Ladies and gentlemen welcome back to another Essent Humina of your host, Alvaro and today we're gonna have with us Margaret Etedky. She's a mortgage lender, educator, and luxury travel expert who is gonna be telling us how she's been leveraging social media to make the mortgage industry fun, entertaining and also the different traveling hacks that she's been using to be traveling all over the world. She's amazing, she's a good friend and can't wait to share her story with you so let's get her in. Hello, I'm your queen, the queen.
Everything is good. I touched down in Miami just a few days ago. It's nice to be back. I'm here in the office which is a rare sighting for me but it's important once in a while to come to the office and to get grounded, it feels nice.
100% and I love it because everywhere that we meet it's some very different and you are one of these individuals that is really finding the way that the mortgage industry is looked at. Because you are this person that's traveling all over the world, massing all these great followers on social media and not only inspiring but also educating and helping people to get their mortgages. So tell us a little bit about who Margaret is and how important it is that you're disrupting this industry like that. Yeah, definitely.
So I work for a specialty boutique brokerage called The Triangle Companies. I'm the general manager of the mortgage department's financial triangle and our company has always been on the forefront of what we call non-traditional type of mortgages. It's an angle that 31 years ago my broker who is my father came here as a foreigner and it really saw that there was a need for financing for foreigners that were either coming to invest or that were coming to build or buy a second home or even just move here to the States. So globalization and thinking globally was something that has been enlisted in my mentality from the very beginning.
So traveling for me is very important not only to see how other people and other places in the world look like in terms of what our industry is like but to really physically vocalize the message to help them understand all the benefits of financing overseas. So really over the last I would say three years or so is really when I started to kick it up when it comes to creating content and building a community online to educate them, to inspire them and to show them really what it means to be a mortgage broker I think over the last few years we've had some incredible shows about real estate agents and just what it's like to be in the real estate industry. But I didn't see anything for the mortgage industry and so even for me when I joined many years ago I was 21 I didn't understand what I was doing where my angle was going to be how I was going to be different and really just infusing everything I love and my personality and making sure that everything that I create everything I do is organic. That's really where I found an extreme amount of success whether it's developing really good relationships with agents like yourself, agents around the world who have clients that are looking to invest in other places.
So it's been very important to really bring that combination of the new age way of doing things which is social media and still the old ways which is traveling doing presentations and all of the other things that kind of come into play. You're somebody that is going on traveling around the world and still doing this consistently so how do you find that balance? You know it's really just about staying organized I think before my method was a little bit more chaotic it was just like whenever I had time I would film I would post but now because after a while once you do start to create a community then you kind of have a duty to report back to this community and to constantly educate them and inspire them and answer a lot of their questions right so I think for me organization has been key. I'm someone that will plan a few hours of the day every day to film I now have like a posting schedule I use tools like Notion I use tools like AI to really help me develop some sort of a building blocks so that no matter where I am I can still make that happen.
But it's also like you said like people do put a lot of pressure and mental blocks in their head whether it's I don't have the equipment or I don't have the this or I don't know how to do that but it really is just with like starting somewhere I think everybody. Everybody starts somewhere and so if you keep putting that off other people are going to start and you're going to get left behind it so it's something that I kind of noticed and I've told myself don't necessarily strive on perfection but more so consistency right whether that's once a day twice a day but always being consistent and for me I think the key has just been staying organized and really making sure that I treat my social media the same way that I treat my business which is showing up on a daily basis and making sure that it's a priority for me. I like that and I really like what you said about staying accountable because it's no longer just for yourself but for the other people. When you're visiting a community you need to keep on feeding that community you need to keep on providing value and staying disciplined and consistent because the consistency is what creates that compound effect.
A lot of people are expecting that overnight success with one particular post but it's really the accumulation of posting day after day adding value every single day that eventually is going to tick which is what happened to you. You're getting those viral videos you're getting those people that are seeing all the value that you're providing and not only is that helping you grow your business your following but also is opening new opportunities to expand. I think it's also it's really about like building trust at one point with this community that you're building right it's like when you when your followers your community starts to see that you show up every day they're going to start to take it as seriously as you do. And you're not going to be seen as just this one person making a video but more so a public figure right at that point is what we would call ourselves a public figure who's showing up who's building trust whether it's with agents with developers with clients that need that have questions that need answers.
And you know I think you have to understand that like what's happening with where people are consuming their information. Many years ago people would just kind of Google if they had questions but now people are quite literally coming to social media and typing in words like home buying mortgage financing like those are the things that people search for on social media and I think it's very important that you create something where people can go back to and build some sort of trust built some sort of relatability that they feel like I want to do business with this person because I really like them I like their life we have certain similarities and you have to think like in a world that we're in now where everything is now very saturated right you have to ask yourself like what's going to make it unique and different what's going to make someone whether that's an agent or a client decide that you're the person that they want to entrust with their clients or if you're the client in trust with one of their biggest financial decisions which is buying a home or buying an investment property. And so for me it really has become this thing where I'm creating a community of people that trust me and that want to work with me. I have really completely put myself off from the fact of buying leads and trying to do it a traditional way because I'm trying to do it.
