This pandemic has made it so abundantly clear that direct to consumer influence is the key to future success. Join me for a discussion on this topic.

What the Highlights are in this LiveTime with Alec:

• What comes from human interaction.
• Don’t be afraid and get out there!
• Steps to create the necessary human connection.
• GET ONLINE AND SAY HI!

Episode Transcribe

What’s up everybody? 

Good morning.

 Man, I hope whatever day it is for you is going well.

 I cannot believe that in this chaotic times everything seems to blend together into one time block of squishiness. I can’t handle it. It feels like Monday every day. Saturdays, Sundays, doesn’t matter. I don’t know what day it is anymore. I hope you’re surviving quarantine life.Welcome to my garage where I am hiding from my family and talking to you guys. We are live. LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube. Thanks for hanging out with me today.I have a topic that has been on my mind, and I’ve been kind of advocate for this topic for a long time, and now man, it is never more true than ever before. Our business as local mortgage professionals who rely on referrals from our strategic partnerships has been clearly shown as problematic in times like this. Let’s just be honest, if you’re a local mortgage pro who lives on referral business from real estate professionals, how are you meeting new real estate professionals right now? Yes, I know you’re using digital means, you’re doing Zoom calls, but it’s not the same is it? It’s dramatically different, and the skills we had of … Like when I was raised in I was taught Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays open houses, broker previews.By the way, if you’re jumping on and saying hi, I’d love to know where you’re from and where you’re watching this from. So could you throw me a comment, and I’d love to just hear where everybody’s at and how working from home is going.So back to my point. You’ve got a crazy new world where you can’t do what you used to do. My whole prospecting bag was Wednesday, Thursday, Friday broker previews, meet agents, go out, tour the houses. Saturday, Sunday open houses, tour the houses, go out, and then turn around and fast forward. For a lot of us who have maintained that strategy, we can’t do it anymore. What’s up, Gilbert? Hi Claudia from [NoCal 00:02:39]. I miss north Cal. I hope it’s good up there. My family’s up there. They’re in lockdown. They’re hanging out. Wine country. Gary, I wish I could be in wine country right now. That is no doubt. Arizona. Hi, [Renee 00:02:52].So man, we have seen a radical shift. How many of you guys have become IT support for your kids because the teachers and the kids can’t figure out the Zoom calls? How many of us have kind of gotten a little bit sad and depressed in this environment? I know I have. It’s hard. I don’t like it. I was out with my wife yesterday hanging out with the kids at a park, and of course maintaining social distance and no one’s around. And I looked … What’s up Kevin in Long Island? There’s great things happening in it. I’m definitely a positive person, but I definitely have space in my emotional capacity to realize that this is not ideal, and sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it sucks.What’s up Mary D? Hi, Paul. So here’s my comment. [Daul 00:03:40] from Newport. What’s up, man? This is where it becomes so self-evident to me that this pandemic has highlighted and put a spotlight on the reality that the future success of anybody in referral based business, I don’t care if you sell insurance, I don’t care if you are a CPA, I don’t care. If you get your business through referrals, this environment clearly demonstrates at the core foundation of anybody’s future success is going to be direct to community, direct to consumer, direct to our digital ecosystem influence. I just don’t know how else to say it.You can’t go out and meet people anymore. You can’t go to open houses. You can’t do what you used to do, and so now you’re hanging out with me online and we’re figuring this thing out together. So, I got something for you. I get energy out. I love that, but I also like to get really tactical about today, right now what can we be doing as professional mortgage professionals to generate influence and build relationship.Yeah James, that’s the comment, and it’s on LinkedIn, so I can’t post it up here. James says, “Digital plus local is now more important than ever. You have to build your local brand direct to human beings.” Yes, you have to, because our referral sources are struggling. Their business model has been radically challenged in this model. They can’t show open houses like they used to. They can’t do the business they used to do. They’re trying to pivot, too. So now it’s become so self-evident that our job today is to figure out how to do this in this new normal, and that’s going to only come through digital influence.While everybody is staring at their phones, now more than ever. Give me the answer on this if you’re watching really quick. What is your daily screen time usage right now on your phone? I know you’re embarrassed by it. Don’t be embarrassed by it. But what is your daily screen time average on your phone? You can access it. You get the pop up. I know you get the pop up. So tell me. Put a comment in. Be bold. What is your daily screen time average?I will start. I’m hitting 10. I’m hitting 10 hours. Jamie’s at five. That’s nice. Huge major problem here. This is only more evidence that the future of our success in business is going to be to show up where people are. I always used to laugh and joke abour mortgage professionals who are like, “I don’t go to open houses. I don’t go out to see realtors.” 