How to Build an Elite Personal Brand in 2026 - with Neel Dhingra

In this episode of The Breakthrough with Chris Medellin, I sit down with my good friend and one of the top personal branding minds in the mortgage + real estate space, Neel Dhingra.

If you’ve ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or inconsistent with your content… this episode is your roadmap out.

We break down:

🔥 What it really takes to build a personal brand in 2026
🔥 Why most people hide their biggest strengths online
🔥 Going from “one-to-one” to “one-to-many” (and why it changes everything)
🔥 How simple, on-the-fly storytelling can 10x your reach
🔥 The real reason content leads to MORE freedom, not less
🔥 How to create a connection, not just information
🔥 The Spark Storytelling Framework that will transform your videos
🔥 Why your phone is your superpower (not the studio)

In this conversation, Neel shares real-world experience and actionable strategies to help you master your social media brand, foster authentic communication, and build a name that opens doors!! Learn how he leveraged personal branding to scale his business from struggling to seven figures and beyond.

—

FOLLOW NEEL:
Instagram: @neelhome

FOLLOW CHRIS:
Instagram: @thechrismedellin

This podcast has been edited and produced by Content by Fabio LLC

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

So if you're trying to grow your business and trying to make more money, then you probably heard that you've got to build your personal brand. Most people who hear that, just like you, are thinking, what is a personal brand and how do I do it? Well, today we're gonna bring clarity to all of that and we're gonna give you the tactics and the playbook on how to do it in 2026. So I'm here, I'm joined with my friend Neil Dingra. He is the founder of Ford. And if you haven't followed him, you gotta follow him right now at Neil home on Instagram. You'll be blown away by his content. He went from he went from what he calls middle class broke to actually making millions, build helping people build their personal brands through masterminds and through this business that he created. And all of it happened when he turned a camera around on his phone and started to film content and hit him record. So um today we're gonna talk about that playbook. So, Neil, thanks for being here today, man. I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00: 0:56

No, but this is we were just talking before the episode, like this is years in the making. Years in the making. I think it's gonna be really impactful. And just to clarify, for anybody watching or listening, like, you know, when we talk about making more money, you know, that's A, that's okay. If you want to make more money, you want to grow your business. I believe that if you make more money, you can help more people. You can hire more people, you can create, you know, safety and security for your family. There's so many cool things because money's a tool. So it's first and foremost, like it's not bad to want to make more money. Like, I feel like there are people who think, oh, that's selfish. No, it's actually the opposite. If you do this right, I guess you could be a douchebag and do it wrong, you know, but if you're doing it right, it's a you're you're making a big impact. You're helping a lot of families in the mortgage of real estate business. So the first business that I went to multiple seven figures in and still have is mortgage and I in real estate, and we do all that, but then I launched a second business as a passion project just by accident, and that turned into a multi-seven-figure business. But the reason why those things kind of happened easy, and it doesn't mean there's hard work, there wasn't a lot of hard work, there is, but the results became a lot easier is because of personal brand. So if you think about like, I know you were gonna ask like how to define it, right? Think about like the freeway when there's a bunch of traffic and everybody's just like you know in a jam trying to get to work, and then there's that like HOV lane or like the carpool lane, and it's just open free lane. When you have a personal brand, it feels like you're in that lane.

SPEAKER_02: 2:18

There you go.

SPEAKER_00: 2:18

So you're like things, everything becomes easier. You want to recruit, it's easier. You want to hire, you want to get better talent for your team, it's easier. You want to get business partners, you want to get clients. When you speak, you want to fill your events or your website. Everything becomes it doesn't mean it's like um like you're just not work involved. There is work because you have to build the brand, but it just makes everything else in business easier. And once I figured that out, I was like, bro, this is cheap code. I want to stay in that lane.

SPEAKER_02: 2:41

Yes. So okay, so you figured that out, right? I mean, you you literally went from and I remember when it happened.

SPEAKER_00: 2:47

Like I literally remember Oh, yeah, because you've been watching since the get-go.

SPEAKER_02: 2:51

Yeah, I mean, like it was COVID had happened, you know, it was like this golden age of content on LinkedIn or on Instagram or wherever you were doing it. But I remember when you started to hit my feed and then um and then watching what you were doing was just different than everybody's, right? And so that was really cool. But then I knew who Neil was. So when you called me and you said, Hey, are you you sent me a DM, which I still have, but because I followed your playbook on this, you said, Hey, I'm doing an event. I'd really like you to come. It was very personalized. And you're like, Yeah, I think Alex's coming, you know, you some of your friends are coming. So you you made it, you know, relatable. And then all of a sudden I was at your event, bought a ticket, you know, got on a plane, went to an event that literally changed my whole idea on um a personal brand. That's what I want to do for the audience today is really help them. So before we jump into it, what I'm curious about for you, because we are on the breakthrough podcast, is what was that breakthrough moment that you were, you know, driving in track, you were stuck in traffic, and you keep watching, you know, the HOV lane right next to you go by. What happened that you were like, all right, I gotta change my the way that I do this? Was there a defining moment that you remember?

unknown: 3:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 4:00

So I was just thinking, you know, burnt out of being in the industry. I started in mortgage industry in 2023-ish. Uh and um, you know, had big run up into the crash, the crisis of 08, 09, the whole business collapsed. We had this, me and my brother had this huge office, and then it went down to like us working in a closet and we subleased the rest of the place out just to survive. Um, and we got through that period, but I remember then the business picked up quite a bit in 2012, 2013, 2014. It just kept getting busier, and we were doing great. But then 2018 came along. And if anybody's been in the business a while, 2018 was a kind of a down year.

SPEAKER_02: 4:35

Remember that year? Like it was like, oh, dude, it's the I think rates went up by like a percent.

SPEAKER_00: 4:40

And nothing, by the way, nothing compared to what happened to us in 2020.

SPEAKER_02: 4:43

We just didn't know what the floor was, you know. We didn't know how bad it could get at that time.

SPEAKER_00: 4:46

Yeah, and so everything moved up, and then there was just mass layoffs. Uh things were slow. And I was just thinking to myself, dude, I've been doing this for a while now, over a decade. I'm burnt out. Maybe I should do something else. I'm still young, I'm still in my mid-30s at that point. Dude, maybe this isn't for me anymore. I don't want to call people that don't want to talk to me. I hate talking to realtors who like stood me up for coffee, you know, like trying to reach out to uh clients. We were doing a lot of Zillow leads. So we'd buy realtor.com, Zillow, all the uh sync leads, all these leads would come into our CRM, and I was really good at systems, like all the follow-ups. But at the end of the day, we, you know, it's just like chasing after just a commodity, just a vendor. Yeah, I was just one of many people. But then I would see other people on my market who were crushing it. And I was like, well, what's different about those people? And I would get mad because I'd be like, bro, I'm better, I'm a better loan officer than that guy. I know loans better, I know the guidelines better, I know the systems better, I'm a better, uh, I'm just smarter. But they were making more money.

SPEAKER_02: 5:44

And some of them were they just better marketers?

SPEAKER_00: 5:46

Did just more people knew their name. Okay, yeah. And so what I realized was it's not the best person who wins, it's the most known person. Like it's it's best, it's not best, it's best known. And I was like, man, how do I become more known? Well, at the time, I'm literally like uh deathly afraid of like speaking, you know. I that was one of my biggest fears of public speaking. Um, I was really good one-to-one, but I didn't want to put myself out there. I did not even have a social media account. I would be making fun of you, you know, at the Christmas party, being like, dude, you guys are giving all your privacy away to Facebook. Like, you know, you don't know what they're doing on, you know, I was just like uh just a data guy. Um, but I was I remember just being like, okay, let me set up an account. Started to set up an account. Then I started watching people like Gary V and all these influencers talk about how you know social media is like the new gold rush. And if you have a brand, personal brand, you can do this, this. And they were talking about it for other industries. And I was like, well, how can we apply it to this industry? And at the time, bro, I think there was a few content creators, there was people in real estate, very few in mortgage though. Yeah, there was more in real estate than mortgage, but mortgage was like wide open. Um, and so I just started doing it really bad. But even with those bad videos, 2018, 2019, I started to see my business grow. And so when we met, it was like 2020, 2021.

