Stop Relying On Social Media And Start Prospecting

If your pipeline depends on posting more, you’re not behind on content, you’re behind on sales skills. We sit down to talk about the real-world struggles we see business development reps facing in 2026 inside title insurance, and why the market now rewards the reps who prospect, qualify, and follow up instead of hoping visibility turns into closings.

We start with quick life updates from the TLTA conference, training sessions we’ve been leading, and tools like MMI (Mobility Market Intelligence) that can sharpen your prospect list. From there we get into the big shift: social media is a marketing channel, not your sales plan. Yes, you need to show up online, but counting posts as “touches” is a trap. Relationships still grow through calls, conversations, and asking better questions.

We also unpack the post-COVID reality that many real estate agents are harder to reach in person and have less attention to give because more vendors are competing for it. That’s why we focus on the “boring work” that actually produces results: consistency, qualification, and follow-up. We share practical ways to earn appointments, including bringing an escrow officer along to add instant credibility and answer the questions agents rarely make time to ask.

Finally, we call out outdated habits that waste time or create compliance risk, including drop-bys that drift into P53 issues, plus the classic two-hour meeting that overwhelms people. The simplest edge is still the rarest: ask for the business. If you found this helpful, subscribe, share it with a title rep friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And Quick Catch-Up

Summer Swope 0:00

Hi, friends. Hello. Welcome to our Shift Happen podcast. Uh, we're so excited to have you guys with us today. Y'all want to introduce yourselves really quickly? Go right ahead. Lauren Blair, you know me. Hi, Lisa Monty. Awesome. And I'm Summer Swope. Today we're going to be talking about a bunch of really cool stuff. I think our main topic is top three struggles of a business development rep in 2026. But first, I kind of want to catch up. What's been going on? What have y'all been up to these past few weeks?

TLTA Highlights And Industry Signals

Lauren Blair 0:29

Well, we've had the famous TLTA conference that we attended. And that was great to meet up with industry people that we get to network with there and learn some of the things. We got to meet the TDI commissioner. So that was really an interesting thing. And I kind of liked her. I thought she was very straightforward and what her understanding is about our industry and how she wants things moving forward. So that was really great.

Summer Swope 0:55

Yeah. Did she say anything about what she's kind of expecting or what we could be seeing from her over the next few months or years?

Lauren Blair 1:03

Yeah. I think she kind of outlined four things that they're looking at that they see that agents have missed. And so that was really interesting that she would be straightforward to say those things in a crowded room, right?

Summer Swope 1:13

Yeah, yeah. How many people were in the room?

Lauren Blair 1:16

Oh, probably at least 400 plus. Yeah. Wow.

Summer Swope 1:20

That's awesome. Yeah.

Lisa Monti 1:21

Highly, highly attended event. Yeah.

Summer Swope 1:23

Definitely. Um, I dress as a gopher at TLTA Global. So shout out to everybody that we saw there. Uh, hopefully I took a picture with you. I think we have collectively, between all of our cell phones, at least 50 photos with you guys. So be looking out on our social media for all of those ridiculous pictures. Why don't you tell them why you were dressed as a gopher? That's probably a good, a good point.

Lauren Blair 1:45

We just dress in as random animals.

Summer Swope 1:47

Random animals. Um, so our theme was caddyshack because we were staying at the Frisco PGA Hotel. Um, so it was really golf themed. So it was really fun to do a caddyshack theme because it's one of my favorite movies.

Lauren Blair 2:00

Yeah, so the gopher is a big part of that movie. And so we thought, what better than gopher the goose, right? The National Investors Goose.

Summer Swope 2:08

So I think we nailed it.

Lauren Blair 2:10

I think we nailed it.

Lisa Monti 2:11

It was fun, a lot of fun.

Summer Swope 2:12

Yeah, definitely.

Trainings, MMI, And CE Creativity

Summer Swope 2:13

Uh, what else have we been up to? I know me and Lauren went to a CIA training, Connect, Innovate, and Ad. That's one of the trainings that we do for our title partners that we work with. We come in and we really like, I think we build a pretty good, if I do say so ourselves, a pretty good four-hour, three to four hour program where we talk about specifically what's going on in the company. We focus on sales, we focus on relationship, you know, building your relationships within your escrow teams, within your sales teams, and bridging that gap. But also, you know, some business development stuff. So that'll probably be helpful today for us to go over.

Lisa Monti 2:51

What are my favorite goal setting?

