Social Savvy: Mastering Real Estate Connections with John Reyes
28 Feb 2025 · 61 min
In this episode of The New and Experienced Investor Podcast, hosts Alex Barnett and Joe Homs interview national speaker, digital‑marketing CEO, and author John D. Reyes. The conversation centers on why video‑first social media is essential for real‑estate agents and investors, how to create short, hook‑driven content, and how to leverage AI tools (ChatGPT, Captions) to produce scripts, captions, and graphics in minutes. John shares his career journey—from selling cell phones, to mortgage lending, to becoming a top‑producing realtor and trainer—explaining how he built a consulting business that trains brokers, marketing directors, and agents on video marketing, sales communication, and contract knowledge. He outlines a step‑by‑step training model (record‑once, repeat‑five‑times, drill, set targets) and demonstrates a live ChatGPT masterclass that generates client pain points, hooks, and 75‑word scripts that can be fed into a teleprompter. The episode also covers the evolution of video platforms (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok), the importance of 15‑25‑second videos to capture shrinking attention spans, and the need for agents to be remembered rather than expected to be remembered. John discusses his book “21 Strategy Keys,” which compiles interviews with 21 top‑producing professionals, and his ongoing speaking engagements. Throughout, the hosts stress authenticity, consistency, and measurable tracking (targets, repeat recordings, CRM integration) as the keys to turning video content into real‑estate transactions.
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What's up, you guys? Welcome back to the podcast, the New and Experienced Investor Podcast. Today we're talking about social media and more specifically video content and why it's so important for agents and investors today. Uh, it's definitely a show you do not want to miss. I'm one of your hosts. I'm Alex Barnett. I'm the new guy.
And that makes me Joe Homs and the Experience Guy.
Oh yeah. And we have an amazing guest with us today. I'm super, super excited. Uh, he's a national speaker, CEO of a, uh, digital marketing company, and now a bestselling offer— author of, uh, 21 Strategy Keys. So, which is sort of a culmination of knowledge with top-producing, uh, real estate professionals. So I'm super excited that he's here with us. in studio. Before we bring him on, just want to remind everybody about our upcoming meetup, March 24th.
And our guest is going to be Burton from PropStream, and he's going to teach us how to use PropStream and all the new tools that they've put out over the last few months. So that'll be exciting.
That will be exciting. They, they've changed sort of the user interface and gave it some more bells and whistles so you guys can find those deals. I always like to remind you guys, while While you're here, please share far and wide this podcast because we're live right now. So go ahead, jump into the chat, get those questions answered. You have full access to our guest. You have full access to Mr. Experience, over 40 years of experience. And, um, it's one of our most requested parts of the show because we actually share your chats with, um, the, at the end of the show. So people love it. That's pretty cool.
That is cool.
That is cool. So before we launch into the topic of, you know, video content, um, for investors and agents and everything, um, let's, let's share some 2 tips. Uh, my first tip is when regarding social media, I mean, people come up to me recently at the meetups and say, I've been seeing your videos and stuff. And they're like, I want to do that, but I don't know how. I say, just start. You know, you're not gonna be exactly where you want to be. Um, but just start documenting what you're doing and, you know, Get into the habit of posting consistently online and then sort of, you know, figure out what your plan is, who you're trying to reach, but just get into the habit of it. So especially if you're shy and you don't like hearing yourself or looking at yourself on video, just get in the habit of doing it. Post what you're doing, post regularly. That's my tip.
Good tip. 2020, We met on a Zoom call, and you wanted to learn how to flip, and you were kind enough to say, "If you teach me how to flip, I will do a lot of social media for you." Because obviously, here we are three years later, and we have our own podcast, which is the number one podcast in Laguna Hills.
That's right.
Yeah, never forget that. I think it's fantastic. We we use the recording studio here a lot, and we put out some good content, and I appreciate everything that. you and the producer have done over the last 5 years.
Aw, thanks, Joe.
You are welcome. And thank you. And I appreciate everything you've done for me.
And you know, Alex got recognized. We were out on an evening walk and he got recognized from his social media the other night.
Oh yeah. But it turned out to be a family friend.
Oh, okay. It was some guy.
He's like, I've seen your videos. And he's like, you don't remember me? And I was like, no. He's like, I was your dad's friend like 20 years ago. I was like, oh.
We were both like, uh, this is weird.
He turned out to be a family friend. I hadn't seen him forever, so pretty fun. Uh, let's go ahead and bring our guest in. Like I said, I'm really, really excited today. We have John Reyes. Um, John, thanks for being here. How, how's it going?
Appreciate the opportunity to be here with you, and you got a beautiful studio, so things are going great.
Awesome, thank you. Yeah, why don't you go ahead, jump in, uh, let our audience know kind of how you got into real estate, what you were doing before, what led you there.
So I was very lucky. I had a friend who called me when I was in college. I was a senior in college, and at the time I was selling cell phones for Nextel.
Nice.
You guys remember Nextel? That had the walkie-talkie feature?
Yeah.
