How to Build Sales Relationships Using Energy & AI | Ep 24

If you go more human now than anyone else, you will outpace your competition because they're all trying to leverage AI to do sales. Because why? Sales can be scary, right? And so now we're going to go hide behind AI? No, we didn't grow.

We didn't grow. We didn't learn anything new. In a world where change is the only constant, Mo Shumil 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 Tyler Agency's podcast. I am your host, Mo Shumil, CEO of Alltech National Title. Today, I'm really thrilled to have my good buddy, Tim Hooper, who's Vice President of Training and Technology at Fidelity National Title. Tim brings a dynamic approach to transforming industry sales processes. He's also the founder of Energy for Sales and a seasoned speaker and author of Got Energy series, where he emphasizes sales with an energetic, human-centered touch with his deep experience in real estate sales training.

Tim inspires professionals to adopt technology, enhance client connections, and foster meaningful professional relationships. Welcome, Tim. Mo, thank you, sir. Thanks for having me. And I appreciate being on the podcast, not just as a professional relationship with you, but also just as a friend.

It's good to see your face again. Awesome. Welcome again. As we start off the show, I always like to hear about your bio, how you got started, and your career path. Give our audience a little behind the scenes on your life.

Absolutely. We just wrapped up the Virginia Land Title Association. A lot of folks at the American Land Title down in Orlando wrapped that up. Coming, winding down convention season, it's always funny just to see how fast the years fly by in title. And everyone always asks, how did you get into title?

So start here. I'm only about six years into title. I maintain a title license to keep abreast of what's going on. But six years ago, I was coaching a real estate agent and mortgage bankers. And so title found me, but my family had just landed in central Virginia.

My wife and I are transplants from Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Go Blue, go Raiders, MTSU all the way. But for all my title friends in Tennessee. So we landed over here as we asked each other. I was a military brat.

Her dad was a pilot. So we both were very transient growing up. And we landed in Murfreesboro. By default, we had family there. But I asked my wife on a date night, where would you love to live?

Where would we love to raise our four kids? And she loves the mountains. I love the beach. We decided to get between the two. Landed in smack dab in pine country of Virginia.

We love it. Bought our dream home there and moved our mother-in-law there. So we're flooring the compound mode. We loved it. Hey, if you're ever down Highway 15, let me know.

But we love Virginia. And then of course, title found me. And what was beautiful was realizing that title agency or title, the service side of real estate. Historically, we haven't really necessarily had to go out and tell our story. I think as technology has redefined that as millennial and Gen Z or the new way of home buyers, you have more information at people's fingertips.

And if we're not careful, we're allowing politicians to define our industry and what we do from the service side. So from a sales and marketing standpoint, even five years ago, it was like finding this hidden gem. I'm doing a lot of coaching with the real estate and the mortgage banker. But how about the title company and the sales process and how you actually develop stronger referral partners and tell the story together in the marketplace? So it was this beautiful find, if you will.

It found me, but I found a home. And so the title industry is full of wonderful people, family-centric. I take my kids on client visits. They're on planes with me, flying to different things, learning the business. My 13-year-old sitting with an attorney in Richmond the other day, asking him questions, thinking about business and real estate and wealth building, which for me, I'm a first-generation homeowner for my family tree.

So anyway, a little bit of background and hopefully a lot of passion in why this industry and what we do together means so much to me. But yeah, sales coaching for me, it's not about being the most charismatic person in the world. I think that the most introvert person can outsell the most extrovert person every day of the week with the right systems and processes. So I know you had Ryan on just not too long ago. Amazing gentleman.

We're friends. He'll be at our Energize conference in January. But yeah, so great stuff, Mo. You're always bringing top-notch people on your podcast, following your journey. I love this.

So thank you for your abundant-minded approach and sharing, but good to be here. I appreciate you taking the time. And those who know you, you're an amazing human being and got tons of energy. And literally the title of your coaching company, Energy, got energy is literally, it's a perfect name for it. And also your passion.

And I appreciate you. I know you're big on energy and I understand you did the Marine Corps marathon this past weekend. Look at you on point, Mo. Yes, I did. It was a fantastic day to run.

So what number is that for you? This is number eight. I was not going to do the Marine Corps again, although it's a wonderful run, but I'm on my 50-state journey. So I'm up to seven states, but my buddy was running and it was his first marathon. And his foundation, I'm like, I can't not run.

So I ran with him and he finished amazing time for his first, but good day. And the Marine Corps is one of the best. If you're looking to do a marathon, it's your first, you're like, maybe you've done the half, but you want to stretch. The Marine Corps is the best because there are literally fans the entire route. You will have people cheering you on every mile.

It's very good and pretty flat course for your first. So every time I go and cheer on my wife during the marathon, I get so pumped and energized. I want to do it. Then I go back home, like, maybe not. Let's get back to your career path and what led you to Fidelity and ultimately founding Energy for Sales?

And how do these roles connect with your passion for energizing professionals in the title industry? Sure. Yeah. My path to Fidelity was just realizing I was in the market or in the title industry for about four years and just really realizing that the investment, I say Fidelity invests in you, the investment is there into what matters to title companies. And they reached out and said, Hey, we're redefining our sales culture.

