Episode 9: Using Reels to Attract Your Ideal Clients with Nate Fain

Molly Cahill
Okay, a loan officer Molly on holistic marketing simplified podcast, that makes no sense. Well, trust me, you are going to absolutely love this episode with Nate Fain, what are the number one things I teach to kind of lessen social media burnout, or kind of that toxic feeling that some people could have about social media is to unfollow or mute other people in your industry like, not that you don't want to support your colleagues. But if you've heard me talk about this before, you know that when you are only following other people who do the same thing you do that it can really make you feel stuck creatively, it can make you compare yourself to them and think, Oh, I'm not doing as much as they are. And so truly, I really don't follow a whole lot of people in the actual social media space. But I do follow a lot of other really like fun accounts, like Nate, Nate and I actually have never met in person, but I was introduced to him when I lived in Pensacola, Florida. I used to do social media for some realtors forever ago. And his account is just his Instagram account. I don't follow him on Twitter, tick tock, but he's just hilarious. So Nate is a mortgage broker with over a decade of experience. But over the last few years, he's really focused on building his brand on social media. So in 2018, he posted his first montage type video. And now fast forward five years later, he has a community of over 250,000 people across all of his platforms. All of his videos get tons of engagement, they have led to an increase in his business. And I really just think that you will absolutely love this episode, it goes a little longer than normal, but trust me, there are about 50,000 Gold Nuggets. So without further ado, here's Nate. Welcome to holistic marketing simplified a podcast for health and wellness professionals looking to simplify their marketing. I'm your host, Molly Cahill and this podcast is brought to you by holistic marketing hub, our hybrid program that supports you with personalized coaching, captioned templates, and virtual classrooms. In this program, we teach health and wellness professionals how to fish but we also bait their hook, head to holistic marketing hub.com to learn more and use code podcast for $100 off, you can find full show notes, resources and more at Molly cahill.com/podcast. All right, Nate, welcome to the show. Here I have a mortgage guy how about that? There we go on a podcast about health and wellness and holistic marketing. Why? Okay, here's why. They Okay, first of all, I have an episode, I think it's like episode two or three where I talk about transforming your toxic relationship with social media. And one of my favorite tips is to unfollow everyone in your niche everyone in your industry, because you'll just start comparing yourself to what they're doing. Right. And then you get in this vacuum, right like this silo have, like, recycled ideas. But when you follow people in other niches, you it's like it sparks your brain like and then you get out of your little your little vacuum. Right. And so you are somebody how did we even like, how did we even meet? We've never even met in real life, but I feel like I know.

Nate Fain
Yeah, it's kind of you're on Instagram or something we found somewhere somewhere on the internet

Molly Cahill
on the interwebs I feel like because you live in Pensacola. Pensacola right. Okay, so I used to live in Pensacola. I want to say like, you know, I think we got hooked up with because I used to work with love and rinky and do doing a lot of their Instagram stuff. And you're like, oh, you should follow this guy.

Nate Fain
Yeah, I know a lot of agents over there. So that that might be why I'm in this was that was probably in like, what 2020 2014 21 That you're doing 2019 Okay. Yeah, so that's crazy. Because that was even before I kind of blew up on social media as well. Well, what most people think, like blew up on social media. So like 2019 kind of early 2020 I was relatively unknown on the national level, but it's throughout Pensacola. Like I was pretty well known at that point in our in my niche of course,

Molly Cahill
well, yeah, no, but well talk to me about the blown up like I haven't looked, you know, we're I'm not a big tick tock person, but like, Yeah, where are you now with your growth in with Instagram and

Nate Fain
I'm over 240 something 1000 on Tik Tok. And then, um, I think a little over 7000 on Instagram, which is a little mind blowing for me. Given my subject matter. It's still kind of like a surreal experience for me. And it's wild wild, right? Like my subject

Molly Cahill
matters. Have you on the show? Unbelievably boring. Literally, Nate's handle on Instagram is mortgages are boring, right.

Nate Fain
You know, and I had that early in my career because it was like, let's address the elephant in the room. I mean, I'm going to try to make a very boring subject matter into something sexy. entertaining or whatever you want to say, you know, so like, that's really, I wanted to go against the grid, because everybody can go up there. And they can say that they have the best rates, and they have the best products and they have the best process or whatever. That's just not me, that that didn't feel authentic to me. And if you're saying the same thing as everybody else, you're not sticking out. So I went the opposite direction. And I said, No, I'm gonna, like show my real me on the internet, which was a little terrifying. At first, but I didn't really care. So I kept going, and it's paid off. I mean, I've transformed my life as crazy as that sounds in the last what, say, five years or so?

Molly Cahill
Okay, I have three things I want to follow up with just from saying that, so I'm hoping I don't forget these. So step one, is the reason one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is because you have literally mortgages are boring in your title. And not that I think that chiropractic or health coaching or whatever is boring. But I did have an outside person, one of my friends who's a social media manager, for some of our clients, the clients of ours for years, you know, you know, you get to where you can't see what you can't see, right? Because you're just in it. Right? It was like, Hey, will you do an audit of our accounts, just just as like a fresh set of eyes, who doesn't know anything about this subject matter? And she did like some of the things she's like, I mean, some of these topics are a little boring, so maybe we can kind of like figure. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I'm having Nate come on the show. Because you literally like have this this mortgage topic and you make it fun and interesting. So I just want to so the first thing I wanted to follow up with you on is you said it was terrifying putting yourself out there. Do you think because that is one of the number one pieces of feedback I get from people, they're like, I'm really scammy they're scared to show my face on camera. Or, and or like, I actually had a male chiropractor. One of my clients who's been a client forever texted me the other day. And he's like, anytime I have a real that gets any traction, the trolls come out. And I feel like I'm having to defend the profession. Do you feel like and I feel like that's kind of two different things like not letting the trolls bother you is one issue and then like the fear of showing your face is another so let's start with that one. You seem like a naturally like extroverted funny type of person. But do you think that's something that can be taught? Like, do you think you can hone those skills?

Nate Fain
So when people get to know him, and it's not that I'm anybody's hero, but this is just this hang with me here? So when people meet me in real life, and I don't know them, you know, it goes back to the saying of like, never meet your heroes, like a lot of my internet friends when they meet me. And I'm, I'm not like, like, I'm, I'm like this and I'm outgoing and everything. Like when you're in my circle of trust, like when you are in my inner circle, like the person you see on the internet, that is the real me when you're in my circle of trust. But when people come and like an approach me, and like, Hey, I were friends on Instagram, whatever, like a lot of times, I'm like, why is this like, this is weird that this is happening. So I'm not acting like naturally extroverted, like, I'm actually a little introverted. Now once you get to know me, I'll talk your ear off. But like, I think of like an extrovert as like someone who will talk to anybody. And I do have moments of that don't get me wrong, I'm probably whatever it is like introverted extroverted introvert, or whatever it is. So for me, one of the things that I had to do mentally, because that's not like a natural feeling for me, is I would act I would, you know, I would record everything on my phone, and I would act like I'm FaceTiming, my friend. So I would try to get my mind. Yeah, we're trying to get my mindset into, I'm just going to FaceTime my friend and present this and also in a way that like, it would be easily digestible for my friend to learn whatever I'm trying to teach or whatever content I'm making, like I want it to be like I'm talking to a friend. So I would really, really try to focus in and hone in and sometimes like, I would even FaceTime a friend before shooting content to just get in that that mindset and that mind frame that's how I overcame the fact that I am I am truly not that extroverted. Now, if you get me in my comfort, my comfort place my my comfort, for my comfort, my safe space, or whatever, absolutely, I'll be the life of the party. But I've had people in the past just come up and they'd introduced themselves to me, and I'm still not used to that I'm working on that. I'm getting through that. Because, you know, when I first started this in 2018, it was just to grow my business. I never thought that it would get to this point like, this is as bizarre for me as it is for anybody else who looks at my page and like, what's the deal with this guy? Like, I don't get the height like I get it? I am right there with you. Yeah, so I'm still learning that but yeah, that's one of the biggest tips that I tell pretty much anybody is like you, you want the you come off to your real authentic self when you act like you're talking to a friend. So even if it's FaceTiming, a co worker, even if it's FaceTiming, whoever I'm talking 510 minutes before you start to shoot if you have to do that. That's a mental hook. For you, like at this point in my in my career in my content creation career, I don't have to do that anymore. Right. But early on, it was something that I did over and over again to get myself it's kind of like an actor getting into character. Yeah, it was easy for me because like, I just had to get into character of me. Yeah. And I had to get that comfort level first. No, I

