ACERCA DE ESTE EPISODIO
You leave a voicemail for a loan officer you'd love to have on your team, and before they ever call you back, they look you up. For years that meant Google. More and more it means they open ChatGPT and ask who you are, and whatever comes back becomes their first impression of you before you've said a single word. Most leaders have never once checked what that answer says. Here's what I want you to walk away with today. The answer about you gets written either way, and by the end of this episode you'll know how to help write it. I'll give you five moves to become the AI-recommended leader.
Episode Breakdown
[00:01:25] The Producer Who Signed Because of a Monday Post
A leader I coach had been working a hundred-million-dollar producer for a long time. She made him an offer and he said he was in, then he didn't sign. The offer expired, she wrote another, he said yes again, and still no signature. Offer after offer, and if you've recruited any length of time you know how that feels, wondering if you said something wrong or if he was using you to get a raise. Then one Monday morning her phone buzzes, and it's a text. He's signing. He saw her post that morning and told her that was what he needed. Nothing about the offer changed that weekend. The comp was the same, the company was the same, the start date was the same. What changed was what he saw when he looked her up. He'd been quietly watching to see who she is as a leader the whole time, the same way every recruit does.
[00:02:50] Move 1: Run the Check on Yourself
Search your own name with nothing else attached, because that's exactly what a recruit does right after your voicemail. Then open ChatGPT and ask it who you are. That's the first minute of a recruit's research, and most leaders have never looked. While you're at it, search your name with the word mortgage and your state and scroll to page two, because all of that is part of what a recruit sees. I ran an AI audit recently on a producer doing about $25 million a year. When somebody searched her name, AI named her 19 times out of 20. When a stranger asked AI for a loan officer in her market, it named her zero times out of 35. She had profiles, reviews, and content everywhere, and she was still invisible to anyone who didn't already know she existed.
[00:03:54] Move 2: Say Who You Are the Same Way Everywhere
AI decides what to say about you based on clarity and agreement first. Clarity means it has to be sure which person you are, because a common name, an old title, or a company change last year can make it describe somebody else or an older version of you. Agreement means your LinkedIn, your company bio, and every intro all describe the same leader. So write one sentence I call your known-for statement, who you build for, where you lead, what you help them do, and what changes for them when they work with you, and only say what's true for your team today. Put that sentence in your LinkedIn headline, the first line of your About section, your company bio, and every podcast or speaker intro, then leave it alone for 90 days, because AI learns it from repetition. And when a recruit clicks through to your LinkedIn, open your About section with who you are outside of work, because they only see the first few lines before they decide whether to keep reading, and I want them connecting with you as a person first.
[00:05:15] Move 3: Put Proof Where Recruits Look
The third thing AI weighs is proof from other people, and what loan officers say about you carries more weight than anything you'll ever write about yourself. I studied a loan officer who shows up number one in AI in his market and couldn't explain why. When we dug in, it was reviews. At every closing his team hands the client an iPad with the Google review already pulled up, the whole team does it, and he's sitting on around 1,800 of them. The same principle works for you as a leader. Ask the loan officers you lead for an honest LinkedIn recommendation about what it's been like working together. Tell them to say whatever's true and that it's completely fine if they'd rather not, keep it voluntary, don't offer anything in exchange, and run any team results past your compliance team before you publish them.
[00:06:15] Move 4: Build for the Kitchen Table
There's a predictable path every recruit takes once you've reached out. First is the check, that bare search on your name, and it's the one that matters most. If you pass it, they do the company check to see what's behind you. Then comes the kitchen table, where they decide, usually with a spouse who looks you up all over again on a phone that's never more than an arm's length away. That spouse may have heard years of complaints about this industry and has no reason to trust you yet. So build one page, I call it your Working With Me page, that answers what the spouse wants to know, who you're a great fit for, how you lead, and what it's like to be on your team. Most leaders never think about that second search, and it's often the one that decides it.
[00:07:10] Move 5: Show Up for Loan Officers Every Week and Point People to It
A lot of leaders have a feed written entirely for borrowers and agents, so when a producer searches their name, there's nothing there for a producer. Post weekly for the loan officer you'd love to recruit, about leadership, growth, and where the business is going, and hold that rhythm long enough for it to add up. I did a version of this back in 2010. I pulled my state's list of licensed real estate agents, started a LinkedIn group, and posted into it twice a week as the only mortgage leader in the room. About a year later, agents I'd never met were walking up to me in restaurants because they recognized me. Then make it easy for recruits to find. One team was running a 55% no-show rate on booked first meetings and tested one change. The confirmation text got a PS with a link to the leader's social profile, and the no-show rate collapsed. The only difference was that people got a look at who they were about to sit down with before they showed up.
[00:08:15] Why It Works
The data on $20 million producers says 75% of them made their decision based on the peripheral information they found well before the first or second conversation did any of the work. And the place they go to find that information is moving fast. A couple of years ago almost nobody searched inside AI, and today 52% of Gen Z start their searches there instead of Google. AI builds its answer about you from clarity, agreement, and proof, and every one of those is something you can shape starting this week. There's a second payoff most leaders miss. Once you've done this for yourself, you've got something to give. In our recruiting intensive this month, one leader ran an AI visibility check on the loan officers on his team the day we taught it and booked one-on-ones with them for the following week. Do that for a recruit and you're handing them something their current leader has never thought about. I call it the surrogate leadership principle. When you bring leadership value someone isn't getting where they are, they start moving toward you, and a recruit who's already seen that from you tends to like what they find when they look you up.
[00:09:35] Your Small Win Today
Before your next recruiting call, do the check. Search your name by itself, then ask ChatGPT who you are, and read what comes back as if you were a loan officer deciding whether to return your voicemail. It takes about two minutes, and it'll probably bother you a little, and that's the reason it goes first.
[00:09:55] Three Bigger Moves This Week
Write your known-for statement and put it in your LinkedIn headline and your company bio, so every recruit who looks you up meets the same leader your team already knows. Send the recommendation ask to three loan officers you lead, which gives your people a chance to say what it's like to work with you and gives recruits proof they can trust. Then add a PS with a link to your profile on every meeting confirmation your team sends, so fewer of the meetings you worked hard to book end with an empty chair.
Key Takeaways
The answer about you gets written whether you touch it or not. Your job is to help write it.
Nothing about the offer changed the weekend that producer signed. What changed was what he saw when he looked her up.
You can be named 19 times out of 20 on your own name and zero out of 35 to a stranger. Known is not the same as findable.
AI builds its answer from clarity, agreement, and proof. Say who you are the same way everywhere and leave it alone for 90 days.
What your loan officers say about you carries more weight than anything you'll ever write about yourself.
The decision often happens at the kitchen table, with a spouse who looks you up again. Build a page that answers what they want to know.
75% of $20 million producers decided on the peripheral information they found before the real conversations ever happened.
If you'd like a second set of eyes on what a recruit finds when they look you up, reach out. Visit bookrichardnow.com and grab time on my calendar, and I'd be glad to go through it with you. And if you'd rather work on this live, I host a biweekly working lunch where we build this kind of thing together. The next one's 9/25 at 12 PM ET. You can add it, plus all of our other 4C live events, straight to your calendar here: http://cal.ae/suuaiiw
