Will video work for me in my market? That’s a question we get quite often and the answer is always the same. YES, but there are some things you need for it to be successful.
In this week’s episode Mortgage Lender Rebecca Foote walks through how video transformed her brand into a local like celebrity in a short time. The key with video is approaching it as an attention generating thing as opposed to a lead generating thing.
Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode
You must be authentic on camera. Finding a video strategy you are excited about will be the difference between you smiling on video vs looking uncomfortable.
You must be consistent. Doing just one video isn’t going to transform you into the town talk. You need to be consistent at it over time.
You must make sure you distribute them. Shooting videos is just half the battle you need to /put them in front of the right people. Distributing your videos is equally as important.
We have a very interesting individual on today’s show, who’s transacting business in Texas, but he lives in Denver. What we’re seeing in the big, you know, from the 10,000 foot view is you see all these ibuyers and tech companies are trying to automate the process to get agents out of the way as well. So why can’t we just fight back and automate our own processes? Well, you need to learn how to embrace technology and do all of that. We have the perfect guest that’s going to walk through how he’s doing this and how he’s literally not living in the state that he’s licensed in, and he’s transacting because he’s running a business. Our guest today, Chris Bello, helps people buy and sell real estate anywhere. Be sure to check out his website where he hosts a lot of useful resources for getting your sh*t together.
Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode
How to become more efficient
How to run a business when you’re doing a lot of things at once
What type of automation you need for a successful business
So how do you track new business, you constantly don’t have to chase it. Hi, I’m Mike Cuevas a real estate marketing dude. 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. What we’re gonna be chatting about today, folks, is how to become more efficient? How the hell do you run a business do a lot of things at once? What type of automation do you need? And how do you actually run this? So we have a very interesting individual on today’s show, who’s transacting business in Texas, but he lives in Denver. It’s pretty weird. How do you do something like that. And what we’re seeing in the big, you know, from the 10,000 foot view is you see all these ibuyers these tech companies are trying to automate the process to get agents out of the way as well. So why can’t we just fight back and automate our own processes? Well, you need to learn how to embrace technology and do all of that. And we have the perfect guest that’s going to walk through how he’s doing this and how he’s literally not living in the state that he’s licensed in, and he’s transacting because he running a business. So we’re gonna find out how he’s doing it. Without further ado, let’s go ahead and introduce our guests, Mr. Chris Bello. What’s up, Chris?
What’s up, Mike? So great to be here. Thank you for for the time.
Yeah, why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about who you are. And then we’re gonna get into and how you’re actually doing this. So go ahead and take the floor real quick.
Absolutely. So I just introduced myself typically as a real estate expert, and a top podcast host. And like we were talking about before we hit record, I knew going into real estate that I didn’t want to brand myself as a local realtor, because I read The Four Hour Workweek years ago, and I had this dream of laptop lifestyle, live anywhere travel around the world not have to be stuck in one market. And for that very reason. That is how I am actually living this vision that I had years ago, closing deals in another state. People asked why my fiance and I moved to Denver, and we’re like, you know, we visited in 2020. And we loved it. And we’re just like, What the hell? Let’s sell the house and move right. So we did it because we wanted to not because of a job opportunity, or because the markets hot or anything like that. And so, systems processes and vision more importantly, allowed us to get here.
And you didn’t really think twice about it. You weren’t worried about leaving and how long were you in licensed in Texas.
I was licensed in Texas for a few years, I guess I still technically am about three years now. And I’d been in Texas in Houston my whole life. So really, I see the memes go around, you know, leaving your home tab, Your hometown is a hack for growth, for development for getting outside your comfort zone. So that was in the back of my mind as well. And I was like, you know, I’ve just been here for so long. I want something new and you know, impulsive, impulsive, Chris decided to pull the trigger, and we just moved very shortly thereafter.
And how long have you been licensed in general, none in total, when you in.
So I actually in 2018, I joined a wholesale company. That’s where I got into real estate. So I wasn’t licensed just yet. I was teetering with the idea of do I even get license is going to open me up to so much regulation, the wholesale podcast say to just do it and not get your license. Some people say to get it for more MLS access. And then it wasn’t until a year in 2019 is when I got my license because I’m like, Man, I’m losing out on all these easy listing opportunities that the sellers are not taking our cash offers. And it just allowed me more flexibility with the strategies in the the ways that I help my clients. So that
makes sense. So you’re coming at it from a wholesaling, lead generation seller listing agent type of way. And then you’re looking at how do I create leads and not be there. Whereas a lot of realtors come in the opposite way. They look at how they sell houses versus Chase. How they develop leads first and you can’t take it’s like putting the cart before the horse
or whatnot. You know about this marketing stuff, right? We’re really marketers at the end of the day,
it makes a lot of sense. So I’m assuming that you chase after listings,
yes, listings equals leverage as the Millionaire Real Estate Agent, you know, these books and the knowledge out there really plant those seeds so that you create your business in a way where it surrounds those ideas. So I always remember listings equals leverage listings equals leverage. Yep. And I’ve always focused on that mostly, I still help buyers too. But it’s obviously a little more challenging from afar.
So So you got in the business, you’re starting as a wholesaler, you’re looking for different listings, you’re looking for motivated sellers and all that. And then during that time, figured out you’re like, shit, only 8% of these deals are working for me. So what am I doing with the other 92%? Like I should get licensed and start collecting referral fees or maybe even run a team? Is that fair?
Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. Well, I kept seeing what the company I was working with had me doing business development, so I kept talking to real estate agents over and over again multiple times a month. Hey, you should bring us those You know, houses that smell like cat pee that you don’t want to list, get you 6%. And then I’d see some of the deals that we did. And I’m like, dang, these people just brought us the lead. I did everything else. And they’re making a 6% commission on many of these. While you know, I was making a certain percentage of the wholesale fee, which I guess, on average is probably 10 to $15,000, depending on the market. That was what ours was in Houston. And so it just became quickly apparent that I’m losing out on a lot of opportunities by not being licensed and by not helping clients to the fullest capacity.
And today, are you still wholesaling? Are you mainly we’re in real estate agent,
I’ve been mostly doing the real estate agent hat. Another nugget that I picked up before is that the MLS is really the ultimate buyer’s list. And you know, some buyers, I saw it from the wholesaling side, it ebbs and flows, you know, they’re buying now they’re not buying, your best buyers may not be buying when you have that property that you want to move, and you’re like, Man, you got to sell it to some other wholesaler, and then they can’t find a buyer and it just falls through becomes a lot more difficult than if you just slap it up on the market and have the ultimate buyers list. So honestly, I’ve been doing more of the retail side, but I do get off market lead sometimes. And I know investors nationwide where I’m just like, hey, do you work this part of Ohio? I’m just gonna send you the lead. And if something closes, like throw me a little bit of the assignment fee as a thank you.
Sure. So this is great. But the only way that something like this works is when you control your own lead generation, because you can’t do it without that. So let’s get into that. What are you doing in? Everyone’s always, this is what I never understood is wholesalers investors rehabbers never have a listing problem. But then real estate agents do like despite market conditions, and now we just said like real estate agents, why don’t you just go copy what the investors do? Because they’re chasing people who want to sell their houses, and they’re always successful? Why don’t you guys just do the same thing? So walk me through when you figured this out? And then let’s see what you’re doing.
Yeah, so like you talked about earlier, I came at it from a different perspective, I always came at it from that investor mindset, you know, we buy houses. And where I’m going with this is that a lot of times wholesalers will have those signs up that say we buy houses, we buy houses, a lot of them don’t buy houses, they assign contracts, which again, the outward facing, you know, the home seller has no idea what the hell that means. Right? Right. Like, hey, you buy houses, I’m going to call you I want to sell my house. So flipping that on its head, I started marketing myself as I can help you buy or sell real estate anywhere. I don’t need to explain to people well, I really don’t. I’m not licensed in all the states, I find someone who’s an expert in your market and I connect you to them. It’s just not a nice little elevator pitch that you can put in one sentence on your bio for social media. Yep. So coming at it from that angle, has helped people come to me first, if they have any real estate questions, I don’t want them to be like, Oh, Chris, I didn’t know you could help me in Florida, because then I already lost the opportunity. If they have a question on hey, I’m selling my house. I kind of want to live near near this like plant? Do you think that’s a problem? Should I pick that house or more nestled in the neighborhood, you know, generic real estate more or less, you can give some information and some helpful tips. Much like wholesaler say we buy houses in any condition, they just mark it that way. And as people come to you first, like you also mentioned earlier, he or she who controls the lead and gets that person to contact them first gets to control what happens. So that’s really been the conversation I’ve been having. And of course, I can amplify that because I also have a podcast and entrepreneurship and mindset and all of that. So, you know, over a million downloads as of last year, I believe and that’s been a call to action is hey, if you ever need help buying or selling, I hope you enjoy these 350 episodes I’ve done for you think about me because I can help you buy or sell anywhere.
Yep. And that’s like a popular check great content. Well, yeah, your content helps convert all the business you’re doing.
Yeah, you email list and just follow up and remind people what you do.
I like it. So let’s get into the how are we targeting? What areas are you focusing in mainly in terms of like lead acquisition and sellers? Where are you seeing in around the country now? So you can pretty much use in any market? I’m sure you’re Yeah, picking different areas? Let’s go. Let’s start with that. And why?
For sure, for sure. So it’s been a little more of a chicken in the egg scenario, because sometimes people are like, Hey, I got a great agent for you in a certain market. I’m like, okay, I can see the demographics sort of who’s listening to my podcast, the majority of my listeners are in the United States, but I have some people you know, internationally as well. So it has been a little bit challenging to narrow down because I’m not doing Facebook ads or targeting certain cities or markets or anything like that. It’s all been organic, and attraction marketing. And I’m sure that you see this too. I see a few new followers every day. I have no idea where they found me was it me on another podcast or a podcast that I made myself two years ago. It’s all kind of a compound effect, I guess where people are coming into my world. They’re signing up on my email list or downloading my freebie. And then occasionally, I’ll just send little reminders and a PS at the bottom like hey, by the way, I can help you buy or sell real estate. If you have any questions, reply to this email or schedule a call. So to answer your question, it’s been a little bit challenging to predict. You know, I may have a free man who says, Hey, my Brother wants to buy a house in Seattle? Can you help with that? Heck, yeah, send me this, send him my link, and we’ll schedule a call, connect them to an agent out there, they close the deal. And I get a nice little referral commission like two months later. So it’s been a little more like, you see the meme of Professor X or max man, like, how do you lead generate? And he’s just like thinking about it. That’s kind of been the strategy just through content and goodwill. So it’s not quite predictable. But it’s been all over the place. And I guess I’m just working on how do I scale that up and make it a little more predictable, where I know where I’m gonna make four months from now, instead of like, man, no one’s hit me up in a month, like what’s going on?
And all of these are coming from the podcast, a lot of
them from the podcasts, I mean, a lot of business groups as well, you know, like the RNA group with Ed, my let Andy for Sela. So I’m connecting with people nationwide all the time, as well as the podcasts, you know, you and I may be talking tomorrow I may be talking to someone on the other side of the world is like, Hey, I’m actually moving to the US. This happened. I met someone in Dubai years ago, she hit me up like, Hey, Chris, my husband and I are going to move to Houston, Houston and Dubai are kind of connected with oil and gas. And I’m like, wow, who would have known that someone I met five years ago is going to hit me up when she’s moving to Houston to buy a house. Things like that, you know, planting those seeds over a long enough period of time. So not all from the podcast, but networking at scale.
Interesting. So you’re just you’re you’re a real estate expert, and you’re hitting people, are you running ads, or traffic for any of this stuff? Now, are you just everything here is organic,
everything’s been organic. I’d like to get into the ad platform. I was talking with my business group yesterday. And I was joking with them that I’ve definitely spent my share of Facebook ad money into the black hole. Like, I don’t know, if I click the right buttons, or maybe I just don’t target the right people. You know, there’s three hour videos on YouTube on how to properly do Facebook ads. So it’s been something that I never quite dialed in. But I just feel like once I get the messaging, right, a little bit more than I have that offer that sticks. Because, you know, you’ve probably seen this too, with other real estate agents, you ask them, What do you do? Or who do you help? And it’s very difficult to differentiate yourself sometimes, like, what’s the difference between me and the other 10 people who are local agents within a half mile of me, right? I mean, that gets a little difficult. So I’ve been trying to brand myself a little bit differently of, hey, I don’t just help you here, I help you anywhere. Whenever you want to move to another state with the great resignation, all these things happening. People are moving all across the country, they need an expert who can be there for everything, not just for moving two blocks away? Sure.
And how long when did you start the podcast? And then how many episodes are you publishing? And then how long until you actually saw it? People come out of it and get some fruit out of it.
Yeah, so I started in October 2017. And it wasn’t even about kind of what it is now. It was just documenting the journey. It was documenting me fumbling through ideas. I had quit a corporate job, you know, I was just sharing what I was working on. And being honest, as honest as I could be, and having cool guests on the show. And it kind of goes back to that whole planting seeds and giving out the best possible content knowing that you’ll eventually get it back somehow. Right. That’s what I did with my it’s crazy. You started in 2017 as well.
I started in 2014. Okay, but I didn’t have a goal. I didn’t have a business side done. I just knew if I built an audience, I would monetize it someday. Right? Yeah, same thing here. The similar amount of downloads and all of that, but it was an advertiser, just consistent communication, that same audience over time. And although like our business side didn’t really formulate till three years ago, the podcasts, most of the people who buy our shit will come in right off the podcast. From that, and it just it’s very, so you guys that we’re talking about is building an audience and you can’t, when you have an audience, you’ll monetize it. And an audience is just a bunch of people that listen to what you say. So right. You can monetize. If you understand the concept of building an audience, you can monetize whatever it is that you sell, so that you could go into like the campaign industry and start creating camping tips are gonna give you a good idea. So I had a guy met with yesterday, schedule a demo with me. He happens to be in San Diego, and I didn’t think I was going to take the guy on I was like, you know, in San Diego, we don’t take on clients, we partner with them and they join our team or something like that. So I don’t think I’m like I told him shut up. But like I, you know, I’m not taking on clients in San Diego, but you can join our team. So this guy ends up having like, he started showing me his old YouTube channel and this guy has like a YouTube channel and he’s a cologne guy. He would just go out and write colognes and do all this stuff with colognes. And I look at his channel, he’s got 10,000 views 5000 views, and he didn’t realize that he was like, he stopped. Like he was just on the verge of greatness and he got into youth work on he stopped too soon. I’m like, bro, if you would have fucking kept going. You’re literally you’re you’re gonna make it like 40 grand a day or week on all these ads monetized because it’s so much organic traffic and on cologne affiliate offers totally so at the end of the 100% at the end of the call. I’m like he’s like you know what, I think you’re right. I’m like, bro, whether you’re gonna sell real estate or cologne. You have to do something that people are gonna listen or pay attention to you on. Yeah, and if you he just became like the smelling realtor that would crush it first because everyone would be like you would, there’s so many ways to market it, but I go, the point is, is that your passion is in this cologne thing that you that you’d liked and you had somebody because I think you’re onto something, man, I think you’re on a seven because people like I haven’t talked to in six years are still tagging me as this clone guy. I’m like, Well, yeah, that’s what it is, dude. So he just had like, this night, this light bulb type moment. And he built an audience of people who like lung. Very cool.
He had no idea this way here is like no idea. A lot of people, they’re waiting to find that perfect idea, like, which niche Should I pick? Which channel should I create. And the takeaway that I like to say is just like, start creating content, your audience may change, you’re not going to know what the heck you want to do. But if you make 200 episodes, I bet you’re gonna start figuring out what you like, and what you don’t like, and the people who have listened to you along the way. Whether you sell insurance or real estate or something else, they’re going to want to support you because people do business with people they know like and trust. And listening to all of someone’s podcasts is a great way to know like and trust someone. Yeah.
Yeah. It’s very, very, very cool. A lot of both. Let’s be devil’s advocate, though, and talk about why people don’t do it is because it’s not instant gratification. Yeah, it’s not like it’s an uphill battle. You know, like, I’m think I think the Lord, I started the podcast, you know, like, it was like my savior, my saving grace, if you will, but I didn’t know what I didn’t know at that time either.
Ignorance is seriously a pro tip. I guess if you don’t know what you don’t know. And you just get started, you have no idea how much work it is. And then you’re like, Well, what the hell I already did 20 episodes, I may as well do 50 and then 100. But a lot of people I think I heard a stat that most people never make it past 20 episodes. They just realize how much work it is with recording and editing and lighting and the right mic and then syndicating it pushing it out marketing it emails, I can see why a lot of people don’t don’t make it because instant gratification is what we we expect two day delivery on Amazon. And now we got to wait six months to get more than 10 lessons a month like what the heck
yeah, absolutely. That’s exactly the reason why a lot. How did you know about the audience aspect of it back then because you were just wholesaling. And you’re investing in and and just like the you took a passion and obviously you have a passion for real estate. And you wouldn’t have been able to do this without the passion, though, I’m assuming.
Right? So real estate became the vehicle to earn the income and to actually make the money without worrying about how do I monetize my podcast? Because that’s always a question we see in Facebook groups, right? How do you monetize your podcast? Who’s monetize their podcasts? I’m kind of in talks with a potential sponsor, but even then, it’s been like, man, do I really want to throw ads on the show? And it’s not really enough? Is the juice worth the squeeze type thing? And to answer the question in terms of monetizing the podcast, too, I didn’t know about the audience who was going to be I just started talking about stuff that I love to do. And then I interviewed, you know, my CPA, and I interviewed someone that someone else told me the interview, and then when they were ready to buy houses, they came to me, it was so cool. Both of those worked out in such a way I can think of two examples right off the top of my head of guests that I interviewed in my market in Houston, Texas while I was still there. And CPA was literally like, hey, we just walked through this open house you want to write the offer for us, is like a $350,000 house. The price points are a little lower in Houston, but um, bought the house, I had only gone there once after we wrote up the contract, and we were under contract, and another person to said, Hey, Chris, I can’t think of anyone else I’d reach out to you know, my husband, I want to buy a house, we’d love for you to help us. And literally five to six showings later, we’re under contract on the house as well. So when you add value to other people, especially those who don’t have a podcast of their own, it kind of opens that reciprocity loop where they’re like, man, Chris did this thing for me. Or Mike did this thing for me. I got exposure to the audience. They may have gotten business from their interview on my show, right? So how do they give that back by referring people to me or working with me directly? So the audience really consists of people who have a day job to people who’ve quit their job because of my podcast, to real estate agents and more. It’s been it’s a bit diverse, but I don’t hate that about it. Right. I get to connect with really cool people across the world that do all kinds of things. So I learned a lot.
I like it. The I had some I was gonna say I totally lost my train of thought.
My bad. rambles. No, you’re
all good. Oh, good. But yeah, I did I agree. So I like what you said I’m if you catch up, but I’ll just revamp it. Re set me he basically he already had a job. So he wasn’t like starting the podcast, with the intention of where it is today. He started a podcast, he had a passion and it was substituting what he was already doing, which was already doing real estate and as a result of that he picked up some direct business. So if you guys listen to the show, you hear us talk a lot about agents that do videos to do business owner videos. Well, it’s the same exact strategy. You do these business owner interviews and you’re creating television commercials for future referral sources and then they come back to Send you referrals and repeat business, but it’s not immediate gratification you’re serving first, so that you can sell something. Secondly, not for not the other way around. And that’s always a very good strategy for any local based business is to promote other people that share your same client, which are people who live in the community in real estate 100%. But yeah, that was what I was gonna say is compare that made me the business owner interview strategy. What other what else would you suggest? Because this is it, maybe it’s not a podcast folks could be a video series, it could be you just have to create we’re talking about creating content, whatever form shape or form that is. So what other stuff? What if somebody doesn’t have a voice? Right? If someone doesn’t have one of these microphone voices like this, and they’re scared to get on the podcast, and they don’t know what to do, because you don’t sound this good? That’s just a mic folks.
Like yeah, the mic really makes a big difference when you invest in the microphone. even that expensive. Mine was like, I don’t know. 100 bucks. 120 bucks. And I’ve been using the same microphone since I started years ago. You know, $80 webcam and a little $50 Ring Light. That’s really the starter kit, and I didn’t even get the ring light till 300 episodes in.
But you got a ring light, bro. Yeah, maybe more advanced than me.
I got it from BestBuy was like 50 bucks. You know, it’s nothing fancy. I don’t have all the lighting setup. I’m not an audio video expert. But to answer the question for those struggling Well, first, you got to overcome the fear of hearing your voice most people listen to they’re like, I hate the sound of my voice. I don’t want to do it. I’m not gonna listen back on my podcasts. But after a while you start to actually get better. If I listen to episodes one through five. I’m sure this is the case with you. I’m like, dang, I was super monotone. That was always feedback I got when I did Toastmasters years ago, years ago is great job, Chris. But you know, you’re so monotone I would just be. So this is what I’m going to be talking about today. But you develop your personality as you start to make more and more content. And I initially just started with audio. I didn’t even do video. It wasn’t until I think I heard maybe Gary Vee talks about it like, Hell, if you’re gonna do audio, just turn the camera on. Now you got a video for YouTube. And if you’re doing long form content, like you and I talking for 40 minutes or an hour, I can slice it into reels though it on tick tock, I can syndicate it any which way that I like. But if I only have audio now I’m like, Well, man, I gotta just do a headliner clip, because I don’t have any video that I can share with this. So for those who are afraid, I could say start with audio alone, if you don’t want to see yourself on camera. But if possible, throw the camera on, record the audio. And you’ll get a lot further faster. Because you can share your content on so many more platforms. And you can have virtual assistants do all the post editing, you don’t have to do it all on your own. Yep. Because that’s where people fail, they try to do everything right off the bat, post on all the platforms, game over, right? If you think about it, tick tock Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn. I mean, if you haven’t done any content before, and you try to do all those things, you’re overwhelmed, be so overwhelmed, if you just pick one platform and get very good at that. And then add the second thing, once you become competent. That’s how you start to stack things. You know, the podcast turns into YouTube and you start doing blog posts, then you start publishing on LinkedIn, those little LinkedIn published articles to it doesn’t all start that way, it starts one thing at a time for most people.
And you got to get in the habit of it to like people, you don’t just start creating content, but you get better at it. And, folks, we talked about thing a couple of weeks ago on the show here, but you it’s no longer optional. You have to create content nowadays, if you either can sell your shirt or you create content, you have to be at the center of some kind of conversation. And I’d much rather do the latter. I hate selling my stuff. I’d much rather add value to people’s businesses and be the first they think of when they think of real estate versus me trying to like, you know, dude, you need to sell your house right now, right now sell your house like I hate that approach. It’s just never been my style. And it’s not most people’s styles either. Doesn’t mean you’re bad at business or better estate, it just means you got to find out the right way for you to do it. And it’s a giant popularity contest.
Yeah. And the quality of leads is unmatched. Right. It’s not me begging someone for their business. It’s literally the examples I shared. Chris, we see a house we like you want to write the offer on it. Like, I’m not gonna go with another agent, like you’re the person I thought of, and I want to work with, it’s not Hey, will you cut your commission or this person has been doing it two more years than you? So you know, can you answer this question on the spot and it doesn’t happen when people approach you from content. And that’s what I love. It’s called attraction marketing, you’re attracting people to you. And they’ve already made up their mind that they want to work with you by the time they reach out to you, which is very different than me picking up the phone and calling all my relatives and family members and asking Hey, who do you know who needs to sell real estate? It just takes up way more energy from me as well where I’m like, I don’t want people calling me for random stuff. So I’m not going to do that to them.
Yeah, I think the stat was like 70 to 80% of people when they reach out and schedule some with you their minds already made basically made up they’ve already found you online they already found you but the more content you have increases those chances of them calling because when they’re first fishing around people are like do I like this guy? Do I not and they will check out some of your video is not for necessarily the content you’re talking about. But it’s for how you portray yourself. If they could see themselves working with you, like people do judge you and judge a book by its cover whether you want to say that’s politically correct or not well, so be it. It’s the way the fucking life works the way the world works, dude. So yeah, deal with it, birds of a feather flock together. So yes, people are gonna look you up, people are going to judge you, they’re going to have a preconception of you, it’s gonna be based on what you look like how you’re talking what you’re wearing. I mean, that’s just the way people go, just how life works. So the more content you have, the more way that you get people out there. Think of it as like your dating profile. When you’re getting hired for business, a good dating profile is going to have pictures of you and your bikini, and your workout gear, showing your traits, your hobbies, the stuff you do on the weekends, pictures with you and your kids, maybe. And a bad dating profile is going to have your glamour shot from when you were still in high school and it’s all fuzzy. Yeah, or it’s like a Polaroid or something. Right? So same exact thing. Like the, the, the, the person who’s gonna get the most dates is gonna have a killer profile, they’re gonna see him in their swimsuit to their frickin, you know, church, whatever. And then the person that doesn’t even have a dating profile and polaroid photo, you’re like, is this guy even fucking real? What the fuck is this? My column, this guy might go on a date with this fucking creep, right? It just doesn’t work. So it’s sketchy. Yeah. So you got to look at yourself, like look at your own brand. That’s what content does, folks, it really allows people to get to know you so that they can make the decision on whether you’re worth talking to or hiring or working with.
Once the consistency makes a statement. I remember there was another agent in my office in Houston. And every time you mentioned, you have a podcast, you probably see this as well. People are like, oh, like, you know, the circles we run in everyone has a podcast, it seems but the average person does not have a podcast, but they listen to them. So they always asked me like, Hey, can you send it to me? I’ll definitely check it out. And then I remember like a day or two later, this guy’s like, Damn, you got over 300 episodes, like, you got a podcast podcast, not just like, oh, I have a podcast with two episodes that I made three years ago. So that speaks to the consistency look, I’ve done. So it’s a year for three or a week for three years. That is something that sets me apart from the person who gave up after episode three, right? Do you want that person as your realtor who can’t even commit to more than three episodes? Or someone like this? Who’s gonna show up no matter what,
you’re more legit. And the eyes are like, well, this guy’s gotta be legit. Exactly. You’re gonna hire the guy with 350 episodes. Not the guy doesn’t have one.
Right? So it’s just another differentiator of like, Oh, does your agent have a podcast? Yes or no? Well, I have over a million downloads like that must mean something. Right? It’s kind of like the new Amazon bestseller that everyone was flexing before. And now it’s like, I got a podcast with over a million downloads
like it. Well, that’s why people follow people have a lot of followers on social media. Same thing. Yeah. So yep. I like it, dude. Dude, I think you’ve frickin nailed it. You teed it off pretty well, why don’t you any other closing tips you want to mention? But if not, why don’t you tell people where they can find you to learn more about what you’re doing? Then all of that. My closing thoughts guys are you got to create content? It’s what I say every week on the show, like content creation is necessary for all different types of purposes. But ultimately, I think it’s how you compete. I think it’s your only unique selling proposition and it becomes your unfair advantage for competition because there’s only one like you. And that’s no one can compete against it.
Definitely. So my only last takeaway would kind of align with obviously the content consistency, all those things. You don’t have to see the full staircase to take the first step right. I still sometimes I’m like, Man, should I niche down? Am I still too generic? Am I talking about random things. But whether it’s podcasting, or real estate, or anything else, I highly recommend having processes and systems and checklists. I literally have checklists for everything. And that’s how I’ve been able to close deals out of state 100%. I don’t miss anything. I’m not relying on memory. Same thing with my podcast, I can tag people who were my virtual assistants in the Philippines, to create YouTube thumbnails and edit my video. So really, I’m like the puppet master in a way where I want to work on the business, not in it. And I have people who are doing the various components for me. So a lot of people ask, How do you do at all? How do you do the podcast? Which video software? Should I get to edit podcasts? And I’m like, You’re asking the wrong questions. You got to ask who not how, which is a great book, by the way if you guys haven’t read it, so dial in your systems, your processes, get some checklists in place, and that’s how you can automate and delegate in order to elevate in your business and in your life. But for those looking to connect with me, I am pretty active on Instagram, at least on my stories, I post a lot. My handle is Chris Bello, underscore B E LL. O. And if you go to Chris bellow.com, that’s where you can check out my podcast and download my free complete life tracker is what I’m calling it’s just a cool Excel sheet that tracks all your goals and your business goals. How many pages you read a day. I like to nerd out about stuff like this as you guys can tell. But thank you so much, Mike. It’s been great getting to chat with you and get to know you a little bit. Today,
Yeah, appreciate you having on and we appreciate you folks listening to another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast, folks, follow us on leave us some reviews files on Facebook Instagram, connect with us on subscribe on our YouTube channel. But if you have any additional questions about how you start building your content or your brand with video, well you’re in the right spot. Real estate marketing dude scripts edits and distributes video content for anyone in the real estate industry across the country. And we basically put your brand on autopilot for you, we put you on the map so that people stop forgetting you’re in real estate and they stop hiring or cheated on you with people like me that are marketing them because you’re not so that’s all this is great. A lot of content people will come to you the only time it doesn’t work as if people don’t like you. But that’s nothing we can help you with and you’re in the wrong damn business. So we appreciate you guys listening. We’ll see you guys next week’s episode and talk to you then 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 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.
The thing with real estate is, how do you market your business? I don’t believe we’re in a sales business. I believe we’re in a service business. Our guest today is gonna lay up what she’s doing. One of the things that is her claim to fame is that she does things differently. She’s not scared to put it out there. She’s authentic. She’s real. She’s raw. She just tells it how it is, and that’s what we need more of in this business. We don’t want any more fake fake fake fake fake it till you make it type of brand new marketing and all that. We want real and authentic shit. So we’re gonna let her school us today about secret to her success and how she’s gotten over $700 million in sales.
Maria is a real estate agent, executive and expert, innovative entrepreneur, investor, speaker, visionary, trainer, thought leader and philanthropist with over 25 years of experience.
So how do you attract new business? You constantly don’t have to chase. Hi, I’m Mike Cuevas a real estate marketing dude. And this podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust most importantly, refer. But remember it is not their job to remember what you do for a living. It’s your job to remind them let’s get started
What’s up ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the real estate marketing dude, podcast. Folks what we’re going to be doing today people have been asking me Hey, dude, why don’t you have more women on once you have more women on? Why do you always have all these dudes? Why are you having a sausage party podcast? Well, we’re gonna bring on a killer women today that is going to share with you her secrets of success. Not only is she own her own office right now, but she’s been in real estate for 28 years, I thought I was the only person who could say I’ve been in this business for 20 years. Well, she’s got
no 18 years of real estate 11 years in marketing. So marketing sales,
love it. That will this is what we’re gonna chat about is like, you know, the thing with real estate is like, how do you market your business? And I don’t believe we’re in a sales business. I believe we’re in a service business. And I’ve always been known to like, do things differently, stand out, Chase attention, don’t chase leads, stuff like that, man, she’s gonna lay up what she’s doing. One of the things that sort of has her claim to fame is that she does things differently. She’s not scared to put it out there. She’s authentic. She’s real. She’s raw. She just tells it how it is. And that’s what we need more of in this business. We don’t want any more fake fake fake fake fake it till you make it type of brand new marketing and all that. We want real and authentic shit. So we’re gonna let her school us today about secret to her success and how she’s gotten over $700 million in sales in her career. It’s a lot of business guys. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and introduce our guests. Mrs. Madea Quattrone did I say that correct?
You did. So Italy, though? We would say quick, Joan,
I was gonna ask you’re either Italian or you’re Hispanic. And I was gonna guess one or the other. But cut Oh, no. Okay, cut there. Oh, no. Tell us everybody. Tell everyone who you are, where you’re asking
me my slide here. Thanks for having me on the show today. I appreciate you and your time. So yeah, I mean, real estate is all about marketing, I don’t care actually what business you’re in people who need to know who you are. They need to know who you are, and what you do, and how you can help them. So first things are, you know, you start with the basic things, you can start with marketing, marketing yourself, just by picking up the phone and talking to people. Mark, this is how I started. I started by picking up the phone and talking to people, and going to networking events and marketing myself at networking events, doing the simple things consistently over and over and over again, following up with that person that you met the night before, at the at the networking event. Right, doing those putting those little touches, I always remember something special about that person. Whether is, hey, their kids go into Howard or, you know, they, whatever they do for for fun, they they got a lot or whatever it is, there’s always something in the conversation. I remember and I always revert back to that, as I’m getting to know somebody. So the basic principles of marketing are get people to know who you are. And you can start simply by picking up the phone and by meeting people face to face. How can you do that now even more authentically, right now video? Getting on video giving. So what can we offer? I will just do real estate things. I talked about being inspirational.
Everyone thinks we have to talk about real estate though. What do you mean? Do you mean I could do a video and not talk about interest rates houses are just sold or how many fucking houses I sold last month or how much money I made. I could actually do that and generate business and real estate you got to be kidding me.
Right, so our core value one of our core values here at M QA is to be the solution. That’s my personal core value and top of integrity and a lot of other things but for this talk today be the solution. And so I started this podcast called The the solution because here’s why. It was March 20 2020 The governor shutdown boom, boom, boom real estate here. Couldn’t go out of the house to go sell real estate or go to networking. So I’m like, Oh my gosh, what are we gonna do? Guess what everybody’s eyes were social media. Yep. everybody’s eyes were in social media. Social media went down from like, 20% like that during the day that 80% Everybody’s on social. Yeah, guess what? All my colleagues around here. Nobody was on social say nothing. Yes. Well, I said it To be the leader, and I’m going to step up, and I’m going to be the solution. Because our clients have hired us over the years, especially, we sell expired listings. Why? Because we’re the solution for them, because they haven’t been successful in the past for a variety of reasons. And hey, y’all, it’s not always the agent. And I don’t actually blame anybody. But I come up with the solution on how we’re going to do it. So it’s March 20. I’m like, oh, no, F. At WTF. Freaking out. Yep. So
it’s about that time really quick. Yeah. And I said it here on the show, we said the same thing we go listen, this is when you double down on brand, because this is when everyone’s gonna be glued to social. And I’ll be like, we lost a lot of our clients at that time, because we’re creating videos, but the fear went through the industry so quick, that the truth is, is that all you guys who are still listening to my show that quit, you just made a major mistake, because you just lost a shitload of attention. Everyone who doubled down on video during that time, literally had a 4x from the year prior. Because it’s all attention based guys. And you have to remain present. It’s not about what you create. It’s about that you’re consistent in presence. And I agree with you, I agree that I think this whole business is just about having conversations, constantly and constantly reminding people where you’re at and who you are. And when the networking goes away. How do you have those conversations, you go to social and you do it on video, because those videos are still playing while you’re sleeping. And they’re always working for you. But whether it’s video or whether it’s not what we’re getting at, folks, is that you have to be present. Alright, look, if you Maria, are you married? I am if you stop talking to your significant other for the next month, what’s going to happen to your relationship?
Don’t very much it’s good.
I have nothing at all. You know,
you’ve been zero is gonna happen. So guys, what do you think go for like a debt? Not even like a half a day without talking? Maybe like a day? But no, I mean, come on. You have to talk to people. Until
Why do agents agents stop talking to their databases? Like when I moved out to California five years ago, I was shocked at like the way that I saw some agents actually treat their clients and how they interact with them. And folks, like you don’t spike the football on a transaction a day of the closing table, you spiked the football on the transaction, the day you get your third referral from that person you had at the closing table five years prior. And we’re not playing the short game. We’re playing the long game here. You have to remain present since like Maria, let me ask a couple questions. You have a bro, how many agents are in your brokerage? There’s about 15. So 15. Besides you I know you’re probably the top of your killer, who’s the other top agent besides you? What’s your volume like?
So we run our office like a team. So we work together. So Dara is my listing partner. So she does a lot of the listings now. Probably, I’d say the lion’s share. And then we’re grooming some other agents to step up into the listing because we believe in listing listing listing listing, I get buyers organically. So I’m trying to focus on you know, we opened up another business, I’m also building that so and we’re recruiting people into our company so that we can help them grow. So I’ve actually stepped in a little bit more of a sales manager role training. A little bit on the recruiting side, I have like a help on that actually. And we also have a scholarship program. So we’re bringing new people that have never been in the real estate industry, we specifically look to bring in women and minorities. And we have a program for them. It’s called the M QA scholarship program. And it is from the moment that they we agreed to we’re going to be partnering up together until they finished the boot camp, we offer this entire package. So schooling mentorship during schooling. And then we have a two week program called rise in Real Estate Academy that is here on site that they go through. And then after that, they are position to have the basic knowledge in order to conduct the buyer Strategy Session, show houses and basically write the offer but to get the offer training is going on going because that takes a while to figure out so we we gear them up, they actually are making calls on day two. In our program, we used to do it a little bit later, but we found that quicker is better. We want people to get used to talking to people that’s why I lead with you have to talk to people I we could do all the marketing in the world and if we didn’t talk to anybody, right it’s a waste of money, waste of time. So like going back for a moment to you know, 2020 the podcast was born be the solution because As I couldn’t go anywhere, so I didn’t see any people. I was heavily involved in sales at the time. And I was figuring out what we’re going to do for who knows how long in our case, it was 10 weeks. And every day for No, three days a week, I went live on Facebook. And I never did that before in my life. And I had been interviewed over the last two years about 150 people, which, you know, for somebody who’s not there, like full time gig, kind of a lot of good amount of people to get good at listening. Yeah, so there’s more things that happened because of podcasts. So then what do we do with the videos, right? So I’ll make a video about, hey, this week might be the solution messages. And during the times the hardship that we went through many people with being sick family members, sick people dying, people are really on a ledge, right? So I came up with every week with an inspirational thing to talk about, of it. And I talked about, you know, family, and I talked about perseverance and, you know, just continuing to go on, you know, to keep going keep going in all different topics, but like geared around being inspirational, and
it’s all based around. So a lot to unpack here, guys. Let me just so here’s, here’s what she’s walking you through is you one creating content to have conversations. Okay, so we’re talking about content creation, and being consistent with that. And even though someone might not necessarily be talking back to you, when you’re creating videos, you’re still having conversations, because someone on the other end of those is listening, even though you’re not responding back. However, it’s very hard to do anything in longevity consistently without first determining what the hell you’re doing, or what your strategy is. So she comes up with a concept called be the solution be the solution be the solution. And basically, every bit of contact content that she creates, has a theme associated with based upon being a solution. So the problem that a lot of people have when they’re coming up with their content strategy, as the real estate coach will tell them go out shoot videos, and then they’ll go out shoot videos, but they don’t really have any purpose or meaning, or do anything to enhance the brand. It’s just a way to start a checkbox, check the box, because your coach told you to do. So she’s taken it up a step, because the truth is, if you’re going to create content you better well, we might as well make it impactful. And Maria, I’m guessing we just met about 20 minutes ago. So we haven’t talked before. But I’m guessing that she’s an avid reader of inspirational stories, she probably reads a bunch of biographies. But a bunch of different people have gone from zero to hero, my guess is that Maria probably was a zero back in the day. And now she’s a hero. And she has a work ethic from somewhere some way shape, or form. I’m not sure where that came from. But you can tell by her personality today, it means something. And folks, each of you have the same thing. It might not be the solution. But it is something that makes you unique, because God’s only made one of you. And that’s very damn cool. Right? Everybody has a personal brand. The problem is that nobody’s ever no one embraces it, because you’re so worried about what everyone else is gonna say about you. Maria here doesn’t give a shit what everyone else says about you. Maria knows how to inspire change. And she’s marching to the tune of her own drum. And because of that fearless ability to create content, Marie, I’m gonna go out on a limb. People were probably reaching out to you at this time in 2020. Being like, these are the private messages you guys get when you start creating content. I got them. I’ve been getting them all week, I’ll share with you what I’m doing now. But Maria, thanks for you know, I really needed to hear that today. Thank you so much for just sending that message over. Hey, Maria. Hey, guess what, you know what I was even thinking about my kids learning center and how I can improve that. But just because you did that video, thank you so much for for doing that video, you know, I’m stressed out, I’m worried about losing my time. So tell me what happened when you start creating these videos
I got so what happens not only just creating the videos, but then we send them to not only post them on Facebook, and do the lives on Facebook, which are separate. That’s different. Also sending it out to our database of 14,000 people or so. So what happens is the people, some of them may not respond, but I know who opened it. And a lot of people did respond to it, especially during that time saying, This is awesome. Thank you so much. You know, I’m inspired by you, and I can’t you know, thank you for stepping up all kinds of things like that direct messages, text, put post on the Facebook, you know, video, but a lot of it. A lot of it was you know, privately, and even people telling me when I’m around and about like I see yourself, you’re everywhere, blah, blah, blah. So one thing though, that I want to mention is really important. So one of the things that we talk about here at M QA is that the money’s in the database all the time. All of it, it’s a goldmine. And when people, agents join up company, they it’s plug and play their plug in right in right into our database to follow up boss and all the other systems you use. And they’re calling people that already know us. Because guess what they’ve gotten. If they’d been in a database for three years, or close to three years, they probably receive 140 ish videos from me. So what happens? Mike is, I’ll be at my office, and there’s people coming for settlements, and the really cool Maria. Yeah, I watched, I’ve seen all your videos.
Are you like who? Who are you?
I’m always I’m always very gracious. And I say thank you so much for the opportunity for us to work with you and your family. And so they know already the brand. So when anybody ever calls, I say 9.8 out of 10, maybe 9.9 out of 10 times that people are nice on the phone. Because they’re like, oh, yeah, that’s Marine, we’re not ready yet. Or maybe we’ll sell this or we got investors, you know, oh, did they have this or that or whatever. So you’re using this as a platform to sell your brand without selling it by giving the community information. So it could be a market update monthly, it could be solution oriented, like these are be the solution podcasts and talking about motivational or inspirational either or both, by the way, not just as free servation as well,
you were saying you guys is without a brand, you’re just a salesperson chasing the next Chuck. And there’s nothing different between you and somebody else. But the only way you could create a brand is through consistent communication to the same audience over time, because of Maria, when Mia, those same people that are having settlements in your office equally walk right past, you not know who the hell you are, the difference is in brand. And that brand brand brand brand brand is the only thing we have to compete against every everybody else. People aren’t like in your market. They’re not like hiring a real estate agent. They’re hiring Maria Maria’s team because of what her brand, or what they believe her brand can do for them, which is probably stress free real estate transactions. But she doesn’t get the opportunity to have that conversation without first being top of mind or creating content. And you hit it right on the head. What she’s telling about is the database, it she’s 100%, right 10 to 15% of the people who see your content will be moving this year, and 100% of them have a referral for you. It’s just a matter whether they’re going to share your name or not. And the more memorable, the more authority you have, the more bigger your brand is, the more likely you are to be introduced to those conversations. And that’s called attraction, guys, which is what it is, but you can’t get there without first creating content. And content takes a lot of different shapes or forms. We’re talking about video right now. But content creation has been around since the dinosaurs ruled the earth. Back then remember, back in the days, it was just direct mail, I started off with direct mail, I used to farm my database, I still do find my database. And I just say Don’t forget to exist, it’s not about the content that I care so much about, it’s more about keeping my face in front of them. And a value added way that hey, don’t forget I’m in real estate, oh, by the way, is something you can add value with to deduct your daily day.
Indeed, so when the other thing that’s really important when you are working within the database, and let’s just say that’s how you’re working your business, is that you can create in most database, at least in our follow up campaigns. And the follow up campaigns in our case are mostly 80% video. So you may be a seller who’s going to sell and three months from now. And we want to inform you of different things that you should think about maybe when selling your home or the marketing that we do or you know, how to increase your home’s value for a little bit of money. Or if you’re a buyer, you know why buying now is critical, versus you know, what’s going on and also what’s going on in the marketplace and what to expect over the next five years in regards to the market normalizing but it’s still gonna grow over the next five years 19 20% which is a healthy growth after, you know, this year, which are probably more like 79. Who knows. But if we’re at three to four, that’s normal. But if you’re not, if you’re a renter, you’re out of the game. So videos about all these different things and putting people on these proper, what we call action plans. And so here’s another touch and another touch and you’re educating them. And you were there’s no ask involved. No, it’s rare that we do an ask and the only answer usually that there is, is would you like an updated market analysis for your home? Yeah.
Or do you know anyone else that needs my help?
Yes, on the phone, we usually do that usually get on the phone. We ask that question,
why through your guys’s touchpoints and the different channels you guys are using overall. So let’s just say I’m a new agent. I’m in the Philadelphia area. I’m like one to two years in business, but I’m only doing six to 12 sides a year and I can’t break it up. I’m listening to one of the gurus, they’re telling me that I need to pick up the phone and call a bunch of people I’ve never met before or go knock on some stranger’s doors, or go buy very expensive leads. What do I do in your system?
In our system, if you joined our company? Yeah,
walk me through it. I’m gonna see all the touch points.
While the campaign is happening, there’s, we have about 20 different campaigns that run because they still in what type of opportunity, they are past client, active client. Buyer, short term buyer, long term investor, multifamily industrial buyer, commercial development buyer, commercial development seller. So that’s we have a lot, a lot more than the normal people do. Because we do do commercial real estate as well.
What about just past client, like stay in touch type stuff, let’s pretend I’m not buying or selling? And because we got to be top of mind first, right? Otherwise, we don’t get the tab that a conversations about being a commercial buyer and investor any that still have to remain present? How are they staying in front of their databases that are generating the calls to become and talk about commercial property or selling the listing or something like that?
Well, we have we do inside sales. So we call into the database every day. And like I said, they get these weekly, those videos or weekly, they go to everybody. So that is an overall company message that goes out, then you have the action, then you have the action plan, segment it per the source of business. So those action plans are running. So every time we have a new person come in to our world in art, we put them in a database, and they go into a bucket. And the bucket works the opportunity until they’re ready. And in the meantime, the agents will touch base when they’re told to touch base for the action plans and tasks and follow up boss.
And it’s probably like a text, a phone call talks an email, what’s the combo of touches Video,
Video, an email, and then our text when we do texts? There’s not there’s no automatic, it’s texting for specific reason. Like we’ll have a day we’ll do you know, we might do 50 tax to sellers saying Would you like an updated Mark analysis? But that’s not we’re not blasting anybody with anything like that. It’s good one. It’s yeah, you have to be careful with that kind of stuff.
Yep. I like it. I like it a lot. So you’re creating with your team, you’re sort of creating the core content from the top and then syndicating it down to and then your agents are curating it to their networks and their databases, but you’re centralizing the branding and the communication as a team, which is really smart. And that probably is what keeps them consistent.
Yeah, so everybody uses everybody uses the same thing. So we have one buyer presentation, one listing presentation. Everything is the same. Everybody uses the same. That’s why our agency runs as one big team office. I don’t believe in having 50 different agents doing 50 different things. That’s problematic.
And I have a brand doing that. It’d be like McDonald’s having 20 different types of cheeseburgers. People go there for some cheeseburger.
You’ll see some brokerage that has brokerages I won’t name any names that have every person can have their own type of
sign 99.9% of
them. Yeah, and but even though to the brands is x, x Yeah, initials. Yep. And then there’s a pink one, a yellow one a black and white one was at least with REMAX right, we just have we do say brand specific and that’s important. People know that REMAX brand even though we our own our own brand here in Philadelphia Maria Quattrone associates you know there’s nothing not too bad to be on the back of a giant Yeah,
I agree. What um, so let’s go let’s go what’s coming down the pipe? I think you’re 100% right on what’s gonna happen with client generation going forward? There’s a lot of changes happening Do you believe Yeah, let me second the young packs I see already dirty. What’s gonna happen like how are agents gonna find their clients because before is more like there’s so many different ways to find clients but remember guys What worked 10 years ago doesn’t work anymore, or as good as it used to so probably Maria around same time we both got in I started oh two. I was told to cold call a lot and that’s how I got my first few sales but cold calling today isn’t quite what it was back then. At the same time, we didn’t have text back then today you do. So what are gonna be the sources of business with all of this stuff coming down the pipe, you have ibuyers bleeding, the drowning the airwaves about how realtors are a big waste of money. You have commission compression that is for real, it’s happening. You have a lot of alternatives and selling, depending on where you’re at in the market, maybe not so much in Philly Metro, but the eye buyers, the open doors, offer pads and all of those these world, they’re gonna be in every market guys, like trust me, we see all the shit coming down the pipe, and we know exactly what’s coming. There’s a reason why we’re adapting now to be ready for those messages. So what what is an agent gonna do going forward? Where do they hang their hat?
Build a personality brand? Yes, I agree. Feel content, build a personality brand. Make sure everybody knows what you do. Spend your money and time. Do you know what we call? Dedicated, dedicated, intentional, intentional content. So you’re spending four hours, six hours a week, blocked out three could be three hours, where you’re building intentional content, you’re building an arsenal content, hire a VA, to edit your podcast, start a podcast, I could teach people how to do that. Starting a podcast. Right? What other things can you do to build your brand? Everybody who’s an entrepreneur should have a podcast? Would you agree, Mike?
Yeah, I think everyone needs to have content like it, whether if it’s gonna be a podcast, it’s gonna be a video series. It could be a blog, it could be a meme series, but you have to have content. If you don’t have content. No one knows who the hell you are.
It’s so easy to do with so you don’t even have to have original ideas anymore.
No, you just you follow Maria’s feed and just copy what she’s doing and put your own spin on it guys, like,
go into one of these large Facebook groups or with all the complainers and see what they’re complaining about and do a video.
That’s actually probably that’s how you get the solution content? No, because that’s a good idea.
You guys, not because it’s like more thought. It’s a little more thoughtful. And it’s not real estate related. So it’s for all humans, not just people in the industry. But we do produce content for agent attraction now as well as consumer attraction. Yep. So we have videos for both. And then we have videos just for everybody.
