0127 | The Importance of Storytelling for Reach, Impact, & Profit with Author, Speaker, Trainer, Host, Mortgage Marketing Expert & CEO of C-Roc Enterprises Michael Ciorrocco

Ea interviews episode 127, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round seven days a week. Join Mario Ficcini for today's Expert Authority Effect interview. Would you like to know how to build a successful company? Do you want to grow in the real estate market? How about build a successful brand, grow 400% year over year? I am super excited to have authority speaker, trainer, marketing and mortgage expert Michael C. Rock Scirocco on the show today and we're going to bring him up right after I thank the sponsor Winning with Google in 2020. Of course you want to. I'd advise Google search advertising and YouTube specialist Rosh Sillers download the free Winning with Google in 2020 guide@eainterviews.com Roshtips Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Michael C. Rock Scirocco. Mike, how are you doing today?

Great, Mario. I'm glad to be here. So excited to join the podcast here today with you and share my story.

Man, I can't wait for you to share your story, John. Let's jump right in. Where did it all start from? I know how you ended up and it's fantastic. But where did it all start from?

Well, you know, I believe everybody's got a story and I always like to share mine. And I use it in our business a lot too when I'm interviewing employees or even prospects or clients is asking them about their story. So I always like to share mine after hearing theirs. And I was very fortunate to have a fire lit in me at a young age. When I was about 11 years old, I lived with my dad. I came from a broken household, like a lot of people probably listening and it wasn't always the easiest. But I never knew my parents together. So I lived with my dad about 11 years old for three years going through some psychological mental abuse and I'd had enough. And luckily at that age I was pretty mature to understand something about culture. I didn't really realize the word, but I knew that that was not a good environment to be in. I needed to get out and had to make some sacrifices there because I've obviously taken the chance to hurt my dad. So I basically told my mom, I got to get the heck out of here. I need a better environment.

And so court papers were served for custody and I came home from school one day and my dad said, hey, get in your room. And I walked on eggshells in that household as it was already. And I went to the room and I had a feeling what was coming. So he comes in the room. And now my dad, I admired my dad, he was my hero. He has his own masonry business and he always had a wad of a hundred dollar bills in his pocket. And at a young age, you know, it wasn't the paper, the $100 Benjamin that I liked, but I just knew that that's what got us things. It got us vacations, it got us going out to dinner, it just got us things. And my dad always used to flash it, so I always looked up to him for that wad of cash. So I just remember this story. I'm 42 years old now and so about 30 some years ago, just remember it clear as day, he said, you want to move back with your mom, huh? And he said, yeah. And he pulled out that wad, a hundred dollar bills and peeled one off and crumpled it up and threw it at me. And mind you, I'm 11 year old kid. And he said, here, you're going to need this when you're living on the streets with your mother one day. So that moment was a turning point in my life. As young as I was, I knew that I couldn't be the only person that that's happened to, that their dad gave up on them, that somebody gave up on them. And I vowed at that moment I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I was going to help others that go on through that same situation. So ever since that day and 11 years old, whether it was sports, school, work, whatever it was, relationships, I always strived to help people and try to be the best I could because I wanted to make sure that he didn't win. Now that might not be the best thing because it's kind of spiteful, but also in the long run, I knew that it was the right road to take because I wanted to be there for others that felt the way I felt basically crushed at that moment. And you know, I know a lot of people can relate to that. And a lot of people don't share their stories because either they think that people won't care, they're embarrassed by it. You know, it takes a lot of courage to do that. And that's part of my movement that I'm trying to, trying to get going here. The what are you made of? Movement. Movement to try to really draw stories out of people and hear what they're made of and how they can inspire others. So that's the start of it.

Mario well, I'm glad you decided that because there's so many people that they have all the upbringings, they have everything going for them. And I didn't grow up in that environment, growing up, but I always, there was always someone I was looking to like, man, if I just was, you know, had their, you know, whatever resources, family, what it was always just like if I was them, that would be the difference changer. And some of them didn't turn out so well. All the people I really know that ended up the best, it's like the harder the upbringing was. There's this correlation, whether it was spiteful. You're 11, you know, what are you leading intelligence retreat on, you know, enlightenment you have, you have. I think it's fine you ran with it and it worked and it's part of your story and it's so cool because you turn the adversity. And I'm sorry to hear about it. I'd never wish that on you or anyone. But it's so cool to hear how you can turn it. What was it like when you, when you became 12, 13, 14 through the teen years without your dad?

So first of all, I never played the victim role with it. You know, I had aunts and uncles, my dad's sisters, people on my mom's side that always like, oh, you poor thing, I can't believe you went through that. I never, I never took into that. I always pushed that away and told him, nah, man, I'm fine, I'm good. Because I just took that route. And maybe it's because I'm stubborn and just naturally was born with stubbornness, which is, could be a bad thing sometimes. But going forward, I was very fortunate that my mom married another guy and his name is George. He passed away unfortunately in January of a heart attack. But George, I was very blessed because George came into our lives. He took me and my sister as his own. And I wish a lot of other people would do this. Too many fathers are running from their families. This guy came into our life, took us as his own. I was 11 year old kid and you wouldn't notice any difference between me and my little brother that was his biological son. And he really stepped in and showed me what being a man was all about. And I was very blessed to have him in my life, really. And that probably was a help of maybe keeping on the right track because George, my stepdad, said this, this is his thing. He was always really black and white, really hard on me, which I probably needed at that moment, at that age, which is a real impressionable age at 11, 12, 13. But he always told me this and I Use this still today with our employees. Do good things, good things happen. Do bad things, bad things happen. And you just keep it simple. So going to that household was very, very beneficial to me. Luckily I had that.

Well, I'm glad you did. And at what age did you start your company and decide, you know, you even, maybe even your first company, why'd you want to go into business?

