Episode 8
Social media is not a sales tool with Kyle Draper
On this episode of Batting 1,000, Dale sits down with Video Marketing Therapist and author of Rethink Everything You "Know" About Social Media, Kyle Draper.
With over twenty years of experience as a speaker, author, and entrepreneur, Kyle helps brands and people shine online with video marketing and social media that attracts and engages their audiences with the message they need—not just the one they are looking for.
Don't miss this conversation about how you can translate Dale's #OthersFirst philosophy and value-first approach to your digital presence with Kyle's next-gen strategies for winning with video.
Transcript
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[00:01:25] Dale Vermillion: Today I've got Kyle Draper. I had a great privilege to, uh, to speak on a stage with Kyle, uh, about a month ago, um, uh, in Las Vegas at the AIMFUSE 6 conference. Um, and Kyle just knocked it out of the park. He is the co founder and CEO of Higher Culture and Content. Compounding. He's going to talk about what that is.
[:[00:02:04] Dale Vermillion: Thank you. Uh, he, Kyle's the guy, and best of all. He's a dear friend and, and I always love it when I can bring people in that, uh, that, that, that I not only love as a human being, but, uh, we we've had a chance to hang out together and get to know each other. And that's been great. So Kyle, welcome. We're so honored to have you.
[:[00:02:34] Dale Vermillion: look. I've been trying to make them, you know, have me look like George Clooney for years and he won't do that. So I don't know if he'll give you a tan or not.
[:[00:02:44] Dale Vermillion: Oh, great to have you. Great to have you. So here's what I want to talk about today. First off, talk for just a minute about your book. Um, and what that's all about, because I think every single person watching this should buy this book. If you're a leader, buy it for your whole team.
[:[00:03:06] Kyle Draper: highlight of it. Yeah, it's, it's like you said it earlier, it's called rethink everything you know about social media. It's 99 pages long. So there, there is no room for fluff.
[:[00:03:37] Kyle Draper: And find some encouragement, find some motivation, find a simple trick or tip that you need to move forward. And, and that's what it was designed for, because we've kind of lumped social media in with the phrase marketing. And marketing traditionally has been directed at strangers. And so now we've taken all these tips and [00:04:00] tricks to help strangers like us, and we've taken them and applied them to our friends.
[:[00:04:28] Kyle Draper: And that is Rethink Everything. I love it.
[:[00:04:49] Dale Vermillion: Business minded and transactional instead of being truly conversational and relational in their social media approach. And I think it's true for sales approach too. We'll talk about all of that today. [00:05:00] Um, just take for a minute and talk to the audience about what is the key from your perspective on what makes social media powerful?
[:[00:05:12] Kyle Draper: the greatest power to me, I mean, we could list 50 things as to why social media is powerful in and of itself, but I think the biggest thing for me, Dale, is that when done correctly, social media works for me while I'm not working. And so when I create content that serves, when I create content that educates, when I create content that is valuable to the consumer, if I'm on vacation, I'm on here recording a podcast with you, I'm traveling to speak at an event.
[:[00:06:12] Kyle Draper: And I think that's the greatest power. But most people, right, they're the opposite. They're only using it to be billboards for their business. Therefore, when somebody goes to your page in hopes of getting value, they're like, ugh, all this person does is talk about their loan products. All this person does is talk about, you know, the closings they had.
[:[00:06:45] Dale Vermillion: Or the things that I see all the time that I just shake my head is either they're posting up their results, which I see that both on a corporate scale where companies will list their top loan officers.
[:[00:07:15] Dale Vermillion: And the other thing is just, I see this kind of silliness kind of. Trying to be comedic, but in a silly kind of way that doesn't really come across as real. I think the whole key from my perspective, when I look at great social media posts versus the ones that I don't spend even a second on, are the ones that are capture me through great information and education.
[:[00:07:49] Kyle Draper: perspective? Yeah. And, but I agree with everything you just said, but I also think there is that person that learns through comedy. There is that person.
[:[00:08:26] Kyle Draper: That's true. So my biggest thing when I'm coaching Dale is, is, is what you're trying to do authentic to you. If, if you see yourself in that capacity. And, and it may not fit my style of comedy, or, or it may be deemed even, even unprofessional, right? Like, who am I to draw the line for what's professional and what's not?
