[00:00:06] Viktoriia Miracle: Hello. Hello and welcome to happy time happy money podcast today. We have my dear guests, Devon Melanson, licensed mortgage agent based out of Ontario, Canada, values, transparency and education over sales. Love it. Welcome.

[00:00:28] Devon Melanson: Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to do this with you.

[00:00:33] Viktoriia Miracle: We are so excited to hear how it is like transparency, education over sales.

[00:00:38] I feel like we all get really tired of sales and this, I love the education over sales. So tell us more about how you started on that and what inspired you to do what you're doing right now?

[00:00:51] Devon Melanson: Sure. So basically I went to school for law not the kind of law where I would be a lawyer, but in order to become like a police officer or a border officer or something like that, I really enjoyed it.

[00:01:06] It was a lot of fun, but once I started getting into the field, I kind of realized that it wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Not only that, but the money was not happy money, as you might say. It wasn't worth my time, in my opinion, for what I was making in how hard I was working.

[00:01:25] And so I started to kind of look at other roles and different positions, still within the same industry and the same thing. I, I wasn't really content. So I decided to go outside of my comfort zone and look at real estate. I was going to go and be actually a real estate agent. I took the course, everything like that realized that it wasn't for me.

[00:01:50] But I really like finances. So the, the best next step towards that was to go into mortgages and that's pretty much how I got here. Long story short.

[00:02:02] Viktoriia Miracle: Love it. Well awesome. It's like always, we go into something to find that something we love and to find our passion. So how many more about like, what is your ultimate goal with the mortgage industry?

[00:02:18] Devon Melanson: Sure. And this kind of ties back to, I guess, your, your last question. So me being young and same with you, obviously, we are at a disadvantage when it comes to purchasing and owning real estate compared to the generations before us. You're in LA you're in a brutal market, just like we are here in Ontario.

[00:02:39] And so it's very difficult for young first time home buyers to actually get into real estate, unless they're making a lot of money or if they have help from family and stuff like that. So a big reason of, of me getting into it was because I wanted to see if there was a way that I could simplify things and actually educate the people around me.

[00:03:01] You know, our generation into homeownership and you know, how it can actually be a possibility to own a home and stuff like that. And so my ultimate goal and the reason why I always pitch transparency and education is just to really show people that it's possible to own real estate as a young individual or even, you know, first time home buyers were a little bit older who feel discouraged because of their situation.

[00:03:30] I'd like to show those people that they still have the possibility of actually owning real estate.

[00:03:37] Viktoriia Miracle: Hm. So tell me, what is the number one mistake that people make when they are starting doing real estate or mortgages?

[00:03:49] Devon Melanson: Yeah. So do you mean more, so it starting into the career? Yeah. So I would say being too salesy. So a lot of agents just to give you some background.

[00:04:01] So the turnover in mortgages is 95%. So that means that 95% of mortgage agents will not renew their license for their second year. This is obviously a massive turnover and I think the reason of that is because a lot of people think that the money is really good and that's what grabs them. So they come into the career or the industry hoping they're just going to start killing it, making a ton of money right off the bat.

[00:04:31] That's not the case, people don't know you. They're not going to trust you with the biggest transaction of their life, if you're brand new and that only magnifies more if you're being salesy and you're being too pushy, if you're just messaging people and saying, Hey, do you want to buy a house? Chances are, they're not going to want to work with you.

[00:04:50] Right. So I would say that's the number one issue and kind of the number one problem with a lot of newbies who come in. So you have to make sure that you're being very honest and transparent and that's how you actually do well in this industry.

[00:05:07] Viktoriia Miracle: Hmm. I love it. So you mentioned social media there. So are you doing your marketing on social media?

[00:05:15] Devon Melanson: Online marketing?

[00:05:16] Viktoriia Miracle: So how, why your values for social media over the other things?

[00:05:22] Devon Melanson: Yeah, that's a good question. So I value social media because I feel like a lot of my niche and a lot of the people that I'm looking to help also use social media. funny enough, I hate social media in my personal life. I don't like to use it at all other than maybe to look at like Facebook marketplace listings.

