Ep. 1 - Marketing, Interest Rates and Agent Launch with Ryan Miracle 8/17/23

I invited my good friend Ryan Miracle with Ruoff Mortgage onto the show as my first guest! He's doing some great things and I wanted him to share. Selfishly, he's also an astute video/tech guy, so that helped ease my mind filming this first episode! 

Please excuse any rookie errors with the audio, as I'm just a baby learning to crawl here! We will get better and better! 

Thank you for listening!

Transcript

composer-41rtii2qt_editor-clip_clip_podcast-ep--1---ryan-miracle-81723_2023-aug-18-0446pm_tarah_santos: 0:16

So hi everyone, I want to welcome you to the first ever episode of the Tarah Santos podcast. So it was formally going to be called tempered glass, but rethought that a little bit. And today joining me is Ryan Miracle with Ruoff Mortgage. Hello. Hello. And he's a big technical guy, so he was helping me do a lot of setup today! Like, we were supposed to record a thing about an hour ago, so it's been a process. It's been a process, but I'm a big AV nerd from way back, so this stuff I love doing. Yeah, no, well I really appreciate it, because we would not be recording right now if it wasn't for Ryan. So Ryan is well first Ryan, just tell me your background. Tell everyone who you are. You work for Ruoff but you know, give them a little bit about you. Yeah. So once again, thank you for having me on. So me, I am a marketer. I love marketing. It's, I don't drink, I don't smoke. I don't play football. I don't watch football. So. If I'm not dating or husbanding or working, I am learning the newest and greatest marketing thing. So I love marketing, which is where you and I connected. Yeah. Mortgage lender have been in real estate for this will be my 18th year. Work for a roo off mortgage Subsequently, we are the number one purchase lender in the Midwest, so very proud of that and then... What does that mean, purchase lender? What's the difference? Like, what are we talking about? So you have, so you have refinances and purchases. Basically if you're an agent watching, you understand that you have buyers and then sellers. For us, we don't have sellers, we have buyers, helping people buy houses for the first time, or refinances. So for Ruoff, we don't focus a ton on refinances. We can do them, but we focus a lot on purchases. Because as a lender, if you focus a lot on refinances, you are subject to when rates are high or low. So like right now, there's not many refinances going on. Yeah, exactly. COVID. I was working 70 hours a week and I couldn't work fast enough doing refinances. But we are a purchase focused lender. We want to help people get into houses. We'll help them with a refinance or an upgrade of their loan, but that's not what we focused on. Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's good. So for everybody out there looking to buy a new home, Ryan's your guy. Thank you. So and that's how Ryan and I connected. So as you may or may not know I work for rock grid homes and have. Been selling new homes for 23 years and Ryan actually used to sell new homes, right? So tell us about that. So real estate was not in the grand design. It was, I backed into it like a lot of us do. Yeah. So I started off I went to school Highland Northern. And I really wanted to be a graphic designer because I love computer art and those kind of things, but stupid me, I didn't figure out how much they made until after I got out of school. So I realized I was going to be getting coffee and running errands for about 10 years before I actually made any money. Yeah. So I took a job right out of college selling furniture. Across the street was a new build neighborhood. And as soon as well, not as soon as, but just a couple of weeks after working there, the salesperson from that community came over and I took her as my up my lead. And then instead of selling her a couch, we sat there and talked for like three hours about what she does. So not too long after that, I went to go work for the builder and was there through 2008, got laid off, went to lending after that. They were laying off sales people. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, nobody ever lays off sales people. That was, it was dire times in 2008. If you weren't in the business, I was, and yes, it was dire. It was, it was not fun. So like there was one neighborhood that I was selling in that we couldn't give away the house. It's like 50, 000 realtor bonuses. And like right now, no one could buy. Right. You don't have to give away a microwave right now. No, no but back then we couldn't give away houses. So during that time the builder that I was a PR kind of storm. So that didn't help either. So yeah, I was a junior salesperson at that point. So I got let go, but it worked out the way that it was supposed to always does. And then switching to lending and have been doing that since. So that was like 2009 when I switched over to lending. So I'm almost a decade in. But that's cool because you've been on both sides now. Yeah. Right? So you know what the agents are going through, what the builders are going through. It's a unique perspective. Yeah. You got both sides covered, which is, and the client. I mean, you've obviously bought your own real estate, so you got all three bases covered. That's right. Which is good. Which is good. Okay, so fast forward. So. You went where, who were you with first? Who was your first lender? Chase. Oh, you were with Chase, okay. Yeah, the mega office over central Ohio. Yeah, Polaris, yeah. Okay, so there is like 25, 000 employees on there, right? Oh, yeah. It's like a city. Huh. Yeah. I've been in there. Very much so. Okay, so you were at Chase, and now you're... So what do you guys specialize in? I know it's purchases, but what do you like to do? Like who's, who's your ideal client? So there's, there's, there's a couple of things there. So what we really focus on is just the efficiency. Not making mistakes and we have some weird programs to handle like bank statement loans of someone self employed or someone coming over with Kind of odd citizenship we can do those kind of loans, but it's not what we focus on. So we focus on never missing and Closing as fast as possible which you're known for