SHOW NOTES
Phil Treadwell is a top producing and independent mortgage banker who is a 16-year veteran in the mortgage industry. He was the top originator in a multi-state region with his own company during the financial crisis of ‘08 - ‘09. Between 2019 and 2012, he developed production and built branches through the South and Southeast regions of the US.
Currently, he is the VP of Development and Regional Manager for Mason-McDuffie Mortgage. He is also the Founder and Host of the Mortgage Marketing Expert podcast and Co-Founder of Industry Syndicate. Recently, National Mortgage Professional Magazine named him as one of “40 Most Influential Mortgage Professionals Under 40”. Let’s hear from Phil the importance of podcasting and the value of effective marketing and having your own personal brand.
In this episode, we talk about...
(2:43) What is the true value of podcasting?
(6:27) Which is more engaging: Videos or Podcasts?
(17:19) How to attract your target audience to listen to your podcast
(24:41) The power of having a strong personal brand
(28:20) What is the formula for effective marketing?
(29:32) How important is it to have exposure on all mediums
(32:10) Social media platforms Real Estate Agents and Mortgage Experts need to be on
(34:22) Is Tiktok an ideal social platform for Business?
(38:34) What is Industry Syndicate?
(49:24) Phil’s most important piece of advice
Show Transcript
Brian Charlesworth 0:35
Alright, Hello, everybody. And welcome back to the GRIT podcast. I'm Brian Charlesworth and the founder of Sisu, which is the real estate growth automation software and your hosts of the show. And today I'm really excited to bring to you guys a marketing expert, really from the mortgage industry, and it's kind of a change to our show, but it's something that I think will give Not only all of our team owners but all of our agents listening, just tremendous value on how to position yourself differently in the market. So I'm here today with Phil Treadwell. Phil is a 15 year vet to the mortgage industry. He's been a Top Producing mortgage banker and also an independent mortgage banker. And he's currently the VP of development and a regional manager for Mason McDuffie mortgage. Is that right? That is Yep. Okay. All right. So he's also the founder and host of the mortgage marketing expert podcast. And he's also a co founder of the industry syndicate. And those are things that I want to talk about today, because those are things that you've done to differentiate yourself and really something that everybody should do to differentiate themselves, Phil, so tell me what I've missed.
Phil Treadwell 1:54
Man, I think you covered most of it, that I'm actually just over 16 years in the industry started out as an originator ran branches on the company sold that company and played in mid sized mortgage banking companies pretty much ever since podcast hosts do some speaking, co founded industry syndicate, which is, you know, Podcast Network for mortgage and real estate professionals both gotten some cool words along the way and just loved the industry that we're all participating in.
Brian Charlesworth 2:25
Yeah, it's definitely a fun industry and definitely something that that applies to everybody in the world. I mean, everybody, everybody has housing and in order to get a house, I don't know what the percentage is probably 99.9 of those, get a mortgage. So anyway, um, I want to start by talking about podcasting. And obviously, we're here on a podcast, I started this podcast, I think this is my 34 35th episode, something like that. So it hasn't been that long, but definitely a way to set yourself apart and the industry and to bring in expertise and provide value for, for your customers. I'd love to hear from you. Really? What is the true value of doing this? Why should every agent every team owner, whomever? Why is this important?
Phil Treadwell 3:18
That's a great question. I am a self proclaimed podcast evangelist. So I typically like to talk about podcasting and the importance of it. You know, the to kind of start answering that question is really by kind of telling you a little part of my journey in this several years ago, as I was a recruiting regional manager for a mortgage company, and I got outside of the local markets and the handful of states that I had personally done business at or new people. Well, when I got outside of that my recruiting effectiveness went down. And so at the time, I was looking for a way to increase my exposure and my influence And at that time people, Google people, right when you met someone, you didn't look them up on social media like we do now, they were still googling people. So I started doing some blogging. I was trying to do some content marketing, giving people stuff to see when they googled, that quickly transitioned to social media. And I started an Instagram page called mortgage marketing expert, specifically, because I own that website domain. I buy domains randomly. And I was starting to put out a mortgage marketing tip of the day, mainly, I just wanted to add value to the industry wanted to help people build their business do marketing better. And after about 30 days, we had about 1000 people following that Instagram page. I'm like, okay, we're onto something here. And after about 90 days, frankly, I ran out of things to say there's only so many one or two liners that you can give people before you start, you know, covering the same ground again. So this idea of starting a podcast I had had for over a year. And I originally brought on experts so that whenever we were having conversation when they would throw out a tip, I could quote them, and I would continue to feed this Instagram page that that was how, you know, close my mind that was to it at the time, what I realized very quickly as people started paying a ton of attention to what we were doing, because we were bringing people on, that normally cost thousands of dollars a month for coaching. And I got them for 30 or 45 minutes to ask any question that I wanted. And so I use that to really build a platform to kind of piggyback off their audience and create some influence. And that's, you know, my audience was specifically mortgage professionals. And so, you know, with any type of marketing, I tell people, there's three steps number one is who is your audience? Number two is what message is it that you're trying to give that audience and then number three, that's when you choose the medium. As a busy mortgage professional, I didn't watch a lot of long form videos, so I didn't sit and watch YouTube for hours at a time, and even books. I'm an avid reader. I consumed a lot of those via Audible, but I do did have time when I was at the gym when I was commuting when I was doing other things to consume a lot of podcasts. And so that was the medium that I chose. And my content was just, you know, helping people build their business. And when it comes into podcasting, specifically, you know, I would say that half of people in the world still haven't even really listened to a podcast, I really don't know much about what it is. So I say that to say it's still wide open. But there's some statistics that say that the average person that's listening to a podcast is 40%, more likely to have an income of $250,000 or more. And so when we talk about housing, that's your perfect demographic. Right? You have a lot of you but you
Brian Charlesworth 6:41
Can you repeat that for us. I want to hear that one more time.
