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So how do you track new business? You constantly don’t have to chase it. Hi, I’m Mike Cuevas to real estate marketing. And this podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust and 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. Books were you turning on the news, what the hell’s going on? What we’re gonna be focusing on this week’s episode is the next opportunity. If you tuned into our last show, we’re talking about switching up which direction the market is headed, and we’re chatting about, I believe it’s gonna be a seller’s, or I’m a real estate agent, I’m concentrating on seller seller seller sellers, because I believe that we’re going to start to see some distressed I think that things are going to hit the fan. And I don’t know how bad I don’t know if I don’t think it’s gonna be repeated 2008. But I do know that there is going to be something that happens, how bad I don’t know, but just you just have to turn on the news and see what the fuck is going on. Because it is insane. And a lot of things don’t make sense. So what we’re gonna be doing today is I want to bring on a mortgage broker, because I’ve been in the States, he’s in Canada, but whatever happens in the US goes to Canada. So I wanted to bring someone on from an outside perspective, off of what they see in our US market, what they’re doing. But he’s not just a mortgage broker, he’s also an investor, he does a lot of his investing in the state. So he’s got a good eye for seeing where opportunity is. And, again, I’m bringing the freakin cowbells adapt, or you are going to get your ass kicked, you have to adapt right now there’s no questions about it. Lead Generation marketing, you’re gonna have to do two to 3x more than what you did in the past business is not going to be easy, you’re gonna have to hustle. Welcome to the real world. 90% of the people in this business lenders and agents included have never seen a distressed market before because we haven’t been in one in 10 plus years. No one knows what’s gonna happen. That means the vast, vast majority of everyone in this industry has no fucking idea what to do when a shift occurs. That my friends is a big opportunity. All right, so we’re gonna bring on introduce our guest, Mr. Josh Perez. He’s with Synergy mortgage up in Canada. Josh, how you doing today? Once you go ahead and introduce yourself to the show. Tell everyone Hello, and a little bit about yourself.

Hey, Mike, thanks for having me. Super excited to come and chat with you. And yeah, see, you know, the whole lot of crazy things going on in real estate and in the world. It’s kind of been a steady theme over the past few years. Yeah. So you know, I’m a mortgage broker, a real estate investor, since 2010, was when I bought my first investment property. I was working in banking at the time. And then, you know, doing investment planning, retirements, mutual funds, as well as credit I just found after I bought my first investment property, I just wanted to soak everything up that had to do with real estate and building wealth through real estate. It’s been, you know, it’s been one of the most proven paths of building wealth over over time. And so, you know, I became very passionate about what you know, could do for me and my clients. And so, you know, after a few years of getting into real estate investing, I made the transition to mortgage brokering so I’m just only working in mortgages, with real estate, you know, we’re helping, you know, for most people, and not just Canada, US North America, buying a home is a huge financial milestone. It’s also you know, typically the biggest purchase, you’re gonna make biggest debt you’re going to take on, and also real estate being a huge opportunity to build wealth. Myself, my team, like we’re super passionate about helping people with that and what it can do to help people achieve and accelerate reaching their financial goals worked with a lot of partners in the space, real estate agents and helping them kind of tap into, you know, the education side on how we can just help so many more people with their financial goals and to fight inflation, the cost of things being so expensive these days, we often think about, you know, how do we save and cut here but, you know, we also I think, think equally need to think of how do we help grow this column of our finances right, and that’s, you know, acquiring assets income producing assets. So, that’s a big part of what we do. You know, I’m, you know, haven’t stopped investing in real estate since 2010. Started with, you know, duplex triplex got into apartment buildings. You know, 2020 Canada is kind of a tough place to to be like, like Mendoza, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s not motherfuckers crazy

up there. Mr. Trudeau. Guy’s a nutbag. And yeah, I don’t know if anyone is sort of like Biden here. Nobody likes him.

Yeah, so I found myself you know, moving to places that were a little bit more free. And yeah, I found myself in Florida had some close family ties there, you know, fortunate to be able to work remote in my line of work and so kind of planted there for two months in early 2021. And said, Listen, I gotta I gotta Spend more time here, I want to bring my family and people close to me down here. So I bought a place helped my parents buy a place. And then just what you know, people in real estate, do they start to kind of look around in places?

Would you say that when you do your loans, you do it from an investor’s mindset, versus a traditional residential mindset? Because most let’s be honest, most most lenders, it’s at least consumer friendly. They’re gonna think a realtor lender, their commodity, and you just want to get a loan most lenders, right? But if you’re coming from an investment mindset, that could be a value add, how do you play that in your business? Because I think that’s where the markets going, I think everyone is going to be very investment conscious. People will slowly start buying on emotion, and they’re going to start using the numbers again, like they did in the past. So what is your How do you approach that?

Yeah, so no, really good question. I think, you know, going deeper with the purchase of a real estate purchase is super important. Yeah, I need a loan today to close on this property to buy it right. But what are your plans for that property? Do you plan to stay in it for the rest of your life? Most people that’s not necessarily plan or how it’s gonna play out, right? Do you plan to add value to renovate the place? Like, is there an opportunity to create some upside and equity in the place and potentially talk about, hey, listen, if you do this to the property, boom, that’s like, that’s a source of capital, you can eventually tap into, and when done correctly, help kind of build wealth or put it elsewhere, if you’re investing it, potentially in real estate again, so investors, you know, kind of realize this, this concept of, you know, buying properties that might be a little bit distressed, or have upside in the sense of, you know, bringing a dated property to something that’s more modern and improved increasing rents. And then usually the money you spend on renovating or improving a property when done correctly equates to a number that’s higher than what you spent on it. Right. And so for a lot of people who don’t have unlimited sources of capital to keep, you know, putting money down to buy property, they use one property to to leverage to purchase the next one, right? So that that first purchase so for a homeowner who maybe that’s not their immediate plan, you we try to go deeper with you know, what are not just your your homeownership plans or purchase plans, but like, what else do you have going on in your world right now? How can use this opportunity to help you slowly build wealth and build a roadmap to accomplish some other things financially? So we just go deeper with kind of questioning and purposes of why why this home? Why this price point? Why this neighborhood and then just try to inform them and educate them with all you know, the opportunities that can come with real estate, to help them in their family moving forward.

So how would a realtor though, what do you believe a realtor should be doing in this market? Because I think you’re on I think agents need to be investor friendly. Most of them aren’t. Most agents don’t even have an investment property they own yet alone, working with an investor advising them how to cap rates, cash flow, and all of these other things. So how would you as a realtor adjust to this market is I don’t know what’s doing in Canada, but things have slowed down here a little bit. In most markets have slowed down. We’ve seen a depreciation, but it’s still busy. It’s so weird, because it’s still there’s lack of inventory. So things are still selling, although the prices have come down a little bit because of inflation rates all the above. So so so odd. It’s such an odd time. It’s such an odd market.

Yeah, we’ve found here and I pay attention to a lot of markets in the US like there’s, you know, with the with the run up over the last, I think, was listening to Barry Habib, who’s a great resource. Yeah, last, I think it was like around 12 years, it’s just been steady appreciation in real estate, you know, nationally in the US, and we’ve had like ultra low interest rates. And now in the last, you know, in the last, you know, 1218 months, we start to see a run up in rates, the cost of boring, has increased dramatically. And, you know, the price of real estate hasn’t really come down to the point where like, that increase in borrowing costs is like matched the deal you can get on the house. So, you know, conversations, you know, 12 months ago, were largely about, you know, helping people who cost of goods and inflation is already running rampant. But now, cost of borrowing was kind of a lagging piece, that now is just only exasperate grading the problem of affordability right so it’s just, you know, for realtors and other professionals in the space, you know, my biggest recommendation is like, don’t you got to be there for your clients. There’s there’s not like they need to be heard. Sometimes there’s opportunities where you can help them sometimes it’s just providing them with context and perspective of what all their options are and there might not be any good ones, but making sure you’re there for them to so that they know they’ve exhausted everything that’s possible or Okay listen, this is an opportunity right now when rates are you know 5.99 But if rates come down to like 5.25% for your situation. This is where we can kind of take advantage of it, where we can free up, you know, a few $100 a month in cash flow, pay down some other debt that we’re carrying, but not right now. And so we built kind of a roadmap of what all our options are, you know, I know, we didn’t ever plan to sell this house, but you know, how has that conversation, you know, come up, and just having some hard conversations, you know, with clients who you know, might be suffering, just be there for them. So that was a big part of the year, and then you know, those people will always remember that you were available for them to help and share your expertise and educate when there wasn’t a transaction there for you to, you know, potentially close, I found that, you know, most of our, you know, we’re in the relationship business, most of my business is referral based and has been for the last, you know, 910 years. And it’s, you know, not every conversation is going to be one that leads to immediate sale. But listen, you know, we’re, again, I was being to it earlier, like buying a home or an investment property, it’s like the biggest purchase, someone’s going to make the largest debt they’re going to take on, we want clients to take it seriously. And we should take it seriously too. And that might involve quite a few conversations before and after helping someone and being there for them. And they’re going to remember that and tell their friends, their family, their co worker that hey, every single time, you know, there’s a there’s a rate announcement happening. Yeah, I know, Josh, and I had the same conversation last time. But you know, what my wife is, you know, has anxiety about this thing, or when the news pops up, or social media or friend talks about it. It just, we get concerned. And we just, you know, you’re you’re the kind of, you’re the person, that’s the kind of the voice of reason, or at least laying everything out for us once again, going back to the fundamentals of our plan. And so that that’s been a big part of the last year and now is like rates have, you know, hopefully kind of stabilized a little bit and come down a bit, since what we hope that peak is, there’s just no lack of demand for real estate, okay. And so even though transactions have been largely down in both Canada and the US like, majorly, it’s not for a lack of wanting, like people’s goals, for homeownership and building wealth, and real estate investment haven’t changed. It’s just, you know, the fear, the fear piece, right has scared people to put them on the sidelines. And also just the cost, the cost of boring doing business are increased, right, so margins are thinner, and opportunities need to be vetted a little bit more, and I’ve just found on our end of things, you know, I look at my kind of my conversion, you know, my conversion over the last, you know, six, seven years hasn’t swayed from, you know, 30, to 38% of leads into closing, right, and what I’ve noticed in the last six months of conversion has gone downward to about 20%. Just because the sales processes a lot longer people’s appetite. And just you know what, when rates were, you know, in Canada, they’re a little bit lower than the bottom of the US, you know, one and 2%. I mean, it was tougher to find reasons not to borrow money to do something with it, then, to actually find the reasons of why it’s justified to borrow, borrow money to invest, do that home renovation, throw a pool in the backyard, go invest buy two, three properties, because capital is so cheap, and the cash flow you’re going to generate on that it’s going to pay all the bills. But when things change, right, the math is a little bit different, people are spooked, they gotta look a little bit harder, they gotta try a bit harder. They gotta build, you know, their power teams got a little bit be a little bit stronger in terms of the resources. So right now, I think, you know, long answer to your question, is that, yeah, I think opportunities are coming. They’re not crystal clear just yet. But you know, there are a lot of different macro economic things that we’ve seen happen over the past couple of years. So we’re seeing, you know, wars, we’re seeing bank collapses, you know, this money printing has just been unbelievable. In supply we’re seeing now we’re seeing some things happening to do with, you know, oil and currencies that, you know, I don’t think we’re just starting to see, we haven’t really seen anything, actually, except for dialogue around some of the BRIC countries now coming up the dollar with, you know, trade and oil. And there’s going to be some big implications of that, right. And while you know, supply and demand with, like, the demand side of real estate, is stronger than it’s ever been. There’s gonna be some macro economic factors that come into play that might shift the whole dynamic of supply and demand and pricing and costs of boring. So it’s gonna lead to opportunities, right? One way or another is just you want to have the people around you to be the right resources to help you identify and present them to you, along with you, you know, investigating what might be there for you to invest in for you and your family to take advantage of for the next five to 10 years. In my books.

If you listen to what we’re talking about, we’re talking about repositioning your business like the days of you going out there man, I can help you get in a car and go help you find the jungles of your dreams like those are fucking done. What we’re talking about is repositioning and approaching your business like a financial planner, but for real estate, focus on the investment side, keep people out of trouble and talk them out of buying more houses and you talk them into it. And that positioning alone will help build your authority. If you look at his numbers right there, he’s converting half is converting about 40% less than he was a year ago, and would be in the show. So what you have to do, you have to work twice as hard, you have to market twice as hard, you have to create twice as much content, because the transaction count is down. And every indication right here is, is going towards like, Hey, you have to analyze the investment aspect of it. Like, and it’s you have to be investor friendly. You guys in these markets and investor friend doesn’t mean only working with investments, it means stop selling people houses, or homes and start selling them wealth. There’s a difference in how you position your business. And if you’re just a typical realtor, you’re just a typical lender that can get them the standard rate than anybody can, you’re just a fucking commodity, you have to reposition and you have to own a niche, the niche I’m screaming from the rooftops right now is investing. The reason for this is that investors are not going to be emotional about a purchase, they’re not going to sit on the sidelines, they’re sitting on the sidelines right now waiting to pounce, and all of those investors are not going to buy one or two properties, they’re gonna buy three, or four or five, and they’re gonna keep fucking buying them. And then you’re gonna get a listing on the other side for the ones that are turning them over quickly. So what I’m screaming here, and why we have Josh on this on this call is because everything he’s talking about is telling you what skills you need to develop to obtain market share to obtain transactions. And the last in this community, the vast majority, a lot of people who go out of business, if this shift happened, it’s already happening in the lending world out here, I could tell you guys we used to do about, we used to script and distribute videos for lots of lenders, we lost almost all of them. And that’s because they’re not transacting, right, they have to cut costs. Right. So when you know this is happening, there’s a big opportunity here. And the opportunity is is that we know our current competition, whether you’re a lender or agent, your peers are losing transactions, and many of them are going out of business. That’s an opportunity for you. Right? But ultimately, what are people going to look for in this next market? Who is the agent that can actually go out there and analyze and say, Well, look, the other rate today is 5.25. But due to inflation, and we know that do that, that the recession is, is here that rates traditionally go down, according to Barry Habib, and you need to know this stuff, guys, because these are the conversations people are gonna have I could tell you in the last crash, no one talked about its highest and best. Everyone talked about, give me the fuck out of the situation. And you got to get that traditional mindset out of your head the highest and best, highest and best, get that out of your mindset. Because in a distressed market, no one cares about highest and best, they care about what’s best for them. That’s not always the highest price. Sometimes that’s involving them selling more conveniently. Sometimes it’s involving them doing a 1031 exchange. Because it’s an investment. Sometimes they’re going to be asking you to hey, is this a good investment, and that’s going to be bringing its property to its highest and best use, which means you need to know the zoning laws, you need to know opportunity. You need to know cost. You need to know investment costs. You need to know rehab costs. Because anyone who’s going to hire you, you are going to ask these questions. And if you can’t answer them, I’m going to Redfin with a flux of difference.

Yeah, the opportunity to to work and help families with investing in real estate is is so sky high, because you said it earlier is you know, once someone buys one, one rental property, and if it’s cash flowing, working out for them, they’re just gonna want to keep doing it. Right. So you rarely meet an investor who buys one property and stops there. And I think one thing that gets missed for people who aren’t, you know, in tune or educated on real estate investing is just like, the two most important pieces with with real estate when done correctly leverage and control. So, you know, typically, if you have $100,000, okay, you can buy $100,000 worth of stock or mutual funds or bonds. But with real estate, you know, when you’re looking at buying a rental property, most places the general rules candidate us are if you have $100,000, and you’re buying investment property, you can buy a $500,000 asset 20% down. Yep. So $100,000 in the stock market gets you $100,000 worth of stock mutual funds in real estate, it’s 505 times your investment, why that’s important. Dollar rising the math, okay, so we’re not here to kind of like speculate on you know, appreciate but but if you look at it this way, okay, if over a tenant like you take one year, okay. 5% appreciation on that on that $500,000 house. So if that house goes up 5% $25,000 $25,000 divided by your 100,000 investment. That’s a 25% rate of return on your initial capital 5% and appreciation equals 25% on your capital. The stock market, if the stock market goes up 5% 5% On your capital, you need to actually get a 25% rate of return in the stock market to generate 25.

So in that, and you said that perfectly but that’s what that conversation is the conversations that are going to start happening in the kitchen tables across the countries, Canada do any United States and that’s that’s the conversations that need to be have. And it’s too often that like, and I see it every day, because because most let’s be honest, like the average Asia I don’t know what is in Canada and the United States us six houses a year. Like that’s it like a very comparable, it’s, it’s it’s insane. It’s like, first I don’t know how you can only sell six houses a year, you have to be closet agent, like you literally have to hide for six for 12 months to only sell six houses a year, like you’re gonna walk past 40 5060 100 people they’re gonna be in the market, just over the course of three months, you got a loan go year, the only sound sticks out. So that’s another show, right?

Well, that’s like, you know what I heard a quote, I have a lot of realtor partners and colleagues who are with Keller Williams, I know that they’re one of the biggest brokerages I’m pretty sure in the US. And I go to a conference there every year. And I remember Gary Keller mentioned a quote that like for me, because I’ve invest in real estate, like I get it, but it just kind of opened my eyes even more and then I hope it did for I’m sure it did for a lot of people’s, like, every great investment deal. Has through the hands of at least one real estate agent usually. Yeah. So like, they could have had the opportunity of buying it. But it passed with their hands, they looked at it or they didn’t look at it. They weren’t capable or didn’t understand or realize it but like every great amazing deal typically is passed through someone’s hands and it’s just like, why does that have to be the case? You know, what, like, not everyone has unlimited capital, but it was just like, that’s that’s a funny concept right? If we know the return of something an opportunity that’s there like why don’t we try to take advantage of it or work toward being in a position to be able to take advantage of it

right so we have a total perfect story so like we have a seller lead generation we set seller appointments and a different business for those are interested in that that’s called owner advocate agent.com owner advocate agent.com And we give sellers multiple options to sell their property so we give them a fix and list program a bridge loan a cash offer a sale leaseback and we have an offering our offering is like the Expedia of real estate, you know, pick your five, six different ways to sell your house, you pick which one is right for you, they’re all gonna have different knots, they’re all gonna have different time links and processes. It’s just based upon the goals you want. So we’re selling through options. But yesterday we get a we get a we send out a lead and the lead that house is owned outright. It’s worth 350 He only owes 87,000 on it. And the lead goes specifically says hey, I don’t want to be he goes I don’t want to relist with a realtor, I just want a cash offer. I’m gonna move down to Tennessee and I’m gonna fucking retire, guys is done. He’s 87 years old, he eases over it, you know, this is a perfect investment opportunity for a investor, right? So in the lead up to the agent, agent goes, doesn’t even like didn’t follow up with the investor yet. I’m like, Dude, what are you doing this like goldmine. And he’s just like, he wasn’t approaching it. Like, why didn’t I just buy this? He’s approaching it as a listing agent. And he was about to not even call the person because they said, Hey, I don’t want to talk to a realtor. Would you rather make a $7,500 commission on the $300,000 house? Or would you rather make about $75,000. And it’s that mindset, and you’re right every single year, and I don’t come across them anymore, because I’m no longer really practicing in San Diego, but Chicago, like, gosh, you’re you guys are just naturally going to come across a home run one to three times a year. Naturally, that’s without even looking at just because you’re in the business, right? Yeah. And the question is, do you have the skills to take that fucker down yourself? That’s what it comes down to? And if you don’t, why aren’t you going out and finding them? And why aren’t you going out and doing that? Why don’t you learn this? Why don’t you go and meet guys like Josh or partner with people or go and hire grant cardones coaching company or whatever, go there’s millions of freakin education out there. You guys can learn this stuff. It’s nothing you go to college for I promise you that you learned from other people that are doing it. And then guess what you have? Because here’s what happens like Josh was me. And you were sitting there having a kitchen conversation. And you’re telling me about how many doors you now need 90 doors and just the fact you said Yeah, I have 90 doors. I’m not even fucking interviewing anyone else. You’re going to talk through experience based upon what you do. And then the positioning from that instantly you have my respect. So I own 90 doors and here’s how I finance all of them. Because I’m all about cash flow. Are you interested in cash flow, Mr. Seller and Mr. Buyer? Well, yeah, well, here’s what I did in my scenario, and then here’s what I would recommend doing in yours. You have the track record to do that. And I could promise you that there’s not too many mortgage brokers out there that Oh 90 doors that put positioning as you’re selling a totally different product and service, you are no longer a commodity, you are an expert.

And that’s, you know, what, how we’ve positioned our business our team is being like, teaching by doing right. And and I think it’s, I’m just passionate about it, because I can see how how real estate investing can build wealth. And the fortunate thing that, you know, mortgage brokers and realtors have in their business is like, you know, we’re not selling like widgets, or pens, we’re actually involved in something that is super, super meaningful to the large majority of the population, homeownership building wealth, you know, and a lot of times, it’s just comes down to go in deeper with your clients and explaining, okay, people talk about building wealth or generational, but like, what does it teach person? Is it being able to retire at all, or retire? living life on your own terms, travel, pay for your kids education, pay down debt, pay off your mortgage faster? What is it to you helping a family member in need? Right? So there’s just such an opportunity that it’s okay, if you don’t understand real estate investing right now. But don’t put yourself in a box and say, I don’t do that you have to do that, whether it’s for clients, or for yourself and your family, you’re right in front of you. It’s so easy, and it’s not complicated. That’s the thing, right? Oh, 90 doors? Well, it’s, you know, it’s been very purposeful over the last 12 years, and also the real estate investment community, at least from Canada. And I’ve started getting involved in the US and we have one of our big educational groups that have just migrated to the US right now. You can hit me up for that as well. And I’m happy to make some connections in a few different states. But people in the real estate investment community are usually very open books and willing to share and very much of a pay it forward mentality. So we have so many opportunities to lean on those resources to to learn and educate if you’re not there. And then you could pass that on to your clients. But even if you don’t want to do that, do it use it for yourself. Because like I said, the leverage piece. The other thing that’s often forgotten is, you know, every month that you know, like, so you have leverage, right. So so the appreciation factor is nice, okay? If you can achieve it long term, which you should. And next, you know, principle pay down. So this is another concept, every if you have a renter in a house or two renters, right, and the total rental income, that total rental income is at least breaking even with the expenses you have on the house. Keep in mind that every month your mortgage is getting paid down, getting paid down, so So the tenants are paying down the mortgage for you and every month that your mortgage goes down 500 or $1,000 a month, that’s 500 to $1,000 a month more of equity you have in your house. So on a typical mortgage amortization schedule, every year like at rates. So when rates are in like the two to 3% range on that investment property, what that pay down equate equated to was about nine to 10% per year of equity game. Now, depending on where you’re at with your rates, if you’re in the four or five 6% range, that pay down factor is about three to like somewhere between three and 4%. So you do nothing every year. Okay. And if you just broke even, you’re making today about 4% per year. Okay, that’s not including appreciation. And then there’s cashflow cashflow, you can determine before you pull the trigger and buy, you can ask you can see what the rents are, or you can estimate very closely what something can rent for. So if you know you’re buying a house at 400 $500,000, and you’re going to collect $1,200 A month times two units $2,400 We work and these are the things like these are the conversations we’re a part of with our clients. well in advance. So client comes to us, hey, never invest in real estate before. What can I do? How can I do it? Where do I get money from it? Will I get cash flow? Can I payment, we’re here to map it out and illustrate every version of what’s possible for you. So that there’s no kind of guessing after you get the keys and get your first month. So it’s all pies the best, highest and best the other main thing so we talked about, you know, leverage so the concept of $100 Gets you $500 of real estate $100,000 downpayment gets you 500,000 in real estate. Now, there’s principal pay down someone else paying down the mortgage for you, and there’s monthly cash flow. So every month few $100 Maybe $1,000 a month, positive between your rental income, your expenses, those are three different ways that your rate of return. So over the long haul, like when you hear people sometimes Grant Cardone other people saying, Oh, I’m getting 25 to 40% annually on my investment that is a real number. That’s real when you add in appreciation, cashflow and principal pay down. We talked about you know, a 5% appreciation equals actually a 25% rate of return Okay, if you’re taking a five or 10 year period, I think that’s a reasonable number to work off of, then you add in, you know, two to 5% in cash flow, and then you add in four to 10%. At different times and principal pay down, you’re easily there. So that’s, that’s massive over a long period of time. This is this is why investors when they understand this concept, and it only takes you know, a couple of conversations, and we’d like to dollarized things, right, I don’t like when we talk just all these percentages verbally and through these, I want to show you in dollars with dollars that you have access to the math and I find that when you illustrate these things, it can be a lot more powerful. One gets into one property. This is why we have clients that by four or five, you’re educating

me like you’re teaching me but you’re also demonstrating your expertise. talk’s cheap guys, you got to have the experience or the skill set to demonstrate. And that’s ultimately comes down to there’s a, I think just knowing your market highest and best, like, I’ll give you an example in in California, crazy Governor Newsom passed a zoning ordinance because it was like a big housing crisis. And it basically removed all r1 zoning, which basically means that if you have a single family home, you could pop in like two or three Airbnb ease on it. So there’s some people making killer cash right now. Now, I told you guys are gonna have to work harder in this market. So I’m gonna give you a fucking really easy one, I’m going out and I’m finding all the irregular lot sizes, okay, that Airbnbs can fit on multiple of them all residential properties. And then I’m going to cross check that data with distress, I’m gonna see which of those people have high credit card debt, which of those people have been in the house for long, and which of them have a shitload of equity, how old they are, and all of it, and then I’m going to fucking door knocking or cold call them with an offer. Because the same thing happened when that switch to cannabis in California and those right when I moved here, and I remember that that time, they just switched to zoning. So and there are so many people that didn’t realize overnight, that their land value just because of the zoning change literally shot up to seven figures because you can now grow cannabis on it. And and the people who made a lot of money in that were the ones who knew the zoning laws, and they would go out and buy the property. And then they could turn around and flip it easily for probably a million dollar profit because the zoning what you could do with it in the future. So knowing highest and best use in your market, not just on the property in the cosmetics and adding a bedroom adding a bathroom, but the zoning to it, what can you do with it? This is what’s gonna be required to survive in these markets, I firmly believe that every real estate team will eventually be a hybrid investor offering. I think that that’s the future real estate. I don’t think I think commissions are gonna get compressed, eventually. They already are in many areas. And with that, you’re gonna have to think a little bit smarter. But what if you had to buy an arm into your team or your brokerage even as a mortgage broker? You’re doing it right now? You’re not starving Are you know, the rates dip right now and you have a slow six months? Do you? Are you really going to be affected? Because you have 90 doors? No, five?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’m talking about yeah, that’s, it’s just, you know, it’s building for tomorrow, you don’t know what’s around the corner. You know, everyone has, you know, different values or obligations and family and stuff like that. But it’s always just thinking about, you know, what’s happening today, it’s not going to be what things are, like, you know, tomorrow, next week, next year, so you got to plan for the unexpected, and a big thing for me that kind of wrap my head around, you know, constantly wanting to do more in my mortgage business or real estate investing was framed before and it was just like, listen, like if you have opportunities that are available to you as a result of you know, you working to educate or your resources and your circle, and you’re not taking advantage of them. Like are you really responsible? Are you responsible to the people within your business? Like, are you are you putting off opportunities that could help you know, some members of my team because there’s more revenue that can come into the company? If I told you know, my wife or kids five years from now, hey, yeah, you know, what I could have? I could have earned or grew our net worth by X amount. But you know, I just

didn’t we could have had a vacation home in Florida kids, but I just decided not to, they’d be pretty pissed at you probably right now. No, he’s

fine. Like, you know, sometimes people are like, oh, you know, I’m good. It’s slow, but I’m okay. I’m happy. Like, what? Why should I want to do more uncomfortable a things can change. That’s the number one thing, right? And number two is like you know, think about your family. Think about the other people maybe putting yourself in position and be able to help a family member in need. And maybe that will motivate you a little bit more if you’re content with your current situation. Think about the other people around you that you care about. And it should be you should look at it as your duty right I think CARDONE says it to success is your duty. Well, if you look at it a little bit deeper as like, you know, not everyone has opportunities in front of them to pursue that can help build wealth. A lot of us do have that, especially working in real estate, the right in front of us everywhere. It’s just a matter of building your team and resources and want wanting to learn and grow. That’s the key part.

Folks, if you’re not going to events, like I I in oh seven, when I did it all the short sales it was most successful I’ve had in my career, I forced myself to learn that. And because I saw the opportunity, and I learned it for two to three years, I was going to every conference and it took a while to learn. But the result, the end result of that was like we made millions of dollars. Like, you have to want to learn and educate yourself. But we’re telling you guys what to learn and educate on is the skill set, go deeper in real estate, don’t just sell it, don’t just sell loans, invest in loans and invest in do it yourself. But if you can’t get there to do it yourself yet, you still need to know about these terms, cashflow, highest and best use. You need to know credit financing programs to leverage debt, you know, big things like there’s a ton of investment friendly programs that are out there. Right now. I don’t know if they have them up. And I think that loans are a little different Canada in the United States. But there’s there’s a lot of asset based loans that are meant for investors that you can leverage.

Yeah. commercial, commercial, like the average. Yeah.

And if not just me, there’s a ton of private money. And you probably have all of the private money right on your Facebook feed. Like if you just reached out and just went to some of your friends, like, why can’t you start syndicating deals? It’s not hard to get the money, you just have to actually try it. But it all starts by educating yourself. Where would you suggest people where did where did you get learned about investing? And then we’ll get the show wrapped up? If you want to give any people some final advice?

Yeah, you know, in Canada, it was a group Real Estate Investment Network, I promise you you Google real estate investing or honestly, I’m always a big advocate of getting introductions from people I know. So anyone in your circle, if you’re in real estate, you have to know someone whose real estate investing, go ask them first, you’ll also you also build a deeper connection with that person as a result of expressing that you want to learn more, right? I guarantee you majority of those people, when you ask them will be happy to share plenty of resources with you, you’ll get an immediate connection. So that’s where you go online YouTube, there’s you know, a few pretty good follows you know, Grant Cardone is a great, great follow, I’ll share, maybe I’ll send you some notes of some of my top people in real estate investing, but I mean, talk to the people,

I’m gonna have to pay for that. What are you talking about, I’m gonna have to pay to buy a course, you can’t pay, I can’t pay $500 To buy a course, that’s not a good investment of my time. Instead, I’m gonna go to college and rack up a $40,000 debt that I’ll never pay back.

Like, that’d be a great episode, the college comparison. Yeah, like

books, investors, people selling info, Spy it, they’re not selling info, if they don’t know what the hell they’re doing. Yeah, there’s some fake fake people out there. But it’s pretty easy to spot them out and just start learning that the reality is, is that like, you’ll buy many courses, and you’ll pick up a little golden nugget out of each one. My only goal with events and buying courses was like, if I could just get one thing out of this, I’m thrilled. And there’s always one thing and every bit of information that you buy, otherwise, that information has been

sold. Every, every single time you pull something from events, that’s a big piece, but talk to your own circle, use Google, you’ll have you know, my contact information, I’m willing to share my own, you know, resources, you know, a lot of them in Canada, a lot of them in the US to starting fresh in the US when I came down here a couple of years ago, got a great community that’s growing with that have you know, we’re aligned with our goals, a lot of great real estate agents, investors, community, the group that I’m part of wealth genius here is now when I think like nine different states and they’re growing rapidly, I’m actually coming down to Ohio, in June for a boots on the ground events. So basically, they will walk through a bunch of sample investment properties that might you know, look attractive that are currently on the market, get to know the city in a few different areas. So looking forward, and they’re doing that all over the country actually so interesting.

Well appreciate it Josh. Why don’t you tell everyone where they can find you give them your handle really quick or where they can connect with you and we’ll get this rep. Yeah, best.

Thanks for having Mike. It was a pleasure. Best place to reach me is on Instagram underscore Perez Josh. You can also reach out to me by email Josh at Synergy mortgage group.com

I appreciate you dude. And we appreciate you guys listening to another episode the real estate marketing do podcast folks if you have any additional questions you need to get on video once you visit my site real estate marketing do.com was script edit and distribute your content for you. We’ll put you on the map stop making you creepy and start making you a whole lot more marketable. So you start attracting business. And if you like what we talked about today, and you need to sharpen up your listing presentation or your offering and go visit owner advocate agent.com owner advocate agent.com Check it out and you’ll see how you can sharpen your skills so that more people actually want to work with you because the old days of hey, this is the only way you sell your house those are gone start selling options and people will be a lot easier to convert more importantly build your trust and differentiate your brand. Appreciate guys listening. We’ll see you guys next week on next week’s show peace out 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.com We make branding and video content creation simple and do everything for you. So if you have any additional questions, visit the site To 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.

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What’s the Next Big Thing in Real Estate?

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Real Estate is changing. There is no avoiding the upcoming market shifts, but what does that mean for Real Estate? There is always money to be made, you just need to find how to capitalize on it.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

How can you change with the market?
What might be on the horizon of the market?
What’s next for the industry.

Resource

Transcript:

So how do you track new business, you constantly don’t have to chase it. Hi, I’m Mike Cuevas to real estate marketing. This podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust and 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. Folks, what we’re gonna be chatting about today is what is going to happen in this markets. And I’ve had a lot of interesting conversations in particular, a couple of nights ago, I was at a social, and I was talking to a title rep. And she was spitting out some numbers that were just like, astonishing, to me. And it really put some things into perspective that I knew, but I didn’t really think of just yet. Like you guys, I’m also watching the market very closely. And it’s such an interesting time, because it’s like, you know, you have this thing with inflation, you have all these higher rates, the affordability is a major issue. But then yet, there’s still a lack of inventory. And I just find it absolutely astonishing that like, you know, like, what is going on? It’s just such a, it’s such an odd and different circumstance that we’re in here. And then I started, we get into it, we had this really good conversation, we’re sitting there talking, and we’re like, hey, well, at least then I think she just gave me the stat in the nation. The biggest problem you guys know, this is that people who own properties, I think she said it was like 60 or 70% of people that own a house right now locked into one of these, like super duper low interest rates, like 3%. And the biggest problem right now is going to be well, where are you going to go even if you want to sell your house, chances are whatever you replace your house with is going to end up costing you more in probably getting less for it. And that’s just the reality. So we’re like stuck, like in people are looking for inventory. But a big issue I believe here is how are we going to get inventory when we can’t find replacement inventory for the people that need to open up the inventory. So what are we going to concentrate on in this market, and I’m seeing this last week’s episode, if you guys listened to that we had Tommy on, he’s a real estate investor, and he has the same issue. And he’s like, Dude, I don’t have any inventory. But then we’re looking at this all time affordability issue and like higher interest rates, but yet the market is still there, you have banks collapsing, but yet people are still buying is just such an astonishing time. And what I’m gonna focus on this podcast today is what I’m gonna make a prediction, I’m gonna focus, I’m going to tell you guys where if I’m you, I would be concentrating my business on and I’m doing it with you. So I’m not just telling you what to do, I’m actually in the process of doing the same thing. Because the reality is, is that if this is the case, where are we going to put the focus in our business? Where should we put our marketing efforts where should put our lead efforts, and all of the above Now, for those of you listen to the show a lot, you know that I’m a huge component about staying in front your database, creating content for them and staying in front of them, right, we have a whole software called referral suite dedicated just to doing that, which you can check out at referral suite.com. But what it is, is that what it is, is that it stays in front of your database. But in these markets, if your database will always feed you. But doesn’t mean you stop lead generating or stop trying to find other avenues of business, you see, your database will keep you consistent. But when you want to go out and like call it scale, or you want to go out in increase, or whatever, you know, might make sense to do some sort of lead generation. So what I’m going to focus on today is what kind of lead generation is that going to be? And my prediction is that distressed. Now, hear me out before we go into it. And if I’m you, I’m going to put my focus into the areas of business where people are going to move no matter what, I’m going to go after divorce probate. I’m gonna go after bankruptcy, loss of income. I’m going to go back and do what I did in 2007. And I’m going to go right back into the distressed market because regardless of what is going to happen with the market, people will still get distressed and most don’t even know it yet. Reality is that some people are gonna get divorced and they don’t know it yet. Some people are gonna get sick, they’re gonna lose their jobs and don’t know yet, but that market always has to transact. Now, here’s the caveat. This is also what we were talking about in the same conversation. So at least here in San Diego, I don’t know what it is in your market, but I’ve talked to a bunch of agents like oh, we’re down 3% 5% reality is we’re probably down 10 to 20%. Let’s just say that’s the number. Okay, I don’t know the exact number. Let’s just say we’re down 10% Well, Oh, I forgot what news organization released the article. But she, she cited it when in our conversation and she was like, Well, you know, the reality is if the cost to sell your property is 8% 9% 7%, and you bought a house, then the value already went down 510 or 15%? Well, you’re underwater folks, especially if you didn’t put any money down. You know, there is a lot of people who got an FHA or 5%, down, even if you put down 10% on a property and the market dropped 5%, you’re still underwater, because the cost of sell are going to take you there. So 90% of the real estate agents within this industry have never seen a shift in the marketplace, we’ve been literally just, if you’ve gotten in the business the last 10 years, you haven’t seen this happen yet. And that’s no dig at you, I’m trying to sound the alarms, and I’m going to tell you, Hey, here’s where you should concentrate your focus on and it is 100% in distressed sellers, there’s going to be quite a lot of them. I think that with this wall out, and what people aren’t talking about are the stress that is on our banking system right now. And I think that is the biggest concern I have, I’m not any more concerned about, oh, let’s go curb inflation. I’m concerned about the banking system, again, being able to withstand this storm and not collapse, right. But regardless of what happens, folks, we know, people are gonna lose their jobs, like all signs are pointing their work, if we’re not gonna end of your session, we’re gonna get into one. And depending on which rabbit hole you want to go down, some people are even saying that the depression if this trigger can happen, there’s a lot of things going on that I would strongly encourage you to pay attention to, because it’s going to affect the economy. And when the economy is affected, traditionally, that goes into less people buying houses and whatnot, more people coming up with distressed but just take those numbers into consideration. That means anyone who’s bought in within the last 18 months, if they bought last year, anyone who bought last year, they’re underwater. And two things happen. When that happens. People who are underwater, if they also experiences a personal life situation at the same time, that becomes a short sale, guys, that becomes a foreclosure. That’s how it starts. And the last crash, the worry. And I’m not saying there’s gonna crash, I don’t know if it’s going to crash. But I do think there’s going to be a distressed market, how bad I have no idea. But in the last time, it happened so fast. And the it’s all mindset, it’s all consumer confidence. If I don’t think the market, your house is worth that, I’m not going to pay for that. And once that thing kicks off, it kicks off, right? The market isn’t based on anything, but confidence. And confidence can become in a lot of different ways. So I’m just telling you guys pay very close attention to it. Because my partner owns a data company, I could see the data. And that’s the only reason why I have this insight. So what are you going to do? Well, there’s a lot of things you can do. And I believe that whoever is going to go out there and get proactive in this, what I’m talking about today, I think that you’re going to set yourself up for the next market, I think you’re going to weather the storm. And I think you’re gonna dominate long term and take this into leverage. The number one thing that happened in 2007 was the lack of adoption for people wanting to concentrate on the distressed market. So matter of fact, I got most of my business when we started our short sale company back then from other real estate agents where we were raking in the money just because real estate agents didn’t know how to take on short sales, we gladly took them on pay them a referral fee and we’re making hand over fist and helping a ton of people at the same time. So it was only because we were willing to take on a problem that no one else wanted to. And I had a conversation with a friend of mine down in Tampa, Mr. kick butt mortgage guy. He’s in a mortgage broker and he’s doing it within lending. He is making a focus on divorce lending and coming up with a specialization focusing on how to finance a house during a divorce situation because there is a niche for that there is a niche for probate and people are dying people are dying didn’t change their right people die. Well what happens to the house when they do setting up strategic alliances with probate attorneys get very very investor friendly in these types of markets

I could you always follow the real estate investors and here’s why. Real estate investors buy properties like a lots of them, and I’d rather work with them because it’s not emotional. But the real estate investors are sitting on the sidelines salvat tating, waiting to pounce onto this market and that should tell you something. When the real estate investing community is ready to pounce. start forming relationships with them because whether they’re going to be buying and selling or buying and reselling or buying and holding whatever the hell they’re going to be doing. whatever investment strategy it is, that’s where a lot of transaction and volume will take place in 2000 789. I remember like, if I could remember correctly, it’s been so long, but I’d like to say was like 30 to 40% of the market at that time was cash buyers. And what happened at that time was we had a giant buyer’s list because we were doing so many short sales, and we were transacting more than ever, but only because we concentrated within a niche of what was happening at that time. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But what it requires is learning the skill, you real estate as an agent, is a great and fantastic career to have. But you have to adapt within it. Real Estate’s always bought and sold. But how it’s bought and sold is what changes throughout the markets and learning the types of transactions that I think are going to be prevalent, or at least the ones taking place more so than your just traditional regular real estate transactions are going to be in the distressed niche, and they’re going to involve life change situations. This means marriage. And it’s not all doom and gloom. People who get married people have kids need to up upgrade, right, they need to get a bigger house, you’re gonna see that that’s always going to happen, it’s not going to change. But I think overwhelmingly what you’re going to see is more bankruptcy, I think you’re going to see when bankruptcy comes in that the house is 99% of time is getting released. All right, a bankruptcy attorney that that turns into a listing many, many times. Same thing in probate people, you’re gonna have a lot of that you’re going to have, what else is there divorce, probate, loss of job loss of income. That is going to be a distressed situation, typically people resort to bankruptcy attorneys for that I have not seen or heard yet have a bunch of short sales coming down the pipeline. But I do believe there will be some more. I haven’t seen anyone really transacting them yet. And I people all over the country I talked to frequently and I haven’t seen it yet. But I will keep an eye on that. If I do start seeing it, trust me. So listen to the show. And I will be telling you and singing and hitting the alarm bell. But ultimately, I’m telling you guys focus on listings, in this next market, focus on listings and focus on the stress. And there’s a couple different ways you can do that. And I want to share with you how to repackage your services to do so. So we have a company called owner advocate agent, it’s www dot owner advocate agent.com. And what it is, is a multiple listing option solution. So for example, when I go into a listing presentation, I no longer have to say, Oh yeah, we’re just gonna list your house, you’re gonna have their Open House want to do pictures and all that instead, pull out a menu of options. And I say, hey, which one of these best suits your situation so I have a fixed endless program where if somebody wants to net top dollar or their house is in a little bit of a dilapidated condition, we could come in there with contractors, fix the house up, spruce it up, without the seller having to pay for it out of pocket and the seller will get reimbursed at closing once that house closes. That’s a very good option for somebody that wants to squeeze the most amount of money out of their property. Okay, now, how can I package up and use that? Well, I can easily take that program to probate attorneys, divorce attorneys, all of these situations. And now I could tell the attorneys with whom I form a strategic relationship with that, hey, here’s the program that we have because we specialize specifically in the situation. And when people are going to divorce, we understand that money a lot of times is the issue. And sometimes they want to squeeze the most out of it or they want to sell it really fast. Well, in either case, I can help you. In the event, they want to sell it really fast I work with a boatload of investors we could give you cash offer within 24 hours and close on your timeline. But in the event, you want to squeeze as much money out of that property. Well, we have a fixed homeless program where we could come in and use our investors to actually spruce up your property and allow you to flip it so that you can squeeze and sell it for the most amount of money. Those are just two options. We also have a bridge loan option for people especially in this market who are stuck in the buying and selling at the same time in a low inventory market. We know that people are going to it’s not going to be like Oh, it’s just sell my house and then I can go out there and buy a new one. Many people today are going to need to go out and buy their replacement house before they sell their existing one because there is no inventory and nobody wants to settle on their primary residence. So that’s what a bridge loan option that’s a solution for that specific property. Right but we have a sale leaseback program, we are about to introduce a sell part of your house program. It’s almost like they could buy a slice of their property and almost like a timeshare so they could access some of their equity. I’m looking at the reverse mortgage market very in depth. The vast majority of equity in this market throughout the United States is not held by people who are 30 years old or held by people who will qualify for a reverse mortgage So, all of these different things, guys, I what I’m sounding the alarm bells on, because I believe that the agents that are going to concentrate in these different niches will not only not experience any sort of downwind, but I think they’re gonna, they’re gonna crush it, I think they’re going to scale and I think they’re going to kill it, because nobody’s done it yet. This whole menu of options just give sellers options that caters towards their problems, as opposed to them signing up, for my only all in one only solution system. And at the end of the day, all we’re doing is that people want seller options. So if you’re interested in learning more about that you can visit it at owner advocate agent.com. Take the free training. And I’ll show you exactly how we do the listing presentation and the tools we use to generate all the offers and have them under contract within 24 to 72 hours if they choose one of the offers. So there is a lot of different ways you guys can go out and market this thing. But everything I’m telling you about here is changing the status quo. This is about you going out there and you differentiating your brand, you creating something, whether it’s a program, like our owner advocate example I just gave you, that’s our unique selling proposition that differentiates what we do from every other agent out there. And it’s going to require marketing, right? It’s going to require content creation, because I have to educate people in the difference. It’s going to require ads and ad spend. But ultimately, it’s going to just be us doing things a little differently. See, these markets, although some people haven’t been affected at all, depending on where you’re at in the country, things are either much, much slower or a little bit slower overall, for most people right now, some people are still crushing it, but they’re not crushing it as much as they were a few years ago. But they’re still doing very, very well. And the one thing they all have in common is they are personal brands, which is always recession proof, guys. Don’t forget that. But start, open your eyes up, look around you in and who do you know that you could connect with who what attorneys do you have on your Facebook friends list and concentrate these fields. All of these different things are things I would start putting into place right now. All right, create a program, create something that differentiates and bring that to many strategic alliances like attorney partners. But whatever you got to do get educated in these different niches know the probate process, right? That’s different per state know how that works. Know how a divorce situation works in terms of lending, when there’s a something held up by the judge know the process of foreclosure and all the alternatives of foreclosure in your area, there’s so many different things you can do. And then once you dial in that niche, then you just create content around it.

And there’s many, many ways to go out there and find these different sellers. But don’t focus on what the investors are doing. And copy them. That’s all I’m doing. That’s all this podcast is about. I’m just told you what investors are doing. And you as a real estate agent have the opportunity to do the exact same thing. And not to mention, if you didn’t listen to last week’s podcast, listen to Tommy, he has a really cool training course he has a system where he teaches agents how to become investors, something else you guys should be looking at in this market. If we’re gonna hit a distressed market, we’re gonna see opportunities come in to the marketplace within the next six to 18 months. Well, you’re gonna be one of the first people to see those opportunities. And there’s no reason why you couldn’t take advantage of them versus giving them to some other investor. So this mindset that I’m sharing with you on this episode is really what I believe you’re going to have to adapt. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and I don’t want to be that guy saying I’ve been here for 20 years. But I’m telling you, I’ve been here for 20 years, and I I am pretty sure this is what’s going to happen. I have a lot of investments tied up into this. And I know where I’m going. There’s a reason why I’m doing things I’m doing right now, for this next real estate market. So I could be wrong. I’m not saying I know it all, but I don’t think I am. And I’ll go all in on it. So I really hope this helps you guys out. Don’t be worried right now be excited about the opportunity. But you can’t be lazy. You need to get up off your butt. Take the time read by courses, take content, consume stuff, educate yourself because your brain is the most powerful muscle you’ll ever have. And it’s the most powerful thing in your business. Do not be scared, be bold and be very, very very loud. Folks really appreciate that you listen to this week’s episode of real estate marketing note if you have any additional questions you need help with your content creation or anything I want you to visit us visit us at real estate marketing do.com We script that industry we have video Are people all across the country and we can put you on the map help you build your brand, your unique selling proposition and all of the above. Appreciate you guys listen another episode we will see you guys next week. 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 do.com 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 schedule 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 step.

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Is it Time to Become an Investor Friendly Agent?