And we want to dig in and our title agent partners, they want to redefine their sales culture, their approach, really leveraging technology, but not just tech for the sake of tech, but how does it apply to marketing? How does it apply to sales? How does it help us be more efficient without replacing the humanity like all that? And so there were some definite opportunities that we could work on together. And I thought it would work well.

And it has Energy for Sales. Let's see going on 2016. So going on eight years here, I founded Energy for Sales after a good mentor of mine challenged me. I was at a corporation in Nashville for 10 years, and I was leading their sales team. And so this business coach came in Andy Bailey with Petra Coaching.

And so big shout out to him, Mo, you should absolutely have him on your podcast. He wrote Vitamin B for Business, great book. So if you're a business owner listening, go pick up Vitamin B. It's literally one page a day you read and it will absolutely challenge you to think Andy is a fantastic coach. And he's a good friend.

But he challenged me as he was working very closely with me. He said, dude, you need to take some of what you're doing with this sales team to other companies. Because I coach a lot of people and the accountability, like we made accountability fun. We used systems. There was no ego.

We checked it at the door. Our Monday morning roundtable was delightful and very aggressively about growth and learning and no holds barred. Like we brought failures and wins. We always called it fist bumps and gut checks. And we every Monday morning, we talked about and we named our mistakes so we could all learn from them.

And we named our wins. And I would say success breeds success. But somebody also said we impress with our strengths. We connect to our weaknesses. And our team was so interconnected.

The other thing was the production side of our business was always at odds with sales. And we broke that firewall down. We included production into our sales. We told them their role in it. So he said, dude, you need to take this out.

And I actually have Shane Reeves, who's a senator in Tennessee. He's a good friend of mine. He was my mentor at the time. And we were Mac, Murfreesboro Athletic Club. We had just finished running together.

And he sits down. He's having his peanut butter shake. And I never forget, he takes his straw. He puts it in his shake. And he takes the wrapper and he rolls it up.

Now, Shane is a brilliant business guy before he's a senator. And he took his wrapper and he crinkles it all the way down to one little wad. And he moves his phone to the side, moves the shake to the side. And right in the center of the table, I'll never forget, he puts his wrapper down. And he said, Tim, a lot of people go into business and fail because they don't know their one thing.

He said, what's your one thing? What do people tell you when you leave the room? And he said, what's the one word? I said, energy. And he said, OK, now I need you to break that down for me.

What brings energy? What do people think about when they hear energy? I said, everyone thinks energy is the most bouncing off the wall kid, the dynamic, the charismatic. And honestly, Mo, in our industry, oftentimes we're going out to the industry, we're poaching some top producing person, and then they get in and they're not a good mesh with our company. And then it's just this turnover is high.

And everyone thought they were the killer person. Why didn't work out? And I always say this, energy is not what you think. If you look it up in the dictionary, and this is what my whole book goes into, is energy is the capacity to achieve a result. That's it.

The capacity to achieve a result. So the capacity is how incapacitated are you and how can you increase capacity with you, with yourself, with how you sell, with your personality, with your DNA, with your current book of business? There's so much gold right now in your current book of business. There's so much gold. And so how do we go increase capacity?

But then how do we look at actually results? Because so many times we're going to this mixer, we're sponsoring this whole golf hole, we're doing all this stuff. And say, hey, what's the result from that? Can you connect the dots for me? And when I coach teams, it's.

So, the capacity is how incapacitated are you? And how can you increase capacity with you, with yourself, with how you sell, with your personality, with your DNA, with your current book of business? There's so much gold right now in your current book of business, there's so much gold. And so, how do we go increase capacity? But then how do we look at actually results?

Because so many times we're going to this mixer, we're sponsoring this whole golf hall, we're doing all this stuff. And say, hey, what's the result from that? Can you connect the dots for me? And when I coach teams, it's very difficult. And so, it's energy for me is it's demystify all this, you have to be charismatic or whatever.

And people say, Tim, I'm a closing attorney, I'm not a really good salesperson. I'm like, I can work with you. Okay, perfect, I can work with that. Because we don't need you to go be some flashy salesperson. In fact, I always say, if you think you can't connect like a sales professional, don't, connect like a human instead.

Authentic. And then we can just build results and build strategy and build process and system and we can work. But anyway, so two year, how did I start? Energy for Sales was more of Murfreesboro Athletic Club table conversation. I went at it for four years alone, which is a massive mistake and put my family through, you know what?

And my wife and I had a sit down and she said, you're gone a lot. I'm saying yes to every speaking gig, everything. And she said, what does this look like for the next 10 years with all of our kids at the time were under eight, four kids under eight. And I'm gone a lot and I didn't like it either. So I went to my brother down in Boca Raton, he owns three businesses and I sat down with him and he looked across the table and he said, you need to go partner up with a really good corporation who values your sales training system and you need to have them put you in all their channels.

And that just opened up a mindset to me because I think a lot of entrepreneurs, we try to go it alone and we go off half baked sometime. So my advice to everybody out there who you might think, I can't quit, I can't quit. Maybe you need to quit on a mindset and open your mind to a new way of thinking, looking at your business. Because now my business has exploded and now partnered up with Fidelity is amazing and our agents are benefiting. It's a beautiful marriage.

