important to understand what that means because a social media coach is going to teach you virality, how to grow your following, how to get more likes, how to have more video views on your content. And I honestly think it’s frankly just the wrong questions to be asking. And what does the social media prospecting coach do? My job is to teach you how to make money, frankly. So, the philosophy, if I can get really tactical for a moment, is it’s my favorite way of describing this is your job on social every day is to send one message to somebody that you don’t know, and it’s to use leverage in the process. So, who do you have in your life that you can leverage to create an opportunity with someone that you don’t currently have that relationship with? And you probably have, I mean, dozens and dozens and dozens more than I do, David, but like I’ve got a pretty solid crew of people who I can name drop that would help me build bridges to get to a new one. Now the question is, what do I do with it, right? And this is where discipline comes into play. So what I’ve built over the years, beyond the method is the name of the course itself, but the process is very simple. It’s called the drivers and leavers assignment. And what it is you identify the opportunities that you need on a monthly basis. So if you’re a loan officer listening to this, what things do you need to be doing on a monthly basis that drive opportunity to create the lead? Right? Because if you say you want more leads, great, everybody does, right? But how do you actually get them? What’s the thing that drives that inbound opportunity? So, you know, maybe you’re sitting here thinking, I need a certain number of realtor appointments. Okay, well, I have a client who we actually did her math, and she has to do 10 realtor meetings a month in order to get at least one new loan from an agent that she is not expecting to get a loan from, meaning like her core group. So every month she prospects to make sure that she has 10 brand new realtor calls or appointments or zooms on her calendar that month because she knows her batting average and she knows what that means for her. So the driver would be the realtor appointment. The lever is the person that you have to identify that can help you build the bridge to that person that you want a strategic alliance with that you don’t currently have, right? So, David, you’re obviously one of mine. Cindy Ertman is one of my absolute favorite women on this planet. Um, she’s by far probably my most impactful lever over the last several years, but we’ve all got them, right? You name drop all these people in your life, and you’re like, oh my gosh, I didn’t even think that that could person could be a lever. I mean, I had a call with somebody yesterday who introduced me, like the gentleman who introduced me, I met him at Sales Mastery, came up to me afterwards and said, Hey, I really want to introduce you to this person. I don’t know him, right? But we’ve built a relationship, and then he was the person I could name drop to get to the new person. So the drivers and leavers assignment is very, very tactical in the sense of what drives your business? Who are the levers that you can name drop to get you that business or to get those opportunities booked on the calendar? And then the most important part, David, is the 90-day projection, right?
[David] So if you look at your that now, you’re really getting into a very disciplined, that’s where the discipline comes. And it’s and I think most people fail at the discipline. I think you’re a natural athlete, you’re a competitor at it, and they don’t see the results as quickly as they would like. I did this, I did this, and I’m not seeing the results. You talk about that and how you coach people to stay consistently at doing the laps, doing the flips and the turns and going again and going again. Mile swimming is a is a that’s a long time in the water.
[Michelle] Well, let’s think about it from a tactical standpoint too, right? Of the mile, if anybody knows swimming, you know that the race itself takes roughly about 17 minutes.
[David] Yeah.