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It’s a crazy time to be in business, banks are collapsing, interest rates are still increasing and inflation is still on the rise. Maybe its time to diversify your career. Investors are ramping up to take advantage of this economic climate because this is where the money is made.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

How can your site convert clients?
How to generate more referrals.
What being authentic looks like in the marketing world.

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Check Out Tom’s Group

Transcript:

What’s up, ladies and gentlemen, welcome another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast. Oh, holy crap, is there some news out in the world today, bank failures SVB, the markets shifting high interest rates, what’s going on? Welcome to the show, folks, if you have not been in one of these before, the reality is these are the opportunities that people in the real estate business in the industry wait for, because there’s a tremendous amount of opportunity anytime there’s a paradigm shift within the marketplace. And if you’re a real estate agent, if you’re a lender, what we’re going to be chatting about today is why and how you should be putting on your damn investor hat on because the best deals in the real estate market are not had when everyone else is buying a bunch of houses, and they’re paying peak values, the best deals are had when no one’s buying, because that’s when you buy at bottom. And we’ve seen this happen before about 10 years ago, give or take a little bit longer than that. And I’m not saying it’s gonna be that big and bad. But I am saying that if you’re an agent, you need to diversify. I see people going to sell solar right now I see people going to do so many different things. And one of the things that should always be something an agent, and most people in this business graduate towards is becoming an investor themselves. I mean, you come across these opportunities on a daily basis, why the hell are you passing those opportunities to other people versus just taking them on yourself and building wealth for your family. And be honest, you didn’t get into this business to sell houses your entire lifetime you got in this business to build wealth, and be in the know, and leverage your knowledge to create whatever wealth it is you want. So what we have today is that so we’re gonna be chatting about how do you become an agent investor? How do you become an How do you go from agent to investor? And how do you become an investor friendly, you want to be investor friendly, because who’s gonna be buying in this next coming market, I’m gonna be primarily a lot of investors. That’s why you wanna become investor friendly. And whether you’re working with them, or you’re taking them down yourself. It’s a, there’s a shortage of the amount of agents that really are investor friendly, and therefore there’s a high demand for him. So we bring on a return guest. Coming back onto the show. And this is his niche. He’s an investor. He’s an agent, and I want to see exactly what he’s doing and how he’s doing it. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and welcome Tom to the show. Tom. What’s up, dude?

Not too much. Thanks for having me on. Definitely interesting times right now for sure.

Why don’t you tell everyone who you are, where you’re at what you’re doing. And then I got all kinds of questions for you.

Yeah. So again, my name is Tom caffarel. I got started, like a lot of people as a real estate agent. And it really wasn’t until I started investing in real estate that I got traction when I was an agent, like a lot of agents, I was on what they call the real estate rollercoaster, which is like, I’d have a really, really good month, make 10 or 15, or $20,000, think I’m going to make a million bucks that year, then not sell a house for two or three years. And I went through that for a while where it was just like, I feel really good didn’t have anxiety that I was never going to have another deal again. And it wasn’t until I did my first investing deal a wholesale deal, where I made $115,000 That really, my perception about what can be done in real estate has changed. Since then, I’ve fixed and flipped over 1200 homes, I’ve got a 300 unit rental property portfolio, I’ve got a real estate brokerage that focuses on helping agents achieve financial freedom through investing in real estate. And really my main motto for kind of what you alluded to is like sales will make you a living, you can make good money as an agent, but investing will make you wealthy. And as a broker owner, every agent that walks through the door tells me they got into it, they got into being an agent because they want freedom. Yet, most of the time, they’re running around like a chicken with their head cut off. If one of their buyers wants to see a house 200 miles away from where they’re sitting, they’re gonna jump the next day to go there, whether they’re going to make money on it or not. So it becomes one of these things where you think you’re getting into real estate for freedom. But a lot of agents never achieve it because they never invest. And you alluded to, you know, selling solar, and all of these other things that people do. You don’t need to do that if you have one or two or three cash flowing property. So there’s a lot of unique strategies that we use in order to do that. And he talked about going from agent to investor, I like to blend the two I like to be both and maybe sometimes when somebody does so well investing, they stopped selling homes, but I like to be able to take the approach of doing both because I think they kind of like adds fuel to the fire.

So I love that but I’m sure I’m not sure how your business model is set up. But I’m guessing that you lead generate using your investor offer and then when 90% of them don’t work and then you turn on your real estate agent hat.

Exactly. So and we do it for for two ways, right so we do it for quick turn hits of income fix and flip and wholesales but then we also do it to buy houses And one thing that people kind of get confused when they think about buying and holding properties is they think, Well, why would you ever need to generate a lead in order to buy and hold the property? The reality is you don’t, unless you want to accelerate quickly, let me just explain that, you know, real real quick so your audience can understand this. If you go right now and you buy a multifamily or you buy a rental property on the multiple listing service today, with the market potentially falling, or let’s even just say it’s flat, the next time that you’re going to be able to get money out of that house, this can be 3456 years later. So one of the reasons why he say they don’t invest in real estate is because they don’t have money. But you don’t need a lot of money to invest in real estate when you’re buying these properties at a discount. So let me just give you like a simple example, let’s say that a property would be listed on the MLS for $500,000. Let’s say you generate an off market opportunity to buy that property for 400. rather than you having to wait two or three or four years to refinance and pull an equity line, you might be able to do it in a year. So it’s it accelerates the amount of properties that you’re able to buy cars, once you have two or three or four assets. Now every year or two, you’re able to pull equity out of each one of those for down payments on more properties. But if you’re always paying retail full market value, that’s going to be a really, really slow process. Not that you can’t get there. But it’s a difference between becoming financially free in three to five years, versus like getting there in 20 years. And of course, I’m sure all of your listeners and myself, we want this thing as fast as we can.

Yep, I think the biggest struggle, I think a lot of people have those making the mental shift of going from, because you’re you get your license, and then you just get brainwashed into this highest and best, highest and best, highest and best, highest and best. And then real estate agents just believe that they have to sell the property to highest and best but you guys have to realize that guys like Tom don’t exist. If not everybody wants highest and best. Some people just want to get the hell out of the house. And we don’t we fail to realize that sometimes the highest and best offer for somebody is accepting a cash offer and get them out of whatever situation they’re in. And that’s where a lot of this stuff starts. I think agents feel that they might be taken advantage of somebody or something when they blow by a house. And then they believe that they have this fiduciary duty. But folks, you don’t ever do business at scale or anything unless you’re truly I believe in unless your heart surely in the right place. And you’re actually helping people because an investor with a very bad name doesn’t last long.

So let me tell you the story about how I did my first deal. I’m just going to relate to that I was just going to ask you about Yeah, so that deal where I made $115,000 on it. I showed up as with my agent hat on not my investor hat on. I knocked on the door. The seller opened the door, she barely would let me in. I had to, like really convince her to let me in. I’m walking around. I’m seeing that a bunch of junk everywhere. I’m not thinking anything of it. I’m thinking this is going to be a great listing for me, I sit down at her kitchen table, walk through all the listing stuff she has no you don’t understand. I want $300,000 For this house. And I do not want to show anybody You’re lucky I let you in because you seem nice. But looking back, I mean, it’s very simple situation. She was a hoarder. She said I lived here my whole life. I don’t want anybody to know what the inside of my house looks like, if you can produce me an offer for $300,000 I will sell. If not, then I’m going to find somebody else who will. And that was like, you know, a big, you know, red light. A lot of times they don’t happen to that extent where somebody’s so explicit, but it took being that explicit because it was my first deal. I probably ran across other opportunities like this that I missed. So I had an option, okay, yeah, you could try to list the house. But she told me she’s not listing the house. So it was either me gonna figure out how to do an investment deal that way, or somebody else was going to do it. And it’s not most most sellers, like most sellers, are looking for highest and best. But I can tell you 101 reasons why some sellers choose knowing that they can get more money to take a cash offer. Sometimes it’s literally as simple as that I had one the other day, seller was older. She’s lived in the house for 40 years. The markets really tight still, there’s still not a lot of inventory out there. She said, I’m willing to sell for x, but I want you to be able to buy my house when I tell you. And the reason is because she was moving close to her daughter 60 miles south. She wants to take her time. She wanted to say I see a property I like tomorrow buy my house tomorrow. If I see it in nine months, nine months and you know this type of stuff is it’s common for us because we go on so many appointments, but it’s something that like, I don’t know, like you said brainwash like I I think it’s just a lack of awareness that like, there is a market out there. And again, this market winning exists like all of these companies, these home buying companies, they wouldn’t exist. If the seller didn’t want this as an option, and five to 10% of all sellers do.

Yep. And I with what you guys are gonna see right now, like, the vast majority of real estate agents right now don’t know what a shift is. They haven’t been around in the market that they have. I think someone gave me a stat on one of the shows, I forget which one but I think he or she said it was over 90% or something like that. They don’t know what a shift is. And they just you don’t know what you don’t know. But like, what I believe is going to come down the pipe is I think there’s going to be distressed I mean, this is distress is where the buying opportunities go. Because these investors, whether it’s Tom or somebody else, they’re buying properties that are either in probate, well, your death there, or they’re upside down or their financial issues, or there’s usually something else there they need to move. There’s a there’s a why. And there’s a an issue and underlying issue that the person selling needs to have resolved. And it’s not always top dollar. Go ahead, Tom.

Well, no. Another thing just on that point that we’re seeing now that we haven’t seen in a long time is people who have their houses listed calling us and three, so agents, you’re talking about agents not seeing a shift, right? Agents have been able to go into the living rooms of sellers for the past three, four or five years and say, Hey, you don’t need a cash offer, because I can get you top dollar in 45 days. And that’s basically been true for a while now. As the market starts to change, they go to list the house you go wait, I think getting off for the first weekend, you told me that this to close in 45 days, or 30 days or whatever the amount of days. Oh, wait, there was an inspection, the buyer backed out, like a year ago at this time, or maybe even like 18 months ago, at this point, spec, things weren’t even happening. Right. So like people were sellers were almost getting similar to cash offers on the retail market. But now that’s changing. So there’s a there’s a whole pocket of sellers right now that they’re aging sometimes are believing that they can get them out of that house in 45 days. And they’re calling us mad at their agent saying, my agent told me my house would be sold by now it’s price, right? Why isn’t it selling? Can you time was important to me? Can you make the timeline still happen? And it’s not like that’s happening in droves right now, because the market hasn’t shifted to like a crazy extent. But it is starting to happen now that the market is shifting.

That’s a really, really good point. How are you? Are these opportunities just coming across your desk? Or what do you How are you finding them and say, Okay, great. I’m an agent, what am I doing off the market? How am I finding these properties? Like, am I just waiting on the MLS? Or on the pop up? What are you doing?

So there’s a lot of different strategies that people can take, I’m going to tell you kind of my strategies. But one thing to kind of keep in mind if you’re an agent, and you don’t want to like try to generate a lot of these opportunities. The first step I think is to have awareness that they exist, and to be able to take advantage of them when they’re put in front of you. Like you may go on a seller appointment or somebody in your office might have a listing or somebody might call you at least a couple times a year agents will have this stuff just put right in their lap. Yeah, so keep in mind I’m going to talk about the strategies but keep in mind that you don’t need to necessarily be a seller lead generation machine to take advantage of some of these opportunities but the way that I do it there’s there’s a few different ways most of them are paid you know, I went from door knocking myself and cold calling myself and doing kind of like the heavy lifting myself when I had no marketing budget to start and doing things that that need money that require money, but when I first started, I would just go out and knock on doors and this is stuff again that agent should do anyways in order to get listing opportunities. But I would always go in with a cash offer first, because I felt that even if they know an agent, they want to know my cash offer. So I always got in the door a little bit better having the cash offer. So I used to door knock and I used to cold call. But then once I started getting some money I started to invest that money into mailers are always huge pay per click Facebook ads, TV. And one thing that I’ve done like with my own brokerage and that any agent can do is network with other agents and tell them that you’re an investor. Most agents know a ton of agents. I mean, it goes without saying you’re co brokering with people. You’re in office meetings and one of the best ways to get these type of opportunities brought to you is just to let other agents know Hey, you bring this deal to me if I flip it you’re gonna get the listing back or if you bring it to me I’m not going to co broke it and giving them and you know a Reason to kind of bring it to you. But it’s not much different really than generating a regular traditional opportunity. Like you can spend time you can door knock cold call text, all of that stuff network, social media, or you can pay you can do mailers, or pay per click, or Facebook ads, or TV or radio and all that good stuff. And it just boils down to do you have the money to make your life a little bit easier? Or are you in the face still, like I was in the beginning? What you needed to do the sweat equity component?

Yep. So you’re saying I have to work, man. That’s, that’s tough. That’s tough. Yeah, I mean, if you guys have money, then you like it, when people with video all the time. They’re like, I just did a presentation this morning. And then someone’s like, how much videos should we do a month? And I’m like, Well, that depends on what your budget is, you know, and what you’re willing to take on. If you wanted to hire us to go out and outsource all that crap, great. We can do it. But the cost would be this. If you don’t have the amount of money to invest in editing and distribution, all that other stuff, then you have to learn how to do it yourself. Either way, not doing it at all, is not an option anymore. No, no differently than than this. So this is all really, really good. Now, I want to go through and have a couple more questions is when you show up with a cash offer, I want you to walk everyone through conversion because most people and agents I believe, like they’re scared to insult somebody. Right? And that’s it’s I was too before I was ever I’ve ever bought a house or anything if like, I wouldn’t even be I was such a I was such a sissy that I hated. And just I hate sales guys. Like I hate sales, like when it comes to negotiation. I just don’t like arguing with people. It’s just not my personality. And I think a lot of people are sort of wired that way. But how do you get the Coronas to go out and present a low cash offer? Walk me through like your process? Pretend I’m a seller, for example.

Yeah, for sure. So the first thing that I’m going to do is I’m going to walk you through what the difference in the process is between a traditional listing and a cash offer. And I’m going to make you tell me through a series of questions, what you want, are you looking to get top dollar to deal with a little bit of a hassle, have people in your house and all that stuff and get top dollar? Or do you want a more easier convenient route? Cash, no contingencies, no inspections, choose your closing date, I’m gonna explain to them like, before I even run my numbers, there’s a price to pay for that service, right? If you want a service, you have to pay in order to get it. And I get them to tell me that they understand this, right? You understand that? If I’m not going to do an inspection, I’m gonna buy it cash, I’m going to closing your timeframe, all of that good stuff that you want, you have to get less money for it. Right? There’s there’s no such thing as getting top dollar and getting all those those benefits. Do you understand that? And like, if they don’t understand it, I will not give a number until they understand it. And maybe I’ll talk to them for 15 minutes about the difference. Until they understand that I’m not giving a number because if they don’t understand the benefits, then it doesn’t make sense. If they don’t value the benefits, I’m not giving them a cash offer either. So if they say well, I don’t care about no inspection, I can wait as long as I want. I’m willing to do repairs and go cash offers not for you. Let’s talk about getting you top dollar, right because a cash offer all that’s going to do is make you think that I’m trying to rip you off. I’m not I’m trying to get you what you need. What do you need? So, um, let’s just say that they get to the point then that they’re like, Yes, I need a cash offer. I want a cash offer, I’m willing to pay for the benefit, etc, then I’m going to start to talk to them about pricing. And what I like to do as much as I can is get a price from them first. Now, that’s not always possible. It’s very easy to say that. But I’ll do it in a different way. Like I’ll use like a price anchor and the price anchor. I love to use as the assessed value. The assessed value in my market tanked smart.

Pay attention, guys. It’s really smart. So I like what happened to Zillow value. I actually go out and get that one because I have one on Zillow too, but it’s never really that accurate.

Well, you know what, like, no matter what, no matter what price anchor you use, it’s going to be it’s not going to be you saying that that’s the number, right? So yeah, that’s

what I love about it. And that’s great. So they can’t like if you’re not the bad guy.

If you say, Hey, your assessed value is 300,000. They can’t get mad at you because you just read it off the tax card, right? So I’m not going to tell them the value of their house is 300,000. But I’m going to say your assessed value is 300,000. Like how do you think your property compares to that? And almost immediately, you’ll kind of get a read because they’re either going to be like, oh, like I think my property somewhere in that range, maybe a little higher, or they’re going to do the retail response, which is like my house is worth so much more than that MSA. You’re right it is like listening Yeah, we have to go this other way. Yeah. So, you know, to me, like, what I tried to do more than anything else is like you go to the doctor’s office, and the doctor is gonna say, hey, you know, are you ready for a pinch, pinch coming, whatever getting somebody prepared. It’s called an upfront contract and sales, I will not give them an offer until they say, Yes, I’m ready. And I think that they’re ready. And again, if they are just giving every single sign that they want top dollar, I’m not going to try to convince them that they should get a cash offer. And I may leave not even giving them a number. Or I may leave, the other thing that I do, if I think it’s more retail is I might give a range. Rather than saying, like, you know, My offer is going to be 300,000, I might say, like, My offer is going to be in the low threes or, you know, low to mid threes, just to kind of like, answer the question about what the offer would be. But then go back to retail, again, I’m trying to buy the house. And so as I’m saying all of this, I’m only focusing a little bit more on retail, because that’s typically where things go. Because the misconception that a lot of sellers have when you present a cash offer is cash offers going to be basically the same amount as what the retail price is going to be. Maybe you deduct a commission. That’s kind of what they’re thinking. And, and that’s not their fault. It’s just that they have never gotten a cash offer before so they don’t understand. So yeah, I mean, once somebody tells me that they really want a cash offer, and it makes sense for them to get a cash offer, then I feel more comfortable because somebody may push back and say, your offers way too low. But if I really understanding, I know how important a cash offer is to them. Let’s say they tell me a simple, simplistic thing. I need to be out of my house in 30 days, there’s an auction, like, I don’t care what you think your house is worth, the only way you’re getting that is through a cash offer process. So depending on the situation, I feel good, like I don’t feel like I need to have guts to tell somebody that because it’s actually in their best interest.

explaining all their options. Yeah, and its pros and cons. Pros pro this, that’s it.

And really like more than anything else seeking to understand what’s important to them, so that you can help advise them on what actually makes the most sense. And I think when you go into that, it with that it’s a lot harder for somebody to get mad at you. Because you’ve been transparent and you know, let them know. I mean, of course, there are situations where you walk in and you just know it’s a cash deal. You know, maybe it can’t even find the ex traditionally. And they say well, my property’s worth 450. And you’re like, well, it doesn’t matter what it’s worth. It has to be a cash buyer because the septic failed or this happened or that happened and it just needs to go cash.

Yep. So if I’m, what’s the first thing I think knowledge, you sort of said it like, you need to know how this stuff works. Because you’re right, every agent comes across one or two home runs a year, when you’re not looking for it. A lot of the investors out here in San Diego wasn’t quite this way in Chicago, but in San Diego. Most of the investors I know out here get all of their deals from realtors. Yep. And they just position Hey, use my cash offer and they get introduced to them. And many of them are realtors, too. Yep. And yeah, it’s very simple. Like, hey, double ended deal, I don’t want to commission on it. Or let me be your hero with a cat my cash offer. That’s really what it comes down to you guys. So it’s not like you have to overthink the the marketing of this you can talk to a lot of people just like you would if you’re just a regular real estate agent just start talking to the right ones. But don’t overthink this at the same time. What what a strategy wise, what do you see coming on right now and just conditions? Or do you like the flip market right now? Do you like the whole market? Like what do you anticipate in with this bank failure? And then what does this bank failure, in your opinion have to do with the investing market going forward?

Well, the first thing with the bank failure that has changed pretty much on a dime is interest rates. So you know not to get too technical about this. But it seems like we might have peaked with interest rates, which in the end of 2022 was a real concern for both the residential market and of the flipping market. You know, there were definitely deals that I had out there sitting a lot longer when rates went from 3% to 7%. And people were just in shock. And so now the rates of dip back down and they seem like they’ve plateaued, the interest rates are a little bit more normalized. I don’t love the flipping conditions that exist right this very second, unless you get a really good deal, which you always can. So what I kind of look at is if I’m going to do a flip deal right now, and I do over 100 a year so I still flip very actively. I want something that can be very short. in duration, because there’s so much uncertainty about what’s coming, that I don’t want to be flipping in a different market, I don’t want to be selling in a different market than I started again. So most of the stuff that we’re focused on and that we advise people to focus on is, can you get anything out in like 45 days, if you can’t, this might be the time to pass on it. Because the wind probably on the pricing wind isn’t at your back right now, where it was a year to two years ago, with buy and hold. There is, it is always a good time to buy and hold. And I believe a lot less than the timing of buying and holding, than flipping. So flipping the asset valuations are so important, because if you get that wrong, you’re losing money. Now, some people will argue, well, you know, rental properties are overvalued right now, as we’re talking. And I don’t necessarily disagree with that. But I think if you get them off market, and you get them at a discount, the key for buying and holding, which is the real strategy, like it’s cool to flip houses, but you really want passive long term wealth. And the way that everybody gets it is bit by bit. So unfortunately, unless you’re worth, you know, 20 plus million dollars, you can’t really time the market on rentals, it’s not really possible, because unless you have this pot of gold on the side, and you go, Oh, it’s time to go in. It’s bit by bit by bit. So you want to just accumulate, you always want to be in the accumulation phase for rental properties, but making sure in my opinion that you are able to get them at a discount up front. So that you’re always able to tap that equity in the not too distant future. So I think you always need to be accumulating.

So really good way to put out it. So never scared to buy hold. Just make sure the numbers make sense. Because you’re always gonna win in the long run. But if you’re flipping Be very careful. 45 days and that means no big projects. No huge projects. Focus on cosmetics, quick turns, stay away from structural. A lot of that additions stuff of that nature, guys. Very well done, man. Any closing thoughts? I don’t have any more questions for you. I think you laid it up pretty, pretty damn nice. You have a Facebook group, I believe that you carry this conversation on. Do you want to start or where that’s a?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the biggest thing, you know, for me, like for a parting word is just to say, most agents know that they should invest in real estate, but 90% of them don’t. And the key really is to get educated and to start by learning. Okay, and there are so many objections I get every day, why agents can invest and don’t have money, now’s not the right time, all this stuff. Put all of that aside, right now, if you understand that you need to invest, start by getting educated, you don’t need to, if you come to a two day event, if you listen to a podcast, you don’t need to actually take a whole bunch of action, but you need to take the action of getting educated. Because even if you think you’re going to be get ready to do something in six months, start the educational process to do it better now. And like you mentioned, I’ve got that Facebook group that people can visit at WWW dot agent investor.com. I do a live stream every Tuesday at 11 o’clock, all the contents free. I do have you know, additional resources like if people want more one on one mentorship, but I try to give away all the content that people would need without ever having to kind of meet me in person or shake my hand or get on the phone with me. But of course we have next level steps for people that do want to get more involved in active with me. But yeah, www dot agent investor.com.

Love it, dude, keep doing what you’re doing. And folks, hopefully this episode opens your eyes a little bit into it might be time to shift shift with the market. And sometimes when shifts happen you have to shift with them. That’s all I can tell you in 20 years of doing this and experience I can just tell you ride the waves ride the waves ride the waves, and the real estate mark is always changing. So you just have to change with it. Whoever does always succeeds. So ones who don’t, that I see go out of business or churches and other career or just so on and so on. So I appreciate you guys if you guys want it to once you leave us a review right here or visit us on our social profiles, follow us on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, just look up real estate marketing.com and ask us some questions. And if you’re looking to create any types of content, and you need to literally get your face out there, start converting more of these leads or just build a brand visit real estate marketing do.com We’ll script and distribute all of your video content so that you stop looking so damn creepy and start being a whole lot more approachable online. So I appreciate you guys listening. We’ll see you guys next week. Bye bye. Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Making Your Brand Pop in Slower Times with Jason Frazier

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It’s hard to deny that we are in a recession, but how can you put your brand and business in a position to still succeed? Can you even succeed in a recession?

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

How can your site convert clients?
How to generate more referrals.
What being authentic looks like in the marketing world.

Resource

Check Out Leadpops

Transcript:

What’s up ladies and gentlemen, welcome to their episode of the real estate marketing, dude, podcast. Books we’re chatting about.

Today is a very important topic, I get this question quite a lot, but maybe not as much as our guest. And people always asked me like, kind of, what should I do with like, what do I do when I have a site? First they asked me is do I need a site? And I say, yes, absolutely. If you want to have any type of an online presence, you need something, because people will go visit your site before they ever call you because they want to see what you’re all about. They want to see if they can relate to you and they’re whatnot. But beyond just having a glorified online business card, which a lot of people do in this market, how do you actually have a site that converts? What do you do with it? How do you massage it? How do you work it out, like, if I want a six pack, I’m gonna do less situps. And I’m going to eat healthier, probably stop drinking beer and doing all the above? Well, if you want your site to, you know, start spitting you out business, you need to add to it as well, no differently. Like I have this podcast, you’re listening to this podcast right now, because we’re getting about 40 to 45,000 listens a month. Thank you to you guys. And a result of this content that goes on my website drives people back to our website. And some of you might schedule a demo with a marketing dude this week, because of this podcast. That’s what content creation is. But I create content to consistently add value to our audience. And to keep people coming in this is marketing the same way that we teach you how to market your business on the show, and as a client and whatnot. So what we’re gonna chat about today is that subject, what can you do? What can you do? What can you push? What what do you do with a website? Let’s just sit there. You just look at it. Do you talk to it? How do you massage your website? Make it work for you? Right? So I couldn’t think of a better guest. I want to introduce our guests today. My friend Mr. Jason Fraser with lead pops, Jason wants to say hello to everybody. Hey, what’s up, everyone, I’m excited to be here. Thank you. Thank you, my friend for having me on. I appreciate it. watched everyone a little bit. We are your frickin marketing whiz. He’s like the mark. He’s like a genius at a lot of his marketing ways. And he might be too modest to tell you that. But once you tell him a little bit about your background, cuz you do a lot in the mortgage space and whatnot. But tell us a little quick. And then we’ll get into this

show. And I want to ask you a bunch of questions on how you’re making websites work for people that create clients. Yep, absolutely. Yeah. So my name is Jason Fraser. I go but just by Fraser and I’ve been in the industry since oh nine. I was born into the housing industry. My family owned a mortgage company and also had a family members who were real estate agents as well. So the housing industry is in my blood, but I didn’t get into it till oh nine. Prior to that I worked for Peter Thiel, who some of you may know as the founder of PayPal. So I come I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area. So I came from Silicon Valley, technology startups venture capital world, that’s kind of where I lived and then decided to join the family business in oh nine. And I’ve been a part of that I’ve held several executive roles. Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Strategy Officer,

CTO, I’ve run sales teams are in Consumer Direct Marketing, I’ve coached or I am a coach, and I have coached both on the real estate side and the mortgage side. And right now I am the EVP of growth for lead pumps.

Cool, man, so he has a lot of experience. Right now you guys are doing a big

thing and in showing people on how to deal with their sites I want to start with with this and get your first opinion. We’re start at the very basics. Do we need to have a website in our business? Do a mortgage brokers or lenders or real estate agents? If you’re an independent contractor or small business, do you need a website? Yes, you absolutely do. And it’s it’s funny look. And hopefully, if you have a lot, I mean, it sounds like you got a good amount of listeners per month. And so I probably don’t have to let people know this. But if you are one of the Yeah, buts like, oh, yeah, but I’m doing this and yeah, but I’m doing this and yeah, but yeah, you need a website, right? I mean, you’re you’re absolutely insane. If you don’t feel that you need a website right now, I’m not saying you need our one of ours that we do, because honestly, we’re not a website company. But but we provide that but because it’s important, but you absolutely need a website. It’s it the we’re going we’re not backtracking from an online world, right. You need to your online property and websites, how you do it. And, and so, you know, I know we’re gonna talk about a lot of different things. But this is what I want every listener to write down right now because it’s going to be the foundation of everything I talked about because look, there’s always

is a reason to say, hey, but I could do this, I could do that. But here, just because you’re getting business does not mean that you’re losing business. So I’m going to say that again, just because you’re getting business does not mean you’re losing business, right? And so when you don’t have an offer, when you don’t have a website, you’re absolutely missing out on opportunities. There’s no debate in that at all. Look, if websites didn’t matter, you wouldn’t how many times you go to website in a given day? Right? Case Closed? Let’s let’s, let’s stop playing around with that websites are important. But wait, I, I have a page

on my broker’s website.

Why isn’t that suffice? Well, well, actually, there’s two things for that. One is, you can have that. But what I will say and I said this, even during recruiting calls and whatnot to other loan officers, is that you’re not the lenders brand. The lenders brand is you so you’re the face of everyone you’re talking to. If I’m talking to real estate professionals, you’re the face of a kW and exp real what wherever your compass whoever brokerage and look, even though they may have a big bite, and people have heard that name before the consumers and dealing with them, their consumers dealing with you, right, and if you’re a mortgage professional, guess what agents consumers, they’re dealing with you and right and, and I can tell you 100% And the mortgage space, there’s only one main mortgage brand, and that’s rocket. But when people referring people, they don’t say hey, I’m referring movement mortgage, I’m referring loan depot, they’re not referring the company that referring you. And and here’s the plain truth, even if you love the company, chances are you’re not going to work there forever. So you never want to tie everything to your brokerage or your your lender, yes, have that directory page, use it and get an actual we have a solution to help lenders because lenders are definitely not leveraging those those pages. But you need to have your own property where you could tell your own story that can be moved with you otherwise, because guess what, what happens if forget, let’s say you don’t leave them What if they go out of business and look in this market, we’re seeing a lot of people kind of go belly up. And then what happens then if all you’ve been using is something that you don’t control. And if you don’t control the way people can get to you, then you don’t have a business?

Absolutely, you’re the brand. No one’s hiring the bank. That’s why the worst thing you could do as an independent contractor is make your broker more money or more brand. The best thing you could do as an independent contractor is make your broker more money or more brand. You can’t really go wrong either way. Exactly. But you are the brand, guys. So thank you for reinforcing that message. Alright, so yes, spokespeople are gonna go to your site to check you out first, especially if you don’t know them, you know, maybe not so much in the relationship game. Oh, I trust my god, trust by God, great. But let’s be honest, even the people that trust you still go to your website? You just don’t know it yet. Because they’re just sort of like, dude, do I really trust Mike? I mean, last time I saw him, he was pretty drunk. Am I gonna trust him with his house? Like, sometimes you need that little more professional? Not that I got wrong. But you know what I mean? Yeah. But people know you personally don’t always know you don’t always see you in the same light professionally. And it’s more of an authority type thing. So walk me through it, though. Where do most of us go wrong? Because it we both agree on this guy’s you need to say, yep, stop playing the game. If you don’t have a site, you don’t have a brand. If you don’t have a brand, you don’t have a business, and you’re just another salesperson chasing the challenge, just a matter of time till shift takes you out. And that’s what’s happening right now across the industry. So let’s go through and talk about how many people that have a brand during the shift.

Are weathering the storm a little bit better? I mean, have you ever noticed like everyone who has a site has a lot of content on it? You see, I’m pretty active consistently on social media, their marketing consistently? Like, sure business might be down a little bit, but they’re not starving. Is that a coincidence? Is that what is that? No, I mean, absolutely not. And look, there’s what I always say, because as a coach, in fact, I just had this as a call a few days ago, is that it’s never just one thing. It’s a combination of things that you do from a marketing perspective, right? So let me put it this way. If you signed up with lead pops today and got our website and funnels, that would do absolutely nothing for you. Right, I’m gonna say that again. It will do absolutely nothing for you, right? You got to drive traffic to it, you got to use it, you got to put it in your marketing strategy, you got to have a plan for it. You got to do all these different things. And so what I would say for those that are weathering the storm and they say well, I know this guy knew that his website doesn’t look nice or whatever and we’ll get into that of what matters on the website and what doesn’t but the but the point is is that the people that I see it hands down the people that I see that have weathered the storm that are doing deals in markets where someone else some someone’s telling me oh, there’s no deals that have there’s no purchase business. Oh, really? Oh, then how come you know how come Doug’s got 12 loans in his pipeline, right like and six of those are under contract and in a market that you told me is doesn’t have any inventory and not deals because of marketing, right? And that takes all four

Most people think of marketing they’re think, Oh, I gotta be on social media marketing is flyers. Marketing is Billboards, radio marketing is talking to freaking people at the supermarket is doing anything and everything to have conversations with people. That’s what increased conversations equals opportunities. Right. So like, that’s what people need to understand is the people that are actually doing okay right now is because it’s, it’s a consistent long term effect, right? Like they’re trading on stuff that they did 90 days ago, 120 days ago, two months ago, two years ago, right? Those are the people that are okay, right now I have, I have a friend that just got his loan officer license like six months ago, and here and then we’re in a pretty damn competitive market. And he’s doing deals that I know other people have been in this business for two years that are are dying. And it’s like, what’s the difference? Oh, maybe because he’s on social media everyday doing videos, how he’s talking, he’s going out there, he’s doing anything and everything to create to create a sphere of influence, right. So that’s what people are doing. And yes, driving traffic back to his website, so that you could capture that information.

The only recession proof or shift proof business model is your personal brand, you guys, you can’t like not feed the beast, because when you don’t, and you rely on lead sources or other things you don’t control, like a lot of the people. And I don’t know how you might see this more in the mortgage space. But I know a lot of people who are relying on Zillow leads or realtor.com leads once that market shifts and the consumer mentality shifts, well, you can no longer rely on that source of just independent business, because it just you know, the numbers just don’t work anymore. So you can never rely on stuff you can’t control. And it’s only a matter. It’s a house of cards waiting for when you do that. And I like how you said that it’s a cumulative cumulative that I say that correctly approach to marketing, it’s direct mail, it’s flyers, it’s the picture you have, it’s the consistent of videos you’re doing. And it’s a it’s an overall communication strategy. Marketing is not advertising, is it? No, advertising is a form of marketing. But can you explain the difference so that people see that? Because you can’t you do a little bit of both, right. But

I think people often confuse that. Yeah, cuz so I mean, to put it simply, right, it’s because in look, we could get into the full stack of marketing, but advertising is AP, is that, right? Like, it’s putting your replays on a billboard, it’s doing something at a supermarket, it’s, it’s running ads, right? That is advert to putting something in a magazine or a paper or whatever that is advertising. That’s a part of marketing. But like I said, marketing is you having conversations marketing is, is an extension of sales. In fact, I always like break down those barriers, sales is marketing, marketing and sales, right? Anytime you’re having a conversation, guess what you’re selling yourself, you’re selling your services, you’re selling your products, that is marketing, right? Like it’s putting any type of positive and positive spin or diagnosing of like a challenge and solution to someone so that you can bring them in and help them right. So that’s the difference. Really, when it comes down to marketing and advertising. They’re not one in the same. Advertising is a piece of marketing. But marketing is not a piece of advertising, right? And it’s one of those things, it’s just one comes before the other and if you’re just doing advertising and nothing else, you’re gonna have a hard time. It’s very tough. Very tough, because you’re just, it’s hard. It’s almost impossible nowadays. Alright, so what am I what should I be doing now? You know, like, what, what should I be doing right now? I’m all I create content. Okay, so get really loud gets super loud. What do you tell all your peeps? Yeah, I mean, for, you know, kind of going back to one of the original questions as far as like, you know, what you should be doing is, is, is when it’s your website, and what, when what you think is important or what not? It like, it’s not like, Guess what, consumers don’t care, right? They don’t care about your as much as people like, look, Simon Sinek has done a great job at like, doing the why and having those talks and everyone feels good and wants to hug each other afterward. But guess what? The consumer cares about three things write themselves in the morning noon, and after supper, right? I think Dell Carnegie said that. That’s the consumer doesn’t care about your why that they don’t buy why you do things, right. They don’t know you yet. So they don’t give a crap about you and why you do things until they know you and like you, then they will learn about you and your why and all that other stuff. But instead, people make all these websites to make it all pretty and nice and do all these things when the consumer doesn’t care about that. And look, I have the data because we have 2500 plus customers of websites that I look at the heat maps to see where people are paying their pay attention to and all they care about is above the fold, meaning your hero section which is like your image, video, whatever, you got to have a strong headline, sub headline, a call to action and tell them where they need to go. That’s what lead pops. We don’t focus on making very pretty websites even though we do we focus on conversion, because that’s all that matters. Do you want a nice looking website? Or do you want a nice looking website that converts? Right, I think and if you said if you don’t then get out of the business because you’re going to you’re going to starve right unless you have someone else to speak and a lot of money for you and

And so when it comes to that guy’s like people actually on the mortgage side, you know, for your all your mortgage listeners

get choked up about this. But when the is that you send people to your Apply Online link, we call that apply or die. It’s, it’s the worst thing you could do you put someone that doesn’t know you, like you, or even trust you into an instant buying decision of something that’s going to be their biggest financial transaction in their life.

So like, give me your it’s like, an ask for like, the social security number and like, like, yeah,

why not? Right? Yeah, let’s just let’s just do that. Like, look, guys, like, that’s, that’s not how we do it, you know, we evolve, things change. And so. So that’s, that’s the what you guys got to figure out. And that’s what we focus on. We focus on conversion, we focus on you know, soft, yes. Ladders and stuff to get people saying yes, yes, yes. And then you hit him. And then eventually you it’s just it’s funnel marketing, very simplistic. And then, you know, to your, you know, to your question about content. Look, right now, I’ll tell you right now, who’s going to win in this market, the people with the largest databases with the highest amount of trust, right you want if you want to create a never ending, and look this, this is future proof, right? It doesn’t matter and a down market, up market, middle market, it doesn’t matter where you are, Phil, if you want to have a never ending pipeline, you need to talk to people and put people in your database. And here’s one fundamental rule of marketing that everyone needs to understand. And look, you could anyone could argue with me, debate me challenge me on it, but I will throw right back at him the proof that I’m right, and that is whoever spends the most amount to acquire customer wins. Right?

And if you see that with like, like, look at look at how many, you mentioned Zillow earlier, right? There’s a reason why an agency you actually helped this happen and mortgage providers mortgage lenders to, but that no one gets more real estate traffic than Zillow. Right? And there’s a reason for that, right? Because they spent the money they did what they did they did the you know, the the frog and kind of a slow boil pot. Right, you know, it didn’t know that it was getting boiled, but it did. And then on the mortgage side, same with like rocket right. Even though they’ve been they’ve been knocked down, you know, by UW M. That it’s, it’s they spent money on marketing, right? Zillow spent a lot of money on marketing, rockets, biggest expense is marketing. But there’s a reason for that. So you got to understand that you got to put yourself out there, you got to be marketing every single day because you got to be filling that database, and then understand this very fundamental rule when it comes to lead generation. Everybody’s a lead, but not everyone’s a prospect. Right? And you got to you got to differentiate to everyone, like just talk to someone, they raise their hand and automatically they’re a prospect before you qualify and renew anything to do it. Right. This is sells one on one. Right? So you just got to understand that you’re having conversations with everyone, because you want everyone you can in your database. Because the more conversations you have, the more deals you’re going to do. Yep, books 10 to 15% of the people on your Facebook feed. Following you connect with on Instagram you run across in the grocery store you see at your kids soccer games, and baseball games, they’re moving this year. Most of them don’t know it yet. But all 100% of them have referral for you. In a referral dominated business, like don’t overthink this stuff. But if you’re not thought of first

you that gets passed up, that’s just an opportunity. So like 80% of people I don’t do you know, the number for the mortgage space. I know in the real estate agents 80% of people over it’s like 80, for some like that hire the first person they meet with, you know, what that is in the lending space is similar? It? I don’t know, I don’t know what it is in the mortgage space. I’ve never really i But to me, I kind of take that as like, because I look at look at it this way. A consumer is a consumer regardless of product, right? So I would imagine those percentages are roughly going to be the same because I will say this and you may you’ll probably notice on the real estate side, at large and and in the mortgage space, the retention of that once you do a deal with the consumer, the retention is about 23% or 22% of that customer and I think in the real estate, it’s in the teens last time I saw that you do a good job doesn’t mean that they’re coming back, right? Yeah, well, that’s because people stopped talking to him in the real estate space, like 80% of people forgot their agents name like the agents name, they don’t even know the first name anymore after six months, because we don’t stay in touch with them. And if you’re having a problem with that, guys, I’m going to take a shameless plug real quick you need to get to referral sweet.com All right referral suite.com Because all we do is farm your database and make it really simple. I just need one to two hours a month from you and that’s about it. And people stop forgetting you exist but back to the show.

Yes, that’s it’s crazy that we don’t stay in front of them but we don’t look at past business as future transactions because we’re too short sighted. You don’t spike the football on loan number one you spike the football and referral number four from the person you sold loan when were one four years ago. That’s when you spike the football in these types of relationship based businesses guys, don’t be so short sighted.

it.

Alright, so what do you do now? Give me some advice. What are we going to do with the market? How do I get loud? What do I how do I get more and more conversations? What kind of activities specifically should I be doing?

Yeah, I mean, that’s a good question. And to me, I think it’s like I mentioned the beginning, it’s a combination of things that you need to have a an omni channel, attack writer strategy, and that’s social media. And that doesn’t mean you have to be on everything doesn’t mean you have to be on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, whatever, every channel is different. For first and foremost, it’s understand where your audience is, right? That’s, that’s first and look, I could even go even back more and say, hey, you need to have a CRM and all that other stuff. But look, that the fact that it’s 2023, and we’re still having the conversation and trying to convince, I’m still trying to convince people on social media, which is stupid, but I’ve also got to the point, I don’t know if it’s my age, or just because I’ve been in this industry long enough. But like, I stopped trying to convince, as soon as I get into any type of conversation, I’m like, is this not for me?

Okay, good, fantastic. There’s no nothing for me to talk about, because we’re already going to lose. And so either you’re gonna lose today, you’re gonna lose down the road, but you will lose, right? And, and so

you need to be you need to be putting yourself out there right in and look, I could get into the stupid stuff of like, hey, you need to be telling stories. And, and obviously, you know, we’re on this podcast to be doing video, right? The fact that we’re still having conversations about the importance of video is freaking ridiculous to me, too. But that’s what you need to be doing and understanding where one understand your audience. Who are you trying to reach? Where are they at? And then what problem you’re solving for them and under and going deep. And I have this issue with loan officers all the time, is that there’s reasons people are buying and selling, right? It’s not simply because they want to move, there’s a reason why they want to move. Understand that because the more the more specific right and personalise your messaging is, is going to be 10x to 20x more effective than what your competition is doing. Right. In fact, I’d say it’s even more and it’s because our competition looks for the least path of resistance, they look for the easy way out, they look for shortcuts, they look for hacks, they want to do anything but work when it comes to marketing and putting stuff out there, right? Or they’ll buy leads because they think that’s deals on a platter. It isn’t right and so and I’ve done this both on the real estate side and the mortgage side, and

so you should be putting content out there you absolutely should be using hyperlocal marketing strategies and your business because people care about where they live. You should also be using email marketing, right? Like that kind of went out of style was starting to go out of style not too long ago, but now it’s it’s made a pretty big comeback. And I’ll tell you this email is your only one to one connection that you’re going to have because guess what you do not you This is why you don’t build a mansion on rented land, right? Like you don’t control Facebook, you don’t control Instagram, every time I hear someone complain about the Facebook algorithm or the you know, the Instagram algorithms like what do you think they were going to do? Do you think they were just going to be free and fun and fair for their entire life, they’re a business they need to make money so just get over it so that but but if you have an online property, you have that one to one connection via email, that’s how you stay in front of it. That’s how you control you track your traffic because if you don’t do that, then you could get slapped by Google with an algorithms change and if you’re running ads, those I remember running like Zillow long form in the beginning when I was doing Consumer Direct, right oh, it was really nice getting those 12 to $14 leads but guess what, when two years went by and those were 60 the ad right and then you’re looking at a three to 4% conversion rate maybe a six to nine month nurture right like that’s real money we’re talking about except but guess what, you just completely went into their basket you are completely dependent on them so you had no you know, no choice but the pay to play none of these companies are evil right we make them evil because of what of the of their practices but what we gave them the power to do it so what are we complaining complaining about beat them right compete don’t just stop doing it. I I have people I hate and it’s crazy to me like I get it on the real estate side. Not really but I do.

On the mortgage side. If you are paying any type of money to Zillow, you are insane, you are insane and your main bread and membrane will shout out to Cypress Hill. They’re for dinosaurs like me, but Cypress Hill, but But it’s insane because on a lender, they’re they they are a lender. Zillow is a mortgage lender. And then when everyone comes back, man, it’s like well, this and that. And I’m like me ask you this. You’re at loan depot, right? Yeah. Malone depot, would you pay movement? Would you pay movement mortgage for leads? Oh, absolutely not. What’s the difference? Extra zero. And so that that’s what I’m saying, Guys, you got to control your traffic. You got to control your sources of income. You got to control where the consumer is going to find you. Because that’s the only way you’re going to stay relevant long term and not be dependent on someone else for your success. Because that’s never a winning formula.

He hit it on the head.

So many people aren’t using email, we’re video emailing consistently, every month, we’re going to 40% open rate. And the videos have nothing to do with real estate or lending or anything. They’re like talking about a restaurant, their community, their local. And it’s just reminders, you don’t need to, like when we’re just there’s different types of databases and

the warm database are like all the list of people who all have the potential to refer or do business with you. And staying in touch with that audience. And those people the 200 to 300 400 people you invite to your wedding or funeral with an unlimited budget on both are the ones that you just nurture and you’re not nurturing, like, just staying in touch with people, if you don’t own your own data, you’re in the data collection business, just like I am, like, I listened to my stats, I want to build my email list because the larger my list or my database grows, the more opportunity I have to sell more people our services. So we don’t in the industry don’t nurture any of the relationships we have. And then they get pissed when you log on the Facebook Like fuck, they just bought a house and they forgot I was in the business. Dude, you gotta like farm these people, you farm them with content, it’s very simple. And you have to nurture and keep in touch with people because it’s a giant popularity contest. Nobody wants to go interview a bunch of lenders or realtors, like, that’s like the last thing I want to do. Can you imagine like, going on a speed dating round with a bunch of mortgage brokers like I’d rather watch fucking paint dry. And same thing with realtors, they just want to know they could trust the first person they meet with will start becoming the first person they meet with you do that by getting really loud, you’re adding value to other people’s lives connecting with people. You don’t have to pitch them or sell your freakin interest rates or, or go see a house and every conversation you have. But you do need to remind them what you do for a living. And that’s very simple to do.

Well, that dude, very well said, Any closing thoughts

you have here for people? Yeah, and you know, I’ll put my coaching hat on here for a second is Look, I told you what to write down in the beginning, which was you know, just because you’re making you’re doing business doesn’t mean you’re losing business. And I’ll tell you this is you gotta write, it’s kind of like a Venn diagram, you gotta write two circles. One is what you want to hear and what you need to hear, right? And be very honest with yourself and what you want to be told and what you need to be told, right, and then the intersection of those two, that’s where the gold is, right? Because that’s something that you’re going to lean into and do. And if you don’t find that, then you got an issue, and you got it. And you gotta kind of audit yourself on what you’re doing. But you know, to a lot of the stuff that we talked about, about, you know, being you know, one is the nurture processes, you should be spending as much money, if not more on your retention, and your post close as you do trying to acquire that customer, right, you spend more money on the people you do know, as opposed to the people you don’t know. And we don’t do that at all. Because it’s not sexy. It’s not instant gratification. It’s not instant ROI. So we you know, we forget about it, we leave it to some you know, crappy CRM post drip about winterizing your pipes, pumpkin pie recipes, you know, fall back, spring forward, all that other nonsense that turn back the clock and turn back to you know, we’re, that’s not going to keep you top of mind. Right. And that’s why that community piece is so relevant is because as as a sales professional, especially in a community, is that is that you all you care about is attention and awareness of who you are. That’s all you should care about. Right? It doesn’t have to be about your house, or being a mortgage professional or any of that other stuff. Right? Yes, tell them what you do make sure that that’s part of your content strategy. But if someone just does did it, if you just sold someone’s house, right, they don’t care about the rest of the houses you’re selling or any of that other stuff, right? You got a segment that database and talk to him about stuff that they’re going to care about, right? Because one of the things that we have going for us more than any other sales profession, is that we that we help people achieve dreams create stickiness, create generational wealth, right fame, you know, really create happy situations that go to the emotion and heart. So there’s automatic stickiness there. So the only reason that we screw that up is because we screw that up. Right? So that you know, so that’s what’s super important to all you guys know, you know, for all you guys to know. And then this is the last thing that I’ll leave you with, is that you got to understand that your marketing starts before that consumer consumer even knows who you are, right? That is when your marketing starts. Because you never know when they’re saying and before you could tell me that you sold something over list and over the last two years. Congrats, I’m sure that was very hard. But like, you know, doing stuff over list, you know, sell stuff in 10 days, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, before they’re to close the credit clinicals before you can tell me any of that. I have to know who you are. If I don’t know who you are, then you’re not relevant. Right? And don’t let the last two are 2020 and 2021. Don’t let that unicorn yours fool you into thinking you have something that you don’t and look Don’t Don’t get me wrong. I say all of this out of passion and love for this industry. I mentioned my story in the beginning. I’m here for life. And so I want all of the true professionals to win.