[:[00:09:17] Kyle Draper: Yeah. It's like, yes, you're like me. And so I'm just, I'm always the proponent of Is it true to you? If you're feeling like you're stretching or forcing yourself to do this based on what somebody told you Then we've got to scrap it and start over.
[:[00:09:44] Dale Vermillion: That's good. Your book is timely. Maybe it should be titled, Rethink What You Think About Social Media. Well,
[:[00:10:04] Kyle Draper: And then now I'm moving and shifting and then I go to Todd Duncan's event and then Todd says something I'm like, oh gosh, well, I don't do what and we look up and We're never truly ourselves because we're constantly ebbing and flowing in and out of what we believe other people want us to be Yeah, it's a great point.
[:[00:10:51] Kyle Draper: Then I get to your city and they're like, where's your suit? And I'm like, uh, what are you talking about? All right. So, so we, we've [00:11:00] got to do a better job of being confident in who we are. And not fishing for the desires and accolades of others.
[:[00:11:10] Dale Vermillion: So here's, here's where I want to center our conversation today. Um, you know, we're, we're ending 2023 for most of the industry and any originators that are watching this, it was the toughest year at a long, long time, certainly since 2008, nine and 10 that we've seen, but maybe even for some tougher than that, um, just because of some of the things that ebbed and flowed within.
[:[00:11:58] Dale Vermillion: There's you've heard me say this [00:12:00] before, you and I talked about this in Vegas. You know, there's really only two kinds of markets in the mortgage industry. You're really in a volume market where rates are very low, very appealing. Consumers are going crazy. They're, they're taking advantage of those rates and you're.
[:[00:12:44] Dale Vermillion: Is those that can articulate relationship and incredible service to their customers. That's what separates you wins, not a quarter percent difference in rate. Cause everybody's rates are high. It doesn't matter. It's, it's more how [00:13:00] you connect with that customer on a personal level through conversation.
[:[00:13:23] Dale Vermillion: That's what's going to happen. So let's talk about from your perspective, how do we help loan officers? Get better because they got to be better. I, you know, you know, I train thousands upon thousands every single month in the mortgage industry. And I see them still doing the same things they did two, three years ago on a different market.
[:[00:13:52] Kyle Draper: mindset. So, so first of all, in order to create relationship that can then [00:14:00] convert Frequency has to be present. Amen. Right. I can't just be like, Dell is great to see you fuse.
[:[00:14:37] Kyle Draper: So that can be in posting that can be in spending time every day commenting on people's content. Right. Because what do we love more than anything being validated? That's right. So when, when somebody, you know, we have a six month old and the other day, somebody commented on her, she actually DM me and she was like, your daughter is literally the Gerber baby.[00:15:00]
[:[00:15:25] Kyle Draper: But then the most important thing when you talk about converting these relationships is we've got to be creating video inside of our processes. Because you're, you're giving the blueprint, right, to every LO that you work with. You've given them the blueprint to success. And what I'm now noticing is there's not a gap in the blueprint, but there is a opportunity to take the blueprint and put it on steroids.
[:[00:16:41] Dale Vermillion: That's great.
[:[00:17:01] Kyle Draper: I've watched all of his shows, all of his interviews. I follow him on Instagram and Tik TOK, but I've never met him and he doesn't even know I exist. You and I can have that same type of relationship with, with other people now because of the power of social media. And it starts in that consistent video content.
[:[00:17:32] Dale Vermillion: And I think a lot of times I just sense, and again, I'm not a social media expert. That's why I'm having you on. Cause you are, but in talking with loan officers every day and looking at a lot of the things that they post, what I sense is they're not doing that, that, that, that it's, it's a lot of, you know, what can I say or do today that'll get more followers?
[:[00:18:20] Dale Vermillion: They're just, they're not like other people that you run into in social media. It's such a great opportunity for connection. But we use it as a marketing tool. We use it as an advertisement tool. We use it as a tool to tell people how great we're doing instead of really using it as a tool that builds relationship, helps people understand the single largest financial decision they ever make in a lifetime.
[:[00:18:50] Kyle Draper: Well, so what you said, Del, so true. I added another F to it to just the pastor in me. It always has [00:19:00] to be the same letter, right? That alliteration. That's right. So you said, you know, most people are just there to try to get more followers.
[:[00:19:31] Kyle Draper: If you're somebody trying to gain a following, my first question to that person is always why? Because when I get them talking about how many transactions do they want to close in 2024, and let's say they're aiming pretty high and they say 300. Well, then I ask them, okay, cool, I love that, 300. How many friends do you currently have on Facebook?