Phil Treadwell 6:43
Yeah, so and I can pull the the exact statistic but it's it's the average podcast listener is 40%, more likely to have an income of $250,000 or more. So for mortgage and real estate, that's exactly the difference. A graphic of the people that we want to hear, right? And so that's our target audience. Right? That's, that's the main thing that, you know, we should be taking away from these things. And when I was comparing video, you know, the average video view is less than 10 seconds. And even if you took the top 10 most watched videos on Facebook, for example, the average view was still only about 71 seconds. So from that perspective, I'd like it to be the top 10 most watched view on top 10 video on Facebook, they're still only going to be there for a minute, where according to Edison research 93% of people listen to most or all of a podcast episode that they begin. And so you know, only 7% listen to just the beginning or less than half. So I'm like, Okay, hold on a second here. videos aren't getting much engagement. Now, don't get me wrong. They're the most engaged type of content, but you have to be really, really Really good to even get him for a minute. But yet 93% of people are listening to all or most of a podcast episode. And when you look at the demographics of who those people are, I've got people that are exactly in the wheelhouse of who I want, right, as far as you know, the housing industry. And the other statistic that's important to know about podcasting is that 70% of listeners say that they have become aware of a new product or service that they heard on a podcast. So you got two things here. If you have a product or service that you want to market, on a podcast, that's a great way to get in front of people. Or if you're a service provider, or someone who's trying to get known more in the community, you're going to be able to reach people by talking about topics and you're also going to be able to attract people to you that want to be on your podcast, either as a guest or to monetize. And so that's kind of some high level reasons why I was you know, very drawn to podcasting. People, you know, listen to long form content more, you can take that long form content this recording, and break it up into, you know, the written form of content. If you want a transcript or these you know, quote pics that I was pulling out, you can use some of the clips, you know to do for audio grams, you can repurpose it into micro content very, very easily, which I think a lot of mortgage and real estate professionals are saying I don't, I don't know when I'm going to create content, I don't have the time well, they do have time to maybe have an hour long conversation and then they can pay someone or take their spare time to break it up. And then the last thing I'll say about this now,
Brian Charlesworth 9:33
Can I add to that, at least how you have all of that content on your website for all of the SEO search engines, which otherwise they're not, they're not looking for your beautiful pictures? They're looking for the value that you're bringing? Totally.
Phil Treadwell 9:51
Totally., totally agree with
Brian Charlesworth 9:52
Your last point on that, Phil as well.
Phil Treadwell 9:54
And to finish that thoughts. Now. If you Google, Google is pulling up those people podcast episode, they're actually adding that into their search results, kind of like, we used to Google something, and you would get the webpages but you get all the videos on there. Now they're doing that with podcast episodes, and there's talk of, they're going to be a, they have AI platforms that are going to be reading and transcribing that episode to pull out keywords when people google it as well. Because right now, if you Google, something related to a topic that I had on my podcast, it's gonna have to show up as is Seo or keywords within the title or the show notes, right. So podcasters need to be very good about writing detailed show notes and having the keywords in there about what that specific episode is going to be. But in the future, again, all of those podcast episodes stay out there. When the algorithms catch up, they're also going to be listening to those podcast episodes. And if you and I say a keyword that someone's searching, we have a potential to be reached there. So that's a great, great point. I appreciate you bringing that up. But the the last point that I think is very important for more In real estate professionals to remember about a podcast is it doesn't have to be industry facing, right? Mine is yours is we're providing information to the industry about the industry. But that's because that's who our chosen audiences. For the average real estate professional, the average mortgage professional, they're trying to reach their sphere of influence. They're trying to reach people in the, you know, community clients, you know, consumers. So I recommend people choose podcast topics that are hobbies or other things that they're really interested in excited about. Because you if you have a community podcast, whether it's on a national level, or on a local level, you're attracting the type of people to listen that you want as potential clients, right. The very first podcast ever listened to was a home brewing podcast, like home brewing beer, because I opened up a craft beer brewery years ago. And so that was the first podcast I listened was ones that were teaching how to homebrew beer and they were interviewing pro breweries. And so I even have a guy that's on my team. He and his family have foster kids. They do a lot with nonprofits and ministries. And so he started a podcast where he highlights nonprofits and ministries in his area and just interviews them to give them additional exposure. What happens? All of those people share it to their audience and they share it to other people to give, you know, exposure to these great causes. Okay, well, whose podcast was that? Who is that guy that's interviewing people? Okay, he's a mortgage professional. Guys, that's exactly the type of exposure you want because the old adage people want to buy something they don't want to be sold something. refinances are popular right now, obviously, because interest rates are low. If you're handing out your card to the subway guy or to the you know, fellow parent at the PTA meeting and say, Hey, call me if you want to refi chances are, they're not going to call you but if you're having conversations and people ask what you do, or see your social media profile and see what you do as a mortgage and real estate professional, they may reach out and start asking you questions about the business. So we have to be very careful in how we create influence how we grow our business. And podcasting is a great way. And it's a very uninventive way to get your name out there and let people know what you do so long as you're offering content that those people want to hear and find valuable.
