Authentic Branding in Real Estate: Insights from Denise Donoghue, the Mortgage Nerd

Host 00:00

I came from a place where we had no money. It's just one of the truest things I've ever heard of in inexperienced and live. We're all a bunch of humans trying to do the best that we can. If you don't have proof that what you do works, like nobody's gonna want to talk to you. You have to have proof.

Host2 00:13

My whole goal is to help families make smarter financial decisions.

Host 00:17

You can be a human being in the age of AI, you're gonna win big.

Host2 00:21

The more I share about how you can overcome financial hardships, emotional traumas, broken families, whatever the case is, as long as you choose to.

Host 00:32

What's up, everybody? Grantwise. Welcome back to the Partner and Profit podcast, the show where we teach you how to turn your relationships into revenue. And I have just the person to teach us today. Somebody I've had the genuine pleasure of working with for, I think, for a year, or maybe a year and a half, maybe close to two. It's been a minute. Somebody that I've watched build an unbelievably successful business in multiple categories and uh has done so in a very unique way. I'm excited to unpack this today. And we've got Mrs. Denise Donahue, aka the mortgage nerd. Denise, what's up?

Host1 01:04

I am so glad we are doing this. I I'm actually thinking, has it been a year and a half, two years? I don't know. Yeah, I know. I don't know exactly how long it's. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad to be here.

Host 01:13

That's awesome. Okay, so for people that maybe don't know much about you, give us a little bit of the backstory. How did you get to where you are today?

Host2 01:19

Yes, I go by the mortgage nerd. That is not a catchy personal branding thing, you know, that we hear of today. It's because I truly am a nerd. And I started as a nerd because growing up in high school, um, my parents got divorced when I was in second grade. My dad was the sole custody of all kids. He inherited quite a bit of money. And then what happens when people inherit money or they win the lottery, and they've never been taught how to manage money, is they spend it all. And so we went from in middle school having all kinds of money to in high school having no money. And long story short, when I was a senior in high school, I came home and all of our belongings were on the front yard. And I didn't even know what a foreclosure was in high school. I didn't know that the bank could like take your own home away, right? So it was at that moment that I just I felt, I mean, first I was angry and I was then scared and embarrassed. And so I realized at that point that I had a decision to make. I could either follow in the footsteps of my parents who just always mismanaged money, they ruined their credit. My dad had been in that home for 26 years. So, like a 30-year mortgage, he had four years left on it, and he lost it. He lost all the equity. And so I just I made the decision at that point. I never want myself or my future family to ever feel that kind of pain or embarrassment. And so I was gonna do everything I could to learn how to be the opposite of that. And so I went to college, and I would love to say that Texas AM taught me everything I needed to know about finance, but um, that's not true. I I probably learned more starting my eBay business, which is how I paid for my college, selling Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars jerseys, and I really learned the hustle of money, and then I wanted to learn how to compound it. And so in my college, and then when I graduated, I became a financial advisor. I associated money at the time with safety and security. And I wound up in the mortgage space because when I was a financial advisor, what's interesting is you work with people who already have money. And not that I don't love working with people who have money, but I found myself more drawn to people who didn't have money or thought that they didn't have enough money to quote, be worthy enough to talk to a financial advisor. And what's really interesting in the mortgage space is when you take a mortgage application for a family, you see everything, you see them completely vulnerable, more than even a financial advisor does, because you see their credit, you see their credit history, you see their income, you see their employment, you see it all. And so I just found where my true passion and heart was even though you're coming to me for a mortgage and you want to just get pre-approved and you want to know how much home you can buy, I will give that to you. But in true nerd fashion, I'm going to look at the Rubik's Cube and say, hey, maybe we don't put 20% down, maybe we put 10% down and we pay off your credit card debt. And so my whole goal is to help families make smarter financial decisions. It just happens to be through real estate. And that's truly why I go by the mortgage nerd, because if you follow me at all, I am literally studying mortgage, studying finance, reading the psychology of humans. I am up on the treadmill and you could be listening to rap music, but instead I'm listening to, you know, people that are helping me be better. And so that's why, you know, I feel like nerds obsess over things. So um I obsess with getting better and helping the families I talk to get better.

