Turning Non-Referring Agents Into Your Biggest Growth Opportunity | Ep 100

When we sacrifice to the market, or we give— when we give up to the market, we sacrifice our hope. But when we take control of our business back, our hope suddenly returns. So if somebody feels stuck right now, not only the duplication revelation, uh, principle, they need to try to catch it, but to realize that nobody owns the next move but them. In a world where change is the only constant, Mo Choumil stands at the forefront, guiding title professionals To not just grow their businesses, but to master the art of innovation. With every episode, you're handed the keys to unlock unparalleled growth and stay ahead of the curve.

Get ready for a transformative journey. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the All— uh, the Title Agents Podcast. I am your host, Mo Choumil, CEO of Alltech National Title. Joining us today is none other than Darryl Turner, a seasoned expert and industry icon with over 30 years of experience. Helping title professionals unlock growth opportunities.

Darryl is known for his unique focus on turning non-referring agents into valuable partners, a low-hanging fruit many overlook. Whether you're looking to boost your sales, especially in this down market, strengthen your clients' relationships, or adapt to the challenging market, this episode is packed with tips you can start using right away. Let's slip into it. Welcome, Darryl. Hey, thanks for having me.

It's going to be fun. Yeah, you're our first guest for 2025, so you're going to be the, like, the positive vibe. It's going to take— make the year wonderful and great. Well, well, thank you. I do have a question for you before we get started.

Yes, sir. When you said seasoned, referred to me as seasoned, what does that mean? That means you're full of wisdom. You've been around the block. That's the color of my hair.

This is wisdom color right here. You look wonderful in the Arizona weather. You're in Arizona, right? I'm in Nevada, actually. Nevada.

So a little far away from LA fires, right? Or do you see it in the skies? We do have family down there, so we're checking on them regularly. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I hope everybody's safe and— Thank you. Welcome, Darryl. So, uh, Darryl, give us a little background about you, how, uh, Where you grew up, schools you went to, and your career track. Yeah, so I, uh, I, well, I was born in Alameda, California, a little island in the San Francisco Bay. Uh, when I was a kid, we moved to Modesto.

My, uh, my stepdad, uh, owned a home there, and then we moved there for a little while, moved away, and, uh, and then he got a job with Gallo. Everybody knows who Gallo is, right? In Modesto. And so we moved back to Modesto. That's, that's where I grew up, and, uh, Lived part of my adult life in, uh, Copperopolis, California.

You know where that is? No? California. A little, uh— Educate us. Yeah, a little water ski lake in, uh, in Calaveras County, kind of between Sacramento and Yosemite.

And we have a lake house there, which is now a second home. And, uh, now we live, uh, we live in Nevada. 5 kids, 5 grandkids, uh, grandkids 6 and 7 in the oven. Right now, both our daughters are expecting, so this little Turner family just continues to grow. That's fantastic.

Busy Thanksgiving and Christmas. Oh yeah, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. Well, you've been a transformative figure in the title industry for the past 30 years. Can you share with us what inspired you to start Darryl Turner Corporation?

Yeah, that's a great question. I actually love that question. I love sales, Mo. Me too. Yeah, I love sales because I see sales differently than a lot of people do.

A lot of people don't have a good mental picture of sales, and that's because they've dealt with salespeople that have tried to get them to buy something they didn't need or want. And I believe that true professional sales is nothing more than helping people improve their life, whether it's helping them select a product that lines up with their wants and needs, which we can talk about this a little bit later, how important discovery is in the sales process. I believe it's everything. Um, you know, I, I— there was a, a post that went out today, a little video that went out today, that the whole premise was unless your prospect's, uh, problems are on the table, nothing you have is of value, right? So I love sales because I love helping people, and, and I don't believe in manipulative selling.

I just believe in helping people accomplish what they want. My whole background was, uh, Uh, I— well, years ago, I— years ago when I was a kid, I worked in a warehouse, worked my way all the way up through the company and ended up, uh, running a sales team of 11. And, um, I developed a sales process for that company. They never had a sales process, which most title companies don't have a sales process, right? They have a closing process, they have a system for everything, um, they've got a closing software solution and no sales process.

The very engine that drives all your revenue. And so, I built a process for the company and discovered that through process, we can have exponential scaled growth, which, by the way, scaled wasn't a word we used back then. We just called it growth. I guess scale is kind of the new fancy word for growth. A buzzword, right?

Scale. Yeah. So, I loved it. And to be honest, I got promoted higher up in the company, and it was a role outside of sales. It was running the organization.

And I It wasn't as much fun for me. And, uh, so I decided in 1994 I was going to start a small sales training company that turned into the national sales coaching company for the title industry. So it's, uh, it's been quite a ride, but really it's my, it's my love and passion for sales. And secondarily, it's, it's my love and passion for helping people win. It's, um, you know, I met with a group yesterday and I had them actually write this down.

I, I, and it's pretty simple, but I just write, write down, winning is fun. Right. Winning is fun. Losing is not fun, but winning is fun. But watching people or helping people win is even more fun.

If you can take what you know and you can transfer it to other people's lives and you can watch their lives improve, not just financially but lifestyle in general, you know, quality of life is way more than money. And Mo, I mean, you know that, you know this as well as anybody. It's, uh, we all want more money, we all want to make more money, we all like having more money, but more money doesn't make you happier. It'll rent it, it'll rent happiness, but it won't— not buy it. And, uh, but helping other people to, to just improve all the way around, it's just a passion that I have, which I think ties into your second question a little bit.

Yeah, well, the— let me, uh, why title specifically? I mean, it's one of those very nichey small industries nobody ever knows or hears about until they have to buy a house or refinance a loan. So you mean you didn't take title and escrow in school? I did. I was just— I was expecting Exception to the rule.

So is it really— that's a really great question. And, and, uh, you know, it's, it's so funny because this is an industry, and as soon as I say this, you know, people that are viewing this podcast, they're going to get it. This is an industry that you very rarely get out of. It's called the black hole. Nobody plans to get in it, right?