[:[00:20:47] Kyle Draper: You go serve them well and you're three to five new realtor partners away from doubling, tripling your, your volume, right? Yep. And, and so that's why we've got to let go of this, how do I get more [00:21:00] followers mentality? Because in my attempt to go get more followers, I'm going to completely neglect all the people who've already raised their hand and said, I'm a, I'm a fan of Kyle.
[:[00:21:38] Kyle Draper: And they just go pull canned content and then a couple times a week they share it. And so, we have to buy into this mindset of I am the content. My life is the content. When you and I shared [00:22:00] that awesome steak dinner in Vegas. That was awesome. We talked about everything other than business. Yep. We talked about our families.
[:[00:22:35] Kyle Draper: And if, and if that were the way we treated social media, it would change the game for us. And we know that these LOs can do it because they have coffee with people, right? If you went to coffee with one of the LOs listening to the podcast, I mean, surely they're going to know how to ask you questions and interact as a human being before a loan officer.
[:[00:23:15] Dale Vermillion: So let me put on my executive hat here for a minute. Sure. Um, and ask you a question that some, some executives who might be watching this or even loan officers watching this will say, okay, here, here's the challenge I've got, it's compliance.
[:[00:23:57] Dale Vermillion: It's bringing your personality and how you've worked. [00:24:00] with people on that topic into that conversation. So you're creating more content that's built around the content that's already been approved. It just has your stamp of personal humanness attached to it. How do they do that?
[:[00:24:27] Kyle Draper: That have basically said, we have to approve anything they post. And I said, okay, so if we were to submit to you a 15 minute video, and you guys watched the video and said, yes, this is good. Is it also safe to say that any content we create from this video is also safe? And they go, Well, we never, we've never been asked that before, but if we've already approved the video, you're not going to do anything outside of what's in the [00:25:00] video, then yeah, I guess technically it would already have been approved through compliance.
[:[00:25:40] Kyle Draper: You can have reels and tiktoks You can have quote graphics with a quote you said from the video put into Canva made to look cool and pretty and all of that could give you 10 to 12 different pieces of content from one 10 minute video and it only had to go through compliance [00:26:00] one time. Yep. Awesome. Love it.
[:[00:26:35] Kyle Draper: And I think probably Dale too many executives go, well, compliance, they just said that we can't, and instead of leading there, they're conforming. And, and I believe the, the, the, the, the CEOs, the, the, the, the sea level people that truly believe the power in social media would [00:27:00] fight for some changes inside of compliance.
[:[00:27:07] Dale Vermillion: of people. That's so good. That's so good. I mean, I think about simple things, you know, if you're a loan officer and you said it earlier, and this drives me crazy, the loan officer, it's just constantly putting up. Programs. Here's my next program.
[:[00:27:41] Dale Vermillion: They don't need to understand. That's why they have us. It's our job to take our products and show them all they need to know to understand how to apply it to the world, to grow their business and apply to the consumer to help them. So a great example of what you just said is if, if I'm a loan officer [00:28:00] and my company's giving me an approved, um, uh, ad or approved a statement that I can put up on social media about a product.
[:[00:28:34] Kyle Draper: 100%. Education to me is everything when it comes to social media. If, if we would educate on mortgage, we could talk about mortgage every day. No one would be offended of our education. They're offended by us shoving it down their throat because it's done in a salesy way every time. And so think about if, if on top of what you just said, Dale, what if an LO that, you know, much [00:29:00] like you and I, we like speaking in front of people.
[:[00:29:23] Kyle Draper: And go on a tour around the, the real estate offices of your city, and say, hey, could I feed you guys lunch? Could I bring you guys Snacks. And, and could I give you a 15 minute presentation on the power of this product? And then, while you're there, strap on a wireless mic, set your camera up, or your phone up in the back of the room, and then record your entire presentation.
[:[00:30:13] Dale Vermillion: So, so let's talk about this for a minute because one of the things that I teach all the time, you know, the, the most common question I get from loan officers who work with in the distributed retail world, where they work with real estate agents, financial planners, builders, all the way.
[:[00:30:51] Dale Vermillion: You start by making comments on their quotes and their posts that they put up. You do that by sharing their posts, by [00:31:00] taking a listing that a realtor puts up and putting up on your page to say, here's a great looking house that I just came across with this realtor that I found on social media. And if you do that for a 10 day period, Every time you do it, that realtor is going to get notified of it.
