Lykken on Lending

Mortgage professionals may have their own strategies to achieve business success. But if there is one common thing that connects them all, it is their powerful mindset in embracing failure and jumping back from it. This episode features national speaker, coach, and podcaster Phil Treadwell of M1 Academy. Joining David Lykken and Marc Helm, he discusses how to unlock huge mortgage opportunities by facing losses head-on and gathering their most important lessons. Phil explains how sharing gratitude stories on social media can enormously help in establishing a reputable mortgage career. He also presents three reasons on how to succeed in mortgaging regardless of market conditions and a three-step formula for increasing your sphere of influence.

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Watch the episode here

 

What The Uncommon Have In Common With Phil Treadwell Of M1 Academy

I’m listening to so many people struggling out there in the industry. They’re struggling with their business, “How can we get more volume? Volume is down.” We have invited Phil Treadwell who is a national speaker, a coach, a five-year veteran of podcasting, and a nineteen-year veteran of the mortgage industry who has been a student of what it takes to succeed, especially in these markets.

He’s established a new company called M1 Academy. He’s the host of the Mortgage Marketing Expert podcast, which he has been doing for the past few years. He has been named 40 Most Influential Under 40 by the National Mortgage Professional Magazine, and he’s in the Top 20 Mortgage Professionals by Yahoo Finance. Phil, it’s so good to have you joining us on the show.

I’m excited about this conversation because Phil has a perspective on sales that needs to be heard in this day and hour when people are watching interest rates rise and people are struggling so much. He has been extremely successful. We’re focusing a series of episodes on this topic. We recorded one. We’re recording this one and looking forward to sharing it with you. Phil, before we get too far into the actual meat of the matter, which I want to talk about, give our audience a little bit of your background. Tell us about yourself and how you got to where you’re at now.

I appreciate that, Dave. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be back on the show. I have about nineteen years in the mortgage industry. Prior to that, my dad was a builder, and my mom was a teacher. I like to say I’m this good mix of entrepreneurship meets academia. I had that foundation of understanding the importance of education but also seeing my dad build his business and all the things positive and negative that came along with that. I wanted to take over his company. I went to him. I run a subcontracting crew at different times for him. He said, “I want you to see what else is out there before you decide you want to do building and construction for the next 40 years.”

I fell into the mortgage business. I answered a newspaper ad. They were looking for someone with sales and management experience. A 30-minute interview turned into about a 3-hour conversation. I’ll never forget it. The owner of the company at that time said, “If you decide to get in this business, you’re going to look back on this conversation one day and cuss me because once you get in the mortgage business, it’s tough to get out of it.” Here we are years later. All nineteen years have been on the production side.

 

 

I was a producer. I was a branch manager. I owned my broker shop for a few years. I was a top producer in about a six-state region for the largest lender in the country at that time. I moved into the area manager, regional manager, and national director types of roles within companies and sales leadership and understood that the way to be successful in any mortgage company, especially now, is to be relevant. This industry has changed. The world has changed. The market has changed.

Years ago when I started a podcast, it was to reach other people outside of the markets that I had been working in and that I had branches in and people I wanted to collaborate with or people I wanted to potentially recruit to learn the different things and take a page out of playbooks of guys like you. I always tell people that you’re the godfather of mortgage podcasting. I appreciate what you’ve done for our industry and this space. Through that podcast, I had the opportunity to learn from some of the best of the best in and out of our industry and start identifying things that they had in common.

It turned into speaking engagements and coaching opportunities. After taking about an 8 or 9-year hiatus from being on the ground and directly originating or running a production team, I went back and put a production team together because I didn’t want to be a talking head in the industry that hadn’t done it for a little while. I wanted to show people that the tactics that we were coaching and teaching were applicable and relevant. We had a lot of success.

In a short period during 2022 whenever rates were going up at 0.5% a month and people were losing market share, we were gaining a lot of ground. People were like, “What are you doing? Open up your playbook. Tell us what’s going on.” We started a series of workshops. It’s very tactical. That led to M1 Academy. What we realized is that even when people had the tactical help and understood exactly what to do, if it wasn’t built on a foundation of the right mindset and understanding how to execute those things, people still weren’t getting the results they wanted.

