Let’s make some content! Schools in session. Create, engage, watch and listen.

What you’ll find in this LiveTime with Alec…

• How easy it is to create content…
• Topics from which you can create content
• Collaboration helps fast track your creation
• Simple tools to help you get in front of that camera…

Episode Transcribe

Hey, what’s up everybody? Good morning, happy Friday.

 9:00 on the West Coast.

For those of you that are on the East Coast, your days already done.

Congratulations, that’s amazing. I love it. Really excited to be talking to you guys today. Trying out Fridays. Seeing how a Friday goes. I don’t think it’s going to go good. I don’t think there’s a lot of you guys online right now on Friday. If you are online, give me a comment real quick. I see some of you on LinkedIn. God bless you. You actually are doing God’s work on a Friday. I love it. [inaudible 00:01:34] here on a Friday.Really excited today to talk to you about content. I talk about it a lot with the people that I get to work with every day, which is amazingly fun. But I’m excited to talk to you guys too about it because it is low hanging fruit. The real reality is that most people are just afraid to go online and post through insecurity, through fear, all that fun stuff that holds us back. But if we get you guys a good content strategy today and you get excited, I think you’ll lean into it a lot more. And that’s the truth right there.If you are following me right now on LinkedIn, thank you. Please let me know where you’re at, let me know where you’re watching from. It’s always fun for me to know who’s tuning in from where. I get jazzed on that stuff. So appreciate you guys.All right. I’m probably going to run 20 minutes, 15 minutes today to give you as much as I can on content strategy. Get you guys all queued up to really feel confident to go live. Not necessarily go live, but just share. Share what’s going on to build brand, to build influence, and let’s frame it up.It is so crucial that you, as a mortgage professional today, put yourself in front of other human beings as often as possible. Here’s how I correlate to this and relate to this. Prospecting our referral partners. So how I was taught and how many of you were taught. Get in front of them as often as possible. I always got that it’s related to dating. If you’re dating somebody and you only see them once every three months, not good relationship, it’s not good. You need to escalate that a little bit more.If you are serious about someone and dating, you’re talking all the time. You’re connected all the time. Same principle holds true for prospecting. You have to be talking to people all the time, don’t you? If you’re not, then they don’t think you’re around, they don’t think you’re alive, they don’t care. Working 24/7. Yeah, David, I love it. Hey, San Jose in the house.If you’re not talking to your prospects and your realtor partners all the time, then somebody else is, or they’re not thinking you’re working or whatever’s going on there. That will kill you. I’ll kill your business.Let’s talk about it online with influence and showing up with your community. If you’re not here in the digital space with them, where they are all the time, you’re not building reputation or brand. That’s not a healthy way to be. Sorry, I’m getting some messages on my phone here. Turning this thing off.You’ve got to be where the people are. So let’s talk about a content strategy. Sound good? Where we’ll break it down. A lot of people believe themselves to be educators in our mortgage base, and that put a lot of your values and education. Hey, Memphis, what’s up? I really value that, and I think that is right. I think you should be educators. You’re constitutive value should be huge.How do you do that? Start making videos about educating people. You get what I’m saying? It’s not that hard. Let’s just do it right now in the comments section because there’s 12 of you with me right there on LinkedIn and some on Facebook. Let’s do it right now. What do you need to do to show you that you’re an educator? And let’s come up with 12 pieces of content and let’s just bucket really quickly for first time home buyers. First time home buyers, how many pieces of information, minute videos, three minute videos, can you make for the tips and tricks a first time home buyer needs to be prepared for in order to buy their first home? Okay, got it? 12 things. Let’s come up with them right now. Throw it in the comment. Let’s see what you got and let’s…By the way, other people are going to watch this and they’re going to get value from this. You’re helping the industry rise up, guys. I full on lead and believe in living from a place of abundance, which is just let’s collaborate and share and we’ll all get better. If we all get better, good things happen. So I’m not afraid to share this stuff online because that’s the position I take in this world. I hope you join me. Abundance is a good place.Who’s got something online to kick us off? I could kick us off, but I think you guys should. Who’s got a piece of content that you should be creating for first time home buyers? Let’s get it from Memphis, Crossville. Let’s get something really quick. Here we go. Or do I have to give it to you? You need it from me? Really? I don’t think you do. I think you can do it yourself. But all right, here’s the first thing.Oh, James got me. Yes, absolutely, guys. Can you make an entire video series on down payment? There’s so much confusion around it. How much does somebody need to get their first home? That to me is low hanging fruit right there. You could do probably four videos on down payment because you can incorporate what about FHA and low down?Pam, awesome. Deposits to your account that are on payroll. So, we talk about assets. Not only down payment could be a whole segment, that’s one, but then assets. How much money do I need to buy a home? What should I be looking for? Absolutely. There’s number two.Oh, Kevin’s crushing it. Credit scores. 