right? Yes your team. Yes. We we very much appreciate a fast closed We try to be the smallest footprint out of the whole transaction of someone buying a house. Okay. Yeah, which has actually hurt us. We're getting less reviews now than we ever have because they don't realize what we've done for them. Yeah, they don't, they think everybody works that fast. Huh. Yeah. But that's okay. So yeah, that, that's definitely helped. Ideal client. We like working with families and really more than anything, there's three criteria. We want someone to be happy, helpful, and hungry. We don't want to work with jerks. No. That's a hard no. Nobody likes that. No. We want them to be happy. So, like, I don't, well, I already said happy. We want them to be helpful. So, I don't want to have to beg them for things. Right. Documents. Yes. And, and things. Yeah. And then the hungry part comes in with making offers on houses. So one of the biggest changes that we've had with kind of this shift in the market is like people are not, the, the people who wanted to buy when rates were like two and three percent, they could. Yeah. But now, since the market has changed the people that need to buy are the ones that are actually out buying right now. So the people who are interested have moved on. Yeah. The people who have intent are still here. So we want someone who is hungry and actually needs this done. Yeah. So their motivation is super high versus eh, if it happens, it happens. Yeah, we don't, I mean, we have a lot more serious buyers on the market if they're out there. They're serious because nobody's out shopping. No, no window shop with 7% interest rates. Yeah. So okay. Well, before we get into the market, cause that is going to be what we're going to talk about later. I just want to learn more about you because you know, just behind the scenes, Ryan. So what's the last TV show that you binged? That says a lot about a person. Yeah. Or what or that you liked if it wasn't like a series and you had a bench. Well, I mean, what's something that's popping up? so I don't do tv shows too often. So my wife and I we are complete introverts. We don't go out on the town We don't do that kind of thing. So our version of a date night Is DoorDash sending the kids upstairs at about like seven o'clock and us watching something, our show. So the series to your question that we finished most recently with Ted Lasso. Ted Lasso. I think I've seen a few episodes. Yeah. We didn't get through it, but the writing on that is really good. Yeah. I mean, we'll start series and then get bored with them and move on. So like we watched the original game of thrones like three times all the way through. Yeah. So that, that's always a staple. No, Ted Lasso is good. I just, I think it was. That was right after COVID it came out, right? Yeah, I think I started, but then, you know, COVID was, everything was haywire, so I didn't get all the way in. But the first several episodes, they're funny. He's funny. Oh yeah, it's great. What's his name? Jason Sudeikis. Yes. He's funny. Yeah. Yeah, he's a good guy. Okay, so Ted Lasso, is that running right now? How many seasons? No, they just finished up season three, and we waited until the end of season three before we started season three. Yeah. We had to watch it all the way through. But yeah, we were very sad to see it ended, but I mean, you know, this as the marketing person you are, you want to leave them wanting more. So they did. You don't want to pull Michael Jordan and retire after you're already on the down, down slide. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right. So you're wanting more. I want more. You're wanting, I know I'm not going to get more. Oh, so they're done. Oh, no more seasons. Okay. Okay. Okay. I just watch, we, I don't really watch because that's a big commitment but I did just watch I didn't pick it, but my husband did, but that Oscar De La Hoya documentary. Really? It's good. Okay. I'm not a boxing fan either but. Good story though. Man, it was a good story. Okay, I'll check that out. And. Surprisingly, I mean, something's not surprising, right? Like fame and money and he's 24 and he's a golden boy. And you know what the story is going to be with that. But he ended up being like an amazing marketer. Really? He like, like unseated, like Don King and the big promoters of the time to be like. The best boxing promoter and he owns like some company called like Golden Boy Promotions I mean he promoted all of his own fights towards the end and then he started just getting like he got Pacquiao and all these other big fighters and He became like the boxer that turns promoter And I was like because he was like I want to be the best like of that and it was it was a good So you would like it because of the marketing. I definitely am interested now. Yeah, so that's and it's not too long So you can get through it. Alright, I love that. So next thing And because I know you love marketing and I know you love what you do, but what superpower do you wish that you had? If you could pick any superpower, what would it be? My kids ask me this at least once a week. Really? Yeah. You get kids into superheroes? Spider Man. They both love Spider Man, especially the The new one. The Spider Verse. Yeah. They love that. Yeah. The story once again is amazing. Yeah, it's good. They do a good job. So probably has to do with travel. teleportation. I mean, strength is great but once again, I don't want to crush a doorknob as I'm leaving, or climbing walls, that'd be okay, but, like, just think about the efficiency that you'd have, like, what do you guys want to do this weekend? You want to go to Disney? Okay, here we go so I, I'd like the idea of being able to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Speed. Yes. And then it becomes very handy, the older you get. Okay. I, I thought about this, because I knew I was going to ask you, and I thought about, Mine is not traditional. Okay, and I don't know why but I think it was because so I'll tell you why I think that I Like this as a superpower, even though it's not like a traditional superpower, but I would love to be Not like like mind control, but like the most efficient best communicator That ever lived like so you could talk to