Welcome back to Lending Leadership

This week, we dive deep into the art and science of building your personal brand as a loan officer and why stories (not scripts) are the secret sauce that can differentiate you in a digital world filled with AI-generated noise.

Our special guest, Katie Shive, brings nearly a decade of mortgage expertise, but what really sets her apart is her background in branding and copywriting, both before and after AI exploded onto the scene. Katie’s journey from ghostwriting for top producers to founding her own advisory business uniquely positions her to guide us through the transformation from generic “loan content” to authentic, memorable storytelling.

If you’ve ever wondered how to build a digital footprint that leads to real clients—not just likes this is an episode you can’t miss.

Key takeaways:

1. Your Story is Your Superpower: We often think our stories are boring or irrelevant, but Katie proves otherwise. Whether it’s overcoming financial hardship or helping a client tap home equity in a fresh way, these stories build authentic connections and make your marketing memorable. Start with what’s true for you. This is the most powerful foundation for your brand 12:17, 17:11.
2. Specificity Cuts Through the Noise: AI-generated content is only useful if you first get clear on your own brand voice, values, and audience. The more specific the input (“who are you truly helping?”), the less generic your output will be whether an AI-assist is involved or not 04:15, 06:57.
3. Stories Create Engagement and ROI: Facts and figures fade, but stories stick. Sharing real stories with your clients’ (with permission) is the best way to generate meaningful engagement, open conversations, and create value with every piece of content 19:30, 23:26.
4. It’s Okay to Start Small (and Cringe): Done is better than perfect. Katie reminds us that content creation isn’t about perfection it’s about connection. Your earliest content may make you cringe, but with each story shared, you hone your voice and build your brand 29:07, 38:03.
5. Know Your Why, Then Choose Your Where: Before jumping into content creation, define your “why.” Why are you in this business? That clarity will not only guide what stories you tell but also help you choose the right platforms and mediums to reach your ideal audience whether that’s Instagram, LinkedIn, email, or elsewhere 32:16, 34:09.

This episode is a masterclass in authentic marketing for mortgage professionals. Don't forget to check out Katie’s free resources and binge-worthy YouTube tips for even more practical guidance! Visit her website at katieshive.com.

My doctor's office called me and said, well, your next appointment, you do have to pay in cash. Your insurance doesn't cover it, and it's gonna be $18,000. And so what did we do? Well, thankfully we owned a home and we had equity. So we took out a HELOC so that we could start our family. So our home literally is where our family story started.

All right, here's my question. If I handed you 5 social media posts written by 5 different loan officers using ChatGPT. Could you actually tell who they were, or would they all sound like ChatGPT?

Well, most of what I see in my thread is pretty generic, which is really like the very core that I talk about is, hey, when you create content, Well, let me just, I'll just frame it with myself. When I create content, my sole goal with every piece of content that I create, regardless of the platform or the type, is that I want somebody to be able to hear my voice and my personality through it. So I want somebody to read it and be like, dang, that sounds like Katie, or that's exactly something like Katie would say. So if my content is just, you know, copy paste out of ChatGPT or Claude or any of those tools, nope, it doesn't make the cut. We gotta, we gotta go back until it sounds enough like me.

Yeah. And, and I think that's a big step that people are missing, right? And it's just now we, this weird, weird world we live in, it's AI talking to AI and then everybody sounds the same. So the irony ensues where we're trying to be different and step out and share something personal and create more content, but it's actually just creating more noise, more AI slop, as you like to frame it and call it. We're going to get into that because I love that term.

Stop the slop.

But Ms. Katie Scheib, I'm so excited to have you on Leading Leadership today. Thank you so much for joining me. Really, something I love about your background is before AI, you were actually doing manually what we're trying to teach AI to do. So you have just a wealth of information, an extensive background, and tell the good people at home what you're doing now and just a little bit about Katie Scheib.