Brian Charlesworth 13:16
It's very interesting. I don't remember what percentage should you say that start a podcast finished the podcast?
Phil Treadwell 13:22
93%. I've got the stats here. 52% listened to the entire thing when they started, and 41% listened to most so together you have 93% of people listen to most or all of the podcasts, then you have 2% that just listened to the beginning and 5% that listen to less than half. So even if it falls into that 7% if the average podcast episode, it's not if the average podcast episode is around 40 minutes, you're still getting them for 20 minutes, that's still 10 to 20 times the amount of time that people watch one of the most people popular videos on a social media platform. So you still get that time to develop a thought process or an idea with somebody.
Brian Charlesworth 14:07
I think another point of that is when new people mostly listen to podcasts you mentioned when you're in the car or in the gym, that's the exact same time I listened to it. So or possibly when I'm on a bike ride, so it's not like I'm going to stop and change what I'm listening to. Right. I'm focused on something but at the same time, I can focus on this, and nothing else at the time. It's almost a release for me is do you think that's pretty true for the, you know, the industry of listeners out there?
Phil Treadwell 14:42
I totally think so. And I also think the reason podcasting is catching on is we're not I wrote a, a blog recently on my website. That was what I learned in the first two years of podcasting. And one of the important things that I mentioned in there is that podcast authors are not each other's competition. We're each other's business developments. Because if I get an industry professional to listen to my podcast and they liked it, they're very likely to go subscribe and listen to other industry podcasts and vice versa. So what you find is that the podcasting industry is extremely collaborative, that we spend a lot of time helping each other and developing ideas, because, you know, just like it is in sales, not everyone's going to relate to everyone the same way. And so what we find is that busy professionals will go subscribe to a handful of podcasts and then when they're at the gym, when they're listening in their car, when they're, you know, a lot of times I have people in the office say I turn on podcasts and listen to them while I'm working because it creates the right environment for the thought that you need to be productive. Well, most apps when they subscribe will give you the newest episodes and so you'll have some people that will start from the very beginning and listen to every single episode. You have You'll have others that will catch the new episode. And then they'll keep listening to the new episodes. And it doesn't matter because, you know, you have hours and hours of content. And even if they only listen to a fraction of it, that's still probably more than on a statistical level. And I'm guesstimating then the amount of content that they're going to consume on your YouTube page or on your social media channels, and a lot of times that you just you just need the sheer time.
Brian Charlesworth 16:24
Yeah. So you and I, who have businesses that are I mean, you're focused on consumers as well, but you also have a business bringing value and marketing for for other people. I have a software company bringing value for the real estate and ancillary industries. So we're doing ours but what if I'm a real estate agent or a team owner, you talked about, maybe we do hobbies. What other things that I I talked to Tom Ferry. Tom Ferry was on the show a while ago and he I've heard him say many times, become the expert in your industry. provide them with valuable data about the industry. But I mean, I guess it depends, right? What are your interests? And what what can you do consistently because what you don't want to do is start a show. And then and after five or 10 episodes
Phil Treadwell 17:16
Agree. So I agree with all three of those number one, you can start a podcast that have an interest of you. And you know, there was a guy heard of one time that was he played adult softball leagues, and he started a podcast about it and created a nationwide following of these networks of people because that was something he was passionate about. And he was getting business from all over the country. So hobbies do work. I do agree with Tom in the sense that be an expert in your industry in your market. And you can create a real estate facing or mortgage facing podcast and talk about the industry from a consumer perspective. I think the ones that are most effective and the third idea in there is talk about things within your community. Right, if you went and interviewed business owners, about local businesses, or if you had a podcast related to new developments, or you know, not just residential developments, but new restaurants and businesses that were coming into town, two things happen. One, you have people that live there, they want to keep up with what's going on. And then you have people that are traveling to the area that are thinking about moving to the area that are doing some research about it. And again, with that SEO, we talked about, you popped up and get noticed, well, if you're a mortgage, real estate professional, and they're going to be moving to the area, that's your perfect clients, right? So you're only really limited by your ability to be creative. And I tell people, if you were a consumer looking for podcasts or as a consumer of podcasts, what type of things do you want to listen to? And what type of things are you going to enjoy doing? As you mentioned a second ago, you have to like doing it, you've got to want to continue to do it for a long period of time. So what are those things and By doing that, you're going to attract people to you like you are. And so for example, when I first started my podcast, I wanted to keep it around 30 or 45 minutes because a lot of the podcasts I knew were quite a bit longer and hours, you know, sometimes two or three. A lot of the podcasts I listened to you had extremely lengthy intros, and I wanted, okay, punchy song, a quick intro. And then let's get to the podcast because I was having like five and six minutes of having to fast forward through to the actually got to the conversation. Yeah. And I wanted to ask questions about my industry. Most of all, I wanted to make sure that I enjoyed listening to the podcast that I was creating, and knew that even if no one listened, I was learning a lot about it and could use the content in other ways. And I think that's what people need to do. Don't worry so much about what everyone else might think. Do one that you think your intended audience or you yourself will like, and you'll attract the people to you, because that's how we do business with anyway.