Yep. You have to, and like, let’s just get you like inspiration, we’ll get out of your brain just we give some people some other things to think about. If you’re like a health nut, like give me workout tips, like, you know, like, if you could be a lender and you can be super into fitness, well, you probably have a healthy way to finance a house. But you could still give like, give me your protein shake recipes in the morning, nobody cares. But you’re always going to attract the same people. And that’s where you have to build an audience. Because regardless of what you’re talking about 10 to 15% of the people who do listen to what you’re saying are moving, and all of them have referral for you. So it’s just a numbers game. The guru’s tell us to go out there though, and just chase like prospecting calls. And you guys, this is just a different way of looking at our business comes to you. So let’s go with something everyone’s familiar with. If I hire guru coach, they’re gonna come up to me and say, You’re one more know away from your next Yes, just keep hammering that phone, Mike, just keep hammering. And that’s true. Like, if I throw enough shit at the wall, something’s going to eventually stick. When you’re talking about content creation, though there still is a number or mathematical formula there. And it’s the numbers I’ve been saying earlier. If you’re out and creating content, if you’re creating a video, that means 10 to 15% of the people who see your video on your Facebook, feed your IG feed your LinkedIn feed your email list, your YouTube channel, whatever it is 10 to 15% of people who see that content they’re moving this year. That’s a mathematical fact, it’s not nothing that we can change. Most don’t know it yet. Some will die, some will be relocated some of this and we’ll do that. We don’t know when a move happens, life situation happens. And they raised their hand and 88% of the people who meet with the first agent, that’s who they end up hiring. That’s why this stuff matters. But that’s not why I’m marketing it. I’m marketing my database because 100% of them have referral for me. So let me give you another example. I just onboarding an agent onto our team. Traditional sales agents, what I typically see always selling, selling, selling spending $2,000 A month sending postcards to a bunch of strangers. I’m like, bro, I would rather just gift 20 People $100 each have a gift and you’ll end up with three or four deals. Why are we trying to talk to strangers? Why don’t we just nurture the people you already have? And they’ll give you direct business. But he goes, Mike, I don’t want us. I’m not going to put these people on my email list or my direct mail list because they don’t have any money. I go, Dude, you’re missing the entire point. We’re not staying in front of them for their direct business. We’re staying in front of them for their referral business because everybody has a referral for us. You’ll just happen to get their direct business as a byproduct of that and that is straight mindset. If I’m constantly messaging people with the intent of selling them something it’s very hard to stay consistent with my messaging. But if I’m constantly messaging people adding value like Maria is, with the concept of I’ll be the solution and giving friendly advice. It doesn’t matter because of the audience that she’s built. What she just told you guys was 14,000 people in her database. 1400 of them are moving each and every year 1400 1800 of them, and then probably about 20, well, all 14 of them have referral. So it’s not about reaching and hitting masses and masses of people as much as it’s about resonating. And really owning that core 200 250 people that you already know, like, trust and love you they invite to your wedding or funeral, or that you did say hello to the grocery store. Strangers
you want to do is to get to be the news to get in front of the news. So, you know, when the LA Times I think it was today or yesterday, there was some BS about the world’s ending real estate’s gonna crash blah, blah, blah,
big bus script you could do right now is look is the Philadelphia real estate market going to crash?
Right? So you want to get in front of it. You want to last week when the Feds announced a rate hike? Immediately, I did a video about it. The video was the Fed just announced the rate hike the first time and 22 years it’s been half a point. What does this mean? Hey, it’s we’re in a courtroom with M QA blah, blah, blah. What does this mean to you? Well, guess what? The last time this happened was the.com. And it was 22 years ago. And you know what happened? Interest rates 3%. And you know what happened after that happened? Interest rates came down. Yep. So the part of the world went into recession, but the rest of it, real estate actually raised in value. Right. So I did this video, but I did it immediately. You have to be an action taker. You have to be an action taker, you cannot wait, you have to get on in front of it. So, uh, you know, you want to get your market update out, you could do a weekly minute update. About you could do it about whatever’s going on. Open up the Wall Street Journal. Look down the page, look in the real estate section. For ideas. Put it in Google, you can go to answer the public.com. See what topics that they like that they want to know more information about. Go there. Do the video. If you use you can use big view. You put it right in the teleprompter. Write it up, put it in teleprompter, put it on your you can put it on your computer, you can put it on your iPhone or whatever phone he has. Put it up there, put your ring light on. That’s it. You got a video done. Take it upload it you can either put it to Jarvis AI now or if you rev.com translate the thing make sure you got captions on. Because most people we know that 70% of people watch the video with the video with the sound off. We also know that one minute of video equals 1.8 million words. The impact of it is 1.8 million words. It has on somebody the 400 that 400% greater impact than 1.8 million words.
I like it. Yes, folks. Dude, you guys got a great content. I mean, I don’t know it’s not a nice way to put it. You’re in the best industry to create content in. Everyone’s always interested in some way shape or form of it. It doesn’t always have to be real estate either guys, like if you don’t wanna talk about risk, they don’t most of our clients don’t ever talk about real estate. But you can if you want and it just matters on what you’re passionate about. What matters is that you’re passionate. If you’re not passionate about whatever you’re talking about, it doesn’t work when you’re on video and you’re smiling it always works I don’t care what damn business you’re in. We’re gonna Why don’t you go ahead and tell everybody if they want to learn more where they can find you and all of that we’ll get this thing laid up.
Absolutely, they can find me at the the solution podcast or so by MQ on Instagram. And my name Maria Quattron on Facebook. And you can reach me if you want to give us a call 215-607-3535 for your Philadelphia Metro market connection
if you’re a badass woman in the Philadelphia area because it sounds like this is a woman only team correct
no we do have men to take on man well
if you’re a man that can keep up with these women Okay? Which I don’t think you can they’re probably run fucking circles around you call her up and maybe she’s looking for some more team members in that area and obviously she has 1400
people so if you want to have business we have it for you. If you’re hungry, you can easily turn your first year business year you can make six figures no doubt and I’ll back that up with money.
Love it, love it. Love it and thank you folks for listening another episode folks if you need help getting on video we script at it and distribute your content. Put you on the map tell you what to say teach you how to do it and then multipurpose it to your channel and everything else that you can imagine for it. This is not rocket Science I believe it’s a popularity contest and if you want to create get more popular, start creating more content videos just the most impactful way that you can do that and we can certainly create a done for you for a solution for you on that just visit our website at real estate marketing do.com real estate marketing do.com and connect with those aren’t channels. Thank you for leaving your reviews, keep them coming and reach out to us. If you have any interest about how any of this stuff works. Reach out to Maria, please feel free to reach out to us schedule a demo, visit my website. I’ll follow you around the internet until you do and we’ll go from there. Appreciate you guys listening. We will see you on next week’s episode 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 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 into your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.
What we’re gonna be chatting about on today’s episode, is what is content. Unfortunately, if you’re not creating content, you’re not going to have a business in the future. In my opinion, there is no more important marketing mechanism, activity or anything, than to create content. Because if you’re trying to message anyone without creating content, all you’re really doing is selling your shit and you’re landing on deaf ears. Content Creation is how you remain relevant amongst your audience, your databases, and how you keep the conversation going.
Our guest today happens to be from Chicago, but certainly not all good content marketers come from Chicago ;). Her name is Mrs. Sarah Noel Block, and she has a company called Tiny Marketing. What she does is she focuses on content creation within the real estate space.
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, where we’re talking about today is something near and dear to my heart. Basically, the whole reason why I started to create this show about six weeks ago, and I’ll lay the context over what we’re going to be covering are six weeks ago, I mean, six fucking years ago, not six weeks, six years ago. But I’m going to lay the coverage about when I actually came up with the name real estate marketing dude, I was actually at a conference for Copyblogger in Denver and Copyblogger. Back in the day is Brian Clark’s company, you probably know who he is. Brian Clark is Copyblogger used to be the number one blogging content marketing company, I think in the world, he’s from training, they’re at the forefront number. And at that conference, I was sitting at this conference, and it was at that conference that I saw, I forget who was speaking on stage, but I’m like, You know what, I’m going to call my company. And I’m going to call my podcast, real estate marketing dude, because I was sold on content marketing, but I wasn’t sold on what my brand or identity was, until I came back from that conference. So folks, what we’re gonna be chatting about on today’s episode, is what is content. And unfortunately, if you’re not creating content, you’re not going to have a business in the future. In my opinion, there is no more important marketing mechanism, activity or anything, then to create content. Because if you’re trying to message anyone without creating content, all you’re really doing is selling your shit. And you’re landing on deaf ears. Content Creation is how you remain relevant amongst your audience, your databases, and how you keep the conversation going. Because when you disappear, you become a closet agent. And that’s when they start cheating on you with guys like me and everybody else. And that’s what is going to happen. The eye buyers today are are aiming for your clients. Big tech is aiming for your clients, and everyone is aiming for your clients except you. If you’re not creating content, you’re gonna lose touch, not stay in touch with them. And this is going to be a very good episode. So we’re gonna go ahead and introduce our guest today. She happens to be from Chicago, but certainly not all good content marketers come from Chicago, if you don’t know. But her name is Mrs. Sarah Noel block, and she has a company called tidy marketing. And what she does is she focuses on content creation within the real estate space. So Sarah, go ahead and say hello, tell us a little bit about yourself. And let’s get into this.
Yeah, so I started working with real estate companies about 10 years ago to create their content. And I haven’t looked back basically, I reached out to landlord ology, the because I was a real estate investor. And I said, Hey, do you guys need content? They did. So they hired me in it spun from there. I was working full time in marketing. And I built my business on the side as I was, as I was doing content for real estate service and SaaS companies. And now here I am two years later. Do you want to do it full time?
And you’re mainly creating content for the real estate industry? Those that correct? Yes. Okay. So we’re going to start this off really easy, guys, we’re gonna first define what content is. If you guys ever listened to the show for a while, you guys, if you don’t know what the hell we do, yet, we create video content for you. So that everybody knows who the hell you are in your local community. But video content is just one form of content. There’s a lot of content to create. Everything you do is content. Like everything you do even when you go on showings, that’s content. So once you to find in your terms, what the hell’s content for the real estate people?
Yes, for the real estate people, it is how you educate and build trust with your audience. Man, I would say I think it’s like 70% of the sales process is done before they ever reach out to somebody in sales. And all of that is done through content marketing, because you’re teaching them how to solve their problem. And you’re building trust by showing them you know how to solve that problem. It pretty much feeds all of your marketing.
Can you go back and spend some time on this? 70 to 80% of people have already decided whether they’re going to buy your shit, is that what you’re saying?
I am saying they have at least decided between you and one other company on if they’re going to buy your shit. And then they’ll reach out to you and that’ll be the deciding factor on who they go with.
So when a consumer is out there, just sort of I don’t know just play in the real estate agents, agencies and say I’m going back into Chicago. I never sold real estate Chicago so I don’t know any real estate agents in Chicago. And I’m thinking about moving back home to go closer to my parents. Let them watch the grandkids grow up. And I’ve sort of went on YouTube, I saw some one guy might like a little bit, I see another agent, I might like a little bit. What would I do next? As a consumer? Typically, they check out their websites and make a check out their YouTube channel, like what am I going to do?
Oh, you’re gonna do a deep dive, you’re gonna go to Google. And you’re going to start researching that person. See what social media they’re on? Are they active on it? See what what’s going on on their website? Are they regularly updating it? Do they have new houses listed on there? What do they tell me about their process for buying and selling? And that’s, that’s where it’s gonna go next. Just like everybody else in the world. They’re gonna go to Google and see what you have.
Right, folks? Did you guys, let’s get out of real estate for a second? I don’t know. What’s your favorite thing to do, Sarah? Like, what’s your favorite thing to buy?
Oh, my favorite thing to buy? Yeah,
to buy or do and spend money on?
Yeah, probably. Buy hiking,
hiking before you go on. Alright, so let’s just say that you came out to Southern California, you’re going out the San Diego area. And there’s a lot of really good hiking around here. What would you do first? Well, I
was actually there last summer. And I hiked up the federal volcano that you have over there.
I haven’t been there yet. But I know you’re talking about I even know the name of it. But I know you’re talking about
hiking boots, I would make sure that I have the right hiking boots.
And did you research it a little bit? And did you course,
you know, I’m on Google trying to figure out like, when what are the best hiking boots for mountain climbing because I’m in the flatlands of Chicago? Oh, I know hiking is normally through a forest. So I need to know what the right hiking boots.
You know, we call you guys out here now or they call us back home? They call it they call you guys Flatlanders Oh, the
giant mountain
Flatlanders? No, she’s, she’s exactly right, you guys, like think about it, you’re gonna be making one of the largest financial investments if you’re buying and if you’re selling, you’re unloading one of your largest financial investments, you’re not going to do that with John Doe, the stranger that you just met. At some, like randomly walking down the street, you’re gonna do it someone you know, like and trust. But most importantly, I would say trust. What, walk me through, I’m sure you’ve done all kinds of research here. Do you have like a pattern that you’ve actually noticed or research of what consumers do specifically, when they’re thinking about hiring a buyer’s agent or a listing agent?
Yeah, they start, they start by looking at, like, the questions to the problems that they’re having. Like, let’s say they’ve worked with a realtor before. And they were actually I had a customer interview for one of my clients just this morning. So I’m gonna use their example. They were working with a realtor. And they were super aggressive towards their, towards the buyers lender, like mean to them. And this person was see seed on those emails and saw how it was and just didn’t like it didn’t like the vibe. So then he started doing some research for outside realtors. And the first thing he did was, you know, Google realtors in the area and what he wanted, what he did was he looked at their videos to see what kind of vibe they had. And you start to feel like you know, someone when you watched enough of their videos, yes, you get a feel for their personality. And that’s, that’s why he did and ended up a good experience, obviously, otherwise, I wouldn’t have interviewed him for this particular thing.
Well, that’s what most people you sort of hit on the head, like folks are not hiring you because you have a license in your pocket that allows you to legally collect money on a house you sold. They’re hiring you because they feel comfortable, or they personally like you, like birds of a feather flock together. Guys, and people end up working with people that are really just like them, or somehow they relate to them. Because those are the people who remain on top of mine, aren’t they?
Yeah, and really, you just you want to spend time with people you like. So you’re not going to hire somebody that you really just don’t have a good vibe with.
If you’re sitting on the treadmill or you’re sitting on the peloton, right now, think about the last 10 clients that you’ve literally helped buy or sell real estate. And then I want you to look and realize that why you’ve become friends with all of them isn’t because that’s a coincidence. It’s because we all tracked like people People are always like, why am I drink a beer with my client again? That’s because that’s what I attracted right? Why am I like partying with this guy? Like I just sold this guy millionaire house why are we like a club right now? Well, that because that’s who you attract guys. What what is let’s go through some other forms of content. We know video guys, we don’t need to harp on video even though if you want to we will. I want this to be about you. Not me. But what other types
of content written right now? Um because they’re all looking like my clients are all looking to get found in Google faster. So we’re doing a lot of either the show notes to go along with the videos or full blogs and community pages, so that they can get found for those problems that they’re trying to solve. So, using the example from this customer interview I had this morning, he found her initially because he wanted an expert in his location. He, he was a real estate investor, and he had never actually lived in this house that he wanted to sell. So he’s looking for an expert in Sacramento. And that’s how we ended up finding her is because she did a lot of blogs on Sacramento area and the community. So he was able to find her because of that SEO juice.
It was a long tailed. And can you explain what longtail means?
Yeah, long tailed means like it. You’re not looking at Sacramento realtors, that’s a short tailed keyword. longtail would be like a longer question like realtors that are experts in x x neighborhood in Sacramento. And then your content will show up because you’re creating a community page for that particular neighborhood. For example,
when I was practicing in Chicago still and you guys could look at the website if you like it’s it’s botched now because I took down all my it’s all messed up. But I still have content on there. It’s called Chicago real estate dude. My number one performing piece that attracted a lot of clients was I’ll give you I got ton of stories. One was Chicago closing costs, I ranked number one, I actually had the snippet back in the day. So I actually ranked where I got the snippet in Chicago closing costs, Buyer Closing costs, and Chicago seller closing costs. were my top three pieces of performing content. I had my blog up to 10,000 Organic hits a month, guys, 10,000. It’s insane. I even ranked against realtor.com and homes.com and Zillow on neighborhood tours, terms like Buck town homes for sale and stuff like that. But it was because of how much content we were creating. And I knew how to SEO, the back end of them. But the thing that most people fail by is they think that if you’re gonna go out and create a piece of content, like a blog, they’re like, I want to get 100,000 hits. Sorry about that, is it?
No and vote one, it’s not going to happen overnight. And no, it’s not about that. It’s about getting the right heads. So yeah, people obsess over traffic. And the traffic count doesn’t matter if the wrong people are going to your website, what you want is the right traffic going to your website and the right people finding you. And part of that is creating content that might be let’s call it controversial, not really controversial, but shows your voice and who you really are shows your personality. Because you want as we were talking about before attracting the right people attracting people you would be friends with, you also want to repel the wrong people. So by showing your personality in that content, you’re already like pushing off the people that you wouldn’t really vibe with anyway.
Yep, I do it every day on the show. Like people like you swear too much. Great. We’re probably not gonna. Honestly, we’re probably not gonna hang out anyway. So let’s talk about a controversial topic. So we’re doing a scripting class. If you guys were members and clients of ours, you guys would be on this class on Wednesday. But what it’s going to be on there’s relative content that’s performing well on YouTube. And what she meant by controversial this is controversial. Is the San Diego real estate market headed for a crash? That’s going to be the topic of conversation, because that’s what’s performing well on YouTube. Now real estate agents are gonna be like, Oh, my God, that’s, you’re gonna say the markets going for a crash? It’s always supposed to go up. I thought. No, guys, you want controversial stuff? Because that’s what people get pay attention to.
Yeah. Clickable people are like, Well, is it click?
Yep. 100%. What other types of written content and blogs do you see? neighborhood? You mentioned? A couple of neighborhood pages?
Yeah. Yeah. And it depends on what type of buyer you’re trying to attract. So if you’re, I mean, I think in any industry, if you niche down, you’re better off and you’re, it’s easier to attract people. So let’s say your bread and butter is real estate investors, you’d want to write content all around real estate investing, and maybe how to automate being a landlord how to find properties. When you are a long distance landlord, items like that. Basically, you want to create, like a content cluster, where you have a specific content piece that’s really long like a guide, and then a lot of little branches that come out from it that are subtopics from within there. And by connecting all of those, that’s how you rank higher in Google.
So internal internally linking and all that.
Yeah, connecting the dots. their internal linking helps with SEO. And it also helps your customers that are on your website find the content that they need.
And why do you think more people don’t? I know from the blogging, but why do you have more people that do it sounds easy.
Because it’s not, it takes a lot of time. It’s, it’s time consuming. And at least my clients, they all have small teams, they either have a fractional team, where they have like a team of freelancers that will work with them, or they have one like one internal person that helps with their marketing, or it’s just them. Yeah. And that’s really hard. When you’re creating content, it’s time consuming, it takes about eight hours to create a blog post, that’s going to rank and that’s, that’s where people struggle. But if you create systems to be able to consistently create your content, it becomes a lot easier. And it’s kind of like a snowball effect, because you can play off of the other pieces.
So it’s something that you do over time. And I think a lot of people just are instant gratification salespeople where they need to see something work right now. But they won’t put the time into it’s how much videos you guys. Like I tell people all the time video, always pencils, it always works. It always has an insane ROI. But just sometimes it might take six months for you to build that brand, especially if you’re a newer agent. Or it might take one month, you just don’t know. But it always works. As long as you do it and you stay consistent with it.
Consistency is key it when I was building my business, the first thing I thought is I need to build my personal brand beyond my corporate life. So I mean, it only took six months to create enough of a following that I had a full roster of clients. And it was just a combination of showing up regularly on social media with video and with written content and then PR being able to connect with like podcasts like this. There’s a dog in my yard right now just walking by my window. That’s not my dog.
Make sure make sure it’s not a coyote first
confuse his Dog Mattis. Where was I? Oh, Pr Pr partnerships like being on podcast guest blogging and in publications that your audience is reading and answering questions on Haro help a report a Reporter Out. Those were the first things that I did when I was trying to build my brand. And then from there, I created like episodic content, where just kind of roles like a podcast, a live stream show. It’s the easiest way to show up consistently because you have that routine down.
Yep. Well, most times, like I don’t know what I was listening to this weekend, but I think it was a church to be honest with you. She said 21 wants to do something for 21 days, it becomes a habit. I’ve heard. Like I just literally had that happen in church, my son Okay, here. Yeah,
yeah. Okay. So that’s why I’m muting myself.
So like 21 days you do something and becomes a habit. And I think what a lot of people don’t realize or see, even today is that a lot of people don’t realize that. This isn’t hard. It’s just new for most people. And where a lot of agents traditionally, would spend that one to three hours or four hours a month, prospecting or doing something to generate business. They just don’t look at their business today, the same way or content creation around the same day content creation, you guys is modern day prospecting. It just doesn’t come with immediate gratification.
No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t. But like, okay, let’s say you set up a system where you’re like, Okay, I commit to creating one, one video a month. And you start from there, repurpose that, start editing it down into micro videos, see if you can use it on social media, repurposing it on there, take that audio, make it a podcast, you could hire a freelance writer and have them write a blog post based off of the highlights of that video. You can really Snowball from just one piece of core content.
Let’s go into multi purposing. Tell me how you typically do it. What do you how do you multipurpose content and walk us through that a little bit more?
Yeah, I’m a huge fan of doing that. So I have a live stream show every two weeks. And my process for that is I take that live stream. And I’ll break it down. So it becomes a series. I’ll interview an expert. And we have three learning objectives in that conversation during the interview. I’ll break it down so then it’s a three part series. So then I’m already creating this episodic content which is pretty bingeable Because If you’re like, Okay, well what happens next click Next. And then from that series, I’ll take that and convert the audio file from there into a podcast. So those are three extra podcast episodes. And then I’ll take those learning objectives that I had in the initial interview. And I’ll break that down into a longer form guide that’s written. And then do the content cluster thing that I was talking about where we take the little sections of each of those guides and create a, a blog post from it. And then obviously, you have your social media from all of those pieces, that’s like 12 pieces already, and an email for each of those pieces. So if you already like 20x Step,
there you go, well done. I think I see a lot of agents or even mortgage people that when they create a piece of content, they’ll just sort of let it die in the newsfeed. They don’t multipurpose it at all. And I’m like, What the hell is the point of that? Like, well, you don’t you know, you could recycle. And here’s the thing to like, love some people that don’t have. Here’s another good tip, guys, there’s like, let’s just say you’re doing a video. And the videos you created six months ago, I could promise you that nobody has ever remembered about them. You can just repurpose them and just repost them they’re gonna think it’s brand new. Sure, brand new video, people overthink this stuff so much. It’s about being present. Yes, it is. It’s
about showing up in the feeds. And no, people are not going to remember social media has like a 24 hour lifecycle, so repost use, I, what I like to do is the first time I post something, I post it live and natively, and then I’ll put it into my social media automation and just recycle it from there.
Yep, I agree. What do you I mean, if you were to pick different types of content for people in the real estate industry, what would you rank them? In? If they’re like what type to create? Podcasts I get a lot of people say podcasts, podcasts or video or blogs or just sharing cool shit stories reels, tick tock, which is what do you see?
That is a good question. Um, do I have to pick like one that the top there’s a couple, I would, I would say, showing that you can solve their problem is the most important thing. And they’re going to find you probably you’ll, you’ll hit the most pieces of the no luck. Try the know, like trust factor with video first. So I would start there. Because they get to know who you are, and they get to learn something from you. And then I would go with written next because you’ll get more SEO juice from it, you do get a decent amount from from video as long as you’re doing like some good Show Notes Pages, some in depth descriptions on YouTube. But blogs are a good way to really get that impact from from those longtail SEO. So I’m gonna go with that next.
And then for longtail you like like the areas are like neighborhoods, areas, places community. What other types of long form content are you seeing? Yeah,
that does really well. And around your buyers specific issues. So I do a lot around landlords and acquiring new properties and processes for managing multiple properties when you’re a real estate investor. So it depends who your target audiences. But if you’re like direct to consumer, typical homebuyer, yeah, those community guides do really well. And any content that helps people understand the process of buying and selling a little bit better. Because that might be brand new, or they might not have sold a house and bought a new one in 20 years. And they need to relearn that process.
What about listings? Everyone’s always like, what do I do for listings? What do I do for listings? I tell them, sir, hang around people who own houses. But what do I do? What kind of content am I going to pick up for listings?
Yeah, I always had a good luck with telling the stories with it that connect people. So so many times you’ll read these listings, and it’s just like four bedrooms, two baths, blah, blah, blah. But I would bring in stories like the basement used to be a speakeasy or some some interesting fact about the house or the neighborhood that draws people in. Like my house. Like 10 years ago, the basement was an ice cream shop in the 1950s. So when I was at Um, when I was renting it out, that was when like, I had a story about that. And there,
that’s cool. So oh, well, a lot of times agents was like just listed just sold. I said this on the show recently, there’s a meme going around, of how real estate agents market their business. And it’s like if a if a doctor was a real estate agent, and it shows a doctor saying, holy and all these, like $100 bills, but I just perform heart surgery. And it’s like, folks, people, like, you gotta have to HGTV your sales process, you don’t need to like, tell me about how much money you made today. And said, Tell me about the story of the person you help. Like, it’s so easy. It’s right in front of us. Yes. But yet people like go the opposite way with it. I’m like, What are you guys doing?
Yes, that’s another thing that I meant to bring up is you can build trust by bringing in your customer stories into into the conversation. Like one of my clients, I wrote a story about how the customer had, he was a first time home buyer and a veteran. So like the story that went along with that, because it was it complicated the process. And it was really interesting, we got a lot of engagement on that. But bringing in stories and customer perspectives, testimonials are always great.
Another one you guys can try is like say what the market conditions the way they are. Tell the success story of the sale. So be like this seller, this house, like we had a house in our neighborhood sold a million dollars over list price, like what the fuck who does that million dollars, over a million over list last. And like that I would I would have wrote, I would have wrote a story of something along the lines like this property literally sold. And that’s not every day that a property sells a million dollars over list price, but this one did. And if you guys circulate the people who are going to be reading that are potential people who might be selling, they’re excited to learn that their house is worth more than what it really is today. So showing case studies of properties have sold, I also seen the flip side work well of I need a buyer but tell you the story of the buyer who’s searching for a house in the area, that there’s just nothing available for but both of them have a story in common guys, is what I’m getting at story content.
Yeah, if you think about it, like as a story, the customer, they always think of themselves as the hero of the story. So you need to make sure that they are front and center in that content and can picture themselves in that place. Like, oh, shit, that was that was me. I had, like, I’ll talk about an example one of my clients had from a couple years ago, when real estate was a little bit harder. It was it was less about like you couldn’t sell a house. And he had an offer and and it flopped just didn’t go through at the end. And how the real estate agent had backup offers ready because she knew that it was likely going to happen. And she got them to match the original offer stories like that, because you’re like, I was there if that happened to me. And that sucked. And but she was able to solve it and get the same amount of money. Yep. Yep.
I mean, that’s what it’s all about you guys at the end of the day is demonstrating your involvement in the transaction through the form of story. More people will follow it. But demonstration of what you do not a brag reel of what you do, there’s nothing more bigger return off than somebody being like I’ve made a bunch of money today, at least in today’s world, people don’t like that anymore. That’s just the way it is guys. Any other closing thoughts here that you want to mention anything with content, that closing words of advice for some of these people? Yeah.
If you just start with one thing that you’re willing to commit to, on a regular basis, it will work out if you just set that routine, even if it’s a small routine. And just like my business, a tiny, tiny little habit that you have in creating content, it will add up over time and it will be helpful even if you feel like it’s not moving the needle now it will
I agree. Why don’t you tell them where they can find you website in case you guys need help with your content creation services? I’m sure you can help understand what you do.
Yes, so I work with real estate service and Sass companies in creating their content marketing. And you can find me at Sarah Noel block.com and anywhere on social Sarah Noel block.
Appreciate it, Sarah. Excellent show. And thank you guys for listening to this episode of the real estate marketing podcast what you guys have to realize if you get anything out of this show today, just realize everything you’re doing this content. At the very bare minimum you should be taking pictures of cool kitchens, views, baths, bedrooms, kitchens, the bare minimum because every time you do you’re reminding everyone what you do for a living, so don’t overthink this thing, but if you want to step it up, once you start doing things on video, what happens is you get more eyeballs and with more eyeballs because more conversations with more conversations comes more clients and business down the road. So it doesn’t happen overnight. But it does happen and it does happen every time unless people don’t like you. Sara, would you agree that’s the only time this thing doesn’t work.
That’s true, people might not like you. And there’s nothing that either Ross can help you with that folks,
you might be in the wrong damn business. But as long as you’re still listening to show chances are that’s very seldom. So what I want you to do next is go to real estate marketing do.com and schedule a demo with me if you do want to talk about getting this content on video, we script we edit, we distribute and we put you on the map in your area. We do everything all I need from you is two to four hours a month, and the rest will be done for you. That’s www dot real estate marketing.com Thanks for listening other episode and make sure you subscribe to our show channel, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and we appreciate you guys listening. 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 rollin in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.
Today, we have somebody in studio, we’re not in studio on Zoom, that just started doing video maybe three, four months ago, consistently. He’s done it in an area that let’s just say most people aren’t doing video, and because he was sort of sticking out like a sore thumb, he just shot right up. One of the questions we get is like, how do I use video if I’m going into a new market? Well, we’re going to show you that’s exactly what we’re doing here.
Our guest today is Stan Hartzheim is an experienced Mortgage Loan Originator who has a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry with Certification as a Divorce Lending Professional as well as expertise utilizing FHA, VA, USDA, and specialty loan programs. Skilled in Divorce Law, Mortgage Lending, Sales, Budgeting, Customer Service, Contractors, and Nonprofit Management.
So how do you track new business? You constantly don’t have to chase it. Hi, I’m Mike Cuevas a real estate marketing dude. 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. What we’re doing today, folks, is we have somebody in studio, we’re not in studio on Zoom.
That just started doing video maybe three, four months ago, consistently. And he’s done it in an area that let’s just say most people aren’t doing video. And because he was sort of sticking out like a sore thumb, he started just like, shot right up. This is somebody one of the questions we get is like, how do I use video if I’m going into a new market? Well, we’re going to show you that’s exactly what we’re doing here. Before I introduce our guests today, we’re gonna discuss like what his journey was. But more importantly, this is a mortgage brokers isn’t a real estate agent. It’s a mortgage broker, who for the last X amount of years worked primarily in the Denver market, Denver, Colorado, just recently has relocated moved over to just north of where he’s at into Cheyenne, Wyoming, and now is building his brand within the Cheyenne Wyoming market and seen and trying to almost like starting over again, right? He’s got to create new realtor relationships, you got to create a new sphere of influence, doesn’t mean he’s not doing business in Denver, but he just starts he knows he needs to start building his brand there as well. So we’re gonna share his story see exactly sort of how it works with the man Stan right here. And without further ado, we’re gonna introduce Stan the Man to the show. Stan, how are you today, sir? I’m doing great, Mike. Thanks for having me on. Why don’t you just do a quick intro to everybody first last name what you’ve been doing for the last 20 years of your life? And who the hell are you?
Yeah, so my name is Stan hearts I’m I run a team called wh Home Loans team with a company out of Dallas, Texas called southwest funding. And I’ve been in the mortgage business since 2017. kind of creeping up on people, like you said down in the Denver market and building my brand down there building out a little bit of a team have our operations staff still in an office down in Aurora, Colorado,
had an opportunity to move up to the wide open spaces, just outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming on a little ranch yet, and man couldn’t couldn’t be happier. We got 10 acres of land, got a beautiful, sprawling ranch house and a lot of wind, wind. And your and you guys were just you’re just moving mainly for lifestyle, right? You just want to get more space. But you’re got obviously you’re gonna bring your mortgage business up there. And what were one of your biggest concerns you had before going into a new market?
You know, I think like, look like anybody when you’re starting out in the new market. It’s like starting out a new business. And so there’s some trepidation of how do I grow that business? How do I grow the brand? I think my biggest fear, however, knowing that Cheyenne was a little bit of a smaller town than Denver, obviously was, I grew up in a small town. So I kind of get it. There’s some relationships there that have been going on since you know, elementary school or middle school. And when you come into that new market, how do you win over that business? You’re anytime you build a business, you’re stepping into relationship with people, and sometimes that means stepping between them in their existing relationship? I’m hate to say it, but that’s the reality. And how do you do that? If somebody has been friends since middle school? Right. So that was kind of my challenge coming into a smaller market? Yeah, that makes I mean, that’s pretty much with everybody. We get a lot of people that hey, I’m in a new market. I don’t have a spare because I don’t have that will video work. We will be anywhere from you there. So Stan has been Stan is in full disclosure stands one of our clients, and we want to share a story because
Stan started doing video about four months ago, I believe right about now and you just recently got we’re not like creating 30 videos a month, right? We’re just doing two videos, keeping it simple. But you just recently got picked up from the new station. I hear. Tell me about that.
Well,
it’s been a variety of things have happened in the last few months. We started doing these videos, not not mortgage related. I talked about mortgages all stinking day long. So I thought it’d be a lot of fun to share my journey of learning about Cheyenne and the surrounding state of Wyoming with as many people as I could. Right away when I got here I found out that this
Cities a little misunderstood. It’s it’s not just cowboys. And
you know, it’s there’s a lot I guess I’ll let me rephrase that there’s a lot to do here, a lot of people don’t realize it’s very beautiful, it’s close to the mountains, just like Denver is are on the other side of the mountain Salt Lake City. And we wanted to just kind of spread the word like this is a growing community that has a great infrastructure and a lot of really friendly people. So we started doing videos just to capture our journey around town. You know, as we met, people are winning and visited establishments, learned about the neighborhoods kind of started to zero in on where we wanted to live. We thought why not record this and have Mike and his team make it look good for us. The name of the show is actually in Stan’s model like we had to. And I almost did the same thing. And I wish I would have I’m doing it now. But five years ago, and I moved to San Diego, I didn’t know if I was going to sell real estate, I didn’t know what the hell is gonna happen. I was literally starting over a brand new career in foreign land, foreign territory, I didn’t know what the hell was going to happen. I didn’t want to sell real estate. But I did have in the back of my mind that if I was the only story I’d be able to tell would be that of a transplant. And at that time, I was going to create a show called San Diego transplant and I was gonna do was just still myself being a tourist, you know, and just discovering while I learned the city, which is what Stan is doing right now. So in his case, we ended up building a show called why not? Like why not Wyoming? And it all ties in with the branding and on that, but Stan’s not talking about mortgages on these videos, are you? Well, not yet. I try to avoid it.
You know, I love that we came up with the name, why not? I don’t know if the listeners will be able to tell. But I got a fairly dry sense of humor. And using that reverse psychology works really well. For me, I think it becomes a little bit of a funnier thing. But yeah, we try to avoid talking about mortgages, we’ll do a bunch of stuff that is mortgage related.
You know, what is interest rates and PMI, and so on. We teach classes up here in town, and we’ll probably record some of those and get you guys to edit it. You know, it’s been a lot of fun where we’ve caught on, like you mentioned, the news stations have have reached out to us. There’s there’s two big companies that run before local news stations. And they’ve been reaching out and asking us, hey, you know, do you want to get on our show? Do you want to advertise with us? You know, you seem like you’re doing pretty good with video. The other thing that’s happened that kind of came out of left field for me, because I don’t think I’m some sort of trending superstar. But
you are, oh, all of a sudden, like people are like, Hey YouTube guy, would you do our product? Would you do this or that we’ll you know, we’ll give you a free product, we’ll we’ll sponsor this or that. I didn’t see that coming in a million years, I’ll be honest. So that’s been kind of fun and interesting to see the variety of people that are interested in what we have to say. And you’re coming from a position of value. And that’s what like, I think a lot of times, and maybe even now you’re starting to see it. But before we even started doing this, I don’t know if you’d call this conversation. Like we don’t have to talk about mortgages. And as a matter of fact, and last, we talked about mortgages and more attention you’re gonna get, because when you when you guys start creating videos, you start creating content, what you’re really doing is you’re just creating conversations, you cannot create conversations without creating content first, right. And
I want to give you guys a different analogy, especially for all your mortgage brokers out there, or even brokerage owners. And this is what this should click because a lot of times, like Mike, I just don’t get it. I don’t get how me doing a video on a business or me doing a neighborhood tour, this can lead the business, and I’m going to share with you how. So let’s get out of the real estate business Dan, and I’m going to share with you
a very important lesson I learned from taking one of the Digital Marketer courses, so I gotta give credit where credit’s due. I started studying Ryan Deiss Digital Marketer, which is a very high end, or very advanced called Digital Marketing Company. They are the guys that do traffic and conversion and all these other things. Long story short, I’ll never forget this. And this is the way my mind works because of one of the I don’t know where I saw this was one of the training courses I bought, I was taking one of the lessons. And Ryan Deiss who’s one of the CO owners of the company, back in the day before they became all famous and all that they had to they were just an online digital marketer company, right. And they brought on a roofing client, the roofing client at the time. And in Texas. How long do you think a roof lasts in a house in Texas then
I have to guess it lasts a while 2025 the severe weather that we have up here that’s for sure. 2025 years, which means that the person that they sell their roof to either most likely transacts the house or dies before they need a new roof which means there is no repeat business. Right? It’s not and it’s not in that type of business. It’s not like you get a ton of referrals. Like it’s not like roofers are like through show me a roofer. It’s sort of like a plumber, right? You’re like hey, can plumber he’s a plumber is an electrician, nothing bad about that. But I’m just saying it’s not like a super duper, duper highly referral business where everyone’s like, Oh, sending the roofer business. So
when you need them, you just need them when you need them. Right and you don’t really have any loyalty towards a person that doesn’t maybe you know someone maybe you don’t, but it’s almost like a guy
Hello page type business you thought you sir, find the first company you see, and that sounds good, and then you roll with it. So the point is, is that they had to come up with a marketing plan online for this company. And here’s what they ended up doing. So they knew they had to go a roundabout way and think outside the box. What they did was they created a gutter cleaning service. And in the gutter cleaning service, let’s just say the going rates were $99 to get your gutters clean, they charged 25 except all their gutter cleaners were experts at identifying roofing issues.
What do you think happened next in?
Well, I can imagine they started to identify a lot of faulty roofs or roofs with problems on a percent of their sales went through the roof, but they had to create a gutter cleaning service to identify the roof issues, right. So they had the forward thing. See when I’m looking at a lender, in your case, having video that’s exactly what it is. The video is your gutter cleaning service to start having more conversations. This is true for a broker owner that’s trying to recruit this is true for a lender that’s trying to build more relationships. This is true for anybody. See, what we’re doing is we’re not creating content and videos to sell our shit. We’re creating, we’re creating content and videos to have more conversations to build trust that will eventually lead to us selling our shit.
Right? And that’s just that’s just the reality of it. Right? And I want you Let’s go through sort of what’s happening in your market because I wanted to have you on the show. Because
when you have the opportunity to do something different and stick out or stand out. That’s the Holy Grail. Everyone’s always asking us, okay, I want to get leads. I want to get this. I want to get that, folks. Warren Buffett once famously said, when zig zag or they zag Zig. That’s exactly what this business is. Because everyone can trip over a mortgage broker on the street, everyone could trip over a real estate agent on the street. And what really makes someone hire you
9.9 times out of 10 it’s brand and personal relationship. And if they envision themselves to working with you, would you agree with that, Stan? Yeah, I agree. And I think that is the great unknown about video. I didn’t certainly know that even six or eight months ago, how much people get to know you through that video exposure. I mean, people, people walk up to me now, like, they’ve known me for years. And maybe I’ve met him once before, maybe I haven’t. So the other thing that happens, just intuitively, I at least for me, as I started to create things that I say kind of routinely as part of my video making process, right and, and we went on a road trip, I decided that the best way for me to do these tours, especially in a great big state, like Wyoming was a road trip around. And so I started just telling people in my video just kind of just naturally Hey, jump in the car, let’s go we’re going on a trip, you know, and now it just opens up like a crazy funny line when I bumped into someone at a coffee house, Hey, come on up. And let’s go we’re going for a ride, you know, like, let’s talk for a minute. And it just kind of it transitioned from video to real life really intuitively. What happened? The smaller the town, the easier it is, believe it or not, because think about it, like you come to San Diego is a lot of people are doing video you go to Chicago, New York or a major city. And then you’re not so much you don’t have as much attention on there. Even though there’s more people, even those a bigger population. But you don’t have as much attention because you’re just one of many. Whereas in Cheyenne, you’re one of only how many other mortgage brokers in the Cheyenne market are doing video.
You know, there’s a few people doing some real short, you know, the short, short recordings or whatever that they throw on Facebook, or maybe you know, some some reels kind of stuff, but I don’t think anybody’s doing YouTube. There’s one real estate agent that is doing some YouTube stuff, but it’s negligible. So you gotta go way up north, there’s a there’s a Gallup north, it’s doing a really good job with YouTube videos and short, short shorts, recordings. But that’s it. I mean, in the whole state, there’s like two of us. That’s why you got the news.
I love it. So why don’t you share with everybody, you know, are you nervous when you got started? What did you think, like, come through that because most people are usually like, hey, I want to do it. But everyone wants to just be done with it. But very few people actually will take action and go through and actually do it. I never understood why.
But my gosh, Mike i i can tell you exactly why. You know, it started out with this goes back years. I’ll be honest, this goes back to one of my first jobs when I had to do some phone, some phone work. I worked for a large hospital in Colorado, and I had to do some phone work and I’d always think Man, I hate the way I sound on the phone. And someone told me you know what, whatever you sound like is what you sound like you talk all the dang time you never shut up. So just get over it right and then I started to contemplate doing videos
Last year and I’m like, Man, I got a face for radio bro. I don’t know if I should be doing these videos and then people are like, whatever you look however you look man, you just, you know, you walk around all day you’re not hiding under a rug. So get out there and do it. That was it. And and then the follow up to that it’s just, you know, scripting like, do I am I gonna sound like a robot? Or am I gonna sound natural, I’m gonna look natural. How’s this gonna come together? And I would say the first couple of videos were pretty brutal. I’m not gonna lie. I won’t sugarcoat it. I stumbled over the lines, I think we recorded you know, the first one was a eight minute video, I think we recorded an hour and 20 minutes worth of stuff and just kept kind of getting through it. It wasn’t, it wasn’t embarrassing, because I knew somebody was going to clean it up first, I guess. But it was it was kind of brutal. But after that one, I would say literally, the very next video got 100 times easier. And then from there, they’ve gotten easier and easier. I still feel like I tried to read the script, or I tried to, you know, make it real polished or professional. And I’m getting over that, you know, I,
you know, maybe your listeners will go check out my channel, we just did a brutal, brutal, brutal pub tour. And there was no scripting like, I’m like, Okay, I’m gonna go visit these 13 places, I’m probably going to get drunk while I do it. And I’m gonna have to try all this stuff that I learned about each of these stops, because I’m doing a little history tour with it. And you know, my brand has to teach people something. So I might as well tell them about these breweries. And you know, by the time we got to the end, did I drop an F bomb? Yeah, I did.
I did, and that others did a great job of leaving it in there for me. So that was fun.
You just got to have fun with it. And you know, that’s what I’m learning and the nerves will go away. Have you ever, like hung out with somebody that you just can’t be yourself around?
A couple times, I got a brother in law that
was trying to impress him, right. So I tried to live live large, and it’s just, it’s uncomfortable. You know what I mean? It’s, it’s no differently like that on video. Like, when you’re creating content, you’re just speaking to one person at a time. And you’re right, like, you should I always tell people, you can’t be nervous about the act of shooting video. Because if you are, why you’re you control it, like you could just delete it or not post that video or not do it, you can just reshoot it, right? So the whole act of of shooting and and all that stuff is just mindset. None of this stuff is hard. Like if you truly, and I always say this on the show is like if you surely believe you’re the right person for the job, whether you’re a lender or a real estate agent, it actually becomes your obligation to let the world know about it. And if not, that’s very selfish and shady. And if you don’t agree with that, then you’re not the right person for the job. So there’s either one or the other. There’s no in between on this. So you have to really look at that for yourselves. And everyone always says I’m the right person for the job. Well, if you’re the right person for the job, why the hell are you so scared to tell the world about it? That’s when it comes down to you guys. And it’s not that creating content or video and all that stuff is hard. It’s just something you’re not used to. But I’m gonna go on a limb and stand Do you remember your first loan application? Or actually, let’s do your first million dollar loan application. Within the first year or two? Were you fucking nervous?
I can remember doing both. My first loan application was was utterly ridiculous in the in the day and age of technology.
I wanted to be that personal touch right? So I grabbed my old paper 1003 and ran over to the people’s house and wrote down all the information and I was nervous as heck. And I thought, Geez, what if I forget some piece of pertinent information? Or what if I don’t, you know, get this right or I don’t explain something right. And then I realized when I got back to the office, that that was the stupidest thing to be worried about, because it was a simple phone call to get the rest of the information that I maybe forgot like this. That’s how I feel about video and just you maybe you do record, you know, rerecord it or you delete something and start over, but it’s not the end of the world if it’s not perfect on the first try. And that’s kind of how that loan application when I remember the first time my first time I had showings, I was 22 years old, and I got the client from cold calling. So I would just do whatever it took back then. But I was working in the city of Chicago, I just moved back up from Carbondale where I went to college and I didn’t know my way around the city of Chicago. So and we didn’t have at that time we didn’t have phones that had Mapquest on him. We had to go to Mapquest online and then print out the instructions, and then print this shit out. Like I would have outside brains, I would bring the Mapquest and I’d have a sheet of paper like this. And if we’re looking at six properties, I would have six sheets of paper, I’d have the listing sheet on top and then beneath it would be the Mapquest instruction because I had no fucking idea where it’s going. And I had to go out there and fake it till you make it with these clients. So like so what’s this neighborhood like? I’m like a. And as a matter of fact, the day before the showings, I went out and I drove the route, just so I didn’t look like an idiot with them in the car with me.
Right and you had this is like the type of stuff that I didn’t like see
often be like, Hey, I’m not gonna go any showings because I don’t know what the neighborhood is, which is no differently. So I’m not going to shoot this video because I don’t know what I’m going to look like. Like folks get over yourself. No one is. And we’re not that important, like, I’m not that important stands out to important, the only one who thinks that we’re that important ourselves. That’s right. And I think that’s true as so many things, Mike, you know, we started teaching these classes in front of rooms full of people, and I can tell you even now I get nervous before we’re going to go do it. But for me to sit back and say, No way, I’m too afraid I’m not going to do it. The only person I’m hurting is myself, I’m just shoot yourself in the foot with that mentality. So you know, get out of your comfort zone and go do something new. So let’s, let’s go into your video strategy. Totally agree. So when we started out with Stan, he started out doing a lot of stuff. Like there’s different types of content you could create for different reasons. When we saw standard channel, or we’re standing the opportunity, we just know that there’s no one else in Cheyenne doing enchance, a big city, relatively speaking to the area, it’s a city, right, any city gets searched on YouTube. And because Dan was the first one there, that’s why we’re able to pop his channel and say, pop his channel, he’s generating lots of 1000s of views on the videos. And that’s what led to him getting picked up by the news and all that stuff. But now that you’ve built out the channel, and you have that street club, the video that he was doing, he’s referencing here is really funny. It was about what, eight minutes long, nine minutes long, give or take. Yeah. And the longer you did, you did a brew tour on site. So you guys had like the city was putting on like a Abreu history tour. Right. So I’m curious, because I haven’t talked to you about this. But what people don’t realize is the act of shooting, the video turns into relationship building itself, as well as other additional content you could be doing on stories and all this other stuff. So I’m curious to know, like, you’re walking around on this tour, how many people were on the tour?
You know, it didn’t really have like a point, a starting point, you know, and then get to the end line, it was kind of jump in the middle, you know, go at your own pace sort of thing. So, I mean, there were, I don’t know, hundreds of people doing the tour, but there wasn’t a group of 100 are going from place to place to place, right. So and some people are going backwards to the direction we were going. So we kind of kept bumping into a few people here and there that we’d see over and over at different stops. But yeah, so it was a little bit unique in that way, just because everybody was kind of doing their own thing. How many conversations did just the fact that you had a video camera in your tripod with you start throughout the day? Oh, I mean, we had 13 stops, there had to been 40 kind of I mean, it was three at every every stop probably. And, you know, a half a dozen of those 40 or so conversations were probably people like oh, no, don’t get me on camera. And I’m like, don’t worry about it. You’re gonna be on camera? Yeah.
Then I’ll get input when you’re having a conversation. So what are you doing these videos for? What are you doing this for? And then he’s creating an excuse to start? Well, I’m actually a mortgage broker. And what we do is we go around here and you have that conversation, which is totally different than just going up and be like, Hey, do you need a loan? Oh, by the way, my name is Stan. That’s like asking a girl to get in the bed the first time you meet them, guys. This is not what you do. Right? You don’t you can’t just ask for business. Before you even know someone, you have to earn it.