Yeah. Well, I was— I joke that I was AI before AI was AI. And what exactly does that mean? That's a pretty big, bold claim. But to walk it back, I'm coming up to 9 years in the mortgage industry, which for anybody in the mortgage space, I'm like, we all have a loose screw if we've stayed in it for any amount of time because this is just not your traditional industry. But it's where I found my home, my people, and I absolutely love it. So when I started in mortgage 9 years ago, I got a job doing copywriting for 2 top producers. The irony is I didn't even go to the closing table for my own home purchase, so I made my husband do that. And so, you know, I got this job and my income relied on me being able to write about an industry that I had zero context or experience for.

So obviously I got my sea legs really quickly and I learned, you know, how to write as them. I learned the industry as best as I could. The way that I did that is I eavesdropped in their conversations. I listened, you know, with their doors open on how they spoke to a nervous first-time homebuyer versus pitching a builder versus making Tuesday update calls or whatever the conversation was. So I got really good at understanding emotion and tonality and, you know, how they frame technical jargon based on their audience. So fast forward, AI comes on the scene a few years ago. And my first thought was, this is God's greatest gift to every loan officer because they're great at sales, but they don't understand, you know, copywriting in the same way that a traditional copywriter might. So now AI is going to just do it for them.

The problem is that, you know, whatever you put in, AI tends to generalize it. So if you're not feeding in really specific context and stories about you and, you know, specificity on your audience, it's going to take a generalization of speaking to a first-time home buyer, you know, which we, you and I both know that's very broad. A first-time home buyer could be a 22-year-old or a 41-year-old. Like, yeah, it, it's just, it's really hard to pinpoint that without some more specificity. So, so brand work, I am the biggest proponent is AI is sexy, it's fun, it does a lot of amazing things. I do it, I use it every single day. But I'm a big fan of you have to do brand work before you ever jump into the AI part of it, at least when it comes to copywriting.

So I love that you said you would eavesdrop in conversations and listen and be a fly on the wall. I'm the same way. I would actually— I'm virtual, and when I started, I was in recruiting, virtual, same thing. So I would listen in on conversations and record people saying things, and maybe it's the actress in me, and I would I would write them out. This was even not even 5 years ago, and so much in tech has changed. I would, I would listen and then write it out. It wouldn't even transpose it for me. I had to actually write it out, but it, it got into my—

When we had to do manual things, you mean like actual old school taking notes? Yeah, paying attention.

Imagine that.

Who thought of that?

Insane concept. But for me, that's how it got into my brain, and then I would, I would retell it in my own way. And, and I love that AI is kind of doing that now, but if we don't let it quote unquote eavesdrop into not every conversation, people, AI doesn't need to know everything. Um, but the right things, then how is it going to know what to give you?

You're right.

It's gonna generalize it.

So yeah. And so that's really where I got into the work that I do now is I help loan officers, um, and executives do very, do that. I essentially am helping them build out, I call it, you know, their brand brain. Or their brand book, but it's essentially, hey, who are you that you, you know, what are the phrases that you reach for naturally? What are the things that are pretty cringey that you're like, I'd never be caught dead saying that? Great. We don't want AI doing that either. What is your story? You know, every good brand story has a backstory. So how did you get into the role that you're doing? You're not just slinging loans. What do you do? Why do you believe what you do is so important? Let's also get really clear.

Who do you help? Going back to the first-time homebuyer example, if I'm going to write an educational post to a 22-year-old who's fresh out of college, has a very stable tech degree, and wants to house hack, his level of risk and leverage is going to look very different than somebody that maybe is, you know, dual income, paycheck to paycheck, has a baby on the way, and is literally losing sleep at night because their is going up. That strategy, the things that I'm going to say to them and the way that I explain things are going to be really different. Maybe one person is talking about needing gift funds and another person is talking about down payment assistance or whatever. So again, when we talk about creating content, AI is the fun part. I'm like, let's just table AI altogether for a minute and let's actually get really clear on who are you and what is your strategy. Because when we can figure that out, now AI has, you know, a lot of context to personalize and create content without you having to spend, you know, minutes just rewriting something.