Brian Charlesworth 19:58
Yeah, it's funny. My wife or my family, or different people have heard me listening to my own podcast. They're like, why are you listening to your own podcast? I'm like, because there's some content in here I want to hear again. And I want to be able to share with people, right? So
Phil Treadwell 20:14
I don't think that's bad at all I do. Listen, I'm not ashamed to say I listened to my own podcast episodes, I'll typically wait until they're a few months dated, and then go back and listen again, sometimes a couple of times. Because what that does is I also learn how to be better as a podcaster. And then I learn about things or think about things that I haven't thought about for a few months. And then I can turn around and revisit that and we we have some recurring themes within it. But yeah, I mean, I think that go out and interview or talk to or about things and then use it. It's evergreen content most of the time. So use it. It's incredible.
Brian Charlesworth 20:49
One of the ideas I love that you shared was talking about interviewing local businesses. I think I think it's a great idea. And not only does it do all of the things you share, but it also, you're promoting these local business owners. What kind of loyalty Do you think they're going to have to you? Which they are also buyers, right and sellers of homes.
Phil Treadwell 21:14
And let's think about it for a second. Just anybody when you're a guest on a podcast, I'm a guest on this one. Or I've done a couple hundred of these outside of the 90 some odd episodes that I've done with mine. Whenever I'm on a podcast, or it's my own, what do I do? I share it out with everybody on social media, right? As soon as I get the link to this, I'm gonna share it Hey, it was on Brian's podcast, we've had some cool conversations. Let me know what you think. If you're a business owner, and you're not in this space of podcasting, and someone in the in the community comes to you and says have a podcast where we highlight and showcase local businesses. We'd love you to be on. When that podcast comes out as a business owner, what are you going to do? You're going to share it with everybody under the sun. You may embed it In your website, because it's 30 minutes or 45 minutes of you talking about your business. So now, all of the people that follow them or that are in their sphere of influence now have exposure to you and the podcast that you're hosting. And I'm not ashamed to say, that's how I very quickly became influential and create a brand within my industry and was very humbled to be voted 40 most influential mortgage professionals under 40, not because of anything special that I did, but because I got the opportunity to collaborate with Titans within the industry, they would come on my podcast, I would ask them all the cool questions that I wanted to get answered for me. People listen to number one and number two, when they shared that podcast with their sphere of influence or on their social media, proper profiles when they were nice enough to do so. All of the people that follow them are like, okay, who's this Phil Treadwell guy, what he's got a podcast and then they listen to the podcast and some kept listening and you know, that's How kind of influence hacking or audience hacking works it you know, if you think about basic circle marketing, who do you know, now each one of those people has a circle that they know and so on and so forth. We're doing the same thing with podcasting and just grows and grows from there. So if you have a topic, as a real estate professional or mortgage professional, that it's highly likely that people will listen to if they like it, they'll share it with other people. And it just grows and grows from there.
Brian Charlesworth 23:26
Yeah. And it just keeps getting shared. So great. Anything else you want to share on podcasting? I think that that's a, it's been great. I love podcasting. And one of the things I love is, like just sitting here with you right now, Phil, I'm learning myself.
Phil Treadwell 23:42
Yes. Same way. I learned in every episode that I record. I recorded a guy named Neil Shafer who wrote a book age of influence. And he talks about influence within social media marketing, and it was an incredible conversation. And I learned every time I do an interview, and every time I'm being interviewed, there's Always takeaways from it. And so if for no other reason, sometimes you can have people go out and create a YouTube channel or a podcast and interview folks, just because you become sharper and better you learn the questions to ask and the topics that matter and that are relevant to your business.
Brian Charlesworth 24:16
Thank you for sharing that. Phil, you are a marketing expert. What other marketing tips would you have outside of podcasting for anybody in the mortgage or real estate space?
Phil Treadwell 24:37
Yeah, so that's a tough question. I would say don't underestimate the impact of a strong personal brand. And a lot of times people misconstrue that term personal brand, and I was fortunate enough to have Gary Vaynerchuk Gary Vee on my podcast, I got to travel to New York and VaynerMedia and do a podcast there and I
Brian Charlesworth 24:59
Is that what you did one live in his studio is that right?