M1 Academy is a platform we have created for group and individual coaching. M1 stands for Mindset First. I believe that mindset is the most important thing because it controls our attitude and actions, which are the only two things we have control over. We can’t control the market, our partners, and our clients but what we can do is create the right foundation and build those tactics and the execution above and beyond that. In 2023, we have been focusing on helping people, coaching folks, creating content, and doing those speaking engagements to put the word out about what it takes to be successful in this environment.

You cannot control the market, your partners, and your clients. What you can do is create the right foundation, build effective tactics, and execute them above and beyond. Share on X

First of all, thanks for the kind words about podcasting. I love your energy. I love when you speak. There’s so much content in every word in every sense. There are some people. You listen to them talk, and you go, “Where’s the point?” You seem to be delivering points constantly. Your ability to communicate is excellent. It’s not surprising that you are having an impact and will be so successful with M1 Academy. What is one of the most common or uncommon things that successful people have in common?

There’s a book that I’m finishing about what the uncommon have in common. Highly successful uncommon people have a lot of things in common. To your question, what is the one thing that all of them have in common? There are a few different things but the first that comes to mind is around embracing failure. With my mom being a teacher and seeing formal academia up close, I believe that academia has trained most people incorrectly about failure. If you fail every quiz and test, even if you learned everything you got wrong, in academia’s world, you’re still a “failure.”

That has been programmed in our minds. They’re saying, “Success is over here and failure is over here. You need to decide which way you want to go.” Every uncommon person that’s having success understands it’s stacked. You have to go through failure to get to success because what happens every time you fail is you have an opportunity to learn something.

I let everyone know that taking action is always the most important thing. It’s always the thing that you need to do because there’s never a situation where doing nothing is better than doing something even if you fail. If you do nothing, nothing happens. If you do something and take action, and it provides a result, you have to win but even if you take action, fail, and get that loss, there’s still an opportunity to learn something.

 

 

Successful people understand that success is built on that consistent and persistent effort over time where you stack up those failures, and all of a sudden, they’re not failures anymore because it’s an opportunity to learn something. With that in mind, we talk about success. It’s about consistent and persistent effort over time. The time part is what gets people.

You raise a good point because most people have a fear of failure. You have to overcome that quickly because we’re all going to fail our way to success, and anyone who doesn’t get that concept. Marc, I’ll let you jump in on this comment. You had your successes and failures and have gotten to a point where you are in the industry as well. Thoughts?

I would agree 100% with Phil. I taught a course years ago in college maybe a little bit before its time. It was entitled Failure: The Building Blocks to Success. Phil has nailed it. If you learn from your failures and build upon them, you’re going to be successful. What happens too many times is failure sends people off on a tangent. They get depressed, and they don’t follow through on things but Phil, it sounds like you’re on target and on track. I’m going to see great things out of you. I know that for sure.

I appreciate that. There’s another part of this, even people that say, “I’m not afraid of failure. I embrace failure.” I would challenge that may be true but you’re afraid of people seeing you fail. We’re all okay with taking that loss or that L when it’s behind closed doors. I use this metaphor for professional baseball. If you play professional baseball and you have a 300 batting average, you’re one of the best in the Major League. If you have a 400 batting average like Ted Williams, one of the greatest of all time.

What does that mean? That means to be the best in the sport or the Major League in professional baseball, you’re still failing 70% of the time. Those failures aren’t behind closed doors. They’re in front of 40,000 to 50,000 people that are calling you every name other than the one that your mom gave you. The crazy part is you don’t get to slink away. You have to get up there in another 20 or 30 minutes and do it all over again. The reason I tell that story is because as mortgage professionals, if we want to be elite-level professionals and if we want to be uncommon as we’re talking about, we have to take a page out of the playbook of what other elite professionals do.

Whenever they strike out or fail and don’t get a hit or ground out, they learn something about that picture and the defense. That should prepare them the next time they go to bat. Professional sports are something we can learn a lot from, even from preparation. This failure concept is an unlock for a lot of people mentally in embracing that taking action is okay. We’re failing 60% to 70% of the time. What we do is okay, to Marc’s point, as long as we learn from it and use that as a stepping stone.