Yeah, I, I love that foundational work, and I feel like that's— it does go back to Sales 101, but I think a lot of us are cut from the same mold. It's like, all right, well, we're salespeople, we want to hit the ground running, we just want to go. But taking that step back and really understanding the who, what, where, when, why, who is your audience, who are you, and that your story really does set you apart. That's your differentiator.

Yeah. Well, and those things too, I would just say, you know, those answers change. They're going to change 5 years from now, and they're going to change from where you were 5 years ago. If you think about the loan officer that you were 5 years ago, I mean, none of us really want to remember the thick of COVID But if you think about maybe when you just started, right, you got into this industry versus where you are now, your who that you are really wanting to help is probably different, right? Maybe your book of business, traditionally we all end up usually starting with first-time home buyers, a lot of us. And now maybe your book of business is seasoned and they're the move-up buyers or the boomers that are retiring. So that message is going to change as you grow in your business and your experience, who your story, your foundational piece is going to change too. And so you're right in that traditionally, this is why I have so much empathy for loan officers because by nature they're sales professionals, right? I don't know any loan officer that's like, man, I got into this job because I really wanted to become an influencer. That's typically a hard pass.

They want to have influence, but they don't necessarily want to use social media to be an influencer. They have a day job. So the struggle is, okay, how do I have enough exposure and a broad enough of a digital footprint to have visibility, to be findable, but actually do loans and to sell and help people? So, you know, there's a duel in that. But I do think if you want to have any element of marketing and digital strategy, Getting really clear on your personal foundation is going to help make your content also not feel so boring. Like a lot of times I talk to loan officers and the first thing they say when they come to me is like, I don't know what to talk about. I'm like, cool. Like most of us, if you didn't have some of those talking points, like you wouldn't know either. So like, let's actually break some of that down.

Now, when we look at your strategy, we know that you're talking to the single mom. Cool. Because you were the single mom, how, how did you feel when you were going through that process yourself? Now, what are some stories or some things that you might share? So again, by having that foundation, it also kind of helps make your content feel fun and more personal and less like 3 reasons why you should X, Y, and Z. Nobody needs more of that content.

No. And that, that's just not relatable. And that, you know, it's so funny. It's something we're talking about a lot on this podcast and something that I guess is near and dear to my heart. You know, the, The stories. And it's so funny when maybe people don't even realize this, the things that they've been through, like that example that you just gave, maybe they were the single mom and they in turn just naturally gravitate towards people who were in their same shoes. And I'm sure that doesn't happen for everyone, but to really find who your tribe is, I love the term, your vibe attracts your tribe.

Wow.

But, um, I know that's overwhelming for people though, you know, just like your, your brand voice, your brand guide. I mean, where do they even start?

All of it. Yeah. Where do we, yeah, where do we even start? Well, I think, you know, that's why I go back to, okay, let's, the story that, that can be the hardest to tell, but in the opposite sense, the easiest is your, your personal story. Right. I say it's hard because we all kind of are like, well, I'm just average Joe. I'm just here. There's nothing crazy, huge, fancy about me. I'm just me.

Cool. You may feel like that because we all just hear ourselves talk all day long. So we kind of naturally tend to think that we're boring. But when we start digging, there's always really cool nuggets within every story. I have never met somebody that I'm like, you are the most boring human I've ever met. No part of your life is fascinated at all. I just don't buy it. Sometimes it takes a little bit more digging, but why I say it's the easiest part to start with is because it's true.

It happened. If I were to sit down with Rachel and say, okay, tell me a little bit about you. How did you get into this business? You're probably going to start at the resume level. Well, I've been in the industry for X amount of years and I started with this company. Cool. That's a start. Great. Now let's keep digging deeper.

A story that I love to share is a friend of mine. Her name's Kelly Carr. She's a loan officer up in the Pacific Northwest, and she was getting ready to do a presentation for a local BNI group. And she's like, you know, I've been in the industry for 20+ years, and I just naturally pull for the, I help people achieve wealth through homeownership. How many loan officers listening can probably be like, ooh, I have said that too? Because on a technical level, you do. So that makes sense that we might try to simply communicate that's what we do.