Molly Cahill
get that. And that's actually why I've been interviewing a lot of my Instagram management clients. I've been doing either Instagram Live or interviewing them. If they're not quite comfortable doing an Instagram Live, I've been interviewing them here on Zoom, to use that content for their reels. Because we would get on these content planning calls, and they would get so fired up about whatever the subject matter was. And I'll be like, Oh, my gosh, please make that a real for me. And then I get the video back and it'd be like, Hey, everyone. Today, I want to talk to you about menopause. And I'm like, where did you find the energy? Go? Right? So um, like to that's why we've been doing these interviews because I feel like it's so funny because you can see it, you can see the natural progression of like, the first question I asked them, they're like, I'm so like, and then by the end, it's just,

Nate Fain
we're just talking. We're just talking like at a party or something.

Molly Cahill
Yes, I love that. So at the time, this airs, it might be ready. I don't know. I didn't even mean for this to be a plug. But I've got a new service coming where it's going to be like a little like, I'm calling it like a video. I don't even know what I'm calling it yet. It's gonna be like a video. Essentially, I'll interview you and then chop it up into reels for you for you to use for your account to help maybe that'll be ready by the time this airs. I don't know. But okay, let's circle back to the trolls. Yeah. How do you handle the trolls?

Nate Fain
So this is tough, and I get a lot of trolls I get less now surprisingly enough. So what I tell a lot of people is like when you're first starting out creating content, I have found that you get a lot of trolls up front because the algorithm is still trying to find your audience. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah, so like very early upfront. I got a lot of I got a lot more troll comments. I really don't get that much anymore even when a video blows up. Yeah, it so used to be like once it got to say 10,000 videos, 10,000 views, the trolls would start now it seems my magic number is 50 to 75,000. Once I get to that level, the trolls start to come. But yeah, like early on, I got a lot more trolls and I had to power through it. And you know, I don't know if I would recommend this to anybody but this is my personality, but like when a troll and so like I'm a big believer in staying true to your authentic self. So like if someone tries to troll me, I'm gonna say something back

Molly Cahill
I try to say I have a feeling I know what yours is.

Nate Fain
And I'm going I'm gonna say something witty. I'm gonna do something like sometimes I do. I am the bigger person and I ignore it. But you know, after after five years of that it's it's starting to take a toll because you you go from the this what I would feel like, like it's a safe environment. Because Because I started like on Facebook. And this was before Facebook would start pushing out your content really to just like a bunch of strangers. So it was just like my friends. Yeah. So it's almost like you're talking in a safe space, you feel like you're talking in a safe space, you wouldn't get that many troll comments. Then then when I started to blow up on Tik Tok, and started to do well on social on Instagram and YouTube, you start to get these like crazy comments. And at first you're like, man, like, am I a bad person? And then so you kind of like start almost like gaslighting yourself like these people are right? If you get enough of them, it's really tough to deal with. So then what you finally like I started like studying trolls and like really studying, like the psychology and sitting there thinking like, Have I ever left a crappy comment on someone's content like this? And like, I don't think I have. So then it started, like clicking like these people are just like really unhappy. And this is more. You've probably heard this before. People have heard this before. And this is one of those cliches that like I normally roll my eyes at cliches, but this is one it's like most of the time when you're getting trolled is because that person like they're dealing with their own issues, and they're really unhappy. And it's something that's going on in their life that they're like, really upset about you touched a nerve, or maybe they're just having a bad day or something like that. So like, I really don't take them seriously anymore. Every once in a while if they strike a nerve with me, I'll fight back a little bit. But I just I really ignore him like I don't I can't I don't know if you know who Gary Vee is. I'm sure you but he says to go and approach trolls with compassion. I'm not to that level yet. I still bother me, but I don't. I don't like get all bent out of shape about it anymore. It used to be like one of those things were like you see a comment like dude, like, I'm just trying to teach people how to buy a house. Like, why are you so upset about this?

Molly Cahill
And honestly, it hurts my heart and I haven't gotten like, I'm so excited because on Thursday, I'm actually co working with my assistant to work on my own Instagram so I can you know, follow my own processes that I

Nate Fain
practice what you preach. That's good. Yeah, I've

Molly Cahill
just like I've been so busy anyway, we have so many accounts we manage. And we have so many students in my program, and I'm always on calls. And I'm always you know what I mean? Like, and then if you have a family and you're growing an actual business, yes, yes. So I'm so excited to actually work on my on my own content and like, implement my own strategies. But I know like, for a fact that the first time I get like, I've gotten a few before, but I know it's gonna, like hurt me. And I'm gonna be. And that's why a lot of the generic advice out there drives me nuts because people will say stuff like, well, those people aren't paying your bills. I'm like, that sounds great on paper. Yeah. But it still hurts. Like, I don't care who you are. And so we did have we have a client, we had a client go viral, and she doesn't even know how to check her comments. Like she's very not tech savvy. Yeah. And we were just deleting a lot of them. But I was writing back I was like, hi, just, you know, there's a real person on the other end of this. I hope you have a great day. Like, that's all I said, because I think people think like you're untouchable, and you're no longer a human being

Nate Fain
like we're a brand or something like, no, yeah, it's a real human.

Molly Cahill
I don't know, did you? I don't know if you've listened to the episode with PG spoon with Meredith. She I mean, she gets haters on recipes for cookie dip, like, wow, that's disgusting. Or like, why would you? Why would you put that on your feet? I'm just like, it's hidden cookie

Nate Fain
deaf people. Like, it's not that serious move

Molly Cahill
on. And so she says hurt people hurt people. And so yes, but I will say I don't know whose episode is going to air first. But my my friend Chelsea is coming on the show. She's actually my life and health coach. And she does she actually does like a subconscious modality. It's kind of like kind of woowoo. But it's kind of like hypnosis, tapping all that had a baby, where like, you can literally like retrain your subconscious to not have that visceral response. Because I'm really excited for that episode to air. And when it goes on, I'll make sure you you get

Nate Fain
our loved. Yeah, I would love to hear that. Because I mean, there are still comments to this day. And so when I'm sure other people are like this, but when I get angry, I feel a tickle go up my spine. And this was like, Alright, all rages on. So I mean, I still get comments from day to day, and I say day to day from week to week that that still have the mix, it creates that reaction for me, I guess that reaction for me. But the other thing, the other thing that's really helped me, you know, there was a there was a saying that I heard this was years ago, and it's called and it was Your vibe attracts your tribe. So like, I really, really got into that. And I started thinking like, what these trolls like, I don't really care, because they're not my ideal client anyways, right? Yeah. So that's, that's my big thing is like, not everybody's gonna like me, which is, I would like to think that I'm a fairly likable dude. But like, there are people that just aren't going to like me, and there are people out there that I don't like that other people are like, I can't believe you can't you don't like this person. There's no like, it's just kind of like part of the whole human experience, I guess. But like what I've kind of retrain my mind to say is like, they're not my ideal client or follower anyway, so like, why would I get upset about it?

