Venture With Joe and Cody
Venture with Joe and Cody is a captivating journey into the lives and stories of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and pivotal community figures, revealing the essence of success through candid conversations. Tune in to discover the setbacks, triumphs, and invaluable lessons learned on the path to making a mark in the business world and beyond.
Venture With Joe and Cody
The Apps and Systems Behind Successful Agents and Lenders
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Joe Skipper and Cody Wilhelm dive into the essential tools, apps, and strategies that have helped them build successful real estate and mortgage businesses. They share both technical solutions and fundamental practices that make a difference in productivity and client relationships.
• Tracking daily activities with the Greatness Tracker to maintain accountability
• Using OneNote for comprehensive organization of tasks, transactions, and content planning
• Sphere CRM for automated client touchpoints like birthday cards and home anniversaries
• The Reach app for personalized mass texting at an affordable price point
• Creating text shortcuts on iPhone for frequently sent messages
• Captions app for transforming basic videos into professional content with minimal editing
• Opus AI for repurposing long-form content into platform-specific short clips
• The continued importance of phone calls for building genuine client relationships
• Why top producers consistently rely on simple systems rather than complicated solutions
• How to overcome call reluctance and make client check-ins feel natural instead of salesy
If you're struggling with consistency or looking to streamline your business processes, try implementing just one or two of these tools and see how they transform your productivity.
Introduction to Business Tools Episode
Speaker 1Hey guys, we're back for another episode of Venture with Joe and Cody. My name is Joe Skipper. I'm the owner of Skipper Realty Group, brokered by eXp Realty, with Cody Wilhelm with Residential Mortgage. What's up, man? What is going on? How are you? Nothing. I was just. It was so funny because I was thinking I think I did something with ChatGBT or I did. What did I do? I can't remember.
Speaker 2But anyways, how?
Speaker 1it described me was the founder of Skipper Realty Group and I was like, as I was saying, the owner of Skipper Realty Group.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, I kind of like founder, it sounds so much more important.
Speaker 1you know that I was the founder Dude. It was so right. Sounds so fancy, though.
Speaker 2It does. I know I had a similar thing happen with chat GPT, because I I got on there and I hadn't been on for I don't know, maybe like a week or so. Yeah, and I got on and it was telling me that it's like got better memory now and you don't have to remind it of, of who you are and what you do and everything and. And it gave me a summary and it was kind of I'm going to use one of the taglines for it. I got to figure out how I want to do it, but it's like like it kind of summarized because a lot of it is like video content type stuff and it said something along the lines of like you, you are working hard at, or doing good at, making mortgage videos that don't suck, and I was like you know what? I kind of like that as a little tagline, so I love it, I love it.
Speaker 2Yeah, it gives you a summary, it makes you feel good about what you're doing. You know you're like wow, I know.
Speaker 1They do kind of like you rub your shoulders a little bit too much they're like oh yeah, your content is engaging and funny and witty. I was like okay, okay.
Speaker 2Yeah, no, it's not. No, it's not, no, it's not.
Speaker 1But speaking of that, I wanted to do the show this week to kind of help lenders and agents with some advice on kind of the top things that we do or top apps we use, top programs we like, top whatever that kind of makes our life easier and kind of helps our production level and helps us in our careers.
Speaker 1So I thought that was a cool thing to talk about and share, because there's some things that you might do that I'm like, oh, I could do that, so, anyways, yeah, I wanted to talk about that. So do you want to start us off or do you want me to start us off?
Tracking Daily Activity with Greatness Tracker
Speaker 2I'll start us off Just in case I steal yours.
Speaker 1I want to do it.
Speaker 2I'll start off basic because I have a feeling you're not going to steal this one. Okay, because you're much more technologically advanced than I am. Um, so two things at. One of them is just a. It's called a greatness tracker. I'm sure most lenders probably have heard of this. Um, there's a. There's a coaching program called the core, and it's been around for quite a while. They have this form called the greatness tracker.
Speaker 1So just bear with me Go ahead.
Speaker 2Yep and you. Just, it just has a whole list of, you know, tracking your phone calls, tracking your thank you cards, tracking your meetings, um, how many hours you prospect in the day, what referrals you receive. So it's just a really simple, easy way to track your daily activity, which I don't know about you, but for me, if I'm not tracking it, then I feel like I'm either busier than I think I am. But then I go back and look and I'm like, oh, I mean, yeah, I might've been on the phone a lot throughout the day, but those were calls that I received. Those were not calls that I was making outbound calls. So it's, you know, just a good way to kind of see the list in front of you and realize, wow, I did.