[Michelle] Right? The 50-meter freestyle is the is everybody’s favorite event. That’s any swimming, especially in the Olympics, right? You pay attention to these specimens of humans swimming, the fastest event on the program, it’s about a 20 to 22 second, max 23 seconds event for the elite athletes. Think about that for a second, right? Think about the difference between a 23-second race and a 17-minute race and what is required of you, right, in order to be able to execute. So if you’re looking at social thinking, why have I not gotten any business? Why am I not getting any messages? Why are people not liking my content or engaging with my content? It’s because you’re running the wrong race, or in this case, swimming the wrong race. Right. So I always, you know, as far as how do you teach discipline, I think the most important thing is measurable metrics that are small to begin with, that then become a big sort of accumulation, accumulative win. Well, but also like milestones, I think is the word I was looking for, right? So when I am initially trying to get someone to do this, like if I were to try to get you to do this tomorrow, David, I would have you start with 30 days. That’s it, right? Because also think about like the statistics around New Year’s resolutions. We’re getting close to the new What are the statistics between most within is it like within 10 days, 11 days, something like that? Yeah, it’s ridiculous how talking about no stick to a dividendism No, and if you think about why, it’s because, and if you study this, right, I’m a psychology nerd. So if you study this, the reason why that happens is because these people are creating unmeasurable or too long term of goals that are way too hard to one-track and let alone maintain over a long sustained period of time. So if someone says I want to work out every day for a year as their New Year’s resolution, that is a really bad goal because it’s not gonna happen, right? But if you say I want to work out 15 out of the next 30 days, especially if you’re going from couch to the gym for the first time, right? 15 out of 30 days, that is manageable. That is a micro adjustment in your day that can make a big difference. So I have all my clients start at 30 days because it’s very micro, it’s super manageable, and also psychologically, the best thing you can do when you’re trying to create a discipline is have a visual of it in front of you every day, right?
[David] So, how do you do that? Like, so when you’re coaching someone in the social media area to have a visual in front of them, what how what does that look like?
[Michelle] Well, it’s s that’s kind of where I was going. So there’s a a 30-day box on this spreadsheet that I uh in this driver’s and levers assignment, and it’s 30 days, it’s a little box that you check for 30 days. That’s it. And next to the box that you check, you have to write down the lever you use to send that message, meaning who did you name drop to send the message to that person you didn’t know? So if you’re only doing this for 30 days, anybody can do something for 30 days. I don’t care whether you’re disciplined or not, right? But what happens is motivation happens after the 30 days is up. Why? Because movement has happened, right? So you’re looking at your calendar and you’re like, oh my gosh, I have five new calls this month. I’ve never had that many in a month. And this is even, I had a client who I kid you not, in the 30 days, she only made it about 18 days of actually doing it, but she had five new appointments with people in the month to come, and she even got on a call and she was like in tears. She was like, I have never had this many new appointments in a month, ever. And I’m just thinking to myself, Oh, you only did it for 18 of the 30 days. Imagine if you did it for 30.
[David] Yeah, exactly. But I think what’s really interesting is how people quit after having just a little bit of success, and they go, This has got good. And then it’s like, how do you help them overcome that? It’s just is it in the goal setting?
[Michelle] Yeah, well, yes and no. I think again, for me, right, it’s an ebbs and a flow. And I talk about this a little bit in the book if we’re getting personal for a moment. Um, so I have always been very, very good at prospecting. It’s always been my superpower forever, right? Since I started my company back in 2014. But in 2024, I had a pretty traumatic miscarriage that was, I don’t even know how to put it into words or describe it, but it was one of those life-altering events where you sort of get smacked across the face and God kind of talks to you and says, Hey, are you gonna fully surrender your life to me or are you not?