And my wife asked me, we always get the mental, she said, how are you doing? I'm like, it's all about having mental margin and it's all about being able to operate in your wheelhouse and your passion. A long answer to a short question, but it's very hopefully some good nuggets there for some agency owners out there who are maybe going it alone too. Yeah, we're both mainly in the East Coast, which is a different planet than the West Coast. A majority of business developments or sales rep, market reps, whatever term you use, literally fall into the sales position in a way.

So none of us had a professional training or lack of understanding. So we're literally more of a marketers than salespeople. Yeah. It's like, how many events can, as you said, how many events can I attend? How, it's a lot of noise.

We started kind of without being more effective. It's how can you work smart, not hard? How can you literally, again, I always say this, like it's a belly to belly business. Nobody's going to send you a business until you have a sit down and talk to them, identify their needs and see what problems can you solve. How can you add value versus, hey, let me go and see 200, 300 agents.

That's actually, nothing wrong with that. If you want to brand yourself, just put Brandon. Yeah, and the marketing and sales handshake is so important, right? So yeah, go get on a stage somewhere in front of 200 agents. But at the end of that speaking gig or whatever the training you did, who are the three that came up afterwards or who are the three that you went there with?

You looked at the list prior and said, these three are the killers in the room I want to meet with, the top three. And you make a beeline for those people. And in the moment you're teeing up your follow up, hey, I'm going to be reaching out to you. I want to get with you. Thanks for being here today.

What did you get out of it? And then let's grab coffee. You have to marry marketing and sales. And sometimes we go out and blast a lot of stuff and then we hope that it sticks. And oftentimes it will.

If you do enough, long enough and stay top of mind, you're going to pick something up. But traction, traction is important. And traction happens through well thought out. Who am I going after? Who am I targeting?

And how am I actually building traction with that person and actually sitting out with what matters to them and all that. So yeah, marketing and sales, both are important. But I think sometimes we have this like, where do they handshake? Where do they actually marry up? And it's, you have more of a blast with marketing whereas sales is more strategic targeted.

Yeah. I use the term, you have to be a sniper. Like you really have to be very laser focused and who you go after and how do you get in front of them. Absolutely. I know you're a big on technology and AI, leveraging especially, what do you call it?

The buzzword or whether you're scared of it or adopting it, but it's here to stay. And I tell people the train left the station, either jump on or maybe left behind. So. Yeah. So how are you helping agents using AI tools and what are some practical first steps for agencies and top professionals looking to leverage AI without losing that human element?

It's a great question though. My brother, Andrew and I, we work very closely together. In fact, he's four years younger. Everyone thinks he's older because he has so much. That's called a new.

He has a lot more wisdom as well. And he's brought so much to my life and I love him dearly. So he actually has challenged me. I can tend to be more of that old school. Like I like to get in ruts.

I like when something's working, I like to get in a good working run, be consistent. It's a strength of mine for sure. But sometimes a consistent rut, you need to get into a better rut and be consistent in a new rut. So we started looking at it several years back and I would say I'm more the coming along, kicking and screaming kind of a person. But here's the thing we all have to be honest with.

If our kids are using a technology every day and their teachers and universities and schools are figuring out how to allow them to use a technology in like learning. We need to understand this is like my space and we all were kicking and screaming saying, oh, we can't go. This is ridiculous. This is, we will never get together at a restaurant again if we have this like my space and now Facebook and everything. But what it's done is, I mean, who's used Facebook marketplace recently?

Like we have our little tools that have really stuck with us for certain technologies that have really taken over and reshaped how we live. AI, it's here to stay. You will not have schools figuring out how to allow this if they understand this is here to stay. It's going to either, we're either gonna be sticks in the mud or we're gonna figure out how to let kids use it and then be more effective in creativity and freeing up space where we could actually learn. So if you're still thinking about, oh, I'm just gonna hold out, you need to take a good hard look and rethink that.

However, I will also say we are in an industry that you also have to realize as much as we can use AI for efficiency, fraudulent folks can as well. And it is considered by our government as a weapon of mass destruction. So we all have to approach AI with wisdom. I tell people I'm not on chat GPTS Tim Hooper, just in case it ever becomes, you have ANI, AGI and ASI. Everyone thinks we're in AGI, Artificial General Intelligence.

We're still in narrow, we're still ANI. AGI is when intelligence can actually start doing stuff on its own. We're not there yet, we're years away. Yeah, and super is where like they, the robots conquer the world. And so I said, I told my brother joking, I said, if we ever get the ASI, they're like Tom Cooper over there.

Anyway, no, I kid a little bit, but AI has a lot of, so Mo, you asked, how do we help telecom? I think we go to these big conferences, we hear about it. And maybe you have already said, okay, we have to do something about it. The problem is if you're maybe an agency owner and go into your teams and we have to do this, we're already hurting ourself here because we have to, I think, first and foremost, go to our team and help everybody have a conversation about where are some of the biggest bottlenecks for you? Where are some of the biggest time sucks for you?

Talk about AI in your team's speak. AI means nothing to your team until now. Granted, all their kids are using it and most of your team are dabbling on it already. What we have to do as leaders is go, where are your biggest bottlenecks? Where are the biggest inefficiencies in the process?