20 hours if you count TV. Yeah, I know Henry. It’s the worst, dude. Okay, on LinkedIn we got Michael at eight hours, eight minutes. Six plus hours for Jen. Yeah, can we see this? This is the new normal. This is it for now. For now.But I don’t think we’re actually going back to the old way. If the quarantine and shelter in home is lifted this second, how many of you are rushing out to go to your local movie theater? How many is going to rush out and go to those busy restaurants and those malls? Not right away. You might do something exciting. You might go see friends, and man, I would love to see some friends. But this to me showcases that we’re in this for a longer period of time than anybody wants. So we got to figure out how to adapt, and direct-to-consumer influence is the name of the game.I want to share some tactics. I really want to get granular. What’s up, Minh? Minh Nguyen. Dude, this is the guy. If you’re not following Min Win you are not paying attention. This guy. Oh, right there. This guy. I’m serious. Learning so much from you, brother. Thank you for your leadership in this time.So, here’s my advice to get tactical. Number one, I’ve said this a thousand times. Please listen. Please listen. Every day while you sip your morning coffee and you got your social media up … Melanie says, “I’m not a people person,” so she’s happy about the quarantine. When you have your coffee and your videos up, whatever you do in the morning, pull up your CRM. Go to five to ten people per day and connect to them on social media. That’s tactic number one. Five to ten people a day. Make sure -that you did loans for- that you are connecting to them on social media.Josh Pitts who I take a lot of inspiration from. If you’re not following him with Shred Media, you’re missing out. In fact, if you’re watching this and you do follow Josh, tag him because I want to give him credit for this. He has been very clearly a prophet in the sense that your social media is now your CRM, and I was like, “That’s totally correct. That’s totally correct.” Your social media is now your CRM. Go through five to ten people a day in the social media. That’s number one.Number two. Number two you can do tactically every day is start engaging to human beings on social media. I know there are a lot of you who are stalkers. I know it. Oh Melanie on LinkedIn, Minh Nguyen, because you can’t see because you’re on LinkedIn, but he’s on Facebook. So maybe flip over to Facebook and check him out. Yeah, he’s doing God’s work. There’s no doubt.So my point is … I lost it, because I answered questions. This is why you got to be careful. All right, back to the tactic number two. Okay, tactic number on, five to ten people through your CRM, connect on social media. Tactic number two, five to ten people on your CRM, past customers, you send them a video text. I don’t care what platform you use. I don’t care if you are using Vidyard or BombBomb, but you got to use some kind of web-based platform, because you can’t send giant video texts. It won’t go through. And use the power of video to tell people in quarantine, especially your past customers, especially your realtors that you are looking out for them and that you care about them and that you took time out of your chaotic homeschool quarantine life to send them a video message that you care about them.So there’s two right there. Five to ten people a day connect on social media. Five to ten people a day send a video text personal to them. Not mass. Not mass. Human connection to say I’m thinking about you, I’m here for you, if you have questions let me know.The third thing you can do … Yeah, I see Mary D totally a stalker. Don’t be a Facebook stalker. You can’t meet people anymore in real life. So I want you to go online, and I want you to connect and engage with them. I want you to make comments. I want you to say thank you. I want you to say hi. Throw a like out there, but more importantly take a second to comment.This is kind of like a pro tip. It’s not really one of the free strategies and tactics I’m diving into today, but on social media, a like today is almost irrelevant. I know. I know they’re great. We all like likes. Yay. But they’re almost irrelevant because it didn’t take you any time, and I know that. You went bloop, bloop. Or you double click. It doesn’t mean something in the human human world, is an actual comment. Take a second to think about what somebody has posted and to give them your feedback, comment, and engagement. It goes so …Yeah Chris, this is it dude. Doesn’t it feel good when someone took a second? I’m feeling so happy right now with people commenting on this live feed. It’s lifting me up. It’s giving me more energy. This is true for you, too. So your ability to throw actual comments in makes such a huge difference. So don’t be a stalker. Be an engager, and that’s just a quick pro tip.The third thing that you should be doing on a daily basis … I know this part gets crazy. On a daily basis you need to be on a camera in people’s feeds sharing information. Now, I’ve gotten judgy on this topic before on what content and what information you should be sharing. At this point I’m like, “Try everything.” I don’t even care. I don’t even care. Try everything. Try anything, and here’s why I say this. There’s a gal that works with us named Nicki, and if you tag her … Do not tag her, because she will find me and she’ll get … I’m surprised I haven’t seen her comment already. This gal decided to take the camera and turn it on every day