Speaker 3 2:53

Oh, yeah, cool. Goal setting and visualization. That's a big part of it. Do some visualization as well.

Lisa Monti 2:59

So this week, mostly I've been really getting ready after the TLTA conference, took a little bit of recovery from that. It's a busy event, but fun. I taught like a MMI training, which is like mobility market intelligence, which is a way to really drill down and see who the top producing rolters and loan officers are. So it'll help us streamline for our clients. You know, they help streamline their prospects, their, you know, qualified people before they're spending too much time going down the wrong path.

Lauren Blair 3:29

Yeah, it's a great tool. And I think if you're a national investors agent, you get a pretty good deal with it to have access to MMI. And it's something that I wish I would have had when I was a rep. Oh my gosh, we didn't have access to it.

Lisa Monti 3:40

That's right. But yeah, so a lot of a lot of our customers right now have access to MMI, but maybe they're not really using it to its fullest potential. So sometimes we do a little refresher training like this to make sure they're using it. And other than that, I've been working on getting ready for a murder mystery event, which is one of our CE classes about Texas Homestead. So that'll be a lot of fun coming up this week.

Summer Swope 4:02

Is that just a very minimal amount of work, Lisa? Just takes not no work at all.

Lisa Monti 4:08

It's the most work of any of our CE classes, but it's also the most fun and the most memorable, I think, for all the attendees. It's a class that people will talk about a year after they take it. So it's uh work, but it's worth it.

Summer Swope 4:20

Yeah, absolutely. Just tell everybody a little bit about what you do because it's a murder mystery, but they get a continuing education credit, and it is a murder mystery for real estate agents. Correct.

Lisa Monti 4:30

They get a one-hour CE. The whole class takes about two and a half to three hours because we actually have the audience helping us act out a play, and it is a murder mystery, but we do have a narrator who goes over Texas homestead. It's kind of like uh acting out a soap opera that has to do with a real estate transaction, which is yeah, very it's similar to a lot of our transactions actually, where we've got heirs and people who uh are popping up at the last minute trying to make a claim on the property. So it's a lot of fun and um very entertaining.

Summer Swope 5:04

Yes, very entertaining.

Lisa Monti 5:06

Anything that could go wrong does.

Summer Swope 5:09

Yeah, it's a nightmare transaction story. Yes, essentially what we're playing out. Yeah, that's a really fun class that we do. Cool. Well, anything else from y'all's in that y'all have done over the last few weeks? So MMI, we did TLTA conference, we got the C A C I keep saying the CIA training. Well, I guess we could just jump into And now we're here. And now we're here.

Social Media Is Marketing Not Sales

Summer Swope 5:33

Podcasting. Man, we do a thousand different things, don't like showing up in all kinds of different ways. So, one of the things that we've been talking about a lot on the podcast and off of the podcast is really the differences that we've seen just over the last 10, five, three years when it comes to business development in title insurance. So, we wanted to talk about some of the top struggles that we see that business development reps have in 2026. And I think I'm gonna start off because this is something that has been propping up, I think over the last three months more than it has in the past. So when I was a title rep, Lisa was a title rep, Lauren was a title rep. I I don't want to speak for you guys, but I know for me, social media was something that didn't necessarily wasn't just coming out, but social media was more social, right? It was more fun. There wasn't a ton of marketing strategies behind Facebook, behind Instagram. We were still posting pictures of our food, right? With like an overexposed kind of lighting on it. And so what I've noticed just in the last, I would probably say year and a half, two years, is that a lot of title reps are hanging their entire hat, right? Their entire business on social media. They think that that is the number one way and the only way that they're gonna get business. And so it feels like they're just putting all of their eggs in one basket. And we couldn't do that back in our day.

Lisa Monti 7:02

I had no, there was no social media when I was the title rep.

Summer Swope 7:07

So I just really am I'm trying to figure out, I guess, kind of why that is. And I really I want to encourage any title rep or really any escrow officer, everybody is in sales, they work in a title company. But if you are putting, you know, a hundred percent of your effort into social media, that's not gonna have the return that you think that it's going to have. Do I think you have to show up on social media? Absolutely. Absolutely. But that, and Lauren and I were talking about this, and I Lisa was there too. We were talking about, you know, what is marketing and what is sales. And so that social media presence is a marketing tactic. Do you guys agree?