Phil Treadwell 25:02
I did one live in in Gary Vee studio. Originally, it was going to be a zoom recording, and he ended up having to cancel. And then a few months later, as we were trying to put it together, they said, Hey, you know, because this has taken longer than necessary, why don't you just come here and so I got to see the the epicenter of his mothership at VaynerMedia. That was really, really cool. But one of the conversations that we had was around a personal brand and he said, You know, a lot of people hear it and think that's, you know, kind of a douchey term and he said, what, what you need to be thinking about is reputation because most people when you say reputation, their spine stiffens a little bit and that's what we're talking about, with a personal brains that you need to focus on the person more so than just the brains, especially in real estate. I see it all the time with real estate agents, they think they need a cool little logo and a cool little team name and a stick. And the great there's nothing wrong with branding your team or branding your business within you know the the broader scope of the industry. But that's not enough. necessarily what I'm talking about, I'm talking about content that unique to you, things that people follow you for. You know, one of the things whenever I was traveling a lot that I just kind of happened was I was out of the window of a plane when I was traveling, take a picture of the wing on the skyline. And I would just put the three digit airport code with an arrow to the other three digit airport code that I was traveling to just, you know, to kind of share my Instagram stories. Hey, here's where I'm traveling to today. Well, it became kind of a joke that Phil shares his wing pics, and it turned into people were following me to see Hey, where is he going, you know, this, that or the other. So that became part of my personal brain because my wife and I, that we do and we like to travel, we're frequent travelers, you know, personally, and I travel a lot for speaking engagements and whatnot professionally. And that became part of my persona. It became part of who I was that people did. I opened up a craft beer brewery, like I mentioned that became part of it. I'm you know, a huge Michael joy. fantasy jerseys hanging in the background, you know, there's parts of who I am, that became more important than just what I did. And if I could make sure people understand that, especially in real estate, when you scroll through so many social media profiles of real estate professionals, you see their listings, you see pictures of people that they close, you know, houses with, with their little title, company sign, or the little thing that says, hey, I closed the so and so on. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. But people don't want to be bombarded with just that. They want to see the other things and I'll give you an example. Who are you? Right? I mean, yeah, yeah. People don't care what you do as much as who you are. Then I'll give you an example. Last night, as a matter of fact, I had someone comments on, I had a guy that was a guest on my podcast, he shared the podcast episode on his Instagram profile. And a guy commented on there and said, he said, that's so cool that you're on Phil's podcast. I've been listening to his podcast and he and I started messaging Were dming back and forth because I was thanking him for the kind words. And he said, Man, he goes, I, someone had told me about your podcast, and I listened. And you said something in there about the fact that you're an aspiring scotch drinker, like you're really learning about scotch is what he does. And I drink bourbon. And he goes, I just thought that was really cool. So I kept listening to your podcast. And I thought to myself, it wasn't because of the guests. It wasn't because we were talking about we had a shared commonality of different types of whiskey. And that's what what got him in and how do I not share those things in my social media profiles and the conversations, he would have just when another podcast talking about marketing things. So that's the first thing I would say, when it comes to marketing. And the last thing I'll say on that is effective marketing is the balance of trust and attention. You've got to create an attention. You've got to get someone's attention to understand who you are and what you do, because you can be the most trusted professional industry. Nobody knows who you are, you're not going to do any business at the same time. You could be one of the most trusted mortgage professionals out there real estate professionals. You know, same thing. You've got to have balanced people knowing who you are, I could light myself on fire, put it on Facebook, all kinds of people might see it doesn't mean I've created that trust. So don't underestimate what a personal brand can do to not only create exposure and attention as well is follow that formula of know like and trust.
Brian Charlesworth 29:30
Okay, so you've talked about the know your audience, you then said know your message. And then you talked about the medium? Correct. So podcasting is one medium. How important do you feel it is to be across all mediums?
Phil Treadwell 29:48
Um, I think you need to have exposure in a lot of different places, right? Not not all your eggs in one basket kind of thing. Like for example, on social media, I think you need to be on multiple platforms, you know, if you're not spending a lot of time on multiple platforms, start at one, get a good rhythm there, go to the next one, you know, you've got to be out there on social media because different types of people are going to have their favorites within the social media platform world. I don't think that you have to go really really deep across a lot of different content types. And what I mean by that is there's really four main types of content you have written you've got audio or you know voice and then you have video and then you kind of have a part three B, which is pictures right you can still put out a lot of picture content, but essentially audio written and then video I'm very heavy in audio, but I use that to be something written where there's some long form you know, posts the you know, on Facebook or Instagram, I do some audio Graham's will take some screenshots or you know, sometimes I take the zoom recording like this and repurpose it into short videos, but you need to have the What your main platform is? And then from there, you can spread your net a little wider. But do I think people should have take a ton of time building out a podcast, as well as a YouTube channel, as well as posting, you know, multiple times a day on all the different social media profiles? No, I don't think so. I think again, that formula of know, who is your target audience? What message is it that you're trying to give them and then the third part is, you know what medium because typically, there's only one or two mediums that's going to most effectively deliver that particular message to that particular audience. For me, it's podcast and social media. I don't do a ton of video I did for a while my first 50 episodes, you can see the whole episode or a fraction of it on the mortgage marketing expert YouTube channel. What I found though, is 90% of my listeners, were either subscribed or they saw the podcast because of social media. I was not getting any lift of youtubers or YouTube people stumbling across it, and then going and listening to my podcasts. Yeah. And so I stopped doing that. So you have to have some clear focus, but you also need to spread your wings a little bit.
Brian Charlesworth 32:08
So when you say social media, what are the social media platforms you use to market your message to the mortgage industry?