Host 04:51

That is amazing. I could say now I've obviously worked with you for a couple of years. I still did not know that story about how you kind of like got the motivation for this. That's pretty cool. I would say that's not actually very cool that that stinks, but it's cool that you obviously took the took the experience and decided to do something different with your life.

Host2 05:06

You know, I used to not talk about it. I was so shameful. You know, in high school, I hid it for so long. I didn't want my friends to know. I I went to a school where there was there was uh uh people who had money and people who didn't. And I was on the tracks that didn't have money. And so I learned at an early age how to disguise things that were going on at home and to show up. And I think a lot of us do that. We put this mask on, even through social media as we portray a certain image. But when I really started digging deep and people started asking me, why do you do what you do? I it took me a minute to get there and then even be open enough to talk about it because for so much of my life I hid it because I was embarrassed. And and now I've I'm just I share it with everybody because hey, if I can do it, and if I came from a place where we had no money, we didn't even have food on the table at one point. Like if I can climb out of that, really anybody can.

Host 05:57

So that's incredible. So you're known on Instagram as the mortgage nerd. So it's at the mortgage nerd. If you're listening to this, you should go follow her because her content's amazing. One of the things that I've really admired about you is like you took 10 years to really build a brand and build uh a following of people that uh that really do love you, they listen to what you say, they they're paying attention, they're interacting, they're engaged. And so I I guess the question I have come to this is like, how do you uh develop a relationship with so many people at one time? Because you seem to have your your finger on the pulse of a lot of things. Uh and again, I have intimate knowledge of just like how the audience responds and reacts to you if we've worked together on a number of webinars and launches and stuff like that. But how do you develop a relationship with so many people at one time?

Host2 06:40

You know, I think it starts with just being real and raw and authentic to who you are. You know, I started on social media before people started using it for business. You know, it was like I remember doing hosting conferences of you can use Facebook as a tool or as a toy. I just decided to use it as a tool before anybody else was. And my approach has always been from the motive of helping any and anybody learn something. It was never it from a motive of look at me and let me get followers and let me transact. It truly was if I can help somebody in Pennsylvania who happened to watch this video learn that you can remove your MI without having to refinance. I have literally nothing to gain from that financially. But my motive has always been to teach and help as many families as I can. And I think, especially when you fast forward to where we are today in a society where, you know, nowadays it's like we don't even know if that picture is a real picture or if that was an AI-generated picture. You know, I think we're we're getting into a world of too much artificial is turning the audience off. I think as women, just speaking honestly, because that's how I roll, I think if every post you just you look picture perfect and your makeup's perfect and your hair's perfect, and and you betray this perfection, it's kind of hard for people to relate to that because you know what, you might get wake up and spill coffee on you or your kid puke all over you. And and so I've just always stayed true to the motive of being relatable. I mean, going by the mortgage nerd is in part so that people could feel open to talk to me about things that are so personal, like finance stuff. I don't, I don't want it to be intimidating. I want you to feel like you know me. So to do that means being vulnerable and showing all sides. Like I washed um Carter's my eight-year-old son, and I bought these pottery barn sheets that were Marvel. And if you know anything about pottery barn, that means you way overpaid for them. But I mean, it was the adventures. Like, how as a mom could you not do that? And so I bought these sheets, and then of course, I washed them with his pants that happened to have a green crayon in them. And so now my pottery barn sheets that I was so proud of that also glue in the dark, were ruined why by wax all over the place. And I just like I take a video of that and I'm like total mom fail. I ruined these pottery barn sheets. I'm like, I can salvage this, right? And so it's not just business, it's knowing your audience, knowing what their pains are, knowing what their pleasures are, and just relating to them. And then, like Grant has taught me, it's not just about posting, it's also commenting and engaging. Like you think of it as a storefront. If somebody walked into your store and you just never acknowledge them, like how does that land on them? So it's not just about posting and the vanity metrics of the likes and the shares and the if your motive is truly to connect and inspire and educate, and then you would respond and you would comment and you would DM. I don't outsource any of that. I do it all because my motive is pure. It's not a look at me motive. It's truly from the heart of if I can teach you something, even if it's check the pockets before you wash your pottery barn sheets, that's what I'm here for, you know.