And working for Nextel, we had 11,000+ salespeople in the United States. I ranked number 1 on the West Coast, number 2 in the United States at the time.
Wow.
And so I had always been involved in sales, pretty much since I was 18. I was 1099. And a good friend of mine called and said, hey, John, I know you're doing well over there, which selling cell phones, I wasn't making a ton of money. We had a lot of caps in place. But he says, I think you would crush it in my business. And I said, what do you do? And he said, I sell mortgages. And I said, what's mortgage? And people think that I'm exaggerating when I say that, but I'm really not. I was completely clueless to anything finances, real estate. And so I was in my last quarter. I graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with a degree in business administration. And I walked, celebrated with my family. The very next day, I started off working for a mortgage firm in Anaheim, right by Disneyland, right by the, the pond. I'm a huge Anaheim Ducks fan, so that was perfect. And then the thing about it is that we were cold callers. That's all we did. We were instructed pretty much— the company, I'm sure, broke a lot of labor laws. We were not allowed to leave the premises. It's like you walked in, you clocked in, you stayed there. And the way we generated business was through our phones. That's it. So I was a big fan of movies like Wall Street. Was it Boiler Room? I'm sorry.
Oh yeah.
Boiler Room, Wall Street.
Mm-hmm.
And all those movies, you know, when you're young and, oh yeah. And you just watch them get all jazzed up sales-wise. So that was my entrance into the real, real estate business 20+ years ago.
Wow.
Yeah.
And it's, it's great. I mean, people don't realize if you have this, the skill of sales and selling, it's like you can dominate any industry. So why not sell one of the most expensive items, houses? You know? So you, you eventually go from mortgages into being an agent.
Yeah.
So the way that it worked is that I was, I was working for that company. I quickly excelled and my numbers were crushing with them. This was a direct lender. We were big, huge. We were one of the biggest in the United States. And I was already setting records for my company. So I had a manager that said, look, here's what we're going to do. We're going on out to Miami because at the time my company was sponsoring the halftime Super Bowl for Aerosmith. And he said, give me this and I will give you what you want, which I wanted was a branch of my own. So I hit the goal. And then as soon as he came back, I, I said, hey, let's do it. And he's like, what are you talking about? He acted as if he never even told me that.
Oh yeah.
So I was in escrow on a home. I was getting married. My date was already set. And I called my girlfriend at the time, my fiancée at the time. My wife and I, we met when we were 15. So at that time, we were together for 8 years. And I said, here's what happened. I'm going to quit. And I was doing really well, making a ton of money. But I had a certain standard of I'm not working for these people. And she said, what are you going to do? And I said, I have no clue. I have no idea. But I'm not going to work for these people. And I went in and I quit. And then the very next day, Somebody had reached out to me to say, why don't we work together? We'll start an office. And that's how I got into the mortgage business, opening up an office, doing loans. And then clients wanted me to help them buy and sell real estate. I did not want to become a realtor. I had no desire to do it. I wanted to work with realtors and I wanted to do their loans. And then that's how I ended up getting it almost grudgingly, because then now I got to take care of my clients. But I'm happy I did for sure, because then that really set the stage for everything we're doing today, 20 years later.
I love that. And, you know, a big part of what you're doing now is the digital marketing. So kind of how did you get into that space from, from mortgages and being a realtor?
So when I opened up the mortgage company, I wanted real estate agents' loans. But here's what I did not want to do. I didn't want to be in the same sandbox like everybody else. And this is not— again, this is no exaggeration. At my office upstairs was a lender. To the left of me was a lender. To the right of me was a lender. And that's why I was like, the city of Rancho Cucamonga, we have so many freaking lenders. Like, you throw a rock, you hit a lender. Then I learned you throw a rock, you hit a realtor.
Yes.
Like, because we're like the mecca of real estate agents and loan business in the Inland Empire. And so I didn't want to stand there and say, hey, I got the best rates, best turn times, best fees. So I started holding trainings and I would call and I would say, hey, Joe, I'd like to invite you to one of my trainings. Here's what I'm going to share with you. I'm going to teach you how to sell, teach you how to be a better marketer. And then if you like what I have to share with you, Then give me 5 to 10 minutes of your time so I can share with you how my loan business works. And so that was the way that I started doing my trainings. And then I started to get some really key people showing up at my events. And then I started showing things that I thought were cool technology. And I was on a shoestring budget at the time with marketing. So I was using these resources and that's really what prompted people to just want to focus more on my tech trainings. And then I saw the life kind of on its own. It started to permeate, and I came up with some ideas like, I wonder if I could do this, and I wonder if I could do that. And then shortly afterwards, the California Association of Realtors, they were looking for a company to develop the official social media training curriculum for CAR education. And we went in and we fought for it, and we were awarded 2/3 of the contract. 1/3 went to a technology piece that I was not even in contention for. I was given the the live, and they want— CAR at the time wanted me to share my curriculum with the online version with another company, and that company was led by a really well-known trainer in the space. And I'm like, no way, just give me the whole contract. Why would I give my training to somebody else? Because for them to be a part of it. So I showed up at CAR's headquarters out in Los Angeles, and I talked to the powers that be, and then I just had to be persistent. And then we were given that designation. And that right there changed the trajectory of our company because the moment that you're in with CAR, pretty much everybody else looks at you like, you're good enough for CAR, you're good enough for us. And then I ended up getting a contract after that with Century 21. I've been doing trainings with them for about 14-plus years at all their big corporate events. And then just have been traveling all across the country and speaking at events ever since then.