That’s a great point. Marc, I didn’t know you taught that class. How timely that you’re involved in this interview here. Another thing that we’re noticing is that highly successful entrepreneurs or professionals can build a business that weathers any market. In other words, they may start it in some of the worst of times. Marc and I were talking in another interview. We have many people coming into the market now for the first time. They see this as an opportunity in part because of the negativity in the attitudes of so many out there and the wrong mindset. They’re seeing this as a contrarian and opportunistic move. I would love to get your thoughts on why is it that some succeed regardless of the market conditions. What do you find as a common denominator?

At the end of the day, there are opportunities in every market. It goes back to a mindset thing. Tactically executing what you do is pointless if you don’t approach it with the right mindset but what I’m seeing a lot of highly successful people doing or those uncommon people as we carry this theme through is they understand what people pay for. People pay for solutions to their problems. If someone is not doing enough business either in their individual volume or their company, or they’re not making enough money, it’s for 1 of only 3 reasons. The first reason is they’re simply not solving enough people’s problems. They’re not taking enough action.

The second is they’re not clear about the problem that they solved, whether they don’t fully know what problem they solved or they’re not articulating that to their intended audience very well. The third is people may not believe that they can solve that problem, which is the content that they’re putting out, the stories that they’re telling, and the way that they’re showing them, “Here’s how we solve these problems,” aren’t landing with their audience. If you think about the world, the challenge that people are having is income, retirement, net worth, and all these things where the economy is in the tank a lot of times.

Mortgage and real estate are uniquely positioned to solve those problems for people. Instead of going out there and talking about home ownership, we need to be talking about what people care about and understanding their why. Everyone wants to own a home. Everyone would like to invest in real estate but we spend so much time talking about the features that we fail to articulate the benefit to them. No one cares about a feature. No one cares about a loan program but what we have to do a better job of is showing people how this thing that we offer benefits them and how it solves a problem for them.

If someone is passionate about what they do, maybe they work for a nonprofit or they don’t have a great retirement plan. They need some type of mechanism to build wealth for retirement. Real estate is the most approachable way for the average person to be able to do that. Maybe they don’t want to do their job anymore. They want to sell everything, live in a VW bus or an RV, and travel the world. You need passive income for that. That can also be attained through real estate if we would take the time to understand what real problems people are having.

 

We have talked to individual clients. One specific lady came to us because she worked for a nonprofit and knew that investing in real estate would create retirement but as we had a conversation with her, it broke down what was significant about buying a home, what she was passionate about, and what she was looking for. The reason she wanted to buy a home is so that she could allow her daughter to paint the walls whatever color she wanted. In rentals, she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t paint the walls, or if she could, she only stayed there for a year or two.

She came to talk about investment real estate but her real passion and what she wanted to do was be able to allow her child to have the room that she wanted. As guys, sometimes we want to go in the backyard, kick a rock, and be like, “That’s my rock.” There are some underlying visceral things that people want. If we don’t take the time to find out what that is and understand the real problems that people can solve, we’re missing an opportunity to gain market share. What successful people are doing is having those conversations and filling that need.

 

It is such a good point. Marc, do you have some commentary you want to add? I know you’re enjoying this because I see the smile on your face. As a little interlude here, Marc is writing his book and getting his PhD. Marc and I are both 72 now in 2023. I’m working on my book. I introduced him to the ghostwriter that I’m using. He picked it up. He’s got 1 or 2 books already coming out. It’s not about quitting. I know you’re enjoying it. Jump in, Marc, with any comments that you have here.

It’s interesting what Phil said because I remember a survey I read a few years ago about what males and females, husbands and wives, or individuals want out of houses when they buy a house. The big thing that a man in his 40 wants out of the house is a man cave. There needs to be a room that can be his. Contrary to that, the big thing a woman wants is a large laundry room. Those are two diverse things as possible.

Phil is exactly on target. You’ve made an excellent point about what people’s needs, wants, and desires are. People becoming self-actualized and executing those things is easier said than done but if you can create that mindset and what you’re doing with people in the origination process, you’re going to make them very successful if they pay attention to what you’re saying.

I appreciate that.