Molly Cahill
My friend Chelsea will say, Thanks for the algorithm boost. Yeah, exactly. Right. So let's, let's switch gears a little bit. And let's talk about how do you feel like your social media accounts blowing up? Like that's one thing, right? But like popular doesn't pay the bills? Has it translated to business in your door?

Nate Fain
Yeah, so when I started in 2018 2018, was when the first the first time I ever posted a video and it was back on Facebook and I was really big advocate of, of because of my subject matter. This is why this is the way that I thought whether it's correct or not, I don't know but it worked for me. So because of my subject matter which is mortgages and buying a home it is inherently boring. So I try to be as fast as possible quick to the point I tried to keep I was a really big advocate for short form video for my niche specifically for that reason because I'm sitting here thinking like if you're just scrolling the internet, who is really going to sit there and as they're scrolling stop and listen to me talk for five minutes about whatever you know about whatever when it comes to buying a home but who's going to sit there and listen to me talk for 30 seconds Okay? More people are will probably listen to me for for 30 seconds so they listen to Gator or they listen to Gator my alter ego Gator. So but I I started with a I think it was called Monday Mortgage Minute to Win It or money mortgage misconception or something. But the whole point was like I was very clear about this to my audience. I said, I'm going to do a video every Monday and it's gonna be less than a minute so that they knew Okay, all right, I can hang in there for a month to see what Nate's up to. So I set that expectation up front and then I just started creating off of that. So after that like that helped me gain recognition and notoriety locally. It helped me show that I was like an authority figure. Because back then I got most of my business from referral partners from Realtors I also got also got business from former clients or friends and family. So it was a way for me to basically have like a digital billboard, and get my face and my message out in front of all these people that could then send me business, it wasn't necessarily to get direct direct clients. Yeah, it didn't start off like that, like, I'm going to speak directly to my clients, it didn't really start off like that, which is really, really hard to do in the mortgage world to get direct to the consumer direct to the client. It has since morphed into that while also helping spread my name and my notoriety and giving that publicity. But like you said, like, popularity doesn't necessarily pay the bill. So I've gone about it in kind of a passive way to where I wanted to be the perceived authority, of course, yeah. And then every once in a while, I'll mix in a marketing like a true marketing video, what I would consider like where I'm kind of selling my services. Yeah, a pitch. Yeah, because I've given so much value. Prior to that I've built so much rapport prior to that it is it is so much better received and so much more powerful, because it's not, you're just it's not like a normal ad, where you're just scrolling, like, Who's this stranger? You know, so like a lot of the ads that I run, it's to people who have already seen my content, I want to have that established brand. And that established recognition with them.

Molly Cahill
I remember I tried when we moved to Ohio was like, Can you do ours, and you're like, I'm not licensed in Ohio. But when we moved here, I was showing my husband on your videos, and I was like running stuff by you. Because I'm like this guy knows, like, like you said, like you were the established authority. And I see so many parallels to like, my audience, like if there's, you know, their health coaches or chiropractors or whatever it's like, if you can find a good referral source, and because you become the authority, like maybe there's a great OB GYN or a dentist or whoever, like sees your videos and like, oh, you should go see this person because they so Right, exactly. And then also like talking about the pitch. I have like a content ecosystem that I teach and a direct pitch is part of that content ecosystem. I think people think everything has to be hidden and cloak and daggers. And yeah, there is a time for that. Right. So my backgrounds in PR and advertising and we learned about you know, advertorials, which is where you know, you're flipping through a magazine. And it's like tips for keeping your home smelling fresh. And then at the very bottom and be like, this is sponsored by glade. Like, right, here's a kid like, yeah, it's like they're teaching you something. Yeah. But it's an ad. So that's called an advertorial. So yes, there there is a time and place for that type of quote, you know, pitch to work with you. But then sometimes it's just like, hey, here's how you work with me. And it's as simple as that. So I want to go back because you you put audience in air quotes for the people who are listening to this. Did you you obviously didn't start with this huge audience. Audience. Is there ever a time like, how long did it take you to really, quote, make it? And was there a time where you were like, This is a waste of time,

Nate Fain
it probably took a solid six months of doing a weekly video. Um, and that was so I mean, what is that that's 26 ish videos. Not only because I didn't know what I was doing, and I was self taught, but also just to get comfortable for people to start to expect it for people to start to listen, in my experience, and that was in again, that was in 2018. It took six months. Yeah. Now, when I eventually blew up on Tik Tok, which is what a lot of Facebook right? That was Facebook. Yep. So when I got over to tick tock, and then eventually, when Instagram came out with reels, it was six months from me blowing up on Tik Tok until I got my first lead. I didn't think that it was a waste of time, because I could then take that same content and repurpose it to where I was already getting leads, which was Facebook. So I was already posting some of my best stuff on Facebook, but I knew like, I had accumulated 25 50,000 followers, like within the first maybe month or so on Tik Tok. And I was like, This can't be a bad thing. I just have to figure out how to like I knew as a matter of time, I just had to figure out how to leverage it or for how to convert Yeah, or something to fall into my favor or for the platform to level up or age up or whatever it is, like I knew that it was going to eventually happen. But I mean, a lot of it is just I mean, you know, I'm sure you preach this all the time is showing up consistently. Yeah, anybody can do this for six months and then just go away. But like it's it's it's a it's a process it keeps you have to keep doing it. You have to it's you know, like Bud Light doesn't just go and run a commercial of the Superbowl and then never run an ad throughout the year. Like it's constant. You hear it on the radio, you hear you see billboards, you you know, like you said it's an ecosystem. Yeah. So they keep running TV commercials throughout the year. And one of the things that people ask me all the time is like, hey, like, do you ever have videos not do well, and you kind of said that, like, does this actually work? Every single marketing agency has that as well because they run a crappy ad. Like they all do it. We all do it. We all have a crappy video, we all have a crappy ad. But imagine Bud Light keeps saying by law, I don't know why. But like, imagine Bud Light like running man, Florida man. I think Well, I think of Bud Light and like they make funny commercials, like, kind of no beer commercials. You know,

Molly Cahill
I'm from Alabama. So Right. So you know

Nate Fain
what? So like, imagine Bud Light throws out a terrible marketing campaign. It just doesn't work. The commercial sucks, whatever it is, imagine the marketing team like, this doesn't work. It's like, no, it works. You just did it a crappy way. Like that didn't land with your audience. So right. Let's figure out a different way. Yeah, exactly.

Molly Cahill
I am. There's this let it be easy by Suzy Moore. It's a it's her name on her podcast. But she has her podcast is only five to seven minutes long episodes. And like her whole ethos is like, let it be easy. It doesn't have to be hard. Right? And she had an episode titled, When more is more. And I was like, Ooh, she's the Let It Be easy girl. Yeah, more is more different. Yeah. So I listened to it. And I'm so glad I did. Because she talked about how I can create 100 pieces of content. So let's say 10 pieces of content and create 10 videos. And four of them can suck, right? And six can be great. Or I can create one video. And if it sucks, I'm like,

Nate Fain
Whoa, I do. Yeah.

Molly Cahill
So it was like, oh, that's intriguing.

Nate Fain
And I'm a big volume guy too. And I think part of that has to do with the fact that you know, it's mo when one man band in a sense, like I don't have a big marketing team, I don't have whatever. So like, I have to get more volume out there. And because of my the nature of my content is more boring. And the nature of these platforms that aren't sensitive to yours. Exactly. And and because of the platforms I've done well on and it's short form content, like I have to have a little bit of consistency, which I'm working on, I was really good at it for a while. And then I got too busy, because of my marketing was working too much. And so I had to scale back to then get the proper systems and processes in place so that I can start ramping up making content again,

Molly Cahill
I love the champagne problems, because that's where I am now. I've gotten so busy that I'm like, Oh, I have time to do stuff. Like I'm like, I can't wait to implement my own methods. Right,

Nate Fain
right. No, I 100 I felt that to the core. I 100%. No,

Molly Cahill
I bet you can't repurpose a lot of stuff because it does probably go out of date.