And that company is Social Networks.
So yeah, Social Networks is the company that we created after our partnership with CAR.
Okay.
And it was just a matter of logistics for us to come up with some new branding. And we created that as a team, as a company, but then fast forward for the last 2 years, I've just been promoting myself more independently. As you know, it's like anything, right? You go through changes and we wanted to make some changes amongst ourselves as a group. And I wanted to be able to just also rebrand, and it's given me some opportunities just to promote myself as John D. Reyes. And the D is not trying to be fancy, and it's not trying to mimic like John D. Rockefeller, which we all know. Just John Reyes. There's so many freaking John Reyeses that if you Google John Reyes, so many of them show up. At one time it was 80 million in the search results. So I'm like, how do I, how do I like try to consolidate that number? Well, I have a middle name. What if I just add that? That's too long. Okay, I'll just put my initial. And then that took the search results from here and consolidated it to here. So that's my fancy response when people see the John D. Reyes. I'm like, really? It was just to make it easier to find me on the internet.
I like it.
It's humble, but it does work because you're like, John D. Rockefeller, this is the guy.
That's right.
Well, let's jump into, you know, the marketing aspect of it. I'm sure— when was that when you got in with Carr?
About 15-plus years ago.
Okay.
Wow.
So what was the technology then? Um, that you were kind of explaining that, that people should do and then fast forward it all the way till now and how has it changed?
So the big thing that we were talking about back then was YouTube.
Okay.
Yeah.
Funny enough, being on YouTube Live.
Oh my God. If you would've started back then and stayed with it, like, did you train some people that you've seen that became like influencers or anything and they're like blown up?
So I wouldn't say like influencers, but definitely some of the biggest in their markets.
Right.
Without a doubt. Then there's no question. And I like to let people, if they ever want to talk about it, if they want to give me my kudos, fantastic. But I've shown up to some of the biggest players in our game, and I've gone to open houses where people have just simply acknowledged, hey, I saw you 9 years ago, and now I'm number one in my market, where I'm talking about really expensive South OC type markets, which is like, dang it. Maybe I should have done business out here. Another gentleman out in Las Vegas.
Yeah.
Absolutely crushing on a massive level. And now he's a good friend. I refer him a lot of my business that goes on out to Vegas. But that also came about just simply because I remember when I did my training well over a decade ago, he was in the audience and he was a, he was a middle-aged realtor at the time. And he was like, yeah, I think I can do this. And they've done absolutely well. Also another really good buddy of mine. Over a decade ago, he was a top-producing real estate agent. Now he runs the number one team in the world for Century 21, and he credits a lot of what he's done now— number one team in the entire world. The guy works less hours but produces at such a high level. And I remember his very first video, but he called me. He, he said, with what you just shared with me, can— do you think I can use this in order to build a team? And I said, absolutely you can. We gave him the guidance on that and now he's doing really well. This morning I did a training for some real estate agents out in Florida and a broker who was also part of that training that I had done over maybe 13, 14 years ago. He's now crushing. He has his own brokerage, has well over 100 agents, and he was just giving us a lot of the credit from how he built his business because he was brand new at the time and now he's dominant out in the Orlando market. So it's great to see so many people to have taken advantage of it. And then with them still putting it into play today, because then it makes it easier for me to say this person and this person, and then it's just simply edification. Yeah, they're already doing it.
Absolutely. And I mean, YouTube, it's, it's a lot like real estate in that you got to give it the time because, you know, if you started 15 years ago, 10 years ago, and you consistently posted, all that stays in On the internet, because basically YouTube is just Google, which is a search engine. So when people go South Florida real estate, all these videos show up and it's the same guy, you have that credibility right there.
Right, exactly.
But I don't want anybody to go searching my YouTube channel from 5 years ago, remember?
Oh yeah, yeah.
That was, that was a learning experience.
Well, that's right.
But the first time I've been on, you know, uh, TV or whatever, it was like, hi, my name is Joe. Yeah. I sell real estate.
Yes.
Right. It's come a long way.
It has come a long way. It's come a long way. Yeah. Now we're doing drone shots. We got production value.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But all of that comes, you know, over time and you getting better as a, as a talking head and a person on, on camera.
You're quite the actor now, Joe.
Thank you. So let's get into the kind of nitty-gritty then. What was your training like this morning? What are you telling agents now? What, where do you start 'em off at? Like, You know, do a podcast? What is it that you're, you're telling them or training them?
