Effectively leverage both online and offline marketing

Justin Ulrich
Oh, man, no, I’m super excited to have you on. I’ve actually, I was digging around to try to find other folks who had really good content and were giving really good direction around how folks could market their business at a local level, and your podcast came up as one of the top in the mortgage space. 

So I figured, hey, might as well reach out and try to get you on, and it worked.

Tim Davis
Hey, man, I might use that in my marketing. Top podcast in the mortgage space, right? That’s right. It’s super exciting out there, man, you know, and so it lands, that’s good to hear, man, it’s awesome.

Justin Ulrich
Of course, of course, so I guess, let’s just get started real quick with just a little bit about your background and what it is that you do over at Canopy Mortgage.

Tim Davis
Yeah, listen, I mean, I got talked into the mortgage space, it really, there wasn’t a lot of talking back when I was 23. I was living in an efficiency apartment, and I didn’t even own the furniture, right, so I was trying to get started with something, man. This is a long time ago, long before the internet is like it is today, but a buddy of mine introduced me to the mortgage space, and I said, listen, if I can make enough money to afford my own furniture, I’m in on the gig right now, let’s go.

And so, yeah, he got me into it, and I cut my teeth on just getting leads. We used to get leads every day. They were sort of direct mail leads, and so I cut my teeth on selling over the telephone, you know, and that worked out great until it didn’t.

I mean, I had a lifespan, and the lead started to dry up, and I had to reinvent myself, right? I had to figure out, like, well, how do you go get referrals? So, yeah, it’s just a career of reinventing myself, but really hyper-focused on local marketing to do that, you know, that book, Acres of Diamonds, which just talks about there’s so much gold in your backyard, are you forsaking it to go chase something somewhere else?

And so, I learned a long time ago, it might’ve been Dan Kennedy that I learned this from, but it was a statement that said, you know, the best whatever doesn’t always win the business. So, the best loan officer doesn’t win all the business, the best realtor doesn’t win all the business, the best plumber doesn’t get all the business. The best marketer gets all the business. And that resonated with me, and I was like, man, I’ve gotta find a way to market myself.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, they say the most important thing you can market is yourself.

Tim Davis
A hundred percent, man. They don’t call the name on the door and all that stuff, they call you. And so, yeah, my career’s just been built on, you know, building personal brands, marketing myself, and helping loan officers and real estate agents find ways to win in all different types of markets.

Justin Ulrich
Very cool. No, it makes total sense. Yeah, the marketing yourself thing is paramount because, you know, and it comes just through, it’s not just your logo or your branding, it’s like all of your interactions, every interaction that somebody has with you amounts to your personal brand.

So, when you’re having, I noticed that you also wrote a book on conversations equals, what is it? Conversations equals?

Tim Davis
Yeah, check this out. Conversations Equal Contracts.

Justin Ulrich
There you go, there you go. You’re talking, that’s perfect. You’re talking with people and you’re just being human, right? And getting them, you know, giving them a chance to get to know your personality and make a connection, and eventually they get to like you and people wanna do business with those they like.

And it’s like your personal brand is, it has all of those interactions kind of roll up into that. So yeah, it’s super important, especially in the mortgage space.

Tim Davis
Oh, it’s everything to me. I mean, I just think that people call people, right? Right.

And I don’t care where my doctor works, for example. I don’t care what big affiliation, I’ve never checked that out. I’m just like, do you have the solution to my knee problem or my whatever I’ve got going on?

Same thing’s true with a loan. Like, oh, I know my buddy, Gary. I’m gonna call Gary, he’s gonna help me out. I never go, well now, who do you work for, Gary? Cause I’m only gonna do business with, you know? And so that’s really where it comes down.

So I just became a student of marketing, you know? Yeah. And I hear a lot of people, they’ll tell me like, well, Tim, I’m just not good at marketing.

I’m like, well, you know, out of the mouth comes the truth. Like, you gotta stop saying that. Like, you know, I mean, when the doctor gave birth to me, he didn’t hand me to my mom and go, congratulations, you gave birth to a marketer.

Right now. So, you know, I mean, you have to learn, you either have to learn how to market or you have to hire somebody who knows how to market, you know, or you’ll not have the business you could have.