[Michelle] And in that moment, you know, I was almost 10, well, I was 10 years into business, have had a very successful career by definition, am I where I want to be? No, but hello, high performer, right? I’m never where I want to be. But I was sitting, and this might be a TMI, but I was sitting in my bathroom, miscarrying my second child, and I had a God moment, and I realized that I had taken my foot off the gas. I had gotten really comfortable with where my business was at. And over the next six weeks, what happened? God really showed me something that was very uncomfortable, and it was where I looked at my P&L and I said, Oh my gosh, this is bad. Right? For the first time, I was looking at my PL and thinking, if I don’t get my act together, I’m not paying payroll for my employees. Yeah, right. And every entrepreneur listening to this, every mortgage professional, you guys know exactly what I’m talking about. We start every month in the red, and we have to go find a bunch of money in order to create a happy, balanced PL. And so I’m sitting there thinking, God gives me these messes, right? I think God gives us messes in our life on purpose, but he’s giving us an opportunity to see the message that he wants us to find. And for me, it was a I have to get back to the basics of what I do. And I feel like that’s the theme of the mortgage industry right now, is like getting back to the basics. And so God is giving me this massive message of Michelle, you’ve been good at this for so many years, but you have to start doing it again. And you have to prove that what you’re trying to teach everybody else to do, you can still do. And you know what’s so symbolic about that for me is like think about how many originators get out of origination and go into leadership or you know, recruiting or whatever, and then all of a sudden a down and turn in the market happens or some form of constriction, and they have to go back into originating. And we just saw a big influx of that. So, what does that mean? That means, hey, loan officer, you have to go put yourself back in the trenches and prove that you’re still willing to do and capable of doing the same thing that you’re trying to get everybody else to do. Um, you know, and that was in November of last year for me. So, fast forward to November of this year, right, 2025, and for the first time in 11 years. Of being in business, I have started both October and November in the green on my PL. That has never happened in 11 years. And as an entrepreneur, thank you, but as an entrepreneur, right? That is like there’s it’s like the promised land, like I’ve made it to the holy land, you know? You’re like, oh my gosh. Um, but it’s not something that you just give up, right? And now you catch the the addiction to I want to be in the green every month before we even start the month. Um so I think discipline is depending dependent upon the person, right? Do we do we have those decisions or do we have the the wherewithal to make those decisions? But also do we take the time to see what God is trying to show us?
[David] Yeah, right.
[Michelle] I think I think it’s it’s a recognized moment.
[David] First of all, I just want to celebrate you and I are both people of faith, and we know at the core of what uh I know Cindy is there’s so many people at Sales Mastery that are uh there. Uh it’s not a faith-based event, but there’s so much faith, so many faith-based people there that it can’t, it just lists the place. And when you get around people like yourself, myself, who we realize we have a power, yes, we’re responsible going on to perform. We’re your responsibility was get into the pool, swim every day, do the laps, do the work. You’re you teach people as a social media coach on how to do the work, do the things. But there are times where life just comes up and smacks you along the side the head. And those are those moments, those wake-up moments where we go back and reevaluate the busyness of what we’re doing, the activities we’re doing, and the necessary adjustments are what adjustments did you end up making to get to the point you’re starting out the last two years of November? I mean, that I’m assuming that’s where your new year, your new business year is uh economically. Uh I mean as a business calendar. Uh how did you make how what adjustments did you make to get to the point where you’re starting out in the green?
[Michelle] Well, so two things. Number one, I think before I get into the specifics there, I want to say when something like that happens in our life, I think it’s up to us to rebuild trust in ourselves, right?
[David] Like we have to movie great statements. How many people do need to hear that again?
[Michelle] The importance of rebuilding our trust in ourselves. Yes, and how do we do that? Very small, consistent action. It is not a big giant thing, right? So back when I was in this in this scenario for myself, I made the decision that I was sending one message every day to someone that I didn’t know. That was it. That was all I was gonna do.
[David] You start you started eating your own card your your own consistent.
[Michelle] I drank my own Kool-Aid. You drank my own Kool-Aid, yeah. Yeah, and it was so simple, David. And you know what? I said this on a stage actually, and I didn’t even realize I said it. I was just trying to be funny, and I guess it turned out to be funny, but um, when I was describing this homework assignment, I said, before I gave the assignment of one message every day, I said, How many of you guys in here have ever given one of these excuses or like the main excuse of I don’t have enough time? Oh my gosh, the whole room, right? Oh, I don’t have enough time. That’s like everybody’s number one excuse for why they don’t prospect enough in their business or prospect consistently. Oh, I’m so busy with loans, or I’m so busy with taking apps. Okay, well, are you too busy to actually make new money or do you just not care? Right. But before I get to that, um, what I said, so the question was, you know, what’s the number one excuse? Everyone said time. I said, okay, great. Let’s uh I’m gonna ask you three questions, and I want everybody to raise their hands, answer the question yes or no, and or if you’re saying yes, raise your hand essentially. So the question number one was how many of you guys go get coffee on your way to the office in the morning?
