Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Jerad Larkin, Account Executive with Chicago Title

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

My name is Jerad Larkin, and I’m an account executive with Chicago Title. I’m helping Real Estate Agents and Mortgage Lenders with applying unique strategies to their real estate marketing, as well as teaching a new sustainable business model to help them grow their real estate business.​When real estate professionals partner with me, I provide them with the right real estate tools, resources, and marketing strategies that overall help them get more deals. My background in video marketing and digital advertising puts me in a unique position when working with real estate professionals.​In addition to helping real estate professionals with their real estate marketing, I also help them with all of their title and escrow needs here at Chicago Title of Colorado. Chicago Title is the country’s leading title insurance organization with more than 1,000 local offices nationwide. Our parent company, Fidelity National Financial, is a Fortune 500 company. We have a national presence but truly operate at a local level here in Colorado to serve our clients.Learn more:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeradlarkin/https://www.milehightitleguy.com/Colorado Real Estate Leaders https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/colorado-real-estate-leaders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-jerad-larkin-account-executive-with-chicago-title

Welcome to the Colorado Real Estate Leaders Podcast, brought to you by Trailstone Insurance Group, bringing you interviews with Colorado's best real estate and mortgage professionals, empowering you to understand the current trends in the housing market so you can make the American dream your reality. Enjoy today's episode. Well, it's a great day in Colorado, and welcome to the Colorado Real Estate Leaders podcast. Today we have with us Jared Larkin, who's an account executive with Chicago title. Jared, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me.

It is a beautiful day. It is, you know, like the day we're recording this, we had a bunch of rain, rain, rain, and then now here's the sun and it's like, please stay. So that is awesome. So it really is a great day in Colorado. So where's our 300 days of sun? Well, we knocked out a few of the rainy days recently. But yeah, it's just so spectacular to work in the mile high Denver metro area.

So I want to learn all about what you do with Chicago title because you are in both worlds of mortgage and real estate, you're serving both of those with your title services. So I want to find out all about what you do. But get us started with your story, what's your background, and how did you get into the title insurance business? Love it. Thank you. Yeah. So, hey, I've been, gosh, I've been doing this now since 2017, so about six years. Title insurance, that is. But before that, I've always been in the real estate space through my parents, both commercial real estate brokers. And before this, I was doing a lot of marketing. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I'm

I, it's, it's, it's, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, you should check out title insurance. I was looking for a job, and fast forward, here I am, and, uh, an incredible six years later, I've been with Chicago title. And, and really my day-to-day role is, is beyond obviously us being, a massive title company. I mean, we're owned by Fidelity National Financial, a Fortune 500 company. My main role is really to build relationships as an account executive with those real estate agents and lenders. And we get it, right? It's probably the same crossover in the insurance space, right? It's to be honest, it's a commoditized industry and you really have to bring value to the table. So my main role is to find ways to add value to mortgage professionals lives,

real estate professionals lives and help them grow their business and build relationships and end all, you know, earn their trust to send deals to Chicago title. Yeah, love it. So I know you do a lot of speaking, so I'm going to give you a pop quiz. And maybe you'll pass it, but if you don't pass it, you're going to get, you're going to get something to use in your next speech. That'll be amazing. Oh, there we go. So guess what? Jared, what is everyone's favorite radio station? Oh, my goodness. I have no idea. Good, good answer because it's a trick.

It's a trick question. And I learned it from Brian Tracy, that motivational speaker, and all the way back today. It's WIIFM. What's in it for me? And so when you are describing how you serve your real estate, mortgage, realtor professional clients and strategic alliances, you're having to go into there to go,

they're thinking what's in it for them? What's in it for me? That's what's in their mind. So you can't just walk in with your handout going, slip me a title insurance client and your next deal. You've got to be climbing the pump. You know, you've got to be giving and serving and providing results in advance and doing more than just order taking. So I want to kind of set that stage because I know that we want to talk a little bit about what sets you apart from any other title company. But, you know, kind of, you know, talk a little bit before we get into that.

you know, what is some of the things that you bring more than just taking orders? Sure, sure. No, and I completely agree, right? You know, for me, it's a really unique space. Like, like I said, my background's in marketing. And that's where it started. That's where it started was on the marketing side. Gosh, I, quick, quick story here.