So I started in the real estate business. That's I started sales in 1998, but the real estate business, I had a real estate license and you're on your own pretty much when you get a real estate license. And I did that for a couple of years, was a top producer and decided to get in the mortgage business an lo not my own business, working for someone else. And as I progressed with that, I saw the business owners and I saw what they were doing and I saw how like where they were lacking and also the strengths and lessons that they learned. So I try to take all these pieces in, but I'm just a builder at heart. And so when I decided to start our own branch, my partner and I, we decided to go out on our own and start doing this. I started to look at the fact that I wasn't in the mortgage business, that I'm really in the people building business. We just happen to do mortgages. So that's the focus every day I wake up is now we have 30 employees now in our Group of Nations Lending. We really focus every day that we wake up to say, what kind of value can we bring our employees? How can we help them not just at work, but with their families? How can we teach them about finance and understanding money? Because you know, you've probably heard this before, but your employees money problems are your problems. And so we really take pride in that. And that's changed our culture and we've seen exponential growth in our business once we started really zeroing and focusing on our employees lives and building people.

So you're treating them more like a team instead of just people that work for you.

Without a doubt, human beings. And you know, actually our company has a slogan, it's called Home Loans made human. And it's not just about the customer experience and making them not a number and not running them through a computer system and just letting it run, but really treating our employees like human beings and being concerned with the people and their families. And you know, that's a big concern for us. And obviously that carries through to the customer experience.

When you're working with the people that are coming to you who Are you really looking for and how exactly are you helping them?

So are you talking about the employees?

Your clients?

Our clients. Okay, so first and foremost, we have clients come from. I mean, we like to have five lead sources. I always say five to survive. But we have a very, very good Realtor referral system. And how we prospect with our real estate agents by helping them grow their business first, and then in turn, they end up sending their clients our way because we care about them. So we actually treat the real estate agents that we work with similar to the way we treat our employees. We really try to work with them and sit down and counsel them on not just business, but there's times I'm sitting there talking to real estate agents that we work with about their family life and really building the relationship. As a matter of fact, I was listening to one of your podcasts with Steve Gordon recently. He was talking about relationship building and running ads, and everything doesn't build relationships. And so that really struck me because we really work on the relationships with the real estate agents. We do run ads, we do Facebook marketing. We do a lot of things. And even with the Facebook marketing, we try to develop a connection and build relationships with the people that are watching their videos, for example, on a Facebook ad. And that is what sets us apart from everyone else. Because when we do that and we have that connection, not everything always goes as planned. In the mortgage business, it could be, you know, we always take one thing, we always take 100% responsibility for whatever. But there's things sometimes out of our control. And when you have a great relationship with the realtors that you're working with, the buyers that you're working with, they tend to understand more of what's going on. And so that's where to me, it all starts, is developing great relationships.

I would have to agree with this 100%, because I remember about 10, 11 years ago, and it was actually the same time a year I sent the wrong invoice to the wrong company. And, you know, because I give people a little bit leeway and they give me some, they instantly I'm like, oh, my gosh. And I, before I even sent the email saying, I'm so sorry, they're like, don't worry about it. We've done it too. And they already deleted it. And, you know, it's. It's more than just, you know, transactional and everything. And, you know, I do my best to treat my team the same way I want to be treated. And same thing with clients. And when you're Talking about the Facebook ads, what would you say about the messaging that goes into it? Because the Facebook ads are just a tool really. You could put a great billboard up or a bad one. How much thought do you put into the messaging and the experience that people are having while they're going through your funnel, whether they see a Facebook ad or it's in person?

Well, first of all, we have several different campaigns that we run, obviously, and we test them to see what's most cost effective. But one of the most powerful ones is ones we do video and we add value right off the bat. We try to help realtors and the buyers understand the process and share with them information to make them, the buyers being in a better financial situation or the real estate agents being more expert on that topic. We try to do that first several times we'll put out content on that. Then after that we always make an offer and that tends to make it a lot easier. I love sales, don't get me wrong. I love handling objections and going through that whole thing. But it's so much easier when you provide value and the people trust you and you've built that relationship with them for them to just come right into you and then they're asking you, how do we do business with you? Sometimes people make things too difficult. And it's really simple, man. It's just we just have a servant heart and a help first mentality and treat people the way we would want to be treated. I know it sounds simple. And every day when we wake up, we try to be the most valuable husband that we can be, the most valuable employer employee. And as long as we all do that and we're on the same page with that, it's simple. Business is simple. It's not as difficult as some might make it seem.

I'm glad you're saying it because I know I've said it before too, and it's like, you don't need to be worried about every last detail of the shiny object. Treat people well and over deliver add value to them. I want to dive back to the five lead sources because you're saying a lot of stuff here and I know where you're going with it, but I do want to dive in. What are the five lead sources? I know everyone wants to know.

Well, we have more than five, but I say that you have to have five to survive. So referral partners, obviously, realtors, financial advisors, CPAs, divorce attorneys, believe it or not. And then we also really, really work our database, our families, friends, co workers, Facebook friends, We're very, very regimented when we go through our day where we make a certain amount of calls to agents, we make a certain amount of calls to our past clients, we make a certain amount of calls to people that we know that aren't past clients. We call our people that are pre approved, still looking, and we're very regimented on the number of calls that we need to do. And so those are some of the lead sources, Facebook leads. What else do we have right now?

Mailers, who we mail. We have email campaign, we have text campaigns. What else?

So you're not taking a single channel approach. You're basically turning everything you do in your favor.

Yeah, I mean, we want to ring everything we possibly can out and we want to be everywhere to everyone. I mean, really.

And what else I'm hearing is it doesn't sound like you're operating out of post its. You actually have a system in a database?

