Six Channels Loan Officers Need When AI Answers First | The Way S2E05

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Maintaining relevancy in a world that’s soon to be dominated by AI. Gosh. That’s not a good playbook. I don’t know what is. But you know what? Here’s the thing. You’re gonna listen to Alec Hanson here, and he’s gonna go through his like entire playbook of that exact topic. The funny part is how much of it is old school. Now, you got to have serious tactics and new ways of doing things, but the reality is it’s still very old school. So make sure you listen because he’s gonna go through each and every step of how to remain relevant in a world that’s soon to be dominated by AI. We’ve been hearing that a lot, but this is gonna be a great spin. You’re gonna love it. Hope you guys enjoy the show. Mr. Hanson. Let’s go, baby. Good to see you, dude. I’m calling you Mr. because you got you got some gray in your beard now. Oh, and you’ve always been the younger man, but hey, I think you’re starting to catch up in wisdom finally. It yeah, apparently. I’ll I’ll take wisdom over hairline. That’s great. So Alec Hanson, uh dude, you’ve you’ve uh to me, you’re still the younger man because you were younger. I I remember you starting in Newport Beach uh when you know I was just slightly older than you, but you you took the community by storm. You were just a real a-hole, but yes, you know, hey, you came you you lit the freaking town on fire and and you made it happen. And here we are all these years later. Um, I I’m you know, I still marvel at how, and I’m going way back because I I still marvel at how you were just this young kid and you came in. You you really did. You like lit it on fire, like everybody was hearing about you, right? You were everywhere. So there’s a lot to be said about that. But this gray hair that that we both have now brings some wisdom, and I’m hoping that through all our collective years of doing loans, we can bring wisdom to the listeners and and help them to be uh better at their trade at what they do so that they can be more successful without having to go through all of the trials. I think some trials are important, right? Because they shape you. Yeah, but I hope we can make life easier for people. You in for doing that today?

ALEC HANSON: Yeah, you can’t dodge the hard work, but you can definitely find the path. You still got to walk it. But yes, I’m in, dude.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: All right. So Alec Hanson, loanDepot. Um, I think I read 7 billion or something, uh, is your region, something like that. Sure. Nothing big. Yeah.

ALEC HANSON: Yeah, you know, look, titles are a lot of fun things. No one cares. Everyone cares about how they can be helped or what they can find that serves them today. So, you know, if that’s if that’s my past and titles and history, great. But I’m here to, you know, help someone get better.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Awesome. And and I guess right there I want to transition for a minute because most people on here are trying to help people get into homes, trying to help people. You’ve taken this whole different path. Like you’re and I I have as well. That’s why it means something to me. I’ve stopped trying to get people into homes, and and I’ve actually literally thought through this a little bit. As an individual, no matter how busy I am, how good I am, I can only get a certain amount of people into homes and change their lives, which was always the thing. But if I do this properly now, and I think you’re on the same boat, and and we teach the the other mortgage advisors how to do this, we can actually get significantly more people, change significantly more lives to teach these guys how to do it properly. And I like for our mission at our company, it’s always been like empower, equip, and educate and and you know, the way lending should be done. Yeah, and I think there’s something to be said about the way lending should be done.

ALEC HANSON: Yep. Yeah, a million percent. And too, you know, Dino, I know you’re on this journey too. A lot of it, once you kind of find yourself, so to speak, is you learn that it the journey is about who you’re becoming. You know, yeah, yeah. I mean, around the people you impact, but it’s really about what’s happening here thewhole time. And because that’s that’s who we got to live with and stare at the end of the day. So I that’s a much more rewarding journey than just how much, you know, how many deals can I write?

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Yeah, agreed. So let’s let’s start with you know who Alec Hanson is right now, personally and professionally.

ALEC HANSON: How deep you want to go?

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Let’s keep a surface level.

ALEC HANSON: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m a I’m a classically trained street mortgage originator. So let’s start there, right? Back in the glory days of Thomas guides and map quest printouts and you know, belly to belly and all of human knowledge wasn’t in our pockets yet. So you had to learn kind of the way of the street, right? You had to go out and meet people and build relationships. Uh, I was taught that if I could convince some realtors that I was worthy of their trust, that they could change my life forever and that they could send me clients and that they could help me build a business and a career. And um, I took that to heart. And so when I say I’m classically trained, I mean like, you know, I was out building relationships before the internet really was the internet. And all that did was give me a perspective to translate into how to see the internet today, the changes today, the digital strategies today, in a in a different paradigm. So I hope to share that today, Dino, with everybody, because I think the game we’re playing hasn’t changed. I think the places we’re playing it’s changed. Um, but the game remains the same as in build relationships and help people. I think those, I think that’s the core of where we’re going here.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Yeah, I I agree. Um how did you word that? Classically trained, what did you say? Yeah, classically originator.

ALEC HANSON: Yeah, yeah.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: And and you know, there’s something uh to be said about that that that I feel that everybody should have to go through some, you know, moments of being uncomfortable. Yeah. Right?

ALEC HANSON: It’s gonna make you better. You can’t avoid it, man. You it sales is all uncomfortable. In fact, as we get into the media today, you know, everything I’m gonna say is probably gonna make people feel uncomfortable because they’re gonna realize that the stuff they have to do is is uncomfortable. But that should be the the the green flag light switch moment of, oh, I’ve got to lean into it. Clearly, you know, everything that I’ve achieved of worth has been through getting uncomfortable. So let’s go get in the pool.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: So when when I um asked you before the show even started about, you know, if if we have to, because the whole goal now, right? Like I’ve we’ve shifted into this season two. Yeah, I’m trying to be a lot more focused. Yeah, trying to to produce a a playbook for everybody after the show’s over, like downloadable playbook with details of how to grow your business. Yeah. And and in order to have a successful business, there’s a million different things you have to do, right? There’s some core pillars, but when I asked you, your your response was maintain relevancy in a world soon to be dominated by AI. So let’s just jump right into it and go right to that. When when you read that question, you responded like that. Go deep now for me into what that means.