But here’s the thing gotta understand is don’t let those things for you. Right? You got to understand that the markets are going. And we could be in a market like this. If you look at historical data, and look, everyone wants to be rosy. Everyone wants the interest rates to be what they are, and inventory and all that stuff. If you look at swings, this could be a five to 10 year swing of being this being the normalized market. So guess what? Guess what? Get dressed, put, roll up your sleeves, put in the work and do what needs to be done. But marketing is going to be the most important thing that you do for your business from now on going forward. Why don’t you tell them where they can find you guys? They want to learn more. Yeah, if you guys want to, you guys could always look I’m all over social media. So you know Frazier real I’m the real cmo on all social media channels. And then you can also check us out at lead pops.com. Appreciate it folks. If you’re going to struggle with what to create Why don’t you join the next content creator challenge you can visit www dot real estate content creator challenge will give you 30 days of content was from video email to memes to creating short form real to long form videos, you’re actually going to take action do them, learn how to do them. It’s not as hard as you think it is. But that’s why we do these challenges. And it’s only $49 to go ahead and visit WWW dot real estate content creator challenge.com and join this month’s challenge which starts on March 14. Dude, appreciate you coming on to the show. We had a great time. Folks. Listen, this is like feel like we speak the same language man keep it up and folks just take action. Get Loud, start creating a whole lot of content. It’s how you start marketing its content marketing, make sure everyone when they think of real estate or lending thinks of your name. When that term comes up, and as long as that happens, you will always attract business despite market conditions. So you guys next week, 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.com 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 schedule time to speak with a dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

How to Overcome the Fear of What Others Think

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Being yourself can be difficult, especially when you are worried what other people think of you, but it’s important to be authentic, even when you can’t help but wonder how you are perceived.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

Why are we so afraid to put ourselves out there?
How to overcome the fear of rejection.
What being authentic looks like in the marketing world.

Resource

Check Out Holly’s Instagram

Transcript:

So how do you track new business, you constantly don’t have to chase it. Hi, I’m Mike Cuevas to real estate marketing. And this podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust and 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 to their episode of the real estate marketing dude, podcast, folks, what we’re going to be chatting about today is not bringing on a guest, we’re gonna be doing a little bit of training and coaching during this podcast. So if you are sitting down, I’m gonna have a little bit of exercises for you today. But what we’re focusing on is, does what people think about you really matter? And this is something that, you know, I see quite a bit like, in for me, too, you know, if you guys listen this podcast for a while, you might not think I’m a very shy, or I really care what anyone else’s opinions are of Me. But the reality is they do. And, you know, sometimes when you get out there, and you put yourself out there, you might get some hateful stuff in return, you might have some people talk crap about you, or some people say some things that are going to hurt your feelings. So how do you react to that? Because what we’re chatting about today, how do you address all of the haters? If you are getting some? And how do you overcome that whole thing about? Hey, what should I, you know, I should I really put this out there, like, When are people gonna think about me? Oh, my God. So if you have any of those reservations, this is the show for you today. And what I wanted to do was just sort of focus on, you know, why it’s important to create the content out there. And what I see is the number one reason why I believe that people don’t put themselves out there is because it’s not that there’s so much they know what they want to say, but they just don’t know how to say it for themselves, if that makes sense. And it’s sort of like, okay, yes, I know, I want to market my business. I know, I want to tell people, I’m in real estate. But how do I do that without being a total douchebag? How do I do that without like, feeling like I’m begging for business or, or selling my services, or annoying people, because that’s what I don’t want to do at all. And that’s normal to think that way. Guys, we’re human. I mean, that’s how human beings think it’s a natural reaction. But what, when you really grasp what it is you stand for, and you really identify your brand. You don’t think twice about posting that content, right. And this is the importance of really dialing in your brand, your brand strategy and creating content, because it is very hard. If you don’t have a strategy in place with why you’re creating content in the first place. Well, it’s very hard to get yourself out there to begin with, and then to do it consistently, because over time, it’ll eventually die. And if you are planning to build a brand, you have to create content, you have to create content in today’s age, to build a brand. I mean, it’s the only thing that keeps yourself out there. See, marketing isn’t advertising, like when I’m doing this podcast right now, I’m not trying to. I’m trying to add value to other people’s lives, like I’m trying to give you tips. And the reason why I’ve been doing this since the last seven, eight years is because, one, I have fun doing it, too. It allows me to express my voice. But the most important reason is allows me to serve my audience. It allows me to keep contributing in a value added way. And there’s a reason why my topics and the marketing or the topics and the things I talked about are all related around marketing or lead generation, because that’s the niche that my marketing is so like, for me, I just talked about marketing stuff all day, because that’s what I do, like my audience might do people that buy our services, or hire us for video or need me to help them brand them or whatever they need for content, they come out to me because I’ve met them through creating content. And if I never created content to begin with, I would never be anywhere to begin with content is the only thing that saved my career. And it’s the only thing I see that keeps people present in today’s day and age as well. And one of the biggest problems that like, you know, is that someone who is not on top of mind is always passed up on. And you know, when you decide and you realize what your mission is, what your goal is, when you know what your brand is, it’s very easy to create content consistently. And you’re confident about it at the same time. So when we people are generally nervous about what they’re going to create or what they’re going to do, most times that is solved simply by literally spending time developing what that strategy is going to be and when you spend time where keen on your content, it’s not so much of what you’re going to be creating content on. It’s how that content is going to be consumed, viewed or perceived as so for example, if I know, I want to give you guys some examples of put this in here and why it’s so important to do the Brandon, and we just did a content challenge. And if you guys are interested in learning how to create content, I want you to go to www dot real estate content creator challenge.com. That’s www dot real estate content creator challenge.com. This is a training I do every 30 days, it’s $49. And it’s a three class session where we’re going to show you essentially how to create all the content in the world, through video, email, through social media, still images, video images, there’s a lot of different forms of content, but it’s how you create your content that people relate to. And that’s why it’s so important to do your brand. So if you’re interested in learning, and you don’t know what to do go to real estate content creator challenge.com. And sign up for the next challenge, depending on when you’re listening to this episode. But, you know, let’s go through an example of here. So let’s just say this is the easiest one that everyone always understands. When I explain this, this is one of the points we come on. In the challenge. We go, Hey, how do you define what your brand strategy is? What’s your content strategy, which is really what we’re doing? So what I like to do is I like to reverse engineer that content strategy. And how I do it is I go, Alright, who do you serve? We all know we sell houses, or you do loans or something like that. But who do you serve? Who do you pretty work with like, because your brand strategy should be an average of the last 10 of your clients. So if I’m here, I’m here in San Diego, it’s a big military town. And a lot of realtors and lenders here, I see a lot of them have a great niche in the military, which means they’re doing a lot of VA loans, VA financing. So if I wanted to create a content strategy, let’s just say I want to talk about real estate, well, I would do it in the form of a bootcamp and I would be disciplining them and making wise financial advice, because that would be very brand, I would very be very on brand for to speak to that audience, it would it would show people wanted speak exactly to who I’m already marketing to. It’ll speak right through my authenticity, because I’m doing that. And it’ll call out who I’m trying to reach. But I could also create a community series, but I’m probably talking about neighborhoods near base, versus like, the highest most expensive properties in all of San Diego. I could go out in the community interview businesses that are veteran owned, I could create a giveback program and give back to the Wounded Warrior Foundation with every closing I had. But each one of those examples I just gave you are all pieces of content that can be created, whether you’re doing them on video, whether you’re creating a case study in the long form post on social media, whatever it is, everything we do is content. And I think what people don’t realize is that that’s so true is that everything we do is content, they don’t realize that everything there can be doing in terms of marketing is just capturing the stories that they’re already living, and display knows. But everything’s got to be intentional. If it’s not intentional, a lot of times it just falls on deaf ears. And there’s a lot of different types of content to create. But when you want to create content, that reminds people, you’re in real estate, and you want to create content that leads to clients. That’s the key is having it reminded people you’re in real estate versus having them having to tell people you’re in real estate. And there’s a major major difference in that. So what does this all have to do with coming back to like, hey, like we started this podcast about like, how do you overcome your content creation fears? And how do you overcome your fear of putting yourself out there? Well, the answer to that is you have to dial in your branding strategy, because once you’re confident in what you’re doing, and you’re excited about what you’re doing, the content creation part comes pretty easily. See, we have people all the time, they’ll be like, Hey, you get people get so nervous to film a video and, you know, we get these videos, we get these phones on our pocket, it’s the best tool you can have in the world, you could literally run your entire business off it, I’m doing it right now. And you don’t realize the power that this phone could capture and the power how much business your little phone in your hand or in your pocket can create for you if you know how to use it. Because the best content you’re going to create is not the ones you plan. It’s the ones you do on the fly. Sometimes, those stories come out when you’re in action. But you got to remember that all your years living a story, you got to pretend your life is a reality show. And when you dial in your strategy, what you’re really doing is just recognizing what you’re already doing is all content. That’s what I’m really good at. I tell people here and they don’t realize what already was already content. So you should never be scared to put yourself out there because when you’re creating whatever it is that you create, whether it’s a video or whether it’s a post, whether it’s a picture of you and your bathing suit, doesn’t matter.

You don’t have the act of creating In the content itself, whether you’re taking the picture or whether you’re creating your shooting a video doesn’t have to get posted, if you don’t want it to. So therefore the act of creating the first place should never make you nervous or anxious or any of that. Because you’re always in control. The second thing I tell people is, hey, do you realize that if you really like, let me ask you a question. Are you the right realtor or lender or investor for the job? Like, are you the best one in your market? And I hope all of you answered yes to that. But if you didn’t, then you don’t deserve my business. But if you answered yes to that, then it becomes your obligation to scream it from the rooftops and let everyone know that you’re in open for business because you do that good a job and anyone who takes pride and passion into what they do. Their job is to help more people or sell their shit. That’s why we exist, we exist, a business exists to help other people. And as long as you believe that you help other people, then you need to scream it from the rooftops. And that’s where content creation comes in. Because creating content will lead to clients. It always does. Because it’s just allows you to keep having more conversations. And with more conversations comes brand, trust, authority, and ultimately business. And that’s what content does. But it all starts by really dialing in and defining what it is that you’re going to create. Who am I? What do you do? How do you do it is more important, because that’s what people resonate with. They’re not listening to what’s coming out of your mouth, they’re looking at your body language, while you’re saying it. They’re listening into the tonality of your voice, whether you’re going up or

down like this. So that’s what people

are remembering. And I want to encourage you this weekend, when you’re scrolling on social after you sign up for the real estate content creator challenge.com. Before you tend to the real estate content creator challenge.com, I want you to think about who do I serve? What do I do? And what do people look at me for because that is the basis of your content. If you’re selling all of your houses to a bunch of doctors, well, I’m gonna go diagnose the real estate market. If you’re selling all of your services, in the fitness industry, because you’re just like a Pilates instructor or something, that’s great. Well, let’s get fit. And let’s give healthy real estate advice. Or maybe you’re a military person. And that’s great. Let’s bring a very disciplined approach to the real estate process. There is a way to out brand and out market because I this is so important to me that I don’t believe you have a business if you don’t do this, at least have one longing last longevity, because there’s a difference between running and working in a sales job than there is to running a business. And if you want to continue to chase chucks keep selling your shit. If you want to build a business and actually have something that you could control that is not reliant upon any type of lead source. That is recession proof. And it doesn’t flounder in the shifts like we’re experiencing right now. Well, you got to build a brand. There’s a difference, build a business or build a brand. They’re both sort of the same thing, but not always see a brand will lead to a lot of other opportunities that a business never will. I’m living it every day. So my advice I want to keep this week’s show short, is that dial in that content strategy, because the content strategy creates the brand, the brand creates the top of mind awareness, the persona, and the presence within the local community and amongst your database that attracts the clients in in this market right now, while everybody else is like, Oh my God, what’s gonna happen? I’m scared. What’s gonna happen next, what’s gonna happen next, most people are pulling back folks. And the ones who don’t go double down, especially on content right now are going to be the ones that create, prosper, and you’ll see them building teams within the next markets. That’s my prediction. So closing advices you will have to create content. It’s no longer optional. Start creating, start doing it authentically dialing in the way you’re doing it. If you need help with that, take the content challenge or hire us hire somebody that there’s a lot of people that can help you do this, and throw yourself out there and do it consistently. And do it for six months, right into the show. And tell me what happened. If you have a story about this, I’d like to interview you reach out to me at real estate marketing do.com And I would love to have you on next week’s show or a future episode, but create content. You can’t do that without diluting your branding strategy. Once you do it, do it consistently. This is not rocket science. And what you’ll see is you’ll stop worrying about what you’re saying. He won’t care after a while, you’ll just keep going. And that’s what you should be doing. It’s your obligation. Like I said, If you believe you’re the right person for the job, you have to be you have to throw yourself out there. Otherwise, in my opinion, you’re not the right person for the job. Appreciate you guys listen to another episode of the real estate market to do podcast you can visit us on our website, leave us some reviews, and follow us on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. And if you’re interested in taking the challenge I mentioned you could go to www dot real estate content creator challenge.com And that challenge will be next one coming up March 14, but check based on a time where you’re listening to episode to see when the next one will be. We’ll see you guys later. Have a good one. But 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.com 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 schedule time to speak with a dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Being Fearlessly Authentic with Holly Carroll

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Today we are talking to Holly Carroll about how being authentic is a crucial element to your brand. We’ve said it before and we will say it again. No one will trust you if they can tell it’s not the real you.

Holly Carroll is the Muskoka Luxury Realtor and author of

“Selling Secrets You Can’t Afford To Miss.” She is also the former Miss Canada.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

Learn how handwritten notes reach your audience.
How do you get people’s attention?
Authenticity always works best.

Resource

Transcript:

What’s up ladies and gentlemen, welcome another episode of the real estate marketing Jew podcast, folks we’re chatting about today, we have a social media star, like you got some star power. And I was just sort of scrolling through Instagram. And she messages me and I’m like, Hey, how are you doing Nice to meet you.

And it was like, I guess really authentic. And then I started checking you out on social and like, Damn, she’s got 90,000 followers or content gets a shitload of engagement. And it looks like she’s doing everything right. And I’m looking at your I’m on your Instagram page right now. And dude, perfect. Looks great.

And you’re a luxury agent out of Canada. So I was like, Dude, why don’t we do a show? Let’s get on here. Tell us what’s, how did you get here? What are you doing? And how are you all over the place? Because you’re definitely not shy. And I think one of the problems that people have on social media is like, Oh my God, if I post something, someone’s gonna think this of me or someone’s gonna think that of me. And at the end of the day, who gives a shit. Nobody hires anyone they don’t relate with. And oftentimes in sales and business and whatever the hell we’re doing. We often overthink it, I think, and we try to be someone we’re not. But my goal today’s show, and I have a feeling she’s going to do a good job at it is talking about why you should be fearlessly authentic, quote unquote, your own words. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and introduce our guests. Miss Holly, Carol. Holly, how are you?

I’m wonderful. And thank you so much for having me on. I did find you. Oh, where? Yeah, how did it work? It was actually through this course that I took. And they had your contact. Oh, okay. I’m gonna message this guy. And then boom, here I am on the show. Very grateful to be on this show. If you don’t ask you don’t get you know what I mean? Like, same thing for all the agents out there. If you don’t ask for referrals, you’re not gonna get referrals. If you don’t tell people you’re in real estate, they’re gonna keep forgetting and you’re gonna be a closet agent. If you don’t put yourself out there. It doesn’t work because you’re the brand now your broker Holly wants you to tell him where you’re nothing you said that. I love that you said that because literally like 90% of the time it’s just showing up and being out there. Yep, conversations you’d like to face is the brand that’s why social media if you’re not if you’re in real estate, you’re not on social like you’re only losing an opportunity. I sale time is no longer optional. It’s a necessity unless you don’t care when other people start cheating on you with agents like Holly you know they’re gonna go hire somebody else that’s going to be a lot more present than somebody that they forgot about.

All right, Holly, so tell us you’re in your you do luxury in Holland. I can’t say this Canadian name all the Canadian Muskoka Muskoka. Okay. So Muskoka, and that’s outside of what Ontario? Yeah, so it’s about an hour north of Toronto. And we kind of call it the Hamptons of the North. That’s sort of what it’s what it’s like, it’s a lot different than the Hamptons. But if you think of it, it’s where that type of the world so Toronto and surrounding areas want to get away and vacation. And it’s kind of nice that the rest of the world doesn’t really know about it, because that’s part of its charm. It is home to a lot of rich and famous during the summertime. It’s absolutely stunning. There’s 1600 lakes. I sell waterfront property, usually boat houses, it’s like a lot of people say it’s a Coors Light commercial. It’s like a Coors Light commercial. Just picture out your knickers like commercial. Exactly. That is my niche. And how did you get started? How long have you been in in real six year part of the agency, I see a picture of you with Mauricio because I want to get I want to get to on this podcast too. I like Marty, see, I watch all this content. But tell me your agency and that the agency is a luxury brand. Like you guys know this? If you watch anything on HGTV, like it’s just a luxury brand. And you’re selling luxury properties in a luxury market. So it makes sense that you’re dialing in the niche. But where do you How did you get into this? Because people want to? The biggest question I get from people is like, Hey, Mike, I want to sell $2 million houses. And I’m like, There’s no marketing or advertising that’s ever gonna get you to sell $2 million houses. If you want to sell $2 million houses, you got to start hanging out to people who own the $2 million houses. It’s very simple. You have to hang out with the people that are in your database. You don’t pick your brand God did it’s just the way you’re born. Whether you want to embrace it or not as 100% up to you. Okay, so Holly, how did you get into luxury because it’s a question that people want to know, but I could I know how it is. I mean, you’re just this is your this is your tribe. It looks like here so tell me how you got into it. And when just

All right, and we’ll start with that. Of course. So I’m coming up on four years. I will say that anybody listening, you can get into luxury real estate Don’t. Don’t, you know, forget about that. So, a big thing about being a luxury real estate agent is you got to be luxury. So like you have to become that vibrational match to attract your clients. So when you’re out there buying luxury, luxury, show off your luxury things so that people are like, okay, she’s obviously luxury. It’s not just about luxury, real estate, it’s about your whole lifestyle. I sell a light drive like a Toyota Datsun and then it’s all luxury houses is what you’re saying.

Can I wear sandals and shop?

I mean, I don’t want to discourage anybody either. Like I don’t, it doesn’t mean they have to go out and buy that Rolex watch, or they have to buy the Lamborghini they can’t afford. But there is a mental state you can get into that makes you feel like luxury. Like I always say drink water out of a wineglass like there’s little things that you can do where you feel luxury. And then that way when you’re around the luxurious clients that have a lot of money, you don’t feel so out of place, you know, so embody it luxury, imagine luxury, you know, become a vibrational match to luxury.

And then, here in Muskoka, I just kept going to those luxury properties I kept, you know, putting it on social media. I kept dangling the carrot in front of everybody, and then you know what I asked. So I go after the rich and famous and I am not afraid to get in their DM and send them a video or send them a property you would love this property. You know, Mark Wahlberg wants a place here and in Muskoka, and I know the perfect property for him because he likes basketball. And the basketball court overlooks Lake Roscoe, which is one of the best lakes here in Muskoka. So I sent him a video like a response. No, no, yeah, that’s hilarious. But even like, Look I’m looking at so we just got out of I do this, like, do this a content creator challenge once a month, and if you guys haven’t heard about it yet, sign up for next month’s. It’s called The Real Estate content creator challenge. And the whole premise of it is like when you’re correct, everything you do in life is content, right? But if you go to Holly’s Instagram page, I’m looking at it right now. Every photo and image of her on here is is luxury. Like, It’s luxurious. She’s either at a pool, or she’s that like, there’s a there’s a yacht in one. She’s got images of cool, you know, freaking houses, she’s got bikini shots, like she just looks luxury, right? And you have to remember that people, you’re an average of the content you create from the outside. Right. So like, if you’re gonna if Holly’s, if she’s out here, like hanging out at McDonald’s and Showbiz Pizza on Pizza Hut. And I see her over, like running like four wheelers and whatnot. Like, she’s not going to have a luxury brand. But perception is a lot everything in this business. And it’s marketing, right? It’s a marketing, like everything we do is marketing. With social. Yep. What did you do prior to real estate that and why are you so not shy?

Like you’re not shy? And I think that’s half the battle and like, you seem to not really care, others opinions and how do you get there?

So before I was in real estate, I was an international model for 17 years. And then I was Miss Canada tourism. So I have been in the public eye, if you will. I’ve been in marketing for a very long time. But I will say that I was a little shy before. But the reason why I’m not shy now is because I did the inner work. I believed I was an internet, I believed I was a luxury realtor before I became a luxury realtor. So you know, I believe in myself, I love myself, I radically forgive anything that I ever did. I looked back I went and did the work and I love myself beyond anybody else. So like if I get a no to from Mark Wahlberg, which won’t happen. He’s gonna say yes. But if I get a No, that’s okay. Because it’s a yes to me. Like I say yes to myself. Great. Yeah. I mean, it’s a great way to put it when you first started though, like, you’re like, Alright, I’m making the shift everyone now and I see this with a lot of people that it will career transition or whatnot. But like, I used to do this, or I used to do that. And then right when you first get into real estate, people probably knew you. Oh, she’s a model before and she has all this and then you probably had overcome that because some people might have stereotypes are out there, right? But you probably said fuck off. I don’t really give a shit. Here’s who I am, how I roll. But I see that as a major issue. So I think how do you overcome that? that specific day because people are like, Oh, they’re gonna think I’m this and that and all of the above? How do you rebrand yourself?

That was a big hurdle for me. And I tried to be somebody else. I tried to be that mold that I thought people wanted me to be that corporate mold real estate agent, and it just didn’t work out. And it didn’t feel good either. So what I was doing is I was

doing stuff that I didn’t want to do. So it was more energy as well. I wasn’t getting anything back. And I like you said, I just said, Fuck it. And I thought I am on I was an international model, like, why can’t I use that infuse that into a brand? And so I just like I said, I, like we said earlier, I just became fearlessly authentic. And I said, Well, what’s the worst thing that can happen? I’m not getting any business now anyways, I’m trying to be somebody else. So I might as well try and be myself and the world opened up, it really did. And anybody listening, be yourself, like people like that?

In some won’t, right? Let’s be honest, like some people gonna be like, Oh, well, blah, blah, blah, and you’re like, Great, I’m not gonna get along with you anyways, but when you guys rather have that out of the way before you get in the car and start showing them a bunch of properties. So like, let’s talk about different ways and like giving people different ways that we could market this brand. So you might have a listing video strategy where you don’t the listing video is nothing more than its you like a runway to tie back into your modeling career. So every single house you’re just think of like, you ever see the show? Was it with the two male models? With Ben Stiller? What’s the name of that movie? Zoo lander. Zoo lander. Okay. That movies about male models? Yes. Yes. So like, literally, how would a mom how to form model market her business? And she’s already doing it. But for those guys thinking, like, how would you do some video like, I don’t do listing tours, I do fashion shows, right? There’s a big difference with how you market which is going to remember, if she’s having an open house, she’s probably going to treat it like a fashion show. It’s not gonna be a normal open house. That’s not how a model would roll. You have to roll with whom you are okay. I’ve seen people do the opposite. And I’ve seen people who are big talk, I’ve seen people build brands off loving tacos. So at open houses, they have a taco truck, right? It’s how you do business that people actually remember. And that’s the cool thing about this industry is you can do whatever the hell you want. Be whoever the hell you want, but you have to be willing to put yourself out there.

How do you marketing your business? Now? What are you doing for business? Like how do you find new people? Other than just I’ve seen and walk me through what your monthly cadence is in terms of content creation and all the above?

Of course. So I have a couple of buckets that I like to fill when it comes to Instagram. I’m fully on Instagram, I try to dabble in Tik Tok, but I’m not really there yet. So I’ve kind of mastered and I believe I’ve got a little bit of a groove on Instagram. So I, I focused on that. But I have a few buckets that I like to do. First of all, it’s not all about real estate. For me. It’s about making an impact in the world. And it’s about inspiring others and it’s about just the collective. Right. So like, I know, those types of things keep you going. When you’re helping other people, they do keep you going. So I there’s more ways to to promote and market a listing, right. But there’s a lot of ways to get the listing. And I feel like when people look at your page, if you just have real estate listings, they’re not going to know who you are. And there you have it. Okay, so I think that that’s a common mistake that people do is they only put real estate. But when you go to my page, you know who I am, you know who I am, you know who you’re getting, you can decide whether or not you want to move forward or not. But I also like to market everything. So everything is the magical everything is creating a motion. So like I said, I have a couple of buckets is an inspiring buckets, a real estate bucket, it’s usually sort of a women empowerment bucket. It’s a fun bucket. So I look to see what what I have done in a while. Yeah. Did you like what you just said, really quick. So I think people get a lot out of that. So she’s theming out her content. Alright, so she’s telling herself in her head, a lot of people have trouble with this. They’re like, Well, what do I do, it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. So she themed that out, which makes it easier for not for her to not have to think about what’s next. So in her head, she’s like, I’m doing intermittent, this is how your brain works. But she’s probably doing I’m doing for women empowerment posts this week, this month that I’m doing for fun posts this month, and then I’m doing four blog posts this month and I’m doing for this that’s a very easy order to follow because you know, what kind of brand you want to build. It’s when you don’t know what kind of brand you want to build and when you don’t have a strategy you don’t sit down and actually plan this out then none of it ever happens. People always how do you create so much content it’s really easy. I just sit there and 30 minutes and map it out. Like just think exactly are you to hire a real estate marketing dude and we’ll do it for you. But or you could take your course or you could take my course you could do whatever you want there’s info out there you could find out how to create info out there yes I also batch content of course. Because sometimes also I will say like sometimes I’m very inspired to do content so it’s like while I’m on a roll and then sometimes I’m not and and you know we all need a break from social media as well and I will shut it right off shut it down, shut the TV down for a couple of days and just be like this is just me time I need to just like because it’s not all about that either. And you don’t want half assed me you want full blown me so I do need my timeout as well. Yeah, I’m the same way. It’s like I like I didn’t want to

I don’t want to post on social like, honestly, if it wasn’t for business, I probably wouldn’t be on social media anymore. But it’s literally become just part of my business. It’s just who am I am? Yeah. But it’s like I said, it’s a necessity. Remember you guys, every time someone post content 10 to 15% of the people who see your shit are moving, but 100% of them have a referral for you. So don’t overthink it. The one who attracts the most businesses, the one who thought at first when the term real estate pops up,

is top of mind. And we know that we know that we know about top of mind. I will say I’m glad you said that earlier. But I just want to say it again, is it’s about intention. Yeah, all about intention. And I posted something earlier today to that I learned and you know, we used to have to post every day to be top of mind. But now real estate or Instagram is not chronological. So it actually you could have an post that you posted, and three weeks later, it posts up on somebody’s feed, because it’s still getting engagement. So it’s better to be in a detention will not necessarily take too long to post it, but just have a little bit of an intention behind it. And that’ll actually spread quicker than just throwing spaghetti at the wall. Yep. And I’m sure you probably get a lot of people like they feel like they know you before you speak to them. Yeah, I’m probably like, whether it’s a girl or guy like Dude, no, like, actually, I got that feeling from you when you reached out because you were personable. Here, I’m gonna see what the message actually was. I mean, look on this. And gosh, the person, it was just personal, you know, you’re like, Hey, I’m like, Hey, nice to meet you. And you’re just cool. So I was like, it was just easier.

It was easier to just like, talk to you. And I’m sure that people don’t realize that like when you’re on social the same way you build a relationship online the same way you build it off.

There’s no difference. Yeah. And like you said, like, they’re not necessarily the client, but they may know somebody else. So I want that when anybody thinks of Muskoka they think of holly Carol period. Yes. Whether that means a buying a house or not, we can get into that I can sell them just get them to me.

And we can work that out later. And also to like, it’s about helping the world as much as being kind everybody like, eventually that shit pays off to. Yep. It’s not just about real estate transactions like that. Just if you’re just a better person, if you have intention, if you do the right thing, if you help other people, if you put out some good content that that is good for your soul, it comes back. Yeah, always does reciprocation. You know, when you do some good for someone else, it always comes back to eight.

What else do you do for biz? Do you buy any business? I don’t think so. Or do you sit open houses? Do you like is everything just 100% attraction based to you or?

No, I do a lot of events. So I do a lot of you know, shaking hands and kissing babies. I love events. That’s my main thing. Muskoka has that small town feel to even though it’s it’s very saturated in the summertime in the season? What’s the population? What’s a media population? Like summer and winter? I actually don’t really know the answer that question. There’s three main like little towns, but there’s it’s spread out so much. So it’s hard to it. That’s hard to say. I’ll put that in the comments. Because it changes all the time. It also changes during the pandemic. Just know that it’s a lot. There’s a lot more people here, it’s a tourist season town.

What was I saying that right? Oh, yeah. So I, I do a lot of charity events. And the another reason why I do charity events, too, is because I like the people that go to charity events. So I’m not just looking for the rich and famous. I’m looking for the good hearted, rich and famous, you know, so is that where you got your start at? Like, would you say like going to events because I mean, I got started, I got all my business at nightclubs. That was only 22 Then but it was the same concept. Like I would go to meet people. And then I would stay in touch with the people I met. Are you collecting email addresses? Are you sending like you meet people, but then you know how it is meet someone they forget about you the next day. It’s like when you showed a video shot.

I’m doing strictly social media. I mean, I sometimes get their number, but even even now I’ll get their social media and then get and then get theirs. And you know why I do that not just to get more followers, not just so they can see me. But so now I know them. Because remember, we used to have to get a an email or a phone number. And then we’d have to write all the description like, Oh, he’s got a dog. And he’s got a wife named Joan and edited up. Well, now we can just look at their social media and find something that likes them. And then that’s, that’s a reason to talk to him. What kind of dog is that? I totally forgot, right? Yeah, because when I would do my calls, I’d be like, Hey, how’s fluffy doing? But now I don’t even care about fluffy because I could just look on their feet and see fluffy right there. Well, that’s that’s a very important. So I have a feeling you probably have a strategy on this. So let’s let’s roleplay this a little bit. Let’s pretend we’re at a an event, because a lot of people will go to event they don’t know what to say. Right? So like, let’s just say you’re at an event you’re there to network, you know you’re going for business, right? But you probably like these events anyways. But how do you go out and meet somebody? So let’s just say I

I’m sitting here drinking my little cup of I don’t know what’s ever in here. Some alcoholic? Yeah, champagne in my Ticor title cup. That’s a paper cup. But yeah, I’m drink champagne. I’m sitting there. How do you break the ice? What do you do?

I’m very approachable. So we’ll we’ll laymen’s it down. I mean, I would just say hello. When I would ask them questions, the best ways to ask question people like to talk about themselves. Yeah, don’t talk about yourself. People like to talk about themselves, and you’ll find a way for real estate to get in there. Yep. I always, I always like so what do you do?

Yeah, always ask people, What do they do? And then they always ask me back, what do you do?

And I just like it just, it just happens. You guys, like don’t overthink this. It’s not it really is that simple. really is that simple. And then you’ll find something that you connect with them to see I’m a huge animal lover. You know, I like boating, there’s something that will come up and then that’s when you spark that up and started talking about that a little bit more, but don’t just bombard them with questions. Once you find a question that kind of connects with you then go more into that, but I wouldn’t lead with real estate I never have it comes up. Yeah. People real estate’s like always comes up, especially when people are moving like it’s just they talk about it, because it’s emotional. And they’re excited. And it’s, it’s fun. It’s exciting. And don’t overthink it. Guys. Have you ever prospected anyone? Have you ever like cold called anyone before? Yes, I’m prospecting Mark Wahlberg. Right?

On a phone not on. I guess that’s a different way to look at. I haven’t looked at it that way before. But it is pressed. I have been prospecting people on Yes, I’ve been DMing people because I am being a little bit more intentional on who I want to call in.

But it’s not like the hard sell. It’s like it’s more just kind of

building a relationship. Yep.

I bet you have a lot of these.

This is the upper end upper upper class, you’re dealing with millionaires, right? I bet you they respect the hustle.

They do. Oh, I’ve gotten a listing that way.

I actually said to the guy said, It’s okay. If you know if you don’t go with me. And he’s like, Well, I would really like it if you if you said that, that I should go with you. And I’m like, Well, I definitely want you to go with me. That’s funny. But like he appreciated the fact that I like, went and met him and like met him again. Like he almost it’s like I courted him almost that day at the upper market wants that. Like they like you, they want you to chase them. And like you got to remember, like when you’re dealing at least I can’t speak on

the millionaire class of women. But I know how the men react. And I know that they always want to brag about themselves. They want to tell people about the story that got them to where they’re at. And it’s always just you just have to float their ego. Oh, my God, I’m so impressed by your thing. How did you do it? That’s the number one question you could ask anyone who’s very successful, and they’re automatically going to take liking to you. Every time right.

Compliments are good. Questions are good.

Like it? i This is this is cool. Any closing thoughts? We like to keep these about 2530 minutes? And we’re just right about there. Do you have any final closing thoughts? You want to mention? Anything? Any advice you want to give to people, people who are just I don’t know what to post? I don’t know what to do. I’m just sort of stuck. How did she become successful? And for years, I’ve been doing this for 10. And I don’t have that success? What is it?

I think, think about what you would want to see. So if you were you’re the client that you are trying to target, think about what they want to see. And then try to put your spin on it. Don’t overthink it, be bold. And just get yourself out there. But be you love it. Why don’t you go ahead and tell them what your handle is one more time and you guys want you to go ahead and follow Holly on on social media. And then you can see sort of what she’s doing how she’s doing it and r&d, it goes like there’s no such thing as you know, r&d is a ripoff and deploy, but do it in your way. The cool thing about real estate is that you could do the exact same thing she’s doing, you could do the exact same thing anyone’s doing but because it’s based on your personal brand, eat both, you’d be doing it differently. And there is no way to duplicate that. And that’s the power of having a personal brand like people Hey, Mike, what if I have 30 people you’re doing videos for in my market, it wouldn’t matter because each of those videos are going to be going out to the people that they’re associated with. And each of those videos are going to be done in a way that only they can do and that’s the most marketable part of your business. It’s your personal brand, your persona. It’s not people aren’t hiring you because you have a license that just gives you a legal right to make money with it. They’re hiring you because of how you make them feel.

So true. So appreciate you guys listening. Why don’t you tell them your handle one more time? So yes, my handle is Holly and Carolyn. I will say reach out to me. I’m here to help. I want to help everybody. And one last thing. Try to create emotion with your content like that. Thank you folks for listening another episode of The Marketing do podcast visit us leave us some more reviews.

Share this show with your friends and take our next content creator challenge if you want to visit learn more about that it’s www dot real estate content creator challenge.com We’ll see you guys 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 do.com 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 schedule time to speak with a dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.

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Build an Audience with Personalization

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Today we are looking at how to stand out. There’s a lot of ways but none of them work unless you have authenticity. How can you communicate with personalization and authenticity? Let’s find out.

Jesse Stein is a experienced tech entrepreneur, having founded Audience.co, SportsMemorabilia.com, Triton Academy, DietSpotlight.com and more.

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Learn how handwritten notes reach your audience.
How do you get people’s attention?
Authenticity always works best.

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What’s up, ladies and gentlemen, welcome another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast. That’s what we’re gonna be talking about today is standing out and being a little bit different. And our guest today, actually, I can pitch to be on the show all the time, like people are always gonna be on the show. Most people want to sell their shit. But this dude actually sent me an video specifically to me via email, which got my attention, which then we’re talking now and we’re on the show, because otherwise I wouldn’t have looked at it. And it was how he was communicating with me that really got my attention. And I’m like, Oh, shit, this is great. But guess what, he did it on a video. A lot of people send pitches here all the time. And okay, we’ll do it through text based email. And then it’s the same thing. It’s almost like you feel it. It’s a regurgitated copy and paste email from some kind of podcast booking agency that always reaches out to me and says, Oh, I have a new guest for you, blah, blah, blah, I’m like, your This isn’t authentic. It’s Bs, and most of them I delete. But this dude gets a does a video, even trust me by first name, because Hey, Mike, I know, I really want to get on your podcast I’ve shown us he walked me through his product and all the stuff that he has in his place. And it was engaging. And because he did that, I was like, dude, let’s do that show. Otherwise, we might not have done the show. So what we’re gonna be chatting about today, is that how do you get people’s attention that are trying to stick out? And how do you do that in marketing? How do you do that in real estate? Through digital through direct mail, personalized direct mail, but at the end of the day, here’s what works guys. I don’t care what the hell you’re doing authenticity, authenticity, people feeling like you’re one on one communication, people feeling like you’re just the only one they’re gonna get attention to. So that’s exactly we’re gonna chat about. So without further ado, I want to introduce the CEO of audience.co. Mr. Jesse Stein. How’re you doing, buddy? Great. Thanks for having me. Mike. You want to tell everyone a little quick intro? Who are you? What do you do? What is audience and I got all kinds of questions for you. Yeah, so I started audience bout four years ago, we’ve been selling in earnest for two years we’ve got now 1000s of real estate agents on the platform. I started a company called sports memorabilia.com. I bought that as a raw domain in 2005. And with a team of people eminently smarter and more talented than me, which is a common theme in my career. We built it into the biggest autograph store on the internet, a top 500 internet retailer ended up selling it to fanatics. But one of the ways we grew it was through handwritten notes. And we sent handwritten notes to customers. And we realized that the clients that received notes, spent more money with us left better reviews, referred more business, they were easier to deal with. There’s just a virtuous circle to sending handwritten notes. But there was no scale to the process, because we were having contractors, people in our warehouse assistants writing the notes, so there was no scale, the handwriting was often terracing. And there was no way to run campaigns, there was no way to really follow up and figure out, you know, when was the last time I sent to notes, a trigger note to and so forth. So I was kind of waiting for someone to do it. And all I kept getting in my physical mailbox, were notes that pretended to look handwritten, but really weren’t. I’m sure all of us have received those notes. And I just noticed that the mail that was arriving into my physical mailbox was not making it to my kitchen counter consistently. So we went out, I hired a software engineering team. And we built this incredible software. And we have these amazing robots. And what we did was because of my backgrounds in digital marketing, I got started in digital marketing in 99. Actually, that’s when I started my first online retailer, and learn how to build sales funnels and websites and learn how to buy online media and all that way back in the early 2000s. And have built that over time. So I always knew that audience would be a combination of handwritten notes with digital marketing follow up, because when you send the note, that’s great. But now you need to follow the user journey, right? You need to follow that prospect on his or her journey from the note all the way through to online so from the mailbox to the inbox, and so what we’ve built

Is this company where we’ve optimized every facet of the note itself. So it’s on a fixed stock card, it’s a bifold. Note, what we do is we create a beautiful graphic for the front of the note, we have a whole graphics team all unique graphics, what we do is optimize for the chances that people will keep and display the note because that homeowner probably isn’t interested in listing his role right then and there. But when they are your top of mind, and the key is to get them to keep it that’s why we do a bifold. Note, every character of every note we do is written with a real pen by our handwriting robots that use the same pressure slant and flow as a human. They write in 15 Different fonts, they’re super cool to look at. They vary up the left and right margins, they even do synonym replacement. So two neighbors in a building or block can hold up notes they got from us. And they look totally different. We do totally different graphics. So what happens is, and we even do a QR code sticker directly on the note. So what happens is it’s all trackable. So people reflexively, because of COVID menus, they reflexively take up their phones, and they scan the QR code. And they don’t even need to reach out to you. And it can go to a landing page of your of your choice. But what happens is, you the client, the real estate agent get pinged automatically when they scan it. And then what we do this is magic, we find all the accurate email addresses and social handles of everyone we send notes to, and then directly inside our app, it’s as easy as clicking and you follow up by email, you follow up and connect with them on LinkedIn, and Instagram and everyone where else everyone knows marketing in 2023 is integrated multichannel. So you can’t just do stuff in a vacuum. And so I saw our competitors out there, before I started the company, I saw that they were just doing the notes. And you know, they were naming the company is really old school things that had to do with, you know, handwriting and addresses and stuff. And I never saw it that way. I just see this as an outbound marketing platform. That’s why we named it audience. And we also have beautiful maps feature where you can go right in, you can put an address in, and then you can do circle prospecting. And so we automatically detect, when you list or sell a home, we trigger an email to you click, and then you can find all the properties right around this home. So right now I just happen to be on the maps feature. And we found 309 properties around this property and Basking Ridge, New Jersey, and it’s as easy as clicking twice. And then you trigger just listed just sold mailers in the form of handwritten notes to everybody around the property you just listed or sold. So we’re about two and a half times the cost of printed direct mail. But we’re about eight times the response just in the first 30 days. And then the half life on the ROI is really long, because people keep a display and what I mean by that is the agent will get we’ve worked with so many agents now and there’s no no wonder that folks like Chris Heller are investors, Tom ferries an investor, we have all these super happy clients, you can go to audience.co Check out all the all the testimonials. But it’s really you know, you talked about it earlier, Mike, it’s about being consistently useful and adding value and developing expertise, authority and trust. So a lot of the note templates, we will hold template library, because we’ve sent millions and millions of notes. They’re all about building expertise, offering offering analysis about the market. It’s not our notes are not sell, sell, sell. It’s delayed gratification. We’re working with top agents who are not dabbling in real estate. They’re not tau dippers, it’s not a hobby. We’re working with folks for whom real estate is a career. And so it’s all about building that incredible foundation using the notes. And then the digital handshake of crossing over into digital. And it works like a charm. I love it. Suppose we talked about direct mail, my blog last week was about direct mail. So let’s unpack this really quick. And let me tell you why it works. First off is i No one’s in the mailbox anymore. That’s why I want to be there. And he’s talking about this from a cold lead generation perspective, which is great when I see it as as a warm, nurturing perspective, too. Because anytime you go handwritten, people know you went out of your way to go with it. Even if it’s a machine do it. They don’t know that but we do know the fake machines with the fake blue ink. And people know that that cats out of the bag now. So it’s about it’s no differently when you guys are on the show. And I tell you about video. No one listens to the content that comes out of the video, but they remember how you did the video. And this is the same exact concept, right? So you could get all kinds of different notes but only one of them are handwritten. So it’s about sticking out

but more. So I like to personalization quite a lot, quite a bit.

Makes a lot of sense. Now, people do save direct mail guys, I used to put my cartoon logo on my direct mail and the old people always save that, which is how we used to chase distressed properties. Back in the day, we used to chase development ops, and I put my little cartoon character at the top and everyone knows like, there’s some suit different about this thing. I’m like, I know what the fuck it is. It’s my cartoons. Everyone else has been professional. I’m sticking out with a cartoon character. And there’s got to be that one thing that makes a difference. Sometimes it’s the way you do things that people react to them, not what you do. All right? Personalization. This is no different than than being funny on video. Well, you’re being authentic on direct mail. It’s direct mail super effective. We have a whole suite of it in referral suite for that reason. But let’s get into this. I liked the combo, but I want to unpack the direct mail first. So from a lead generation perspective, and when you’re sending letters out to cold people you don’t know, right? And if direct mail farming still works today, guys, yes, it takes a lot longer to use. But if you were to personalize your direct mail farming, my guess would be that you would increase your ROI quite a bit, because you’re gonna get a lot more reaction to it. Is that basically what you’re saying? Yeah, the handwritten notes? And how many do I have to send as a next question? Yeah, great question. So let me unpack that. So with respect to farming versus leaving, versus sphere nurture, so we do a lot of both. So agents all the time send over their sphere. And then we create a whole sphere nurture sequence. And we’ve even taught the handwriting robots, how to create beautiful, original line drawings. And so on the birthday, for example, I’m holding up a card right now a beautiful line drawing, we can create birthday gifts for folks in your sphere, we can create closing gifts, of course that are much more special than sending that candle or that bottle of champagne. Or the gift card. The gift card is the worst closing gift ever give you never give someone a gift that they could spend and forget about you give them a gift that they’ll remember and put in their house every time they pass by it, they subliminally think of your name. Don’t buy any more gift cards. Yeah, we automatically trigger on Line Draw original line drawings of the house that they just purchased. That’s, that goes to them, for example. So we do a lot of sphere nurture. And we do a lot of geographic farming in terms of average notes per month, clients send roughly 300 notes a month, and they hit each household every other month. Now here’s the key. Before we trigger a single note on behalf of clients, we laser target the leads. So we have a proprietary targeting database as well with 200 Plus filters. And so clients come in either just stunned because they come in and they just assume that they’re all households are created equal, not at all for us, we take out a scalpel and get totally surgical with the lead generation. So they might say, You know what, I like this golf club course, but club that I only want properties on the course itself, owner age 50 plus equity level 30% Plus, want it so the COO was issued at least seven years ago. So we maximize the chances that that thing is going to be listed. And by the way, our platform is all around driving listings, of course, buyers result too. But everyone knows that he or she that lists persists. So this is all about listings. And then so we said it’s kind of like three legs of the stool, you’ve got the targeting database. So we laser target the leads, and then you have the notes. And then you have the digital marketing follow up. And we’ve added a fourth leg, which is super cool. And so inside of the app that all of our clients get, you’ve got all that real time QR code alerts are in there. But also we’ve added something called Marketing growth engine, which is basically my 25 years of digital marketing background, the distilled reduction sauce of that. And what is it, it’s a bunch of original content that is written specifically in the age of chat GPT because everybody can create anyone can create AI based content. These days, we’ve been using AI to create 10s of 1000s of articles across multiple websites for years now for two years, actually. And so we are able to create, let’s say your real estate agent in San Diego, we populate your account with incredible articles with original photos and all you do is copy you click on the link we even include SEO attributes such as meta title, meta description, we even include answers on popular question and answer websites like Quora. So someone might be asking, What should I know before moving to San Diego? Well, you need to be the person to answer that. And so all you do is you go into our app, you copy

If you click on a link, it takes you directly to Quora, you click on respond, you paste and you post. It’s as easy as that. And so and then we even include training. And this all comes with the product. And so we’ve got tons of training. For example, we did a whole objection handling masterclass with Chris Heller, who was, as many people know, the former CEO of Keller Williams, he was their number one agent worldwide. And he won the national objection handling contest. Well, nobody’s ever captured content with Chris, at this level, there’s drips and drabs of, you know, wonderful podcasts with people like you might, but no one’s ever broken it down this way. And so we do that we have amazing content with top agents. And then I reveal all my hacks, anything you didn’t know about skyrocketing growth on tick tock or SEO or email marketing, or how to drive more reviews, it’s all in there. We also have a private Facebook group, and I do multiple webinars. So it’s an integrated marketing platform. So let’s get into the digital. You guys heard about the product, if you’re interested in you can look them up after this. But I’m more interested in seeing how the digital ties in with the direct mail in this pace. And then I got a couple of other questions before that.