Nate Fain
Yeah, I mean, I've got some evergreen content that I can repurpose. One of the things that I really struggle with is I am so original and so creative to like like I am so like, I don't know what the word for it is. But like, I struggle repurposing my content, because I'm like, No, I've already done this before. And it is a skill that I did not think that I would have to learn. But the way that the something that helped me, because I like my hesitation was like if I post this and my followers know that it's a real repost, they're gonna leave. And then I started thinking about like, I watch reruns of the office, or whatever, all the time. So like, that's dumb for me to think that.

Molly Cahill
Yeah. And people need to see what is it like 21 times they said, Yes, Devin, right now did you do need to see the same message over and over?

Nate Fain
So if someone's going to leave after I repost something because they're gonna, well, that wasn't new, then again, it goes back to they're not my ideal follower. Anyways, you're not really supporting me

Molly Cahill
to entertain them, you know? So let's talk about your content creation process. Because one thing I tried to instill like what holistic means to me, like the name of this podcast is not taking one person's process and making being like, well, that's the way Yeah, I don't so I asked you this question and and, like the way that Nate says he does it, you're like, there's no way in hell I'm doing. Like, don't do it. But I like to hear everyone's different approach to like, what does your process look like? Or do you have one are you like a fly by the seat of your pants kind of guy like him?

Nate Fain
Well, and that's part of the problem is I'm very much a fly by the seat of the pants kind of guy. So like, I'll give you an example. So at the very beginning, when I started, I would have an idea in Lord help me if I remember that idea. When I went to go and have the time to press record. I didn't write it down. I just thought that I would remember it. Well, that started to become an issue. It was like, Okay, I've got time to record and what was I gonna talk about? Couldn't do it. Yeah. So I started, right. I started to either texting myself ideas and building it out what the thing that the first thing that I learned is like, if you come up with a good video idea, or even if it's just like an idea that you want to brainstorm on later, you have to write it down or document it you have to have it somewhere so that you can go back and look and this sounds crazy, but like I even would describe like what I was doing, when I thought of this when I when I thought of this idea, so that I could go back in my mind And, and like put myself back in the head frame in whatever because like, it might be like at 11 o'clock at night, and really like, I probably need to be going to bed, or we were watching a show and my wife's like, you better not be on your phone again. And I was like no, like, that person just said something that just triggered this whole like, No, I gotta make a video right now. And so I've even like wrote crazy reminders to myself that when you look at it if, like, if something happened to me in the cops, like got my phone, like, what is this person saying? Like, what is he talking about? Right? Like he just texts himself just pure nonsense. Like, they would have wanted to extract my brain for science or something like that. But that's just what I had to do. I don't

Molly Cahill
want to interrupt you. But I for one thing, I bought a pin on Amazon that has a light on it. Yeah, with a notebook, I'm setting my bed. So I can click it and not turn the light on. And like write out my ideas. But then the other day, I came across an idea that I wrote down and I'm like, I don't know what the hell this means. It said, the loft Adderall and birth control walk into a bar. And that's all.

Nate Fain
It sounds killer, though. I need you to I need you to figure out go back. Like re recreate that environment somehow. So that like go back to where you were when you thought that you wrote that? Because I need I need that concept to happen. I don't know what it is. But you're on to something there.

Molly Cahill
I have used Voxer before, you know, you can like Voice Memo yourself. Yeah. Or now I use Slack and have our own Slack channel that's private. To me. That's like Molly's content ideas.

Nate Fain
Yeah, I'll either text myself and sometimes you know, I've got I tell people, I've got three notebooks, I've got a notebook on my desk, I've got a notebook by my nightstand. And then I've got a notebook in my golf bag. If I'm on the golf course, and because I do a lot of thinking on the golf course I don't, I don't really play I play golf, but like I don't play golf, like I used to play golf, I very much it is a is a release for me is a brainstorming session. So I make sure that I've got places, it's stuff hidden all over the place. So that if I have an idea, I write it down immediately and build out the idea. I don't have to go into the actual scripting of it. But as far as like what I'm picturing in my mind, I need to get everything on a picture in my mind onto a piece of onto a piece of paper or memorialized somehow so that I can go back and remember it. So then that's my process for like, really, because I mean, what? Yeah, like, I mean, all of us have creative, a creative bone, like I firmly believe that some of us are more creative than others. And some of us just act on our creativity more than others naturally, as well.

Molly Cahill
I really believe in like the whole left brain, right brain thing, because I'm very like, I love science I love like the medical all somebody, I'm somebody who will read like a PubMed study for a client or like, read, you know what I mean? But then I'm also very creative. You do mortgages, like, yeah, it's like a foreign language to me, like, I don't even want to look at one of whatever it is paperwork you have to do, but you're so creative,

Nate Fain
right? It's, it's, again, one of those things that like, I thought, and I still firmly believe that everybody can be creative Now, are there different levels of it? Sure. But it's just my ability, I feel like I'm kind of like a naturally funny guy too. So a lot of my content is my personality and my personality is a little bit more laid back a little bit more goofy. So and I'm not afraid to show that online because at the end of the day, like if someone calls me and they're like super just kind of like anal about everything and they're just like, grilling me about every single penny on every single document like they're not my ideal client anyways, like I need someone that is just like first of all, they have to establish trust. So that's up to me like to establish trust, which is why I do some of those pillars of my content that is like this is to establish trust, but I want someone that is going to trust what I'm saying because I have some really good insight to give Yeah, but I don't need to be questioned there's a big difference between asking questions and questioning and I cannot stand to be questioned so I have to then establish that trust upfront so that I don't

Molly Cahill
you attract people who Yeah, exactly No, I love that you said that and I don't want to we'll go back to like your your process but I you know, personal branding is something I talk about all the time. And I recently had a student in my holistic marketing program post in our like group Facebook, she's like, help like what's my brand personality? I don't I don't understand. I'm like you Yeah, you are your brand personality. Especially like in the health and wellness field. Like most of these people are gonna have their hands on me or like, you know, I'm talking to them about my poop or like I don't know like you don't I mean, like I want to know the you you I don't want to get there and be like you are not who you are. This brand new put out online at all. So I love that you said that but so so Okay, let's go back to this is my ADHD brain like crazy. Do you have that too? So you come up with all your ideas and then do you have like a dedicated, like filming day or do you just kind of go when you've got time? Like how do you what does that look like for you?

Nate Fain
So it, it started of, you know, back when I was doing it every Monday. I think a lot of this my process depends on like how much I'm really focused on creating and putting out content. So like right now with what everything that's going on in my business, like I'm not putting out as much content as I need to be working on that. But I'm having to get more structured with it because I have so many more responsibilities. Now I'm wearing so many hats. versus five years ago, when really all I had to worry about was getting loans and closing them. My role as as I'm running a branch now I'm, I've got other stuff that's going on, I've got three kids, my life's just different. So I'm learning how to come up with a process really like time block in and even possibly, like make three, four or five, six videos all at the same time. That's something that I've never really done, unless I was on what I call like a content heater. So it's like, okay, the creative juices are flowing. I've got an hour right now I'm going to knock out as many videos as I can right shot gun

Molly Cahill
to Bud Light.