[:[00:31:34] Dale Vermillion: And I love what you're doing as you can probably notice. I've been posting your stuff up cause I like what you're doing out there. And I'd like to talk to you about how to help you, how to help your business get to the next level. It's really that simple. It's not rocket science. It's using social media as your shoe horn to get into the shoot.
[:[00:31:53] Kyle Draper: It makes perfect sense. And, and it's the exact way that I would do it. The only difference that I would have is [00:32:00] You came from the generation that the phone call was the most powerful way to communicate with people. I now believe that video is even more powerful than the phone call because video allows it to stay on your terms and I'm not bothering you.
[:[00:32:40] Kyle Draper: Yeah, that's great. And now I'm showing up in your world on your terms instead of cold calling you or knocking on your front door. Right. People my age, I don't answer the phone. If I don't know, it's you. If I see a number that I don't know pop up on my phone, there's 0 percent chance I'm an answer. [00:33:00] And I even say in my voicemail, If you want me to respond, text me.
[:[00:33:29] Kyle Draper: I don't need it. They've put it out there publicly. But what if I showed you honor and reverence by just saying, Hey Dell, you don't know me yet. I'm a lender in the area. I saw your incredible listing. I think some of my people might be interested in it. Would you mind if I share it to my Facebook page?
[:[00:34:02] Dale Vermillion: That's awesome. That's awesome. So that seems pretty good to me. I love it. I interviewed a, uh, a realtor about two months ago who sold 540 some homes in 2022.
[:[00:34:35] Dale Vermillion: Yeah. He said, here's the key. Well, I actually told him your name, which is funny. He said, here's the key. He said, the key is it better be short and it better be personal. I don't want you to send me something that I know 30 other realtors got the same exact thing because you just lost me right there. You do that.
[:[00:35:02] Kyle Draper: Ah, 100%. Just the other day. I, well, I'd met a CEO of a big mortgage company. Actually, I take that back. He spoke at Fuse, but I didn't meet him. So I knew I saw him, but I didn't meet him.
[:[00:35:40] Kyle Draper: So then I send him another video back saying, hey, look for this button. If you'll touch that button, then you'll have options and then touch this button. And then he, within hours, he sent me a video back. Wow. I'm already coaching his marketing department because of that [00:36:00] interaction. Wow. If I would have used traditional communication to get to him, his gatekeepers would have never let me through.
[:[00:36:31] Kyle Draper: Awesome.
[:[00:36:51] Dale Vermillion: Respell that. What does it sell? Be real. Is at the end of memorable. So to be memorable, you have to be real. So good. [00:37:00] It's the only way you're going to get there. And, and, and the key to success in the marketplace today is not having the best price, not being able to close the loans the fastest. I've said it a million times in my career.
[:[00:37:22] Kyle Draper: Well, and to that point, if I could share one final story, please, it, you know, most LOs now that I think they're, they're still bought into the phone call is the most powerful form of communication.
[:[00:38:02] Kyle Draper: And then I'm gonna get home, and I'm gonna say, Honey, guess what? Dale called. And she's gonna go, Well, what did he say? And I'm gonna say, He said we're good. Well, what, what does that mean? I, I don't know, like he, he gave us an update, he said we're good to go, the bank has this, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she's gonna say, Well, how long did y'all talk on the phone?
[:[00:38:59] Kyle Draper: [00:39:00] And so Dale, what I worry about for a lot of LOs is they get to the end of the transaction and one member of the family thinks they're an idiot, right? We're going to drive home that day. And my wife's going to go, how much did Dale make off of that? What did he even do? And in my mind, I'm like, what did he do?
[:[00:39:40] Kyle Draper: And now I get to go home and share that video with my family. Now you're uncle Dale to my kids. When my daughter tells her friends, they're like, I moved into a new house. Well, how'd you do that? Well, uncle Dale helped us. That's awesome. And so there's so much power aside from [00:40:00] the social media spot of, of just being in front of the camera because I could send that video to my parents.
[:[00:40:31] Dale Vermillion: hanging around with young, brilliant guys like you, Kyle, because old guys like me learn a lot when we listen to young guys who know what they're doing because you're right.