So why does

the

compare it to, to me I would like to see like seller distress data in here. So we have a mutual friend named Dustin my business partner before we got on the show here. And you know, he’s all about distressed data, right? That’s what we do we create seller distressed leads to and

I know these guys want to hear you said, Why would I send? I would go after like I look at this a seller lead gen 100% direct mail. There’s a reason why investors still use direct mail because it works. The reason Realtors don’t do is because it’s expensive. But the reality is, is that people save these and people do save them in direct mail touch on the first instance is a great touch to break in the door of a distressed seller. So

why is that though?

Yeah, well, it also depends on the piece like, it’s gonna get open, if it has an envelope like ours with real handwriting and a real 62 cent first class postage stamp. So people, homeowners have antenna behind antenna, they pick up on when something feels spammy. And so even if it’s a pre canceled stamp, or they can tell the handwriting is not quite right, or the envelopes too big, we’ve optimized everything, because I come from a world of digital marketing. So everything’s an AV test. So we’ve opted, so if that distressed seller is receiving a bunch of mail, because of course, I mean, that distressed seller is known throughout the during direct mail world, and is going to get tons and tons deluge of mail, the one that’s going to stand out is going to be the envelope, and then they’re going to open. So that’ll make it to the kitchen counter. But when you open it, it’s got to be a fixed stock card, it’s got to have a graphic on the front that they want to keep. And the mistake that a lot of direct mailers make is they don’t make the piece a keepsake. And you have to be very thoughtful about the user experience. And so once that piece makes it from the physical mailbox into their kitchen counter, how do you optimize for the chances that they’ll keep a display? Well, the experience has to be fixed doc note and then never put an image of yourself or a logo on the actual comma. What about a business card? A business card feat it can be good but it can feel salesy. Yeah, in our experience AB testing that it actually performs a little bit worse to put a business card for any type of insert. The Insert vibe is that this is mass produced. And so you want to add a logo, nobody wants a logo or a photo of a stranger on their kitchen counter on their home office desk or on their mantel or on their fridge. And so the name of the game is getting them to keep it because that distressed seller otherwise will chuck it in the trash and forget about you. So what we’ve done is we’ve created these beautiful graphics, we have these huge, incredible digital presses that print in high definition, these gorgeous graphics. That’s what people keep and display and it feels less salesy. The vibe is that they went out and they bought the you know, they went to a little art store and they bought a little card and then went to a Starbucks and ordered a you know, a venti peppermint tea and wrote a bunch of notes. Then what you need to do, the mistake a lot of direct mailers make is they don’t create a piece that is easy to display. And so it might just be a single card or whatnot. We do a bifold note and it’s exactly the size where it invites you to keep and display it. The thing ends up on the

that you encounter, you end up being top of mind, no matter what. And so we’ve really that distressed seller and in the name of the game, of course, is working with someone that has a robust real time database of all those distressed sellers, you can target anything you can target pre foreclosures, foreclosures, or rental leads that are ready to cash out fizz bows, whatever you want, and our targeting database allows you to do that. So let me unpack that really quick for you guys. The

your envelope is just like your subject line on an email is a good analogy. I guess. If you have real estate market update, I’m unsubscribing from your bullshit. If you have, you know, something like, Hey, your house lost value, I’m opening that up, like the subject line on an email is 40% of the battle on an email. So the subject line, the lettering and the envelope of your direct mail is exactly the same equivalent. Because he’s right as like, what’s happens is you get all the credit, the credit card companies are perfect example of this, I get offers every day, and I never even opened up the envelope I tear them off, because I know it’s a credit card offer. So if your envelopes aren’t getting open, people can’t see the handwriting. But when you make it feel authentic, I’m always like, is this an invite someone getting married is Who’s this from like someone saying thank you like, you’re gonna get the attention, right. And you got to remember what direct mail guys, you get a 100% receivership rate that’s unlike any other channel, you if you post on Facebook, you’re only getting about a 15 18% reach organically. When you post out on emails, you only get a 13% open rate or organically traditionally on emails. But when you do direct mail, you get a 100% Unless you have the wrong address, which you’ll know because it’ll get returned to you. So

this is your opportunity to get 100% in front of 100% of people you’re trying to reach. And that’s why you only get one impression like so you got to think of it from you’re going on a first date, you’re not going to show up in your pajamas, you’re going to dress up right. So it’s the exact same concept here, you got to get your foot in the door before you can sell your shit. And the first way you do that is subliminally my guess is what’s happening here with these people who receive these mailers like, oh shit, this guy actually went went out of their way to do this for me. So let me take this a little bit more seriously, is that accurate? I absolutely. And let me just add to that if I could. So there can’t be any bait and switch of any sort along the way it has to be, you have to deliver on the prompt just like a subject line or a thumbnail on a YouTube video, it has to deliver on that promise. So when they open it, you need to deliver something of value. And so you can a lot of our clients, what they do is create a landing page, a YouTube video, it could be often where they will talk about the market, they’ll say thank you for scanning my note, my name is such and such. And I live in your neighborhood and I’m third generation Carolina in or whatever. And so it’s like really personalizing it, making sure you add value. And then here’s a little secret. I’m not actually about the handwritten note on the QR code on the QR code.

What is the Have you seen any difference in response rate to the older generation like people 65? Plus, do they get QR codes? Do they understand how to use them and all that? Previous to COVID? No. But because of COVID Everyone got used to QR code and interesting. That’d be my friend. Everyone has everyone. Everyone has a smartphone. I mean, everyone has a smartphone no matter what generation now. And they just everyone knows how to open up a camera. So it works. It works really well. And here’s a little secret is the handwritten note is awesome. It works great on its own. It performs that eight times we’ve done a lot of AV testing the handwritten note and the way we engineer it, in particular performance beat times better than printed direct mail. But to really get maximum ROI, you use the note as a Trojan horse. So now it’s all about evoking reciprocity, right? Where if you’ve read books on persuasion, it’s not the need for human to give back if they’ve received something is actually irrationally high. So by sending that note, you can sit really high in the saddle, as a real estate agent. And this is the secret is you can you’ve taken that audience and you’ve warmed it up now, which is a marketer’s Holy Grail. And that’s why I named the company audience. It’s about taking a cold audience and warming up that audience. Once you have a warm audience, then when you send a cold email, for example, and we supply all the email addresses, not only the primary owners, but if there’s a secondary owner we find that email address to then you follow up there’s a 12% response rate, on average, not not open rate response rate on a cold email because we do a magic subject line which says Did you receive

If my handwritten No, then we use AI to create a long email, it’s personalized. And it even mentions their address in there, it mentions their neighbors addresses in the email. So that gets a crazy high response rate, then we give you the social handles. So you connect by social. So what what our platform does and what a lot of real estate agents tell us is, it opened the door for them to easily and automatically get good, really good at follow up in digital market. And the note with the door opener, in fact, there are agents that tell us that they were they really dislike door knocking a lot of agents just like door knocking. I don’t I don’t

blame them in the slightest. Once you send the note though, the door knocking is so much easier they answer. And then it’s never about selling. It’s about hey, I sent I’ve sent you a couple of handwritten notes, I fear I’m sending them to the wrong address just confirming that you receive them. So that works like a charm. And for so once you send your direct mail, you have a list and now you’re targeting the same people on social are you doing this through the cell phone and email address custom audiences uploads, like on Facebook? And what kind of digital activities are we doing here? Yeah, so always be aware of any company that is supplying phone numbers to you at scale, because in this climate of privacy, they should not be doing that. And they could get you in a lot of trouble. If you then load those up into a dialer and go nuts on calling home cold homeowners. And it also depends on your state. Obviously certainly don’t don’t text a cold homeowner, you can get into big trouble that last year a cash buyer you have to be the principal in the transaction then you could solicit but what he’s saying you could get in a lot of trouble realtors that are cold calling or whatnot, cold calling or tax, you cannot interact unless you’re a direct principal, you cannot represent anyone unless you’re direct principal. But if you’re the cash buyer yourself, and you’re legit, you could cold call them. But that’s a you can’t do it regularly. So this is a good way around that. But further to your question, Mike about creating custom audiences in Facebook, for example. So what we do then, is we I do these webinars, and we have this training videos that teach you exactly how to eat all the meat of the marketing bones in a very easy way requires very little effort. So we give you all the emails I was mentioning of the primary and secondary owners, you take those. And for example, we have integrations with folks like follow up boss and others that you can literally export them directly out of our app. And then you can use those to create custom audiences inside of Facebook. And then all of a sudden, we train you on how to even go to sites like upwork.com and hire someone to create your Facebook ads and go to Facebook ad library and kind of take a look at your competitors. Very easy stuff. What’s the ad is a video.

It’s like the retargeting ad like I would I would probably put up picking, like I put my face on it 100% For sure, for sure. So it’s an introduction video, and then they’re like, it should be the same video that you just did for the landing page off of the QR code off of your notes. So it’s all consistent. So now look what’s happening, the homeowners that were ice cold before audience, they’re getting your notes consistently. And you want to make sure you send a note every two months. And you want to be very, very consistent in that you stop. I mean, we know that out of the 1000 or so households that we’re hitting with audience notes that there will be people who list we don’t know who’s going to list. So therefore you have to stay top of mind consistently. And the worst feeling for an agent is when someone from their database lists with one of their top competitors. I mean, it’s the silliest so with audience, you need to be consistent. And that consistency allows you to then follow up, then you take all those email addresses and guess what, import them directly into your newsletter marketing platform. So if you use MailChimp or your brokerage platform or Active Campaign or Constant Contact or whatever, upload them and then there’s starting to get your email newsletters, it’s all about consistency and familiarity, which breed trust. So it’s never about just one thing. It’s never about just the note or the email marketing or the Facebook. It’s everything we all know it takes multiple multiple touches. Jay, kinder, you know, I was chatting with him. He’s incredible. And I asked him, I said, Scott, what do you do so well, Jamie’s one of the top agents in the country raising raising coach and everything else. And he said, Well, I like to think of myself as the Incredible Hulk stomping around in a puddle. I said, Okay, great, great image. What does that mean? And he said, people cannot miss me because I’m everywhere. I’m on bus benches. I’m an email. I send your handwritten notes. I do everything and so that’s that’s kind of the whole point with this integrated marketing

platform here at audience sounding familiar, folks, we chat about this every week on the show you there is no one thing as a one channel

person anymore. You got to be mom omnipresent. You got to be everywhere.

And people, it’s a busy world. You know, at the end of the day, this is people given to the one that gives you the most and for real estate, over 80% of people will close with the first person they meet with, you increase your chances of that happening, the more they see you, right. And the reason why this, like what he’s seen here is like just direct mail farming, it still works today. It’s been around since the dinosaurs roamed the earth. But generally, if you’re just taking regular postcard campaign, year one, you’d hit one to three listings, your two is three to five, year three is five to seven. That’s a traditional farming campaign, but it’s if you take a break at all during those 36 months, you just screwed up the whole campaign. Okay? You cannot. It’s almost like, like, you can’t leave in the middle of a dinner on a first date. That’s the same fucking concept, right? You can’t just submit Oh, I gotta go art by Alright, sorry, you don’t get a second date. There’s, there’s no difference with this. Like, if you don’t plan on being consistent in anything, it’s not going to work. And I would even put this more in the marketing versus advertising category. This is all attraction based like something like this, you could see the ROI is going to come but you don’t know when it’s going to come. Right but when I’m buying Zillow leads realtor.com Either make money or I don’t make money in that term, or in that timeframe of that I have that lead account. So this is definitely the long game. You have to be doing it consistently all the time. I love the digital marketing approach on top of this is how we’re doing with all of our brands. We create organic content and we overlay that Reatta contact with our ads and then that’s what’s working the best real it’s like we give value in the people who consume our content. Another way to look at content marketing I like to explain it as the Think of the play action in football for all you dudes out there. We’re watch the Super Bowl this weekend right? You hand off you hand off you hand off only to set up to pass right otherwise the play action is not even a thing is it well it’s so differently in here you add value you got direct mail every two months direct mail direct mail oh there isn’t social. Oh, he’s gonna email Oh shit. Fuck this motherfuckers everywhere. Where the flux is guy coming from he must be the best. That’s positioning and authority with content that’s how powerful that can be. And even if you do this, and you’ve never sold a house before the people on the receiving end of this content think you’re fucking Rockstar.

Yeah, that’s the difference is like with brand authority, personalization content putting yourself out there. I can make you think I’m a chef. If I want seven days seven videos, watch them You think I’m a chef. That’s how powerful branding and positioning can be guys. I love the omnipresent makes sense. makes common sense to me and unfortunately, we’ve lost a lot of that in the real estate industry.

Dude, this is relationship building 101 Is this I’m looking at this as the dating process. I think people understand this when when I walked through the analogy is that note is my like, that’s my swipe right?

If that’s even how that works, right? Oh, fuck. Who is this person? Yeah. Oh, then the emails are my, my my Tapper. Like, I don’t know, I don’t know how the DD analogies work or the platforms but it’s like that’s the same concept guys. The problem everybody has is that we’re like hey, do you want to go buy and sell your house that’s usually how an agent circle prospects they go hey, I’m a real estate agent with a big block Realty and what we’re gonna be doing or sorry Hey, I’m a real estate big block Realty and I really like your house. I have a buyer. No you don’t you’re lying out of your ass who may be interested in buying your house. That should is tired guys. It’s so old school.

I don’t know why the Guru’s still teach it but I’m pretty sure it’s it’s all they know. Things have changed. And you do have to earn business today. And people have options. Fortunately, most of them think real estate’s a commodity business. And for the most part, it is the one who stands out as the one who wins in whichever way that is direct mail video.

However, maybe, but whatever it is, you gotta be consistent. Otherwise, it doesn’t work. Yeah, and it works especially well in this market. So people ask us, Well, you know, how is the current climate of rising interest rates and

slowing real estate market and in many areas, how’s that affected us? And we say well actually have the opposite effect, because it’s gotten rid of a lot of the riffraff so there’s a lot of the agents that were just dabbling, or just toe dippers. They’ve pulled back on their marketing

agents, we work with that plot a plot 180 degree role when everyone else is pulling back, like you know, eight 910. They just stomp on the accelerator harder. You take market share, in a reckless way. They invest on they don’t they’re careful about expenses, but audience is not an expense. It’s an investment. And so it’s about digging your well before you’re thirsty. And then what happens just like an O H just look at these market cycles.

is once you the ones that invested and applied the 180 degree rule, they come out way stronger than it already. I just did this earlier today on a training, it happened twice in the last two years. It happened right after COVID Most of the agents went MIA. And that’s why so many social media celebrities were born. they’ve doubled down on marketing. I called it at the time, I said, Look, whoever’s gonna be super loud here is gonna fucking be a millionaire. It happened. And then it happened again, when the rates change. Last April, everyone went, everyone stopped. Like I tell you guys, I just said, I just had this like I have, we lost half of our video clients. And both of those situations. And the ones that we kept fucking dominated. The ones that dropped honestly, like, a lot of them are still struggling. We had a transaction coordinator, tied to one of my trainings today. I’ve known her for a couple years, but um, I bring her on and I asked her a question. She goes, Hey, Mike, oh, my God. She’s associate he’s a transaction coordinator. So she gets business from real estate agents. And she had some life situations happen husband, and she like that. She went quiet for three months. All right, no one’s seen her for three months, and all sudden, she just started creating again. And when she wouldn’t cry it she gets up today. And she goes, Hey, Mike. Yeah, business just got crushed in the last three months. But it wasn’t until I started getting back doing videos consistently doing this again. And now I just picked up six more agents. When you’re out of sight out of mind, you cannot afford to not you cannot afford to run a business and be out of sight. And in this recessionary environment, we’ll see what happens if it comes back or not. This is where you got to take market share, man. Yes, it sucks. It’s scary. But dude, he just told you the exact same thing I’ve been telling you for last eight months on this show. And we’ve never even met before. And I’m telling you case, study after case study after case study after case study after case study. When shit goes bad, you double down? Not disappear. Yeah, yeah, we think exactly the same. And, yeah, I mean, there’s, here’s what happens when you pause, like you mentioned with that with that woman, when you pause your marketing, and you just decide, okay, I’m gonna see what happens. Let’s see where the chips fall based on all this marketing I’ve done today, you actually send the opposite signal. So you send a signal that either you’re not interested to sellers, for example, you send a signal that you’re not interested in their neighborhood, you’re not interested in their business, or worse that you’ve gotten out of the business altogether. Like you say, you’re out of sight out of mind, you’re now a tree falling in the forest that no one ever hears. And in fact, it’s even worse, because guess what happens? You’ve pumped up the bicycle tire, so another agent can take a ride. So now another agent can come in there with similar marketing and people get homeowners get confused. Was it that agent? Was it the other agent? I don’t know? And then on to say, was it the guy wearing the tie? Or was it the guy wearing the tie? I don’t know which one it was, I gotta go with the guy wearing the tie. Air. Here’s how a lot of you are going to be like, hey, what if I’m being annoying? I don’t want I don’t want to annoy people listen to if you believe you’re the right person for the job, it becomes your obligation to let the world know for it anything less. You’re a shady dude.

If you’re not the right person for the job, and you’re in the wrong fucking business, go get a new job. Like that’s what it comes down to. So when people tell us that same thing, like with video, I’m being annoying. No, what’s annoying is when those people start cheating on you with another real estate agent. And it’s not their fault that they forgot you’re in real estate. It’s your fault. You didn’t remind them. And it’s a big difference, like consistency. And marketing is the only thing that works. It always works over time. Yeah, you can make tweaks and all that. But look at the concept that he’s talking about. Look at the concept. I talked about every frickin week on the show. And it’s the same thing guys. Like, don’t overthink, this isn’t rocket science. People give in to the one they see the most whether that’s direct mail, video, email, whatever it is the person who’s all out there billboards and all that. There’s a reason why those people are always the top agents in those markets like you don’t, they don’t it’s not an accident. You’re like, oh, is video gonna work for me? Well, have you ever seen an hour work for anyone? I don’t know anyone who had video that consistently that isn’t like successful. I don’t know anyone’s doing direct mail consistently that isn’t successful. I don’t know anyone that’s working out consistently that isn’t in shape.

Like, dude, don’t overthink this stuff. Guys. You’re running a damn business. You’re not a salesperson chasing a check. Your broker ain’t gonna make you money, you’re gonna make money. Your broker is just going to collect extra money that you make on them. Worst thing you could do firms make more money.

No one’s gonna save you in this business. You have to save yourself and your face, whether you like it or not. You’re that’s the brand, your body, your shirt, whatever the hell it is. And if that’s not front center, and being the center of all conversation, you’re missing the point.

That’s a great point. A quick anecdote related to what you just said. So there’s an agent named David citizens here in Miami in South Florida. He’s one of the top agents nationwide. You can look him up. I think he’s ranked number 96. Now nationwide, he did $600 million in volume last year. He would be forgiven for not

door knocking and for not you hustling to an extreme. Well, a couple days ago, I was on the phone with him. And I’ve heard him outside. He’s a very, very happy audience Klein. In fact, he’s even an audience investor. And I said, Dude, what are you doing? Are you going for a walk? And he said, No, I’m actually going door to door and hand delivering brownies with a beautiful ribbon, and my wife tied on it with the Davidsons logo on it. I said the only two people that you know, he goes, No, no cold homeowners. So here’s a guy, you can calculate his GCI and get a sense for how much money he made last year talk about somebody not resting on his laurels. So exactly what Mike said about consistent, persistent, that wins the day. Yep. Just podcast, you guys. We got 1.5 million downloads. I never advertised it. I never marketed it. You guys come here. We’re doing 30 35,000 downloads a month. Thank you guys, please keep sharing it out. But it’s because I was consistent. Right? So we’re practicing what we preach here, you guys, you have to just focus on one thing, and no, it’s not going to happen overnight.

No, you’re not going to get rich in six months. But what you will do is you start to build a stream of consistency. And when the consistency occurs, the peaks and valleys goes away. And all of a sudden, this stressful business that you once dreamed of becomes fun again, don’t overthink it, I just want you to give him some closing thoughts on where they can find you. And we’ll get this wrap.

Yeah,

I mean, just one thing that I’d like to leave on is this sort of zooming out a little bit, and to make sure that you never, ever build your business on rented land. And let me at this is echoing a lot of what Mike talks about in his podcast. But a lot of agents will just develop out the page on their brokers website without creating their own website with original content, much less a podcast like Mike has done, you want to make sure that you are building a business that is completely independent of your brokerage. And by the way, your brokers love this because Keller, whomever, they love ambitious agents who are creating hundreds of articles, and podcasting, and you know, just all over the place speaking at events, and networking, and so forth. But also, this allows you to have a lot more autonomy and freedom, longer term. And if you are making this career, make sure you don’t build your business on rented land. Same thing in digital marketing, right? digital marketers know that you cannot build your business around the big Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook, use those platforms, absolutely play to their strengths. But build your own website, build your own content, testimonials, build all your wonderful reviews across Google My Business, learn digital marketing, develop a toolkit, you know, all the misfires I’ve ever had in my career, because I didn’t have the right skills and tools to go out. And that’s why inside of audience, you get a ton of training. So in terms of like where you can go to learn more, and it’s a low pressure sale, you go to audience dot CEO, you book a demo. And the way that we approach things is we present our solution, we deliver a bunch of value, we get you some ebooks that you can take as a gameplan for doing the notes on your own if you need to, or doing digital marketing on your own. And if there’s a fit, we move forward. We don’t even do contracts because it works so well. And yeah, audience.co Well, man, appreciate it cool product. And thank you folks for listening to another one of our episodes. Remember what he said, you can’t ever rely on a business or a cat. Don’t ever put 100% of your business on a lead source you don’t control. I’ve seen countless teams get their ass kicked. Once the market shifts, it just happened again. But whether you’re relying on Zillow realtor.com, you’d be surprised at how many of these top performing teams don’t really have a profit margin. They’re losing or breaking even every single month. And it’s not because it’s just ego guys like so. If you don’t have something you control, you’re always at the risk of the next shift. Because what’ll happen is that the second that lead source changes, so do the interactions with it. So when the market changed, Zillow leads weren’t performing what they were before. Therefore, you can never rely on them. When you create your own brand, you can always rely on it because it’s your system. So hope you got a lot out of today. Feel free to go ahead and visit our site, visit my software referral suite, you want to stay in front of your database you like what you see here. Well, we’ll make content creation very easily through video, email, direct mail, and social media. And if you need the video editing and all that distribution on top of that, we could do that too. So appreciate

You guys have a great, great weekend and stay tuned next week peace

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.com We make branding video content creation simple and do everything for you. So if you have any additional questions, visit the site, download the training, and then schedule time to speak with a dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The Exact Direct Mail Referral Marketing Strategy We Used To Generate A 500% ROI

Post author By realestatemarketingdude
Post date February 3, 2023
Categories In Direct Mail Real Estate Marketing, Uncategorized

Believe it or not, but using direct mail is an amazing referral marketing strategy for anyone in a referral based business. Direct mail is NOT dead, it’s alive and well and one of the most effective way to stay in touch and nurture your database.

“Referrals don’t come from strangers, they come from people you already know”

In the real estate, over 60% of business comes from referrals and repeat clients. Instead of spending tons of money on tech or other “noise” 90% of people never take action on, start by marketing the people you know first.

Referral marketing is all about keeping in touch with past clients, friends, prospects who aren’t ready yet, and anyone else who has the potential to send you business. It’s about keeping your brand in front of them with CONSISTENCY so you are not forgotten about. The only goal is when people think of “real estate” they think of your name.

Why Direct Mail Should Be An Important Part Of Your Referral Marketing Strategy

A good referral marketing strategy will involve multiple touches, but here’s why direct mail is very effective.

100% of the people you send direct mail to will receive it. Secondly, everyone who receives it has to physically engage with you. If they pick up your postcard or letter, they still have to interact with it. You cannot say that in any other form of marketing. If they pick up your direct mail and throw it in the trash, they still physically engaged with you. That’s powerful for marketing.

Direct mail going to have one of the highest ROI of any referral marketing strategy you implement as well. As much of the world has gone digital, direct mail is still tangible. Don’t underestimate physical interaction.

if you have 100 people part of your relationship marketing list you are sending direct mail to, 10-15% of them will be moving this year. At the same time 100% of them have the ability to refer you at least one person this year. This isn’t theory it’s mathematical. It will cost you about $12 a year to farm each relationship you have.

Do the math…

Everyone gets direct mail, but not everyone sees every email, or social media post you make.

What do you send them?

Your marketing does not have to be about real estate. As a matter of fact it shouldn’t. You are nurturing people you already know so trying to sell them a house every time you communicate will put you on the stay away list really fast. You are not trying to convert them to a client, but more to to encourage their referrals. Sending out things like Holiday greetings, party invites, fun facts, recipes, local events, restaurant openings, newsletters, or anything else would be appropriate. You DO NOT need to talk business, you need to remind them about the business you’re in.

Here’s a simple checklist you can follow to get your direct mail marketing to your database automated with Referral Sweet.

Build A Direct Mail List First

Referral marketing is not about sending content to strangers or a farm community, but more to people you know, worked with in the past, or would expect to get primary and referral business from.

Determining if you have someone worth marketing to comes down to a very simple test. If you were at the grocery store and came across someone you know, would you stop and say hello to this person? If that’s the type of relationship you have with them, then you should be be part of your referral marketing direct mail list.

If you were at the same grocery store and saw someone you recognized, but turned and walked the other way, then that person should not be on your list. It’s not about the quantity, it’s about the quality of relationship you have.

The back of my postcards always asks for referrals. We call this referral programming. You cannot expect people to always remember what you do for a living. It also thanks the recipient of sending referrals ahead of time. Your company logo, headshot, title and information will all go on there, which is where you infer you are an agent. This is why you don’t need to communicate about real estate, it will be known.

One Post Card Or Greeting Card A Month

You can send one postcard a month. Your content doesn’t have to talk about work, it can be anything. You want to send your database content they will actually read like fun facts. The more interesting the piece, the better received and I’ve tested just about everything. One example is a postcard I send about the world’s most expensive house.

These are short, sweet, cute, and fun to read. Remember all I want it to do is keep me on top of mind.

9 Holiday Cards Touches

I also send out holiday-based postcards. They follow a very similar format. Each postcard cites a fun fact revolving around that holiday.

I send my postcards out on the following holidays.

- Groundhogs Day

- Valentines Day

- Patty’s Day

- April Fools Day

- 4th of July

- Labor Day

- Halloween

- Thanksgiving

- Happy Holidays
- 2 Client Party Invites
- Greeting Card

That’s and additional 12 touches a year. These cards are very simple and cute. They allow me to stand out and do not sell at all. The purpose is to wish a happy holiday in a cute way and to not be forgotten about when a referral situation comes about.

How to Buy and Sell Real Estate, Tax Free

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In today’s market, we should all seek to be investor friendly, especially as agents. We are looking at how investing is a great way to accumulate tax free real estate.

Mat has been at the forefront of the Self-Directed IRA industry since 2006. He’s CEO of Directed IRA, a partner at KKOS Lawyers, a national speaker, a top-ranked podcast host, a best-selling author, and a self-directed retirement investor. Mat is a VIP Contributor at Entrepreneur and is an expert author at Cryptopedia.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

The benefits of real estate investing.
What is the best way to make your money earn money?
How to avoid taxes on real estate investing.

Resource

Check Out Mat’s Website

Transcript:

What’s up ladies and gentlemen, welcome another episode of the real estate marketing dude, podcast, market shifted, folks, we’re gonna talk about something not so much on marketing today. I mean, I guess it can be, but more so on skill sets, something very important, I believe is gonna be coming up into the market. And although interest rates went down to 5%, I still don’t think we’re at the end of this thing. Yeah, do you guys, I’m almost positive, I could tell you that, but I can’t predict the future. I’ve seen a couple shifts in my age. But what one of the skills I’m getting out is, whatever you’re gonna decide to do, you need to become investor friendly. If the only types of transactions you guys are creating are just residential buy, sell and moves, you’re gonna be missing a major opportunity in the upcoming market. Because the reality is, is that the real estate industry has a large shortage of investor friendly agents. Most agents aren’t even know what the fuck we’re talking about right here when we start talking about this. And if I didn’t personally know someone who taught me all this stuff, like five or six years ago, I would be completely lost. But how cool would it be? If you were able to teach your clients, all people, anyone you knew how to buy tax free real estate, and not pay any taxes on it at all? Because that’s basically what self directed IRA investing is. I’m gonna tee up and I don’t know what Matt here is gonna talk about. We just met like, what how long goes like two minutes ago? Yeah, I’m great, though. I’m gonna dumb this down for everybody. Okay, and just break this down in human language. So I know Matt’s an attorney and get into these big terms and stuff. So I’m gonna put them in real estate terms. We call them layman’s. Alright, so all this says you can build you can install certain amount of money into a Roth. And after that Roth is season season, he’ll define what season means you can literally treat it like a bank account that doesn’t get taxed. Is that a fair statement? Yeah, the number one way to make money in the US tax free and not go to prison. The number one thing people are gonna be looking for is an agent that understands this type of skill set one of them all the investors skill sets. And even the rookie investors, this is how you pull them in once you know more than what they do. Great. That’s the whole point of having a fucking license to begin with, and having a job you guys. So without further ado, we’re gonna go ahead and introduce our guests as an expert here at the top book on self directed investing and IRAs. And you want to take notes on this episode, because you don’t get hired for what the hell you do you get hired for how you do it. Matt, why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself to the listeners here who may not know you yet? Why don’t you say hello and tell them a little bit about what you do. And I got a bunch of questions for you. Yeah, love it. Thanks for having me. I love this topic. I’m Matt Sorenson. I’m an attorney wrote the number one book the self directed IRA handbook. In the field, I self direct my own retirement account, my IRA and 401 K’s into real estate. I’ve been doing this since 2006, for clients, and I’ll give you an example of my first client I did this with that was the whole reason I got into this space and specialized in it. But I have a Ira company where a trust company called directed IRA, we have over a billion assets primarily invested in real estate. So you know, every day we’re opening 3040 new accounts, the majority of which are buying real estate, there’s $30 trillion in the US in retirement accounts. $30 trillion. So for anyone listening, like, I don’t care if you have zero money in retirement accounts, and you’re like, This isn’t for me, I don’t have $1 in an IRA or 401k. Yeah, but everyone else does your potential clients do other people that can fund deals for you do? And then for those either in the real estate space, wouldn’t it be nice if you could invest tax deferred, or tax free dollars like IRA and 401, K’s into something you actually know, like real estate instead of buying a stock bond or mutual fund. So it’s a huge topic, huge topic. It’s where all the money’s at so. So everybody’s got to know this.

Exactly right, dude. So here’s what I want to start with. Because I’m gonna I’m gonna ask you questions based upon what I’m pretty positive. A lot of the agents don’t know, just so they understand how this process works. Alright, so forgive me if I asked you. So first first question I have on this is

you just sort of said it. Why is it important for real estate agents and lenders to know about what a self directed IRA is? Why the hell do I need to know that? Yeah, well, if you have your own retirement account, wouldn’t it be nice to invest it in what you know? I mean, if you’re in the real estate space, you have a competitive advantage to see deals and opportunities. You know, I used to teach classes to the Realtors Association all the time. I’d ask people how

Many of you have an IRA or 401k, like two thirds of the room, raise your raise, how many of your IRA or 401, k’s are invested in, in mutual funds, as you know that same groups hands still up? How many of you know a good mutual fund that you’re excited to buy and you think is going to make you money? Everyone puts their hand down? Like how many of you know a real estate deal? You think you can make money on? The frickin whole classroom goes up, let alone people don’t even have an IRA or 401 K, I’m like, why are you not investing in what you know? Like, you’re like LeBron James, playing ping pong go dominate what you’re good at, like, you’re gonna get better return. So if you’re in the real estate space, this is you actually have a huge advantage over everyone else to make money in these specialty accounts. And when we say there’s a self directed IRA, and there’s an IRA, and correct me if I’m wrong, but an IRA is like when you get a financial planner, like, Hey, do give me like, 10% of your money, and I need to go invest it. And then these guys go out there, and then they put it in some kind of computer algorithm or whatnot, and they’re trading all these stocks, you get statements for it, no one knows what the fuck they may or say, or when your expenses were made. You don’t know it. But you know, I’ve a lot of financial planner, friends, but self is like you control your own investments. That’s the difference, right? You could invest into like a financial planner and have like a, what’s it called, like, creating a mutual account? I guess, is that the word?

But or you could control your own destiny by investing that self RA into hard assets? You can buy gold with them, can you silver, you could you can lend that money as a lending source. So I could lend someone 10 grand and charge them 12 and get back to 20% interest. You know, you could do whatever you want you direct the investments. Right? Yeah, I think the easiest way is self directed IRA is basically an IRA that can invest in any asset allowed by law. So like, there’s 30 companies that do what we do. We’re the best directed IRA, you don’t need to know anyone else. And look us up, you know, check our reviews versus our competitors and our fees and everything. I don’t think anybody’s even close to us. But if you let’s say you have an IRA at Fidelity or TD Ameritrade and you call it fidelity or TD Ameritrade you say, hey, I want to buy real estate with my IRA. They’re gonna be like, you can’t do it. And it’s not because IRAs can’t do it. It’s because fidelity IRAs and TD Ameritrade, IRAs can’t do it like their broker dealers, they let you buy what they sell, they don’t sell real estate, they’re gonna let make you click a button to buy something they sell, which is stocks, bonds and mutual funds. So you have to just move that account. So if you’re at fidelity, and you have a Roth IRA, they’re buying stocks or mutual funds, and you got 100 grandson over there, and you’re like, Oh, I’d rather put this 100 grand on a real estate deal. I want to be a private money lender to somebody doing a flip whatever the case may be. We just transfer that 100 grand from Fidelity over to your Roth IRA directed, which is self directed and will let you do real estate. I mean, other stuff. You mentioned precious metals, like gold and silver. Clients about crypto, I have clients on a Mexican soccer team with their IRA, racehorse sauce, avocado farms, like weird stuff. But these are people that are into that they know that space and they invest in what they know. That’s a good point is like, I don’t know anything about the stock market like nothing, zilch, zero, like I just don’t, I wouldn’t invest in it because of that, because I don’t like not being in control.

Okay, but getting started off isn’t like when you’re just starting. So let’s just say I’m a real estate agent or lender, I’m somewhere around the home in Ohio.

How does it how do I start, you could have an IRA and I could actually convert it into a self? And then once I have the self, like how much money can I contribute? If I don’t have an IRA already, so you could you could convert an existing IRA, or you have to start from scratch if you don’t have one yet walk me through that process. Okay, 80% of people who self direct and are going to do real estate with an IRA or 401 K, already have retirement account money, they got an old employer 401k, they’ve had for 10 or 20 years, and they’re rolling that over, or they already got an IRA at TD Ameritrade or fidelity. And so for those ones, it’s the easiest, because let’s just take the money you have or the piece of it, you want to self direct, and you just do what’s called a transfer a trustee to trustee transfer, you set up a self directed IRA with the self directed IRA custodian for my company’s case, directed IRA, and then we go request that money from TD Ameritrade or fidelity. Now if you’re zero, though, and you’re like, I haven’t seen anything, and this is common for real estate agents, yeah, you know, a lot. I’ve never had a yeah, get a 401 K, you know, I don’t have the 401k that coming out of their paycheck. For any real estate agents, the best option is what’s called a solo 401 K. This is basically a 401k, you get a set up for yourself. And it’s actually an awesome plan because you can put $66,000 A year into this thing. It could be Roth or traditional or you could mix it up between Roth and traditional

solar, okay. It’s not to interrupt you, but say that the dollar amount I can invest because you can pick how much money you want to invest in IRA. There’s rules put in each year. It right from one end, unless it’s income from the investment, right. Exactly. Yeah. So like income from the investment is unlimited. Like you could be Peter Thiel, who has a $6 billion Roth IRA. You know, my largest client has a 300 million Roth IRA

A. And you know, there’s no cap on how much you can make in these accounts. But there is a cap on how much you get to put in each year, that’s kind of your investment capital, you can only put in so much every year. And in the IRA space at 6500 bucks, this is the new number for 2023. It used to be 6000 for many years, but starting now in 2023, you can put 6500 bucks in an IRA. Well, if I’m a real estate agent, I mean, I got some you can do a 6500 bucks, I’ll give you some examples of clients that have hit homeruns with that. But if you’re like, Well, I want to buy a rental property or I want to do something else, well do the solo 401 K, because you can put $66,000 a year in this. It’s basically a 401k plan for someone self employed with no other employees. And so that’s a very popular option, then new real estate clients is that a consumer option, probably about 12 years ago is when it came around. Yeah, sometimes called an individual K or individual, individual 401k. And that’s 60. You guys, you guys, this is tax, this is you write this off to Yeah, if you want to do traditional. So remember, like in the retirement space, you got traditional dollars, where I’m getting a write off today, if I put 66 grand in it, I get a $66,000 tax deduction on my tax return. If I max it out. Now, the rules on how you contribute, you’d have to have made about 180 grand approximately, to max out and do 66 grand, but as long as you did, that’s a 66,000 Our tax section, or you could be like, I don’t care about tax deductions. Now. I’d rather have a Roth account, where I put that 66 grand in no tax deduction, but this thing grows and comes out tax free in retirement. Because remember, when you do a traditional IRA or 401 K, you get a tax deduction when you put the money in which you love. Now, later in retirement, when you start drawing on it, you’re paying taxes on the way out, you got to pick which one you want. And there’s debates on which one’s better. And I would, I would guess, the majority of realtors are gonna go to solo route just because it most people don’t, they don’t already have an established investment most times set up. But I speak into real estate professionals, nine times out of 10 That’s what you should be doing. I just focused on the solo form. Okay, I got a whole chapter in my book. We have webinars and podcasts on our website, just specific to the soul. Okay.

I like the idea of just because, you know, the here’s how I see that I see this as a marketing thing I see is from an agent’s perspective, that is, I see it as a positioning thing, and all of that because I know you guys are probably talking to the number one guy right here that knows about what’s coming up in the real estate market because he’s got the smartest money in the fucking world. And he’s investing with it. So all his clients, I’m sure informing you, you’re probably a real estate geek to my guess.

What’s what’s what’s gonna, the reason why I see this as tell me if you think I’m right or wrong. But the reason I see this for you guys of making this such a advantage is because people are going to be looking to invest when the market shifts, and they already are starting to just people are too scared to buy in the beginning of a shift. That’s like the dumbest investing move ever. You wait till we hit bottom of that shift, and then people gonna start buying. But if you get out of that ahead right now, you know, agents and lenders always have homebuyer seminars, I’d have home investor seminars, like most of the investors don’t know how this is the day you show me how to make money and save money and screw over the government is the day you have my business. Yeah, right. Because that’s a win win. Really, right? Yeah, IRS gets nothing. We get to keep it all. So, you know, I think

this like, this is a tool, right? These retirement accounts, which think of it in many different ways on how you can access it. One is, if you’re doing deals yourself, and I have lots of real estate clients that are they’re in the business of real estate every year, whether they’re a broker or a developer, contractor, whatever. Like they see stuff like they’re just out there to see things. But the retirement accounts like this tool, and sometimes your mentality can be I’m use other people’s retirement accounts to fund my deals. I had I did a podcast, or sorry, a webinar about a month ago with one of my clients. He did 250 flips here in Phoenix. 60% of his money came from IRAs and 401 K’s like the majority of the funding on his flips, which was this is purchase money and rehab was from retirement accounts. And that’s just because he knows the strategy. I had another client a real estate fund

that never raised from retirement accounts. Well, we did a webinar to their investor group. And we basically taught them how you can use your retirement account to invest into their next real estate fund. We opened over 300 accounts in two months for those people investing into that font there. Like we didn’t even have to go to new people. We just talked to the existing people we already knew. And if you’re a real estate professional, how many clients do you already have that you’ve done so far? That never knew they could buy real estate with an IRA or 401k They’ve already used you for business before just talk to them you don’t need a new client. Just think of how they can use this money to buy real estate which is what most people love and trust over mutual funds in the stock market. So

is it safe opportunity in this? Is it safe to say like, Look,

you create a buyer’s list guys no differently than

A wholesaler would or an investor would. And that buyers list is, you know, the what’s great about these markets that are coming, everyone’s so scared.

This is when you take advantage, this is when things shift. This is when you get positioning, market share, and all the above because in a shift like this, the best client is the one who doesn’t give a shit about the GFCI outlets are the light bulb not working, or the toilet fucking ring, whatever. It’s annoying if you want to deal with $15 GFCI outlets and go ahead. But the difference is, is that the investor will buy multiple properties per year, whereas the client you sold the house to you’re gonna have to wait another six to nine years until they frickin need to sell that. So you’re looking at leverage if you’re looking at smart business, you guys at the end of the day, plus there’s no emotion involved. I would assume that most people that have a Roth IRA just jump on a deal with one pops up. Yeah, yeah, they jump on a deal. And some people like investing in different things. You know, like, like me, I buy more long term buy and hold stuff. Rental and I do some private money lending. I’ll tell you one client I had this was what made me decide to specialize in this field period, I was helping some clients buy real estate. But I had a client that had a Roth IRA with about 10,000 bucks in it, he was a real estate developer. And there was a piece of land, he wanted to get an option on. And he knew that this land, what was going to happen was the state and the city were going to put a freeway exit in, they already planned it in the next three years. And so he knew that this property is going to go from agricultural to like freeway commercial. What he did is he went to the landowner that had land right next to it, there was how to for agricultural use, he put an option on the property from his Roth IRA. So what is his Roth IRA did is he opened up the Roth IRA, he transferred money from wherever the brokerage Roth account IRA, he had before moved into his self directed Roth IRA, and then his Roth IRA paid 5000 bucks for the rights to purchase this property in a five year window. Now, at the time, the agricultural property is worth like 350. So my client offered the guy 450 grand, he said, Now you gotta give me five years to buy it. And if I don’t, you keep my 5000 bucks. But if I do, I get to buy at the 450 price. Well, freeway exit comes in this property is now worth over over one and a half million dollars. And he sells the option for over a million dollar profit. Now this was this client, I just remember this like, vividly because he, I saw it through to the close a few years later, and this million bucks going back to his Roth IRA off a $5,000 investment. Nuts, he was pissed off, this client was pissed off, because he’s like, You know what, I had the big law firm, the Big Four CPA firm, the financial advisor, they all knew I frickin know how to make money in real estate, they see my tax returns, they talk to me, that’s where all my money comes from. And no one told me I could use a Roth IRA and pay zero tax on it. Like, he’s like, this is an amazing tool. And he’s got a 10 million plus account now with us. But like, that’s a good example of, you know, just someone who’s, you know, if your audience here’s like real estate people in the real estate space every day, just using this tool to keep more of what he made, because like, you know, my client would have paid a lot of taxes on now he, you know, the IRS and the state would have got a pretty hefty check for the profits on that. You gotta keep it all. That’s awesome. Okay, so let’s keep moving on to this piece. Yeah. So

tell me about when when can I withdraw? Is there still seasoning rule on this? Are you can you invest? When can you actually withdraw

money out of these accounts. So the general rule of thumb is, these are, this is long term wealth building. So until you hit 59 and a half, you’re not pulling money out. So if you’re a real estate, I’m not saying and you’re 40 years old, I’m not saying do everything in this account. But for your long term wealth building in the most tax efficient way, be buying real estate with your retirement account, still be doing stuff personally. But there is a long term wealth aspect to it, you got to think about now on the other hand, you know, as I gave the example of my client that flipped 250 Plus houses, you know, he was doing that personally, like, this is just his S corporation, buying and flipping houses, that other people’s IRAs were funding the deal. So to him, this topic is super powerful, not for his own account, but just so we can make money today, he’s just using other people’s money that happens to be in retirement accounts. Because those people you know, if you think about like the people, you know, that are going to cut a deal to invest 100,000 Plus, it’s most likely it’s not in a savings account or investment account, they’re more likely to have this in an old IRA or 401 K account sitting around that they’re bored with that they’re dying to invest in something that could give them a 10% return, you know, like as a hard money lender, so.

So I every is a little different on how they approach it. But this is long term wealth that we’re talking about using your own account.

So you might totally make fun of me for this. But the only reason I know about Ross is because I had one I had it seasoned and I almost went bankrupt. And I had to cash it out. Like I just fell on my face. I went from, you know, hero to zero in a 18 month timeframe. Just like

Got six, seven years ago. So the reason I just look back at it was season nearly had like 20 $25,000 in there. So I’m I did a couple investments out of it, and that worked out well. But

your parents could open up a Roth for them, you could help them invest. But just know that if you open up your own Roth, you can’t touch that money until you’re 59 and a half, right? Yep. Yeah, you can keep investing out of it free and treat it like a person. It’s like a little like your little bank, when you you could only put so much in there. But once you have enough in there, I mean, dude, you could really, you could really build some wealth on it. It’s like, it’s crazy. Yeah, I mean, the nice thing is, it doesn’t hit your 1040. Like, it’s not showing up on your personal tax return, even if you’re selling properties and getting gain or rental income, right. It’s all just growing outside of anything you’re sending to the IRS or your state. So, so it is different. The other thing people got to know though there are some called prohibited transactions. So like if you’re buying real estate with your own retirement account, you’re not staying at that property like this is not for personal use or benefit. This is held for investment purposes. Couple also can’t like work on it. If it’s a flipper or rehab type project, you can’t go do the work on it, you got to hire third parties, and the retirement account pays it. They pay them. And they obviously you’re getting the money on the income from whether it’s rent or on the sell the property. Yeah, I remember taking me a little bit of time to understand it. But ultimately, like the way this helps you guys understand it is like you invest into this different business, that different business investing on your behalf at your direction. And you’re just rolls around, you only put in so much. I did not know about the solo one. Yeah, I always. I didn’t know about that at all. Like that’s a huge deal, because I always thought it was six 6000 a year. And it was hard to build that kitty up to make some, you know, valuable investments. Yeah, yeah, it took me three years, like, you know, I knew everything about self directing, even before I started dumping money into my own retirement accounts. But it took me three years using a 401k strategy, because you can do more, you know, and I also self direct my Roth, but that, you know, sometimes it might take you five years to do a deal. Now, again, I have a client like the one I told you that can see a deal, like an option or a wholesale deal they can do for 5000 bucks. Yeah, like, that’s not me, like I’m running two businesses and have 120 employees. I can’t like, I don’t have enough time to go in real estate. But if you’re in the real estate space, and I have lots of clients, I was five or six grand you can wholesale a deal. Do you have a?

Do you have a buyer’s list

that I can shop on for you?

Because that’s really, really interesting.

Other so we have Roth IRA, the solo, one Ra, and then which can be Roth or traditional? You can either one in there, and the solo. The solo the Solo is the 401k. Yeah, it’s called a solo 401k. Just solo Okay, for sure. So what would be if you let’s close with this? If you are, what’s your advice, like to an agent right now? How do you position it? Why did they do it? Just give me a

final tip on it. I think for an agent, this is like the perfect person for a self directed IRA or solo 401k. And why you you should know this. One is you’re going to need to save for retirement yourself. Like most agents do not have a 401k at a company like you need a retirement account in a long term plan. Well, this is the best thing out there because you can invest in real estate, the stuff that you know, but also this makes you a super

valuable person, because this is an information and a skill and something you bring to the table that your clients want. You know, and I have, you know, I’ve done a lot of seminars at different real estate brokerages over the years. Everybody’s like blown away. And how did I not know this? Like, it’s crazy. I’m in the real estate space. A lot of people just don’t even know you could do this. Well, once you learn it, and it’s not rocket science, I tell people, it’s like playing a board game. He’s got to play it a few times with someone who knows what they’re doing, or read the rulebook, which I would say is my book. But once you’ve done it a couple of times, it’s the same thing over and over, it does take a little bit to learn. But now you have an advantage over those clients that are that are looking to use you where you can have a lot of knowledge and, and stuff that bring to the table then, and money that they can do deals with. You know, like the baby boomers are the classic ones right now that have large retirement accounts, they’ve moved around jobs, they can roll it over.