And then we go back and do the hard work on our mind of saying, okay, how do I scope out that thing that's waste so much of Susie's day and show her how using a technology like AI could actually free her up. So she could actually feel like she's not out of breath every time somebody walks in for a closing. So by helping our team get into the conversation earlier with their pain points in mind, I think we can build adoption with our title company. I will also say this, there are a lot of providers out there because AI is everywhere now. So every provider is bringing their own version and brand of AI to the table.

I think you need to be very careful with who you go partner with AI because I think you need to go talk to your already partners and say, how are you approaching AI? For instance, an underwriter might tell you, hey, we're approaching it this way. We're building out our thing here, but we're also understand that there's some risks when it comes to this and that and privacy here and there. And you're able to say, okay, now you're learning, now you're taking months and years off of your learning process because you're going to your current partners in the industry saying, how are you leveraging AI? So I would start there, get your team involved in the conversation, go to your current partners.

And then when you look for somebody who's selling you an AI technology, I think they need to come in and demonstrate to you in your system and your title production system and your business, that it can work for you. Because I see a lot of people start, then they get frustrated six months in because the technology doesn't work for them. And then they just give up on it altogether. Now, from a sales and marketing standpoint, there's so much just using an application on your phone like ChatGPT. I just was at lunch with somebody yesterday, Mo, who I was with, and I was just sharing with her this simple strategy for after a meeting with somebody and taking notes that helps your follow-up be much more effective.

And she was blown away, but it's saving her so much time in her sales endeavors. And so just simple things like that is what I really cut my teeth on helping sales and marketing folks with. But hopefully that's answered your question, Mo. Yeah. And given some- Yeah, there's definitely, I don't know how, again, depends on your comfort level and how can you adapt technology.

her this simple strategy for after a meeting with somebody and taking notes that helps your follow-up be much more effective and she was blown away, but it's saving her so much time in her sales endeavors. And so just simple things like that is what I really cut my teeth on helping sales and marketing folks with. But hopefully that's answered your question, Mo. Yeah. And given some, It's a, yeah, there's definitely, it's an, I don't know how, again, depends on your comfort level and how can you adopt technology.

It's probably one of the easiest technologies to implement, especially for content and for advertising and marketing, like literally it's very simplistic and like literally what it, like in the past to write a blog, it probably took you two or three or four weeks to get a content writer to write. If you can find somebody that's competent with so much friction, like now literally I can create a blog post or email communication written concisely and clearly and within like seconds, that is just, it's like the best thing since sliced bread in my opinion. It is. And one of the beautiful things about AI, and I was telling somebody this the other day, cause they, Andrew and I did a CE training in Virginia beach last week on AI for title companies. One of our fellow underwriters in the industry reached out, he's an auditor and he shared a personal example in my email about how he used AI.

He had not used it at all. And he used it and he said it blew his mind. And I'll tell you this Mo for years, I've been in title agency sales. We wear the marketing hat. We wear the sales hat.

We wear a lot of hats. So for years, I've been sharing. Build your content out, but we got to get to that's A and B and C. We got to get to what X, Y, and Z about you can't just have content on YouTube. You as a sales professional need to figure out how to actually place that content strategically and how to distribute that content strategically, how you can use it in your actual sales process strategically.

And I think that's where we miss it. So the beautiful thing about AI is it can help automate the content creation that before took so much time so that now you free up your sales ability to actually take your content and strategically get it in front of the people that matter most, and that's, I think the benefit, if you're listening, lean into AI so that you're not replacing yourself, you're giving your power back to do what only you can do. A coach told me a long time ago, do what only you can do and delegate the rest. You need to look at AI as an assistant that you can delegate to AI and leverage and whoever does it better will win more in business. They'll win more sales, more business.

So yeah. Oh, I love your mindset. Yeah. Let's stick to sales and which is your warehouse. So one of your goals of Fidelity is redefining the sales culture.

Can you share strategies that have helped foster a more dynamic, proactive sales environment with one of your clients? Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question. Like redefining sales culture.

What does that mean? We did a big conference last January, all around redefining sales culture. Like you have to, as an agency owner, think about, all right, let's just start here. If you redefine something, what does that mean? You already have a definition in your mind about what sales culture is or what it has been for your company.

To redefine that sales culture for the next three, five years means you have to look at what's happening, what's going to change these technologies, the places we get business, the regulatory bodies, like everything, like in the next three to five years, what will change for the way we go about getting business? Now, how do I have to adapt to meet those challenges and opportunities? So as we think about redefining it, it's okay. What does that look like? So I like to call it, I like to say it like this and Sydney McGovern says it best, every job's a sales job, right?

And we say that and maybe we go to a conference and we hear that and maybe our whole team believes that. But I think the problem and the big disconnect I see is we leave so much money on the table when it comes to new business and new leads in every transaction that we do as a title company. So when I say redefine a sales culture, one thing we're helping title companies with a lot of our large agencies and even small mom, pop agencies is figure out how to master what I call transactional moments, so there are moments in the transaction that you can land new business from, you can get raving reviews from, you can get referrals from and add value back to your referral partners because of a better conversation you had, say at the closing table or say at the entrance to your settlement location, whatever it is. So when we say redefine sales culture, it is an all hands team approach to sales. And it's not just going to your people saying you're a sales person.