And you only earn it came out of that too is meeting meeting people and having those conversations but then also meeting either the management or owners of the establishments we were at everybody was jazzed, right? Like they’re like, hey, when you know, When can you come back and let’s talk more about my business. I’m like, I’d love to come back and talk more about your business. That was a really powerful part of that tour as well. So I was going right there. Perfect. So like what we should do, we’ll just turn this into a coaching session, as long as we’re here. What I want you to do and what you should do now is that yes, you had 10 bars, okay, now you could go to all 10 of those bars and do a business owner interview on them that gives you 10 More videos to do. See what’s going to happen on the business owner interviews is that those owners are going to share that video around with their friends, family, aunts and uncles and all of those owners lips somewhere. All of those owners have a referral for Stan over the next 12 months. It’s just a matter of if they’re gonna give it to him. We’ve seen a guy this is a funny story status is funny. This is what happens with business owner interviews. So we have a dude in Northwest Arkansas and he went out and he did this business owner interview for some kind of like it was in their market it was like the new swanky hotspot right? This dude sort of The Bachelor so he was taking a chick there on a date and he went there on it he takes his girl on a date after he did the business owner interview with the owner right so here he comes he’s got it he’s got this girl on his on his arm he’s trying to he’s trying to impress her and all that pulls up to the restaurant the owner steps aside everybody come here come here I got the best table in the whole restaurant for you right here you got the perfect view brings them a bottle of wine on the house and all that the chicks like holy shit, this guy was this guy. And this is what’s funny about the story is the guy goes you know later on and they start doing business together. And and he goes like this he goes see
I’d like to say something because Hey, Jay,
it’s funny that, you know, my wife’s cousin is a real estate agent. And, you know, traditionally we’re always using her, but you are now my real estate agent now. Right? So he literally, we’re just talking about how do you step over prior relationships, and you do it through adding value to other people’s lives, you guys know, right. And there’s just so much leverage. With video, you can do that. If you’re in a market like that, just imagine going out and networking with all the different businesses in that market and let them sell your stuff, right. But you have to give to receive, you should always try to give it’s written in the Bible, those who give, give, give, give, get it in return in some way, shape, or form. It’s just the way we’re supposed to be, in my opinion. Unfortunately, a lot of us always have our hands out.
And when we have our hands out, nothing really lands in them to do that. That’s right. So I want you guys to think about coming from a value or if you’re thinking about video come from a position of value and contribution as opposed to because it’s not about the content that you’re creating. It’s not about what you’re doing on video, it’s about how you’re doing it. And how you’re leveraging it. Tell me really quick as a prior to Denver, what are your ratios? versus how much of your business comes from real estate agents? How much your business comes from your own sphere of influence? Where does most of you originate from? And what would you say your largest sources are, um, you know, Don, in our Denver market, I was I was pretty blessed to get in early in my career with a bunch of doctors, nurses and surgeons, and surgical techs. So I got a lot of business out of the hospital environment. Wellness, I’ll get into why, but that just I fell into the right niche. And so I was really fortunate to be able to start building up my business by giving out referrals, I wasn’t necessarily hounding real estate agents for their referrals, as much as I was saying, Hey, do you want to partner up? You know, I might, I might not give you as many as you give me or, or maybe I will, who knows. So I would say my business down there over the last, you know, five years or four years that I was in that market has been 60%, self generated 40% referrals, and of those referrals, you know, 3030 35% Of that number, that total number was from real estate agents. So we did pretty well within that niche. Up here in Cheyenne, it’s a little different. Everybody starts out at the real estate agent level.
It feels like I mean, I’m still getting another lay of the land. We’ve only been up here since December. But
the banking industry is very strong here, right? A small town people are familiar with their bank, they’ve been banking there for a long time. So we have to overcome the stigma of going outside of the bank for a mortgage, and the relationship that that person then might have with their real estate agent friend that they’ve known since they were 12.
You know, we we’ve really, I spent a lot of time last year, you’ll remember some conversations, my eyebrows, like what does it mean to brand yourself like I have a logo was that my brand, like trying to make a brand. And what I found out is when we created this show, in large part thanks to you, Mike, you got me off of that topic and said, hey, it doesn’t matter what that branding piece looks like that logo, you have a brand that fits your personality and who you are. And what I realized, that I love doing was teaching people stuff. And that’s how the whole video series has come together, we were taking people on a ride to teach them about our local area about a local business. And that has translated from the show being called Why not Wyoming to why not university right? We got why not you and we’re doing these whole series of classes around town. And when I go talk to the Board of Realtors, it’s it’s really interesting people know that I am there when I stand up to talk, I’m going to tell them about some new educational opportunity that’s going to grow their business. Yeah, and that has been our value add that I don’t think I would have put my finger on without you kind of steering my show in a direction and then allowing my personality to come out. If I was just doing mortgage related content. I just be up there droning on and on. Most people
whether regardless of what business you’re in, even me like I’ll do a video on how to do video. It’s the least engaged stuff I post I swear, like and it’ll be really good content. It’s like our training content. Like I’ll do a video on how to script a video through story. And that’ll be you’re gonna copy all great video good video, but truth is, is that that doesn’t generate a shitload of views and attention a lot of times, same with real estate. However, I do create a lot of it because there’s different content for different reasons. You see, like if you guys want to go to my website, you can go to www dot real estate marketing do.com And what you’re gonna see on the website is a bunch of content. Every page on the site has a video and the reason why I created all that
stuff over the last five, six years is because when people visit our site, they’re not questioning whether or not I know what I’m doing. It’s sort of self evident. They’re questioning how I’m doing it. And if they like me, Can you envision yourself working with a dude? Can you not envision yourself working with a dude? And truth as you guys get my personality, if you listen to my show, you know, I’m not the most perfect human being I sit every day. However, I’m 100% authentic. And what what what people really want is just a trust, and you cannot outsource authenticity, you cannot.
You just can’t do it. And when people I believe when people look at a lender, or an agent, or financial planner, or anybody, the first thing that comes through their mind, and people always say you don’t judge a book by its cover, you’re shady. If you do that, well, I’m sorry, that’s just the way God made you. Everyone’s going to judge a book by its cover. It’s just the way that it is guys. Right? That’s just the reality of it. And when you look at somebody, I could like, look at somebody, like, I could tell I’m gonna get along with that guy. Right? You get that same feeling, right? I could, I’ve liked that person’s Mojo, I’m gonna, I’m gonna I want to drink a beer with that guy, I want to hang out with a guy. You just know who your tribe is. There’s a reason why elephants hang out with elephants. Like I’ve never seen an elephant and a cat hanging out and watching a movie together. It’s because we’re naturally attracted to people that are like us, whether way way shape or form they may be there might be personality that might be erased, that might be in skin color that might be in whatever it is. But whatever it is, understand that you’re the only one like it out there. And when you embrace your own individuality, and your uniqueness and your authenticity, and you scream it from the rooftops, and you’re damn proud about it, that’s what people are attracted to. No differently than what Stan is doing now and Wyoming no differently than what I’ve done on the show for the last six years. Some people are gonna like it. A lot of people aren’t.
I love when a lot of people aren’t, because if you don’t have haters on your shit, you’re not doing it right. You’re not meant to be perfect. It doesn’t exist. God’s the only perfect beam that exists in the world. And you’re not him. Don’t even try to compete. What you can do is embrace what you are, whom you are, how you do it, and scream that from the rooftops. And I believe that you’ll be rewarded through people just like you because that’s who you will track. There’s not a shortage of business.
There is everyone I look everyone I look at, like literally, everyone lives somewhere unless I check.
So it’s not a matter of if they’re going to move, it’s really a matter of when they’re gonna move folks. Statistically, in Chicago, when I was practicing in the city was three to five years in the suburbs was four to seven. I knew my numbers because I knew if I just stayed in front of people, everything we’re talking about when it comes to branding, content creation, the more people who know what you are, the more opportunities that open up. But it is mathematical not theory.
If 100 people see your content, 10 to 15 of them are moving this year.
The question is, are they going to use you when they do?
The more you’re on top of mind, the more likely that happens? Right? So this isn’t rocket science. This is relationship building.
This is leveraging content. And this is all based upon your personal brand.
Stan, what are you going to do with? Have you tried any events with real estate agents yet on the video stuff, if you taught a I think your next move is a teacher scripting class, you have the social St Cloud scribe to do it now. And you could literally just launch an education series towards real estate agents. You could partner with real estate agents and do different neighborhood tours. You could partner with real estate agents and do different construction tours. Because you’re not a real estate agent. Your job is not to sell those properties. It’s their job. But you still share the same client.
Yeah, I think some or all of that is in the works. You know, we we launched our educational series for real estate agents. In fact, we’re doing a class this evening. It’s going to be tailored at mortgages, mortgage one on one workshop, because we had to start somewhere. I would love to start at the beginning of the year. And then goal planning and you know, Vision boarding and all kinds of fun, cool, ethereal stuff like that. But here we are in May. So we thought we’re gonna start with some mortgage stuff. So people remember what we do. And then next month, we’ve already announced our June class is going to be on social media and some video stuff. So exactly what you said. But we have been reaching out to there’s a few people that like I said, are doing some of the short, you know, forum video stuff that have been doing some neighborhood tours, we want to put that on steroids. So I’ve been reaching out to them because they’re already fairly comfortable with that given area or that neighborhood. So we’re gonna go back and kind of recreate some of their neighborhood tours, but we’re gonna put it on steroids with a little more viewership. You know, a little bit better quality, so on and so forth. And then
yeah, just continuing to do what we do with the business owners. I think that’s that’s really our kind of our strategy for the next you know, two to three months is continue getting these videos, these people on video that are owning businesses. You know, like you mentioned earlier, when you
When you do an interview of the business owner, they let you, you know, take them in or they share it or whatever I found even on our on our beer tour, I asked every single manager of every, every all 13 places we went, I was like, Hey, do you mind if I share this, like, I’m gonna take you in this? And they were like, Yeah, that’s fine. But what I found is you can’t always take a business page, but you can check in at their location, which achieves kind of the same results. So I just, I’m gonna go back. And you know, we’ve already pushed that video out, but I’m gonna go back and repost it and just check myself in at these various different locations, even with the video we already have created, and then that way, they’ll get a double dose when we go back and do their interview. So yep, I would go, definitely, I would go back and think of diners, drives and drives, but recreate that for Cheyenne, and hit up all these different pubs and bars. And I bet you that well, I mean, I know what’s gonna happen, but do it. And then maybe we’ll have you back on the show. And you can tell people what happened. We Awesome. Hey, I wanted to say one other thing when you were talking about not being perfect, too.
You know, what a true statement. And And yet, the imperfections are the things that people are drawn to quite often. When I look at the commentary that comes through my videos, it’s, it’s funny how often somebody, you know, it’s easy to get defensive. And so I’ll read a comment where somebody’s like, Hey, you didn’t pronounce that, right? That’s not how we say that, or whatever. And I could be like, hey, what a jerk. Why are you all up in my grill over this? I didn’t even know like I say in the in the video I’m visiting, how the heck did I know that? But instead, I’m like, hey, thanks so much for educating me. That is awesome. Man, I will absolutely remember that now for the rest of my life, you know? And if you take that approach that yeah, we’re not perfect. And people are going to call you out for that. But it was that that even got the engagement started. And if you don’t get defensive, and you just stick with the engagement, man, all of a sudden, you’re having three or four more conversations that you wouldn’t have had otherwise, you know, if everything had gone perfectly, so embrace those imperfections. That’s a great point, I think Jay Baer wrote a book called Hug Your Haters, addressing how to hug on haters, and then how you flip those into, you know, conversion, because you’ll be amazed a lot of people will go out there and yeah, they’ll hate and then you’ll just address it. And then they’ll before you know it, they’ll be you guys will be best friends. Right? You’ll just see some of those people you get, you will get some keyword keyboard warriors out there, no doubt. But that’s good. Like, there’s everybody who said the same, but there’s no such any PR is good PR year and all the time. And who cares? If people are talking, then it’s working. That’s all that matters. So any other closing thoughts, Dan, that you have any tips for people advice for people, I think you want to mention, I will just go back to where I started, which is what my mentors told me your voice is, you know what it is you sound how you sound and you look how you look. And unless you’re living under a rug. Don’t be afraid to put that on a recording or on a video because it is who you are. And the more you act like who you are, the better the results are going to be. Love it. Stan, if you folks are in the Wyoming area, but you’re licensed in other states to maybe an agent wants to reach out to you or something. Why don’t you go ahead and tell people how they can reach you, they could connect with you go ahead and tell them what channel you have. And they could follow you on there if they want to check out some of your content.
For comment, yeah, for sure. If you want to see the comment, it’s why not? Wyoming wy And O T question mark, Wyoming. That’s our YouTube channel, we [email protected] l h loans.com. That’s our website. And you can always call me direct. If you have any questions about how to implement some of this stuff or what my experience has been. I’d love to answer it. 720-883-8452 Appreciate it. Stan. Keep it up, dude. Stay the course excited to see what happens in the next three to six months with this. You’re doing everything right. Just keep doing it. Folks, thank you. And don’t you stop listening to this podcast if folks if you need any help. And you like what you heard here today on Stan story, feel free to reach out to us. We’d like partnering with different mortgage brokers, investors, lenders, real estate agents, broker owners, recruiters, you name it in their local markets. And this is all we do. We script that and distribute videos but more importantly, we give you the right strategy that should fit your brand so that you’re actually not looking awkward on video you’re actually excited to get on video and that all dials and dials in with the picking up the right strategy, which is my expertise. So appreciate guys listening. Feel free to reach us you can visit real estate marketing do.com Real Estate market.com leave us a review here connect with me on Facebook, Instagram and check out our channel real estate marketing do it on YouTube. And so make sure you subscribe but we will see you guys next week. Have a great day. Stan, thank you so much. And we’ll talk to 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 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.
A lot of times people say, I’m brand new to this market, How am I going to start, I don’t know anyone here and we hear that quite a bit on the show. Our guest today can be a huge inspiration to you all because he was from a different country. In 2008, he came to the States over from Scotland, and he started from scratch, like how I moved to San Diego and I just got my license. Again, I say this on the show, because I’m gonna start recruiting all you guys. When I got to San Diego, I told myself, I’m not gonna sell real estate I was burnt out. Five years later, here I am, I got my license back. I’m not going to get into the sell, sell, sell, sell, but I am going to build other people’s brands and create content for him and all the above. And no matter what you do with this business, you’ll never escape it once you get into it. But there’s so many different facets of it and I found his story really interesting, because a lot of people will say, Oh, real estate is not for me, but this guy comes over from another country goes into Denver, and he starts just selling houses, and he does very well. Listen up because I think you guys are gonna get a lot out of this episode!
So how do you attract new business? You constantly don’t have to chase. Hi, I’m Mike Cuevas a real estate marketing dude. And this podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust most importantly, refer. But remember, it is not their job to remember what you do for a living. It’s your job to remind them. Let’s get started What’s up ladies and gentlemen, welcome another episode of the real estate marketing dude, podcast. Look at this, folks, two weeks in a row. If you listened last week, I had an episode where I called myself out for not being consistent on our podcast schedule. And it’s something I teach and preach. And then even you know, me, the guy who talks about this all time, I’ve messed up, and I said, I was gonna let it happen again. And I promise you that. So I started loading up on shows. And what I’m doing is I’m, I reached out to a bunch of groups out men, I’m like, Hey, let me get some shows. Because I know a lot of the groups I’m in we have a lot of friends in the business and industry. We’re just killers all over the country. We have a lot of masterminds with you on the back end. And what we wanted to do today was bring one of them on, and he’s got a really cool story. You know, a lot of times people say, I’m brand new to this market, I How am I going to start I don’t know anyone here and we hear that quite a bit on the show, we get people that write in and whatnot. But this guy was from a different country. Okay, in 2008, he came to the States over from Scotland, and he started from scratch, like, you know, what, I moved to San Diego. And I just got my license. Again, I say this on the show, because I’m gonna start recruiting all you guys. But when I got to San Diego, I told myself, I’m not gonna sell real estate I was burnt out. But five years later, here I am, I got my license back. And I’m not going to get into the sell, sell, sell, sell. But I am going to build other people’s brands and create content for him and all the above. And no matter what you do with this business, you’ll never escape it once you get into it. But there’s so many different facets of it. And I found his story really interesting, because a lot of people will say, Oh, real estate is not for me, but this guy comes over from another country goes into Denver, and he starts just selling houses, and he does very well. And I think you guys are gonna get a lot out of it. So I’ve known you for a while. How long? I don’t know how many years, maybe five, seven years. And I haven’t seen in a couple years since COVID and whatnot. So but we’re gonna do a show back then I believe. So why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself to the audience here. And let’s get right on into this because I think all you guys are going to get a lot of good learning lessons of how to start from scratch. So if you’re struggling today, if you’re just stuck, you don’t know something’s not working. You don’t like interest rates your buyers are stopping to buy because their payment is no longer affordable, or vice versa. Look, we all start from somewhere so this is going to kick you in the ass. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and introduce Denver realtor Yun Graham. What’s up, dude?
Hey, Mike. Great to be on the show. COVID has been kind to you, you’re looking great. I’ve had as I said, I’ve not been I’ve not seen you for a couple of years. So I’ve seen a lot of weight, like nine parent, I’ve not seen you in person. But obviously I’ve seen we’ve seen each other online and stuff like that. So yeah, it’s great to be on with you. I think, you know, I love to do this. I love to kind of maybe share my perspective on things my perspective not just on, on real estate, but the opportunities that we have and that we’re blessed with in this country. So I think that’s really part of my story as well. You know, swam over from Scotland 1415 years ago. But I got here, you know, these American girls, Mike, they’re too hard to turn down. So
look, especially with an accent like that. A bunch of a bunch of women coming into the call
Union on YouTube video. Well, it’s interesting if you if you put close captioning on when I’ve been talking, it can come up with some pretty interesting phrases and words that follow me but yes, so moved over in 2008. My wife’s a Colorado girl. So we met actually Mike in San Diego, in 2004. She was out there. So we met in 2004. married a year later spent a couple years in Scotland where I think we’re laughing that we were both drug dealers before we got into real estate. I was selling pharmaceuticals. Yeah, then moved over. You know, with my eyes wide open, but no, in the worst financial market we’ve seen in you know, 80 years. So to be honest with you, Mike, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I wanted to get back into maybe selling pharmaceuticals or doing medical devices but you know, in 2008 Nobody was hiring everybody was laying off. I So I came over with this, you know, charming accent and I would just get a job. And it just, it didn’t work like that. So I really had to pivot. I
did you have any real estate experience when you came over?
Absolutely. Well, actually, we own a little property back home in Scotland. So we have a little slot that we still have to this day in my hometown. That was the only kind of experience I had. I know I liked it and kind of like, always had a mystique around it in terms of what it might, you know, what am I end up with? But no, absolutely no real estate? So first job in the United States, I was selling Yellow Pages. And, you know, I think what that told me, Mike, is, Yellow Pages is definitely not the future. I was trying to tell small business owners it was, but I’ll tell you, I went and knocked doors for close to 18 months, small businesses in Denver and down in Colorado Springs, we went down there. And I and I looked back on that time in my life. And I was like, Why the hell was I doing it, because I don’t know about you, Mike. But I’m a firm believer that every everything happens for a reason you’re doing something, there’s a reason behind it, you might not know then, but you’ll figure that out. And when it taught me really was how to build relationships make. Because what I would do is obviously, build the relationship with a small business owner and do a great job for them and provide value. And then they would, in turn, tell their friend who was another small business owner about me. And I can always remember him, he would come in on a Friday afternoon, and we’d have to cold call for four hours straight. And we would pick up pick up a yellow book and call through that. And I didn’t do it, I refuse to do it. Because that was not my intent. I was not a cold call guy. I was at relationship guy and I was always the one that had the most appointments for the next week was closing the most amount of business. So there was something behind that. And I was part of a little networking group that had a realtor in it. And he said, You know, I think I think you’re looking for something else. I think you use theirs and I said look, I am in America I’m in the Wonder opportunity. I’m all ears What are you thinking? He says you should get in real estate. I think you’d be really good at it. You know, you can you can you know the world is your oyster in real estate you really are you know, it’s like that you’re your own boss you’ve got the fleet you know, it’s a throughout the comments of it’s flexible. It’s like yeah, right. Bullshit flexibility in your first two three years there’s absolutely none. So yeah, I in 2010 I got quit quit the Yellow Pages studied at home for two weeks, because I didn’t have the money back then to attend the courses. I just bought the books the the real estate books, studied when in a class for a week summer test, got a license and just came out the gate and realize that Mike, I think, you know, back then I had no experience I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have a mentor but I knew that I would learn over time but I could outwork anybody like work was not the work ethic part was not polling to me so if you if you had the experience but didn’t have the work ethic, I was going to beat you on work you know work ethic so the first full full year in real estate and you know what it was like back then and Mike it was a it’s insane to think about that. Basically nine out of every 10 homes are in short sale or foreclosure back then that’s what I cut my teeth on. I was selling condos in Denver for 12 $15,000 I was making a couple 100 bucks which was a fortune to me on a commission check and you know that first year I just hit No no days off at nine years weakness so 36 homes in my first year and I did not have any kind of idea of if that was good or not because I thought it’s really good. If I sell 36 homes in my first year with no experience the average realtor must be selling 100 homes he know that make that’s what that’s what I believe because I didn’t I know
what do you notice searches today? Or even that it’s never changed? Like five to 766 homes the average size a realtor sells and I don’t know how you can make a living off of that.
No and I you know I I sold her a lot of homes, but they were you know, I think my average price back when I started was around $80,000. So that’s kind of what my average price point was. But I just didn’t look back because I loved that I loved I didn’t Thanks, I was working Mike, I think I found something. And we talked about this just offline about, the longer you get into the business, it becomes, you know, it does become a little bit of a grind but the that that first year, I was just on cloud nine, because I, you know, I was making some money, not a lot of money, but I was providing for my family and I found something that I found. It just came naturally to me. And the other big thing that I really want to reiterate to the listeners, if you’re if you’re, if you’re born in this country, if you’re born in the United States of America, you won the lotto, you won you got you got the Charlie Wonka golden ticket, because there is nowhere else. And I’ve said this so many times, there is nowhere else in the world with so much opportunity. And gobble I came, I came here as an immigrant with with nothing like, I didn’t have some trust funds with my parents like I, you know, my parents went through a divorce right before we moved over. And I just wake up every day. No, you know, sometimes a little bit different Susie, artistically, but I know that I’m a kid in a candy store, we can up in America, because the opportunity is off the charts. And I’m living proof of that I did, I had no connection to anybody in Denver. Anybody in the metro area, my wife is from a small small town in Colorado, 100, people she didn’t know grew up in the city. So I had to create these relationships and create the business on my own. And I’m living proof that it may sound corny, but the American dream is, is alive. And well. And I’m telling you that right now, if we just focus on what is good out there, good things happen. And I just like I grew up in Scotland, it’s not like some third world country, you know that I have a lot of friends that have come from, to the United States. But the opportunity is nowhere near anything like we have here. So it was just like, it was fascinating to me that I really put the work in, I learned, you know how to do things my own way, because nobody was nobody, I had nobody to show me I just had to figure it out. But that was a good thing for me. Because I figured out my you know, my flow for things my that the way I handled things. And you know, I, I sold the most homes ever in a first year in Denver and just continue to build my business from there.
Let me unpack a couple of things that you said. First off, thank you for recognizing that I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with so many people today where they talk shit about our country, but our country is the biggest opportunity that exists and it’s, it’s a breath of fresh air to hear someone appreciate that. So thank you for that. Thank you for all those who have served and everybody else who fights for it every single day. But listen, you have the exact same story as me as myself. So this has some similarities here. I didn’t come from Scotland, but I did come from Carbondale at Carbondale, Illinois, which is probably the armpit of America when it comes to colleges. And I remember one day, I was doing a kickstand, and I was 22 years old getting blacked out. And then the next day, a week later, literally, I was walking down Michigan Avenue and my first suit being like what the fuck happens now. And I was 22 years old at that time, and I started at a company called I think was called it was called home touch. And home touch was a buyer agency only. And if you guys are familiar with Chicago, you see it on the news water tower mall used to have a kiosk in the very bottom level of the mall, which is a tourist trap or tourists Central. And in the kiosk, we’d have a bunch of just different listings and properties there. And we would just stand at this kiosk and just strike conversations with people because people would stop by to say, Hey, what’s going on with that listing? Right? Or, Oh, how much does this thing go and then you just start a relationship. The very first house I sold was to an attorney, I had nothing in common with like this guy and me. I still stay friends with him over the years. Like we’re totally opposite of the political side, everything. We have nothing in common. He’s an attorney. I’m a dude. But I always knew the power of relationships. Because when I was in college, I was like, the guy who had all the parties. I had all the bar bartenders, I always knew how to grease people to get in. Like I had everything I was a shit in college. Then I got to the real world. And I’m like, damn, I started over I was nobody. The one thing and the one thing I learned is that everyone always has a common ground and in business, regardless of what the common ground is. If you can find it early enough in a conversation, you’ll earn the chance to have that conversation. All right. So this dude was in a fraternity and I just got out of one. And that’s how I struck it. We bonded talking about frat hazing, frat parties and all this crap. We ended up selling them a $420,000 condo for sale ever did came right off the floor of water tower Mall. That gentleman I continued to nurture the relationship with him over time. I’ve even till the time I left Chicago, 17 years, 18 years I, I known this guy, I can’t tell you how many people he’s referred me to over the course of time, he’s had me over his house for dinner, all of that different stuff. This entire business is based upon relationships. You guys, it’s not based upon lead generation, it’s not based upon that auto responder you don’t know how to use. It’s not based upon the AI technology that the Guru’s are pumping down your damn throats right now that you’re never going to learn how to use what it is going to be based off. And what it always has, since the dinosaurs ruled the earth has been based upon relationships because 88% of people close with the first agent they meet with. And if you do all the stats, you can look up and see where people choose their agents from it’s not any of the places I mentioned, it comes from people they know you personally met, or that you’re referred to. And that’s where over 80% of business comes from each and every year. So to have a guy, how old were you when you came over? I mean, I still have a 29 year old dude, come over to the States probably has stars in his eyes, like holy shit, this is great. Probably like a kid in a candy store, like you said, and you just didn’t know anybody, but you focus on building relationships. And, folks, that’s what the business is. If you’re sitting here, trying to think that you’re in sales.
You’re in the wrong damn business. In my opinion, I don’t believe we saw I don’t think you can sell anyone anything without first having a relationship. So there’s a good book that demonstrates this. It was called cocktails, the name of it. It was written by the dude that sold the most used cars in one year. And his name is Joe Girardi I believe. I’m blanking on what the name of the book is. But the whole point of this book was this guy sold like 346 Used Cars in one year. Okay, this wasn’t a condo building where you get 346 listings with one developer, he did individual likes. So it’s not like he had a bulk sale, he did individual car sales one at a time. And how he did it was he came up with this thing he calls Gerards rule of 250. And he goes, every single person knows 250 people that they can refer you to every person does. So he goes when I this is like the Centerstone of our philosophy today’s like he goes when I sold someone a car, I didn’t spike the football. When I sold him the car, I spiked the football and I got the third or fourth or fifth referral from them. Because once he sold him the car, he instantly went, Hey, if this person can refer me their friends and family, this is a used car salesman guys. Okay, we’re talking about selling real estate, the biggest investment ever, this guy’s did the same concept with used cars is this guy, if I could get into there, people have 250 people, and then they could introduce me into the 250 people. And that’s how this guy rolled. He just kept leveraging relationship off relationship, a relationship or relationship? Because you know, how many times do you get turned down on a referral when you go to a listing presentation? Never? How many times you get turned down? When you go up? And you get a cold call, like, Hey, I’ve got this lead, I’m gonna go over, you know who the hell it is? They’re interviewing five other agents? Well,
it’s just it’s a different, it’s a completely different proposition. And it’s, it’s a different process as well. And it never seems to go as well. Even if you get the listing, which you don’t always get obviously. And because it’s a it’s a completely different set of parameters you’re working to. So yeah, like, you hit the nail on the head, it’s, I’ll tell you what, there was a period for about six months in 2017, where a lender and I partner together because a lender was like, we need to, you know, we need we could grow exponentially, and we wanted to do, we bought leads, and had a team like five agents that were cold calling and calling and calling and calling and calling and I was miserable. It was just so authentic to who I am as a person. And like, we got rid of it. And I sat the team down, I said, I’m gonna teach you how to grow, how to grow by repeat and referral business. And I’m going to teach you how to develop relationships. And we teach how to be authentic, and we teach you ultimately how to provide more value than you’re ever going to receive and payment. And, you know, talking about books, the, the the one, the one book that changed my life was the Go Giver. And that just taught me all about it’s, it’s about providing value before you ever ask for anything in return ever. And you’ve got to provide way more value than you expect in return. So that was just something that, you know, I was given in my first year in real estate as well. And it just hit home to me it just was like, it was just like, it was like I was looking in the mirror reading this book. And I think the big thing Yeah, you look not everybody has, you know, an outgoing personality. There are introverts out there that succeed in real estate but they maybe do it differently but for me, my personality is is extroverted. So it’s very much you know, high energy, high Passion, people see that I can care because of where my heart lies. Leave it I’m very transparent. So that’s just the stick who I am. And that’s how I mesh well with and that’s where we would get really good results. So let’s go back
to the let’s get out of real estate for a second, let’s go back to the phone sales. Like you knew this, this is not a real estate thing you guys this is any business, any referral business, anything that you’re self employed or and then you’re in charge of and you’re the brand or you’re in charge of going out there and getting direct sales like referrals is where it’s always at. How did you like us? So you when you would go on your phone sales, the same thing as what I’m talking about with the used car salesman? You would focus not necessarily on the sale, but on the relationship?
Well, yeah, I so like, how do you
probably have, you probably have a system in your head that you’re like, Alright, here’s how I build relationships where you like, Alright, first thing I do is I make them laugh. Second thing I do is I do this, like you probably have something that you It’s you guys, it’s like dating,
it’s, it’s more about finding common ground. Because we would go in our office with these little cubicles, and we’d sit in, and I would hear the guys that had been doing it forever, like 30 years selling Yellow Page ads, right. And they were, they were polished and I put it near quotations and I would hear them on the phone talking to prospects. I’m like, What the fuck? Like, honestly, this biggest chill cheeseball bullshit I’ve ever heard. And like, how can you it’s like, so scripted. Yeah. And it was just like, so sleazy. And unlike, I just, it just wasn’t me. And the thing is, it was all about just being authentic to who I am. Like, you get what you see with me. And yeah, I’m there, I’m always thinking about how I can help people. And that was the big thing for me as my my internal cues were when I was listening to people, it was always I was looking for something, I was listening to an opportunity where I could make an impact in their life, make their life better by introducing them to somebody or something that was going to help them in their journey. And these are the conversations that I love to have. Because I want to surround myself with people that want to achieve the ones that are high achievers that want to make a difference in the world. And I like as this like young kid from Scotland coming over and having these clients when I was selling these 2030 $40,000 condos, I was always looking, I was always, you know, sending a little handwritten note every time I met somebody and just build and build and build in. And that that was that was something within me. And when I when I hear kids nowadays get into real estate, and they’re, you know, the Instagram kids that are grown up in real estate know that want the private jet and the Ferrari before they’ve even sold a home. Yes. And you know, I get the I get a lot of people calling me and asking to meet me just to they’re going to get in real estate. And you know, I won’t help people, but I’m selective. And I tell them, I say the word of advice, the advice I give to you is, for the next three years, you’re going to work seven days a week, you’re going to work 80 to 90 hour, hours a week. And if you’re still in real estate, after those two to three years, come back and talk to me, because I guarantee you’ll probably give up after the first three to six months, because it’s too hard or you’re not good enough business. And you’ve got like I’m a firm believer, Mike, that you got to earn your stripes, you just don’t get like I’ve never had anything handed to me. And it’s just the way I am. It’s like if you don’t earn your stripes, you’re never going to understand what the what the roadmap is like and what the struggle is. And, and you can’t look back on that and have perspective. Because I’ll tell you right now, when I started in real estate, me and I had, you know, nothing. And it was like, I can remember multiple times over that first two years, hoping and praying a closing was going to happen. So I could get that extra three or $400 to pay our mortgage. And it was like, that’s given me a perspective. You know, I can look back on that and say, there was a grind, and there was their stripes. And like I just think, you know, I know we’re going kind of off on a tangent here but there’s just been a loss of that. You know, you know everything everything wants to come too easy.
Well the you said it earlier to you said I failed forward essentially. You don’t the best like I look at I take your perspective too. I’ve gone through a transformation the last 567 years myself bankrupt when here but they’re all that you know went up and went down from you know, I’ve been there done that. But truthfully, guys is you can’t unless you like learn lessons. The hard painful way you don’t actually learn them is what I found out and there’s something great about being humbled and coming from very humble beginnings because it is how you you’ll look back. I do Do believe that, you know, I used to read these books all the time. And you always read the books about the millionaire, right? And he’s just successful. But if every single one of the books has the same story, if you guys ever really pay attention, someone goes out and does really well, then they lose it all. And then they build their ship back up, right? It never fails. And it’s because you’ll make mistakes. If this business isn’t too easy. The truth is like you have to you have to fail. I believe that to you, if you don’t get burned. You never learn. And it’s made me personally with everything. I’ve gone through way better person, way better businessman. I know what to look out for. But in this business, you need to suffer through that. It’s just how it is because you’re right. It just won’t. You’ll never learn and if you never learn, you’ll never be able to do it. So I same thing. First Three Years, I didn’t have a life. Yeah, I just sat there and work. I was crying. I was like, What the hell am I gonna survive? Like, just like a little kid stuck in the city? Like, what the hell am I gonna do? Yeah, but you just have to hustle. And it’s same story, dude. It’s like directly the exact same story. It just went through building relationships, building relationships.
And I can remember, but my daughter was, you know, I’ve got a 12 year old and a 10 year old, no, but my daughter who’s 12, she was six months when I got in real estate. And you know, when she was one, between one and two years old, she would pick my cell phone up and be like, Dad, dad, because that’s all she knew, that she just she she grew up, I grew up with me just being on if she saw me, I was on my phone. And, you know, I look back on that time. And then I miss a lot of time with it when when the kids were little, yes. But do you know what they now have is they have an unbelievable understanding of work ethic and how how, you know, hard to work with things and things don’t just come to you. And, you know, I think that that’s where I’m at, in my real estate career is now is, is trading dollars for time, because, you know, I do want to, you know, my my philosophy, Mike is you get one shot at this, this isn’t a dress rehearsal, you got to go out and knock it out of the park in all facets of your life. And, you know, number one, the most important thing to me is my family and my kids. And if I’m, if I’m not putting a lot of time and energy and resources into them, and I’m feeling there’s a.so Ultimately, that’s the goal. And I’ve been lucky enough to use real estate as that vehicle. You know, to get there and to get to a point where, you know, I’m able to trade the doors for time.
So the one of the when I worked in my first job, because you’re like this, the girl, the gal girl, she’s from England, or she’s from Ireland. Before we got on the show here, I’m like, oh, that Irish kilt on your brand. He’s like, I’m not Irish. I’m Scottish guys. Like, oops, sorry, my bad gotta keep it in mind. But the but the your accents the same. And her name was Andrea. Andrea was a top salesperson. They’re much like you very similar story she must have. She was only in the States for a few years. But she was a top salesperson there. And when she used to use use her accent to her advantage, because it’s adorable. Like she’s like, Oh, how are you doing? Like, you know how you’re doing it. Now people probably say it all time. I love your accent love your accent. But she use it to her advantage because she knew that’s what made her different. Right? And I look back at it and mindset or and I look back and look at that. That’s how she she crushed it on the floor. Like she would just crush it. You pick up a client every time she was out there. So you know, but she embraced her authenticity, she embraced her personality. I’m sure for someone coming over here. You might be a little insecure about your accent maybe. Right? Or maybe not. Maybe Maybe you got too many women that just started putting themselves out there dreamy over here. But a funny
couple of things. When I go back to Scotland, my friends give me so much shit because they think they see I’ve got an American accent now. So it’s changed dramatically. And I’ll tell you why. Because I was never insecure about my accent. But I had, I had been given a referral in my first year in real estate and I picked up the phone and called them and the wife was on the phone with me. And after about 30 seconds she said stop. This is not going to work you in because I can’t understand a word you’re seeing. And I caught like offended. I was like, Do you know what I said? I said I’m speaking English. Like I’m not I’m speaking the same language. And it’s funny because they’re great clients to this day. They were one of my first clients and we joke about every time I see them I’m say I say Can you understand me now? But it of course it is it’s an icebreaker with anybody because they’re they’re, you know, they’re interested. We have questions like query formance. It’s a query from an Ireland and I’m like, well I’m not from Ireland from Scotland and of course I use it to my advantage but it It’s it’s it’s something that, you know, I thought was going to be a hindrance rather than a help when I first started in real estate but no, I’ve definitely been.
We deal with this all the time with video, we’ll create content for people and the big oh my god, I look stupid. I’m too fat. I’m this I’m that. And like, folks, get over yourself, like, no one cares about that stuff except yourself and like, and people can see it when you’re faking it too. So regardless of what it is, yes, be yourself. Like, that’s how video works. If you try to do it too scripted, or you try to do it too polished or too perfect. It doesn’t it doesn’t do too well. Right? Yeah. So you got to you got to take the stuff in. Alright, so tell me how you’re doing it. Now. Let’s fast forward to today. You’re running basically all referral based? Are you doing any type of lead generation or anything like that?
No, no, any. Like, I’m not buying any leads. There’s no, you know, Zillow or anything like that. I’ll tell you, the thing is that the struggle for me, Mike over the years has been to recruit and retain good people. And I think that’s one of the things that, you know, I think the majority of people that get the real estate license, just have this, you know, imaginary outlook on things, everything’s just gonna be driving around showing these million dollar homes and making big fat checks. Well, that’s not reality. And the other reality is, I have no business acumen or experience. And we’re thrown in to become business owners, basically, when we get our real estate license, and we have no experience on that we don’t know how to hire, we don’t know how to, you know, retain people, we don’t know how to recruit. We don’t know how to run a p&l, I didn’t even know what the hell a p&l was when I got my real estate license. And that in that caused trouble in the early days, because I didn’t know how to save for tax or anything. But I think the big thing for me is, the word of advice is get if you’re getting into real estate, or you’re struggling in real estate, then get with somebody that knows how to do it and actually treat it like a business, not treat it like a hobby, not treat it like you know, you’re just selling a lot of real estate, but you don’t know what you’re doing after that. Run it as a business. And the where I’m at right now is I’ve had agents come and go with me over the years, like lots of agents, I’ve never been able to really retain them. And I’ve not known really how to recruit properly, and also hire great admins or great operations directors or whatever like that. But now I’ve kind of I’m getting there, I’m still I’m still not where I want to be. But we’ve got I’ve got another agent that works with me full time. I’ve got director operations who we hired in January, which has been fantastic, because I realized I didn’t need an it wasn’t an assistant that I needed. It was more operations, just to run the show. Then we have a transaction coordinator and we’re about to hire on for marketing because I my previous marketing girl just, it’s just having her second baby. So we’re looking for that. But I’m trying to get the foundation, really solid and then recruit some more agents, nothing crazy because I don’t I don’t want to be a babysitter because you know, there’s other things I want to do in life. But yeah, that’s where we’re at right now. And our goal this year, which we’re on our way to doing is 100 sales and 100 million volume. So that’s kind of where we’re, that’s where we’re talking towards
congrats and that’s not a big team that’s nice and lean and mean but you’re doing a lot of times I see a lot of like, I’ll be honest, you guys I used to have a brokerage I used to have a team. And the bigger the team, the bigger the brokerage i for brokerages, I had up to 70 agents, I had 68 headaches. When I had a team of 27 people I had 24 headaches. So team leaders don’t have production sense sometimes lean and mean is the way to go. Don’t let your ego float you all the way to headache Ville. So it’s like we both been down that path. Yeah, but dude, this is really great. Let’s get this all wrapped up. What I here’s what I get out of this, you guys. You hear it from me every week. I didn’t know we’re gonna talk about when we got on here. We’re like, let’s just roll with it. And record Yeah, but it came down like you see a guy like you and super successful is gonna do 100 deals this year. But he’s gonna do it off of relationships. And I have yet to meet someone in this business, even the lead generating people, because they’ll pay for those relationships, but they still have to be good at building them even if your lead gen, because you won’t get the client until they start building trust, which is only happens when you have relationship. So focus on that, folks, if you guys heard some of the stuff he had, if you’re just starting out that first couple years in the business, it’s not a walk in the park. This is a business this isn’t a job. And that’s why there’s an 87% failure rate in real estate industry is HGTV makes it look really fun on the outside but what you get when you start off, man, this is a grind. You’re starting a business any new business is a grind guys, it’s not the real estate business. You’re an entrepreneur and every business is a grind but I agree with con Hoadley that’s
the thing Mike is you there’s no better place to be able to do it. That’s what I keep going back to building a business, there’s no better place to be able to do it. Because we are afforded the most incredible opportunity. Like, in America, whatever the hell you want to do, you can do it. And like, it’s not easy. It’s not going to be a walk in the park. But you can do it, and surround yourself with great people, people that you can look up to, but the understand it’s about, as you said, about the value of relationships, and always looking at more value in every relationship that you have every single you know, back to just the basics a been with your wife, like, you know that that’s what I’ve learned about learn that there’s, there’s no hair like it, Mike, and I know you get this and all you preach that but yeah, we’re lucky to have the opportunities that we do
have it, folks, if any of you guys in the Denver area or you want to maybe you just say you’re looking for somebody, you need some more agents
like definitely we could do with at least a couple right now. So yeah, I would love you know, if anybody has any questions just reach out to me or wants to in Denver that wants to sit down and get lunch or have a coffee. Like, you know, i The other thing, my real estate’s given me everything, everything I have in life, every opportunity that my family have has come from real estate. So I want to give back as much as I can, you know,
why don’t you tell them how they can reach you and we’ll get this rep.
Yeah, so best way to reach me is cell is 303619 4400. An email is my first name un. Graham, my last name group denver.com.
Love it, man. Great to see you in person. Okay, now that events are back we see you at one of these. I’ll be I’ll be out to San Diego soon. Awesome. And folks, thank you for listening another episode of real estate marketing dude, if you don’t know what we do yet we help you nurture those relationships, build more relationships by putting your videos in front of those very people so that you build a personal brand that people know like trust and more importantly refer and return to when they need to buy or sell real estate or get a loan whether your mortgage broker So visit our website at real estate market to do.com. Just visit it just once Just once I can follow you around over the internet until we get a call until we start scheduling and until you start getting on video. It’s very hard to build a brand without creating content. If two options, create a lot of content, nurture people with it or you make a whole lot of phone calls to people you already know just keep taking them out to dinner every other week. You have two options which one you want to do. I like the other. So appreciate you guys listening to other episode check out our channels, Facebook IG, and YouTube make sure you subscribe and we’ll see you guys in next week’s episode push. 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 into your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.
I always tell people you’ve got to be consistent. It’s not just consistent in the videos you create or the content you create, but it’s consistent in everything you do in life. Consistency is when you get results. I want to first start off by just apologizing to you guys, because I broke my own rule. And if you are an avid listener of the show, you realize that I haven’t published in two or three weeks out of the last five. I’ve never done that throughout the history of the show. I totally regretted it, but I’ll be honest with you, I got a little burnt out. I didn’t have enough time to go out there and create the show, I had a guest cancel and I should have went out and created it. But consistency is what’s gotten the show to be what it is.
I made a mistake. I realized something I was doing wrong in my own business and I broke my own golden rule. I had to come back, hit myself in the head and start being brilliant at the basics. What we’re going to be chatting about today is the importance of consistency. I’m going to go through and show you guys on how I broke my own rule relating to consistency and why it’s important.
Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode
The power of consistency
Step by step how to get started (or re-started) on being consistent
This podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust, most importantly, refer. But remember, it is not their job to remember what you do for a living.
It’s your job to remind them. Let’s get started. What’s up ladies and gentlemen, welcome to their episode of the real estate marketing
goad podcast, folks, what we’re going to be chatting about today is it’s just me, me and you, one on one, I made a mistake. And I had, I realized something I was doing wrong in my own business. And I broke my own golden rule. And I had to come back, hit myself in the head and go back and start being brilliant at the basics, excuse me. And what we’re going to be chatting about today is the importance of consistency. So what we’re going to start versus I’m going to go through and show you guys on how I broke my own rule. For those you guys that know me, I always tell people, you got to be consistent, you’ve got to be consistent. It’s not just consistent in the videos you create or the content you create. But it’s consistent in everything you do in life consistency, is when you get results. If I wanted to, I’ll give you a perfect example. So I probably lost about 10 to 15 pounds in the last two months give or take. And the only reason was is because I was being consistent in my diet. I was being consistent with the peloton was a however you say it. And I was always just kept showing on up. And no matter when you’re building a brand, it really does require the exact same thing. And I want to first start off by just apologizing to you guys, because I broke my own rule. And if you are an avid listener of the show, you realize that I haven’t published in two, I think actually went two or three weeks out of the last five, I’ve missed a show. I’ve never done that throughout the history of the show. And although I was just I totally regretted it, I just you know, I’ll be honest with you, I got a little burnt out, I didn’t have enough time to go out there and create the show I had a guest cancel and I should have went out and created it. But consistency is what’s gotten the show to be what it is. In January of this year, we surpassed over 1 million downloads on this show on this podcast. Thank you guys for your reviews your comments, and you just started sharing the word and how we got there was through being consistent. See, I started the podcast in 2014. And it was zero audience zero anything but what I kept doing was showing up and publishing one a week no matter what. I never skipped a beat. I didn’t run ads to this podcast. Once I didn’t sit there and promote the podcast, I sort of talked about it nonchalantly. But it’s not like we’re running traffic here or anything like that. What we do is we share valuable content to all of you guys, people, investors, real estate agents, mortgage brokers in all the above. And because we keep consistently sharing these dis podcast, this is a form of media that has helped develop the real estate marketing dude brand. As a matter of fact, I would even go out on a limb and say if I didn’t create this podcast in 2014, I would be a dead man standing right now. Because this podcast alone is responsible for much of our client generation from real estate marketing dudes video services. So you would think naturally that I’d be motivated to never miss a beat being that I attribute so much of our success to this podcast. But the truth is, is that look, life gets in the way. And everything we’re doing is content. So I’m going to call myself out on this podcast. And we’re going to make fun of myself today. And we’re going to talk about how I broke all the rules and the results it had to my business. And it is no differently than when you’re out there creating content and you forget to do something, and you just don’t end up doing it at all. So I want to give you several different examples because my website traffic over the last three weeks has dropped significantly. Now the reason for that is because I wasn’t publishing consistently. And the truth is, I’m probably gonna lose a couple of subscribers, I’m probably going to lose a couple of followers, because when you’re creating a brand consistent communication to the same audience, over time is how you do it. So we’re gonna go step by step, I’m gonna show you how this podcast through consistency work. I’m gonna show you how video through consistency works. But nothing works unless you’re consistent. So do not ever do what I just did, by not publishing a couple of weeks in a row because that’s the worst thing you can do for your business. And there is more than enough time in the day to find it and get this type of content created. So let’s talk about why consistency is so important. And when we’re building a brand, whether you’re doing it on video, or you’re doing a podcast like this, it’s all about creating content, right? This podcast is a form of audio content I no longer publish the videos on so Social media and Facebook and all that, although I probably should, but we got too busy. But I am still trying to be as consistent, I promise you, I won’t miss another episode. But every Saturday we publish this content. Now, as a result of that, because we’re consistently adding value, it’s people, I remain on top of mind. You know, when when you’re creating content with video, you’re putting your face in front of people. And that’s the difference between a podcast and a video series.