Nobody plans to get in it unless, you know, maybe your family owns a title agency or you're someone that grew up With your parents as top executives for one of the nationals. But, you know, nobody plans to get in it. They just find themselves in it. Um, it's like love. You fall into the title industry, right?

But no, nobody gets out. And, um, in the early days of this company, um, I fell in love with the industry. I, I was asked to, uh, do some training before I understood what title was. And I said, you know, we have to do it my way. And they're like, what is your way?

I said, I have to become one of your people. I have to become one of yours. I have to be out in the field with the salespeople. I have to be one of your salespeople. I have to get in it.

You know, anybody can teach sales if they understand it, but to really, to really niche in a vertical, you have to live in that world. And, um, that was 30 years ago. That was 1,525 title companies ago. Um, and somewhere around there, 1,525, 1,535, a lot, Mo, a lot of title companies ago. Um, and I just, I fell in love with it.

I, I loved The fact— I'll tell you a couple of things. Um, the first one is I love the opportunity to truly create value propositions for the real estate community, because at that time I started off in the residential side and of course moved to, you know, all the commercial stuff and everything's come along with it. But, but secondarily, when I first got in this business, um, I saw unbelievable opportunity. And what's one of the things that I— that when I'm talking to people around the country that have been in the business a long time, They don't see the true opportunities. And then I talk to somebody that, that, um, maybe they don't tell me at first how long they've been in the business.

Maybe they are an owner of an agency that they bought. And, and I can tell by how much opportunity they see in the business that they came from another industry, and then they stepped into the title business and realized, uh, that, that the opportunity— like, for example, I know today we're going to talk about, you know, non-referring agents. I know we're going to— you mentioned that even in the beginning. Right. Which in 1994, I coined a phrase, coined a term called NDC.

And now a lot of people talk about that, but that did come from the early days of my career in this business. If you go to our website, you can see, you can click on the NDC process and it'll tell you the true breakdown historically of where it came from. But that's the first opportunity I saw. It's like nobody's paying any attention to anybody else but the directing source of business. So I began building the model to win those people over, and that was 3 decades ago.

Um, that's, you know, getting into this business is, is interesting because, you know, first of all, nobody understands it. You know, I was talking to, uh, to a contractor at, at our home here in Reno recently, and, and he, he said to me the same thing that a lot of people have said to you. He goes, so you're in the tile business? He skipped the T in the middle. No, he missed it, missed it entirely.

And I said, you know, everybody, everybody says that. No. And I had to explain to him what it actually is. You know, we're the people that make sure you own the property you think you just bought. And by the way, if you're watching this, uh, podcast and you don't have an elevator speech, there it is.

We are the people— we are the people that make sure you own the property you think you just bought, right? That's, that's what we do. But yeah, most people don't understand it. Most people don't know what it is. When you get in, you just— I don't know if you don't get out, you can't get out.

One way or another, people don't leave. Why do you think that? I mean, I, I know— I think I have an idea, but What do you think people don't leave the business? Which I call the black hole. You get sucked into it, you never— well, this is good.

Put it positive, it's a good thing. Okay, a good black hole. Okay. Yeah, um, this is a very relational business, okay? And I, I think at the end of the day— and there's a myth in this business, by the way, that you need a relationship with a prospect to get business from them.

You do not. You do not. The most common way You get business from somebody that's non-customers when they're mad at somebody else, and you needed no relationship to get that. You just needed presence, right? But relationship is the key to retention.

And through those relationships that are established over the course of time— now, now with us, it's between myself and, you know, over 1,500 title company owners or executives, um, that relationship. But at the, at the agency level, for example, it's, it's the agency and people, staff. Right. with the real estate community and the lending community and the commercial development community. And they do— we just form these, these relationships that just go wide.

And I really think that's why, um, most people don't leave. You know, a lot of other industries which may be more technical than relational, people come and go in those industries. But my personal opinion is it's the, it's the depth and width in combination of the relationships in this business that keep people in it. And I think it's also, if you're successful at it, building that residual book of business, repeat business, it's very lucrative and you can make a lot of money without any licenses. And I'm not licensed, without any degrees requirements or— Yes.

I mean, majority are attorneys or professionals, but there are really no requirements. You can, if you're a hustler, if you're professional, if you bust your tail, you'll be very successful, make a lot of money at it too. This is a very lucrative business for people that do the right things. It's a very scary business for people who just ride the markets, right? And, you know, market gets really good and suddenly a Rolex shows up on their wrist and a new BMW and extra staff.

But if they didn't build that volume, if they didn't build it through expanding their customer base, but they're just riding the market, the backside of that is rough. And I know that your listeners, many of them have experienced that. Um, but if you are constantly building your business every day you get up, you know, I talked to a group yesterday and I just, I asked them straight up, you know, what can the market stop you from doing? Nothing. It may, it may reduce, um, the results, but it can't stop you from picking up the phone.

It can't stop you from prospecting. It can't stop you from calling past customers. It can't stop you from doing anything. But when we get too hooked up in what the market is doing for us, I mean, let's, let's face it, everybody was a genius in 2021. Yeah.

Okay. And then, and then in August of 2022, people are saying, I don't know what to do. And what to do is get up every day thinking about how you're going to build your business, not just how you're going to profit from what the market's doing for you. Yeah, it's, it's funny. Like, as you know, this 80/20 rule, our top 20% of our sales team doing the same numbers from '21, '22, '23, '24, the same market, different markets.

It's all about perspective. You know, you can, you can break that, Mo. You break that down a little bit further. We actually, you know, the Pareto principle, 80/20 rule— we, we actually have our own rule, and it's not the 80/20 rule, it's the 20/60/20 rule. And so we take the 80% and break it into 60 and 20 together, right?

So you can take your 20% of producers— typically this is the way it works— you can take your 20% of producers on top, you could take every tool away from them, and guess what they'll still be? 20%, right? And then you can take every tool from the top. Let me just offend all the bottom producers right now. Please do.