There are some things that go into finding what the person’s needs are, which gets into the next question. What are some practical things that people can do to start getting more results in their life and business? First of all, you touched on one. Find out what is it that the person you’re interacting with is wanting. What are their goals? Understand them. What are some other things?

To build on that, we’re talking about having a real conversation with people during that client consult. We all know that people are going to ask about fees, interest rates, the process, and qualifying. Before we do that, we need to stop the conversation and be like, “We’re going to get all of those questions answered for you but I want to say that I’m excited that you’re in the home-buying journey. I’m excited you’re on this path. What’s significant about that for you?”

You’re sharing their excitement.

This is supposed to be fun. The world has created that buying a home or getting a mortgage is a cumbersome process. We all know that there is a degree of that but the more that we can have a real conversation about that want or that need there or why, two things are going to happen. 1) You’re going to create a stickier borrower. You’re now building a relationship with someone. 2) On the other side of that, you can say something to the effect of, “I appreciate you sharing that. That’s going to give a lot of insight into the type of strategy that we’re going to help create for you.”

If they talk to another loan officer, and that person doesn’t have the same type of conversation, they’re now going to question the type of strategy the loan officer is providing for them. You’re able to create a relationship there. That’s tactic one. Tactic two is we need to understand that when it comes to social media and some of these digital platforms, these are not blanket advertising platforms. Social media is about being social. There are a couple of things I want to unpack here quickly.

The first one is when it comes to the topic we talked about in providing solutions, a real opportunity, and benefits to people, we need to be sharing stories. We need to stop trying to sell what we do and start sharing stories about how what we do changes people’s lives within our company, our individual clients, and our partners. That’s the easiest way to show culture and why someone wants to do business with you. Sharing stories and gratitude videos or simply documenting the positive sides of our business is an incredible way to engage in the content.

Stop trying to sell your business and start sharing stories about how you change people’s lives. That is the easiest way to show why someone wants to do business with you. Share on X

I’m sure you know Dennis Yu with BlitzMetrics. He’s one of the most talented digital marketers on the planet. He talks about how across all social media platforms, the number one engaged type of content is gratitude videos where people are thankful for someone or something with them. That’s what we all want to see first of all because the media and all the news are typically always negative but the other side of it is gratitude portrays abundance.

It’s very hard for someone to be grateful when they’re lacking in something. Gratitude videos portray abundance, and abundance is a direct step next to being successful. You’re drawing people to your portraying success simply by being grateful, showing gratitude, and sharing these stories about how people’s lives are changed and how people’s problems get solved.

The second thing we need to understand is you need to engage with other people’s content. If you want your team to create more leads, they need to first start more conversations. The easiest way to start more conversations is to engage in other people’s content. When you think about the target audience that you’re going after, whether that’s real estate professionals, self-employed people, or veterans, if you’re on social media and they have their posts, videos, or stories, and you’re commenting on that, engaging in that in a non-salesy and non-spammy way, keeping social media social, and having normal conversations, you’re automatically going to draw attention to yourself.

If someone comments on your post, you’re almost always going to see it. If you don’t know who that person is, you’re going to look at their profile. If you’ve got stories, gratitude videos, and posts that are solving people’s problems, that’s going to take note. That’s how you create conversations and relationships. The other thing to remember about this social media conversation and portraying this value is that a personal brand isn’t about a shtick. It isn’t about a logo. It’s about being a person.

A good friend of mine and a super-talented marketer and social media strategist, Chelsea Peitz, has a line that says, “There’s magic in the mundane.” All that means is the things that we think that people don’t care about us and don’t care about seeing in our life are the exact things that are going to create relationships with people. I’m not saying you have to take a picture of your food everywhere you go. I’m not saying that you have to document every single thing but talk about your hobbies. Show yourself taking your dog on a walk. Document your life and let people create some human connection.

We’re naturally drawn to people that are like us and we have things in common with. Here’s a side note on that. Rory Vaden and AJ Vaden who created the Brand Builders Group helped Ed Mylett, Lewis Howes, John Gordon, and some high-level successful brands. They commissioned a study with a bunch of PhDs around personal brands. One of the things they found was that between 55% and about 62% of people wanted to see more of a personal brand from their doctor, employer, financial advisor, and attorney. They wanted to see more of a personal brand for them.