If I’m in the real estate business, I am not starting a podcast, the only reason I have a podcast is because we can serve nationally real estate agents, lenders, and all all these other people and people were teaching and sharing tactical attraction, marketing tips, video marketing tips, all kinds of tips that people would want to listen to. However, if I was a real estate agent or a lender in a local market, it’s gonna be very hard to develop a content strategy just in the form of a podcast, which is just audio, and actually have a lot of success with it. You have to remember that, you know, you guys are the brand. Ultimately, as long as you’re in control of your own business, you’re not working a job, you’re running a business. And how you run a business is you have to always be promoting that business. And that’s what content creation really does. See, when you’re creating content, you’re doing it consistently, you’re not doing it for lead generation, but you are doing it for attention generation. And I still believe that real estate is one giant, popularity contest, because the vast majority of business comes from people that we already know, not from complete strangers. However, if we’re out of sight, if we’re out of mind, guess what? We might get cheated on that weekend. So I want to ask you guys a question. And I want to ask you, how do you? How do people remember that you’re in the business, whatever the trade is? And I don’t want you to say, Oh, everybody already knows I’m in business. Because my next follow up question, I’m asking me, Okay, how many people have cheated on you, with another real estate agent or lender in the past 12 months? And the answer is, for most people is going to be quite a few. We have to remember that it’s not your databases job or your community’s job to send you business, but it is your job to remind them to send you business. And that alone should motivate you with being consistent in whatever type of content creation you’re doing. In content creation today is absolutely necessary, regardless of what business you’re in. Look at from this point of view. We’re all selling the same stuff. I did a video the other day at an event and I was asking people, Hey, what’s the difference between you? And your competition? So if you’re a real estate agent, what’s the difference between you and your nearest competitor? And nine times out of 10? I get the exact same answer. The exact same answer is, well, I, I care about my clients. Well, no shit, you have a fiduciary duty to Him, you have to care about them. Otherwise, you’re in violation of that, like caring about your clients is expected. I hear all the time people say, Hey, Mike, I have a great, I have great service, I picked up the phone. Well, no shit, isn’t that your job? You see people don’t, that’s not a selling point, that’s not a unique selling proposition that you’re going to do a good job, or that you care. That’s called something that you should have naturally, right? And I hear this all the time. And it’s crazy to me that people can’t differentiate what the hell they’re selling. And the truth is that we all have access to the MLS. So we are selling the same stuff, we have access to the same properties, or the same loans as any other person out there. So what really makes us different from one person to the next? What is it that gets people to pick us or me over anybody else? Why would you guys want to hire me the real estate marketing due to do all your video content creation, versus hire a videographer or someone local? Or some other company like viral marketing? For example? What’s the difference? Well, the difference is, is that people hire me because they personally like me. They personally trust me, they personally feel connected to me that we would relate. I’ve never once done business with anyone that has not liked me before. But how do they even know who the hell I am? If I don’t know who they are? Well, I do that through content creation. Those of you who have been listened to the show, and trust me, guys, I get a lot of people like Mike, you swear to Butch and I don’t swear as much as I have, okay, calming down, I’m getting older and get a little bit more mature. But it’s just who I am at the end of the day, and I’ve embraced my brand. And I recognize that that’s just the way God made me, Okay, I am who I am. And I’m not going to change for anybody. I’m gonna shoot from the hip. I’m gonna do it, how I do it. And some people might like that some people might not. But when you’re in the business of content, creation, the authenticity of your brand, and also being consistent with it is the key to making it work. See, I’m not creating this podcast right now to because I feel like going out and creating this podcast right now. I’m creating this podcast right now because I know I have to publish a video or podcast this week, and it’s going out and you guys are gonna listen to it. Okay, but I’m also Creating that podcast because I know a certain percentage of people who listen to it will schedule a demo with me in the following week to see how we work. So the question I have for you is, what are you doing that’s consistent in your business that
keeps you at the forefront? What makes somebody actually send you business and the importance of consistency is not to sit here and teach and preach it to you. But it’s because you don’t know when the next deal is going to come. You can’t control the conversations that are being had by the people, you know, what you can control is how many of them actually know who the hell you are and what you do when the term real estate or lending is brought to mind. And that’s why consistency is so important. So we all know the, you know, the story of the we heard this since we were kids, right? The story of the tortoise versus the hare. And who won the race. The tortoise won the race, even though he was much slower. He wasn’t as fast he didn’t take any shortcuts, he just kept on trucking along at the same pace remained consistent throughout the race. And the consistency actually earned him the win of that race. So when you’re out there, creating content, and you’re trying to build your brand by you only do it by being consistent. Because when people see you keep popping up each and every week, or each and every month and you do it consistently well guess what? People start to remember who the hell you are. Now, I want to play this out. And this is usually when people understand this. And we all know what the concept of direct mail farming is right? Direct Mail farming. This has been a real estate marketing strategy, since the dinosaurs ruled the earth. And real estate was first created back in the Garden of Eden with back in Genesis, right. So the you know, the farming strategy, how it works is you would typically, you know, you’re a real estate agent, you pick a neighborhood, usually it’s your own neighborhood or neighborhood you’re trying to form and you pick 400 doors, 500 doors, and guess what, you send them a postcard once a month, right? You go out and you send them a postcard once a month, and then you sign up and you’re like, this is a long term thing, right? You send someone a postcard just one postcard and never send him another postcard, guess what, it’s not going to work, you’re not going to make any money, it’s not gonna be a return on investment. But people who farm will tell you that after 12 months, as long as they’re doing it consistently, the first year farming might lead to like one to two listings, maybe three. The second year farming ends up being three to five, the third year farming, the same neighbor ends up being seven plus. And it’s usually after three years that people start to see results from their farming efforts. And the question is, is why is that? Well, it’s because each and every month, you’ve shown up on their doorstep. And with direct mail, 100% of people are going to receive it now whether they pick up that postcard and throw it in the trash. Who cares, they still acknowledge that you existed. And if you told me 36 times over three years, once a month, with a hard piece of marketing in the form of a postcard? Well, I would automatically probably I’m more likely to assume that the person that is sending me those postcards is that, quote unquote, neighborhood Pro. Now, if I were to go into month 14, of the same campaign, and let’s just say oh, I want to go on vacation, because I gotta take my kids, get him to Mexico. And you know, I’m going to take two months off or three months off this campaign. Well, guess what, you just fucked up the whole thing. Because you weren’t consistent. Right? I can’t go 13 months a postcard take off for months and then restart up and expect the same results. I need to be the tortoise and I need to go the entire way through. And that’s how I see the results. Now, folks, this is with direct mail. And yes, it does still work, but it’s going to take a lot of time. And direct mail is the most expensive form of media that you’ll get but is highly effective. And what happens in real estate, when you’re going after a direct mail farm, who you’re really marketing to are people you don’t know. Well, in real estate, you can’t get referrals from people you don’t know if you ever referred anyone anything that you haven’t visited or experienced yourself. Hell no, you have it. Have you ever referred anyone? Anything that you don’t know personally? No, you haven’t. You can only refer things you personally know like or trust. But it’s impossible to be referred when you’re not even thought about. So, I want you to think into the psychology of being consistent with your brand and constantly appearing because it is the exact same thing when you’re direct mail farming. Now, let’s switch over to video and show you how this works.
For a local business. None of this stuff that I like to share with people is ever based off of theory I like to base everything I do off of mathematics. I like to see a return on investment. And the reason why marketing your database with video has worked with every single freaking person I’ve ever done it with over the last 15 years of my life, it’s a lot of people guys, is because each and every one of us has a database or a network of people that know like trust and love us. And the truth is that those people are the largest referral sources of our business. But quite often we’re too scared to convert with or converse with them, and remind them how we do business, which means it makes it impossible for them to refer us business. When you’re building a brand, with video, the reason why I’d rather keep my content in front of people I know versus strangers is because strangers don’t refer you business. But people you know, do. And 100% of the people that you know, this year, this is 100% of the people that are on your Facebook feed 100% of people that follow you on Instagram 100% of the emails you have 100% of the people you walk across in the grocery store, or you see when you drop your kids off at school, know someone over the next 12 months if they can refer you to everyone knows someone they can refer you to. But you have to remain top of mind you have to be referral in order to get that business, right. So what happens when you stop creating your content? Well, the same thing happens when I just stopped doing my podcast. My demos were down. Do you think that was a coincidence? No. I’ve been doing this for seven years, I could tell you exactly when my demos go up. And I fucked up. I messed up. I didn’t publish the podcast for two months, that’s probably going to cost me you know, three to $1,000. And opportunity maybe? Who knows? I’ll never know. But it’s because I broke the golden rule of consistency. So when you’re consistent, folks, people don’t let me get ours. Let me put it this way. People don’t remember. And if you think everyone knows your real estate agent or a lender, you’re sadly mistaken, I used to think the same thing. The truth is, is that you’re not that cool, people don’t think about you 24/7. And the same way you don’t know what half of your friends do for work is the same reason how they don’t know what you do for work unless you constantly remind them. I can’t tell you how many agents I come across when we work with that fail to just remind everyone in their network, their social feeds that aren’t consistent with marketing or branding. And then they wonder why they’re not getting the results. Folks, this business is a giant popularity contest. And the key to it is consistency. I can’t say this about every other business. But I can tell you that in real estate, everyone who is consistent when it comes to content creation, or anything in life always does well. So let’s play this out. And let’s see how it works. If I have a video email list of 200 people, okay, and I say video email, because I video, email, everything. I don’t write text based emails to nurturing campaigns anymore, I always send a video with the vast vast majority of them. If you guys are on my email list, you’ll see that if you want to see the videos on email list, just go to my website, sign up for our one of our things, and there’ll be on that email list and you’ll see exactly how we do it. But if I’m, if I’m an agent, I want to send out two videos a month, in 12 months, that will be 24 videos 24 pieces of content sent over to the two to 300 people that I know or invite to my wedding or funeral. Will you do more business? Well, mathematically, out of the 200 people that are receiving those messages, only about 40% of them are gonna open it. So let’s dwindle that down to roughly about 80 people that are seeing your content consistently each and every time. Now, no one’s gonna get 100% reach on email, but it’s got it’s a numbers game. So of those 80 people, eight to 12 of them will be moving. But all 80 of them have a referral for me. And when we’re building a brand based upon consistency and content creation, and that’s how we’re doing it. Well, you have to be everywhere all the time, because you don’t know when the next referral opportunities coming. And I’m not sending people on this email, list my content to sell them a house I’m selling, I’m sending them the people my email is content, to remind them that they can introduce me to their friends and family. And then as a result of that, I might get some direct business for the people that are also moving because it is also true that 10 to 15% of the people that see your content will be moving each and every year and 100% of them have a referral for you. So what I’m getting at folks is this is a numbers game. Now that’s just email. That’s just one channel. Now let’s take that same concept and apply it to Facebook. You might have I see agents have let’s just say you have 1000 friends on Facebook, okay, well, not all 1000 of them are going to see your content, probably only about 150 280 of them will see your content organically.
That means you’re missing 80% plus of your potential referral sources are business. So the more active you are in social the more you’re seen, the more results you get. Have you ever noticed an agent or lender that’s super active on some Should that doesn’t do business? I haven’t. There’s nothing crazy, they’re doing like some of the agents, Oh, I get a ton of business from Facebook. Well, they’re also always posting on Facebook, they’re being consistent on Facebook or Instagram or Tiktok, whatever they may be into. See, consistency is what leads to that. Because when somebody’s thinking about either A, making a move themselves getting a loan or getting a mortgage or refinance, or they’re having a conversation, or let’s say they’re, they’re doing it themselves, well over 80% of people are gonna close with the first person they meet with the first person they meet with is always or there’s a direct correlation with it happens to be the first person they call, the first person they call is the first person they think of, which is where consistency is so important, because if you’re not the first person people think of when they think of real estate, or mortgage or whatever business you’re in, it’s impossible to get a referral from them, isn’t it? See what a furl happens, which is, the reason why I’m talking about referrals, guys is that the vast majority of business, over 80% of our business comes from referrals, repeat clients, or people we already know or that we personally meet. That’s a mathematical fact, that’s over 80% of business comes from those sources, doesn’t come from strangers. It doesn’t come from Zillow doesn’t come from autoresponders, or tech, or websites or any of that. This is a relationship based business, which tells me that the number one thing and the number one goal for any of my agents for anyone I work with is I want to make sure every single person in the world knows who the hell you are, and more importantly, what you do. But the only way I can make that happen is when you’re everywhere all the time, and you’re consistent. So back to social, if you have 24 pieces of content to month, over 12 months, how many people how many views is that create if you’re doing videos, now divide the views 10 to 15% of people who saw it will be moving this year 100% of people have a referral for you. Now you take that same concept, you apply it to Instagram, you apply it to LinkedIn, wherever else your social profiles are at, because when you’re creating content, you also must distribute it just like you must distribute your postcards. When you’re farming a neighborhood, you can’t just print them out and send them out. It’s no differently with video creation, you can just create the video and then that distributor promote it. Number one mistake I see all the time. Oh, I did this video, but I’m getting results we’ll do that’s because you put it on your business page and the business page only put sends out to 3% of the 100 likes you got folks. Content Creation works for everyone, but especially in real estate, because you’re the brand. You see, I’m creating this content, teaching you a lesson that I messed up on. Okay, and I hope you get a lot out of it. Because I won’t let this lesson happen to me again. But the next time you log on to Facebook or social or you’re at a dinner and you sort of hear oh, they used another agent or lender. It’s not their fault that they’re not addict or not mean they don’t they’re not bad people. You’re a bad marketer. It’s not their job to remember what you do, it’s your job to remind them. And the only way that happens is to remain consistent each and every month. So that you don’t just do what I just did. Right? You don’t want to miss a podcast, you don’t want to miss an episode because truthfully, you never know when the next referral or direct business opportunity has. But what I do know is that when I’m consistent, I increase my chances of my name being brought into a conversation or being thought of first and that’s why I attract. So when people ask me, Hey, I want to run an attraction based business, I always tell them, it’s very simple, be consistent. If it’s not on video, then you gotta be consistent in some other way on social, but it’s got to be consistent visually. What people say is more powerful than what they hear. Or what people see. I mean, it’s more powerful than sometimes what they hear. When it comes to me if you think about how videos interacted is that the majority of video is, you could see me, you could read my body language, you can see my todo and you, I’m using it right here.
And that’s what makes it impactful. So folks, don’t overthink the model with creating content and doing it but whatever you’re gonna do in your business, there’s advertising and there’s marketing. When I’m talking about today’s marketing, I’m not talking about prospecting, cold calling or any of that. But even if you are going after those sources for business, you still have to be consistent, don’t you? I can’t just call five people day, I need to call 10 people a day for 20 days in a row. And if I discipline myself to do that, of course I would get some results. I can’t just go knock on one door sporadically throughout the month, I need to knock on 50 doors a day and create a system to do it. Well. If you want to build your brand and run an attraction based business, you have to do the same thing. You can’t create content sporadically. You have to do it consistently. And as long as you’re consistent. You’ll win that race just like the tortoise did. I really hope you guys got something out of this video today because any additional questions please feel free to reach out to me I’d love to help you build your brand, stay consistent and not do what I did. We script at it and distribute videos for people all over the country and we could handle yours as well. And if you need help with being you know getting on camera being consistent on video, take our coaching hires for our services or visit our website and start consuming more of this content and I will never let another podcast week go where I don’t show up and break my own rule. Appreciate you guys have a good one. 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.
I usually hate discussing business, but when there is something newsworthy that affects everybody in the world, whether they’re buying or selling, or they own a piece of property, like the topic of inflation then we gotta talk about it. This is the opportunity that you have to brag about real estate. This is when you bring it from the soapbox, because right now, no one’s talking about inflation. I don’t see one real estate agent out there talking about inflation right now. Why would we be talking about inflation? Well, it fucks up everything. So what I hope to do today is give you guys a bunch of different ways to create content, based upon what we’re going to talk about in terms of inflation.
To bring this conversation to life we’ve brought on Mr. Shawn Richard. He’s out of the DFW market. He works with guaranteed rate. He’s a lender. He’s been doing this for a long time. I want you guys to listen to what he says grab a pen. Then we also have, from Scottsdale Arizona, Mr. Brian Cardenas. As a veteran loan officer, Brian has committed himself to listening to his clients and providing them with the financing solution that serve their needs.
Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode
Why no one is talking about inflation
How to create content surrounding inflation, but make it interesting
So how do you attract 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. And I first have to go ahead and say, I’m going to apologize for being off the show for two weeks in a row, I sort of broke my golden rule of consistency, but I’ve been working on a lot of shit behind the scenes. And for those of you that are working with us or anything else, I think you’re gonna like it to your benefit. I’ve been working on my business recently, I hired a coach, and I’m working on different things within my business. And I’ve been doing a lot of restructuring. So I apologize for missing the last two weeks, I promise you, I won’t do it again. But what we’re gonna be talking about today is something that’s going to be very relevant to the news today. I don’t if you guys follow the show, I don’t like talking about business. I’m the videos that we create. So like, I hate boring people with video content. However, when there is something newsworthy that affects fucking everybody in the world, whether they’re buying or selling, or they own a piece of property, like the topic of inflation that we’re experiencing today. This is the opportunity that you have to brag about real estate. This is when you bring it from the soapbox, because you right now, no one’s talking about inflation. Nobody’s talking about inflation. I don’t see one real estate agent out there talking about inflation right now. Why would we be talking about inflation? Well, it fucks up everything. We have interest rates are changing. We’ve been so spoiled with this market lately, that people think it’s always gonna last this way, guess what books I thought the exact same thing in 2006 and 2007. And think the Lord, I switched my business at the time that there’s a correction to adapt in the short sales and I had the best few years of my life. I’m not saying the markets gonna crash. But what I am saying is that there is a correction going to take place in the affordability for what people can actually afford in today’s market. And if you don’t want to admit that we’re going to bring on two financial Mortgage Pros, these guys are frickin killers in their market, they understand mortgage and interest rates. And if you’re a real estate agent listening to this right now, you need to know this stuff. This is the this is the time to show your expertise and get out there and start talking to people and I don’t know much about inflation, I just know that it’s a topic people want to talk about. And when there’s something newsworthy, you create content on it. So we’re going to go out today. And what I hope to do is give you guys a bunch of different ways to create content, based upon what we’re going to talk about in terms of inflation. And the truth is there is no right or wrong answer on this. Nobody knows what the future is going to hold. No one knows what’s going to happen tomorrow. However, it is you’re going to be getting these questions on the daily from your clients. Questions. People are wondering right now, if you go into Google and you type in these terms, this is why I know it’s a hot topic. So when you create content, you create content, people search for it now what you think is cool, and when the other day when I went to Google and typed it, the search related results revolving around inflation in real estate were through the roof. That means people are talking about it, which means you have a content creation opportunity. So the problem is what are we gonna talk about? That’s what I brought these two studs on. So without further ado, I’m gonna go ahead and introduce them both. We got Mr. Shawn Richard. He’s out of the DFW market. He works with guaranteed rate. He’s a lender. He’s been doing this for a long time. I want you guys to listen to what he says grab a pen. And then we also have from Scottsdale Arizona Mr. Brian Cardenas and I say Cardenas right is our card den. Yes.
Depends if you’re a white boy. Are
you Hispanic like me? You’re like a white Mexican.
That’s exactly what I am. Yeah, me too. Everyone’s
like Cuevas is a qwave asked is your last name say acid it notes Well, boss if you say what do we got a lot to catch up on? Our Anyways, you guys I want you to say Hello, Brian. First. Go ahead, introduce yourself. Tell her where you’re at. And then we’ll get you on next.
Yeah, glad to be on here. Appreciate you bringing us on. I think the criteria you had was find the two most boring guys that knew anything about inflation and bring them on so I think I won that contest was Sean there.
This is C we’re gonna this is only as boring as you make it. We’re gonna make this superduper sexy today. Brian or Sean, go ahead and want you to tell everybody where you’re from.
Yeah. Hey, Mike, and everybody. Thanks so much for having me on. So yeah, Sean Richard, with children’s mortgage team here at guaranteed rate in Colleyville. Texas for those who have no clue where Colleyville Texas is. It’s about 10 minutes outside of DFW airport right smack in the middle of the metroplex. So yeah, glad to be here. Talk about inflation. Everything’s rising across the board.
Yep. So here’s where I want to start with is uh, and honestly, like, we as real estate professionals should know this. And honestly, I don’t I’m going to be the I’ve been selling these. You guys. I’ve been in the business 20 years. I can actually say that I got licensed 2002 I actually be the guy that says that, but I don’t understand it. Okay, so if I don’t understand it, I know a lot about real estate, I’m assuming that a lot of the people in the show don’t fully understand it. So here’s what I here’s what I think the one question that every real estate agent needs to be able to answer in the country today. And the question is, what will inflation do for my purchasing power? So that’s the question, I want to see how you guys answered, let’s start with Brian, you go first. And then let’s go on Sean?
Well, I think there’s there’s two parts to it that affect your purchasing power is, the first one is we’re seeing that this with housing prices, obviously, everyone’s seen the ridiculous increase in housing prices over the last couple of years. And that is going to continue probably not at the same rate. But that is going to continue for the next probably three to four years, just based on supply and demand. Everybody knows we’ve got super low historically low supply and high demand properties. So that’s going to drive up one piece of the equation. But the other one that’s most directly, in fact, reflected through the inflation is mortgage rates, you know, we’ve seen mortgage rates jump, almost 2%, really in this year. And the reason that inflation impacts mortgage rates so dramatically is because you have to step back and stop seeing it from the consumer standpoint, you have to look at it as an investment vehicle that Wall Street investors look at it as. So when we make a mortgage to somebody to buy a house, ultimately, that gets packaged up and sold on Wall Street as an investment, just like a bond does. And what those do is those return a fixed rate of return to the investor. Well, if that investor is purchasing a fixed investment, that’s going to return him three and a half percent. But now inflation has gone up, and it drives the market rate to 5%. Well, that investment that they made is less valuable to them, it can buy less shit at that rate of return. So basically, what has to happen is mortgage rates have to go up to attract those investors to buy those mortgages that we’re making for you to buy your house. So as your rate goes up, now your monthly payment goes up, you know, when you factor in the interest rate on top of the increase in the home prices. Well said. Gotcha.
Yeah, that’s, that’s absolutely right. Brian’s got it spot on. And you know, and one of the analogies that I use for consumers, because you know, not not all consumers are super in tune with the market and things like that. So, you know, I relate it to these certificates of deposit at a bank, right? You go into a bank, and you’ve got the ability to invest in a certificate of deposit and different lengths of certificates of deposit or CDs, you know, three months, six months, 12 months, 18 months. And so essentially, the longer you tie your money up the typically the higher the return on an investment, right? So let’s say you put your money into a 12 month certificate of deposit. And six months later, three months later, that 12 months certificate of deposit, the return on that has gone up maybe from three to 4%. Well, are you are you excited about your 3% return when you know that new certificates of positive paying 4%? You know, maybe not as much so. So that’s loosely, a good analogy for what’s going on with mortgage bonds is like Brian said, the yield on mortgage bonds has to be increased to to meet investor appetite. And so new, higher yielding bonds created and it pushes interest rates higher. And like, like Brian said, you know, has an impact on on monthly payment. And
here’s what I’m so let’s just play devil’s advocate here. Because if houses are going to continue to rise in price for the next three to four years, and at the same time, the cost to obtain them is also rising. At the same time, the cost of everything else from groceries to gas is also rising. At what point does it come where affordability, I can’t afford that next house anymore that I could have afford last through two years ago? And when does that hit the fan? Because I don’t see it as a sustainable way to keep going like trust me, I don’t want the market to correct or adjust. Nobody does in that sense. But I do believe that we can have everything correlating directly up even with supply and demand because there’s going to be a point where somebody says, Hey, dude, I, I can’t put down, you know, 10% on this on this house anymore, and pay the extra $900 A month is now costing me. But then on the flip side of this, let’s play the other side of devil’s advocate guys is there’s, well, interest rates are going to go up so it makes sense to buy now and lock in if we know rates are going to go up, because the benefits of homeownership always outweigh and if we think the market is going to continue to appreciate and that might be a smart move. Soon. I mean, there’s there’s two sides here and I see both arguments and I don’t know which ones right. So how do you answer those questions?
Well, Mike, I think there’s there’s a missing element there that a lot of people are just completely overlooking. And maybe Brian can also attest to this as well. But the missing element is, is wages. Right? So what’s going on in the labor market right now, we are at, you know, post pandemic lows in unemployment. And so what you have is you have a lot of companies that are having to increase wages to attract employees. And so what wages are increasing. And I think the most recent wage report said that year over year, wages were up 12%. And so if wages are up, 12%, that’s going to help the average homebuyer afford a higher mortgage, because you don’t spend 100% of your income on a mortgage, typically, you’re spending around 25, maybe 30%, you know, maybe upwards of 35%, and your mortgage. And so when you get when you get, say, $1,000, you know, $1,000, raise, let’s call it monthly, right? So $12,000 Raise, you got a promotion. So that $1,000 a month, well, if you’re only spending 25% of your income on your housing, that means you can afford $250 more per month. And if we break that down into what that means, that means the home price, a higher home price of roughly 30 to $35,000 that you can afford based on that increasing your wages. So I think the wage increases play a role that people are kind of overlooking, yes. The the appreciation in home values, the increase in home values, coupled with the increase in interest rates, is problematic for affordability. But I think that the the the complete omission of wage increases or wage inflation makes it look a lot worse than it may be actually
is interesting I didn’t know about and I you know, I have a gas here in San Diego’s 619 As of today. Right? So what that means $105 to fill up your gas tank. So like even our employees here in the office are asking to work more from home because of that, you know, and there’s going to be some companies, though that can’t afford to increase wages, I get the big corpse but there is going to be some that can small businesses like ours can’t afford just to instantly increase our wages overnight. And that’s what I’m that’s why it’s just so interesting to me, what’s what’s going to be happening, but very well said understood.
I think one of the things did it just add to what Shawn was saying he’s he’s totally right. People don’t think about that in terms of the math equation, you know, can you afford a house, but we’ve definitely seen on the lower end of the market, where people have been priced out of being able to afford purchasing a home. And so it’s a real thing that’s happening right now, at least in my marketplace. And I think probably a lot of other marketplaces, kind of the the mid mid range move up buyer and higher end, that’s not being affected quite yet, because they’ve got more disposable income. And that’s why we see a lot of the statistics you hear talked about in terms of how home price increases, they always refer to the median home price. And what that means is, that’s the midpoint at which the number of houses above and below that have sold. So what we’re actually seeing is we’re seeing higher priced homes being the ones that are moving on the market, and stuff in the lower price range, because it’s gotten more expensive, is not moving quite as much. And but at some point, you’re right, like what your your gut instinct is telling you, Mike, is this not sustainable? You know, what is going to happen is we’re already seeing some of the indicators that a recession is coming. Like we don’t know exactly when it’s coming. But what tells us that it’s coming is that when you get really, really low unemployment rates, which is basically where we’re at now we’re about at pre pandemic, unemployment rates. And we were we were there back before the pandemic, and we actually went into a recession, which probably a lot of people don’t realize it was very short lived, they actually went into reserves before the pandemic hit. Yeah, so, but what happens is, when when things become less affordable, what ends up happening is the average person cuts back on their discretionary spending. So like, you might not go out to dinner, you know, an extra time a week that you would have done before. So what happens is now that restaurant has less revenues coming in, they have less revenue revenues coming in, well, they got to cut back on employees, and now that employee loses their job, they may have to go find a different job that’s not quite paying as much. Now they’re going to spend less money. And so what ends up happening is, then unemployment starts to tick up. And then that’s what kind of leads us to recession. Like what Shawn was talking about earlier with CDs, another indicator of recession coming is a complicated, super sexy term you’re gonna want to hear it’s called a yield curve inversion. And basically, that’s a good one, instead of the long term investments giving you a higher rate of return, which is normal. Now, the shorter term investments are giving you a higher rate of return. And that’s investors basically saying we think rates are going to be lower down the road. So what that is basically telling us is We’ve got a couple of indicators that are that are telling us that recession is coming. My guess is it’s probably coming faster than what what it has in the future. But that’s gonna push interest rates back down, which will then help affordability for the homebuyers. When we’re in that
chapter size, right, just note down. So look at the newsworthy what out the whole purpose of this is to have conversations like this with other people that are experts in their trade, and then come up with different ways to create a bunch of attention and content around this. Are you guys doing any form of lead generation or any type of digital marketing at all? In your biz? Yeah, I would love for you to test this headline. And I guarantee right now this would fucking crush it. I would do something like inflation is here. Can you still afford to buy a house? Find out now? Something along the lines of like that? I think that and I don’t know, maybe that doesn’t make me that bombs. But just hearing like what you just said, instantly? Just told me Well, if I focused on the lower end markets, and I really want to do until that down, even just an engagement post to your actual database and posting on social or sending a video email out with this topic. inflation, inflation is here. Inflation is real. Can you still afford to buy a house? Or on the flip end of that you could take that same headline and be like inflation is here has it has it affected the value of your house? For people that are own owning houses. So we’re always looking at ways to create content and create different media or ways to start conversations. This is all content creation is guys. I don’t create content because it doesn’t create conversations. I create content because it creates conversations that lead to more opportunities, which is how you attract business. So what I’m getting at here is like you got all of these questions being answered like I could we this show might be an hour long, I still have like 20 More questions asked you guys. But each time I asked one of these questions, if I’m thinking about it, so is your average customer avatar guys. So fuckin put it out there. There’s not a better way to become the expert and to demonstrate you our talk is cheap me getting up on my soapbox and being like, Hey, I’m the best on the bus. That’s how that’s every real estate agents business plan show sold just listed. brag, brag, brag brag. instead? Why don’t you start demonstrating me what I need to know so that I could see you as a professional. I’ve never seen a it’s crazy when we look at how real estate agents market their business. I made this post the other day. And it says if a doctor marketed their business the way realtor does, after after they after they do like a surgery and the doctors like hold it up like $3,000 like breast implant surgery cardiac whatever, like that’s what real estate agents do. And it’s the only profession we’ve ever seen it happen you know what I mean? Like but why is that it’s because our egos all the time like there’s such a better and better way to earn expertise and authority and build it by just creating content and shit that’s relative or what people care about not about you. It’s always about what can I do to serve my audience today? This is why we have this podcast guys. I think podcast we don’t have a lot of our business we get a lot of our business from the show because we add value so how do you add value what today’s topics
we started doing? We just funded posts that’s the best way we can can join the fray.
You guys should be like just funded.
Yeah, I was able to do the minimum expected requirement out of my job congratulations me.
Yeah. I got someone a loan they probably shouldn’t be having right now.
That was like 15 years ago.
Yeah, the good old Nina’s. Anyways, let’s get back into this. So what do we know? Let’s go into like what you guys see how because that’s super interesting. And you guys are both especially in your two markets like you guys have ibuyer Haven so inventory is extremely low. You got every open door from now no longer Zillow, but all of the institutional buyers are all over Scottsdale. There’s a huge problem with that they’re buying everything investors can’t even find properties to buy in Scottsdale anymore. They’re having trouble they’re fighting each other for the scraps but the same things in DFW so we have a lot of things happening you have a lot of institutional buyers are buying and cash out. Kicking the VA guy who deserves his house to the curb, to be honest. Right? What do you guys think? What is your prediction? For like these first time buyers like what are you people that are out there going to go out there and compete? What are you seeing happen are you see, are they losing deals yet? You mentioned you alluded to a little bit earlier, but have you seen people losing deals? Are they staying in the market? Are they getting frustrated? What’s the pulse you’re getting from your realtor partners and all of that?
Yeah, can Brian you get if I jump in on this one? Yeah. All right. So yeah, so like that’s what’s what 100% was happening and I’m sure Brian’s got plenty of experience because I know the Arizona market is red hot. And they’ve got some of the most depreciation the entire country going on right now. So Yeah, buyers are losing deals first time homebuyers. And if they don’t have cash laying around to be able to go over to guarantee appraisal gaps there, they’ve got a bit of a problem. So you know, I know here in DFW, you know, my team and I, we’ve been looking for ways to help buyers set themselves apart by being able to take finance buyers and turn them into cash buyers. I know, Mike, you’ve talked about that before, some programs. And so we’ve got some some companies that allow us to turn finance buyers into cash buyers, but outside of stuff like that, it’s tough for first time homebuyers, for people who maybe, you know, they’ve got enough cash to cover downpayment and cash to close, but not a whole lot more than that. It’s a really, really tough market. And so they’re, you know, their options are, sit this one out, which could be 3456 years, and then that $350,000 home is now $500,000.05 years from now or more, you know, or they they’ve, you know, figure out a unique out of the box scenario to try and get into a home right now. And if they can do it, there’s tons of benefit, because one, they’re going to get the appreciation that’s going to come over the next several years, which is going to be phenomenal. But on top of that, as Brian alluded to, we’ve got a ton of indicators that say that we’re going to be in a recession in the not too distant future. And with you know, normally, you know, he’s talking about the yield curve inversion. Normally, when that happens when that yield curve inverts, we’re in a recession within 18 months. But honestly, with information moving as fast as it does nowadays, we can see that significantly faster than that. So everyone who’s buying right now is going to get the appreciation, but then they’re likely going to be in a position where they get to benefit from a refinance sometime over the next maybe six to 24 months.
So let me rewind that just for people really quick, just so we get the terminology, right. So basically, today’s higher rates, the fact that we this is what I’m gathering, this is a really interesting comparison for all you realtors, when buyers ask you this, because you have to Homer Simpson, this stuff down, we’re giving you like really high level stuff, you have to make a dumb simple so that anyone can understand including my six year old son. So what we’re saying is that yes, today, here’s what’s going to happen, folks, there’s going to be a recession, all indicators are showing there’s gonna be a recession that’s happened is going to happen. And you might be wondering what that means for your upcoming house purchase? Well, here’s the way that we’re looking at it. Yes, today’s rates are probably going to be around a 5%. But the day that recession does occur and or happen, rates are gonna dip again. And that’s where you need to refi low into your low interest rate, while property values still continue to appreciate.
Yeah, I mean, we do with people like that, as you know, we’ll show them, what is it going to actually cost you in real dollars by waiting, you know, six months, 12 months, whatever to try to time for, you know, the bubble to burst, which you hear about a lot, you know, is there a real estate bubble? And the simple answer is no. But, you know, some people think, well, maybe we’ll just wait till rates come down. That’s the next thing that we started to hear. Well, we can actually quantify. And I know, Shawn, does this too, how much are you actually losing in equity growth and pay down on your mortgage by waiting six months, 12 months for the interest rate to come down. And it’s almost like, the best analogy, I think, for a real estate agent is, you know, you look at a house flipper, you know, they go in to purchase a house, and they’re using financing that might be you know, eight 910 12% interest rate, you know, with points just to get that deal. And they’re going to try to flip that as quick as possible to turn that into a profit, they look at that higher cost of acquisition as the cost of doing business. And that’s how you know, a person purchasing a home, whether it’s for an investment or for their own personal use, yeah, you might have a little higher cost of acquisition today, because the rates are higher than what you think they should be or what they were six months ago, but there’s going to be an opportunity for those rates to come back down, just look at that short term, whether it’s six months or 18 months that you pay a little higher interest rate to get that house that’s going to appreciate by you know, 10% 12%, whatever it’s going to do in the next year. It’s just the cost of doing business. And the sooner you get in the better opportunity, you have to capitalize on that equity growth.
He’s spot on,
I go piece of content creation. Number two, why it’s a good idea to buy a house when there’s about to be a recession. I’m sorry, I’m going to read that. Alright, Sean, go for it.
Well, I’ll just kind of piggyback on what Brian said is absolutely, you know, one of the you know, when I have conversations with clients, you know, I remind them I obviously don’t have a crystal ball can’t guarantee we’re gonna be in a recession even though a lot of indicators are pointing that direction, but I encourage them to think of you all Brian’s got
got to get one man it’s super happy. He’s got to first of
all, if you’re listening to this just on an audio Brian just whipped out literally a Christmas ball and all I saw were a bunch of interest rates floating around there, and a bunch of numbers and all this shit and just I just I just saw opportunity.
You want to know what else
Oh, and he’s got the magic eight ball. That thing never fail. thing does work right.
But I like to remind clients I encourage them to think The current acquisition costs the rates as a temporary cost, you know, that way, hey, this is a temporary cost that you’re likely to have for the next 612 1824 months. And then you get to turn around and reduce your cost. And for that reason, I think when when, when available, I encourage people to, to minimize out of pocket costs, save that out of pocket costs and put it into the refinance down the road, if you if you can take a slightly higher interest rate, even then where interest rates are now if you can take a slightly higher interest rate, and save, save money at closing and reallocate that money to refinance on the road, you’re gonna end up coming out even further ahead. In a lot of cases.
I think it’s smart. Here’s how when you guys are trying to explain this to home buyers or sellers, you have to do it in the form of a story. It’s just too complicated. Not too. It’s an excellent way to position it like look, here’s how here’s how real estate investors approach, but purchasing properties. And this is the way that I look at it and approaching it from a real estate like you have an acquisition cost. Like that’s the way you sell this guy’s 100%. Because I understood that in honestly, you guys both taught me some you guys taught me a lot today already. I never really thought about how to pitch it that way. And I’ve never really thought about, hey, yeah, this is explaining a purchaser just like they’re being a real estate investor right now. That’s so smart. It’s such a smart way to position this. Because there’s fear, there’s going to be fear when there’s uncertainty. And our jobs as professionals, folks, for all of you salespeople chasing checks, this is the time when the market cleans you out. I’m not joking, I’ve seen three shifts, I’ve seen three cycles, two and a half in my career, I think this is the third, I saw the new construction boom, prior to 2007. I saw the short sale foreclosure crisis, from oh seven to 12. And then we saw the rebound right here in the real estate market. If you study it repeats itself in 10 year cycles in 2012. As we start climbing out of that crap, we’re at 2022, right there at a 10 year cycle. So everything these guys are saying is right on, where do you see in recession, correction, all that other stuff. What’s interesting is that we’ve never had all these outside circumstances happen with it. And we’re going to need to sharpen our skill set regardless. Like, if I’m you guys, and I’m sure you guys are prior to doing this, because you’re killers, but what you just said about explaining options to all of your the clients, if you started doing after realtors and laying this out for them, you’re gonna have the meeting out of your hand. But it’s gonna take an extra step to create those three options and give them a full plan. We have a client, as you guys know, his name is Mac Humphrey. And this is what he’s doing in his office because we’re creating some of his videos for his new offering. And I could see why now Mac is doing this. I’m sure I’m going to see him in Vegas this week. And I’m asking him if this stuff that we talked about today is the reason why he’s doing this. And what Max doing is max sane. Anytime you do a mortgage app, you have to come in to my office. And he set his office up into four different workstations. And workstation number we get some he’s got a beer, he’s got one, he’s got food, he’s got sandwiches, he’s got water, tea, you name it, he has them come in their office, and they once they get them settled down, they go in they he treats them and you know, the receptionist welcomes there. And then they spend 10 minutes in there filling out their forms in a questionnaire but then they go into the planning room. When they go into the planning room. This is where Mac literally goes, Okay, let’s talk about all your options, how much money you got done with the credit? Like what are the goals, how long you’d be on this property for what do you want to hear what you wanna do there. And he spends about 2030 minutes getting all the information from them, his team will go back into the other room and crunch the numbers and the programs and then he they move the client into the opportunity room, the opportunity room, there’s tons of plasmas, there’s a freakin pool table in there and everything. But each plasma television has a different loan option for them based upon all of this stuff we’re talking about today. Here’s your 3% down, here’s your 5% down, here’s your bridge loan option. If you want to try to be a cash buyer, here’s your 20% down with no PMI. Mack is going to do two things. One he’s going to sell through experience because that’s all we are. We’re service providers, we’re commodities, the one who provides the best experience is one who always wins just like the Ritz Carlton charges the same price as they do for a night and a holiday and also charge the prices for a night. They’re both in business but they’re both in business to provide a certain type of experience. We are do the same thing in our business and what I think is gonna happen. I think we’re gonna have another cleanup of the real estate industry and rightfully so we need it. But the ones who will excel are the ones who take customer service to the next level for stuff like this. Anyone can show a house. That’s not but not everyone can help someone accomplish and achieve to obtain one. And this education for the next 12 months about knowing what this stuff is going to happen. Mark my words the people who really mark this down, they’re gonna you’re gonna see them excel. And if you guys have anything like that and you start selling options for all of your realtor partners, I would be giving you every loan I had, because most agents aren’t going to be smart enough. have the skills to crunch numbers. Now you guys are dumb, we’re, this is our business, we show houses, okay, we don’t crunch numbers, that’s these guys’s job, find a lender that’s going to do this and start selling options, especially when you’re working with your buyers, because the one that has them is the one who’s going to win. And you’re also, you’re going to see commission compression too. You’re gonna see, let’s see, that’s already happened. But I guarantee it and all the stuff that’s happening with NAR, when they try to get buyers to pay their agents commissions, this is gonna be a whole nother ballgame. We don’t know what’s gonna happen with that. But you guys have to know about this stuff. Because there’s always a way to compete, you just have to have the best food on the block the best food is the best service and experience. Go ahead read.
I was just gonna say that. I think no, Shawn does this. And there’s a lot of lenders out there to do this. But being able to look at your your potential clients situation and help them think outside of what their little perspective is because they come in, they want to buy a house. Okay, they got the blinders on this one, how do I get that house? And what we try to do step back and look at this from a longer term perspective, whether it’s, you know, five years, what have you. And what we want to do is start with that education process and figure out what is the plans? What is the long term plan? And then what are loan options that help you achieve that. So one of the things that we do is, will always show those lower down payment options. You know, I know most agents that I talked to on the listing side, they want to see 20%, down 30 40% Down, they think it’s a stronger offer, you know, but there’s ways to present an offer, where you’re showing the client, well, you know, that five or 10% down financially is better, because you can reserve reserve that money back that you’re putting down to avoid paying, you know, 5% interest today. But you can use that money to go do something else and make more money. And even if it is to look at the prospect of a year or two, three years down the road, buying an investment property, well, having a lender partner on the realtor side of it, where that lender is thinking long term and setting that client up for the expectation. There’s future opportunities with real estate, if the market is going to go up at 10% 20%, or whatever for the next couple of years. Well now what we’re doing right now, the craziest thing is about 80% of my current pipeline is refinances. I normally do about 65 to 70% purchases, it’s crazy, because what we’re doing is we’re going back and revisiting with these clients who a year or two ago bought, now they’ve got a ton of appreciation. Now they’re accessing that equity, and looking at either improving their property, consolidating debt, so now they can afford to purchase another property, buy an investment property. So those are all opportunities. If you’re thinking big picture and long term as a real estate professional and a lending professional, you’ve got to get people thinking outside of what their immediate desire is and start planning for the future. And, you know, I know realtor’s they want to go in and make a cash offer with all these people, they’re buying cash. Well, great, that offer looks outstanding. But could you do something else with all that cash, like buy two properties, buy three properties by leveraging the bank’s money. And even if it isn’t a little higher rate today, you’re going to be able to get a lower rate in a couple of years. But you can gain the appreciation of those two or three properties as opposed to the appreciation on one, he’s got to think outside the box.
Has there been a lender yet that’s created a finance a finance certification course for real estate agents? And if so, why not?
It’s a question. But like, why,
why not? Why aren’t you creating a certification course for real estate agents to teach us this stuff? So we could go out and have the ammo? Have all the forums and the docs and all of that? Like, because I will. I’ll be honest, I don’t want to learn this shit. And most real estate agents don’t I just want my team to know it. But I need to know enough to be deadly to have the conversations and then refer them out over to you guys. You know, I mean, man, that’s a goldmine.
Finding the right partner?
I’m like, no, no, and Brian, just finding the right partner is really important. And he’s, you know, he’s spot on with the approach, you know, and my team and I were the same way. No, we, you know, we don’t really sell mortgages, we sell peace of mind. That peace of mind usually comes with a mortgage. But we talk about client’s financial financial goals. Every single client I speak to I asked them, you know, what, other than this home purchase, what other goals? What other financial goals do you have on the horizon that we need to make sure that we’re keeping in mind as we work towards a solution for you on this? You know, I declined today. So I mean, that he he’s self employed, and he really hasn’t done a great job of setting aside, you know, a retirement account. So we talked, so we talked about how we can help them into a home, try and keep, you know, not spend all of his money on down payment, so that way he can take some of that and really start to fund his retirement, which gives him peace of mind. And so peace of mind is, in my mind, one of the most important things that we can give our clients today and that peace of mind for us comes with a mortgage.
Yep. I like it. I agree. Okay, a couple more questions. We’ll get this wrapped up. lost my train of thought. But I know I was asking you something along the lines of
we’re talking about financial literacy for financial course certification course for realtors. Yeah,
that’s a good that’s a given. Like, if you own a mortgage company right now and you’re not that’s not on your agenda. I don’t know what’s wrong, you call me. I’d love to help you put that together, because that’s a fucking goldmine. I do think that people, I liked the approach you guys are taking? I think it’s smart. What do you think that the average agent though? What do you think they need other than they need to know this stuff? I mean, this is I think that everyone’s going to have these conversations, like you’re going to be sitting with a new buyer console. And you’re gonna be sitting at lunch or in your office wherever they go. And they’re going to ask you this stuff, guys. Once you start seeing the media start talking about the word recession, trust me, people are gonna get worried and scared. Because you guys the way you You made me the way you explain it, you made me feel good about a recession. Seriously, that’s what you just accomplished. Right? And normally, that our word you hear any run the other fucking way. You don’t ever like Oh, recession, I’m not buying a house. But the way you guys presented that, I think is a conversation that is going to be needs to be had with agents and their clients to some extent, and I think it’s going to be a topic of conversation to come. And we’ll see in six months if we’re right or not, but I think this is the that that advisor, consultant expert, the authority, a lot of that, and the only way you ever become that guy is by creating the content to have that conversation to begin with.
Well, Mike, every recessionary period since 1980, with the exception of 2008, you know, and and although yes, that was a recession, I don’t look at as a recession, that was a crash, right. That was a full blown crash. Every other recessionary period since 1980. Home prices have done one of two things, they’ve either continued to appreciate, or they’ve started to plateau. But when that recessionary period was over, in all of those instances, including 2008, home prices, appreciated after the recession was over. So good. So home, it’s home ownership, it like I don’t wanna say there’s, there’s never a bad time. But it’s, it’s historically proven that buying a home is almost exclusively a great way to build wealth. And so, you know, recession yeah, there’s a lot of bad things that go with a recession. I’m not going to try and fool anybody, you know, employment, you know, unemployment ticks up, you know, but if buying
a house isn’t one of them, that’s what we fucking put our hands. That’s what we that’s what we fall on the sword for dude. You know, I mean, if you if you can’t, here’s the things like, I see this all the time. I have no problem selling people my video services because I know exactly what they do for people. I know my value. I know every single person that does what we tell them to do doubles quadruples their business, if they follow the damn plan, okay, it’s not. It’s not rocket science. But there are so many people, it’s because I’m confident in my service. There’s so many people who sell their service and don’t believe in it. There’s a major difference in that I see it every day in the real estate industry. I saw a guy make a post the other day on Facebook. This is what the guy says, I’m not going to call him out. But he posts on Facebook, I’m sort of seeking this market. I can’t wait for a short sale or foreclosure market. Bro, that’s when people get a lot of pain. Your real estate agent saying this excuse me, mind you. Like who says that? That just tells you right off the bat, that you don’t have the confidence to sell your own product. So what you’re really doing is you’re poisoning people. If you’re in a restaurant and your food tastes like shit, and you continue to feed people that damn food, you’re a prick. Well, that’s a difference in the real estate business. You have you you guys have to know this shit. Like there’s no questions asked anymore.
Yeah, like getting yourself as a real estate professional is is critical right now. Because there’s there’s two words that you’re starting to hear all the time. Number one, everyone’s hearing inflation. I just saw a little news thing I was walking through the room, my wife had the news on which I hate watching. And then we’re talking about recession. So those are the two scary words that are coming out to you inflation and recession. And so as a real estate agent, you’ve got to be able to educate your clients on what does that actually mean for you if you’re contemplating getting into a new house or buying real estate as an investment? Those are not bad words for the real estate market. And people have to understand and differentiate. Yeah, can it mean job layoffs, there’s there’s pain that comes with it. But if you’ve got a good solid job and a good source of income, real estate is a hard asset. hard assets do well, in inflationary periods, and recession. Like Sean said, real estate tends to do well interest rates come down during a recession. So those are all good positive things to be able to look at when you hear the scary words because you’re gonna hear it on the news that’s how the news gets clicks and they get viewers to scare the shit out of everybody. That’s what they’re good at. But I hate to combat that.
I hate to do is if you’re listening to those turn it off. None of it’s right or accurate. Dig a little deeper.
Brian spot on and I’ll add one more thing on that. So You know, as far as you know, real estate professionals educating themselves, you know, if you’re a real estate agent, and you’re having conversation with a client, and they bring up these topics, if your only responses, that’s a great question. Let me get you with my lender. If they’re not ready to have that conversation with a lender let yet you probably just lost that business. Yeah, right. So you’ve got to be able to at least have some semblance of a conversation initially, before you get to the point where you’re like, hey, you know what, my lender can really elaborate on that topic? And let me let me connect you with you know, let me connect you with Brian, let me connect you with Sean. And they can really elaborate on it. But if you can’t have at least that initial conversation and have some level of education on it, you’re you’re you’re in trouble in this market, this market weeds out the people who are not, are not experts at what they do.
100% Last question. Well, you answered the interest rate question. So bottom line and your guys’s experience, you think that yes, rates are going to going up. But as your indicators are showing a recession is going to come in that you’re going to see the rates go back down at that time. Overall, you’re gonna see a lot of buyers who buy from now until then, to refinance back into the low rate when that hits, and you guys have enough experience to feel confident about that call, right? So this is the this is all forecasting, guys. Here’s the biggest thing I got on today’s show. And here’s the conversation. I think that if you’re listening to this, you don’t need to do a super duper edited video, you don’t need to go out do anything crazy. You can do a video email to your Bom Bom and you guys included in the subject line is inflation and a recessions upcoming. But this is why it’s the upcoming inflation and recessionary period is the reason why you should buy a house today, something along the lines like that, there’s something there that’s going to generate a lot of the clicks.
Is myself recession proof by yet.