ALEC HANSON: Okay. Let’s paint the foundation so everyone can have a jumping point. Um, first, this business, no matter how much it tries to get commoditized by competition or kind of put into a box by the latest tech company or whatever it is, this business is a human-centric business, meaning real estate is physical. You have to go to the house, you have to touch things, you have to check it out. There’s inspections. So we we try to make it virtual, but it’s not. It’s a very and it and it’s also highly emotional. It’s a highly emotional transaction. One of the biggest stresses in life is like moving and getting financing, and uh, it’s just it’s just up there at the top. So the core of my paradigm and my belief is that people do business in this industry with people that they like, know, and trust. And so there’s a by the way, people trust brands and companies and all that things. We can unpack that, but I I still believe this is a people-centric business, and that’s my paradigm. And so going from that launch place in the glory days, the only way to get access to the people was to talk to realtors because you you didn’t know who wanted to move. You you couldn’t, there was no apps, there was no lead aggregators, there was no that you just you just had to talk to realtors because they knew who was moving, because they were the ones hustling in the streets, door knocking, finding out who was moving, networking like crazy. Like they were doing the direct to consumer strategy of the time. And so, as a loan officer, I you had to go to the realtor. They had access to all the knowledge. The MLS was private, you couldn’t get it on your phone, you couldn’t find out what was for sale unless you open the newspaper, God forbid, like, or drive around. Like that was the time. And so people made decisions based on realtors they liked, knew, and trusted. And they built that through all that direct to consumer activity. So then, boom, pops the loan officer. Realtor Ace, they built trust, they like them. I love you, Dino. Who do you got? And they go, you got to work with my guy Alec. And so that was the playbook, right? Fast forward, now access to information is insane. Everyone’s got all of the information in their pocket from multiple different sources to find out what’s for sale, what’s moving, what are trends, what are pricing histories, what’s the appreciation in my market. Like it’s just all thrown at some people. Now, some of it’s crap on the internet, but for the most part, you can find good stuff and people are getting more competent. So now to find out what’s for sale, you don’t really have to talk to a human anymore at all. Now, I always put an asterisk on it because there’s still the old school stuff. If you want to find off-market properties, things that are cooking, things that aren’t coming on the market yet, yeah, you got to go to the human still. They are, they are they’re the underground, they know what’s happening. But for the most part, consumers today don’t do that. So I wrote a book in 18 called Bypassed, which talked about the fact that consumers are going to be bypassing local professionals and going to the internet and then being swept up by other means to find their way back to local professionals. It’s very ironic. You know, you start digitally and you end locally, but that’s the trend that was happening. And then you look at screen time and social media, and it’s clear that the consumer is spending more and more time on screens and less time, you know, asking for referrals. Now they still do, but that’s the game now. So that was in 2018. Look now today at 2026, AI is gonna be the predominant partner for consumers. It already is for the people like I you ask anybody who’s using Chat GPT on a daily basis, the hands go up in great numbers. And then you go to the second tier people who are like, oh, I’m not using Chat GPT, I’m still using Google. And I’m like, well, that’s Gemini now. That’s Gemini now, that’s AI. You don’t, it’s it’s all gonna be AI. So I kind of joke that like people are like, well, I’m I’m not gonna be into AI, I don’t, I don’t trust it. I’m like, you don’t have a choice, baby. It’s adopting you. It’s gonna be in everything you do, it’s gonna be in all your emails, all your phone. It’s it’s here. So it’s not going away. And so when I talk about relevancy, what I’m really talking about is if a consumer wants to know what’s going on in real estate, or let’s just be zooming on mortgage, they want to know what’s going on in mortgages, they want to know what the rates are, they want to know if it’s now a good time to refinance, they want to know the trends of historical interest rates, they want to know the economic news that could be coming out to affect interest rates. AI is just gonna tell it to them, it’s just gonna serve it up to them. They’re gonna have Barry Habib in their pocket, pocket every consumer. Like, and it’s like people like, well, not today. Well, yeah, but soon. Like, that’s where the puck’s going. Like, pay attention. Like it, it you’re gonna you’re becoming irrelevant every second because they’re not calling you for information, they’re gonna talk to their AI. So that’s where I see the world going. And I people disagree with me, they they but but I don’t think that I’m wrong. And so when when you think about that, and like you and I, you know, look at think about loan officers with a great book of business, a lot of established clients. Uh, they’re very established in the community, everyone knows who they are. And you ask them.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: By the way, real real quick, I just can’t help myself. I I think I think I have to create a meme out of that. I don’t think I’m wrong. Yeah, I’m not wrong.

ALEC HANSON: As aggressively as I can say it, because your book of business is not going to call you and ask what the rates are. They’re just gonna go, what are the rates today? And should I refinance? And who should I re who can give me the best price to the best deal? Like, that’s what they’re going to do. And so when I talk about relevancy, I still think this is a human game, meaning when they ask AI. I had I have a friend of mine, a colleague, who just got his first referral from AI. Like he called me and he was like, Chat GPT referred me for this guy in another state, not even California, another state. Chat GPT said to call this guy in California. He’s like, I don’t even know. I just I just yeah, uh and I’m like, so this is clearly going to be a trend line to pay attention to. And as consumers shift in this behavioral trend, the loan officer is gonna face a relevancy issue because they’re not gonna think of us, they’re just gonna talk to AI. And AI is now gonna be a new referral source for people, and that’s gonna be very disruptive. Plus, I know this is going down the rabbit hole, Dino, but plus, there are going to be a ton of mortgage companies popping up right now where they’re gonna say, no loan officer, because they’re ripoff artists. They’ve said that before, they’re gonna say it again. All you gotta do is talk to this AI agent, agentic AI loan officer, who’s gonna give you the best advice, way more superior than a human, the best pricing, way more superior. You don’t have to pay commissions to all these people. That’s here, that’s gonna be tomorrow. So now you’re gonna be competing against agentic AI LOs, let alone whatever wherever else AI is sending your clients. This is a big threat for the future role officers.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Yeah, I agree. Um the just to clarify a couple things, right? Because um, yeah, yeah. I I I hate fear. Um it’s good in some cases, right? But like when it paralyzes you, I’m just like, gosh, come on, let’s let’s get be a little smarter than that. So one thing I just want to talk through for a minute, the agentic loan officer. Uh I have not followed any longer because I want it put out of my mind for a while, although I don’t forget, because I’m all in on AI and I’m all in on future. So I’m not like being not putting my head in the sand. But do you even think that’s going to be possible to have an unlicensed electronic AI agent doing loans?

ALEC HANSON: Yeah, and I’ll tell you why. Today, there’s a lot of mortgage companies that post their rates on the internet. That’s not a loan officer. There, there’s not, there’s just a rate. There are mortgage companies today where you can fully self-serve, lock your own rate, have it presented to you on the internet, pick it, lock it, get it, gets handed off to whoever, and you’re moving on. So I don’t think it’s a far reach to say at some point an AI chat agent slash agentic ALO could be riding shotgun to that self-serve experience. Um, I I think that’s totally possible. Now, now, will consumers use it? Is another whole question. You know, people can self-serve today, but they still talk to loan, they still talk to people. Because back to my premise, I think this is a human-centric business, and that that doesn’t work and serve the way customers want to be served. But I absolutely think it’s on the roadmap coming coming at us.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Yeah, I agree. You know, um, one of the things you were talking about is like when somebody wants to know something, they’re just gonna pick up the phone and start talking to it, right? And it’s not gonna be a a search per se. It’s you know, going to be a little bit more detail, what exactly they’re looking for, what exactly they’re trying to do. And um, I think there’s gonna be a lot more that comes along with it. So I want to dig into that a little bit, yeah, because I think it it’s no longer it’s going there. I think most people still would say best mortgage broker in, you know, whatever. Uh, but I do believe things are gonna change a little bit. And I’m saying that because number one, I’ve done enough research to think to know that people are starting to get used to just talking more, more like, hey, that’s my best buddy, so I’m just gonna ask. But also, I witnessed my son recently, who’s 14, and you know, um, there’s still many like blocks because you’re underage on stuff, and and he’s got him to understand that. So he’s learned how to bypass that. So, for example, he’s he loves airsoft, and you know, we have all these airsoft battles at our house, and so he’s he’s all into his gear and stuff, and when he gets a little too deep, it tends to warn him or even block him. So he he got on, and now he even knows he has to switch AI devices sometimes in order to so that he does they don’t know. And he says, I’m I’m 26 years old, but I still have a very slender um you know body, probably more like a you know, like a 14-year-old. 15-year-old, yeah. Can you recommend the best kind? And I’m just like, man, that is real, you’re so good, you know? Like you figured it out. So the fact of the matter is the where I’m going with it is that he’s talking to it instead of just asking it one question, and then he has to decipher. He’s looking for a more exact result uh from his question. So when when we think through that, how does somebody get picked up by saying that, you know, I want to go buy a house in Newport Beach? I’m looking to spend somewhere between two and a half to three and a half million dollars. Ideally, I need a three or four bedroom. Um, I need to have a good, you know, whatever school system. And somebody’s gonna start talking like that more and more often. Why would they pick loan officer, you know, B instead of loan officer X?

