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These days there are so many social media platforms it is hard to keep up and easy to fall behind your competition. There’s one platform you should not be overlooking and that is YouTube. You can spend all your money on ads and still not see a return and today’s episode is going to change that. We’re going to be talking to a 28 year old named Cody Steck who in just two years is on track to close near $600,000 and close GCI 100% from YouTube. More impressively, he did this 100% organically and free.
Covering everything from strategy to keywords and SEO, this episode will be one for the books. As a long time Realtor, and real estate investor, Cody has a strong understanding of the real estate market for the Salt Lake Metro area and the entire Wasatch Front. Born and raised here in Utah, Cody knows the ins and outs of each city and neighborhood and has become a local celebrity on YouTube.
Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode
- The importance of finding your niche
- How to make videos pertaining to topics people will actually search for
- Amount of content to put out a month
Resources
The Listing Advocate (Earn more listings!)
Transcript:
So how do you attract new business? You constantly don’t have to chase it. Hi, I’m Mike Cuevas in real estate marketing. And this podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know like trust most importantly refer but remember it is not their job to remember what you do for a living it’s your job to remind them let’s get started what’s up ladies and gentlemen welcome another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast What is up everybody? What we’re going to do today is bring you live individual agent actually doing the shit we talk about every fucking week on this damn show. So she knows there’s people out there doing it we’re not doing his his stuff but he’s doing you know basically what we do for a lot of people so this is like every PP there’s a lot of people doing this exact same strategy and we’re gonna focus today specifically on YouTube. How the hell did he get in the business two years ago 28 years old and he’s gonna close near $600,000 and close GCI 100% from YouTube Well, he knew the strategy he knew how to get found he created content he started doing it consistently and guess what people started knocking on his damn door and he did it without spending $1 in ADS I think we’re gonna find out though because this is what an interview is so without further ado, we’re gonna go ahead and introduce our guest His name is Mr. Cody stack what’s up Cody?
What’s going on guys happy to be here. Can’t wait to jump into this
Yeah, dude, we appreciate having you on the show here Why don’t you go ahead and tell everybody a quick rundown Who are you what market are you in and then we’ll get on into the interview.
Yeah, sure. So Cody stack I’ve been in the business for six years but just been on YouTube for only two years now so everything I do is almost exclusively YouTube at this point it’s all 100% organic and free like you said i’ve you know I’m on track by the end of 2021 over the last two years I will have closed about $600,000 in gross commission just from youtube so in addition to that I’m doing you know friends and family and investors and all these other people I still have my market still so but as far as just lead generation new business coming in 100% YouTube right now and absolutely love it you know this stuff works and you know if you’re thinking about doing it you got to do it you know now’s the time
yeah and because like you know, you’re in Salt Lake City I was checking out your channels pretty impressive. So if you go to his channel we’ll give you the link later but just look up living in Salt Lake City I mean the dude owns every single search term out there and then you can see what his view counts are and you know he’s gonna own that probably forever which is the best part about it and there are still some markets you could actually still penetrate and get in there some major cities as a matter of fact where people really haven’t done the done the videos I’ve done that the content yet but it’s limited I give it another 12 maybe 18 months maybe in the country and then all these search terms all this content I think you’re starting to be so well that would be something else with YouTube because there is a specific strategy that for whatever reason, I don’t know why. But I sort of know why like that people search for and why these videos get so much views and attention organically which is the key and what is the percentage of buyer or people that come through Is this how many percentages or relocations coming into the market versus let’s talk about types of leads and get off YouTube that will go into types of content?
Yeah, sure. So it’s probably 90% relocation a lot of people move in from out of state it was kind of fortunate that I started my channel about six months before the whole COVID pandemic shit came about and I you know business was the YouTube channel was just kind of getting started I was starting to get traction and then that hit and you know it kind of was a blessing in disguise that I already had six months of content out there because I picked up on a lot of people trying to escape from the northeast from California from the northwest all these different places trying to get to Utah to you know because now they’re working remote they can work anywhere or they’re coming here for the jobs that we have you know Utah’s growing like crazy we’ve got a big tech and healthcare scene so a lot of high paying jobs coming in and people are getting you know new jobs here in the area or just working remote and want to you know have access to the outdoors so tons of people coming in probably 90% relocation I do get the occasional lead that already lives here in Utah and they’re just kind of doing research and they find me and say hey, I just came across you on YouTube love your stuff you know we’d love to help get your help with buying a place but you know and then I also do get a probably you know I’ve probably had three or four investors reach out as well I do a little bit of investing content on my channel as well talking about how to invest you know what to look for I’m an I’m a real estate investor myself that’s how I got in the business but anyway made some content about that so you can you can really attack that angle as well if that’s your your niche. I mean, you can go after that. So there’s tons of different niches you can go after, but for me it’s been mostly relocation.