Lauren Blair 7:42

Yeah, absolutely. You know, that's I think you make a fine point. You know, you also have to meet your customer where they are. And if that's where they are promoting their business and trying to grow themselves, you also have to meet them where they are. So if if you're it's not your only tool that you can utilize, but you have to keep it in mind and you have to do it, even if you don't want to, because I know there are some of you that don't want to do it out there, and you're like, you know, my Facebook is my own, right? And it's private, it's only about me. But people see you, and that's how they might recognize you, but it's not the only way that you can grow your business.

Summer Swope 8:19

Yeah, I agree. You know, I think that we're maybe, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, but some reps that we know or they post on social media and they count those as their touches, right? They're like, well, I posted three videos today, so I'm done with my job. And that's just not the case. We need to be making our phone calls, we need to be having conversations, we need to be building relationships. I think some of the best people that are performing well on social media and performing well on their numbers, they're focusing on their relationship, but they're using social media as a social platform. And in any social interaction, what do we know about social interaction, right? The person that is standing in the room and talking the most and, you know, running their mouth and kind of sucking the air out of the room, right? And they're just talking and talking and talking and talking, those are the people that are the most exhausting to be around sometimes. And so I think a lot of, you know, title reps think that they have to have something to say every single, you know, minute of every single day on social media. And really, if you use that tool as a listening tool, that's where I see a lot of title reps excelling is how can I listen to my customers and then pick up the phone and call them and say, hey, I saw you posted this problem. Here are three solutions that I have to that problem.

Lauren Blair 9:36

Yeah, I agree. Y'all agree. Yes, yeah, absolutely.

Prospecting In A Post-COVID Market

Lauren Blair 9:39

And I think, you know, when you talk about what's changed most, right, in the last five years. I mean, we went through COVID. COVID really changed how real estate agents do business, right? Not necessarily how our lenders do business, but definitely how our real estate agents show up, where they show up. Do they have a broker that's remote? Do they even have an office location? And so sometimes their accessibility has become an issue and a hurdle that we have seen reps just say, Well, I can't ever reach them. I can never reach them. They're never at an office. I don't know how to get in front of them. And so you have to be really creative in the ways that you do that. And so I think their accessibility has put up a hurdle that you really have to think about how you're gonna get in front of them. And then also the agents' attention span. There are more title companies vying for that. There are more vendors vying for that attention. And so you really have to have a strategy where you stand out and actually bring value.

Summer Swope 10:37

Yeah, agreed.

Lisa Monti 10:38

Well, I would I'm thinking back to five years ago when we did our first like star event, our first star conference that we put on. At that time, the the title offices were overwhelmed with the amount of business and contracts coming in, right? Yeah. So we weren't really standing in front of the title repes having them be a genius at prospecting, right? That's not where they were really sharpening their skills on the prospecting side. They were more trying to manage and follow up with people as the closings came in, keep their extra teams like comfortable and clicking along. That wasn't the time that you were going to be able to bring in a hundred new, you know, deals at one time. Everybody was already swamped. So if you were a new sales or business development rep five years ago, you kind of were having business handed to you in some ways. Of course, you had to manage it, work it, follow up, do all the things. But now we've really kind of turned the corner and now we're much more into a prospecting market. So just like Lauren said, you've got to meet people where they are. You have to show up. You do have to be on social media because just like we talked about here, if you aren't gonna be able to go to their office to see them, you've got to make yourself visible in some ways while still trying to set appointments, get a face-to-face, call them, send a video. So there it's just changed drastically in the last five years as far as the number and the volume of transactions coming coming to you and the amount of prospecting that we all have to do to keep it.

Lauren Blair 12:01

Yeah. And I think there's something that Summer says a lot to the real estate agents, but it also applies to us in the title world. You know, we went from a speed market to a skills market. Same for your title reps. It was about how many orders could we actually get closed and not make anybody upset and all the refi business that was coming in and hair on fire and trying not to burn out? That was the speed market. To now we're in a skills market where you really have to stretch your skills to be able to be successful in the business development world of title insurance.

Consistency And Eat The Frog

Lauren Blair 12:34

Yeah.

Summer Swope 12:34

What do y'all think are the questions that title rep should be asking themselves in 2026?

Lisa Monti 12:41

Have I qualified my leads? Do I have a good solid prospect list? And am I being consistent? That's my reading.

Summer Swope 12:49

And that's boring. Like consistency. It is boring. It's so boring. It's with all the tools and technology that we're like shoving down each other's throats at this point, right? We're talking about AI and we're talking about this app. All of those things are good. Like I teach all of those classes, you guys teach all of those classes. We talk about the different tools that are available, but at the end of the day, all of the results are coming from the really boring work.