Oh, yeah, without a doubt, man. We have to. There was times where we didn't and we turned it on and we were like, oh my gosh, what do we do? How much money and time do we waste? But we don't just look at that part. Obviously running a business you have to make money. But we also looked at how many people went to a different company and got a worse experience than they could have had with us. And that's always a focus of ours, is the client and the customers. What did they have to go through when we could have made it easier for them?

I love giving people a first class experience and it was one of the first things I thought of even with this show here. I was like, okay, I'm going to put out the best show I possibly can and video and audio experience and all this for the listeners and viewers. But I was also like, I'm going to have really cool VIP guests on here. What's their experience onboarding to come on the show? I don't, you know, because I do interviews, I do public speaking and everything too. And sometimes it's like, where are we going with this? I said yes. You know, I'm excited to do it, I really am. But maybe if you give me an address or at least a link to join you or something might help a bit. So I was, I'm joking about the post its, but there's so many people that don't use the database and I use one for the show too, called pipedrive. I'll make sure it's in the show notes because I know not everyone's in real estate. But if you're not using one, what would you say? Do you prefer post its or do you prefer using a database? What's more profitable?

Well, first of all, you did. You mentioned pipedrive.

Yes.

Okay. Yeah, we actually use pipedrive. I built it out because it comes blank, as you know. I built it out for the mortgage business, and we use it for our pipeline from the lead coming in all the way to clear, to close. And then we also use it for real estate agents prospecting. If we put our real estate agents in there, we categorize them, whether we've done business with them before, whether they know us, whether it's a cold call, and then we go in there, and every time we're making our calls, we're keeping notes in there. Because if you're not doing that, you think you've memorized everything. And I had a guy say to me the other day, yeah, I don't use my CRM because I'm very good at remembering everything. And what I said to him was, you are not calling enough people then, obviously. Because if you can remember everything, you need more prospects. You need to build your funnel as big as possible. And that's how you know if you have a big enough funnel, is that you need a CRM. So we use that for that purpose. And when I make a realtor call a week later, two weeks later, and the realtor told me that they couldn't talk at that moment because they were at their son's basketball game, I can ask about that basketball game and say, hey, what was the score? How did it go? And they're gonna think I'm the most awesomest person in the world for remembering that. Even if I don't know if that awesomeness is a word. Awesomeness. It is now, but you remember that. And so if you didn't have a CRM that you're putting those notes in, you're just winging it, then you're just like everyone else. And we don't want to be just like everyone else.

No, you definitely don't. And I'm learning something here too. I thought you had something specific to the real estate industry, because I know there's that for the real estate recruiting. Specific industries have some cool stuff, but we built it all out in pipedrive.

Well, that's Pipe Drive. We use it for that purpose, but then we also use some other CRMs for different things, like lead management. Like, the Facebook leads don't go through the Pipe Drive until they become an application, but we have lead management for Facebook Then we also have the email systems where we'll, you know, for email marketing, we have several systems at our company. It's very robust technology that we have.

But pipedrive, you just. You just struck a chord with that. Because, I mean, it's something that I've.

Never had anyone say that. It's. If it's a specific industry, it's usually something specific. But, you know, for email, I know there's like aweber pipedrive. For the CRM, I have dozens and dozens of stuff that we use to internally and externally. And like you said, it depends what you're doing. Is it going to do a nurture sequence or is it just, you know, are they floating around for a little bit first? And, you know, did they apply to anything? It just depends. But it's cool that you're tracking it, because I had a. I had a feeling you were and your company was. But I'm just shocked because I've been running my mouth for over 10 years about email marketing and a CRM. It's like, I want 10,000 followers or leads or clients or whatever. I go, show me what you did this week. And they're like pulling paper and crap out. I'm like, all right, forget everything. Start here. And you need to overhaul the last. Whatever period of that year is. Whether you're three months into it or nine months. You need to go back and fix this now, like yesterday. And I'll never forget one client. I go, you're going to love me, but your employees going to hate me because they literally had 30 years of documents. And I'm like, awesome. Great record keeping in boxes out back.

Yep.

She had to enter all that stuff. I go, okay, so you need like two weeks instead of one.

But, you know, we're able to grow their profits that year. And it took probably six or eight weeks to get it all in. And they did get help. And I was like, we need to do this sooner than later. I wasn't expecting 30 years, but kudos for you for actually having it. But get that crap off, like, actual boxes. I was.

Wouldn't you agree that you could increase your business by 25, 30% just being organized? I mean, just. Just that part. You wouldn't have to do anything else. So. Yeah, that's huge, man. And if you don't have that, I mean, if you're not measuring your stats, like we measure our stats, like, I know every day how many credit pools we have up to the minute. We send reports out. We have leaderboards. I mean, and honestly, back in the day we didn't have that, but now we have it and our business is increasing and just because we know what's going on and people can see what they did throughout the day and they could say, hey, I had a good day today, you know, let's ride that momentum. Or if I had a rough day today, I didn't get what I needed. I, I really need to bust my butt tomorrow to make up for it. And you know, that's, that's an increase in business right away, I think having.

A good CRM for sure, easily 20% on the low one, for sure. I agree, 100%. I'm going to ask you about the biggest inspiration, the biggest transformational story you've ever heard. But first I want to ask one last thing about the leaderboards, all the data and all the stuff we're talking about. Did it start with, with the software or did it start in your mind and the software helps you visualize it?

Well, I think that you have, I think the software, it has to start with a tool because your mind is the same thing you did when, before you had the software. So you know, that's only as good as what you remember at that, you know that my, that time. And if you're going through a real stressful time or if you're having some personal issues at home that can affect all that. So as far as CRM goes, they're not worth anything if you don't use them. Let's face that, right? But if you have the CRM or use them wrong. Or use them wrong. But you have to have that tool in front of you. And by the way, when we're making our phone calls, we have to have that CRM up in front of us. It's not something that you're making phone calls, you're keeping notes and then you go back to the CRM and put it in later, that's a worst case scenario. You need to have it pulled up in front of you. A lot of people that give me pushback on CRM say, but it's an extra step and I'm like, no, you're doing it wrong.