You can, you can send it to the bottom. You can take every tool from the top and give it to the bottom. Now, I don't mean somebody that with low numbers because they're new to the business. I mean, they've just been on the bottom a while. They'll almost all remain on the bottom.

Okay, so in fact, a lot of times people will ask us when they're signing up their teams for coaching, maybe they have a lot of people and, and, you know, they don't want to sign up 35 people. Um, they— but they want to join our coaching network. And I'll just tell them straight up, your opportunity to move the needle will come from the middle 60% of your team. Not the top 20, because they're going to be the top 20 no matter what. Not the bottom 20, but usually people look at the bottom and go, I need you to fix these people.

Your movement of the needle, your profitability increase, will come from the middle 60% of your team receiving the support, the tools, the strategy, and the coaching that allows them to elevate. And then we say, do not leave out your top people. Offer it to them. Because if you say to them, if you say to the top people in your company, hey, we're signing you up for coaching, it's mandatory, you're going to make them mad. And you tell them, we're signing up our middle 60% for coaching, we're leaving you out, you're going to make them mad.

Offer it to them, right? Involve them in a process, but don't make it ob— don't make it a requirement. Half of them, half of them take it, and then the other half take it later when they see the middle 60% starting to pass them up a little bit. Yeah, that's awesome. I love that, uh, moving the needle, the bottom, the middle 60%.

Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put— take that to heart. I'm gonna quote you on that. I love it. Do it for sure. That's where the needle moves.

Yeah. So what, what has been the most rewarding aspect of your work coaching title professionals? Oh man, um, honestly, watching, watching people grow. And when I say that, I don't mean just the people that are in our coaching network. We We have the most amazing team of coaches that we have ever had in the history of our company.

Can you— let me just, if you don't mind, tell us about your coaching network and your company. Can we dig a little deeper there? Then you can go back to the most rewarding part about your business. Yeah, our company, we were not remote until COVID. And we do have one office in Missouri, one small office in Missouri.

But we had a few small offices. Our main office was in Modesto, California. We had about a 5,200-square-foot freestanding building, um, that had at the peak probably 35 people working in it, something along those lines. And, um, had classrooms. We would do institutes there.

But all of our coaches, you know, this is all before Zoom, so they would— every week our team would get on airplanes, Mo, and they would travel to title companies and they would work on site, which is always the best to be on site. But it's— Absolutely. It's less cost-effective to buy an airline ticket and a hotel every time we go somewhere. Um, and so, uh, then we moved to Oakdale, California, which it's cowboy capital of the world. Sorry, Texas, if you're watching right now.

Um, and we got an office in Oakdale, and then COVID hit. We didn't go to our office for 13 months, and we were all working remote. When COVID first hit, I asked my team that, that was based in Oakdale, I said, you guys are all equipped to work from home? And they said, yeah. I go, why don't we work from home this week?

for one week, and then let's just come back next week. I actually said this, Mo, I can't see this thing lasting more than a couple of weeks. I actually said that. We never went back to the office. Wow.

And, uh, so we've been remote ever since. We have, we have 13 full-time coaches. Um, the only 2 coaches that are in the same state are Raquel and I. Raquel is the president of our company, which makes her my boss, and she's my wife. Um, and Uh, we, we, uh, have a home in Reno.

We have a couple places we live, but this is our main place. And, uh, then our coaches are spread out across the country. Um, we coach about 300— well, the coaches outside of Raquel and I coach, I want to say they're— I just got the number this week. It's— I want to say it's around 240 people that are in our regular coaching system. And then Raquel and I together, because we do a lot of groups and things, we probably coach another 100 people.

So, you know, let's just say 325. Let's just, you know, um, we're always working with more than 100 title companies at a time. And, um, but yeah, I mean, that's kind of our— Where is, uh, is that mostly West Coast or— No, in fact, it's, it's really funny. It's, uh, it kind of goes in waves. We, we're very cautious not to have a lot of crossover.

Like, if we have in one market, if we're coaching a team, um, if we ever pick up any other company anywhere remotely close to them, we do everything we can to make sure that we use a different coach and there's no crosstalk and Yeah. But most of the time, there's not much of that. There's really— we do try to manage that. There is some always. But it's really interesting because there— if you had to say, like, where's the majority of your business right now today?

It's so spread out. I mean, you know, there's people in Alabama and people in New Jersey and people in Florida and people in California and people in Washington and people in, you know, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio. Uh, literally, I mean, we've, we've worked in every single state except Iowa because, well, I don't know if you know the, the, what's the deal with Iowa this year. I do. And we also, uh, support and, uh, work, uh, remotely and on-site with a very successful title company on, uh, Guam, and we support their Saipan operation as well.

So it's, um, yeah, that's kind of our company. And now I will tell you, we have We have a brand manager out of Miami. She's incredible. Her name is Brandy. Brandy, the brand manager.

Love it. And she works with Haley. I don't know if you've ever met Haley. Haley's our daughter. She's our corporate sales director.

And myself, we're very— so we have a sales initiative in our company, right? So we are a coaching company, but we have a very strong sales initiative. We practice what we preach. And I think from a scalability standpoint, that's one of the most important things. that we could be doing.

So we have a great business development mindset, process, system, and team. Um, we— our admin is based in Henderson, Nevada. So if you looked up the Darryl Turner Corporation, it's going to have a Henderson address because that's where the brains behind the organization are. Um, and we have a couple people down there that manage all the financial aspects of the business. And yeah, that's— I didn't even add up all those people, but whatever that total is, that's how many we have.

Yeah. That's awesome. So now going back to you, the, the rewarding part about your job, the most rewarding part. Yes. Um, not only seeing, not only seeing our clients improve their lives, but watching our coaches.

You know, we are, um, it— I will tell you, one of the toughest things you could ever do in the title business is become a Darryl Turner Corporation coach. Um, our vetting process is incredible. Um, with a— the fiery hoops that any coach candidate would have to jump through and prove themselves through to ever become a coach. Um, our, our standards are just unbelievably high. Just imagine, you know, what it would take to wear our jersey, my— what my standards might be.

