Brett “Mortgage Guy” Butler: Millennial Marketer and Seasoned Loan Officer

But when you think about it, it makes sense. Not every salesperson is a good marketer. They’re not graphic designers. They spend their time out selling and trying to connect with realtors, trying to make phone calls, going through the mortgage process and helping their team develop.

So you need to have, on some level, someone that is able to handle some of that marketing or is able to tag team with it because as a loan officer being a CEO of your own business and having to do every single angle from marketing, to accounting, to branding, to everything else that you have to do, it’s almost overwhelming.

I can see why so many people forget about marketing and don’t spend much time on it or are just laissez faire with a few realtors and have just a few of them where they get production from and don’t really grow from there. They try to grow within that office, but they don’t really try to grow the rest of their marketing, and you know it’s just the standard.

But you also got to take into account the average loan officer is like forty-nine years old. They’re not the millennials that go online and are able to market like it’s no big deal. They’re not the ones that grew up photoshopping and all that fun stuff like I did.

You know? So, me putting together some marketing materials and me working within Microsoft and Adobe is a lot easier than someone who is fifty years old and trying to learn it for the first time, while also trying to learn new marketing techniques with how social media is and all those other things involved in marketing.

Jeremy: Right, because you’ve got to do continual training, you’ve got to do marketing, and you’ve got to sell. You need to do both, but finding the time can be a challenge.

Brett: And if you focus too much on selling, you’re not going to have the tools to actually create a sustainable pipeline, and you’re going to be non-efficient. You have to at some level balance your marketing and your sales so that you’re being efficient when you’re out there selling.

Jeremy: Do you think there’s a magic mix in terms of percentage of time and effort towards marketing versus selling and being in front of clients and networking with realtors?

Brett: I think it’s more so an awareness of what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are. You know, if you know that you’re not going to be that marketing guy, if you know that’s not going to be your strength, if you know online or social media whatnot, is not going to be your strength, figure out how to outsource it.

Figure out how to do it and responsibility and that way you just got strikes. The best part about having a team concept is that every member of the team is able to use their strengths. The tough part about being a loan officer is that you have no team concept, it’s just you.

So it doesn’t make sense to have all of those…you know you can’t have every strength in the world and no weaknesses. No one is like that, it just doesn’t happen. So you have to be able to play towards them and that means outsourcing or bringing on other people to kind of help you with those things.

Jeremy: True.

Brett:  And there’s many people that can help you with it too. There’s many, many, many graphic designers and web designers and just mortgage marketing companies that are out there just trying to give materials, but at the same time you have all these strict regulations coming in and everyone is afraid to market as well.

I mean there is so many regulations that are already changing that learning marketing and how to do it is one thing, learning how to do it compliantly is almost overwhelming. I feel like a lot of people just kind of opt out of it because it is that overwhelming.

Jeremy: Well that’s a great point and I think it speaks to the importance of media appearances and writing articles because that is within compliance, but all the other aspects it’s like “am I in compliance here or not?”.

Brett: Yeah. Well, and you have ways to do that. I mean, you even look at places like Langden. I mean that’s basically your own personal drip campaign on everyone you’re connected with. You can publish an article and literally everyone gets a notification. So I mean you can build your reputation pretty easily as long as you look in the right spots. 

Jeremy: In closing, what do you think separates the top loan officers from the rest of the pack?

Brett: I think the people that I see at the top of the game, the top producers, are the ones who are trying to innovate. They’re trying to set themselves apart via introducing new techniques within their business, and I think that’s what really sets people apart and they also have a strong awareness of what their strengths and weaknesses are.

They build teams around them. There’s no top producer that’s doing it by himself. I mean every top producer you look at right now has a team of fifteen people around him, and there’s a reason for that, because they’re aware of their strengths and weaknesses. 

Jeremy: How can people reach you Brett, if they want to learn more or get a home loan?