anybody make them understand like you know What I mean, so not really like a mind control like a persuasion, but just be like like and it was because I think I watched like a Grant Cardone clip and he was like I'm teaching my kids home school and the teacher asked me what I want them to know and he's like I just want them to be good communicators because they can go out and do anything If they know how to do that, and I thought he's absolutely right and so I was like that would be what I would want my superpower like I would just want to be like In any language, in any, you know what I mean, just be able to just read what they need to hear to make them understand and be able to like, get, communicate. So, that's either Professor Xavier from the X Men. Okay, I'm not good with any of the superheroes. He's the guy in the wheelchair that can read minds and those kind of things. Do you remember the movie What Women Want with Mel Gibson? I, yeah, that's an older one. Well, that's the same thing. He gets struck by lightning and now he can read thoughts. He can't convince anyone, but he can read thoughts. So he knows exactly what they want to say. Yeah. And then he makes him like, he wins at everything, right? Absolutely. Yeah. See, that's my superpower. See, that comes more with practicality versus being... Yeah. You just want to like, I want to get across the world. That's more of a guy thing. All right. So we've talked a lot about books and even with your training, which we're going to talk about later, but what is on your nightstand? What books like are you reading now? Or they're so good. Like I have books that I just always have on my nightstand because like I'll pick them up way more than once. So I probably operate a little bit differently. So I love marketing, but a lot of the stuff that I've learned has come from a problem that I've run into. Like I can't figure out how to get a camera to work, or I can't figure out how to, like I'm stuck in some point in my journey. So I started researching and find a podcast of a YouTube channel or something like that. But as far as books two here recently, so one is give and take, and I can't remember the author. And then the second one that I'm on my third go through with is called oversubscribe. So the idea that kind of really caught me was having customers and agents stand in line to do business with me versus me having to run around and chase people and convince people to do business with me, creating. Such value that they're willing to wait 30 days patiently and not go anywhere else'cause they can't get what you have anywhere else. So that book is by Daniel Priestley. Oversubscribed picked it up from listening to Christo's podcast. Okay. And Christo is once again a hero of mine'cause he's a graphic designer that is also teaching business people how to be creative. Okay. So what does he teach? What, like what do you love about him? Like when you watch, what, what is it that hooks you? He's looking at, so a lot of like marketers talk about KPIs and The technical, like the data. Yeah. Yeah. But they're looking at it from a CFO kind of perspective. Yeah. What Chris does is he teaches creatives how to be business owners. And so he's looking at it through a different lens. He's more. The nuance of persuasion and emotion and getting people to do and behave the way you want them to by understanding the psychology, not necessarily you pull this lever, you get this result kind of thing. It's more the persuasion. And how do you human better? Yeah. Yeah, I like that. I mean, it's yeah, the psychology behind marketing is website. Yeah, that's that's what gets me to okay So so that that book you really liked oversubscribe, which I have not read but I've heard you talk about it so I've got to get that one too, but that's kind of a common theme with a lot of the Content creators and, and marketers is kind of like be everywhere, be so they want to actually unsubscribe from your list. They're like, if you're getting unsubscribed, that's a good thing because if you're not, that means no, no, one's hearing from you. Exactly. So one of the, one of the guys that I follow, I can't remember who said this one, but he said, if someone, if you put up a post, just assume that nobody saw it. I mean, even if they liked it and commented on it, the next day, pretend that they didn't even see it because they see so much content. We are just flooded with content that it doesn't matter if we saw something, we forgot about it a minute later, an hour later, the next day for sure that it's like it didn't. Get in so he's like you could still post the same post the next day and nobody would even care because they forgot about it already Oh, and even if they did see it They're like, oh I saw that one yesterday and move on but you got 10 more people that didn't see the day, right? And that's what they're talking about. Like the worst thing that That the biggest problem in your business is that nobody knows about your business. It's not that like they don't like you or they don't want to do business. It's that literally nobody knows about your business. Yeah, he said the worst thing for your business is to be invisible. And he goes, so you need to be, that's probably the same sentiment. I've read the book, but you need to be oversubscribed. You need to be sending out so much content, so many touch points. And what were you talking about the other day? What did you call them at the top of the funnel? Which we're gonna get into your thing in a minute. Contacts, or connections. Yes, right? Yeah. But yeah, being able to pull the levers of urgency, scarcity, and emotion all at the same time, you have people salivating for what you want. And that idea is very attractive to me. Yeah, I like it too. Yeah. That's the whole funnel idea, right? That's, that's what they talk about, which, yeah, we're going to talk more about that too. Okay. All right. So we know you're in mortgages. We know you've been in real estate for a long time, and this is a question that everybody always asks, which is yeah. Like, how is the market? The people that are in the business that, the people that aren't in the business want to know, like, what's your opinion of how the market is right now, the