Host 10:03

That's fine. How do you get to discover when you have a relationship going one to many? You know, you have 30, 40,000 followers. When you have a relationship one to many, I get, you know, give or be vulnerable or or authentic or or and authentic and and mix it up. It doesn't need to be all business, you know, get some of the personal stuff in there. But you said something about like identifying people's or or helping to do their pain points and the things that they're trying to accomplish. How do you get to discover that stuff when you don't have you know you you you've got a relationship with 40,000 people at one time?

Host2 10:37

You know, the truth is it's in my everyday conversations with clients that I have or real estate agents that I have or and I'm just listening, or I'm listening, I'm social media listening where I'm seeing what people are talking about or what current events, or I'm researching. I I consume a lot to listen to hear what are the biggest obstacles right now of people buying a home. Is it affordability, or is that just the narrative that society wants us to believe? Because I I am a big believer in researching both sides, because there is, I always say, you look what you are searching for is what you can get. So an exercise I like to do is if I told you to look around your the room right now and I said, look at look around your room that you're in right now. So if you're listening, look around and tell me everything that you see that's red. Spend 60 seconds. And they look around and then you stop and you're like, okay, now tell me, Grant, what you saw that was yellow. And you're like, I don't know. I was looking for red. I was and so sometimes we're looking for red, right? Like in our relationships with data, with our prompts into chat. And so that is a really long-winded way of saying I spend a lot of time listening and researching and seeing what is in the obstacles of people. And I so listening is in part of what people are DMing me or what they're emailing me or what they're texting me, because I always invite them to start a conversation with me. And so it's just listening.

Host 12:02

I love it. When when you think about posting content and just being authentic, being vulnerable, you know, we started this, you said you know you didn't used to talk about kind of what you went through out of shame. Was there ever a period of time where you're like, man, I don't really want to post about this because I don't want people to view me this way? Like, did you did you have some of that stuff that you kind of had to get through?

Host2 12:20

All the time. I mean, you know, growing up, my my parents got divorced when I was in second grade, and my dad was a very abusive man. He's a military man, but he got custody of us because the the judge said that my mom was not fit to raise children. And so this was I'm 42 now. This was a long time ago. Mental illnesses were so frowned upon and so shamed about. Well, my mom couldn't take the shame being in our neighborhood, so she left and moved to Florida, and we were left to be raised. My twin sister and my older sister and I were left to be raised by my dad, who was an abusive monster. And so, for a lot of my upbringing, I had abandonment issues. My mom left, and then my dad actually ended up leaving when we were 20. He moved to the Philippines, that's a whole nother podcast. But to say that I had this finance struggle, the shame of us losing our house, watching my dad's identity with money, because remember, he inherited that money when we were in middle school, and I saw what his life looked like with money. And then when he started running out of money, I saw what he valued himself, what his identity was for himself, and how deteriorating it was to see that and witness it. It was it was painful actually to watch. And so I struggled in my 20s a lot of just, you know, mental stuff that would come up, abandonment issues that would come up, not being able to trust people very well because of all the stuff. Like we all have stuff, you know. So when people see me today, they're like, oh, it's easy for her. And I'm like, no, I've gone through a lot and I've had to overcome a lot to get to that point. But the truth is, is we all have stuff. Like you have stuff, I have stuff. I've learned that there's no perfect family, even though I think my family's a little bit nutty. But we all have stuff, and it's just how do you grow through that? And how do you talk about it in a healthy way and embrace it in a healthy way, and then realize that we're all we're all a bunch of humans trying to do the best that we can with what we have. And so, again, I've truly felt like for a very long period of time, had my dad had people in his life that knew about finance or that could maybe help steer him in a better decision, then he may have not lost the house. I I truly hold on to that. And so I think about that with my audience, with my clients, is is if you feel like you're you don't have somebody in your life that can teach you about finance, the compound interest, the opportunity cost of no, I'm not a believer in paying your house off, put 20% down and invest because I can show you how to make your money work smarter and not harder. But we don't have people in our life that that teach us that. We typically learn from our family. But then we don't talk about it at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Like we don't talk about money stuff. It's almost like we've been raised to not talk about it. So I've just learned that the more I share about how you can overcome financial hardships, emotional traumas, broken families, whatever the case is, you can overcome it as long as you choose to, quite frankly. Or you can I, you know, keep it holding you back. But it takes mental work, it takes professional development. I saw that you had Dustin Running on not too long ago, and it's like I listen to his stuff all the time about your business self is only gonna grow as much as your personal self. And I like wholeheartedly believe that because it's true.