[David] Yeah, almost everyone’s hands went up.
[Michelle] Almost everybody. Number two, we’re all a lot of us are parents here, most of us are parents here, okay? So number two is how many of you guys have school pickup or drop-off duty every day? And you have to sit in that miserable line to pick up your kid. Another two-thirds of the room left their hands up, right? Here’s the kicker though. I said, How many of you guys in this room go to the bathroom every morning? And the whole room just started busting up laughing. And the truth of the matter is if you say that you do not have time to send one message every single day, you are lying.
[David] You are lying.
[Michelle]: You’re 100%.
[David] Absolutely.
[Michelle] And the one small decision to send one message every day to somebody that you do not know, if you do that consistently and compound it over the course of 365 days, this isn’t like a this isn’t me exaggerating. This is not me saying something just to be like whimsical. It is a pure fact that your business will not look the same as what it did a year ago. And I hate to like bring this back to me, but 365 days ago, I was staring at a PL that was so bad because I had taken six weeks off because I was going through a very significant miscarriage and I couldn’t prospect and I couldn’t really work. I mean, hell, I could barely do the dishes or take care of my kid, let alone worry about prospecting. And a year ago, I was in that place. A year fast forward, I have had the two best months of my entire career and the first two months of 11 years of starting in the green. So tell me that if you’re not willing to do that, honestly, I don’t think you should be in business anymore, frankly.
[David] We talked earlier about the difference between chasing virality and versus building utility on social. What do you mean by that?
[Michelle] Yeah, such a good question. So thank you for asking that. So chasing virality means that we’re chasing metrics that don’t last, right? So how many followers are do we have? How many um follow, I’m sorry, how many likes are we getting? How many video views are we getting? How many comments am I getting this month? On Instagram specifically and LinkedIn both. These are both really, especially for people listening to this, those are probably their two primary platforms. How many profile visits or impressions do I have, right? If you open LinkedIn, that’s the first number you see on the left-hand side of your screen. So what virality means is that you’re attaching your success to a metric that is fleeting, meaning it is a metric that does not last. You just got back from a beautiful trip with your wife, right? Or soon to be wife, new wife. Um, and if you open LinkedIn, I would bet that your impressions took a massive tank.
[David] Right? Fortunately, I’ve got a team, I got a team that work for me, that do all that, keep it going. So we we actually uh we were able to maintain it pretty well. Thank God for my team.
[Michelle] But again, not everybody has that, right?
[David] Not everyone does. That’s a good thing.
[Michelle] When I go to Florida for a week every summertime with my family, yes, I’m on LinkedIn a little bit in the morning while my son’s still sleeping, but I’m not on posting consistently like I am when I’m home. Yeah, and so what happens is all of a sudden my metrics don’t look as good. So does that mean that I’ve had a bad week? Does that mean that I’m not doing a good job on social? Does that mean that I’m not going to be successful when I come home from vacation? Well, of course it doesn’t mean that, right? It just means I was on vacation.
[David] Yeah. So building utility though, how do you build a utility?
[Michelle] So utility, and thank you, because I was getting to that. So utility is the revenue, right? So virality doesn’t make us money unless we’re an influencer, which nobody listening to this is on Instagram to be an influencer, right? Or to sell product or make money per video view. So utility is how we actually utilize the platform we have to make money. So how do we do that? We send one message every day with the intention of creating an opportunity that gets booked on our calendar to drive inbound leads so that we can sell something, right? Right? It’s that simple.