Speaker 2You know I had a really good productive day today, or I was busy all day, but I wasn't busy doing the things that I want to be doing it to, to go out and get new business, and then it's kind of helps, helps with carving out time to make sure that you're doing those items, because you know, it's like it's not all going to happen in one day, but if we're continuing to repetitively do it over and over and over um, eventually it's going to to turn around. So I've kind of. I've used that um kind of on and off for for a lot of the time that I've been in the business. Once it was first introduced. To me it's just kind of a. It's a great motiv, but also just a good way to kind of see what your activity is throughout the day instead of just going off your own memory.
Speaker 1So what's the greatness tracker? Very greatness, it's called yep, the greatness tracker.
Speaker 2You can just. You can probably just Google image it or just Google it and there's an image of it. It's just a. It's essentially just like a printed out spreadsheet that has 10 calls per day your thank you cards, your referred business, your face-to-face meetings, break bread they have some different names for them, but it's all in there. It's nothing fancy. It's just a printed form and you know you could use it digitally if you didn't want to print the forms, but it's nice.
Speaker 2I just keep it on my desk and fill it out as I go out throughout my day. But it's been a huge help for me just to track it.
Speaker 1That's kind of more generic along the more generic lines. Man, it's critical to have something to do during the week. I so, for the last you know, and I'll I'll be fine saying that I haven't been doing this is for the last couple months. I was so good at like, okay, I, I scheduled out my basically my reels, my youtube videos, my you know stories, like my putting things on my google business profile, like anything social media related.
Speaker 1I had it scheduled out each week what it was going to, what I was going to talk about, what it went you know, all and it was so, it was so good and it basically kept me consistent, Like it kept me knowing oh, I got to go do this, I got to go to that. So for the last couple of months I did not do that and the the feeling of treading water is terrible, Like know and you're always like did I post yesterday, did I do this, did I go on my Google?
Speaker 1You have to keep up with that stuff consistently, and social media, especially, is consistency. And if you do not have something that's setting you up, that's getting you to do that every single week and planning out your month and planning out your recordings and planning out everything, man, so I got back into it.
Speaker 2Stuff.
Speaker 1I use OneNote. I out your recordings and planning out everything, man. So I got back into it and I use one note like one note is. I'm a very amateur at one note, but basically you can do whatever you want on one note, like you can keep track of your transactions, you can keep track of to-do lists, like everything you want to do. Christina's like a master at it, um, and so she has it all, like she's got like chapters and books and everything like really in one note of how how it all functions.
Speaker 1It's a really great program um to use, but I I now do a calendar, uh, in my one note of like okay, here's the month of july. Here's what I'm going to be posting this will give me an idea of what I need to do, to what I need to record what I need to do yeah, you know so anyways, just in general, that's a great op, that's a great tool, because in our line of work you can do.
Planning Content and Using OneNote
Speaker 1We say I don't know if it's the same with you guys, but you can do nothing today and you will notice nothing bad about your business today, but six months from now, when you're like I don't have business, you think back on six months ago and you weren't doing anything. That's why Because ours is such a slow transition to get clients- to maintain clients to get a pipeline transition to get clients to maintain, clients to get a
Speaker 2pipeline, and if you're not, if you're not, planning your day, it's easy to just be like what did I do?
Speaker 1today, like I responded to emails, I responded to calls, but nothing got, nothing got marketed out. Nothing got, nobody got reached proactively, and so, yeah, that's a great, that's a great tool to use Um um, I'm going to have to look into it.
Speaker 2I know, I know I've heard of it. I know I had a it friend that was telling me about it years ago yeah, I don't know how long ago it was, but he was, that was his big thing that he used. But I never really have dove into it to even figure out what all it is.
Speaker 1And yeah, it works, but it's a lot and I wasn't going to say that as one of my items. But OneNote is pretty impressive. It's kind of a note-taking app. You can do everything that your Apple Notes or whatever can do. It has an app on the phone so it can transition from your computer to your phone. I think it's Microsoft-based so it won't still work for that, but it works on my Apple stuff. Yeah, it's great. It's a great program and it keeps you. It's very proactive. It doesn't have and maybe it does have templates and things that you can kind of plug and play. This one is kind of more building. But I have Christina to, kind of as a resource of like here's, oh, you want to do this, but she keeps track of it every day, each client, each sale, like here's my to-do list, here's what hasn't been done, here's what you know, and it just kind of is all in one. You know one app.