So do a better job. It's actually breaking down the process and helping them figure out where they can not sell. You can't tell your receptionist, you're a sales person and expect then they're going to go land business. But what you can do is help them be aware of an opportunity, what an opportunity looks like so that they can then, and here's the key, tee up a conversation for somebody on the team. And so we look at it when you watch the Olympics, you, I love watching volleyball and I love the team volleyball.

I love the two on two, but I love team volleyball. The reason I love team volleyball, it's bump, set, spike. And of course I come from a big family. We played volleyball. 14 siblings was perfect.

We had seven on each side, but we played volleyball a lot and it was always the bump, set, spike. You had to communicate. It's mine. I got it. Bob, Jeremy, to you and in title, I see that we don't do the bump, set, spike.

We have one person who we always expect to spike the ball, but somebody in pre-processing or post-closing could literally bump it, somebody else internally, branch manager, attorney can set it and then sales rep can spike it. And we don't do that well enough because we haven't had that discussion. So when we talk about redefining sales culture in this January, we're going to talk about amplifying sales culture. Is it's this all team approach to being aware, just starting the awareness game of sales opportunities lie right at the old Earl Nightingale, diamonds at our feet and just being aware. Once you're aware, now you, and then you're empowered to do something with it.

Now you're onto something. And that's where momentum starts picking up as a title company with everyone's looking out for everything. And everyone starts understanding the hard work that goes into landing a sale. So now your salesperson isn't coming in all stressed out. I worked three years to land this real estate agent and you all like bombed this, right?

It's everyone's starting to understand this, this journey. And it's beautiful. So redefining for me is less about having some hotshot, which I'm not opposed to having some killer salesperson out there, but it's more about how can we operate as a company, everybody pulling on the same oar and keeping, and we're speeding ahead of the competition. So redefining, you have to redefine for you, for where you're at, your one location, 20 locations, what does that look like? Are you expanding?

Are you exiting in three years? What does it look like? How do you redefine for you today, where you're going in the next three to five years? Since you just mentioned and talked about touches and everybody's in sales, how automation becoming more common. How do you ensure that agents stay engaged and connecting with clients?

What's your advice on making every touch point meaningful? Yeah, I think right now we have to think about, number one, I'll say this, put yourself in your real estate and mortgage banker shoes every day you wake up, put yourself in their shoes because the way I see people reaching out, especially let's go back to AI for a second, if you use AI to do your sales, your reach outs, be careful that you don't miss the boat here. AI is amazing at building efficiency around processes and systems in the background. It is also amazing at some, let's grant it some scripting. It can write some beautiful scripts.

The problem though, is all of your competitors who do the same, you're all going to be sounding the same to your real estate agents, your mortgage bankers, and even your consumers or your investors or like your commercial clients. What you need to think about is this, leverage AI to take away some of the heavy lifting in the background and then reinvest yourself into, so I say high tech, high touch, okay. High tech, high touch. Your touches need to be more human than ever before. And here's why I say it.

In the world of AI, we already have a loneliness epidemic. The US Surgeon General, he's come out, we have a loneliness epidemic. Why? We're more connected than ever before. It's because we're being hit so fast, so hard by everything and everybody.

Think about it. You get notifications now, not just through a phone or an email, you get notifications through DMs, through this tech, everything wants a notification of you or wants to notify you of something. So your clients, real estate, mortgage, they're being hit with all this stuff. And so when you show up, if you're this big, long email trying to introduce yourself or a big text message, trying to like earn time on their account, they're not reading it. I like to make it broiless, very simply Mo.

When you text Jennifer, or when I text my wife, Jennifer, I say, hey, does Hondos for dinner? Question mark. I don't say, Hey, Jennifer, hope you're having a great morning, babe. No Hondos for dinner? Question mark.

What does that spell to her? It spells, I love you. Cause I'm looking out for dinner tonight, but it also is Hondos for dinner. It takes all the guesswork out. She can just give me a thumbs up or thumbs down or no, baby.

I already had some, I already had chicken thawing in the fridge or whatever. And if you're vegan out there, whatever, that's whatever I've used in the Hondos and whatever salad I've already prepared the pecan salad, but whatever it is, I say, you have to start talking to your clients and even your prospective clients, more like your family. Hey, Hondos for dinner. Hey, next Tuesday, coffee, question mark. You don't need to go onto this massive explanation of why they know if you're putting good content and you're being a thought leader and you're showing up to some of this stuff, you're doing the marketing game, your sales needs to be more, you.

Babe, I already had some, I already had chicken thawing in the fridge or whatever. And if you're vegan out there, whatever, that's whatever. I've used in the Hondas and whatever, bought a salad. I've already prepared the pecan salad, but whatever it is, I say, you have to start talking to your clients and even your prospective clients, more like your family. Hey, Hondas for dinner.

Hey, next Tuesday, coffee, question mark. You don't need to go onto this massive explanation of why. They know, if you're putting good content and you're being a thought leader and you're showing up to some of the stuff, you're doing the marketing game, your sales needs to be more human than ever before. It's like coffee next Tuesday, question mark. I'm finding that's having so much better traction.