ALEC HANSON: So this is how I think about this. And and and I’m gonna take your question and go a different direction, not because I don’t want to answer it that way, but because this is how my brain works. I I don’t think any of us need to concern ourselves with how advanced AI is going to get in the turn in the sense of its ability to serve and help and guide people, because I think it’s gonna get really advanced. I think it’s gonna be listening to people all the time. I think it’s gonna be living alongside humans all the time. I think it’s gonna know, do you know, exactly what you’re going through, what you like and dislike. And over time, those repetitions make it smarter. For example, we released an AI call assistant, right? So a call assistant. Everyone’s gonna have a call assistant. That’s like saying I released a car, like everyone has cars. But one of the things that’s interesting is we filled that AI call assistant with 10,000 hours of recorded conversations from our direct call center. It has 10,000 hours of background on how to talk to people and how to answer objections and how to solve problems and how to pacify frustration, 10,000 hours. So if you compare a call agent out of the box that has no training and one that has 10,000 hours of call center training, one’s gonna outperform the other. So I can look forward in time and go, man, this is gonna get really sophisticated. Yeah, there’ll be laggards and there’ll be people that are catching up. It’s gonna get, but it’s gonna get really sophisticated really fast, especially around the consumer. If I’m, if your son and my son, about the same age, mine’s 15, start having an AI assistant now, in 15 years, that AI assistant will have lived with them for 15 years. How much knowledge will they have intrinsically? Even my ChatGPT today, that like it knows so much, it knows my life, it knows so much about me because I talk to it all the time. So it’s like, well, based on your past stuff, I’m like, ooh, remember this past stuff. So it’s gonna get sophisticated, but here’s why it doesn’t matter for us. We can’t stop or get involved or hinder the progress. It’s not, that’s not, that’s not just gonna happen around us. What we can do though is we can evolve our existing strategies today to be ready for a future where this could potentially be real. Like agentic AI LO assistants, uh LOs. I don’t know when they’re coming, if they’re coming, maybe they never come. Maybe the licensing world just comes down and crushes it, says you can’t have these, and fine. I still need to get prepared for if it does happen. And so this is also where, as apart from being this scary thing, this is also a huge opportunity thing because it’s kind of a wake-up call. If my future customer is gonna be chatting with an AI agent all the time, how do I maintain my relevancy with that human being so that they think of me? And secondarily, how do I maintain my relevancy with the general populace that I’m trying to influence? So these would be like leads, prospects, everybody else, or people that are gonna Google me when they’re referred to me. How do I maintain that relevancy with my act, my actions? What do I control? And this goes right into your playbook. So can we dive into that real quick? And like just like, what do I control? Well, let’s go old school and then get to new school. The old school stuff. I control, so so we have to agree. So if anyone listening, you have to agree with my premise that people do business with people they like, no one trusts. And secondarily, if they do, then you need to get people to know you. That’s number one. That you like, and I kind of look at this as concentric ring. So the first ring is who knows you? And if you start with like my book of business, my past clients, my realtors, great. They know you. Now, how do you stay relevant in that know you game? Well, let’s go old school. You got to call them. Like if you’re in relationships with somebody and I care about you, I should call you. Now they’re not, I’m not married to them, so I’m not going to call them a couple times a day. But like, what’s the appropriate frequency to call someone to let them know that you care about them, that you want to earn their business and you want to stay in connection with them. And so I’ll let everyone write their own answer down to that. Mine’s once a quarter. I think that’s the right cadence. But I would challenge everybody, as I walk through the playbook that’s in my head, put your own spin on it and do the things that you would want done to you, the golden rule style. So if you think one call a quarter is not enough and you would have preferred more as a client, then do more. But do it based on what you would actually want to receive. So there’s the call. The second one is the text. If I care about somebody, I text them. Well, how often should I text people? Well, I’m gonna compliment my once a quarter and say text them also once a quarter. So there’s two intentional contacts that are one-to-one centric. Next, email.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Can I can I pause real quick? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh so it’s interesting you say this because my big thing recently has been somebody, somebody asked me, like, hey, do we have uh any campaigns that I can be a I can jump into and be a part of? And and I’m like, no, no more campaigns. Campaigns are dead. They’re dead. They’re dead. And I said, if you try putting any of your clients on the exact same campaign, if you send all your clients the exact same thing, you’re failing 100% miserably failing. So I’m just gonna add to this because I think it’s super important. Number one, and you’re probably gonna get to this, so sorry. Uh you you have to record everything, like transcripts on everything you do. So, my my whole viewpoint, what I what I’ve been trying to preach, nobody listens yet, by the way, except for very few. Oh, they’re hearing, they’re hearing, they’re just not executing, but they’re hearing not executing, is at the end of the transaction, it’s all over with. You don’t have a reason to call every single day or email or text every single day, right? And and it would be a little creepy if you did. You gotta you gotta pair it up. And like you said, what is that right number per quarter? Is it once a quarter? Is it a couple times, but whatever it is, you you decide. But I think if you do this right, you don’t even have to decide. You can let your AI assistant decide for you. And and the way I’ve been describing it is you have enough communication now, whether it was text, email, or phone call through the transcripts, that at the end of the entire transaction, you should talk to your assistant and you’d say, okay, based on, and this is what I’m trying so hard to train everybody to do, with a confidence score of one to 10, what love language do these borrowers have? And a confidence score of one to 10. What is their disk profile? Now, at the end, create a personalized campaign, not for husband and wife together, but each of them individually, based on that. If they have a if you have a confidence score of seven or higher, I want you to um draft the email or text message based on which the one they prefer in a line of communication, and go ahead and set that up for me and send it out once a month, once a quarter, whatever it is that you think. So that’s all I wanted to add to that is that’s that’s where we’re going right now. And imagine, I I mean, dude, I don’t know if you ever took the love language test, but the my top two were my wife’s bottom two. Perfect, right? It’s like we’re completely separate when it comes to that. So, why would somebody trying to communicate to to me the way my wife likes to be communicated to? I laugh at it and I don’t eat, I delete it. Same with my wife, she’ll do the exact same thing. Like, we have to get so much better at what we do, and this is our opportunity, too. So, well, keep going. The next was email.

