Full Transcript is Below:
– Where has the year gone? This is the final top producer series for the month of December 2022. And boy are we going out with a bang. A rising star is our feature. It is Brooke Fields, the pride of Bokchito, Oklahoma population of 585 people. She somehow made it out to Durant, Oklahoma where she joins us now. Brooke, how are you?
– I’m good, how are you?
– I’m doing well. Thank you for asking. You are definitely worthy of the spotlight in so many ways. You’re a great loan officer and a student of the game and a rising TikToker. But let’s start with a town of 585 people. I didn’t even know towns that small existed. One store, three stoplights, give us like the overview.
– Zero stoplights, not even a single stoplight. You have one four way stop.
– Oh my goodness. What’d you do every day growing up? What do you remember about being a kid?
– My parents own a ranch, so I grew up on a ranch and so I just did my own thing. I mean, I grew up, I did rodeo, I showed animals, if anybody even knows what that is in your area of the world I just did anything that revolved around animals or outside.
– Oh man. And you’re in Durant, Oklahoma now I’m assuming there are a couple of stoplights there.
– Yes, several here. Yeah. Not a whole lot, but still several.
– Also not that big of a town, right? How far is it from where you grew up?
– It’s like 25 minutes. Not super far.
– Excellent. All right, so let’s get, let’s move on to this aspiring TikTok career that you’re kind of in the middle of right now. Borrow with Brooke. That’s your handle on both TikTok and Instagram and I think the influencer Division is a lot of the reason that you came to NFM. Talk to us about what you’ve learned so far and how excited you are about this being a way to deliver business for you.
– Yeah, definitely was the main reason that I chose to come to NFM just because of watching some of the other influencers on TikTok and all the things that they were able to do marketing that way. It was something outside of anything that I had ever done. So it was a huge draw for me and it’s been fun actually. I was slightly intimidated by it for a while and then once I just kind of got over I think the nerves of doing it and just decided to have fun with it, it’s been a lot of fun and it’s been really neat to watch like our area here because no one has ever done anything like that to watch real estate agents or even clients that follow me on TikTok or Instagram or whatever and are always talking about the funny little videos or things that they learned from it.
– Have you had that moment yet? I’m talking about the moment where someone looks at you and goes, I’d recognize you from somewhere.
– Yes. At a title company, one of the closers was like, hey I think I follow you on TikTok. And I was like, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Like I’m not sure. But it actually sparked some pretty funny conversations and brought up videos and were showing ’em to people.
– Here’s a video where you got 240,000 views. Let’s take a moment and watch this. ♪ And I’ll be singing ♪ ♪ Holy Mother of Moses ♪
– How’d you come up with that concept and were you surprised that a quarter of a million people laid eyes on it?
– Most of my videos come from things that have happened like recently in a transaction or something like that and that was something that had just recently happened on a borrower. And so I was sitting there and I heard the sound and I was like, you know what fits perfect with this? And filmed it and went on and it took off.
– Voila. What’s this done for your business?
– I’ve always been, you know, bigger in my local market. So this has definitely taken me like outside of my box of that. And so it’s been very different. A lot of business from Texas has been a huge thing that has come in and dealing with people just outside of my norm.
– What advice do you have to people that just want a piece of this but don’t know how to get started? What have you learned? What would you tell them, that want to get on social media and create a community?
– Consistency obviously is the biggest piece of it and everyone needs to understand that it’s not about being viral it’s not necessarily about creating, you know the biggest video that’s gonna get the biggest hit. It’s more about creating a true following of people and getting people interested in wanting to come back to you to learn more. ‘Cuz you know, not everyone obviously in this market is ready to buy right now but you want them to be or you want to be their source of information that when they want to learn something or know what’s going on in the market, they always come back to you.
– That’s great advice. So I’m sure a lot of people are taking that to heart. But you’re also a student of the game. Like you’re on the self-generated side in what has been the most severe headwinds we’ve seen in I don’t know, decades maybe ever, that sugar high from the low rates all the way up to 7% and beyond. Somehow you’re still gonna close upwards of 30 million in personal production between your previous company and this company and I know you attribute a lot of that to being a student of the game. Talk about where you gained your knowledge of the business and how that’s impacted you as an originator and come in handy.
– The biggest thing for me was I’ve learned it from beginning to end. I started out as an office admin ordering tax transcripts and worked all my way through to doing, balancing CDs at closings. And did all of that and I just learned a very good knowledge base of the entire process and how everything really works so I can explain every bit of it and feel confident in everything that I’m talking about.
– And am I hearing you right? You can read tax returns?
– Yes, I can read tax returns.
– That’s amazing. I don’t think most loan officers can break down tax returns. So hat’s off to you. Obviously that comes in handy to be so well rounded. You wear a lot of hats. You got the influencer hat, you got the self gen hat, and then you got got the mom hat. You have a one and a three year old. Your family, tell us all about it.
– So yes, I have a one and a three year old who are both very, very busy. Yeah, I would say. And I’m definitely in probably the craziest season of motherhood of learning how to balance going from one kid to two which has been interesting, especially with, you know working in the mortgage industry. That’s pretty demanding in itself, learning how to do that. But I have a husband too which also he is a real estate appraiser that comes in handy for a lot of my appraising issues. I pick his brain out about a lot of different things.
– Your husband’s not only an appraiser he has made some guest appearances on some of your TikToks. Here’s one right now where, I mean I don’t know how you recruited him to stand on a bed and shake his rear end. Was this something he volunteered for? Did you have to twist his arm and how do you think he performed? Did he shake it the way you expected him to shake?
– There was definitely some arm twisting that had to go on. It wasn’t quite as difficult as what everyone might think it might have been to get him to do. But no, I thought he did great.
– So Brooke, you’re obviously a super hard worker. You set a lot of goals, you knock ’em right down. What are you trying to do in this business? What’s the legacy you’re trying to build?
– Once I had kids, I feel like my motivation in things kind of shifted a little bit and I just tried to become the person that adds more value to people’s lives versus just being your, being an originator and getting somebody from point A to point B, but to figure out how to impact people in a way that lasts forever. And most of my clients, they never get rid of me. We just kind of become friends and then I move from just their mortgage originator to somebody that they talk to about like every financial decision that they make.
– Well said. Well, you’re a breath of fresh air for sure. We’re so lucky to have you here at NFM. Really appreciate your time. Congratulations on being featured as our top producer for the month of December 2022. Brooke Fields in Durant, Oklahoma. Thank you so much. Enjoy the holidays.
– Thank you for having me. You too.
– Appreciate it. I’m Greg Sher from NFM TV. We’ll see you again next time.