I don't tell them to do a podcast because most of them would never do it. There's going to be a very small percentage of people that do it. And I'm not trying to teach real estate agents how to be real estate celebrities, influencers, because I don't think that's realistic. And so what I'm saying is this, I'm speaking to the masses, real estate agents. We know that a great majority of our business comes by way of people who know us, people who trust us. It's our sphere of influence. And in 1990, 70% of real estate transactions were done directly with a consumer working with a realtor that they knew, somebody that was in their space. 70% sounds like a pretty good, decent number. 2024, that number dropped down to 32%. And a big reason is because our clients, people that we know, they're going elsewhere. They're going to the big portals. And then real estate agents will get mad and upset at the fact that people are not picking up the phone and calling them as if consumers have a duty to remember us. And I tell real estate agents, we're not in the charity business. It is nobody's— it's nobody's job to remember you. It is your job to be remembered. So my focus would be more on build and establish your database through social media because that's where our clients are at. And then create content consistently. And I'm not talking about 5 videos a day. I'm talking about 2 videos a week, 3 videos a week. The more you do, the better. But also, I want to be realistic with the real estate agents. I feel like I know agents really well. And if I give them an unrealistic game plan, they're not going to do it. But it's grab your phone, create a 30-second video, give a point Educate, give some insight, establish yourself as an authority. So that way when somebody in your group, somebody in your sphere, they hear the word real estate, then they think of you. But today's class this morning was all chat on ChatGPT. It was a ChatGPT masterclass. So pretty much it was just 1 hour solid. And the first thing I did was to put a prompt to give me 10 frustrations, 10 desires, 10 fears, and 10 dreams that my clients experience when it comes to selling their home. And then I asked ChatGPT to format it as a table. And so I did this live demo. So it gave me now 40 points, and they're all really specific points to our business. And then from there, that gives us a good understanding as real estate professionals who's our client. Then I asked for 10 hooks based off the information that I could use for my video. For example, one of the hooks was, here's the number one mistake that nobody wants you to know, or here's the number one mistake that sellers make before putting their home on the market. And the idea of a hook is just come up with a hook and then you come up with the content. And a lot of agents could do that comfortably, but many of them cannot. So then I take the hooks and then I ask ChatGPT to give me a 75-word blog that I could read in first person, utilizing the hook and utilizing the point provided, keeping in mind that I'm a realtor, because now it gives me a 45-second script. All I need to do is copy that script and then paste it into a teleprompter. But then I introduce Captions as the app because Captions is an app that I can read the script and then with one tap it has an AI function built so that way it corrects my eyes where you can't even tell that I'm reading. In fact, it brightens it up to make it look even better. And so that's what I did as a live demo today and some other things too. But that's overall the indication of what I'm showing. But you asked me what am I telling agents and I'm telling them this. Video marketing is not new. We've been beating the drum on this for a very long time. I will still show up at an association today, and sometimes there's not an audience that you would expect, and that's problematic from the industry. Too many real estate agents make excuses. I don't know how. I don't know. I don't have the time. Well, we just showed you the how to come up with the ideas, to come up with the scripts, gave you the, the app to make it happen in 3 minutes or less, and now it's time And this is where my— the onus of the responsibility is on the community to say, don't say you don't have the time, just say you choose to not make it a priority because consumers are getting their information directly from these digital devices. My dad's going to be 78 in a week, and my dad learned how to flush out his very own water heater. He's not a plumber, but he's like, yeah, I just have the time and I watched some videos on YouTube. And I'm like, really, Dad? That's how you did it?
Yeah, yeah, YouTube University.
That's exactly right.
Yeah, that's, that's awesome. And You know, I think what Alex has taught me is you're not, you're not, you know, in front of the camera, you're not, uh, list a property with me, you know, like I can help you buy this property. I can sell this property. It's more about like what you were talking about, you know, find a problem and try to fix that problem or solution, or at least give them the idea. So you're, you're kind of, you know, being, I guess, real instead of trying to be fake.
I think authenticity goes a long way, especially in today's time. So I'm the real estate agent that I don't wear a suit, I don't wear a tie. I don't think you do either, right?
Hawaiian shirts only.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, and that's all part of my, like, it's part of my brand, right? So I focus more on what I'm gonna say, the value that I'm gonna deliver to my clients. But I also don't think it's as important as it once was, where back in the day, if you showed up at certain offices— and there's nothing wrong with it, don't get me wrong— so if there's any brokers that are on this call that adhere to the coaching where you show up in a suit and tie every day, more power to you. I look at some of these guys and I say, wow, I wish I could dress like that, but I lack style and I've lacked that ever since I've been young, right? So the, the whole idea behind it is that people want real. It doesn't have to be overly fake. Update your headshots. Don't make it look that somebody looks at your photo on your business card and it looks like you 15, 20 years ago.
Mm-hmm.
Because that is not, it's not authentic.
Right.