real estate market, the loan market, all of that. Like, what's, what's your opinion? So I, I think the days of easy money or over like the 2% interest rates will never see those again. Okay. I think they only did that to spread on the economy and they did such a good job with it. They just kept them low for way too long. Mm-hmm. like they should have stopped the ultra low interest rate somewhere around like 2010 as things were kind of Yeah. Adjusting, but they kept them going all the way to 2021. But anyway so the real estate market is interesting and. A lot of that has to do with where you're located. So like, if you look at California right now, there's a mass exodus going on right now. So property values are dropping and then you have places like Columbus to where right now we have less than a million people in town and they're expecting that to be 3 million people by 2050. So if there's not enough houses now, what is that going to mean in the next 25 years when we triple in population? Real estate itself is unique because it is specific to the location. It's not like you're selling air pods on Amazon, right? It's not a commodity. It is, but it's, it's very like geo targeted. Yeah. Like someplace like Los Angeles they are capped between the ocean and the mountains and the desert and Mexico, so there's only so much further that they can go, but like. Since we are in the heart of the Midwest, we're just spreading out. Tacomas is going to be massive. And I tell everyone that comes in because I work for a builder and we obviously have a home shortage that. That's why we see like apartments popping up on every corner, literally every corner of this city is a new apartment building. And they're, they're on waiting lists. They are a hundred percent occupied. I mean, even just 2019, that was not the case. I mean, there was vacancies and they would run specials. There is, that is no such thing. I mean, my daughter, we were looking around and you're like, they're like, oh, probably coming up in May. And this was like October of last year. We might have an opening and their people are paying 3, 000 a month for apartments. Bananas. It's crazy. Yeah. Like you can't even get a studio for less than 1600 bucks a month. And I'm like, it's because there's no houses. No, we've got a lot of people. My first time home buyer is 800, 000 sometimes. And I'm like, wow. But that was not the case even four years ago. I mean, it's really changed. I mean, if you, if you are a home builder. Or a contractor or a skill trade. You need to come to Columbus because you will have no shortage of work. It's crazy. It's nuts. Yeah. So I'm with you, but job security though. It is, but, and people complain a little bit about the pricing going up, but we're still a value compared to like the California markets or these other markets. I mean, they'll come here, seven, 800, 000, it is a lot of money, but 3000 square feet for that price is actually a value compared to a lot of other markets. And our cost of living is still really, I mean, outside of the inflation changes, it hasn't changed that much. So we're still relatively low costs, low taxes compared to other places. So housing sucks, but. Schools are great. I mean, in central Ohio, you go to some cities like St. Louis, nobody goes to public school in the entire city or suburbs. Everybody goes to private schools. Here, that's not the case. I mean, It's a, it's more rare, I think, to go to private or charter schools than public schools in central Ohio. So yeah, it's a good market. So you're pro making a purchase right now. Oh, absolutely. What about the rates? So rates, once again, you've heard the term, and it makes me want to throw up on my ass. I know, you're going to say it. I didn't think, okay. Marry the house, date the rates. So, so there is some truth to that, that once again, the marketer in me wants to vomit, but. Yeah. Okay, so you got to look at it this way and the way that I usually phrases with customers. So I don't have to say Mary. Oh, I've never said it is. Okay. So I just asked the leading questions. All right. So and I give them the stats. So there's less than a million people here. Now, there's going to be 3M here by 2050. do we have enough houses right now? And I let them answer yes or no. The answer is always no, we don't have enough. Okay. If we're going to triple in population, what do you think that's going to do to housing prices between then and now? So I'm going to go one way. So in my professional opinion it is better to lock in your purchase price now, and then get whatever you can, but try to get into the house as low as fees as possible. Yeah. Because we're just in an inflationary cycle right now, hopefully it comes down sooner rather than later. But when it does, the way that they're going to turn on the economy again is by lowering interest rates. Huh. Which we don't want right now. The reason that we don't want that is because if we drop interest rates to 5%, what's going to happen to the inventory? A rush on anything that's for sale. Huh. Then we're back to 40 offers on one house, which doesn't help any. The only, like, caveat to that when I hear people talk about that is... Yeah, we'll have a lot more people going into the market, but you, we will get more people listing their properties to the inventory will come up because there's a lot of people that are sitting on a two, two and a half, 2. 