SPEAKER_02: 7:04

Agreed, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:04

Um, but up until that point, I had already 4X'd my mortgage business, got out of that rut. And so I guess the the breaking point was just realizing like, hey, I don't need to quit. I need to quit what I'm doing, I need to pivot. So a lot of times people think you're stuck and it's a sign that you should do something else. No, it's a sign that you need to try like something else within the same industry sometime, you know. Like, um, I like the framework of let's take something, take a boring industry, and how could we make it sexy? Yes. So, like events I did that with, right? Events super boring, mostly snooze fest for our industry, yeah, for the most part, no offense, but like it's hard to do a good event. I was like, Well, what if we made them really cool and innovative and fun? Boom, success, right? Same thing can be done with content, same thing can be done with anything.

SPEAKER_02: 7:51

Well, so so when you go back and you think about that moment that changed everything, do you remember when you first went viral? Or do you remember like when you finally, or when you got like the first lead? Yeah, you know, and you got you got the first taste of people knowing who you were in your market, you know, what was that like for you?

SPEAKER_00: 8:09

Yeah, it was like uh it was a feeling of respect. So it's like, man, people now want to talk to you. You don't have to chase them down. And I remember just getting inbound messages from referral partners. Okay. So I remember doing videos and getting some success with getting customers, and then people would watch the videos, and I was also sharing the journey. I think this is a big piece people skip. Uh I call it build in public. People think you need to wait till everything's good or you're really polished before you put yourself out. No, you should do it along the way. Tell them what you're working on. So I would tell people, bro, I suck at speaking, but I'm gonna do an event and I hope it doesn't bomb. I'm terrible at video, literally, guys. It took me 14 takes to make this one video, but I'm doing it anyways. And so I would bring people along the journey of like, hey, I'm building a personal brand, and I'm also not saying I'm great or perfect, I'm not faking it. I'm telling you, like, dude, I'm struggling. So if people kind of get come along with that, think about like a fitness journey. If you tell people, hey man, I'm on a journey to lose 50 pounds, I'm on 75 hard, I'm doing this. People get behind you. They really like you just went through it.

SPEAKER_02: 9:13

It's a crazy thing because we went, you had an event here. How many people came to the event that we did for the for the talks, the signature talks that you did here?

SPEAKER_00: 9:22

Oh, that was like 60 people.

SPEAKER_02: 9:23

So 60 people in the room. Every person that came up to me cared nothing about any of my business, was like, how's it going on your on the 75 hard? You know, because I was like consistent with the messaging or whatever. But for me, it was like give somebody an idea of what you're doing every day and you know, share the journey. Um, and even like I think there's something to be said about sharing the journey about how uncomfortable you are with, you know, even getting on social media. I mean, this is a guy, you, yeah, who didn't like social media and now has become, you know, how I mean, you have hundreds of thousands of people that are following your content hours upon hours of watched content um across YouTube. You now have the podcast, everything, and you're touching so many lives. And then now you have these events that are happening. What do we have this week? How many people are sharing?

SPEAKER_00: 10:13

Uh, and this is a high-level group of like 120 people. And so they're they came from the bigger event, which was a thousand people. Yes. Um, and so yeah, like all these cool things happen as a result of putting yourself out there. So it's like opens doors you don't even think are possible.

SPEAKER_02: 10:25

Like, what I'm trying to do and what I'm trying to connect the dots with with somebody listening that is super uncomfortable with it, that felt the same way as you, you know, that doesn't like being on so or is just lurking on social media and is not doing anything with it, but why it's so important you'd be and and somebody said this analogy. I like your HOV lane, but somebody at one of your masterminds said, um, I think it was at one of yours, they said, you know, you got to think of it like these airplanes that are in the sky, and the fog's gonna roll in. And when that fog rolls in, those planes that are already in the sky are gonna stay in the sky. Yeah, and the ones that are on the ground are gonna stay on the ground. And so, do you want to stay on the ground, right? So if you don't do it now, there's gonna be a point of no return that it's gonna be so hard to enter the game. And this is why I want to do this today, because we're entering the fourth quarter.

SPEAKER_01: 11:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 11:13

There's a lot of people who are listening who are starting to think about okay, we're we're gonna go into 2026, which I thought like this year happened like that. And I wanted to give them the playbook on what they should be doing today. So if you're, you know, any in any sort of business that people are looking to make money from and can do it with their personal brand, where do they start? I mean, from your perspective.

SPEAKER_00: 11:35

So, first thing first is like, okay, yeah, we agree, we're gonna put ourselves out there, we're gonna do this. It's even if you're uncomfortable, you need to just think about the people you're trying to serve. So we all woke up ready to serve people. If you're in a client business, you want to help your clients. And so it's not unlike doing that, but just putting it out there on the internet. And a lot of people are scared of the judgment, they don't talk about this a lot, but uh, I've just noticed even people in our group will go over the ideas, they all agree, we'll even shoot the videos. Some of them won't post them. Why? Because they're afraid someone's gonna judge them, how they look, how they sound. And the truth is you just kind of have to get over yourself. And that might be uh something that you know is deeper rooted, and there might be like some therapy involved, maybe. I don't know. Like we all go through this kind of stuff, but you may just have a low self-worth thing. Like you might be not thinking you're just so that's a whole nother conversation. But I will say that regardless of the issue, if you just do the reps, it gets easier. Like I've even watched your comfort level on camera over two, three years. It's just changed dramatically. Like you can just pop up on stories, shoot a video, you're not you don't have the cringe cont thing going in. You know, like when people first do it, you feel like this cringe. It's called camera cringe. Yeah, that's what it is.

SPEAKER_02: 12:46

You gotta cringe if you want to binge or something.

SPEAKER_00: 12:49

So like you just feel like your content's cringe, you're cringe, like the whole thing because it's just awkward. Yeah, but you've gotten over that. How? Because of reps. Yeah, there's probably some more to it, but like at the end of the day, it's like, okay, take a challenge, shoot the videos, don't post them, but do one every day. At the end of the 10 days, you'll probably hate yourself a little less, you know, the way you look and sound, and then you'll be ready to post. Now, if you're watching this, you're already posting. Now we need to take it to the next level. But either way, wherever you are, let's get over ourselves. There's no spot, it's not about you, it's about the people we're trying to help.

SPEAKER_02: 13:22

I totally agree.

SPEAKER_00: 13:22

That's the first thing first, because you talk to people how many times about the strategy and they don't do it. Why? They'll tell you they don't have time.

SPEAKER_02: 13:30

They don't have time, yeah, they don't have the equipment, they don't what you know, every excuse you can think of, right?

SPEAKER_00: 13:34

Yeah. And so, A, if you have your phone, you're good to go. We're gonna go over the tactics on this exactly. But then B, it's not about creating more time, it's about making time for what's important. So uh I think about myself as a content creator first. I'll just tell everybody watching and listening, if you are doing the same thing every year, and then years go by, nothing in your business is really going to change. Like you'll make some money, hopefully you invest it well, but you're subject to the market conditions, the level of transactions, interest rates, all these things that you can't control. And so you're, you know, you're just on the roller coaster of the business world, the economy, the recessions, whatever. And so your earnings just kind of go up and down, but you don't get anywhere. There's no value. So the the part that was probably a big turning point breakthrough for me was realizing that, hey, dude, what's your sales pipeline right now? How many loans you got? What how many deals you got in the pipe? Oh, it's low? Well, then you're you're low value. Well, what do you mean? I've been doing this 15 years. I've all this experience, all this thing. It doesn't matter. You're as good as this month's numbers. That sucks. But that's the harsh truth of this business, right? So if when you have a brand, you have yes, this month's numbers, but you also have this thing that's worth something. Your name is worth something. If your name can do 90% of the work for you, you're gonna crush. Imagine like if just your name comes up and they're already 90% sold. That's a good thing. Like, that's a huge advantage over the competition who's starting at zero and you're already a 90. So think about it.