100%, credit scores. What credit score do I need? Do you know how many first time home buyers are absolutely terrified or confused about what FICO score they need to buy a home? They all are. They all are confused and you can help them. So there’s our third. You got credit score.How about what not to do when you get into a mortgage process? What not to do is a whole video. Christopher, crushing it. What’s the process from app to close? Just give me the process. What happens when I apply? What should I expect next? Really give me the process.What else do you guys got? Yeah, Frank, down payment, credit, absolutely. We’ve got those two already. What else for first time home buyers? I’ll give you another one. How to find the best realtor in the market. Absolutely, that’s amazing one.Thanks, Pam. No new debt, for sure. Explain the difference between using your loan versus withdrawal when using retirement plans. Absolutely, James. How does your retirement account come into play as an asset for this whole thing? What else do you guys got? How about fees? Fees, of course. Are there fees? Yes. From you, the lender? Yes. From who else? They don’t know. Explain, explain, explain.I’m going to give us a shout out to Stephanie Johnston. If you guys could tag her, I would appreciate that. Stephanie Johnston, great loan officer in Texas. Tag her, tell her I’m talking about her live. Because one thing I learned from her when we were at Dunkin together, is there are tons of people who are confused about what ACD actually is and how to read it and what ALE is and how to read it. In fact, on YouTube, if you go there, you’ll see that some of her videos are just talking about that. Can you explain that in one of your videos? Now we’re at 10.Mortgage insurance. Now we’re at 11, killing it. Mortgage insurance is at 11. Can we get one more for 12? I got it. I’ve got the one, but can you get one more for 12? What should it be? Come on. You got to think hard on this.Yeah, Pam, we talked about major purchases. You’re totally right. Do not make major purchases. That was one of them in the beginning, and that’s what to look out for so you don’t get caught in your own trap. 1000% right.Then, yes, thank you, Dan. Rate. Guys, our customers are chipped to think about rate, aren’t they? How many times have you seen a customer like, “I’m getting this rate over here.” And then you actually help them and educate them and look at it and there’s three points on the deal. And you’re like, “Yeah, you’re getting this rate, but what’s the best rate for you, as the customer?”We didn’t even get into ARM products versus fixed. We didn’t even get into conventional versus FHA. Homeowners insurance, absolutely, James. Guys, we just came up with 14 pieces of content right now in, how long has it been? It says I’ve been talking for nine minutes, but maybe four minutes, because I waited for you guys a lot. Guys, it’s a no-brainer.Now, you’ve got 14 pieces of content. I guarantee you, and if you need help, by the way, go to your flyer bank at your company… APR, great one, Susan. APR, of course, because how do most people explain APR? “That’s just a number of the government makes us put on there, it doesn’t mean anything.” Is that fair? Come on. You know that’s how you do it. “It’s just the number of the government [inaudible 00:09:58], the government. It doesn’t mean anything.” You know that’s how people are selling APR. You know I’m right.All right. So look, go to your flyer bank and Mellow Marketing or whatever company you’re at. Go to your… Then look at… The flyers give you content. If we just came up with 14 pieces of content for first time home buyers in four minutes… Okay.Can we do the same exercise for VA loans? Yes. Spend another four minutes with VA loans and we will have another 12 to 15 whatever, pieces of content right there. Little topics, mini topics.Let’s pivot over. Can we do a full jumbo loans? They’re confusing. There’s a lot going on. By the way, when you say the word jumbo, people don’t even know what that means. They don’t know what the loan limits are. They don’t know whether it affects them. They don’t know any of that stuff. Can you do more content on that? I guarantee that if you spend 20, 30 minutes at a Starbucks or with a friend in your office…By the way, that’s the best collaborative, like we’re doing right now, because then you pick up all this stuff really fast. If you can do this with a couple of people and collaborate, I guarantee you, you could have 52 topics in less than 20 minutes or 30 minutes. I guarantee it. We just did it. Guys, 52 topics is one a week. One a week. You’re now equipped to film and put it up, one a week.I just talked to my team in Gilbert, Arizona, two days ago. One of the coolest things about what we talked about was instead of… You guys remember call nights? Who still does call nights? Are you guys… By the way, if you do call nights, give me something in here. By the way I always point here because that’s where I’m looking at comments.Do you guys still do call nights? They’re such an underrated old-school tradition that people just don’t do anymore, but you got to do them guys. Call nights are easy, fun. Rally around it, you’ll get business. But, where I think this is really cool and where it’s pivoting is film nights. I’m super serious, film nights. Hey, good morning, Tricia. Film nights are amazingly powerful. Why? Because it’s hard to get the motivation to start filming this 52 pieces of content we just created. So