Yeah.

So in conversation with her, it's like, cool, well, does that inspire you? Like, if you're seeing that on an Instagram post or overhearing that in a coffee shop, are you like, that's my girl. I am so— the next time I want to buy a house, That is my girl. That story has none of that energy.

No.

Right? So here's what she came up with. She started unpacking her personal story and she shares this on a public level. That's why I'm okay with sharing the story. But she talks about how when she was 14, her dad passed away suddenly. And obviously that changed her entire life, but he thankfully did have some reserves saved set up in the event of something like that happening. So when she turned 18, she had access to part of the savings that her dad left for her. And so rather than renting in the dorms when she went to college, she bought a condo near campus.

Smart.

So when she was— so smart. I'm like, girl, that was like over, you know, 20, 30 years ago. Like, that's really cool that you did that. So here's the part of the story that gets really, really good. and hard. Um, when she was 22, she graduated college and, um, she learned that, um, a family member and the, the executor of the trust embezzled all of their money and bled every— her and her siblings' accounts to zero. She lost everything. Oh my gosh.

And obviously, like, that's life-changing also and really devastating. But here's what she tells about her story. She said, I realized at least I had the condo on Capitol Hill. Oh my gosh. So she didn't have any of the funds that he set for her outside of what she put as her down payment. But over the course of those 4 years, as we all know, homeownership helps you what? Build wealth. So the story that she initially told wasn't incorrect, but it was really Generic and watered down. So now when she went and she told that story, she said, hey, she reframed it the exact same way.

She goes, at least I had the condo on Capitol Hill. I said, Kelly, there's your story because now you can speak to a parent that's sending their child off to college. You can speak to a nervous first-time home buyer. You can speak to, you know, the empty nester that might want to gift funds to their grandchild. Like there's so many different elements. your story now that you can talk about because homeownership isn't sterile. It's not just helping you build wealth. It's very personal to you.

Yeah.

Right? And so everybody, you might not have a dramatic story like that. That's super rare and specific, but we all have some form of story. And so I always tell people, think back on your story. How did you get into this business and why? A lot of times it's, oh, a friend pulled me in, what have you. Cool. Let's think about why did you buy your home? And are there any layers around your home that you can pull in? Did you ever have hardship where you need to maybe do a HELOC? Or, you know, for me, this is kind of a fun part of my story with homeownership specifically is my husband and I struggled with infertility and it took us, we didn't have our first daughter until we'd been married for 9 years. So we eventually went through the process of IVF. And anybody that has ever done that or familiar with it, it's very expensive.

And so we paid for the process as much as we could with our savings until we bled our savings account. And then my doctor's office called me and said, well, your next appointment, you do have to pay in cash. Your insurance doesn't cover it, and it's going to be $18,000. I'm like, well, that's more than my one credit card that I can max out.

Wow.

So I'm going to need a minute. I don't have a rich uncle. that I can call. And so, what did we do? Well, thankfully, we owned a home and we had equity. So, we took out a HELOC so that we could start our family. And obviously, we then refinanced. And so, our home literally is where our family story started, figuratively and literally. Oh my gosh.

So, when we went back to the bank, I knew one of the executives at the bank and I said, hey, Would you please pass along this story to your team? And I sent a picture of our pregnancy announcement and I said, I know a lot of times when you do HELOCs, it's to do home renovations and what have you. I said, we were able to start our family. I get goosebumps, but I'm like, we were able to start our family because we accessed a HELOC within a very short period of time and we're pregnant with our first child.

Oh.

And so it was just this really cool moment of like, Your homeownership, like, homeownership is powerful. And I feel like a lot of loan officers, we lose the power. Like, we leave the power on the table. Like, we don't just help people become homeowners. Like, it really— homeownership unequivocally changes lives. It changes financial futures. It is so powerful. And we often undersell ourselves in what we do every day.

Oh my gosh, those are 2 incredible stories. I just got chills and I got all the feels.