There's this guy that I came across six years ago when I first jumped into this space. his great guy who shout out to him. Wade Vandermullen. He's with a company called Stewart Title down in D.C. And this guy, Wade kind of paved the road here on the idea. And if you go and look this guy up, he does the same thing that I've been doing here. He teaches marketing classes, social media video. And I pretty much realize, wow, that's what my passion is.

That's what I love to do. Maybe there's some real estate professionals here in the Denver area or just can call around in general that I can help with their business. So it just started out with me doing classes on video marketing, which then led to social media, which then led to, hey, here's how you run Facebook and Instagram ads for your business. Here's how you generate leads, farming. So it's branched into so many things, right? I think it's kind of one of those things where you just, you kind of just got to jump, throw yourself into something, right?

Especially when it comes to sales and just start trying things and just do what works, right? And see what the market wants. But you're totally right, right? Like you have to build relationships at the end of the day. My goal is to genuinely try to find ways to add value. I know it sounds super cheesy, but I fullheartedly believe it, right? Whether, you know, you want to relate it over to the gogiver or ninja selling. You know, Bob Berg.

It's so critical, exactly. And right? And then that leads into relationships to hopefully then earning their trust to bring over to the business. Yeah, Jared, I've seen some of your videos. and I'm really excited about them, but I don't know if our listeners know about them. Why don't you go through maybe two or three of your classes that you're doing and the highlights and, you know, give some tips or teasers for the folks to get them interested?

Yeah, it's kind of a mixed bag. So actually this morning I just taught a class downtown over at this incredible distillery called Mile High Spirits. And although it was 10 a.m., some people were drinking, no judgment. but what we love about the space, first of all, it's a great space. They do actually, if you do drink, they're an incredible distillery, but they were gracious enough to let me teach class there. We had a couple hundred real estate agents this morning, actually. And the hot topic right now here in Colorado is property taxes, property values. I don't know if you guys have real estate here, but holy cow.

Got it in the mail last week. Yeah, exactly, right? and, you know, we're seeing values go up 30, 40, 50, 50, even 60 percent, and everyone's getting sticker shock and they're getting worried. And actually, I taught a class for an hour this morning on understanding Colorado property values and how to protest your taxes and all the ends and outs of how to do that. And I'll be honest with that's, that's kind of an outlier of the things I do. Mostly, usually it's marketing and social media. And I show agents like how to run targeted social media campaigns to their sphere and their clients or if they're farming a neighborhood

like how to basically create this this omnipresence approach right to being both online but also in person to thus all really build their brand and get more deals right that's the goal um so it's a variety of classes um another random one you know i i i love to to travel my wife and i we spent about a year We're very, very fortunate back in 2015, 2016. We spent about a year traveling through Europe and Asia. And I don't want to get to the weeds here, but there's this concept. It's called credit card hacking. And I teach a class on how to do that.

So you can quickly rack up points in miles. So I'm a mixed bag, you guys. I'm kind of all over the place. You know, I just kind of really just try things, right? I feel like you have to do and see what sticks. A smorgas board of awesomeness. Thanks. So I'm curious, is there like a common concern amongst real estate agents and all?