And even if they don't know you well, the questions on them to go look you up and say, oh, this person does look like somebody I want to have coffee with. Or yeah, they sent me that email two weeks ago and they're just following. And the other thing also, like pick up the phone and call it. Nobody talks to anybody. If you pick up the phone and talk, you're the only one following that person.

Or maybe lonely, who might talk to you. Mo, I love that you just said that. The phone call is going to resonate more than ever before. And here's the thing. If you go more human now than anyone else, you will outpace your competition because they're all trying to leverage AI to do sales.

Because why? Sales can be scary, right? And so now we're going to go hide behind AI? No, we didn't grow. We didn't learn anything new.

Don't let AI replace you as a human being is the bottom line. So let AI take some of the heavy lifting off so you can go be more human and show up in your clients' voicemails, in their phone rings, and in their text messages more. You'll be more successful. I know you're switching from making phone calls to video. You're big on video and I love the videos you send.

But the wave and the, hey, look at me. What are some creative ways that other agents can use video to build stronger client relationships and establish themselves as industry experts? Yeah, I always like to start with a little bit of controversy first. I'm always trying to challenge how are we looking at things? Number one, since AI has been a good common theme for this podcast, just don't use the easy button of AI taking your picture and creating video.

There's a lot of apps coming out where you can take your picture or just a one minute video and then you can use some automation through AI to make a video for you. Huge on this, as good as it's starting to look, it still looks like AI, number one. But number two, in the next two years, and Mo will make this prediction today, I'm gonna come back and watch this podcast and I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I believe in about two years that will be regulated away because the fraudulent activity around AI video production. It's a big fake, yeah. Yeah, and also it's a huge privacy violation.

So if I'm an influencer on YouTube and somebody can go take my face now and make a video of me using AI, that's a big problem. So I think the regulators haven't caught up yet, but I think that's going away. So don't invest your time there with video in a sales process and in a marketing process. Number one, your newsletter, whatever you send out as a blast, you can re-imagine that right now and you can use video. And your video doesn't have to be the entire newsletter.

You can say, hey guys, this monthly newsletter, three links below, three things I wanna highlight and then boom, quick highlight and then bullet point below. So you guys know if you subscribe to anything we do, you've seen my blurbs out. Video is about a quick summation for those who prefer watching, but I guarantee you some people don't prefer watching. They still want just the bullet points. So bullet points below.

So redefine your, if you're a real estate agent happening on this podcast, redefine your marketing email. My broker sends that out for me automatically. You know what? I haven't received it. So it's probably my spam folder or my junk folder or my promotions folder.

What you need to do is native email, use video to put a wave in front. When I bought my mom a home out in Cedar Rapids, the mortgage company that got my business was the one who sent me this little video and introduced herself. 37 seconds was all it took, but she introduced, hey, I'm Shannon. Below this video is the application. It'll take you seven minutes.

If you have any technical difficulty, my cell phone's below that, text me. By her just saying to me seven minutes, I was on. I did it right away. Actually, Shannon was second, but the person who reached out first didn't give me any, hey, Tim, first step, application below, then we'll be in touch. I liked that as a business owner.

He was to the point, but I didn't know, I didn't have any contact. I didn't see his face. I didn't feel warm and I didn't take immediate action. So video for me is more about, don't overuse video. You don't need to do video for everything you do.

Text message, awesome. Phone call, awesome. Video just needs to be a part of your sequence, but here's what I do believe. First impressions are the most important because they're lasting. So what I would do is I would much rather see a video go out in the first or second touch with a prospect and then have a phone.

Somebody said, I don't like cold calls. Good, don't ever have to cold call again. Send a video, tell them in the video, shoot Mo Chumle a video. Hey Mo, it's Tim Hooper. I sent you a connection on LinkedIn.

Hopefully you saw that. Hey, I'll be calling you next week. Hopefully you can give me three minutes of your time. Just do that. Now you're booked because now you have to call him because you promised in a video, but how much do you want to bet when you call and you sent this video?

There's going to be a warmer reception because he's already felt, Mo's already heard my vocals. He's already felt my energy. Do a video. This technology is at our fingertips and there's so many platforms out there. We use BombBomb, have an amazing discount to them, but there's plenty others out there.

It's at our fingertips and we can introduce ourself in the sale. So in the sale cycle, you use it as an introductory method. I also have a signature line. So my picture, I changed to a signature line and here's what I call a transactional moment. You may be at a title company and somebody from the other side of the transaction gets looped in or somebody, another real estate gets looped in or some, whatever.

And you may now be replying to one of your internal team members emails to add color to this communication going on. This is also a first impression. You might not even be reaching out for us, but this is a first impression. So say you have a little signature line, hey, intro video. Hey, I'm Tim.

I've been with title companies and long. I love helping agents because boom and boom, reach out, connect me on LinkedIn here at this link and let's have coffee soon. If that's your signature line video, go look at mine. You can see it's on LinkedIn as well. So if you're listening to this podcast, hit me up on LinkedIn.

You can see it right there. Hi, I'm Tim Hooper. Let's grab coffee. That's my signature line video. Mo, that is my highest watched number one video of all time.

And here's why I always see the spike in the analytics is every time I reply and there's new people. Why? Because people want to know who they're talking to. So they go watch the video and then they feel like they know you before they ever met you or know you. And they pick up the phone easier.