The correlation was the higher the requirement of trust, the more people wanted to see about them, not just what they did. Those particular professions have the same clientele that we have in the mortgage industry. If people aren’t talking about who they are, not what they do, they’re losing an opportunity. The last thing I’ll say about this is there are a lot of people who are like, “I build my business through my database. All of my businesses come in from referrals.”

If you don’t talk about who you are and only focus on what you do, you are losing a business opportunity. Share on X

I love that. That’s fantastic but here’s the thing. Years ago, if I said, “You need to use David Lykken for your mortgage. David is a rockstar. If he says he can do it, he can. He’s got an incredible strategy. He’s going to take care of you,” they went and used David. Now, what happens when I say the same thing, they look David up on social media, Google him, and see what’s there. If there’s nothing there, they say, “What the heck? I thought you said David was a rockstar. I can’t even find anything on him.”

What happens now is the content that people are putting on social media is around social proof and solidifying the referrals that people have worked so hard for. We’re now in a situation where we change our thinking. Most people think social media is about creating leads, and that’s not what it’s for. Social media is about showing people who you are so that they want to do business with you when they get that referral. It’s about creating conversations with people so that you can create a relationship and a conversation and then take it offline. We have gotten this thing that social media is about media and advertising, and it’s not. With the people that are having a ton of success, including the things that we did on our team, this is how you build a business in this day and age and stay relevant.

You raised so many good points in that thing. Marc, did you have anything you want to interject there?

I did. I’m going to get a free consulting blip here out of Phil for me. I’m completely reworking my personal website now to support my different business interests. I’ve gone into this brand thing because it seems to be the way things are being done. I follow a lot of people that belong to a bunch of groups of people and then I have major groups I belong to.

One of the things I emphasize is my writing but I also emphasize that I was a Vietnam veteran and all this. I’ve got little brands for Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled Veterans pop up and all that stuff. It seems like that is with us to stay because you educated us on that personal connection. It allows many opportunities for somebody to connect with you personally. What would be your guidance on somebody who’s trying to create that personal brand to give the people they’re interfacing with something else to look at and connect with? How would you get that started? What thought process would you put into it to do it? It has been intriguing for me. I would love to get your opinion about it.

Are we talking about your website specifically or through social?

Either way, whether you pick off the website or on social.

First of all, thank you for your service and the incredible things that you’ve done. In that respect, all of those are going to be tribes. Seth Godin wrote a good book called Tribes. We are all part of a ton of different tribes. The three of us are on Tribe Male. David, I, and Marc are on Tribe Podcaster and Tribe Mortgage. We might like college football or be veterans. Any opportunity you have to find a commonality with someone is an opportunity to create conversations.

When I was saying earlier that we’re drawn to people that are like us, it doesn’t have to be anything super profound. I’ll tell a quick story. When I graduated high school, my graduation present from my parents was this educational trip. You’ve probably heard of EF Tours. It was through Europe. It was 6 different countries in 17 days. It was a cool thing. It was back in 2000 when I graduated. I remember on the 4th of July, we were in Venice, Italy. It was very devastating when my eighteen-year-old mind realized that Europe doesn’t celebrate Independence Day. It’s a US holiday. No one cares.

In Venice, Italy, we ran into other Americans. They’re like, “High five, we’re from the US.” I thought to myself years down the road, when I’m walking around the US, I don’t walk around like, “High five, I’m an American,” unless I’m living in Texas and I’m in New York. If I run into someone that’s from Texas, I’m like, “High five, I’m from Texas,” but I don’t do that in Texas unless I’m living in Dallas and I’m in Houston. I do the same thing. The reason is that we’re trying to find things that we can connect with one another. It’s why when we meet someone for the first time, we talk about the weather. It’s the one thing we for sure have in common with that person at that time.

The tie-down to the question that you asked is I would embrace those things. I would use that as part of who you are in your bio on your website. I would link some of those things into potential groups that you’re a part of. I would make that more of a focal point even more so than what you do because once they figure out who you are, they’re more interested in what you do.