Yeah, and that’s the key niche. A lot of times people will be like, Hey, we get the question all the time. Like, just if you start just creating like just real estate content, like hey, how to buy and sell the same Timer? blank, the home selling process, like it’s very, you’re not going to get any views on YouTube or you like or you’re gonna lose a lot of people are going to search out that type of content. Yeah, it’s bad content. Yeah.
It’s just, uh, nobody’s searching it right? I mean, there’s been 1000s of agents who have done those types of videos, and nobody’s searching for that type of content. That’s why, you know, when they’re when somebody’s looking at buying a house, and they want to learn about the escrow process, or inspections or appraisals, most people I found don’t really care about that stuff. They’re relying on you to just tell them what they need to know, handle it, make sure they don’t get in a bad spot, take care of the rest, right? They don’t really care about the details of how an appraisal is valued. They just care that their home appraises so people aren’t searching for that they want to know more about the area and more about your expertise as the agent who knows that area and can get the job done.
100% when I moved here you guys in the California I say this often on the show, but you know I went to YouTube to look up and see I’m like what the fuck is Encinitas look like? What are the housing look like? What is the strip look like? Like where am I gonna go get beer at where am I going to go take my kids to the park I just wanted to see what it looked like you know and oftentimes the reason why this is theory but I think it’s accurate I’m appreciate your opinion on it. But the reason why I think so many reloads come in the market is twofold one they’re doing what I was doing visually looking to see what the area is and then when they see someone there it’s that know like trust factor and that’s what video does 90% of it’s based upon the body language and the tonality we’re expressing it’s not the fucking content. So like if you’re if you’re approachable on video, they like your personality, which is why they call you it’s not because of the content you’re spitting out most of the content is so damn boring to be honest with you. It’s how you’re saying it that people are actually interested in and they’re like I can like this guy and then they call because they just want those boots on the ground. Whereas if you look at local business and how local businesses transacted over 80 85% of its gonna come from someone you already know used in the past or personally met or bumped into so when you look at that someone relocating and doesn’t have that referral base they don’t have that that network which is why a lot of online lead generation which is why everything on YouTube comes in so much relocation is because they’re simply just not being referred to the people that they normally would if they’re making a local transaction
Yeah, exactly. Like you said, I mean you hit it right on the content is as an agent the content seems boring and repetitive but for the person who’s never been to your area, they gobble that stuff up I can’t tell you how many texts and emails and phone calls I’ve had where people contact me and say I watch your videos I can’t believe you know I’m talking to you your videos like a celebrity right?
