The Storytelling Lab - Ep17: Creative Branding with Jake Fehling

Rain Bennett

Apr 4, 20193 min read

Updated: Apr 27, 2020

This week’s guest is Jake Fehling, a speaker, writer, and fellow podcaster. Jake works as the Vice President & Communications Executive for Movement Mortgage, a company based in Charlotte, NC. He joins Rain to discuss genuinely caring about customers, creating and keeping up with content calendars, and implementing creative branding.

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About 10 years ago, I was contracted by the Rachael Ray Show to shoot a quick interview and some b-roll in Raleigh.

During that time, there was a wedding dance video trend made popular by one Youtube video where the bridal party entered the ceremony to Chris Brown’s “Forever” (later perfectly parodied in one of the best episodes of NBC sitcom, The Office).

Other variations included one by Jake and Page Fehling, where they started off their First Dance to a classic wedding song (“Unforgettable” by Nat King Cole) and then switched it up mid-song to a modern hit like Missy Elliott’s “Lose Control” -- fully choreographed and performed for an unsuspected audience that erupted with cheers and laughter.

The Fehling’s were invited, with three other “dancing” couples, to compete on the Rachael Ray Show. The video I shot was used to introduce them before they performed live on the show.

Jake and I stayed in touch on social media over the years and I’ve watched him rise fast in the world of marketing.

Early this year, Jake spoke at Gary Vaynerchuck’s conference, Agent 2021. “Gary V,” as he’s known, is someone almost every marketer or entrepreneur I know looks up to -- or at least loves to hate.

Jake is now VP of Marketing at Movement Mortgage, a Charlotte-based mortgage company that is a perennial member of the Inc. 5000 list, and one of the fastest growing private mortgage lenders in the country.

I asked Jake to be on the show because what Movement is doing with their marketing is outstanding.

It’s funny -- Jake has always been hilarious (as well as his whole family) and you can see that in his work -- it’s relatable to their customer, and it’s informative. It’s clear that Jake and his team understand branding and storytelling better than most companies, especially in an industry as typically “dry” as mortgage lending.

Content is supposed to do at least one of three things:

Educate
Inspire, or
Entertain.

Movement’s content nails all three.

It was great to chat with Jake on the show and I’m happy to call him a friend after all these years. If you are a marketing professional, or interested in the world of social media for business, this episode is perfect for you!

Some highlights of our conversation:

Marketing for a mortgage company
Genuinely caring about your customer
Custom marketing plans for loan officers
Why is it important to educate your customer base
Why everybody wants more content, personal branding, and social media management
Having basic content you can implement over and over again
Thinking of everyone that likes your content as either past clients, current clients, or client leads
Using current trends to inspire marketing campaigns
Finding someone you admire & copying them
Getting past the first step, deciding where you want to go, and being able to pivot if you need to
Short form content is a buzzword right now, but engaging content will get seen regardless of the length
Video is the most engaging content BUT if it’s not your thing, find other ways to engage
Finding your voice and your medium of choice and leaning into it
"mining" the content that you have
The KISS rule (Keep It Simple Stupid)