My eyes are starting to sweat a little bit, but I'll have to send you the picture of the pregnancy announcement because it's really beautiful. But like, it is, it's like those are stories. And you know, Rachel, if I were to ask you, hey, what's the statistic about homeownership today? You probably would know maybe because you're in the thick of our industry, but a lot of times like, Our, our human brain is not wired to hardcore remember numbers and facts and figures.

Right.

We remember stories, right? So whether you're talking with a first-time homebuyer in your office or you're creating a piece of social media content, when you can learn to talk in stories, stories is the quickest way that somebody can insert themself in your experience and been like, it might not be apples to apples, but I can see myself fitting into that story because me too.

Yeah, it's that human experience. And I love that. I love that you shared both of those stories, both very different. And I want to know who that executor was of that estate. My goodness. I know.

And I'm sure that girl, we write it down. We write it down. I got my pitch for it.

Let's go. But, but that unfortunately is life and we can't control I mean, hey, that could be the market as well, not necessarily somebody who's embezzling money. But when you have an investment and you have the brick and mortar, that's not something that's going away, that tangible. That's pretty incredible. And I'm sure if she's where she is now, it probably was the catapult and the catalyst to her becoming successful.

Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And that's where she talks about like, yes, I was able to use that. It did build some equity. And, you know, just like every other story that we hear, your first home is like your toe in the door, right?

Yeah.

And then, you know, it's time in the market, not timing the market. And so, yes, she was able to like waterfall that up and now she's, you know, doing just fine. But again, homeownership Is a life-changing tool.

It is.

And so it's not just coverage over our head. Like, there's so many stories. That's why I tell loan officers, I'm like, okay, you might feel like your homeownership story is boring, but your clients have amazing stories. So then how do we then pull into, you know, and there is a layer of confidentiality. So yes, you do need to make sure you have permission and check with your compliance department to figure out like where those boundaries are of what you can publicly share. But if you If you have a client and you hear part of their story on why they're wanting to buy, ask with their permission. That is really amazing. Could we share this story? It doesn't make sense maybe for every story, but where it fits, listen for your clients' stories too, because there's a gold mine of opportunity there.

Absolutely. And I hope people are really taking this to heart of, you know, even thinking about your own story. Maybe people never realized or never put two and two together. If you have a client that is going through infertility or needs funds for XYZ, you, you're sitting on a goose egg of, of your home. That's, that's the biggest asset that we all have as homeowners. Um, and how amazing that you were able to tap into that. So I hope people are storing that story away and then also digging in and thinking about their own experiences.

And I would just say, you know, if you're listening, borrow that story. You don't need to borrow that story and be like, my client had this experience. But you could even, as you are reaching out, maybe you touch back to your past client database and you tell the story. Hey, a lot of times people traditionally think that they might need to refi or pull a home equity line of credit out, you know, for wood floors or renovation. I was recently listening to a homeowner share how she was going through infertility with her husband. That was the vehicle to help X, Y, and Z. It made me think, who in my database might be having some sort of hardship or needing to use their home outside of a traditional renovation. If you're needing any help or you're just wanting to know where you sit with your current, you know, um, equity and whatnot, I would love to do a 15-minute mortgage checkup just to see where you're at.

Boom!

Borrow my story. You just now have a video or an email or some sort of touchpoint that you can go back to your past client database. It's sincere, it's genuine, and there's a value add. It's not salesy and it's not scripted.

That's amazing. Rewind, go back, rewind, take that from Katie, write it down.

It's not just— and I think that's the other misconception is that sometimes, you know, I hear loan officers are like, well, I'm really good at selling, I don't have all the time for this. fluffy marketing? Like, what's the ROI on that really? I get that from a P&L standpoint. I get that that can be a really hard thing to pinpoint. However, again, going back to the power of story, that is now not just a, um, an Instagram post that's going to die on your grid.

Yeah.

That is a tangible talking point that you can now go back and nurture your past client database. You can go nurture your realtor partners. So if we think in content, not from the framework of social media alone, but like, okay, how can I take this story? Because the whole point of content should be to create engagement, right?

Yeah.