Um, and so to be able to see someone become a coach, and because about, about 30% of coach candidates in our company become coaches, maybe a little less, the rest don't make it. And we, and we know that it's built into our process, which is the same process we use to help title companies hire, develop sales teams. We'll teach them exactly the same way to do it. So that in the end, they almost have a guarantee that they've, you know, made the right choice. But just just watching the excitement on the faces of our coaches when they get a text on a Saturday from a rep who just landed a top prospect that the coach has been working with them to help them get.

You know, I mean, that's the relationship that all of our coaches have with the participants. But just to be able to see people's lives. Improve. I, I just, you know, when I was 40, I don't know if I'd have said that, Mo. But I don't know if you notice the color of my hair.

I'm not 40 anymore. So you're 45? Uh, yeah, 45. I just— so, so at this point in my life, um, the, the rewarding element is, you know, Raquel and I have a good life. I mean, we do.

We, we, you know, we make enough money to buy, you know, 2 shoes for our kids at one time. And, um, but it But that's not really what it's about at this point. It's really about watching people's lives improve, both from our clientele standpoint and our team. Yeah, that's the growth. Happiness a lot of times is related to growth.

When you're growing, you feel fulfilled and happy. It's not always about money. It's seeing that progress in your team and your company. Winning is fun. Absolutely.

So your approach often challenges the traditional playbook. What key moments or insights shaped your philosophy on sales and business growth? I'm going to give you a term that I came up with in 1994. And even though I had success before starting this company, until this happened to me, the scalability of my professional career was still going to be limited. What I, what I really want to tell you is what I want everybody to try to figure out how to catch.

Okay? And it's this. I came up with a term one day, and the term is duplication revelation. And it was when I got our first regular monthly client as a sales training and sales coaching organization. And I was driving down the road.

I was in Fresno, California, and I remember I was in my car. And I remember it hit me. I got excited and I kind of yelled out loud. I was all by myself. Now, yelling out loud when you're by yourself in a car is different than wearing a mask when you're by yourself in a car.

Okay? It's not the same. It was a good thing. Okay? Yeah.

And so, what I realized, Mo, is that anything I could do one time, I could do as many times as I chose. I had duplication revelation. So if people are watching right now and they're in sales, uh, the, the average salesperson in the title business builds a book of business and stops prospecting. Well, at the same time, they wish they made more money. It makes no sense.

It's because they haven't caught duplication revelation. If they can get one new customer, they can get as many as they want. There are, there are no limits. Like you said earlier, the lucrative aspects of this business, as long as you understand That, that it's not about chasing transactions, it's about acquiring sources of business and continuing it, continually expanding your customer base. We can't control how much volume a realtor has, but we can control how many customers we have based on our sales initiative and how we continually prospect.

So for me, that day, uh, that was a turning point for this company. And when I realized that if I, if I could do it once, I could do it infinite times. So You know, the average, um, the average title agency owner works in their business about 95% of the time and on their business about 5% of the time. The top entrepreneurs in the world spend 68.1% of their time working on their business. So I make it a goal to put 70% of my time and my focus into continually scaling the business because of Duplication Revelation.

So until it hits you right here, not here, I mean, everybody can understand, oh, I get that. Anything I can do once, I can do as many times as I want. Knowing it isn't enough. It's owning it. The minute you own it, like, you'll have such a level of excitement because you just realize the ceiling is off.

And so, for me, it was 30 years ago, and I've been building this thing ever since. And in fact, we just had a 30-year celebration at the end of Title Sales Mastery. And my amazing wife, my boss, my president. Um, you know, flew, flew— only one of our kids couldn't, didn't make it. Uh, flew our daughter in and her new baby, and but also flew a gentleman in that was the first person I ever worked with who, um, I had to do it my way with.

Uh, he's been since retired 30 years ago. She flew, she flew this gentleman and his, and his wife in from Palm Springs, and he surprised me. First time in 30 years I realized what we had built. I came in the room, Mo, and all these people were in there and they're all wearing 30-year anniversary shirts. That's awesome.

And I mean, our financial advisor was there, our CPA was there. You know, our CPA's got a couple of planes. My philosophy is if your CPA doesn't own at least 2 airplanes, you need a new CPA. But he flew himself in and spent time with us. And it's like I looked around the room and I thought, this is really cool.

But I never really saw the scalability happening until that day. I realized how Duplication Revelation had paid off. So that, to me, honestly, that was my turning point. That was the moment. That's awesome.

So you're known for emphasizing non-referring agents, or as you call it, NDC, as a critical growth opportunity. Why do you see this group as such an untapped resource? And how can title professionals approach them effectively to grow their business? Well, a lot of people, when they realize this, they look at that as like low-hanging fruit. Right?

And when they truly realize it, but I'm going to tell you, the better you are in sales, the lower the fruit. Period. So a lot of people look at us and go, hey, that's the NDC guy. But we also have market-driven sales processes that use tools like Agent Brief with scripting to generate customer opportunities off of that. We work in the commercial space, which by the way, in the commercial space.

You, you work traditionally and an NDC, you could have 5, 6, 7 NDCs on a file, you know, connected parties, lenders. Yeah. Yeah. The, the opportunity to, to scale your business on the commercial side is exponentially better. But at the end of the day, um, you— I don't know if you ever read the book Blue Ocean Strategy, but, but yes, you know, most people in the title business live in the red ocean.

And, and when you can find an area that does not have sharks killing everything, which is the blue ocean, uh, you can win. Like, for example, when I started this company in 1994, there were absolutely no sales trainers in the title industry. Complete blue ocean. Uh, when we, when we transitioned into full coaching models, there were no coaches in the title industry. We were always first, like Q-tip and Frisbee and Xerox and Coke and all these things.