No, it saves you about nine other ones. That's why I like the pipedrive app, because I can literally be walking into a meeting or out of a one, have an idea. Bam, bam. And by the time I open the door, it's in there.

Yep, exactly. I love it.

What I was getting at was if I were to take away all the tools and software right now, your mindset is Trained for it. You could probably use paper, pencil and spreadsheets. Ten times more effective because you have a process in place.

Yes, yes, absolutely. But who wants to.

I'm not saying to go back to that, but I've also noticed people that are like, yes, we have a CRM and it's like, well, show me what you're doing with it. And it's kind of like they took the problem from the paper and just put it online and it's like you still have a problem.

Well, one of the biggest problems with business, and I'm sure you'll agree with this because you see this, but clarity, lack of clarity. If you don't have clarity, when would you're starting? From the beginning. When you have your vision for your company, your goals, your targets. If you're not clear on what you're trying to go for, then how are you going to be successful? How can you measure success? So that all leads to the fact of having a clear mind, a clear vision and being specific of what you're trying to accomplish. And that's to me, that's what most important thing in business really.

So what you're saying is set clear intentions for what you want to do.

And then it goes all the way down the line, all the way down the sales cycle. Everywhere is clarity.

You need to know how many demos you're making in sales, how many closings you've had off the number of demos. In our business, it's how many credit pools have you had, how many real estate agents did you talk to that week, how many of your loans closed after you pulled credit on down the line. And so that you know, clarity on your numbers, clarity on your vision, clarity on your customers and your prospecting, clarity across the board is important and you can't have clarity without that.

Yeah, and I get what you're saying with again with the Facebook ads correlation. There's a lot of people that I want to run ads and have 10,000, whatever. But if you're not tracking it, how many leads, how many clicks went to the page, how many opted in, how many conversions, how many converted, how many signed up for a call, how many did you close? You're saying the exact same thing. It sounds like you have a five or six step process just specific to real estate with the credit polls and you know, how many applied, you know, how many showings did you do if you're selling the house, you know, did you get approved, how long did it take? You know the sales cycle, we know.

Exactly what the average credit Score is on every lead source that we have. We know what to throw gasoline on, what to throw water on to put the fire out. We know all these things. And matter of fact, to be honest with you, I would never ever run Facebook ads myself because I don't know what the heck I'm doing. So some people just jump into it. They might hit that boost button. Right. Which is the biggest waste of money. They might try to go in there and target themselves and do self targeting. It's just, it's not worth it. You're better off paying someone to run it, a monthly fee or whatever it costs to do that because you're going to save a lot more money than it's going to cost you to hire somebody to do it. So I'm big on delegating specialists in different areas so that I can do what I'm good at and then I can just kind of quarterback the whole process and that's big on scaling a business as well. That's what I've really become good at.

Yeah, I'm more of the people person myself. I have a great ad specialist. Her name's Victoria and she's been helping us with our ads for years. And she just loves it. And.

If it's not your strength, don't do it. You can find other people who love it because not everyone wants to be on camera or, you know, you made the reference earlier about I love the sales process. I do too. I love helping people and you can't help them unless you close them. But at the same point, it is pretty awesome when you're more like the strategic stealth bomber. No one even sees you around and it's like, yeah, 14 new leads closed all this. It's like, like barely broke a sweat. Because in all honesty, you know, it's your. The 10, 15, 20 years prior of the learning and tweaking to get to that of now we know what works. You're measuring your metrics and you know what to do with it and how to apply it. You just said the key word. We know where to put the gas on the fire at. You're not guessing that old adage. I think it's from Ogilvy that says, you know, our advertise, 50% of our advertising is working. We just don't know what 50% exactly.

That's a problem. Big problem.

You can sound fancy and look fancy all you want, but at the end of the day, if you don't get the results, who cares?

Exactly. And you know what the. You can increase your Business, obviously, by knowing your stats as well, and cut time in half or even better, get to your results faster by just knowing. I mean, if we do an advertising campaign or mail or any kind of lead source that we use, if we're watching it on a daily basis, you may not get the results that you need in such a short span, but you watch it every day and you can see if something's bomb and you can see if something's taken off right away. And the faster you can cut something off or throw gasoline on it, the better you're going to get results from and the higher ROI you're going to get. And that's what we're all looking to do too, because time is such an important thing in anything that you're doing, business wise, personal life. And if you can shorten time on things, that's better than saving money.

As far as I'm concerned, again, 100%. Time is priceless. You can't get it back, but you can make money while you sleep and be cool if you could get time back, but you can't. Transformation and success stories. These can be two separate people, I guess, or they can be the same one if it's a really big one. Who's the biggest transformational story that you would have that you've been able to help? Someone in the biggest success story. So let's say maybe one's a customer or client you've been able to help for the transformation and the success story. I have a feeling it's going to be one of your. Someone on your team.