I don't know about you, I don't want to create content just for vanity. Like, that's not— it's way too much work to create content just for kicks and giggles. So every piece of content that I create, that you create, the point should be to connect, to start conversations. So if we think in stories, it could be an email, it could be a phone call, it could be a video, a podcast, whatever that is. But the whole goal should be, what is the purpose of this story? What's the takeaway? What's an angle? Now, how can I use this story to go serve and connect to help more people? And that way, I think that at least for me has helped remove the kind of the ick sometimes that can come from cringe content of like, oh, this feels so vain.

Yeah.

But if you can remove that and be like, how can my story or this story— somebody needs to hear this. And if I'm sharing this from a place of helping, you know, serve through my social media or my content, Then, you know, that somebody's going to be helped. You're going to be better for it, and they're going to be better for it.

Yeah, I love, I love where this is going. And honestly, I, I think that's one thing, you know, you can use your story in AI and part of this brand book I'm sure that you build. But that's one thing that you're— that AI can't steal is, is that personal story and the differentiator of, you know, why are you the best loan officer? Well, I close loans on time, and I love helping people build generational wealth, like everybody says, you know.

That's the entry to having an MLS license, like closing on time. Uh, yeah, that's just the expectation. That's by no means, uh, bragging points in my book.

So where did you— when you, when you were making the shift and starting your own company, like, where did you really— what was the turning point where you said people really need help with this? Was there something that happened? Was there a catalyst moment where you're like, Wow. Okay. I really need to help people get out of that AI slop, out of the, just the rut of sounding like everybody else out there.

Yeah, it's a little bit of a layered question. I'll start with the first thing that comes to mind. You know, when I was at Guild, I spent 6 years helping loan officers do this very thing. And it brought me a lot of joy. I was not only good at it, but I really loved it. What I noticed, um, is that I completely disappeared in all of the content. And I think that's twofold. One, I was so busy.

Rachel, you understand this beautifully.

Yeah.

Like when you're behind the scenes as that kind of cheerleader and that support, we tend to disappear into other people's contents because that's the entire purpose. We're helping somebody else frame their story and do this. And so it's not about you. But the second part for me is I can be, believe it or not, naturally quiet or shy. At least I was. And so for me, it was the easiest excuse. Well, I'm doing this for everybody else. I don't have time for myself.

Well, I didn't make the time. And so for me, coming out of leaving Guild, and the reason I did that was there were some very personal— I had some personal family deaths, and so I really needed to take a leave of absence, and it was just a good change of time for me. But when I came back online to start my own business, I realized I'm really passionate about stories. And so it was this personal journey for me to learn how to find my own story because I'd spent so many years—

Sure.

Hiding behind others. And so it was kind of this paradox of I'm help— I'm building a business to help other people be seen. And at the same time, I was basically starting from zero, building my own brand and learning how to practice 100% of what I preach. So all of my content, I had to start with myself first. You go back into any of my content and you're like, that's so cringe. It's still a little bit cringe because I'm like, I'm in that awkward, like, I don't know, is my hook good? Like, is my lighting good? Like, I don't know. I don't create content to perform. So part of me is just like, I don't care enough to recreate it.

But yeah, I think my passion really is, at the end of the day, we're all human and our greatest desire is to be seen and to serve people. And so if I can sit there and say, hey, Rachel, or hey, loan officer, tell me your story. I can't tell you how many times I've had people cry in those calls because it's the first time that we're like, there's— we just hit it right there. Let's unpack that. And it's giving people a permission slip of sorts to say, this is my why. I've never given myself permission to think this, believe this, speak this. Cool. The world needs more of that.

We don't need the copy, you know, the copy-paste slop that we're seeing. We don't. The world actually needs you, your quirks, the way that you say things. Like, you know, my girlfriend for my birthday just turned 40. It's kind of a big deal, like 2 weeks ago. Oh, great gift. And, um, thank you. For my birthday, one of the gifts she gave me is this little bracelet.