[David] So talk there’s some tools and some technology tools that you can use, like in LinkedIn and different ones that can help facilitate that. How do you recommend that, or is this something that needs more intentionality where you’re actually
[Michelle] Simple and does not need to be overcomplicated? All you need is Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Those are the big three, those are the only three that I press prospect on. I have a TikTok, but it’s specifically for trying to work through the TEDx process. I know you and I have talked about that. Landing my first TED talk here soon, hopefully. Um so the only reason I’m on there is because they made me get on there in order to complete a challenge so that I could submit an application. So there’s that for you. But um the only thing that you need is a calendar, a 30-day calendar that’s an Excel spreadsheet you print out. Um, and the drivers and leavers assignment, honestly. If you print that three-piece of paper PDF off, that’s it. And then you gotta log into LinkedIn, you gotta log into Facebook, and you gotta log into Instagram, that’s it. Um, as far as tech, um, I use ChatGPT every day, but it does not do my prospecting. I do not use AI to prospect for me. And I think the best example, right, is you and I are friends, we have a relationship outside of being on Zoom or being on a podcast. So if you were to receive a message from AI, you would know that that was not me, right? Why? And the number one reason us, you know, say people will argue, and there are arguments around, oh, well, you could train it and all these things. A hundred percent. But the one, and I do, like my ChatGPT is very, very trained to sound like me. However, ChatGPT could never write a message to you, David, based off the friendship that you and I have with one thing included, which is passion. So if you’re listening to this and you’re like, oh, I need AI to help me, yes, you do for a million other things in your business, but AI will never and can never replace your passion for relationships and for actually maintaining a relationship with someone that matters to you.
[David] So that’s a good point.
[Michelle] It and I’m not saying not to use it, I use it every single day. Legit, it’s made me 10 times more efficient on all kinds of things within my business, and especially in forms of communication with my team, right? ChatGPT business, which is the newer side of ChatGPT, is phenomenal. Right? It integrates with Slack and all these other cool platforms, but it does not and cannot replace my one message every single day that I send with intention because that has to come from me. Because if it doesn’t, the word passion is not included. And if passion is not included, the person on the receiving end of that message will know.
[David] Yeah, it’s very interesting. You talk uh about indifference as an issue, it’s not rejection, it’s not dislike. It is indifference is the biggest threat in sales, at least on social media, probably beyond social media.
[Michelle] Oh, beyond that, yeah. Indifference is actually one of my signature keynotes right now because it means the way I would define it, David, to you is indifference means that I don’t care enough to say yes, and I also don’t care enough to say no, therefore I do nothing. So indifference is the silent killer of any form of momentum, right? If you’re creating indifference, you’re going to kill any form of momentum you may have created from not being that way, right? And what does indifference actually look like on social? Here’s the number one, here’s the number one most important thing that you guys need to hear me say, and I will ruffle feathers by making this statement, and that is okay. But if you are using in-house marketing, that is copy-paste, copy-paste, you know, Canva graphics that every single loan officer at your company can use and post out or have somebody within the company post on their behalf where the photos don’t look like you, they aren’t you, and it’s way too many words, and all it is defining uh what a loan program is. You wonder why your content’s doing super poorly. You wonder why you haven’t gotten any business off of it. You wonder why no one’s sending you a message because I don’t know who you are and I don’t have a, I don’t care, right? So indifference visually is these sort of copy-paste, copy, paste, all you’re doing is creating something that is checking the social media box. The other form of indifference on social is if you’re in or unwilling to show up as a human being, do not expect prospecting to work. Meaning, in your content, if you’re unwilling to be someone that has a life outside of doing mortgages, right? And if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, oh, well, all I do is work, that is false, right? You like reading, you like going out and going out to dinner with your wife, you like going on date night, you like going on walks, you like doing things. Maybe you need to make more time in your calendar to do those things, right? But you have to be willing to share those because your content is the foundation of how you prospect. So if I were to send you a message, David, what’s the first thing you’re doing? You’re likely clicking on my profile and saying, Who is this? So if you click on my profile and you’re all you see is in-house copy-paste, copy-paste Canva templates, are you responding to me?
[David] No.
[Michelle] Why?
[David] It’s not genuine, it’s not you. And I just I mean it you just it just feels like you say, templated. And who wants to talk to a template? I want to talk to the real person. I want to talk to real Michelle. I want to talk about that.
[Michelle] But if you get a message, like if you get a message from me, right, and you click on my profile and you see that I’m a mom and I’m a wife, and I love working out, and I love God, and I love all these things, and I’m really good at what I do, and I post about work. Are you responding to me now?