Yeah already status Yeah,
I’ve had people like you know basically say that to me that you’re like I can’t believe I’m talking to you and it’s a little weird you know, but it’s like they know me because they’ve watched hours upon hours of my content. I have no idea who they are but they already know me like me and trust me like you said and that’s the most important part of business right when it comes to real estate this some I preach all the time to especially newer agents or agents who aren’t doing a lot of business it comes down to people it comes down to how you present yourself the body language and the confidence that you have to be the person that they need to trust in order to get that job done it doesn’t come down to how well you know real estate or how good your YouTube videos are. I mean, yes, that will help right? You want to have high quality videos, but my first videos were absolute garbage I mean, audio sucked you know, the video sucked. I was stuttering the editing was bad everything was bad about it. And yet I’ve got I don’t know 10,000 20,000 views on some of those first videos and they still consistently put out 100 you know 50 to 100 views every couple days so it doesn’t matter right the content the quality doesn’t really matter it’s how you present yourself in
dentistry dude yeah authentic Yeah, my daughter watches like YouTube all the time. So I get all these like YouTube celebrities from Mr. Beast to like you know, you know, you name it. Yeah, you watch their content and the reason why it’s like reality TV like people perfection doesn’t exist a second you try to be perfect as a second you start turning everybody off. But let’s go back to why the look at the positioning on this and this isn’t just like this is on YouTube, like people who are just farming their local market with video to our attracting local market. a client’s exact same way because you put the personality with the name, and people just want to feel like that know, like and trust. So we did a podcast with a dude named grant wise I forget what episode is it’s been a while. But anyways, he’s done a study on this or he researched a lot of this and what he came up with was like, hey, on you when people are on video, it’s like, ingrained into our brains because as kids, it’s like, why do you think your kid runs up to Mickey Mouse and like gives him a hug and thinks a superhero? It’s just some drunk dude in a costume. And yet your kid thinks that this Mickey Mouse a superhero? Well, because the kid was seen him on television and TV growing up so when they see him in person, you get like this celebrity status. There’s actually a study done. I wish I knew the name of it, but it’s very interesting. You’re exactly right people are like feel like you’re a celebrity doing it and the positioning is crazy on that yeah. Okay so let’s go through a couple other things because you’re mentioning YouTube content What do you do for editing now and content creation a lot of people overthink these like scripts but it’s really just like keep them conversational is what I tell people it’s one on one you’re just telling people what you already know and you don’t need to be an expert in buying or selling real estate you need to be an expert in your community.
Yeah, exactly. I rarely talked about buying or selling real estate in my videos like the specific details of that process. It’s almost entirely about what’s my area What does it look like? What are the pros and cons? How much does it cost to live there all those you know different types of things on the video that’s what’s most important that people actually care about so you know, when it comes to making content that’s that’s what you really got to focus on.
How much content you put out, I mean videos a month, what your schedule like what’s your frequency?
Yeah, so right now I’m about one per week I’ve been trying some different types of videos I’ve been doing some home tours and stuff just try and test that out see how the you know what the feedback is. So I’m gonna I’m kind of somewhere between one and two videos per week. If you were just getting started if you don’t have that backlog of videos you know on your channel already I’d say you absolutely need to be two if not three videos per week in my opinion, to build up that base of videos that people can go watch at least until you’ve got 10 to 20 videos out there. So yeah, I’m about one per week right now. And most of them are in the office or out vlogging so you know it might be just a sit down video like this where I talk about my area show some stuff on the screen and that’s it or I’ll be out in my area filming the sidewalks the houses the businesses everything that people want to see. And you know those are the two types of videos I do and then you asked about editing. In the beginning I edited everything myself I wanted to kind of understand the process and figure it out but I’ve since moved on and I’ve got a virtual assistant who edits everything for me at this point.
What kind of performance difference you’ve seen on talking head stuff when you’re sitting down as opposed to being out on the street on the beach showcasing the demonstrating area?
Yeah, that’s that’s a great point. Um, I would say that a lot of people I think people really get attached to my videos on the vlog type videos where I’m actually out and about doing stuff that those are the videos where people are like Yeah, I saw your video on this on this city and it was great because I got to see how many trees there were you know, was there dirt was there a sidewalk was it paved you know, like all that stuff, whatever just kind of how it visually looks so people get attached to that. You know, which is nice, but at the same time I think people appreciate the talking head stuff because they can just throw it on while they’re driving. They don’t have to watch me or anything necessarily they just listened to it kind of like you would a podcast or whatever. So they both do well i think i do think you need both in order to be successful.
Yeah, that’s a good point. There’s you got informational, like community informational content, and you have community demonstrated demonstratable content, like the tours, the downtown areas, that’s what people want to see. And those do really well. And you’re right, it’s sort of like, like the vlog stuff, people overthink the formatting of it. But scripting is like very simple when you just break down storytelling, and essay writing and how your book reports when you’re in second grade, it’s the same shit. attention getter, Introduction body outro. attention getter, Introduction body outro. So you guys follow y’all have y’all have the skill set to do this. It’s not very difficult just that for whatever reason. I don’t know why Cody, but people buckle at the knees when the record button goes on. And I’m always like, Dude, why are you buckling at the knees? Bro? You’re a grown ass man. Like, you just sold a $20 million property and just made like $200,000 you’re gonna let the red light make you buckle at the knees? Like Come on, bro. Like you’re tougher than that. Why is that? Why do people hesitate?