ALEC HANSON: I’m gonna go right off what you said though. We have to get better at what we do, and I’m I’m gonna pick up right where you left, right? Your comment on the drip campaign bullshit, like the set it and forget it stuff. It’s dead, it’s terrible. It actually is causing you harm in your business. It’s not, it’s not doing anything positive for you. So you’ve got to intentionally make outbound effort to people. Intention and time and effort is what builds relationships. And so you got calls and texts, do them right, do them personalized, put in the effort, put in the hard work. AI your way out your way out of hard work. It’s meant it’s like it’s like with our wife. If I had AI set call my wife to sit in the date night, no, not good. I need to do it. I need to be like, we’re going out Thursday. Can here’s like I got the sitter handled. Like, I need to put the effort in. I can’t let AI replace me. It’s not gonna work. So you’ve got calls, texts, emails is a great one. Look, email has got a 30% open rate. Email is a one-to-many. We all know this. It’s kind of table stakes, but here’s the deal: you can do a shitty email and you can do a great email. And you can do a shitty one to one to many email and a great one-to-many email. One to many is still okay with email. It’s okay. You don’t have to write 5,000 personal emails to people. You could, but you could you can do a one-to-many. That’s okay. Here’s what I always put the asterisk on. What do you want to get an email? Because we get a thousand emails a day. You and me both, a thousand emails a day from crap. What do you want to get? What do you think adds value? Do that. Write something that you write, not AI, that you send to your people to make an impact in their life, whether it’s bringing a little positivity, a cool tip. If you’re into housing data, put housing data into that. If you’re into wine, talk about wine. I don’t care. Whatever you’re into. This is a personal human connection. Tell them what’s going on. So email is another strategy. You got to leverage. I think physical mail is this the fourth area we’re jumping into, Dino, is coming back in a massive way. It cut it requires investment and intentionality and all the things we just talked about. But if you’re going to make an impact on somebody, send them something physical in the mail. It’s going to make a mark. Steve Sims, he passed away. He wrote a book called Blue Fishing. I heard him speak once and he said, I’ve never seen someone open an envelope with one hand. And he was talking about the fact that we all hold our phones at all times and we don’t put our phones down. And he’s like, when you send somebody something physical, they have to put the phone down and open it. It’s a tactile thing. And so in a world of AI slop and all the stuff that’s coming at us, I think that an intentional physical mail strategy wins, where you send somebody something that’s going to brighten their day. They’re going to remember you. So I’ll put physical mail up there. Now we can get a little bit into the digital, but I’m going to slide that direction, starting with events, human connection events. If you’re writing a playbook on how to drive more business, you need to figure out how to do one to four. So I’m sorry, two to four community events. Now, before people overthink this, it can be as old school as a lunch and learn. It can be as new school as a think and drink. It can be a charity event you’re inviting people to that you support. It can be a run club that you are inviting people to or a bike club. It could be a weight loss competition at the gym you go to. It doesn’t have to, it could be a chili cook-off or who makes the best smoked brisket. It doesn’t have to be this, like, I know guys that host an Easter egg hunt in their neighborhood. Like it doesn’t, we don’t we overcomplicate this. But where I want to inspire someone to open their eyes a little bit is a community event you put on does so many, whether it’s a micro or a macro thing, does so many cool things. So let me give two examples. The think and drink. Um, I had a loan officer tell me once that he really wants to bring people together because he values this stuff, but he’s never gonna host a lunch and learn because he’s terrified of public speaking. You’re just not gonna do it. You can talk to individuals in front of a group. He and I’m like, well, what do you like doing? He goes, drinking. And I go, okay, I’m in. Do you go to like the same bars? He’s like, absolutely. There’s a few bars we go to with my buddies all the time. I go, okay, here’s what you’re gonna do. Every 90 days, you’re gonna host a think and drink. And at the think and drink, you’re gonna bring somebody else in, a subject matter expert for the first 10 minutes who’s gonna just talk about a topic and you’re gonna buy everybody their first round. And then after that, it’s just a networking event. And so you’re gonna use that every 90 days to invite realtors, to invite past clients, to invite everyone in. And he’s like, Well, who do I invite? I’m like, stop overcomplicating this. Bring a freaking appraiser in. Let them talk about what’s going on. The realtors will come and listen. They want to drink anyway. Bring an estate planner in to talk about a will and a trust, like for your home buyer. Should they have a trust and what should they do with their asset they just bought? But here’s the power of this thing. A, you’re going to the bar anyway to drink, so you’re all going to be there. B, when you invite a bunch of people together, a lot of them aren’t going to show up. That’s okay. They’re not going to come. But what’s going to happen is you’re going to call them, text them, email them, you’re going to invite them personally to this thing. And you’re going to create a moment of time where they go, man, Dino really cares about me enough to invite me to this. I can’t come. I’m busy. I got I’m not going to come. But damn, what a good dude. He’s actually trying to bring people together and have a good, have a good event. So I think community events, whether it’s once a quarter or twice a year, I mean, I have I still see loan officer friends of mine who host client appreciations at movie theaters. They rent the whole movie theater out and they have them bring their kids and family. Dope. Dope, dope, dope. That’s awesome. Do it twice a year. It costs some money, of course. But so do it. That’s how people know you care about them. And the reason that this transitions a little bit into the digital is it allows you to take a local event, invite people, post about this on social, post email this out to people, and then you can also document the event and share it. And now people are like, you’re driving all this buzz around what you do in the community. And it’s a huge reputation builder for people out there today fighting for relevancy. It’s like, wow, man, Dino called me and invited me to this thing. I couldn’t go, but next he called me and invited to me the next one in 90 days. That one looks cool. I’m going to go and bring my buddy. It’s a no-brainer, but it takes effort and you can’t AI your way through it. You actually have to do it yourself.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: So I’m going to pause real quick. So I went to a business mastery seminar with Tony Robbins a long time ago. And one of the things he was asking questions, somebody stood up and it’s like, what do you do for a living? He’s not a realtor. I’m like, oh, so I turned on my phone real quick in order to catch it, you know. And um, he was asking him a few things. He goes, So all you do is ask for stuff. He goes, stop being an asker. Start being a giver.

ALEC HANSON: So good. That’s that’s that that’s the out that’s all I’m talking about. Your email strategy, be a giver. Give them something that you would want to get. Invite people to things for free, open-handed. I’ll buy your first beer. Be a giver. You’re dude. Well said. That’s a that’s a thread throughout this whole thing. So let’s pull this through to digital a little bit now. So the local and the personal is not going to be replaced. It’s critical. That’s why I start there. Those are things you have to be great at. You and I both know, you know, loan officers typically aren’t great at any of the things I just described. And that’s okay. But that’s the threat and the opportunity. The opportunity now is you get to become great at something where your competition is going to stay weak and you get to distance yourself from them. That’s a huge opportunity. So the digital. We now know, and I hope everyone knows, that people are spending an enormous amount of time on their phones, on their screens. They’re watching YouTube, they’re watching social media, they’re watching streaming networks, they’re living on their phones. I have people look up how much screen time they’re getting on their on the daily average, and it’s like 10, 11 hours of screen time a day. It’s a pandemic. Here we are, it’s real. I don’t care about your morality against screen time. What it is, I’m just saying here’s what you need to observe, and here’s how you need to respond. Because people are spending all this time on these platforms, you have to too. Period. If you want to maintain influence and connection, you don’t have a choice. This goes back, you know. I used to laugh. People, loan officers back in the glory days would be like, yeah, you know what? I’m not gonna go out and see open houses and broker previews. I’m not gonna go visit agents because it’s a waste of time. Like, you’re going to lose. It’s fine. You’re just not gonna be very successful.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: By the way, I’m I’m uh it’s not bad. I’m averaging three hours and 18 minutes a day. Oh, you need to that’s rookie numbers, bro. You gotta pump that up.

ALEC HANSON: So it is social media and these platforms like YouTube, which I’ll lump into social media, are where people are spending time. And if you just decide to give that space to a competitor, that’s your choice. But I’m like, why would you do that? It’s a 24-hour billboard where you get to show up for free every day, but let’s break it apart. Okay. First, if you want to win on social media, go read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People from the 60s and 70s and wake up. We play social media backwards from the very beginning. We make this all about us, me, me, me. Look how good I look, look at my life. This is mahogany. Stop it. Go on social media and treat it like an in-person networking event and go love and encourage and hang out with other people. I give you my, this is my silliest example. Dino, you’re on social media and you’re living out loud. You’re you’re posting pictures of your kids, you’re posting pictures of your dogs and cats and your meals, and you’re just living your life. I’m your loan officer. I get to, if I spend the time to find you and get connected, that’s number one, because I’m I I care about you, I want to be in your life. And then you’re posting little Timmy’s soccer goal, I get to go live vicariously right along with you. I get to go actually care and comment on your stuff. Now, watch this. I when I explain to people that it’s a light bulb moment. If I drop a comment on your social media post, you know, what happens on your phone? Like if I if I comment on your on your content, what happens? It lights up. It lights up, it lights up, it lights up, and you get a notification. Dopamine hit absolutely not just that, man. This is where it gets crazy in my mind. This is I’m I’m not trying to get into the the spiritual side of humanity, but I just have a firm belief that a lot of humans are craving validation on a pretty regular basis. I think that’s a pretty standard viewpoint that is hard to argue with. And so if somebody posts on the internet about their life and you go and tell them that you see them, that you love them, whether you include whatever the love language means in the comment, I don’t mean physically love them, but you know what I’m saying. You get a notification.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: You know, I don’t want to jump past that because I do believe in in that, and and you should love your clients, you should love them. I it it bothers me when I hear loan officers say, I freaking hate realtors. Like you ask them for business every day and you hate them. Yeah, how does you’re working with the wrong one?