So you'll have to watch. If you're not watching this podcast, you need to go find it and watch it. But there's this little, um, diamond on the— or a little gemstone on the bracelet, and there's only one. And she goes, every time you speak or every time you get up and do something or you create content, she goes, I want you to look at that and I want you to remember there's only one of you and you have something worth saying and you have something worth hearing. And I would say that to every person on this call listening. You might think your story or what you do is boring and traditional, and maybe by all accounts it, it could feel that way. But there is only one you and the way that you serve your clients, the way that you show up, the way that you take those calls on the weekends or all of the little things that you do with so much heart and sacrifice, there's only one of you. So don't sell yourself short and remember that you actually are a big freaking deal.

BFD. I love that. I think that's really—

Big freaking deal. And you hear that, that's not out of a place of arrogance. It's not. It's out of a place of we all matter and we all make a difference.

Well, and I think that, that comes from, um, that— I mean, that touches me on a different level too, as, you know, as a Christian, as a faithful person, knowing that each person has something magical to bring to the table and, and a superpower that they hold. And, um, but, but it's true. I think we all need to be reminded of that. And, and yeah, we're in the service business, that we get to serve the people around us. And this is, this is such cool vehicle that you've built to really help people do that in a way that, number one, once you unlock the kingdom, so to speak, it is so much faster.

Yeah.

What you are able to put together and create is just moved so much quicker than it did in years past. Things that took us so long to do, we're able to create valuable content In record time. And there's really, there's no excuse today why we shouldn't have valuable content that looks and sounds like us, that is not just like everybody else.

Well, I think too, the other thing that I go back to is getting really clear on your why. We've talked a lot about your story and what is your story and how do you share it and whatnot. But I think I would even walk that back one step further. And for everybody that's listening, my question to you would be, why do you want to create content? And it's not just, I want to grow my business. Yes, those are all natural byproducts and it absolutely needs to move the needle. Yes. But what is your why? Why are you in this industry? This is one of the hardest industries I think any of us can continue to show up in. It's emotionally taxing.

It's physically demanding. There's all these pressures, it is not an easy industry. So why do you keep clocking in? Why do you keep coming to the closing table? And what is it about what you do that's like, ugh, that's my why, right? So everything that we do, we want to be connected to our why because that fuels our motivation. It fuels like our strategy, the stories that we tell. If we remember, Again, going back to Kelly as an example, what's part of her why? Probably because she doesn't want somebody to experience that and she wants to help people not be in that kind of situation and what the benefits that she served, right? So, and I think your why can also help anchor, okay, well, why maybe are you on LinkedIn as opposed to TikTok or Instagram, right? So if you understand that the main clientele that you're wanting to attract and serve, Say, for example, my referral base is predominantly financial planners and estate attorneys. Cool. They're probably not on TikTok, but I bet you they're on LinkedIn and they're reading thought leadership.

Yeah, right.

So if you understand your who and your how and your why, it also helps you understand your where.

Yeah, that's all great foundational work that hopefully, you know, we've talked a little bit on the podcast about all of these things, but Hopefully if people are not doing any of them, you know, it's never too late. Today's the day. Today's the day to really—

Today's the day. Really, there's never been a better day than today.

Don't work on yesterday. Yesterday never comes. Or tomorrow. Sorry, tomorrow never comes.

Tomorrow is not promised and yesterday is gone.

It's not promised, but tomorrow is, you know, that's that adage of, you know, it'll never get done then. So I feel like just diving into a couple of these things that we've talked about and really, really asking yourself those big questions if you haven't done that before. Um, and maybe looking at, at social media and looking at whatever's on LinkedIn and wherever, wherever you spend the most time, looking at things through a different lens, you know, like how you on as the client would be receiving that information. I think a lot of it scrolling right by. Yes.

And that's where I always, you know, I always ask the question. I'm like, cool, what kind of posts? I always tell people, I want you to start paying attention to the posts that get your attention. Sounds kind of funny to say, but it's really true because we're all pretty wired of like, oh, that looks like an ad. Oh, that's this cool. And we scroll right past it, right? It's why I really struggle with corporate social media content because it's not just that it's bad content, it's that the human brain is wired to scroll past that. What is getting content? You know, that might attract— each person might be attracted to slightly different types of content, but pay attention to your habits and keep that in mind as you think about what kind of content might I create, because the same thing that might be attracting you or ignoring you is probably similar to what your audience might be feeling as well.

