[Joe]: Good morning, good morning, good morning and welcome again to Ask The Experts on
Talk Radio 1190. It's the beginning of the month
again and that means that we have a bit of a doubleheader going on for baseball
fans. Roger Wakefield, Expert Plumber of Texas Green Plumbing is back with us
again. Www.texasgreenplumbing.com, a way to
get in touch with him. Also, you can try the phone if your next to one
(972)-442-4101. He also brings with him Jeff Lindigrin
the Vice President of Happiness at Great Western Home Loans. You can find them
www.gwloans.com or at (972)-407-9900. So,
let's talk about - oh go right ahead, yes sir.
[Jeff]: Joe, I just want to say I appreciate you going retro on the "www". [Joe]: Absolutely! I
could I could even go all the way back and do the "http://"
I don't even think you have to do that anymore. [Roger]: On the "world wide web" [Joe]: Absolutely,
yeah. Talking about the web,
let's talk about networking with Realtors. How did you get started doing
that, Roger? [Roger]: My wife is a etiquette and protocol consultant she owns a company
called JW Etiquette, and she actually teaches people how to get out
and network and, you know, networking is great for a lot of businesses.
Her business is one that people don't realize every day: hey I need etiquette
and protocol training. [Joe]: Absolutely. hand up, right here. [Roger]: Most people need it and they
just don't realize it. [Joe]: Two hands up right here! [Roger]: So plumbing is a little
bit different. She kept trying to get me to go out networking I kept saying: honey
look this is not working for you. You get some calls every now and then
but this, just I can't see going out every week just to get a call once a
month right and don't get me wrong when she gets a call once a month it's a big
call. But she talked me into it and one night we went out to a happy hour
networking event and I told her before I got there I said: I'm going to walk in and
we're going to separate. I do not want to hang out with you.
Nothing against you, but I'm here to work so you let me do my deal, you do your
deal and let's see how it goes. When we left two and a half three
hours later, she looks at me in the car she says: oh my God. Every time I look up
you've got a crowd of people around you and you're waving your arms in the air and
you're talking and you're just you're going on and on. Yeah and she says
what are you talking about? I said: plumbing.
and she said: plumbing? I said: that's what - they'd ask me what I do and then they
all have questions and that's where I go. [Joe]: Absolutely.
[Jeff]: Same exact thing happened to me only I didn't take my wife with me or even an
ex-wife. When I started doing doing this for Greg Western Home Loans
about five years ago, I started networking with Realtors and other mortgage people
and everybody and several folks from the company would want to go with me and I
said: sure, you're welcome, come on. So I go and I'm working the room. I didn't
take a class but, I didn't talk with these guys and I was going: where
are they? and I finally found them and they were talking in a corner
with themselves. They were not interacting with other people and they
said: Jeff come hang out with us. "No man, I'm working. all right?" You've
got to go touch everybody there, you know? And you're right, not
everybody gets it. New people do, you know? I'm guessing, you know, less than 20%
of the folks that go to networking parties are actually networking the
entire event. [Roger]: It's funny because I'll watch people at events now and you
see a man and wife that come in together and they're together the entire night.
[Joe]: Yeah, absolutely. [Roger]: Half the night it's just them standing
there talking to each other. It's like: wait y'all are here to network and
and this is what you call this. [Jeff]: Well when I went on my first date when I
was 16 my mom said "hey whatever you do don't leave her side." You know, it
was social at the church. She was shy and boring, in fact I was shy
back then as well. So I just stood there with her
you know, God it wouldn't - I wanted to go talk with my buddies but yeah. So
yeah we're trained to stay with your wife or husband, significant other [Joe]: Just
anybody that's with you socially, it feels like they're kind of your
safety blanket in this room full of people don't know. [Jeff]: Well you know, Joe, Roger is one
of those people. He is a safety blanket for someone like me because he's very
entertaining and energy and positive all the time and that's fun.
However you got to go talk to the boring people too. Well I
mean they all need business and exposure in business and in your plan. So
the more you can interact with the more people, the more business you're going to do.