SPEAKER_02: 15:07

It's a huge difference, man. Yeah. I mean, it's a huge difference. And you know, I'll I'll share this with you. Um, you know, I hired somebody of about a year ago, and they ended up becoming like our top performer and and they weren't like when we hired them. And I everything about it was like just it was the right person, right market, everything was good. And I asked them, like, why did you end up like, what, what got you to come over here? When when I thought back to it, it was like a really easy transaction. Like, how did you end up coming to work with me? And they were like, Oh, well, I I sent your Instagram to all my realtors and my friends and said, What do you think about this dude? And they were like, he looks really authentic, and you know, yeah, I I I like him. And so that was the deciding factor, but I never knew that, right? So your your your content or your brand will will, you know, show up in places that you're you're not gonna always see it's gonna be so transactional that they're like, hey, I'm coming to work for you because I saw the video you made, or I'm gonna, you know, do a deal with you because I saw the video you made. But that video you made could be the reason that they felt more comfortable doing business with you. Yeah. And I think that's where content matters and building your brand matters.

SPEAKER_00: 16:16

Um and then, but you think about like a funnel of like, okay, where are people at in the process? Top of funnel, middle funnel, bottom funnel.

SPEAKER_02: 16:24

Well, well, people don't understand that content. So I mean that that concept. So I'm glad you're bringing it up.

SPEAKER_00: 16:28

Yeah, like where are people at in if they want to let's just use our business, real estate mortgage. Okay, are they ready to buy a house? Yeah, that's the bottom piece, ready to write an offer this weekend. Like that's the very tip of the bottom. It's like three percent of the overall market. Yes. Well, we're all fighting like cats and dogs over that three percent because that's where we make money. That's good. We want to help. Yeah, we want to help those people for sure. What happens when there's not enough people in that top bottom thing? The business kind of slows down, people leave, they give up. Well, what what a did anybody have the bright idea to talk to the other 97%? Like just a thought, you know, there's a lot. I don't know. Maybe like so. Think about this. There's all these other people. Now, there's some people who don't qualify, they'll never buy. That's fine. But there's a huge piece who are undecided. What are we gonna do to keep in contact with those people and talk to them until they're ready to transact? And so you need a passive strategy to do this. I understand you don't want to make cold calls to people who are six months away from buying a home, you'd go broke, you're not gonna get paid. But what if there's a video strategy, email, all these things, podcasts, YouTube, whatever you want to do? So that's the premise is like, okay, if you want to succeed going forward, if you want to get to the next level, you need a brand. And it's actually easier than you think. You just have to pick a platform to do that. So the first step would be to think about okay, which platform, uh, who well, I would say this. Let's back up. The first step would be think about the person you want to serve. Who are the people you would like to help with your content? And I really want you to narrow it down to a single person. This is a powerful exercise I did later in the game. I wish I did in the beginning. If I'd done it in the beginning, I would have gotten successful much faster. The first year or two of content, I got some results, but I would have had way more if I'd narrowed it down. So I was just trying to appeal to everybody because I'm like, I'll take anybody. I don't care, you know, I just need some people to follow me and work with me.

SPEAKER_02: 18:17

You're thinking top of funnel.

SPEAKER_00: 18:18

Yes. But what you want to do is like, okay, who are the people I want to help? Now, by picking this one person, your content will reach way more people. So let's think.

SPEAKER_02: 18:26

What's that? What's do you are gonna go through the exercise? I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm super curious about going through that exercise. Yeah, so let's I think a lot of people glaze over like what that really means.

SPEAKER_00: 18:34

Yeah, so they call it like picking your avatar, things like this. Okay, so let's just say uh I want to help millennial homebuyers. Okay, cool. Men or male or female? Uh both. Well, no, no, no, pick one. Like you have to pick one. Okay, and there's gonna be like more than this in the in your audience and more people, but we need to pick one. Now somebody might say, Um well, I want to help people within this range. No, just pick a specific age, specific person. Okay, so I'm like, okay, it's a it's a 38-year-old millennial guy. He's married, he has a couple kids at home, he makes 200 grand a year. I want to help that guy. His total household income is 200 grand. That's my person I want to help, and here's how I can help them. Or he makes 150 grand, whatever. Cool. What is that guy doing? He's renting right now. What does he do all day? What does he what does he have in assets? He has a 401k, he probably has some savings, whatever. Okay, so now I know this person. Let's name him. Okay, his name's John. His name's freaking whatever. Cool. Where does he live? He's in San Diego, California. So now you're thinking about this person. And so when you think about the person, now we can have a conversation and not make it like you know, the biggest mistake people make is they think they're talking to a large group of people. The way social media content, YouTube content is consumed is on a one-to-one basis. People are sitting there with you. Okay. It's a one-to-one. And it feels like not authentic, not personal, if you're just like, hey, y'all, hey, everybody, you think you're talking to a big audience. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02: 20:03

Well, I think well, for the longest time, not to interrupt, but like I think for the longest time, even and I even catch myself when I'm doing content. Yeah, like we go into you, you what did you call it? You said you're like a wrestler. Um, you're like you, you go like hyped up in your videos because I'm I'm yelling or whatever, but it's because you think you're talking to an audience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:22

I mean, it's a good thing to have energy because the camera takes takes down your energy. So that helps.

SPEAKER_02: 20:26

But I think if you can flip it around and really talk to the person that you're trying to connect with, yeah, it'll connect with so much more people, so many more people on a more personal level. There's people that I, for instance, you'll make a post, you'll you'll do a post where you're walking and talking about something, and it'll be like, it's a great day, right? Like the clouds are out or whatever. I feel like you sent me that that to me. Yeah, like I felt like that that was meant for me, right? And that's magic when when you can get that to happen.

SPEAKER_00: 20:58

Because now that's happening with you, but everybody's having that one-to-one experience. So now the one-to-one scales to hundreds, hopefully thousands of people eventually. Okay. So I would be like, think about that person's problems. Let's meet them where they're at. Well, what are the problems that that person faces, and what could you help them with? Okay, well, this guy, John, he feels bad. He feels like he missed the boat on owning a home because he's renting right now. He feels like interest rates are too high, home prices are too high. Um, he wonders if it's the right time to buy. You know, he has the story of his uncle or his dad who bought right before the recession and the prices crashed. He doesn't want to make that mistake. Um, he's also worried about the economy and inflation and maybe an upcoming recession. So these are the things on his mind. Also, he doesn't have a huge down payment. He's only saved up this much, but he has a retirement account, so I'm not sure what he can do there. Uh, and then he's kind of worried about his credit because he had one issue a couple months ago and it and it killed his score. And you got this down, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 21:57

Like it's so far down.

SPEAKER_00: 21:59

Okay, so now if we knew about all these things, okay, how could we help with all these things?

SPEAKER_02: 22:04

Do you have an answer for every one of those? That's a piece of content for every one of those.

SPEAKER_00: 22:07

And not only that, it's like we can talk multiple times about the same thing. You know, how many tips do you know on how to get someone's credit score from 620 to 700? A lot of different ways. So if we call out, if we're speaking to John and we're calling out his problems, now we can really address this situation. Be like, dude, if you're struggling with your credit score, I actually have a tip that'll boost you like 60 points in two days, honestly. This sounds crazy. We've all done it, right? Okay, that's cool, that's super valuable. Um guys, I want to share, or I you like John, I want to share with you a way that you can buy a home even if you don't have the best credit. And uh there's a did you know the government will actually help you with this? It's called the NFHL and then you go into it, like cool. So you're calling out this individual like with the problems, but you're really thinking of like, I want to solve this issue. And so you're you're speaking to specific things. So that's just one content strategy. There's many others, but I would start with that if if you if anybody's like, okay, my content's not landing, or I'm not even doing this. If you start there, you'll have way more success because everybody else is thinking about themselves in the video, where you're thinking about John and his problems. Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 23:17

I I hope that the people listening will, or I hope you that are listening, I should say, right? Because I'm talking to one person, but I want them to go back on that and really listen to what you said because that's really everything. How you build that avatar will change you know your entire content strategy. Where do you see and you know, you have an opportunity to consume content not just for entertainment or for what you look at content for, um, education, whatever it is, but you also have this like group of people that you support that you you've coached as well. And so you're looking at their content, like how are they growing, right? You've seen mine. What do you think the biggest mistake people are making right now when they're on this journey?