75% rate that would sell. I mean, I would cash out, right? The market's good, but I'm like, I'm not going to go pay 7% for a house that's more expensive, you know, when I don't need to move. But there is like, well, I'm like, well, if rates came down into like the low, the high fours, you know, it's maybe into the fives. We buy it down a little. I mean, maybe you would consider it. So I think our inventory would go up. I think we would see a little spike because I think there's those people that are like, Oh, I'll do it. What do you think? I don't know. So, like, to piggyback on that, 45% of homes are mortgage free. That's great. I wish that was true. Right? I mean, who isn't? Yeah. It's a lot of the boomers. They're the greatest generation. So, they're sitting on equity that they don't want to get rid of. Because, to think, you've worked your whole life to pay off your house, you haven't paid off. And then to think about moving, and then have a 7% interest rate, and having a 400, 000 mortgage. It's crazy. Yeah. That's scares a lot of people off. I have so many people in my neighborhood. Mm-hmm. that they're my neighbor, 80 years old, sweetest lady. Husband passed away. Mm-hmm. She's just following around in that 6, 000 square foot house all by herself, but she's like, it's paid off. I'm like, where am I going? I'm staying right here. You know, like paying the taxes is less than going to get a mortgage on something else. It's just crazy. I believe that. There's a lot of people with paid off homes just sitting in them. So, I mean, we'll have a release of inventory at some point when they start to age out, but that could be 10, 15 years from now. So it's not going to be an immediate thing. Like my grandmother's 90 and they're trying to figure out what to do with her house. So like, my parents, my wife's parents, houses paid off. Yeah, and they're not moving for nothing. No, they're in They're in deep there. They're their roots are deep Okay. All right, because I think everybody always asks and you hear so many buyers that are like, well We're just gonna wait for the interest rates to come down and I tell people all the time in the model I said, listen, if I had a dollar for every person that came into my model and said, Oh, I wish that I would have, we were here in 2019, we were here in 2020, and the houses were only going for 500 and now the base price is 750. And I'm like, Exactly. Why you don't wait for the rates to come down. I said, because exact, and I never say that. I'm not even going to say it on the pot. He already said that the quote that everyone does, but I'm like, listen, you buy the house because it's never going to be less expensive than it is now. Unless there's just some huge catastrophic economic meltdown like we had in 2007. Yeah. But I'm like, if that happened, this is what I tell people too. I said, look. You think that the real estate investor that's just going to go swooping in there when the whole market crashes and buy up all, I'm like, you're not, you're going to be too scared. Just like everybody was in 2007 because I was in the market. You were in the market. Nobody was buying anything. We couldn't, like you said, we couldn't give houses away with 50, 000 off. People are scared to death of losing their jobs, losing their retirement accounts, losing the stock market crashes. I'm like, you won't buy anything. I'm like, so you need to buy now. going to keep going up. A So do you notice that, li Read hundred million dollar offers, or I've actually read gym launch too, because we own a gym. So it makes all events very applicable, right? It's, it's caters right to that. But it's so funny because he is just a student of the same marketers, right? Like he quotes Russell, he quotes Dan Kennedy, a lot of his philosophies. I'm like, that's Dan Kennedy, right? It's just like old school, but it's really, like you said, it's kind of like. Taking it and that's what I think makes someone like, maybe like a little bit genius in implementing it in, in simplifying it so that like everybody can understand, right? And putting together like, what is my offer or like you said, agents, a lot of real estate agents, they don't have systems, processes, a framework, you really like, it's kind of a low entry point to get into real estate compared to other professions that you have such a high ability to earn. Right. I mean, Almost anyone can take the classes and pass the test. If you can pass the test, you're a real estate agent. That's basically it. And you have, there's a lot of income potential. But once you get into it, there's nothing, nobody tells you anything. You're just kind of like left to sink or swim. And if you don't seek it out yourself or have a brokerage that has maybe a system in place, there's just, it's a struggle. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's very much getting poached in swimming and then. They're not qualifying you to skills in swimming. Yeah. like, do you actually know how to swim or, we're gonna get you into the pool. But yeah, like, yeah. So I don't know. So your agent launch, which I actually did what do we call that? It's called an challenge. A challenge. We did the challenge, a four week challenge. We just finished it up yesterday, which was really cool. It was a good group. Yeah, it was a good group. I mean, I don't know any of the other groups, but our group was really good. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, but yeah, it was a good group. Everyone's very nice. And what's the, so tell the different levels of agent launch. So agent launches your mentorship program, right? Since we don't want to call it coaching. And I kind of have a weird thing about that too. Like That everyone's coach and so many people that are coaches have never even actually done the thing they're coaching and I'm like, what are you teaching? And I get like, you can read a book and then try to go out and help people. Cause you're just a couple of chapters ahead. I get all that, but I'm like, still, it's nice to have some like empirical knowledge about. Who you're trying to teach and a lot of them are not so well, like, okay. So your first question was what's all, yeah. So tell me like the infrastructure, the framework of agent launch. All right. So going back to Russell, the value ladder, and he's been talking about that and I've not, I've understood it, but not had a practical way to develop that for a long time, which Russell Brunson is the creator of ClickFunnels. That's who he's talking about. We're both big fans. I'm a huge, super fan and still haven't implemented much because it is a big, it's like a big thing to bite off of. I mean, oh, it's like a big apple. It is so big. And to go back to your point about how you're like, it's, it's been a struggle to kind of like put these things together. I do that same thing, like I like how people binge Netflix and I'm like, I don't really do shows, but I binge this like, Content and this marketing stuff and then I feel sick a little bit like I bet like I feel like at that like at Thanksgiving when you ate