You might have done your homework a little bit. So I'm going to start with that one because it's on the top of my head. But there's a younger gentleman named Andrew that works with us, and I can say his name now because he gave me permission. But the first time I told this story, I didn't say his name. But we brought him aboard. He used to work for a different company, hadn't been in the mortgage business that long. And I got word on the street that he was looking at another mortgage company and he was kind of looking for a salary position because he just wasn't feeling it. And he had, he didn't have that momentum and he was going through some struggles mentally with that. So usually if somebody's not committed to what we're doing and not buying into our culture and they're looking elsewhere, they're already checked out. I usually just bring them in and say, hey, listen, I got this word, I'm done. And that's what I've done in the past. Something hit me with Andrew. I thought to myself, you know what I said? This kid, he's 27 years old. Sometimes I think everybody's the same age as me when I'm working with him and around him, and he doesn't have the experiences that I have. And so maybe let me sit down and talk to him and just feel him out and see where his head is and basically get his story. Now, I knew his background already. I knew his story, but. So I sat him down, I said, laid it out to him and said, this doesn't cut it with us here. If you're not committed, that's fine. I'll help you move your stuff to another company and I'll give you a great referral. But I'm not doing you any favors keeping you here. I'm not going to try to talk you into staying here, however. And then he. And then he cut me off and said, listen, I was looking at that. About a week or so ago, my pipeline started rolling. I started listening to you doing what you told me. I'm seeing results now, and I don't really want to go anywhere. And I wasn't. That wasn't good enough for me. So I laid some groundwork and some expectations and I said, andrew, listen, here's what's going to happen. And he wasn't working out as much as he should have, wasn't watching what he ate. And that matters to me. A lot of people are afraid to touch on those topics, but I think that if you can take care of your body, you have a lot better chance of taking on the world. So I told him, I said, listen, I'm going to pay for your gym membership. And I go to the gym quite often. I do the, you know, the CrossFit stuff, kind of lifting and all that. And I said, you're going to come to the gym with me. I'm going to pay for your gym membership. You're going to show up in the mornings and meet me there. You're going to take control of your diet, and then you're going to come into the office and you're going to do what I'm telling you to do. That's going to work. And if you buy into that, you're going to make more money than you ever thought about making. Or you can go somewhere else and take the salary position. It's totally up to you. But if you stay here, this is what's going to happen. And from that point on, over the next six months, he took the world by storm, built a big pipeline. Realtors love him. He's posting things on social media. At his closings, he lost 20 pounds. The people at the gym have taken him in like family. And we, you know, we have a good crew there, and.

It'S good camaraderie for him. And so that's what I do it for, man. I mean, when I wake up in the morning and get to think about Andrew and what he's going through and what could have been if I didn't take. No, it's not me. It's him that did the work. I mean, he busted his hump, but if I didn't take the chance on that guy, and I was stubborn, like I told you, I'm stubborn. And I didn't back off of it a little bit. What could have been? And so Andrew's great now, and he's stepping up to be a leader in our company. So that's. That's the biggest and most recent story I can tell you, that that's happened for us as far as in the past. Further than that. I know a lot of gentlemen, I won't say any names with that, but a lot of my friends have gone through some alcoholism problems and bounced back to developing some of the best real estate companies in the world. And basically comes down to understanding your story that you've been through. And this is the movement that I'm pushing forward with. What are you made of? Understanding what you've been through as a kid, prior experiences.

Making the right decision based off of that, learning from it, and then going forward and trying to help others and share your story and being a role model to the people around you, your children, your wife, your employees, whatever the case is. And people need to realize something, that you need to get the courage to share your story, because you're going to inspire one person that's worth it, but you could inspire millions. And that's the most important message that I want to get across to your listeners as well. Share your story. People want to hear it. People you will connect with clients, you will connect with customers. You will connect with your employees better if you share your story with them and get on a human level with them. And that's something actually, Pete Vargas, I don't know if you're familiar with Pete Vargas. He spoke at the 10x Growth Conference. When I went in February, and I was sitting in an auditorium, the Marlin Stadium, 35,000 people, and there was great speakers, and I liked all of them. But nobody had heard of Pete before. And I sat there in that stadium and he started talking about his relationship with his father. And I felt like the rest of the crowd disappeared and it was just me and Pete sitting in this big stadium. It's the craziest thing. I can say this to you, but it's like, yeah, okay, yeah, right. It literally felt like he was just sitting there talking to me. And when he shared his story, it hit me like, I have a story to tell. I've been bottling it up inside of me all this, all these years. I got to get this out and share it with people because it's going to help some people. So that's what I have on that. Mario, I know I go off on.

A tangent, but I appreciate you for being so real with it. How has. What's it been like since you started sharing your story versus before?

So that's a great question. Right now we're going through a phase in our company where we have our sales meetings and. And instead of doing a sales meeting, we're having one of Our employees take 5 to 10 minutes and sharing their story with the rest of us. And one of my partners brought this up. He said, hey, you're sharing your story and it's working. You're encouraging everyone to do this. Why don't we do this in our sales meetings? So this is the third week that this has happened. Andrew was the first one that shared his story and he's going through some stuff that I'm not going to share right now. But it was just blew us away that we didn't know about. And then two of our processors shared their stories again. I would have never known where they came from like this. The story that Katie, our processor, shared this week, all of us, it choked us all up. And I just couldn't believe it. So we're now knowing where people are coming from. We connect with them better. Our relationship for work is better, it's stronger, and we can get through some of this tough stuff in the mortgage business that, you know, it's not the easiest business in the world, but it makes it a lot easier to work and have. We have more fun doing it when we connect with each other. So that's something that. And then also since I put been putting this movement out there, I have a Facebook page, Facebook group called what are you made of? With Mike C. Rock. And right now for your listeners, if they go, they can go ahead and jump on there. I'll accept them into the group. I'm going to start using it for clients. But people are sharing their stories in there, and some people that don't have the courage yet, since I've been on this movement, they're sending me Facebook messages, messages, long Facebook messages. And they're like, I'm sorry, I'm rambling, but I got to get the story out, and I don't have the courage to share it yet. How could I get this story out and get the courage to do that? And I'm hearing stories, I mean, from people that I've been around at sporting events, with the kids or in the community or strangers that I've never met before. They're sharing that, like, it blows me away. And I'm kind of upset that I didn't get on this sooner. I'm 40, 42 when I started doing this, and if I could have just figured this out 10 years ago, how many people we could have helped with this. So that's the things that are happening right now that are just all inspiring. And I want to share this with everyone. I really want to press hard on this and get this out and get as many people opening up as possible. And I know it's difficult and it takes courage, but I'm going to continue.