Phil Treadwell 32:16
I think you need to be on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. I think you need to be on all four of those platforms. Again, you know, a lot of people will will kind of poopoo on the Twitter comment. The reason that I think Twitter matters, is it's a way to jump into conversations, right hash tagging and, you know, geographic area, you can find people talking about, you know, open houses, or, you know, mortgages or different things and jump into those conversations. Or if you're talking about what we were, you know, going over earlier, you can jump in and have conversations with people about things that have absolutely nothing to do with the industry and connect with people and then find out about what you do. But aside from Twitter, I think Facebook itself Graham and LinkedIn are probably the most important platforms and in mortgage and real estate, you'll have people again, that will turn up their nose at LinkedIn, because they're getting spammed by recruiters or people that want to hire them. But you have to think about it like we did with the podcast and business owners. What if you went in your local market and connected with business owners with young professionals or older professionals or whoever else is on there, and you started sharing content that they were engaged with? Well, then again, when they're in market or have someone, you're the one that they see. And LinkedIn engagement is as high as Facebook was, you know, seven, eight years ago right now, believe it or not, there's still more people consuming content on LinkedIn than there is people creating content, which will create more more engagement on the post that you put out there. And so you know, Facebook and Instagram, those are obvious choices, I would say on Facebook. You know, focus a lot on groups and focus on engaging with other people's content. If you post something on Facebook, you have between To 20% chance that someone's going to see it. But if you go comment and insightful comment on someone else's post, there's almost 100% chance that they're going to see it. So when you're talking about engagement, sometimes it's not about posting all the time as much as it as engaging with other people's content. And so again, you know, those are I think it's important to be across all four platforms.
Brian Charlesworth 34:23
So I noticed you didn't say Tiktok, now Gary Vee is all over Tiktok. I think he's up to, I guess, 6 million viewers there. My son just hit 4.5 million. He just hit 5 million on Tiktok. Now because he's got 5 million on Tick Tock. He's got hundreds of thousands on every other platform. I know Tiktok is kind of a different audience. But you know, Gary Vee. He's not necessarily the Tiktok audience either so he's had success with it. I noticed you didn't bring that up. Most business professionals are not yet on Tiktok, what's your what's your
Phil Treadwell 34:59
life Tiktok is As a platform, I am a tick tock consumer. I do have a Tiktok account. I have a few posts on there. It's mainly been me trying to familiarize myself with the platform, but since I went and did my recording what's been nine or 10 months ago, I have been an active tik tok participants. The reason I don't mention it is because I'm still not sure how it's scalable within business. I totally agree that someone can go put good content on Tiktok go to a huge audience which will spill over into their other social media profiles. But I typically only talk about platforms that I know for sure or have a strategy of how that can be parlayed into business. I totally agree. It's a viral platform that's aging up extremely quickly that you can get a ton of engagement with. But unless that engagement and content online can translate to offline business and sales, right then then it's not something that I don't feel good about. About endorsing, I think everybody should have a Tiktok account, I think you need to learn the platform. And there's a lot of other social networks out there that aren't maybe getting quite as much exposure that you need to familiarize yourself with just like on Instagram reels came out. I know how to do reels. Now I'm experimenting with it and playing with it. We need to continue to be learning. The only reason I didn't mention it isn't because people shouldn't do it. It's that I don't know how to effectively articulate if you do x and then y here is your result in business. And I agree with Gary Vee. There's lots of ways to do it. I'm just still learning it myself. And so I don't want to I don't want to speak out of turn points in the wrong direction.
Brian Charlesworth 36:39
Yeah, I mean, I I haven't done anything business wise on Tiktok either, but I watch Gary Vee and I think the biggest thing that I look at when I see that is that is the up and coming generation. And he's already got their attention when they're still in there, you know, call it 15 to 20 Two years old and they're already listening to Gary Vee because he's on tik tok. So holy. I think if you want to capture that younger generation, great place to start, you just need to figure out how to be effective on it, which is a different animal, especially for business people.
Phil Treadwell 37:14
It is. And I think there's another part of that conversation that if you're trying to reach people within your community, any social media platform will do it and tick tock may help you really create a huge following in your community because Tick Tock does, the algorithm is going to show you in your for you page, people that are geographically closer to you than others, right that's built into the algorithm. So if you're putting out great content, and that's a few of the pages that I follow a lot, are talking about cool restaurants or hidden gems in the DFW area because I live here in Dallas. And so yes, that's a great way to do exposure when it comes to understanding a tick tock algorithm versus the LinkedIn algorithm versus a Facebook or Instagram. They're all very different animals. So that's, you know, again, if someone's not participating in Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram, they need to start there, in my opinion before jumping into a Tiktok is totally,
Brian Charlesworth 38:11
I totally agree, that's your opinion.
Phil Treadwell 38:12
Yeah, yeah. And so I think that's, that is where things are going. Assuming you there's obviously some political turmoil about what that looks like. But yeah, I think in at the end of the day, if you put out good content that people want to engage with on any platform, people will find out that your mortgage and real estate professional, so that's kind of the long and short of it.
Brian Charlesworth 38:32
Yeah. Awesome. Okay. I want to learn more about this in the industry syndicate that you started. How long has that been now? Like a year and a half? Something like that?