Like being involved in social media, is there anything that you can kind of generalize there or you've seen? Well, you know, you get everyone right. You get some people who love social media, they hate it or they hate it and they feel like they need to do it. Right. And, you know, I'm a big believer in it. It's a big chunk of my business. right at the end of the day right we're we're in sales roles and you got to be doing enough activity i do you got to be doing enough activity and if one of those pillars of your activity is

social media i'm a big believer in video i still think there's huge opportunity to go live on video i don't know if you guys ever like uh get notifications so-and-so is going live on instagram you know um like feed into the algorithm in that sense with um going live and doing video and and and you know if If you ever want to run targeted ads, I think that's a huge leg up on how to get out there. So I'd say that and really just going for that. But really, also, too, on the reverse side of social media, if you hate posting, fine. You know, go out and be the biggest fan of all of your clients and all of your prospects and support them, right? And that's going to get recognized.

Yeah, some personalities don't like to be in the spotlight. So that's true. It's true. Good question. You know, I think that you mentioned marketing and target marketing. And I know that a lot of people make this mistake, which is, oh, you need real estate. I can do anything you need. So if you're a buyer, cool, seller, cool, investor cool. You want to buy commercial cool.

And you never get to be total, total, totally, totally professional expert in any one of those things. Do you advise your real estate agents that you work with to pick one? Not that you can ever turn down, you know, an investor. if you really want to focus on sellers or buyers. But how do you approach target marketing for making sure that they are positioning them the best? Right. Nitches and riches. Yeah, I totally agree.

And it's a good question. And I think the answer is absolutely is if you can hone in on, hey, I'm really good with first-time homebuyers, right? I'm really good with X, Y, and Z. Lean into that. Right. It's tough, though. Because the reverse side of the coin that you'll always get the argument from is I don't want miss opportunities, you know? I know. I hear that when I'm talking with more of the luxury

brokerages and those agents and, you know, they're pushing that they sell my multi-million dollar properties, but at the same time, you know, they, I've talked to agents where they're like, yeah, you know, one of my past clients didn't think that, you know, I would sell their house because it was under a million in value, right? You know, so I think it's all about your position yourself. And I agree. You got to niche in and you got to figure out who that is. And some, you know, some, some, some have figured it out and some kind of need that handholding. And I totally agree, though. You got to niche in.

Yep. At least for a specific marketing slash business development campaign, meaning maybe you're going to be focusing on that first time home buyer campaign in your email, your blog, your social media and all that. And you're going to talk all through that. But yet your website still shows, I serve clients who have needs such as or are you a. And so you could still make sure that people. know he do all things, but have a targeted campaign toward one leg. I think that's,

that's pretty huge. You know, you mentioned the word, I think you did commodity, or at least my mind heard the word commodity. And, you know, guess what? Tidal insurance, sometimes people could be like, oh, I need it, set it up, see you later, goodbye. So I spent way back in the day time in the mortgage industry. So I know the title insurance industry. And I know that the horror upon all horrors is oh my word there's a lean on title there's a there's a whatever i need an iLC so what do you guys do that you would give an example like a maybe a case study or an example like okay there's the plain jane vanilla cookie cutter you know we did the title we did the search here it is goodbye but let me tell you where we shine when this comes up we can help you solve and here's some examples

of that what do you what do you have to share that way yeah i'd say you don't know what you don't know when it comes to the real estate transaction and stuff and goes south, right? And that's where I think, you know, having the right title company is so critical. Gosh, it's crazy. You know, here in Colorado, I don't know if you know this, but you only need $10,000 to start a title company. And as much as I'm a big believer in supporting, you know, supporting small business and supporting local and all that, unfortunately on the title insurance side of things, I just, I don't agree with it. I think that's where you need to lean into a larger company who has those reserves and those, that team, right?

And all those people that are there so that when something does arise, you can handle it. Chicago title, another example, we're direct underwriters. We have a bit control, more control over, you know, our insurance policies. And I can just pick up the phone and call our title examiner. And you'd mentioned ILCs. That's a great one. We can sometimes have situations where we can remove things. So that's where I think where we can shine.

And I know this sounds really cheesy, but it's just true. It really does come down to the people, right? Like, I know it sounds cheesy, but it's true. It's people who genuinely care. They genuinely care. It's not just a job, right? It's not just another transaction. And they genuinely care about you and they want to help you.