ALEC HANSON: Yeah, find the ones you love. No, so I I I I totally resonate. So all of a sudden, you get that notification, you get the dopamine hit, you go see that it’s this guy, Alec, that commented, and immediately you go, this guy cares about me. That’s the subconscious message I believe comes through every time. Whether you say it in your own head or not, I believe that’s you, you feel like, hey, Alec cares about me because he took the time to say something nice to me about the life I’m living. I haven’t even posted a video yet about myself. I just went and loved on people. You do that as a marketing strategy, as a human connection activity, you’re gonna find your business go up 10 to 20% just by being active and caring about people. That’s number one on digital. If you want to maintain relevancy, show people how much you care. Second, you got to put the work in. I breezed over it, but you got to find people and connect to them. You gotta stay connected. You have to have an ecosystem, a digital community, an audience, whatever you want to call it. You got to build that. That takes time and effort. That’s hard. I got to look up all my past clients. Shit, yeah. Go find them. What are you doing? You know, so as soon as they realize that game, their business explodes. They get so much more relevancy, so much more connection. And then I finally turn around and go, okay, great. Now it’s time for you to get uncomfortable. Remember that feeling you got when you walked into that first open house and that agent didn’t know who you were and you had to go introduce yourself. You remember how painful that was? Like, oh yeah. Remember the first time you cold called an agent, asked for an appointment, and they just hung up on you? Yeah, that was terrible. Like, good. You got through it though, right? You survived. You figured it out. Yeah, I did. Good. Because I’m now gonna put a camera in your face and make you talk. And all those feelings are gonna come up again. All those insecurities, all those fears are gonna be right here, just giving you the old chirp. And so you’re gonna have to push through it again. Because you need to talk now on social media. You need to put yourself out in a position of vulnerability to serve and to help people. When you do that, you maintain relevancy. They’ll see you every single day. They’ll see your smile, they’ll see your attitude, they’ll see your encouragement, they’ll see your knowledge, they’ll see you putting, you’ll see you’re working. You’re working. I used to joke that you have to go see realtors every single open house they have. You have to, if you’re in the relationship phase. If you don’t go, they’re just gonna assume you’re not working. You could be working, you could be in the office grinding away. That agent has no clue that you’re working. They just know they’re in the open house on Sunday and you’re not there. That’s all they know. So you gotta show up on these platforms if you want to have relevancy. And there’s a million strategies around it. I’ll kind of pause and you know that you pick out what you want from this. But the digital strategy is first care about others, and second, you need to show up every single day on these platforms with an effort to help people. Those those are the simplest way I can say it.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Yeah, there’s a few things um that you said. It’s like if you want to let somebody else show up there for you and and take the business, I guess go ahead, right? But but that’s what you’re doing. If you’re not doing it, you’re allowing somebody else to take that spot for you. And I’ll admit, man, after all these years, I never once thought about actually showing up at an open house to let them know that I see them and I’m there for them. And just but it but from that other perspective, I’m here working all weekend, and then I’m giving you business on Monday. What were you doing? Yeah, what why do you deserve that? You know, where were you?

ALEC HANSON: And and I get it here, man. They’re like, You’re you’re you’re I was here, where were you? And you could have been like, I’m in the office all day, you know, but they’re like, Well, you weren’t helping me.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Yeah, yeah. No, I love that. Um, I think that’s a great strategy. Um, there’s there’s a few a few different things. So you had commented on in the beginning stage of the digital phase, like start by showing up for people, loving on them. And I think you said that’ll increase your business by 10 or 20 percent, just doing that.

ALEC HANSON: Yeah, yeah.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Super easy strategy, right? Like, okay, you’re a little uncomfortable with the camera. Okay, you’re a little uncomfortable, whatever, but but it’s not that hard to type a few things in. And my advice there to people would be don’t just do fire emoji and whatever, like actually write something.

ALEC HANSON: You have to write something. You have to, you have to. It’s it’s it’s the difference between being like, What’s up, Dino, and actually stopping my day to ask you how you’re doing and actually wanting an answer. That’s the difference, you know. It it it show me you care. I I know how easy it is to hit the the like, that’s crap. Show me you care, take time.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: The other thing, you know, you said now I’m gonna shove a camera in your face. And and I could I could see I could just see people right now being like, oh they’re like sweating inside just thinking about it. Well, I I feel like we gotta just be honest with you and say that you have to get over this. Maybe you can find a solution that isn’t as obnoxious as maybe the total extrovert. Find find what works for you, but you have to find something that works for you.

ALEC HANSON: Yeah, there’s no way around give everybody a little bit of the carrot and a little bit of the stick. So the carrot in this whole world is um when you put yourself out in a position of vulnerability and you share your knowledge and you try to help people on the internet, um, it it can be a lot of different, it can be it’s it can be unbelievable for your life. It could transform your life forever. And so the example that I tend to give is have you ever worked with a client that you absolutely hated? And it be and everyone’s like, Yeah, I’ve had those clients before. It was just a nightmare the whole time. And I’m like, Yeah, because you guys are on different wavelengths, you care about different things. How you communicate is probably not how they communicate, and you just probably sucked the whole time. You still probably closed the loan, but no one was happy. And everyone’s like, Yeah, I’ve done that before. Okay, well, have you ever worked with a client who like sent you a closing gift? Was just like unbelievably thankful and grateful for your efforts. I’m like, Yeah, because you guys were in sync, they were your people. If you want more of those people, then you need to show up on the internet with your authentic self because you will attract those people. I I get the best two examples are the um, because see, I’m an introvert. I’m a massive introvert. I I need alone time, I need to recharge. Like my wife went up to see her uh Uh sister yesterday with the kids, and I had my night, I had a day alone. So evening alone. I went to uh try and watches by myself, like a total psychopath. And then I went to a restaurant in Fashion Island by myself, sat at the bar, had dinner. I’m happy as can be, just cruising. I don’t need it. I I’m recharging. This is all good. I’m loving life. At the same time, you’ll see me on the stupid internet tomorrow because I know that this is what I need to do to maintain my relevancy, and I’m gonna fight hard for it. And I know I’m telling other people to do it, so you better be damn sure I’m gonna do it. But you attract your tribe. If you’re a methodical, engineer-minded person, you don’t groove with a guy like me. I’m too fast. I don’t slow down enough. I know it’s a weak spot. I just don’t, it doesn’t naturally happen. I’m a D personality type in the disc test, and that’s what you get. But I’ll never forget on a panel, I was sitting there and a gal said, My number one video is a long form YouTube video where I get about a deal a week where I literally spend about 10 minutes going line by line explaining a CD. Closing disclosure. And I was like, that video sounds like hell. I don’t want to, I don’t even want to see that. But what’s happening, as you can imagine, is you’re attracting your tribe. Guess who loves her videos? Engineers who wanted their loan officer to slow the hell down, who wasn’t, who wasn’t explaining stuff. So they Googled, how do I understand what’s on the CD? And her video pops up. When you go out there and put yourself out there, you attract your tribe. It does amazing things for your business. It can radically transform like your whole world. And there’s case studies now, there’s people that you can just point to. So I don’t even need to like say it like it doesn’t exist anymore. There’s fout there’s hundreds of people now that I can be like, look at them, look at them, transform their whole life. Scott Betley on on TikTok became a massive originator because he took Gary Vee’s advice out of making daily TikToks. And now he has, you know, a million quote unquote followers, then he doesn’t need to work the same way anymore. He can just get business from his content, transformed his life. So that’s not for everybody, but it doesn’t, it’s the same line though, Dino, of I’m not gonna go to open house anymore. I’m like, you don’t have a choice, you’re gonna lose relevancy every day you choose not to show up on these platforms.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Yeah. So what’s next? We we got uh how many calls are you gonna make? Yep, text, emails, we got um events, community events, and you got digital.