Phil Treadwell 38:40
Yeah. So we found it in the beginning of 2019. Okay,
Brian Charlesworth 38:44
That makes sense. That's really just when we were launching our software platform, and I was talking to one of your co founders there about, about driving us into the mortgage industry. But tell us what that is. I mean, what is the industry syndicate?
Phil Treadwell 38:58
Yeah, so the industry syndicate is The first and largest Podcast Network specifically for mortgage and real estate professionals. And again, I'm a huge podcasting advocate and evangelist. And there was a handful of us that got together, who were all podcasters, who were speaking in a lot of the same industry conferences and then kept running into each other. And we all had the same question about a year and a half, two years ago when we were, you know, starting our podcast, which was where do I find other podcasts like yours because at the end of the day, if someone is enjoying consuming a podcast, they're going to listen to others. So what we decided is we wanted to be a go to resource for mortgage and real estate professionals to find good content that was relevant for modern mortgage and real estate professionals. And so we have about 32 or 33 shows that are all podcasts, specifically for mortgage or real estate professionals or both. They're for mortgage real estate professionals. So we don't really have any podcasts that go direct to consumer. These are podcast designed to help people build their business. And so it wasn't a big decision other than, hey, let's, you know, formalize this, let's create a name. Everybody has a little industry syndicate logo that fits in the bottom of their cover art. We liked it because it looked similar to the Parental Advisory logo that was on the CDs and tapes whenever we were kids. And so it kind of draws people's attention down. They're like, you know, what is this industry syndicate. And as we've grown and evolve, we have a mobile app where people can see our shows can listen to some of our shows through the app can participate in a community and talk with other you know, listeners and show hosts and things of that nature. But really, it was just about making sure we could add value to the industry and sending people to get the industry syndicate mobile app on Google Play or Apple App Store or go online and see a list of our shows. We felt like that was a lot easier than saying hey, Here is the five best, you know, real estate podcasts or whatever. So we we just kind of put a collaborative together and a network. And we've had a lot of support and we're trying to help each other increase our audiences and, you know, provide better content to the industry.
Brian Charlesworth 41:16
So what does somebody need to do to get on the industry syndicate and as a real estate podcast? I'm not on that syndicate. So what what needs to happen there? I mean, if if I'm on there, then you're on there on my show. Right? Right.
Phil Treadwell 41:30
Yeah. So you know, it does happen we do Sherry guests with with one another, and, and we are guests on each other's podcast, but now it's as simple as reaching out to Dustin Brown who has the massive agent podcast, he and I are the co founders. And, you know, we we look at a couple different things. One is we want to make sure that someone has an audience size, you know there. Right now we have about 250 or 300,000 monthly listeners across all of our shows, and so we are able to provide each other Some lift and so we do we look at you know, Does someone have a decent audience size do they fit in a niche that maybe we're not covering you know if we have three or four shows that are all talking about the exact same thing you know it's tends to get watered down we want to add some value as far as that as well. But you know, we typically just have conversations make sure you have a like mind and we put it together. Awesome.
Brian Charlesworth 42:23
I read something about you, I don't remember where it was, but you were talking about closing gifts backfiring. I wanna I want to hear more about this because I think most real estate agents do provide closing gifts. We we just rolled out a program at sea Zoo on the behalf of our agents to provide allow them to provide closing gift through us to their clients. So I really would love to hear your perspective on this.
Phil Treadwell 42:52
So that's interesting that you read some because I know that again Dustin Brohm and I on his podcast, I want to say it was before Last Christmas, I did an episode about it. And I've had you know some people on mine where we've talked about it but so I think promo items and closing gifts are done in a way that we feel good about giving a gift and we don't spend as much time thinking about what that gift may mean to the person right? They want to make sure that their logos big and huge on it and so that it's you know, okay for tax purposes and again, and mortgage real estate, the tax ramifications are expensive, you know, ability or whatnot. Those are different. So I'm not an accountant. I'm, that's my disclaimer, I'm not giving any accounting advice. But I will say that whenever you're giving a closing gift, when you're when you're handing out promo items, christmas gifts, whatever. Think about things that people will want to use and use it to remind them of you. If you have to put your name and your brand logo on a gift so large that they quote unquote never forget you then you've not been done a great job of making the type of impression during the transaction to create that customer for life experience and putting your name on a cutting board or a Cutco knives or something like that isn't going to do that. And so I try to think of things that people will keep around the news. One of my favorites is a wine opener, a really nice wine bottle opener, and only because it worked on me a guy had given me one he was an account executive, he gave me one I threw it in the drawer, but if anybody out there drinks wine, you can never have enough because as soon as you need one, it's never where you want it to be. Right. And so I have one you know, it has our company name on there. But there you need to think about what those things are for people as far as you know, promo gifts or closing gifts. If you can take an experience or conversation that you had with that person and parlay that into a gift That's where you're solidifying that impression. And again, there's lots of really cool companies that provide all kinds of branded gifts and I'm not taking anything away from it. But again, I personally am not going to use a cutting board with a big real estate logo in the middle of it with the name across the bottom call me or even some of the things that you put on your your magnets and things like that on there. Just Just be realistic. What do you use in your life? What would you keep? What would you use? And then again, personalize it that particular person, what is something that you know is going to make them think of me because I've already done a good job of solidifying that relationship?