Nate Fain
Exactly. Right, I've got my way going, I'm ready to go. So you know that that process has changed over the years, as my business grew. I'm, you know, at the very beginning where my business wasn't taking up as much time, I could just do it fly by the seat of my pants, and I had way more time to sit there and brainstorm. I don't have that creative time as much anymore. So I have to time block for that. And what I tell people, because a lot of people that they'll push back and they'll say, how can you time blocks be creative. And they say that they've tried it in, they get through the first couple of videos or whatever, like this is garbage. And so what I tell people is like, um, don't get me wrong, I'm not a runner. But what runners will tell you is everybody hates the first mile. So what I tell people is go and commit to say, say do five videos, or write out five scripts, 10 scripts, whatever it is like making a multiple, multiple amount of scripts or videos or whatever, if you are time blocking for your creative time, like, go ahead and commit to doing that with the understanding that you're probably not going to use all of them get through the first couple that are probably going to suck. It's like the first mile when you're running. So get through that first mile so that you can get to that meat and potatoes like this is the runner's high right here, when you get like in the middle of the stage right here. That's where the magic happens most of the time. So if you're gonna time block for creativity, which so many people like they and it's understandable, they're like, you can't really boxing creativity like that, that ruins it. And like I can 100% get on board with that. So now you got to trick your, your mind and your brain like Alright, these first few are probably gonna be garbage. But then after that the creative juices start flowing naturally. And then you can really get on into your process.

Molly Cahill
Yeah, but I would argue that you're really not time blocking for creativity. Because I think that, like you said, if you're if you're writing it down, or texting it to yourself, or whatever your process might be when the idea comes to you, to me what the problem I had at first was I would say, okay, Wednesday's is the day I'm going to do my hair and my makeup. And that's going to be my real estate. And I tried to do everything, I tried to come up with the idea, film, the video, do the editing, the captions, write the caption, do the cover. I'm like, so for some people, I feel like it's easier to like, for me, I have the ideas and the I don't have a time where I just sit down and think of ideas. It's like the ideas are come they just come back whether I want them or not, you know? And then for me, it's times like I'm sitting my daughter's and only child and she won't read the bus. So like when when I'm sitting in carpool line to pick her up. I'm like, okay, I can film like one real save it to my camera roll here. Yeah. Or when I'm sitting in the parking lot at Target, like whatever, like the car is my favorite place to film with such a good idea. And then it's like on my batch day where I have scheduled out time like that's when I'll do the to me those are like totally left brain right brain tasks. Like, that's where I'm like doing the tedious parts, like the editing. And that like I think that can even be chunked up. If that helps.

Nate Fain
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the thing is like, ultimately, they when you time block like that. I like what you said about like, a lot of times I will shoot, edit caption post all in same day. Yeah. And like, that's what I used to do. But I don't have that time anymore. So I like your idea. And basically what you said like, Alright, I'm going to edit for an hour right now, or I'm going to do my captions for the next week or whatever. So time blocking those specific tasks. That's a great way to kind of like, break it up. Because like you said, like, the actual process of creating content. A lot of us if we're doing it ourselves, like a lot of us don't like that actual process. We like the process of the idea. And sometimes even filming. Yeah, I love the idea part. I even like filming some of them. Yeah, I'll actually I'll let you in a secret on the filming part. I actually hate filming the gator skits. I hate it when I know it's great content. I love writing the scripts love it. I don't like filming you

Molly Cahill
need to talk about that. I've never script sometimes I'll have like little like bullet points of what I want to say. But I don't ever do scripts,

Nate Fain
I probably script out probably 70 75% of what I do. The other 25% is just like off the cuff. And the a lot of times, like, if you see my, if you see my content, and it looks like I'm physically holding the phone, first of all, I probably am. Second of all, that is probably me just going off script. And I'm not planning that whatsoever. So a lot of the skits, a lot of the more one wants a complicated but a little bit more involved pieces of content that I do, I almost always script out or if I'm educating, I almost always script out because with short form content, what I've found in specifically how my brain works again, this may not work for you, but this is just how my brain works. Like if I if I don't script it out, I can take a what should be a 22nd video and turn it into 47 seconds. Nobody's gonna listen to me for 47 seconds. Yeah, I'm not that entertaining, they will listen to me for 2720 seconds. Hopefully they listen to me for about 17 At least, and give me my watch time. But like, it is hard for me to really condense my thoughts. So what I've done is like I have a journalism background, I went to journalism school, so I just awesome. So okay, so like, I just see it as like, I'm writing an article in it. But it's a very, very, very short article, but it helps me stay on task. But it also helps me edit faster, because I know exactly what each clip is supposed to say. Now what I do after I script it out, and it doesn't take me longer script out, I'm pretty good writer. So it doesn't take me long to script out. But then when I do that, I will then time it and read it like I'm actually doing the video to see how long it is. Now if I'm if my goal is like I want this to be under 45 seconds, and I start reading it, and I'm at 57 seconds or if I'm over a minute or whatever. Then I can say okay, let's trim some of this fat. How can I condense this even more and get quicker to the point even more?

Molly Cahill
What is it is it Ernest Hemingway that was like, Sorry for the long letter. I didn't have time to write a short one.

Nate Fain
I haven't heard that. But

Molly Cahill
y'all might be like, Molly, that's not Hemingway. It's another really famous author. And you should know. But I think that's so smart. Because it's so much easier to write a really verbose caption or film a really long video than it is to film a short one, right? Yeah, I was, uh, my process is a little different. I don't script out I film because you know, I'm a vain female who's occasionally is Botox is worn off. And don't have my makeup on. I filmed an Instagram story. So I can use like the subtle filter. Yeah. And then that way, if I don't get the take as fast as I want, I'll just delete that one and do another one.

Nate Fain
Yeah. I actually started creating content when, again, back in my Facebook 2018 days, I did it in one take every single time. Wow. And it was like an adrenaline rush for me. I mean, as soon as like, I was stopped, like pressing the record button. I would like, like, total like gym bro moment. I would like my fist on the on the on the table. Yeah, so did it again, you're like I nailed it in less than a minute. Like, it was like, I was like a junkie or something, man. So I don't do that anymore. I think that that's some of the things that some people if they if they aren't creating content already, you have to that's part that's a great example of just like going out there and doing it. Like I mean, my first video I propped up against a coffee mug and it was like this angle, you can't see it unless you're watching the video. But it was very much like the middle aged dad angle. And like the profile picture on Facebook, you can see under my chin and everything. So you know, you learn all this stuff as you go. But I think one of the things that like sets me apart from other people's like, I just I didn't, I wasn't scared of it. It was scary. But I wasn't scared because I knew it was gonna work. Eventually, I just had to push through in and know that I was going to learn a lot very, very quickly.

Molly Cahill
Oh my gosh, you so well, because one of our clients who just went viral she she's a chiropractor, and she does do telemedicine, like functional medicine via telemedicine, but she made this video about breast thermography which she does not offer in her office. And that's the video that went viral, typical. And in hindsight, I should have seen that video and said, Hey, I don't think you should be like, because then people were like, where do I get this done? And like, I'm like, this isn't even our business. Like it was complimentary in a way but like I said, like whatever we learned from it, and now we know like, we're not putting that video on Tiktok right? Because it blew up on Instagram and I don't want like that's not her people. Right? Right. You just got to roll with it like