They are a perfect client that needs to know this information about how to buy real estate and they want to they just been through this roller coaster on the stock market, right? We’re seeing deals that can happen in real estate. So I think it’s a powerful concept for building wealth yourself because you have a competitive advantage to find deals that like I don’t or other people don’t. And also it’s a skill set that you can bring to your customer base that can just make you more money today from commissions. We’re actually just started this process in the office where with where agents have an opportunity to invest into a Roth as part of their Commission’s grow, and we’re just building a portfolio so

A lot of real estate agents are looking for ancillary income and looking for streams of income. So over in our office we have coming out soon as you can direct your own investments. And how it works is just you’d pick up much of your commission you want to put into it, everything is set up through a Roth, or through a custodian and all the above and, and it’s beautiful, and we like it as a recruiting tool, but also is like to help the agents because not very few agents actually invest themselves.

Which is crazy, you got you shouldn’t do what you you know, eat what you preach.

So like, but knowing this stuff is how you get there you guys, at the end of the day, I can’t tell you how many good deals I’ve seen over my lifetime in real estate. And there’s always like, Oh, I can’t get that one now, because I gotta pass up on it being an agent you come across, at worst, maybe two or three home runs a year. That’s all you need, dude, like you left for five years in a row. You’re good, right? Yeah. So I tell my clients, probably with the Roth accounts is like those homeruns. You see, like the real estate developer I gave, he knew that was a little bit amount of money he did put down to get the option, little risk, but it could have a huge reward that he didn’t want to pay tax on, he did it in a Roth account. So like, those are the ones it’s like, I’m gonna grab that one and do it in my Roth. And it does just take a couple of those a year. So but I’ll say this, you know, for my clients that but 10 million plus accounts, here’s a little more pay more attention to what they’re doing. First of all, most of them are in real estate, but they’re all doing different strategies. It’s, there’s not one person to the same. They’re all in different markets, some people are doing lending, some people are doing apartment buildings, some people are just doing a lot of little deals that add up but

but they just got good at doing what they know. You know, and they focused in on that. And they’re using a tool that they can build tax free wealth with where they don’t have to cut the IRS a check, you know, the, the dirty silent partner that doesn’t do anything, but you know, once a third of whatever you take, take take take. I get it. Awesome, dude. Very cool. Any final things you want to say? Or you want to you have a you have a we got a gift or some you gotta like a little? Yeah, you’re giving us that book for free guide? Yeah.

This is only 20 bucks, you know, but you can get on my website with the Matt sorenson.com and at SRN sen.com. But if you go to directed ira.com.

And click on real estate, we have our real estate quickstart guide, it’s right on the homepage that you can download. That’s really like a six pager that explains how it works. I have a lot of

my clients that use this real estate professionals that use it to give to their customers. Did you know about this, it’s just a good overview of how it works and what’s possible to get into this 30 trillion in US retirement accounts that can all be invested in real estate. I would there’s a big opera a lot of these people are like looking to do other things right now guys, big up. And like this is just an email. And it’s a case study how this how this single mom just generated a $250,000 tax free investment all because she had a 401 IRA. Here’s how you do it that she is going to take off like it just does. It’s really good. I like it. All right, dudes. Appreciate you guys listen another episode of the real estate marketing dude, you guys know where to find us? Go ahead and subscribe to our channels and us on Facebook IG and more importantly, don’t forget to sign up for the content creator challenge we’re going to show you over a two week time period how to script and distribute videos as well as create a ton of social media video email content, basically everything you need to stay in front of people, because 80% of them will use the first person they think of when they think of real estate this year. Is that going to be you? Well, you got to start creating content to lessen those chances. I’ll see you guys next week. appreciate you listening in and see you then peace. 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.com 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 schedule a 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.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Long Form vs Short Form

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Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

What is the biggest difference between long form and short form content?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
Which one is best for you?

Resource

4 Types Of Real Estate Social Media Content That Creates Engagement

Transcript:

What’s up ladies and gentlemen, welcome to their episode of the real estate marketing dude, podcast. What we’re gonna be chatting about today, folks, is something going on in the marketing industry. And one of the most common questions that we’re getting right now is, Hey, what is the difference between Long and short form content? What is right for me should I do short form should do long form, which one gets the better results, and all of the buzz and all the above, and I’m going to share with you everything that we see between the both. We do a lot of these videos each month, and not just for me, for clients throughout the country. So we get a lot of really good insight, a lot of data. And I want to share with you on that, especially if you’re thinking about implementing video this year. So first, if you’re thinking about implementing video this year, don’t do it alone, do it with the real estate marketing dude, because not only will we train you how to get going with script and distribute your content each month. But secondly, I don’t have a second lien. So let’s keep going. Alright, so what I’m going to do is I want to start off with this. There’s a major difference between short and long form content. And the reality is, is the right strategy for you is going to be based upon what are you doing video for? Now, I’m going to walk through the difference because you shouldn’t you always reverse engineer your strategy. The most important thing about getting on video is which is right for your personality, which is right for your brand. Can you speak for five minutes on camera, if not, you almost always know your short form scripter. However, if you’re more of a storyteller, and long winded and you might want to go too long form, ultimately, distribution and results is the difference between two. So when we create long form videos, we create and we multipurpose we create and we multipurpose. We regardless of the type of video we’re doing, we fully distributed them the same way each and every time. So for example, let’s just say I’m doing a six minute video on living in San Diego, I’m still going to take that video and send it to my database via video email, I’m going to put that video on YouTube, I’m going to create a blog post on that video, then I’m going to put that video up on my site, I’m going to video email that video to my entire database. And there’s just more distribution tactics. However, when I’m doing short form video, I’m not video emailing a short form video to my database. I’m not putting that on my YouTube channel with the exception of shorts. I’m not writing a blog post on it. And there’s less ways to multipurpose short form content. So in other words, when I’m posting on short form only or the goal is just short form, chances are it’s going to be more appropriate for social media only when you’re creating shorts on social. It’s a one and done strategy, right? You create content, and then you publish it and then you’re pretty much never going to read use that content again. So it’s something you definitely want to consider. When I’m doing long form content. I’m always repurposing that down the road, I put it into my auto responder, I video email is part of my drip to clients. And I make sure I use that content in the future short form, I’m not going to do that it’s too short, to remain relevant to really give true education. However, short form is very good for attracting attention. So let’s talk a little bit about short form. Short Form is what the social sites are pushing right now. Okay. I’ve done so many case studies on this and I’ll give you a quick result of my own channel. So I’m still creating one long form video a month. But amongst that long form video a month, I’m also doing four to five shorts. In between that long form video. I posted the same video as a post or just how you would post a normal video. And I got a total whopping 84 views. 84 people watch that video. I 5000 friends on Facebook, I used to consistently get 2500 views. Anytime I create content 12 months ago 1314 15 months ago, but today, my long form content isn’t getting shown see Facebook, Instagram. All these companies are competing against you know each other essentially and whether it’s Snapchat or YouTube shorts, every social media platform has come out with a version of short form content Now the reason why they’re making this push is because obviously, the stats and the numbers behind that content strategy. People are viewing and consuming short form on a massive scale as compared to long form. So, in other words, you’re getting a lot more eyeballs on short form content than you are on long form right now, especially on Facebook, especially on Instagram. And it’s just because the algorithms are pushing those, like the Facebook is pushing short form content. So they’re showing it to more people. My short form videos and the versus long form, my short film has blown it away. It’s almost consistently getting 1000 views a month. But if I wasn’t posting those two reels, there’s no way in hell, I’m getting that engagement. So when you’re considering your video strategy, these are all things you want to take into consideration. When I get someone that says, Hey, Mike, I want to blow up my YouTube channel. Well, first, loading up your YouTube channel is not as easy as it used to be most of these markets already taken up. And it’s gonna be possible for you to rank. So anyone telling you, oh, you could do this in any market is completely lying to you right now. Because you can’t do this in any market all YouTube views down and rally, it’s saturated on YouTube, because you have people teaching this and whatnot for the last few years, four or five years ago, if you got into YouTube, you’re probably doing pretty well right now. So I say that because knowing why you’re doing video in the first place is the most important part. Without it, you’ll never create the right strategy. So I want you to think about that. Why are you doing video, this is ultimately how you pick the exact right strategy for you. I believe. And I’ve done this with hundreds and hundreds of agents. And I’ve proven the model that regardless if you follow our system, or we just create content, and we have content through direct mail, email, social media, the same results apply, because all we’re doing is activating the network you already have. So that’s why what you create has everything to do with the strategy behind it, the most important part of the strategy. So let’s go through a couple examples. Long Form video for YouTube is only going to be living in moving to neighborhood or area tours. That’s the type of content that you’re going to create for a channel to get it ranking. If my goal is not to rank my channel, I would never create that content. If my goal is to rank that channel, I have to create that content. Because it’s 100% long form video strategy where you get relocating clients. So now on the other hand, playing pros and cons, all of those videos, regardless if it’s part of a YouTube strategy or not, I’m repurposing all of them to my database through video email, I put them on my website. And I’ll run ads to that content even many times. So again, it’s because I have a strategy behind it. On the flip side, let’s just say you’re more of a short form person, that’s what you watch, that’s what you create short form is just to create a tension around your brand. And using that video content as a way to farm your relationships. Basically, you’re farming your Facebook friends, your IG followers, and reminding them consistently that you’re in real estate. Because short form videos getting a much larger push through the platforms. That’s why people are winning. So the question comes down to Are you are you trying to build attention or not. And then who’s that attention for? My favorite strategy when it comes to short or long term videos is regardless which one is I love putting those in front of my database, and the people I already know, the more content you create consistently over time, and put in front of your Facebook accounts, your own email list, and use that as an excuse to stay relevant. Well, ultimately, the more business you’re gonna track, because 10 to 15% of that business, well guess what they’re moving 10 to 15% of the views you have on social media, the engagement, the comments, they’re moving, but 100% of the views, comments and engagement on social know someone they could refer you to. So the key no matter what strategy you decide, is ultimately just consistency. You know, I see people create videos for six months, and they get bored, and then they stop. And then they come back and like oh, it’s not working like it did. It’s because you screwed up that consistency. Let’s switch gears here and talk about it from this perspective. If you were going to start

direct mail, farming a neighborhood you want it to grow in, and let’s just say it’s month one, and you go 12 months in a row of just sending a postcard or a letter, whatever it is to that entire neighborhood. Year one, you might be lucky if you get one to three listings out of it. If you keep going into year two, you’re gonna see about three to five. After year three, all of a sudden everyone’s a neighborhood. They’re like, Oh, this guy or gal is the agent of the neighborhood. And you got to ask yourself, why is that? Well, it’s because you’re consistently communicate Adding to the same party over time, which is the formula to build a strong personal brand, the more content you put in front of those people, the more you brand in their minds, your business when the term real estate is brought up. And that’s ultimately all this really is. So you’re farming with video. And that’s why you use common sense on this. The agent lender, whoever that is posting three videos a month on social, they’re a lot more referral than the one who isn’t. That same agent who is sending videos out nurturing through email is a lot more referral and marketable than the one who’s not. So the more content you create, the more popularity and attention you gain, which is 100% necessary for an attraction based business, which is why you should be creating video in the first place. We’re creating video to really stay in top of mind. So our friends, family, aunts, uncles, the mailman, whoever the hell it is, refers as business, over 80% of business comes from, or over 80% of people hire the first person they meet with, you become the first person they meet with. When you become top of mind, the more content you have, the more likely that’s going to happen. So don’t overthink this thing. The only reason why you’re whether you’re going short form or long form and whatever it is the only reason and the only thing that’s important is to remain consistent because the tortoise won the race, not the hare, because there’s in it for the long game. And that’s what it’s like to build your personal brand with video. If you go out and start doing video for six months, and then you quit for four months, and then you come back, you just wasted six months worth of time building a brand that just went by the wayside. So regardless if you can do short, long, I don’t care, I care that you’re consistent. If you do not know, what is the right strategy for you scheduled call the real estate marketing dude. Well, through your strategy, we’ll look at see what what the hell we could do to it, if at all, and see if you liked doing video. Whether you need consulting, whether you need to define your strategy, or you need us to edit it, there’s no excuse. It’s not we’re not the only company existence that does this. We’re probably the best at it. And I say that I’m bragging Lee, but we’re also the first ones at it. So when I consistency is all that matters, regardless of what strategy you’re going to use. So let’s talk about a couple other strategies in terms of videos you can create short form content is going to be snippet 60 seconds or less, something like this. These are the top 10 most affordable neighborhoods in San Diego. Number one, Carlsbad, Carlsbad has average sales price is four to 40,000 of that this year, I wish. And I would just make it a listicle listicle type of content. But look at some of these other videos you would create. And I’ll show you how there’s a strategy behind all of them. A very popular strategy is doing business owner videos, this is a long form strategy. But business owner interviews are best suited for relationship based agents, people who aren’t spending a bunch of money on leads and any of that. The reason for that is very simple. You’re creating television commercials for future referral sources who are gonna go out there and start selling your services for you. You’re when you so it’s 100% relational. We know that when we do this, the business owner is the biggest fan. They’re putting in the groups for you. You’re building a relationship with them in business owners are always future referral sources. They have the same mindset as us. They’re entrepreneur, entrepreneurial. And entrepreneurs are proof entrepreneurs stick together. Neighborhood tours, neighborhood tours love them. Your clients will love them, you get good video email engagement on that. You’ll get YouTube rankings on that. So that’s a really good video to do. However, it takes the most amount of time to shoot. You’re in need editing quality, all the all the above. So for some people, it can be more expensive to do as well. Case studies, no more just listed just sold. Instead just say this 49 year old homeowner just got his first house. And guess what his two kids they got their own room. Just storytelling HGTV real estate content. If your goal is to create like core content for a buyer series or seller series, no one’s going to watch those on YouTube. No one’s going to watch him on social media. You’re not getting any engagement. But it’s one of the few pieces of content you’ll tie into your auto responder. You use that type of content for authority. My point is is that all of these different call it pieces of content have a strategy behind it and knowing what how and why you’re doing it is the number one thing to do to get going because you don’t create videos or check a box you create videos because it’s something you’re excited doing that will build your person Know brand, and that’ll truly be different for everybody. So at the end of the day here, folks, you gotta decide where you want to be long versus short and all the above if you do need help, schedule strategy call with the dudes. And we’ll break down sort of how that works for you, and happy to help you out in any which way. We really appreciate guys, listen this podcast. Contact us if you have any additional questions on this, but stay tuned for the next content creator challenge. The content creator challenge will be hosted on February 7 of 2023. And tickets are only $27. We’re going to be teaching you how to shoot create all different types of content from images to short form content to real long form content plus, providing you over six months worth of scripts for $27 a month. If you’d like to sign up for that you can get started right away. And that’s called the real estate content creator challenge the real estate content creator challenge. And we’ll have more messages on that. Appreciate you guys. Have a great week. Thanks for listening the show. Don’t forget to subscribe, make comments and let us know what other topics you want. Send us some messages and whatnot. I’m happy to create those all for you. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you guys next week. 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.com 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 schedule time to speak with a dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Why Email Video Marketing Is The Best Way To Nurture Your Database

Post author By realestatemarketingdude
Post date January 19, 2023
Categories In Email Marketing, Uncategorized

If you’re in a referral based business, email video marketing is one of the easiest ways to nurture your database for referrals and repeat business. We are increasing the open rates 300% using email video marketing vs. traditional text based email we used in the past. In this post, I’m going to walk you through how video email marketing works.

Many people get fed up because of dismal results from their email marketing, but it’s not because it doesn’t work, it’s because of the way they are using it. If you want to see a better results with any of your email marketing results then you MUST at least attempt email video marketing.

What is email video marketing?

Email video marketing is incorporating video within the emails you send to your email lists. Typically it involves using some kind of software like Referral Sweet or Bombbomb, but regardless of what you use, it’s the concept of consistently communicating through video within your emails.

Why does email video marketing work?

Video email marketing is a more impactful way to communicate with your email list in a much more personal way. There are many ways to use email in your business, but when your goal is top of mind brand awareness, I have found that “farming” your database of relationships, past clients, and relationships through video email has increased my open rates to an average of 40%+.

Here is why marketing your database with video is one of the most impactful ways to build your brand. Video is the most impactful way to stay in touch and create top of mind brand awareness with email video marketing.

- 60% of the impact your content makes is based on your tone.

- 30% of the impact your content makes is through the body language you use.

- People will only retain 10% of what you say, but will remember 90% of how you did it.

This is why I love email video marketing for my database.

What’s The Right Amount Of Email Video Marketing To Send Your Database

Over the last 5 years we’ve sent thousands of video emails on behalf of our clients and in just about every single case, it increased engagement. Many times we forget the point of sending an email in the first place. Unfortunately, many of us feel that we must send something that nobody opens or engages with. If that’s the case, what’s the point of sending it in the first place?

You only need to send 1-2 touches a month, but it’s important you put some thought behind your email video marketing strategy. Think about what you are going to send ahead of time, but don’t overthink it as well. The goal of sending these emails is to remind people you are still available for their referrals and direct business.

“10-15% of your email recipients will be moving this year, but 100% of them have a referral for you”

Who do you think has a better chance of generating more referrals and repeat business, the agent who is sending 1-2 video emails a month, the lender who is sending 1-2 templated emails a month, or the Realtor or lender not sending any emails at all? It’s not rocket science it’s common sense. Email video marketing creates more attention, which is the entire point of marketing your database in the first place.

What Kind Of Content Should You Create?

Let’s first talk about what NOT to create. Don’t talk about your business unless something newsworthy is to be talked about. For example, in real estate when the interest rates rose and the market began to shift would be considered a newsworthy item to report on. What is not newsworthy is sending your database market updates when they might not be interested in receiving them.

If you talked about work with your significant other all the time, you would eventually go your separate ways. The same principle is going to apply to marketing your database in general. You don’t have to talk about work, but you do have to stay in touch with them.

Your video emails should just gently remind them you’re in real estate with content thy may find useful. One of the best parts is that you do not need to constantly talk about real estate if you don’t want to.

The easiest strategy to implement is just holiday greetings. There are different holidays each month and a simple holiday greeting is an easy video to create.

Over 90% of what comes out of your mouth will be forgotten in 24 hours. People only retain 10% of what you say. but 100% of them will remember how you said.

The only time this works is when you are consistent with it. You want to invest about 30-60 minutes each month on video email marketing strategy once you begin.

You May Also Be Interested In Reading These Other Articles

This Real Estate Marketing Strategy Attracts Clients With Content Creation

4 Types Of Real Estate Social Media Content That Creates Engagement & “Reminds” Your Database You’re In Real Estate!

Creating real estate social media content that generates business is a lot easier than you think. Unfortunately, today it is no longer optional to be on social media, it is a necessity.

The Good News About Real Estate Social Media Content is that it’s much to create than you think. The key is consistency, which means finding the RIGHT strategy for you is very important because if you’re not excited about creating content on social media it’s very hard to do it over time. Making 1-2 posts a month is better than nothing, but it’s not going to turn you into the next Million Dollar Agent.

Do you recall one video from yesterday you saw on social media? Well, nobody is going to recall anything you created either, which is why the first step is finding a social media content strategy that you are excited about.

Some people like creating videos, while others would rather be creating graphics, but whatever that becomes for you, consistency is the only thing that works.

Why Creating Real Estate Social Media Content Consistently Creates Clients

Social media is the easiest place to constantly remind ALL your relationships you’re in real estate. The people you are connected with on social media all live somewhere, don’t they? Wouldn’t you expect to get their direct business when they do? Would you appreciate their referral business? Then start creating real estate social media content that reminds people you’re in real estate (more on this later). The question for you becomes, “how do YOU use social media to create engagement?

The more content you create, the more people you can help buy, sell, or finance real estate because of the following numbers.

10-15% of your social media connections are moving this year!
100% of your social media relationships have the ability to refer you one client.
80+% of people use the first person they meet with.
Over 74% of closed transactions were with agents they know personally, were referred to, used in the past, personally met, or ran into.

Everything I am showing you here is 100% mathematical and not based on theory. Once you understand how and why people hire their real estate agent or lender, then you know how to market them. Top

Top Of Mind Brand Awareness Is Everything In An Attraction Based Business

The reason for creating content is very simple. The more real estate social media content you create, the more engagement you’ll have. All of the engagement you create will create conversations that ultimately lead to the relationships that get you hired. The reality is that business is right in front of you! The next question then becomes, how do you stay consistent creating real estate social media content that creates engagement?

4 Kinds Of Real Estate Social Media Content Every Real Estate Agent Or Lender Can Create

The key to creating content on social media overtime is to learn how to be an effective story teller. Storytelling is all social media really is at the end of the day. Everything you do or consume is nothng more than a story. Each time you make a post, that content reminds people of your brand. When this is done over time you’ll build a brand people start to associate with real estate as long as your content is reminding them you are in real estate.

Real Estate Content Idea Content #1- Memes

There are so many funny memes that create engagement you can post all over social media. Sometimes making fun of yourself or profession is a great way to create engagement. We like to call these more lifestyle memes, but regardless of what you post, each one will remind people you’re in real estate.

Real Estate Content Idea #2- Cool Real Estate Stuff You See Daily

Real estate agents see the coolest kitchens, views, designs, etc. so just start sharing that on social media. Tis becomes as simple as taking pictures of cool real estate things throughout your week and then just sharing those pictures over time.

When I was practicing in Chicago, I had a series called #TBT, which stands for “Throwback Thursday”. When I used to show and list houses I would take cool pictures of old school furnaces, woodwork, brick, architecture, etc.. The city of Chicago has some of the most awesome architecture and each time I made a post it reminded people I was in real estate.

Real Estate Content Idea #3- Unique Real Estate News, Ideas, Concepts

The real estate industry employs roughly 25% of the work force directly or indirectly. This means there are many people interested in the topic because everyone lives somewhere. One of the best ways you can position yourself as the expert is that when you see something newsworthy or unique, you create content on it.

For example, when the recent interest rates started rising in 2022 and the market made an immediate shift from a seller’s to buyer’s market one of the best real estate social media content you could’ve have created at the time, was commenting on whether or not the market was going to crash or what the impact on inflation was. In the example above, this agent received 166,000 organic views from reporting on that content first. This is a perfect example of how news trending topics get a lot of buzz when you are one of the first to create content on it.

In addition to this you could create content on anything you want, even though it’s not your listing. Here is Ken Pozek, Orlando Realtor. He created a YouTube video that went viral because who doesn’t want to see the inside of Shaq’s house?

The point is that you can create real estate social media content on anything. The key is not making it about your or even “them”, but more on what’s going on in the community or your life. Believe it or not, you may be more interesting than you think and people want to get to know you. Think of social media as a way to date for future business. The more content you create, the more you flirt, which ultimately leads to you getting lucky with a new client.

Real Estate Content Idea #4- Real Estate Case Studies

Every time a real estate agent posts, just listed” or “just sold” you are doing nothing more than bragging about how much money you made. There’s no other industry that does this where it would be acceptable, but in real estate. The only people who comment on those posts are those that are trying to get your business.

The video above is nothing more than a case study a client of ours had with our video marketing services. I can tell you how awesome we are or I can let someone else do it for me, which is far more powerful.

Once you start telling stories of the people you served, your engagement will triple. HGTV is nothing more than a giant case study. Regardless of what side of the transaction you are on, there is also a journey, which is a great way to showcase your expertise WITHOUT feeling like you have to brag or making a post that nobody comments on. If HGTV can create an entire TV channel on “our profession”, why can’t we just document our own story? If you don’t have any stories start commenting on public “moves” by following channels like TMZ, etc..

Don’t overthink creating real estate social media content. The key is not creating content about your business per se, but rather reminding people in what business you are in.

Stop Letting People Forget You Exist

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Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

How to stay in front of your database.
Why you aren’t getting referrals.
What are some tools you can use to keep in touch with your audience.

Resource

Transcript:

What is up ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the webinar. And let me tell you, there’s nothing worse in the real estate business than when someone forgets what it is you do for a living or better yet didn’t even know. So whether you’re a lender, real estate agent investor, basically anyone in a referral based business, these principles are going to apply. But this is going to be the case for why we create content consistently that builds our brand. And we keep our content in front of people that are responsible for sending us new business, repeat business and referrals. The more content we create, the easier it is, and the more marketable to attract business. And the more marketable, you become as a real estate agent. If you guys have not met me before, my name is Mike way, boss, I’ve been licensed since 2002. I’m one of those dinosaurs in the real estate industry. So I’m recovering realtor and broker owner. And over the last five years, we’ve been helping real estate agents create a whole lot of content, mainly in the form of video, we script we added, we distribute video, and we’ve done over 2000, maybe even 2500 different videos for people spread out around the country, when it comes to content creation. I’m the founder of referral suite, which is a software platform that allows it makes content creation easier. I will show you guys what that is at the end of this training. And for those of you that want to pursue or look at that more advanced if you’re having trouble creating content, I would love you to join our community. But I’ve been in this business for a long time guys. I’ve had brokerages teams, and I know what works and what doesn’t. And what I’m going to share with you today is what I’ve learned over the last 20 plus years of in this business and how I’ve applied creating content, literally every single real estate agent I’ve ever worked with in my brokerages on my teams, the ones I’m working with now across the country, and everyone has the same results because I believe that real estate is nothing more than a giant popularity contest. And in a business where 87% of agents fail.

I believe that’s very simple. I think they’re chasing the wrong people from the get go. So what we’re gonna start about is, how do you avoid the peaks and valleys especially as we approach a recession within the real estate business, because when you have a large personal brand, it is recession proof despite what the market does, you will always have clients. And this is the reason why you want to focus your time on where the highest return on investment is going to be. It’s not going to be through cold calling, it’s not through door knocking. And it’s not through implementing the latest, greatest technology AI or superduper website or the best auto responder with text messaging automation. All of that stuff you guys, when it comes to business, in my opinion, is just noise. I love that stuff. But I’m talking about building the base of your real estate business. And the reality is the vast majority of business is right in front of you. These charts are from a NAR National Association of Realtors, and this was talking about where sellers found their real estate agent 39% were referred from a friend 24% They used in the past that right there is 63% without going through the rest of sources of business right here. And it’s no different for buyers. Buyers, you see over 53% are referred or they used in the past. But there’s still a lot more attraction based items right here. And I’m gonna summarize those off for you. And here’s what these charts said 51% of business on average comes from the former referrals 12% from repeat business 3% of transactions arouse from strategic alliances as like a mortgage broker or a real company,

you know, referring you out 10% For signage, believe it or not 4% from an open house. In both cases, over 74% of people come from people you already know, or transactions. I mean closed comes from people you already know used in the past, or that you’ve personally met, right? So what is the most important thing to do in real estate? And it’s to stay in front of the people you already know, like and trust because everybody lives somewhere. The problem though, that we all have is, well, what do I send them? How do I stay in touch with them? Because I don’t know how to do anything else other than just talk about interest rates, real estate or turn back the clock emails. This is why we create content folks. So what do you think happens when you go, Mia are out of sight out of mind? What happens when you stop communicating with your database? Well, they stopped sending you business and they keep they start forgetting what it is that you do for a living. And just because

you don’t have to talk about real estate but you can’t not. You can’t stop talking at the same time you see, as an independent real estate agent or lender, you’re in charge of your own personal brand. Your brokerage is going to do anything for you. Therefore it’s going to rely on you to constantly build your own personal brand because it’s not your databases job to remember what you do for a living it is your job.

To remind them to and this is why we create content. See when we’re creating content, that’s the way I’m going to explain it to you right here in the rest of this training is we’re not doing it to generate leads. Well, we are doing it to for and we’re creating content is to generate attention and notoriety so that when people think of the term real estate, they associate our name or our brand with it, that’s it. We’re not fighting for leads, we fight for the attention of our friends, our family, our database in our local community, because Top of Mind brand awareness, or attention equals conversations, which eventually equals referrals, and over 80% of people will hire the first agent they speak with.

This is not theory, when I’m explaining to you guys, this is mathematical, because of these stats. And these are what I want you to get out of anything, if you’re going to remember anything from this training, and that’s 10 to 15% of the population moves each and every year, but 100% of the population know someone they can refer a realtor to. This means 10 to 15% of your Facebook friends, your IG followers, 10 to 15% of your email list 10 to 15% of the people you walk across in the grocery store, or you sit next to at your kids sporting events, they’re moving this year, but 100% of the people that you know, or come into contact with, know someone that they can refer business to. And that is why attention is so important in this business, especially in a referral based business. So if you do the math, people move every six to nine years. So I want you to just to look at your own network. If you have 1000 friends and your Facebook friends list, well 10 to 15% of them are moving, that means 100 to 150 people of them are moving, but all 1000 of them have a referral for you. Now, if people are going to move every six to nine years, do the math, there’s always a percentage of people within your existing relationships that are going to be moving and most won’t even know it yet. There are these things called Life Events, marriages, new kids having a baby, getting a divorce, losing a job, these are good and bad life events. But when a life event happens, people move and when they do 80% of them are going to hire the first person they meet with. Wouldn’t it be nice if that your name comes to mind immediately upon, you know, anyone thinking of the term real estate or lending? Well, that’s what happens when you create a whole lot of content. And what we’re talking about here, guys, is marketing versus advertising. We’re not talking about creating content to say come buy my stuff, or interest rate, buy, buy, buy, sell, buy, sell, buy, sell, because when we’re always selling people start tuning us out. But when we create engaging content that reminds people, we’re in real estate at the same time, it creates engagement, and we stay in front of those people, we start attracting business. And what I’m talking about is creating content consistently, not just through social media, social media is a part of it. But creating content consistently through social media, video, email, and even using direct mail, to keep our brand at the forefront of people and literally be everywhere all the time. This is what it takes to build a fully attraction based business. But we don’t, where most people fail is this is that when we’re creating content, we’re usually creating it or when people immediately result to start creating it in the in the form of a sales message. No, we don’t need to sell our services on online or through any of the content we create. We need to add value with the content we create so that people think of us first. That’s it, okay. And when we’re marketing and creating content, we’re not creating content to sell people directly who received that content a house, we’re creating content to receive their referral business, because everybody can refer you business. And when you start chasing referrals versus direct business, you start telling stories, alright, the other way where you fail to be consistent is it or people just fail to be consistent as we’re most fail? See, content creation requires two things. It creates an audience a group of people, which everybody listening to this has, we all have a Facebook friend list, a wedding list or funeral list, I like to say. But without being consistent in communication to that list, it doesn’t work either. So consistent communication to the same audience over time is exactly how you build a large personal brand that people know like trust, remember and refer.

But the real real problem here is, what do you say? How do you do it? And that’s what we’re gonna chat about today. So what do you send them? Right? How do you nurture a relationship after the transaction? I just saw a crazy stat the other day that said 80% of buyers forgot their agents name and six months that’s very difficult to generate a referral from somebody that doesn’t

even know your first name. So we’re Ghen the reason why we create content is to remain on top of mind and create engagement and stay on top of people so they don’t forget we exist. Okay? So we’re gonna get out of real estate I’m explain this to you in a very easy example. And whether you’re

a byebye baby person or Bed Bath and Beyond, you probably have this happen to you. I think Bed Bath and Beyond are mean by or BestBuy, I think those exact same marketing plan. But regardless of what it is, I want you to look at this, because byebye baby sends me a 20% off coupon at least once a month, maybe twice a month. I don’t know how many they signed, but they’re doing it consistently. And for whatever reason, I never throw the coupon out. And just like you, you probably have a junk drawer and you open it up. And whether it’s byebye baby or Bed Bath and Beyond or one of these stores, you have some 20% off coupons that are just sitting in your kitchen drawer. First question I says, Why do I have this? Why don’t I just throw this out? Well, it’s because there’s 20% off there’s value. So I stock it. And I store it in the drawer. And essentially bye bye babies farming me with direct mail. Now, I don’t ever think of another baby store because this is all I think of cuz they’re all over me. But they also send those same coupons to my email. And

when I get to the store and I go buy my new diapers or whatever, that I’m buying it bye bye, baby. I never I always forget to bring the 20% off coupon. But I always remember to scan my email for the same coupon because I just give them that coupon and I still get my 20% off. And when I leave bye bye, baby. What they do is and they start farming me like I start seeing their ads on social media. They start retargeting me through Display Network, I see him all over Google. And that’s just because I just transacted with them. So they put me into a custom audience so they can retarget me online and be everywhere. Point being is that what they’re doing is they’re farming me. They’re farming me through direct mail, that email and social media. Right. And the reason why they’re doing this is because they generate more sales and referrals for marketing their existing clientele their customers than they do trying to acquire new ones. Folks, what if we were just a copy this plan in front of the 150 to 300 people that you know, and you started farming them through social media, email and direct mail? Would it work? Absolutely. It’s worked with all 500 people I’ve ever tested this with plus. And the reason for that is because everybody has a database full of relationships, if you’re in real estate, I just showed you the stats of where business comes from. And the most successful agents also tend to have something in common. They’re also the most popular agents or they have the most amount of attention on their brand. See, your best thing about real estate is that you already have a built in book of business. The question is whether or not they know you know of you and know that they can refer or do business with you. Because I just said over 80% of people hire the first person they come into contact with, much of which they’re referred to they personally know or personally met. And one of the sources I showed you about earlier. And all we’re really talking about doing here to create a strong personal brand is to stay on top of mind with people we already know through content creation, and putting that content in front of them so that when they think of real estate, they think of us. That’s it. This is not rocket science. This is 100% a popularity contest. You see, the reason why people refer us business, whether it’s real estate, a couch a vacation, or a brand new restaurant, is because they like you personally, or they’re satisfied with your past service. Like for you to get referred. People have to like you or like what you’re doing, right. But you also have to like the person that they’re asking for a referral. And deep down, we are all wired in our DNA to help others solve problems. You know, there’s a reason why we refer other things, people. There’s a reason why, when people ask me, Hey, Mike, did you ever do you know where this is that I go out of my way to help them. And it’s because that’s the way God made me. That’s the way God made you. And we’re all wired to just naturally help other people. So naturally, when a referral comes about, that’s why so many people raise their hand. And if you don’t believe me, you could go ahead and go on your Facebook account right now and go ahead and ask for an electrician referral or a plumber referral. And you’re going to realize that you’re gonna get about 10 to 15 names within the next two hours. And the reason that my first question is, is, why does so many people have their plumbers or electricians phone number on standby? It’s not that they have it on standby, it’s that they’re going out of their way to help you

with a referral. And it’s no different in real estate. But there are three things that have to occur when someone is going to refer or do business with you directly. And one is they have to notice a conversation about real estate and then immediately think of you at that time. And then they have to introduce you into the services or into the conversation. I mean, now how many people talk about real estate on a daily basis and one of the reasons why real estate is such a highly referral business is because it’s an emotional transaction. And when people are moving and close

Between you and me, we talk about it quite a lot. And we’re talking about it quite a bit. Because the truth is, is that like, Hey, dude, you’re moving. And anytime you are moving, well, that is something that is very emotional, and you’re going to talk about it naturally. So that’s why this is so important, guys. Alright, so when you create a whole lot of content, you being top of mind, happens a lot more naturally than if you don’t create content. And let me just ask you who’s more referral, the agent that has a blog and has done 25 videos over the past three months, or the agent that doesn’t even have a social media account, who’s going to do more business, obviously, it’s going to be the one that’s creating a lot of content or buzz around their brand. And that’s what we’re getting at folks see the value of each relationship that you have in your business, whether

it’s 10 of them, or 300 of them, but the average of every relationship, I believe, is a minimum of $25,000. For what I’m about to tell you, the average person buys two to five properties over the course of their lifetime, and then an average sale price of $200,000, which is extremely, extremely low. That would mean each individual if they were to use you for all two to five of those purchases should be valued at about $25,000. That would be what you would recognize in closed GCI from those relationships. However, that does not count the value that each relationship has the ability to introduce you to another person you could do the same thing with. That’s why the value of relationships in real estate is such a powerful thing. Because when we break the math down, here’s how it works. If people move every six to nine years, it’s just a numbers game. If you have 100, people that truly know what you do, let’s just say 100 people on your Facebook account 100 people on your email list, how many of them are moving this year? Well, six to nine. But out of those same 100 people,

all of them know someone that they could refer you to that you may be able to do the same thing with See, I don’t need to have a million people that know what I’m doing or that I’m in real estate, I need to have an engaged group of a few 100. If that, and I can have a very successful, stable and consistent career. See, people are going to use and hire an agent to the tune of over 85%. So the question is, is it going to be you or somebody else. And this is the reason why we create content. So I want to get through and show you guys a couple different things. When we and the type of content that I’m talking about creating, we’re gonna start with social media first. But I think I made the case here to show you why it’s important to create content. And whether you’re creating content on Facebook or Instagram, wherever your social platforms are, that you’re on, I want you to view each platform is just a place for you to generate business because everyone that sees your content on that platform live somewhere, and most, most of which are people that you should already have an acquaintance with or people that you already know. And when 80% of them are in a hurry, the first person they meet with I think the math makes complete common sense. Now, it’s the content that we’re creating on social that makes all of the difference. And that’s what I want to spend some time with you about right here. What kind of content do you create on social media? Well, video marketing is huge. If you go ahead and look like in the top right, that’s a Gen almeyda. That’s her first post she ever made her first video she ever made. And you have 59 comments and five shares on the very first video. Now of those 59 comments and five shares, she probably had over 1000 1200 1500 views of that video. Of those 1500 views. 10 to 15% of them are moving this year, and 100% of them have a referral for her. So the question is never a matter of if it’s a matter of when. Right So creating video content on social media is extremely powerful to do.

In recent months, creating short form video content has been very powerful. Using things like Instagram and Facebook reels, I’m getting 6x or 10x, even the amount of views posting the same video as a real as I am on as a regular post. Right. So short form content is very, very popular right now. But if you’re not doing video, there’s a lot of other things you can be doing as well that don’t necessarily involve you having to get up on a soapbox, and selling your services. Nobody wants to be on the end of our sales pitch. But everyone wants to be involved in engagement. And when you’re looking at some of these posts, I want to give you some ideas that you can go ahead and create and we’ll give you a whole lot more after this but house of the month, kitchen of the month view of the month neighborhood of the month, getting funny little memes that are sort of reminding people you’re in real estate. You see most of this content is going to fall into one or two categories.

It’s either entertaining or it’s engaging. And as long as it’s one of the two, you’re going to win. It’s when you’re making blanket statements like just listed just sold, where you’re only getting two comments, both of which are the real estate agent trying to recruit you to their brokerage, or broker owner, or the title company or mortgage rep trying to earn your business. Those are the only people commenting on that type of content, because it’s not engaging. And quite frankly, the more of the sales type, pitch content, and non engagement that you create, you’re just checking a box because your coach told you to. The reality is, is that when you start creating content, and it creates engagement, and people start watching it, it’s just a matter of time until a certain percentage of them start referring and needing your services directly. Because of which the vast majority are going to hire someone they already know. Social media is nothing more than just a place, in my opinion, just to tell people what you do for a living in a fun, cool and engaging way where they can see the real you. And it shouldn’t be used. To put up a front it should always be used as to show the true you and becoming a good storyteller. And creating content and getting the practice of reminding people you’re in real estate versus telling them is where I believe the Holy Grail is at. So the key is, don’t try so hard. Write posts as much as possible. But a minimum of three real estate related posts a week or stories, I guess, follow the 8020 rule. I mean, I’d say 10 to 15 posts a month, that’s one every other day. But the more content you create on social, the better it’s going to do for you, the more eyeballs the more engagement. I mean, that’s what it comes down to what I don’t believe works is hiring somebody else to go out and post for you that sounds nothing like you that just creating very boilerplate templated content that nobody resonates with. So I don’t believe you could build a personal brand outsourcing social media, I think you have to, to an extent, be involved in the content you create the post you make, because that’s what people are going to respond to and be be honest, like people know, you. They know when someone’s not you posting and you’ll notice that to just look at all your other profiles. And look at the ones Yeah, oh, that’s definitely not that person. So where do you post this stuff out? You posted everywhere you’re at this includes if you’re on Facebook, for example, post your personal page and your business page and do them separately, there’s no sharing to one or another. Every social media profile you have, you got to treat like a different account. And just because they’re part of Facebook doesn’t mean you just share everything you upload organically to every single spot. So if I’m doing long form or meme like content, I’m taking my personal page, my business page, and put them in all the groups I’m in and put it into my Instagram. If I’m on LinkedIn, I’m dropping it off there. But if I’m just doing short form content, and then I know I’m posting on Tik Tok IG reels, Facebook reels and YouTube shorts, right, so you have to have a distribution strategy based upon the content you’re creating. But just know that regardless of what you’re creating, you’re broadcasting it wherever your brand is. See, the math on this is very simple. 10 to 15% of the people who see your content will be moving this year, but 100% of them will have a referral for you. So I want you to look at your annual social media marketing plan or your or your monthly for that is and just know these two numbers, because if you were to get 100,000 views over the course of the next 12 months, well 10 to 15% of those views are moving this year, and 100% of those views could have a referral for you, I want you to be motivated by chasing attention chasing views, because they always all lead to business. Now, social is just one aspect of marketing, you know, you have to be consistent on there, whether you’re creating meme content, social content, video content, images, pictures, all of it is reminding but it’s not the only place to stay in touch with your database and to nurture them. The truth is that a very smaller percentage of your social media, friends, and unless you’re running ads will see your content, usually under the 20% mark, which is why you want to take on a multi prong approach here. Now the second channel that you want to market your database to is video email. Now why do we use video email as opposed to any other type of email service and it’s 100% because it gets more opens more engagement. And that’s the only type of email where you could put your face body language and tonality to somebody else which is extremely powerful for brand awareness and attracting attention. So who you’re going to send your video emails to our family, friends, past co workers past clients. Basically, if you have someone that you believe they should be referring or doing business with you, well, they 100% need to be on your email list. And what we don’t want to do on emails is send them a bunch of spam light content. What we do want to do on emails is send them content that will add

actually enhance their day or add value to their lives. All right. And sometimes that could be as simple as a new restaurant opening. It could be a joke, it could be a holiday greeting. But you want to be sending about one to two video emails a month. And this will all go to your nurturing list of databases. You know, you could do holidays, simply copy the Hallmark greeting card strategy. I did that for five years of my career and it worked very well. Valentine’s Day. Groundhogs Day, Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July Veterans Day, but pick the holidays that match more up to your brand. If you’re a veteran, you’re probably going to always be creating content on veteran Memorial, Fourth of July, American base holidays President day, right. But if you’re, you know, have a totally different personality, you know, service the veteran niche at all. Maybe you’re a jokester, maybe you’re a comedian, maybe you’re funny. Well, then you would probably create all the content on all the off the wall holidays like Groundhog’s Day, like popcorn day like Star Wars Day, that would be a cool funny way to remind your database that you’re in real estate without having to be too overly burdening with it. You can do local video series, we create content for people all over the country who are creating neighborhood tours.

Excuse me,

neighborhood tours,

business owner interviews,

anything within the local community, new restaurant openings,

events, local community events that are coming up. Anything within the local community would brand you perfectly as a real estate agent, because that’s the real estate agent is their community expert. Rosa had a lot of value. special announcements, real estate. If you are going to talk about real estate, I like doing like major announcements in the industry like interest rate reduction, stuff like that. Things of news worthy topics, but just think about it one to two video emails a month. And here’s the most important thing is that the content you’re creating, make it be creative. Don’t make it be boring, like don’t send bad real estate monthly news update, like don’t say, Today’s interest rate market update, no one wants a market update guys until they’re in the market to buy a new house. Okay, so stop sending the market updates and start sending them stuff that’s a little bit more personable. Now, your subject line is absolutely going to be the crucial piece of that email that and having a video with it will increase your open rates. And we’re seeing over 40% open rate on our video emails, that referral suite. Because the two things we’re creating content to a warm list people we already know, that isn’t necessarily overburdening, and we’re creating more entertaining and engaging like emails. So that’s it. Okay, this is not rocket science, but we are just nurturing. Now.

If you are to send a video email, this could be a schedule, you could follow, you could do nine holidays, you could do once a month update, if you wanted to, you could do a spring and a winter email. But however way you want to chop it off one to two times a month, which should give you anywhere between 15 and 21 Total video email touches throughout the course of the year. Now, the national average for emails, open rates is about 13%, which means 87% of your people aren’t watching your stuff, which means what’s the point of sending them in the first place, we’re seeing a 40% open rate using just what I showed you right there. And of that 40% open rate if you have roughly 200 people on your email list, 10 to 15% of them are moving and 100% of them have a referral for you. Those are the two numbers I want you to memorize and repeat and never forget, because it’s only those two numbers that you’ll be motivated to keep creating content. Because once you understand that attention equals transactions, you will understand and be motivated to go ahead and continue to create that. Now, the third channel on one of the most effective is direct mail. How many people are still getting direct mail today? Well, everybody last I checked and that’s why I like it, because mailboxes are wide open. Now. Let’s first talk about who you’re gonna send these to past clients 100% need to be on your direct mail drop address, or list close friends basically anyone that you have a strong relationship with if you’d invite them to your wedding or funeral and you have unlimited budget, they want 100% need to be on your direct mail list and the reason why I love direct mail is because 100% of them will receive your postcard before they throw it in the trash. Okay. And that is amazing for branding. Now it’s the same concept of why Bed Bath and Beyond sends me 20% off coupons I don’t throw them away I always remember they’re there they exist. And it’s a great way to farm or nurture me because I don’t cheat on them with any other Bed Bath and Beyond place either do I? So what kind of content

holiday greeting cards, postcards based on fun facts, gifts God

Many bears, what you don’t want to send them are just listed database or turn back your clock emails and talk to them one to one and a half times a month, one a month will do just fine for direct mail. And the reason why it’s so powerful is because 100% of people will receive it, they will all physically engage with it in a direct mail, at least with our system cost about $12 a year per contact. Now, here’s the ROI on this though, because I want you to see as if you had 100 people on your list, and you send them one postcard a month, that would equate to roughly 1200 $1,200 annually. Now, of those 100 people 69 of them are moving, or 10 to 15% of them are moving I mean, and 69 move every

seven years,

what’s my ROI going to be, I would need to generate one deal, one, to pretty much get like a 500,000% ROI. See, we have to invest in our brands, in order for them to return a positive ROI in them. And how we do that is through content creation. See, people

create content consistently. And the more content you create around your brand, the more marketable and referral you become. All I’m doing is just sharing with you on how we’re systematically creating content, and then distributing that content through video, email, direct mail, and social media, so that people never forget what we exist, and of which 10 to 15% of moving 100% of them, have a referral for you.

Do this for 12 months in a row and watch what happens to your business. You know, people always often say is, hey, how do I stay consistent? How do I generate more business while you stay consistent in the content you create, and in almost every single time that I’ve seen this play true or through, I have yet to see it not work for somebody because everybody knows a real estate agent. But it’s the real estate agent that is known the most as the most marketable and referral who always generates the most amount of business.