Lauren Blair 13:14

It's true. Yep. I think Summer said a quote the other day when we did our CIA training and I wrote it down on the whiteboard, but it's like you are avoiding the work that actually produces the result. And I think that really stuck with me too. Like we all get into a rut where we can find ourselves there. So you're not alone, right? And so if you really think about it, how many times do you say, oh, I'm not gonna pick up the phone and call them? I'm gonna go start my laundry, or I'm gonna go brush my desk the bathtub with a toothbrush and clean everything before I do that, right? And so, you know, we kind of do avoid the work that produces the result. And so I think as a business development rep, you've really got to take that into consideration whenever you're planning out what your goals are and how you're gonna finish out the year and how you're gonna reach those because we've had a rate dec decrease. So your current volume of customers isn't gonna meet those goals that you have.

Summer Swope 14:13

Yeah. The results that you're looking for are in the work that you're avoiding.

Lauren Blair 14:17

There it is.

Summer Swope 14:17

That's it, right? And I think that's a great reminder for us on the title side, right? For the underwriter side, it's a great reminder for your real estate agents. So rip off, duplicate this. Um, if you're seeing this on video, I promise that I'm not drinking again as it's ice coffee. But share that, right? Share that with your real estate agents. The results that you are looking for are in the work that you're avoiding. So, my biggest takeaway, right? And I think we did this for our team too. Write down every single task that you've been avoiding and put that at the top of your to-do list, right? That gets done between the hours of 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. And you do not do anything else. You don't go on social media, you don't check your email, you don't make a phone call to a friend, check on your parents. None of that happens until you eat your frog, until you do the hard thing.

Lauren Blair 15:05

And if you don't know what eating your frog is, just ask.

Summer Swope 15:08

We'll tell you. It's a disgusting metaphor, is what it is. But it works every time. It does. It works every time. Okay.

Follow-Up And Landing Appointments

Summer Swope 15:16

Well, what challenge do you see hurting reps the most right now? What is one of their biggest challenges that you're seeing? Lauren, you talked about a rate decrease. Lisa, you talked about not qualifying prospects. So what challenge do you see reps facing the most right now?

Lauren Blair 15:34

Well, I think, you know, we're known for always talking about doing a SWOT assessment. And if you've ever been in one where I was present, I always start with threats, right? And those threats can be external. And so what you don't want to do is create threats that really aren't threats. Like I think that one of the things that reps really struggle with, and hey, I've done it too. It's hard to follow up, right? We may start off really strong and we're like, oh, we have all these people that we want to reach out to and we want to try to earn their business. And then we we reach out once and then we move on with our lives, right? And so I think, you know, that's something that is really important as you move forward is having some strategy to follow up with these people because again, you cannot grow your business with your current book of business that you have. And so you've got to stretch yourself and be able to come up with those ways to follow up, which we are going to feature a podcast on following up.

Summer Swope 16:30

So we'll give you some insight on that. And we'll follow up with a podcast on following up.

Lisa Monti 16:37

I would say one of the hardest things is probably getting an appointment with someone. Yeah. Actually, you know, getting a sit-down appointment, getting them out for coffee, just being able to get yourself in a position where you can ask about their business, talk to them about what's going on, and be able to, you know, put yourself and ask yourself, is this the right time for me to ask them for the business? Or what things do I need to share with them to help, you know, alleviate some of their pain and pressure points, right?

Lauren Blair 17:03

Well, and I think on the getting them out to an appointment, a lot of times, you know, they may think they're too busy for that. But if you're a business development rep and you have an escrow team that is willing and able to support you in that way, maybe if you invite them to come with you to that emplo appointment, the agent on the other side may be more willing to go, right? Because maybe they want to pick their brain about something that maybe the business development rep doesn't know a whole lot about. And that's okay, right? Because you're gonna learn while you're on that appointment with them, if they're attending and the answers that they're giving and the things and how they're handling that conversation, that would be really helpful for you in the long run once you get that appointment.

Lisa Monti 17:41

Yes. Do you know how important they feel if an somebody from leaves their escrow desk to come out and have an in-person appointment with you? It's just like us. People probably get sick of seeing Lauren and I. They're like, it's Lauren, it's Lisa, we see them all the time. If we show up with one of our underwriting attorneys, it's a unicorn, right? They left their desk, they came out, they've made it a point. So I know how special people feel when we are able to do something like that. So you could create that same, you know, result with your own escrow team.