Speaker 2So yeah, anyways, but keeping organized is big in our industry and that's like, I think, why a lot of people don't do as well.
Speaker 1Um uh-huh and everyone has slumps. I had a slump too. I just went through it and just was like I need to get back to it. So I feel so much better on a day-to-day basis getting work done now that I have it all planned out.
Speaker 2I could not feel that anymore. I feel like it is the constant highs and lows.
Speaker 2You do what you're supposed to do and you start to get busy, and then you stop doing what you're supposed to do because you're taking care of your business and then, like you said, it's not like you make phone calls today and you get something tomorrow. Yeah, it's so slow 30, 60, 90 days out that it's like that constant repetition of doing it and then and then you get out of it because you're busy, and then you realize that oh wait, I got to keep doing that. And it's like I feel so dumb every time because I know, I know what I'm supposed to do, I know what I'm supposed to be doing every day, and you still just find yourself at least I do by myself, you know focusing on, obviously, the important things of taking care of the business.
Speaker 2That's there um but not setting aside enough time to keep generating the business while it's coming in. So it's. I think that's the the. The trick for everybody, um, in our industries is, you know, not getting too bogged down with what you have Like. Time blocking is huge. I'm not great at it but it's something that's been, um, you know, different coaching classes and stuff that I've gone through. It's time blocking, time blocking, time blocking and so I try to put them on my calendar.
Speaker 2It like for stuff that's really important, um, but I also am not going to have 30 different calendar notifications going off all the time, because then I just ignore them, so for sure that's the spreadsheet of some kind um, the other one that I use too, and mine are kind of boring, I feel like because I'm not a, I'm not Cool, but just an Excel spreadsheet of tracking my leads, referral partners, anything that's really important to me, tracking it with not I don't know, I don't know about you, but I'm like I swear I have the worst memory. So until I write it down or document it somewhere, I'm I will, I'll forget it. So, again, really basic, just tracking stuff. But it holds yourself accountable.
Speaker 2When you can look through it Like this is not something fancy to anybody. When you can look through it Like this is not something fancy to anybody, it is to me. But like you can create little color-coded time block things in there where you can set it up to, where, like, if I have leads or people that are pre-approved, I can put it in there to, where it'll be color-coded. So if I haven't reached out in a week then it'll turn red and once I've reached out and then I update it, it turns green, so that I can just kind of track through color coding. Yeah, keep it really simple for my brain of just like, ok, I need to go through and make sure, none of these are red, so that I've reached out and touch base with them, but again, just tracking the stuff, that's there because, once you start to get busier and you don't just have like one one client here and one client there, that's easy to keep stay on top of it when you start.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Once the pipeline starts to grow and you have people that are waiting for six months or 12 months, or they've got to work on credit or all these other things, it's so easy to just forget and move on to the next thing, the next thing that's right in front of you, that's ready and active. But having that follow-up and that lead sheet, referral sheet, whatever, whatever it is that you're trying to work on, having that accountability to yourself to be able to see it For sure, to me that's that's big, because I think for a lot of people it's you know follow-up is is key, right? If we don't follow up, then the the person, whoever it is, could very easily just be like well, I don't know they, I haven't heard anything from them, so I guess we're not working with with that person, or I don't know.
Speaker 2And then the next, you know they talk to a friend and they're like, oh, you should talk to this person, and and then they're gone because you didn't reach out for a month and it wasn't anything that was bad on your end, it just wasn't good. It just wasn't good, it wasn't.
CRMs and Sphere for Client Management
Speaker 1You just lose them yeah, yeah, and that's why I was uh, that kind of leads me to one of mine and I'll get on my screen here. Um, we use a program and it's crm, and whatever crm you want to use is fine, but we use a sphere for some of our, for our sphere of influence. It's a CRM that basically we've kind of fell in love with um years ago and I think for me visually it was cool. It has this you can set your goals up in here. Um, that it shows you your pipeline of clients, whether they're pending, they're active, you know everything to the closed. Uh, it gives you these reminders of reaching out to people as you go. All this stuff is kind of customizable. It shows you your stats based on the sales and and all that stuff.
