The Only 5 Marketing Activities I'm Focusing On Until December

It's easy to overcomplicate marketing, especially this time of year. Between now and December, I'm keeping things simple. In this episode, I'm sharing exactly where my time and energy are going for both my mortgage business and Broker Life Socials, and why I believe these few activities can make a bigger impact than constantly chasing the next big idea.

🗓️ Next round starts soon!
 👉 https://brokerlifesocials.com/register/broker-growth-collective/

Why Work With Me (and Broker Life Socials)

I’ve been in the Canadian mortgage space since 2005.

I started at Genworth Financial Canada, working inside the default insurer side of the industry for five years.
Then in August 2010, I became a licensed mortgage agent… and I’ve been in it ever since.

I’ve seen this business from every angle.
 Underwriting. Broker side. Real client conversations. Real files.

And here’s why that matters

Marketing in this industry isn’t just about “posting consistently.”
 It’s about understanding:
 • how mortgage clients actually think
 • what they’re worried about (but not saying)
 • how to explain complex scenarios in a way that builds trust

That’s not something you can outsource to a generic marketing company.

Because if they’ve never:
 • structured a deal
 • explained a refinance
 • walked a client through a tough approval

…they don’t truly understand your client.

Inside Broker Life Socials, everything is written by someone who lives and breathes this industry.

So your content doesn’t just “look good”…
 It actually connects, builds trust, and converts.

Work with Me

Inside Broker Life Socials, you can choose what fits your season of business:

• Done for you social media content
• Plug and play email marketing
• Group coaching inside the Collective
• 1:1 custom content support

Simple. Consistent. Repeatable.