too much and you're just like really uncomfortable because I can't my mind cannot there's so many good ideas I'm just like, what do I do first? And then you're a little bit paralyzed. You're just like uncomfortable, but that's the thing It's just like such good info. Yeah, so anyways go back, but that's Russell. We love him and But it's a big, you're right. It's a big apple. Like you've got to take small nibbles of that. So you are implementing it with, with agent launch. And much like you, I was just swallowing and being a sponge to all this information, but didn't really have an outlet to try to start building something. Yeah. So agent launch really started. I was talking with another lender at a different company. We wanted to bring in Ryan Serhant thinking that would be something that would be really cool and bring agents to. Who's that? The other, oh, the Ryan Serhant. Yeah. He is one of the top. Brokers as a real estate agent. He out of New York City. He was on. Oh, he was on that show. Yeah. Okay He's like the I know who he is. Yeah, he's our age, but he's got silver hair over here. Yeah amazing guy Yeah, so we wanted to bring him on and then the other lender kind of disappeared. They ghosted So I was like, well, screw it. I still want to do something. I can't afford Sirhan. He's like, probably at this point 75, 000 for an hour, hour talk. So, yeah, okay. Okay, so where were we? So once again, we want the event and the things that they learn to stick. Yeah, we want them to take action on it and giving them the path, giving them the framework. It's part of it, but at the same time we want them to have an emotional connection. To wanting to go out and serve and right now the market's hard Most agents are struggling right now and it's it's unfortunate kind of like what we talked about them getting pushed in the deep end So, how do we give them hope which is once again something that Russell's really good at How do we make them feel like yes, I can do this Yeah, and we've knocked down their obstacles or their objections that are in front of them Yeah, me too What's your favorite piggybacking on that a little bit, and this wasn't even one of my questions, but it just made me think of it. What's the best event you've ever been to and why, whether it was a big one, a small one, it was a small group. It was a mastermind. Like what was an event that you went to and you were like, this was game changing. Probably the first forward event. So my coach Neil Dhingra has his coaching thing forward academy. Where he does short form content coaching he runs this event that's in Vegas every year. So this last year was the third event that he did. So the first one, it broke my four minute mile. Like, Russell talks about this a lot with some of his people that he's looked to as men, as his mentors. But like, It's that broke my four minute mile to see a loan officer who was once again, I love you, Neil, but when you first start, you would admit this too, that you were a little dweeby and once again, we all start there, but yeah, seeing this loan officer who I can really relate to who he was beforehand and seeing where he's gone in such a short period of time. That broke my four minute mile. And what Ryan means by his four minute mile is there is... Roger Bannister. Roger Bannister. Tell him the story since you know it. So this is something that in our, in our marketing books that we read, because we both follow a lot of the same people, this is a story that gets told a lot and it's a really good one. Yeah, so Roger Bannister was a, he was a mile runner, a distance runner. I think this is marathoner. Yeah. 20s, 30s, something like that. Yeah. So up until that point no one thought it was possible for a human being to run a mile in less than four minutes. Right. It was like nobody had done it ever. Right. And just wasn't, no one thought it could ever be done. Exactly. I thought it was impossible. So until Roger Bannister made that his priority, he broke the four minute mile. The world erupted. And fast forward to now to where 70, 100 years later, I don't know the dates, but you have high school kids that break the four minute mile every single year. And the cool thing about the story was like no one had ever done it. So for as long as they'd been running marathons, let's say it was a couple hundred years, no one had ever broke the four minute mile. Then he did it and it was only a couple years later that the next person did it. So what he did was. Aside from just breaking the record is he crashed through that belief ceiling that we all had that it was even possible and once Everybody else saw that it was possible more people were like, well if he can do it, I can do it And that was the thing. Yes So it was like it took one person to do something and then it made it possible For everyone else to believe that they could do it. And that's why that's such a good story Yeah, and once again Neil broke my four minute mile going back to your question Yeah, that was seeing what he was able to do And the impact he's able to make in other people's lives, I said, I got to do that. So while I was sitting there in that first event I instantly became addicted to going to events and I know you're a big, getting the hell out of town and going and you have to do that people literally have to go and invest in yourself and go to events, local events, out of town events, like make it part of your budget. It's big. So I'm sitting there in that event, it's like, it's so excited, so charged up. I started Googling what are real estate events in Ohio and there's none, like not even in the Midwest. So, like, you go to Tom Ferry, he's either in Texas or Florida, you go to Ryan Serhant, he's in New York, most of the events go to Vegas, and I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't gamble, so Vegas is not really that attractive to me, so it's like, okay, so why don't we just do something here? So, seeing what Neil did I am on a mission to bring that to the Midwest to help people who are here. That's awesome. I love it. And he's right. There's like no events. There's none. So what was the thing though that he broke your four minute mile of like, was it the short form video content? Yeah. So this was