Nate Fain
Okay, so my my story about that. And this is this is crazy for a lot of people who have played the YouTube game. I have a silver play button that I do not use on a channel I do not use I blew up one. So it's when you get over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. Okay, so I've got a YouTube channel that is essentially dead to me, because it didn't bring in the correct audience. So it was a video that blew up in 2020. And 2014 was video for me 2020 or 2021? I can't remember whenever YouTube shorts came out. So I don't know why don't ask me why I did this. But I used to post stuff on YouTube and it was basically just like a like a placeholder for my content. I nobody knew I had a YouTube channel. Nothing like I literally would just post it there just to make sure that what I edited was going to look okay on the air. And I don't know why. But that's what I did. Yeah. So anyways, I'm sitting there one day, and this was in like August or September of 2020. And I started getting all these YouTube notifications, like what is happening right now. And I had a video blow up right when they started creating when they created shorts, and it was a vertical video and it was previously blown up on Tik Tok, and it previously like dunwell on Instagram, and previously done did well on Facebook. But I made that video for specifically for my Facebook following back then, because it was all people who knew me it had my kid in it. It was not directly related to mortgages, but it was related enough to where the people who actually knew me knew what I was doing. I was never intended for the general public. So the general public gets a hold of this video, and it's like 30 something million views on YouTube. Oh, in the comment section, you wanna talk about trolls? Like it is the most like toxic place on the internet on that one. It's kids, it's this, that the other, it's whatever it was, there was an old McDonald's commercial back from the early 90s, or late 80s, or something. And it was Larry Bird and Michael Jordan. Yeah, I remember. Okay. So it was a Big Mac commercial, they were playing for a Big Mac, they were playing for us for the Big Mac. So I recreated that video that ad with my son, and we were playing horse or whatever. But it was for like a bag of tacos from Taco Bell. And it was it was absolutely edited in a way to where it was supposed to be funny and tongue in cheek, he was like four or five at this point. And like I had him dunking and stuff like it was so poorly edited. But it was I did it that way on purpose. Like it was, it was supposed to be funny. And it was supposed to show a little bit of my personality and just like make people laugh or whatever. And for whatever reason, it blew up on basically every platform. And then but on YouTube specifically, like at that time, it was so important to have like the right demographic. So it was like no one knew what my actual channel was about. You're confusing the algorithm. Exactly. Like is this actually about? Is this a Dad and son like channel? Or is this about mortgages, so same thing of what your your your client did and where she she made this killer video about something that she doesn't really even offer? I made this killer video about something that really was nothing about mortgages and didn't do me any good. So not to say that like you should only because I don't believe in this, if you're like it's like a personal service thing. Like, I think you need to show us some of your personality. I think you need to every once in a while show a little bit of what makes you tick personally, now I'm not going to run an ad with something that shows you know what, what how I am personally but this is part of the holistic thing. So like, I am more apt and more prone to show my personality in Instagram stories or Facebook stories. Even on Facebook in general. I'm not necessarily going to do that like talk as much or like on YouTube for sure. I'm not going to do it. Nobody cares about who I am personally on YouTube. Right. So that's how I think you need to show a little bit of your personality, but it's just you have to show it in the right way. Yeah,

Molly Cahill
I did. So the reason we were in Pensacola is because my husband was a helicopter pilot in the Marine Corps. And I did like a really cool reel of his last flight and like, put it to some Pink Floyd learning to fly and did like in motion him getting dunked like the last flight and it took off. Right. And then at first I was like, Well, that was dumb, because but then I'm also like, that's a whole niche. That's a whole community is military spouses who are health and wellness professionals. Right. So like, in some ways, yeah. I feel like it brought me a lot of views and followers that won't ever really be My people. But then in other ways. It's kind of like, I've had people DM me, oh, I had no idea you were military we are taking no. So I think it could go either way. Sometimes, you know, like you said it's like oh, you're a fun dad too. I wanted to do my more. I don't know. I think like you said you just can't be afraid to play around. Okay, so you you win as the longest interview I've done just because I'm enjoying this conversation so much. But let's if you have time. Let's end with this. Let's talk about like some of the technical things because a lot of people in my audience are like very beginners. The tech scares them. They're still filming, like you said with the dad or like too much headroom or you know, not having a strong hook. And what I mean by strong hook is if Nate started his videos with Hi, my name is Nate Fain. Nobody cares. I am done. I watched my husband was sitting on the couch next to him the other night watching him watch reels. I'm like This is I need to be filming him much reels because it's like was giving me vertigo or something he just, he's like, what it didn't catch my attention didn't catch my attention. And I'm like, God, we've gotten so bad.

Nate Fain
Well, and that's what I tell people. And I've taught social media classes before. And the biggest thing that I encourage them to do is to go and really, for the next, say, two weeks, you don't have to necessarily create content, what I want you to do, is to go and really pay attention at how you consume content. So like, as you're sitting there, like, if you sit there and find yourself scrolling after two seconds, try to stop yourself like, Why did I scroll? Why? Yes, go back to that video and see the first two seconds and then learn from that. Was it simply like that video? For sure. Like, the algorithm shouldn't have showed you that video? Because it's not something you're interested in? Or was it something that the Creator didn't do? That they could have done better? Could they have hooked you in better? Could they have done something visually in the video to catch your attention better? Like what what was it that made you swipe? What was in vice versa? You know, on the flip side, like what made you watch this video all the way through? So really, it's it's, it's a, it's a practice and self awareness to but it's also like, a lot of people think the way that you think, try to tell people like I love you all, but you're not special, like people consume content, just how you do. So if you're consuming content this way. So are other people and quite frankly, your ideal client and your ideal audience is probably consuming the same way that you're consuming it as well. So really take inventory and really take note of how you consume content. That was like one of my biggest tips like really, really try to diagnose what the difference is between a video that you swipe up that you do not swipe.

Molly Cahill
I love that. And I always tell people, you can't reverse engineer. Yep. Because the people who've already quote made it, you'll make will they do that? And I'm like, Yeah, because their audience already. I'm gonna watch. I'm gonna watch any video you make. Right? That's just me, because I love your content. I think it's great. I already know you. Right? But if I'm coming across you for the first time, and I'm in growth phase, right? So that's like what you said, like stories is where you can really nurture people more, and you don't have to worry about being salient and like catching that, like, you know, but when it comes to something like reels, when you are trying to grab the attention of a new audience, unfortunately, yeah, I mean,

Nate Fain
well, and that's what I've got different kind of pillars for mine. And I think with you going with, like this holistic approach, and that's what you're really trying to dive in, I think this will this will resonate. So like I've got I know that say trends, trends are great for catching more eyeballs, okay. They can bring in business, for sure. It may not be the business that you want, but they are great for catching more eyeballs. So it's like, that's the outreach, whatever it's getting the most, that's the strategy there, you know, so then then you've got also other pieces of content, where it's like, okay, I'm trying to nurture my community that might be replying to comments that might be in your Instagram stories that might be with a poll question, your Instagram stories that might be whatever, then you've also got, where you're where you're educating. So that's, that's your educational content. But a lot of people they get really discouraged because they see something that's a trend, that was a really good trend that they that they did really well. And they're comparing that piece of content to the piece of content that might be like a personal piece of content. And like, Well, why didn't I do is as good as that like, well, you're, it's two different strategies.

Molly Cahill
I have a real about that, where I said, I don't agree, when a lot of social media marketers say, go look at your insights and do more of what's getting, like getting you more views. And I'm like, Ah, that's a bad advice, right? All together. But there's a caveat. Like, I would guarantee you that if the first piece of content someone stumbled across of yours, Nate was of a green screen with you on Zillow talking about something they might not stop. No, like, but I've watched all of your videos where you've done that in bulk, because you've already hooked me in. I've built that relationship with Yes, yes, that that educational Authority building nurturing content, I love that.

Nate Fain
And when when I first started creating content, it was absolutely nothing like that. It basically had very little to do with mortgages. And if it did, I get again, I had prefaced that earlier with like, this is going to be less than a minute y'all can hang with me for less than a minute. And but I always had something else going on in the background to make that a little bit more visually appealing, and to make it more entertaining. So I've, like you said kind of earned the right to then make the boring content, which I know is not going to perform as well, but I know it converts well.