So I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out.
When you started were you sort of like hey, this feels weird or Yeah,
I mean it’s definitely weird to like talk to a camera. I’m not generally that type of person. I mean I’ve gotten too used to it now and now I don’t even have an issue I just click it on and I just go and I you know, I stumble through it and I can edit it out and redo it and you kind of learn that stuff. I think a lot of people get hung up at the very beginning they think has to be perfect right? They have to say the right thing they can’t stutter. They have to you know, have a smile on their face whatever like all that all that shit that doesn’t really matter. I mean, it does matter, right? Like you want to do your best but like don’t overthink it. Just hit record and just get a video out. That’s the biggest thing. It’s not the scripting. It’s not the content. It’s not anything else. It’s simply just hitting record, getting a video done looking at it saying oh yeah, I could have done this better and fix it next time and release the video and you know, get on with it.
Yeah, I mean, I can tell you firsthand we just some people overthink the first video. I’m like, dude, like it no one cares. Frankly, no one cares what the hell you do, but like the more imperfect it is. in its own way, oftentimes the better it performs Yeah, well isn’t
that Vanya? Maybe because it’s authentic its authentic right and the thing is you put that first video out you might get 12 views anyway right like that very first video over time it might give us but at the beginning you’re only gonna get 10 1215 views maybe you know so it’s not like the whole world is watching this it’s not like you’re on CNN or something you know what tons of exposure right off the bat you know, so don’t overthink it And the beautiful thing about YouTube is look you know some of those first videos I’ve gone back and remade them and they do great you know, now that my audio quality is better my video quality is better I’m better on camera, Christmas better whatever, all that stuff you can just remake the video nobody even sees the first one anymore you know so it’s not the end of the world if it’s not perfect.
Makes a lot of sense. What else do you see coming out on on with YouTube? You know, I know that a lot of a lot of people are familiar now with the you know, 18 months ago says like the hidden strategy, right? And I’m like, wow, YouTube. But now you know, you see a lot of people doing the pros and cons videos and all that. Yeah. Are you seeing any other avenues open up? Beyond the tours beyond the pros and cons of time neighborhoods? The cost of livings all that stuff? Are you seeing any other avenues coming down the pipe for different areas of content creation that people haven’t quite seen yet?
Yeah, that’s a that’s a great question. Um, I think that you I think that YouTube will still be the number one platform in my opinion, or at least for the next three to five years so it’s going to be video content number one. Number two, you know, it’s going to have to go beyond pros and cons and cost of living and all that stuff it’s going to have to go into more vlogs I think that’s going to be more important showing the area especially for relocation and also once you’ve built up an audience I think it’s easier to niche down a little bit and start talking about commercial real estate start talking about investors start talking about these you know new construction, whatever it might be, if you want to go into new construction I mean you can build up a portfolio of home tours and talking about new construction and how the framing process works and whatever and who knows maybe you pick up a builder client they give you 50 listings right because they know like hey Cody can sell he’s good on video he knows how to market and he knows the construction process this is gonna be huge you can use that once you’ve got you know a repertoire of videos and you know the confidence to display that on video that can be really helpful so I think that’s going to be you know, niching down is going to be another thing that gets more important you know, I’ve seen some agents on YouTube who do only investment type stuff and absolutely crush it for people in their local market. Going beyond that, I think that you know, increasing the quality is going to be extremely important you know, going forward, I’ve seen a couple agent start to pop up that have really figured out how to be charismatic, how to entertain how to joke how to you know, really kind of be a performer when it comes to YouTube and I think that’s going to make the difference right if I just sit here you know, cold if I just sit here like a cold statue, nobody’s going to really relate to that but if I can be charismatic, I’m moving my hands are moving you know whatever. People are going to attach to that and I think that’s going to give you a leg up so doing higher quality content, you know, maybe going the professional videographer route all those I’m just kind of you know, shooting off the hip here some different ideas that I’m exploring and kind of the direction that I want to take my channel to continue to maintain that top spot in my market.