That's right. You know, when you're in— when you, when you show up first, uh, you create the generic brand. I mean, we've all We've all FedExed something on UPS, okay? We've all done that. And so, you know, when I looked at it, nobody was pursuing the other entities in the file.

And, you know, if you don't— some people don't like— let's talk about Walmart for a minute. Some people don't like shopping at Walmart, but if you had to go to Walmart, just because you don't want to be there does not mean you're not a customer. Right. Just even if you hated the experience, even if you couldn't find parking, even if there was a, a guy walking in front of you, you know, um, with his pants too low, you know, and you're just like, pull them up or pull them down, dude, but make up your mind, you know. Even if it's a bad experience, it doesn't mean you weren't a customer.

And all of a sudden, I tell people this: 2/3 of all your customers plan to leave you as soon as they can. And they're like, what? And then I show them who their customers are. A lender, a directing agent, a non-directing agent. And then I cut the triangle in half and say, 2/3 of all your customers plan to leave you as soon as they can.

You, you tell me you're great at retention, prove it. Keep all 3. What would happen if you treated all 3 people as if you actually wanted them to come back? Some of them will, right? So, so I look at that as like, yeah, you know, some people look at it as low-hanging fruit.

I just believe the better you are at sales, the lower the fruit is, period. Right? I mean, if you, if you can master selling, and selling is helping people, selling is serving, selling is solving, selling isn't manipulating. But if you can help people and you get better and better and better at it through discovery and knowing what somebody wants, um, you can really, you can really maximize your business. But, but when you find prospects who nobody's paying attention to, yeah, that's how you win at an exponential level.

Yeah. And it's, uh, it's really not, it's not even what has to do with the sales skills. It's more expanding the, the prospect list. Oh yeah. And you can, you can be the best salesperson on planet, but it's, uh, if it's only have a certain bucket, that's all you can sell to this bucket.

But if all of a sudden it doubles 'cause it's non-directing, when it triples, or then all you doing expanding that, that kind of that prospect list to Well, I'll give you a little formula here. We— one of our coaches, uh, is in Minnesota, actually. I think she's in Fargo. I don't know, she's on the border there. Her name is Laura Beale.

Now, as soon as I say that name, uh, some of your viewers are going to know her. She's incredible. Uh, I met her 25 years ago. She came to one of my boot camps. I scared her half to death.

And for the last number of years, she's been one of the best coaches ever. But, uh, she's artsy. She likes to make things. And, and at our lake house in California, On the living room wall, there's this big wood sign that's really cool. It's got these fancy letters, and here's what it says, Mo: M times S equals R.

Now, that means something to us as coaches, um, and it means something to all of our clients. It means nothing to our friends that visit our lake house. The, the thoughts of what those letters mean to them are absolutely hilarious when they try to break it down. But here's what it means: math multiplied by skill equals results. So the bottom line is this: math is the quantity of quality prospects engaged, not just the number of people you're talking to, The number of people you're talking to that qualify as a prospect.

Skill is how well you do it. Do you have a plan? Do you have a process? Do you have a coach? Do you have scripts?

Do you know what to ask? Math multiplied by skill equals results. So you can have the best skill set in the world. If you're not talking to enough qualified prospects, to your point a second ago, your results are not going to be there. But if you're talking to everybody and your skills are horrible, your results are still not going to be there.

So any salesperson that's not at the numbers that they would want to be at, We have to determine as a coach, do we have a math problem or do we have a skill problem? And honestly, it's always a combination of both, but one is usually more than the other. Like, for example, as coaches, we get asked all the time, you know, how would you handle this situation? That's one of like the most common lead-in questions of a rep. And our answer is hilarious.

Who's the prospect? And they're like, well, what does it matter? I might not be in that situation. If they don't qualify, then the question's moot, right? So, but to your point, I mean, you have to have the math for sure, but you do have to have the skill because you have to know, you know, you got to be able to put a sentence together.

And, and scripts, like for example, the scripts freak people out. Scripts is nothing more than knowing what to say. Never, never underestimate the importance of knowing what to say on a sales call. Absolutely. So the non-referring agents may be hesitant Or commit— or committed to other providers.

How do you coach your clients to demonstrate value and differentiate themselves in, in these situations? Well, they're all committed to somebody else. 100% of all prospects. It's what we call the 100% objection. Anybody worth pursuing has a relationship with at least 1 or 2 other title companies.

Fair? That's your script. Hey, I, I, I have a relationship. I work with Joe over at Smith Title. Love him, been with him forever.

I'm so glad you said that. The truth is, Mo, anybody worth pursuing in this business has a relationship with at least one, if not two, of their title companies. And frankly, Mo, I've done my homework and you are definitely worth pursuing. Stop right there for a second. What did I do with that objection?

I took it from in front of me and put it behind me. I'm not making the relationship go away. I'm past it. Okay? And by the way, nobody says, no, I'm not worth pursuing.

You'll never, you'll never hear that, right? But boosting their ego, boosting their ego, which is great. The reality is, when you have somebody on the other side of a deal, keep this one principle in mind: nobody argues with gratitude. Start off with a thank you. Start the conversation off with a thank you, because if they're in a deal with you, hey, they're one of your customers, whether you see them that way or they see themselves that way.

Start off with a thanks for the business. Start off with gratitude because now they melt right before your eyes. They'll tell you one of two things, you know, like, hey, I didn't direct that deal. I appreciate that, you know, but everybody in this transaction is extremely important and I just want to thank you. They'll melt.

Or they'll, or they'll say to you, see, Mo, I told you I was going to send you a deal. And then you want to give them a kung fu— you want to give them an instant kung fu lesson. Don't do that. What they're saying is, I want to feel like the directing party. That's what they're screaming.

Yeah, right. That's what I want to feel from you. Yeah. So for agencies and title sales reps that want to scale their outreach to non-referring agents, what tools, processes, or systems do you recommend? Uh, besides working with you, Darryl Turner Coaching, there is nothing else.

I, I don't— there is nothing else. Sold, sold, man. Sold. Come to us and get $15 of new revenue for every dollar you spend on us. That's about the average.