It's just that simple. [Roger]: And the good thing is when you do have a safety net
like that, Jeff is great the first time I was at Great Western Home Loans
at the event, he's like: Roger do you know
so-and-so? Do you know so-and-so? Do you know so-and-so? and he's - the good thing about
a good networker, we're not there for us and I know that sounds
crazy. If I help introduce Jeff to 50 people
Jeff is going to say: oh my God I want to introduce Roger to 100 people, this has
been great for me and to be honest that that's really what it is. When I meet
people, I'm not going to connect with everybody and I may meet someone and
think: okay this person that I may never do business together, but I need to
introduce them to so-and-so and that's always in my mind. Because if
I can help someone else - like I said, I'm not just there to help me
and then going back to what Jeff said about taking people, I've taken some of
my plumbers to networking events and they come back and they won't tell me
they're like: oh no that was fun, I enjoyed that. They come back and tell Julie:
I'm not Roger. I cannot do that. [Jeff]: Yeah it's not for everybody and a lot of folks
would say: yeah I went to that but I didn't get anything out of it, you know?
It's not a one-and-done thing. Networking is a full-time business. When
when I went to Kroger last night, I was networking.
This morning when I mowed my new neighbors yard I was networking.
Because everywhere I go, you know, somehow it comes up what I do for a living.
You know, yeah I have a cool job title: VP of Happiness. There's a
great story behind that but I can't tell it on the air. But, you know, I mean
you just got to be you know fun and just see the positive in folks, not
the negative. Focus on all that and man, because they're going to remember you.
and gosh, I'm bad at remembering names, Joe. I remembered yours
because it's Joe when I wrote it down three times. But people always say: hey, Jeff how
you doing man? "I'm sorry" and I'm too honest I'll go "I'm sorry, I don't
remember your name" you know? And a lot of people are good at faking it: hey! you
know, the voice goes up at the octaves
but the more people you meet, more friends you make. Social, Facebook, be
my friend, all of that, it matters, you know? And that's how you grow business.
[Joe]: Do you feel like you've always had that that approach to networking?
That it's just an everywhere you go type of thing? [Jeff]: When I'm drinking! No. [Roger]: Like
you said you were networking at Kroger. I eat lunch at or ate lunch at Lockhart's
Barbecue in Plano yesterday and you know, there's a line and the guy from
behind me is with Plano Independent School District, special education
instructor. Lady in front of me was a technician and had several engineers
there for lunch with her and we're all talking and she starts talking about:
well I bought a house that was built in '83 so I have issues and my neighbors
across the street had a big pile of dirt in their yard and it I don't know what
it is about being a plumber it it gets back to plumbing. "Oh by the way I've got a
question" and I'm fine with that. I love it.
[Jeff]: Well you like barbecue, Lockhart's is known for their burnt ends
and I need to go back there, I've been there a few times but they're great.
Plumbing and eating... [Roger]: It's an inlet-outlet type deal. [Joe]: There's some sort of connection there I
feel like. [Jeff]: When Roger and I go and eat and talk about business, we talk about
social media not really plumbing because I I can't separate the... [Roger]: Speaking of
social media and we talked about YouTube while ago and Facebook, I
literally got invited to go to a pop-up for LinkedIn and LinkedIn sent the
LinkedIn video people, and it's not like that call you get every week: hey I'm
with Google I want to help you. It's like: okay just Google sign your paycheck? Well no, sorry but okay then. I work
with Google to I write on my check every now and then.