[:[00:41:00] Dale Vermillion: That would not be offensive to us. That would be completely unique. And we'd be like, wow, that's somebody who took time. They didn't send me the email that had a bunch of information I didn't understand. They didn't send me a text that I had to decipher and disseminate that I didn't understand. They're clear as a bell, their relationals all get out, and now they're Uncle Dale.
[:[00:41:24] Kyle Draper: love that! Isn't that awesome? It is. It really is. It's just so, it's so cool when When we really begin to understand like the leverage that this brings us. And so I hope, I hope somebody will get it today. So
[:[00:42:00] Dale Vermillion: And my response that is time blocking, time blocking, time blocking. You just need to time block it in. If you make your mornings really powerful and you get up and you start by first doing your social media posts, first thing in the morning from there, move to your calls to your agents and your clients and the people you need to follow up with, then start contacting people after that because you've already planted a seed there.
[:[00:42:41] Kyle Draper: you're way more organized of a human being than me.
[:[00:43:05] Kyle Draper: I'm going to say no. If you show up in Dallas, Fort Worth and you say, Hey Kyle, I'm in Dallas for the day. Want to go to dinner? Oh, wow. All of a sudden I happen to be available because we make time for what we value. That's right. And so for whatever it is, if the response is ever, I'm too busy, what we really should say is, I don't value that.
[:[00:43:54] Kyle Draper: That's good. So the next time your kid comes over and says, dad, can we go play catch? Oh, son, I'm just so [00:44:00] busy. Instead say, son, I don't value you and see how that goes. Wow. It changes our
[:[00:44:15] Dale Vermillion: I'm glad
[:[00:44:19] Dale Vermillion: Good stuff. Alright, last question. Talk about the importance, because I know for me, this is something I harp on all the time. Talk about the importance of people's words and their tone. And everything they do, social media, their videos, all of the communication we do, talk about that for a minute.
[:[00:45:12] Kyle Draper: I am watching people just get irate on social media, and they're dropping F bombs, and they're, and I'm watching that going, you're supposed to be trusted with the largest purchase. And someone's life and you're willing to risk that to be a moron about college football because like it or not that simple post.
[:[00:46:07] Kyle Draper: Or I'm gonna not post it at all, because there's zero value in this post for anyone. Because every word we ever say can and will be held against us, or fight in our favor at some point. And so that's what it comes down to for me is, you know, does my tone that I'm using right now, does it allow someone to trust me more or less?
[:[00:46:40] Dale Vermillion: That's awesome. The verse out of Ephesians 4 29 just absolutely stands out in this conversation where it says do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who [00:47:00] listen.
[:[00:47:27] Dale Vermillion: You want to make sure that anybody who would read or hear that is going to come away and go, you know what, that benefited me and that I needed to hear that. And that was something that was really helpful to my life and they will increase their trust for you. So I loved the way you laid that out, Kyle.
[:[00:48:01] Dale Vermillion: Tell us about, I know you've got some workshops happening and some things that would be really valuable for companies to sign up for and loan officers to sign up for. Talk about those for a minute.
[:[00:48:19] Kyle Draper: Happy to talk to people about that. I have a company called higher culture VA. Where we help hire virtual assistants for people. Happy to talk to you about that. What I have coming up immediately is from January 1st through March 31st, I am running a 90 day social media boot camp. Where the goal, the big goal is to do over 100 videos in 90 days.
[:[00:49:07] Kyle Draper: Agreed. And so the people that I've run through my boot camps of different links where we're doing video every single day. They're the ones that years later are still doing content versus the ones that flamed out as soon as I wasn't in their, their daily life anymore. And so it's going to be unbelievable that I'm sure that there will be a link somewhere around the episode that'll take you to it, but it's, it's 1500 bucks.
[:[00:49:56] Dale Vermillion: That's awesome. Well, I wholeheartedly endorse anything Kyle's doing.
[:[00:50:22] Dale Vermillion: Um, I certainly would highly recommend getting in contact with Kyle, talking to him about how he can kind of guide your marketing department on this whole subject of videos and social media. Um, as you heard today, the guy's brilliant. He knows what he's talking about. Um, he's, he's the hottest commodity in social media in our industry today for a reason.
[:[00:50:42] Kyle Draper: you tell my, will you tell my wife that I
[:[00:50:48] Kyle Draper: Thanks
[:[00:51:01] Dale Vermillion: Have a Merry Christmas, my friend. You too.
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