Speaker 1So, it's a really easy place to not only look for yourself of kind of where you're at in the year, but this play this also will. This was built by a realtor in Portland and they change things all the time as you, you know, go along, you know, as you suggest to them what you need, they will adjust it and so it's been a really cool program. But this is basically like you can easily keep hold of, like you said, hold of transactions.
Speaker 1You can put in notes of like who you've talked to. You can put these easy to see, blocks of like what they still need to get done. What we love with Sphere is that, like you said, that automation of kind of talking to people even though you're not thinking about it, so in the background. Sphere basically allows us to send birthday cards, anniversary cards, house anniversary cards, and not only just they're handwritten, but they also come with. You can put in gift cards to people. You can put in wine.
Speaker 1They sell wine. You can put everything and it just goes to them. So once you set it, you basically it sends these handwritten notes for their anniversaries and all that sort of stuff. So it's been a really cool program.
Speaker 2That's cool.
Speaker 1They're always developing. They do have an app. They give a home equity reports, like all the stuff that I like. I personally, we've just have fallen in love with it and they continue to grow and continue to do well with it. So if you're looking for a CRM, crms are very specific to whoever wants a CRM and what they like in a CRM.
Speaker 1So it may not be for everyone, but, man, it's really good for that automation, that reminder of, like they basically say, based on your goals, here's how many people you need to contact today within your sphere and start reaching out, whether it's text, whether it's whatever. I'm sure there's programs out there that might do things a little bit better or different, but we love that one for our core group of people that we have, I think our company provides KVCore, which is more of that cold lead.
Speaker 1you know that anything that comes in off our websites, like we have KVCore that will handle that stuff. But we like to keep it personally separate because I think that Sphere gives us that ability to be really personal. Sphere gives us that ability to be really personal. And so you know not to knock AB Corp, but just I think we personally like to keep things in separate CRMs, but a good, crm is good and Sphere I would check out.
Speaker 2Is that one kind of more tailored to a real estate agent, or does it seem like it could?
Speaker 1be, so that's a good question. That's a good question. I haven't really thought about it for lenders. But that's a good question.
Speaker 2I haven't really like thought about it for lenders, but that's a good question. So I mean, I think most lenders and and there's probably, you know, there's people that do their own kind of like that too, I think from, at least from my experience, most lenders do have their own crm too, yeah, um, but there's also people that want to keep it separate because you know, if you ever change companies, most companies are going to say this is, these are our clients.
Speaker 1Yep, yeah, they're taking it.
Speaker 2So if you have that as your own third-party thing, um then you don't have to worry about that, because whatever they have there they're more than likely not going to do anything with. But then if you can't take it with you, then you're.
Speaker 1That's a great point and that's feeling great you should be aware of if you are looking at crms and look at whether they keep, whether that's staying with you or not. Um that's very important. You might not think it, especially new people might not think it matters like oh keller williams gives me this program or exp gives me this program. Make sure that you keep, keep your clients, because yeah they may say well, when you're, you now can no longer log into your your program that we gave you, and now all your clients are stuck in a in in Keller Williams world or wherever else it might be.
Speaker 2So, yeah, take a look at the contract that you signed or are signing. That's important. It should say something in there, for sure.
Speaker 1Yeah, Um, I have a cool, like kind of little known one that I don't use anymore and I think I might getting be getting back into it, but it's an app called Reach. Let me see if I can look it up and show Reach app. Let's see if it'll show us anything cool. Yeah, let me share this Reach, not that one let's do. Can you see that I see this? No sphere. Okay, let me stop. Come on, joe, get with the program got it.
Speaker 1You're the technology guy I know share I can I might be able to share a spreadsheet. Here we go there we go um so reach is this app that basically and I think at the time it was five bucks a month, so not very much but you can put in, you can mass text people but personalize the text. So you know you might like like, for example hey kate, hey dave, you can send one text but it'll send you, put in their name right here, and it will send their particular name, so it appears to them it's not a group text.
Communication Tools: Reach App and Shortcuts
Speaker 1It's not anything, it goes to them as its own individual text. Um, and it's super. It's super cool because you can text a bunch of people one particular thing, um yeah that's. Uh, we did it for our client events, like, hey, we're having this client event, we'd love for you to come. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah it looks personal. It looks like we just texted you. It was really a cool app.