Justin Ulrich
Well, and I think too, it’s, I think people get in their own way of doing effective marketing because they think they can’t do it or they’re not a marketer, just like you’re saying, as opposed to just saying, hey, I’ve got a couple ideas. Let’s just try something. If it works, great, we’ll learn from it.

If it doesn’t, great, we’ll learn from it. And you just keep moving forward, trying small things and eventually you’ll get some consistency and some quality in there. And then you’ll start to get some momentum.

Tim Davis
Yeah, listen, I’ll give you a great example of how a marketing campaign and a brand was developed. It happened last year. So I started this role at Canopy Mortgage as the Chief Growth Officer.

And so my job is pretty simple, grow the company, right? And you gotta get the message out there. So your message is super important.

Your target audience is super important. You gotta work through that. And so my first six months, I spent a lot of times, you know, maybe fumbling through some messaging, trying to figure out like, who is that right person for our offer and what are they really looking for?

And it was on a discovery call with somebody. And I literally just said, this is like being a solopreneur. It’s like being your own owner without, you know, being by yourself, you know? And the candidate said, oh, I love that. I said, love what? He said, solopreneur.

I said, oh yeah, you like that? He’s like, yeah, I love that. Well, I made a note. I’ve got a little notepad I keep with me. So if I say something, because a lot of times I’ll say stupid stuff, right? But then every now and again, I’ll say something really smart, you know? And he goes, oh, I really, really like that. 

Conversations Equal Contracts came the same way. I have a coaching business. I was on a call with a coaching client. I’m like, look, dude, you’re not getting the business you want because you’re not having enough conversations. Like conversations get you contracts.

He went, oh dude, hold on, that’s good. And I’m like, what? He’s like, conversations equal contracts. I was like, yeah, that is good. So I wrote those two things down, right?

Because if you get an emotional response from somebody that they really like, oh, that’s good, you know, then you might be onto something and you need to test that out with more people, right? So I began to test out the Solopreneur Loan Officer and man, it has become its own brand. I’m getting calls from people I’ve never spoke to.

They’re finding out about it online. They’re finding out about the podcast. You know, I created this whole image brand behind it.

I’ve got this cartoon video that explains what it is. I’ve got these really awesome boxes that we made up that we mail out to people, you know, with all the information in it. And it all came from a conversation where I just said the word and the guy said, oh, that’s good, right?

Same thing with Conversations Equal Contracts. Came from a conversation I had with somebody and I told him that. He’s like, that’s good. And I took that, I made t-shirts out of it. Then I made a book out of it. And then we recently made a class to teach real estate agents.

And I got some photos in yesterday from one of my loan officers said, look at the class and all the people I had come to learn about how to get great, great conversations. So I think that’s part of it. It’s just a process, you know?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, and as marketers, we, you know, peek behind the curtain, you know, as marketers for a company, we develop assets and stuff for free to get attention. And, you know, just like any other business, we’re getting leads, but the content that you’re putting out there, you offer for free, but it is really valuable stuff. 

Tim Davis
Oh, thanks.

Justin Ulrich
The growth side of your business is, you know, put that aside, like it’s incredible content. So if you’re listening and you haven’t checked out Tim’s social or, you know, his, or this, that package that you have right there, what’s it called? The solopreneur success kit?

Tim Davis
Yeah, so we have a landing page, right? It’s www.solopreneurloanofficer.com. And you can go there and watch a video about what we’re doing. If you want to get on my calendar, there’s a Calendly link. And if you do a strategy call with me, whether we’re right for you or not, you know, I still send you that loan officer success kit.

And in it, it has my circle of referrals business plan book. It’s got my Conversations Equal Contracts book. It’s got the book we wrote on becoming a solopreneur loan officer. And then it’s got a link to a webpage with a coaching video on how to close 75 or more loans a year, regardless of the economy. And our four best scripts to use to get leads in. 

So all of that’s there. All you have to do, it’s, that’s marketing, right? But exactly. We’re giving them value. There’s plenty of people that go, hey, I like what you had to say, but it’s not right for me. I’m like, cool, take all these resources and use them where you’re working now. Cause they work regardless of the name on the door. But if you don’t give value to people, I mean, they’re just feel like they’re being sold.