 

In a mortgage, we’re trying to lead with, “We’re loan officers. We’re in the mortgage business.” I’ve asked this question hundreds of times but when someone finds out for the first time that someone is in the mortgage business at a cocktail party or a kid’s sporting event, what’s the very first thing they say? “What are interest rates doing?” We have all experienced this for years. That’s our fault as an industry. We have not given them anything else to talk about, or we have not articulated any other value than interest rates.

Whenever we had our team, we created some scripts around that. When someone said, “What do you do?” we said, “We have a mortgage practice that helps people build real estate wealth.” We were your BREW team. BREW was an acronym for Build Real Estate Wealth. People are like, “How do you do that?” We had a couple of sentences script for that. This is about creating a connection around changing the narrative to solve people’s problems.

At that same cocktail party, if you said, “I’m in the mortgage business,” they ask what rates are, and they’re like, “They’re changing,” they’re then going to lie to you about a 2.17485% rate that they claim to have. You say, “Good job. Cheers,” but the whole point is if we had given them something better to talk about or if it led with, “We were a veteran. We went to school. We had a specific sports team,” that conversation is going to take a different life and create an opportunity to create relationships and not talk about the same old things that people are expecting. When we change that narrative, people are more open-minded about what we have to say.

Those are such good points there. One of the things that we’re seeing the need for is because business has contracted down to fewer transactions. We need to increase our network or the number of people we’re reaching. What are some of the tips you would give to our audiences on how you can increase your sphere of influence? I would also refer to it as your reach into the market. Any tips?

You need to be putting out some type of content digitally, specifically on social media at scale. Everyone is going to lean toward one type of content medium or another. I specifically chose podcasting. I realized very quickly I had a radio face and I needed to stay behind the microphone. I joke but I tell people that there’s a three-step marketing formula that you need to understand, and it’s very simple.

The first step is, “Who is your audience? Who is your target market? Who are you trying to reach?” That’s step number one. Step number two goes back to, “What problem are you solving for them? What value do you want to provide? What message do you want to give them?” The third step is, “What’s the most effective medium or place for you to deliver that solution and value to that audience?”

For me in particular, when I started the podcast, my audience was mortgage professionals. I wanted to add value to their business because I wanted to network with them, collaborate with them, and potentially recruit them. I didn’t know a lot of busy mortgage professionals that were watching a lot of YouTube videos and spending a lot of time on long-form content but with podcasting, they could have it in the background at the office. They could do it in the car or the gym. I felt like that was the most effective to portray my message to that audience.

A lot of times, we spend time saying, “I want to start a YouTube channel because that looks cooler. I’m going to start a blog.” There are two pieces to it. 1) Is that going to reach your intended audience? Your audience may not read blogs. They may watch short-form content like TikTok and Reels. Step number one is understanding that marketing formula.

2) What is something that you enjoy enough that you’re going to stay consistent with it? It’s Lewis Howes that said, “If you want to start a podcast, you need to ask yourself if you’re willing to do it every week for two years because if you’re not, don’t even start.” Podcasting is not a three-month, “Let’s do that for a short period.” It’s a long-term endeavor.

It’s the same way with any other type of content. I put a video out. I don’t care what type of sales tactic or marketing tactic someone wants to use but most people don’t give it enough time. They put out a couple of videos and ask why the phone is not ringing. When I got started, I was handing out black-and-white flyers at real estate offices nine hours a day. It was two and a half weeks before I got my first actual conversation with a realtor.

We need to find something that we enjoy doing enough that we will stay consistent with it every day. You’re going to reach more people. It’s a little bit every day of that consistency and that persistence over time. The short answer is that to get more reach, put out more content somewhere. Do you like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram? It doesn’t matter. Find a place where you can share about who you are and what you do. Put it at a scale and people will reach out.

Find something you enjoy and can stay consistent with. This will help your business reach more people just a little bit every single day. Share on X

One thing you touched on is commenting on what someone has said. It’s a realtor in the area. Someone is closing on a transaction. If they’re posting, you should be commenting. If you’re not known by them, they’re going to do the research, “Who is this guy that’s putting in this positive comment? Is this someone I want to be associated with?” That’s how you build that relationship. That’s a great point. What do leaders need to be doing in this market environment to help their people succeed? It’s so much about leadership. How can leaders help their people succeed?