If you guys have questions on this process, please go ahead and chat below. I told you at the beginning of this training, I was going to walk you through a platform solution that makes this whole process a lot easier. And realistically, you guys have two different ways that you can go about doing it. We would love to have you be part of referral suite but referral suite as a software platform that gives you email, social media and automate your direct mail content so that you can implement the model I just shared with you right now, effortlessly in 10 to 20 minutes a month of total time invested. So what I’m going to do right here is play a video for you, it’s going to show you how the inside of referral suite works in just under two minutes. And I encourage you to come and check us out. If you like what you saw here today. And you think that you’re struggling with creating content, you don’t know what to post, or you’re sick of just chasing a bunch of leads and relying on lead sources you don’t control start creating a brand. By creating content, it’s the only way you can do it. So I’m gonna go ahead and play this video for you. And you could check out what referral suite is. in under two minutes, I’m gonna show you exactly how referral suite helps you build a strong personal brand that generates more referrals and repeat business. Referrals suite is an all in one CRM focused on one thing a place for you to manage, grow, nurture and market your Rolodex of relationships through direct mail, video, email, and social media. The first tools are social media calendar, all you do is you simply check your social calendar, grab your instructions and customize it and then post it now you don’t need to think about when or what to post on social and just follow the instructions each day and week. When it comes to email marketing your database referral suite provides a video email system to send engaging emails they actually like seeing all you do is simply check your content calendar right here will give you the subject line email, coffee and video script to record right starter software that you can send our direct mail campaigns are set it and forget it all you do is you simply pick a campaign you set it hey and then you forget it. Each month your direct mail list will receive a mixture of postcards, greeting cards, and even gifts based on what you decide to sell. Plus all members get access to the Learning Center which is full of advanced training courses on building your personal brand and advanced content creation with video for example. Plus in addition all members can utilize any of the advanced marketing services available through the Marketplace such as video editing, logo design, signage, and even gifts. Anything you need to build your personal brand is right here inside of referral suite. So if you’re struggling to stand in front of your database or tired of people forgetting you’re in real estate or lending, follow the instructions next video and join now. It is not your networks job to remember what you do for a living but it is your job to remind them and referral suite is the one place that makes marketing your brand. Very simple.

in under two minutes. So there you have it, folks. I hope you’ve enjoyed this training

books, we’ve been doing this for a long time, just creating content and referral suite is something that has been a project of mine for over five years to put this all together, but it is ready, we would love for you to go ahead and check that out. And regardless of whether you’re using referral suite or whatever you’re doing in your content creation journey, start creating content, whether it’s with us or with somebody else, or you’re doing it on your own, create content, put it in front of the people that you know, like and trust, and those people will reward you in the form of repeat business referrals and you’ll stop chasing a bunch of leads, and you’ll have a brand that people know like trust. Remember, most importantly refer and do repeat business with

go ahead and check out referral suite.com Right now

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

This Real Estate Marketing Strategy Attracts Clients With Content Creation

The reason why 87% of agents fail within five years is because most of them start in real estate chasing the wrong people with NO real estate marketing strategy. Everything you are about to read is not rocket science, but common sense when it comes to real estate marketing vs. advertising. My goal is that you will learn how important it is to immediately establish an ongoing real estate marketing strategy. Creating real estate content creates top of mind brand awareness or what Gary V. would call “Attention”.

Prospecting For Real Estate Business Is Difficult

I recall as a brand new agent in 2002, cold calling my first six months because I was told to prospect, prospect, prospect instead of how to market my own brand.

One of the first lessons I learned my first year in business as a real estate agent was that prospecting through cold calling or other “old school” sales tactics was unsustainable for me. I was getting burned out fast, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t make it in real estate, it just meant I had to find another way.

You don’t get referrals or business from strangers, you get them from people you know. The key is staying on top of mind when a referral opportunity arises.

Let me ask you a question….

If nearly 61% of business is generated from referrals and repeat clients, what should be your most important real estate marketing strategy?

Facebook ads?
Buying Zillow leads?
Cold calling FSBO’s or expired listings?
Direct mail farming?
Door knocking?

These are all great ways to prospect new business, but it’s a fact that over 80% of a real estate agent’s business comes from referrals, repeat clients, people you already know, or run into?

Consider This…

If I were to open up a taco stand in San Diego and I found out that roughly 80%+ of my customer base were from a certain area or demographic, what should be the first thing I do? I would focus the majority of my marketing efforts to that specific group of people. I would first determine how I could reach them so they know I’m open for business.

Over 80% of business comes from people you know, worked with in past, are referred to, or personally meet! These aren’t statistics created by me, these are facts reported from NAR. A real estate agent who is not marketing their relationships is like me opening up my taco stand without putting a sign in the window saying I sell tacos.

What real estate marketing strategy keeps you in front of people WITHOUT always having to talk about buying or selling real estate? You create content.

What Do I Do First?

Many real estate agents rely on chasing leads vs. creating and maintaining relationships that produce referrals and repeat business. We are told to believe that we should be prospecting vs. marketing and building a brand. Prospecting strategies are great, but they should come secondary to setting up a system that generates referrals and repeat business.

I am talking about farming your relationships with content in multiple channels, so let me explain.

We all know direct mail farming works. It’s been a real estate marketing strategy since the dinosaurs ruled the world. You pick a neighborhood and then consistently mail it over a period of time. After about 6 months or so you should start seeing some results(if not sooner). The longer you maintain a presence and build a brand in your farm area, the better the results over time. The reason this takes time to build is because it takes a while for people to remember who you are. Over time, direct mail farming creates top of mind brand awareness.

So if direct mail farming a bunch of strangers still works, imagine if you started farming your relationships?

Why Your Real Estate Marketing Needs To Be Put In Front Of Your Relationships

You must market your relationships because when you are out of sight, you are out of mind. Trust me, people don’t remember what you for a living as much as you would like to believe. Top of mind brand awareness keeps your brand at the forefront, nurtures your relationship with your database, and makes it easier to be remembered when a referral opportunity rises.

What’s The Return On Investment In Marketing Your Database?

This is mathematical marketing, not theory. You can literally get a good estimate on your referral opportunities for the next 12 months simply by determining the size of the audience you are marketing. According to MelissaData, the annual statistics in the United States show that 10-15% of the population moves every year. This includes everyone you know or are connected with through social media or walk past each day.

Marketing your relationships consistently will generate direct business, but that’s not why you should be marketing it primarily.

You market your relationships because 100% of them knows someone who is moving that they can refer you to!

If you were to to “Farm” 100 people over a 12 month period, roughly 10-14% of them are going to be moving this year. If they know you, they are more likely to call you first when they need to buy or sell real estate. Over 80% of homebuyer and sellers hire the first person they speak to.

If I had 200 people I was consistently marketing, roughly 20-28 of them will be moving this year. The best part is that 100% of the people you stay in front of have the ability to refer you at least one client because they all know someone who is moving this year.

The question becomes if they will refer you or not. This is why top of mind awareness is crucial to your business.

You create top of mind brand awareness through creating content consistently through direct mail, video email, and social media.

VIP Branding for 500+ Deals a YEAR

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Sometimes you need to be more than a realtor, you need to be a local celebrity brand. This means staying on the forefront of your database in more than one way. Don’t just talk to your clients, love on them.

Amy Stockberger, founder of Amy Stockberger Real Estate, is the Broker/Owner of one of the top 50 highest producing teams in the nation. Amy and her team have helped thousands of people find their dream home.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

How to diversify your offering.
The difference between marketing and advertising.
How you can stay top of mind with your database.

Resource

Check Out Amy’s Website

Check Out Real Estate Distilled

Transcript:

So how do you attract new business, you constantly don’t have to chase it. Hi, I’m Mike Cuevas a real estate marketing. This podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust and 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 we’re doing here today focuses, we’re going to talk about how you run a local celebrity brand. Start loving on your clients, not just loving on your clients, but obsessively loving on your clients, and how and why that turns into business. Before we introduce our guests, I’m gonna paint the picture very, very clearly for you guys. And

the client experience matters period. All right, people don’t remember what you did from remember how you made them feel. And the highest likelihood of generating more business in a real estate transaction is during the transaction with a client. The number one goal of each transaction that you’re doing when you’re working with a client is not to sell the house. That’s the number three goals. The number one goal is to first impress the client so you can lock them in for a long time and repeat business. Number two goal is to create spin off business from that transaction so you can make more money. And then the number three goals actually sell the house and close the deal in that order. Now, what I want you to challenge you guys with today is what did you do during the course of the transaction that people actually remembered? Because that’s what we’re gonna be talking about today. The reality is that 80% of buyers forget their agents name within six months of closing the transaction. And in a business that’s dominated by 80 plus percent, being referral. Using the past or people you personally met, it is impossible to run a long term real estate business without running a business and building a brand and creating an experience that people come back to. Can you imagine

going

to like a Michelin restaurant

and having a shitty experience?

No, that’s why you’re paying $800 A plate. And people will gladly pay for things and will gladly refer things that they enjoy that other people will enjoy too. So what I want to dial in today, so much is about the customer experience and how you’re conducting yourself throughout the course of the transaction. And that’s what our guest today is going to chat about. So without further ado, we’re gonna introduce our guests coming straight out of Sioux Falls. I think it’s South Dakota, South Dakota. Amy stock burger. Hi, Amy. How are you? I’m great. Thanks for having me. Mike. Why don’t you tell our listeners a little bit who you are, who the hell you are, what you do and where you’re at. And we’re gonna get into this questions about what you’re doing with your VIP program that had you guys close it what 159 closings last year? So like, we did 559 559 Whoa, 400 Okay, yeah. Go out again. Introduce yourself a little bit. Yeah, I mean, me stockbroker, ami stockbroker real estate. So I’m a broker owner of a team ridge. So we still run as a team. I’ve been doing this for 22 years, my husband and I run this together, we’re family owned, we have a tenure of our agents of about an average of six years. So we have a system and strategy to keep our process sticky for agents as well as a lifetime leads strategy that keeps our business as a referral based business. So working with the clients that we want to work with, they don’t drag us down. And having that referral, this base business being the the far, far screaming majority of our business, providing lifetime home support, which you said it. It’s before, during and after. That’s what we really excel at. And that’s what my whole model is built around our foundation is being there for our clients before, during and after. Because the before and the after are oftentimes more important than the during it’s that relationship base. Yes. And that’s a more one of my brokerages core core values is that we’re relationship based people because humans crave that they crave that relationship and know that they’re being cared for and taken care of for life. And by doing that, we turn our clients into referring machines. So I actually termed the the term lifetime lead strategy because that’s what I built my foundation on is that it uses unique propositions to stay top of mind as our clients lifetime Home Support Team, which results in them being our lifetime referral partner. I like it. Um, I actually met Amy, and I didn’t know who she got, I get we get I tell you guys every week you pitch on the show. Oh, really? Sure. We’re gonna show most we want to sell the shit. Great. If you have good content, you come on the show. But I knew Amy from somewhere. And the

second time I talked to her I was like, Hey, I know you from somewhere and Amy’s in Sioux Falls and Ramsey if you’re listening to this, I’m calling you out right now.

We’re doing videos for a guy in in Sioux Falls. Ramsey we blew his shit up. We got him picked up on the news within 10 weeks of starting video. He got picked up on the new station brand new agent crushed it and then he stopped doing video. Listen, dude

Whatever brings you to the promised land you never stopped doing, you double down on that, because this gal is now kicking his ass, because she just started doing consistently and she got into the game probably eight months after him. And you just blew him away because you started creating more content and all that. So we’re going to talk about your content creation a little bit. But hey, I gotta call you out Ramsey because I told you what not to do. And now Amy is eating your lunch. So don’t let her eat your lunch anymore. Okay. All right. So let’s get down to the work can work for my brokerage, let’s go together, come over here. That could also be an option. All right. So what we what’s so impressive with Amy’s doing you guys is that she really understands customer experience. So we’re gonna dial this in. And Amy has not only several different profit centers around the transaction in addition to commission, but she positions herself as like the one stop shop and so many real estate agents say this Oh, I’m a one stop shop. No, you’re not. Here’s what a one stop shop is okay. You have the attorneys, you have the contractors, you have places to buy heating lamps, you have rugs, you have carpet cleaning, you have movers, you have this, that’s a one stop shop, like actually having every resource surrounded around home remedy is the one stop shop agents who claim their one stop shop, a lot of them are just like, oh yeah, I help people buy, sell and rent. I’m a one stop shop.

That makes sense. 100%. So how are you guys just one stop shop, I want you to tell everyone from yesterday and I want you to walk through and I’m a buyer or I’m a seller, what’s the difference between you and everyone else so everyone understands what your unique selling proposition is? Okay. Besides being the most specialized experts and connecting buyers and sellers, investors Reapers within our market, we also have a lifetime Home Support Foundation. And what that means is our clients get access to our VIP Club, which is one of the pillars of our lifetime home support. We have a lot of pillars of them, but that’s one of them. So one of the pillars is that our moving trucks, they get free access to our moving trucks buy or sell one time free access for life. We have a enclosed trailer as well. We have moving supplies, there’s a pain point and moving no matter what price point you’re in, whether you’re in a 2 million, or you’re in that 200,000. So I have people who are sold houses to 20 years ago who come back and use my trucks to go buy a couch, they don’t want to pay 100 bucks for on a $10,000 couch so they get access to our moving trucks. But when I put that moving truck VIP part into our pillar into my business, I also monetized it right away. So I make money off of my truck right away even though it’s being used by my clients. That’s the foremost the fourth most important part of that filler is I get client experience out of that it has the second part is I’m making revenue on it. And then right next to that is my market share and getting because my branding is out there on everything. So my trucks are on the road, they get 600 impressions per mile. And it’s it’s monetized going you bought a truck, moving truck. I’ve seen people buy moving trucks and then usually like the time they let the clients use it as either just part of the move. But you actually keep this moving truck open for any client to use it at any time. Yep. And and you charge for it too, right? What do you make more money on? Yeah, we charge advertising space on it so so I sell the ad space out to my affiliate partners. And so we have two trucks now adding our third and 23 and we also have an enclosed trailer and a flatbed trailer but again, everything has my brand on it My brand is part of my soul. And if you’re not branding, your your business you are missing out on so much. I think that’s a big you, people. Yeah, if you’re not branding your business, you’re just a salesperson chasing the check. Oh 100% 100% And if you’re not into speak to lifetime home support, same thing with just chasing a check if you’re not in this to really help people it isn’t going to last anyway. So So again, our foundation is Lifetime support. So we got it that was our first pillar but almost at the exact same time and my VIP club, I decided to add my party and tool sheds shed concept as well. And basically what that is is anything that they would ever need to have a party so banquet tables and chairs, bouncy houses, commercial grade food warmers, cotton candy, snow cone, popcorn, hot dog machines, so splattered anything but what I did with all those though, is I blasted my brand on all of them. So I have my stickers everywhere so people go out they’d get my stuff can rent it for free for their parties, graduations everything. They have all their friends and family over my brand is everywhere. Where do you get all this free stuff? Maybe stockbroker? Why would they not use this? So you buy you buy? That’s genius. So let me make sure so everyone understands us. So you got so one, you have a truck that you sell ad space on and you give to your clients for free to trucks and you’re going to be three then you created basically a party rental company that you let your clients use again for free. So if I’m having my kids graduation, I could call you up and get a bouncy house. And and some tables and chairs. Yes. And some heat lamps because I’m freezing my ass off in South Dakota right now. Yeah, you can get all that but because because we like we have over 2000 reservations a year from our VIP program. I had software created to make it a one stop shop for our clients which I’ll jump back into but again my

As team leaders in brokerages, you have to think about the consumer mindset, after they buy, you need them that the reason we advertise, you know, I did billboards forever and ever and ever I spent, you know, 25 to $30,000, a year on billboards, and those billboards were out there not necessarily to attract a new client, they were out there to remind the people who already know liked and trusted me to refer me to all their people who are making life changes. Yeah. So the software I had created is a one stop shop for my team leaders and brokers. Because again, once that consumer is done with a transaction, they’re not going back to your website. They were there to research you, they were there to look at houses, they’re not going back to your website. And they’re either looking at your social media, yes, of course, they’re out there looking at those things, but you need a place that’s engaging for them to be that you’re top of mind. You know, a Millionaire Real Estate agent said it the humans had two spaces in their brain. For realtors, our job is to pop the other one out of their brain and just stay forefront state and stay relevant for them. So I had software created, where our clients can go out and get access to all of our equipment, they can prove that their own time, make the reservation, all my feeds, my social media feeds are up there, my blogs are up there, they can refer us easily they can review us easily they can check out our listings, I sell ad space on a tour HST our home support team partners, and it just keeps us relevant and top of mind in front of them. So they can do that with our party shed our moving supplies, which we also have boxes and things like that, that we give out for free. The boxes branded to I don’t we just burned up on Amy, you’re slipping.

I burned through them so fast because like she says get them get them going. But then then we have our tool shed. So our tool shed is consist of things that people don’t want to rent buy or store that they’re going to need for every season of homeownership. So it’s like wheelbarrows, ladders, different tools. We have commercial grade paint sprayers, carpet cleaners, things like that, that they can come in use for life for free as well. Interesting. Sounds like what you got your own little Home Depot? Exactly. Commercial grade, you know, fans to get water in their basement. We have the carpet fans, we have the carpet, stretchers. I mean, it’s literally anything that they wouldn’t need for homeownership. I have and let me just rewind real quick. All right, this is the third VIP product that she has, okay, look, do you not notice what she’s saying here guys, is the content of the show every single week is top of mind, top of mind, Top of Mind top of mind, we have to be marketing, always art marketing isn’t advertising marketing is a subtle reminder that you’re still there to remain on top of mind. Because if you’re always advertising to your database, you’re just another, you’re just selling them stuff and they’re eventually going to tune you out. Same way, if you talk about work with your wife all day long, she’s going to tune you out too and start cheating on you with the milkman. So the whole point of being is that you have to remain in communication with your database. Not always through verbal, but sometimes through visual sometimes through social all of the above. And what she’s doing is she’s interjecting her brand, into a value added proposition around home remedy. So number one is you have a moving truck for any and all is like I just bought a couch or not a car, I didn’t buy the couch, I was going to buy this couch, I want to buy it off of Facebook. But this a great deal, I’m gonna put this thing in my garage is perfect. But I didn’t have a truck to go out there and like pick it up, and I wasn’t gonna hire the truck to go and pick it up. So it’s better off just buying a new one to have it delivered to me. So in your case, you’re saying, Hey, I have all these I have this truck you could use whatever you want. That’s part of being a client of mine is this the right role that you have has a party thing. So if you have parties, you can rent her stuff and because that’s something that you would do at your house, obviously, she has a tool shed for like that’s, that’s amazing. Think about how many people need to clean their carpets once a year and what who’s going to not hire you

ever if you’re giving them all this stuff for free. So that’s product number three of the VIP program. So there’s three so far. And again, keep in mind that that this is not just for that first time second time buyer I have I tell the story all the time. I have a physician, a physician I work with this one just slays me because he can afford to buy rent and store anything he wants. He’s never done it. He comes down he wants something new to my club. I add it in I put it in there because he’s here using knowing that he doesn’t have to deal with that shit. It’s just all there. And again, my name is on everything. I have stickers big and bold. My brand is everywhere. So there’s it’s not even on like the carpet cleaner. Like your stickers around the carpet cleaner. I’m thinking of the one I just bought. I bought I rented from Home Depot. Like last like six months ago, I was doing the carpets in our house and ran it from Home Depot which they never worked by the way. They’re always broken. Yep. And but you would have like your stickers all over that. Oh my gosh, I have them everywhere. And since I’ve done this for so long, I started my VIP club end of 14 beginning of 15. We know what products are durable in which ones consumers our clients want and need. So we’ve we’ve already done all the heavy lifting on this because we’ve been through the equipment. We know what bouncy houses suck. We know which ones are gonna last half the summer. You know we have all that taken care of like it. All right, do we have more

than we have a discount center that our clients get access to for life and this has a lot of additional lead generation attacks.

add to this, as does my truck, and my party and tool sheds. But it’s a discount center where our clients can save over $5,300 a year on big brands over 100,000 big brand products and in retailers like Nike Walmart, Under Armour, there’s free travel in it, there’s free hotel stays, it’s just a really great product that they can implement in to their normal buying of what they’re going to get throughout the year. And they also get cashback so they get a discount center that I bought exclusivity for all the South Dakota, nobody else can offer that up in South Dakota.

Gotta get that. So I’m looking at like, this is probably equivalent. I don’t know if I have one here my wallet I’m looking but I got a I think this is for my one of my kids has like a I think it was the baseball or soccer league, where they give you like a card that has like a 15% discount towards the following retails retailers, right. And like ones like the bagel shop, one’s a local pizza shop. And as long as you have this card, you can always get 15% off. And so same concept, same concept, but it’s national retailers. So it’s the big brands, and you can get up to 85% off on some of these big brands. Same concept on that, though. Correct. And then there’s a lot of you have your own.

You have your own Costco. Yep, we have our own discount center there. Yes. And then another part of it is my home support team partners. Again, there’s a lot of a lot of seasons of homeownership, and they need a lot of different vendors, services, things that are going to come up during the all those stages. So what I’ve done is I partnered with, I feel the best of the best. And we’re constantly growing our home support team, with every type of industry that our buyers and sellers are going to need throughout those stages. So obviously the lenders and inspectors and title companies yet, but we have H back we have young carpet cleaners, we have restoration companies we have we now are putting you know services on there. We have restaurants in there, we have entertainment venues in there, we have all these, these people in my home support team that we’re offering up to our clients that give them preferential treatment, because they’re a stockbroker, real estate clients, and oftentimes preferential pricing. So again, and I have one in my my software I created, it’s just that one stop shop for them to go to, to have access to all of these things right there. So they also get access to that.

Anything else in this VIP? Well, then another big thing on this is what we do, again, just thinking as the team leader broker on this, we offer all of these things out to nonprofits for free. So again, great, it’s great for your community, give back data. And that’s what you want to do. And if you’re not an entrepreneur who wants to give back to your community, again, you’re not in it for the right reason, you should want to do that. So how do you get back into your commissions as a broker to one of these charities on top of that? Yep, so CASA is one we give a percentage back every month to our Casa that’s a big part of my heart. I worked in an abuse shelter in college. And now the director of our local Cassatt actually was one I worked with back in the day and she’s she does such an amazing job with our kiddos here in town. So yeah, we get a portion of everything every home we sell we as the brokers give back to Casa. So I mean, just the loan on that I’ve seen people we created pro get back programs for that are just millionaires today, because I think that’s how God repays you, but it’s just

wow, like, you’re literally chucking on all cylinders, the

art she’s got, she’s

going, all right. This is not a new concept. But this is when I don’t think is really used to the level it can be used is your client events. We host big client events in the give back we have on that is huge, I usually get anywhere between three to four new leads every event we do from these people, again, who can’t it’s a law of reciprocity, my entire foundation on top of giving, serving and and wanting to build my business is, is again the law of reciprocity, they somebody gets something they want to give you something back and kind so they it’s just making them more obligated just by human nature to refer us and review us. And so like our client event, we just hosted our 17th annual Turkey giveaway and we do a free Santa Claus pictures at the same same thing we gave away close to 600 turkeys, we had over 1100 clients in our building, which was friggin amazing, you know, to have that many intercompany events per year are you guys doing? Well, we do a minimum of three this next year we’re going to be doing six we do a lot of little ones. But we do three big ones. We do our turkey and Santa event. We do an ice skating event, and we do it on an ax throwing bar. And so we do a date night a lot of our kids kid based and so we shut down our bar and let them throw axes and give them drinks and food and have a

beer you can’t go wrong with beer and axes like no matter what like if you give me some beer give me an x go with it like your You had me at beer

in September when the when the parents are like, Oh, we’re going back to school. It’s time for us to go out.

Smart. Yeah, so

Let me just sort of unpack here for the audience, you’re creating a whole lot of different local community based services that keep you at the forefront in a value serve first way without ever having to talk about real estate’s genius.

Now, this doesn’t happen overnight, I’m gonna segments a show into another direction in a second. But I’m sure you started one of these at a time, like you probably started with a truck. And then you started with this. And then you went over here into that just so people don’t feel overwhelmed, like you could do this, you guys. There are so many different transactions circulating around a real estate closing, that it represents roughly 25% of the services or the workforce in America. And like, we don’t think that way, though, typically. And the reason why you have so many of these, like, a lot, some of them are going out of business now. But the reason why you’d have like, the Zelos, and the open doors, because they’re making money on the escrow and the mortgage and everything else around the transaction, not necessarily buying the transaction, right. So this is a mindset shift, I’ve seen a lot of people look at selling solar, we’re about to start selling solar leads to real estate agents, because they’re making money on solar. But that’s another ancillary service, maybe not in South Dakota. But that’s another ancillary service that is a profit center that a realtor can get paid on.

But whether you’re getting paid on these or not, it’s just a bunch of excuses to stay at the forefront. So next question I have is how do we market this? Okay, how do you get people to know about this? How do I tie in the VIP program throughout the course of the transaction? And then how do I get them actually using it? Because it all sounds really good. But then how do I actually get them to start calling me entire? How are you marking this? I’m sure you got some kind of thing going on, like walk me through all that. Yep. So Mark Twain said, There’s no such thing as a original idea. It’s just impossible. So again, I did create this I, I used it from all these different things that I learned and I went through and I fail forward over and over and over, I say all the time I have a PhD and failing forward, I can fail forward over and pivot and make the mistakes. So I’ve made all the mistakes to perfect the process. So what I’ve done is I I’ve created a course called the copy and paste formula to implement and monetize your VIP club, that basically within six weeks, somebody can take everything I’ve done since 2015, and implemented into their business then to their business. So we have a step by step, no shiny object process to give them everything they need to get the VIP club into their business, and then how to monetize it, and then how to use it for the additional additional lead generation options that are out there because there’s so many additional lead generations that bring in more clients more market share for us from this, because it’s just easy is once it’s out there, it’s just easy. But you but I have everything they need from marketing, every marketing template they have from press releases to their scripts for their agents, their killer 32nd. Elevator Pitch is for their agents, their isa scripts, down to all their operations. I’m a Systems girl and I truly believe you cannot scale without systems. And so I’m very systemized And so giving them all of our systems we have for operations from onboarding and offboarding admin and agents with your VIP just to make sure your brand consistency is huge. And I’m sure you know this, but brand consistency is like one of the biggest things you need to have. And I think there’s a stat I just read that your business will sell for 20% more if you have brand consistency, and agents it’s the reason why when you go into a Hyatt The pillows are fluffed the same fucking way every single time. Yeah, it’s the reason when you go into a high end restaurant that the food doesn’t taste different every single time because if it did, that wouldn’t be a high end restaurant. Yep. And like, what’s crazy to me is that nobody has a system in this business. I’m system students all I care, I never, I just have a system and your business is just something you do over and over again. Alright, let’s not make this overcomplicated. It could be I’m gonna walk you through a couple super simple, stupid, simple systems that you can implement in your business. And all it is is a checklist item. Yep. Right. So here would be a stupid simple system. Every time I got a referral, I would send out a million dollar bill with a $10 gift card that says Thanks a million. That’s just a small system. Every time I had a closing at the final walkthrough, I would make sure to get the Testimonial Request at that point because I would never get it post. That’s a system. Yeah. We’re seeing the referral behavior is what I call it. You’re reinforcing referral behavior. Done. Yeah. Like it. Yeah. Yeah. And I agree. There’s just

without systems you can’t say like, it’s kind of a joke in my business that when I say checklists, they say drink because my checklists are living breathing things. Okay, we’re updating it. We’re changing and they live and breathe within there because they have to. We see I mean, and I tell my agents, you know, one of the benefits of working for my brokerage is I’ve made all the shit and mistakes so everything

that you that I’m giving you is a checklist and the processes that you don’t have to make them because I’ve done it. And so now I have a system to make sure that those things don’t happen. I have everything in place to make sure you can scale. And my vision is to build big juicy legacies for everybody within my ecosystem. And so I’m doing that through my systemization of what I’ve given as a proven process of success.

We’re the highest producing team in the state of South Dakota. mine personally the highest producing agent in the state of South Dakota. We are number 23. In the United States, we’re a small team, we’re Small Giants, you know, we had 15 agents 23 in the United States on transaction count. Yep. Transaction. Yeah, cuz volume in South Dakota is not going to be like volume in Southern California. No, no. Yeah, our average like, it’s like 315 for sales price. Yeah. 2500 deals, it’s

no, when you’re so like, this was when I’m your client, I’m a buyer. I’m buying a house. How walk me through just like how you position the VIP club? And and at what point is it like at the buyer presentation to consult when I heard before I start working with them? Is it is it always like throughout the course of the transaction, and your agents like saying, oh, when you have a quote, like because certain things are gonna happen, it’s like, oh, when we get a home inspection, so here’s what you could do. Here’s our VIP cup. So this carpet isn’t that clean, but you could rent this from us, we’ll give it to you for free, you could clean it afterwards. It’s from the very beginning, depending on if it’s a face to face, or even if it’s a web lead, I can talk you through like maybe a web lead coming in web lead, it’s in every drip every isa script that they get that that’s what they’re being told right away that our lifetime home support model. So they’re being told about everything that they get with us. It’s also it’s a marketing sheet that we have, if it’s the driveway buyer presentation, if they’re not coming in, and it’s just they want to show, they’re getting that right there. It’s the hook. Because again, consumers humans, I should say, in general, are so so so impatient, we want instant gratification with everything. So we need those hooks to keep them with us. Because we know what they’re calling us. They’re calling five other brokers to so my agents are trained to use our scripting on our homes of our lifetime home support model right away, because why wouldn’t they go anywhere else. And that’s a big thing, too, I guess to speak to, I have, I’m creating this other course my homes, how to how to, you know, monetize your home support team partners, because that program, that part of that pillar of my business, brought in close to $300,000 last year, because I charged my vendors $3,300

a year to be a part of that program. And I have a whole system I put together and how we advertise for them what they get all this process, and they pay to be a part of it, because they want to first they’re gonna get good branding and marketing out of it. And they get to be in front of my clients. But I did that again, threefold first for my clients to have lifetime home support. So they get access to all these great vendors that they’re going to need to help them then build those those peoples those local people’s business, second revenue, obviously getting my additional revenue for my bottom line. Third, to get in front of their employees, I want market share, I want market share, I want market share, I want market share. So to be a part of my home support team, I have to have certain amount of times that I get to present my lifetime home support model to their employees. So once I get in front of them and tell them about what we’re up when they have a life change of anybody they know why the heck would they haven’t looked at anybody else? Yeah.

You’re like one of the few people I’ve met that can literally answer like we brand people and I’ll get like, you know, way to build someone’s video series or whatever. And I was asking what’s, what’s the difference between you and every other agent? And no one can answer that question.

You can

very easily and you could do it without thinking about it. And most times, it’s sort of like this. They’re like, Well,

I really look out for my clients.

That’s your fucking fiduciary. Okay, yeah.

Like, that’s not a pitch anymore. It’s not a USP, like, I care about you.

What?

You should be in the business because you care that should be given 100% the best one I like is when a lender is like, Oh, I’m going to answer my phone.

Isn’t that your job? Yeah. Or like when someone hasn’t like these are assumptions, right? And even like for you mortgage brokers listening, or any other service provider, telling us or telling like when they’re trying to recruit real is telling us that you’re gonna do have good service isn’t a USP that’s expected. Like no one ever says, Hey, come eat my food. It’s gonna fucking suck. Yeah.

Break. Yeah. Oh, I have the best service. Well, that’s why your business you shouldn’t have to say that. Because the fact that you have to say it already tells me that you don’t have confidence in doing it anyways. And so does everybody else knows the same thing. Yep. Yep, one thing too, I feel.

And if you’re if some agencies or teams are completely against it against this, I get it. But when I started my VIP club, I also added a transaction coordination fee for my clients. I started at $199. We now charge 499.

We don’t get anybody to

scoff at it because the value of what they get even in one year between my discount center all my HS HS t my home, you could justify you could justify no down when Sam Yeah, they’re getting likely $10,000 a year worth of savings, can they opt out of it? Wait, really they have to, they have to the agent, if they opt out and the agent can’t get him to sign it, then it’s an agent paid. So I’m just gonna do the math on that. Okay, you guys we’re talking about and this is buyer or seller? Yep, $500 times 539 transaction. This is another 260 $270,000 of annual revenue just off of a transaction fee. So people are like, Hey, how do you pay for this stuff? I think it pays for itself. Oh, gosh.

And again, I have the whole system on how to monetize it all. So my trucks, my trucks, it’s not a big thing that my trucks make us about $22,000 a year because of the ad space. And we just added an additional

advertisers row is what we call it sponsors row on them. So I’ll have additional ad or revenue on those. So my trucks in my enclosed trailer. But so I have a whole system to monetize it, how to sell it to the contracts, all of that to get your trucks monetized. And again, agents in teams of brokers need to keep this in mind that this is a marketing vehicle for you. Branding vehicle for you. Yeah, this is a what kind of

what lead sources would you stop paying for that had a shitty ROI? I mean, what? Yes, exactly. There’s so many lead sources that agents just because I think our industry is the biggest one that just throws money at dumb things that don’t then they don’t check their ROI. But this is a branding vehicle that’s out here you’re making money off of we don’t throw money. This industry throws money at bad things that doesn’t follow up on I mean, it’s ridiculous. Like, we’re so in the pray and spray mentality where we just try to hire somebody, like people will try to hire us think that we’re gonna fucking make them rich, okay, no, we can’t make you rich, you have to do the videos, and then you will be or you’ll be successful, right? You still have to put in the work whether or not you’re hiring us or somebody else that’s going to get in there and, and help you build your brand or whatever you’re hiring for. Right there. You still have to perform on your end, there is no such thing as a magical bullet. Like everyone likes to go out and get this great big tech and these auto responders that no one ever actually builds out, because it’s way too advanced for them. But it feels good to have it because someone else said you should. Mm hmm. And you want to try to get it because you think your competitor will and so you want to compete and pick up that and and right now more than anything, don’t you feel this is when you should do it in every market, every market but with this market shift, knowing that there’s less opportunities, there’s going to be less opportunities next year in our market, there’s just going to be less houses that are going to sell there just will be what’s going on. Now it’s time to lean in to your only thing I would be doing right now is loving on my soI and I’m going to focus on any type of prospecting or lead gen. It’s going to be a very specific niche. We’re doing it we’re doing motivated seller leads. That’s it. That’s our advertising and motivated seller leads we’re looking for high distressed people. Those are all I’m spending money on for Legion. Everything else is brand smart. Yep, that makes complete sense. People ever wants Leads leads leads, but who cares? I want closings closings, closings. Oh yeah. I don’t like chasing after people that I like when people come to me. That’s what happens when you have a brand guys and there is a difference between branding and marketing. And I would say you’re you see a lot of the same gurus I do. But even within the last two to four years, I started to seven years ago and I’m like You guys gotta be marketers. I’m gonna talk about marketing then in content creation, literally, the industry Evers lead gen, everyone’s talking about how to convert Zillow leads realtor.com leads how to call expireds how to call for sale by owners and all these old school type prospecting techniques that the reality is is that are really cut out for maybe about 4% of the industry that will actually succeed at those types of tactics. But the only tactic or any marketing thing that will work equally with every single person that implements that is marketing and building a brand off the database you already have because within that database they already know like trust and love you and a certain percentage of those people to the tune of 10 to 15% will be moving this year with 100% of them having a referral for you the question is whether or not they’re going to use you or not. When you’re top of mind those chances increase very greatly. This isn’t rocket science is it Alma is that that is the biggest that’s what I built it off of and before I started this like just a little background on me, I started with my broke is can be had a brand new baby at home they weren’t my youngest went to his first closing when he was two weeks he’s now he got licensed when he was in high school sold his first house in high school he now works for us but he

I was busting my ass at open houses. I was running 15 to 25 open houses a weekend and I was doing good because we didn’t you know at that time my biggest ad spend was print because that’s how long I’ve been in the business.

So busting my ass and it got to a point where I was like this does not make any sense I need I need to send

menten my clients had that they should go nowhere else ever again, because of the service I’m giving them. And if I’m not giving it an I’m big on mine, I expect good service where I go, if I’m not giving that to them that they can’t refer me right away to anybody who’s making a life change. Everybody knows somebody making a life change, not Hey, who do you know who’s buying who wants to buy or sell? That’s the shittiest thing to ask, like, who do you know that’s in a life change, anybody in a life change is likely going to be somebody I can help, you know. And so that’s what that’s what really the whole, this whole thing was born, it’s like, there has to be a better way for me to have a foundation to make sure that I’m being referred out as much as possible and taking care of my ecosystem so well, that they have, they wouldn’t never think of not referring me, you have to have a brand. Otherwise you’ll never attract. Yeah, and there’s a lot of ways to build the brand, folks. One, you do it through an experience. Like with what you’re doing. Yeah. But you also got to do through ongoing marketing to like, there’s nothing and everything you do in the business is marketing, the views you see the kitchens, you walk through the clients you meet, it’s all marketing and storytelling at the end of the day. But if you don’t put yourself out there and put yourself in that position, quite frankly, people just forget what you do, because you’re not that important. And no one’s thinking about you 24/7. But it’s not their job to do that, even though we think it should be your job to remind them, they don’t work for you, you work for them. Okay? So therefore, you have to take the earnest here and do it yourself, because no one can do it for you. And if Amy’s not doing this in her market, trust me, there’s somebody else that is infiltrating it. And that’s how competitive real estate is. Everybody’s selling the same shit. But there’s only one person that I know of now with a VIP club that has their own trucks that has a tool shed a storefront, their own Costco, different home services, you can save up to $10,000 a year on and they happen to sell real estate.

And we’re the best at connecting buyers and sellers to

Yeah, yeah, folks, there’s a lot to unpack out of this episode today. My I’m gonna do my closing thoughts and let me share hers. But it’s very simple. You got to start doing something different, and create the experience that people remember. And your experience then becomes what you mark it. Amy, what are your closing thoughts? Yeah, my closing thoughts are that lifetime lead strategy has changed the way we do business for everybody I’ve sold my courses to it’s changed the way they’re doing business. So because again, it’s real estate will always be a relationship, a relationship based business. And it will make you sticky to your clients. And it’ll make you sticky to your agents, my average agent sells close to 30 homes a year, most of them are above 30 homes a year. And again, my 10 years with my agents is six years. average tenure is six years, so my agent stays. So again, the software I put together makes you sticky for your agents, so you’re providing nothing but value. And that’s what we need. As brokers and team leads, we need to provide the value of these with the built in leads. And I’ll tell you what, my isa has an 8% conversion rate. You know, that’s way that’s like was it 1% or less than 1%? And ers is on what leads but it’s the hook of lifetime home support that they get that why would they go anywhere else? So if they’re interested in my course, they can certainly look me up and I’ll shoot him out the information. Yeah, why don’t you share your website so people know where to go and then we’ll get this wrap. Okay, well, they can head out to for the course itself they can just put it out on a Asare academy.com backslash start your VIP club.

And then they can reach reach me with any questions just let me stack burger.com are all my handles are at Amy at Amy sack burger real estate. Pretty easy to Google. He can’t miss me.

I like it, folks. This is a really really great job. You mean congrats on all your success. I love it. What you’re doing I mean, like this is this is the business guys like I couldn’t have put it up better. You’re not gonna make in this business without branding and marketing. I don’t care who you are, what you do, I don’t care how good looking you are, or maybe not. Without marketing and branding, you’re not going to succeed in this business. It is the number one reason we have the show. It’s the number one reason why every other Guru is finally starting the same the same things. And everyone’s telling you to go ahead and create content consistently to do that. And there’s no one better to do that with than us. So whether you wanted to sign up with our platform referral suite, we help you create content that puts you on the map or we do it for you and turn you into a local celebrity just like we did with Ramsey who was also in Amy’s market who Amy has just passed up and notoriety and YouTube use.

You call real estate marketing dude very, very simple. Appreciate guys listen to their episode. And thanks for liking and subscribing to our show. Follow us on social the rest of our channels. And don’t forget to tune in next week. And more importantly, I want you to go right now to www dot referral suite.com and sign up and start building a brand that people will stop forgetting what you do because that is the baseline and where you start with everything we chatted about today. Have a great week and we’ll see you guys next 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 web

set at WWW dot real estate marketing dude.com 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 schedule time to speak with a dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.

Get Out of Your Comfort Zone & Market

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Today we are looking at another way to combat this recession; expanding beyond your current market and your comfort zone. Whether that’s expanding to neighborhood, city or state, get out of your comfort zone. It might be scary, but this is the perfect opportunity for you to expand your brand and your business.

Scott is the broker and owner of Finish Line Realty, an independent brokerage that serves the Greater Louisville area as well as Nolin Lake in Central Kentucky. He also produces Real Estate Distilled, host some of the biggest names in real estate.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

Why you should go to events and conferences.
How can you sharpen your skill set?
Why you need to be investing in yourself.

Resource

Check Out Martin’s Website

Transcript:

Very good, man. Thanks for having me on, I really appreciate the opportunity to share with your audience and talk about one of my passions and events and how you can make it a part of your business and actually, you know, implement things and make them beneficial to you. So I really appreciate the opportunity.

You have you started doing this event, because you were just like an event junkie, right?

I mean, part of it, there wasn’t a conference that I really felt like that was a fit for, for me as an independent broker in the areas that I wanted to be in. And, you know, it’s events are either put together by a coaching company, or a software company is already you know, the big maybe you guys company. Yeah, you know, but you know, it’s, there’s hard, it’s hard to find one that’s put together that doesn’t necessarily have something that is, it’s like a loss leader for right. So you’re coming there to see, you’re going to learn. And yes, there is definitely beneficial to go to ones where other people are using the same systems as you, you can find people that are doing the same workflows as you. But also just having something like you said outside the box, people operating their businesses differently, is really what I was trying to accomplish and put together a network of people that I could turn to on a random Tuesday with a question.

When back in 2006, Spot seven, right when the market started to turn, I was in this situation. We’re in Chicago and these things, short sales started to come across my desk because I used to rent an office next door to an attorney and the attorney was too damn lazy to negotiate a short sale. So he gave them to me. And when you get your first short sale file, you’re like, what the hell you’re gonna do? Yeah, at that time in Chicago, in the Midwest is always a year behind the coast, right? It starts in California, then it just comes over if it goes from west to east guys, and this is where I think you’re gonna see in this market, but at that time, no one knew in Chicago knew to fuck a short sale was, however, back in California at that time, they’re transacting, they’re coming big, you know. And I started going to these conferences. And I remember being the guy in the back of the room at the conference. And I remember, Jeff Watson was one of the speakers at him. I saw the short sale kit at one of the speakers at him. And I sat there in the back of that conference, I said, I’m gonna be fucking leading this conference with me, I’m gonna be speaking at this conference, I’m gonna have my own conference, I’m gonna get 300 people to come to it. Not only did I end up learning techniques, but it was because I was willing to step outside the box and we became the largest short sale team in the country at that time. 25 To 35 closed a month. We’re negotiating all over the country, and we had several different streams of income lined up. It was actually the best years of my career before I crashed again. And it was only because I was willing to step outside the box. When I go to a conference. My goal is to go ahead and soak up the information that I get. But what realistically happens is other opportunities I’m living and seeing Diego right now, as a result of a $15,000 mastermind I signed up for in 2013. And the person I’m partners with now happens to live in San Diego. And that’s why I live here today all started from a conference. So I’m telling you guys, I’m living speaking proof of why you need to go out and go to these conferences, to have the biggest stories of life changing stories in my life have actually come as a result of them. Scott, what’s your experience?

Yeah, 100%. So the people who were putting together conferences, you know, I work really hard to get speakers like yourself to come and share their stories and put together actionable tips that attendees can can put into their business. But you have to remember, for every person that’s on the stage, there’s another 1520 30 people in the audience that also have information that they can they can share with you, and they can impart on you and you can put into your business and the conversations that are happening between the speakers that are taking place at happy hour and at dinners and lunches. Those are just as valuable. It’s what’s happening on the stage. So yes, definitely going into it with an open mind and not having any preconceived notions of what you’re going to do or what you’re going to learn. Just being willing to take it all in and then figuring that out as you’re going through the process.

But how do you answer the question? Hey, Scott, things are getting tight. Right now, I haven’t sold a house, the markets turning sales are down 40%. If I go to a conference, that’s going to cost me by today’s calculation, $450 for the ticket, six to $800 for the room, and then all the drinks, which depending on how big of an alcoholic you are, might be a big budget. So how do you answer that question to them? I think I know what you’re gonna say. But go ahead, go for it.

Yeah, I think I think one of the easiest things right now is, keep in mind that every single person that’s in the audience is a potential referral partner. So that’s just number one, right off the bat, like picking up a transaction from someone else that’s there. It’s one of the reasons why I started real estate to steal is to build a referral network as an independent broker, I typically am pulling in five to six referrals into my little Louisville, Kentucky market where there’s not a ton of people transferring in. So you know, if you’re in a better city, or there’s not as much competition on social media for those referrals, you’re gonna do better than that. And your, your breakevens basically, you know, one good transaction and putting money in your pocket. So even if you pick up one referral, you know, over the next two years, you’re you’re back at breakeven on an event like this, not to mention all the other tips and things that you might put into your business, that’s going to make it even bigger and better.

I this morning. So I’m, I’m going to, you’re like talking me into it during this podcast. But so I’m debating joining this $30,000 year, mastermind slash coaching program. For our software companies, I want to sharpen my skills for sweet assist. If you haven’t heard about this, you should go get suite assist. Or if you haven’t heard about referral suite, you should go get referrals suite. But I want to grow my software company and I’m looking at the cost $2,500 A month, right? So I talked to a friend of mine, Trevor mock, and owner of carrot and carrot and he cocky text me back this morning. He goes, dude, I go Should I join this thing? Should I go to this mastermind? Right? texted me back. He goes, Yeah, tons of great resources, I one little tweak can easily add $30,000 their bottom line. And he’s and he basically just goes, and they go on to say like, and you hear these stories all the time, guys, it’s that one little thing, you get the goal of these conferences, like you’re not going to retain everything you’re going to grab. But if you retain that one or two things, it’s not only going to pencil, it’s going to provide a positive return on investment. So you got to look at this as an investment in your skill. Your broker unless you work for Scott hack is not going to give you business, okay? They’re not going to lead you in the way most times, right? It’s be honest, right? So you have you’re an independent, you’re an entrepreneur, dude, grow up big boy pants, this is the time to do it. Put on your big boy pants, or big girl pants, whatever you want to be. And whatever you are, I mean, and you got to invest in yourself, this is the absolute best time to do it.

It also like it’s good to know both sides, it’s good to know what you want to do. And it’s also great to know what you want no interest, you know, no part of I’ve had people that have been telling me you know, about, you know, flipping flipping profit properties or being you know, accidental landlords, you know, buy hold, or, like investing for me, right, like two years ago wasn’t something I had any interest in. I was definitely focused on home life. We were putting together some personal goals. I’m starting to get a little bit more interested so I can open my ears to those type of things. But at the time, I knew it wasn’t something I wanted any part of. So I think you have to go into it knowing what you’re you’re interested in doing what you want no part of just like when you’re taking a client to a house, you walk them through. You learn things when the house isn’t a fit just as much when you walk through your house it is if it and you’re getting exposed to all those things. From things as quickly as possible, and, quote, failing forward with an idea, like it’s, it’s easy to pick up an idea and say, Okay, I don’t want to put any more time into that idea right now, like someone’s already shown me why this won’t be a fit for my business.

I think when you look at it from No, from an investment aspect, I get it sad that we don’t view ourselves because we’re such an A, we don’t view our mindset or skill sets as an asset many times and I’m guilty of it, too. I’m not sitting here preaching to everybody, right? I do this all the time, I’m guilty as charged. But we really need to like, the sharper your skill set gets more value becomes but instant gratification is bad, nasty drug, especially in this business, like we buy leads for leads we don’t even follow up on just because it feels good. Like that has got to change, like you know, and just the you are the brand. And the more and more this turns into an individual agent, business and an individual, like what you do is you know, the technology the last year, your brokerage and a lot of the team, it’s going to be your skill sets that ultimately makes a difference. And people hire you not the brokerage anymore. I mean, that’s to the tune of 98%. So invest in yourself, folks.

Yeah, and prioritize yourself. I mean, I was talking with an agent the other day, and they were, they were telling me, and they’re here locally, so they have no excuse not to make it and that was like, she’s like, I wish I could do those type of things. And I’m like, Well, what’s keeping you from doing it? And she’s like, well, I’m actually busy doing you know, showings and I have a staging company, and I’m thinking to myself, so you just told me that it’s not a priority, you if it was important, you’d prioritize it, you know, obviously, you can tell I’m a little bit overweight, going to the gym is not a priority to me. If it was a priority to me, I’d be there. And I think that you have to make the decision to invest in yourself prioritize, you know, being a learner, my MLS, or my Board of Realtors always has this thing on the board. And it’s like, those who learn more, earn more. Yeah, you know, it’s true. Like, I always teach my agents, one of the very first things I teach them is like, as soon as I can get you to confidently tell someone you don’t know the answer to a question, the faster everything else is going to fall into place, you have to have that confidence to know that you can go find the resource and the answer to report back to him. And that’s really, what we’re trying to do is just spread spread knowledge. So you can be more knowledgeable about a bunch of different things and be able to answer questions faster.