Justin Ulrich
Exactly, a hundred percent. So with that in mind, that’s a great example of a solid marketing tactic that could generate leads that you could nurture and get them to convert. If you have other examples like that, that loan officers could use, you know, to engage their sphere or to grow their sphere or their community locally, like what are some examples that you could give that might move the needle for them?

Tim Davis
Yeah, so I’m a big believer in offline and online. A lot of times people, when it comes to marketing, they try to go online only and they’ve tried to become socially famous. And I found like, unless you’ve just got some kind of natural hook, it’s probably an uphill battle.

It’s sort of like pushing a rope uphill, right? But if you go offline, they tend to follow you online, right? So I do a lot of speaking events and networking events, things like that.

And then I always see a bump in my social activity, but it’s a great example, okay? Let’s say that I meet you, I go to the local board of realtors and y’all are having a mixer, okay? And I’m a loan officer.

I need to meet real estate agents, you know, and build a relationship and earn their trust to get a referral. So we created this magazine called, see if I can get that on the screen.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, yeah.

Tim Davis
It’s a personal branding magazine for real estate agents, okay? And it’s custom to me, right? And then it’s full color, right?

It’s like you would buy it off of a store shelf, right? And we come out with a brand new issue every month. There’s another one, July. So we had the Uncle Sam, right? And I come up to you and we’re just sitting around talking and let’s just say I meet this Georgia, right? She’s an agent in town.

I meet her there. I’m like, oh, Georgia. She’s gonna say, what do you do for a living? Now, if I tell her I’m a loan officer, she’s heard that 15 times a day from 7,000 people for the last 20 years, okay? But if I say to her, you know, I actually, I’m the local publisher of personal branding magazine for real estate agents. It comes out every month.

It’s a free subscription. We have articles on building your social media, creating your personal brand, coaching questions, scripts to use with buyers and sellers. It’s like a monthly business plan and it’s 100% free. And since I’m the local publisher, would you like to get a free subscription from me every month?

Justin Ulrich
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s awesome.

Tim Davis
What do you think she’s gonna say? Hell no, no. She’s gonna say yes.

Hell no, I don’t want that magazine. Get out of my life, right? And so, you know, she’s gonna say absolutely because she’s never been approached by a loan officer that has their own full-color magazine that’s gonna come in her mailbox every month.

And I’m gonna say, great, let’s fill out the form for you to get your free subscription. I need your email and your home address and your phone number. Now, I’ve got every way to contact her.

I can call her, I can text her, I can email her. I can mail it to her house, right? And I’m showing up every month.

And this has cost me, probably with postage, like $7.50, okay? I can’t rent her, I can’t rent a room from her for $7.50 a month. Like if I needed a place to live, the rent would be a thousand bucks a month, right?

But for $7.50, she’s probably not gonna throw this away. It’s gonna be on her coffee table or on her desk, right? Or somewhere in her house.

So let’s just call it $8. For $96 a year, I’ve rented permanent space with something of value in her home, okay? If I can just follow up and have conversations with her, because they lead the contracts, right?

And build a relationship, every month I’m getting more top of mind awareness. Because when she finds that next customer, she’s gonna go, you know what? I used the script last month, or I used the social media last month, or whatever I used in that magazine.

I’m gonna call Tim and see if he can help this customer out. So that’s a great way of differentiating yourself as a loan officer, right? It’s radically different than everybody else. It’s not the same social media post, it’s not… I don’t know anybody else sending them a magazine, right?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, and if you combine online and offline too, you could take nuggets from that magazine and create posts. You just go through the whole magazine for that month and you could have a whole social plan of posts that you’re just pulling straight from the magazine. So it gives you a content to push out as well. That’s valuable.

I do love that it brings value to the agent, because then they want to keep it around so that they can actually look back at it. And they’ll probably keep multiple issues is my guess.

Tim Davis
We’ve had them do it, you know? We’ve got managing owners that will keep multiple issues and go back to it. They’ll teach their agents, their sales meetings straight from our magazines.

And that just is another touch point, because they’re going to go, oh, Tim gave me that. I should call him. I probably owe him a referral. So it’s the law of reciprocity by adding an exceptional amount of over-the-top value to where it’s like, he deserves it. Like he’s helped me so much.