multiple times a day, and I guarantee some people are bothered or annoyed, because I’ve heard people say like, “I don’t like people that post all the time. It bothers me.” I’m like, “Okay, then do you. Do you, but let other people do themselves too, and let them do what they want to do.”Nicki does this 5:00 PM dance time with Nicki. I don’t know. I don’t know. I barely watch it. I just see it sometimes, and I’m like, “Okay, she’s going to dance at 5:00 on her time.” Then one day I went back, and I looked. I’m like, “I wonder if she’s getting any engagement. I wonder if she’s just out there by herself just dancing or if people are actually commenting.” Then I was like, “Oh my God, there’s like 27, 30 comments on these dance things. People are connecting.” And I was like, “I’m wrong.” I thought that would be … I wouldn’t. I’m not dancing at 5:00, but she is and it’s working. I was like, “Just get out there and see what works and doesn’t work.” Is that good? Just get out there and see what works and doesn’t work. But you do have to get out there.So let me hit the top three again, and then I have some closing comments. If you got a question or anything, I’m happy to dive wherever you guys want to dive. Number one, every day, every single day five to ten people from your CRM. Go find them on social media, send them a nice note, and say, “Hi, I’d love to connect with you on social.” Number two, five to ten personal text message videos to say, “Hi, I’m thinking about you,” to your referral partners and your past customers. Five to ten.I got to show this comment. Now Chris, get out of there. You’re distracting me from my number three. So five to ten personal video text messages. And number three, get online every single day and say hi. I’m going to give you two ways to do it. Number one, film a canned video. If you’re not good at filming videos, then I recommend an app called VlogEasy. V-L-O-G easy. VlogEasy. Yes, it’s a little bit expensive, but I’ve talked about this app before. You set up your little tripod with your phone with the camera facing towards you at eye level with light. You see my light? With light, and it only records you when you talk.For those of you that don’t like the stream of consciousness style speaking that you’re afraid of, because you might say something stupid, number one, don’t take yourself so seriously. But VlogEasy … You could say a sentence like, “Hey guys, it’s Alec. I wanted to send you this quick message today.” Then just pause and think about what you want to say next and be like, “There’s a lot of changes in the mortgage industry, blah, blah, blah.” And it will only record the parts when you’re talking, and then you can edit it and you can delete parts that you didn’t like. You can rerecord it, and you can put movie clips in it. But put a message out every day or go live.Now, that’s like the scariest thing of all time, because going live could feel like giving a presentation in front of 100 realtors or doing a consumer education event in front of 50 potential home buyers. And you’re like, “Whoa, that freaks me out. I’m not ready. What if I say something dumb? Or what if nobody shows up?” I got to tell you guys, I don’t think you have a choice anymore. If you want to play in this mortgage space in a consumer centric business where you serve customers and that’s your business, you’re going to have to show up online and talk to them. So, you need to have an audience, but then you need to show up and want to talk to them.Jamie, you have a great comment here. “I’m going to hold myself responsible. Dreading videos.” I know. There is massive amounts of fear surrounding us humans on video. The reality is you’re not along in that, and it also means it’s your opportunity. Because if other people are afraid and you’re willing to run into the roar and face it, then it’s your opportunity. It’s not something to be afraid of. It’s something to embrace.In closing here guys, unless you guys have some more questions for me … Oh, I do have a little announcement. I do. I do have a little secret announcement if you’ve hung out with me this far. I’m weird about it, because I still struggle with insecurity, and I really don’t like self-promotion because it makes me feel really yucky, but for the last year and a half I’ve been working on a book and an audiobook regarding a lot of the stuff that I’ve been collecting over the years from a lot of great people like you guys. It’s launching next month, and I’m really excited. Except I’m kind of nervous, and yeah, I will give you more information as it comes out. It’s called Bypassed. It’s out for pre-order right now, but don’t worry about it. If you really want to get weird, the audiobook is actually read by me, which is … If you want to know what makes you feel totally dumb, I mean like the dumbest is to do an audiobook and read it yourself. I’m like, “I wrote these words.”My buddy who helped me produce it is like, “He can’t read.” I’m like, “I thought I could read.” Henry says a Facebook question. If you have a Facebook question, throw it in there. Oh yeah, that’s a great Facebook question, Henry. Thank you. Yes. this is super good. “Easier to find people off your personal profile than your business pave. You finding that true for yourself?” Yeah, when I connect to people, and what I would encourage you to do when you connect to past customers, referral customers, et cetera, I would absolutely be connecting to your personal page. You’re a human. You’re a human. Connect as a human to them. That is incredibly powerful.Now, if they want to like your business page or if you want to ask them to like your