Brian Charlesworth 45:39
Yeah. Okay. Great. Thanks for sharing that. So I'm just have a few questions to wrap up here. I know we're running short on time. Just have a few more minutes left. I would love to get your I know you listen to a ton of podcasts. I know you read a ton of books. What book or podcast would you recommend, other than positive Your own podcast,
Phil Treadwell 46:02
I'm mortgage marketing expert podcast now. Man, I listened to a ton of podcasts anybody on industry syndicate is going to be great for mortgage and real estate professionals. I will shout them out. You know, I read a ton of books my favorite books right now as far as some how to use, relentless by Tim Grover because again, I'm a sports guy that would really had a huge impact. There's one never split the difference by Chris Voss. He's a was a former FBI negotiator and then principles by Ray Dalio has been a huge impact on me. It's a tough one to read, you kind of have to take it in pieces. So I think that those are those are three that you know, over the last six months or a year that I think have been very impactful. And then anything by Seth Godin, I'm a huge fan.
Brian Charlesworth 46:55
Yeah, I agree. Awesome. Thank you. What about your favorite place to visit
Phil Treadwell 47:00
That's tough, In the US or anywhere?
Brian Charlesworth 47:05
Anywhere
Phil Treadwell 47:06
you know, the exumas the exuma islands in the Bahamas are pretty incredible. My wife and I traveled there and I think if we do a tropical vacation you know assuming this COVID stuff is done and over with that will definitely be where we're gonna go.
Brian Charlesworth 47:20
Are you are you guys traveling right now?
Phil Treadwell 47:24
Um, I mean yeah, I mean I there's some engagements that I have coming up for work that I'm traveling, you know, we've we've pretty much been quarantined or in the house for the last several months but we are getting out and about you know, we're social distancing sanitizing masks, you know, all that kind of stuff. We our fifth anniversary is coming up in October. And so we're trying to figure out logistically, if we can make it happen if we can get somewhere we will travel, but it's just a matter of whether places will let us in or not, because there's some countries that aren't super happy about us Americans right now. So
Brian Charlesworth 47:54
Right. Okay, what's your What's your favorite thing to do in your personal time?
Phil Treadwell 48:00
Again, this is gonna sound redundant love podcasts love to read. I also am an avid guitar player, I love to play guitar. And, you know, being outside, you know, sometimes that's traveling sometimes it's working out, but those are the things that keep me Zen that keeps me in a good, you know, headspace and mental attitude. Then, of course, you know, maybe some craft beer, some scotch that doesn't hurt either.
Brian Charlesworth 48:24
How long have you been playing guitar I've always wanted to start and I never have so.
Phil Treadwell 48:29
So I started at age 15. And so I can't say that I've been playing for 23 years, but I started playing 23 years ago. At that time, I had some buddies that learn to play at the same time, we'd all go learn a bunch of different songs and get together on the weekend to teach each other so we learned three times as fast. And then I played off and on since then, you know, I'm probably an intermediate guitar player. I'm not an expert by any stretch of imagination, but I think it's an instrument that anybody at any age can pick up. My brother in particular was a music major through college. He was a trumpet player, a jazz musician, just super talented. And he didn't pick up guitar until his early 30s. You know, over the last 10 years, he's a heck of a lot better guitar player than I am. And I've been playing, you know, twice as long as he has.
Brian Charlesworth 49:15
Okay, good to know. I'm really the last thing. And I know you've already given so much advice, but if there was just something you could leave with us, just as far as the most important piece of advice that you'd want to leave today, what would that be?
Phil Treadwell 49:36
You know, on a practical level, I would say there's a big difference between marketing and sales, marketing, get someone's attention. It's sales that makes them a customer. And a lot of times we think we're marketing when really what we're doing is selling and then is a part B to that. I would say never stop learning and I don't know Hear how you learn if you don't want to listen to this, you know, obviously you're listening to this podcast with it. You know, don't listen to mine or you don't want to read books. That's cool. But But you have to continue to learn. You got to learn about your business, you've got to learn about life. You've got to learn about, you know, marketing and sales and all the things that make us professionals. And I think that's the people that live fulfilling lives, both personally professionally are ones that are continuing to grow continuing to learn and, and through that everything else comes easy.
Brian Charlesworth 50:26
Yeah, I totally agree. Growth equals happiness. It's really that easy. Absolutely. So, thank you, Phil. I know people are gonna want to reach out to you. What is the best way to get ahold of you?
Phil Treadwell 50:40
Anywhere on social media, you can find me at Phil Treadwell. My website, Philtreadwell.com. Or you can go to mmepodcast.com. stands for mortgage marketing expert. I'm pretty easy to get ahold of through socials, and I've got some email addresses and stuff on there as well.
Brian Charlesworth 50:56
All right, so Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. It's been a lot of fun. You've given some great advice and some things that I'm definitely going to take into my businesses. So
Phil Treadwell 51:05
Brian, I appreciate what you're doing for the industry. appreciate you having me on and big fan.
Brian Charlesworth 51:10
Yeah, thank you.