when are you going to film it? When are you going to do it?I’ll tell you the trick. Bring in a wardrobe, not joking. For dudes, it’s easier. Sorry, bring in seven tee shirts. Then just film the first one, film the second one. Film 8 to 10 videos in a film night, drop them in Dropbox. You’re ready to rock and roll. Now you can release those every single week on the social media platforms, direct to the platforms. You’re welcome.By the way, if you host a film night, tag me, I want to hang out. Let’s figure this out. I love film nights, I think they’re powerful. I think that they’re going to help you get the content booked and ready to go so you can deliver it.Let’s go one step deeper. Let’s keep moving down the train. Let’s pretend that you did spend the 20, 30 minutes and come up with 52 pieces of content. Let’s just pretend you did it. And let’s pretend you’ve got the courage, maybe some liquid courage, to help you, and you did a film night with four or five people in your office and you filmed. You got 30 of the pieces of content booked into Dropbox. Then next week you’re going to do the rest, et cetera, et cetera. I’m [inaudible 00:13:12] there.Now you get to post. The really cool part about this is it’s already saved in the Dropbox, so you just got to come in on the day you want it to post and share it. Now, you’re going to have to do two things with it. You have to share it natively to all the platforms you’re investing in, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. Share it natively. Gary V. gets mad at me and he’ll say, “You have to create individual pieces of content for each platform to have everyone have their own voice.” Okay, Gary. Thanks, bro. Can I get off the ground a little bit? Can I just do… Just post it, guys. We’re going to talk about learning in a second, but for the love of god, just put it out on the mediums. And see what happens.Last place they should all go, you should store them by playlist, by topic, on YouTube. The second largest search engine in the world. Thank you for the love. Yes, store it and put it on there on YouTube. Post natively to LinkedIn. Then upload it as a library content, by playlist, by topic, on YouTube. The second biggest search engine in the world. Yes, that’s it.From there, start paying attention. Start learning, start listening. Are people commenting? Are they not commenting? Are they engaging? Are they not engaging? What’s going on with the result of your action? Because that will help you understand how to make it better. Guys, I joke, but I’m serious. How great were you the first time you walked into an open house?You can’t feel me out over on YouTube. How good were you? Did you walk into your first open house with that realtor, the top dog in the market and be like, “What’s up? I’m Alec,” and you got all their business? No, chances are, you were like me and you just pulled up to that open house with a big agent and then you just drove away because you’re terrified because I was terrified.Guys, this is the same thing. You put out videos, you watch, you respond, you listen. I keep saying this, but be a student of your own experience. School’s in session, baby. Pay attention. If no one’s commenting and no one’s responding, there’s two reasons. Either you have no followers, which I’ve talked about before a million times. You have to continue to engage other people or else you’re in an echo chamber. Eco chamber? Echo chamber. Or your content isn’t landing. Then you can understand why.I had a really authentic conversation with somebody who was willing to learn and they’re like, “Alec, I’m following what you’re saying. I’m putting out videos and I’m getting no responses.” I looked up, they had very little followers, they weren’t engaging on social media either. They weren’t commenting on anybody talking, contributing. And candidly, their video was boring.What do you think is going to happen? But that feedback gives you a chance to actually improve. Doesn’t it? It gives you a chance to actually improve. If you listen to that and you go, “Okay, interesting. I’m not engaging with people online. I better start talking to them.” Yeah, start talking to them. “I don’t have a big enough audience. I should spend some time connecting with other people.” Yeah. You got this thing in your hand all day, just start connecting to other people. And “My content is boring. What do I need to do?” How about bring some energy, Dave? It wasn’t really Dave, but come on. Are you excited? Are you passionate about what you do? Bring the heat, man. I want to feel it. I want to know you’re alive.Then the last piece is, don’t be fake. Don’t be inauthentic. People can smell that. If you are literally on… Personal opinion, don’t get mad. It’s a personal opinion, you can say I’m wrong, but I’m not talking to you. Green screens, bro. Green screens suck. Don’t do that. Everyone knows it’s a terrible green screen. No, because now you’re propping yourself up like you’re a commercial. You’re not a commercial. You’re a fricking human being. Show up like a human being, raw, authentic, true. The same way you would show up for a customer in a one-on-one, face-to-face consultation, that’s how I want you to show up on video. If you do that and I’m wrong, then I’m wrong. If you’re doing green screen filming all day long and you’re getting tons of engagement, tons of comments, tons of leads, “Dude, Alec, pound sand, out.”Just sharing my personal opinion. But I think that we are so heavily marketed to, as human beings, I think that it’s so overwhelming at times to be staring at our screens and just getting hit in the face with ads that we just want something real. I think that’s why Instagram stories are one of the main ways people view content because it’s real. It’s