I know that you have a lot of executives, leadership, and C-Suite that read this. I want them to hear me when I say a company’s brand is important but it’s not as important as the individual brand of the loan officer or that production team.

That’s a hard concept for many of them because they go, “I’ve invested in this company. That loan officer could take their brand and leave. I get a little nervous about that as a business owner.” I hear that from a lot of people. How do they overcome that?

The first thing you have to do is understand that when they were at that level as a producer or a loan officer, in the far majority of cases, whenever you ask loan officers, “Do people do business with you for you? Do they do business with you because of the company that you work for?” In almost every instance, they’re doing business with the loan officer. People do business with people they like. The company logo in most cases has very little to do with it. From a leadership perspective, if you want to create loyalty within your brand, you need to show them that you understand that they’re the driving force behind their business, not your company name.

It’s about putting ego aside. If I work for a company that says, “We’re going to help you invest in you and invest in your personal brand, meaning you as a person in conjunction with our company. We’re not saying eliminate the mortgage company title from it. We’re saying we’re going to invest in you. We understand that in your local community if you’re known, if you’re a local celebrity, or if you’re the go-to expert and advisor, that’s going to drive your business. That’s good for all of us,” I’m going to be very loyal to that company because they understand the bigger picture.

 

 

Here’s where we create disloyalty. I use the metaphor of a cat. When a cat jumps in your lap, it only jumps in your lap because it wants to, and then you can pet the cat. The more you want the cat to stay when it wants to get up, the more you try to hold it and the more it wants to run away. That’s what’s happening with loan officers. We’re not understanding that the tables have turned a little bit where the production is being done through good individuals in the community that are creating relationships with clients and referral partners.

You can create a corporate and loan officer or team and partnership by doing what’s best for both sides in a true collaboration and partnership. I say that knowing that there are some people that are like, “This doesn’t make sense in my mind. I’m the one spending the money. I’m the one who agreed.” They’re the ones that are going out representing you doing business. That company will get the credit that they need if you help empower them to do business again in a relevant way now. This is not the same market it was two years ago, let alone 5 or 10 years ago.

That’s such a great point using the cat metaphor. I heard one guy say, “If the cat doesn’t like the way you’re petting the cat, let the cat turn around.” We need to turn around how we’re interacting with loan officers and look at it differently. Zig Ziglar said many years, “How to be successful is to help someone else achieve what they want.” Those are some good principles. I keep coming back to the reach though. How important is it in this market to be increasing your reach out to people?

Effective marketing is the balance of trust and attention. It’s not enough to have both. I can get a lot of attention. I could light myself on fire, put it on TikTok, and get all kinds of reach but that doesn’t mean that I’ve created any trust that people want to do business with me. The challenge is we have a lot of phenomenal companies out there and practitioners that are capped in the amount of business they can do because people don’t know who they are. You have to have a balance of trust and attention. How do you do that? You put out content that’s relevant to people. I’ll give you one last example. David, you’re in the state of Texas. Marc, are you in Texas?

 

Yes.

All three of us are familiar with the phrase, “The God-forsaken DMV.” That’s not what it says on the sign but that’s a real thing. You go at 5:00 in the morning and wait for three hours for them to bring you a time to come back a few hours later. It’s a whole ordeal. When people are in that environment, no one that’s at the DMV that’s trying to escape and open up their phone to go on social media is saying, “I hope a loan officer gives me the definition of amortization. I hope someone gives me how much production they did last month.” They’re not.

We pay for solutions to our problems. They’re paying their time for something that solves their problem, which is helping them escape, be entertained, and be informed. If you want to get people’s eyes on who you are and what you do, give them a reason to. Remember that there’s magic in the mundane. Talk about who you are. Those quirky little things will create a huge tribe. We don’t need a ton of people. We need some of the right people. It’s not about going viral or having tens of thousands of people reach out. It’s about identifying what is our unique value offer.

It doesn’t mean we need to figure out something that we can do and that no one else can do. It’s about finding something that we do in a unique way. We’re the uniqueness in it. How do we leverage something? How do we talk about a benefit and solve a problem uniquely? That opens up the door to solving all kinds of problems but you become memorable. They remember you because of that one thing. You become a specialist.