And I think it sends the wrong message to consumers. So when somebody says, I don't like the way that I look on video, it's like, this is how you look in person. Do you think when you show up, your client sees somebody else? Like, this is what you look like. Like, yeah, we gotta get over it. It's like my good friend Christophe Choo, who wrote the foreword of my book. Christophe is a world-renowned real estate broker outta Beverly Hills. He's been featured in the LA Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and he just has amazing listings all the time. But he spoke at an event for us. He was a keynote, and we had over 300 agents in the audience. It was a beautiful venue, sold-out room. You had to buy tickets to get in. The lights were dim, and he's like, turn on the lights, I want to see who I'm talking to. So he asked the audience, he said, who in this room is not using video? And a lot of realtors raised their hands.
Hmm.
So he pointed to one lady in the front, and he's like, miss, why are you not using video? And she said, Because I'm afraid. And he said, well, do you want to be afraid or do you want to get paid? And then of course everybody erupts in applause, right? Because that's like the realtor— the feeling is that we all applaud. But yet still many of them have not used video. But I am seeing more and more starting to adopt. I would say 70-plus percent of the agents when I'm speaking right now are already using things like ChatGPT. Yeah, even if it's basic, at least you're using it to do something.
And you recommend that the videos be, what, no more than 30 seconds? And why is that?
So the reason that I, I push for shorter videos is because I went to a training with one of the largest lenders in the entire country, and they're publicly traded. They have a lot of financial resources, and their chief marketing officer was in the room with us. And she was sharing, she says, based off the information and the knowledge that I've gained from dealing directly with some big players, including Google and Meta. She said 15 to 25 second videos are going to give you the best results. 15 to 25 seconds. Keep it short, keep it concise, straight to the point. And so I am a big believer, good artists copy, great artists steal. I don't need to try to reinvent the wheel and come up with all the data and the stats. So I just adhere to her. I'm like, she has bigger pockets than I do when it comes to connecting with bigger and bigger people. So that's where we went from there. But also I noticed it on my own video content as well. If I just create little short snippets and upload it, we can get some really good results that way.
Do you think people have shorter, um, shorter timeframe, short attention span?
That's exactly what I believe it is. And my heart goes out to teachers. I mean, if you got to deal with young kids where they're used to always being stimulated with a digital device, I couldn't even imagine. And so that's exactly what it is. As they say, people's— the average human has a shorter attention span than a goldfish. I don't know who does these studies because it's like, that just sounds crazy, but it sounds good. So, right, say that.
Exactly.
I think that study was recently doxxed. Yeah. And they stopped it now, so it's, it's, it's not there anymore.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I mean, and it's, it's just kind of been progressing that way. And then once TikTok came out and it was 15 seconds or Vine came out, then you get used to that and just the doom scrolling going up and past. And that's basically what you're doing is you're trying to make a hook that's causing people to stop when they're scrolling. And if you can do that, you're winning the attention game. I think that's the new biggest commodity is people's attention now.
That's right.
So what do you teach or what do you suggest to get the biggest attention in the first 15 seconds?
So I would say 3 to 5 seconds is state the problem, state the problem, what you're trying to address or solve. And so that's where something like ChatGPT asking for hooks can be a tremendous resource. So here's the number one tip that you should know before putting your home on the market or the number one mistake. So it's kind of that need, greed, or fear of loss type concept. And then also making it specific to real estate as a real estate professional. And the reason I do this is because if somebody scrolls by and they have no interest, that's not a problem. I don't need everybody's attention. I just want the attention of anybody who's even thinking, considering buying or selling real estate. And I used to be the guy that was pounding the phones Monday through Friday because that's how I was originally trained. And we were taking 5 listings a month. We were doing expireds and we were doing FSBOs. And pretty much it was 28 minutes Monday through Friday, 28 minutes on average in order to get one conversation. That's all we wanted. And that would equate to 5 listings. And then just because lifestyles change as well, I didn't— I don't want to do that anymore, right? Sometimes I'll still jump on the phones if I have a certain goal in mind, but most of the time now it's I have this database, I have this network, let me just continuously impress upon them that I'm an active agent, that I'm an informed agent, that I can share the success stories of my clients, and then just stay connected. So for example, Joe, let's just say you're my client. I haven't seen you in person for 4 and a half years. I have a duty to stay connected to you. Because if I really believe I'm the best solution for you and your family, if you ever decide to buy or sell, I want you to call me. So if it was your birthday, and I know you celebrate your birthday because we're friends online and I see you posting about your birthday, then if it is your special day, I could send you a message on Facebook, probably going to get lost with all the other messages that you get. I could probably send you a text message, and that's nice, that's a little bit more personal. But if I was to grab my phone And I just hit the record button and I said, hey, Joe, this is John Reyes, and I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. Joe, we hope that you get everything that you want today and more. We just want to let you know we're thinking about you. Joe, have a happy birthday. And now if I texted that to you and you're retired or you're a foreman or whatever, right? You're a doctor. And if you were to receive that message, how do you think that would make you feel?
Good. Yeah, absolutely.