Speaker 1I need to get back into it. But anyways, if you are looking for like a mass texting app that doesn't appear weird or generic or whatever, reach is a good program for that.
Speaker 2Um and I've liked it.
Speaker 1It's pretty cheap.
Speaker 2Yeah, and that saves you so much time. I mean, I know we've all probably been there of like copy paste change the name copy paste, copy paste, you know, and it's like over and, over, and, over and over, and it's fine when you first start doing it and then you realize you've got 50 of these to do and you spend so much time doing it that it's five bucks a month, that's that's nothing.
Speaker 1Yeah, I really liked it. Um, I didn't use it as much and I don't need to group text a lot or mass text a lot, but if I got back into it I would look at reach. Having said that, um with you, like you sent us a program, was that individual?
Speaker 1when you kind of updated christina and I the other day, yep, okay, that was individual, that was just individual yeah, so that was just a copy and paste but that was actually kind of like it made me think of reach, because I was like if is he? I was curious if you were using that because, yeah, um, it was personal it made it personal, but in a reach format you could do the same thing to 100 people in a matter of seconds Sure. So anyway, it's just a thought.
Speaker 2I need that because I did. I think there's one, maybe it's hit them up.
Speaker 1I think there's one.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's where it's kind of a similar thing, but it'll only allow you a certain amount of people per.
Speaker 1I don't know if it's per day, ok, yeah, I think reach might be the same, depending on your package right, and then you and then you pay for if you, if you have a bigger audience that you're trying to reach then yeah, you just pay the, the fee or whatever it is yeah, okay, what else? What else you got for me, man? Um, I just had one.
Speaker 2oh okay, this is like a little side note thing before I get to mine, but your, your reach thing kind of triggered this for me. So, at least on iPhone I don't know about other like Androids and stuff, but do you know? So there's like shortcuts that you can type in, like if you're texting somebody and you put in there like TY, there's a few of them that are automatically defaulted in there and it'll automatically say thank you.
Speaker 2Oh really automatically defaulted in there and it'll just, it'll automatically say thank you, oh really. Well, there's a yeah, there's a way where you can go in and you can customize those to where, if you have a you know good block of information that you want, like for my, like loan application, yeah, I've created one to where I can just type in like LA or whatever I want it to specify, and then it'll pop, it'll generate my whole link for my loan application and it'll say, like you know, it was so great talking to you, here's some more information.
Speaker 2Here's, here's where you can fill out the application instead of again it's just time-saving to where you can kind of automate it and it just it. It puts it in there. It's like an email signature, but just for texting.
Speaker 1That's really cool. So when you text say LA, for example, does it automatically. Just when you do that and press space, it just automatically inputs that into the text. Yep, Wow, that's really cool.
Speaker 2I'm going to have to look at that. If I was introducing my loan officer assistant. I have one in there too. That's templated like that to where I can say you know her name's Takara, so I can put in TK and then it'll just automatically pop it open and then it'll fill it in there and say you know, hey, I wanted to introduce you to Takara.
Speaker 2Here's how she's going to be helping blah blah, blah blah blah, that's rather than typing it out, or like saving it in notes and going and finding it and copying it and pasting it and like trying to just kind of keep things automated but consistent especially follow up after a meeting or just hey, it was great meeting you or great talking to you.
Speaker 2Yeah, love to catch up again you know, yeah, those sort of things like we say all the time that we can easily. That's a good idea, that's a good idea, so it's kind of cool. But, um, I would say I'm gonna steal this one, I think, from you Do it. It is. What's the name of that app? I can't remember you can't steal it.
Speaker 1If you don't know, Is it the latest one? Captions.
Speaker 2Yes, Captions.
Speaker 1Yes, yes, captions.
Speaker 2Again, time saver. But that one has been incredible for me mainly because I don't really know a whole lot about video editing. You know, I know how to do captions on Instagram and Facebook because it has it through there, but to be able to put it through there and have it, edit it and have AI features in there and go through everything, to me that is huge, and for 65 bucks a year or something like that like it's just it, it pushes me.