Yeah, that’s just one of the examples. Back when I was doing day-to-day loan officer work, I was trying to build my brand up and trying to figure out how to differentiate myself. And one of the ways I did it was through a character name.

Because I learned that it’s hard for people to remember people’s names, you know? Especially if they’re common, like Tim or John or Bill or Susan. You know, you hear those names a lot.

And there’s nothing that really stands out about the name Tim. You probably know other Tims, you know? And so how do I buy enough brain cells from you in a networking meeting or teaching a class for the first time that you would remember me, right?

And so I got this straight from wrestling. Like I watched a documentary on Vince McMahon. Yeah, yeah, he talked about how, well, let me give you this nugget. People would rather be entertained than educated. Okay, so if your marketing can be funny, it’s a home run, right?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, yeah.

Tim Davis
And so it’s WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment. Okay, it just tells you straight up, it’s entertainment, right? And in his documentary, he basically said, look, we can find plenty of athletes to jump, to do the acrobatics or whatever the case is.

But what’s really hard is to find that character. You know? And so, and it’s a process. And so I’ve watched a lot of wrestling documentaries, one on Stone Cold Steve Austin. That’s how everybody knows him today, but he wasn’t always that way. When he first came into the business, he was known as Stunning Steve.

It’s a horrible brand name, okay? Horrible, right? But he evolved over time and became Stone Cold Steve Austin, right? And everybody knows him. I even got his bumper in one of my podcast intros. You know? Yeah, yeah. That’s the bottom line. You know, I’ve got that bumper in there.

But anyway, so I was like, there’s something to these character names, Macho Man Randy Savage, or The Rock, or Hulk Hogan, you know? So I worked just kind of brainstorming out a character name. And so I came up with the character name, The Mortgage Evangelist.

And it really worked for me because we attend church, we have faith and all these other things that are important in our life. And so I incorporated some of the church terminology into the mortgage world. So I’m at the networking meeting and somebody meets me and they’re like, hey, my name’s Bill, what’s your name?

This is what I would say. I’m like, well, my name’s Tim, but they call me The Mortgage Evangelist. 

Justin Ulrich
Oh, why do they call you that?

Tim Davis
Yes, that’s exactly what happened. Why do they call you that for, right? And then I went into my little spiel about how we save loans that other lenders kill and put in the grave and we bring them back to life and we pray over everybody’s business.

We did that and they laughed just like you’re laughing now. And what I found was when we had a character name, they immediately said, well, what’s that all about? We got to explain it.

And if we explained it with humor, we just bought a section of your brain that would remember us, right? And we specialized at the time in helping people that were self-employed. So that was another niche that bought us that even more brain cells for you to think about us.

And I remember my wife, she would get these calls because she thinks I’m an idiot. And so she, yeah, yeah.

Justin Ulrich
My wife too.

Tim Davis
Yeah, yeah. And so she would get calls at the office because we’ve always worked together and she would come in and she’s like, there’s a call on line one for The Mortgage Evangelist. And so she would just poke fun at it.

And I’m like, yeah, that Mortgage Evangelist paid cash for your Land Rover, so you better pass it through. And so that was just another, that’s free, that’s free. Like anybody can brand themselves with a name, right?

You don’t have to go to this extent. That’s a free way to be remembered. Anyway, I probably went on too long, but that’s an example.

Justin Ulrich
I think there are great examples. And I think one of the things that your examples speak to is the importance of segmenting your audience and knowing what’s important to each group that you’re trying to go after. So if you are, because we have lots of different types of listeners on the show, but if you’re an LO, you wanna go after agents to get referrals.

You wanna go after borrowers to try to get leads and to try to nurture them and try to get the opportunity to close a loan with them. If you break down your audiences and try to figure out what is it that is super valuable to them that you can deliver on a regular cadence to help stay top of mind. 

I mean, that’s just start thinking down that path and then you’ll start coming up with ideas around like, hey, if I do a newsletter or I offered it different things like calendars for events that are happening this year or give them invites to certain things.

Like there’s all sorts of things that you could do that are valuable. But I do love your idea that you have with that magazine to give coaching tips like to agents around how to market their business. I think that is gold.