ALEC HANSON: I call it ice for to to drill down the strategy online. Try to drop five to ten comments on people’s posts a day and try to connect to five to ten new people a day. I think that’s a doable, tangible thing. Pick your number, but have a goal, have an objective. I think you need to post a video of yourself every single day. Now, for immediately someone’s like, that’s impossible. I don’t have the musculature or the bandwidth. I don’t care about your excuses. Figure it out and baby step it in. Start once a week. I’m there for you. I’m in. Once a week’s great. Get to every day. Once you realize that you’re living the content, it’s not hard. You just you’re just full of excuses, and that’s okay too. But I think your frequency needs to be that aggressive. And so when you put all that together, though, and you look at that holistically, Dino, and you’re my past client, you’re getting a call from me once a quarter, you’re getting a text from me intermittently, you’re getting an email me from once a month, you’re seeing me on the internet every single day that you’re there. I’m inviting you to a community event, a client appreciation thing once every 90 days to compliment everything else I’m doing. And I’m commenting on your stuff as frequently as not to be a creep and a weirdo. So that’s a very important comment, but you know, you just got to put it out there. Look at the level of connection I’m gonna have with you in perpetuity if I can execute at that high of a level. Not only, I mean, you might not like me, so you might not do business with me, but you’re freaking gonna know who I am. I’ll tell you that. And so back to my know you, like you, trust you, you’re gonna know who I am. All these other people are gonna know who I am. Because I’m authentic and transparent, I’m saying things that I want, and I’m trying to be helpful, people are gonna choose if they like me or not. So my like that my like opportunity is gonna get bigger, and then my trust opportunity is gonna get bigger because they’re like, damn, this guy shows up all the time for me. I trust this person. So when you combat, when you’re trying to combat a lack of relevancy, the only way I’ve found forward is through intense intentional human connection effort. And so pick your lane on how you want to have intentional human connection effort. You can pick some of my playbook, you can pick any of these activities. I think they all need to be kind of put together, but pick your poison and find out what works. I I’ll I’ll kind of end with this kind of comment, and then we can go to any other questions, Dino, that you want to dig into. When I started my business, you joked that I was everywhere and you know I was running around. I took the market by storm and all this stuff. I didn’t I don’t recall any of that. All I recall was I called 30 of the top producing originators at the company I was at back in the day. And I emailed them too, and I said, Hey, I’m brand new. I’m just starting out. Can I pick your brain? Will you tell me what to do? And all 30 of them said yes. Some I drove to, some jumped on phone calls. I just asked. All 30 of them said yes. And I just took up there like with a notebook and I said, How did you get so successful? What’d you do? And they just told me. So, to your point, like I had a roadmap. I had a, I had a, I had, I just had to execute now. And I had to find my own spin on it. Because execution is always where the rubber hits the road. Always, always, always. I love that you’re putting this podcast out for people. It’s gonna help so many originators. And they’re gonna hear and they’re gonna listen, but one day it’s gonna unlock for them. One day someone’s gonna be like, I’m now going to make the change. And they’re going to pivot and they’re gonna start executing in a way they haven’t before, and they’re gonna change their life. The information’s out there. You can find it. You can find solutions and strategies and techniques. You can find how to post a video every single day and uh all the things you can do to make your you can find the answers. It’s all gonna come down to your ability to execute and your willingness to put yourself into uncomfortable positions.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Yeah, agreed, man. You you have to uh otherwise go get a job somewhere and just show up every day and do what they tell you to do.

ALEC HANSON: Absolutely, dude. unknown: Yeah. Show up and figure it out. They’ll tell you. They’ll tell you.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Yeah. So why don’t you tell us your story real quick? I I know it, so that’s why I think it’s relevant to tell. Because there’s a lot of people that are just uncomfortable listening to your advice right now, uh, because it’s difficult. And it’s actually not even difficult, it’s just different. Um, but but for the introverts in the groups, you know, the it’s a little difficult. Yeah, fair. I I remember you telling me that, you know, uh, I forget how many days, but you made yourself a commitment you were just gonna jump on this for X amount of days. And um, so tell us the beginning because you weren’t anywhere. Like, I didn’t uh after you were everywhere as a kid, you know, we went many, many years where I didn’t even see you. Yeah, and all of a sudden I was like, he’s everywhere again. Like, like, what is it with this guy? But but how did you become how did you get there again, right? Like in a whole different place. Uh now you weren’t just everywhere in Newport Beach, you were just everywhere, everywhere digitally.

ALEC HANSON: Yeah. Um it’s so funny. So I knew this is my small brain. So many people that were smarter than me and more talented than me told me that, hey, Alec, this game is 99% showing up. Like it just, it’s just 99% showing up. That’s why you can’t miss an open house. They don’t think you’re working. You have to make sure that you send them thank you cards, that way every time you go to their broker preview, they it was nice to see them there. You got to make sure they get your emails. They got to make sure you get they get your physical mail. And all these strategies that are old school that I was drilled into my head was what I executed against. And so for the agents that I was quote unquote prospecting or hunting, I was everywhere. I was in their email, I was in their mailbox in their office, I was at their broker previews, I was at open houses, I was at the real board of realtor events. I mean, I was everywhere they were because I, again, if any of them chose to trust me, they could change my life. And some of them did. Fast forward, I was helping loan officers doing that for a long time. I was I was growing a region, a branch, and then a region. I was, and I was really pouring into loan officers, being like, hey, let me help you do these things because somebody helped me. They told me what to do. Uh, they helped me, so I’m gonna help you. And I really found a lot of value in my career helping people. Um, 2016, 17, we’re coming around, 18. The internet was taking over. It was taking over, it had already taken over. Um, we were all on smartphones, everyone was on social media, everyone was on YouTube, and I was like, holy crap, man! Uh, so’s the consumer. And so it wasn’t that the realtor was losing their role, but their their place in the transaction was shifting, right? Like people were starting on the internet, not starting with people anymore. And it was just changing around us. And so I was like, crap, um, man, I think I got the playbook pretty down for this belly-to-belly stuff, this classically trained loan officer stuff. Uh, but I don’t know shit about the internet, at least not not in any type of strategy way, not in any type of thoughtful way. So I was like, well, I can’t be a great leader the way I want to be if I just sit on the sidelines and tell people what to do and not do it myself. I can’t. It doesn’t work with what I’m trying to do. So I just decided to do a hundred videos in a hundred days. That was that was the the thing you’re remembering, you know. And it was terrible. In fact, you go to my YouTube channel and there’s a playlist of all hundred. They’re garbage. I filmed them, but like it’s all good. I was just trying to figure out can can this actually happen? And so I’ll I’ll walk everyone through the playbook. I had a I had a clothing rack in my office of t-shirts. I I had I would batch film on Fridays and just change my t-shirt, right? And I had I had a tripod with my camera and I would just film it and then change my t-shirt and film it again. I would write down ideas all week and and I and I had a lit, a running list on a Google Drive about like 50 ideas, and I just kept building off it to get to my hundred. And I would talk about nonsensical stuff like the benefits of a standing desk, the benefits of, you know, yeah. unknown: Go.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: That’s what I did today.