Where do you eat been around a while? What do you think the market is going to hit? Like? What type of? I’ll get my opinion in a second. But what do you think the market? Like? What type of knowledge would you be seeking right now? What type of strategies like what are you planning on doing? What do you plan on learning this year?

So actually, three, three kinds of things that I put into my plan, we’re doing a little bit more of physical mailings. So we’re trying to get back in the mailbox, feel like digital has got some saturation going on, people are doing some ignoring just a bit really? Say it again,

just a tiny bit. Yeah.

I mean, you definitely if you can get eyeballs on things, great news, the price points will make sense, then, you know, have at it. But really, there’s a lot less competition in the mailbox. So we’re, we’re trying to dial in on some geographic farming concentrate on a little bit closer to home, and price points that we’re trying to pick. So that’s the first thing. Second thing is I feel like they’re going to buyers are going to reengage in the market, there’s a little bit of shock that happened when their buying power, you know, got cut by a third or almost a half by some of them. But people are still having babies, they’re still getting married, they’re still getting divorced, all those transactions are still taking place, and people are just gonna have to readjust what their buying power looks like. And I think once that initial shock wears off, and hopefully, interest rates actually kind of settle closer to, I don’t know, hopefully, five, five and a half percent, that market I think will continue to move forward. And we might have a little bit of a lower transaction count just a little bit, but I don’t think it’s gonna be a long term, personally.

Yeah, the stats came out. Most of the market, it was like, the transactions were down 37%, November 21, and 22. But the agent count was much greater, down, like to the tune of 40% of the local agents are already out of business. So like, there is opportunity, but I think you hit on the head, I’m focusing on learning a lot about seller motivation, motivated sellers is where our prospecting efforts will be in 2022. And I’m talking about motivated sellers. God’s mentioned a couple of really big tips, you guys. You can buy data from anywhere, okay, as long as you own the data, you can target people but we’re creating a, a multiple options solution, because we know based on upon data, that distressed is coming, and it’s already here for many people. And those sellers are going to have life changes. They’re gonna lose their job. Yeah, they’re gonna also get married. Okay, so not all doom and gloom. But yeah, we’re focusing all around life situations, and doubling down on cost. otter,

and also multi generation housing. So I was reading something the other day when they were talking about there’s a lot of 35 year olds that are moving back at home. So I mean, and you got parents

after their after their $40,000 a year college education, right that they can’t afford to pay the monthly bill on

student bill. And you got parents, the boomers that are starting to, you know, they’re wanting to age in place, but not all of them can. So you know, some of them are moving in with their kids. And, you know, that’s starting to take place some so you’ve got both ends of that spectrum. So people might need different types of housing to accommodate the with the family dynamic looks like, yep. You know, those are opportunities. I don’t know. It’s not as popular here. And you were talking about how things kind of started on the coast and then work their way into the Midwest. And the, you know, the accessory dwelling units, you know, we’re starting to say, no, well, we’re starting to hear some zoning rumblings about people. They’re trying to work on getting the market ready to, you know, some sort of things like that to take place. It’s not a big thing here yet, but I see it starting to take shape. So it started I mean, it’s bigger out there already, right?

Oh, yeah. I mean, they pass a lottery basically build anything. There’s not even like rules, I guess. I don’t know the zoning laws out here like it did in Chicago. But yeah, it’s huge. Everything is related living here. It’s just so expensive. It’s an affordability issue out here, not a housing issue. Strictly affordability. So yeah, they’ve been in that seat, guys. What we’re talking about here, though, are just trends. And the riches are in the niches if you’re just realized everything we just talked about, those were all niches. Okay. And in a recession, I could promise you the riches are in the niches, they are always, but more so in a recession. And when you go and you focus on that one thing that you own, you’ll actually, I believe, do way more business, I’ve done it before. I’ve seen it in several markets, it’s you know, several people. The riches are in the niches, it’s the generalist who’s gonna get their ass kicked this season. You can’t just be a real estate agent, it’s a lot different to be a problem solver for people who have house problems. I can just be a real estate agent, I can be an estate specialist and help you liquidate your property.

And part of that comes from the consistent messaging. Because when you’re a generalist, you don’t have enough opportunities to be in front of people often enough to build the brand and deliver a message that’s consistent. So when there’s an opportunity for a transaction, they think of you and not one of the other agents that you’re competing with for their eyeballs.

100% agreed all of this stuff that requires you guys again, it’s the point of, we’re just giving you guys talking points, you know, at the end of the day, requires you to go out and get it the informations out there. People are doing it and like, why are you trying to recreate the wheel? We do, like so many videos with people all the time. And, like, I would guess 25 to 35% of people try to recreate the wheel. And I’m like, Dude, we’ve done three to 4000 videos, scripted it edited and distribute over the last 18 to 24 months 3000 videos, I’ve done the most videos in the United States in real estate off of anybody. I can tell you what works and what doesn’t. Don’t recreate the wheel. Just fucking follow the plan, right and will lay off the plan. And you won’t follow the damn plan. Okay, biggest lesson I’ve learned ever, ever, ever, ever was just don’t recreate the wheel. Make it your own. And I learned that at an event. And it’s so damn true. Because I used to want to recreate the wheel because of my ego was so big, that if I didn’t own the idea, I didn’t want it. Yeah, it’s crazy.

Well, you were talking about, you know, someone in an event. It’s awesome. I’ve made so many friendships and so many mentors that have helped me across the country. And it’s random Tuesday, I have an idea and I shoot off an email and get a response back that says stop being an idiot, either, like don’t do that or do that. What are you waiting for? So it’s awesome when you’re able to generate those friendships and people who’ve been there, done that seen it already, you know, like you said, there’s no reason to recreate the wheel. Most of the people that have you have a resource that someone that’s done it that you can lean on. And people do business with people they know like and trust. And I think it’s the same thing like mentors, people. They like you, they’re willing to open up and share their experiences with you and make you a better agent.

So you think I like Tony Robbins and all these people that we all aspire to be like and whatnot are like, don’t give back there where they are because they do like you just be amazed. Just talk to him to be like, Hey, what’s up, dude? Oh, bah, bah, bah, that little conversation is that one thing you sometimes get. Folks don’t hold back. This is the season to invest in yourself. Like the transactions will be slow but it’s gonna be how you react to the market. It’s gonna make a difference between you and them. I’m going to promise you something I can promise you that 85 90% of markets not going to react right now but that alone is your opportunity. You have to get Jesse we saw Jesse Itzler to mastermind once he said you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Bill, and if you’re not in the most uncomfortable situation, you’re not growing always and that always sticks with me. So I want to be the dumbest person in the room. I want to be the most uncomfortable person in the room because when I am, I am never stopped growing because the biggest enemy of an entrepreneur is complacency. Scott once you Tom a little bit about your event you got coming up.

Yeah, so real estate distilled happening for the fifth time coming up at the end of February, February 28. And March 1 and second. So we’re going to be meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, the home of bourbon conference is called Real Estate distilled. We have a spirits theme. We invite people to be thirsty for knowledge and show up. We’ve got a what we consider a winning recipe for the conference. One part industry experts, two parts networking, stirred over three days a little bourbon tourism and served up with Southern hospitality.

So yes, it’s a cool city man. Actually, I when I spoke there, if I’m not mistaken COVID happened the next day. I remember being in the airport and we left Louisville, and I saw someone wearing a mask and I was like, the hell’s going on? Why is that girl wearing a mask? I’m like, well, there’s another one. Oh, hey, there’s another one. And I remember talking to this girl next to me like this, like so I’m gonna happen here and boom. Next, you know, the NCAA Tournament was shut down. And we all know what happened from there on. But yeah, it was wild. Absolutely. But enjoy. You guys. If you guys aren’t going to check out real estate to still check out all the conferences, just the stuff you learn there. It’s not just the education. It’s the people that you meet and you have drinks with that you go out with that night and you have dinner with like, those connections are priceless. I’m telling you, I’m living that half the people I do business with today, I actually I’d say 75 to 80% of them as a result of people I’ve met at conferences or masterminds. It’s the only reason I got the hell out of Chicago. Thank the Lord. For that. Scott, we appreciate you dude. appreciate you sharing your insight and whatnot. Any closing thoughts you want to go out

I really appreciate you letting me come on and share these I feel like you said whatever event you’re going to doing events is important getting outside of your comfort zone. It’s important. Meeting new people is important. Learn don’t stop learning. Stop learning you stop growing you stop putting effort into your business and I think that there’s there’s a million different ways that you can do the business and I think that finding something that you’re passionate about is what’s important so go out there and learn something find something you’re passionate about

love it i folks balls in your court Get your ass out there do some different start getting very uncomfortable start get comfortable being uncomfortable, as Mr. Jesse Itzler would say appreciate guys listen, another episode of real estate marketing dude podcast. If you have any additional questions, let us help you with your content strategy or Let us at least help you generate more referrals. We have a software that helps you script that well. We could give you all of our scripts so we get video email, direct mail and stay in front of your database on social media no more thinking about what to say or do on social or email or direct mail. It’s all done for you all you got to do like I said before is follow the damn system. Have a good one. Merry Christmas. 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.com We make branding video content creation simple and do everything for you. So if you have any additional questions, visit the site, download the training, and then schedule time to speak with a dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Adapting to Shift With Investors

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Today we are talking about how investors are handling this recession. Like agents, they have to adapt to survive this market, and with the right strategy, thrive.

Martin is the founder and host of the Stroudsburg Real Estate Investors club. With his leadership the group has gone from zero to over three hundred members in less than two years. He currently manages and operates a Real Estate Investing firm operating over five million dollars in assets and he helps investors get above average returns by investing passively in multifamily Real Estate with him and his team.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

How do you make sure everyone knows your name?
How are top agents thriving during a recession?
Why you need to be making content and developing a brand.

Resource

Check out Michael’s Website

Transcripts:

What’s up ladies and gentlemen, welcome another episode of the real estate marketing dude, podcast, folks, where we chat about today is how you diversify. When the market stops transacting by 33%. What are you gonna do during this recession, this is gonna be the best opportunity that most of us will see to actually start building wealth and you don’t make a lot of money when everyone else is buying houses, you make a lot of money when no one else is, because that’s where the opportunity is. And if you’re not adopting the mindset of becoming a real estate problem solver, right now, people are going to be eating your lunch. So what I wanted to do today was bring on a investor, not any investor, Latino investor. That’s why we got on the show here, because we support our Latinos on this show. But what we’re going to talk about guys is sort of how to start thinking outside the box, here’s the reality, right? You’re gonna, there’s gonna be a lot of opportunities. And when the market shifts like there’s, there’s gonna be recession, people are going to be losing their houses, their jobs, and other things. And they’re going to need help. And this is why every real estate investor in the country is self attaining on the sidelines right now. They’re not getting in yet, but they’re just sitting there. They’re putting on their helmet. They’re strapping on their chin strap, and they’re putting in their mouthpiece, because they’re about to go to freakin feast. And that’s why these markets are so exciting. And real estate agents, lenders, you guys are in the best position to take advantage of this different stuff. So we’re gonna get into that a little bit further right now. But without further ado, let’s go ahead and introduce our guest, Mr. Martin. Perdomo. A Superdome. All right. That’s correct. Port demo. All right, Martin, why don’t you go ahead and tell everyone Hello, and tell him a little bit about yourself. Hey, everyone. Thanks. Thanks for having me, Mike.

Really appreciate it’s an honor to be here on your show and talking to your audience. I’ve been investing in real estate since 2007. Man I first fell in love with real estate. When I was 1616. I grew up in New York City, born and raised in Washington Heights, and those of you that are familiar with New York, that’s the hood man, it’s rough in the 80s and 90s. And at 16th on my 16th on my 16th birthday. My mom kicked me out for the ninth time she said it says she got home she kicked me out. And I quickly realized my sleeping in trained and and rooftops and and parks in New York City. And then the beaches in Far Rockaway Beach, that human beings needed something really important that shelter and food, right. And that’s when I first fell in love with real estate, I made a decision unconsciously that I was going to own a lot of real estate, so I never have to go through that pain again. And that’s what I’ve done. So that was, you know, that was my debt. When I made that decision. I bought my first investment I bought my first real estate piece of real estate when I was 21.

And I bought my first prop my first investment in 2007. So I was a mortgage broker. And you know, I was the guy giving people those all those bad loans. subprime loans. I was countrywide days baby. Right. I remember that remember countrywide and all those never, never before in the history of real estate has a college graduate at 21 years old had the ability to make 750 to a million dollars a year just right out of college at their first entry level job. That’s the type of market it was for those you guys that weren’t around back then. It was crazy man. It was we were making so much money. I remember

Mike being in my conference room with my sales team and telling them I didn’t know what I knew now, right? Obviously, and I remember telling my people say, Hey, man, we’re giving these these loans these 300,000 loan to someone making $40,000 a year. Fundamentally, it just doesn’t make sense. But I wasn’t intelligent enough. I wasn’t smart enough astute enough to know how to look for the opportunities. I didn’t know how to prepare. Like you said, when we started earlier.

The real estate investors are salivating right? They’re chomping at the bit right for the opportunities that are gonna come.

And you know, last year I was saying the same thing like this is not sustainable people offering me $60,000 over asking over the weekend, like put a property in the market and it’s like I’m like this shit doesn’t make sense. Like it’s like deja vu right?

It’s not gonna sustain long term. When I say one thing real quick why he says that you guys gonna support point I mean cut you off. The 90% of the markets never seen a market like this. Like the agents out there. 90% of them never been through this market. Because 90% of licensed real estate agents have never seen a shift. Alright, we’ve been on a

bull market for 12 1314 fucking years. Right so no one knows what to expect, including some of the top we have one of the top agents here in San Diego, I got a little Facebook’s back. You’re listening. I’m talking about you, bro.

The market crashed up. It’s like the top agent and Sandy Berg’s ever gonna crash been doing business seven, eight years? Do you guys all have egg on your face? For anyone who’s saying the market is crashing? Whenever it goes up like that it is unsustainable In today’s internet. Today’s it’s not a supply and demand issue? I don’t think so. They’re people want to buy houses, even though they’re they’re overpaying for them.

It’s an affordability issue. Right now that that said, that’s one of the reasons of why we decided so I told you told your audience earlier we flip houses, right? So we decided our strategy now is when we flip, right? Because you got to be careful when you’re flipping houses in a market like this.

What you’re doing, you got to really understand the data. And that is one of the things that you know, I learned from 2007 After buying my first, like 100 bought my first investment 100,000 I was $100,000 underwater, within two years. Pricing property was worth I bought it for 272 75. Same property was worth 179 Two years later, and you bought in oh seven. So you got caught your pants down? Yeah, man. Yes, sir. However, I just saw a comp of that property burned out. I had college kids and they burned it down. And that saved me. But I just saw a comp, I just bought a triplex not to combat a month ago. And the appraisal comes in here. He’s like, Hey, what are you gonna bring that in at? And he’s like, I don’t know yet. But here’s my comps. I just saw come for a property two doors down from there. Same like exact square footage of that property sold for 385. So my lesson, right? Is Real Estate is very forgiving long term. Right? If don’t wait to the good old saying don’t wait to buy real estate, buy real estate. Don’t wait. So even if I would have hung in there 14 years later, I would have I would have I would have turned around to give up. Yeah, yeah. So so so if you know, it’s about that mindset of having that long term thinking in terms of long term and not just right now, when you flip properties,

like some of the things that one of the strategies I do, if you don’t know what you’re doing, and a lot of the pretenders are already out, right? You got Redfin just left you got glass door, left

door,

or whatever their name or open door, whatever the name of that, like glass or that’s, that’s a really good way to

they all got out. And I remember talking to my team Mike, last year saying, you know, those guys can compete with us. And the reason I say that those guys can compete with us is because while they have virtually unlimited funds, right, they have all this money. We’re intimate in this market. Can you imagine those of us that are seasoned? Alright, think about this for a second. Those of us that are seasoned investors.

What is the toughest part of the rehab process is dealing with those freaking contractors, right? That is the toughest part, right? Those contractors will eat your freakin lunch. And can you imagine what contractors if they try that shit with us? And we’re local, we’re here we have boots on the ground. We have a team assembled everything. What are they doing when they get a call from Zillow? Hey, I’m Zillow in California and I want to rehab they’re killing those guys. Right there. They’re like, can you imagine what they’re doing to them so and no disrespect to them not not throwing shade on them I just on a one to one that really can’t compete right with us locally, because we’re local, right? They’re not they’re not in the business of making money. They’re in the business of spending money.

And they have to spend X amount of money in those hedge fund worlds, whereas the mom and pop or the individuals are actually in the business of making money. And when I never understood what all these pods is, like, why you guys like out and like the worst times to buy, like they came out in oh seven, two member they started buying and they went out right away. It’s like, Dude, you got to you create the fun, like in six months from now, then you buy all the properties, you know, by him whenever I was paying peak dollars for him, that’s just like, you would think that they would do like more research on like how real estate works for these high end funds, but none of them do because they’re just spending money. Like a drunken sailor. It doesn’t make sense to me like, like, I study the data man. And I’m like, you know, what, why would you like why are how are you guys justifying those decisions? Right? One of the decisions we made earlier this year when we saw this, all the correction and interest rates going up. Actually, late last year, I said we’re going to now shift to when we do flip a property we’re only going to do properties be low sub 250, right? ARV is up to 50. And that’s because in our market that’s considered affordable. And what I did was I went back and I studied 1981 when interest rates were 16% Right?

those kind of environment that we’re kind of projecting we’re going into. So I studied what investors were doing that and right. And I looked at, hey, people were still buying houses. I bought my first house in 2000. And it was I paid I had an FHA loan 9.75% interest rate was my rate, people are bitching about 7% interest rate right now, I’m like, stop it, stop, like,

you know, that’s not my first investment. And I was a mortgage broker, and oh, seven was 7.75. Right. And I had a 740 credit score, and I was a mortgage broker, I gave myself the absolute best deal.

And so we decided we’re going to only buy properties that are in the affordable space, because in 1981, the investors that were making money were were were selling properties that were affordable, then we feel based on the data income and things like that, demographically, we feel that 250 Regardless of where interest rates go, we give a good product, good clean product turnkey, we’re always going to have a product, we’re always going to have a buyer for that. So it’s about studying the market, right, Mike? Like really knowing your shit, like really just studying and understanding what it is that you mean, I can’t, I can just go buy a house and throw on some paint and granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, refinish the floors and make a bunch of money. That’s what that’s what the novice is doing. That’s how they lose money.

So let’s see here. Here’s you guys, if you listen in to what he’s saying, like real estate investors are a large part. I’ve been become investor friendly. First and foremost, like for all the realtors listening to this guy become investor friendly. Because that’s where the transactions are gonna go. Like, would you rather work with an investor that does like 10 houses a year would you rather work with one individual buyer is going to pitch about the GFCI outlets, and their dad is going to come to the inspection and give you a heart attack. So which wild you really want to go with it? And with that you’re going to have this is why I bring him on the show is because you’re going to have these conversations. I got some questions for you, Martin, because there’s a lot of agents and I want to get more into your strategy. But the question for you as would you like if you had like First off, I mean, investor friendly real estate agents, you really know what I’m talking about like that know their shit, like investor friendly people that are gonna go out there and source deals for you. People that did be like, Hey, yo, do you know like, the zoning in here is way under built. If you brought this to its highest and best use, you could probably do this with that. How many people are talking that way?

Dude, I host the local real estate investors meet up in my market. And I talk about this exact same exact same thing you just bought up. There is a handful, maybe three in my market that I can that can have that kind of conversation with me. And not it’s not the realtors fault. They’re taught to stay out of trouble. In real estate agents school, they taught they’re taught to be scared and this is they’ve taught that anything outside of a mortgage traditional 30 year mortgage or 15 year mortgages Oh, it’s illegal. And they and this is what I tell Realtors when they come is learn how to provide value to a guy like me because I’m the gift that keeps on giving right? Like I’m the gift that you know I’m the guy that’s gonna give you transaction after trends you want to partner with guys it doesn’t have to be me but a guy like me right? Fortunately for me my wife is a realtor so I’ve trained her on how to think as an investor

you got you guys are probably like going to like Valentine’s day talking about cash on cash return and cap rates

yeah

understood how to speak the language

and how to provide value to like just exactly like a ton of money with with guys like us that are we’re constantly buying right the you know we’re not going to pitch about little GFCI outlet we’re not gonna bitch about the roof and a bunch about this like we just wanted to do it makes sense we run the numbers it makes sense our students do and you sell it to us and you’re going to step in and then you’re going to sell it for us so it’s a double whammy right that’s that’s Mark playing that’s playing a small well most people don’t think that eight investors have a bad name like really agents Oh get the investors waiting someone’s getting ripped off that’s not true like guys got I’m gonna rewind what happened in oh seven people are gonna need investors to bail them out. I mean, that’s just what’s gonna happen. Investors yes, they make money but so do you.

Right? Are you are you a dick for fucking selling me a house at a 5% rate that you just put on the MLS and you just let the MLS sell? Let’s be honest, right? So you have to open your eyes to this stuff you guys and that’s my only goal to show today is to really get you thinking outside the box get you guys really looking at why not only do you want to become investor friendly in this upcoming market, but also work with different investors and honestly, like, Who here wants to sell real estate for the rest of their life? Nobody. Nobody can last the reason why 90% of the business hasn’t been through

shift like this is because no one last in this business for more than 10 years because it can be a grueling job. And most of the people that start out and do very well become investors themselves, you would think that makes common sense. It’s like sort of the natural progression of a real estate agent, learn the market, go in there, and then eventually become the investor become your own best client at the end of the day. So let’s get into some of these strategies. Now just wanted to pick that up, because I want to point you guys in the right direction to head during this recession. Because just do it, trust me.

Where I wouldn’t had as just being a regular residential agent anymore, I just would stay away from a adept it’s time. So let’s get into this, you’re gonna go into the buy and hold, which is attractive. A lot of investors like to make a quick buck. It’s harder to find a buy and hold. Let’s get into that. strategy. First. Buy and hold is different by the bind flip. Guys, I’m sure you guys understand that. But what do you look for in a buy and hold? Like, I just want to play real estate agent and you play investor? That’s what you are. And I paid you What do I look for? What kind of properties are you to buy? What’s the strategy in this? So when I’m looking for buy and hold, I’m looking for bigger plays. But if you know, I don’t know who your audience is, let’s just I just bought a triplex. Let’s just Let’s just Let’s just look at that right, I just bought a triplex a couple blocks from here. So that’s the most recent one I bought less than a month ago. And when I looked at that, I look at a couple things, right? It’s a little you run the numbers differently, right? I’m looking at, I’m looking at Cap rates, I’m looking at income, I’m looking at value, add opportunity. So So those of you that don’t know capitalization, what capitalization rate is capitalization rate is my rate of return on my on what that’s the rate that properties are trading at,

in a particular market, right. That’s how you could calculate the value. So I look at a What’s the rent? Was it current rent, and that particular asset? And then I look at what can I get this rent to? And what do I have to do to the place to get it to that rent? So for instance, if I have four let’s just say make even even if even numbers if I’m getting $36,000 a year for let’s call it $40,000, a year from that triplex currently

performing so it’s underperforming by like 15 grand a year, right? 15 grand a year, so I can get it to 15 to 55,000 hours a year. How much money do I have to put into the property? To get it to give me that? And then what’s my valuation once I increase it to that income? So it’s a it’s a little bit different? Beast, right? I’m running different animals, and I’m running different different numbers. And then can I exit on a refi?

too, to burn it. And maybe the people know that you’re people familiar with the buy, renovate,

rent, refinance, and repeat. If I can borrow it, then what’s my, what’s my, what’s my tenants? And

what can I refinance it out, and while they’re still cashflow, so there’s a lot of different moving parts. And I’m looking at, for instance, this particular one, Mike, we it was a three units or three unit. We have crappy tenants in there, places falling apart, it’s way underperforming, I mean, the rents, I can get another $600 in rents, what do I have to put into it, though I have to put in there’s a hole in the roof like roofs getting done tomorrow, there’s a hole in the roof is just falling apart. I have no idea how people will live like that. But my value add my upside in this particular and agents pay attention if you’re predominantly listeners or agents. My value add was that there is a there’s a meter in the meter base electrical meter base, there’s a fourth meter in the basement. It’s a walkout basement. And that was grandfathered in and there was an apartment there at one time there’s a kitchen and already a bathroom in there. It’s full of junk right now. But that right there turns changes that whole property, I can go in there now. But a new meter, put it rewired, put new, redo the bathroom, redo the kitchen, turn it into a brand new place, right, and I go from buying that place, I’m gonna wind up putting about 60 grand in rehab into that property. Bought that place at 219. These let’s call it 201 96. Let’s just call it 200 200. I’m going to put 60 in and I’m going to have 260 The after we call it ARV after repair value the new valuation because I’m fourth appreciating it the new valuation of the property projected after I’m done it’s $475,000. So what can I refi it out right what what can i What can I get with that right? How much equity do I have? I just created a ton of equity for myself. This particular and I have a cash flowing asset and the asset will be paid by the by the debt is paid by the residents. And I keep the assets and I still cashflow it’s a win win win win situation. You got to know how to buy. I don’t kind of give you the long, long view. But that’s the

Are the Fit kind of the 50,000 foot view of all the moving parts? When when I’m looking at buying multifamily now something that’s small, I’m gonna look at it. That simple, right? Something bigger, we purchase a 57 unit earlier this year. And that one similar strategy Hey, what was the wrench wrench for 700 we pushed him all the way to $1,100 a month, we sealed the driveway, we dropped about 200,000 The property did a bunch of a bunch of things to add value to the place. And we forced appreciate it. The asset at that scale. Now we force depreciated by about $2 million in less than a year. That’s a bigger scale. It’s a little bit more sophisticated, but it’s same same, same product Minister same process. And if agents just learned how to like if they just got educated, listen to guys like you and learn how to do things like this man, like, like, learn how to run these numbers and bring deals like this to guys like myself. Holy smokes man, like, sky’s the limit for you. Your life will be so much easier. I do have a question for you, Mike, what do you rate your projections? What are you seeing?

2023 is going to look like? I think it’s going to change on where you’re at geographically. I think the blue states are gonna get their ass kicked. Like they already are. I’m in San Diego. They’re getting crushed.

I think it’s an affordability issue. So the high peak markets, the Phoenix, Las Vegas, all of California.

The Midwest markets seem pretty safe for the time being. But yeah, it’s because I don’t everyone, the typical real estate agents, oh, supply demand, there’s demand. And they’re just reading these talking points from National Association of Realtors. Right. But in reality, no one’s considering gas prices, no one’s considered inflation. And no one’s talking about the stuff that takes the average Joe out of the market, and more concerned about what’s going to happen tomorrow for their kids. And that’s the reality of it. The average nope, people don’t have savings. You guys like people act like there’s a bunch of people have savings. No, the vast majority of people out there have are living paycheck to paycheck. And when everything goes up two or $300 up a month, like I’m sorry, you no longer think about buying that house, you think about your future kids tomorrow. So I don’t think it’s an a supply and demand issue. I think it’s all affordability. And I personally think that our government is trying to crash the real estate market. That is many evidence of that they’re trying to why they’re doing it, we won’t go into conspiracy theories. But point being is that it’s happening. Right. So now with that, I think that as the recession hits, and the more and more stuff they do to crush the market here, there’s gonna be people that are in distressed, and if I’m focusing on anything gets motivated sellers, and that’s why we built owner advocate.com. So if you guys wanna check that out, go and check that out. I’m going all after motivated sellers. But I believe everyone needs to be a problem solver. Because when I do know from the last crash, if you guys been listened to show I mentioned a couple times, but we are Big Short Sale 25 to 35, close short sales a month, I was buying a percent of those and flipping them. But I didn’t care about the transaction, what I focused on was just helping people. We did that for about two years in a row, largest short sale team in the country, doing the exact same stuff that I believe is about to happen. It’s not going to be as bad as it was in oh seven. I don’t think they’ll I think they’ll Don’t ever let those foreclosures go to public. I think they’ll transact and behind closed doors to the funds, and all the other things so that the public perception doesn’t crash like it did last time. But there’s going to be a million opportunities for the mom and pops because the eye buyers are now exiting. So there’s our big cash buyer competition. And where you’re at a smart like focusing on the lower dollar, the affordability within your issue is probably where I would play too, because no one knows what’s going to happen tomorrow. So if you’re rehabbing, I wouldn’t go for the luxury rehabs right now, I wouldn’t even touch them. I don’t even think about them. I would do exactly what you just said. You want to be right. And the affordability areas. It’s not supply and demand affordability. That’s your issue. And nobody wants to get caught with their pants down. Because I could tell you I know I tell you so many people who have like I said, you guys, we both were both talking here. We both were around and oh seven doing the same stuff. And you just have to be a little bit careful. Now on the flip side of that, get excited because I’m not trying to paint doom and gloom. I think you’ll have more opportunities. I think it’d be tonic opportunities right here in San Diego because I think it’s going to crash you here. More so than like Florida.

The Texas is the Florida’s all the inbound states are still inbound. We have clients all over the country, and they’re not as effective as much. But the Midwest states I think are going to be safe. But the high end luxury is what I’m seeing struggle right now. The higher end of your markets.

Yeah, I’ll share this with you. I went to a conference and I’m not gonna mention the conference name. It was in February, in Colorado, because I don’t want to I don’t want to put them in bad light. But it was this very same day, Mike that that Ukraine got invaded by Russia. And so I just flew into Colorado.

And the news hit that morning and I was like, Okay, this is great. I mean, the biggest commercial real estate investors conference in our, in our industry, right, one of the biggest. So we’re gonna talk about this stuff, you know, gas is starting to soar rightly, all these things and we’re gonna talk about and I was so disappointed man.

To your point of

what you said earlier how people are getting affected I was so disappointed that you had some really smart people there were people from Marcus Miller champ really, really intelligent people. And they were saying that interest rates going up at that time probably interest rates had just started going up, interest rates going up, gas prices going up and electricity going up to the level that it is right now. 30 40% increase in some some places in electrical and electrical that it was not going to affect multifamily apartment buildings. And I was so disappointed dude, I was so disappointed. I was like, how could you insult my intelligence? How could you insult my intelligence I flew all the way out here from from Pennsylvania to Colorado and you insult my intelligence and say that this war is not going to have an impact that interest rates is not going to have an impact in that we’re just going to keep riding this gravy train. It’s an absolute insult you understand what I’m saying?

when gas prices go up and your average working class person gas prices are going up again have you looked at the gas pump they’re going up because OPEC cuts production? Oh the elections over of course they’re gonna Yeah. Right. Exactly right. So so so when when that occurs, right gas prices goes up and now regular Mom and Pop working class America has to spend another two or $300 a month Do you not think is going to impact my read collections? Do you not think is going to an electrical now you got to spend another 20 another 20 30% Extra in to heat up your apartment? Do you not think that’s going to have an impact like you are foolish? If you expect me to believe that and we as Americans as individuals we have to be able to look at this stuff we got to be listened to people and discern and make our own decisions as to what makes sense and what doesn’t make sense. I wouldn’t I would go out and say that especially as a commercial because the same thing happened oh seven I was one of them. Markets number one that’s what I got caught with my pants down Marcus I forgot about always appreciate the market doesn’t go down. It was just my my inexperience you know, in the market. Like what you said earlier? Yeah, if you stick it in the long run, you’re always gonna win. But there will go in and out and out. Like it’s like we’ve been sampling the crypto right now. It’s getting its ass kicked.

But you have to just be ready to just no one knows the answer. But when things are going good no one ever wants to talk about what the negativity of it because the same thing happened. Same thing in the residential side. I was like, oh, Martin’s gonna go you should buy right now. And I’m always like, Dude, I wouldn’t freakin buy right now, this guy just paid off my old neighborhood, there was a house listed for three mil and it sold it for $1 million over list price. $1 million over list price. Insane. Like it’s crazy, like, and then you would think that the people buying those houses aren’t like you would think they’re intelligent, and they think about this stuff. But they’re just most times that people are buying in that price point they have so much money, they don’t really give a shit like an extra 500 $250,000 isn’t going to do much. But you’re right where it’s gonna hit his middle America. And it’s gonna hit that middle America right when the spot that you’re playing. So you’re gonna hit distressed assets, plus, you’re gonna be able to liquidate them and exit out of them.

You know, what was the most interesting thing last year, when when we were flipping last year, I had quote unquote, investors. First of all, most of us investors, we don’t buy real investors. And if this is you, I’m gonna apologize for you up front if you’re an investor. Real investor knows how to find off market deals, get off market deals. You’ve mentioned it multiple times.

When I had the funniest thing to me was when I had I sold multiple properties last year 40 50,000 over asking price Mike to quote unquote, Airbnb investors. And I’m like, holy shit how I’ll be buying this property. You’re gonna be buying that back in about six months. Back in a couple years, right? Because I was like, I look at that I’m saying how are you making these know how you penciling these numbers? I caught what investor buys first of all, you’re not an investor. If you’re paying 40 $50,000 over asking on the retail marketing, you’re competing with retail buyers. Like like like

you love and you competing with retail buyers. You’re not a real investor. Right because a real investor is not competing with retail buyers. We’re not buying to live retail buyers have the luxury of overpaying and falling in love with properties. We don’t fall in love with properties.

It is we running the numbers. The numbers gotta make sense if the numbers make sense we do with you. Yeah. Sherry non-emotional either works or doesn’t. Like, that’s why I like it.

It works or it doesn’t. And that’s a problem with a lot of real estate guys, a lot of real estate agents. We investors have a bad rep amongst the real estate agent community at times that all but at times, oh because they look we lowball Well, that’s how we make our money understand that we have to buy at a certain price point in order to be profitable. If we pay what mom and pops pay when they buy like a regular tradition. We can’t be profitable. We can’t We can’t make a profit. Yep, make sense? What? Any final words here like what? You know, where do you think we’re gonna go? You think you’re gonna do more holes here? You’re gonna do more flips when you think the markets gonna head? Back to you? Yeah, well, we’re, I think that the market is headed for a correction. But I got to tell you, Mike, I got it wrong. And 2020 I got it got it wrong, right. 2020 I was preparing I’m salivating when when COVID hit. I was like, Yeah, this is it like this is it? I did, we’re gonna I got it wrong and went the other way. I’m looking at the data, or the fear mongering has already been done. As you know, it’s already all over the media, that rental housing market and this housing market that? Well, I gotta tell you, man, I just looked at the numbers. I spent a couple of hours this week looking at the numbers in my market, quarter over quarter. And men were steady, like, we are still steady. We are still like, like, I’m like, okay, yeah, interest rates are going up. People still buying. I’m looking, I’m comparing quarter over quarter like what’s happening, comparing it to last year. And it’s like, it’s steady. So my advice is if you’re going to be playing and you’re going to be investing is don’t be listening just to the media and word even. Don’t even don’t even listen to me, right? Like, if I’m telling you something, go do your own due diligence and research it and do your own due diligence. Pay attention to what’s happening in your market prepare. Like I was saying, I got it wrong in 2020 I thought that we were going to the market was gonna blow up and I was gonna buy a ton of shit. And it was gonna be, you know, an amazing time. It didn’t it went the other way market just demand went up, prices went up. Remember that?

I could be wrong man. I, I looked at I’m looking at the data. And wow, the the interest rates are going up. And in some markets prices prices are coming down for sure we are seeing prices, but a crash. I don’t know. You know, what I what we’re doing is we’re staying couple things. We’re staying disciplined with our numbers. We’re buying, right? And we’re planning for a worst case and we’re getting ready for if that crash does come, where we’re going to continue to buy, what we are doing is we are staying in the game. We’re not going to stop playing. We’re paying attention. We’re watching the data. We’re being disciplined, and we’re not deviating and we’re not making any crazy bets right now in this market, because we don’t know where the market is going. Overall, we’re staying disciplined, and we’re studying the market. We’re watching the data closely. And we’re watching where things go. We’re watching what the feds are doing. Like, if you’re in this business, you need to be paying attention to what the feds are doing. You need to be paying attention to what they’re doing. I do you believe that there will be opportunity in the multifamily space. Because

you’re here. Here’s my thought, right? There’s guys that had that bought larger multifamily bridge, in the garden bridge loan, were 90% LTV, and their margins were thin. So because those guys that were betting that the market is never going to stop and rinse, we’re never going to stop going down and all that shit, right? Those guys that had thin margins, and their value add was 50 or 75 or 100 bucks. And now they’re in this position where the banks the capital markets are saying wait a minute, rates are going up, we don’t want to now they can’t cash flow, and they can’t make those numbers pencil out at these ratios, though things are gonna go going to be on sale next year, just just because of interest rates. So that just makes logical sense for me, I yeah, man that that’s an error of the get those people with those bridge loans that can’t refi into long term, they’re gonna be in trouble. If their margins were thin, and they were betting that it was going to rents were going to continue to go the way they’re in trouble. Those guys are in trouble. They’re going to have to fire yourself. So I’m gonna be looking for those and I’m going to be for those larger more times. But as for the single family, think about it, brother is not like when you and I were back in oh seven, right? Where it was those two year arms right? 9.75 gonna reset in two or three or four years. We don’t have that. Now, we have an inventory issue because people are not selling they have those two 3% interest rates. They’re looking at this or saying we can weather this where am I going with it? Seven 600% Right, where am I going? Right? So so it’s just a weird time. It’s very different. And I’m just we’re just preparing my advices prepare, getting cash every position but be disciplined

Be disciplined with the numbers and pay attention to where the opportunities are, where the puck is going, right? where the opportunities are good in either way, like it’s around how you buy, right? It’s on how you sell or when you say it’s on how you buy, you got to buy, right, and you’re good no matter what it is.

And you guys just got to be careful. But I mean, just by listening to the show, you guys, can you see how you could reposition your brand and niche down in these times when the residential market slows down a little bit, you niche down, you find a niche. And that’s what you lead gen. And you do one thing really well, real estate investors never have a listing issue. And I don’t understand why agents ever do. And it’s because they know where to put their solution and who to put in front of us is why I’m saying become a problem solver, guys, people are gonna need it. And there’s gonna be a lot of opportunity out there. The only thing I would say

the one number and I agree with everything, the one thing I’m worried about, what I would put is that anyone who bought from 2022, first quarter to 12 months prior, and I’m talking specifically about the FHA as the VA loans and the 100% of your financing, like all those people, if the market does shift, like in California, we’ve already shifted 5.3%. So the cost of sale is 8%. In 5.3%, if you only put down 2%. Those people are already underwater. Yeah, that is that’s the that’s the one that’s the thing, I can’t get my head around. Because

once people see that they’re underwater like Phogat. Done SWAK. That’s what happened. That was the snowball effect that took place last time and I can’t get my head around that. So yeah, the affordability but people want to buy people are out there that they need to buy. But they’re like worried about the affordability aspect of it. But there will be a lot of opportunity. Regardless of how you look at it. Go ahead where you say, there definitely will be opportunities. My the other side to that though, Mike is yes, there’s already people under water agreed agreed with you, we’ve seen a 7% drop in value here. We peaked here in we peaked here in April and April of this year here in the Poconos. And we’ve seen a 7% drop April to now which is a significant amount of time, and that’s a lot. That’s a big significant drop. However, the the other side to that is you have those people right to have those fHh vas, they still have those two 3% interest rates.

So while they’re on paper, on their water, on paper, they’re on the water, what’s their payments? And remember, what do people buy? You know, and this why they buy payment, they buy payments, so Hey, am I going to walk away because on paper, it says I’m 50,000 on water. And if I move my payment, my expenses for my family is gonna go up. So it’s again, it’s a tricky time. Like I’ve thrown that shit around in my head. Yeah. Tricky time. When when people pencil the numbers out, okay, do I walk away? My payment is 1500 for this 350,000 Not alone? If I go someplace else, what can I get for 1500? Right? What kind of Prop work? Can I rent for 1500? Why would I get and people have to do that math people will do that math. Some people will smart people will do that math.

Right. And it’s like, and like I said earlier, if you buy real estate and wait over the long haul, if this is you and you’re listening, remember what I said I bought mine in oh seven for 2000 for 275. And oh nine that was 100,000 it was worth 179 and 2022 Property two doors down from there exact same property a duplex sold for 385. So if you hang in there over time, over time,

real estate is very forgiving over the long haul. If you can think the long term can weather the storm maybe

the data has shown me that and my message to your listeners if you’re listening and you’re that homeowner is hang in there and think of the long haul, right because you’re gonna just make it worse for your neighbor for the economy for everyone. So if you couldn’t hang in there, hang in there. If you’re distressed now and you have to sell you have to sell because you lost your job and you have no choice that’s a different that’s a totally different story different conversations and you know guys like Mike and myself will buy them

for short sale, right?

Well, you hang in there very interesting dude great conversation. Why don’t you go ahead and give our listeners your closing thoughts where can they find you? Where can they learn more about your business some of your trainings and whatnot. Yeah, so so you guys can find me on check out my podcast Latinos and real estate investing podcast on Instagram. As the lead strategists look me up the lead strategist. I have a ton of stuff or you can check out my YouTube as well. I have a lot of content on YouTube. Lead strategist where I put a lot of my rehabs and a lot of a lot of cool stuff on there live videos of evicting tenants and things like that I show I like to share with people the real the real stuff, a lot of a lot of

guys out here like to show the fluff. I like to show the real, real deal.

Open up

I have a video like that with the with the actual constable putting this lady out. And it’s interesting because people on the insert in the Internet are like, Oh, you’re such an asshole. You’re such this. What people don’t know is they don’t know the full story right? They know the full story like, Hey, I gave this lady two months free rent, I let her like, this is it like, you know, like people don’t know the full context and the internet is kind of brutal like that. So anyways, go check it out. I have a bunch of stuff like that out there where we put it out real life stories. It’s not a pretty business. It’s a profitable business but ultimates a problem solving business, right? Someone you don’t make really good at solving problems, someone’s problems. That’s all real estate is, Folks, we appreciate you listening to other episode the real estate marketing podcast if you like what you heard today, once you go check out one of our products is called owner advocate agent.com. If you need to sharpen in your listing strategy and get more investor friendly, that’s where you do that. And if you need seller leads, we have all kinds of a for you. So go ahead and look at that. Check that out and keep listening to our show. You can reach us at real estate marketing do.com referral suite.com or the owner advocate.com. Appreciate you and have a good week and I’ll see you guys next week. 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.com 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 schedule time to speak with a dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.

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How to Position Yourself to Win in a Down Market

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Today we have a returning guest, all the way back from our first ever episode! We are bringing the in the big guns to help you survive this recession. Most agents have never seen this type of market but some of us have not only made it through, but leveraged it to put us ahead. Find out how.

Michael Hellickson sold real estate for over 20 years, listing and selling over 100 homes/month, and carrying over 750 active and pending listings at one point. He began his real estate career in 1991 and has been among the top 1% of all agents nationally, before he even graduated high school! At the pinnacle of his sales career, Michael and his team were literally #1 Nationwide, out of over 1,000,000 real estate agents/teams!

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

How do you make sure everyone knows your name?
How are top agents thriving during a recession?
Why you need to be making content and developing a brand.

Resource

Transcript:

So how do you attract new business? You constantly don’t have to chase it. Hi, I’m Mike Cuevas a real estate marketing. This podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust, and 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, podcasts, we’re going to do a little bit of a throwback. Today, this show was started in 2014. And I had no idea what I was doing. I used to pay someone $750 a month just to publish for podcasts for me, which is insane today. And all they would, they would just publish it. But you know, I didn’t know what I was doing. And honestly, with content creation, you just sort of figure it out, you get better as you go today. I could have I could talk here for 60 minutes. And I don’t even know what I’m talking about with my guests yet. I have an idea. But that’s how skilled I’ve gotten in podcasting. And they’re, and they’re one out over time and so differently with video, guys, when you want to build your own brand with video, you have to do it consistently. And you’ll get better as you go just like anything else. So the reason why I’m bringing that story up, though, is because the very first episode we ever did was with our guest today, and this was in 2014. And it was probably a terrible, terrible, terrible episode. But we did it right. And this is even before he started his big thing, he was just starting this at that time. So it’s gonna be good show we’re gonna catch back up and most importantly, today’s what I want to focus on. And I know that a lot of you guys are scared, it’s the fourth quarter. And regardless of what the market is doing, the fourth quarter is always a time when you work on your business and get ready for next year. Right while the market Christmas Thanksgiving, things typically slow down a little bit during this time of year, it’s okay. But you don’t slow down to you start working on your business. And that’s what we’re gonna focus on on this week’s episode. So without further ado, we’re gonna go ahead and introduce our guests, Mr. Michael hellicksen. From club wealth. What’s up, dude?

What’s up, brother? It’s good to see you. I’ve heard them a little hurt when he said, you know that first episode probably suck. I’m like, wait,

I was talking about my performance, not yours.

But that was a long time. And you said that was 2014? Is that right? Yeah.

2014 was the very first podcast episode, which brings it to about eight years of doing this almost every single Saturday publishing the show, books. That’s what content creation does. There’s a reason why we got at 1.4. Now, maybe 1.5 million downloads is because we’re consistent with content. But that’s another show. And if you need help with that, I want you to visit referral suite.com Because we’ll help you be consistent with your personal branding. But this is not about me today. This is about Michael hellicksen. And we’re going to talk about what you guys need to start doing. If you guys don’t know, Mike, let me give you a little bit of introduction, if you will. Michael used to be one of the top agents in the country. And today, his son who was How old is he? He’s 21 years old, I saw this kid grow up and he was he was 12 When I first met him his son, okay, this is the type of coaching Michael does his son just closed or just sign how many listings in his first year in real

estate? While he’s in his first 11 months, he just didn’t number 91 Last night. And that’s not counting his team. That’s just him. And he’s got people on his team. He’s got one of his team members. He’s got, like 65 or 70 listings this year.