Speaker 2I've been kind of slacking a little bit, but it makes it so much easier to do videos knowing that all I have to do is record it and then upload it and then maybe make a few tweaks here and there instead of like, okay, I got to set, set aside 30, 40 minutes to make sure I get this all how I want it to look and plug it all in there, especially when you're trying to create something weekly, daily, every other day, like it gets to be overwhelming when you've got other stuff going on. So this to me, like you introduced this to me and it's been amazing, just all the features that are in there and how easy it is for somebody that doesn't really know anything about recording or and it's just on your phone record it on your phone.
Video Content: Captions and Opus AI
Speaker 2It'll edit it. It makes it look, in my opinion, really good so yeah, captions is insane.
Speaker 1I like that deal breaker and it's um, and maybe there's other tools out there that do the similar sort of thing. But, man, the amount of the if. If you go to my latest, like one of my latest videos, that's all captions that they just naturally put the text in where it's texted the background, the B roll, the everything and you can customize it however you want. But, man, it is a, it's a game changer. They do have limits. I think, like I think on the phone it was anything over two minutes.
Speaker 1It't do You'd have to manually edit Anything under two minutes. It will do the AI edit for you. So it will do your whole two-minute video on its own in a matter of less than three minutes. Whatever style you want. They have what? Eight to 12 styles that you can choose from of what you like? And um, super easy auto trims. It cuts out your you know pauses or it cuts out you know mistakes, like there's some editing you have to do if you constantly make mistakes and have to repeat things or whatever but, man it for the cost it is really cool.
Speaker 1Put super compelling videos out there. It keeps people's attention. That's the hardest thing to do in our line of work is keep people's attention. And it's great, love it. Captions is like a deal breaker A game changer. Not a deal breaker, it is A game changer.
Speaker 2And for the cost too. I'm always trying to look for free things and cheap things just because, especially if I'm not, if it's not a huge part of my business where I'm like pouring everything into it. Um, so, to find something that's so well priced that that works as well as it does, yes it is so worth it.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's rare to come upon those things because, yeah, you know, app is an ai are changing all the time and they're getting better, and they're getting better. But you generally like I try to, I I look at all the time, so I get in on these like ground level and I'm like, hey, it's not all, it's going to be.
Speaker 1But uh, this one was one that I was like wow, wow, this is pretty impressive. I still every time I put my video, my raw video, in there and then it pops it out, I'm like that's incredible that it does so. So yeah, and you can add trending music to it. When you get on the individual apps, you know like you can find trending music that kind of gets you into that. You know like all the stuff. So anyways, super time saver, super big time saver. I can't wait till it allows long form editing content.
Speaker 1I would love YouTube videos to be like a seven, 10 minute video that can be edited by them. But until then, until then I'll just stick with just the short form, but that's a great, a great one, and it allows you to be consistent on social media all the time and not feel like my videos look too cheap. They look too down right they've got. They've got voice correction in there. They've got everything that can make you sound like you have all the equipment in the world, so so yeah, it's pretty awesome um.
Speaker 1One that I would use, uh, and that I do use quite a bit, is opus ai um. That's one where you, especially if you have long form content, opus AI. You know, every social media realm has certain time guidelines that you can't go over a certain amount. Stories are shorter than reels, which are shorter than you know.
Speaker 1TikTok has to be a certain amount of time, and so if you do make long form content seven, ten minute videos you can use Opus AI especially this.
Speaker 1I use this a lot for Google business profile. People underestimate how important it is to keep your Google business profile going and consistent on Google business as well, because Google sees the same things that social media sites do, is they see if this business is is continuing to put in information, they must be a current, proactive business, and so Google starts using their algorithms to push you to the front when people do search for certain things. So, long story short, google has a limit of 30 seconds on their videos. Well, it's very hard to get a 30 second video, but continue to update your videos on Google. So I take my long form content, tell Opus AI put it into 30 seconds or under, and it gives you like five or six clips of your long form video and it ranks them according to what they think is the best for SEO, the best product it's going to put out. So it'll say, hey, here's a 30 second video, it's 95 out of a hundred. Like that it's. It's set up the right way.
Speaker 1So I'll take those 30 second clips, put it into my Google business profile, refer people to my YouTube page and to call me if they like that little teaser and then move on. So, but you can do the same thing for you can do the same thing for you know, taking a seven minute clip and making a 90 second clip on YouTube, Like I. Still, I need to do that with us and our YouTube or our podcast stuff for advertising for our podcasts is take those, take our podcast clip. Advertising for our podcast is take those, take our podcast, clip it down to, you know, multiple 90 second clips so that we can post it on social media to say, hey, come check our, our YouTube or not?