That's fantastic. I don't have a better answer than that, man. Okay. So in slower markets, some agents may have stopped referring. What advice do you have for rekindling those relationships?

I've got great advice, Mo, if I do say so myself. Own it, man. Own it. If, if a customer gets away from you It's not their fault, it's yours. It's the same as when a cut— when a prospect says they're going to do business with you and then they don't.

You know, we feel a certain way and we want them to own what they said. That's wrong. We have to own the fact that they haven't moved forward and let them feel a certain way. When we own the breakdown in that relationship and we apologize for it, it goes a long way. Hey, Mo, man, I just— I owe you an apology.

First of all, if I left that in your voicemail, I guarantee you're going to call me back. And, you know, through the busyness, I have let this slip away, and this is on me. I want an opportunity to earn your business back. I understand some of it's moved, so I'm not going to ask you just because you're my friend or we worked before to automatically come back. I'm just simply going to ask you for an opportunity to earn a portion of it back.

Would you be opposed to that? I owned it, and a lot of reps don't want to own it, right? And by the way, A lot of agents don't want to blame operations, blame whatever. That's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah, exactly what I was going to say.

But, but if you're my account and my responsibility is to make sure that you don't go away, like, the majority of retention is an operations function, right? It's closer relationships and all of that. There are some markets, Southern California, places like that, where it's very sales rep driven on retention. But the truth is, if there's a closer involved You get to a certain point that that customer is coming back because they love that closer or they love that, that, that escrow officer or whatever. But, but if so, if we have somebody go away, so when we're talking about this, you know what, I know we talk a lot about salespeople, but this could be a closer owning it.

This could be an agency owner owning it. This could be a salesperson owning it, right? I mean, but the, but the magic is to own it. To take responsibility for the fact that you let it slip away, man. That's what you did.

And there's going to be times— I think it's about 9% of the time, I think, is the highest— that we lose a customer because truly we're outsold. The rest of the time, 68% of the time we lose a customer, it's because of an attitude of indifference. That customer no longer feels valued by that title company, right? Only 14% is bad service. So 60, 68, and 14 is 82.

82% of your retention model. It's making sure your service is good and making sure the customer feels valued. That's 82%. It's only 18% left in all the other categories of why somebody would go away. So if you master those 2 things, 82% of your retention model is in place.

Awesome. So in, uh, in a down market, many title professionals feel stuck. What shifts in mindset or strategy can help them see opportunity rather than adversity? Yeah, in your opinion. That's a great question.

And I, I put out a quote, um, a couple years ago when, when everybody was panicked, you know, the second half of 2022, everybody was panicked. Let's, let's face it. Um, basically, you know, when we sacrifice to the market, or we give— when we give up to the market, we sacrifice our hope. But when we take control of our business back, our hope suddenly returns. So if somebody feels stuck right now, not only the duplication revelation, uh, principle, they need to try to catch it But to realize that nobody owns the next move but them.

So tomorrow when you wake up, what are you going to do? Are you going to look at the market? Are you going to look at your sales initiative? Are you going to look at your growth strategies? Are you going to look at what you actually can do?

And, and that's what we really have to realize. Like, I'll give you a great example. Most people focus on the wrong goals in the title business. They focus on open orders, closed orders, revenue, and profit. Those are lagging indicators.

They're what we call rearview mirror goals. The windshield is how many customers do you have? So you take control of your business back by realizing you have to grow your customer base. Otherwise, what happens is we start holding on to our existing accounts, right? And a lot of title companies do this and thinking, man, I gotta make sure I don't lose anybody because my business is down.

You're right. You have to make sure that you don't lose anybody, but people are going to leave. To date, I've realized that every human being eventually dies. So every customer every title agency has will eventually die. So let's just take that one, right?

That's only 1% of attritional loss, but that's what happens. People die, people get out of the business, they move away. You're going to lose some. Retention is a myth. You can't keep every customer forever.

You can go back 30 years in our business, we don't have any accounts today that we had 30 years ago. And probably for when you started your business, you may not have any customers today that you had Then you may have some, but you may not have any, right? And so how did you, how did you live and survive and grow? By, by adding customers. And that's the mindset of taking control of your business back.

So if people are watching right now and they're stuck, they have to remember that, that quote: when you give up to the market, you sacrifice your hope. But when you take control of your business back, your hope suddenly returns. So, uh, cost sensitivity and loyalty to competitors are common objections from title reps. What techniques have you found most effective in overcoming these barriers or objections? Well, um, you need to be really good at handling all objections, and, and there's only a few.

In business-to-business sales, there's something called the Law of 6, which says 80%— and business-to-business is just regular business, B2B, right? 80% of all objections really are different versions of the same 6. So if you just become a master at those 6, um, you'll crush it. Well, in the title business, we operate more around the law of 3: relationship, bad experience, JV. What else is there?

I mean, it's 3. Master those. If you could figure out how to master handling those 3 objections, which I just gave your whole audience a script to the relationship one— if you can master handling those 3 objections, you can get past anything. But here's, you know, you use the word loyalty, and let's talk about loyalty for a minute. I'm a believer that loyalty only exists or is only needed when value is absent.

Think about that for a minute. If you're continually adding value to your customers' lives, they stay. So everybody's like, well, I want loyal customers. Why do you need loyalty if you have value? Because I— I love that.

I kind of think there is no loyalty. And, and I'll explain what I mean by that. There's friendships, relationships. People give people, you know, second, third, fourth, fifth chances. But the truth is, at the end of the day, if you're not delivering value to one of your customers, they leave.

Where does loyalty fit into this? It's all about value. And like I said in the beginning, if you're— until your prospect or customer's problems are out on the table, nothing you have is a value. Right? So, it's all about discovery and finding out what's important to them.