There’s so many different headlines there. And it’s something to get there because no one’s talking about it. That’s why we’re doing this podcast. I’m going to create a piece of content here and test it on ads about what Brian had on approaching it as an investor is buying a house right now a good idea. It’s inflation coming, should you really be buying a house right now? Fuck yeah, you should, here’s why. That’s probably my attention getter. Something like
that. Even your investor clients do, you know, I was talking to another one, she’s got five properties. And you know, she’s she’s pretty sharp, she came to me and she says, No, I’m thinking about refinancing, pulling some cash out my investment properties to go buy another property, I know my rates are going to be higher, but I just look at it as you know what you need to do to be able to get to the next property, because the appreciation that I’ll get on this next property is more than going to cover the increase in interest that I’m paying on these other loans. And I said, you know, you’ve done half my job, I don’t have to educate you on it, you You’ve done a great job with it. But here’s the other thing to look at too, is if you can, no, some, some people are worried about negative cash flows on their investment properties, okay, because rents are going up, but they’re not going up as fast as the increase in the home prices. And now interest rates going up. Again, I just look back and say, you know, it’s a temporary situation and look at it that way. Because while you may have to carry, you know, a couple $100 negative cash flow, if you can handle it, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to always be that way, because you’re gonna have to things are likely to change down the road, you’re going to have rents continuing to increase because of the shortage of housing supply and the housing crisis that we’re in. So while you may be negative today, a year from now, two years from now, you’re probably not going to be negative. Plus when rates come down as we expect him to you can refinance into a lower rate and improve that cash flow situation. So again, short term costs for long term gain, you might have to absorb a few $1,000 over a year to in negative cash flow, but you’re gonna write it off anyway. And then you’re going to have that appreciation grow. So like whether it’s buying somebody buying their their primary residence or investors, like you shouldn’t have them putting these roadblocks up because of, of inflation of recession, or negative cash flow. Those are all things that are easily combated and overcome if you know how to explain and plan for what’s down the road. And that’s where that thinking outside the box is thinking past today is super important. Like you don’t always look at today’s situation as the permanent situation. You got to think down the road
100% Brian,
awesome show you guys you guys taught me a lot and you gave me quite a bit of marketing opportunities to come that’s what they are their marketing opportunities. And the more controversial you are with them, the better they’re going to do you guys, like address the elephant in the room always. And don’t hold back, like the whole point of starting a conversation and generating attention and you have a great opportunity to do so right now. Why don’t you guys if you guys need someone if your lender doesn’t know any of the stuff that we just talked about, call these guys up. Obviously, there’s a reason why we had him on the show. So if you need a lender that actually will educate yourself for you so you don’t have to go through your own financial literacy class once you guys give them your info and how they could contact you.
Yeah, go ahead, Brian. Start us off.
Yeah. Brian Cardenas. My website is www dot the Cardenas team.com our phone numbers 480314684. Or you can shoot us an email Cardenas team at finance america.com.
Yes, and I am Sean Richard with with guaranteed rate here in Dallas Fort Worth metroplex. My website is Shawn Richard team.com My first name is spelled SHA w n. So Shawn, but your team comm can also reach me via phone at 817-380-8148 and can always drop me an email at Sean Richard [email protected]
Appreciate you guys awesome show and thank you folks for listening to this episode the real estate market dude podcast if you want to build your personal brand with video and start creating consistent content so that when anyone thinks that the term real estate or mortgage instantly associate your name with it, you don’t need a bunch of leads you need more dudes let us create the content for you. All I need is one to four hours a month and I’ll turn you into a local celebrity that I promise if you follow the process it works and if you don’t believe me watch the case study where I have both a mortgage broker and a real estate agent write on my website both generate a 931% ROI plus return using video in just under six months the whole case that is there I highly encourage you guys to download it get it read it and then contact me and start getting on video because attention is the name of the game lead generation is not appreciate you guys have a good day and appreciate listen to episode we’ll be back 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 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 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.
Today is something a little bit different. We’re not just not just me, it’s not just one other person, we actually have three of us. And what I wanted to do was get into some real life examples of people actually creating content. We have two agents, different parts of the country doing video, and they both been doing it for about over six months. And we want to see exactly what happened, what their experiences were and all that.
Christine Johnson got into Real Estate to be able to give back. Christine and her husband also invest in homes to flip or rent as well as help others find investment properties. Joel Sandman is also an agent who, prior to his career in real estate, spent over a decade in the golf business serving as a PGA Golf Professional and also worked in commercial construction. These past careers allow him to help and serve others at the highest level.
Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode
Why video is so necessary
Real Results from real clients
Tips and tricks from people who have been through it before
So how do you attract 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, what we’re gonna be doing today is something a little bit different. We’re not just not just me, it’s not just one other person, we actually have three of us. And what I wanted to do was get into some real life examples of people actually creating content. One of the things that happens, especially once you get started and you’re creating videos, is that you’re like, how long is this chick going to take the work? Right? Like, um, you get impatient. And a lot of time, even with me too. Like, I’m, I’m in a process of actually launching my YouTube channel here in San Diego, now that I’m a licensed real estate agent again, and I’m gonna fucking dominate it. But I’m already myself growing impatient, because it does take time, and nothing is going to happen overnight. You have to just be patient with it. This is almost videos like, I don’t know, it’s like the tortoise and the hare type story. The whole thing with that tortoise won the race because he was just consistent over time. And then the hair kept trying to take all these different shortcuts, and over time, the tortoise won. That’s the exact same way that I want you guys to approach video. So what we have today is we have two agents, different parts of the country doing video, and they both been doing it for about over six months. And we want to see exactly what happened, what their experiences were and all that. And if you guys have any questions, you can also read them in and maybe we’ll have them back on the show. So without further ado, we’re going to go ahead and introduce our guests, Mrs. Christine Johnson and Mr. Joel Sandmann. Joe, why don’t you go ahead and tell Brian about who the hell are you wet mark? And let’s start with there. And then we’re gonna meet Christine, too.
All right. Yeah. Appreciate it, Mike. I’m Joel Sam. And I’m out here in a little town in North Carolina called Winston Salem. And I had been kind of creeping on your stuff for probably about a year before I actually called you. Just curious about it. Cuz I’m, you know, burned by some marketing stuff in the past that didn’t work. And I was very hesitant to get on video. But now that I have in kind of dialing in my brand, I’m full steam ahead.
Their roadmap is again, a little addicting. Yeah, I mean,
the thing that I thought before that I wasn’t going to have anything to talk about. And now it’s I need to actually organize what I need what I want to talk about because there’s so much and you got to stay on a on a plan.
Good. And then we got Mrs. Christine Johnson down in San Antonio, Texas. Christina wants to say hello to everyone and tell them who you are, what you’re doing, where you come from.
Alright, hey, everybody. I’m Christine Johnson. I am. I’ve been in San Antonio for about three years, and I came from the Maryland area. So when I came here, I didn’t even think I’d be considering real estate started to invest in some homes and flip houses. I decided to get my real estate license so that I could show myself the houses and not have to rely on somebody else to show me these little Junkers I kind of felt bad that they were I was wasting their time. And so I got into that and then kind of took it on as a job as well. So I’m
really like one of those sellers, one of those buyers who just uses the agent to get in the door and then you never call them again and you just call the listing agent directly up. No, I didn’t even know. No, I did not do that. Because we have to we have to kick your ass off this podcast right now. No, but um, so Christine is an organist for a little bit of time now, man my over a year, I think. Right? Yeah. And you know, you were new to your market. So I wanted to give people a couple different different things. You’re brand new into that market and video, what was your hesitation at first before you got started.
So I was never big and I’m still slacking very much on social media. I don’t post a lot I was always just the kind of creeper behind the scenes and I was fearful to put myself out there to show I wasn’t one of those people that was like I’m not gonna show my family or anything like that. I just never I just didn’t. So coming out of my shell that way was really hard for me. And so when I got into real estate I realized you know, you gotta at least people need to see your you out there. You can’t just hide behind it. So I have a degree in editing, film editing, surprisingly enough, is very old degree. So that’s dated. But I I was like, you know, I know that video that I did so many research, so much research. I mean, you name it. I did it and Of course, I had been listening to your podcast. And finally I was like, Alright, I’m gonna hit that button and make that demo call. And so um, yeah. And it’s been with with you guys ever since then. So
I’m very glad you’ve done you have we become good friends and even both you guys I like the conversations we have offline. But so I want to start the beginning because I think you guys can share a lot of insight into people who are just thinking and let’s start with the first thing that I said. And I’m going through this right now. Like, it’s like, Alright, I want things to happen. Like yesterday, most real estate agents are actually like, hi, Dee personalities. And I want to talk a little bit about different types of content. So, first thing is Joel, we’ll start with you first. You started creating content, you get your first video out there, Christine YouTube. Actually, remember when you guys first posted you guys were nervous as shit. You guys are like, Oh, I don’t know what people are gonna say. You remember that? Oh, yeah. And I’m dude, I’m the same way. Like people like Mike, you’re getting nervous to do but if I do a controversial one, I’ll get pretty nervous except I post this. Should I not post it? Should I do this? Should I do that? And I’ll even get nervous. But that’s part of being human. You guys, we had a client a couple weeks ago, and she was nervous to post that first video. She’s like, not going to post it. I’m like, dude, just post the damn video. And I do it. While I’m on the call there. By the time we get off share, he has 2530 comments. But why is that? What the hell were you so nervous about? Because if looking back in hindsight, would you ever be nervous again?
Well, I mean, I think we most people would agree in life, right? Like, the scariest thing in life is, is the uncertainty like what will happen? Yeah, you know, even if you know, something bad is gonna happen. If you kind of know the outcome, it’s alright. So you know, you’re afraid of being judged this than the other. But I think for me, you know, I kind of experienced it a little bit been in real estate for a couple years before getting started with this, that I don’t have to be for everybody. It’s that’s okay. Like, my personality is gonna work great for some and it’s not going to for others. And but you know, that is kind of scary. putting yourself out there. Especially, you know, as you get more into developing your own brand, people really get to know you. And you don’t want to get a big portion of people that may not use you. I guess that would be a concern.
How about you, Christine?
Okay, um, I’m sorry. Can you repeat that question?
What was it when you’re starting? What were you so hesitant about like it? Would you ever look back at that again, and be like, Dude, I was like, worried about like, so stupid.
Yeah, so I would, I would definitely do it again. 100 times again. Um, I remember that day. Like, it was yesterday, though, when I was, you know, when you fear the comments, and for someone that doesn’t post on Facebook, I was like, Oh, God, no, I have to tend to Facebook and I have to look and it was like, people were so responsive. And now they’re like, where’s your videos? Because, you know, I haven’t seen any and I’m like, they’re there. You just have to go to the YouTube channel. And and, you know, I get really busy sometimes, so I haven’t had a chance to put as many out there. But, but yeah, I think it’s a good thing. And I think if you’re not doing it, you should be doing it because once you do it once, then it just becomes easier each time you do it and now I mean, now I just videotaped myself I don’t even help so our encouragement, you know, so and I just talked to my camera it’s easy.
One of the guys Oh, I was just gonna say once you you know, Do this a few times you start getting in the flow of like, God I hate the way that I sound on camera. Like once you get over that you can kind of relax a little bit. I think people start reacting your videos way more to like your personality is actually starting to come out you know, see that you’re not reading or anything like that yet
we’ve just you know, that’s that’s normal to you guys. I mean, it’s part of the the progression like first time you do anything, you’re nervous, including riding a bike, get on an airplane going on a roller coaster, but do people stopped doing it? No, they seek that thrill. And truthfully what’s really happening within the industry today is that people are if you’re not marketing the people that you already know no other note that you’ve used in the past somebody else is and video is really just more about attention and whatnot. I want to bring up jokes Joe said something about putting yourself out there and he was really nervous about this but Joe you put out a you did you in a lot like you we you put yourself on a video. Do you mind if I share that story right here? Yeah, go for me. So Joel, put out a video he created a you get back out. I’ll let you share the story and why you did it. But yeah, Joel, in the past used to be an alcoholic. And he came out and told his database that so many people would not have the balls to do that. And I haven’t even talked to you to see how received that was that in detail or whatnot. But why don’t you tell everybody what you did with that what you’re thinking with it and sort of how that came about?
Yeah, so I’m, you know, still a recovering alcoholic. Now I’ve got a little over eight years of sobriety. And as you’re mentioning now I, I’m pretty grateful just to kind of be here, you know, to, to have been able to get married to have kids and to just experience life. And so yeah, I did a little bit of a video on my story and how I kind of got I got carried away with it, and how I’ve been able to, you know, at least in my eyes, be have a pretty successful life now. And like, it’s, it’s all right, like, none of us are perfect. You know, we’ve all got shit in our closets that other people don’t know about. And you can come out the other side. But you know, I talked to Mike about it before I, you know, did this, like, Is this too much? And Ken encouraged me to do it. You know, people always ask you real estate, what’s your what’s your income goal? You know, what are you hoping to make this happen the other, I’ve kind of pivoted my business now to where, on every transaction, we get back a percentage of the commission, and I don’t have an income goal anymore. Now I have a charitable goal. You know, my goal is to be able to give $20,000 of my commission every year to charity or more. And, you know, right now, we’re on pace to exceed that this year.
1000 church on Sunday. And, you know, like the, when you give your offering up, we go through a tidy thing. And those stories, man every single day up my tide when I got home on Sunday, because of that. And I do think that when you give, you always give back, I just think it’s the way the world re rewards you. I say that as a Christian. But, folks, I’ve seen it happen in so many different people’s businesses. Tell. You have a reason, though, why you’re doing that is because you wanted to bring awareness to a program, about how you give back and talk about specifically what that program does, like you’re raising money, but what’s the cause behind it?
Yeah, so we kind of came up, you know, my show name is driving triad, because I’ve got a background as a golf professional before real estate. But my program is thriving triad, I take 5% of every commission that I earn. And that goes back to it’s the client’s choice that they have a charity that they really like, but if they don’t either give it back to the United Way here. Davidson County, because I do a lot with substance abuse and addiction and mental health crisis, because depression was a big part of my issue as well. And then also to the Mental Health Association in Forsyth County, that kind of leaned into that and joined on the board of both of those nonprofits and trying to, you know, do a little bit of good within the community when I can and use what, what, you know, little platform that I have for good.
What was your response? When you posted that? Like, did you get any comments? Are you getting clients because like, that’s, that’s serious stuff, man. Like, you get it that’s hard to do for somebody, I commend you on doing it. But my guess is that it went well. But tell me if it went bad, I’m super curious. So what happened?
No, no, like, great. You know, I had some people that I hadn’t talked to in quite a while reached out to me that kind of going through their own struggles as well meet up for coffee lunch, and a couple of people have started their own journeys to sobriety not not because that obviously they’ve already been thinking about it, but they have somebody they can confide in that they know they don’t have any judgment from. And you know, as far as my business in that it’s it’s not been an issue like said you do business with people, you know, like and trust. And when you have common factors. If you have something in common with somebody, especially as deep as that other people who’ve struggled with addiction and depression and things like that. There’s just that instant connection that you know, you’re going to, you’re going to jive well together and it just goes that much easier. But it’s it’s been great. I had some past clients reach out to me as well just kind of offers support and things like that. And so it’s not a good thing. People will never
not cheer on a champion and a comeback kid you guys it’s a story of every movie that exists. Don’t be scared to embrace your faults, strengths and weaknesses and expose them to the world because that authenticity is what people want when they’re hiring anyone that’s going to represent them for the most expensive, maybe even most stressful transaction will ever do in your lifetime. Christine, I remember your one of your favorite videos I saw you do was the one that you went off the wall in front of a fireplace. You just told her how it was. And again, Christine, you start at the beginning you’re trying to have a little struggle with scripting but he got more and more comfortable. When did you start you got this new your search results like lightning roll? Can you a little bit No. When did that start happening? Why don’t you talk a little bit more about that.
I don’t know I don’t I noticed it on my like my video that I just I’m getting ready to release. Yep, I was like Huh, I guess I don’t know. I think you’d like to hear it out. I did and I I just I think because The script was coming from personal experience, I think when it comes when it’s not something that I am uncomfortable with, like, let’s say you’re doing certain neighborhoods or something that’s, that’s great. But like, I don’t know, that neighborhood, as well as I know, my own neighborhood, or, you know, the one that I just did the whole fake Bernie thing, I made it all completely up. But that’s, that’s why I think it came so naturally, was because it’s my opinion of where I live in the surrounding areas of what I was talking about. Same with my little, you know, Christmas thing and from my fireplace that came so naturally, because it’s things that I think about every time somebody gives me that gift, I’m like, man, does anybody else get these silly things? And so yeah, I mean, I think I think it’s when it’s more natural, it’s just becomes more camera.
Yeah, I think you hit on the head, you have to do stuff you’re excited about otherwise, it’s not gonna last period. And anything you do, it’s not like a video thing. But you have to, there’s so many different types of videos you can create. You’re right, you can’t just do it, just to check a box, you got to do it, because you’re actually excited. And when you are that authenticity shines out from when you guys look, keep it with you. When you started with videos, how long until you know, people started talking? Months wise, weeks wise, it happened quickly, what did you see? What’s the difference? We’ll start from the beginning. Sorry, Christine.
I’ll say I started seeing I started getting contacted within maybe six was like six months. And then like when it happened, I got like three people all at once that were all people from out of state. And it was crazy, because they were huge leads, and I’ve since closed on them. And then it comes to kind of waves and then you know now lately with the market, I get a lot of people wanting to rent, just because they, you know, can’t buy right now. But so the calls come in like waves and was super exciting when I got my first call from somebody from Maryland. And so I helped that family of you know, 10 move here and relocate. And it was pretty awesome. And we stay in great contact. So. So yeah.
You don’t accidentally find someone from Maryland. Like it’s not how it was just a perfect example of how you attract like, people. When you got the couple from Maryland, you got us to go to breweries together.
Oh, I talked to them all the time. Yeah, we don’t go anywhere because they had little kids and like everything. But But yeah, we talk all the time.
Joe, how about you?
Yes, I’m just just getting past six months right now and got my first offer accepted from a YouTube lead just two days ago. But I’ve been working with quite a few and getting getting people you know, accustomed to the meeting with people that come here for the weekend. So I probably have seven or eight active buyers that I’m working with right now from from YouTube. But I would say right, immediately, I’d say maybe two months after I started doing videos, I started getting a lot of comments from different people within the industry here that hey, I see all your videos you’re doing around town, they’re really cool. I love how you’re putting the city in a in a positive light. And I started getting more referrals from my sphere. I’ve never been this busy in the winter ever. You know, I’ve kept consistently between eight to 10 places under contract since November, which is much much busier than I normally am.
Great point. When you’re creating the content, this is the biggest thing we see is like people you don’t distribute it without a point. Like no one’s gonna see the videos. And so like, a lot of times I see like a lot of people will say, alright, I’m just gonna do YouTube. And if you don’t get views on YouTube, then it didn’t work. Well, the way the content you create on YouTube will determine whether or not you get views on YouTube. Not that it’s YouTube. Like you have to create content people search for on there. But regardless of what you guys are creating, you’re always putting in front of your ongoing networks. And if you focus on building your brand and your channel at the same time and not just one or the other, you double dip exactly like that. Christina, you’re new to your area. Right? You were new to San Antonio, you said three years ago. Yep. So you didn’t have quite a referral network to go into you’re much like what I’m going to be dealing with here. All my friends here in real estates, I can’t really sell them houses. I’m gonna go I’m gonna have to go cold Legion like and I’m gonna have to go all in on the YouTube side of things. So tell me about what happened. And as you start to develop new friends and family new people, you building the list, you nurture them, are you getting referrals? Tell me what’s happening with that?
Yes, um, so yeah, so obviously it didn’t have any friends didn’t have a sphere didn’t have any of that. So everything was pretty much you know, busting my butt to do stuff, you know, by Lee not buy leads, but lead gen all that sort of stuff. But once I got into the video, things started to really kick off putting the videos out on Facebook. Right there people remember Oh, hey, you know you’re doing the real estate I forgot. You know, you’re so brave. I can’t believe you’re doing that a lot of realtor friends of mine, from even college that are just getting into real estate, say that, you know, I need to do that video stuff. And then like, you know, my husband, my husband works with the military, I get a lot of military referrals. You know, we’re very close with military. And now I’ve built friendships, I’ve built relationships in my neighborhood, I’m very involved in my neighborhood. Ladies Night, you know, I’m always at ladies night, every single every single week, not even thinking about real estate stuff, but we’re always they’re always talking about it, you know, asking me like, so what’s latest gossip? You know, it’s so and so I heard yourself in their house. And so I’m like, I’m not saying anything, you know, kind of those type of things. But, um, but yeah, they’re really starting to roll in now. So it’s really cool.
He is like, you gotta keep building the list, though. And even for you guys, like you guys can’t stop building those lists, because you hit your own glass ceiling. Everyone’s always like, oh, I want to do more and more deals will double your database. It’s very simple. The more people who know how you do the more referrals in a business for you to get because 80% of them are gonna use the first person they meet with. So it’s either gonna be you or somebody else. And if you’re keeping your content in front of them, yeah, you get that little people tend to look up to you like a celebrity status is different. You feel it when you’re meeting with people. And they’ll be like, Oh, I seen your videos, and you’re already they already like you because of it. You don’t know what it is. Have you guys felt that? Sorry. I call like the unfair advantage. And you feel like they think that you’re like, dude, I’m just a fucking human being like, What the hell are you talking about? I’m fine. Like, I just shot a video, bro. Like, chill the fuck out. I had a girl.
Yes, it happened to me.
I had a girl asked me for my autograph right before COVID hit. I was doing a an event in. In South Florida two weeks before the pandemic hit. I was doing a lot of speaking at that time before the pandemic came. But she came up and she goes, I get your autograph. I’m like, give me your autograph. Like that is just insane. And that’s what happens to a lot of the content. There’s a dude out here. He’s an exp. Guy’s name’s Kyle whistle, shout out to Kyle whistle. He’s been doing video forever. But the way that he heard him say something that really stuck out, he says, my videos are like my employees because they’re always on 24/7 working for me. So when you have your content sort of everywhere, people you don’t know who’s watching them. And folks, it’s not the number of views that people who watch your videos all the time. So often I see Realtors gauge the success of a video campaign by how many views they get, which they’re really doing is they’re engaging the success of their campaign by how much their egos been stroked. And there’s a major difference in that. And it’s my strategy. So important period. If you don’t have like, You got to be excited about it. You got to know why you’re doing videos. But know the different types of videos to create for that. That’s the number one thing I see so many agents. Why is it my real estate content getting 300,000 views on YouTube? Because it’s fucking boring. I’m sorry. Right? Does it mean that video is not worth doing but it there is you have to take that stuff into consideration. Real Estate content, I got a ton of it. My least engaged stuff. Even my video marketing contents, my least engaged stuff. Right? The Matrix video we did was funny, it was fun. That thing rocked because we did something a little bit outside the box. But I just talked about, hey, here are the top three tips to do video marketing. Sorry, most people are checked out. So it’s not it’s not just in real estate. It’s in my business. Anytime you talk about work with the people you serve, you’re sort of being checked out.
Well, yeah, I mean, like, they’ve already done a transaction with you at this point. Like they don’t need to the market update every week. They want to know what else cool is going around on around town like and, you know, I think that’s a good strategy for anybody to if you want to get to talk to you know, places that you know are popular in town already offer to give them some free publicity, right? Like you’re already a fan of theirs, you’re trying to take their fans and convert them into your fans as well. You know, get this restaurant that you love in town that has 10,000 followers on Facebook. Oh, you know go there all the time. You know the owner go talk to him. Yeah, you can get him get her or him on video and talk about how awesome they are and don’t even talk about anything about yourself because you’re associated with them then and people are gonna like you because we have the same favorite spot.
What do you guys like doing the most out of your personally? What do you what kind of content do you like creating most Joel then we’ll go to Christine next.
I don’t know. I mean, like I have a bunch of stuff I wanted to do and you kind of kept me in check and said like, hey, you know, stay on this YouTube plan first to go ahead and get your regional terms knocked off. And that’s been huge, because I really didn’t want to do that like pros and cons of the three different cities around me but those have done really well. I’ve enjoyed now bringing on a team member being able to banter back and forth with him a little bit because that puts us both at ease. But I’m I’m looking forward to Getting out more. Now, once we have our local area knocked down on the YouTube stuff, getting out and talking to people within the community about people that are doing good things, you know, just kind of bring positivity to the area.
I like business owner interviews personally. So like, that’s where a lot of if you’re looking to build like a local audience, like you’ll meet the business owners, brewery owners, like I’m gonna do a lot of breweries, because I just want the relationships, you know, I just want to go in there and get free beer, invite my friends, maybe have a client party there and all that. And at the same time, once you start nurturing those people, we’ve seen people like literally hijack clients from other agents doing that. They say hijack meaning, like they don’t use that other agent anymore. It’s because you’re creating TV commercials, but those videos aren’t going to perform on YouTube. So a lot of people won’t do them. It’s a totally different strategy, guys. Christine, what do you tend to gravitate towards? What do you like?
Well, you know, me, I’m the shot type trying to get out there. Also green screen, so don’t get it twisted people. I still can’t get in front of everybody. Um, you know, I’m in huge in the brewery industry. And so we
I’ve been begging Christine to get up, give me some brew tours. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna do it. I’m not your deal. Christine. If you come up to San Diego, I’ll take you to a brewery and we’ll shoot a tour together. And then I’ll train you. I’ll train you at the same time. And we’ll go ahead and do I’ll give you a San Antonio. Welcome San Diego, we’ll do the San brewery tour only under the one condition. Two weeks within the time that that video publishes. I want to see your footage in our folders on your own movie tour.
I will call my friends that are brewers right now that own these breweries and I will see
you Burke’s hold you guys hold it. I call them forks. Forks. You folks heard it here first. Sorry. Had a little tongue twister there. What else would you guys say for you know what else is struggle wise over overcome wise like what else do you guys think you could share that anybody else would? Maybe questions you get think challenges you’ve overcome
it guess you know first like you may not even really want to reach out to somebody see if they want to talk to you on video cuz you’re like, ah, you know, haven’t really done anything yet. Listen, like it’s your you’re genuinely trying to help them. It helps you in return great. But as long as you’re genuine in your requests, like, hey, you know, I love your spot. Can you want to talk about it? Most people even if they know you’re not getting 1000s of views will say yeah, man, come on. Let’s do this. You’ll never know anything until you ask. Yeah, take that first step.
Yeah, what do they have to lose? You’re giving them free publicity? Exactly. Yeah,
most most businesses are in and once you do a couple, like they’ll come out to you trust me, they’ll reach out to you. But it is easier once you have the first one or two business owner interviews because once they see I’m like shit, that looks pretty good. And then like, yeah, I will do that on my on my, on my business. What they don’t want is like the first time when you don’t have content business owner might be like, what are we really gonna do? The things are gonna really put something together. Is it gonna look legit? You know, and they’re a little worried cuz I waste my time. I’m busy. But um, yeah, it you’re right, it does. Once you have a couple of gifts, everything gets easier. But that’s how anything goes. Once you do a little bit of anything, everything gets a lot easier. I like it guys. What do you guys gonna do next? How many are you currently doing per month? And Christine, you’re doing like, you’re averaging like one a month, one to month, not creating 10 to 20 videos a month.
I was I was doing really good. And then I you know, the content gets dry. Right? So you gotta you know, it’s hard to write, keep writing, you kind of rewrite the same things in different ways. Like you said, that’s how you got to do it. I get it. But I was trying to gear towards like, where I like to where I think there’s not a lot of content out there, which I need there needs to be is where I live in right outside of San Antonio. Yeah, it’s a huge area people coming in. So I’m going to start focusing on that area and see how how things change for me.
She’s located in the northern suburbs, right by Bernie, Texas, correct?
Yeah, I’m in Bernie Texas. Yep.
So if you guys have reloads. I know half of the state of California is moving over that way. So feel free to contact Christine. She’ll put her info on the show notes. And I’m sure we’ll plug it at the very end here. Joe all by yourself, what are you gonna do next?
Now I’m now that springs flowing around and grass is green it up? I’m actually I want to talk to you about delving into my golf background a little bit more. And doing some you know, some people are gonna think it’s goofy shit, right? But talk about things that are fundamental to your, you know, tying in fundamentals for your golf game into the home buying process, you know, starting up good foundation, things like that, you know, find ways but also want to do like top three golf course communities in and around Winston Salem, Greensboro. because, you know, that’s completely subjective, right? There’s going to be in my eyes like what golf courses do I love to play where what neighborhoods do I like to I don’t probably
do good on YouTube too. It’s just golf, golf community tours that you can literally do. So here I made a deal with myself last night, I was up till 3am. So I have these big bags under my eyes. I was one working on my funnel, but to I couldn’t shut my brain off. And once a month, I get into like this weird stage where I just stay up on that and can’t sleep. So I’m just thinking about different things. So why part of the reason I had that anxiety was because I was like, I really because my YouTube channel is not fucking kicking, I don’t have enough content, right? I told you, we were just talking about this pisses me off, I’m like, I need to get business yesterday, I’ve only been licensed for 10 days, and I’m pissed off already. So I got a, I made the commitment to myself last night, I’ll make it on the podcast. And I’m gonna start publishing all of the content, just like I publish my other content. And I’m going to go and do a ton of tours and brewery tours. And I’ve committed in my head to have my own content a two to three per week. For my real estate business, it’s a lot. But I’m going to perform a case study I myself live as a brand new agent with no business, no friends, no family, no aunts and uncles, no past clients, and no market. I don’t know anyone in but real estate people. And if my gut is correct, within 12 months, I’ll have a team of 10 people. The only way that’s going to happen is you’re consistent communication to the same audience and brand over time. That’s it. Video is just a way to meet people online without having to meet them in person. And if you’re an introvert, that’s like the best fucking thing of both worlds.
Yeah, I think that’s actually something that it’s funny, you bring it up like I am. And I’m definitely not the most outgoing person out there. And my wife is a hermit. So we really don’t get out. I wouldn’t say like I would not is is the golf course. And in video now, that’s where I meet people. And then the other thing I want to tie in like, but the two things that I enjoy doing most outside of work is golf, and hanging out with my kids, like so places that I enjoy playing and play golf. And where do I like taking my kids? Like, where’s a good place? The family places around town?
Work? I like it. I like it, Christine. Yes. We’ll get you we’ll get you outdoors. Whatever that that first video, we’ll post it here, we’ll send out to our clients to we’ll send it out to the email. So make sure you guys subscribe the show here. And you’ll be seeing Christine doing her first business interview. But here’s the thing is that you have it doesn’t matter. The answer doesn’t matter. Joel’s not writing either as Christina, neither mine on what our strategies are what’s right is you have to do something you’re excited about. Right, and then do it consistently. Agree, mine is going to be very San Diego transplant like and I’m just going to tell my story of my five year journey here, which will be really authentic. And I know I’ll connect with people that way. That’s how I could create content. What I can’t create content on is the cost of living. Because even though I’ve licensed I don’t know the cost of living entirely like I did in Chicago, Chicago, I could name off top my head, but I’m getting new brand new market. So be interesting to see where the next 12 months takes us. Folks, I appreciate your guys’s time, I think you guys gave people a lot to think about you guys have any other closing thoughts you want to mention. I’ll start with Christine first.
I would say if you been thinking about it, and then you just need to do it because it’s well worth it in might make you feel comfortable if teams amazing. So I have zero regrets. And I have no plan on leaving.
I appreciate that. But folks, it’s not whether you do in me or not. This isn’t a buy my shit pitch even though if you want to I will take your money, however, and I love your business, but get on it. Like it doesn’t matter what you do with video. But like I said before, if it’s not you somebody else’s marketing and infiltrated your network on a daily basis, many times depending on your market, it’s in the form of huge ibuyers Discount companies and big Wall Street companies have a lot more money than you. And your personal brand has never been more important because without one you won’t last in the damn business. Joel, you’re up?
Yeah, I would. I would say the same thing. I wish I had started this when I first got into real estate four years ago. You know, I wish I’d done it from day one. But I will say I’m gonna go ahead and teach your own horn even if you don’t want me to. I think that you’ve done this before, right? You were a real estate agent. You’re getting back into it again. He understands how to do it. If you’re thinking about doing video like this team’s extremely easy to work with. And I don’t even have to run Facebook ads. I do it all for me now. I like you’re going to get busy if you start doing this and you need people like Mike and his team to help you get it out there.
I appreciate that. And like I said didn’t need another plug but I do appreciate that Dude, this isn’t rocket science video makes you more popular with the more attention that your brand has, the more people you’re going to track. There’s someone in your market right now, regardless of where you’re at, you’re on the treadmill, wherever you’re doing. And there’s some dude in your market or some chick in your market and you’re like, What the hell is that dude, or that chick doing that? You guys probably have this person in your brain like, how how’s that gonna kill me? Like he’s crushing me right now. Or she’s crushing me. They’re a moron. The only difference between them in any of us or any of you listening right now is that they have more attention than your brand currently does now doesn’t make them smarter, better, bigger or better. They just have more attention, aka popularity. That’s all video is don’t approach it with Legion. Second, you do. The second you will not last long term. If you approach it in the long term. Tortoise versus hare analogy we presented today it’ll always work. Folks want to go ahead and if you guys have clients or referrals, Winston Salem, Greensboro and there’s another one there that try it on Greensboro, high point, high point. Okay, so Joel, you go first and then Christine, you go next, tell them where your sights are, they could contact you. If you guys do need any relocation clients, you couldn’t be in better hands. They do a lot of these already serving these types of people from the YouTube channel so they know exactly what they’re doing. And I’m sure you guys would welcome the referrals if you want to go ahead and plug your stuff right here.
Absolutely. If anybody has anybody moving to the triad area of North Carolina, Greensboro, high point, Winston Salem especially, would love to help them Joel Sam man phone numbers 336-582-9210 And website is Sandman Realty and C as in North carolina.com.
Cool Christine floors yours
all right. Anybody relocating needs any help I also specialize with the military PCs assignments, things like that. In the San Antonio surrounding areas, Bernie any any area around there? You can find me I my website. Yes, but you can mostly find me on like Instagram at C Johnson 1006. Or you could call call or text me at 443-878-7772
Cool. Thanks, guys. And thank you for listening another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast. Make sure you subscribe, leave us some more reviews and connect with us on social and like you heard today. Get on video guys. I mean, I don’t care if you do it with me or anyone else but I’m just telling you, personal brand is the most important thing we have. It’s the only thing that we have that as a survives any type of correction or any type of a market that we survive in because real estate’s always being transacted. But what type of real estate is being transacted will differ as the market changes. So thank you guys for listening and make sure you connect with us on social YouTube. I got this tick tock started a few videos back again it started again in April we’re delayed but I’ll have that up to appreciate you guys love you have a good one. Peace we 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 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.
Why are you helping everyone else make money and then not doing it yourself? An area that people struggle in a lot is investing, and that is exactly what we’re going to be talking about today. More specifically we’ll be talking about making money in land sales.
Today we have on an expert guest, Brent Bowers. He has a company called land sharks, and he’s going to walk us through how the fuck we split land, how we sell land, what the fuck we do with land. Over the last seven years, Brent has been able to build a business that generates upwards of $50,000 – PER MONTH – in passive income. So, let’s hear what the expert has to say!
What’s up, ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Another episode of the real estate marketing dude, podcast folks we’re gonna be chatting about today is doing things different. It’s what we chat about in every single episode that we have here. And when we’re gonna talk about doing things different, we’re going to talk about investing differently. I get a message we get a lot of people asked to be on the show. And we turn most of them down unless they actually have somebody that like is superduper. Interesting. And who we got today is that we often hear, and just a couple of weeks ago, we actually had a show on how agents are going to plan their retirement. And then what are you gonna do when you think about retiring? We had a show a couple weeks ago, again, that said, Hey, why aren’t you investing? Why are you helping everyone else make money and then you’re not fucking doing it yourself. So one of the biggest struggles and what I’m excited about today is that this is an area like I used to dabble a lot in investing, and I’m trying to get back into it, to be honest with you. One of the areas I never knew how to make money in was land sales. Like how do you make money on vacant land? There’s no income producing, what are you going to rent parking spaces? How do you do it? You subdivide it. And it’s just a topic that a lot of people don’t traditionally talk about. But today we have on an expert guest this is all this dude does. He does land sales. He has a company called land sharks, and he’s going to walk us through how the fuck we split land, how we sell land, what the fuck we do with land. And we’re going to learn all about land sales. Agents, listen to me. If you are not adapting an investor friendly mindset, you are going to be losing business, it’s period. Just real estate license only gives you the permission to legally collect money, it doesn’t earn anyone’s business, the more knowledgeable you are on different facets of business, whether you’re investing whether you’re cash flowing, or you’re helping the traditional residential home buyer or seller. The more skills you have, the more you get paid. And if you want to get paid in the future, you need those skills. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and introduce our guest, Mr. Brent Bowers. Brent, what is up, dude?
Hey, Mike, you know, I’m really excited to be on here. I know, when we first jumped on, I was like, What the heck, this came on my calendar. What is it now? I’m really excited. I love the energy, like you’re good at what you do, sir. Thank you. So I’m fired up ready to go to talk to some real estate agents and some investors and lenders. You know, when I was a realtor, I remember like, it was a constant treadmill of deals. And after I got that, that person that are home or or sold that person’s home, or I was even driving tenants around back in 2008, when I was a real estate agent, a real estate agent, but it was a it was a transaction treadmill, I like to do stuff that I get paid for a very long time on, you know, sometimes 30 years. That’s my preferred method. So that kind of changed. My mindset changed a little bit because I worked we worked our butts off, as well. I used to work my butt off as a real estate agent.
Yeah, it’s nonstop. It’s the peaks and valleys and you’re up and down. Stressful every month, a new month. It feels like fucking Groundhog’s Day. I mean, it really does. If you guys have ever watched that movie, you wake up like Oh, shit, this transaction goes and you get another pain. Yes client and you guess what, you just do it over and over again. But a lot of real estate agents start off in that position. And then they venture off into different things. Like I ended up as a fucking marketing dude. You know, I sold real estate for 18 years did a lot of short sale, investing and all that. And there’s different avenues that a lot of people or industry move on to because they let’s be honest, they burn out in the real estate industry. Tell them a little bit about where you’re at. And then I want to get into about how you got into lead. So you were a real estate agent, but give him your name. Tell them a little bit about your first and then let’s get into that.
Yeah, I bought my first Well, I got my real estate license in 2007. I actually thought I needed a real estate license to be a good investor because I was like, I’m gonna get all the deals as they come across my desk. Well, one of my sister agents listed a house and I put an offer on it. I thought that’s what we were supposed to do. Because I was gonna be an investor. So I put the offer on it. They accept it. I need the earnest money deposit and this is 2007 I wasn’t like rolling Joe, I had a lawn and landscape company and I went to get my real estate license and got it took me three times it passed that freakin test by the way, that stuff is hard. And I had to borrow the earnest money deposit from my grandma. And I got paid a commission to buy the house, which is I mean, I got paid to buy real estate, you hear about that in the seminars, you go to right? And rented it out. And then 2008 kicked my butt by 2009 to join the military because I wanted to go back to school kind of start something new. I got got in my head that I like, why can I Why should I be able to be a success in real estate? Everyone else is failing at it right now. So I got that in my head. And I quit. join the military. I’m in Afghanistan before I know it, and then back for a year and then back to Afghanistan. And they pulled me out to send me to college in 2013. Well, I still had that real estate bug that itch the entrepreneurship edge. You know, I was renting a house from a guy. And it was beautiful from the outside, but the inside it’s just like stunk like cat pee, because he’d never changed the litter box. Sure. I was like, This guy is renting a house for me. I’m paying him $550 A month. I’m sure his mortgage is like 800 I’m gonna do this myself. I’m going to buy a house next to the college and rent out three of the rooms and make money. I didn’t realize it’s called House hacking. I’ll
say I can Yeah. I love it. Thank you for your service. First off, we appreciate that. Every day, especially nowadays, with all the craziness going on. In 2009 Were you like, getting your ass kicked by the market? Like fuck it. I’m gonna go to the military because I don’t I was gonna go on because at that time the world was burning.
Got it, Mike. I was getting my butt kicked every day. It was so bad. I went from owning a business, a real estate license. I have a rental property. I’m married. Yeah. And I had to move in with my in laws because we couldn’t afford our rent anymore. Because we moved over to the coast and I’m now humbled. I’m starting to think like, I suck I need to do something with my life. So I did I joined the military got really humbled when I went in as an E one getting paid nothing. And I was like doing little extra things in basic training like making the beds and pulling Fire guard and just making a little extra money here and there to send to pay, you know, my back debts like I was I owed money. So 2013 Things are on the rise again. And I got some equity pretty I bought the house at a really good price. I pulled out the equity with a VA streamline bought another rental use sweat equity to build that rented it out. And now it’s time to move to Colorado. So I basically bought a house there for us to live in me and my wife and then bought a triplex with the equity from the other properties. But one thing I found out was like buying all these rentals with value add needing fix up, you go in debt pretty quickly. Like I’ve now maxed out all these credit cards and Home Depot card and student I used student loans to fix up houses by the way.
Yeah. Gotta do what you got to do, man. Yeah.
So I’m like, Okay, there’s got to be a better way. So I start Wholesaling Houses, like getting them under contract at a discount and then selling the contract. Well, the problem with that was you had to spend time with these sellers and figure out what the problem was and solve it. I’m an Army officer, I’m working like 13 hour days. And I was still searching for answers listening to podcasts like you know, the the marketing dude like this stuff like this, like searching for answers. I heard a guy doing land and I was like, No one does land. I’m driving by land every single day and I don’t realize a way to make money on it. And I heard of what he was doing. And I was like, You know what, I’m avoiding mailing the lands. So I started mailing the land. Immediately. I was mailing the tax delinquent list, the county held tax lien lists all the list. And I just blasted out 680 postcards, got a bunch of phone calls, did two deals within two weeks. Each one netted me a little over 4500. And I was hooked. Interesting where we are today.
Yeah, I bet you and if you guys aren’t, like haven’t chased motivated sellers before most people will go target. You know, you pull up tax records, and you look for distress points, whether it’s financial constraints are whatever it may be, right. But nobody fucking mails the landowners, unless you’re a developer, right? So like, but traditionally these people are getting if you if you know the space, these people get bombarded by everybody trying to buy their house. So whether you’re an app if you’re an absentee owner right now, you’re getting a mailing piece a month, no doubt because that’s that’s whatever, that’s whatever. Yeah, that’s what everybody does at least one but you’re probably getting one from like four different people, especially if you’re like in Phoenix or Florida, or some of these crazy markets right now. But yeah, that’s interesting, because direct mail you guys are still the number one way to reach a lot of people because it’ll get 100% deliverability rate you’re you can’t say that for any other form of communication or channel to reach and it’s tangible so people see it just but really quickly as well. I mean, guess what’s on the card. I’m guessing the postcard said, hey, I’ll buy your piece of land.
You got It’s like, Hey, my name is Brent. If you’d like a fair cash offer for your land, call me.
You don’t have to get super creative because everyone’s always like, what’s the content on the cards? If I’m going to direct mail be what’s the contents like knowing dude, you gotta realize you cut right to the chase. Hey, I want to buy your shit. You’re interested call me. Here’s my fucking cell phone number dude, you know, like, like, and then the more unprofessional works, the better that usually the stuff on direct mail works. Alright, so what
are what happened? I might use that. That’s amazing, actually. And it’s handwritten is Oh, yeah, three, three and a half by five, like the cheapest card you can get. Um, so the first one, I had no clue what I was getting into. It was two lots on the side of a mountain looking at, you know, the Pikes Peak National Forest and Palmer lake. So me and my wife drive down there with our newborn baby, and I’m like, this is beautiful land. And guess what the seller told me he’s like, look, it’s yours for $285 Take it off my hands. And this guy was no dummy. He was a CPA retired. He’s like, I traded this like 10 years ago. I’m ready to be done. Like get it off my hands. You already $5 You bought the land for you got it, Mike. Got it. So I’m like, Okay, I’m second guessing myself. So we drove down there. I’m like, holy cow. So we found that it wasn’t buildable. Because there’s only one ingress egress. The firefighters won’t let you build because like they can get pinned down. And the city is not letting them build a road over the railroad tracks. So I call the first real estate office. I see. I’m like, if anybody knows it’s gonna be the real estate office right down the road. Well, long story short, that realtor ended up making an offer on it. On the spot, basically, I was like, hey, what’s the blowout price? How can I get rid of this for on the MLS? Can you list it? She’s like, maybe 10 grand. And she goes gave me the whole backstory of that area. Like she was educated on it on a Saturday to this woman is a rockstar. So she called I hung up with her. I thanked her for a time I said, I’ll let you know when I own it. So you can list it. She calls me back within like five minutes and says, Hey, Brent, what if I bought it from you? She offered me five grand for it. And she said I can close in a few days. I was like, please send the contract deal. So I paid the seller on Tuesday got my $5,000 Check on Wednesday, it was that quick. And I’m like there’s no way this could be that easy. And did another one a week later. And that same scenario. Very similar, not accessible, not buildable surrounded by if you notice I’m talking about like very inefficient land here when I’m starting out. And no one has ever mailed these guys. So that’s why they’re like, just take it like this one was 500 bucks, almost five acres surrounded by a state land which is a beautiful area. I put it on Craigslist bought on Saturday for 500 Put it on Craigslist that night, sold it on Sunday for $500 down, I got my investment back out of the property. And then $400 a month, and I now had passive income. My paradigm shifted. Because of this time I’m ready to go the military. I have a wife, a brand new baby, and I want to be home more often. Sure. Um, because I was always gone, always deployed, always training and that’s not good on a marriage. And I’m missing my son. Yeah, um, so that gave me $400 A month it paid my truck payment and I was like I told my wife I was like, if we can just keep doing this. If we do this 12 times that will cover our entire outgoing each month that’s that’s gonna give us magistrate resilience.
You’re holding the paper, you’re calling around selling it and you’re holding paper and people are paying you back. Yes, sir. Love it. Wow. All right. So let me I got a couple questions. I know a couple of people in New treadmills. Like what the book Bub used to lose $400 Alright, so let’s start through and just look at land in general. So overall, is a strategy here, that you guys have been using or you’ve been using is, is you find people who want to sell land, they’re probably gonna do a little bit of a discount, and you just turn around and bring it to someone who’s more knowledgeable in the area, and then they sell it. Or is because it’s cheap land like what how, what are the price points? Like what do you shy away from? Are you only buying land in the hundreds of dollars range? That makes a lot of sense to me, cuz there’s probably a lot of those. Or are you buying land like, Are you searching land for 300,000? You’re looking lots and all that stuff. So where does it started? What type of land because like in real estate, we could go condos or we could buy townhomes we could go single family homes, we go multifamily. So what type of land deals do you go after them today,
I target the entire county because here’s the thing. The ones I stay away from are the ones that I can’t get at a discount and sell for a profit because that’s at the end of the day. All I’m doing is buying it for one price and selling it for a little bit more. And I love holding up the note because that gives me time freedom and gives me passive income. Some of these I’ve sold on 30 year mortgages at 9% interest. I mean if you get a $200,000 mortgage from the bank at 6% interest, you keep it for 30 years and never refinance. You’re paying back over 420 Like that’s compounding interest working for you. That’s a retirement account basically. So I target the entire county because it allows me to build a buyer’s list in that county, because some people are looking for that four acres, some people are looking for that one acre, some people are looking for the 36, or the 440 acres. So I basically try and get every every parcel at a discount. My third deal was actually from a bank, the land with his 44 acres next to Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, in the banks, that bank wanted, like a lot of money for it, but they had that they foreclosed on it, basically. And they are behind on their taxes. That’s how I found them. And I wanted it for 20 because I was so nervous. I didn’t know I didn’t have 20 grand, by the way. But I was like, Okay, if it’s worth maybe 80 I’m getting it for like 20 cents on the dollar, or maybe what 2040 6080 I’m getting it for like, cheese 1/4 of what it’s worth. Sure. So I can go for 20 About a month went by and they find is like, dude, listen, Brent, you want the damn land, it’s 25,000 Sign the contract, and we’ll do it. Well, this was a Friday night, like, whatever, I signed it, and I didn’t sleep that night, I was like, This is crazy. I don’t have $25,000 They’re gonna sue me, I’m going to go to jail, I’m gonna, they’re gonna take my security, or they’re going to take my my secret clearance away, because blah, blah, blah, I had all these things going on in my head. And fear and doubt what I did I remember one of my coaches telling me if you ever get a piece of land under discount, or under contract at a discount or house at a discount, and you want to offload that contract, go out and put 33 bandit signs saying, you know, three to must sell your phone number cash only. So what did I do? I put 44 acres 38k had it under contract for 25. My phone number and I put those signs everywhere on a Saturday, and I got a phone call. First one was like, don’t you put these signs on my property? Come back here are gonna call the police. So I got another phone call. And I’m now bracing for impact. Yeah. And the guy goes, where are you? I see these signs going up everywhere. Me and my wife sold our ranch in in Texas about two weeks ago. And we have been driving all over Colorado looking for land. And I see these signs going up. And me and that man met on the side of the road shook hands at $38,000 I had my buyer. I was gonna I slept so good that night, on Saturday and great what happened on Sunday? I got an even higher offer of 14,000 over what that man and I shook hands on. And now I had a crossroads. I’m like, What do I do? And I’m calling that Texas Texan gentleman and said, Hey, I know that we agreed on 38,000. I just had a $14,000 higher offer. He goes we shook hands on. It’s like I know. I was wondering if maybe you wanted to split that 14,000 I’ll give you seven grand for just meet me on the side of the road because that was life changing money back in 2016 For me, and he said no, I want the land. So I had to like swallow real hard. And I said, Okay, it’s yours. And that was it. Like we just kept doing these deals over and over and over and
over. Sometimes Karma comes back and pays you for though dude. Like one thing in real estate investing, like even we just do a lot of short sales. And we never took advantage of people. And I always kept our word. And I’m telling you guys, if you ever tried to pull it over, I guarantee you that God’s gonna pay you back one day some way and never fails. It’s common like, right, and that’s good, good for you way to keep that. That’s from the service for sure.
That was hard. One of the hardest things ever did. Yeah. Well, thank God to this day, I am so happy that that’s the way it worked out.