It’s good to evolve though that I remember like 20 years ago was at 2010 I remember riding around in Chicago on a scooter thinking I was so cool. And with a flip camera doing a selfie video like yeah with the sunglasses on I was probably the cheesiest thing I ever did in my life but just like but I mean videos evolved that I remember back then you didn’t have to do anything just like Facebook Live came out he didn’t have to do anything yeah he just got on Facebook Live it was a call it was he alive is he live and that got a lot of attention but yeah, you’re seeing the need for added content versus the talking heads because the talking head stuff everybody’s doing it when everyone’s doing something you have to Zig or zag or do different direction because you lose attention. Tell me how you’re multipurpose seeing the content beyond YouTube. Are you just putting the content on YouTube or what else are you doing with it beyond Yeah, posted on YouTube?
Yeah, it’s 100% YouTube I’ve thought about repurposing into a podcast format but you know just they’ve never gone that route. I don’t know if it’s just because viewership would be low or or whatever. But I’ve just had so much so much success with YouTube that I’ve just stuck with that so I do a little bit of repurposing and my again, my virtual assistant helps with this. He’ll take the video and just kind of cut it up and occasionally we do something on Facebook or Instagram just a short video. It doesn’t actually it’s not actually a link to the direct video. It’s just kind of a short clip. But that’s basically it. I mean, it’s 100% YouTube, post
them to Facebook, you send them your database, video, email, modern anything.
Nope. We don’t do anything like that we just you know, we basically just let YouTube do its thing
cool cool cool any other tips that you taken anything else you want to share
and you just got to get started like that’s that’s the biggest thing just get started if you’re in your market I mean the space now I’ve been doing some research on how many other agents are in the market you know just in different markets trying to do this and you go to one city and there might be five or 10 agents trying to do this right so five or 10 is still not very much compared to how many agents are out there door knocking or cold calling you’re trying to do Facebook ads right everybody’s on Facebook ads or at least was you know I’ve been out of that world for a couple years now but like two years ago, Facebook everybody was doing Facebook right people were signing up for these these you know websites and you know generating these leads and they’re getting 50 calls a day right from these people from these different agents so although there might be five or 10 agents on YouTube in your you know market if you’re better at video if you’re more confident you’re more consistent and you put out higher quality you know content, you will get business from it. The thing I love about YouTube as well that I think people don’t realize is the closing ratio is extremely high. I’m probably at about a seven to 8% closing ratio for leads who reach out and then eventually actually end up buying or selling with me And the beautiful thing is that the people who do reach out want to work with me right if they didn’t want to work with me they wouldn’t be contacting me they wouldn’t call me they wouldn’t email me they wouldn’t text me because they maybe they don’t like my personality maybe they don’t like how I presented something maybe I piss them off because it’s something I said whatever. And that’s fine I’ll never know if they don’t reach out you know, because they’re just some random view on YouTube. But the people who do reach out respect me as an agent they respect what I do and they want to work with me which is uh would you
say seven to 8% of conversations you have with people that initially like comment on a video and say like hey, I’m interested in moving in when you talk to him like first time on a phone call or something off of YouTube like that would be what you consider seven eight, just you guys know like one to 3% of the national average like for Zillow or or other type of lead gen so he’s saying it’s three times as much in conversion
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I’m considering a lead anybody who reaches out to me so it’s not even a comment on a video. Most people who are interested will actually reach out as of right now I’ve probably got i don’t know i’m probably at about 450 I don’t know let me just check real quick Yeah, but 466 466 leads over the last two years so that’s that’s less than one per day, but that’s how I get a closing ratio that’s so high somewhere in that seven to 8% range from last time I checked. So these are people who have reached out either via a phone call a text or an email said hey, I’m thinking about moving to Utah and then they eventually do
and it’s not this is the difference guys between lead generation attraction like when they reach out you like put them in some kind of weird drip autoresponder Are you just being human and following up to human way?