Well, I'm glad you started it and you're doing it now. You're still young and life is long, and there's no way either of us, because I've thought about this too, with my mission and vision. The more people we empower now, it's just going to continue because neither of us on our own could even pull it off, even if we had 100 years. The same way as getting the right people in place for even two or five.

Right. That's why I keep using the word movement. We have to get a movement. Because I can't do it by myself. And what I whole envisioned this with our company. I do this with our company. I talk about snowball effect. I talk about this all the time. And one thing about Grant Cardone talks about gravity pulling you down. You got to always try to keep going up. I like to reverse that and think about how can I have gravity work in my favor. So if you think about a snowball on the top of a snowy mountain and that snowball gets rolling, gravity helps it grow. So we always try to get this thing going so that it's going by itself, growing by itself, and we need people to do that. So, yeah, the snowball effect is something that is a common topic for me and my company, my household, and the what Are you made of movement?

It's just so awesome with everything that you're doing. I have a couple more questions for you. One of them is who is someone you would love to have dinner with that you haven't been able to meet yet?

Well, I'll tell you, I'm not much of a fanboy, as they say, right? Like a fan of people. I really like to get involved with people that obviously are smarter than me, that have more experience than me. But I can tell you, and I'm not trying to promote Grant, but Grant Cardone is a mentor of mine now. And when I find a mentor, I immerse myself in it like a foreign language. And I just to the point where my wife says I think Grant Cardone lives with us, but I really believe that. And I tell my people, find a mentor. It doesn't have to be him, but find a mentor, immerse yourself in them and learn as much as you can from them. Because if they are where you want to be or if you think that you could maybe pass them one day. So I would like to sit down with Grant and have dinner with Grant. I'm pretty close with his people and I would like to sit down with him and just like shoot the crap with him for lack of a better term. But yeah, and basically the reason is, is that I, when I heard Grant talk for the first time, it connected with me and I listened to several different people. Tony Robbins, you know, I've always been into self help and investing in myself. But for some reason, man, when he starts talking and I just can, maybe it's the father thing or something, I don't know, I connected with him and he spoke my language and I was buying what he was selling, let's put it that way. So and then, and since we've done that, I've been immersed with it, it's helped 33 employees and all of their families make more money than they've ever they could imagine. And one more thing I want to add to this. In our company, I didn't mention this before. This is very important. Anybody that's listening to this, it's in business, if you provide an environment for your employees where their income is limitless, it's up to them to make. Your employees will never leave you. And what I mean by that, our processors who are not producers that process the loans, we get them licensed now and we tell them, everybody you talk to, family, friends, or even while you're working, end the call with this. Oh, by the way, do you know Anybody that might be buying or selling in the next six months that could use some honest help and say it with a smile and you will get business and you will make more money. And I had a processor just this past month make $11,000 on top of her regular pay because she sold $1.1 million worth of loans. And that's gonna create a great holiday season for her and our family. It's life changing money for them. And that's something that we've gotten from working with Grant and his team is just.

Creating opportunities for everybody to bring revenue into the company and reward them for it. Every company should do that. I don't care what it is. Every single company, every person in the company should be bringing revenue in. And not just for that employee, but what it's done for our company is it brings in revenue that takes care of that processor salary. It's a game changer for us as far as a company.

I forgot to say that. I want to make sure I say that because that's a huge thing that we've been doing over the last couple years.

I've interviewed a lot of people, over 100 now and I've noticed some patterns. And you're nailing it. When you get the whole company involved and invested, it's no longer this hierarchical pyramid, if that's a word. But it's my show, so now it is hierarchical pyramid of. You're doing this for me. It's. No, we're working together for this common goal to reach more people, you know, doesn't matter what the industry is. And I have a feeling Grant does it with his team too, because I remember I. It was kind of surreal because I had heard good things about him. This is geez 2012, but we were both speaking in San Diego at the same event and. And he's awesome. He's one of my favorites. And just what he's done since then, it's. I mean, he wasn't doing the event back then, but he was doing his training and he. It's just astonishing to watch what's possible when you commit to it. Like you're saying, because so many people just want to kind of kick it with a stick and you know, I just want that salary position. But it's like, hey, if you can go, what did it take? Four, five, six weeks, eight weeks? You said over six months, his life changed. But what was the initial. I think the words precipice for. How much time did it take initially for the, the mentorship to take effect and really get that curve swinging upward. It wasn't six months. It was maybe a month or two.

Right. For Andrew, you're talking about. Yes. Yeah, that. I mean, he had already done. He had already done it. He started listening to me prior to our conversation. I just had heard on the street that he was looking elsewhere and had an interview or something with another company. So he had already.

But within one week it turned around.

Yeah, I mean, basically, he committed on the couch in my office. He sat down and committed to what the mission was. And I repainted the picture of, like, Bob Ross. Remember Bob Ross, the painter? I always think about an empty canvas and we got to paint the picture for people. I painted the picture again of our vision as a team and whether he wanted to join us in that mission. And so, yeah, he'd already started that, but he committed that day on that couch. He. Darn if he wasn't all in, man. I was blown away. And again, our whole team watched that happen. They watched it transpire.

And he's now a role model for our team. He's a leader stepping up. And I'm sure at some point he's going to lead part of a team in our group.

That's fantastic news. Congrats to him. And for anyone listening, going, well, what did he make? Two or three times more than the salary for four or five? It doesn't matter. Because what I do know is unless you put yourself in charge, you're never going to make any more than you're allowed. But when you do put yourself in charge, you can make 10 times more.

20 times more, without a doubt, man.

You got to just change the roles. You're going to be doing the same work either way. I could do and do a whole day training on just, you know what. Okay, next question. So.

I want to ask you, would you say, are you an introvert, extrovert, Introverted extrovert, extroverted introvert or an ambivert?