Speaker 2Yeah, here's a little teaser for you.
Speaker 1So, yeah, it's a cool program. Opus AI is a really cool program that uh can be used a lot. It's it's relatively cheap and, again, just a really solid, uh solid program for taking long form and making a bunch of other clips, uh, from it. So so if you have trouble making videos and you just do one 10 minute video on you know, on YouTube, you can spend the rest of your week sending out on Instagram 90 second clips of that long video you know, referring to your YouTube page so that's huge, because you really do get the best of everything with that.
The Importance of Phone Calls in Business
Speaker 1Yeah, and it will give you captions. It'll give you, so it'll put out the captions. That can you can change the font and the type and the type and the style. And so it'll make it look like it's a, you know, an advertising clip. Basically for what you're talking about. So yeah, we use that a lot you're talking about?
Speaker 2yeah, so yeah, we use that a lot opus ai, opus ai.
Speaker 1I know I have it. I just haven't, uh, I haven't done anything with it yet. Yeah, yeah, it's a really good program. Yeah, um what else, man, we don't have a ton more time. What do you got? Um another basic one.
Speaker 2Okay, very basic, making lots of phone calls. I think that it's um in. In this I sound like an old man in this day and age. It's like everything is also digital and it's social media and it's texts and it's messenger and it's DMS and all that, which is awesome, it's very convenient, but I feel like there is still definitely a place for the phone calls um, especially when it's business related. Um, I think it's just, it's very intentional um, and and maybe not everybody wants to answer their phone, but I think it does say a lot, though, too, like even if, even if you make a call, you leave them a voicemail and you follow up with text or a message or whatever. Yeah, I just think it's kind of like you know handwritten notes. They they seem old and meaningless, but when you receive that handwritten note, it seems very cool you know when it's for sure you can tell it's personalized.
Speaker 2It was important that that's somebody that took time out of their day to write that for you and to follow up with you and even just something as simple as a call, because anymore, like a lot of times, I mean to have the conversation. You don't have to do all these things, but I think in my mind it still is a way to build that rapport, especially if you're trying to gain clients out of it. It's like you can only go so far with the messaging side of it. It's great for communication, but to really build and get a feel for the tone and personality and everything, but to really build and get a feel for the tone and personality and everything.
Speaker 2I think that phone conversations are still to me super duper important and it's basic. It's not anything fancy, but I can almost guarantee that most people in the business they would rather text and they would rather email because it's easier and you don't have to have the conversations. Yeah for sure, it doesn't take any more time, right? Sometimes I'm terrible at getting off the phone, I am the worst at it. So I can be on the phone for 45 minutes. I'll call a past client and check in with them and and I'll stay on the phone for a long time because I don't want to. I don't want to be rude and just be like.
Speaker 1Hey, I just wanted to check in real quick and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2Okay, cool, got to go, bye. Um, but you gain so much out of that and to me that that's going to last a lot longer um lifespan than um just to follow up text or email.
Speaker 1So yeah, If you're, if you have a referral business, um, you're right. Uh, I'm terrible at that and I, as you're even talking, I'm like I do need to be better about that because, um, it is easy to be clear, I need to be better at it too, yeah.
Speaker 1But it's easy to get into the technology world and just kind of do those outputs, the texts, the whatever, and. And people do see that texts are important and it's nice to get a text. But you're right, I think a phone call seeing how people are doing and how the house is going and how you know how it went and what are you doing with the house and what you know, like that's just common courtesy and normal and I'm terrible at it. So I need to now that you said it.
Speaker 1I was like it is something that I need to incorporate into my thing, because I think we built a business on referrals and on people that we care about and we know about. These aren't cold leads, you know. We're not trying for a mass amount of numbers. It's people we truly care about, and so I think reaching out is an important thing.
Speaker 1Um, you always feel a little salesy which always got me at the for when I was new I felt like I was very salesy, but I think I'm comfortable enough now that it's like I'm not looking for their next business, I'm just seeing how they're doing, like you know.
Speaker 2So um, um, and that's that's for me. That's what's helped me a lot too, especially for past clients. It's I'm not asking for anything, yeah, all I'm doing is just checking in honestly yeah and most of the time they're like, hey, what's what's going on?