Summer Swope 18:09

Yeah. We pulled this escrow officer from behind her desk to come and hang out with you. So have all of your questions ready. And boy, do they have questions. Watching a real estate agent who's probably two or three years into the business, you know, does probably a minimum of 10 to 15 transactions, they've seen some stuff on their transactions. And if you've ever tried to get a real estate agent to explain what a title insurance policy is, oh my gosh. It is like they want to bury themselves in the ground, right? So they have the questions. The real estate agents have questions for escrow officers that they don't ever schedule a time to get that answer, right? And so we need to make sure that we are helping them schedule that time.

Lauren Blair 18:52

So I had an interesting interaction recently where one of my title agents actually has a real estate agent that had practiced real estate for many years, now works at the title company. And whenever I was visiting with her, I said, you know what, you're really unique in the way that now you've seen both sides and you've been in it long enough on the title side that you can really offer some valuable insight to those agents that are new or newer into the real estate world, where before, you know, you just went on with your transactions, you didn't really know why title was asking you these things or how they were helping you get to the closing table. And you could put something together whenever you go on a one-on-one and go with your business development rep and talk from the lens of the real estate agent now on the title side. So if any of you have someone in your office like that, that's a great tool and resource for you to utilize as a business development rep. Love that.

Bring Value Through Knowledge Sharing

Summer Swope 19:46

I think one of the questions that every title rep should be asking themselves is what is my skill set and how can I help that translate into helping real estate agents learn that stuff? Y'all, the easiest thing that you can do for as a title rep and bringing value to these real estate agents is just if you attend a CE class and people don't attend that CE class, real estate agent making RSPPs, and then showing pops up or a client appointment pops up and they're not able to go to that CE class. Just sitting down with them and going over the material, hey, here's what you missed from the class, that is so valuable to them. And you get to meet them wherever they are. I remember sitting with a real estate agent three years in the business. She had missed one of our CE classes. I took a thousand notes, I mean 10 pages worth of notes because back then I just wanted to learn and absorb as much as I could. And I sat in her passenger seat while she was running and dropping off pot buys. I was going through the notes with her in between her dropping off these pot buys to her clients. So it was just, it's one of those things where you've got to think about what you can learn that you can help real estate agents with and how can you sometimes it's just sitting with them and clicking buttons, right? Yes. I teach the YouTube CE class probably at least once a month, sometimes 10 times a month. And I have, you know, 15, 20 real estate agents who are so eager to get started on YouTube. And when I get to the part where I say, okay, now you have to click this button, sheer terror. I mean, just terrified to click a button. And it's not their fault, right? Because they're so scared of doing something wrong. They're so scared that their whole YouTube channel is gonna melt down the second they click a button. Sometimes they just need a title rep that will sit within, hold their hand, drink a cup of coffee, and click buttons with them as they are trying something new.

Lisa Monti 21:38

I think a great follow up for your YouTube uh class would be for the sales rep who put the class on to sp h host a like a YouTube workshop. Yes. Like one week later, where you kind of talk about these were the top three takeaways from the class, where everyone brings their laptop and you literally just sit down and everybody starts working on it together. That's invaluable.

Summer Swope 22:00

I totally agree.

Lisa Monti 22:01

And you can do that with a number of our classes, by the way. It doesn't just have to be YouTube. Yeah.

Lauren Blair 22:07

I think we also have seen over time. So, like Lisa and I've been here five years and teaching, and Summer's been here four coming on issues. A little over four, right? And one of the things that we see a lot of times with business development reps that maybe are new to the business or new to that role, they're like, oh, I have to set up all these classes and I have to get all these CE classes available for my real estate agents. And then they don't even stay in the class when it's being taught. And so they miss all this valuable thing, all these valuable things that they can take back to the people who weren't able to attend, like Summer said, or to go on to those that didn't even know the class was happening that you can use for months and months and months down the road. But also, I think there's a miss whenever you're scheduling all of these classes. That the class happens and the attendance happens because you already have a relationship. The class is not where the relationship begins. Now, there are some times where you get a new agent that doesn't use you. They come to the class, they're impressed. They're like, hey, we're willing to give you a chance. But that is not the norm. Right? The norm and the way you get your classes attended is because you've worked really hard in the beginning to build the relationship. Relationship building is not the CE class.

Speaker 23:27

Yeah, agree.