They want to do a great job. They want to build a relationship with you. So if I were to sum it all up, it'd probably be something like that. Yeah, 100%. So with, technology and marketing, those two big buzzwords. Do you guys provide certain things or tools to help draw clients or leads or help amplify your real estate and mortgage professionals?

Yes. We've got a, oh my goodness, a whole collection of tools and resources that honestly, we just give away to the clients. I mean, our most popular tool is this resource. It's called Title Toolbox. And honestly, I just give it away. Like if anyone wants access to it that's listening to this, reach out to me, Jared Larkin, I will give you access to it. This tool can pull data on any type of property

within the United States of America, whether it's commercial, residential, contact information. You can pull homes most likely to sell. It's by far hands down, but our most popular and effective tool. And that's just honestly one of them. So yeah, we have these tools, and then I help real estate professionals leverage these tools to their best ability so that, you know, they can get more business. out of it. Because just having the tool sounds great, but you got to know what to do with it. It's true. The data is there, and I do believe there's so much power in data, especially now, right? We're in 2023. Holy cow. One is just having access to really good data, but then two is knowing how to

leverage that data to your advantage above your competition in order to stand out in your field. Yeah. Jared, you had mentioned a couple of times the classes that you do in teaching in the training. If somebody's listening to this, what's the cost for them? I'm throwing you a softball here. F-R-E-free. I just want to make sure everybody knows that out there because, you know, I don't want somebody resisting giving you a call or whatever. I'm thinking there's no catch.

There's no hard sales pitch. There's no, you don't have to buy something. It's, hey, I hope this is helpful. Hey, if you want to learn more, if you want to chat, you know, what's book a one-on-one. If not, all good. I hope this helps you with your business. I guess that stroke ever.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So we'll teach some classes for you for free. We'll give you some tools for free. We'll teach you how to use the tools to get new business to make you money. And then we'll do a great job with some title insurance because we're the biggest, baddest, oldest, and we'll help you overcome hurdles. Where's the flying the ointment there, my friend?

Sounds pretty good to me. Yeah, right. Where do I sign? No, but for real, I mean, I think that's when in the world. that we're in now where everything is at our fingertips, you've got to find a way to bring so much extra value. And then the, oh, by the way, is the thing. You know, like I think it was Bob Berry that talked about the McGuffin. You don't want to sell the Macuffin. You want to sell the things all around it, which is like, oh, yeah, yeah, title insurance, we do that awesome. But let me tell you what I really do.

I help you succeed by and I teach you this. And of course, we do talent and search wonderfully. And we're going to overcome and make you look awesome and make it seamless and easy. That's the way you have to do it. And that's exactly what I'm hearing you do. Thank you. That's the goal. Yes. And I think if we had a microphone, we could just drop it right there. So that being said, Jared, if someone is listening to this going, I want a little piece of that, you know, awesomeness, that smorgasbord of awesomeness we just coined for you so you can take that and run with it. What's the best way that they can learn more and reach out and connect with you? Yeah, you can visit my website, www.

You know, mile high title guy.com M-I-L-E-H-I-G-L-E-H-I-R-E-H-I-T-L-E-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-N-E-Y-E-Y-Y-E-Y-L-E-L-E-H-E-E-Y-R-E-E-Y-L-A-G-R-E-W-E-C-E-E-R-E-Y-E-L-A-R-E-A-R-L-E-R-A-Y. You can follow me on Instagram. My name is spelt-F-F-F-E-E-R-E-E-R-A-D. L-A-R-K-I-N-Jarid. And you can follow me there and feel free to reach out. Awesome.

Well, Jared, it has been a real pleasure talking with you. Thank you for coming on and appreciate you for having me. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Colorado Real Estate Leaders podcast, brought to you by Trailstone Insurance Group. To learn more about the topics mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.com.