I have no idea what an ambivert is. But I'll tell you what I feel. I feel that a lot of people are introverts because they're not confident.

And once you gain confidence, all of a sudden it's kind of funny how introverted people turn into extroverts. So I would say I'm a very introverted person when I don't know something or I feel uncomfortable or not confident in something. But once, man, once I get that little swagger, the little C rock swagger, and I'm confident in something, I'll talk to anybody but there's times where, you know, you go through. I think it's a thing where you go through moods of introvert, extrovert as well. Sometimes you just don't feel like talking to people. So I don't think there's a set way. And I think people make excuses and categorize themselves into those things a little too often.

So you're the ambivert, whatever that is.

Ambivert. I guess I'm an ambivert. It's both, okay.

It's almost a perfect balance of both because it's like. Some people say they're like, oh, you know, if you're around them in a setting where it's like, you're not gonna be boisterous or whatever. It's like you're just normally talking. And I was shocked when someone was like, oh, you know, I didn't expect you're speaking here. I didn't expect you were an extrovert. I'm like, you freaking kidding me? And then other people, it's like, you. You like to stay quiet sometimes, and I'm just like. So it's interesting because I've noticed a lot. A lot of successful people like yourself and, you know, speakers and stuff, it's like, we can go on stage, but I don't think you want that 99% of the time. That's like a true, true extrovert, where. I'm just curious. Yeah, it's interesting because there's times everyone's a little of both. It just depends on the situation. Like, you're saying, when you're more confident, you're definitely more extroverted.

I will go on stage every single day if I'm confident in what I'm presenting. But I've been on stage before and. Listen, guys, this is another thing, too. When you have a situation where you're trying to start something and you're not good at it at first, and you try it and you fail. And I'm relating this to speaking on stage. And I started with speaking in front of realtors and trying to wing it, and that's not a good feeling. And I feel like crazy crawling into a turtle shell quick in those moments. But when I feel confident, I'm prepared. And I've done it over and over again, I've practiced. I'll speak on stage every day. So that's my take on that.

Well, Acura again. I remember when I started this thing, the first. If someone wants to track it, let me know. It's either 8, 10, 12, or 17 episodes in I literally had to prop up the sheet of paper with the questions like, all right, the next question is. So the next question and the last one before we go to the thank our sponsor and go to the imperfect action round is what change in your business has your show made?

So that's hard to tell right now because we just started it. We're think we've just released the second episode. So prior to that, though, I was on Facebook a lot, social media, Instagram, doing videos, practicing, leading up to it, leading up to the podcast. So I can tell you this, that I've gotten into a cab recently at home and had no idea who the cab driver was. And he said, aren't you the guy on Facebook doing the mortgage stuff? By the way, my wife and I are thinking about buying a house. That's me not even asking for business to that guy directly right there. He might have saw an ad where I was putting an offer out there. So that's made a difference, and it's provided an example for my people to understand that you got to get out and just out of the hole. Get out of the hole, get out in public, get people to know you and produce a feeling where people think you don't sleep. I had a post recently where I was sleeping with my daughter sleeping, like on the couch after we had daddy daughter date night, fell asleep, my wife took a picture and somebody posted on there he sleeps.

That's a home run for me. That tells me I'm winning. So that's how the effect's going to have, I think, going forward, the podcast and then being on your show is going to help get us out of obscurity, help the what are you made of movement, and in turn, obviously help our mortgage company, Nation's lending.

What you're talking about is the expert authority effect, because so many people, again, I love the sales process. It's fun to go, okay, I'm going to set a goal and challenge myself and everything. But even 10 years ago, I go, I don't want to be doing this 15, 20, 30 years from now when I have a wife and kids and all these other things. It's like, it's cool. I'm glad I learned how to. And I got to thank Grant for that, actually, because at that conference, he was talking about the frequency, and I went right home and changed my email newsletter from once a month to once a week.

Right? Yep.

And it's like, you know, you got to stay in front of people, and when you have that positioning, like you said, I Got into a cab.

I remember when I had my book, which is just over here. I was on a plane and someone read it. She turned into a client I was looking for. Not the. I was going to say the lighter. It's not the lighter. The Charger port. I was a little flustered. I was speaking at this event. She asked about the book, and it's just like we didn't talk, but on the takeoff and then two hours later, and she nudged my shoulder. She's like, it's been so great get to know you. I'm like, I didn't say anything to you. Harley gave you my book and said hi. She read the whole thing, though. And same thing with the show. People been watching it and.

You'Re in for a treat. And I'd be happy to share some ways you can further promote the show, especially with the video. Props to doing that because there's just a lot that you'll see is in store. But it's a pretty cool feeling. What did you do when he asked you that? Did you give him a business card or did you get his phone number? How do you handle that when you're out and about and someone's just like, hey, I already know you did it. Change the conversation a little versus trying to sell to him.

No, right away. What I do, I always do this. I carry business cards, but sometimes I don't have them. But really what I always do is I say, what is your cell number? I'll text you my information right now. Because right away I have their cell number when they do that. And now I can follow up. So I can't follow up if I give them a card. So I always think about how can I follow up with them? Because right now I'm getting a no cab. I'm going somewhere. I'm still thinking about business all the time, but I'm not going to, you know, what are the chance I might go to dinner and might, you know, by the time they end of the night, I might forget. So I always get their number while he says that. As soon as he says it as fast as possible. Take time out of the equation. Real quick, hey, right now, what's your cell number? I'll go ahead and text you my information. We'll connect tomorrow. And then I have it. Then I follow up with them. I set a reminder. At that moment, I'm sitting in the back of the cab. I got my phone. I set a reminder. Pipe drive, for example, I enter him right into the pipe drive. And then it's Done, man. And it's off my mind. That's why CRM so important, you know, you to take that out of your mind to clear for clarity, clear your mind and you can focus on other things. So, yeah, that's a. I have a process for that and people don't realize I'm doing it.