Lisa Monti 23:28

I think a lot of reps struggle, like when we say you need to bring value, we're always talking about bringing value. I think they think, I don't really know what my value is. Is my value dropping off cookies? Is my value providing a CE class? But themselves, they really can't think of what their value would be that they bring. So something I would do is kind of like we talked about a minute ago with summer's classes and everything. If you have an opportunity to sit in on any kind of a class, real estate training, here's somebody's listing appointment. I know that sounds crazy, but I've done that myself where I was at a seminar where several people stood up and gave like their listing presentation and their buyer's presentation. I literally memorized it and then would take it back and talk to other realtors about it that I was working with and just, you know, providing things that they don't have access to or that they weren't attending with you, right? Yeah. But back to the value thing, I think if there's something you want to learn yourself. So, like let's say I'm a rep in Fort Worth and I say, you know what, I just sat in on summer's YouTube class with all my agents. I'm gonna go ahead and start my own YouTube channel. You commit to it, you learn the first 10 things you need to do, make a little diagram about it, and then you take realtors along. Anything we're trying to learn to grow our business would be something they need to learn to grow their business, right? Absolutely. If you want to become a branding expert, if you want to become a YouTube expert, you set out on your own path to learn something new and take others along with you. You could literally set something up for twice a month for free in your own office where you are instructing them and leading them down a path to learn something. That's where you can bring your value. And everyone's unique about that.

Lauren Blair 25:08

This is the knowledge share portion of your job. Yes, right. It's not just the relationship building, but also sharing the knowledge that you have. That helps you build the relationship with them. You've probably always heard us talk about no lack trust, right? And so this is how we get there to tell them how competent we are is we're building that relationship with them along the way.

Outdated Habits, P53, And Better Targeting

Summer Swope 25:30

Yeah, a thousand percent. Okay, one of my favorite questions. What outdated sales habits are still holding reps back? I have a list, but I will wait and let you guys answer first.

Lauren Blair 25:45

I think that the idea that we just have to drop by their office and leave them something is an outdated way to do business development. Did it work at one point? Yeah, sure. Did it cause grief for some people? Yeah, it did. Because then we get into the avenues of P53 and the violations that happen and occur. And those that might know that it's a P53 and do it anyway, and those that, oh wow, we didn't realize that that's what it was. So here's the disclaimer if you've never read P53, it's in the TDI basic manual. You should look it up and read it. Oh my goodness. But I mean, I think there that's not outdated, that's still happening. And we get a lot of questions about, well, well, why can't we do this? Or so-and-so does it. Well, can't we? And my response is always like, Well, if they jumped off the bridge, would you too? And then someone said, Well, how big is the bridge? And I'm like, No, no, no, not the right question to ask.

unknown 26:46

Oh my god.

Lauren Blair 26:47

So I think those things are are things that we put up obstacles ourselves, right? Like, oh, well, I went by their office, but then nothing happened. Well, you gotta do more than that. That's not that's not showing your skill set in a skills market.

Summer Swope 27:01

That's just being there. Yeah, right. That's just your you're a piece of that's one step. Yeah, you're a piece of furniture at that point. Like, are you bringing value? Are you asking good questions? Like just showing up to somebody's office and showing up with your hands open, right? Like, can I have a contract, please? That's you know, it we've gotta we gotta do something. We gotta figure out, you know, what our value is.

Lisa Monti 27:23

So I would say an outdated sales habit is focusing your time and energy on the wrong prospects. Oh my gosh, yes.

Summer Swope 27:31

And MMI handles MMI is a huge help to that.

Lisa Monti 27:34

There's a lot of other ways you could do it for free. I know MMI has a small monthly charge, but it's well worth it and has such good information for most markets in Texas. But so that's what I would say is I've been guilty of it myself. Sometimes the people that take the most time and attention are not really the people that we would need to be focusing on or telling ourselves that we're only gonna go after the, you know, the $50 million producers and that's what that's your how we're gonna start. News Flash, those are hard. Those are hard. You gotta mix it up a little bit. So that's what I would say is just focusing on the wrong prospect list.

Summer Swope 28:09

Okay. So let's say that somebody is using MMI and they're brand new to the business and they're trying to figure out what their prospect list looks like. When they if they were to show you a profile of an agent and you would either say green flag, go for it, or red flag, don't go for it. What's showing up on MMI that's a green flag? What would a good prospect for a title rep, what did that what does that look like?