Host 15:38

Yeah, I said that on the on the interview with him is the quote, the one of the truest quotes I've ever heard that I never wanted to be true was about entrepreneurship. It was first you build yourself and then you build a business. Like it's just one of the truest things I've ever heard, and and experience and live. And um it sounds like to me what you're saying is you know, you just kind of have a purpose that's bigger than being afraid of the camera or being afraid to put yourself out there because you don't want people to have to go through whatever it was that you would experience. Is that kind of about what what it is?

Host2 16:09

Yeah, I mean, trust me, there are days where I'm just like all of you guys, I don't want to get up and shoot content or create content because I still do it myself. Ask for it. He he sometimes gets on to me, but I'm I'm still I'm on the treadmill in my canva, you know, and I'm but when the motive is bigger, when the passion is bigger, and I I think that's the number one thing that I would advise anybody that's listening to this right now, is the brain loves to stay in a vague state of why we do what we do. It's almost like a form of avoidance, but the clearer you can get on your why, not just like my why is to provide for my family, it's gotta be bigger and deeper than that. And and when the why and the passion is so grand, then you will get up and do it. You know, it's just like any professional athlete. I'm sure there were days Tom Brady didn't want to go out and practice or Kobe Bryant didn't want to do two-a-days, and but his motive was to be the best. And so when you're when that is at the front of your mind, and I think about well, what would happen if I didn't? Truthfully, the fear of me staying the same is worse than me growing and succeeding. And that's what drives me is like I think people are afraid to fail, people are afraid of success, and I think very few are afraid of staying the same. And I think that is ultimately the biggest driver is like I I don't want to be who I was yesterday. I want to be one degree better than who I was yesterday, as a human, whether that's personally, professionally, as a mom, as a wife, as a sister, just one notch better, and then I feel fulfilled.

Host 17:38

That's so good. We talk about turning our relationships into revenue. So walk me through your process. How do you take a social following? Uh-huh. And then what's the process to turning those relationships into business? Obviously, you're very successful in the mortgage business, you have a very successful coaching company. So what what is your strategy there? I know that you've really partnered with real estate agents for most of uh your mortgage career, but just kind of walk us through that. How do you think of a social connection and then turn that into a real connection that is actually one that you're making money from?