They text you back easier. So video for me is strategic and sales for an initial warmup. And then in marketing, redefining more of that, like those blasts and then social media. I think most of our title companies do really well on social media with video, but be careful that you don't just do video there because that's, again, that's out to the masses and that's good, but you need to use video in some of the one-on-one, the introductions, the saying somebody's name to them over the airwaves. Let's shift gears to psychology and mindset.

You're a certified John Maxwell coach, which adds a personal growth element to your training. What mindset shifts do you believe are most important for top professionals to thrive in today's market, which is, it's like a bipolar market can make up its mind. I hear you. I hear you. Mindset shifts.

I like to keep things super practical wherever I reach the road. I was talking to a sales leader for a large title company yesterday and I'm going to speak for them in November. And he was telling me that he's got some amazing people who, quite honestly, oftentimes are at capacity. They're closing attorneys, they're at the table, but how do we get them to see that there is more power at their fingertips to delegate things and to free up more time to actually do the work of sales? Because they have a big book, but it's like they want to grow, but they're having to struggle with time.

And so I think the biggest mindset shift for all of us going into 2025, for myself included, would be to shift from thinking time management to priority management. I think a lot of times we're trying to think about, I don't have enough time to do this or that and the other. I think what we have to clear on, number one, is our priorities. And then we need to relook at our calendar, our rhythm, our flow, and figure out. I always say, I like to ask sales teams, how much time in a given week do you invest?

I don't like the word spend. Do you invest into sales, like new sales growth? And everyone wants to say about 20 to 30. That's with a standard. But then if we open up a calendar and look, it actually boils down to either like between zero and 10% max.

Oftentimes it's 5%. I'm like, okay, so if we're at 5%, and again, there's so much that could be sales that might not be like, we're touching clients all the time. I'm talking about where you're having a power hour, you're reaching out, making the phone calls, you are sequencing with a certain given targeted list, like real sales work. That's usually about 5% in reality. So I'm like, what if we only took five to 10% with your business growth?

Because everyone wants, your people need to be 80% sales focus. This industry is, let's be honest, it pulls you in so many directions. Fires happen right off the bat, you get pulled into something, transaction, closing, delayed, okay. But what if we went 5% to 10%, what would that take? And so what it takes is time blocking.

Time blocking is when you agree with yourself that you will not cheat on this thing on your calendar. And so the mindset shift is, instead of trying to be a time manager and constantly moving things on, be it, no. You and I signed up for this pod, you said, come on the podcast. I said, yes, sir, absolutely. Your wish, Moe, is my command.

And Moe says, jump, I just ask, how high? Moe's an awesome guy. I trusted mentor in my life. So come on the podcast, Tim, I would love to. So we set this time and we're here.

Now I had three phone calls, like the last five minutes. I didn't get on those phone calls as I was logging on and getting. your calendar. And so the mindset shift is, instead of trying to be a time manager and constantly moving things on, be it Mo. You and I signed up for this pod.

You said, come on the podcast. I said, yes, sir. Absolutely. Your wish Mo is my command. And Mo says jump.

I just ask how high. Mo's an awesome guy. He's, I trusted mentor in my life. So come on the podcast Tim. I would love to.

So we set this time and we're here. Now I had three phone calls, like the last five minutes. I didn't get on those phone calls as I was logging on getting here. I just, I sent my auto thing. I will call you back.

I'm with a client, right? Or I'm with doing a, sometimes when I'm speaking, I'll call you back. But here's the thing. Do I cheat on Mo? No.

But the problem with our mindset going into 2025 is if we put a time block on our calendar to do sales, and it's just us on that time block, we will cheat on ourselves when a fire happens. So here would be my challenge to make this super practical. Instead of being a time manager, be more of a priority manager, put it on the calendar or it doesn't exist, but then invite somebody on your team who wants to be doing sales as well. Tell them about your strategy and tell them I'm gonna invite you to this team's call. We're just gonna be on mute, but we're gonna show up.

And then we're gonna do our sales activity in that power hour. Can we do this together? And then don't cheat on each other. This is called a calendar comrade. You have a coach in the gym.

Why? Because you don't wanna wake up and go put pain on your body. But if your coach is expecting you there, you'll be there. So you need to go get somebody and you don't have to go pay a ton of money for a coach here. Somebody on your team wants to do the exact same thing you're trying to do.

And they may be in a different market. This might be a sales rep in California and you're on the East Coast. Get on each other's time, call each other, figure it out and be there for each other and start thinking priority management, put it on your calendar. Do not cheat on yourself. That's the mindset shift and you'll grow your business.

So that would be as from a John Maxwell perspective, it's not as eloquent as John for sure, but that's very practical when it comes down to our sales and business growth. You speak about energy and enthusiasm, but many professionals face burnout. What are your top recommendations for talent agents and sales professionals to stay energized and avoid burnout, especially in like slow, tough markets the last couple of years can be draining and demoralizing sometimes for some people. Yep. I would say number one, we encourage what we allow.

We encourage what we allow. So many salespeople that I coach, they tell me that they take their cell phone to bed and if a real estate agent calls them, they're answering 24 seven. I think that's a horrible sales proposition. That's terrible, yes. And if you set that expectation, that's fine, but you can also rewind that expectation and here's how you do it.