business page, there’s an etiquette there. If I connect with you, Henry, and I’m like, “Hey what’s up? I did your loan. Remember me? Let’s be Facebook buddies.” Then the second I connect I’m like, “Like my business page.” There’s no relationship there. Like, “Dude, you’re trying to get your likes up on your business page.” It’s the same people on LinkedIn that immediately send you a pitch the second that you connect with them. They’re like, “Hey, I looked at your profile, and you’re a very handsome man. Can I have two minutes of your time to give you this pitch?” I’m like, “No, I got a lot going on.”So Henry, connect to people as humans, and then they’ll see your business page. They’ll see your postings. They’ll see what’s going on, especially if you’re sharing it from your personal page. Then you’ll get a chance to connect. But this is my ultimate truth for all you guys. Look, people do business with brands and people that they like. So, are you a likable person? Do they like you? Do you have a relationship? Because here’s what’s crazy. Amazon is a nameless brand. Faceless, nameless brand. There’s no soul. There’s no person. You’re not buying from a human. You’re buying from a brand, but you love it. You love it. In fact, how many of you out there are so pissed right now that you can’t get everything in next day delivery? You’re super mad, aren’t you? You’re like, “Hmm, they’re helping people, but I want my whatever light by tomorrow.” We’re all made, because we can’t get I, but it doesn’t matter. You love when Amazon delivers to you.So back to my comment, people do business with brands or people that they like. If you don’t have that first, you never get a chance to execute and show them how great you really are. I hope this will helpful. As a reminder if you joined late. Here are the three things. Hey Rick, great stuff. Thanks dude. Thank you. Here are the three things. Number one, it is so clearly obvious that through this and onward into the future, one massive pillar of your origination strategy of your way to get business has to be direct to human influence. Digital or hopefully physical when we can get there again. But digital clearly. So you got to know that’s got to be it. I got to have that as a major pillar.Yes, you can have referral partners. Yes, for sure. I love them. They’re amazing partners. They’re having a hard time right now getting you business. So, you got to build up this other side, and you do that by making sure every single person you’ve ever done a loan for is connected to you on social media. You do that by sending personal video text messages to those humans to say you love them and you care about them and you’re here for them, including your referral partners. Then you also do that by getting online every day, by turning the camera around, and by delivering a message to those people about what’s going on in the industry and how you can be helpful or what to look out for.I know that part gets scary or it gets hard or overwhelming like, “What am I going to say every day?” You’ll figure it out. You can just document what you’re doing every day the Gary Vee style. It’s my favorite thing. Just showcase what you’re doing. [Sean Uyehara 00:22:12] in Nevada, guy crushes this. I’m jealous trying to learn how to document my life when my kids are attacking me and I’m hiding in my garage. But those are the three things, guys, to lean into.The future success for you and everybody else is going to be built on influence, and you got to step into it. Yes, you will have nobody watching in the beginning except maybe your mom and friends and family. Hi, mom. But eventually you’ll get thousands and thousands of people paying attention and being influenced. Even if they don’t watch your video, they saw it. They saw your smiling face. They saw you leaning into something new and hard.Here’s what I would love. My last thing to help each other, to share with each other. If you have gotten into video, can you share in a comment really quick what happened in your first few videos? Here’s what I know happened, and so you’re going to validate this for me. Your community wrapped their arms around you and gave you a big digital hug. I guarantee it. I guarantee in your first few videos, your community stood up for you and said, “Hey, I’m here. What’s up? What are you doing? How can I be a part of this? This is so cool.” Gave you a like, gave you a comment. They wrapped you up, because humans, we want to lift each other up. We’re better together.So if you experienced that, I want you to put a comment in to let everybody that’s watching this know that it’s okay, that people are going to support you, and that you will get better over time and you will generate more influence and more opportunity the more you put yourself out there. Lead with vulnerability.Scott, yes. 100% dude “First few times scared as crap. People loved it.” Henry, nailing it. “Was great. No consistency though.” That’s okay. This is a new thing. You don’t go to the gym, and then after the first time you’re like, “Now I go every single day.” You’re going to have ebbs and flows. You’re going to have time when you’re consistent. Time when you’re not consistent, but this is how it works. What Scott said right here guys is exactly the right message. That’s all I got for you guys.If this helps you or if this is helping somebody else or you think it could help somebody else, it’s on YouTube forever. Please share it. Please like it. Please comment on it like you guys are doing. Thank you for engaging with me. I super appreciate it. I’ll see you guys online. I hope you have a wonderful day.