[David] Yes, absolutely. Because it’s personal. Yeah, and I remember I remember hearing someone talk, it had to do with uh working with social media, and they just posted one time about something really personal. It had to do with their dog and their kid interacting. It was really cute, and they just threw it up there on social media. And what blew her away was it had like 10x in the response, people that she had never talked to were responding and interacting with her because of something that was very genuine and organic and what’s going on in her life. It’s pretty it’s pretty interesting. You raise a great, great point.
[Michelle] Well, I think it’s common knowledge. I just think it’s common knowledge, right? Like we care about people, yeah. And I think in 2000, you know, 14, 15, 16, even into 17 and 18, when I really because I started my company in 2014, and what social looked like back then was different, right? What worked in 2014 does not work in 2025. And what do we crave as a society? You know, I don’t let me go into the psychology side of this because I can, but what we crave as a psych, like as a psychology and psychologically as human beings, is we want to feel seen and we want to feel heard. And how do you do that if you are unwilling to show up as a freaking human? You can’t.
[David] Exactly right. And I think that’s I mean, I love what a lot of these marketing firms are trying to do to try to help. I mean, I get it, but it’s gotta be personalized. can you explain, though, one new relationship per day, 365 days a year philosophy that you teach?
[Michelle] Yeah, I mean, we kind of already talked about that, but really what it is one message every day for 365 days is gonna change your life.
[David] It’s a great point. I should want to stress that again because I don’t think that it it’s that one thing. It’s just like getting that Starbucks coffee when you or whatever your favorite coffee is, and stopping and taking the time to do it. This does not take a lot of time, and it but it needs to get out there if you’re sending one message a day. Talk about some results. I mean, as we wrap this up, give me some testimonials of things that you’re hearing from those that are adopting or they’re using your coaching services.
[Michelle] Yeah, I mean it’s mind-blowing, honestly, when I look back through all of it, and I think the best test case uh of all of them, right, is when you can do it yourself, what you’re trying to get other people to do, and it’s actually happening. But you know, Cindy Ertman’s a great example of someone who is a very influential woman in the mortgage coaching space, and I’ve caught I’ve been coaching her on this on the side for a year and a half, right? And watching her understand leverage from a new perspective, meaning she can look at social and actually see it as a platform she needs to make 10 minutes a day for instead of saying, Oh, I’m just gonna have somebody do that for me. Right? Because we all we’re all super busy. I mean, I get it 100%. But when she spends 10 minutes a day intentionally sending a message to someone that she doesn’t already know, you know what?
[David] You’re challenging me right now as I was listening to you on this, because I do have a wonderful team. I have Ben who does so much for me and helping get the message out, but it’s really he’s taking my message and getting it out there. It’s not him generating the message, it is my message, it’s just how we reconstitute it and send it out with all the
[Michelle] Yeah, but I mean I have a I have one client who I think he’s a great example, two people that are really top of mind right now, a gentleman that does loans here in Nashville where I live, um, he got so good at the prospecting piece that he actually sent me a message and he’s like, Michelle, I have to take a break. Like, I cannot keep up with the calls that are on my calendar, and I’ll never forget that email because it was it about blew my socks off. And in my mind, I’m just like, but like, hell yeah, right? yeah, sure, take 30 days off. I’d love that for you, you know, another great example.
[David] Yeah, I think it’s important to be able to do that too. I mean, there’s times where you just it’s finding that time. That’s why seventh day, we’re supposed to rest. I think there’s a real principle in there.