during COVID and at that point, I mean, if you know anything about me or you've seen any of my stuff, I love media. I love short form video, but it wasn't always that way. So it was Because Ryan, if you go to his Instagram, he does, how many videos a week do you post? Three. He posts three videos. He's got a system. He follows a framework. Yes, we're big on frameworks. Huh. But you're very consistent. Right. And that's part of the thing with doing anything really is consistency, right? Because then people learn to trust you because they're like, Hey, there's going to be a new video on Ryan's page. And now you're like the guru. He's like the local video guru. That's why he was over here giving me tech support. And I've been to his studio to look at all of his stuff and use his shopping cart. Yeah. So, but yeah, so it was video. Okay. So tell me. Yeah. No, so this was during COVID and. At that point my wife, my two daughters, and I were just so sick of each other to where at the end of the day, we would all go to our bedrooms, and then we just needed time to decompress so we can get ready for the next day. So I was sitting on the couch just going through Instagram, and I happened to not know anything about social media at that point. I was the kind of guy that... I thought that no one wanted to see what my cat was doing. I didn't have a cat at the time. I do now, but what I had for lunch, what's the cute thing that my kids did, they graduated. You know, people post stuff. Right. The normal stuff. I thought that no one cared about that kind of stuff, so it wasn't until I saw a video from Neil that talked about the best known will be the best. It doesn't matter how good you are. You could be the best doctor, the best plumber, the best loan officer, the best builder. If no one knows about you, you're going to be poor. That's what we talked about in the beginning. Like the worst thing that can happen to your business is that nobody knows about you. And McDonald's is not the best hamburger. But they sell more hamburgers than anybody else because they're the best known. Yeah. You can go to McDonald's here in Boise, Japan. The hamburger stays the same. There's a consistency. Yeah. But so, It's one of those moments to where just the world gets quiet and you see, like in movies to where they do like the parallax effect to where it's like a zoom in and like the background's faded. Yeah, I had one of those moments. So it's, that was, it broke my perception of how a loan officer needs to survive in the coming years. Yeah. So for like a year after that, I went and tried to rip off Neil's content. Of course, that's what you do. As you know. None of it ordered. So around that time, Neil and I were having conversations cause I reached out to him asking him for advice. He said that I'm actually getting ready to open a coaching program. Is that something you'd be interested in? Absolutely. I was like number two in line to sign up for it and this is my second year doing it. But what I didn't understand is I didn't understand the fundamentals of why he was posting and creating content in the scripting, in the lighting. So I was copying, but I was, I had zero understanding of what he was actually doing. So coaching program is great. Once again, to your point, there are other people in our market that are in the same program with me. I'm the only one that's posting content from it on the regular and that's that's hard Like we're all guilty of that by the way Like I I wouldn't have you give me a little lesson and I still haven't posted any video It's hard, but it is hard and I've had to have some grace with myself too because I am a person that like you like I like to consume a lot and I'm also I'm a very emotional Buyer, like, I don't need to hear all of the reasons. Like once I'm already hooked and I know that something will work, like I'm like, we're ready, we're done. I don't need to be sold anymore. Like I'm going to be the first one pulling my credit card out. But I also like to fully understand things. So I do have that weird, like analytical side to me where like you're making the video and putting up the lights, but you don't really know why I definitely want to know why, because I like. Also enrolled in a very expensive coaching program and they're like just trust us this works This is and they were just so transparent the whole framework the whole blueprint. They're like just do it and I'm like, but why? Like why am I doing it? Like why does it work? They're like you don't need to know that and I'm like But I do and I can't like take the next step until I know right and so like even But you know, they're Money likes speed. That's another quote that we'll hear, right? Like the faster you can implement the, you know, the more money you'll make, the more success you'll have. It's like we can always sit around forever getting ready. So I know that about myself. You're like, I can't just be getting ready, which was the podcast, right? Like I was like, okay, I went to you. I was like, we're gonna do the video, but I'm like, but I need a whole studio. I can't just, you know, make video anywhere and I Got it together and then you've helped because I didn't know what I'm doing I'm not techie But I do implement but I have had grace because like I know I feel guilty about almost everything like why haven't made any short Form video Ryan showed me what to do. Why haven't I done it? So I think other people like they struggle with that. It is like a big thing I get it. But like you said money loves speed it does and The other part of it is you're, you're, you don't know what you know, don't know until you do it, right? Yeah, so like as we were setting up today we didn't know a lot of things, we're, we're figuring it out. We got it figured out. Yeah, but now the next time it's going to be easier, ten times faster, easier. It is. So there's going to be things that you have learned after episode two that you're doing that you're going to tweak and make better. So keep watching. She's going to keep getting better and better. We are so giving yourself that grace to just know that it's a process. There is no finish line I was telling my daughter that the other day is like life is no finish. There's no