Host2 18:08

I think it starts with credit, especially in 2026. I think that if you have credibility, um, because nowadays people can get online and say that they're the number one real estate agent in Texas, but are you or are are we just allowed to say that nowadays? So I think that the credibility is what gives me so much trust with the audience. It's like I have a playbook for loan officers. I have proof that, you know, I got into this business in 2012 and now I'm closing over 200 million. I'm not a slave to the business. I'm home for dinner every night. It can happen, and you can still have a very intimate relationship with your clients and have a team that helps you grow and scale. You can have both. And because I have a 10-year track record of it that can be fact-checked online with my numbers, it's like, okay, she's not just one of those posers on social media that says this and that. I can go fact-check it. And then you have the, I always say people make decisions with their heart and their mind. So it's like, okay, you've got the track record, you've got the credibility, but do they like me? You know, because you have that no, like, and trust factor. And so if something that I did in my business world didn't match how I showed up online, then the intuition would be like something doesn't match. And the gut says no, you know. And so I think first and foremost is you have to have the credibility and the results that definitely helps. And then growing the trust is just, you know, do we share the same values? Do we I I might not appeal to somebody that has different values than me, and I'm okay with that. But showing them here's the playbook. So I started visually showing people more behind the curtain of how to grow and scale a mortgage business and still be a mom and a wife and be home for dinner. And so to do that, you have to give examples online. And then I created a mortgage coaching company that says, here's my exact playbook, literally word for word, you can swipe and adapt and use it all as your own, go for it, you know. But I think the credibility and the numbers behind it helps, and then of course, from my mortgage practice standpoint, if I say that part of what makes the mortgage nerd group unique is that it's not about just getting you pre-approved, it's not about just getting you to the closing table for your new beautiful home. What's most important is what your lender does for you after closing. We enroll every client in our rate watch program. We're gonna watch your rate, your equity, your mortgage insurance, all of those things. But if I didn't have any social proof of that happening, then I might sound like every other loan officer who says they do that, but there's no proof. And so now when someone writes a Google review, like you could go check them out, and it's like, oh, Denise just saved me $290 a month by dropping my rate. Now I'm visually showing that on the channels. That's like, no, I'm about the proof. I don't just say it, I do it because I've designed a process and we're committed to it. So I think showing the proof and the credibility and doing it in a way that doesn't feel thick, but doing it in a way of like, hey, we just helped this person save $290 a month. We might be able to help you do the same. If you're interested, let me know. It's not pushy sales-y, it's like if you didn't think you could buy a home with 0% down with a 580 FICO score, we got you. We just helped a first-time home buyer do it. We can do it for you too. You know, it's that kind of messaging.

Host 21:27

Does that kind of like naturally just start conversations? People engage with you socially. Is that kind of what happens?

Host2 21:32

Every time, especially the story sharing approach of, you know, we just helped this self-employed borrower who wrote off all their all their income, what which is what a lot of self employed people do. We just close on a loan for them with a great rate and we didn't need any tax returns. If this was something that you thought, if your bank told you no, I'd love, I'd love to chat more with you about it. But absolutely, but it's proof, right? It's social proof that yes, and then they message you of. And here's what's interesting, Grant, is I will get, of course, when we go back to the vanit vanity side of things, if I post about the bed sheets, or if I post, are you team crunchy peanut butter or team creamy? And I'll put like the two jars. And I will get a bazillion messages on those. But then this morning I posted a graphic of our uh doctor's loan program. It's a program specifically for doctors. I will not get very many likes and shares, but I've gotten three leads off of that. And so from a vanity standpoint, we might think that wasn't a high-producing post. But that's why you always have to measure and measure what's actually important. I had three real estate agents reach out to me saying, I want to know more. I have a niche market in the healthcare. I'm like, great, let's connect. So I'm always great, let's connect. Let's hop on a Zoom for 15 minutes. I'll give you all the details. I'm not gonna email you. I'm not gonna text it to you. I want to get eyeball to eyeball because now I'm gonna build trust while I'm on that call. So the strategy behind everything, what they asked for was email me some information. Hey, no problem. There's a lot of stuff to unpack. I need about five, 10 minutes. Is it ever five, 10 minutes? Absolutely not. But I'm gonna capture them. So I've designed how I want to do business. I've designed how I want to build trust. Just because someone asked for it doesn't mean you have to deliver it in that way. And I can make a bigger impact if we hop on a call and talk through it. Don't just fall. I mean, if I wanted more views, I would do things like now I switch it up so it's interesting. No one mortgage is not very sexy. Like it's not sexy content. But saying, Are you team crunchy or team peanut butter? Believe it or not, I'll have people make a sandwich a week later and they're like, they take a picture of it and they text me. And they're like, I thought about you. I talked, I did a post about um Jeremy what's his, I think it's Jeremy Plummer, but I I was under the assumption that because it was beaten in my head that if you put gas in your car and you leave your car on while putting gas in your car, your car's gonna explode and you will die. And that's how it ends for you. That's what I was told my whole life. And so I post it and I had so many comments, and to this day, it's been like four months. I will still have random people like another gas tank filler up survival just wanted to let you know. And I'm like, this makes me feel so much better about life. It so it's you've got to mix it up for some humor, real life stuff, throw in some mortgage stuff for the people who might be interested. And that's relating to your audience. It's being a human, it's no different than any other sales of people want to do business with who they know, like, and trust. So show up that way on your social and you can convert these likes and followers into relationships.