Lisa Monti 28:30

To me, it's someone who does heavy listing side business because in Texas, that's the side that is usually, you know, using the preferred title company. So I would say that's the number one thing of, you know, obviously having some volume of business. It doesn't have to be the hundred million dollar producer, but you also don't want it to be someone who literally just started and really has nothing under their belt yet.

Lauren Blair 28:52

Let's see, I would say on MMI, you get to see their lender relationships who they've used on that side. And so if you know any of those people, someone you already have a relationship with that now knows that prospect that you're looking at, utilize that as someone to say, hey, can you make an introduction to me? Absolutely. You know, because that information's available on there.

unknown 29:15

Yeah.

Summer Swope 29:15

So if if we're looking at MMI for a 12 year or wow 12 years, a 12 month production cycle, right? We're gonna look at the last 12 months. Are you saying like five listings, three by side? Is that an agent that they would want to go after?

Lisa Monti 29:33

Pos if it were me, possibly depending on the price point. I don't know that that's really where I would focus to start, but I'd probably start my prospect list maybe with a few more transactions under their belt than that. But I would say the last thing I would look at is MMI does provide title agent data in most places, not everywhere. It's only as good as the county courthouse recordings and the documents return to stamps that are on the that are on the documents that are recorded. But I would say if you like, let's just say that I'm looking myself up, Lisa Monty, as and I say, I'm a listing agent, I've got some good volume, I'm gonna go down to the title agent area and I'm going to click on the list side, and it's gonna show me did Lisa close with maybe I've had 24 closings and maybe I've closed them all with just one title company. Well, that tells me I'm in pretty deep with the one title company. But I could look somebody else up and see that they've got three here, two here, five here, four here. They share the love. Share the love. Which is good. I think that is an easier person to move up on your prospect list because they haven't really appreciated the value of being loyal to one particular title company yet. And you could really turn their head by letting them know why it matters to choose one and stick with one. Yeah.

Summer Swope 30:49

That's amazing. Okay, so qualifying our prospects. That's one thing that we're probably not doing. Lauren, what did you say? Is your outdated sales strategy?

Lauren Blair 30:59

Just dropping by an office, dropping something off, or agreeing to commit a P53 violation.

Summer Swope 31:06

Oh my God. Yeah. We're gonna do a whole podcast on P53. Maybe that's our next podcast.

Shorter Meetings And Ask For Business

Summer Swope 31:11

I think it should be. Okay, so I'm thinking for you know, outdated sales habits, the two-hour title rep meeting. Oh my gosh.

Lisa Monti 31:20

That's tough.

Summer Swope 31:20

And I'm speaking from experience, y'all. And one of my favorite things to do was to like lure real estate agents into my office to capture them, capture them with knowledge, right?

Lauren Blair 31:31

So they really were the victim.

Summer Swope 31:32

They really were the victim, just dragging them in. And I would say, like, okay, let's learn about this, let's learn about that. And then I would spend two hours of my time with them, teaching them all this stuff about social media and about online presence. And I loved it, right? Which is why I'm a pretty good instructor because I like to tell people about my special interests. I get very in-depth with it, but that is entirely too long. And Lisa actually used to talk about this a lot. It shouldn't be a two-hour meeting, right? 45 minutes tops in Texas, 15 minutes of like catch up. How are your kids? How's the family? What's going on with you? And then 45 minutes of value, you should always leave them wanting more. Yes, right. Always set that next appointment. Hey, this is all the you know, the time I have today for this topic, but I would love to talk about, you know, Google or I would love to talk about Instagram and a strategy around that. Let's schedule that for four months, four weeks out, right? Maybe not four months, but four weeks out. Twelve years, four months.

Speaker 3 32:31

12 years, four months, whatever.

Summer Swope 32:32

Um, but I think just you know, having something else for them to look forward to and to keep them coming back.

Lisa Monti 32:38

Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna say that's an outdated sales topic right there. An outdated sales way is one it's my old manager used to say, don't spill all your candy in the lobby. Yeah. Like you don't give everything up right at the beginning. Yeah. You you should be asking questions and listening instead of it's very easy even for us to want to say, Oh my gosh, we have all these tools. I know you'd love them. If you just listen to me for two hours, I'll explain how to use all of our tools in depth and you're gonna love it and we'll win you over forever. But that's not the truth. The truth is as you ask them questions and they answer, you find the one or two tools that you have that might match up with that, or it might be something that you need to check into and have a reason to follow up with them, right? So I think you need to slow your roll down. And just like Summer said, if she wants to talk about Instagram and social media and all these different things, she can make that into multiple short appointments and keep in front of them in a lot better way, right? Than everything at once, which is a little overwhelming.