SPEAKER_00: 24:00

So I think they might be talking about the things and not the outcome of things. Like whenever you're talking about uh, you know, what you would like to teach, if you if you're talking about something in terms of the actual thing, what I found is that has a very, very limited audience. It's that 3% that are ready to transact and maybe even smaller today. Everybody else doesn't care because they don't really know what that's for. So the biggest mistake is talking about the thing and not the outcome of the thing. So I'll give you an example, like I just did. What you know, what it people would talk about an FHA loan. Okay, well, what is that? What is what does an FHA loan do? It helps you buy a home, even if you have bad credit, it helps you um get into the market, it helps you with low-down payments. So this is a government solution that helps you with these things. It's called this thing, but that's later. Like people lead with that and wonder why no one's interested. I saw somebody the other day promoting, like, you know, um uh, you know, uh non-QM 101. Nobody knows what non-QM even means. Like yeah, or like what does that mean? Well, how do you break it? Yeah, it's a really good thing. So you would say what is the what is this solution? What is that problem that non-QM solves? Yeah. Well, it solves you it solves uh financing for people who don't qualify for traditional mortgages. So, like, here are programs that help you buy a home even if you don't have tax returns, even if you have non-traditional documentation, you know, whatever these things. Or did you guys hear about the non-QM program? Or did you hear about the XYZ solution that young people are using to buy homes today? Let me show you how this works, you know. So, did you hear about this? I like using observations because then people don't have to think of you as the expert. Why should I listen to you? You just make an observation and then you talk about the thing. So, yeah, that's a huge mistake. I think uh the other thing is not making content for broad appeal versus small, like narrow appeal. So there's people who be like, hey man, I'm not growing, I'm not getting views. Well, that's okay. It might be a niche topic that's meant for a small audience. Okay. But let's just say uh you want to make that reach more people. We need a topic that more people would be interested in. So one quick strategy for everyone to do is like, what's your topic? Well, uh, my topic is uh this program that helps people fix their or uh buy a home. Well, cool. What is another what is a topic? Like I'll go through one that I just did. This is a great example. So I wanted to talk about buying an Airbnb. Do you guys own any Airbnbs? Yes. You do? Okay, awesome. So you know, so let's say you want you and your wife, Tracy, you want to make a video about buying Airbnbs because you know how to do it and you've done it, you want to show the success. Well, how many people are interested in buying short-term rentals? There's probably a good amount, but that is just limited to those people who are interested in buying short-term rentals right now. I'm going to show you guys how to buy Airbnb. Here's how we did it. Cool. Well, what is what is one of the benefits of owning an Airbnb? Just like what do you what do you think? Like, what is what are the things that help you?

SPEAKER_02: 27:03

What are the things that help me? Well, it's a huge tax you know benefit, right?

SPEAKER_00: 27:06

Yes, tax benefit. Yeah. Okay, so how many people, Chris, are interested in buying short-term rentals versus how many people are interested in saving money on taxes? Yeah. I believe that most Americans, adult age, are interested in saving money on taxes. So I have an example of this where I made a video about buying short-term rentals as a strategy for investing. It has limited audience. I made the same video about how young people are wiping out their tax liability by buying short-term rentals, and it did a million views. Yeah. So what you want to think about is like if you want more views, if you want more followers, you need to find a topic that would more that many people would be interested in learning about. So there's riches in the niches for sure. Yes. But you have to also think about how could you put your niche topic underneath the umbrella of something that would appeal to more people. So real estate, getting rich with real estate. Yeah. Like that's bigger appeal. Um FHA loan, very narrow appeal. Government program that helps you acquire homes and get rich. That's big appeal. Like you have to keep making it more broad. And when you start thinking like this, you realize there's way more opportunity.

SPEAKER_02: 28:18

There's way more opportunity. But that's I think that's the um the I think you have a gift in this, and which is why you coaching people is so you know, people who are listening that want coaching from this, this is a really good opportunity for them to get that. Because I think when you can learn that language, and so let's say you have an idea, and I was thinking as you were talking, like I can prompt, I could have a prompt that makes me think broader. Yes. Right? So, how do I make this you know hit this conversation hit? And then it once it starts to do that, it might be able to give me an idea that I wasn't thinking. And it might not be exactly the way AI is telling me, but it's opening up my brain to other opportunities. But you have that. That's a really good idea.

SPEAKER_00: 29:04

So you think about uh TAM. Uh whenever you're pitching a uh business, you think about the total addressable market. Anyone who's ever raised money for a company or looking at a business as a as a like how much opportunity, how much money could this business make? Like, what's the total addressable market? So think about the TAM of your topic. If it's limited TAM, it's gonna be limited views. Now that is okay if you're talking to like, hey, you're a branch leader who wants to make more money. Let me show you the PL, like whatever you guys talk about. That's cool. You just know it's a limited audience. But you would never you probably would not expect that video to go viral. No, but you're expecting it to reach the right person who you can help.

SPEAKER_02: 29:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:43

But then if you do want to make a viral video, maybe make it about something else. Like you would pick a different topic. So topic selection is important. How you structure the video is important. Um, I know it's a lot of big mistake people make is they're giving too much context. So I'll give you an example uh in Instagram. Stories, you could do you can talk about your day, you could talk about what's going on. That's fine. Because it's even there, you should limit it because people's time is limited, they're gonna swipe through really quick. But if you want to talk about um topics in the feed, like actual reels, you would just want to get straight into it. So a lot of a lot of people will dance around the issue. Like, hey, man, it's been a super busy day, and uh just got off the phone with a client and I want to share this tip with you. Well, what if we just started there? You know, like that whole intro could be chopped off. And let's just go, this is a crazy thing about buying, you know, doing this thing, or here's the tip I want to share with you. Like, let's just share that instead of all the context beforehand. So we think we need a lot of setup when in reality the setup is meaningless. People don't care.

SPEAKER_02: 30:44

They don't care, they don't care what you get from a lot of people. Do you find yourself, do you find yourself doing that video and then just editing it? Yeah, taking it out just because you need that sort of warm-up, if you will, to yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 30:55

I think a lot of people need just to get the in the motion. That's a good point, and then you can just trim it off. Yeah, that's what the that's for the feed video. Now, if you're making a personal piece of content and you want to talk about what you're going on in your life, that's different. You could you could set the table however you want. But I just think in general, we need to get to the point quicker, get to the punchline quicker. And I've noticed a lot of videos that fail, they get to that, but it's like 20, 30 seconds into the video.

SPEAKER_02: 31:16

Too far in.

SPEAKER_00: 31:17

Too far in. So in some cases, you could start the video with the punchline. Yes. Like I've seen this on podcast clips. They'll take the bar, the the best line, put it at the front of the video, and then do the explanation.

SPEAKER_02: 31:30

When you're in the middle of a podcast, do you find that bar? Do you know immediately what the bar is when you when you're yeah?

SPEAKER_00: 31:35

I think you're listening to it, and you're like, man, that was a line. That's a writer down, or you know, that's a screenshot of a slide. You know, those are kind of one-liners. And so you have to think about okay, uh, eventually as you do more content, you'll start to speak in sound bites. And uh that just allows people to pay attention to you more. The other concept that I think is really important, and I just had this come up because it's a really cool timing. This morning I did a call for a homebot, who's like a uh uh software company that serves our industry, real estate mortgage, and they had me come on the call and they had a bunch of their clients on the call and they were talking about marketing for uh 2026, same kind of thing we're talking about. And I went over some of these ideas on like how you can reach people with your content more, and they were like mind-blown emojis in the chat, and they were like, Man, this is crazy. This is I've never gotten so much value in such a short period of time. And I realized, like, bro, the bar is so low in our industry. I agreed. And so you have to think about like your chances of success and and stacking the deck in your favor. Let's say you're a funny guy, you're a comedian, you tell jokes, whatever, cool. If you go to Hollywood trying to become a movie star, like what's the competition like? Stack, bro. Like you can go to LA and you could be the funniest guy and you could struggle waiting tables for 10 years. Let's say you're funny and you want to be the funny guy in mortgage on the internet. Dude, you're you're the one person. Yeah, you could literally be one of you could be the top three funniest people in our industry right now on the internet. Yeah. Because so you have to think like, where could you stack if you have a talent, it doesn't even have to be world-class talent, it just needs to be something.