I'm trying to do it a traditional way because I see a lot of people that buy leads that searches you know speak the client and important to those clients. We're not expecting your call. They don't want to work with you because they didn't ask for you you know they just typed something in on the Internet and so it's very important to build that sort of trust and that's something that social media has allowed to happen with all of the people like us service providers creators who have really gone that extra step into saying I'm here. I'm here to create trust and you're to create an education and for me that mix of entertainment and education has always been kind of my niche because you know when I come to social media and I see someone trying to educate me.
I don't come to social media to get educated. It's not why people want to come to social media right they come to get inspiration to kind of get their minds off of things and so when you can fine tune your message in a way that is actually really fun to consume. Then that's where you really get that mass audience where other people are sharing it with their trusted others whether that's their clients whether that's their family and they're kind of spreading that message out for you organically which is really incredible. So how will you respond to somebody that is saying hey but every time I'm trying to do something I don't see results how how do I like manage this bounce in order to keep going.
You know the best way that I can explain and related to is kind of like going at the gym right when you go to the gym every single day you will see the results once you go every single day for a long period of time other people around you will also see those results because you've gone such a long and consistent amount of time to think that it's going to happen overnight is just unrealistic and that's with everything in life right whether that's working out whether that's eating right whether that's you know showing up for yourself and so it is really a lot of it is trial and error but if you don't try every day you won't know what works and what fails right so for me it really is just about like consistently showing up trying something new don't be afraid like the internet is such a vast place and especially social media. If you don't like what you put out there try something else the next day but not trying is going to be the biggest failure in my opinion. It's easier when you combine passions the way that you're doing it right that you love to travel you love what you do in business you combine both and it just becomes more natural to keep on sharing it is not that you're just forcing to do content you're just sharing something that you love. So I love that fact I love that fact.
And to touch on that actually it's kind of like that thing where when you love what you do you're going to do it really well right so if you can really find those things that you confuse together the things that you love and the things that bring you income right those two things together are going to be fueled and people are going to feel that you're happy doing it and they're going to be happy watching you and it's just a consistent tumble of love if you will right. And I have to love what you do I've had people ask me like you know but the thing is when I create content I hate watching my videos I hate hearing my voice. But the thing is if you don't love what you do if you don't love that video then the other people are going to feel that as well so you really have to find what you love and what brings you income and combine those two things together because that's the most important is really loving what you're putting out there and making sure that you're your biggest fan before trying to get someone else to be your biggest fan. I love that so I want to wrap this up by asking the question that we always ask our guests which is what is luxury to you.
Love to me is a lifestyle. And I say that really true and true in that. Luxury is a lifestyle you have to kind of eat and breathe and love you to fully understand that I think what luxury really means you have to you know travel luxury to be around other luxurious people. Those things kind of bring everything together right so I mean but also it's like luxury is finding a place and a space that makes you feel luxurious it doesn't have to be a five star hotel right but finding a piece whether it's in your office or at your home.
A vacation you're in there but luxury to me is really more a lifestyle than anything else is a feeling it's a feeling that you can feel when everything goes right. Just wanted to ask you one last question and it is what will you tell little Margaret starting again is there any main advice that you will suggest. You know I've been asked that before but I think back at when I kind of first started my journey and I kind of went in with very little expectations and then when I started the content creation journey. I really just like turned on my phone and decided okay this is the moment I'm creating content whatever happens.
Let's see you know what I mean. And so I would say just continue doing what you think is right, because that feeling has always led me to the next step. And so I would just say like you're on the right track girl keep it going whatever you think is going on appear just put it out there put it into fruition and believe in yourself because when you believe in yourself you have this confidence that is radiating and that other people can feel and that they want that radiation of confidence of joy of luxury of all those things that we talk about. And so it's very important for I think we need to continue to tell myself and to go back in time and tell myself like continue to be confident in what you do.
You cannot regret everything you have to try. So, Marga, thank you again for your time for those that want to connect with you what's the best way to do it. I'm very easily reachable on all social media platforms wherever you consume social media Instagram tick tock YouTube. And I'm very happy to have done this live with you I know it's been a long time coming and I've only had an amazing time working with you Elvaro so hopefully we will cross paths here in Miami.
And if not I'm sure somewhere else in the world will find each other somewhere. So keep on thriving very proud of you happy for you and we'll see each other again very soon. Yes. And thanks again for everybody tuning in today we hope you enjoyed it and remember embrace its beautiful success in life.
My name is Elvaro and I'll see you next time.