Think about the best example of discovering or discovery so that you can deliver value and not have to over-rely on loyalty is a visit to the doctor. I mean, when you go to the doctor's office, the first thing they do is they weigh you. Now, I went to the doctor recently and they have this fancy chair. I didn't even get up. They just said, I'm going to push a button, and the chair lifted me up and told them how much I weigh.

And then I had to tell them my iPhone 14 weighs 18 pounds. That's what I had to tell them. But, but, you know, so they, they take your temperature, they take your blood saturation level, your oxygen, and, and they ask you questions, all discovery. And then you wait for the doctor, right? Then you go in with the doctor.

The doctor asks you more questions, more discovery, validates or verifies what you said to the nurse, more discovery. And then the doctor presents the solution. That's sales. Now think about this. When people— the most common problem in sales in the title business is people don't ask for the order.

Right. 85% of the time a sales call ends with nobody asking for the order. But think about this, if you went through all that discovery with a doctor and you didn't feel good, and the doctor actually said this question to you, Mo, Mo, I have a prescription I could write for you that would take the pain away and make you better. Would you like me to write that prescription for you? That would be a 100% close ratio, right?

That's how salespeople in the title business need to view it. If they're afraid to ask, it's because they're worried that they're not solving problems. Anybody afraid to ask questions that are value Value is only that which solves a problem. So this is really all about discovery. And the more value you add, the less you need to rely on loyalty.

Now, we all know that we have friends in life, right? You and I have known each other a long time. If I needed something, I could call you. If you needed something, you could call me. There's that kind of loyalty.

But to rely on loyalty between a title company and a realtor or a commercial broker, that's a very bad thing. Yeah. Because what that does is causes us to take that relationship for granted and no longer focus on how do we elevate the value proposition that we're offering to that customer. Awesome. Okay, not the answer you expected, right?

Not the answer you expected. No, I love it. I love it. I'm in your camp. Can you share a success story of a client who focused on non-referring agents and achieved remarkable results, either in the past or recently, or Buddy, there, there's too many to count.

Um, that's awesome. I can tell you, I can tell you this, that when, when somebody follows a process, there, there's 2 kinds of, there's 2 kinds of people in this world. Um, and I, I kind of, I said this one day and I kind of learned it from my wife. Okay. Um, there are 2 kinds of people.

There, there's, uh, completers and there's achievers. And, and you and I both know And your audience knows you can complete a lot of things and not achieve anything. It's a mindset, right? We were, uh, we have at our lake house, we came in, we were boating one day, it was too hot to even be boating. It was like 150 degrees or something.

And we came in and we put it on the lift and it's under a cover, right? And so I'm going to get out of the boat. She starts cleaning the boat and I'm like, what are you doing? It's a million degrees out here. She goes, I want to clean the boat.

And she, she always wants a clean boat, right? Which I love it. And I'm like, okay. And then I said something I didn't mean, Mo. I go, can I help?

And she goes, yeah, you can clean the windshield. So I get the window cleaner, you know, when it's that hot, I'm streaking all over. And I'm like, how do I do? She goes, no, you missed here, you missed there. And so I keep doing the front of the boat, and finally I get it right.

And I sit down in the bow of the boat up on the lift, and I'm looking, and she's in the back. And I'm like, I said to her this, I go, hey babe, How much, how much longer you think you're going to be? And she goes, oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Completer, please don't let my achievements get in your way. So, so when it comes to the success stories of our process, because now keep in mind only about 50% of what we coach to is NDC, the other 50% are other segments of how to grow your business.

Um, so, and there's a lot of them, there's a lot of strategies. We actually teach cold calling strategies that work even though We're not super big fans of cold calling, but we can show somebody how to get on the phone and, and get customers and transactions. But if, if somebody follows any process and they're just checking boxes thinking it's going to work for them, it's not going to work for them. But if they, but if they go into it with intention, like, I know if I treat a prospect this way and if I ask them this question because I truly care and I go to the root of discovery and I come up with a solution, I'm probably going to get an opportunity from them. So there are literally so many.

I mean, I got 2 emails yesterday of, um, somebody who— now, sometimes the second— we, we look at the first 5 transactions as new customer orders because statistically it takes 3 to 5 transactions for that new customer to relationally gel with ops, right? Whether it be an escrow officer or closer or whatever. So we, we give sales credit for 5 deals and no sales credit after that. So if you're going to be a good sales rep on our system, I mean, in 2023, I don't— I haven't seen the 2024 numbers. The top sales rep on our system added 369 purchase transactions above their book of business, all from new customers, right?

So if she's going to do that, she's continually prospecting, but she's doing it with intention. Um, I saw 2 emails yesterday of, of, of, of 2 different sales reps just in a 2-hour window of time. I get about 300 emails a day, so honestly, I don't read them all, but Um, of these people that got these new customers to 5, because sometimes the second order from a new customer is harder than the first, because the first is a form of debt repayment. You did something for me, you had a CE class, you whatever, whatever. The second one, they start to feel like they're cheating on their title company, so they don't have any intention of sending a second one.

To get somebody to 5, that's an achievement, right? And you don't get them to 5 by being a completer. You get them to 5 by being an achiever. So, I mean, I could, I could probably pick a couple sales reps and tell you about. I talked to a guy this week.

He did, you know, last year in 2023, did $3.8 million in title premiums. One guy, actually a team of 2. Awesome. Um, and this year he's been our coaching for, um, since November of last year, and we're not taking credit for what he did, but we did support him. He did $4.9 million in title premiums.

Um, and nothing gets by this guy because he's an implementer. He takes what we say and runs with it. Uh, remarkable individual, super, super successful. So I mean, we have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cases of people that have, have added 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80% income increase year over year. That's awesome.

So, uh, we're getting close to the end here, but I want to touch about your, uh, annual conference that you hold. Yes. Can you tell us, uh, more about it? And yeah, so people can sign up. Is it in October?

Is it usually in the fall, right? It's, it's always in October unless something changes in our life. Uh, it's what we call our selfish conference. Um, Mo, before, uh, COVID, um, I was speaking at 125 events a year, and I mean, that's more than 2 a week. Imagine what my life was like.