So you, you make it part of you. And I pray every day, God, get everything off my plate and take care of my needs so I can focus on everyone else. I don't want to be like, oh, I can Multitask and do 900 things. No, I want to do like two. And this is one of them. Really? Well, because I love connecting with people and all the other stuff. There's people that can do it. And the times I've ran out of cards for the person listening going, well, I always had cards. And now what do I do if I run out? Turn it into a joke and play it off if I'm out of cards, like at the last event I was at, you know, whether you're speaking or attending, crap, I'm out of cards. What do I do? Hey, you actually get the biggest benefit because now you're going to get my actual cell number. It's not even on the card. So what's your number up? Give you a quick call right now and like you said, put them into your phone and you have their immediate connection. I looked at the first hundred episodes of the show and we were doing the social media and the webpages and everything, and I was like, why aren't any of these people on LinkedIn? You know, it's all the social stuff. And I thought about it, I go, because they're people I met. And we just jumped to the cell and we were personal friends and connected and we'd actually talk and we actually have a relationship and stuff. Instead of 9,000 just connections. And I looked, but 80% of the guests weren't even connections on LinkedIn. I'm like, yeah, I need to update this because you just bypass that. Where other people, I would take their card and connect on all the socials. And whether you know them or not, you're connected. So get as close as you can, as fast as you can because it's a lot more fun to build a relationship than, you know, I've got 58,000 friends. And, you know, what would you say about your email list? How often do you purge that?

Well, so that's the other thing. So business wise, as far as the mortgage company goes, we send out an email once a week to realtors and our past clients and prospects that we haven't sold yet as well. Once we get them, we're staying in front of them because, you know, it's one thing that they don't know you, then they forget about you. You got to stay in front of them. But for this, what are you made of movement. I'm just getting started with it and that's something that I have to find out if the same approach for the mortgage will translate well into this or not. And I'm going to be looking for some advice on that.

All right, well, appreciate what you've been sharing so far. It's been hashtag gold nugget filled the entire time. Tons of expert authority effect insights. We'll make sure that they're bulleted in the show notes. We're going to thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. I was going to say the fun part, but this whole thing's fun, so. So I'll just call it by its real name and cue the sponsor. Winning with Google in 2020. I have no doubt you want to for your business, but who do you trust and where do you start? I'd advise Rosh Sillers. Not only was he episode 22's featured VIP guest, but he's also a Google specialist with search advertising and YouTube. And I had him put together this free Winning with Google in 2020 guide for you to get started with. Right, right now go to eainterviews.com forward/rush tips to get your free download. Now, once again, that's eainterviews.com rush tips. All right, we are back with the imperfect action round. Mike, are you ready to take imperfect action?

I'm always ready, Matt, first question, in.

Your experience, what is the fastest path to the cash?

Finding out what people's story is, connecting with them and then following up. That's the fastest way, I would think.

All right, number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way they can fix it?

Would think taking advice from people that really don't have their best interests in mind.

That's good. That's reminded me of the if you think coaching and mentorship is expensive, try free advice.

Right on. That's it.

Nice. Three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Wow. I would think doing the right thing upfront, first for them, then following up with them and checking with them and just staying in touch with them to make sure their their financial needs are are met. A lot of people don't follow up with their customers, their past customers, because they think that they're, they're set and they're good and just checking back in with them means a lot to them, even if they don't need anything at that moment.

So you're telling me that customers don't sell themselves. You actually have to care.

You know it. That's right. And by the way, you're adding that value to them and you know what happens, right? The referrals come. You do the right thing up front. You're genuine with caring about them and making sure they're good and you forget about all the people they know.

Excellent. All right. Education, clearly mentorship and coaching and training has been a part of this. You've mentioned a couple of good authors already. What is a book that's made a big difference in your business? And it's probably more than one. So let's say up to three.

Okay. The 10x rule, without a doubt. And then the one that I'm reading right now is called the Trillionaire Coach and it's about a football coach. His name's Bill something. He was the Columbia football coach. They lost his cared about his kids grades and what they did in this classroom more than what they did on the field. But also then he got into coaching, business coaching the founders of Google and Apple and he was on many boards and while they were coming into formation and then growing, he was their business coach. And people don't know all the things that happen behind the scenes, but Bill was pretty a big integral part of keeping them together and during their growth and their domination. So that Trillionaire Coach is one of my favorites and I've been taking the gratitude exercise out of that book and implemented into our sales meetings which is pretty cool. So I would say those two.

Excellent. Well, I've appreciated what you've shared so far and I'd love to have more people find out about you. Where's the best place place they can do that?

Best place is social media. I'm all over Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and of course the website is themikecrock with no k c r o c themikecrock.com and I share my cell phone number everywhere because I don't care. I want people to reach out to me, share your story with me. I want to hear it. I want to help you get your story out and inspire as many people as possible. And get this, what do you made of movement? Rolling.

Excellent. Did you want to say it on here? Do you want me to put in the show notes.

The show notes is fine.

Your cell phone number?

Oh, yeah. 443-235-9283. That works. You can put it in the show notes too. Just make sure everyone has it. More people I talk to, the better.

Excellent. Love that servant's heart and it's been an absolute pleasure. This is a lot of fun and I can't wait to stay connected and see what happens over the next 3, 612 months. Because I know what's going to happen. And you know, we're good. We're gonna do this together because I'm not going anywhere either.

Awesome, man. I love it. I had a great time, man. I appreciate you having me on here.

Well, Expert Authority world, we got another great episode here. Look forward to the next one. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless. There's money in the metrics. Don't do you know yours? Pipedrive is the simplest and easiest CRM to close more deals, deepen your relationships and increase your business profits. Get your free trial today@eainterviews.com Pipedrive hey, thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven't done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show and also be sure to check out eainterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you tomorrow.