SPEAKER_01: 33:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:08

And you whatever that thing is. And I found, unfortunately, whatever that thing is for most people, they're hiding it. So literally, the one thing that would give you the highest chance of success, you'll never put it on out there. You never put that out there. You're just gonna like, you know, keep it behind. So I would encourage people to think like, where are your talents? What are your interests? And start putting those out there. Because I don't even have that many, but every time I share one with my content, people just start to connect more and you start to get more reach with all the stuff. So these are just all tips along the content journey. And then we could get into like, okay, how do you turn this into clients? How do you turn this into prospects and money? But the first step is like making better videos. If we start there, then the rest becomes easier.

SPEAKER_02: 33:48

Well, so Neil, like what we're talking through though is you know, you went from something sparked your your curiosity or you you changed the way that you were thinking, then you figured out how to you had to change what you were doing, like and you went from I'll never do you know, content and that's stupid. What are you guys doing? to doing it. And then you figured out to how to make money with it.

SPEAKER_00: 34:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 34:14

And then you figured out strategies on how to get from one to one to one to many.

SPEAKER_00: 34:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 34:18

And so kind of shift into that a little bit because I think what people don't realize is I think when people think about you know, I'll get on a call with my team and I'll I always ask this question when whenever it's around like social media or branding, who's gotten deals off of Instagram, right? It's so many people raise their hand, yet they'll stop putting you know content out, right? They they like do it and then they stop, they do it and they stop. And but I think what people think through is like it's always one deal. Like it's I got one deal from somebody that contacted me in a DM and I ended up closing a deal for them. And I think they're missing the point of being able to go one to many. And so talk a little bit about that strategy for like we you, you know, you went in a webinar, like people I don't think people realize the the the um the massive opportunity with a webinar.

SPEAKER_00: 35:11

Yeah, so if you're stuck on you know anywhere in business is ceiling, you have to scale the number of people you can get into your in your business. Now, you can only serve so many, so people build teams, they can any, you know, the best people in our industry have teams of people that they sir help. They have um recruits, they have all kinds of stuff going. So that's how you can scale your business. But the selling mechanism has to change at some point. Uh and most people are always in one-to-one. And if you're doing one-to-one selling, you're just gonna continue to work and be burnt out. Like it's just it's hard to it's only so many calls you can make in a day, it's only so many doors you can knock on, so many meetings you can have. So, what changed the game for me is switching my efforts from one-to-one to one to many. So, what does that mean? Well, if I'm gonna do a call with a home buyer to educate them on the market and why they should buy here, well, wouldn't it be cool if I could get 15 home buyers on that call? If I'm gonna do a meeting with a real estate partner and give them some tips and stuff, and and by the way, I still do one-to-one, but it's like we use one to many to reach the masses, and then you s you you then you pick the people you want to work with one-to-one. But it just makes one-to-one way easier. It makes it like a layup. So one to and and some people will work with you straight off the one-to-many, which is cool. That's how you can really scale this. So if I'm gonna have a meeting with a business partner, well, what if I taught that to 15 business partners? Right? Like it's the same hour of my time. And so when you think about content, like the you know, everybody here wants to spend more time with their family. They will, you know, they probably have a spouse who's probably mad at you for working too much. Literally, right now. Literally, yeah. Everybody's dealing with this, we're all dealing with this. And you know, the crazy thing that your spouse probably doesn't know when they're mad at you is that you actually agree with them. You don't want to be working as much, but you have obligations, you have pressure on you, you have to perform, and so you're trying to juggle like you're serving two masters. You know, you want to be this perfect person, but you also want to be crushing it at work, and so it's hard, dude. I get it. But the key is like changing some of the activities to be more efficient. So, you know, this is the whole definition of like working smarter, not harder. And if you continue to just do the the old school methods, it might work, but you're gonna burn out. You might get divorced, you know, who knows? Hopefully not. Um, but you'll also just it's just like a path to like a dead end, you know. And so that's why I think of one to many as being the path out of that. So that's a big reason why I do content. So you have to think about okay, if I'm able to speak to a couple hundred people with this video, if I'm gonna do the conversation, why don't I just put it on the on a piece of content? And I think the part that you said earlier is like people who don't have time, they don't have time initially because it takes a lot of time to do it. What they don't realize is once you get good at this, it takes very little time. Like somebody's like, hey dude, how do you have time to post the videos? I'm like, how do you have time to brush your teeth? You like content for me could be walking from the car to the front door on the way into the office. Like, guys, I want to share with you this. Or hey, here's something that happened, or uh, and I'm talking about, you know, a quick tip. Like that video you said, I'm sharing what's going on in Vegas, and it's like steam. That was literally from I'm going to a date night. I was like walking from my car to meet my wife for dinner. But there's you know, a three-minute walk in between. That's that's a video. And so you get to the point where you can just pull it off in certain spots. That's why I love making like more than half the content now with the phone instead of having to get into the studio, do the scripting, do like that's cool, but there's also a great opportunity elsewhere, you know, just to do it on the fly. And you do this a lot too, where you're just posting straight from the phone, yeah. Uh on the evening walk, you know. Yes, that makes it a lot easier. So the bar drops for the time it takes you to do it.

SPEAKER_02: 38:49

But that's the stuff that most people interact with. That's the stuff that I get the most views with, is you know, because it gives people an opportunity to get to know me on a personal level. So let's talk about that for a little bit. I mean, you know, I think um mortgage content is boring. Yep. So if I go to somebody that I'm looking, like it's first thing I do, first off, I think people have to realize that right now your Instagram or your LinkedIn, that's your resume, right? So if I if if you hear about somebody, I think if if we were talking and I mentioned somebody you had never heard of them, what's the first thing you do? Do you look up their yeah, yeah, you look up their Instagram?

SPEAKER_00: 39:24

Or you might even text someone their Instagram. That's how you refer to it. Right? That yeah, so you text them. I don't even have a business card. I just send you my Instagram.

SPEAKER_02: 39:30

And then so I look at the Instagram and I'm like, are they legit or not legit, right? Yep. And if I see it's all about low rates, it's all about, you know, that kind of bores me, right? I want to know what they're about, who they are as a person. So I think that's a mistake that a lot of people are making as well, is just keeping it straight business and the and and not giving, you know, enough about their lives. But when you started to do that, what did you start to notice?

SPEAKER_00: 39:52

Yeah, so um what you're talking about is a great concept of like, okay, it's not just the con the informational content, if it's just information, people will uh you know, they won't connect with you. Like and and you could do just information, but you're competing with like giants, you know. There's like people who literally are the best finance creators out there who are gonna make post two, three finance videos a day sometimes. Yeah, perfectly done. They know they're hacking the algorithm and like you're competing on that. Now that it's a game you can play, but there's another game where you have stacked the deck in your favor, which is connection. So you have good information, but then I would say 70-30 or 80-20 at the at the highest level. You know, you might have out of 10 posts, seven of them would be teaching tips, helpful information. And when you say it's boring, it is boring to extent, but you can make it better. You can make it really, yeah. You can show numbers on screens. Yeah, I talk about this, not just telling people, show them real things. To us, it's kind of boring because we watch this stuff all day. All day, yeah. But for the average viewer, they don't see they don't follow seven people in real estate and mortgage. So they're like, okay, this might be interesting. You might catch people. Like I said, that tax video, like, dude, that's viral. People are sharing it, saving it, sending it to their spouse, saying it's their CPA.

SPEAKER_02: 41:07

Well, they feel smarter from it. They you gave them a piece of information that's smarter, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 41:11

Infotainment is a big thing. Information can be entertaining, but then the connection piece is where I've seen huge ROI. And you just said it like people really connect and remember. So 30% of the content is not business related. Now, I've seen people even win with 70-30, 70% personal, 30% business. Like they're a XYZ who happens to do real estate. That's where I want to be.

SPEAKER_02: 41:34

I don't know why, but that's where I want to be.

SPEAKER_00: 41:35

It can be, it can be.

SPEAKER_02: 41:36

I just thought that interesting enough, or at least I think.