So let’s go let’s fast forward today. Let’s say for somebody that does have some capital, somebody that does have something to invest, where are the deals and one of the most lucrative I mean, it’s really you’re just buying low selling high. I mean, what do you turn down? What don’t you do? And then how much diligence you have to tie in between like, do you do a 10 day? Contingency when you when you want to go out there and find the buyer? And will you ever close on land if that buyer is not located?
Absolutely, yeah, we do all the time. Now I built up so much confidence in this like if you’re getting something at such a margin of safety such a steep discount, 30 cents on the dollar 20 cents of the dollar, it’s almost a no brainer, because Americans think how much is it going to cost me each month, not the total purchase price. So buyers will pay nine 12% and finances as long as you make easy affordable payments. Well I don’t always have the my own cash my own cash to buy this. So like I just use my father in law to buy three lots. We are listing it with a builder and they’re going to build to suit right on it. So that’s one deal. We are buying 36 acres that we are going to develop and I don’t have the
let’s actually here’s how they’re gonna let’s go through each one of those because I think if we apply the application to it and more of like a case study, I think they’re going to get your out of this. Give me that first one that’s interesting. The builder so you locate three residential lots. Yep. So your lease it to him and then he builds the suit but he’s not having to buy their ticket on the land. So it works for him right? Got very
similar. So we actually just went into a new market in Florida. And we got three lots under contract. And I I said, Look, we don’t have a buyer’s list in this area. So what I Googled builders, Palm Bay, Florida, this is the area so I called every single builder in that area and said, Hey, I’ve got three lots, here’s the street. Let me know if you want them left a message. And some sent me their voicemails some some I text as well. If I left a message, I also texted them. And then some sent me like, hey, send it to this email. Well out of those like calling those 15 builders, one of them said, Look, I’m actually building right on the street right now. You can list those things with a house model that I do. It’s an Eco Friendly House, they won’t have a electric or water bill because it’s all solar panel, yada yada. He said you can you could price I said What can I sell the lot for the actual land? He said 30,000 to two easy, no problem. Well, I’m buying them for 15,000 each. So I’m spending 45 We’re gonna make 90 and I use my father in law. We’re paying him 9% on his money for the next three months. And I asked us like what, what is the most amount of time this could take to sell it to someone that wants to build a home because there’s only 300 houses on the market in Brevard County right now. And that includes multifamily duplexes. triplexes, mobile homes, manufactured everything. Well, there’s over 800 Real estate agents in that market. So that tells me there’s a demand right now for building. So we just bought them last night, and the builders gonna list them with his house model on them here in the next couple of days. And hopefully it’s a 90 day flip, we make a quick 45,000. That’s that case that we’re doing this week.
And they’ll buy they’ll find the end buyer That’ll buy the lot, you get cashed out that the builder builds a house,
and they’re getting a bank loan called a construction loan to build their house.
Makes a lot of sense. I like that a lot. Let’s go through the second one you’re going through
the second one now I didn’t start here. I like I got my confidence built up. The second one that I just mentioned, we’re looking at 36 acres that a realtor brought me in Sebring, Florida right on a major major highway, US 27 North, it is already zoned and approved for RV lots. It also has nine vacant commercial lots that we could put site pads on. They just threw up a Wawa a half mile from the property line. So there’s a lot of opportunity here. It’s an old developer. And it’s so funny how this is working out 82 year old developer, and he’s got a lot of projects going on. And he’s basically bringing in young people and money to help them complete everything. Well, long story short, the same realtor that brought me the deal. I call him on the way back from looking at this 36 acres. I was like I love this guy. I think we can figure something out. It’s so funny. He actually just sold an RV park in the town. I grew up in Okeechobee and Joe is a realtor. He goes Brent, you know where I met him, right? I was like I had no clue. He was on that land in Colorado. I was like what land in Colorado, it was a piece of land that I wholesaled in Colorado five years prior, same owner. So it’s just amazing how these things work out. So going back to that deal. We’re syndicating the deal. We’re syndicating the funds, we are going to purchase the land. And basically we’re going to build these RV, this RV park is already bringing in income it’s already got an RV service centers already got storage, it’s already got 17 RV spots, bringing in income, we’re just gonna expand the footprint
because when you have the land you can act as the bank on other people’s money guys, that’s what he’s getting at if he just locks in the land, and you’re just brokering it. Like the agents and that’s where I think that’s a really interesting niche because like the agents, the vast I’d say 99.9 agents don’t know anything about land, but about 30 or 20% of them will have people that would want to buy it. They don’t have the education to take the land down themselves. But if I was an agent, I probably be the number one listing agent in the area because I would have every listing I go to every single builder with land OPERS opportunities and then once I have all the listings I’d also have all the buyers that’d be controlling my own inventory. Think about it folks. This is what you have to do in this type of market in a tight inventory market like this you cannot just wait for houses to come on the market. You got to go manufacture deals. This is how you do it.
I love that man that’s that’s amazing. You got my wheels turning mike
so there’s a lot of opportunity here what let’s get let’s flip the script. Let’s do some pitfalls that could happen and buying land because not everything is all peaches and roses all the time. Oh yeah. So what’s some shit we need to watch out for? What do we got to be on the lookout for that we might get our asses kicked to say the least.
Let’s talk about my sixth and seventh deal. or maybe my ninth or 10th It’s a little fuzzy at this point, but I got a little cocky probably wanted to get probably wanting to
get it out of your brain. That’s why you get a couple kick back and forget about that bad memory. Right?
Yeah, I started getting a little arrogant about it. And I’m still doing my army officer job, I think we’re have we’re, you know, I got my first kid. And we’re about maybe my wife gets pregnant again, with our second baby, I really enjoyed, like the success we’re having in this, I’m like, so happy, I’m not having to deal with houses that much anymore. And I just start buying land sight unseen. And I see it’s assessed for, you know, 3600, I’m paying half of the assessed value. So I’m paying like $1,800 for it. And I see the county gives me a market value of like, 36,000. And I’m paying 1800. I’m like, no brainer, right? Well, there’s things like treasures deeds, where people pay the back taxes for a certain amount of years, and they can take the land via foreclosure. Well, that’s what happened with this with this owner, the seller, and they’re like, Yeah, give me 1800 bucks, it’s yours. So I would just like meet people with cashier’s checks, just buying land, getting a quitclaim deed and not running title search and title insurance and getting a title insurance policy. And then I didn’t go look at it. And turns out, it was like a huge crater in the ground and Woodland Park, Colorado. But I was like, it’s a no brainer, like, right, cuz I’m getting it for 1800 bucks. Well, I start coming into play, I sold this thing for 36,000. I already had a buyer lined up. And we go to we go to closing, they were fine. They they’re the ones that told me about the crater in the ground. They were fine with that. But when they figured out they can’t get title insurance for the next nine years, because there’s a cloud on the title like things start like, Okay, wow, I wish I would have known about this in the very beginning. And there’s ways around it, we could have gotten through it with a, you know, you know, it’s called Quiet title. But I didn’t know that at the time, either. And the title company didn’t tell me I could do that. So all these little things, it’s like, okay, you got you start getting a little arrogant, and you start pondering and start learning your way. And it’s actually they’re all blessings, and I ended up selling that land for about $3,000. And I held the financing to get my money back out of it. But it could have been so much better. And you know, those little pitfalls by not running title searches. By not getting a title insurance policy by not sending somebody to go look at it, I could have hired someone on a on a Buy Sell group for 25 bucks to go take pictures, or better yet, that land specialist Realtor you just talked about my xao That’s what we call.
So do your diligence, no matter what pull title, get insurance full, full shebang. And that should be I mean, mostly real estate agents, you know, you guys have that in your ingrained in your brain, you should at least, but I could see, I could see that what anything else that you would advise that another pitfall was, you know, another
thing is like, buying land, you know, know what’s buildable, like know how many acres you need to be able to put a septic system like Colorado, you need one acre. Colorado Springs, you need 5000 square feet, to be able to build on there that’s like the minimum footprint. And you have to be you have to be in front of the sewer lines and the water lines or you’re gonna spend a boatload of money bring in. Like for things like that. Pueblo, Colorado, you need to know that it’s like $35,000 for a water tap right now, just knowing little things like that, and not being like, okay, it’s worth, it’s worth 100 I’m only paying 20 It’s a no brainer, right? Just knowing like, okay, who’s my buyer? What’s the buyer gonna want to do with this? Are they gonna want to build on it? Or is this like going to be an off grid cabin, like, I love recreational land and stuff that’s in the middle of nowhere that no ever build on, but you got to buy it at the right price. And so I would say that’s probably another pitfall just knowing what’s buildable, and then higher is.
And let’s do that really quick. And we’ll do one more and we’ll get this rap. Recreational land land that’s like that first deal. You mentioned like a land land that’s in the middle nowhere that is not going to be anything built. There’s not gonna be commercial built. There’s not going to be a house built there any time. Who’s the we’re gonna unload something like that
too. Well, that was that second parcel that five acres that was surrounded by by the state lands. That was actually right next to Fort Carson, Colorado, the army base, and just south of NORAD actually where they track Santa Claus. The guy that bought that just wanted a piece of land that he can go and sit in like a tree stand and watch the turkeys go by like the guy was like a nature lover. He and he knew the only way who’s ever going to get legal access in and out of that that area ingress egress was by hiring an access attorney. And you can find those by you know, talking to the title company, he knew is gonna have to spend a fortune doing that. But that guy just wanted to be out and out in the wilderness. Yeah. Other people like You know stuff we bought in the middle of nowhere in Colorado, they just want a place they can go ride their quads or their dirt bikes or camp, or you know, you name it bring your RV type thing. And the
stuff that’s way out there you got a lot bigger buyers because you’re dealing with like a $5,000 piece right? $10,000 $15,000 $12,000 not buying 100,000 or parcel land if it’s a male nowhere it’s it’s low price. So you could the risk isn’t as high for you to take it down. You could afford to wait six months to sell that land. If it’s 1000 bucks, right?
And you can get a longer contract like Hey, Mister, mister seller, Mrs. Seller, I get it. You own this land for 10 years, you want to get rid of it. I buy and sell land for a living my full time jobs to military. This is a way for me to make extra money. Is it okay? Do you have a heart? Do you mind if I have if I line a buyer up before I actually buy it from you? So I’m gonna need a 90 day contract to do that. Is that okay? I’m actually gonna market this thing all over like Craigslist and Facebook and Zillow. Is that okay? If I find a buyer before I actually buy from you, and then they come on my side. They’re like, yeah, absolutely. We hope you can make some money off of this. And now I had 90 days to have a buyer lined up with $5,000 down and $200 a month for the next seven years.
Yep, makes sense. I love it dude. I think it’s very creative. It’s great niche. What do you think your competition is in like a market like how many other people do you have? Let’s just take like Fort Collins seems like you know that area very well. In Fort Collins, how many other guys or gals are there out there like you going after these lands? Like what would you guess? And then what is it like in Florida?
You know what I say there’s virtually no competition in this there are a bunch of there are several guys like me, I am training them. And I say there’s virtually no competition because most people drive by land every day. And they don’t see a storage unit on it. Or or multifamily or a mobile home park or house they can buy and flip. So they’re driving right by it and not even thinking anymore about it. So the big institutional guys like with a lot of the pockets are not messing with it. But the guys that like I’m creating by teaching them with the land sharks, how to build businesses that serve us, our families and others. There’s not a lot like one of my land shark students right now just got 28 Lots under contract in Colorado, that they’re they’re building right down the street from we’re going to join venture, we’re going to do the deal together. And we’re both going to make a ton of money. And I wouldn’t have ever found that land if it wasn’t for that that amazing student going out and taking action and nailing and talking to seller. So you could squat up you can joint venture like you don’t have to do all this on your own.
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Love it. Brent, why don’t you go ahead and tell everybody if you guys like what we talked about today, check out what Brent does. He does. You guys have like a coaching program and training thing that you bring people I want you to go ahead and tell them where they can get more info.
Absolutely. I’m a wholesaling Inc coach on their official land coach, if you’re if you’re looking at like trying to figure out more about this, you can go to YouTube and you know, search Brent Bowers, find me on YouTube. Definitely subscribe, trying to build that thing up started about nine months ago. And if you want to schedule a call, and see if this is a good fit for you head on over to the land sharks.com
Oh, appreciate it. Brent, awesome show and thank you guys for listening to another episode of the real estate marketing dude, podcast. Folks, if you’re looking to build your personal brand with video, we will script that and distribute your shit for you. It’s not very hard. We make video marketing very simple and turn you into a local celebrity in your market. And if you’re sick of training and you’re sick of going on Zoom training, why don’t you check out the event we’re having in April right here in San Diego. It’s called the best real estate conference.com It’s the best real estate conference calm. If you are interested in attending that make sure you use the promo code dude d U d, dude and you will save some money. I saved you some money on that ticket. Make sure you go zoom training is getting old. If you want to go back to live in training network with people like you just spoke with and heard from today. Do it live events. I can’t tell you you always walk away with something. This is the one to attend. Thanks for listening to their episode, follow us on all of our social channels and keep leaving us reviews. We appreciate you guys and we appreciate you listening and we’ll see you next week. Adios 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 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.
Welcome to the second training on video marketing and building your brand with video. What we’re going to be talking about in this particular training is going to be how to script, distribute, and multipurpose your video content. If you did not watch the prior video, we spoke all about your video strategy and how important it is to dial in to the right one for you and why we’re doing it to begin with. Watch that before you watch this one. So as long as you have, then we’re going to go and get right on into it.
Everything you do in real estate is content, whether it’s listings you’re taking, the case studies you’re creating or clients you’re serving, even just pictures you’re sharing on social media, of really, really cool stuff, or it’s blogs, or writing or videos we’re creating. Everything you do is content and once you realize that everything you do is content you start realizing that the content you’re going to create is going to be much like your own little HGTV series. Let’s dive into that today!
So how do you attract new business, you constantly don’t have to chase it. Hi, I’m Mike way ambassador, 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 everybody, and welcome to the second training on video marketing and building your brand with video. And what we’re going to be talking about in this particular training is going to be how to script distribute and multipurpose your video content. But if you did not watch the prior video, we spoke all about your video strategy and how to and how important it is to dial in the right one for you and why we’re doing it to begin with. Watch that before you watch this one. So as long as you have, then we’re going to go and get right on into it. So what we’re really talking about folks is content creation, and we’re going to go a little bit deeper than we did in the previous training. And everything you do in real estate is content, whether it’s listings you’re taking, whether your case studies you’re creating or clients you’re serving, or it’s just pictures you’re sharing on social media, of really, really cool stuff, or it’s blogs, or writing or videos we’re creating, like what we’re talking about here, where you’re creating neighborhood videos or other community information. Everything you do is content, small business owner interviews, it doesn’t matter. And once you realize that everything you do is content. And you start realizing that the content you’re going to create is going to be much like your own little HGTV series, right like last week, we talked about creating a show. And if you look at any of these shows on HGTV, they’ve already done a lot of the work for us. They’ve showed us what the appetite is for what people want to see on television. And because there’s a whole damn channel dedicated to our profession, I don’t understand why we overthink this so much the content creation should be really easy. And it is, but content creation around your personal brand, is what you want to dial in. Because that’s ultimately what people are going to remember. So, you know, the reason why the first training we created this, this show is because it’s just like we’re creating an HGTV show, if you have a show, what is the purpose of it. And that’s going to determine the content that you create and how you create it many times, because you’re simply just the host. And these videos are not about you. You don’t need to sell people all the time on real estate or mortgage or whatever side of the business you’re in. But it is your job to remind them that you exist. So when you create a show, every time you’re publishing or you’re creating content, or you’re distributing your content, it doesn’t matter. Every single video people see will remind people that you’re in real estate, so you don’t necessarily have to hit him over the head with your calculator or your lockbox. So look at the content, you have an excuse to market your database and attract people just like you. That’s exactly why we dialed in the content strategy. You know, we spoke about it briefly. Last week, you know, you have to be doing stuff that you’re excited about doing if I started doing a bunch of cooking videos, it’s not going to be that authentic, and therefore nobody’s going to watch them. So the key is really figuring out what kind of content are you excited to create that you can see yourself doing long term and over time. Because once you nail that this should be fun, then the key is you do not want to make your content boring, you want to make it authentic. So where most people start is what kind of videos am I going to create? This is the biggest holdup? What do I say? How do I say it I’m too fat. I don’t like the way I look or whatever it may be. But it’s so important that once you define your strategy, first, you’ll know how to communicate through your brand. That’s the key of having a brand. You cannot build a brand without creating a bunch of content all around it. It doesn’t go the other way around. Someone who’s not creating content and not in communication with anyone and no one knows exists doesn’t have a brand. But someone who’s consistently creating content on a consistent basis, put it in front of a bunch of people that are responding and engaging with it. Well, you start to build one. So we’d like to build the show and then create content for the show because the show will determine how you create videos and they’ll identify a way for you to find video styles that you like, so that you can run with it. Video is not lead generation and that’s what you want to get out of your head at least in the way we’re explaining it. I can create videos for leads. And I can do call to action videos and we do if you visit my site, you’ll be retargeted with a few of them. But
it’s a brand building tool. That’s what we’re using it for in the real estate industry. It’s a referral based business. So we have to stay in communication with With our audience with our database with our people that are responsible for sending us referrals, repeat business and doing business with us in the future. That’s what we’re doing it for. Because if you stop talking to your significant other, what’s going to happen, you’re going to get a divorce, and they’re going to cheat on you, when you stop talking to your database, the same damn things gonna happen. And you want to approach your video marketing campaign no differently than you would like direct mail farming. Direct Mail, farming has been around since the dinosaurs ruled the earth and how it works. I’ve done so many different podcasts with people all over the place. And I could tell you straight up, everyone has the same stats. And typically how a direct mail how farming campaign works with direct mail is, you know, you pick an area $200 $500, whatever it may be. And after year one, you spend a direct mail piece to that neighborhood and it shows up on their doorstep every single month. Year one, you might get one to two listings, your two, you’ll see five to seven, your three, it starts going seven plus maybe 1012. And the reason why that occurs is because the people who live in that neighborhood, when you keep showing up and communicating with them. Over time, they start to realize and say, hey, that’s that real estate guy. That’s his neighborhood, he knows this neighborhood more than anything, then they start seeing your face and they start seeing your other content, they start seeing you in a grocery store. And it’s consistent communication that makes the farming campaign work. Well, we’re doing the exact same thing with video. But the only thing that’s different with video is whom we’re targeting, I would much rather target my database, my friends, family, aunts, uncles, anyone that has ability to do or, or refer me business. And that’s going to come from the relationships you have in life. However, if you’re farming a camp if you’re farming a market, or if you could still farm with video. So you know, look at your audiences, like we spoke about last week, the primary audience is always going to be the people that know like trust and love you first and foremost. But my point is on this slide here is that if I did direct mail for, you know, 15 months, and I decided to take four months off, did I just screw up the previous whole campaign, probably, that’s how important consistency is. And you’ll never be consistent with video, if you’re not excited about your process, or what you’re creating content on, you’ll push it off, you’ll kick the can down the road, like so many other people do. That’s why that first training was so important. So what we’re going to do is walk you through a bunch of different types of videos. And then you can see what, what, uh, what they sort of look like. Now, I believe the sound is going to come on out here. And what we’re gonna do here is walk you through just a couple different videos, and I’ll sort of let it play in the background when we talk through it. But this is a case study, right? So how much house can I afford case study, this is a mortgage broker and a real estate agent teamed up together. And they created a case study on a client that they both helped out. And they just basically walk through the scenario, as you see right here step by step. They’re in the Denver market. And oftentimes one of the things that
I can’t stand personally with real estate agents is when they are always posting just listed just sold. It’s it’s not cool to brag about how much money you made. But it is cool to tell story about the people you served. So I just challenge you to if you thought about how much more attention would your brand get if you started saying, hey, this 45 year old single dad just got his daughter her first own bedroom and guess what they’re owning, and his payments $300 less than it was when he was renting. Here’s how that’s called a case study. So you can create case studies and get testimonials on video, you can just tell the story. But there’s so many different types of case studies that you can go out there and create. See a case study is nothing more than what every HGTV show is. Except those case studies are about 30 to 60 minutes long, their full out productions, we’re doing the exact same thing, but anywhere between a four to seven minute video in this exact case. So what they’re doing here is just walking people through just exactly how they created and backed into a monthly payment and helped out one of their clients and how they qualified and all of that. So it’s very important that this could this style video could apply anytime you have a really cool story to tell. Right? And it’s just an easy way to go off and do it. Now, as we go through these different videos, I’m going to give you the pros and cons of each of them. So these videos will have pros and cons to them. But regardless of what you’re creating, everything’s going out to your database and we’re going to cover the distribution part. But you’re always going to post content and make sure everyone that you know sees it. Then you’re going to multipurpose it to other places and we’re going to cover that but for this time type of video the pros and cons are, these are really easy to create, you know, you’re just telling me the story that you got paid on essentially right? So you know it very well. Contents very easy to script, you could shoot these at a house, you can shoot these on a green screen, you can shoot these at your desk, the key is having the story and having the right, you know, format for it so that people understand it. And people follow it. It’s very good for authority, it’s good for conversion content, I love case studies, I’m like review pages on websites, very effective for that. And just think about when you hire a service, a lot of times one of the most visited pages on your site, at least mine is, is my reviews pages, because people before they schedule a demo with us for to interview us for their video marketing. They’re also looking for to make sure what other people say about us. So for a case study the way you multipurpose this content down the road, it’s good for core content, it’s good for conversion content and our social proof. But don’t expect a ton of views on YouTube. You know, if your whole strategy for video marketing is going to be I want to blow up my YouTube channel. Well, this is probably not the right type of video to do. Unless you have some really interesting things like dead bodies under houses. Really crazy, like ghosts in a house like that. Unless it’s something compelling like that. Chances are you’re probably not going to get a big YouTube following on that. So these are the different things you sort of weigh out when you’re looking at, okay, why am I creating content? What’s the purpose of the content I’m creating? Am I doing it to build a brand? Or am I doing it to attract new clients? But it doesn’t? There’s so many different ways that go that answer will be different for everybody. So let’s check out another video right here. This is an agent Orlando. Orlando, colorful neighborhoods. You’re ready, let’s roll. So he has a series called touring for and then it named brand of his team, as you see on screen right here is the Rockstar home team makes sense for Rockstar to have a series called touring for, because that’s what rock stars do. But because we’ve developed and identified what the strategy is everything he does will be on tour home tours, neighborhood tours, bar tours, music venue tours, it doesn’t matter the themes been created. But he’ll never run out of things to say, No, I love doing neighborhood videos, I love being on site. There’s a lot of benefits to doing these types of videos. But there’s also some pros and cons to them. So what we’re going to do is walk you through exactly what all of those pros and cons are. So pros and cons for neighborhood tours now. So one of the best videos, you can absolutely do, no doubt. They can do really good on YouTube, if you keyword it correctly, and you cover a neighborhood that gets a lot of love and views. Well yeah, you could get 1000s of views on this. And on Facebook, people like these two people like seeing the tour, they like the personality to come out. So they do extremely well on both YouTube and Facebook in terms of engagement.
Definitely one of the best videos to do. But the negative part about a neighborhood tour is it takes the most amount of time to create unfortunately, that’s why we don’t get enough of them from any of our clients. Because you’re that video, you’re going to go on the neighborhood, you’re going to go on site, you’re going to take us on a like a walking tour going to show us around different aspects. Now you can also create these videos in studio and in in, even on a green screen. But you got to have the footage or the B roll of the neighborhood to pull it off. So there’s a lot of ways you can shoot these and get them done. It’s all just based on comfort level but no doubt neighborhood tours neighborhood community videos are definitely one of the best videos you can do. Next one you see here is business owner interview. So
my name is Melissa DeSantis with exp Realty and welcome to another episode of mama three to find a one show that focuses on everything. And
so in this case, this is a business owner interview, you guys have probably seen some agents that have done business owner interviews. Now, this has another very specific strategy. I see these work differently in different markets. The key is what are the right business owners interviews to do for you. The show you’re looking at right here is called mommoth. redefined. And obviously this is a pop up business and the Christmas season. So they redefine what they offer there. It makes a lot of sense to be on brand. But this is also the whole local celebrity strategy, right. You might have heard that term used in many trainings or from other trainers. They’re teaching a lot of the same stuff that we do. But business owner interviews are great for brand. The key is to make sure you do the right ones. If you recall from the first training, we walked you through a couple different shows. Couple different you know show concepts. And if you’re going to do businesses, well make sure they’re on brand is on my only advice. So for example, if you were a military brand, make sure you do veteran owned businesses. If your brand is based on you being a parent or a mom or dad, make sure you interview kid friendly restaurants or kid friendly businesses or parent friendly businesses, if your whole brand is based on being a single bachelor, and all you do is Chase women, well, you know what type of content you’re gonna create the nightlife, the nightclubs, the bars, and all of that. You see, what business owners you’ll create interviews on are going to be based upon what your brand is. Remember, the videos you create, enhance your brand. That’s what we’re after right here. So once you dial in the show, you could see what type of businesses that you would cover, or that your brand would cover. That’s the key for doing the entire damn thing and not running out of content to say, a very popular show that you may not may know of diners, drives and drives with Guy Ferrari. That’s a food show. Okay, a lot of people have seen it on the Food Network. But what kind of food is he covering, he’s covering very specific niche of food. He’s not interviewing five star Michelin restaurants, he’s going after the grease pits of America and hangover food for dudes. So it’s very on brand for him. So you got to figure out what that is for you. So let’s go through some of the pros and cons. Again, it’s the local celebrity strategy. Really good on Facebook, just don’t do boring businesses, like don’t go out there and interview a mortgage broker, it’s way too boring, or home inspector or an attorney, those things are just so boring, people don’t watch them as much. But when you interview restaurants, or pop up events, or places people generally go for social or have fun, you get a lot better engagement, and you want to create the content on new places that open up in your community, or equally as the staples of your community. We’ve seen some clients get up to 10,000 views on Facebook, for business owner interview, and it’s because community supports community. Alright. Now, if your goal is to blow up your YouTube channel, don’t expect to do it with business owner interviews, that’s just typically not the type of interview video that is going to get 10s of 1000s of views and just turn into a ton of business. It’s just not the way that it works. I love the strategy for database nurturing, right? I love it for networking with future referral sources. See the business owners are just future referral sources. And when people say you want to attract your like client, well, you’re creating content on businesses you support because you agree with their positioning. So of course, you’re going to attract the same type of client because you’re creating television commercials for future referrals. That’s what these business owners do. They share the living daylights out of these videos, and they get you more eyeballs for you. So lots of good stuff with it. Just make sure like I said earlier, you keep it interesting. So let’s go ahead and look at another type of video strategy, which is based around YouTube.
So today, I’m going to share with you that good, no windy
Welcome to the newest.
So Stan is a mortgage broker. And he just moved to Wyoming, Cheyenne, Wyoming. And Isn’t anyone there doesn’t have a database. So it makes a lot of sense for him to go after YouTube clients. The name of his show is called why not? Like why not Wyoming. And everything around the content that he’s going to create is going to be based to rank on YouTube. He’s creating content that people search for on YouTube. And he wants to generate relocation clients which he will this strategy literally, he’s already got 1000 over 1000 views on a couple different videos. And if you want to see you could just go to YouTube and type in living in Cheyenne, Wyoming. And you should see him pop up first right there and see all the videos he’s created. He’s only been creating content for like a month. But his goal is very specific. Right? He’s looking for lead generation. So there’s a very specific type of video that series he’ll be running with. So let’s go through some of the pros and cons on this. This strategy you may or may not have seen before, but as a couple people teaching it, we script that and distribute these videos for different people around the country to and I can tell you exactly what to create 99.9% of the leads that come off of these videos will be buyer relocations. And the reason for that is because when people are moving relocating one they’re not being referred to anyone. And two, they’re trying to get a visual cue of the What the hell’s going on in that neighborhood. I’m across the country five years ago, and I found myself on YouTube, exploring what California and San Diego looks like and all of that, because I wanted to see what their real estate looked like, I want to see what the strip looked like on the beaches look like. So it’s the same exact thing here, you want to do the exact same thing, you’re creating a lot of content that is very community focused cost of living in top three neighborhoods in where to live in, you know, and you’re doing this for a specific strategy. Now, I do love the strategy because I think if you get there first, and if your markets not that competitive, you could generate there’s there’s agents that are crushing it, and lenders are crushing it on the strategy, we have people there closing every month, multiple clients from this. So it’s very, very effective. And the thing though, with it is that it’s not the most fun, not fun, fun content to create. A lot of it will feel repetitive, you know, pros and cons of living in Encinitas, California. And sonidos, good, bad and ugly, moving in soon, it isn’t the eight things you need to know. So the content, a lot of it will feel a little repetitive, but you’re playing a different game, you’re playing an SEO game, you’re trying to generate clientele, from YouTube, in the strategies out of the bag, there’s so many of these different videos that you can create, but they’re all going to be focused around living in or moving to, or neighborhoods in, or tours work really good. With this as well. So it does feel a little bit repetitive. Now, these videos we see is that when a client’s post them up on Facebook, and you’re not sharing the YouTube link, so I’m not saying share the YouTube link on Facebook, you upload the video organically. They don’t generally get as many comments as say, like a neighborhood tour or business owner interview would. But they’re gonna outperform on YouTube all the time. Right. So we have a lot of people like to start with this strategy. But again, regardless of how we’re putting videos on YouTube, but all of them on YouTube, you always multipurpose your content on YouTube, why not? But how it performs on YouTube will be totally different. It’s all about what what type of content you’re creating, and how you want it to perform. When you multipurpose it all the content goes in front of your database. But how multipurpose it is will change. The strategy won’t be available pretty much in every single market. If your market is competitive, there’s a lot of agents already creating this content, expect an uphill battle, you might never get to the top and get those results. But if you’re in a market where no one’s doing it, how, you know, I would do it in a heartbeat. If you have if you don’t have a large population, don’t expect 2000 200,000 views. You know, it’s all based upon search, and then competition. But the strategy is very effective.
So you’re thinking about moving to the San Antonio area look for someone to give you the bottom line of what it’s really like, well we excuse me for a second real estate cycles.
So obviously, this guy likes to have a little bit of fun. He’s hilarious. He’s very funny on video. And he’s creating real estate content, but he’s doing it in a funny way. And this is the 15 buyer commandments not to do. So he’s having a good time with it. He does a lot of green screen stuff. He’s always dressing up in character, and real estate content you can have fun with but you can also keep it very professional, you don’t have to do anything superduper crazy with it either. But there are pros and cons of real estate content. The type of content I’m talking about are going to be the closing costs, you know, city name closing costs, how to buy and sell at the same time, the home seller marketing plan, how to determine your budget, how to pick the right neighborhood, stuff like that your core content that you would give and say a listing presentation or a buyer’s presentation. So let’s go through the pros and cons of Korean real estate content. It’s going to be the least engaged content you’re going to get typically, unless you’re doing stuff like that. Usually it’s get the least amount of comments least amount of views on YouTube and Facebook most real estate content on YouTube doesn’t show okay. The type of process like content I guess, don’t expect your channel to blow up. Just getting out there and talking about real estate isn’t gonna make you the next YouTube celebrity. In my opinion. It’s a very hard battle you got to create people content that people are going to be searching for. However, it’s really good for conversion and authority. This is the core content that’s on your site. We have a lot of people create and even on our site, we created a buyer Learning Center, a seller Learning Center, a va Learning Center. Each of these learning centers have different videos within them a five to six videos per thing per Learning Center. And all of them are there just to educate. So this is the type of car to use over and over again, you send the clients when you’re in conversation. So you use it as conversion, you can also use it on ads. And you only got to create this kind of stuff once, but it definitely you want to have this up on your site, I think is the most effective place to multipurpose it. Don’t expect a ton to perform off of your YouTube channel. If that’s the goal, that’s not the right strategy more than likely, but again, doesn’t mean you don’t put it in front of your database as well. So point being is that those are five of the most common types of videos people do. But there’s plenty more you could be doing react videos, you can be doing, like real estate, what you get for the money videos, you could be doing blooper videos, there’s no shortage of content to create. But you’ll get an idea off of how that part works. So what we’re going to do now is focus on how you script for a little bit, and then we’re going to get into content distribution. And then we’ll get this training wrapped up. Because the next question we always get as well, how am I going to script all of this different type of content like, this is crazy, I can’t script all this stuff who’s gonna write these for me? Well, truth is, is that I’m just going to walk you through the basics of scripting, and show you sort of how it works. But you probably already know how to do this is the truth. And when you’re creating content, and you’re building a show, in this way, your your scripts are going to have a format to them. Remember, we’re not selling your stuff. But every video is going to have the same components to it. And it’s much like how you would write a letter or how you would write a book report or an essay even. And I want you to go back to the time and think and remember back when you’re in school. And when you’re in school. Your teacher. If I was writing a letter, my attention getter was dear Mike or Dear to whomever was addressed for right? Well, attention letter attention getter in a video is going to be if you want to blank and blank and blank and blank. Okay? If you really want to get the biggest bang for your buck, you got to do it in this neighborhood right here.
Facebook came out with a stat it said 74% of people will decide to watch your video not in the first, you know, seven seconds. So the last thing I like doing a video said Hi, I’m Mike Cuevas and I’ve been in the business for years. Click, I’m gone. You got to get the attention. Tell me what’s in it for me. Make it interesting, right? These are the biggest blueberries in all of California. Great. Don’t need it short and sweet. But every video has an attention getter. Every video will also have an introduction. Tell me what I’m watching and give me a preview why it’s important. An introduction to a letter would be Hey, I’m writing to you because I think blank blank blank in my name is blank. And I wanted to give you a couple reasons why I wanted to blank blank, blank. It’s an introduction, right? In a video, I would say hey, what’s up guys, it’s Mike Cuevas with another episode of North County vibes. And what we’re going to be doing today is I’m going to show you one of the best places in North County to get a burger. Now if you like burgers, you’re going to see that in San Diego, there’s not a ton of amazing burger places everyone hears all fit and doesn’t like to eat like me. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, you just need to know where to go. What we’re going to do here show you one of the best kept secrets and all here and go inside and check it out right now. Got that’s an intro right? So every video will have an introduction. Alright, now the body of your video is going to be the core content of your supporting arguments. If you think back to the time when people were when you’re in school, remember your teachers would say Alright, give me three supporting arguments to your essay or give me five reasons why that’s the body. That’s your core content. So if I’m creating content on a neighborhood, I’m focusing on those four body points or three points of the body I’m making maybe seen one is alright, so I want to show you exactly why people love live in this neighborhood. And right there is the very cute downtown. That is the number one reason see where I’m standing is just a couple minutes away from where I’m going to show you a most beautiful houses. But did you know that there’s over 12 different restaurants, outfits, a shopping, public transportation and just about everything you’re gonna want to do right here. Right? So the body would have a breakdown of the core arguments of your point, right? Every video is going to have them. They support why you’re there. If you’re doing a tour, you’re breaking down your tour in the body. If you’re doing a business owner interview, you’re doing your questions, you’re showing them how they make their food in the kitchen, then you’re tasting their food. If you’re doing a piece of real estate content, you’re given all the reasons and education of why this is important. And then eventually at the end you’re going to get to an outro Alright, so hope that helps if you have any additional questions you need help doing this you can reach me my contact information is blink blink blink blink. Make sure you subscribe to my channel look at some of my other videos on my site. Thank you so much for calling real estate dude. I’ll see you on the next episode. Peace out short sweet to the point but you’re still gonna have an outro the video doesn’t just stop. But if you look at this, it’s attention getter, Intro body outro, attention getter, Intro body outro, tension getter, intro, body outro, that outline, you can write any script you want. The key is, what’s your content can be. That’s why you create a show. So if you guys have more questions on this, feel free to message me on the site, you can send me some messages, I’m social, we have hundreds and hundreds of these scripts, we cater to different types of videos. But in general, they all have the same thing in common. And that’s what it is. So the key here is that, regardless of what you’re going to script, every video is going to go in front of your database, every video is going to go in front of people that have the ability to do business with you or refer business to you, or repeat business back with you. But you’re going to Multi Purpose them for lead generation and brand. Every single one think long term, not short, every one of your videos will live on your YouTube channel forever, they live on your website forever. Look at YouTube as a search engine, because that’s exactly what it is. Your website host videos forever, I highly recommend a site that you own, that doesn’t have a huge monthly fee. Because once you start creating content, it’s going to live there for the entirety of your brand’s existence. longer lasting impressions leads to more referrals, it definitely leads to more repeat business and think of all of your content creation as a library of content down the road that you can get to repurpose on my site, I have a video on every single page. That’s not anything more than that connect with people. That’s my number one goal, that’s the only thing I want it there. If I want to connect, I want you to build trust, I want to see if we’re the right fit. And if we are great, let’s do business together. But if not, that’s okay, too, I’m gonna do that not everyone’s gonna get along with me.
It’s how it works, folks. So let’s bracket let’s break down the distribution, sort of step by step. And we’ll get this training wrapped up because what we’re not doing is just creating videos and let them die in a news feed. And then people forget about them in three days, if you’re going to invest in video content, marketing, content creation, need to maximize and distribute and distribute these videos, so you get the most amount of mileage out of them. So first thing we always recommend doing is video emailing your videos to your database, get rid of the market updates, get rid of the turn back the clocks and other crap content, start creating content that people actually want to see. With video email, we get way higher open rates, we average over 40% most cases, which is very high, it’s a lot higher than national average. But it’s for two reasons. One, we’re not sending out crap content. And two, we’re sending it to the right people. What we’re not doing is spamming an email list of people, we have no idea who they are. But what we are doing is nurturing a database of people that know like trust and love us that all have the ability to refer do business with us. Again, if you’re doing two videos a year or a month, I mean, you that for 12 months in a year, two videos a month, over 12 months 24 A year to that same list, which will grow over time, will you do more business because 10 to 15% of people on that list are moving, but 100% of them have a referral for you? The answer is absolutely. For your social platforms. You’re going to distribute your videos on all your social platforms, and upload each organically. So if you’re on Instagram, then put your videos on Instagram. If you’re not an Instagram, then don’t put them on Instagram. If you’re on Facebook, put your videos on Facebook. But if you’re not on Facebook, don’t put them on Facebook. If you’re on Pinterest, put your videos on Pinterest, put your videos also on your business page, but upload both organically. The point being is that anywhere that you’re on social media 10 to 15% of the people who see your video content are moving and 100% of them have a referral for you. Those are the two numbers I want to ingrain in your heads. Because once you start chasing attention, that’s when attraction occurs. When you upload these videos to your social platform, you’re always gonna upload them or Ganic Lee, don’t share the YouTube link on social media on Facebook, take the video and upload it organically. You’ll get more mileage traditionally on the platforms. A couple things to look out for Tik Tok and reels on Facebook short form content, something that’s coming up excuse me your website. So highly recommend put all the content back in your website I like to create take every video and turn it into a blog post. So I like to put the video on top of my page on the site. And then I like to take the do a little bit of a write up or some blog content to put down below it because you want to multipurpose every thing and over time your content on your site will grow same concept though, the agent that has a lender that has 24 videos on their site page on every site, well, they’re going to convert a lot more website leads than the one that doesn’t have a site or doesn’t have any video content on the site. So you want to just make sure you multipurpose there. People don’t go to your website to look up real estate for sale, in my opinion, they’re going to your website to see if they trust no and can exceed themselves get in a car with you, while they look at houses for the next unforeseeable future. That’s the truth, folks. So become more marketable, multipurpose, that content, put it back on your website, because that’s where people will ultimately visit you at. And last, but not least, everything should go on YouTube, but not everything is going to perform on YouTube. What you’re seeing here is a gentleman in Palm Springs that does very well on YouTube. But look at all of his videos are very community centric. So he’s created a lot of YouTube related content. He’s following a YouTube strategy. And every video will go on YouTube, but not every video will perform on YouTube. So just something you want to think about. Before you start your strategy, why am I doing this YouTube part of my game or not, and adjust accordingly. So every video I put on YouTube.
Now, how YouTube works is, I hinted at it a little bit earlier, but I wanted to show this to you guys for a little bit is that the only type of content that we’ve seen, perform really well is going to be living in or moving in, living in or moving in. So in that case, you see living in Las Vegas moving to Las Vegas, people are typing in these different words. And those are typically for whatever reason that YouTube tells us to put up. So you always you don’t create content for YouTube that you think is cool, you create content that people search for. Alright, so right here you can see living in Las Vegas moving to Las Vegas, relocating to Las Vegas, right? So it’s very, very important to do your homework ahead of time. But YouTube’s a search engine. Alright, so there’s so many different types of these videos, I just want to give you a quick screenshot. The pros and cons of living in city name the cost of living in city name. Living in San Diego versus living in Encinitas, new construction in Southern California, the top three neighborhoods live in downtown San Diego, the top three neighborhoods to live in North County, San Diego, the top three neighborhoods to live in South San Diego, the good, the bad, the ugly of living in San Diego, top three things to do when living in San Diego. Relocating moving all this type of content, when you’re if YouTube becomes sure your strategy, you want to maximize it, and you just need to know how to upload and optimize it. But most importantly, create the right videos that people search for. And that’s the key with YouTube. It’s not rocket science, but there’s a process to it. And then one other thing I highly recommend is run ads. I’m huge on running ads to your database, your customer to a database, your custom audiences, your retargeting audiences. So I love running ads to people who visited my website, I love running ads to people that have engaged with me in the past. I love running ads to people I’m connected with on my pages. And then I love running ads to a custom audience of cell phones and email addresses. They always pencil. And the truth is the Facebook algorithms right now, your business page, you’re going to get less than a 5% reach your personal page, you can get 15 to 18% from the last Facebook expert on my on the podcast I had on and because of that not everyone’s seen your stuff. So I like running ads to the rest of the audiences that so I could get more reach, the more attention you have, the more attraction that will occur. So one this on what’s the ROI? So people always ask me, how do you measure video, remember, and yesterday’s training is not advertising. Its marketing and attraction and branding. So what you’re going to see is that it’s hard to it’s very hard to find out what the ROI is, but this is the best way to look at it. And most people I tell is like, unless you’re trying to break your YouTube channel, and some people will publish more, but realistically, I think how much time you have and how much can you really pull off? If you could do two a month for over a year’s time that would equate 24 pieces of content or 24 videos 24 Everything. Okay? Now, this the key is you got to take the cost of those videos, how much is all that content going to cost you because there’s probably gonna be cost you outsource editing. Now there’s companies like ours that exist that can do editing and distribution and everything. But and I don’t know what those costs will be. But I’ll tell you what ours are ours would be $13,000 over the course of a 12 month timeframe. Now typically you want to look at okay, how much real estate do I have? To sell, to break even typically, that’s in our numbers. Again, this is just a formula, you could break these down and just plug in your numbers, but at our numbers 650,000 to two and a half percent is about a break even point. So the question becomes, if you had 24 videos Video emailed to your database, posted on all your social profiles placed on your site optimized on your channel, and you ran ads to, could you sell more than $650,000 a real estate or whatever that number would be? And then you can answer the question about is the ROI going to be beneficial. The only time folks I’ve seen video not work is when people don’t like you. But if that’s the case, you’re in the wrong damn business. Look at the big picture when you’re building a brand. Because you don’t build a brand with strangers, you build a brand based upon relationships, because the strangers eventually communicate back and you have to do it over time through consistent communication. So I love taking on a multi prong approach and I love incorporating direct mail. But let’s just look at the big picture. Let’s just say I had a database, a list of past clients, friends, family, aunts, uncles, waiting list, if you will,
of people and I hit them with direct mail once a month. Let’s say I had a and out of that, let’s say 150 People, I’m sending them a postcard a month 10 to 15% of our moving 100% of mark every fall for me. I’m doing two videos a month, video, email those videos out to to another list, it’s probably gonna have 150 250 people on it. Then I’m posting all those videos to social media and then I’m running ads to the rest of my custom audiences on social media. This is what attraction is, but you got to keep consistent with it. Because it’s nothing more than a big game of attention. So I really hope that helped clear up distribution scripting we have a lot of other content feel free to visit us on our website. But we really appreciate you guys taking the training and watching the whole four step a class we have going on here with a brand face and if there’s any questions that you have that you may need help with, or you need any assistance with please feel free to visit us or follow us on our social channels. Real estate marketing do.com That’s real estate marketing dude.com Have a great day. Thanks for watching. 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 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.
Welcome to the first of a two part training! In this session I’m going to be covering how to build your personal brand with video, and how to attract clients versus chase leads. A lot of the stuff I’m going to explain today is going to sort of spell all of this out. Call it the who, what, when, where and why of video. Video is not lead generation, its branding its attraction, and to do it more long term or to do it over time, there’s a couple things that we’re going to have to do ahead of time. That’s what we’re going to cover today so let’s jump into it!
Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode
How to not chase business, but have business chase you
The importance of your personal brand
What the most impactful form of communication is (hint: it’s video)
So how do you attract new business, you constantly don’t have to chase it. Hi, I’m Mike way ambassador, 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 is up ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the training where we’re going to do is go ahead and get started. Right here and what this session is going to be on is how to build your personal brand with video. And attract versus Chase leads attract clients versus Chase leads. And a lot of the stuff I’m going to explain today is going to sort of spell out call it the who, what, when, where and why of video, video is not lead generation, its branding its attraction. And to do it more long term or to do it over time, there’s a couple things that we’re going to have to do ahead of time. So without further ado, we’re going to go ahead and get right on into this. We have not met before, if you’ve not been on my podcast or anything, my name is Mike way, Boss, I’m the real estate marketing dude. sold real estate since 2002 in Chicago. And today I live in San Diego. And what we do is we script edit distributed videos for real estate agents, lenders, investors all over the country, from East Coast to the West Coast, north and south. And I don’t know about you, but I hate lead generation. I hate prospecting I hated chasing leads as an agent. And last four years, what I’ve been doing is sharing exactly what we always did our whole career, through content creation, and through personal branding. So what we want to do today is walk you through sort of how it all works. And where we’re going to start with is that agents with a strong personal brand, they’re not going to chase business business chases them, this entire business is built around your personal brand, nobody’s hiring your broker anymore. Last I checked. And the reason why this is so important is because only 4% of consumers pick their agent because of the brokerage or the brand they’re affiliated with. Quite frankly, I don’t think people really care who you work for who you work with, or where you hang your flag. The end of the day, 96% of consumers chose the agent, not the broker they’re affiliated with. But ultimately, people are people they do business with agents they typically know like, trust and remember, but they don’t remember what it is that you do for a living. And they know that they remember how it is that you do it. And that’s true for any industry. Right people don’t follow your what they follow your why is another way, I guess you could go out and say it. Now, when you’re able to craft video with personal branding, and you do it visually, that’s when it works. That’s when you start building a brand. So we’re going to start off with a little exercise here. And what I want to showcase here is that video is going to be the most impactful form of communication, it’s going to be the one that generates the most amount of attention for what I’m about to show you right now. So I want you to sort of look at what you see on the screen here. And boy, B O Y, and I want you to sit for two seconds, jot down what imagery is sort of coming through your mind right now, as you’re thinking about this, like what images go through my close your eyes, you see blue boy, what images do you see? Okay? Go ahead and jot those down. Now, what do you think? Is this a little bit more impactful than that? Which one leaves a longer lasting impression you see in this one? What kind of boy but in this one and this image in the picture, it’s a lot more impactful boy with bubbles on his head, he’s got a couple T dS looks like he’s taking a bath. There’s a blue bottle behind them. He’s in the bathroom, someone’s attending to him. This picture is just a lot more impactful than the first.
Now I’m gonna go ahead and play a video. This is my son, Alex Blinken. He’s talking. He’s asking a question. Right? So the question here is out of those three images, which one is the most impactful or the more memorable? And the answer is obviously going to be video. So the whole thing here is that the impact and understanding how to build a personal brand with video starts by understanding the impact of it, and the impact of using imagery and story on things like social media. So I want to go through another example and show you how powerful this is. And let’s get out of real estate. I have a friend of mine, that in college, I’ve been in college since 2002. Right? So what that is 20 years later, and my friend’s name is Matt. And you know, when we were in college together, we used to hang out all the time, good friends party together, just girls together, play sports go workout together, you name it on spring break all this other stuff. But like most people, when you graduate college people sort of move right people move on with their lives, people start careers. I live in San Diego, for a matter of fact, but with Matt here, you can see that over time, you know, in 2013, I saw pictures of him. And the only reason why I see Matt posts all the time. As a matter of fact, Matt posts, always pictures of his kids, I see him growing up. And the fact that I keep seeing Matt on social media, even though we haven’t spoke at all, in a long time. I still feel like I have a relationship with him. See, if I were to walk past Matt today, I haven’t seen him in what maybe 10 years, I would still know exactly who he is, I would say what’s up, dude, it’s been so long. But let’s just pretend the opposite happened. And Matt was absent from social social media. Let’s say I didn’t see anything. I didn’t even hear from Matt, I haven’t seen a picture of him an image, I could equally walk past Matt in the grocery store, and not even know who the hell he is. So I want you to think about that. And think about how visual you are with your brand. How visual? Are you with branding and marketing and? And all of the above? And are you imagery present? Right, that’s the impact. The end of the day real estate’s a big popularity contest. See, the reason why I remembered math was because I stayed in touch mentally. And video is just the most impactful way to stay on top of mind. It’s what we use video marketing for is to nurture and build relationships with our sphere of influence and the local community. Right? So what does it mean to have a brand, it’s very simple. You have a brand, and how big your brand is, is determined by how many people instantly associate your name with real estate. Right? If you see John Doe, and everyone’s like, oh, there’s that one real estate agent guy that’s always on video at John Doe has a bigger brand than Jane Doe when people say Who the hell’s Jane Doe? See, real estate, like I just said, is a popularity contest. Because the vast majority of people work with people they feel comfortable with. They personally like no. See, people don’t remember what you do for a living. They remember how you do it. It’s very, very true. See, and ultimately, when you’re going to want to get on video or build your brand with video, the way you build your brand in any business is consistent communication to the same audience over time. In the real estate industry. We call that farming. So why don’t you start farming your relationships and do it with video content? Because consistent communication at the same time to an audience over time will build your brand? See? And the audience people are like, who’s my audience? Well, it’s not strangers. It’s gonna be the people you already know. This is not my stat right here. This is not this is NARS, showcasing where business really comes from. And look at the top two, you know from all sellers. Everyone wants seller leads ever Lowe’s asked me Hey, Mike, how do I get more seller leads? Hey, I want to get more seller leads? Well guess what? You start having more relationships with people who own houses. That’s how you get more seller leads.