somebody’s life. I’m seeing the real thing. So just show up authentically and you will kill it.Then I joke because if you do 52 pieces of content and you put it across LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, that’s times three, 52 on your engagement. And man, you’re killing… You’re going to be so far ahead of anybody else. You’re going to be so far ahead of everybody else.The last thing for my encouragement to you, I’m almost at 20 minutes. If you have a question, by the way on this stuff, please ask it. That’s why we’re doing this. I’m entertaining, but I know that you’re here to ask questions and learn from each other. Here’s my comment to you guys. You know this, and I’m just going to say it, and you know it. Guys, it takes time. You got to have patience. “But Alec, I posted five videos and I didn’t get anything.” Talk to me after a hundred. Yeah, talk to me after a hundred, baby, because that’s the game right there. Video 103. It’s my 103rd video. I started going live after a hundred. I can tell you that the results are absolutely undeniable, if you just lean into the space., I’m not saying you have to be perfect, I’m saying you have to play the game. You with me?So create content, it’s not hard. We created 52 pieces in like four minutes just now, across first time home buyers, veterans, FHA, jumbo, investing, investor loans. First time… What not to do as a… It was not hard, guys, you saw it. It’s on the comments if you want to read some of the comments and share this for people at your office or people that are around you. Create a video night. Film it all, drop it in Dropbox and boom, you’re posting once a week across three platforms just like that.Then all you have to do at that point is just learn and listen. How are people responding? Are they in? Are they out? What do they like? What are they not like? I can tell you after I did my 100 videos in a hundred days, I was absolutely shocked at what people responded to and what they didn’t. I had videos where I was like, “I crushed it, nailed it. Top one video. It’s going to be number one watched video.” And it was like… No one cared.Here’s other thing that I’ll leave you with as we wrap down here. This is the truth no one wants to talk about, I’m just going to tell it to you. If you hung with me, there’s 30 of us on LinkedIn, there’s five or six of us on Facebook. I don’t know how many are on…. I know there’s at least one on YouTube. Hey, Ken.Here’s the truth. I did a hundred videos in a hundred days. How many of my videos did you watch? Seriously, put it in the comment. How many of my videos did you watch? I’m going to wait. How many did you watch? Did you even know I did a hundred videos in a hundred days? Did you even know? I’m going to wait you out. I got patients. Because here’s the truth, as you see people commenting here in a second on how many you’ve watched, the truth is you didn’t watch any. Pam, 15 to 20. Great. You leave, liar. All of them. I appreciate you, but you lied and you skipped them. Because here’s the truth, guys, let’s say you put up content every single day, which is hard. You’re not going to see them.Alex, one. Thank you for being honest. They’re not going to watch them because your customers that you’re influencing, they’re focusing on themselves. They’re scrolling, they’re busy, they’re doing stuff. But those of you that watched one or a couple of my videos know that I was there all the time, wasn’t I? In your face, smiling, right here. Some of you were like, “I hate this guy, unfollow.” But that’s okay. But some people were like, “Man, he’s hustling. At least he’s working hard guys.” You’re earning head space, they’re not going to watch all your videos. You don’t have to be perfect. People are focused on themselves. But what you’re doing is you’re showing up in an authentic, caring way. It matters, makes an impact.If you want the super secret, the super, super secret that at the very end of the video, the super secret, secret, consistent content strategy, posting once a week, twice a week. Plus pulling back and going to your past customers and realtors that you’re working with and sending them a personal behind the scenes video about what you’re doing. That’s the one, two punch. They’re seeing you all here all day long. Then they get an email from you with a video that just says, “Hey, I was talking on social media about this the other day. I feel like we could partner together really well because I see you doing a lot of branding stuff, too. Let’s grab a coffee.” That’s the one, two right there.Or you do a video about interest rates, you’re explaining how they work. Then you send a followup video just to your past customers. Mass comment out to your thousand customers and say, “Hey, I did a video online about rate. Here’s the link. You guys worked with me in the past. I think today might be a good time to look at your mortgage review.”Number one, you’re going to pull them into your social content because they’re going to be like, “Oh yeah, let me click that link.” Two, they know you care about them and you’re going to get engagement. One, two punch, baby, all day long.You guys are awesome. Encourage you guys, create content. Just call me, we’ll spend five minutes on the phone together. My numbers everywhere, call me. We’ll spend five minutes on the phone together. We’ll get 45, 50 pieces of content. We’ll get you going. Set up a video night, get some buddies in there, and kick some butt. Life’s do short. Now’s the chance, the fields empty. Go dominate.Appreciate you guys have a wonderful weekend. Thank you for tuning in on a Friday. I guess I was wrong, there are some of you that care and work on Fridays in mortgage. My people, have a great weekend everybody. Take care.