Molly Cahill
Let me know right. I love that. Yes. Right. Yes. It's so

Nate Fain
you know, I I worked at a big bank and they did a really good job of teaching me How to sell. And the first step for sales to do really well at sales is to establish rapport. People do business with people that are in business that they know like and trust. So like you have to establish rapport. The next step is to empathize with them to figure out what problem they have that you can solve. But that rapport like that you can do that on the internet so much quicker now. But you can't start with something that is hard hitting and then expect like, Well, why didn't this perform? Well, you haven't built rapport yet. Yeah, so you have to establish this brand. And there's, you have to establish some consistency, and people know what they're getting into, for you to then earn the right to have those higher converting kind of boring pieces of content. Just like you said earlier, you don't watch my videos, because you like to learn about mortgages. That's not why you watch my videos, you want to see, first of all, what am I up to? Second of all, what am I going to learn here? Yeah, so like, you don't you don't see my videos like, oh, my gosh, I gotta learn about mortgages right now. Like you, I've piqued your curiosity already, because I've, I've had some shenanigans behind the scenes. Like, that's what I've, that's the brain that I've built. So if you, you have to either deliver some kind of education, or entertainment, or a combination of both.

Molly Cahill
Yes, yes, I agree. And then like you said, you can like don't don't just assume that the videos where you are, you know, actually teaching more of an evergreen way. If they don't get as many views that is not a failure. That's okay. That's supposed to be like that. That's the point, right? Yes, yes, I teach people at all times, I wish on Instagram reels, you know how on like a static post or like a carousel, whatever. You can see how many website clicks you've gotten? You can't do that with reels. And I hate that. Yeah,

Nate Fain
yeah. I have a feeling that that's that's something well, you know, and I've heard them go back and forth on whether or not they will add something like that. Because at the end of the day, like, with reels, my understanding is the strategies, they really, really don't want you to go off of the platform, of course, yeah. Which I think I think according to data, like, you are less likely to leave the platform, if you're scrolling watching reels as you are going in watching something in a carousel, like, looking at a carousel, they are understanding like, okay, they're not super heavily engaged. They're just kind of like Mindlessly scrolling. And they're more prone to leave our app. So they're okay with having that website link right there. That's the rumor that I've heard. I don't know if that

Molly Cahill
makes sense. Because I get so sucked at my husband and I have like, it will be like you're sucked in, you're sucked in. Because you just keep like sweat. It's like instant gratification over and over and over again. Um, one thing we talked about in our team meeting this morning that we're going to start doing with clients is instead of, because we have our content ecosystem, right, and then some, some of them are like a pitch post where it's like, you know, if they don't have online scheduling, it's like, call this are you on our schedule this week, call the number. I'm like, let's just toy around with this is what I've been doing the podcast like, comment, the word podcast, and I'll send you a direct link. Now you probably get so many comments, you probably have you used the bot yet the chat bot?

Nate Fain
I haven't. Um, and that's all in one of my things that I probably need to do, because it's just like those automated responses or you know, chat, GBT?

Molly Cahill
No, I'm talking about like, if they were like, comment the word more. Yes. And you Yeah, we're automatically dmg thing. So I've been doing that. And so now we're going to start doing it with our clients, we're going to be like, comment the word schedule? And will, it automatically sends them whatever? Well, no, we're just going to manually do it. Because a lot of our clients are small, like their carpet, small town in Wisconsin. And I mean, like, they're not getting like, hundreds of copies. Just we just want to see. And I said, hopefully, we're not going to ask our we didn't ask them if we could do that. Because we're like, hopefully it becomes a problem. Hopefully, they're like, oh, we have so many people kept commenting schedule, we can't get in touch with everybody. Like we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But for now, it's something we're going to play around with. So that way, because what I was telling my team is, it's like a chicken or egg scenario, right? It's like, on one hand, you don't care if your call to action is to schedule an appointment, right? And they're not taking any action on that post and not liking commenting, but they pick up the phone cool, that's fine. But at the same time again, chicken or egg, the more people that comment, the more people who are going to see it and then maybe more people will pick up the phone so it's kind of a tough line to toe. That's why I like having this content ecosystem because you know, I'll post something that's like comment the last three things you bought on Amazon no to business, but it gets more engagement. It gives you

Nate Fain
engagement. I'm all for that. I mean asking, asking for engagement but the thing that I like about asking for engagement though, a lot of people see it as like, like self serving it might be a little bit but it's also building a community.

Molly Cahill
I call it can't help myself calm content. People are like oh my god, I have to go in here because like I bought a garden gnome and a you know, like,

Nate Fain
I've never heard like that. Yeah, no, I mean people liked it. they'd like to interact. I mean, one of the things that that one of the worst things that happened when it when it comes to social media that that kind of ruined it for people who want to mark it in, the way that they see social media is it went when I'm old enough to remember when, when Facebook was called social networking, hit gone, it's gone from social networking, Facebook, Facebook, sorry, it went from social networking to social media, well are still seen as networking. So I still treat it as networking. Now there's a time and a place where I treat it as media. But the vast majority of people, if you are a small business, or if you're a small business owner, or you whatever, you need to see it as social networking, not necessarily social media.

Molly Cahill
I love that. Let's end there. Let's talk about that really quickly. And we'll wrap up because I just got off. I interviewed my friend, Dr. Danielle, before this. And literally the whole interview was about relationship marketing. And I said, I think so many people want to skip those steps. They think, oh, we have this shiny social media thing now. And I'm just gonna put out this content and all these people are gonna flock to me. And then when that doesn't happen, people are like, Well, what I tried it and it didn't work like I don't get it. I'm like, Dude, you gotta go back to the one on one like networking. So you want to especially you like see you're licensed in Florida.

Nate Fain
Six states. Yeah, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina, Kentucky.

Molly Cahill
So shout out if you need Nate stone is a huge favor for me. So she need a mortgage in any one of those states. Please contact Nate Fane, we'll put your contact information below. Mortgages are boring. Is his handle? Yeah, I think so when you first started, I'm sure you were probably just in your local area. Right? How did you kind of leverage that community with such a broad platform? Because that because I get that people are? Well, I can mark to market to any country that speaks English. And I'm like, Yeah,

Nate Fain
but do you want to? Like,

Molly Cahill
anyway, so yeah, so talk to me about that.

Nate Fain
So I I'm a little different in that, like, I I'm okay with it just being in Pensacola, if it needs needs be, it needs to be I don't necessarily, like make super high hyperlocal content. But like, yeah, it very much started with. I chill just knew how it was in Pensacola, and specifically like in the real estate community, and then it blew up. And I've got some people that I know, on all my platforms that are not from Pensacola. Is that why you got licensed in other states? No, I've had those license for years. So there's a reason we're, like, had this demand. And you're like, I'm gonna know, I've got demand for other states that at this point, it was just like, I've got enough going on in the states that I don't need to really worry about it. So I wanted to get my systems and processes turned on. Right. So I started with just talking to Pitt, basically to Pensacola agents, like people knew who I was in the Pensacola real estate community, and then it just kind of like naturally grew. And now I've got people that are like all over the country, that now send me business. But I did so by networking, like I get referrals through that networking. It's through the comments. It's through replying to comments, it's through DMS that I get. I mean, it got to a point. And you know, you mentioned a couple of your clients going viral. And I've always told people like, that's not the goal. No, going viral is not the goal. You everybody wants to go viral until they've gone viral. And then they see how out of control it gets. So not only the comment section, but just like it starts running your life for whether that be a couple days, or a couple hours, or whatever it is. I mean, I've had several pop off and get over a million views. And I in like my team and I whenever some someone starts to pop off and go viral, we always talk to each other and like, oh, man, this was taken off. It's like bittersweet.