Look at the numbers right there. 39% of people have listings were referred 24%. They use them in the past. So look at the buyer side, you can see it very similar. Obviously, if people who are buying a house, use the agent previous 12%, but were referred over 41%. So what does that tell us? Well, it tells us where the vast majority of business comes from in our business. And that means that if I’m going to build a brand with video, I already know who to put it in front of. Because in it in either case, 74 to 80% of business is going to come from people you know used in the past or I’ve personally met not a bunch of strangers in the vast majority of cases. It’s not coming from Zillow, or any of these lead sources where they’re really coming from other people we already know. And that’s a video works. But what happens when you stop communicating with that very database? Well, they forget you exist and they go out and cheat on you with another real estate agent and you log on to Facebook to find out that they just bought or sold a new house and they just forgot. You were in real estate. But remember, it’s not their job to remember to send you business but it is your job to remind them to. And that’s how you want to approach video or at least the way I’m going to explain it in this presentation. See the agent that’s doing video consistently over and over again to that database. They’re going to become a lot less forgettable than the one who is it and it’s really that simple. See, video is not lead generation, but it’s branding and attraction. And we’re not fighting for leads but I am fighting for the attention of my database and my local community. Top of Mind brand awareness creates conversations and conversations leads to referrals. And that’s why we create content consistently. Ultimately, over 70% of people will close with the first agent they speak with. So the name of the game has always been, hey, why don’t we become the first agent they speak with because nothing I’m sharing with you is going to be theory, this is mathematical 10 to 15% of the population move each and every year and 100% of the population know someone moving that they can refer you to. So I want you to really think about that. That means that your entire Facebook friend list has a referral for you. And 10 to 15% of them will be moving this year, and most won’t even know it yet. Some might get sick, some might get relocated, some might get divorced, and some might have a kid and get married. But life events are typically when people move, and it’s nothing that’s planned, however it is statistical. And if we already know where business comes from half of the job, right here, half of the strategy is already solved. For me. It’s very simple. Keep my videos in front of the people. I know, if people move every six to nine years, or five to seven, whatever you want to do the math, how many people in your network are moving, this means you have 1000 friends on your Facebook feed. Well, how many of them are moving 10 to 15% of them 10 to 1500 150, it’s pretty good year, I would say.
But 100% of the people in your in business, the people that we know your Facebook, friends, your email list your IG followers, whoever it may be the people you’re connected with 100% of them have referral for you. And we’re not looking for a superduper large audience. We just want an engaged one and a targeted one of people that we already know. It’s the biggest mistake I see is that we think we need to go out and but reach the masses. No, we need to reach the people that already know like trust and love us. And then become more marketable and referral. Don’t get me wrong, you could go out and reach the masses if you want. But what I’m talking about here is building a brand and you can’t build a brand with complete strangers, you do it with the people that already know of your brand, by consistently remaining in conversation with them. Ultimately, you’ll have a conversation, which is what this is really all about. See realistically as your database wants to refer you business and the people, you don’t get referrals from strangers. That’s why I keep my content in front of the people who already know. So people will refer your business if they like, or they’re satisfied with your past service. And they like the person that’s hinting about getting the referral. Because ultimately, the way God made us the way our brains work is that people like to be able to solve a problem. And I want you to think about the last time you referred anyone anything? Why did you do it? It’s because you were wired to seek the approval of others, we’re constantly looking to be acknowledged. If you don’t believe me, I want you to think about the last time you went out to dinner with family, with friends. And you know, I don’t know about you, but when I go out to dinner, we talk about other places they go out to dinner, and people are always exchanging referrals during that time. And the reason is because we want to share an enjoyable experience with others. We don’t refer people things we don’t like or don’t know ourselves. So if you really look at the business, the business has always been in front of us, but it’s your job to become more referral. Because when people are going to refer you business, three things have to occur one, the referring party as a notice a conversation about real estate, they gotta go, Oh, that’s my guy got a guy they have to think of you. And then they have to like you enough to introduce your services into the conversation. Because a referral opportunity or an instant repeat business opportunity, whatever it is, when people decide to go out and hire an agent and take that next step, over 80% of them are going to close with the first one they meet. That’s why this is so important. See, video, builds an audience, a database, and people always confuse Oh, I have a database, I have a database. Database is nothing more than a con than a collection of contact information. But an audience is a collection of relationships that actually pay attention. When you open your mouth. They pay attention to what you say. They engage with you on social, they’re responding to your emails. That’s what nurturing an audience was video does. So when we really lay this all up, we have to go through that first part first because unless you know who to put your videos in front of and why they should be authentic, why they should be natural. You’re going to be stuck. Where do I start? Because the number one thing people have. Next is what am I going to talk about? See Creating content is not necessarily about you know, selling yourself As a matter of fact, you don’t ever have to talk about real estate. As far as I’m concerned. I’m sure some of your videos will. But they just need to remind people that you’re in real estate. Nobody wakes up in the morning and wants to go out and cold, call all their friends and say, Hey, do you ever referral for me again? Like, let’s be honest, how many of you really want to call 100 people a month? And it’s like, oh, yeah, by the way, do you know anyone looking to buy or sell? To me that feels so authentic, and most of us will never do that. But if your videos are automatically doing it nurturing all the time, you don’t have to, okay, I’m not saying don’t ask for referrals, but I am saying, become more referral. Your videos don’t have to be in real estate, they remind people you’re in real estate. And the key is to find something you’re passionate about. Because if you start creating videos on stuff you’re not comfortable with, like, if I were to start creating a bunch of food videos and cooking videos for you right now, you probably be like, This guy’s nuts. He’s that, like, he looks so awkward. Well, yeah, I wouldn’t have any authenticity, because you’re forcing me to create content and stuff I don’t like. And the only goal here is to connect and humanize your brand. See when you define like a theme, and I want to give you a couple examples in a second, you’ll have something that you’re excited about. All the above occurs naturally authenticity, connection, your passion,
it’s impossible to do a video on something that you’re not passionate about. And ultimately, when you do something you’re excited about, you really dial in your video strategy, your communication is going to be more impactful. Because ultimately 6090 90% of communication is gonna be based off the tone, or the body language that you’re using in the video, people are only going to retain 10% of what comes out of your mouth, including this webinar right now. And this training, you guys are probably gonna, you could watch this again, but most people only retain it. And if it’s a person of stuff that they actually hear, what you’re going to remember, is my tonality on the way I’m doing things in my body language, I’m using them. So the reason why I’m on video here cuz I don’t feel like I can communicate my message across appropriately without you see in my body language and see my passion behind this. Right. So how can you communicate effectively if you’re not excited about your strategy? It’s not what you say. It’s how you say it. That’s the most important aspect of this. So I want to give you a couple examples of a couple lenders and agents even that we came up with the video strategy for them and show you sort of how it works, right? So in this case, beard budget, I went on. He’s a mortgage broker in Fort Collins and I went on his Instagram handle and I see hey, he calls himself your bearded lender, he gets on our deep dive call. I see him with a big beard. And, you know, he’s a total bro, right? He’s like a dude, he’s like me, like done, you deal with first time buyers a cost of living your job. So you might as well call it beard budget. Why not? Now he could create content doesn’t matter. Everything he does is on a budget. If he wants to do a business owner interview, he’s doing businesses that offer great value, and he’s doing it on a budget. He could do a brewery tour on a budget. He could do a neighborhood tour and talk about what you get for the money, especially when you’re on a budget. He’ll never run out of things to say strictly because people are not gonna remember what he’s talking about. They’re gonna remember the beard budget. Right? Number two, right here you see serving, excuse me see serving on SoCal. This is a military brand, Farmer Veteran. And all he focuses on most of his business comes from the military. So it makes a lot of sense for him to go out there and have a show called serving SoCal, right? What kind of content what serving SoCal create, well, he’s not going to do any type of neighborhood tour. He’s going to do neighborhoods near bass. He’s not going to create content on any type of business interview, he’ll do business interviews that are veteran owned. He has a buyer bootcamp, a seller bootcamp, if you don’t want to listen to him drop, gimme, 20. Sir. See, what I mean is that when you identify the true brand, and you know what you really stand for and whom you serve, and sort of how you roll? Well, the content creation should be natural Torian forest for a team in Orlando, Florida. His name is Jordan. And Jordans team brand name is called the home or the Rockstar home team. So because the Rockstar home team has a rockstar, George’s Rockstar, this is what he is. He’s a music guy, you know, got tats. It’s cool. It makes what do rockstars do when they go on tour. That means everything he’s going to do is touring for four is the I corridor or the corridor the highway that runs right through there and touring for his red rock stars do so he could take us a neighborhood tours, bar tours, venue tours, it doesn’t matter. What do we really sell we don’t sell houses we sell the communities they reside and therefore any bit of community based content is going to remind you But we’re in real estate generally. The one you see in the bottom right there was called why not? As a mortgage broker he moved to
Cheyenne, Wyoming. And then you could see why not looks very similar the flag to some of the branding. We gave the guy a little bit of a beerbelly put them on a house instead of a horse. But what it’s all about is why not live in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Talks about living in Cheyenne, Wyoming, he’s following a YouTube strategy. See, when you create a show, the reason why we do this is because it’s much like if you were to have a podcast, what would you call it? Nobody has a podcast without first naming their podcast and even in the name of their podcast, it’s going to be you know, it’s gonna sort of symbolize sort of how, what yours is, right? What is your show, you’ll get idea of the content. So for example, a concept I like to use a lot is there’s a guy called guy Ferrari, if you ever watched a Food Network, and there’s a show he has called diners, dives and drives. Now that’s a food show. But guy Ferraris a total dude, he’s wearing flannels got ripped jeans. And he’s basically covering content on grease pits of America. He finds all these dives and eat they have really good greasy food. And it’s like hanging over food for dudes. But he’s not. Even though it’s a food show. He’s not sitting there creating content on, you know, French bistro or five star Michelin restaurants. He’s creating content because it’s themed out. So we approach this much like you would if you start a podcast and we promise starting a podcast is that it’s audio only. And it’s not going to be as effective in my opinion as a video series with your face because your face is the brand. So finding your strategy and what we’ll be focusing on the next webinars, the different styles of videos and we’ll show you guys a couple here as well so that you can sort of piece it together. But when you really dial in your theme, and when we build a show, you’re forced to tell a story. Welcome another episode of North County vibes. Today I’m going to show you what the vibes are going to be like right here in Encinitas, California. If you ever thought about living in Encinitas, California, well, you’re probably wondering what the lifestyles like. And today, I’m going to give you a preview. So without further ado, let’s get in there and go ahead and get started. See, that’s a show I have here in San Diego and I have to use when you script or a show, you’re forced to tell that story. And that’s why I like it. It also identifies your theme. But let’s really look at the big picture here. When you’re building a brand, and when you’re acquiring business, there’s really a couple different. There’s two ways you’re going to generate business right? Now statistically, everything says that the vast majority of businesses come from the people we already know. So if you look at the right side here, this is marketing. If you look at the left hand side, this is advertising, Facebook ads, fizz bows, the prospecting internet leads, you name it, right? I’m not saying stop doing lead generation, because this is lead generation and prospecting. This is attraction inner marketing. Okay. But what I am saying is that everyone should have a little bit of both. See people that are here, what do you do with them. So I like to direct mail my database, because if I send them one postcard a month, 100% of the people are getting that postcard, unless I have the wrong address. And if they physically have to engage with me, and throw me in the trash, great, they still mentally and physically engage in my existence. That’s very powerful for branding. But direct mail is just one piece. video email is where we would send our videos, and I’ll show you our distribution process on the next webinar in the next training as well. But if I’m doing two videos a month, I’m going to nurture those two videos a month. And then Social, I’m going to go ahead and post all my my personal profiles, all of my videos, I’m going to run ads to my database. For I get more people to see them now my database full of past clients, family, friends, aunts, uncles, basically anyone I invite to my wedding or funeral. But if you look over here, here’s what really happens in practice 10 to 15% of the people that get my direct mail, they’re moving in 100% of them do. If I’m direct mailing 100 people that I know that I invite to my wedding or funeral, I can generate more referrals and more repeat business. Yes. If I’m taking an email list of 150 to 250 people, 300 people, whatever the size of your email list is, and I’m sending them two videos a month. And I’m doing that for 12 months in a row. Do I become more referral because we’re not talking about sending turn back the clock emails or market update reports or we’re talking about nurturing and offering value through content creation and showing people stuff they actually like, which can only be done when you’re excited about what you’re doing. And it’s the point of dialing in your brand.
And then on social same thing most people are Friends with anywhere between 700 to 5000 people, like on Facebook, for example. And when you’re posting two videos a month, and then you’re running ads, the same videos, you just get a whole lot of eyeballs. But here’s what really happens is that eventually someone either is referred to you, or they raise their hand, and then you come on in here and you take them through your process, because you’re either going to find a lead that you’re going to start working with, or it’s gonna be referral a repeat client. And once you do work with them, you’re gonna take them out and show them houses, if it’s a buyer, or listed, if it’s a seller, you’re gonna take them through your process as a client, and then once you’re done with them, you’re gonna deposit them right back in here to keep nurturing them for future business. And that’s why we’re talking about marketing and attraction is nothing more than just remaining in a consistent communication. Same with leads to, they’re still gonna come through here, but you don’t dump them off. So in in biz, in real estate, I don’t spike the football when the house is sold, spike a football when you get the third referral from a client, or the third house from a client, because that’s when you’re truly playing the long game, and running a business. So the next question, we get quite a bit as well, Mike, how many videos do I actually need? How many videos do I need to shoot? Well, for most people, believe it or not, and we’ll talk more about this on the next. But let’s just take this example, right here,
and let’s just say I’m doing two videos a month. I’m taking those two videos a month, and I’m doing
put them on on my social profiles video, emailing out to my database, running ads to them, putting them on my website, and then also put them on my YouTube channel. I’m gonna have a little bump for about a week, take a break, and then boom, I’m back with another episode. You see, when you’re creating content, and you’re building a campaign, people always ask me, Hey, Mike, is it more content, it I need more videos, I’m gonna do eight a month. It’s not more content, it’s more impact with the content you’re creating. Because realistically, throughout the course of the month, there’s other things that you’re doing that sort of fill in the gaps. So most people you need to videos, but your strategy might change. Maybe you want to blow up your YouTube channel and your competitive market, well, you probably need to publish more frequently. But again, we’ll cover that on the next training. So I wanted to give you a couple ideas of different types of content that you could create. And you’re not gonna hear the sound on this video, but I’ll play it through as we go through. So this is a mortgage broker that does case studies with his clients. We have real estate agents, clients that refer him on over or his own clients, it doesn’t matter. It’s not just listed just sold, or in his case just funded. It’s this client just got bought their first house. And guess what, he did it, save $1,500 a month. And he’s owning not renting anymore, right. So instead of creating content that says just listed just sold, we’re bragging about how much money we made, we’re doing the opposite. We’re creating content that showcases and demonstrates our professionalism, expertise, whatever it may be, that just like HGTV. Another video, this is a team. So this team has a lot of fun. They have a series called play out Denver. And they’re all parents. So it’s a very like parent friendly brand. And what they do is they just go out and do these tour videos. And they have a lot of fun together and all of them share the videos together. See, so this one, I believe this one was a they’re doing some kind of park tour. They’re doing the train system, and they’re showcasing that and how that works in the Denver market. But the same thing is it just consistent communication over time, they’re humanizing their brands. And they’re showcasing themselves on it and showing us content. So when a real estate agent is like big tour guides, neighborhood tour, same concept. Neighborhood tour. This team, the dream home, so dream homes, Dream hoods could be the name of the series. So same concept. What do you do on a neighborhood door? Hey, have you ever wondered what it’s like to go out and live in Mission Valley San Diego? Well, what we’re gonna do on this week’s video is show you exactly that. Let’s go. So, same thing. Neighborhood tours, every single one of these videos, remind people you’re in real estate, community informational videos. If you’re looking for a YouTube type strategy, where people are generating clients off YouTube, I’m going to create content that’s like pros and cons of living in blank city name. Cost of living in city name, moving to city name, neighborhood tours. That’s the type of stuff that works on YouTube. But there’s a very specific strategy for it very specific scripts and content to create. Same concept here we call these community informational ‘s or a YouTube series. And again, we’ll show you a little bit more of these on the next training, real estate content. So real estate content is good, everyone should have it, you know, stuff that you use over and over again, with different clients. It’s the stuff that shows you have the expertise and or authority. But it’s also the stuff that gets the least amount of comments on social media, and the least amount of responses because you’re talking about work, right? There’s a purpose for these videos. But what I want you to see here is that not every video there is not a universal strategy. The way that these videos work is that you create content over time and the type of content will determine and how much will determine the strategy and you back into it. But it all starts by figuring out, which is the right strategy for you. How does that work, and then executing on it and just doing that consistently over time, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. So I really hope that this seller to help walk you through how to really dial in that video strategy, especially if you’re looking to, you know, run like a local celebrity type.
Agent strategy, you’ve probably heard that terminology, but what we’re gonna be chatting about on the next webinars they’re going to be showing you Okay, so once I dial in that strategy, how am I going to define what videos are right for me? What are the pros and cons of different types of videos to do, and then we’re also gonna break on the pros and cons all the different types of videos you can be doing in a lot more depth, and then how you distribute and multipurpose each of those videos for maximum eyeballs and our maximum exposure. So thanks for watching this training continue on with the series that we have here for you guys. And if you have any questions ever, our contact information is right on the screen in front of you. But hope you got a lot of value out of this. Wait to see next one and we’ll see you on the next training. 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 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
Let’s pretend that you’ve been attracting business for five to 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and you’re going to get towards that retirement stage. How the fuck do you sell your practice? Or what do you do next, you just stop selling. Today we’re joined by a couple out of actually Illinois, Peoria, Illinois. And this is what they do. They focus on the transition, post real estate career.
First we have Jessica ball who has been an agent just under five years with REMAX truth unlimited. Justin Ball is a Real Estate Investor/Entrepreneur. They’re about to publish a book that will help realtor monetize their business as they retire and teach other real estate agents how to do this.
Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode
Why maintaining good relations with other realtors is important
What you can do to help others while benefitting yourself
So how do you attract 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. What we’re going to be doing here today, folks is talking a little bit about the future quite often on the show, we talk quite a bit about how to build in the current in the now and how to make now business better yet attractive, not necessarily chase it. But let’s just pretend that you’ve been attracting business for five to 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and you’re going to get towards that retirement stage. How the fuck do you sell your practice? Or what do you do next, you just stop selling. I know, when I moved out to San Diego, I just literally stopped cold turkey probably wasn’t the smartest move. But I was burnt out, I didn’t really give a shit. I was just ready to go. And I was done with real estate and that sense in Chicago, however, I probably could have set up like a really easy to go referral network, I still get referrals back there. And I don’t even try and wish I should have done it better. So what we’re going to be doing today is we’re joined by a couple out of actually Illinois, Peoria, Illinois. And this is what they do. They focus on the transition, post real estate career. And eventually under one day, you’re going to retire or you’re going to stop selling and you’re gonna do what I did burn out and something’s gonna happen. There’s a reason why most people don’t last this long in this business, no matter who you are. It gets tiring, it gets old and you want to do some different and other opportunities will come up. What are you doing to get to that point? That’s what we’re gonna chat about today? How do you monetize everything you worked for so hard? Prior to those 10 years, like if you built a business of 20 years selling real estate, you’re just gonna walk away and let that go away? It’d be like opening up a bakery and just saying, Hey, I’m gonna close the doors tomorrow, not sell the business and not do anything else to it. So what do we do with that? So that’s what we’re gonna be chatting about today. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and introduce our guest, Jessica and Justin ball. How’re you guys doing? Good. Good.
Glad to be on the show. Man. I’m listener, and it’s awesome to be a part of it.
Thank you. Well, guys, like you just have to call and ask if you don’t get if you don’t ask you don’t get you guys just fucking called me I think and said, Hey, I have this thing. I’m like, I’m looking for shows. And I’m like, Alright, let’s just do it. You’re from Peoria to cool. Let’s see what’s up. So that’s basically where we’re at guys want you to tell everyone a little bit about yourselves. And then let’s get right into this interview. Yeah,
I am Jessica ball. I have been an agent just under five years with REMAX truth unlimited. And I added Peoria and I lead a small team. And really where this came from watch it. I’ll let Justin introducing stuff real quick. And then we’ll jump into kind of where this brainchild came from on what we’re doing. Sure.
So Mike, I am a long time unpaid, unlicensed assistant and one of the best in the business. And then 2021, I got my real estate license. I’ve always been an investor. And I’m looking forward to doing commercial real estate investing to support the Jessica ball team.
Awesome. So what do you guys stumble across here?
Yeah. So when I first started, I was I was coming out of a 10 year law enforcement career. And so I had no idea how to do marketing or anything like that. And I was looking for a way to grow my own sphere grow my business. And we realized that there were agents that were retiring from our brokerage that pretty much just said, Hey, I’m retired, anyone want to buy a few signs? Great. And then they’re out the door. And it’s like, well, what just happened? All their clients that someone taking care of those, what happened? And we started asking questions, and a lot of times people just kind of shut the doors and walked away with no plan in place. And so we really dug down deep into how can one we help those agents monetize their business as they retire. But then also, for agents like myself looking to grow their business, how can they benefit from that as well and helping an agent do that? And that traveler?
So then you started seeing some of the retirees a new created this is I see where we’re going right now? Um, yeah, I could, I could. It’s interesting, because people just, you know, when you get to that stage, you’re just sort of like, Ah, I’m Bert. A lot of times and they don’t really think about this, but keep going interesting. So
the first succession plan that we did was with a long term residential agent, who had ironically bought someone’s book of business about 15 years before that. And so we sat down with him and said, Tell us about your sphere of influence. Tell us about your database and your CRM, and how can we make a plan over the next 18 months for you to introduce us to your clients, the ones who are really engaged and give you a lot of referrals as well as the ones who may have bought five years ago or own an investment property and do these How do we really build trust and show them that we’re a team working together so that when you retire, they pick up the phone, and they call us or when you are in Florida and you say, Hey, I have this team and Justin and Jessica, they’re going to be working with you. They say to themselves, that’s awesome. I know who these people are, I trust them, they’re going to really treat me right, we’re going to be great. And for us, the acquisition cost is zero. And the lifetime benefit of developing a relationship with these clients is really, really high. And so when we started writing the book, and when we started doing this process, there’s nothing out there, literally, there’s some contracts. And there are people who do this, I think all the time. But the information isn’t there, there’s nowhere to get it, and there’s no place to talk about it. And so we really sat down and said, let’s design a contract for when you’re going to hand your assets over and how we’re going to do marketing and CO branding. Here’s the referral fees that we’re gonna pay you while you’re still an active agent selling at the brokerage, here’s the referral fees, we’re gonna pay you in retirement. And we really set on a thought about everything, websites, domain names, of video assets, all of the marketing assets, the signage, and we really build a plan from start to finish. So the retiring agents can feel really good about getting paid referral fees that their clients are being taken care of. We can really expand our our team and our business and commissions. And then
it’s almost like every brokerage should have this sort of program like this built in office, I mean, just to increase production, but it’s a good mentorship thing.
standpoint, you know, you when you think about this, the brokers are big winners here. Because if somebody retires and they call their cell phone, and they say, Hey, I moved to Texas, and I’m no longer a realtor, a real estate agent, you know, they’re going to go on the internet, they’re going to find other people, they’re going to find new realtors. And so this is really a win win win for the retiree for the team taking over as a successor, and then the brokerage because they’re keeping that business within the brokerage, keeping those clients and keeping the recognition for their brand.
I’m assuming it’s a 18 month plan for the introduction of the new entity face brand to inherit that relationship right? Or is it because it’s hard to just introduce it like you have to blend that in over time and so they start to see it because I I’ve seen other people Oh, yeah, I’m just gonna get my book of business. You can’t just do one email. That’s what I did when I left. I sent out like one or two emails me Hey, this is Luke. Hey, go ahead. Give all give all his Luke he’s cool call call him up. Like I’m out peace. But keep Yeah, I mean, that’s is that the number one issue that people have when they’re doing this is the transfer of power transfer brand? Yeah, says her face.
Yeah, exam, we can type into that. So as far as the time limit, I mean, really, a year is ideal, the more you can give it to do the CO marketing and CO branding is, is the best that the longer you can do it, the longer you have to introduce your sphere to the successor is the best. But we’ve done we’ve done a shortest two weeks, actually, when there was kind of a lack of planning and suddenly an agent was leaving. And in two weeks, she was going to be gone. And we pretty much sat down, I said you need to give me at least three hours, I’m gonna sit with you with your database, we’re going to make calls, we’re going to send out a few things I’m going to take whoever you have unlisting you know, alerts right now and convert them right now we’re gonna, you know, onto my stuff. And so we you can do it in a very little amount of time, but it’s not going to be as productive and as as good of a monetary gain and continue into retirement is if you have a longer period of time for it.
Mike, I think this is where we talk about CO branding, like, well, that person is still an agent in your brokerage. We’re advertising ourselves as a team and putting both of our faces on mailers and putting both of our faces on advertisements and on that the retiring agents information so that all of their sphere and their farm and all of these things are seeing all of our faces together. And then when they actually move into that retirement or into the referral networks. It really moves it co marketing than that we’re marketing maybe that team but not misleading and keeping in track with all the state guidelines of things. But people honestly a lot of times don’t even realize that that retiring agent isn’t even there because we’ve done such a good job of CO branding and CO marketing on the front end. And so, you know, when we have 18 months or 24 months to do this process, we’re shooting videos together. We’re going out on big listing presentations together. We’re hosting client parties together we’re doing all of the things so that literally that sphere of influence doesn’t think that It’s just Jim’s business. It’s Jim and Jessica or Jim and Justin and Justin, who is actually a real team now.
I like it. So let’s first, let’s just say you find somebody like, Alright, I’m gonna retire in a year or two, let’s sit down, how does it work? What’s the most important thing to do first, and then especially in the first couple months happens, because once you build it, I’m sure it’s just repetition, repetition, repetition.
Yeah. So in the book, we talked about three structures, kind of for what a contract would look like, for that succession planning. And so are you going to be literally teammates, equals or you’re gonna have an actual team leader? And then a team member in that? Or is it just gonna be this really loose contract of, hey, we’re gonna start doing some branding together and kicking things back and forth and not sharing expenses. But I think where we really see the power is sitting down and making a plan to say, here’s kind of where we’ll negotiate what those referrals look like, here’s my retirement date. And making sure that people are really confident they’re going to keep that retirement date, and serve themselves. And it’s okay, if it’s a moving target, you know, if it’s going to be summer of 2022. You don’t need to know whether it’s going to be June 1, or whether it’s gonna be July 15, you can kind of aim for but the closer you get, you’ve got to really know when you’re going to pull that trigger. Making plans about the marketing is the biggest piece, how do we really sit down at first get people’s business together for their data, and their CRM at some of those, we have to reconstruct totally from scratch. Some of them are, hey, I’ve got an awesome CRM, I’ve got brevity I’ve got TM, I can literally just print all this out for you and habit. And then how do we really start to get the message out of we’re working together how to you as the successor learn the clients and the business that the retiree is in and how their clients like to be treated? Are they super analytical? Do they have a great sales plan for marketing a home? Do they work with investors? Do they work with commercial real estate, building that plan and then executing on the CO marketing and CO branding? Because that’s where the power of it is, it’s really, the most important thing is how do we tell a retiring agent sphere of influence, you can trust this new person I’m bringing in, they’re really good, you’re going to get what you expect, you’re going to get continuity. And you should feel really comfortable when you pick up the phone as a client calling them or when you call me and I refer you back to them. You know what to expect them what you’re going to get?
That’s what is the the average age last time I checked your real estate agents like 56 and a half or 57 years old, right? So how many of those people are retiring? Do you guys ever done the math on that? How many like people in the real estate industry? What’s the number of agents because it is an older overall population? And then the younger ones are coming in now. But what is that, because there’s quite a bit of people out there that are probably in this position right now.
You’re exactly that. And I was just flipping back because I had all the data from NAR that’s here. But basically, in Illinois, there are 7000 realtors who have reported on the NAR national survey that they’re not confident they’re going to be selling real estate in two years. And 2400 of those are over the age of 55 and 60. So really, there is a great opportunity here in the sense that as you look across the country, that average age of Realtors is going up even though there are 10s of 1000s of new realtors, which is telling us even people entering the market are not younger agents in a lot of cases. And so it’s not just the opportunity for people retiring to but kind of like you were talking about during your plan. There are people that relocate there are people that get into the corporate side of real estate or lending or do any of these things. But this is a huge, huge market. In terms of the number of retiring agents even at our brokerage in Peoria. There’s a significant percentage of our retirement age eligible. And I think what was really neat to think about in the the National Association of REALTORS report on kind of the state of Realtors was that those experienced Realtors get 70% of their business from referrals. So they’re not buying these leads. This is their sphere doing the work, and it’s them passing their sphere on to you. So whether you’re in a small brokerage, whether you’re in a huge brokerage, whether you’re relocating to a new market, to try and establish yourself as a real estate agent, there are ample retiring real estate agents or people who are eligible to retire and I think sometimes people don’t retire because they don’t have a plan. I mean, they want to feel really good about when they do that someone’s going to take care of their family and their friends and their clients and sometimes having that conversation with retirement eligible agents in your brokerage is probably going to make them feel really good about starting the process.
Just stay on them. Got it. I think a lot of agents don’t look at that as a potential source of business either. I don’t think anyone does. They’re chasing leads they’d rather do like a Facebook ad versus just go target some old crusty real estate agent that’s dying by the vine waiting to get the hell out of business in your office right in front of you, that could need your help. Yep,
yeah. And I can speak a little bit more on you know exactly what you’re saying, you know, it’s, it’s so much easier to work with a lead and work with a person, when it’s a referral, someone saying, you know, hey, this is the person I trust, you’ve got to sell your house, you’ve used me in the past, but I work with with my teammate or my partner here. If you’ve been given that credibility, and so working with that person, they already then trust you, you’re not having to fight for the conversion on that. And so it’s, it’s not just going out there and paying for these leads here, you’re sure you may be paying a referral on the back end of it. But you’ve just been given credibility to work with this person?
How, what are the referral agreements? Typically, when you guys see me 5% 30%? Is the agent still involved? Can I guess? I’m sure it could be all the above. Sure, it’d be open for discussion or negotiation, like the agent still gonna be involved for a year? Maybe they’re just the listing presentation, and they hand everything off? And that’s all they do.
Really, it can be all of the different different ones there. Yeah,
I think would you know, when we sit down, and we say that there is no standard for what a referral is, and these things, but we typically see, as we’ve done these contracts, making three years of these referral commissions that will pay out before then we wholly own, if you will, the, the book of business or the sphere of influence that people are passing. And, you know, we’ve taught to some agents across the country where referrals are 40%, I would say we mostly see 25%. And we really sit down and say, you know, in the first year, should we be giving more than 25% have put this plan in place, so that the retiring agent says I really feel comfortable, and I know I’m getting some benefit here, and then slowly reduce that over time. And we even you know, you talked about the the investment side of business, we put a lot of things in that contracts about if they’re going to sell their personal residence or their personal portfolio, giving them a discount or not charging some percent of the commission or a flat fee. But those are all the things that I think really build a trusting relationship between the successor and the retiring agent is sitting down and talking through those and what they feel they deserve and don’t deserve. I think as you look at the the history of succession plans, there are some people who literally just put a number on their book of business, and they’re like, I’m gonna sell this to you for 50 grand. I don’t know that that’s the best way to do things. But we even talked in the book about how do you sit down and put a monetary incentive in there, of, hey, if you meet the certain amount of millions of dollars of referrals that you send, we’ll give you a $2,500 or 5000 or $10,000 Bonus, because that really gives that a the retiring agent motivation to be talking about real estate at Thanksgiving and Christmas, I’m referring their older relatives who may be selling their home or building smaller ranches or moving in house, whatever it is, they have some skin in the game now to say like, I’m going to keep referring business and we’ve even seen agents in the referral business, or referral networks make a business card that says referring agent, and then they’re still out there in the field, handing them out and then getting them connected with us.
How long? How long does the agreement last?
But it depends. I mean, we have we have one right now that’s a three year another one is just one year, it really depends on what what the person wants to do what works best for them, maybe how long they’re going to be working another one that’s probably going to be even a multi year, maybe more than three years because they’re going to still be working with us for a while. Got it kind of depends on what’s best.
Because eventually they’re gonna they’re done. Right? Like a sad, sad person prepaid style, like in what’s the right word for perpetual? ility? Whatever. perpetuity forever. Yeah, there it is. It’s like jewelry. I can barely say that either. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And it makes a lot of common sense to me. Just you’re just, instead of just I mean, it makes a whole lot of sense. I think it’s a recruiting model for a broker owner, perhaps. I think a broker owners is probably where I would start marketing this thing, because it’s an office if
the broker owners should want to have us come in and talk to their group of agents about because there’s probably some percent sitting there thinking about retirement and they probably have some really hungry agents who can take on the business who would be a really good fit. I found the place in our kind of introductory chapter where I talked about that survey of realtors. So there are 300,000 Realtors across the United States who are over the age of 60. And 65,000 of them reported that they don’t think they’ll be selling real estate then the next two years. So the numbers are are staggering out there. Yeah, I’ve got across the board
makes a lot of sense. What about age gap differences? How do you overcome that a lot of times the personalities have to mesh, no doubt. But I could imagine like you had like a 24 year old kid coming in, then you got like a 65 year old woman going out? Sometimes, it’s not just automatic, you got to find the right person for your business, right?
Absolutely. And that’s part of it, too. And in the book, we have a kind of a work book section there, where you go through and kind of ask yourself these questions as the retiree. And then if you’re a successor, asking, you know, those questions of what the best fit for you would be, and that’s kind of also where you maybe decide how the structure is going to be maybe if it’s a real, you know, fresh into the industry individual. You know, maybe you do work as a team for a year or two, just to build even more trust and give them the experience in the business. Yeah, like,
it makes a lot of sense. Any other thoughts? You guys have? You want to share here? Anything else? Someone may be looking at broker owners agents? Go ahead, the floor is yours.
Yeah. Well, again, really, the opportunity is out there. So you know, I, I love and when I listened to your podcast, I always say one or two marketing things away, like I’m going to start putting this into the work that I do. And everyone saw, I think, caught up in the game of buying leads and the high cost of entry. And this is the kind of opportunity again, that retirees should be thinking about other realtors or agents should be thinking about to grow their business, and the broker owners should really be I don’t wanna say subsidizing, but really thinking about to keep the owner in their brokerage
profit stream to make money in a brokerage today.
And I’m going to tell you a bit of the ones that we’ve done, the retiring agents have been really happy because literally, they’re just staying keeping their their license active through continuing education, and they’re getting mail checks. And they enjoy still, you know, being on Facebook referring people that they have conversations to transferring us phone calls, emailing us leads, and it’s a, it’s a really great opportunity for them to be doing it. And so I would say, you know, if people are interested or people are thinking about it, the biggest struggle is just the plan and putting it together. And that’s exactly why we wrote the the short book that’s out there is to give people that structure so that you don’t have to be scared or intimidated. And you can really enjoy the relationship that you develop with the retiring agent or with your successor. And do the marketing things that we found out are best practices, and then really sit back and reap the rewards and do the hard book and build your new book of business for the future.
Like it. Sometimes folks, the largest income streams or opportunities are right beneath your nose, you just got opened your eyes and Quit Chasing other shiny objects. Why don’t you guys go ahead and tell everyone how they can read your book, get your book, find you guys, if they want to learn more, follow us on social Go ahead.
So our books website is our E succession.com. The book is going to be coming out right at the start of March. A couple of versions of it are already available if you want to go out and check it out. We have a variety of services and we provide some consultation and support for people going through the succession planning process, whether you’re the retiring agent or the successor to make sure that you’re doing things, best practices and getting the most bang for your buck as you go through it. We also do a variety of speaking presentations. We’re going to be out at the International Conference for our for in Las Vegas at the end of February starting March, sharing that but we’re happy to work with people from all types of brokerages and all types of agencies and teams to talk about yours
yet, so we also have Facebook and Instagram. So our E succession is the handle on that so you can easily find us there plus links from our website for that. And then another website to reach us is Jessica ball homes.com. And then also Facebook, Jessica Boyle homes and then well that is also our Instagram handle so you can find us in lots of different places
and can’t pass up the opportunity for shameless promotion. If you’re another Illinois real estate agent or anybody across the country, and you got people moving to Peoria, Illinois, whether it’s for the hospital system Caterpillar tractors, anybody else we’re really happy to take your referrals and ship referrals out there.
Here’s ever used the tagline the balls in your court. I like it. I like it, too. I was just like, I’m gonna grab these guys.
We’ve got a lot of funny taglines and inappropriate taglines. You can insert your own balls
I love it. Alright guys, I think it’s great. Smart Good job. You guys look these people up man look them up, get this, get their book and if you’re in that boat, whether you’re young buck and you’re looking to get business look for someone who’s trying to retire and vice versa I appreciate you guys coming on the show. We appreciate you guys listening to another episode please visit our website check us out real estate marketing do.com and connect with us on our social channels. Make sure you subscribe, follow like comment, and I think that’s it. Appreciate you guys have a good day and you guys have a good day listening and thank you for listening to the episode. We’ll see you guys next week 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 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.
You know as well as I do that leads are worth NOTHING if you can’t convert! They cost money and you get nothing back. But Tristan Ahumada is an expert at connecting and conversion and in this episode, and he’s here to take me through the steps he uses to not just convert, but convert RELIABLY from Facebook and Google pay-per-click ads.
Most of us have a split of business where up to 80% of our business comes from repeats and referrals, but for Tristan, it’s more like around 35%! His remaining business comes from converted online leads, and he does it WITHOUT buying leads from Realtor.com or Zillow. I asked him to lay out exactly how he does it, and the first thing we discussed was connecting with people and understanding personalities.
If you haven’t taken a DISC course, do it now! Understanding your leads’ personalities is key to conversion, and Tristan and I look at a couple examples of how (and why) it works. Once we’ve got that down, it’s time to talk specifics, and Tristan walks me through exactly what he does when a lead comes in. He covers everything, from how long it takes to call that lead, to how long it takes to follow up, and what to say. We even talk about how to deal when you’re having an off day!
Next, Tristan explains why he went cold turkey and stopped using both Realtor.com and Zillow for leads. When he decided to leave both sites, 66% of his business came from the two of them, and he had to make it up from somewhere! He talks me through where he made that business up.
We finish off by talking about how to build trust with a client, once you’ve made that initial connection. We talk about the best way to communicate (Text? Facebook Messenger? E-mail?) and how you know when someone really trusts you. Finally, we talk about stories, and why telling a good, authentic story, will get a lead to pay more attention to you and engage more quickly.
Today’s Topics:
Understanding personalities using the DISC method
Why it’s important for agents to tailor communications to their leads’ personalities
How to incorporate different personality types into automated response systems
What to do when a lead comes in and you’re off your game
The worst way an agent can respond to a new lead
Tristan’s tried and true method for following up on leads
Why it’s key to capture buyers when they’re emotional
The best methods of connecting with leads
Why we pay more attention when someone tells us a story
Connect with Tristan Ahumada and the Lab Coat Agents
Are you born to be a team leader? Do you have what it takes to build a team of agents and make it prosper? It takes more than just being a great agent to lead a team, and one man who knows that all too well is Suneet Agarwal, so I’ve invited him on the show to tell me his secrets! Suneet is a team leader with Home Smart Realty in Sacramento, California, and he’s a Club Wealth coach and Lab Coat Agent as well.
Suneet and I start off by discussing what it means to run a team, and what helps retain agents. He tells me how running a team is like running a business, and the culture-building tactics he uses to make his agents feel supported and valued. He also explains why you should never brand your team with your own name!
Then we talk details: where does Suneet get his leads from, and how much does he supply to his agents? How dependent are they on him for their leads? And how does he provide them with incentive to go out and find their own leads?
Finally, Suneet tells me how he chooses his agents, and gives me an introduction to how he onboards them. We discuss probation periods, new agent expectations, and his number one trait that will determine whether he keeps an agent on the team, or lets them go.
Today’s Topics:
How is running a team of agents like running a business?
Why your agents should work WITH you, not FOR you
Why top salespeople tend to stay with the same company for long periods of time
Why you should never brand your team with your name
Where the best leads come from
How to decide who to bring on to your team
The number one trait that determines whether a team member will succeed
The question you should ask yourself BEFORE you start up a team
Guess what we’re talking about today, marketing and marketing and marketing. But we’re gonna be talking about a specific kind of marketing and why you need to be creating it. Everything you do today is content. The posts you make when you’re taking up the ugly carpeting in the basement is content. The picture of you and your clients at the closing is content, that big ass kitchen with beautiful views, that is content, anything you publish is content, and you have to be creating it going forward. There is no other way, lead generation is dead and you’re gonna burn out door knocking and cold calling.
To further engrave this into your minds, we’re bringing on Gary Pickren as our guest today. Gary has deep ties to the local real estate community. Since 1995 Gary has performed real estate closings, taught real estate agents, and advocated for all South Carolinians in changing South Carolina real estate law. Toward that end, Gary started a weekly video blog that has over 4,000 subscribers. He even started a real estate podcast in 2020 to better educate the real estate agents on issues in the real estate closing process.
Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode
The importance of being visual with your communication and why it is so effective
So how do you attract 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. Guess what we’re talking about today, marketing and marketing and marketing. But we’re gonna be talking about a specific kind of marketing call it media, and why you need to be creating it. So probably about a week or two ago, I was on somebody’s podcast, and now he’s on ours. And this guy’s an attorney. He’s a he’s a he’s an a boring attorney. Okay, talking about the most stuffy profession in the damn world. Like anyone in the attorney space. It’s like you get attorneys, you get to doctors, but anyone that wears a suit pretty much all the time, or you would think wears a suit all the time. That’s a very stuffy, stuffy business. Well, Mr. Gary here has taken the concept of creating media around his brand. He’s a real estate attorney in one specific state, but he understands marketing, he understands content creation, he understands communication, and staying in front of people remaining on top of mine, the only way you remain on top of mind is if you create content, otherwise, how the hell do you do it? Everything you do today, guys is content. The posts you make when you’re taking up the ugly carpeting in the fucking basement is content. The picture of you and your clients at the closing is content, that big ass kitchen with big ass views, that is content, anything you publish is content, and you have to be creating it going forward. There is no other way lead generation is fucking dead and you’re gonna burn out door knocking dead cold calling dead. I’m telling you guys, it’s common. We’ve been talking about this attraction thing, but I wanted to bring on the most stuffy business and show you how it even works in his damn business. And he’s either due to a video he’s doing in the form of a podcast, this podcast you’re listening to is a form of media. I publish it every Saturday. And as a result, some of you guys, are you gonna call me next week and schedule a demo and spy my shit. And it’s because I’m constantly adding value and want you’re gonna convert sooner or later. I don’t give a fuck what do you think but I’m gonna convert you. Anyhow, let’s introduce our guest, Gary picker the show Gary wants to come in and tell everyone a little bit hello to you. Oh,
what’s up, man? First of all, I don’t like attorney so I try to do everything I can to not be like an attorney. And that’s why
I like you. I don’t like attorneys either. I hate attorneys.
To help wrong with it. You marry an attorney. You made a bad decision already. But yeah, I try not to be anything like an attorney. But Mike, man, I really love being on your show. You are the real estate marketing. Dude, you’re a guru in this. And it is an incredible honor to be with you. And have you on my podcast. Really appreciate it.
Yeah, he has a podcast going what tell everyone what that is because they
are podcast called dition dirt. And it started really in South Carolina just kind of a podcast talking about things that real estate agents need to know in terms of agency appraisal gaps, multiple offers, a lot of it applied to real estate agents all around the country. But recently, in particular, in the last five or six months, I’ve been very fortunate to meet people like yourself and some other great coaches and other agents that have said, hey, I want to come on your show and talk about some of the crap we do. And it’s kind of taken two sides. Now we do a little bit of the legal stuff and things that agents deal with. But we also hit a lot of the marketing things, how to stay top of mind how to get a referral based business, how to do you know servant leadership, things like that. So we’ve had a really good run over here and it’s, it’s kind of taken off. It’s been really surprising.
So let’s back into how you started this thing. Okay, so we’re gonna start the beginning with this, you guys. Gary’s a real estate attorney. He makes money off of real estate closings, but Gary’s license in South Carolina. Right. Right. So you only closed properties in South Carolina. Is that cool?
Pretty much. So yeah, we have we used to have an attorney in North Carolina. We got one in Florida that mainly it’s just South Carolina.
So how long ago until you realize you’re like, I got to start creating content. And Gary today has a podcast and his main form of content Correct? Correct me if I’m wrong, but your main form of content is creating a podcast consistently every week. And all it does it has people like myself on it and other people and you interview and you give a marketing advice, right?
Yeah, we have a podcast and also have something called legal tips, which is a video blog that we did that we send out through Bom Bom and I’ve created about a 4500 person subscriber list. And with that subscriber list, they’re all pretty much real estate agents and the vast majority are in my market. We have offices in Greenville, South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, Lexington, South Carolina. So the vast majority of that comes from my market. And I’ve been able to hit that group in less than two years with 1 million opens of those videos. So the videos are usually a short topic one to three minutes. And then my podcast usually runs 30 minutes. But the podcast kind of came out of the idea from the videos, because in a video format, when you’re sending emails out, whether it is somebody who has signed up for your blog, or somebody, you’re just trying to attract through social media, most people give you a minute, two, maybe three, if you’re lucky, but anything goes about two or three minutes, they’re not going to listen to it. So when you start trying to talk about appraisal gaps, and how not to have your clients stolen from you, and things of that nature, you can’t hit that crap in two minutes. I mean, just no way. So I decided, hey, why not try a podcast, it was going to be a one one a month. That’s all I was gonna do. And that first one went really well for us. And the next thing I know, I’m doing one a week, and it’s developed into having people like you and Krista and Jan and Jan and some other people on the show that has just really helped push it forward for us. And our people listen all over the country, which is really cool.
And when did you realize like, how did you and most of your business comes from real estate agent referrals? Is that correct? That’s right. So most of his business comes to real estate agent referrals, he realized that he had to do something to attract more and more referrals. And when did the light switch go out? Like you’re like, you’re like, I’m an attorney, I started podcasting new video series. How did you know that? That was a direction to take it?
That’s a really good question. So I’ve been doing this for 26 years, I started 1995, before internet was a thing, right? And I was the attorney in 1995, or 96, who told the guys in our office, let’s don’t get internet, because a staff will do nothing but play on it. It’s no good for, for searching for porn, right? People basically use it for back in the 90s. And so, you know, I was kind of always anti social media. And then I’ve just over the last maybe seven or eight years when when our firm a bunch of lawyers and another from broke off and started this farm. And I said, you know, we have to be different than everybody else. Everybody’s doing the same crap over and over doesn’t matter if you’re a lender, you’re an agent, or you’re an attorney, we all do the same crap over and over. And when you say, Well, what differentiates you from everybody go, I give great service. Nobody gives a crap. Everybody gives great service. It’s kind of the expected, so you better come up with something that’s different than everybody else is doing. So at that point, I was doing a representative of a real estate agency called Russell Jeff coat. And I was sending them out. They were a big independent that’s been consumed by big major. But we were sending out basically a legal tip to the people that we worked with, we just type up a little email going, Hey, guys, don’t do this, as we’re seeing this being a problem. And from that, I decided, hey, this could go farther, because I was getting so many positive remarks about it going hey, I love your tip you did on this. I love your tip on home warranties. So we made it into a WordPress and so we started putting on our website as a WordPress. Well that sucked because, you know, I’m from the south and we type that type all this stuff up and we’re different we, you know, I come up with my own version of English sometimes and the words aren’t really really that correct. But you know, I was having to type this up, give it to an associate to proofread it, send it back to me, make sure everything’s legally the way it supposed to be. And so you’re doing a little two paragraph post is taking you hours. And I’m like there’s got to be a better way of this crap. This should this doesn’t work. And so I went to rehumanize at Bom Bom and ran into Alicia there. And I started thinking how could I take what I was already doing, which was being successful, and make it different than everybody else? And I was like, video, nobody’s doing this crap in South Carolina. Why don’t I do video. So I started doing the video is legal tips. And I started finding out instead of spending 30 minutes or an hour, typing it up making sure the grammar is correct. And I’m not using the wrong words that I could crank out content in three to five minutes because you know, they wanted to be authentic. They don’t want to sound rehearsed. And once I cranked out that content, it exploded. I mean, it literally exploded all over the place. And what’s that exploded, I started noticing every time I literally can be sitting at home on a Sunday watching a football game. And notice the number of opens and then hit Refresh an hour later. And it goes up two or 3000 on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of December. It’s just amazing how I’m able to stay consistently in front of my client base, even when I’m not working. And so at that point, I said, Alright, I’m on to something here. This is working. Let’s now look at where we can take it to the next level. And so we started the podcast but but ultimately Mike what really pushed me to do this and to keep really going farther and farther and farther. And this is everything we’ve ever done in this farm has been copied by every one of our competitors. Yeah, so either
a badge of honor. Right? It’s a bunch of the Guru’s are copying my shit.