Tim Davis
Yeah, you know, look, I’m a big on social media. You probably found me through social media, right? So I don’t deny its power whatsoever.

But there’s something about a social post has a short shelf life unless there’s money being invested on it, right? So if I make a post today, it’s gonna reach X number of people and then it’s gonna filter all down the chain and not be, it’ll come up in my memories two years from now. Thanks to Mark.

But outside of that, the shelf life diminishes, right? True for my podcast and some other things. The shelf life for these, I can’t get it on.

That’s a very long shelf life.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, it is.

Tim Davis
You know?

Justin Ulrich
It is.

Tim Davis
So I like a little bit of both. You know, if I can rent some space from you, if I can mail you one of my books, we’ve got a bunch, you know? If I have somebody, a loan officer says, I want your circle of referrals.

I mean, I sell them on Amazon. If you wanna buy one, great, I’ll make three bucks. I don’t care. I would much rather give you a free copy.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah.

Tim Davis
Do you know what I’m saying?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there’s perceived value in that. Like, oh, wow, that was a nice thing that he just did for me, yeah.

Tim Davis
Correct. So I’m really big in the offline because I just think, you know, when you go to your mailbox, most people, all they get are bills, you know? But if they go to their mailbox and they get one of my boxes full of fun stuff, I mean, dude- They’re gonna open it. Dude, no word of a lie.

I went and took three of these because I take it myself, right? We are the head cook in the bottle washers, right? And so I had three interviews, people doing strategic calls with me. So I said, you’re gonna get the box. Let me get your address. So I go to the post office, right? Dude, they’re so colorful. I mean, look how colorful this box is, right?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, you couldn’t not open it. You would have to.

Tim Davis
Correct.  Yeah, exactly. So I’m going in with my boxes. I’m like, got boxes, got boxes. And so two people in line asked me what they were, okay? One person was a real estate agent. Do you think that’s somebody I need to meet?

Yeah. Yeah, right? Yeah, then I get up to the counter and the lady goes, oh, loan officer, are you a loan officer? And I’m like, yeah, I am a loan officer. She goes, these are amazing.

Oh my gosh, that’s you on the back of the box, right? Cause I can’t get, I can never do the camera right. Whatever. I’m a redneck from Tennessee, dude. Anyway, so she’s like, that’s you. And I’m like, it is, it’s me. It’s Photoshop me, but it’s me. And she goes, these are really cool. I want one.

I was like, why would you want one? And she goes, my husband’s a loan officer. And I was like, no, let me tell you how you can get a free one. Let me tell you how you can get one of these for free. So anyway, stuff like that. I can’t really walk around like, did you see my social media posts? Look at my, that would be weird, but if I’m carrying stuff.

Justin Ulrich
Well, like you said, online and offline together, it all works together nicely. And if you have a solid approach that you put in place, again, you don’t have to start with some crazy strategy, but you can make it additive as you do things, keep adding to it and everything ties together, then it creates a kind of a cohesive feel of engagement and that all ladders up to your personal brand.

Tim Davis
Yeah, 100%.

Justin Ulrich
So real quick, what is it with the superheroes on the box? Why go with the superhero theme?

Tim Davis
Okay, so creative is just that. You don’t know what you’re gonna get when you sit down and you try to be creative, right?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah.

Tim Davis
So I use ChatGPT. I knew I wanted a video, right? I don’t wanna be on the video, right? I mean, some people may like me on video. I mean, whatever, I’m not a video guy. And so I said, you know what?

I’m gonna use ChatGPT to create a script, okay? Here’s the message I wanna convey. Create me a video script around this. And it did that. And then I made some edits to it that I know more intimate about the needs of my consumer that I’m looking for, right?

Justin Ulrich
Right.

Tim Davis
And so then ChatGPT has a lot of other apps inside of it. And one of them is called Consistent Character. And you can create cartoon characters out of that with a kind of a Disney-esque Pixar kind of a feel.

And so I thought, huh, let me just create Joe Loan Officer as a Disney character and see what happens. I just started playing around with it and it came back with some really vibrant, colorful images. And through that experimentation, I was like, wow, what if I make Joe, right?