SPEAKER_00: 41:38

Yeah, you could be like, dude, I'm a I'm on this fitness thing, I do this, yeah, I'm a life coach, whatever you want to be. Like, and I also happen to do this, that that can work. Yeah, I do think you need to pick which side and kind of commit to a certain path because otherwise it confuses the algorithm, confuses your whole growth pattern. But uh, there's something to be said for like slower growth, but more profitable growth. You know, the fastest way to grow would be just to talk about one thing over and over and do that for years. Like we have a guy in our group that did that, but it's boring. He even tells me he struggles. He's like, I want to talk about other things. Anytime I talk about other things, it bombs.

SPEAKER_02: 42:10

Dude, every time I open up my TikTok, there's a guy in there. It's like he's either talking about renovations, I and that's or or like non-Q. Like there's a non-Q guy.

SPEAKER_00: 42:19

Though some of those videos took off, it's just like run the play again. And Instagram will tell you, these platforms will tell you, yeah, hey, this is the topic that worked, make more like this. Yes. And you should to some extent, but for me, I want to talk about more things than just that. So uh, what I want to do is I don't want to teach different things. I want to be known for one thing, but I want to be known for me. So I have this concept where I don't want to be well known, I want to be known well. And if you're known well and you've let people know the things that make you take and some of your personal life, and you can share as much or as little of this as you're comfortable with. I know some people don't want to put their kids or family on. That's fine, talk about other things, but you have to share something else besides the work. How long did it take for you to get to there? Because that wasn't always the case. Yeah, you just start dipping your toe, share a little bit.

SPEAKER_02: 43:01

I I watched your journey on it, and it's like you get more comfortable to share. Yeah, isn't it a weird thing? Like um it is a weird thing on how more how how much more comfortable you'll be over time. It's just like a numbing process.

SPEAKER_00: 43:14

You get like, yeah, you know, it's not a big deal. And then you start sharing a little bit more, you dip your toe a little bit more. And then I would say the biggest uh, and this is gonna help people right now, if you could share mistakes you've made, challenges you've overcome. I know you shared publicly that you overcame a problem with alcohol.

SPEAKER_02: 43:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 43:31

And it wasn't like you uh had a huge problem with it, but you were like, man, I just I'm not myself, I'm not my best when I drink.

SPEAKER_02: 43:38

So here's what's crazy about the sorry, but here's what's crazy about that is like how many of you can connect with the city. So many people connected, and even to this day, people will ask me to help them, right? I'm like, I'm not I can't, I I didn't know what I can only speak to what I did, but but what I'll tell you is that even then when you said, well, it was it really wasn't a problem, well, it was a problem. I just wasn't comfortable telling everybody it was a problem until two years later, right? Like that time had to, you know, because you're very ashamed of yeah, yeah, you know, letting it be cut, like there's a letting it become a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00: 44:09

Somebody might have gone through something like this, yeah, and they would need they they really relate to it, and they're like, Man, I'm so glad you said it. You had the courage to talk about this. That really helped me get from modern, I think. So it's a huge thing, but somebody else is listening and like Neil, I would never talk about that. Okay, that's fine. Yeah, what is something else you struggle with business-wise? What is something you struggle with personal? If there's all wins and you're just trying to put out that you're this perfect person, people just don't relate. It's not real. So I know it's a lot of people in my industry and your industry too, like they're scared to share success. Like if they're on a trip with their family, they don't want to share because they're like, oh, this is a really nice resort. I don't want people to think I'm uh spending too much money. I don't want people to um think I'm out of the office because then they won't send me deals. Like they're thinking of overthinking all of this. The reason why you don't want to share the successes in your life or the wins is because you didn't share the work, you didn't share the downside. So, what about the the week where everything went wrong?

SPEAKER_02: 45:04

And we all have them. I don't care where you work, we all had them.

SPEAKER_00: 45:07

Yeah, deals fell through. Uh, maybe it's somebody you've been working on for uh bringing into the organization for months, years, and then they told you they're going somewhere else. Yeah, like none of us happens.

SPEAKER_02: 45:18

Oh, it it just happened, right? 200 million, not the door, you know, or like I remember sitting in my office and like five people walk out one day, you know, and you're like, hey, you take that so personal, but you don't want to talk about it, right? Because you don't want to show the loss, but you want people, but but I think that makes you real.

SPEAKER_00: 45:33

I think that's what's yeah, and and and you could do it in a way where it doesn't, it's not detrimental to your business. I don't want to tell people like, hey, my business is going to shit. Call me if you need me. No, because that's not you can't do that. Yeah, but what you can say is look, man, guys, I'm just being straight. This was a rough week. Yeah. Um, I I don't know. What did you do that one before? It's like man, I appreciate that. A couple things went wrong. Dude, I'm I'm I got robbed like over the summer. I shared a video uh carousel picture on so on. So I literally showed our house turned upside down. Why? Not to get sympathy, but because I learned a valuable lesson that a lot of people needed to hear, which was hey, don't take for granted home security. You know what? Like, if you have an alarm system, it might be a good idea to turn the dang thing on, you know. Like we get so comfortable in our home, yeah, you stop putting the alarms on.

SPEAKER_02: 46:17

You price to leave my keys in my car. Like, you know, I don't even think about it.

SPEAKER_00: 46:20

Your kids come in and out of the pool, you know, they just leave the doors open at night. Like it's summertime, you know, everyone's having a good time. Like, well, shit, you know, maybe double check. And so it just kind of was like a wake up call. And so, hey, if my experience can give somebody the wake-up call without having to be robbed, hey, that's helpful. Yeah, you know, it's not like, hey, poor me, but I just want to tell someone, hey, man, I I'm having a rough week. I got my event this week and I just got robbed. And uh man, this sucks. But you know what? Maybe it's a sign that, like, you know, I needed to get my home security in order because maybe me getting robbed was preventing something that would have happened worse if I hadn't fixed this issue. So now we've got it all dialed in, it's all fixed, Fort Knox, whatever, right? But that was a lesson I had to learn. So I'm just sharing, but like you would be shocked how many people like, hey, can I help you with this? I'm gonna do this, dude. People sent us like support. My friends, like, you call me, text me, whatever. Like, so you just realize, like, okay, there's power in just being real. And then um, I've just noticed people will support your wins more. So when I share that I'm on vacation, um, they'll be like, hey man, enjoy the time with your family. Yeah, have a good trip. Nobody's like, hey, bro, I'm pissed at you because you're staying at the four seasons. Yeah, like, dude, you earned it. Yeah, I saw you working your tail off, man. I want to know where you're staying. Yeah, like people don't tell me where there's like that. I want to go there. But it's a conversation piece. Yeah. And so, yeah, there's things you can share. You get more comfortable over time, but these are all chances to get lucky. So the other day I was talking about, hey, I posted something personal, then the next day I posted something business, then I shared a success of a client. Each time I do this, it's a chance to connect with new people. It's another chance to get lucky. Uh, we shared something about interest rate movement. Somebody was in the process of locking their loan on a Friday. They just got into contract, random follower. They asked if it's a good deal or not. It was not. Yeah, it was just like, dude, this is crazy. We I don't know where you got this from, but like, I'm just telling you, it's not a competitive, and I I don't want to mess up anything if you're already down the path. But if you want a comparison, I'm happy to help. Yeah, I would love to. Okay, that's luck, right? So somebody might say, Well, how do you get so lucky? Well, you create your own luck. It's you, you, you, you know, increase the surface there. So now each video increases my chances to get lucky. Each email, each piece of content, each connection piece. Oh, dude, I like you like that team, I like them too. Or who you who are you betting on this weekend? Oh, like that's my thing too. Now we're connected. You'd be shocked how many times small talk leads to big talk. All the time, bro. It's like that's it. We're having a conversation about football, we're having a conversation about where we're staying at on this trip in that same DM thread, four weeks, four months later.

SPEAKER_01: 49:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 49:02

Hey, dude, like, where are the rates at on this? Or, you know, I'm thinking about pulling money out of this rental, but I'm not sure. I need a HELOC, you know, because you're comfortable. The door, the path, the communication line is open. It's not awkward anymore. So I just think whenever you talk to people, you never just go up and just go straight to business. Like, hey, dude, how's it going? How's the kids? You know, and then you maybe ask you a question. So we need to do the same thing with content. What's the small talk of your content? And like you said, most people have none. You just just like here's the business, that's it. Well, most people will tell you that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 49:33

But what we just talked about right now, I know opened up people's minds to, oh, I've been robbed. I've been, I've, you know, I've been working out, right? I'm still.