You let your real estate agents know that going into 2025, you wanna look out for their business growth and also their health. And oh, by the way, I'm on a health journey myself. So what I've done is I've set some boundaries and some guardrails. You speak about energy and enthusiasm, but many professionals face burnout. What are your top recommendations for talent agents and sales professionals to stay energized and avoid burnout?

It's a great question, Mo. I think we encourage what we allow and I believe that in a refi boom, there were just some things we had to do to get through it. And I think some of those habits have stuck with us. And so one of the things I do when I coach sales reps is I hear from a lot of people, yeah, I take my phone to bed. It's the last thing I check before I sleep and it's the first thing I check in the morning.

I'm checking my emails. I'm like, maybe we need to go back to our good best customers and set some guardrails and let them know, hey, I'm looking out for my best client's business and also their health. And I'm protecting media asset to help me help you. Here's an expectation if you can help me with this. If you absolutely need something, something's burning down, somebody can't get their keys to get in the house, whatever, you call me cause my phone will be on, but I'm not answering texts after this hour, maybe 10 o'clock at night, whatever.

And I'm on at this hour and just spell those boundaries out to your good business partners. Listen, my wife knows if I'm in a speaking engagement like this, if there's an emergency, she can call me twice. There's this little code, call me twice and I will do whatever I can do to wind down and call you back to hear what's going on. We have four kids, set those with your best clients and then give yourself mental margin that you have to, my brother tells me all the time, Tim, protect the asset. You have to stay well, or you cannot serve well.

So I would say, if you're not exercising, you don't have to go be a marathon runner like me, but maybe go walk a mile in the morning, a brisk walk, get your heart pumping. If you're not perspiring at all in your life, your heart rate's too low. And I'm not a scientist, but doctors will tell you this. You need to get your heart rate up every day. And what's so beautiful about that for you and your business growth is it will actually spark ideas in you.

It will trigger more mental clarity than ever before. You will outpace your competition who's not exercising. So very basically, physical exercise and then get more sleep. We all need more sleep. You need to figure out how to get more sleep.

And then maybe you don't wind down with the TV. I've actually put some boundaries here myself. Wind down with a good book. We all want to read more anyway. Turn the phone off, set your alarm by the coffee pot outside of your room, set the alarm.

It's out there, coffee's ready to go. And then go to your bedroom, your sleep room where we're supposed to sleep, not have the TV on and open up a book and read. And then maybe a cup of green tea or something to wind you down, whatever it takes, but like sleep and then wake up refreshed. So that would be like to stay energized, be well, be whole. Energy is all about wholeness, be whole.

Close to the end here. I'd love to know what's a quote that deeply resonates with you. Mo, as much as I love teaching and training, Maya Angelou's quote always brings me back down to ground zero and keeps me grounded with everybody I'm in front of. If I'm one-on-one with somebody at lunch, I know that she says, people will forget what we said. They'll even forget what we did, but they will never forget how we made them feel.

And I think oftentimes we are all about what we did for somebody or what we said, because we obsess about that stuff. But have we ever stopped and realized we have a responsibility in how we made our kids feel, our wife feel, our business partners, our colleagues, our team members feel. And it's in the power of the tongue. It's in the power of our presence, being fully present when we're in front of somebody. So how do I make people feel is like my ground zero.

When I walk away, how did I make them feel? Was it all about me? Was it just a shared conversation or did I really hone in on something in them and really challenge them and dig deeper and bring something out of them that I didn't know was there or had never learned before? So how did I make somebody feel? I want to make them feel good about themselves.

I want to make people feel inspired. I want to make them feel like somebody in the world believes in them. So how do I make them feel? Maya Angelou, favorite quote of all time. I have a lot, but that's my number one.

That's awesome. And finally, could you share your favorite book or books? Ryan, besides your book. Listen, if you want God energy, if you're a friend of Mo, reach out to Mo, we'll get you a copy of God energy. But before you go to Amazon and buy this book I'm about to share, take the book you're currently reading and finish that one first.

Cause I'm a habitual book reader and I pick up so many books and I start so many. So go finish the one you're on first and then reward yourself with this one. Ryan Holiday, Discipline is Destiny. I just finished this book. It would be easy to read cover to cover, but I couldn't, it was too chocked full of nuggets.

But Discipline is Destiny, ancient Stoic wisdom. He brings in Marcus Aurelius. He brings in a lot of the Stoics from time past. He brings in so many modern day examples. I learned things.

He's a historian as much as he is a Stoic. I learned things I didn't know about people, George Washington, John F. Kennedy, like people in history. It was a great read. It stimulated me all over intellectually, but ultimately Discipline brings freedom to your life.

And so Discipline is Destiny, Mo. That's awesome. Thank you, Tim, for an incredible conversation and for sharing your insights on sales, energy, tech integration, and mentorship in the tower industry. Your enthusiasm for combining technology with a human element has been inspiring to our listeners. And make sure to subscribe and stay tuned for more episodes filled with insights like these on the Title Agents podcast.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mo. Appreciate your time. Thank you all.

And that's a wrap on today's journey with Mo Shamil 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.