And then COVID hit, and I, I came out with this hashtag, I will not go back, and, uh, because I couldn't figure out how to slow it down. I mean, it was just— I'd get these calls all the time and I always said yes. And next thing you know, 125 events. I had no life outside of what I was doing here. And, uh, so when— actually, we did this right when COVID hit.

Our first one was supposed to be April of 2020. You can only imagine. We procrastinated Title Sales Mastery 2020 to 2021. But, um, so we do it in Reno because that's where we have a home. And it's— it— we— the reason I call it our selfish conference, it's the one conference a year that Raquel and I do not get on an airplane for.

Uh, this year it's October 15th and 16th. It is 2 solid days of back-to-back sales strategy. So if, you know, if people have enjoyed what we've talked about here, just imagine drinking from a fire hose for 2 solid days of this. Um, you will leave with a playbook. You will leave with goals.

You will leave with a renewed excitement about the business. You will leave with a new vision. Um, and you will also leave with Duplication Revelation. And that's really the cool thing about it because people can, you know, people can go and run with it. And, uh, Title Sales Mastery, you know, it's life-changing.

Um, we sell out every year. So 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, we sold out. We oversold. In fact, we had to reconfigure the venues and things. This year we are on our baseline numbers, we are 40% sold out already.

And it is January. So, uh, it's on your website, right? We're going to share your websites in, in our show notes so people have access to it. Yeah. So there's 2 ways to get there.

You can just go to darylturner.com and scroll over to events, or you can just go to titlesalesmastery.com and, and each year's event will come up. So 2025 will come up. It's at the Atlantis, um, Resort and Spa in Reno, Nevada, October 15th and 16th. Since we're talking about remote and Zoom and leveraging technology, have you thought about doing, uh, hybrid? Explain what you mean by hybrid.

Oh, in person and also via— yeah, another opportunity to expand your, your reach. No, yeah, actually that's a good question. We get asked every year, um, and we intentionally keep it an in-person conference. We have things we do. A couple years ago we did Title Sale Summit, but we also do Level Ups.

So if there's— on our website you can scroll over to events and go to Level Up. Level Up's free. And Level Up, we always have 400 or 500 companies sign up, um, and we have one coming up the 22nd of January, uh, and I'm going to be talking heavily about the one way to win in title sales and 10 ways to lose. And, uh, so that's actually a free event. So we do a lot of remote events, but Mastery itself, um, is specifically designed to be the in-person experience.

It's awesome. So, uh, do you have a favorite quote? Yeah, actually, I have 365 of them in this book. What's today? Today's January 9th.

Let's see what January 9th is. If it's a good one, I'll read it to you. If it's not— I want your favorite quote. I won't read it to you. So let's see here.

Let's see. February 9th. The limits of your potential are bound only by the limits of your current perspective. So that is today's quote. This is a book with 365 daily quotes.

Actually, I have a few other quotes. I believe that, that, you know, people say garbage in, garbage out. Not true. Garbage in, garbage in. Most of it never gets out.

Everybody that we talk to affects us or infects us. And if you're involved in something you shouldn't be involved in— one of my favorite quotes was in this book and this book, um, never medicate what you should amputate. If you need to get away from something, stop, stop taking medication to convince yourself that you can fix this relationship. If it's bad, if you've got a customer that's abusing your closers, Think about that. If you're in a personal relationship that somebody is mistreating you, think about that.

Never medicate what you should amputate. So, I, I mean, I've got a few. I wrote one for a magazine years ago when they were talking about price and value, and I just told them, no one knows the value of their own service as well as the one who's willing to perform it for less. Um, so, but I got all kinds of other quotes. I've got books I like.

I know that you're going to ask me. That's awesome. Yeah, well, next question, or final question, is a favorite, favorite book. I grabbed a couple. I really like this one a lot, Mo.

I really like this one by Darryl Turner, uh, The 9 Undeniable Principles of Uncommon Sense. Uh, I, I like Todd Duncan, good friend. You guys probably know Todd. Time Traps. Um, this book is convicting.

I love that. Uh, you gotta help me get Todd on the podcast. Yeah, Todd and I were just texting last night, so, um, I'll send him a note on that. Uh, 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John Maxwell. Uh, this is one of the best.

Fantastic book. And, uh, Blue Ocean Strategy. I shared a little bit on this earlier. Um, I don't have a copy of the next book I'm going to tell you at this home. I have one at our other place.

Uh, The E-Myth by Michael Gerber. If you want to scale your business, if you want to scale your business, read The E-Myth. That was one of the first, uh, books I read like about 25, 30 years ago. Amazing. Life-changing.

Yeah. It's amazing. And, and I tell people when they read the book today, by the way, if you just go find The E-Myth, You'll find The E-Myth Everything. If you want the original E-Myth, you have to get the one that says Revisited. Revisited, correct.

Manager, The E-Myth Everything. Get The E-Myth Revisited. It's made current. But I tell everybody, this book will make you excited and mad all at the same time because you'll see how simple scalability in your business actually is. That's awesome.

Well, that's a wrap for this episode of the Title Agents Podcast. A huge thank you, Darryl Turner, for sharing your game-changing insights and practical strategies to help title professionals thrive, even in a down market. Even in a down market, any market. If you found today's episode helpful, make sure to subscribe and give us a 5-star review. We appreciate it.

I'm looking forward to seeing you in the next episode. Mo, thank you very much for having me, and it's great to see you. And that's a wrap on today's journey with Mo Choumil from the Title Agents Podcast. Reminding you that mastering the art of innovation is key in the title industry's fast-paced world. If you're finding it tough to keep up with the changes and challenges, remember, you're not alone.

Our calendar is open for you. Find the link in the show notes and let's connect. Make sure to hit subscribe to not miss out on strategies that elevate and insights that empower. Together, we'll navigate the future of the industry. I look forward to our next meeting in the upcoming episode.

Keep pushing, keep innovating, and see you in the next episode.