There’s no doubt about it. I copy your shit, you know? Be honest with you. I actually posted a podcast I did a legal tip today and a business coach email me goes hell I love this. I’m gonna use this I will record it myself. But she’s like, I’m just kidding. I wouldn’t do that to him like I don’t care still is
the best form of flattery, dude, the wheel you don’t need to reinvent the wheel folks. You need to make it yours.
Exactly. So at that point, I’m like, you know everybody’s Feeling everything we’re doing. So we’ve got to keep recreating, uh, coming up with new stuff, better stuff, more interesting stuff. And that’s just kind of what we’ve done over the last six, seven years or eight years, really.
So I like it. I like it all. Let’s want to relate it back to Paco, we have their real estate agent. So a lot of people get stuck when they’re like, Okay, what kind of content am I going to create? Now? Can I do it long term, you can never create content with first identifying who your audience is. Okay. And this is true for any business. Gary’s business is real estate agents, his audience, my business is real estate agents, lenders, investors, we do videos for them. But a realtors business is 95 99% of time is their Facebook friend list the relationships that they have in life. So you have to look at those relationships and be like, Okay, how do I nurture these relationships? That’s really we’re talking about how I farm these relationships. And you have two ways to do it. One, you can just start talking about real estate all the time. And I’m gonna tell you first why that’s probably not going to work as well as the latter. One is that if you are always if Gary, Gary, you’re married, right? Yep. Okay, if you when you get off of work, do you? What’s your wife’s name? Emily, Emily. So when you get off of work, do you tell Emily and just come home and just keep talking about work? That you don’t wanna hear? But yeah, what would Emily do if every time you communicated it was just about work?
It was just not look at me. She she’d eventually be
like, This guy’s boring as shit. I’m going to divorce him and go find a 25 year old. But no, seriously, so but and but I can talk about work with my content, because people subscribe for marketing stuff, right? Gary can talk about work with his real estate agent list, because they’re subscribing to get value from Gary. But people don’t subscribe to the real estate agents that constantly hear about real estate. So that means you it’s hard to always talk about work with your friends, family. It’s also hard to talk about work with your audience. Let’s just first identify it. Because real estate, such a relationship type business, I just think you need to remind you I don’t think I know. You just need to remind people that you’re in real estate and create content consistently. That’s more entertaining. Doesn’t have to always be educational, you guys.
And we do a lot of content here too. Like during COVID. Every single thing you heard on the news was doom and gloom terrible numbers, everything was going to shut down the economy was going to crash were real estate was going to be the worst it’s ever been in the history of the world. What’s quite the opposite real estate actually wanted to be in the greatest city had ever been in much years. And so I started a legal tip called Gary’s good news only. And every Friday, I would send out a two or three minute video on good economic stuff, good real estate stuff and good COVID news. So like if we saw COVID numbers going down, we saw real estate and I was just getting this stuff from Inman News or Fox News or CBS or NBC I just go on their websites and there was always a piece of good news somewhere that somebody wanted to hear about and I was getting emails from people when I stopped doing it and please start doing it again. I send this to my parents and did any
of that and here’s the thing then you what you sent those out via bom bom right? So when he sends these out via bom bom it do not have your branding all over the all over the actual email that says you’re an attorney. Therefore you don’t have to during it you guys like what people see is very impactful. And the reason why video and vid being visual with your communication is so effective is because that’s where your branding plays. Like no matter what if you’re going to be doing a video you better have your damn sign or something that tells me you’re in real estate there. Otherwise don’t do the damn video. You’re missing the point. But it’s a giant game a reminder, remind don’t tell remind, you’ll tell. Can i Alright, so we get this podcast going. And then you and I would honestly if you would have told me as an attorney in South Carolina and we never met and say you didn’t do a podcast if you would have told me that if I do a podcast? Is that a good idea? I’d say no, it’s not a good idea. I’d say I would probably a video series in a local markets a very good idea because it puts your face with the name but the fact that you did it through an audio only version of a podcast in the local market but made a national presence is absolutely amazing.
Yeah, and it’s been a long time coming. I’ve been doing this for 26 years and during that time I’ve represented real estate agents at the real estate commission when they’ve had grievances filed against them. I represent the Realtors Association. A wrote that the contract helped write the contract for our Realtors Association. I helped write the seller disclosure form for the state. And then I got put on the real estate commission. So over my course of 26 years my brand has been common the Gary is the go to guy he’s the one who knows about the seller disclosure. He’s the one who knows about the contract. He knows about this. And so because my brand in a lot of ways has become that it was just a perfect fit for me that I was able to start doing the legal tips and explain the legal stuff. And you know, I don’t there’s not really a real estate agency in Colombia that I haven’t represented at some form, whether it’s a Keller Williams or color or Coldwell Banker or an auto real estate or whoever. And because of that been able to get this big following. And that’s that has been a big help. I have to admit that. But yeah, that’s been part of my branding is to be that go to guy. I do agree 1,000% with you my ability to target with agents with going straight education or majority education works to a point where I don’t believe it would with an agent because if you’re if I’m just a homebuyer and you’re constantly hitting me over the head with what’s a deed, what’s, you know, what does it mean for sale by owner and all this? I get bored? I’m moving on. Yeah. But so we’ve started to because of listening to your podcast, and some others started trying to bring a little bit more that fun in and some of the other aspects and our podcast. No, it’d
be a good idea. Maybe if you guys did like a, the craziest legal stories of the month. Yeah, the summary episode of that. Like, even crazy, there’s a agent here, she’s gonna start podcasts. And we ended up calling it I don’t know if she launched yet or not. But we ended up calling it humor house. And it was all about the funniest crazy stories that agents have in real estate. And what she was doing it for is that she wanted to create a podcast to create a referral based business from other agents. So humor, she just interview agents that would like tell their stories about like, the dead body they found in the house, or the safe that had like a pound of heroin in it or, you know, like, whatever it may be the crazy shit we see. Right? So I think that could have been a good idea for her. But you have to first come up with a theme you guys like you’re gonna create content. My theme is creative marketing outside the box video content creation, personal branding, right? Your theme is legal pitfalls of real estate, stay out of trouble, essentially. Right? Right. So it’s no differently. Each of you guys has a theme to create content with. There’s a reason why people hire you. Because before you get hired, you have to be remembered. And the reason they remember you is your theme.
Right? And it’s worked very well for us. And you know, like I said, we tried to venture out with Gary’s good news only also did a series one time, which I’m almost embarrassed to talk about, but it was called three dudes watch The Bachelor. I mean, it was a real estate lender, and it was another Real Estate Commissioner, and we would watch The Bachelor and then we would come in my office and
watch like react videos. Oh, well, we
would actually talk about the day after it’s like this is what happened last night on this crappy crappy show. And it was a lot of fun we
got it wasn’t that crappy? Because you guys kept watching it every week. Wow. That’s like me. I’m like I watch every episode. I’m like, No, my friends. But you watch The Bachelor making the fuck out here talking about bachelor bachelor me watch The Bachelor. What are you talking about?
Course that means like, where do you get to see 25 beautiful women hit on one guy that doesn’t happen. That’s why I never watch The Bachelorette. Because you can see 25 guys hit on one girl in any bar in America. Watch that.
Yeah. So there’s Alright, this is great, man. So I want to know, what’s your advice to people? Because here’s the challenge a lot of people have we all want to become internet famous yet yesterday, right? We all want everyone to know who we are, like three weeks ago. And when you start creating content, I mean, it’s not gonna happen overnight. You guys like you don’t build your brand overnight, you build over day. And I think that’s one of the reasons why people don’t ever commit to doing it. So why don’t you tell us what that experience has been for you? And give some people some advice that might be thinking about creating content, maybe they’re thinking about hiring us and get on video or whatever it may be. Talk, tell them a little bit about that.
I think you hit a good point there is that everybody wants to be internet famous. But the question really is, is what are you trying to do? I mean, are you trying to be internet famous? So people will ask you to sell their crap on on the internet? Are you trying to become internet famous because you want to make your business expand? And that’s been a tough thing for me to understand. And I kept doing videos on YouTube or doing something on Facebook or even doing a podcast wanting the million downloads, right? Everybody wants to say, look, I had a one go viral and a million. But if you are selling real estate in San Diego, where you are, and I get a million downloads from New York City, does that really matter? I would rather have 1000 downloads in San Diego where my clients are, where people are that are going to hire me to sale then worry so much about how many people around the country. When I first got into this podcast, I can track where they’re being downloaded. And I got real excited going, hey, wow, somebody in Cleveland or somebody in Denver is watching my listen to my podcast. And it’s a big ego boost. There’s no doubt about it to say people around the country are listening to your stuff. But when you’re really doing it to hit your market, what’s really more important is core market. And so when I started really looking back at the numbers, I’m like, Okay, well, this week, 500 of the people that in my market that are looking at me that I might be able to close a deal with. Those are people who are listening to this podcast, these are the people who are looking at my legal tip video. These are the ones who are interacting with me. And so after a while, I kind of had to get over that ego thing that I want to go big and viral and all this stuff because it doesn’t mean crap. It doesn’t mean anything. And so that was the big thing that I had to come come away with is doing that. The second thing I had to come away with Is the authenticity of it matters so much. As y’all can tell, I’m very southern, I say words like Virginia and not Virginia because I make words up. That’s who I am. I talk very fast, which is very odd for a Southerner, but it’s just who I am. And I’m not going to change it. It’s the way I am and people that work with you, and are going to use you that already know you that you’re trying to stay in front of mind with them. If I came in here, and was very robotic, and completely different in my podcast in my video than I was in person, it would come across rehearse scripted in terrible. And so they need to know that Gary is Gary and what you get in the video and what you get on the podcast is exactly who I am. And if I say words, like forgot, I sort of forgot. That’s who I am. And so that was one of the things I got over very quickly. I also had to get over with the podcast, and the videos don’t have to be perfect. You hit record once and you record it, you do it. And when you say awesome, and the phone rings in the background, that’s natural life. And that seems like a lot better than these that are very rehearsed and very script read. It just doesn’t work.
Yep. Yeah, I mean, that’s why I like the viral videos on tick tock, or like a cat. Like here, I posted a my son. I posted this reel. And I’m not big an IG dude, I’m not an IG expert. I just put my content. There’s my weakest channel. However, I’m starting to get into it. And just a little late to the game. But like, I posted a video of my baby climbing the stairs and he’s grumpy and he’s like, or, or and he turns around, he goes, and it sounds like he says, Hi, he goes Hi. I’m like grunting baby says hi. And he said hi perfectly, we didn’t really mean to say I was this way. But I got like 3700 views on this thing. And then I look at some of my other content that’ll be like real estate related or anything, I’ll get like 12 views. So the point being is that it’s not about the number of people that see your stuff. It’s about the fact that you do it consistently. I have a lot of content that bombs, okay, that’s great. But I take a lot of risks in life to a lot of businesses I started that never took off and was bankrupt. But I kept trying and it’s the same thing with videos. As long as you focus on the consistency of it. It almost always works like I have yet to see anybody do video where it hasn’t worked like I have yet to see a case study. No bullshit, you guys at least in in real estate agents in our industry. I’ve yet to see someone that has done video consistently for anywhere between two to six months and not see it work. I shit you not the only time it doesn’t work you guys is when people don’t like you. I said every week on this show. There’s nothing we can help you with on that. Right? You’re probably in the wrong career. To be honest with you. You’re not supposed to like it. Everyone’s not supposed to like you. It’s okay. I like pissing people off with my videos. Some guy just made a video comment on one of my ads. And he’s like, I have a video where I’m swearing believe that. And it’s targeting a cold audience. This guy’s like, well, you should. One guy goes, I don’t really like to. I hate because it’s such a turn off the use of the F bomb and I go, Hey, you can’t win them all. Another guy comes in and says, Oh, we should learn how to edit first. I’m like, Hey, thanks for the advice. Right? I hug my haters. But if you’re not hating, that means no one’s watching it. Right?
Well, you know, I failed at video first, I’ll be honest with you. And the reason I failed at video first is I had no plan and no consistency. It goes back to what you said about the consistency. So when I signed up with Bom, bom the very first time I got really excited 15 videos, the first month, maybe the second month was like 10. And it was down to five. And by the fourth month I called Shane and said I’m done. I’m out. And he said come to this meeting. We’re doing a rehumanize conference. So I went and I came home with six pages of notes of ideas. And I sat down I said, Okay, I can’t implement six pages. I don’t have enough time to do this crap. So what will work for me? And what worked for me was legal tips. I said, Okay, let’s try this legal tip and see how this works. And just like you said, you got to keep trying and some things bomb and some things don’t. Well legal tips took off. I mean, it was like bam. And so then I went to Gary’s good new zoning, bam, that work. And then I went with the podcast, I do a legal tip, talking about the podcast, and now that goes on. So it’s a lot of trial and error, and not everything’s gonna work. But if you don’t have a plan, you’re gonna fail. And if you’re not consistent, I come out every Thursday with a legal of podcast tip of what my podcast is going to be about. And I come out every Friday morning with that legal tip. And when I don’t do what people ask me, where are you last week, you didn’t do legal tip. And another thing I’ll tell you, it’s also found out when I do these videos, two things were important. One was background. To me people do videos where it’s like, you almost wonder if they’re sitting on the toilet when they’re doing it, you know, it’s just all you see straight up their nose and you see the back of a wall. And so I spent a lot of time developing behind me what my personality is and so if you can if you are on video, I have pictures of my family, all these different baseball fields. I’ve got my Cleveland Browns helmet right there. Yes, I like the Cleveland Browns. I’ve got some Johnny Cash stuff so like country music so I’ve put some pieces an outing and thought into what my background is. And then what I also found out just by happenstance is I forgot to do a legal tip, I was on vacation. So I pulled the video out and did one from Utah. And that video is my most watched video that for a long period of time, so then I started saying, okay, when I go on vacation, whether it’s the Yosemite or Zion, or Moab, or wherever, I’m going to come with a list of three videos, I’m gonna do a video, every you know, every chance I get at different places. And when I get home, I’ll come and post it, I don’t post it while I’m gone. So we’ll be able to have gone but those are amazing. Those are those have more views than anything because people are like, Oh, I’ve been to Monument Valley, or I’ve been to Zion, and they’re relatable.
Right? It’s really relatable, your content, your content has to be relatable. It’s like how ours are like just people that hate me. I’m sure like the guy swears to me, that’s all it’s usually like, it’s usually it’s usually all the old people do. A lot of people trust me. They think I get called it all the time. You’re so frustrated, you make me sick, whatever. I don’t care. Like, I’m never gonna fuckin work with you anyways, dude. I mean, like, I don’t, I don’t care in but you have to, I understand that. I’m not meant to attract everybody. But I think I attract a lot more because of how authentic it is. And it’s really just not holding back. I think it’s very, very well, any, let’s wrap this up. And let’s see any closing thoughts you have for anybody that is thinking about possibly getting started. I mean, you’re doing it as an attorney in a local market. And it’s just a, it’s ticking off for you. So what else you want to tell anyone else that’s thinking about, and I’m not saying get on video, of course, video is the best one to use. But you have to start creating content, wherever it is, whether it’s pictures, whether it’s written posts, whether it’s written emails, I don’t care, you have to create content, it’s no longer optional, it is a necessity. And if you’re not creating content, you are going to be out of damn business.
Well, I think you’re going out of business, if you do do something else. And that is you got to understand that regardless what the market is, there’s too many real estate agents, right? There are a lot of part time agents, a lot of excellent church agents. So the agents who signed up became an agent, they’re gonna sell a friend at church, a house that will sell a friend down the street, a house, and that’s it. But we have I think, even in South Carolina, we have like 60,000 Real estate agents. And so you have to figure out what is going to separate me from everybody else. We don’t want to be a commodity. And if you’re a real estate agent becomes a commodity, all you’re doing is replacing one with the other. So you have to show value, and show that you’re different than other people. And if you will go back and look at your multiple listing service that they have the stats for you go back 10 years and look at the top 10 agents and tell me where they are today. I bet you almost all of them are not in the top 10 anymore. It’s a new group of people that come in the top 10 Because people are not planning ahead and looking and trying to be ahead of the curve. One of my clients told me one time he’s a builder, he said, if you’re not changing your business and how you’re marketing what you’re doing in your technology every two to three years, you already two to three years behind. And so we have learned that you know, like, as I mentioned earlier in the show, we came up with the signs that everybody stands by and you take a picture says my real estate agent rocks came over that in 2015 or 16. Every lawyer in Colombia has that now every lawyer in South Carolina has that. Then I started putting TVs on the wall. And then everybody started doing that. And then we started putting MLS pictures on the TV. We did Greenstreet screens. It’s gotten to a point now where it Blair Kato, we actually have our own beer. I mean, we’ve had our thinking so far the box, we have candles that have our own scent, you walk into a casino, you know what it smells like you walk into black ghetto, we want to know what it smells like, with the iPads, we have our own. We have music going during our closings from XM Radio, we have a bear call closing time that we do at Columbia craft. So you’ve always got to be thinking ahead and what’s gonna differentiate me from the other people using the real estate marketing dude, he’s taking a lot of that thinking out for you, because he’s helping you come up with these plans. So if you’re not working with the real estate marketing, I don’t know what you’re doing. You got to get with somebody who knows what they’re doing, they can help you develop a plan that you can implement and that you can put in place and that you can market and change when you need to change because I’m telling you at 26 years, the last five years has changed change more than the previous 21 and I guarantee you the next five years will be so much more change than we’ve had this past five years we’re looking at remote online notary electronic closings, everything is going to be changing in the next five years this this what we’re talking about today in three years will probably be old hat
well said and thank you for the plug. But yeah, he’s focusing on the client experience you guys and that’s extremely important how you make people feel is what they remember. But you got to be top of mind for them to experience that first and that’s why you have to create content so you have a brand appreciate you guys listening to another episode of real estate marketing do podcast Gary want to go ahead and tell them website they could check out your stuff tell me your shows that so they can reach you if they have any questions. And you can
find me at Blair Cato BL a ir ca to calm that’s on the web. And then if you want to find our podcast it’s called dition dirt without a GDI Shi N apostrophe dirt On any podcast platform, and you can find blackhead on internet on the Instagram or on Facebook at Blair Cato.
Awesome. And thank you folks for listening to other episode real estate market, new podcast. If you’re looking to build that brand, start creating content, we’d love to speak with you. It’s not very difficult. I need one to three hours a month from you. That’s it, and we scripted it and distribute your video content and make the whole process really, really simple. So, you know, visit us real estate market to do.com Thank you for the reviews, connect with us on our YouTube channel, Facebook and now follow us on Tik Tok and IG and if you’d like to keep the conversation going, but we’ll see you guys next week. Thanks for tuning in. Don’t forget to leave that review. So you guys 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 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.
Getting the best referral business is all about putting yourself out there and staying in front of people’s minds! Successful businesspeople are using video to transform how they communicate with their target audiences and market their brands. Jeff Pfitzer is a mortgage broker in the St. Louis area, and is using a combination of video marketing and great service that’s built his agent referrals up to 80-90% of his business. In this episode of The Real Estate Marketing Dude, I’ve brought Jeff on to tell me his branding secrets and how his videos are disrupting the market.
Are you an employee or are you running a business? That’s a key part of what we’re talking about. Are you dependent on a big website like Zillow for your leads, or are you putting yourself out there and bringing in your own business? Jeff and I discuss why depending on Zillow is a bad idea, and what it looks like when you break free and start thinking of yourself as a business rather than an employee.
Jeff is using video to differentiate himself from his competition, so we talk about what it is about video that catches people’s attention. We talk about why, if you’re in the real estate business, your videos should almost NEVER be about real estate, as counterintuitive as that sounds. Finally, Jeff talks me through the development process behind his first ever video, which had over 4,000 views in its first week.
Today’s Topics:
Why differentiating yourself in the mortgage industry is key
Building a brand is a fundamental skill
How to stand out in your market
The three most important parts of video communication: body language, tone, and content
Why you should never talk about real estate your videos
How to work hard to position yourself, even in a slow market
Why customers don’t remember you until they’ve seen you seven times or more
An example of the type of high-engagement video that will make an impact
Connect with Jeff Pfitzer:
The best way to reach Jeff directly is by text at (314) 220-4945. You can also call!
If you’re not focusing all your energy on attracting leads online, you’re missing out. Today’s real estate industry is so competitive that your most profitable business comes from referrals, rather than direct. One of the most reliable ways to secure referral business is to do the lead generation work for realtors – so they can concentrate on closing, and send the business back to you. I’ve brought in The Hardcore Closer himself, Ryan Stewman, to talk to me about strategies he uses for attracting leads online, and tell me his tricks for bringing the best quality leads to his agents.
Ryan Stewman IS the Hardcore Closer. We’ve talked before about how important your personal brand is, and this guy’s got it down. We start off by talking about authenticity and building a strong following by letting your personality shine through on social media. Ryan started his career in the mortgage business in 2003, but in March 2010 lost his license due to regulation changes that disqualified him due to events from his past. In 2009 and the first part of 2010, he’d already closed 260 deals. Rather than fighting his license, he turned to selling social media management to real estate professionals, and really focusing on sharing his expertise.
In this show, we’re talking about why lead gen is so important, and especially why it’s vital to help realtors with leads. We’re looking at what’s working for him in terms of bringing in business, and some concrete steps of how to handle new leads to get them to convert. We’re also discussing why you shouldn’t be tempted to play it cheap on social media, and how much a good campaign might cost you per lead. Finally, Ryan also gives me some tips about how to handle agents to get the best return (in terms of referrals) from the leads that you supply.
Today’s Topics
Why authenticity is key in building your brand on social media
How to decide who your social media audience is
Why it’s key to work with realtors and feed them leads, and what you’ll get in return
Why big companies are now hyper-focused on lead gen for realtors, for FREE
Social media and how it’s making it easier to get some exposure back from Zillow.com
Ryan’s verdict on whether agents should have IDX on their websites
Concrete steps to setting up a funnel for leads
Why you NEED to make sure you have a privacy policy and terms set up on your website
What’s a reasonable budget for a Facebook ad campaign with decent return?
If you haven’t been following this show, we’ve been on this little kick lately. And what we’ve been chatting about mainly has been running your business as a business not being a salesperson, just chasing your next check. You have to realize that you’re running an entrepreneurial business and you are the business you are the brand. And that means you’re running a damn business. If not, you’re just a salesperson. We’re gonna talk about how entrepreneurs really run their business as they spend more time setting up systems and things in their business, they could work on their business and not in it.
So if you feel like you’re just being ran around by clients, you don’t have enough time in the day, today’s guest is for you. He’s in charge of the book, work the system. This dude knows what he’s doing. Josh Fonger is the CEO of WTS Enterprises, based on the best-selling business book written by Sam Carpenter (you can find a free version of it right here. Work the System’s mission is to help entrepreneurs get out of the day-to-day of their business by managing their systems. (Naturally, financial growth and freedom follows.) To accomplish this business mission they focus heavily on training and certifying consultants in the WTS Method so that they can make the largest impact worldwide with our coaching and consulting services.
Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode
How to make more and work less
What step you are currently at
How to help owners/entrepreneurs fix their life expenses by getting control over their systems
So how do you attract 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. It is 2022. If you haven’t been following this show, we’ve been on this little kick lately. And what we’ve been chatting about mainly has been running your business as a business not being a salesperson, just chasing your next check. Unfortunately, in the real estate space, whether you’re a lender and investor or real estate broker, that’s just what happens. You have to realize that you’re running an entrepreneurial business and you are the business you are the brand. And that means you’re running a damn business. If not, you’re just a salesperson. So what we’re gonna do today is because it’s the beginning of the year, because it’s 2022, we’re gonna talk about how entrepreneurs really run their business as they spend more time setting up systems and things in their business, they could work on their business and not in it. So if you feel like you’re just being ran around by clients, you don’t have enough time in the day, this episode’s gonna be for you. He has, he’s in charge of the book, work the system. This dude knows what he’s doing. And without further ado, we’re gonna let him tell you all about it. Josh fungerer. Ladies and gentlemen, why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself, Josh, and tell everybody a little bit about yourself, we’ll get right into this interview.
Sounds great. Glad to be here. Thanks, Mike. Yep, Josh bunker. And those, I don’t know if you guys have this on video or not. But I’m only have a book called work the system, what I do is take the methodology in that book, and help his owners entrepreneurs fix their life expenses by getting control over their systems. And ultimately, that allows them to make more and work less, which is what most entrepreneurs would like to do. And we kind of free up their their mind space as well.
In the real estate industry, we all get into this business, because we think we’re gonna work less and control our hours, but fucking nothing is further from the truth. You get in the business. And if you get busy, you have no life. And it’s a major problem within it. So I think everyone here is going to really appreciate what you have to say, sorry, I’m going to cut you off.
No, that’s great. Yeah, I’ve worked a lot of folks in in real estate, whether it’s investors or realtors, or developers and home flippers, or you name it, anyone who’s doing any kind of work ultimately has things that they do every day, every week, every month. And our whole goal is to help them see the separate pieces that make up their lives. And then realize those can be made from organic, which means you’re just doing it by the seed your pants, just reacting to mechanical, you can mechanize those things. And it starts with a shift of the way you see your work. But then once you see your work differently, you can start to take those separate pieces and get some help along the way. I’m sure a lot of people who listen to this have some assistance or some part timers people that they that they use, and how to really expand that help and duplicate what you do. And ultimately, it’s allow you to buy more houses, sell more houses do do more of what you already doing, you just gonna be able to expand that. But
so many of us are control freaks, I’m guilty of this I guy, I’m the guilty, I’m your ideal client. The, you know, no one could do it as good as I can. Or, and honestly, I’ve been you guys, I’ve been going through this shit for the last three years, no BS, like I’ve had a road from hell building these businesses. And I’ve lost family time. I’ve suffered time with my wife. No doubt, and I have no problem sharing that with you guys. But I’ve also learned a lot about business throughout this last three to four years of my transformation out here to San Diego. And what I’ve learned a lot is what my business partners have taught me and working on the business. I’m an operator. I’m not a business owner. That’s one realization I came to this year, it’s very hard to go from operator to business owner by by mindset, I’m just an operator, I like being in the fucking grind, like get in the trenches. And I’m a control freak. I don’t like giving up stuff because I don’t know if anyone could do it quite as well as me and I think a lot of people that are entrepreneurial are in that position. Which is what real estate agents and lenders are. So how do you is it fair to say that’s the first step?
Yeah, it definitely is. The first step is to is realize where you are you are self employed operator, right? And it’s a build, they like to stay in that phase. And that’s fine just to stay in that fight phase but you’re, you’re going to hit a wall, right? We call it the plateau and whatever that plateau is maybe that’s making, I don’t know, 100 grand a year, 200 grand a year, whatever that plateau is. You’re going to be able to raise the plateau a little bit if you work more hours and your pipes gonna go down if you work less hours, but you’re just gonna hover there, we call it a yo yo business, basically, you’re going to be there. And if you get sick or you have family issues, it’s gonna go down. And then if you you know, have less responsibilities at home, you’re going to go up, but you’re not going to go anywhere. At the end of your life, what you built will just be a job, and you can’t sell it, you can’t expand it, and some people are fine with that. And if that’s you, then you know what we’re going to talk about the rest of today, maybe you won’t be that helpful. But for those who want to go beyond that, there is a way and it is a different way of working.
You’re right on the money with that. But God I’ll use myself, as an example here you guys is that when you will hit a plateau, you can only do so much. You won’t grow your business by yourself. There is no I in team. And no, I get to the next level like and we’re talking about running a business like not just being the average agent, you wait, you sell fucking 50 houses a year, congratulations, I’m talking about selling 150 houses a year 300 houses a year, becoming literally local celebrity building a brand in your market that requires business. And there’s no way that anyone in the top ranks right now, regardless of what profession you’re in, does this without what I think you’re about to share with us. But at least the vast majority unless you’re freakin Superman, but let’s be honest, we’re human beings. We have feelings, we have needs and whatnot, and it’s very difficult. Let’s start off with how you sort of walk us through how we work the system here, if you will, and let’s start off with that. Like, how do you and I’m just gonna act like how do you? I feel like this is a question. But how do you know what to give up and what not to give up? This is something I personally struggled with. Because ultimately, the biggest thing is you got your business you’re running, there’s a million things going on. You’re the CEO, CFO, accountant, CPA, you name it, you’re wearing every hat. Where does it make sense? I think one of the hardest things people has is I have to pay someone for that. What do they decide? And how do you help people overcome that? Because that’s the control factor, I think is just was hard for me at least Yeah.
Oh, yeah, definitely. And I think that’s a really important step. It was usually a few steps before that. And the reason why is to handoff. So whatever you’re doing right now, and entrepreneurial people, especially in real estate has a lot of ways to make money in real estate. But people who are entrepreneurial in that space, they, they there’s so much in their head and in their instincts and in their experience, that they know how to make success out of all sorts of random situations. And so they they’ve lived that for so many years that you had to hand over what you’re doing right now, or even pieces of it, the next person you handed over to is going to drop the ball, they’re going to screw it up, they’re going to miss the context, they’re going to miss the opportunity, they’re going to botch it. And so even before you can start handing things off, is you need to do, you know, sit out, sit alone for a minute and really think, okay, of the 10 different ways I make money in real estate, what is the piece that is the most scalable, that is the most efficient, that is the most simple, that really I could build a team around. And that could be duplicated, because maybe it’s not everything that you do, but there’s probably certain pieces. And that’s the part that you want to really think through and make a business out of, and we call the document, you write a strategic objective, because if you if you do that, then you know, okay, there’s, again, a lot of ways to make money real estate, but the business I want to build is going to be Gatineau flipping houses that are in the, you know, starter houses that are under $300,000 a year, or said that would be much in San Diego, but you know, whatever, whatever the range is gonna park in space. Yeah. And so you you pick, you pick exactly the kind of housing type, you pick the exact area, you pick the exact buying type, you pick the exact, you know, all the different pieces, and you really simplify it taking this, this buying group this product this way, you know, marketing this way, and like this is the plan. And then, and then you can start bringing people on. Because both people want to do a good job, they just don’t know how to, they don’t know what a good job looks like. And they don’t come with 20 years experience. It’s not their business, they learn how dedicated and so you you have to say hey, it’s a very simple thing, I need you to move this from point A to point B, I need you to to pound a real estate sign in the grass. Can you do that you dig the hole, put that in there. And yeah, someone can do that. And so the more you first have a simple strategy, then you can have simple processes and then you can bring in people to do simple things. And if those people come and go, which they do, then you can bring someone else on to do the same thing because you’ve you’ve mechanize a simplifies the pieces of your business and allow yourself to do the things that are more gray area decision making more complex. There’s a lot of nuance, there’s those there is you want to stay in, but you want that that piece your business to shrink, right. So right now most entrepreneurial real estate folks, everything is gray, everything has context, everything has nuance, but you want that part of your life to shrink over time, the more that can shrink, the more your business that’s scalable, can can grow. And that’s ultimately what you want to do. I’ll say, I have a client that I had years ago actually in Guam, so we do coaching and consulting, and they buy our products and, and one of them was a realtor, right. And so she was a realtor in Guam, and she focused on selling houses and the whole island of Guam. I’d never been there before. But then she realized that her key bind type was people in the military people were coming there, you know, to be there for a few years. And they were leaving years later. And like, this was her core thing. And then she realized that there was a certain kind of house that they wanted. And then she realized that they were mainly buying houses or searching for houses, out of state or out of country, like there were somewhere else looking. And so she said, You know what, I’m just going to do social media posts, specific to this kind of buying group. And she just became the face the brand, she’s very bubbly. And then she had her agents, she built up a team of agents, who just did this one type of house for this one type of buyer, who had this one type of situation where they’d be there for a while, and they would leave and they had, you know, a spouse, and one kid or whatever that might be kind of in that life range. And that was a business very simple, build a team around it, and didn’t have to do all of the real estate, commercial, industrial, you know, every other kind of real estate, you know, storage rentals, renovations, she just did her thing. And that’s what allowed it to be simple, profitable, easy, and ultimately more, more fun, because she could do what she likes to do, which was kind of be out there and be the face, but not actually handling the client work or the paperwork, or the, you know, the headaches that go into it.
It’s one of the one of my favorite books I’ve read in the last few years has been The One Thing by Gary Keller. And he talks a lot about that, like, pick out one thing you do well, so let’s put this in the context for a couple of the agents out there or even it’ll say your mortgage broker be really good at FHA loans. Now, I agree with this, I believe that when you’re really good and your niche or your niche, however you want to say it, I think that is when you actually sell more and do more. I think when you the problem I think you have in real estate, because you’re right, you’re saying you’re hitting on the DoD guys, this is really good. You might want to play this back. But what he’s saying is that what are you trying to resonate, and you become the jack of all trades, you master zero. And when that occurs, you end up losing other opportunities. And if you were just to narrow down on a niche, so let’s play this through on a couple different aspects. Why do real estate investors never have a listing problem? Like in any market, like real estate investors are always flipping houses. But then you have in this market right now, where inventory is very tight, regardless of where you’re at in the country, you can’t get a real estate agent can’t get a listing if they bought one. But Riis investors are picking up properties for pennies on the dollar easily. It’s because they do one thing very successfully, they focus on motivated sellers, distressed assets, and they put their cash offer in front of them over and over and over again until someone raises their hands and therefore they eventually find a property to buy. So what does that for you, you guys, realtors go out there and then they buy leads over here, then they go out and buy a software they never use, then they go out and invest in some coaching system they never take the lessons to and then they go out over here and then they go to this and this is every freaking you guys are a bunch of squirrels is what the problem is? Well, Heidi personality, like me, I’m like one of the worst of it. But how often you see that? Is that pretty common?
Oh, yeah, well, and I think that people who are in sales, like realtors, it’s even more common, the more you’re in a sales environment, perfect face to face sales. The skill sets that you need to be really successful making connection and making these deals happen is like the opposite skill set that you need to build a business. To build a business, you have to be someone who can just sit quietly, and see the separate pieces and document their systems and be more of a you know, behind the scenes engineer than somebody who’s really good on the spot. And I think that that’s hard. And if you don’t, if that’s not your personality type, then you can know that but still know that’s a key part of your business that you’re lacking. And so maybe you need to bring out someone who’s an operations manager. But they wouldn’t have to be full time to begin with. They could help you with the operations. They could help you get those pieces dialed in they could help you line up a sequence for you. Because I mean I mean a lot people in sales and that’s just not their their way of living. But they know they want it and I don’t I don’t say don’t don’t become something you’re not just understand the importance of it and try it bring someone on, you make a few more sales, and then use that money to invest in your business, you’re not gonna invest your time at least to invest your money in your business, and don’t invest in coaching yourself to be something that you’re not. I think that’s because I’ve tried, I’ve tried a lot of people, you know, to make them into that kind of a project engineer, and they hear it, they think about it, they like it, but they don’t do it. And I’ve gotten more to the point where we know what, that’s really not you then find somebody who is like that, who really likes to cross the t’s and dot the i’s, they really like to build these separate systems, and bring them on board. And oftentimes, you have to pay those people very much. I mean, they, they really like to be behind the scenes and, and help you put those pieces together. And then you’re gonna find that, again, scalability happens then.
So basically, list all the stuff you hate, or you’re not good at, that you have to do to get by with your business, make a list of that, outsource it, figure out how to outsource it, whether it’s a VA, or maybe you hire someone in house, you hire what we call slash I’m going to give you a little bit everything. But that’s what we’re seeing here. Yeah.
Yeah, well, but again, the first thing is, we call. So there’s different methodologies into the first step to ours is systems mindset, mindset shift a strategic objective operating principles, general principles. And then after that, yeah, just like you said, it’s breaking apart your business in terms of what I would do with business owners is to help them first see what what they’re doing. And so it’s pretty tedious, but actually writing down every single thing you do throughout the day, and do that for three days. And you’re going to see, most of what you do is pretty remedial work, most of what you do, wouldn’t have to happen. If you’re driving out to properties to take pictures, maybe you’re, you know, I don’t know listing things online where someone else could list it, maybe you’re doing various things that you wouldn’t really have to do. And, and once you have that list that it’s about, who can either do this, or doesn’t need to happen at all. So automating that, delegating it, deleting it, oftentimes, a lot of what people are doing doesn’t even need to happen at all, or it’s the wrong thing. They’re putting something that would be really great once their business was in order, but they just need to put some things in order first. And so you know, stop doing that thing for six months, and just build a few infrastructure elements first. And I think you put a good point out there in terms of the people you bring on board. In some cases, you want us an expert to do a thing, like I have a bookkeeper who just, you know, does my books, she doesn’t do 10 different things. And she sends out invoices, she does the books, she prepares the things to give us my account, my counter says taxes. That’s the one thing that they do. So there are some you know, I’ve got a guy who does video editing, he just does video editing. He’s great at video editing, I’m not going to have him also do sales calls like he just does the one thing that you want to have some of those you know hired guns on your team, especially as you’re growing.
There’s there’s gonna be a specialization and then there’s going to be the nuanced stuff that’s like must do but someone can take care of a lot of this stuff, especially transactionally in the transactional business. Yeah, did you guys hear what he said? He’s just said if you need to outsource your video editing, that’s exactly what we do you guys. That means if you need to script that industry, but your videos you contact a real estate marketing dude, because that is about money making activity. Anyways, edit, take that plug real quick. So yeah, it makes a lot of sense. There’s a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff to unpack there. Alright. I go through I figure out what I’m doing because it is also if you’re running a business, you’re good at something like if you’re at this stage, right? So identifying what that is and what cannot be duplicatable was one of the things I figured out early on I’m like what can I do that no one else can buy that I can’t hire out. Right for realtor a lot of that’s gonna be the face time the one on one go in there and close a dam appointment. You don’t need to be the one to show up and take the damn photos with the photographer that’s a waste of time you don’t need to be the one putting up the lockbox that’s a complete waste of time. If you’re a lender, you don’t need to be the one taking in the paperwork. That’s a complete waste of time you need to get them on the phone you’re pretty face in front of them, make them feel secure and then hire out all those tedious type tasks. And yeah, what does that mean you have more time to create content more time to spend with your family more time to I don’t know do whatever the hell you want go on fucking vacation who cares? Live life but it makes a lot of sense. I’m living in it right now everything that he’s saying is right on you guys and I’ve made the shift in like literally 12 months 1218 months I would say doesn’t happen overnight though does it?
No it doesn’t it that’s why we like get people to write some things down so that they can hold themselves accountable to actually sticking with the plan that came up with because as you know, there’s always that next deal that comes in the door and it takes you off track and you’re like well I’ve been really focused on this this housing type but then you know this multi multifamily you know, unit came in, so I’m gonna get You know, spend my a spinner wheels with this for next two months. And so you have to really be eventually discipline to stay in that line. And the other piece about really doing what you’re really good at Mike is, eventually, you become so good at that you can start charging premium prices, you can start to really raise the rate of what you you are personally worth at doing what you do, because you don’t do hire things. You just do three things. And so I you know, and that depends on different industries. I don’t really know how much of a premium you can put on your pricing in real estate, but
I think quite a bit. Let’s play it out. I’m gonna be two different examples. Well, you live in Hawaii, right. What’s the town you live in the city again?
I live in Kelowna. So Kawhi is the island. Yeah, so
Kawhi is the island. But Hawaii is a bunch of different islands. So there’s a difference between a Hawaii real estate agent and then one that specializes just on that island? Yep. Yeah, like the one who’s just on that island is going to demand a higher rate than the one that’s not there. And the thing that I think too, in real estate is that we often be like, Oh, my God, people often don’t care as much about price, as I think we put an emphasis on and I think that goes for any business. There’s a reason why Ritz Carlton exists and Holiday Inn. It’s just based upon the experience, there’s gonna be a market for both you guys, and you have to realize that it’s one of the biggest questions when a realtor what’s happening in the industry right now is there’s a lot of we call it commission compression. There’s a lot of outside forces, trying to remove the Commission’s there’s a lot of outside forces trying to remove Realtors from the equation. Do a travel agent reboot, if you will. But and that’s where a lot of this in the industry is a lot of agents having to do things differently having to reposition themselves having to rebrand themselves. And it’s what you’re saying is right on because I the whole message of the show you guys, you guys got to own one you got you got to do one thing with your personal brand very, very well.
Right? Yeah, totally. And I and, and as you probably know, from talking to me, I work a lot of industries, hundreds of them. So I don’t know much about real estate. But I know that I had a client years ago who owned a fleet of taxis, right? It was in the taxi, it’s like, maybe eight years ago, nine years ago. And we all know what’s what’s happened to that industry, right with Uber and Lyft, and all that stuff. And at the time, you know, everyone kind of wore his his fleet, the different different colored cars, different clothing that his drivers wore, they would say different things, the brand wasn’t really tight, they had some repeat clients, they had some private clients, they had some, you know, high end, low end, you know, will be at the airport, they’re all different things. I said, you can see what’s coming with technology and what’s happening and, and you’re really gonna have to be, you know, clear on what your brand is, I mean, and we came up with this whole plan, which was going to be you know, really higher end cars, it was going to be private clients, it’s going to be clients who wanted consistency, they wanted to get to know you, they were going to be your personal drivers. And really just focus on that don’t Don’t be the generic, Uber Lippard just coming up then. And, you know, he just didn’t, he didn’t go didn’t go for it. He said, Well, you know, I’ve been a miss out in the airport, I’m gonna miss out on this, I’m gonna miss out of that. And my drivers don’t want to all wear a uniform, and they don’t all want to be consistent. So the people didn’t want to be consistent on his team. And therefore he just diluted and never heard from the guy again, I’m sure he’s out of business, he’s probably probably he’s probably an Uber driver right now. And I think, like you said, it probably happening exactly the same in real estate. Not that I follow it closely. But if all of the low end people who want the cheapest people who want who are fine using an app or using a website to find their own house, and they’re really trying to cut the commission down i’ll be trying to be at the highest and you know, very specific, very custom very unique, you know, know, know your market know your niche, know your, what, you’re the best ad in the world in terms of helping in this particular industry, and then charge a premium. And don’t be ashamed about it. Like yeah, I help people find houses that have Olympic sized swimming pools that are near the ocean or whatever. And that’s what I do. If you want Olympic sized swimming pool, I know where all the Maranta it costs extra 10 grand, I don’t know, I mean that here’s
the hardest part of that is that when you do make the shift, guys, this is what happens. The hardest part about making it is that there will be an opportunity that doesn’t fit your new narrative that you have to turn down. It’ll be a short term loss for a long term game, though you have to realize that Yeah, and just like the scenario here would be like, Okay, let’s just say I’m in San Diego I only focus on coastal properties. So that means I’m west of the five you know, the market or their you know what that is? I’d focus just on the west of the five but let’s just say I get a listing 20 miles inland. I got to say no to that listing, because what we’re saying while I build my brand going west of the five because over the long term, if you play your cards right you fully commit You’ll win out. But in the short term, you might lose out in that little than that one deal that you just took inland. So you have to discuss and figure out what that is for you. And be willing to do it is the hardest part
is there’s two things, you also wanna think about what then I totally agree with you, Mike. One of them is, if you’re consistently getting work that’s outside the bubble you’ve defined, find other partners, friends, referrals that you can send out and get paid something for, you know, I used to this kind of work, but I don’t anymore, I give it to give it to Rick. Okay, at least I’m gonna get 1000 bucks or whatever, I’m gonna get some fee, but I can keep my head straight. That’s one way to do it. And the other way to do it, and this is what I do as a consultant, is I do one thing, I help people, you know, shift from being, you know, self employed business owners to being true business owners kind of help them make that shift using a methodology. But if somebody comes to me and says, Josh, I love your podcast, I love I want to work with you. I mean, I’m working on this startup, and we’re doing whatever, you know, can you work with me? And I’m really intrigued by it, I will just raise my fees dramatically. And I’ll say, You know what, it’s going to be $10,000 a day. I’m just throwing a number out there. But I’m happy to work with you just $10,000 a day. And if he’s like, sounds great. Let’s do it. Like, Oh, okay. Well, you know, so. So it’s more of a not saying no to opportunities, but you just raising your rates, because it takes you off of your key business. And I think that helps people during the transition period, as well, as they’re not saying no, they’re just saying, you know, my time is worth this, it’s going to be a distraction, it’s gonna take me off course, I’m going to put a high dollar fee onto that. If it happens, I’ll do it. But if it doesn’t happen, I’m okay with that, too. I did that with a speaking event. I don’t I don’t do keynote speaking. If you’re watching this, you probably know, I’m not that dynamic of a person. And so I those persons, like I want you to speak at our annual event, it’s going to be so important. And I’m like, Well, I don’t really do that. It’s not part of our business plan. It’s not really
a perfect example. Like, would most people be like, I speak in a keynote I’m in. But you’re like, so disciplined that you know, your lane.
Yeah. And it’s not scalable. It’s not going to be I can’t use my team to do it. I have to travel. This
is my team to give a keynote. That’s funny.
So it’s a, so I said, Okay, so how long is it? It’s, it’s an hour to $5,000. Okay. He Said, She Said, sounds good. You know, and like, Okay, well, I guess I’ll, you know, do my standard by standard stick for five grand and that’ll go horrible. Call it a day, but but it’s not something I want to do every day. But then I can take that money and invest in things that are scalable, that don’t require me to be here. And so that’s, that’s, I think, mentality that you want to have. But like you said, it doesn’t happen in a day you have to be disciplined. I’m personally not discipline. I mean, I that’s something that I was just talking to, you know, Sam, the author of the book is that that’s 2020 to be more disciplined. That’s and entrepreneurs have a hard time with that. Yeah.
No doubt. Well, this has been awesome. Closing notes, closing thoughts, guys. The one thing that you have to own in the real estate business is your network, your database, anyone who you know, basically your Facebook list because 88% of business is going to come from the people that are just around you that either know you personally met you they referred to you or you have worked with them in the past. That’s where business comes from in real estate. So if you’re gonna own one thing on your damn database, on your social media accounts, and make sure every single person you know knows what the hell you do, and if you need help doing that, we would love to help you script edit and distribute your video content. Josh, why don’t you go ahead and tell people how they can find you read the book, check out his stuff, you guys it’s been this is while we always talk about making money and all the glamour shitter real estate buying nice cars and all of that you don’t get there unless you do this first. So look this guy up. And Josh, go ahead and tell them how they can find you.
Sure, yeah, could a WT s enterprises calm and there, you can get a copy of the book, the book summary. So if you don’t wanna read the whole book, which I recommend you get the book summary there for free other business resources and all we do is help people like you scale their business with with this methodology. So coaching consulting done for you services, and if you want something else, maybe you want to ship your business, I trained consultants so I train and certify consultants in this method because I can’t do all the work and tons of work out there. So if you ever want to make career change or be consultant, let me know and happy to talk about that.
Love it man. Appreciate it appreciate you guys listen another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast. Like I said before, if you need help building your personal brand and you want to do it with video, the only time it doesn’t work is when people don’t like you. But that’s nothing we can help you with. So, but if you do need help scripting and editing and doing all those non money making activities we just chatted about, quit thinking about it and get on the computer on your phone and scheduling demo with the real estate marketing dude right now. Appreciate you guys follow us on social keep relieving the remarks leaving the comments and the reviews. We love you. See you guys next week. Peace out. 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 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 a dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.
So you’ve got a pile of leads from a variety of sources and levels of readiness to make a purchase. How do you convert them into customers? What channels do you use? How long do you wait to respond? We are answering all these questions and more on today’s episode with Jessie Beadoin, CEO and Founder of CallAction.co. CallAction.co is a lead engagement platform that lets you personalize your messages to prospective customers on a whole new level.
Nowadays most leads are coming through online, and we are living in a mobile-friendly world. It is time for our engagement with leads to catch up to technology! And no matter how many leads you may acquire across all your channels, the key to conversion is in the right follow up technique. That’s where Jessie’s software comes into play. Through quick response and personalized messages, we can engage with our customers and make a good first impression. Jessie and I go into more detail about the types of inquiry messages realtors typically will receive, and the differences between a daytime vs. nighttime inquiry. Jessie keys me in on what the average response time should be for the initial outreach, as well as the follow up after response. By defining what the customer’s need might be, and how pressing the need currently is, we can clearly lay out a path to converting them into a customer.
Realtors need not focus first on establishing the trust or touting their expertise, but rather simply making the connection. First impressions are everything! By meeting the customer’s expectation through rapid response time and personable communication, you are establishing the first level of trust with your customer. In this episode, Jessie and I share some great tips to increasing the quality of your leads, and the proper follow up to boost the chances of converting the lead.
Today’s Topics:
What is CallAction.co
Typical lead time between inquiry and actual purchase
What is lost when we communicate online vs. in person
Are scripts bad?
Magic response times for first touch and follow up
Biggest frustration for customers with how realtors follow up
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