Summer Swope 33:36

Yeah. And every time I have a meeting with them, I get the chance to look them directly in the eye and say, How's business? And oh, by the way, when can we work on our next order together? Right? Hey, thank you so much for bringing those four contracts to us. Just in the last few months, I was pulling our our data and you sent us four listings, and thank you so much for that. What else can we work on together?

Lauren Blair 33:58

Because what you're saying is you actually have to ask for the business.

Summer Swope 34:04

Are you kidding me?

Lauren Blair 34:06

Oh no, what's terrifying?

Summer Swope 34:09

Oh God. Yes, you have to ask for the business. Crazy concept.

Lisa Monti 34:14

Everybody likes to be invited, y'all. Yes, it's almost insulting to not invite them to use your title company.

Summer Swope 34:20

Yeah.

Lisa Monti 34:20

Think of it that way.

Summer Swope 34:21

Yes.

Lauren Blair 34:22

So it's interesting because we actually polled a brokerage and we asked them top producing brokerage. Top producing brokerage, best ever. Okay, we're just saying. What skill separates a top performing rep from an average rep?

Summer Swope 34:39

And you didn't even finish the question. Nope. And what was their response?

Lauren Blair 34:42

That they actually asked me for the business.

unknown 34:44

Yeah.

Summer Swope 34:45

It's crazy. And, you know, yes, you should be qualifying your prospect. You should figure out, you know, if they have one title company that they've been locked into and they have a hundred million in production a year, like it's gonna take a little bit more time. But you would be surprised by how little top producers are actually asked for the business or approached because everybody is like, oh, I'm scared, right?

Lauren Blair 35:06

Or they think, oh, well, they like somebody else and they're gonna be really hard.

Summer Swope 35:12

We create our own roadblocks in our minds, right? That's one of the reasons you don't get on video, is why. I don't like how I look.

Lauren Blair 35:19

I don't like how I sound.

Summer Swope 35:20

I don't like my voice. Like you're walking around looking like that and sounding like that. So that's a mental roadblock you create for yourself. Another mental roadblock is oh, they already have a title company that they're locked in with. They already, you know, they're they have a hundred million in production a year. Like there's no way that we're gonna be able to get any of that business. So don't be your biggest enemy. Yeah. Right? Be your biggest fan and get really used to rejection. I think Tom said it on one of the podcasts earlier, you know, in the month. He said, you have to make rejection a game. You have to find that really fun to do well in this business. You gotta get really excited about hearing the word no because everybody's gonna tell you no over and over and over again. So people who are competitive and people who are persistent are gonna be really good at this game. One last question, and then I think we're gonna wrap up because I have no idea how long we've

End-Of-Year Focus And Wrap-Up

Summer Swope 36:14

been going. I didn't set a timer, okay. But my last question is how, you know, looking forward, you know, to the end of 2026, we've got five months left. What is one thing that every title rep that is listening to this call right now, what's one thing that they need to be focusing on? To end the year.

Lisa Monti 36:37

I'm gonna say activity, increased activity. Because that's what I tell myself that I need to be doing. Yeah. Increasing my activity, calls, videos, video emails, texts, meeting people, going to events.

Summer Swope 36:51

Love it, love it.

Lauren Blair 36:53

Well, and I think after listening to this, maybe they've been inspired to actually find what their value ad is, not just the value add of the title agency they work for and the and the team that they work with, but internally, like what is your value ad? And what can you do over the next few weeks to really hone in on that and then start spreading that message so that you can help bring that value as we go towards the end of this year?

Summer Swope 37:17

Yeah.

Lauren Blair 37:17

And then to next year. You never get to stop, by the way.

Summer Swope 37:20

It never stops. Are you kidding?

unknown 37:22

What?

Summer Swope 37:22

We have to be consistent, we have to keep asking for the business. We have to ask if you're not exhausted. Yeah, you will be in the best way. Okay. In the best way because you're helping people. All right, friends. Well, I think we're gonna wrap it up here. We're gonna do a few more podcasts about follow up. I think we're gonna have to do a podcast about P53. So, you know, just hang with us. I know it's not your favorite topic, but it'll be informative. So we can't wait to see you guys back at our next podcast. See you soon. Thank you. Bye bye.