[00:05:41] But when it comes to business, I think it's really important to have a social media presence at this kind of in this generation. And, you know, with millennials, gen Z and stuff like that, they really value social media. It's just kind of, the percentage is way up there, right. So if you can reach, let's say a few thousand people every day, but just putting out a post, as you would know, it's a lot easier to do that than to try and pick up the phone and call that same amount of people every day.

[00:06:10] Plus you'll get yelled at and sworn out if you do that rather than just posting. So yeah, I really think that social media is important for sure.

[00:06:19] Viktoriia Miracle: Have you done that calling and we would do cold calling?

[00:06:22] Devon Melanson: I still do it all the time.

[00:06:24] Viktoriia Miracle: Oh my god, this I've never done it. I think that'll be great stretch, but

[00:06:30] Devon Melanson: it's a, yeah, it's pretty stressful and what I've found is that, like I said to, to reach that many people every day or every week, every year, it's so much easier to do through social media. If someone follows you, they're going to see your posts, but if you're picking up the phone and you're bothering people who don't actually want to hear from you, even if you think they might want to, you get, you get some pretty interesting responses so.

[00:06:56] Viktoriia Miracle: Awesome. I love it. So how do, how to make it in this industry. If you're saying people are not going to trust you when you brand new and that's right people don't even renew their license, like 95%.

[00:07:08] Devon Melanson: Yeah. So the best way to really make it as to just keep going. So a lot of people, their first few transactions will be with family.

[00:07:17] So let's say, you know, they'll do like a refinance or help their cousin with a purchase or help a sibling or something like that. I personally, all my family is actually many hours away from me, so I couldn't do that. But in my case, all I did is that every day when I woke up, I set out with a goal that I was just going to keep pushing.

[00:07:39] So I went three months without making a cent at all, not closing any transactions. When I first started, the average in the industry is to go, I think, eight months without doing any transactions. You have the potential to not make money, but if you just keep pushing, keep waking up, keep striving for success, telling yourself you're going to make it no matter what it sounds cheesy, but you know, that's really what you have to do. Just be strong and keep going.

[00:08:09] Viktoriia Miracle: It's like my other desks, we were speaking about MLM and he said there, like so cheesy, you just got to keep going, keep going, do the sell development and look guys, it's not about MLM where you think it's everywhere in life and that's where MLM got such a bad industry you hate because they're pushing you, but it's, it's so great because then if you don't push you not succeeding, you know, mortgage agent, you won't succeed either. So I love it. It's kind of goes into my next question. I think you already answered this. The advice is just keep going.

[00:08:44] Yeah. My last question that I always ask and it's more so fill in the blank question, fill in with the blank, and the sentence for me, if you really knew me, you will know that I am blank.

[00:08:59] Devon Melanson: Too honest. Honest, too honest for sure. A lot of my friends know I'm pretty blunt. I don't hold anything back and at times I can get me in trouble, but at the same time in business, I think it's very important, ties into the whole thing about being transparent.

[00:09:18] I don't want to string somebody along and waste their time. So if I'm honest with them and you know, you're honest with me, I think we'll have a lot better for relationship.

[00:09:28] Viktoriia Miracle: Awesome. Too be true answer, I'm kidding. All right. Well, tell us more about what you're sharing. I know you sharing with us today something amazing and where what's the best social media where they can find you?

[00:09:44] Devon Melanson: Yeah, definitely. So I would say Instagram is the best way to find me. I'm active on other social media platforms, but Instagram gets the best of the best. So if you search up my username, it is at Melanson, my last name and then mortgages, pretty simple. And there you'll see everything that I do. I go live on Instagram.

[00:10:05] Usually once a week, I've been slowing down with it a little bit just because of getting busier, but I do a lot of stuff to make sure that, I'm really facing the community and trying to help everywhere I can.

[00:10:17] Viktoriia Miracle: Beautiful. Thank you and if you will listen, thank you for watching and listening to this episode.

[00:10:22] And if you scroll down, you will see the link that will take you to our page. Where in show notes, you will see all the links that we mentioned here and all the social media you can find Devon and me. Well, thank you so much for coming on. And if you liked this episode, please leave us a review or send a message to Devon or me share your insight and we would love to hear from you. Thank you for coming on/

[00:10:49] Devon Melanson: Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

[00:10:52] Viktoriia Miracle: See you tomorrow. Bye.