Yeah, I mean, we struggle with that a bit because we have a lot of loan officers that want the the canned content that they can just kind of post out. And, um, we had a vehicle that we were using for a while and just letting people do that, but the engagement just wasn't there. And, and now they're kind of stuck in that because sure, it's human nature.

It's like, what do I do? Do I keep going? Do I cut it off altogether?

And they want to check the box, but if the box— okay, check the box, but if no one's actually looking at it and no one's liking, commenting, not doing anything that is productive, then why, why spend our time and resources to, yeah, to create that? It's, it's, it's a struggle. That's where we are in marketing right now.

Yeah, to that point, I would also not push back, but I would just angle this as, you know, I'm not saying like, hey, go cut off any corporate type marketing and never post that. That is not at all what I'm saying.

I know that.

I think going back to your, if you can clearly answer some of those questions, your why, your where, your how. So your primary, uh, like where you get the most engagement, it might not be from social media. Maybe you consider like, if you like writing or a, you know, a quick, uh, 30-second what's going on in the market video, great. Email. I'm all about email and I'm not going to go down that rabbit trail, but as a side note, like maybe you show up in email or maybe, you know, figure out where you're showing up. And if social media for you is more or less just kind of like your digital calling card, somebody is going to go find you on Google first and they're going to go look at you on Instagram just to make sure you have something, that's fine. Like, don't go implode whatever strategy you have. Thoughtfully think about where you are and maybe where you want to be, and then start making micro pivots according to those goals.

But don't just, you know, Implode whatever you have.

Don't just scrap it all and say, forget it.

No, no. Because at the end of the day, you're a loan officer. You are not an influencer. You are not a full-time content creator. So like, figure out where you have some margin, whether that's to outsource some help or just to create some time blocking for creating some content. But done is better than perfect, always. And don't be so hard on yourself. That's the other That's the other one.

I love that. Um, well, for those of you listening, thank you for tuning in today to Lending Leadership. I would, I would really encourage you to check out all of Katie's stuff. She is an absolute gold mine on YouTube. Really great videos. I know they're on, I know they're on all the places, but I was, um, you know, getting ready for the podcast and just listening to a bunch of your, your different, um—

Oh, you cringed? You binged the cringe?

No, no, there was no cringe. There was no cringe. It was just binge. Um, but you have, you've got great stuff and really valuable 10-minute little nuggets, which I really appreciate. So I would encourage you to check some of those out. Um, but then, you know, when you get started with somebody, what, what, what's the, what's the beginning of that relationship look like?

Yeah. Um, so I have a couple of different things. If you go look at my website, there's a couple of different ways that you can work with me. I have things like, you know, pick my brain. That's just a short strategy session. And then the meat of what we talked about on today's call, I have a one-to-one experience where I take people through that, and that's a very deep story work where we're unpacking your story and analyzing your audience personas and all that kind of stuff. And then we put that together in a really strategic document, and then we use that to build custom tools built on your AI, whether that's That's usually ChatGPT or Claude to help you write better content. But at the core of it, it's pulling out your brand brain.

So if you want to learn more about that, you can go look at my website or send me a DM. I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram all the time.

So if you're one of those people who constantly put into ChatGPT, make this better, and it doesn't make it better, Katie's your girl. I'm your girl. But thank you so much, Kate. This was great. I really appreciate your time. And, um, I guess Amazon's here because my dog's barking again.

Amazon delivered to me today too, so I'm waiting for my doorbell.

Man, man. Well, don't forget to like and subscribe. Hopefully you can't hear Dude. That's his name, Dude. He wants you to like and subscribe too. He's barking to tell you that.

Follow Dude and like and subscribe. Here's your sign, literally.

All right, everybody. Kate, thank you so much. We'll catch you next time, everyone.