But LinkedIn video actually brought people from New York down and said: look
we want to you things that people are doing on
LinkedIn video now and then we want to teach you how to do LinkedIn video
better and gain traction and here's what we're working on with hashtags and
ampersands and all this and they're trying to grow it and myself, Will my
video guy, Julie my wife, who runs the office so I guess she's really my boss, I
didn't say that. Cut that. Anthony, cut that. Yeah, it's gone now. Anyway the thing is
we got asked to be part of a Dallas LinkedIn video network and oh my God
there are some amazing people here doing some great things and anybody who's not
on LinkedIn doing video and Jeff and I had this conversation before I went to
a big marketing event a while back, video in social media whether it's Facebook,
Linkedin, it's huge guys. If you're not doing it, start thinking about it. [Joe]: So
we're talking social media, we're talking networking. Why did you get into this
business, Jeff, you think into getting into networking, social media? [Jeff]: Great
question Joe here's the thing that I noticed immediately when I -
I've been in the mortgage business for, goodness 17 years, but when I started
doing networking and marketing the first thing I noticed is the real estate
industry they have a lot of events all the time
but they are somewhat exclusive, okay? They'll have these, excuse me,
four or five, six sponsors, you know? They're doing a happy hour,
they need somebody to split the tab basically. So the affiliates, the mortgage
companies, the insurance agents, the title companies, the plumber, the inspector, the
plumber, they're all pitching in to, you know, split the tab and then if you're
not the lender or the plumber well you you are not welcome to go to the happy
hour. Well I I said to heck with that, right? So I put on events and I said: look,
everybody's welcome, alright? And so I will go to their
events too but I will I'll pick up my own tab. I would never want someone else
to get mine. So what I did is, well there's
a young people network, young professional network and it's exclusive
it's open to realtors, but it's exclusive to these members in our industry that are a
part of it. So I created the cool people Network, CPM, so in this this is how Roger
got in. [Roger]: Yeah because I'm not allowed at the young people network. [Jeff]: So you're
invited if you're cool, if you want to be cool or in Rogers case, if
you used to be cool. Yeah. [Joe]: I believe we're supposed to cut that as well.
[Roger]: I noticed Anthony stepped away. [Jeff]: No but
so it started out the first one we did was a crawfish boil and we had about
200 people and I do the cooking, that's part of it. We have a live band,
have a nice porta-potty out there... [Roger]: And Jeff can cook. [Jeff]: Thank you, and
then we did hamburgers, so then we stepped it up and we and we did pig
roast in the fall, pig roast. Now we have 500 people there. Same cool band. Band is
fun, they let us get up there and sing with them, and then we do beer can
chicken, okay? Anyway we just do it in the back of the building
out there, we've got a creek in the backyard, it's a nice venue. I mean we
could do it at a park. It doesn't have - it could be anywhere.
But it really we'll only advertise it on social media and then everybody invites
other people about it. I don't care if every mortgage company in town comes,
okay? That's a great opportunity for us to show them about us and how friendly
we are in our business and maybe they'll come work for us.
Every realtor is invited, every plumber's invited, every
electrician, you know. There's no exclusion, okay? And like at
first I said everybody bring a case of beer. That's your price,
you know, as a sponsor. [Joe]: Do you feel, how do you guys feel that that going to
these has has increased what you guys do? Because I really like the
idea of this big community of businesses working together for this. [Roger]: I love it, it's
really helping me a lot and you can ask Jeff in a minute. I'm part
one of the sponsor groups he talks about where you know there's one plumber,
there's one home inspector, there's one insurance guy, and we do. We split the tab
between ten of us that's Dallas Elite Real Estate Group and
we invite every realtor we know. Jeff is friends with the home mortgage
specialists and so there's no issue there and the neat thing is
there's not a lot of other trades. I've never seen another electrician, I've
never seen an HVAC person, I've never seen - I have seen roofers because they're
their own breed but plumbers, HVAC people, electricians you just,
there's not a lot of those that go to events like this. [Jeff]: You are the only
plumber I've ever seen at a real estate event. [Joe]: Do you think that they're just not
invited or they just don't come because they don't know or... [Jeff]: Well they're probably
at home counting their money. [Roger]: I don't have any to count, so that's easy.
[Jeff]: Roger's got people hired to do that.
No, it requires out-of-the-box thinking. Roger is that, okay?
Most folks in business like that can't get out of the box, okay? You know
we've been doing it this way so long we're gonna keep doing it this way. [Joe]: So we
have got plenty left in our doubleheader with Roger Wakefield, The Expert Plumber of
Texas Green Plumbing and Jeff Lindigrin, the Vice President of Happiness at
Great Western Home Loans. Don't go anywhere, this is Ask The Experts on Talk
Radio 1190.