ALEC HANSON: Yeah. Here’s my here’s my other t-shirt. And so what happened though is I learned, oh, I can do a video every day. I can. I did it. I did it for a hundred days. I I can do this. And then it was like, well, I I need a strategy. I need I this is just talking, is not what I want to be. Just I don’t want to show up just to show up. And so then I started to kind of really think hard about like, well, what do I want my strategy to be? And and how do I want people to perceive me? And I started to read and understand things about brand and brand impressions, and how does that, how do people react? And then you start learning about, well, how should I make videos on the internet? That’s a very specific medium. So how should I that’s what you learn about hooks and intros and outros, and you learn how to kind of frame things and how fast you should make videos, or how you know, where YouTube should you make longer form videos. And I just started learning as a practitioner how to do these things and layering in strategy and layering in intent. But what I never lost sight of was the importance of it, which is when you show up every single day and you’re on this journey, you become the person you want to become. You find the resources that you need to find at the right time to expand to do the things you’re capable of doing. And so now I can look back as I as a personal case study and for any originator out there and be like, let me show you how possible this is. And at the same time, I can encourage them to put their own breath into it. Don’t copy me, don’t copy anybody. Be your own human on these places because humans do business with humans they like, know, and trust. Don’t copy people, don’t look for trends, don’t screw all that. Be yourself, which is almost impossible because we all chameleon ourselves for everything else around there. But the closer you can be to that, the more impact and connection you’re gonna make in this human world, even if it’s digital. And so that was the wake-up moment. You know, that was the path. I’m a lot more strategic now. I’m a lot more focused on the content I put out, for example, and this is really important. So I want people to hear this at the very end. There’s a shitty way to make content and a great way to make content. The same way there’s a bad way to email people and a good way to email people. There’s plenty of people out there making crappy content. And I don’t mean crappy like production quality. I mean crappy like their heart and intent is in the wrong space. You see them, I see them. They’re talking about themselves the whole time. They’re talking, their content is there to make them look good. Immediate failure. That’s the wrong place. So there is a good way and a wrong way to do it. Unfortunately, we see a lot of the wrong way all the time, and we get turned off. And we’re like, well, it’s just crap on there. No, no, they’re crap. How about you go on there and not be crap? You’ll be a breath of fresh air to everyone else on those platforms. So that’s my encouragement is put yourself out there and you’ll find you’ll find the way home. Yeah, 100%.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Um one of the questions I’m gonna ask you in a little bit, which now you have to give me a different answer, because you were on season one, uh, and I asked you what was your favorite book, and and at the time you said, Who Moved My Cheese? Yes. And and I I went and read it because I had never read it before, and I loved it. It’s so good, such a great book. So, Who Moved My Cheese? But I think about like this time frame that we’re in, and and man, one day somebody’s gonna be like, Who Moved My Cheese? Gone. It’s like it’s gone. You gotta go find it again. And I think this is your time right now to go find it, you know, start start taking another path, man, and and go figure out a way to change because change is inevitable, it’s coming. But like you said, people still want to work with somebody that they know, like, and trust. And and that part won’t change, but how you reach them will change.

ALEC HANSON: Yeah, and how you stay connected will change.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, so speaking of that, what is your favorite book other than that?

ALEC HANSON: Okay, well, I’ll give you my favorite um another business book that I think is critical right now. And I I I joked about Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, but I I I’ll share a real sincere thought about why I think someone should go read that again today. Many people read that book in sales growing up, but here here’s my encouragement. We’re heading so fast into a world where people want to remove themselves from the hard work. They want an agentic AI agent to do it for them. I I know people who have deep faked themselves and don’t make any of their own content anymore. It’s all an AI robot. It looks really good. It’s not about looking good. It’s that you said Bill Pulte’s name wrong because the AI read it wrong. Like you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re missing the fact that this world’s about human connection. Use AI for all these little crappy things that stop you from having time to make human connection and then go make more human connection. How to win friends and influence people talks about human connection. It talks about how you need to be more interested in others than you are in talking about yourself. That’s a truth that I think the internet needs more of. It talks about how someone’s name is the most important thing in the world to them. And how you, if you spend the time to learn someone’s name and use it, you’re honoring that person. You’re showing them you actually care enough to, you know, pay attention. It has so many nuggets like that we woven throughout it, that it can give you a frame of reference to tackle the modern day problem, which is how do I stay connected in a world where everyone’s staring at their screens? So even though the book’s old, the stories and the mindset in that book can help you navigate a world of AI slop.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: You and I are very aligned on all of this stuff. Like I’ve worked through so much of this, and you know, one thing I’m gonna add here is that people are going to say, you know, I don’t have time. Um, you know, I’m I’m too busy and this and that. And and I’m just like, okay, so I can pretty much go pound for pound with anybody that says I’m busy. I I got you. I probably got you beat. But you know what I did is I started waking up at 4 a.m. and dedicated three hours every single morning. I told myself it was gonna be a 30-day sprint. I was gonna do it for 30 days, but in that 30 days, my eyes were opened so much so that I did it for six months. And after six months, I was like, all right, I I I gotta slow this down a little bit, like gotta get back to being at the gym. Instead of doing hours, I’m doing like five minutes, you know, of a quick little routine in my in my bathroom. I love it. I was just trying to do whatever I could, but I was so involved in this. And and every time I opened a door, another door opened, and another one opened. It was a rabbit hole, but but what it was is it was exactly like Who Moved My Cheese?. And I kept going down these new doors, and I kept finding new rooms full of cheese. And and at the end of the day, it taught me some valuable lessons. And I urge you guys right now, like you do have time, but you might have to go a little outside of your comfort zone or your boundaries or whatever they are. But if you don’t, you won’t have you won’t have it, it’ll be gone. Somebody else will have taken it from you. And and in 2008, I was, I think, around 36 years old when the market all went to crap. Yeah, and and everything changed. And and at in my 30s and my mid-30s, I was still young enough, but it’s also in my DNA to adapt, right? But some of the big dogs in my office that were like in their mid-40s, they were big dogs and yet gone. They couldn’t adapt to creating a loan application online or or locking online instead of faxing or whatever the heck it was, right? Like they just couldn’t adapt and they died. So do yourself a favor and adapt before you can’t adapt. A quick little story, and I’ll tell it because there’s no way my wife will ever listen to any of this. She’s like, You talk enough. I don’t need you to, I don’t need to listen to you like purposely. Uh the other day, first of all, every once in a while she gets she gets a little upset because she doesn’t know how to figure something out. And I tried just doing it and she gets mad at me, whatever, but but she’s given up on the TV. Like she just doesn’t even bother anymore, right? And she wanted to watch something, and she just throws me the remote control and tells me to do it. And I’m like, just hit the middle button. It’s like the okay button, right? Like, just hit it. It’ll it’ll magically all come on. She’s like, I don’t care anymore. I’m not even gonna bother. I’m like, if anything happens to me or the kids, like, what are you gonna do? And she goes, I’m not gonna watch TV, that’s for sure. And I’m like, okay, this is more than just about watching TV, honey. It’s about you staying relevant because this is just where it starts. Yeah. Next thing you know, you’re not gonna be able to work the coffee maker. You’re not gonna be able to work so many different things if you’re if you don’t train your mind to learn how to adapt and change, because it is inevitable. It’s it’s the one thing, it’ll always happen. So, anyways, um, unless you want to comment, I got one last question for you. No, go for it, go for it. All right, it is the million-dollar drop. And I know you don’t even produce anymore, but I’m gonna force you to go produce. Okay, and here’s how it’s gonna work I’m gonna drop you off somewhere in the United States. I’m gonna just pick um uh let’s say Kansas City. Yep. You don’t know anybody there, at least I hope you don’t. You have all the knowledge you have. You don’t really have any money because I’m gonna give you an allowance so you can only have enough to like be covered, right? Like you’re gonna pay your bills, but you don’t have enough to go buy all these systems and do all this stuff. You got to go grassroots, and you have to make a million dollars before you can talk or see your wife and kids. Okay. How long is it gonna take? And exactly what are you gonna do? Not surface level shit, but like what are you going to do?