finish line in life You as soon as you climb that mountain that you're climbing The view is completely different than it was at the bottom. Yeah, I see the next mountain and that's your mission So just have grace and peace that you there's no finish line and to go back to her mosey. He's like I did my podcast for four years and I wanted to quit like all the time and it totally sucked. But he's like, the good news was nobody was listening. It's like, so don't let that stop you. Don't worry. But I think that's the big thing with video. And I know it is for me. And I noticed for a lot of women, I noticed for a lot of people, it's like, Oh shoot. Like you want it to be perfect. Cause you're like, I don't like the way it looks like it doesn't look good or it doesn't look professional or even. The lighting's not right. There's so many things that get in our way, but like to your point, it's like you're going to get better the more you do it. And I'm sure that when you first started, you weren't. Oh, it was garbage. Yeah. It's just like a janky video. You look back at it now and you're proud of those videos because that's where you, that's where you earned your stripes. Yeah. Like I can't remember where I heard this might be a Russellism. I don't know. But so when the Coast Guard. Is flying a helicopter out to go save a boat, and there's too many people on the boat for the seats that are on the helicopter. How do they make a determination of who they save first? It's the people that are swimming towards the helicopter. Those people get saved first. If you are not putting in the effort to try to save yourself, we're going to save the people who are. So... If Neil had not put out that one video, my life would be completely different. And I think about that a lot. Like, what one video, you might only get 30 views on it, but there's one person. In that video that fundamentally shifts everything for them. Yeah, it was the first step. Oh, yeah a lifeline Yeah, and that guilt of not posting I know it seems very self serving to put up content But that guilt of not posting haunts me. That is true because I've heard even in the in the thing I've heard people say to you that when you asked or I asked I think during the first thing of the of the challenge I was like, why is everyone here? Cause I was just interested in learning. So I'm not an agent, but I work in real estate. So some of the the stuff applies to me a little bit differently, but I was curious to why the agents were, were at the training and one of them was like, well, I see Ryan's videos. And he's like putting out good stuff and it got all of those people there and they needed that training. Yeah, so yeah know what door you're gonna kick open By the one right person watching your video. Even if you get 20 views on your video, who cares? It might be the one right person to watch that video. You're serving 20 people. So it's all about serving. Yeah, I love it Okay, so I know that we got to wrap up here soon. Where do you see yourself in five years? You're starting this thing and you love your job and where, where do you, where do you see yourself? I'm still running a mortgage team, being the dancing monkey that I am right now. So hiring people who are better loan officers than I could ever hope to be there's nothing that I could do that's more profitable than mortgage for the amount of hours that I put in personally to the amount of income that I get out. It's highly profitable. But continuing to try to fine tune agent logs to try to serve at a deeper, more passionate level and just try to become the best known agent mentor in my market and then moving beyond that. So, just doing what I'm doing right now, but just at a bigger scale. And then how can people support you? They want to see more of your work and. Yeah, good question. So I post a lot of my mortgage content on my Instagram handle. You can find, you Google my name. I'll put it on there. You will not have trouble finding it. Ryan Miracle and I will put there. So so Instagram is a good place because you can always DM from there. If you are an agent or who are struggling and want to try to revive that vision of who you wanted to be, you can always DM me on any of the social media platforms. If you are local to Ohio or to Columbus, yeah, we'd love to have you join the challenge so I can support you and getting you to where you want to go. But really, other than that, just getting the word out that we're on a mission to try to help agents learn the skills that they were not given in real estate school. We wouldn't try to correct that ill because the world is better when agents are better. That is true So I'm gonna wrap up with Ryan and I are doing an event together Yeah coming up soon like in a little like 10 days. Maybe I think like August 30th So that won't be evergreen content before but for now, it's applicable. So I started a group called the Builder Collective, but I didn't want today to be about that. But, we are doing a group where Ryan is going to be it's a training for agents that the Builder Collective puts on, and I wanted to team up with Ryan because he had helped me and I visited his studio and it was totally awesome. So he's going to come in and train. The, the agents on doing short form video, because as we said, it's like, it's very powerful and that's what you started doing and you have helped people and now it's launched you into this agent launch, very applicable. And so we are gonna be doing that event and I will put the info up for that as well. But I'm excited. That's gonna be good. Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. I think it's gonna be very hands on. So not just kind of lecture style, but there it's intimidating to do video. There's the technical side to it, but then there's also just the performance side to it, which, you know, a lot of people are uncomfortable with and I'm, you know, one of them. So I think it'll be fun. It'll be fun, but I'll put all the info for that. And yeah, I just want to thank you for coming on the first show and actually being my tech guy and getting everything set up and happy to support. There will be more soon and from me. So, so look for it. And thanks for tuning in. Thank you. I appreciate you.