Let’s Connect

📱 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kristina.crosbie/

📸 Personal IG: https://www.instagram.com/kristinacrosbie/

📸 Broker IG: https://www.instagram.com/brokerlifesocials/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the podcast, Mortgage and Marketing Made Simple. I am your host, Christina Crosby. Today I want to have a really hard conversation. Don't exit of this podcast yet, okay? Promise me you'll stay with me to the end. So we are halfway through 2026. When January 1st rolled around, you probably had so many goals for the year. Maybe you wanted to fund more mortgages, maybe you wanted to post consistently on socials, finally start that email list, get more organized, have better systems, spend more time with your family, your kids, or overall just feel less stressed. So my question for you today is: are you where you thought you would be? And if the answer is no, I want you to know something. You are not alone. I'm not exactly where I thought I would be either. I came into this summer feeling so prepared, like overly prepared. I had plans, I had systems, I had content scheduled, I thought I had everything figured out. And then, of course, summer showed up. The kids are home, activities are of course nonstop, schedules are changing every day, work hours for me are shorter, and things come up that I never planned for. And I feel with as our role as mortgage brokers and agents, that is what we primarily do is like look for issues that come up in the future. And with my personal life, I'm just like failing in that miserably. Um, so summer has definitely kicked my butt a little bit. But here's what I don't want either of us to do. I don't want us to look at the next six months and decide, you know, now that the year is over because it absolutely is not. We still have six months left, and that is a long time, and you can completely change your business in six months. You can can you can change your confidence. You can absolutely change your income in six months. So let's not focus on what didn't happen and let's focus on what we want the next six months to look like. I already know exactly what I'm working towards. I've have I've had this goal for years and I've never hit it, and this is gonna be the year. I want to take all of December off. Last December, and honestly, like probably the last three or four December, I've pushed through everything. I was stressed, exhausted, and my body did exactly what it always does when stress gets too high. My throat got sore, my tonsils were so swollen, swollen, I can't even talk today, swollen, that they were basically touching. I just kept working because I honestly didn't have a choice. And December is so busy with all sorts of extra crook. I can't even talk today, like what is going on? And I'm not starting over, okay, so let that be a lesson. But there are so many extra things going on in December. Christmas for for me. Um, and we travel for Christmas. And last year we stayed with my sister-in-law, and I have three young kids. You know, at the time they were three, seven, and ten. And Christmas morning and Christmas is a huge deal in our house, and I barely experienced any of it. I got out of bed long enough to watch them open presents, and then I went right back to bed. And I'm pretty sure I spent most of Christmas Day and Boxing Day in bed because those were the only two days I could finally stop. I didn't have to worry about emails, calls. I did not worry about work files, I just slept, and I remember thinking I never want this again. Because it is disgusting that my business cost me moments with my family, with my kids on Christmas morning. Like, that is not okay, that is not cool. So I don't want to stress deciding how I spend Christmas. So today in July, I'm making that decision that this year is the year that um my December self will thank me for. And that is all about what this episode is all about. We're not gonna worry about fixing today. We're worrying about, or not, we're gonna worry about it. We're gonna focus on building the next six months. What do you want six months from now? You know, maybe you're a broker, maybe you're an entrepreneur, because we have a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to this pod. It doesn't matter if you're a broker or entrepreneur. This conversation applies to all of us. What do you want your business to look like by the end of the year? More referrals, more consistency, weekends back. Um, that's a big one for me. I do not work on weekends and I haven't in years. Um maybe you just want to stop worrying about where your next file is coming from, where your next client is coming from. Whatever your goal is, I really want you to focus on start building it now. Now, for me, that means going back to the basics. Nothing flashy or complicated, just the things, the tasks that I know work. Every single week I'm going to email my mortgage database. And this next one I have slacked on so much in 2026, but every single week I also want to get an email out to my broker life socials community, to my email list for that business. Continuing to post on socials every single day. Right now I'm really just focusing on Facebook. There's so much repetition with I when I say this because I say it every single week, but Facebook is having its moment and it has been for a few years, so stop avoiding it. I need you to post on Facebook every single day. It will move the needle huge in your business, I promise you. Um, now those are the things that move my business forward. Sure, they're not exciting, my posts don't go viral, they're just consistent, and that consistency compounds. And I think a lot of us, whether we're brokers or entrepreneurs, we overcomplicate marketing. We convince ourselves we need some brand new strategy. Another course, add another platform in, another social platform, another fancy idea, another really cool reel, when in reality we just need to do the basic things that we already know that work. So if you're wondering where I would focus between now and the end of the year, here is exactly what I would do. First, pick pick your one platform for me and for all of us, okay. Wink wink. Uh, Facebook is still where I'm spending most of my time, and I really want you to focus on that. Um, just side note, with my mentoring, I try to encourage a lot of my mentoring clients to really focus on Facebook. And this past week, in a conversation with a mentoring student, I said when I started Broker Life Socials, I avoided Facebook because that's where everyone I knew was hanging out. And for two years, I pushed and pushed and pushed on Instagram. And Instagram is a struggle. And one day I woke up two years in and I'm like, what am I doing? Facebook is where my people are at, and it has been life-changing for broker life socials once I started posting consistently on my personal Facebook feed for broker life socials. I'd already been doing it for my mortgage business, so I know it worked, but I guess I didn't want to confuse my audience, or I didn't want people to think I wasn't doing mortgages, or if I'm really