ALEC HANSON: Well, I’m gonna be a pretty big psychopath uh to to get back into the the with the wife and kids. Um, I assume I have a phone with the internet with the internet, yep. Okay, and a computer and all the good stuff, right? Like okay, good, good. So I I would immediately start making content like a crazy person. And and let’s start with content because content to me, um, it doesn’t have a geographical limitation. I can do it, I can get business from anywhere. Now, licensing aside, right? Let’s just put that as a as an app fix. I understand. Um, but I I I have nothing to stop me from getting business through content. So I would immediately make content multiple times a day because I have nothing to do, right? I have no business, I have no family, I have no responsibilities. I’m gonna make multiple videos a day that I’m gonna put out about why people should work with me. And what I’m and what problems I can solve and how I can help people. This is going to sound a little crazy, but I would also talk about the fact that I need to make a million dollars before I can get back to my family again. But let me tell you why. The biggest month I ever had originating, I funded $13.5 million, and it was the month before I got married. And the reason I funded $13.5 million that month was because I sent an email, I sent a physical piece of mail out to the top 100 agents that I’d been prospecting for about six months, maybe eight months. And I said it was the $10 million challenge. And I’m going to text you this picture, Dino, when we’re off this. You it it’s it’s hysterical. But it’s me in a suit with hair, like doing a little pose, being like, this is the $10 million challenge. And I basically wrote a cover letter that said, I’m getting married in July. And I my I had a personal goal to fund over $10 million that I haven’t achieved yet. If you can help me achieve the goal, I’m setting myself up for a personal challenge to fund over 10 million. I sent it out to 100 agents. I sent it out to all my past clients, which were like maybe 10 at the time. It was very vulnerable. I’ll tell you that shit. It made me feel very uncomfortable. And I funded $13.5 million because I declared and told and asked people for help. So you put me in Kansas City, you’re damn right. I’m gonna start asking for help again with transparency about what I’m trying to accomplish because people connect to that shit, man. They I got a deal from a realtor that never gave me another deal since. Like, but that like was like, you know what, kid, I see enough. I know you’re actually semi-competent because you show up every freaking time. So I’m gonna, I don’t feel like I’m gonna you’re gonna blow my deal up. And so here, here you go, to call the Smiths. And so I would, I would, I would send out all this content. I would start an email campaign, I would start, but then I would go right in the streets. So after all the social stuff, which I’d be a maniac, I’d put videos out every single day, multiple times a day. Uh I start a YouTube channel about why I’m the best loan officer they should work for, all that stuff. Content, content, content, and then I would hit the streets. Every Saturday and Sunday, I would be at open houses with the top agents. Of course, everyone knows how to find the top agents, but I would go right after the top agents. I would walk in there and build relationships because I know that every day I have to stack wins, stack small wins. It’s all about repetition. So every preview, every broker preview, every open house, you’re damn right, Alec Hanson be walking in there to say hi. I’d also film myself and post on stories, you know, the houses I’m visiting, because that reputation would expand really fast. And then people would decide if they like me or not. You know, this is what I want everyone to hear, you know. If they’re trying to transform their life or go to the next level or double their production or whatever it is, the first thing you have to do is get people to know you. And if you’re in a relationship with somebody, like you’re trying to get someone to marry you or, you know, date you, your frequency of contact is probably pretty high. Not enough to be a stalker because that would deter that would be the opposite result, but probably pretty high. You’re probably sending good morning text and you’re trying to trying to connect and trying to engage. They’re gonna decide if they like you by the frequency. The more frequent you’re showing up, the more frequent the quicker they’re gonna decide if they like you. So my frequency with people would be really high because I need them to decide if they like me fast as humanly possible. And with those strategies, as and they combine into the kind of playbook I even laid out, um, I have no doubt I would crush that goal. I I don’t know when because the market’s gonna be the market, but I would beat anybody else to that goal. I I would be a psychopath. But that would be the the easiest and the best way to get there is frequency and action. Love it.

DINO KATSIAMETIS: Frequency and action. All right, man. That’s it. That’s all I got for you. That was fantastic. That was awesome. Thank you. Appreciate it, dude. So, you guys, there is so much value in everything that was just said here in this past hour. It’s like this on every show. So I urge you to go back and listen to everybody. Everybody that has been on this show is successful in our industry, and they’ve all done it through a lot of hard work, a lot of trials and errors. There’s a lot you can learn from people that have been there in the past. There’s this old Greek saying, My my mom says it to me all the time. Granted, it’s because she’s old. She’s like, Yeah, you laugh at me, she says, but where you are, I’ve been. Where I am, you will be. And and that’s my goal. It’s I want you to be where we are. I want you to be successful. There’s a lot that comes with it, and it’s not just dollars and cents, it’s not just volume, it’s also a little bit of balance, right? It’s it’s health, it’s relationships with people. There’s a lot that goes into it because you can be very successful in one area, be totally imbalanced by being a failure at home, right? Or something like that. And and I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say, I’ve I’ve failed at home because all I did was work. But you learn and you try and get better. And and then there’s times where, hey, we’ve been married for a while now. We got all these kids, we got all these expenses. You gotta let me go back to work. Like, you gotta let me hit it hard again because college ain’t cheap, right? There’s private school ain’t cheap. Like, oh my gosh, it’s yeah, who whoever would have thought that the older they get, the more expensive they get. But yeah, exactly. So, but it doesn’t mean, and my wife is acknowledging of it and and she’s you know, she lets me do what I do, but at the same time, it doesn’t mean she can just keep going without me. And she needs me there, right? She needs me to step up as a dad, she needs me to step up as a husband and and to step up as a healthy individual for my family. So I want you guys to know that we’re here to help you. I want you to know that we do love you, and and I do very much, and I that’s why I’m doing this whole thing. So please go back, listen to all the other podcasts. Come back and do me this one favor. Tell me how it has affected you and what you’re going to do to make your career and your life better because of it. And if you can’t, if you can honestly tell me not you didn’t learn anything and you’re not going to do anything, then fine. Stop listening. Get out of here. But but that’s how much I care for you guys. So, anyways, thank you for listening. Go out and comment, like it, share it, and don’t forget, go to the the websites, dinokatsiametis.com. I know that’s a mouthful, just Dino the Way, the way, Ethos Lending, whatever you want to do. Dino usually pops everything back up, Dino Mortgage, however, you want to you know figure that piece out. But there’s a playbook in season two for each and every show. Everything Alec Alec just talked about is going to be detailed out for you and explained, and it’s gonna be actionable steps that you will be able to take. So go download it. Thank you so much for listening. Love you guys. We’ll see you next time.