Speaker 1yeah, like did something happen? Did I forget to pay my mortgage? What's going on my house, like? What's going on here, like yeah, no, I just wanted to check in and see how things are going, and you know, I think it.
Speaker 2I think it leaves anybody. If you receive a call from from somebody that you worked with and they're just calling to check in at the end of it.
Speaker 1You're like wow, that's cool Like they just checked in.
Speaker 2They didn't even ask me for anything or try to sell me on anything Like just it. Just, I think it's, just, it's, it's genuine and I have to get better at it. Um part of the core that that program I was telling you about with the, the greatness tracker, um, they have a really cool, super basic but cool um method of going through, like your, your database, your past clients, or you just go through the. If you alphabetize your whole list, um, and you go through the alphabet two times a year, 26 letters in there.
Speaker 2And you just you know, week one you're doing everybody that has a last name, a. So some weeks you might only have five, and then other weeks you might have 50, but, it's a really good, easy way to keep track of it of just going through and making your calls on all your past clients. Good thinking, Cody, and what's funny about it?
Speaker 1is that Sphere CRM does that Like? And I just kind of that section of it. I ignore it. Like it has daily tasks based on your goals. This is how many people you have to contact a day, like if you want to make X amount. This is how many in your Sphere you have to contact, and I just blow it off more or less, because I'm like oh.
Speaker 1I'll talk to them, or oh, I just talked to them, or oh, I, you know, like I just did this, or you always make excuses. But a phone call, and I think that stems from when I was younger and newer in the industry, where you're like always feeling first off. You are salesy because you need the business.
Speaker 2Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1Like it off. You're just like you're not confident in yourself in the industry, and so now it's like I think back on the things you're just saying and I'm like, yes, I could call everyone and just be like, hey, how's it going?
Speaker 2Like that's it, I know.
Speaker 1How are you doing? Okay, cool, like family doing good, house doing good. Okay, well, talk to you later.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2The call reluctance is a real thing. I've noticed, when I get out of the rhythm, it builds up more and more.
Speaker 1And I'm like same thing right when I'm like I don't want to bug them. I don't know what I'm going to talk about, or?
Speaker 2whatever, and then you put it off, and then you. Finally, once I start to get back in a good rhythm with it again, I'm like why was I making this into? A big deal, I know, Half the people don, so you're just leaving voicemails. Yeah, I'm just checking in or reaching out, but it's like in my head I'm you know, you're like, oh, it's such a big deal. But that's part of I feel like I know. For my side, it's definitely part of what I have to do, because there's only so many ways that you can get in front of people.
Speaker 1And when people are working all day and out and about, and you know social media media phone calls.
Speaker 2Text messages, whatever, but well, I'm taking that with me, cody. Thank you, that was a uh. You're welcome for anyone listening. That's in our sphere. Guess what you're gonna be, getting calls they're like why don't we get?
Speaker 1mass calls from cody and joe like every other week. Yeah, just check on this podcast and you'll know why.
Speaker 2Like right, yes, well, that's good stuff man.
Speaker 1I think that's a help hopefully helpful information for people if they have any issues with those. You know those sort of things. Those have helped us to be kind of successful and we went over some of the struggles we've been through and how we need to both kind of change some things. So, yeah, Totally.
Speaker 2And you know what I've found? That whenever I've talked to, you know top producing loan officers, whether they're at our company or a different company, and you just kind of pick their brain and see what they're doing. It's a lot of the same stuff.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, it's like it's never anything fancy, nothing's new. Yeah, no, it's really just inconsistent with whatever you do.
Speaker 2Yep, I have a goal of how many people I need to talk to in each day. I have a goal of how many meetings I'm going to have each week and I just do those and business comes in. For sure oh and it's been like that forever right.
Speaker 1I know You're thinking somebody Our industry started.
Speaker 2Yeah, these top producing people that are just like 1% in the US type people.
Speaker 1They must have some trick. Yes, they must have something. They're like oh, I just yeah, I just like.
Speaker 2They must have something like and it's like oh, I just yeah I just communicate well, and I follow up and I reach out to people and you're like oh well, that sucks well, I thought you had a cool app that was gonna hit me and give me 800 clients. Come on man you just have to keep doing this. Yeah, right, fine, yeah okay, my man.
Speaker 1Well, until next time. It's great talking to you. Hopefully this was helpful to people.
Speaker 2This was great. Appreciate it, man talk soon, man all right, see ya.