And then you'd be like, wow, nobody else did that. And so that right there is tremendously valuable for us. We just closed a deal a couple of weeks ago. It was a new build, but that's what I did. I was watching episodes, reruns. I've already watched Breaking Bad multiple times. So it was a Sunday evening and I was watching, and then I just grabbed my phone and I recorded a video just to make an announcement on the latest rates information. I texted it to 23 people. One person responds immediately. I jump on the phone with her because I'm still— we call it old school, right?
Mm-hmm.
I jump on the phone with her right away and she's like whispering. Because she's telling me that her fiancé is asleep. And then so we coordinate to jump on a call the very next day. They send me 2 new builds. It's by the same builder. You park in one parking lot and then you just go see 2 different homes. We put a property under contract that day. And so it was less than 7 days from the day that I sent that video. But my investment of time to create that video was all but 15 seconds. I uploaded it to captions. I added captions. I enhanced the audio because there's an AI feature that will make it sound as if I have a microphone, even though I don't. And then I just texted that to my prospects. And I have like a hot list of leads. So I just went one by one. I could have used my CRM to mass text it, but I didn't. And it was just copy paste, copy paste. I have the Netflix account where I pay $8 a month. So I do still get 90-second commercials, 120-second commercials. So in between the commercials, I was just texting. But what was my return on that? It was almost a, almost an $800,000 transaction. Well, that was well worth my time. And that's my message to the real estate community is that our, our business, it is not easy, but it's simple. Just too many professionals don't make the moves consistently enough in order to have the chance to sell their service or to sell their product.
I'm a little disappointed nobody ever told me it was not easy. Yeah, yeah, I thought it was easy.
Yeah, all the gurus say it's simple. Yeah, no cash needed, flip without any of your own money.
Yeah.
Become a real estate professional and be a millionaire in 2 days. You just got your license 2 days ago.
Right.
Yeah. No, that's the way I thought it worked.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, you just keep pounding the pavement.
That's it. Yeah. Great tips.
Yeah.
Yeah. Awesome.
So now, are you taking on people and you help them with their social media or what's sort of your business model now regarding the digital marketing side?
So my business model is this. I work with brokers that have marketing directors. So I come on in for a broker, and then I'll be a part of their training curriculum. So then that will be a training one time a month. And then when I'm doing these trainings, it's one bite of the apple at a time. It's like Legos. So we're adding one layer each and every time. And then when I'm doing these trainings, I give the agents homework. Okay, now that we showed you this, now do this. But then the second part of my model is that I'm connected directly with management. So I tell Brokers, this will only work if you have a marketing director or somebody who's responsible for marketing, because you as a broker, you're too busy. You're not going to do it. I need somebody who's willing to take the reins and the accountability to say, don't just be the person that creates flyers. We need more than that. Let me give you the direction. So I'm coming in as like a consultant to the firm and giving the direction to the marketing director. And then I give a report back to the broker to say, Okay, here's what the targets are. Here's what we accomplished. And if there's any, anything that we did not accomplish, now it's a conversation of why, but not so much with me as much as it is the marketing director. So it really helps the broker put more pieces in place to get what they want. I feel like it gives a lot more structure to the marketing director as well, because many of them want to do cool things. I think just many of them struggle with the tools, the resources, or the direction, because you could be a great marketer. But if you don't know real estate, you're not going to be as effective. You're going to be— a broker will be super excited because they have somebody who knows how to create videos and do flyers. But in my opinion, you really, if you're going to be an amazing marketer, you have to understand our business. Our business is so intimate with consumers and it's stressful, right? I mean, there's blood, sweat, and tears that go into helping clients buy and sell real estate. So I feel like that's where I've noticed over the years where it usually lacks. So now I'm trying to come on in to solve that problem, to be that guide for the marketing director. And then I sell my book. People will come on out, they'll buy my book, and then I have an online training curriculum where if agents like what I'm sharing with them, then they will buy access in order to get my online training. And then I'll do other types of trainings as well. For 2025, we've built up a really good network, and I'm not just digital tech stuff. I love the sales aspect. So I'll show up in a room and say, all right, let's have a live one. Let's have a live dialogue. What are your frustrations? What are, what are your clients telling you? What are you dealing with that's holding you back from being successful? And I embrace these conversations live with people. And it's simply because as I was a practicing broker myself, I'm out there in the fight. I'm still closing deals. And I have a really good opportunity where I can turn it on when I want to turn it on, or if I want to cool down on it as well. And I know you guys are active investors. Fortunately for me, I connected with some really good people that gave me the guidance to also be one as well. And so that way we can take what we earn and then put it back into the product and service that we sell.
I love that. Now you mentioned your tracking, like how, what are some, what are some ways people can track that, you know, if they're implementing some of these tools and skills of the video and, and You know, all the things that you're sharing in the training, how are they tracking that? How do you know if they're, you know, making any headway?
So I would say that the first thing would be is for us to set targets. We got to set targets and set goals, right? So the first thing would be is one piece of the puzzle. Do you know how to do something as basic as record a video and text it to a friend?
Okay.