SPEAKER_00: 49:42

And we're talking about the worst things, you know, but like it could be something simple.

SPEAKER_02: 49:45

It could be something really what you've had a rough week. So what do you give your five? What are your five things that you talk about?

SPEAKER_00: 49:50

So these are the five F's food, faith, family, fitness, fashion was the one that somebody added. I'm not into fashion, as you can tell. I wear the same thing every day. But other people that's a fashion statement.

SPEAKER_02: 50:00

And stuff, yeah. There you go.

SPEAKER_00: 50:01

But like I noticed you got the sneakers on today with pink freaking shoelaces and a pink sweater, right? So, like, you're definitely into fashion on some level. I remember posting about shoes, and you're like, hey, bro, return those.

SPEAKER_02: 50:13

You know, I'm like, how would I get rid of those now, bro?

SPEAKER_00: 50:15

But it's cool, like there's this is just stuff you could talk about as one of the five F's. And now, if you're into something else, replace one of the F's with that. There's a guy, I was talking about this dude in Colorado, he's in our group, he hikes. He's outdoors kind of guy. Yeah, he gives the tips during the hike. The algorithm shows his content to other outdoors people.

SPEAKER_02: 50:33

Oh, wow. It's just simple. So now if I'm gonna do a deal, I'm gonna do a deal that's with a guy that's like me that's hiking just like me, and I'm more, I might be more connected with that guy than anybody else.

SPEAKER_00: 50:43

And I think we all do this already. Like, think about why do people choose to work with you? Just make a list. Well, they trust me, they know me, they like me, uh, we have shared interests, we get along, whatever those things are. So all I want to do is take those same things and make sure that they're in my content. Like, if you're like, dude, the main reason why people work with me is because I'm a funny guy and they just connect with me and we just get along. Yeah. Well, you better make sure that you're doing that in your content because the same will be true for the if it worked for these strangers, it'll work for these strangers.

SPEAKER_02: 51:14

Well, that's the biggest mistake I see is that like people that I know are very different on I I I'm very different at times, you know. So it's hard to go that that authenticity piece is it will get better over time because I think we've, you know, even just people who are doing content get more and more comfortable with it. So I want to talk about this because I think that um it's important that people know that it doesn't always have to be a big video production, especially as you go into 2026. I mean, even think about what you watch, think about what you stop, what stops your scroll. And it's usually somebody on their phone just telling me a story sometimes. And that's what gets me to watch them. And that I'm like, what I gotta hear what they do. This was important enough for them to put this out in their in their car and tell me the story. I want to know what it is. But everybody thinks that they need to have perfect microphone, perfect lighting, perfect, you know, all this setup. So give people some advice on what they could do to you know really you know, stand out right now.

SPEAKER_00: 52:14

Um the first thing is like I said, use the phone. Selfie cameras great. Um, there's something crazy that's going on right now where you know straight eye contact on IG or on social is a little awkward. Why? Because we're so used to watching people shoot the video with your eyes looking at yourself, it's slightly below the lens, just a little bit. But people are so used to it now because most authentic content is shot selfie mode on the phone. First thing you need to do is wipe the lens so it's clear, you know. You'll be you'll notice, like, hey, my video looks like shit. No, you probably just have dirty lens, okay? So clean that first. Then it's lighting. So think about the light. Uh is the light hitting your face? If you ever put it on your uh selfie mode and you're like, man, I look like crap. It's not you, it's a lighting issue. For somebody it might be you, but for most people, it's not you. It's like, dude, there's just no light in the room, or it's this harsh office light. Go outside, change the light, boom, all of a sudden you look not hung over. You know, it's like great. So, and then the second thing, the last piece of this is audio. Can people hear you clearly? So I just think I don't want people to work to watch my video.

SPEAKER_01: 53:19

Okay, right?

SPEAKER_00: 53:20

When you see one of these videos, you can see them, you can hear them. If you had to turn it all the way up, you probably just scroll past. If the video looked like, you know, I mean it doesn't need to be perfect, but if you couldn't even see their face, it was blurry, you'd be like, dude, there's something wrong with my phone. Let me uh exit and come back. Like, you know, you would start, you know, it just you don't want people to have to think down on you because of the way the content looks. So don't handicap yourself. Uh so on a scale of one to ten, I'm thinking like a six, seven, something like that would be perfect. If you go like into the high production value, it almost looks like an ad. Now, agreed, yeah. Some people high production content is their look, it's their differentiator. Like, you know, um, even in the studio we're sitting in right now, the content looks great. We're in a really nice studio. So this can be uh quality can be a differentiator, but at the same time, like it might not like for you, that's not important in the beginning. So I would just think get to a six or seven, you're good to go. The next thing would be um like the location where you shoot. So having a place you do it. You said the car, the car is great because there's just light coming in. If you especially if you have the windows, they can be closed, so the audio is good, but there's just a lot of natural light in the car.

SPEAKER_02: 54:32

Natural light, no one can hear me.

SPEAKER_00: 54:33

Yep, and then the doors are shut, it almost serves as a sound booth. So it sounds great. Yeah, make sure the audio isn't connected to the Bluetooth audio unless the mic is a really good point. Yeah, sometimes the mic in your car is trash, and then it's like now you've negated the audio. So the the phone, the especially these newer iPhones are great with audio and video. So I would just do that. Now, next level would be talking to the back camera, which you do a lot of the back camera on this phone is so much better than the selfie one. Yep. So I love doing videos talking to the back camera. Uh in my office, I have a light, like a nice light, I have a good mic. But if I'm within arm's length, you don't even need the mic.

SPEAKER_02: 55:08

Yeah. And these these these phones are amazing. I mean, yeah, any really any iPhone is amazing if you're in an office or you're, you know, it I think it only becomes a bigger issue if you have it so far away or you're outside.

SPEAKER_00: 55:21

And then the thing you just brought up, which is probably this is really important, and then we could get into like, okay, how do we actually get people off the fence? Okay. But the last piece on the content is like, okay, one trend that is crushing right now is storytelling. You said when people tell a story, you want to watch to hear what happened. Yeah. So this is a great way to loop in people, keep them watching your video. The number one way you can go viral and reach thousands of people with your videos is if they finish the video. Like, dude, if you make a video that's 37 seconds long or 43 seconds long, and majority of people watch it, it's gonna reach a lot of people. Okay. The reason why your video doesn't reach a lot of people is because most people just scroll past it and then the algorithm kills it. Like there's a small group that finishes it, but most people they're like, okay, that's not for me, I'm gone.

SPEAKER_01: 56:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:08

So if you want to make one that reaches, goes crazy, just make it so people are watching it. And one of the ways is to hook them in with a good story. The problem is, I'll ask you this question what bugs you when someone tells a story? Like what bothers you? Like if me and you are chatting or you're talking to someone.

SPEAKER_02: 56:24

Well, I don't know where it's going, right? If I like, or if I feel like they hook me and now they're gonna give me a bunch of BS before they get to why I'm actually like if they're taking too long to get me to get to the punchline, yeah, then I'm I'm annoyed by that. So it has to be told in a really that there has to be something to get me to want to listen.

SPEAKER_00: 56:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 56:44

And then I got to get to the punchline fast. Yeah. And you know, that that's what gets me there. And if they're if they're um, they have to be a good storyteller. I mean, honestly, people know how to there's good storytellers, there's bad. And I think you have a really good framework on this that I I literally teach around this.

SPEAKER_00: 57:01

Okay, so I have a framework for this for storytelling that would crush for everyone. It's called a Spark framework. S is the situation. So you want to set the scene really quick, one to two sentences. The P is the problem. What struggle did you face? Like what struggle did other people face? A action, what step did you take? Specific step that you took, our result, like what happened, include numbers if possible. And then the key takeaway is what you end with. What's the takeaway for watching this video?

SPEAKER_02: 57:27

So, like uh if you think about this entire podcast, yes, it is based on tire that that entire thing.