Molly Cahill
We were working nights. We don't ever work nights and weekends for our clients. But are they we're getting so many comments that we like divide and conquer. We're like, alright, you take these comments, and I'll take these from my computer. Like we were just like digital, like,

Nate Fain
it got to the point. I mean, because I was again one day and like it got to the point of where I couldn't reply to people and that really bothers me because it's it's the it's the opposite of like, how the troll thing since like, that's a real person on the other side that took the time out of their day to then comment it. These are supportive comments. Of course, these are not legit questions. Yeah, legit questions, legit, whatever. So like, I feel like someone needs to address them that I feel like it's rude if you don't. And that's something that I'm working on too, because like I've gotten to where my platform is big enough to where like, I can't reply to every single comment. I can't reply to every single DM I'm much better about replying DMS than I am to comments nowadays, but I really, really try to engage with my audience and engage with the people that I follow that to engage with their comments, their content as well. So again, this goes goes back to I have had to start time blocking to go reply to comments to go reply to DMS. One of the other ways that I grew my online presence is I I've posted four memes a day on Instagram and Facebook, my Facebook story for years. I'm talking like, five, six years, this was a thing I did before I did video. So like, this was always make me laugh be like and like, you know, it's weird because like when you start to meet people that you only know from the internet, it's fun for me because they tell you like what they like about your content. Of course, like we all love that pat on the back, but like memes speak to you where my video speaks to other someone else. So like having that holistic approach kind of that ecosystem that you're talking about, you're you're able to attract so many more people, because so many so much other content resonates with them. So many different types of content resonates with them. So that's why I like the holistic approach that you take is because it's not just like a one size fits all. And it's not just like this, we're only going to do this like, and it's the same thing with like any marketing agency does, again, we're gonna pick on Bud Light, but light goes on they sponsors events, they they have billboards, they have TV commercials, radio commercials, they have all kinds of things. It's it's that natural, holistic ecosystem that you're creating. So

Molly Cahill
I don't want you to listen to this and think like, Well, I'm not funny, like, so I can't implement any of this stuff. Like maybe that is your personality is that you're super serious, or like, you're, you're super straight to the point and like you, then you're gonna attract your people.

Nate Fain
There's plenty of people that are in my industry as well that have done well on social media. They're not funny. And I would say that to their face like, bro, you're not funny, but you're really good at this, anyway. Oh, no, I'm absolutely not funny. I can't do what you can do. You know, I don't have your personality. And so yeah, don't think that if you're not funny, then you can't send out online because there are plenty of boring people that we all watch online.

Molly Cahill
Well, there might be somebody who's like, I don't want somebody taking care of my mortgage who's, who's goofy. Yeah, we're gonna be very serious, you know, someone for everybody, for sure. Exactly.

Nate Fain
And that could be serious, funny, too. But like, if you don't trust me for my videos, and that's okay, then we're probably not going to get along anyways, in your life stressful. So that's all right. It's all good.

Molly Cahill
I know, I have such great clients right now on students. And I'm just like, oh, my gosh, y'all are just like cherry pick from the heavens.

Nate Fain
And that's, that's what I try to tell people. The most important thing about doing this is like, it frees you up. And it makes you want to do more business because you have your ideal client, like people don't understand how awesome that is. And it is a luxury versus like, you have to be something for everybody. To know. It's crazy. Like, I don't want to do everybody's work. The best video I've ever made personally that I think it was reverse psychology because the whole premise of it, the lines that I made, it says I may not be the wonder for you. I went back in I one of them was like, you know, and part of it was like share my personality part of it was like I showed people my process and like what they can expect from me from if they get a mortgage from me. So one of them you know, I'm sitting there on a couch with a UK shirt and it says if you expect your listener to answer their phone right in the middle of Kentucky basketball game, I'm not the lender for you. I'm not going to answer my phone. You're not more important in Kentucky basketball to me, that's the dead honest truth. If you want your lender to if you don't want your lender to be an insane amount of Taco Bell, I'm not the lender for you. Are you talking about you know, so as I did this to to show my personality, and it was so like, Wait, hold on, this guy doesn't want everybody has a client and it blew people's mind and I got more business like that was probably one of my highest converting videos I've ever did

Molly Cahill
one of my students who's now a one on one client and she like blew up so much she cuz she was you know, you have every once awhile you have this people will just follow everything you teach to a tee and you're like, oh, Jessica, thank you. Yeah, she's gonna come on the show too. But anyway, she like she had a post that was like, she's a chiropractor and bold she goes, I cannot fix you know my attention. I love that because she's like, like, what I do inside my doors. Like, it's how you sit in your desk. It's how you drive your it's like, Are you doing your exercises? Like, are you managing your stress like all that and I just thought that was really good. She converted really well on that post and that was told all her idea but okay, Nate, again, this has gone longer than any of my interviews I've done because this is so interesting. So how like I said, How can everyone find you we've already kind of basically said it but may expect by following you.

Nate Fain
Um, so I you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok. I'm building out a new YouTube channel if you need an actual mortgage. And when I schedule a call, I mean even if it's like a marketing call or something I love talking shop, you can go to the mortgage creator.com You can find all my platforms and different little nuggets that I got there. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's really one thing I am doing right now that I'm really excited about is I've started a podcast as well with a buddy of mine who is a loan officer in Arizona. So he is a younger loan officer. I'm 35 I've been doing this for 11 years. He is in his late 20s And this is like his second or third year in lending. So I've done this long enough, like 11 years in the mortgage industry is like seven years in real life, like, there's not a lot of people that make it that long, this was a really hard industry. So, that being said, I've gotten to the point now in my career, where I feel the need to kind of give back a little bit and be a little bit of a mentor. So I've also started a podcast to where it is really meant to help people learn, that are loan officers or realtors in the real estate community that learn and help them get through this, this little market shift that we've got. So I've started that podcast to be like a mentor for that. But I think that we've got some people that are that are from other businesses as well. And I think that ultimately, people's ability to take advice that not that don't, that doesn't necessarily like relate to them. And their ability to take those concepts and those fundamentals and relate it back to their industry like that is what how successful you're going to be right there. And then implementing all those strategies. But how good of a learner you are really, really, it's predicated on that

Molly Cahill
last one, I go like at the very beginning, and I said like, I don't follow a lot of other social media people because I feel like it stifles my creativity. So I love that. And now before we hit record, we're talking about outsourcing. And I'm in the process of like I said, if all of this like feels like too much for you just shoot me a DM and I'm in the process of trying to build out a more video editing, we offer video editing for our clients. But I'm kind of in like this beta phase right now of trying to build out like how could I do this affordably? Or how do I teach you to find the right person? I don't know. There's this Facebook group called how she did that. I don't know if they allow menfolk in there. But it's it's like a whole Facebook group of VAs and so I found a good virtual offset found several virtual assistants in there who can help you or like Fiverr or Upwork. Or like you said a college student like if this feels like too much for you, like all you have to do show up and look pretty and and, you know, film the video and you can always outsource the editing piece to someone else. Yep. 100%. So, we'll leave you with that. Nate, thank you so much for your time. This was like, truly I appreciate you so much. I know for sure. Thank you for listening to holistic marketing simplified, brought to you by holistic marketing hub, our hybrid program that supports you with personalized coaching, caption templates and virtual classrooms. In this program, we teach health and wellness professionals how to fish but we also bait their hook, head to holistic marketing hub.com To learn more, and use code podcast for $100 off, and hey, you know every podcaster at the very end of their episode asks you to rate and review their podcast. Well, that's because it's super important. These podcasts take a lot of time and heart and effort to produce to bring you free information. So in order for me to be able to continue doing that we need more people to find out about the show. So if you could please just take like two minutes out of your very busy day to leave me a rating and share this on your Instagram stories and tag at Molly a K Hill. That's c h i ll I would greatly greatly appreciate your support. I truly appreciate you so much. I know your time is valuable and I can't wait to see you in the next episode.