If you have that, and if you've done it, I tell them, don't just do it, do it 5 times. First time you do it, you're going to be very clunky. Second time, you're going to be like, okay, I think I got this. Third time, you're going to be like, okay, I really do think I can do this. Fourth time, you're gonna be like, all right, now I'm getting the hang of this. Fifth time, you're like, this is easy. And so it's just really the power of 5. Like I just say, whatever it is that I'm showing you, do it 5 times, drill it. And that's not something that I created myself. When I was 18 years old, I had a vice president of a company and we were in sales. And he, everything we did, he was always focused on drilling. You do it to the point where it's now like muscle memory. And then my dad, the way that he raised us too, is that he put a lot of attention on education for us. And I say for us, for my brother and my sister and I. And out of the 3, I was the only one that really, I guess, was fearful that if I didn't bring grades home that put a smile on my dad's face, you know, I feared the wrath that he would bring my way. And so I'm super grateful for that. But he would do flashcards all the time, ever since we were like in elementary. And I, I could just vividly remember multiplication tables, but he would grab them and hold them, and then you had to know it. And you weren't allowed to say 4 times— he'd be like, nope, you missed it. You're not— you can't say 4 times 4. I'm showing you 4 times 4. You either know it or you don't. It's 16. You move on.
Right.
And so that's drilling. We drilled early. And I say to real estate agents, if somebody was to meet you and they say, yeah, I'm thinking about selling my home, why should I hire you? You can't sit there and hem and haw your way through it. I had a real estate agent the other day where a part of my model as well is that she had asked if she can do a one-on-one with me. Well, I don't do coaching or nothing like that, but she was very persistent. So I was like, here's what I'll do for you. I'll make you a deal. You do this, I do that. And she was happy with it. But I said, I'm thinking about selling my home. She's in Rancho. It's a million-dollar property. There's no question I'm going to sell. The only question is, who am I going to list with? Why should I work with you? And she just started talking I will say rambling. So after 2 minutes, I stopped her and I said, you said a whole, a whole lot of nothing. There was no substance behind what you said. There was no structure. It was in one ear and it was out the other. So if we're going to speak to clients, we need to make sure that we can, number one, identify our value, and number two, we have to articulate it. We have to be able to be very concise to our consumers. So that's what I love too, is the sales training aspect of what we do.
Yeah.
Because it's like I was talking to a broker today and she was sharing with me frustrations of realtors and she was saying, here's what I'm looking to do, here's what I'm wanting to do. And I said, real estate agents need to develop their sales and communication skills because the moment that they know that confidently they could speak to a client and they have a high level of conversions, they're going to feel so much more— they're going to feel the motivation to go on out there and have conversations because now it's not like, oh, I'm going through the motions, I'm not going to get the deal. It's like, no, I love open houses because if somebody walks through that open house unrepresented, I got a really good chance of converting that client. I double end a lot of the transactions that I sell because I communicate with the person that walks through the front door. And I had a transaction that I closed. It was a $1.365 million deal, which in your guys's market, that might not be nothing big. In my market, that's a standout. In my average market, we're like $650,000, $670,000. So I had a $1.365 million Listing buyer shows up, and I'm engaging in conversation with them. And in my conversation, he says, "I have a real estate agent who I plan on writing this offer." Plan on writing this offer is different than hey, I got a real estate agent that I'm contracted with.
Right.
And then I was able to connect with him. He called me and said, "I love the way you work. My wife and I would like to know if you would be interested in representing our offer." Boom. And I was like, absolutely. Let me think about it.
Hold on really quick. Let me ask my partner. Yep, we're good.
Would, would, would you consider that description, um, as like an elevator speech or is it different?
That's exactly what it is.
Okay.
That's exactly what it is. And I've started to use that terminology more is, uh, the elevator speech. And yes, agents, some of them know it, some of them don't, frankly. But that's what we've been focusing on. So in some of my sessions, depending on the class that I'm doing, I'll even have a format for them to follow. And I'll say, okay, first thing we're going to do is a hook. Second thing is we're going to introduce ourselves, say the company you work with, say the market that you service, and then deliver 1 to 3 value propositions. And then we close. If you're thinking about buying or selling, I love the opportunity to talk to you. Give me a call.
And You're the agent that I fear when I send my clients to open houses. Last year everything changed and you have to put them under contract now, technically put them under contract. Because in the past, yeah, you'd be my biggest fear. And that's why I never would send my clients to open houses by themselves.
Smart man.
Yeah, I would be there with them. Do you find it more difficult now that, you know, maybe they're walking in and saying— I used to like sit at the open house and I would go, hey, hi, Mr. and Mrs. Buyer. Um, you know, are you here to look at the house? Are you by yourself? Um, you know, or with your agent? Do you have an agent? Yeah, we have an agent. I go, what, is he parking the car for you? You know, kind of make light of it. Uh, no, he's not here. And I go, oh my God, I'm sorry. Uh, you're about to make the biggest decision of your life and your agent is at home. Like, if you have any questions, you know, 'cause now they're free, you know, if you have any questions, please let me know. And then I would follow them around a lot more than if somebody had an agent with them and stuff. So, um, do you find it more difficult now? I mean, are you doing open houses or no?