Yeah, I just do it 100% human I mean, again, I I have that first initial conversation with them if they’re in a position where they’re moving in the next I don’t know maybe four to five months I keep in constant contact with them I’ll check in every you know, a couple weeks or whatever. But to be totally honest, a lot of the people check in with me right? They’re like, Hey, I’m coming into town like are you still available to show me some houses so they honestly do a lot of the check in for me if they’re out more than five, six months you know, I just I I’ve got a system set up with a virtual assistant of mine and they kind of check in every two months or so with a with an email just Hey, how are your plans progressing, anything we can do for you? And that’s it, you know, nothing fancy I I use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of my leads. Like I know people are like all about the CRM and whatever. I keep it super simple. And it works.
Yeah. That’s it. Everyone’s like, what do you need, you need some super duper honors. But this is not online lead generation. This is called online attraction. That’s what video is video doesn’t generate leads and attracts attention and then your personality generates a damn lead. It just allows you to basically give your sales pitch without you really giving your sales pitch because that’s all people really hire when they hire a real estate agent. They’re not hiring. The fact you have a real estate license or hiring What the fuck you can do with it. And whether they trust you That’s it. Moving is a big deal. People are like shit, I’m scared. I don’t know who to trust where to go. Like, you know, that’s a big deal. And that’s what that conversion has taken place during the consumption of the content. You’re creating no other thing other than that, guys, don’t overthink this stuff. This isn’t as a giant popularity contest. And the more content you have, the more popular you become, the more conversations you create. Just like if you bought a lot of leads from Zillow, you’d have a lot of conversations, they just be different types. These conversations come to you it’s totally it’s attraction. So there’s a major difference between marketing and advertising. It’s, we’re talking about marketing, and if everyone should do a little bit of both, I’m sure Cody does Some sort of lead generation stuff probably on his investment side what else you doing with lead generation? I mean no this has taken off but are you doing any geven need to
Yeah. So yes and no I mean I do postcards and keep in touch with my soI and past clients and stuff I’d send them a monthly mailer.
Yeah I love that marketing it’s not even lead gen you just yeah
yeah just marketing so I mean as far as like lead generation I don’t do anything you know, I the way that I look at it is I can go out there and I can you know call Facebook leads or cold call for three hours or I can just put together a video together in three hours and that video keeps on working for me you know, I it takes me three hours I spend you know 50 bucks to get it edited. And I put it out there and it works for me 20 473 65 and so that’s kind of the passive income of YouTube and lead generation in real estate is you know, making a video is a way better use of my time than trying to go out there and cold call or lead generate for three or four hours a day.
I 100% agree well put dude. Cody wants to tell everybody how they can find you. I’m sure they want to check out your stuff and see how you’re doing it.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so you can find me as we mentioned before living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Just type that into YouTube and hopefully I should pop up as number one at least for the first I don’t know probably eight out of 10 videos I hope you can find my channel there Feel free to jump on there copy it steal you know whatever you want to do take the video and just make it your own right Feel free to copy the content for your own local city so that’s where you can find my my actual YouTube channel and then I’ve got another one called the YouTube realtor where I talk I make videos just like this you know kind of talking about how to be successful on YouTube how to be successful as a real estate agent you know just all general real estate agent stuff so just just look up the YouTube realtor on YouTube and you should find it
appreciate you man thanks for sharing all the stuff and congrats on all your success it’s awesome to keep going like folks if you actually take action things can happen it’s not rocket science there’s a check out his channel listen to what he’s doing and then just take action and do it you either have two ways of doing this you can either do it yourself and figure it all out or if you want someone to do it for you contact a real estate marketing dude it’s what we do we’ll script that and distribute real estate content. If you choose part of your strategy that’s what we do or maybe you’re not into blown up your channel maybe just want to build a local celebrity brand he just hit in your database, that’s fine too. But either way is there’s not a shortage of people that can help you whether you learn from a guy like Cody or you contact us so if you’d like to explore more what that looks like please visit us on our website at Real Estate marketing.com it’s real estate marketing.com and thank you very much for watching another episode of the real estate marketing dude calm podcast follow us on social Subscribe, subscribe to our channel i G and Facebook and I swear to God and to get to tick tock channel as soon as I get a damn minute. But appreciate you guys and we’ll talk to you guys later and see you next week. Bye bye. Thank you for watching another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast. If you need help with video or finding out what your brand is, visit our website at www dot real estate marketing dude calm. We make branding and video content creation simple and do everything for you. So if you have any additional questions, visit the site, download the training and then scheduled time to speak with the dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.