Not kids 20 years old. Do you know how long it took me to get that far like what a hustler. It’s very impressive. And what we’re gonna do, let’s talk about what Austin’s doing, and where the opportunities are going to be in the next 12 months. We chatted a little bit before we press record here. And I really want to play in a clearer picture. I think the combined experience between Michael and myself, dude, how many transactions have we done and how many years in the history this is like dinosaur Haven this is like 75 years of real estate experience, brokerages teams, so like you guys have a lot of knowledge right here. So we’re gonna go deep, and we’re going to talk about what’s going to happen. I think we’re gonna have a good pulse on this today. And this is just a prediction. Okay, I’m not a I’m not scientist. I don’t have ESP. Oh my God, I don’t know what’s going to happen. This is our opinion. So alright, so

yeah, full disclosure. I’ve only been in real estate industry now for 32 years. I believe it is something that I do. So it’s it was 1991 when I started selling real estate, and I was in high school back then. So I’m not exactly an old guys let’s not go there. But that being said, you’re right you know, my my claim to fame is at one point in time I was the number one agent on planet Earth and was closing 120 280 transactions a month at a time when most people the number two and number three combined. We’re doing less than half that and and we here we are carrying about 750 listings and active and pending status that point. Now that’s only relevant to the people that are watching this in terms of you know, why should you here listen to what I have to say and I you know, I think that in general in real estate, guys, there’s too much Bad advice going around out there, particularly from people that have never sold real estate or never sold real estate at a high level before. So we want to be really careful about who we take advice from. Now, to Mike’s point, yeah, we can’t guarantee what’s going to happen in the marketplace. But you know, Mike and I have been through a cycle or two. And we’ve seen this a few times. And you know, some people are scared right now. And some people should be scared right now, there’s definitely people out there that that should be thinking to themselves, well, what the freak, you know, what’s, what am I going to do? How am I going to survive this and I will tell you right now, if you have been selling real estate, if you if you were not selling real estate prior to 2011, you don’t know what’s about to happen. You don’t you haven’t been through a tough market yet. You’ve only been through the best market Mike and I and other people like us I’ve ever known in our lifetimes. In this last decade,

90% of the aging population has never seen a market like this, which is also a lot of their team leads a lot of the brokers and a lot of people leading them. Okay, guys, so pay attention to this episode. Because a lot of people don’t know what’s going to happen. I’ll give you a couple stories. Like I see some big names in real estate. And this is how this is just how new I’m not gonna name any names. But I’ll see a bunch of big names in real estate. This is like back in like April, right? May all markets never gonna crash never going to crash. Oh, that’s never gonna happen. I’m like, Dude, we’re gonna go down. 20% Oh, no, don’t ever say that. You’re not going to crash. Dude, we’re gonna go down. 20% you want to call me out on social? Okay, let’s go. Alright, who’s got an egg on their face? So, like, you have to realize what’s going to happen. But I don’t mean to be doom and gloom, because these are the most exciting times, right? These are the times that people realistically what needs to happen is the real estate industry needs to flush out. There’s a lot of people out there and the average agent, I think, as of like, September, September of this year, you probably heard a stat. Only, like 90% of the agents only sold four homes. So I’m like, Dude, how the hell do you even survive off of selling four homes a year? And better yet? How can you only sell four homes a year we have this thing called social media? Right? Like 10 to 15% of your friends on social are moving? How do you only sell four homes a year unless you’re closet secret agent. So I want to let’s start off this combo with this 2014. When we first did this podcast, I was trying to figure out what the hell was going to come next in the business right? I was in the short sales. I was not I called up Michael at the time. This is eight years ago. And we get on a call with a couple other people at the time. And at that time, I was ready to say the market is about to do what it’s doing today. We were talking about getting our short sale departments ready and all this other stuff. And we thought it was going to go down then but we were wrong. Right. And it just went into a bear market forever just like the longest market ever appreciating or bull market, which one is a bull market bull market. So it goes into longest bull market ever. And now we’re seeing this thing. But everyone’s like, oh, there’s a supply and demand, folks, this is an affordability issue, guys. It’s not about supply and demand. Get that out of your head. This is 100% affordability, which was not the case in 2007. Necessarily, no, because

in 2007, you had the whole mortgage market imploding. And here’s the other thing people don’t realize it’s this history repeats itself. It’s just the reasons behind it change, right. But from an economic standpoint, the the outcome is clear. We know what’s going to happen. We know what’s happening right? Now, here’s what happened. Let’s let’s first remember this write this down, though. And you guys have probably all heard this before. But either way it bears writing it down and repeating. And that is those who did not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. And I’m telling you right now that 90% of the agents that are in the marketplace right now don’t know or didn’t pay weren’t paying attention or weren’t in the business. When this happened last time. Now, are we going to see a big tidal wave of Oreos and foreclosures? I don’t know. I don’t know. But what I can tell you is what and what I’m 100% confident that we are going to see to Mike’s point is at least 20%. I think it’s gonna be greater than that, Mike, I think I think 20% I think you’re being generous. I think we’re gonna see 25% And I think probably in the next 24 months at the longest, that we’re gonna see that much of a drop in pricing. The Fed is not going to show a slowdown on their interest rate increases that’s going to continue. And they have to they gotta they’re trying to find ways to slow down inflation. Heck, China, when Trump got elected, China said, if we see double digit inflation in the United States, we’re gonna consider it an act of war, right? Because what are we doing to their debt, we’re devaluing their debt, they’re not going to like that. Now, that being said,

I don’t say that with Mr. Biden, though at all. Oh, that’s great. Yeah,

that’s gonna go there. So that being said, back to what happened back then. So here’s some interesting statistics. From 2007 to 2011. We lost 20% of the transactions in the United States. So there were 20% fewer transactions from 2009 Those years of 27 2007 and 2011, than there were in the five years previous. What’s really interesting is we lost 20 5% of the real estate agents. Yeah. That’s the message I think people need to understand is Listen, guys, this is gonna be a game of attrition short term, right? Like, there’s gonna be people like there was a market in Texas, I can’t remember which market it was. But they had 968 people up for renewal for their MLS deals in October. And of those only 742 or something like that. renewed the MLS these guys that’s over 25% in one month, in one month, agents are dropping like flies, because he can’t even make the freakin payment on their MLS dues, let alone figure out marketing and lead gen and all the other stuff they gotta do to run a successful business. But here’s what’s really interesting, I’ll tell you what happened to my personal business in 2006, seven and eight. In 2006, I was doing about four or 500 transactions a year, which back then was a lot of transactions, right?

Slow transactions.

But it’s but it’s but there’s people there’s There’s people doing way more volume now than were before because teams have taken new forms and new shape and they’ve become more popular and people have embraced them back then they were fairly new. That being said in 2011, that’s when we started doing I’m sorry, 2007 2007, we started doing 120 to 180 transactions a month. Now, guys, why the explosive growth, because all these agents were getting out of the business and nobody wanted to do the hard transactions. Watch this, those 91 listings. I told you Austin’s taken this year, five of those in the last three months have been either short sales or pre foreclosure both

interesting. I was gonna go to that point next. But it’s interesting. You think

about that right now. People think oh, but everybody’s got all this equity. No, not everybody does. A lot of people bought their house in the last 12 months. They don’t have equity.

Yes, thank you. Here’s a sell here. Awesome selling. This is like this is why this is a big deal. You guys is because you’re right. Like if you anyone who bought in the last 18 months is already underwater. At the stats as of last night, I was nerding out I couldn’t sleep. So it was like reading all these like housing market articles. And it said nationally, we’re already down 6%. But yeah, the even some of the big banks, which are are coming out and being a guy, we’re expecting a 20% shift. Now. We’ll see whether or not that’ll that’ll happen. But Michael just laid out a couple good points, guys. Yes, there’s absolutely going to be less transactions, but the number of agents leaving the business is greater than than the number of transactions. So that’s opportunity number one. But I think opportunity number two is you can’t be doing when the market shifts like this, you don’t you shift with it, right? You don’t just keep doing the same thing you’ve been doing. Okay? If I start like, you know, like, it’s like in football, like I’m a big Bears fan, right? And Justin fields is on fire right now. He’s just amazing. If you guys like football, you’re watching Justin fields is one of the most exciting quarterbacks to watch. But once the defense starts knowing what his next play is, and he’s doing the play action, it’s a lot easier to stop him. They need to change up the play and adapt to the defense so different than you you need to change up. And I think that’s what the people are like, what do I change to what does that mean? Right? How do you adapt?

So let’s start with this for most agents, and this is going to come hard for some you know, I always like to quote the Bible verse you know that the the wicked find the truth to be hard, sorry, that guilty find the truth to be hard. And the reality is, if if you’re guilty of this, you’ll you’ll hate hearing it, but you’ll know it’s true. For most agents out there right now, what they have is not a it’s not a marketplace problem. It’s a work ethic problem. The problem isn’t what’s going on in the market. Right now the problem is what’s going on inside agent’s heads and what they’re in and the effort that they’re putting into their business. Most people aren’t making phone calls, they’re not living on a perfect daily schedule. They’re not, they’re not focusing 90% of their time on the three most important things which are lead generation lead, follow up and lead conversion. Instead, they’re busy doing all this other stuff, because it’s more fun, and it’s what they want to do. And it’s the marketplace doesn’t care what you want to do, the world isn’t going to reward you for what you want to do, they’re not going to get the world is not going to give you what you want, or even what you need. Right. It doesn’t matter if you need food in the wintertime. If you don’t plant in the spring, you’re not harvesting in the fall, and you will have no food in the wintertime. So what do you need to be doing right now? Well, number one, you got to get refocused on lead generation and in all kinds of different ways. And you got to stop with the sexy, shiny object lead generation and start getting down and dirty and doing what works. And I’m telling you, this is a contact sport. You got to get on the phone, you got to contact more people, you gotta have more conversations, you got to get voice to voice and face to face with more people. That’s what it’s gonna take. And if you don’t do that in the coming months, and I’ll tell you in the next 12 months, if you’re not doing that, you’re going to struggle, it’s gonna be hard, you’re not going to do the kind of business you shouldn’t be doing if you weren’t doing that. Now, I’m not saying you got to cold call and call expireds and all that kind of stuff, but I’ll tell you what, they should be on your radar because I think one of the things that’s gonna be off the charts in the next six months is going to be expired listings. I mean, you It’s gonna be insane. And it’s gonna be better than we’ve seen in a decade, there’s gonna be more expired listings than we’ve seen in a decade, in the next 12 months. Think about that for a minute. That’s substantial. Those are people that have already said, I want to sell my house and their agent didn’t get it done. Because their agent probably came in and said, Oh, it’s worth way more than it is. And by the way, that’s another thing you gotta be careful of is chasing, pricing down. If you don’t get ahead of the pricing fast. And I would go so far as to say, you should be getting automatic written price reductions ahead of time. With every listing you take, and that should be right now,

let’s chat about that. This is super crucial, guys. So one of the things like if you’ve never been in the, in this type of market before government’s in an appreciating market, and one of the worst things that you do to a seller is like, Hey, your house isn’t worth what you think it is, right? You feel like they’re gonna punch you in the face. Let’s be honest, no one wants to have that conversation. So here’s how we used to have it or in a roundabout way, Look, mister seller, the market is completely changed. And look, don’t shoot the messenger, I’m just telling you. But here’s what we need to do. If we start accumulating a ton of market time on your listing, you’re just going to get shooting a shot in the foot, and they’re going to undercut you, because the more market time the bigger lowball offer. So if you want me to list the house, we’re going to have a predetermined price change strategy, because until I’m getting three to six showings a week, you’re overpriced, and I don’t create the market, I just play within it, the only thing I could do is listen to it. If you don’t listen to it, you’re gonna get hurt. So matter of fact, I got a text this morning, from an old client from Chicago. And I thought she sold her condo, this is like two months ago, she texted me. And she added at 750. Now it’s at 699. And it’s just sitting on the market, I’m like, Listen, you have to price change, you don’t control the market. And I’m just telling her how it is. And she does not want to hear it. She goes, I will not go below 675 I go, you bought the house for 400,000. I sold it to you take the deal, you don’t control the market. Right. So now you have to warn sellers this because if you don’t do it upfront on the listing, they’re gonna hate you.

And you just nailed it. And that’s the thing. Nobody that’s been in the business the night it was so like, to your point 90% of the agents that are selling real estate right now have not had to deal with this. And listen, guys, here’s what’s coming. Okay, you’re gonna go on these appointments. And you’re gonna have to explain to them that Listen, Mr. Mrs. seller, you and I don’t choose the price for your home, the market decides the price for your home and the market isn’t today what it was even six months ago, we’re in a whole new world right now. And we have two options, we can get ahead of the pricing and get a buyer. And if we price it aggressively enough, we get multiple buyers. So we can still do that in today’s market. But we have to price it much more aggressively to get the multiple buyers working against each other and get the price up. That’d be great. Okay, now, alternatively, we can chase the market down and we can just reduce the price not getting the activity continue to reduce price. And every time we reduce price. If we wait too long, we’ve got to reduce it even further. Because the market isn’t where we reduced it or even just below where we just it’s way down here and we’re trying to play catch up. And if you’re playing that game, you’re just throwing money away every single month.

This was one of the biggest problems in oh seven in the last crash you guys, especially from the BPO perspective with Oreos and short sales, the market was depreciating so fast that by the time the BPO came in, or the appraisal on the property, the property is already worth less than what it was at the time the BPO appraisal was performed. So what you have to do is you have to like literally you’re gonna take a listing, I’m priced at 5% under market right now, because that’s probably accurate. I just told you 6% change in price, if the comps reflect $400,000 Within the last 90 days in the market change 6% Your listing price is not that same price, it’s 6% less, right and you have to do that because you’re just gonna sit there just gonna sit and it’s gonna be very ugly.

Mike, I’d take that a step further. And I would suggest that, you know, we used to sold like, you know, six months ago, you were using sold properties as comps sold or not comps anymore, guys. If it hasn’t sold in the last two weeks, it’s not a company more. The comps are what’s active on the market right now. That’s your competition. And we have to be substantially below that. And so we take the lesser of sold inactive and then you adjust price downward for what the market is doing. Guys, you gotta get aggressive with this, it otherwise you’re gonna have a bunch of listings that don’t sell which is you know, it’s great, you get some exposure, you get some sign calls, all that kind of stuff. I’m all for that. And I’ve always said that, you know, a sign in the yard beats a sign in the car every time. But you got to get some of these things sold to make some money and you’re not doing yourself a service by overpricing them

listings that don’t sell are a lot more expensive than buyers that don’t buy I mean, you have marketing costs that you have to do so you don’t get the listing sold member you’re paying to work with those clients. On the buyer side. You’re just spending your time energy and gas money.

It’s gonna be interesting right before I started it’s gonna be interesting to see what happens with professional photography in the next 24 months. Because you know, everybody in the last two years in our late last decade has been using professional photography on everything. But what happens when you go out and you take a listing you know, it’s overpriced, you still gotta go To get professional photography on that, knowing that you’ve got to pay for that photography, and it may not ever sell

well as Facebook ads plus brochures plus everything else that goes on Open House, the cookies, the cakes, everything, man, it adds up. Alright, so folks, that’s gonna be one thing I want to focus on types. I believe you chase listings in this market 100% Because those are the people who are going to be struggling on the opposite end of the used to be the opposite. But you’re Chase listings in this market, but not any listings, okay. People go after listings, motivated sellers. If you become a problem solver to motivated sellers in this market, you will position yourself to win.

Yeah, first of all, I like the way you put that you want to be a problem solver for them, right? So you need to be more of a consultant than a salesperson right now, I will also go so far as to say, I have a, I have a very strong opinion of what a great listing agent is. And a lot of people think, you know, oh, I’m a great buyer agent, and I’m a great listing agent, I would I would tell you that that’s not true. You’re either a great buyer agent, or you’re a great listing agent, but you’re not going to be both. And here’s the difference, I think you first need to be real with yourself and ask yourself this because well, let’s let’s start with us. There’s two personality types. Personality Type A is, hey, look, I’m going to give world class service. I’m an educator, I’m going to, I’m going to nurture them through this process, make sure they understand everything, make sure it all goes smoothly, make sure they’re completely taken care of right. That’s a personality type one personality type two is I’m just gonna punch you in the face make you sign and move on to the next one. So the question I would ask everybody in the audience right now that’s listening to this is which personality type are you? And I would venture to guess that more than 90% of you said, I’m personality type A. And the other the 10%, at best of us said I am personality type B? Well, guess what, in this next 24 months, if you want to be a killer listing agent, you had better be personality type B because personality type A is not going to get you there. And I’ll tell you why. Because you’re gonna encounter people with various situations. And the the type of person they need as a seller is very different than the type of person they need. As a buyer. Case in point, John and Susie want to sell their house and then go buy another house. John and Susie wants someone who’s going to represent them on the sale of their house, they want someone who’s strong, who’s a great negotiator who’s going to get the freakin job done, they don’t really care if they like you or not just get the job done, give me as much money as you possibly can. And in shortest amount of time humanly possible with the least amount of headache to me, that’s what they want. Right? Now, that same couple, John and Susie, they go out to buy a house, they don’t want that Pitbull that’s got their house listed. They want the golden retriever, that’s gonna be super nice to them, that’s gonna take him out and it’s gonna show him property, it’s gonna be patient with them, that’s not going to pressure them. And that’s going to nurture them through that process and give them the space and time they need to make the decision that they want to make very different type of agent, right. So to say that you can be the best at both, I think is a misnomer. And so my while I agree with you that I believe that listings are gonna be the name of the game going forward. I don’t believe that listings are for everyone. And I would suggest that if you are a personality type A the more you know, hands on educator, teacher type. nurturer, that type of thing that likes to deliver world class service, I would suggest you need to either be on a team or you need to be building a team so that you can focus your time on buyers, and not on sellers. You will have more success, you will be happier, you’ll make more money and your clients will be happier and like you better. Yeah, the reality is you can’t be a great listing agent. And be someone who’s got well I’ll say this, and this is gonna be controversial. Mike, watch this.

We’re gonna get controversial show.

Yeah, we’re gonna guarantee it, but prove me wrong. You know, there’s something that I lack that a great buyer agent has. Can you guess what that is?

Patients? Very close. Empathy. Yeah,

I don’t have an empathy gene. Like I really I struggle with empathize I and you know, it’s called patients call it sympathy call and empathy. At the end of the day, I’m here to get a job done. And I’m going to get my job done. And your story doesn’t impact how I have to do my job. Your story is your story. But that doesn’t change what needs to be done to get your home sold for as much as humanly possible in the shortest amount of time possible. And to prevent you from being in foreclosure we having to do shorts, or whatever the thing is that you’re going through. And so if the extent that people can understand that and that they can wrap their heads around that they can have a ton of success and it’s coming market, but if you go in there and you’ve got a ton of empathy and you’re getting all emotional with them, and neither one of you wins, you’re not giving them what they want, and you’re certainly not getting the result that you need.

Yep. A lot of the people who are going to be selling are going to have you’re gonna you’re gonna come across divorce, you’re gonna come across loss of income, some losses jobs, you’re just gonna come across people have to move, but they don’t want to or have the $10,000 to make the loan full because they’re underwater today. Now on the buyer side, there’s a tremendous opportunity like the number one thing I would say is you have to be investor friendly. These types of markets there’s there’s a boatload of investors, the mom and pops the institutions, all of them are sitting on the sidelines, celebrating right now. And nobody’s out there serving them. I would much that’s who buys in these markets, investors don’t bind peak markets, they buy in, like these markets that are about to happen, because these are the markets that investors make a lot of money. And if you’re an agent working on the buy side, I’d much rather work with one investor who buys 10 houses a year, then one person who complains about the GFCI. All it’s a $250,000 purchase. Right? So we’ve got that this is the type of positioning that we’re talking about, like sellers, motivated sellers, but buyers, Investor Buyers, but even if they’re not Investor Buyers, you have to change the conversation. It’s very simple. No one makes a good investment buying at a peak market they bought they make a good investment when they bought in 2011. I buy when no one else is buying. Warren Buffett once famously said he goes when you zig zag zig zag Zig. And if you start doing everything that everyone else is doing, you’re making the wrong investment in real estate you do you go against the opposite, almost I mean, that’s what I’ve seen in my in my careers. The best investments are made at a time when you’re doing what no one else is.

Well, let’s let’s come back to your point about these distressed sellers and how they’re feeling right now what they’re going through right now. See it right now people are getting people are kind of in the middle right now. But you give it another six months. And you start seeing a substantial number of people that are that are upside down that are behind on payments. I mean, these layoffs get bigger and they’re going to the guys were at the very very tip of the iceberg on the layoffs nationally, it’s we haven’t even seen what’s about to happen on last, it’s gonna get big. Now watch this. What as those layoffs get bigger and bigger on all these people now have lost that income, it’s gonna be really hard to go make up that income right now, because employers are high. In fact, 50% of all employers in the country said that. So when polled 50% of the employers polled said that they are planning on laying off in 2023. Guys, that’s big, right? Now, what happens to people like that they hide, they’re hard to find why because they’re gonna be laid on other stuff, they’re gonna be laid on their credit card, they’re gonna be laid on their car payment, they’re gonna be late, all kinds of stuff, who’s calling them, it’s creditors, that everybody every phone call, they’re picking up, it’s somebody trying to get money out of them, they’re gonna be heightened, and it’d be hard to reach when you finally do reach them, and you finally do get into their living room, right? And it’s gonna take an act of God to even get in their living room. But when you finally do get there, guess what’s gonna happen? They’re gonna say stuff to you like, Hey, can we just not put a sign in the yard? Because I don’t want my neighbors to know I’m going through foreclosure. Yep. Like that’s normal in this kind of a market. And so we need to be prepared to have those conversations in a dispassionate way. If you’re too emotionally attached to that conversation, or to the outcome, or to their situation, guess what you can’t do you can’t dispassionately take care of what needs to be taken care of to get them out of their situation. So that’s the mentality of sellers is absolutely gonna be shifting now. And it will there be people that you know, have a great interest rate that have great equity that are going to sit on the sidelines? Yeah, sure, there will be. But guess what life also happens. And so a lot of those are going to have to sell because they get a new job opportunity over here or because the family

that’s what a lot of the articles are saying like, Oh, but this markets not and this is again, it’s another opinions like the market is not going to be that effective, because there’s so many people sitting on two and 3% interest rates. But my point is like when when people see that they’re underwater $50,000 on their house, they don’t really care about their two or 3% interest rate anymore. They care more about like how they’re going to start building wealth again, because they just see nothing but an uphill battle on their existing property. And if they lose their job on top of that income goes down. I mean, also know we’re in a short sale.

I think I think that’s the bigger factor. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think the people that have that equity and you know, are thinking about how am I going to grow, I think, I think hope for gain is not as great a motivator is fear of loss. And the fear of loss comes in when all of a sudden I lose my job and I can’t afford my payment anymore. And I think that we’re gonna see a lot of that. And that’s why I think what happens every time we go through this type of market, what happens to rental rates, rental prices go up, not down at home prices, you know, sales prices come down, rental prices go up, because those people still gotta live somewhere. And that’s coming because it’s stuff that they can’t control. Now again, is it gonna be this tidal wave of foreclosures? Like it was in 2008 2011? I don’t know. Probably not. But who knows? I mean, I don’t know what’s going to happen but what I can tell you is if you get prepared and you get the right lead sources in place, that’s remarriages lead generation lead, follow up lead conversion, you got to get the right lead sources in place you got to get super aggressive about follow up on those lead sources. You know, I always tell people, you know, what does a drug dealer know about about leads and lead follow up and lead conversion that real estate is You just don’t know. And the answer is first one’s free, then you got to pay, right? I mean, think about this. Remember the days where you know, a buyer would call up and you’d be like, well, you know, you gotta be pre approved. And I gotta see your proof of funds. And you got to jump through all these hoops before I’ll take out to show you that $40,000 mobile, or whatever, the freakin thing is that you were going to show him, well, here’s what’s going on. Well, here’s, here’s how that’s changing. And it’s already starting to, and it’s gonna change in a major, major way. It’s gonna be waiting, but you have a pulse. Yeah, I’d love to show you that house. Let me take you out there and go show it to you right now. And here’s what people the smart agents are figuring out, I have to build rapport with that person, because the product isn’t the house, the product is me. And the way that I build that rapport is I gotta get voice, voice and face to face with you as quickly as humanly possible. So I’ll show anybody a house once.

Yeah, I love it. Folks, as a couple of things, I hope you really get a lot out of this episode, I just want to do a quick little recap. repositioning your business to focus on where business is actually going to transact is ultimately the main message of today’s show. Sellers, motivated buyers investors, but problem solving for all. And it’s not going to be people aren’t buying on emotion in these types of markets, there’ll be some that can be wrong, it’ll be some people that just go out there and buy and sell, buy and sell like just like things are normal. But many of these types of transactions, I believe, are going to be distressed, I don’t think we’re gonna see a tidal wave of foreclosures like we did last time, I think the banks will sell them to the institutions before they ever hit the public market. In that sense, but

now before you move on for that, I gotta leave that conversation with the two guys that I can’t, I won’t tell you the name of the company or the entity that they work for, but I’ll pay it, they are responsible for more mortgages in the United States than anybody else, period. And these two guys are in charge of this entity. And they were telling me, Hey, we’ve learned we no longer are going to be selling to institutions, and they’re not selling tapes of properties anymore. Why? Because now they figured out that, hey, we can rehab these things turn around and sell them and we make way more money than ever before by not selling them to the institutions. Now, I think you’re right, if you look at last year, and you look at the number of properties that were sold to institutions, it was staggering. There was a ton, there was a lot of a lot of business being transacted with those institutions. I don’t think that’s the next 24 months. I think those institutions hang out until maybe 24 months from now, I think all those hedge funds are on the sidelines right now. All the big investors are on the sidelines right now. You know, I sat next to a guy on the plane. He’s He’s the he’s the head of construction for one of the companies that has 58,000 homes they own right now. And he said nobody wants to catch a falling knife. And so I think they wait, it’s a guy.

Yeah, I think they will. I think they’ll wait for it until it starts coming up. But I think they’ll jump back in. I mean, that’s what smart money does. That’s, but it’s gonna be very interesting to see this all shake out, we’ll have to come back to this episode in about six months and see how accurate we were, if at all, any. But folks, Michael, why don’t you go ahead and give them some closing thoughts. Tell them how they can reach out to you, I think you have a little gift for them if they want to take you up on that and show you some of your lead sources and whatnot. But go ahead and take the floor. Well,

your point, you know, when you talk about motivated lead sources, you know, the motivated sellers are gonna be out there, the motivated buyers are gonna be out there, but you got to have the right lead sources to get to them. So what are we there’s about 2000 Different lead sources in real estate today. There’s about 100 So we vet these every year we go through and we update our list and we vet you know, who are the best ones that we want to refer to our clients and our clients and we’ve got 85 Plus coaches that all sell more real estate than people they coach and we got our client list is like the who’s who of real estate, right, their average between you know, their average over 200 transactions a year and a lot of them are doing 500,000 transactions a year. So point being we got to be very careful about the referral the lead sources that we recommend so I’m gonna give your audience today 17 of our best lead sources. If you guys will shoot me a text message to 727-287-5993 you need to text the words club wealth to that number. So two words club wealth and text that 27272875993 and I’ll send you 17 of our top 100 lead sources that we recommend our clients. I will also suggest this and by the way you can always jump on our website if you want you know poker on our website go to club wealth.com Here’s what I would suggest my my final thought in closing would simply be you need to look at your habits more than you need to worry about what’s going on in the marketplace because now more than ever habits are going to dictate your outcomes you know the days of mom and pop you know that are struggling to pay their mortgage and you know the days of mom and pop just calling their buddy up their cousin Jethro have to do them a solid to sell their home that’s that’s gone. That’s not happening anymore. People and when they’re in distress, they’re it’d be a lot pickier about who they list with, it’s probably not going to want to be family, you know, it’s going to be somebody that they really believe can get the job done. And so you’re gonna have to be on your game, and you’re gonna have to dial your habits, and you’re gonna have to contact more people in more ways, you’re gonna have to be more aggressive about your follow up and your long term nurture process. And if you’ll do that, you’ll get a ton of business. And you’ll make it not only through this market, but you’ll grow when other people are dying by the wayside. But it’s going to come down to your daily habits. And so I would suggest that your first four hours of the day, be 100%, lead generation and lead follow up, I wouldn’t do anything else between eight and noon, but lead generation lead follow up, for some of you that’s going to come across as oh my gosh, there’s no way I could do that I don’t even do an hour, I’m just, I’m just going to trust that I’m gonna get business from referrals. And I will tell you, if you’re watching the numbers, and you understand what happened in 2007, and 2008, you watch how referral based business went almost entirely away during that period of time. And I’m not saying you can’t get it, you can actually increase your referral based business. But to do so you have to do some things. And it really comes down to I’ve got to do my four client events per year, I’ve got to follow up with those people on a very tenacious basis. I’ve got to make sure that I’m branding myself to those people at a deep level. If I’m not doing those things all the time with my sphere, guess what, they’re not gonna be my sphere anymore. Right? Somebody else is gonna get them. So anyway, that’s, that’s I’d recommend I think that you know, those of you that take action and develop your your perfect daily schedule, so that first four hours, the morning is really dedicated, like we talked about lead generation lead, follow up, you’re gonna crush it in the next 24 months, regardless of what the marketplace does.

Love it, love it. Love it, love it. Alright, folks, hope you got some value today. If you have any additional questions, you want to learn how to build your brand in this type of market or you just didn’t know what to do visit one of our products was at our site, real estate marketing due to our new site referral suite, where we help you create all the content in the world. Remind your database you’re in business so that they stop forgetting you existence that refer new people. Thanks for listening other episode, Michael. It’s been a pleasure. Great catching up with you, dude. We’ll be in touch soon. And thank you guys for listening. Make sure you subscribe and follow us on social and we’ll see you guys 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.com 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 schedule time to speak with a dude and get you rolling into your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.

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Building a Taco Brand that Stands Out

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Today we are talking to someone who knows exactly what their brand is and has capitalized on it with precision. Everyone loves tacos and Alex has discovered a way to merge that with his business helping people find places to live in Austin.

Alex helps people find places to live in the Austin area and he has pretty great taco recommendations too.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

How do you make sure everyone knows your name?
How are top agents thriving during a recession?
Why you need to be making content and developing a brand.

Resource

Visit Alex’s Website

Transcript:

yeah, my name is Alexandra Concepcion. I run an apartment locating brokerage in Texas called taco street locating primarily based out of Austin. But I’ve got satellite operations over in Dallas in Houston been running the business for about five years close over 400 deals so yeah, kind of just stuck to this one niche and taken it as far as I can make it.

Do you do any sales? Are you just doing just leasing?

I don’t do any sales. Love it.

It’s smart. Like we get into this thing where agents like Oh, I gotta sell because we see Josh Altman on Bravo and we think we have to go out there there’s there’s a lot of ways to make money in real estate guys. And it’s not always where it’s not always like being the sales leader of the industry. There’s a lot of like silent killers in this industry. Alright, so let’s get into this for I got to talk about the branding, because that’s what got you on the show. And it’s what I think you probably my guess is when people then you have to go look at his website, right? It’s called taco Street. locating.com. And first off what I loved about it was like, I’m like, taco Street. Like it’s just so different, and that it stopped my attention. I’m like, fuck, but from Taco street locating, I understand so much about you as an individual. You know what I mean? Like I knew you’re outside the box, you’re probably a little bit of fun. And I could have you could have came up with anything you could have done. Apartment finders, Austin. And you could have done blink, blink, blink real estate, apartment finding service, but that all falls on deaf ears. How important was it? If you look in hindsight of strategically picking that name versus going with other and did it push the needle?

Oh, man, I have so many things to say. One won’t back at all. The first thing was, I kind of just wanted to amuse myself. The idea of having a taco theme business was too absurd not to do. And I think and I think it actually makes a lot of sense. Like, I don’t know if you’ve been to Austin, but it’s an amazing food city. Taco city. I don’t know if it’s going to Chicago. But you go to any street, you can get tacos. And you just flip the words around. Street taco, taco Street. There’s the brand

100% Yeah. Did you are you like a taco fanatic yourself?

Yeah, I’m, I’m a food fanatic period. Yeah, I try. I’m like a low budget Anthony Bourdain. I basically use this business as a conspiracy for me to travel the world. And do Anthony Bourdain type things. So yeah, it was one just I think, for my soul important that I could bring my actual self to the business, instead of some manufactured personality. I couldn’t, it’s this is the only way I could have done it. But the real like strategic reason is I think of everything in survival first framework. And when it comes to branding, reputation, I have to it stand out or die. Yeah. Because I don’t believe in competition. Because if I approach things with a competitive mindset, I would look at what other people are doing and try to outdo what they’re doing. But the reality when a client based business like this or any kind of anything, any business The trophy is a person and people have choice. Yep. So it’s not I’m never gonna get beaten by another business. The my risk it’s not being chosen. So the strategy is how do I make myself a replaceable or less replaceable? And so that I have to do things other people can’t or won’t do.

100% you guys listen, replay that back like and just what he just unpacked there was quite a bit. First off, he says, Look, I needed to adapt my personality in the business. So basically, I can be excited about it. I needed to reflect it and I want you guys to look at your own real estate business right now the exact same way. Are you really marketing your broker’s brand like I see us all the time in real estate you probably see it in Austin quite a bit where people are like, I worked for Cole banker, I worked for exp like exp like like there are so many agents I have a hard on for exp right now. And nothing bad. They’re running a great organization. I’m not talking trash about any of it. But they their marketing. And they’re really smart and how they they built the culture around it, where they’re just pumping exp at exp right now is an energy. Real is like an energy. People are joining these companies because of the energy and the buzz and what they stand for, not what the name is. But when it comes to a consumer facing side, I just did my podcast last week on this 96% of consumers are going to hire the individual not the person they hang their flag with. Which means that if you’re out there if one if you don’t even have your own branding or logo, like you’re way behind the times, you’re an individual and just because you work at a brokerage doesn’t mean you don’t have your own brand 96% of people are gonna hire you over though brokerage. And that’s in this type of business like people, whether you’re looking for apartments to go rent or your houses buy, you’re gonna do it with someone you can envision working with, right? You have to first form that connection with people before you get the opportunity to serve them. And that’s why branding is so important. If not, you’re just like, like going to Syria, like I look at real estate agents today is just like if you go down the cereal box line and you just go into cereal at the grocery store. There’s a million different cereal boxes, right? But the cereal box aisle I’m talking about is the one at Aldi that just says cereal. There’s no branding on any of them. Right. So what do you think? When you What do you tie in this taco street into your customer experience to do you guys have systems in place that like like you buy them taco gifts, stuff like that, like walk me through sort of beyond the brand, how do you live it through? How do you create that I experience in an apartment finding service.

Yeah, it’s, I take people off the tacos all the time. And that’s part of that’s a lot. It’s a big, it’s a fun part of the business is I get to be someone’s ambassador to the city. I’m often the first person they made friends with when they moved to a new town. So I get to spend time with them one on one, shop around town, get tacos with them, or whatever. And there’s a part of the process. There’s a lot of food theme things in my process. One of my research phases is something I call an appetizer list, kind of just a beginner research phase. I’ve got really good food guides. On the taco street website, there is something I built called the mega map, which is basically my entire brain in digital form, at least when it comes to Austin. So it’s like my food recommendations, my apartment recommendations, pretty much everything.

So you’re creating a lot of content around this as well. You’re not just like waiting for people to come to you. You’re like out there, creating content bringing people back. And what do you take in like the positioning of a tour guide? Like you said,

Yeah, I’m sometimes it feels like, I’m an overpaid tour guide, which I’m totally fine with. But one thing I’m strategic about is something I call front end value. Compared to like back end value, and like back end value is like, hire me first, then I’ll help you. And that’s most service businesses. Whereas front end value is I’ll help you first and then you’ll hire me, because you trust me. So one thing I figured out was I was having the same conversations over and over and over again. And I’m like, what if I just made videos about this. So I made videos and blog posts that basically take the conversations I have over and over again, and just digitize them and promote like another functional standpoint. It gets the information out of my head and into the business. Again, it’s, I think of everything through like a survival first standpoint, and a primary function of that. It’s my website, my YouTube channel, my blogs are basically backup data storage for my brain.

Yeah. And you’re, he’s you guys, he’s repurposing everything. So like, I’m on his site right now. And you’re looking, I’m gonna give you a couple of the, like, if you’re not creating content, and you have to create content, it’s the basis of this podcast like we create content, real estate marketing dude, as a video content creation company, for people in the real estate business. Right referral suite, which is our software is a content creation company that helps agents farm their database through direct mail, video, email, and social media. That’s a little shout out and plug if you like what you just heard there, go and visit either site. But what he’s describing to you guys, is the basis of content marketing, and content marketing, if I started, this is the baseline of our whole brand is I started this in 2013. This podcast started in 14 2014. This is content, right? Like and we’re doing this, like, I don’t want to do this podcast right now. Right? I’m enjoying talking to you. But it’s another jour i have to do but I do it because content creation is part of my job. And we’re gonna give a bunch of cool, valuable tips today, to everyone who’s listening. We’re doing like 30,000 35,000 downloads a month. And some of those people that get that tip, they’re gonna go to Alex’s website, and they’re going to click on it, and maybe somebody goes even moving to Austin, some might reach out to Alex, but hey, can I join your team? Right? But that’s because he’s creating content. First, I’m creating content first, to establish and receive the permission to ask for their business, or the opportunity to have a conversation about their business. Without content, it’s just a sales pitch, isn’t it?

Yeah. And another functional thing that happens. It’s my first calls used to be like 2030 minutes. But nowadays, buy a ton people get to me. And they say, Hey, I watched your videos. I read your guides. I’m like, Oh, you’re hired. Great. I know I’ve one. Yep. And that would have been like a half hour sales call is like 510 minutes. And it’s the same result. Because I don’t need to buy their trust. I don’t need to convince them. They’re they’ve already they’re already sold. It because yeah, Have a see me as a person as a human. Like some corporate robot, oh, I It’s relatable. I like this guy. Yeah,

just relatable like people like, oh, I can trust this guy. Your website, folks today is your business card people aren’t visiting your website to look for properties for sale, they’re visiting their website to interview you without speaking to you. And the more content you have on there you write, like when people join our services either already, if they already know me, and they’ve been on the podcast, they’re like 80%, more likely just to sign up on the spot. If it’s a stranger, and they have no idea, the brand, the closing ratios, and their playing ratios are just way less. And it makes sense like people want ultimately people just want to know who they’re working with. I was just doing some stats on this when I was working on a presentation. And it went in it was to the tune of regardless of the age groups, it was over 80 It was like 78% 8180 to 85 79% different age groups of people hire the first person they meet with, because nobody wants to like go out and be like in there. Everyone’s like, oh, I need a super duper listing presentation, I’m going up against other agents like on a listing presentation, only, like less than five less than one or 2% of people interviewed three plus agents. It was like less than 4% interview two or something like that most people just close with the first one they meet with so folks make it easier to help make up their mind. Right, all you need to do is humanize your brand. Let people know you know what you’re doing. And that’s 99% of the battle. This is not rocket science.

Yeah, and there’s a few other ways I think about it. With taco street, I own the brand. I’m not renting another company’s brand. And I think ownership of your core assets is one of the most important survival protocols you can have. Because my brand contains my reputation. And that contains the relationships I have with my clients and the way people feel about me. But yeah, not renting another brokerages brand I’ve never yeah, I’ve just never been into that.

Most agents today like so many agents don’t even have a website. And then they just use the you know, the the website on their brokerages page, which is great for your broker, because you’re building their brand not your own. It’s the same thing as like when an agent has a sign, or listing, they go out in they put their broker just sign they have none of their own brand name. Well, you’re just you’re empowering your brokers brand again, you need to put your personality into this stuff. It is so so important. As long as you’re playing the long game, like there’s a difference between agents running, you’re running a business, dude, you get it? Right, but most agents are just chasing a check. The difference is, is everything you do is for the back end of the business, even if it’s content, like he’s not just creating a video like he’s spent all this time building, if you go I’m on a site right now he spent all this time building this mega maps thing. And then when he started, you know, if you look on this on his website, he has like 33 listings 51 listings at 60. There’s a ton of content that he has here. But he had to start somewhere. You started with the first one, right? That’s the people’s biggest hurdle. Everyone wants to get to where you’re at. But no one wants to put in the work to do it.

Yeah, I see that a lot in apartment locating. The thing is apartment locating isn’t hard. But it’s also this. What makes it easy also makes it hard. And a lot of people just don’t do the basic foundational work to get ahead. Yeah. And there’s the training isn’t very good. Most brokerages wants you to be more of an employee than kind of running your own ship. Yeah, it’s a lot of nonsense going on in the business.

How are you finding most of your clients now? Like I know, I’m sure a lot of people find you online, your YouTube channel and all that. But like when you started out, like where did you start? Where did you find clients when you go when you started for anyone that’s like, it sounds like a good idea. But it’s such an uphill battle. How am I gonna get there by starting right now? Dammit.

Yeah, that’s a good question. Early on, like the first few months I was using like Craigslist, just to find leads. But nowadays, there’s a lot of like good syndicated advertising platforms. You can either pay for them or like just post a bunch of ads. That’s something you can do like now and get leads that way. It’s how a lot of people start off. A lot of people start off doing that, but never really go to the next step of building their own brand getting their own reputation. So there’s a difference. There’s so there’s Something I make a distinction between rented marketing channels and owned marketing channels. So early on, I had to rely on rented channels that I didn’t own or control like Craigslist or parkruns.com or whatever. And those channels like they’re powerful, but they’re fragile. And I knew in the long term if I wanted to control my business and really own my business, I needed to own my marketing channels. So that’s why I invested early on in the website because I knew I couldn’t just rely on these other channels I didn’t control so now my website generates a ton of leads. And like people that the if you want to have a little bit of fun, the the lead form that I have it’s pretty fun to go through. It’s It’s fun, it’s silly it’s very effective. Yeah,

it’s different. Yeah, here I’m going to do it right now walk people through it Yeah, I was just like a type form.

No, no, I used to me way better so called involve me. Yeah, cool. Yeah, it’s fun. It’s really customizable.

Everything about his brand you guys when you go on his site is like so onpoint like everything like there’s tacos in the background? No, it’d be really fun like if you were to do like, like preview listing shoots and just had like the taco like, what would this taco look like in your kitchen? Oh, man, that would be so fucking fun like if you had if you just had like the like the kitchen but there’s just a taco like a listing tour but there’s just tacos everywhere. But just like the tacos in the amenities the photos there’s like a taco in the pool drinking chillin there’s a taco in the gym working out there’s a taco like all over and all those amenity things like that would be that would fucking crush.

Yeah, I’ve only got like the tip of the iceberg of what’s

got so there’s so many different things you can do talk of trucks. Tell me what else you’re doing. What so give me some of your outside the box. So you got this brand new. You got all this? Give me some like the crazy shit you’ve done? Like, what kind of any events you had that were like super duper successful, like any anything outside of the box. And you’ve they started doing that. Good or bad?

I haven’t really done events. The funny thing is, I’m a lot better at branding and then I am a self promotion. You won’t see anything real estate related on my Instagram. Yeah. For what, for better and worse. I’m more of a product oriented person. Which gives me a different perspective of the business. Yeah, whereas like, I want to make sure the thing is as good as possible, in this case, the website or the actual service.

Let’s unpack that really quick. You just had something on the fucking head and it was huge. Branding versus self promotion. This is the name of the game right here. Um, are you an introvert? A little bit analytical.

I’m a lot of things. I wouldn’t say I’m an introvert because I actually love being around people. I’m very introspective. Which means I’m in my head all the time. I just have kind of a different way of thinking about it. But yeah, you put me like in a party in a whole like big room. I’m probably gonna like wallflower to the back. I’m not giving me like the center of the party super connecting with everyone. So don’t feel

Yeah. Yeah. Here’s, here’s everyone’s biggest some branding versus self promotion. Now, you created taco street locating and you have no problem screaming taco street reload or locating from the rooftop, right. But it would probably be a lot harder for you to market this if this was called Alexander Concepcion. Yeah, because it’s your personnel. And that’s, that’s the number one problem that everybody has in creating content, is they don’t realize most agents will you first you have to identify a brand and something you stand for. You got to find that one thing. And Alexander’s world it’s tacos in my world is dude, what is that one thing for you. But then secondly, is you have to scream it from the rooftops. And in real estate people don’t realize that this face you have here this thing that God gave you is the brand. And the more you put it out there, the more business you’re gonna get. But most people don’t see themselves as a brand. They see themselves as a father, a dad, they see themselves as a sinner, whatever they may be, they don’t look at themselves as a brand, but 96% of people hire you, not the brokerage you’re with, therefore you are.

Yeah, so there’s a few ways to think about that.

I’m the same way it’s easier for me to market real estate marketing dude than it is for me to market Mike Cuevas because I hate self promotion. I hate like I don’t even take that many photos of myself on social and I’m not shy, I just don’t like, say me, me, me, me I like saying I want to give to you more I want to pour into people. And I struggle with that as well. But what branding versus self promotion you have to realize is that once you identify your brand, it’s all promotion. 24/7. The difference is, you’re not doing in a in a in a sales type way you’re doing it through story through marketing through content. self promotion is saying buy, buy, sell, buy, sell, buy, sell, buy, sell, come rent for me, come rent for me, branding and marketing is don’t forget I exist. Oh, by the way, here’s what I can help you with. There’s a major difference in within, in that you guys very well said. Sorry. I don’t mean to cut you off. I don’t know where we’re at. But that was super good point you made. You were getting to like anything crazy. You did, I believe.

Um, I don’t have a lot of crazy stories and apartment locating honestly, it’s a it’s a, it’s a low drama business. Transactions are fairly straightforward. Things don’t get crazy, like they would in traditional real estate sales. So there aren’t a lot of experiences that stand out as like, really, off the grid wild and crazy things. If transactions don’t go through, like, Yeah, it sucks. For a lot of them, like, yeah, I have a great time with a client, they apply to an apartment, we hang out. A lot of them I’ve become good friends with. But overall, it’s not a high trauma business. Which is a big reason I do apartment locating. It’s because it’s just a lower stress lower. It’s just less of an emotional roller coaster.

I hated real estate.

Right? And I don’t plan on getting into real estate sales. I’m planning on sticking to apartment locating. I like the brand that I have. I like that the brand is something people like that it’s unique. It’s a valuable resource for people moving to the city. But yeah, it’s given me a lot of joy and pleasure. Realizing that I that my crazy ideas can work. And if more than anything else, this business has been a canvas for my creativity for like my weirdness and silliness. And for that I’m just really grateful to what the business has been for me.

It’s awesome. Love it. It looks like you’re enjoying yourself, man. I mean, you could hear it. He’s like he’s living his brand, folks. This is how it’s done. Alexander, do you have any closing thoughts? For anybody?

Yeah. For anyone thinking about surviving the upcoming recession apartment locating is a great niche to look into for a wide variety of reasons. Yep. I could explain a little bit more if you’d like.

Yeah, go ahead. You have a you have a course up where you could for those you guys I want to take him up on it. Go ahead Tom a little bit more about it.

Yeah, so there is a website that I have called apartment locating mastery.com It’s basically a how to guide on how to start apartment locating and I’ve got a free basics course that just explains what the business is how it works. So you can decide if going down this rabbit hole is worth it. Because it’s not for everyone. And the last thing would want to do is try to get someone into the business who shouldn’t be on business. Yeah. But ya know, it’s uh there’s I’m not really worried about the recession for myself. I wouldn’t

you’re good. Yeah, at least things gonna be up you’re in a good spot. People are gonna have to live somewhere you’re out you’re all good. You’re safe. No doubt do it I got I just want to market tacos all day so good. Well, hey, why don’t you give them that site where they can find you and then we’ll get this rep.

Yeah, it’s the brokerage is Taco street located golf COMM With the apartment locating training course is apartment locating mastery.com

Appreciate it man. Appreciate your insight. Folks, take what you get here today. You’re in the fourth quarter. We’re getting to that holiday season. Regardless of what the market is each and every year when thanksgiving to New Year’s. This is the time to work on your business. Generally things are a little slow but probably extra slower this year. But with the holidays this is true in any market regardless of what it’s doing. Spend some time to work on your brand like if you guys need help, will brand you this is what I do. I’m happy to tell you who the hell you Learn how to market it. But you got to make the time you got to invest in your in yourself not only just with money, but strategy, like that’s the most important part of this business, the brand is everything. Because the rest is just a commodity and most people are asking themselves What the hell is the difference between you and your competition? Is it that you do it when a taco away? Or is it that you do it in your way, like whatever that is, that’s what people remember. So thank you for sharing that. Very good. And folks, if you have any additional questions about video marketing, or you’d like to check out our new software, please go ahead and do it. It’s called referral suite.com That’s referral suite SW E T. And we just launched it and it’ll put you on a map and make sure everyone that you know doesn’t forget what you do for a living so you could keep attracting more clients and stop chasing transactions. Appreciate guys listen to their episode. We’ll see you guys next week. Have a good one like 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 do.com 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 schedule time to speak with a dude and get you rollin in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.

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Attracting Clients & Agents Creating Content

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Today we are talking to Suneet Agarwal, the CEO of the #1 realty team in California. What’s his strategy that keeps him at the top and how is he planning on riding this recession?

Suneet Agarwal is a real estate coach and CEO of BIG BLOCK REALTY NORTH. He is currently ranked as the #1 agent in Greater Sacramento MLS and is the CEO of Best Sac Homes Group, the #2 mega team in California as ranked by the Wall Street Journal and Real Trends. His 12 years of dedication to his clients and his strong work ethic have made him one of the TOP Realtors in California.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

How do you make sure everyone knows your name?
How are top agents thriving during a recession?
Why you need to be making content and developing a brand.

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Learn More About Suneet