honest, I didn't want people to know what I was doing, and I really don't know why, and we'll unpack that in another episode. But I just avoided Facebook with broker life socials, and that was absolutely the wrong decision. So on a mentoring call this week, I flat out said to a client who has a great idea for something that I just want him to take and run with, and I said, Dude, like I need you to focus on Facebook, and he goes, Well, I was hoping to focus on Instagram, and I said that exact story. I know why you're avoiding Facebook, it's because where everyone you know hangs out, and Instagram feels a little more anonymous, maybe, I don't know. And he just looked at me and I said, Like, you have to focus on Facebook, like what he's doing is going to sell out within a few hours if he focuses on Facebook. So know you're not alone with that thought. Um, but I really want you to think about posting for your mortgage business or your business on Facebook, okay? I also think LinkedIn too is a really good space right now and it's also having its moment. So pick one of them. But I I don't think you need to master both at once. So just pick one. And LinkedIn, I'm gonna go on about this in a few minutes, but LinkedIn might be a good place to start because it's a completely different platform than the other socials, and you really only need to post three times a week on LinkedIn. So if that sounds easier, posting say Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or pick those three days on LinkedIn and really have great posts, then that would be also a really great place to start, but I'll tell you more on that in a minute. So don't try mastering all socials at once. Pick one. And then I go on and on about this all the time, but I want it to resonate. Pick one type of file. And I think this is where so many of us get stuck. We try to market to everyone: purchases, renewals, commercial, privates, construction, investments, first-time buyers. I could go on, right? Everything. Instead, ask yourself, what file type do you actually enjoy? And for me, I know you all know this because I say it every single episode. For me, it's refinances. I love refinances. I love helping someone free up cash flow. I love helping people breathe again financially. I know what it's like, so I can really relate to those clients things to 2022 and 2023. Um these files typically aren't rushed 30 to 45 days, they're in and out, and you really serve those clients. There's also not deadlines coming from five different people, you know, realtors, you know, other people involved in a purchase transaction. Okay, so that's my lane. That's why I talk about it multiple times a day consistently on my purchase, on my Facebook feed. So could I talk about purchases? Yes, and sometimes I do, you know, in the spring I could I throw a few posts a week in there about purchases. Absolutely, I do. But my marketing is focused on refinances because when someone thinks refinances, I want them to think of me. Like I was talking about. If you're using LinkedIn, I would post about, I would post on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. And make those posts extremely valuable. If you're using Facebook, please just listen to me on this and focus on your personal profile, not your business page, your personal profile. I would aim for two mortgage-related posts every single day. I do one in the morning, one in the evening, and then do one personal post. Show your life, your lunch, your dog, your kids' sports, your coffee, whatever it is that shows that behind the scenes, that real life. Because people don't just hire mortgage brokers, they hire people, and that content builds trust. And I know the a few things you're thinking. First, I am very not okay with posting my kids on socials, and if you are, that's that's great. Um, but there is a way to do it where you can show behind the scenes and show your real life without um posting something that makes you uncomfortable. You just have to find the way that does it for you. And if you're unsure of what that exactly looks like, go to my Facebook, friend me if we're not friends, and look at my Facebook feed and you'll see what I'm talking about. But like I said, people don't just hire mortgage brokers, they hire people, and that personal content builds trust. And I know three posts a day sounds like a lot. I hear it all the time. But here's the thing: only a tiny percentage of your audience sees every post. You're probably reaching about 5% of your audience with each individual post. So you're not flooding anyone's feed, you're simply giving yourself more opportunities to be seen and be visible. And if someone doesn't like it, that's okay. They probably weren't your client anyway. And the one thing I also want you to remember is this don't judge your content by your likes or comments. Some of my refinance posts don't get much engagement at all. Because people don't necessarily want everyone to know they're thinking about debt cons consolidation or refinancing, right? But what happens behind the scenes, I get a ton of DMs every single day, emails, calls, and that's where the business comes from. Not every successful post looks successful on the surface. So just remember that. And if you're using AI to help you with your marketing, I think that's completely fine. But my advice is train it first. Don't copy and paste something that sounds like everyone, especially if it sounds robotic. People can tell. And your audience wants you, not a robot. So use AI to help organize your thoughts, to clean up your writing, to save time, but make sure it still sounds like you. If it writes you a prompt, just write, say back to you, and it sounds too robotic and you don't like it, just prompt it again. Say, please rewrite this. This doesn't sound like me. And just keep giving it those prompts and those feedback until it does sound like you. Trust is everything right now. Online with AI, everyone's questioning, is this real or is this AI? Once people stop believing they're hearing from the real you, you've lost one of the biggest advantages that you have. So as we wrap up today's episode, I want you to stop thinking about January. Stop thinking about the goals you missed, about the things that didn't happen, and instead picture yourself on December 31st. What would make you proud? Would it be sending an email every week to your database? Would it finally be showing up consistently on social media, having systems in place, taking time over off over Christmas without feeling guilty? Whatever that picture looks like, start building it today. Not Monday, not next month, but today. I don't care that it's the middle of the summer, okay? Make time. Because six months from now, you'll either be thankful you started or wishing that you had. And I know what version of that I'm choosing. So thank you so much for listening this week. If this episode has helped you or you loved it, I would love if you shared it with another entrepreneur or mortgage broker who needs the reminder that there's still plenty of time this year. And I'll see you in the next episode.