The loan officer, the consumer that I’m trying to reach. And then I gotta give him an enemy. Like Luke Skywalker had Darth Vader, man. Like who’s my hero’s enemy in this, right? I learned this from a book, Story Brand by Don Miller. It’s a great book.

I was like, I gotta create an enemy. So I just went back to ChatGPT. I was like, I need a villain. Yeah, I can’t remember my exact description. And it made that villain, right? I’m gonna try to get this right on the video. Can you see my villain?

Justin Ulrich
Oh yeah, yeah.

Tim Davis
And you see the superhero? Yeah. He looks horrible, doesn’t he?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah.

Tim Davis
And so that’s my villain. And my villain is the manager currently taking overrides on the loan officer and not really helping them out. They’re sending the loan officer out there to work so hard every day and find the leads.

And all they’re doing is giving them some motivational quotes. They’re not giving them any real value. So my goal is to break them free from that and set them up with their own independent franchise with Canopy, right?

So that picture came back when I did ChatGPT and I was like, ooh, I can use that. Then I took it into Canva. And Canva had all these cartoon themes like that little yellow thing and the yes here and the booms and the, I don’t know, see the wows or whatever, right? And so it just sort of evolved.

I’m like, you know what I think I can do? I think I can make this like a cartoon thing, you know? And so I did it and then I recorded it and it sounded horrible. And my buddy who’s into marketing, he’s like, dude, your voice sounds terrible. I was like, thanks. So I went to Fiverr, okay?

And I found a professional voiceover artist. I said, here’s my video and I want you with all your creative, cool, you know, voices and little pals and booms and stuff like that is to cartoonize this. Make this like, you know, a thing.

And he did. I spent a little money and he did. And that’s how it came out, man. And then I was like, I’m gonna make a box out of this. I wonder how colorful the box would be. And so I created the box and when they came in, it just sort of took off and now everybody wants a box. So which is great because I get to have more conversations.

Justin Ulrich
No, it is super cool. I saw that when I was doing my research on your background and thought it might be cool to maybe show you as one of the superheroes.

Tim Davis
That’s hilarious.

Justin Ulrich
I love it, man. I tried taking the design off the guy in the box, but I thought it wouldn’t be Tim if he didn’t have a hat on, so.

Tim Davis
Dude, that is legit. It’s my canopy hat too, man. I love it. It looks awesome, dude. That guy’s actually a lot more fit. Maybe I’ll just start using that. It looks like he drinks water and eats protein.

Justin Ulrich
That’s right. He doesn’t need a couple of bowls of cereal before bed every night like I do. Awesome. Well, hey, this has been a lot of fun. Tim, before we jump off though, how can folks follow you, follow your podcasts? Where should they go?

Tim Davis
Yeah, you can go to www.solopreneurloanofficer.com if you’re interested in what we’re doing there. On all the podcast channels, if you’re on Spotify or wherever, you can look up the Solopreneur Loan Officer podcast or you can look up the Originator’s Guide podcasts and the Originator’s Guide podcast is what we call the fastest coaching in the industry. We give a daily coaching tip in under three minutes to grow your business.

Justin Ulrich
It’s incredible. It’s incredible. Because the nuggets, I listened to a bunch of them heading into this show for prep and they, I mean, quick hits.

So, I mean, you could listen to three minutes while you’re doing anything. And if you’re driving somewhere, you could actually consume three or four of them relatively easy and there’s a lot. 

Tim Davis
Yeah, I think we have close to 700 of those in there. So, easy ways to find me, if you go to any of those resources or look me up on social channels or whatever.

Justin Ulrich
Well, perfect. Well, this is awesome. We appreciate everyone for listening. Tim, I appreciate you taking the time to join us in the lab, my friend.

Tim Davis
It was awesome. Thanks for having me, man. Hopefully it helped somebody out.

Justin Ulrich
I’m sure it did. Thank you.

As always, thanks for joining us in the Local Marketing Lab. This podcast was sponsored by Evocalize. To learn more about how Evocalize can help you grow your business, visit evocalize.com. 

If you learned something from today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook @Evocalize. That’s Evocalize and on X at Evocalize. 

And remember, keep innovating and testing new things. You’ll never know what connects with your customers best unless you try. Until next time. Thanks for listening.