[Michelle] That’s what the Sabbath is all about for sure. Um, but I would say another really good example. I have a woman who’s a law officer in Birmingham, Alabama, and she texted me and she goes, the drivers and leavers assignment, I’ve like done three quarters of it. I’ve done about 20 of the 30 days, and I have 14 loans closing this week. This week. And I’m just like, holy crap, right? It freaking works. Another really great example, he’s not actually a loan officer, he was actually an insurance agent who his ideal client is loan officers or mortgage professionals. And the first week of prospecting, when I set him free to go do it, he sent a total of 18 messages, and he sends me an email and he says, Michelle, I think I did something wrong, or I broke Instagram because I’m not getting any responses or any replies. And I said, All right, let’s get on Zoom. Let me figure out what’s going on. Like, let me see these messages. So we get on Zoom and I look at them. Long story short, the structure of the message was very sound. It was just backwards, right? So the order was wrong. So when someone opened the message or even saw that they had a message, you know how on Instagram or LinkedIn you have like a preview of the message?
[David] Exactly.
[Michelle] The beginning or the preview that someone was seeing was doing him a disservice. Essentially, it was keeping people from even opening it. So we fixed that. He sends or starts a new week on Monday, that following Monday, sent 17 messages from Monday through Friday, which is more than I teach, right? One per day, but he was obviously gung-ho about it. 17 messages, four booked appointments, and two new loan officers in one week of sending messages by one very small tweak from the this is the power, this is the power of having a really good coach like yourself helping people through the very specific, the tactical steps, the slight adjustments.
[David] I mean, anytime you play professional sports, it’s always the fine-tuning, the little adjustments you have to make. And I’m sure you had that when you were in the pool, how to do the kick turn to get a more efficient and all that. You just continually working on your game. How can people learn about more about you and then also book you for a speaking gig?
[Michelle] Yeah, so I mean, honestly, the easiest way is to send me a message on Instagram or send me a message on LinkedIn. I just had someone reach out this morning for an event in Pennsylvania, which is super cool. Um, but Instagram or f Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn all respond on any of the three, and it is me that’s responding. I think that’s Important to say.
[Michelle] And you know, as far as what working with me looks like, I mean, I do have a very robust private coaching program. I don’t do group coaching. Um, so that’s by design, and then we have a high-level corporate agreement program. And then honestly, the best thing anybody can do for me right now is buy the black line on Amazon.
[David] Yeah, it’s such a good book. It is such a good book. And what’s so fun is I’m reading it, and uh my girlfriend now becoming a fiance was over, she grabbed it and she took it. She goes, This is too good. I love this. And uh so I got it back in time for our interview today. Thank you so much, Michelle, for coming on. I love your passion, I love your faith, I love your passion. I love most importantly how you really are making a difference in companies’ lives and people’s lives. And uh can’t recommend to our audience enough for them to check you out, read your book, get on your podcast. Most importantly, just skip all that and go right to just retaining you. I encourage you.
[Michelle] Well, I appreciate that. I’m very excited about just knowing you, David. I mean, I think anybody who knows you knows you that you’re a man of faith and a man of your word, and you’ve shown me nothing other than that. So I’ve I’m honored to have the opportunity. And I’ll just say if you do reach out to me, please tell me that you heard me on the show with David because that’s honestly one of my favorite things is being able to tell the show host, like, hey, this person reached out because of you or because of our episode, and you deserve that. And you know, I think it’s awesome when we can share back the love.
[David] I appreciate it. Michelle, thanks so much for being here. Hope you have a wonderful holidays. Good luck. You’ve got a new baby coming. When is that one due?
[Michelle] Baby boy number two is due in March .
[David] Wow. Go, girl, go. I love it. Keep charging. I’m so grateful for our friendship. Thank you for being here.
[Michelle] Thank you. Thanks for having me.
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Roger grew up in Cincinnati, OH, and graduated from Ohio University in 2003 with a BA in Marketing. He went straight into the mortgage industry and has not looked back since. With 20 years of experience and nearly $1.2B in loans funded personally and nearly $8b with his two mortgage companies, Roger is experienced in helping borrowers purchase and refinance their homes and loves finding solutions to his borrower’s problems.
An entrepreneur at heart, Roger is passionate about starting and growing businesses, hiring and developing talent, and has a strong understanding of top and bottom-line growth. He believes every problem has a solution and that we should never do something just because that’s the way it’s always been done.