SPEAKER_00: 57:34

So if you want to use the Spark formula when in doubt, and so let me give you like a bad example. Uh I remember a guy who was talking about how he lost his properties in the foreclosure thing, and he was like, yo, I was foreclosed in 2008, um, and it was really hard. But since then I've rebuilt my business and now I'm successful. Well, I guess that's the story, but there's not much there to grab people, right? Yeah, and so like setting the scene, the situation is so important. So I would think about it like this it's 2008, guys, and I'm sitting in my driveway watching them like foreclose on my home.

SPEAKER_02: 58:07

Watching the sheriff's department come and knock them out or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 58:10

Well, I just I'm sitting at home and I get the letter that we're getting foreclosed next week. Like home is becoming for auction. Like I'm with you in that moment. And like my stomach sank. So like, what's the powerful moment statement, like the pivotal thing? Put that up front, like set the stage right up front, like and let them loop them right in, hook them right in. I think people like set up too much context and then nobody watches.

SPEAKER_01: 58:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:32

Now the thing you said is really important, like people just ramble on. So this framework keeps you from rambling on. So you think about that story of like, okay, in 2008, you know, I uh stood in my driveway watching people play it on my home. I was over-leveraged and I on five properties with no money reserves. And then uh I just ended up losing everything. It was a terrible moment. But then what's crazy is that was the moment that I changed the way I handled finances. I started tracking my expenses, I started doing this, I started doing this. Now, fast forward, I've been able to do X, Y, Z. It all came from that pivotal moment. So, like, don't lose all your stuff to go through this lesson. Start doing this now. That's the takeaway for the audience. Takeaway. Yeah. So, like, there's a lesson in what I'm telling you. You know, and uh you could go through this with that was like a moment of something where bad happened, but it could be something successful too.

SPEAKER_02: 59:20

It could be so many things, it could be the deal I lost this week, the deal I gained this week.

SPEAKER_00: 59:24

It could be And we we even had this in our group where people were telling us all kinds of stuff. Like, I remember one of the ladies who's like crushing it in Morgan, she's like you she talked about her autistic son. Oh, yeah. And I was like, I never knew you dealt with that. And she was crushing it despite that. And it was just like she's never told anybody about this. But she wanted to share because she wanted to share like something that's helped her, and it might help somebody else who's dealing with the same issue. Bro, comments are full of people who have the same issue as her. Yeah, they're trying to work and hold it all together, but they have an autistic kid. Yeah, bro, it's crazy. That is, yeah. So It could be personal, business, doesn't matter, but use like storytelling as a way to get it across because when you think about storytelling, who else could make that video? It's like, dude, it's one of one. It's gold.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:11

Well, you know, people listening, you know, most people have had a story where they helped a client that never thought they can get in a home before, or was told no by somebody else that just didn't, you know, do the income right. Or everybody has a story that happened this week or last week that they can pull out that same framework and start to tell their story. And I just don't think people are doing enough. So if you're listening and you're interested in getting that framework, DM us Spark. Spark. Yes. DM us Spark on either at Neil Home or on my um on my Instagram.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:48

Yeah, we'll send it to you. And we'll send it to the send framework. You know, I can give you plenty of examples. Like, we don't have time to get into all of them here, but like there are so many examples of how you can apply this to your storytelling. Yeah. And just keeping it on a formula, we'll just keep it on the rails. You can also use AI. So I love using ChatGPT or Claude and just vomit, word vomit, the whole thing. Just tell it like here's the story I want to tell. Help me refine this into an effective social media post. It'll do it in writing. Now, for the this is a great hack, Chris. Like people who are afraid to shoot the video, maybe they're not camera ready. Or you're like, Neil, Chris, I get it. I'm supposed to do video, but I'm not doing this shit. Okay, cool. Just do it in writing. It's so powerful.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:26

Just write out writing is so good. I'm I'm getting so much play on um on LinkedIn with writing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:33

So LinkedIn writing, Facebook feed writing. Yeah. The other way on Instagram to do it is Instagram's a visual platform, video and photo. Well, you can make written posts in the feed on like a carousel. So you would do like one image, start the story, then the images. I read it. Camera guys, super easy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:51

Super cheap, super easy. Yeah, camera.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:53

So we just went over this with my group where like there's different ways you could do photos with the picture with text over it. You could have video with just b-roll, which is like say it's just b-roll of you and I chatting chatting, and then there's some text over that. Yeah. With music, crushes. So there's so many ways to execute without you having to sit and talk to the camera.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:10

There's a way. I mean, yeah, just just do it, right? Just get get on. So Neil, there you have um different uh variations and levels of the masterminds that you're and the coaching groups that you do. Um which when you when you go this full like starting from the moment that you you know came to let me just get on video and changed your your business and mortgage to now you're helping people do this. Um how do people connect with you and get into one of these masterminds that you're doing?

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:44

Yeah, I think the the first thing is just like come to an event. Uh, we do our big event every summer, it's called Forward in Vegas. We also do smaller, like niche events throughout the year. Uh, I'm speaking at like 20 to 30 different places throughout the year. So I always post on my Instagram if you're in the city, come come to the event, say hi. Um, so that's just the first step. But then we do have a program where we can help people just get started and you can just become a member of Forward. And that's our content accelerator group. And people can learn how to like make content. We do a bi-weekly call. There's scripts, there's ideas, frameworks.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:15

People that's where most people I think that's like the biggest put your foot if you're just looking at putting your toe in, that's where you start, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:22

Yeah, that's the best place to start. So um just go to my Instagram, you can you can uh get the link, it's right on my link in bio. You can also get like free information. I have a weekly email I send out, like there's all kinds of resources, but I think I think the main thing people need to realize is like, hey, you know, you and I like, yeah, we're doing this podcast. People might think, oh, this is easy for them to say. What about me? I'm not, I don't have time for this, do this. You'd be shocked. Like, I wish I I wish people knew how bad I sucked, you know. Like, I'll show people videos of how bad I suck at these things. Dude, I'm I'm worse than somebody watching or listening, and they're like, Well, yeah, it's easy for Neil. I'm like, no, dude, it's not easy, but I got over it, and you can too, you know. Like, think about um all the people I've been able to connect with, all the lives impacted, all the business success. Yeah, there's a you know, a lot of financial success along the way. But honestly, I get more fulfillment from uh forward stuff because it's like people coming up to you and saying, bro, you changed my business. Or I'm a much more confident person now because of what you said. Or, dude, on a personal level, people have told me, you saved my marriage, like all kinds of like not just business, but life, the whole thing. And it's all possible because, like you said, I have the courage to just push record, post the video. And uh, I just think like, hey, there's people I've connected with because of a single piece of content. And what would have happened if I didn't post that video? I wouldn't know that person, maybe, right? So you're just one piece of content away. I know it sounds cliche or cheesy, but it is so true. Somebody watched one video, then they triggered them going to watch other ones. Maybe it got served up in the algorithm, maybe it got forwarded to you. And most of the time, bro, it's a video that I thought was a dud. Yeah, like, oh, nobody's interested in that video. It's like, oh, that was the one that helped somebody.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:03

And uh yeah, like you impact that one person, it leads to more, people share it, and then all of a sudden you have momentum. It's just something that compounds over time.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:11

Heck yeah, man. Well, look, if you guys um connect with Neil, you know, absolutely mention that you got this from this, you know, from the breakthrough podcast. Neil and I have been friends, you know, for five years now, and he's helped me with so many aspects of my business. You know, the way that I present information at a corporate level has been changed because I've been in a room with people like Sharon and people that you've been able to introduce us to that really change the way that I look at like how I podcast, how I produce content, how I connect with people. Um, so thank you. And and thank you for doing this. I know you're busy. Um, Neil's doing this today. Um, and we we put this together like a few, you know, a few days ago. Um, and you're doing a huge mastermind tomorrow. So the fact that you're giving me time today means a lot. So thank you. And we all appreciate it, man. So I can't wait to look forward to connecting.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:04

And then bro, proud of you for doing all the things you're doing in business. This is awesome to see. And just like you said, that was probably the biggest improvement I've seen is just the way you communicate video, content, uh, like meeting, speaking on stages. Just that in in and of itself is a huge win.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:21

Thank you, man. I appreciate that. Yeah, I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:24

Yeah, 100%.