A successful business is not about figuring out something that no one else can do. It is about finding something you can do in a unique way. Share on X

People hear of niching down, “I just want to do that niche.” With your BREW team, we talked about short-term rentals, long-term rentals, DSCR loans, and investment properties. Eighty percent of our production was primary residents. It allows you to be memorable. That’s how you get reach. It’s by differentiating yourself and creating something unique. Part of the most unique thing we have is us. Stop talking about 2/1 buydowns and your TBD underwrites. Start talking about yourself and how those products you have solved a problem for people.

That’s a great point. Any commentary, Marc?

There’s one quick commentary. Talking about creating trust is one of the most important things I’ve seen that is reactive in society. You brought it home with this because there’s one example I was thinking about that somebody said was very important. You know the restaurant Cracker Barrel. From the time you get your check at your table, do you go out the front door? There are a million things you can look at but sometimes you think, “Somebody could walk out of this store and not even go to the cashier because they get distracted and go by.”

I talked to some leadership in Cracker Barrel a few years ago. They said, “That’s not what it’s about, Marc. It’s about trust. We give the bill. They go to the restroom or walk through the store and look at products and all. We trust them that they will pay for the ticket.” The guy gave me a number and it blew me away. It’s such a minuscule amount of people walk the checks there compared to other restaurants and environments because they implemented a trust factor with the customer by saying, “Here, look at our stuff. We trust you to pay the bill when you go out the door.” You nailed that.

I appreciate that. Many people don’t want to participate in content, whether it’s videos or pictures because they’re like, “I don’t like how I look. I don’t like how I sound.” I have a pretty profound thing that I want to tell you. That’s how you look and that’s how you sound. We like you anyway so it’s okay. Let’s get past that, number one. If you trust your audience, it’s like, “I’m not going to be perfect. I’m going to tell you what my opinions are. They may not always be right. You might not always agree with them but I’m going to do it in a transparent way.” To Marc’s point, they’re in turn going to trust you back because that’s real, authentic, and vulnerable. Ninety percent of the content out there is not that.

That’s such a good point. There’s great content. How could people get in touch with you and start listening to your podcast? I’ve listened to it. I love your podcast. I’m a regular listener. I have found that there’s so much rich content.

Thank you so much for that.

You bet. It’s solid. Listen to it. Get subscribed and get it in your regular feed. How could people find you and your podcast?

I’m easy to get ahold of on all the socials, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, @PhilTreadwell. My website is PhilTreadwell.com. On there, there’s a podcast page or you can go to MMEPodcast.com, which is Mortgage Marketing Expert. We have a ton of guests on. David, we need to have you back on it. It has been a minute since you’ve been on there as well. Reach out if you have any questions. I’m very passionate about helping companies and teams become relevant in this market. This isn’t a down market or a bad market. This is a market full of opportunities. All you have to be is the one who identifies that and shows up in a unique way. It will happen.

That’s a great perspective. I would love to get back on your podcast. I’m so grateful you took the time to join us here. Thank you, Phil. We appreciate you. Be sure to say hi to your wife, Stacy. If anyone questions Phil’s ability to sell, meet his wife, Stacy. He married up. She is something special. I always tease you about that.

She out-kicks my coverage on that one.

She’s an awesome person. What a great team you would make as well. When you talk about partnering, there’s no better partnership than having a great spouse. You nailed it on that one as well.

Thank you.

We appreciate it. Thank you so much for being here. May this interview go viral.

Likewise.

 

Important Links

• M1 Academy
• Mortgage Marketing Expert
• BlitzMetrics
• Chelsea Peitz
• Brand Builders Group
• Tribes
• LinkedIn – Phil Treadwell
• Instagram – Phil Treadwell
• @PhilTreadwell – Facebook

 

About Phil Treadwell

Phil Treadwell is a national speaker, coach, and podcaster with 19 years in the mortgage industry as a top-performing mortgage professional. He has built teams in markets throughout the US and collaborates with the mortgage and real estate industry thought leaders. He is the Founder of M1 Academy & Host of the Mortgage Marketing Expert podcast. He has received numerous awards including “40 Most Influential Under 40” by NMP Magazine and “Top 20 Mortgage Professionals” by Yahoo! Finance.