Host 24:38

First of all, if you're listening to the podcast right now, I want you to message us on you know Instagram and let us know if it's crunchy peanut butter or creamy peanut creamy peanut butter. I'm I'm team creamy. I don't like crunchy peanut butter, I think it's really gross.

Host2 24:52

Oh my gosh. I am team, I'll admit, I'm a team crunchy like peanut butter and jelly. I want the crunch, so I'm team crunchy.

Host 25:00

Yeah, no way, no way, I can't do that. Um, and then and then do you leave your car on while you pump gas or do you turn it off? I actually always leave my car on. I've never I've never ever worked.

Host2 25:11

You didn't think you were gonna die. The car immediately, like in my mind, I'm like, the car immediately explodes. I turn into like a disgusting just mess everywhere, literally until a few months ago. And you know, it's it was cold. So I'm like, I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna keep my car on. I walked away, and I'm telling you, it's a game changer for anybody listening. I I just changed your world. You can turn your car on and not blow up.

Host 25:37

I just I literally I never turned my car off ever, ever, ever. When I was younger, like I had heard that, and then obviously I like didn't turn my truck off once and put gas in. I was like, what is everybody so freaking out about? Now I wouldn't recommend like smoking next to the gas station, like I see some people do. That sounds that seems really stupid. But uh I've never really worried about blowing up, thankfully. I'm glad you've been able to get over this fear yourself.

Host1 26:02

It's it's officially over.

Host 26:03

I feel so adulting right now. Let's go. Okay. I love what you said. I think that you know, Harvard did a study uh years ago on the 13 critical elements of persuasion and social proof, reviews, testimonials. That is one of the key elements of persuasion. So when you're constantly sharing content, especially today, if you don't have proof that what you do works, like nobody's gonna want to talk to you. And I say that all the time. You have to have uh proof, and I think that's probably one of the most important things. I I was inactive on social media for a couple of years while I was building comarketing.com. And when I started to get more active, uh the only thing that I would post was screenshots of other people winning. And then I would people would be like, Oh, you're crushing it on social. I'm like, oh, talking, I'm just sharing screenshots from my Slack account. Like, uh but it was it was irrefutable proof that what we were doing worked. And that is really what is the most important to people. So I I would agree, like, if you can be a human being in the age of AI, you're gonna win big because everybody else is trying to figure out how to like stop creating content and like let automation or AI do it. And so if you can just be a human being and put stuff out there, it's a lot of work. But it's like you're earproof. You know, you can build multiple seven-figure businesses just talking to people on social media every day. And um, I think it's really powerful. So I really appreciate you spending some time with me. I want to respect your time. For everybody that's listening to the podcast, what is the number one way that we can partner with you, support you? What can we help you grow right now?

Host2 27:31

You know, if you know anybody that is in the mortgage space, whether they're a mortgage officer and they're looking to grow and scale their team, or if you're a real estate agent looking to partner with myself, we're nationwide. Um, I would just encourage you to chat with me. You can go to mortgage, um yeah, mortgagenerd.ai forward slash ask, and we can start a chat there, and then we can schedule a discovery consult. But yeah, anybody that's in the mortgage space looking to grow a scale, think of mortgageneerd.ai forward slash ask.

Host 28:05

Love it. We'll we'll make sure that we link that up in the show notes. And if you guys are listening to this and you know anybody in the mortgage space, I highly recommend that you connect in with Denise. I've worked with her for a couple of years, and she is phenomenal, has an amazing business herself. Like I said, I've had an intimate front row seat to the impact that she's having through our coaching company. So I highly recommend that you reach out and connect with her that way. Denise, thank you a ton. I know it took us a minute to get on the podcast, but I'm glad that we finally got here and this conversation was awesome. Yes, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Host1 28:33

Yeah, yeah.

Host 28:34

All right, thank you all for continuing to listen to the Partner Profit podcast. We'll see you on the next episode. Peace.