The origin of “The Bump Into Method” and What Does It Mean?

I’ve said on many occasions that Loan Officers and Real Estate Agents tend to use what we affectionately call “The Bump Into Method”. Let me share with you where I got this. I’ve been a musician my entire life. Since age 6 I’ve played violin, at age 8 piano, at age 12 the clarinet, and then at age 16 the guitar. I’ve been a guitar player for over 30 years now. To give you an idea of what this means to me, not a day goes by that I’m not either studying or practicing. Ask nicely and I may even demonstrate for you but I digress. My point is, that the idea of “The Bump Into Method” came from a man that I studied with just before he passed by the name of Dick Grove. Without going too deep into the back story, Dick Grove was a man of enormous musical talent and had a special gift for teaching. Suffice it to say that he implemented the Schillinger Method of music composition in a way that revolutionized the teaching of music which resulted in 95% of the alumni of the Infamous Grove School of Music becoming working professionals in the entertainment industry.

The reason this is important to note is that Dick knew what he was doing and if you didn’t have a solid foundation on which to build, you just bumped into this and found things by mistake and developed a sense of musicianship that was riddled with holes. Dick would say “You can’t reach your full potential without a solid foundation, like a pyramid turned upside down on its point, everything grows outward from there, otherwise, you’re just using “The Bump Into Method“

The same thing applies to marketing.

By making assumptions and bumping into things from time to time, the experience necessary to create a marketing plan for any industry becomes a lifelong endeavor and no one wants to wait a lifetime to build a successful business and client base. Despite readily available counsel, many do exactly that and wind up hating their marketing because of it.
Well, it’s not a mystery, there’s no big secret. Some insight from someone who’s been doing this successfully with many successful Loan Officers and REAs who are willing to share it is all you need! Conveniently, that’s what we do here at Exodus Marketing.

Here are some things that many people are doing out there that don’t work as promised…

Website and blogs – “Hey setup a website and a blog and post every week!” Cost: $250 – $10k.
This quickly becomes once a month which turns into maybe once every three months. After the 4th month, the result is 2 to 3 blog posts, no comments and its “crickets” from that point on. A mediocre to dynamite looking sight with no usage and no traffic. Sound familiar? I’m not even going to bother with the Ala Mode sites that most of you just had to have. A website is good but it draws zero business. “This isn’t what the salesman promised when I bought the site along with the plugins that it HAD TO HAVE!“

Facebook – You can post on Facebook and watch friends dwindle away. Why? Because you’re taking a medium designed for social interaction and recreation and posting things that are irrelevant to anyone but you about your industry. Cost $0 – $600(with assisted posting) If your buddy the plumber was posting about toilet ball-cocks and sump pump issues three to five times a day you’d probably find that not only aren’t you interested in reading about hair clogs, but it’s getting in the way of the things that do interest you. Even if you want that person to succeed in the industry they’ve chosen, chances are you won’t read what they’re posting.

Video Skits – This one is the worst, fake news, talk, panel and general discussion videos produced with inexpensive camera setups, poor lighting and sound that are just plain boring. The SEO schemes that include video and all. You see people that have posted things years ago on YouTube and they’ve gotten 25 views, all from friends and spouses possibly their own children and in-laws. If it’s just a skit for the sake of trying to be funny, relevant or “hip” it’s ridiculous.
I could list many more in this category but it’s a waste of your reading and my writing. Some people think that you just have to do something that resembles marketing activity. The idea that you just “start a marketing program” of some kind, its very existence will generate new customers and revenue just because it exists. This simply isn’t true.
An example of that is a bifurcated approach of a CRM, a canned email, 40 post cards and 20 cold calls reading scripts. Add to that a motivational speech by a so called coach. I’ve seen more than a few zen meditation and life coach programs with 90 day devotional and motivational programs with a guru flavor riddled with gimmickry. This is what I call “Mistaking Activity For Achievement” or the MAFA syndrome.

Many of these things might distract us from the day-to-day mundane tasks that we must perform to achieve productivity but they aren’t really marketing. The answer to the mystery is, if you are wasting valuable time with any of this nonsense, you are doing it wrong and you’re wasting time as well as resources. You’ve been using THE BUMP INTO METHOD, try this, try that, and hope for the best!

Stop the insanity and simply communicate with your clients. Don’t sell them mortgages, they already have one. They aren’t borrowers any longer, they’re debtors now and they don’t need information on programs and interest rates they can’t use. They tune you out. Share yourself as well as your knowledge and become family! This is our mantra, there are ways to do this and not everyone knows how. It’s not just ink on paper or a swath of vacation photos, it’s communication and communication are absolutely free but you’ll still need a medium and at Exodus, we provide the medium that works for the loan and real estate industry. What we don’t sell, is the experience and know-how on how to do it right. That we freely give away at no cost! So, now would be a great time to schedule your free Discovery Call to learn how it all works.