Oh, I'm still doing open houses.
Okay. Do you find it more difficult? Are people coming by and saying, I'm under contract with Joe?
You know, so it's— the rules have changed where now we only have to have a client under contract when we're writing an offer to establish agency once that contract's been submitted. Where previously, August 17th, we actually technically had to have a contract in order to show houses. But now there's been a reversal on that. And so a lot of real estate agents are not getting clients to sign these contracts. They're just not. And so that's one thing that I have found is that I don't ever ask if somebody has an agent and I'll let them tell me. But then the words that I'll use now is that if I can tell that they have an agent but they're not under contract, is I'll just say, do you have an agent that you're 100% committed to working with? And I didn't make that up either. There's another really great trainer out in our market, and I heard him share that line, and I was like, that's a really good line. And I started using it, and I was like, dang, that works. So that's a shout out to my buddy out there in Rancho. But so that's the kind of how it works. But I, I feel like consumers are becoming more familiar and more aware. I held an open house in Claremont and a real estate agent, she was so mad she did not get the listing because my client had already seen a home before she met me. She was already writing an offer with the other realtor and she told the other realtor she could have the listing because the realtor's like, you're going to give me your listing, right? Because I'm going to sell your house and then I'm going to help you buy. I'm going to get your offer accepted. And then she met me and she's like, oh, I wish that you would have taken me to go see that home. And that other real estate agent didn't even have a BRBC signed. She didn't. So I could have went in and snagged that client, but they were selling that house at such a significant discount. I told my client, let me just help you sell your home. Let me help you get this one. I will communicate to the realtor on your behalf. And we put everything in alignment. The other real estate agent was really upset, though, because she called me and was like, she told me I could get the listing. And I was like, and yeah, you don't have this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But at that open house, I remember There was a buyer who walked in, and he was allowed. And he said, "Nope, I ain't signing no exclusive agreement with anybody." And I was like, "You shouldn't. You shouldn't just sign with anybody. You should actually sign with." Yeah, that was like the icebreaker. You know, he kind of like chuckled when I said that. And so I got his phone number. I got his phone number. I got his girlfriend's phone number. And now we've been in conversation about our next steps. But At that open house, I was able to pull a very qualified— I'm talking about this guy earns a really good amount of money between him and his wife, W-2, super low debt, and they don't own a home just because they've been so busy working. They have not bought a property. But that guy has said, I'm talking to like 4 or 5 realtors, but I haven't signed anything. And then we were able to put them on a Zoom meeting within 24 hours of meeting them, give them a buyer's consultation. And then I have a BRBC in place with that client right now. So I don't find it as difficult anymore. August 17th, I felt a little bit kind of weary on it. I was trying to still figure it out. But now as things have evolved, I feel like we're right back in that play.
Yeah.
Because now I'm not so scared of, okay, I have an established agency, I can't answer questions. I can actually answer questions now. I just need to establish agency before I submit that offer, before I write that offer.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I actually find it a lot easier because it's easy to explain. If you want to go look at a property with me, you have to sign this, uh, you know, buyer broker agreement. If not, then, you know, I guess you're gonna have to go find somebody else who is not as qualified as me, but that's your choice, you know. So kind of put the burden back on them, right? Yeah, that's great.
And I just think as real estate professionals, it's important that we are constantly evolving. I'm a big believer iron sharpens iron. We need to be better at what we do. I'm a certified forms trainer for the contracts, and that's because my really good buddy Joseph Limo—he's a broker. He's the adjunct professor at Mount San Antonio College. I would call him when I had questions about the contract, and I thought, "Wow, he's so knowledgeable! He knows this contract so well. I want to know it as well as he does." So then I asked him, "Joe, what do you recommend I do?" And he says, "Get your car form certifications." And so I did. And then after I did that, now I kind of feel like I showed him, okay, I'm willing to go through the process and get it. And then I just linked up with him where then we started sharing a lot more, actually me just asking a ton of questions.
Mm-hmm.
And now I feel like we hold one of the best trainings for the boards. So there's a lot of boards that we do the trainings for and we'll do the contracts class. And it's a combination where he's very surgical and breaks down almost line by line. And then I'm like the sales guy, here's how to incorporate it in conversation with our clients. Even going through the BRBC, now we have to mark if our client is in a position to qualify for the property, right? Financing. Yeah. So that makes it so much easier for real estate agents to take that lead and to engage in conversation with finances where I feel like before a lot of realtors were like, I'm not a lender, that's not my job. And I don't adhere to that. I don't think that you need to be the lender, but you should be able to ask some basic questions to find out if the person you're talking to is a qualified buyer. Because then we need to know where we're going to invest our time and our efforts and our energy.
Absolutely. Absolutely. I agree 100% with you. Yeah, absolutely.
And, uh, you mentioned iron sharpens iron. That kind of is a great segue for your book, um, 21 Stratagies. Can you kind of give us a breakdown of, you know, what, what brought this on and, and what it's about?
So my whole life I've been like this. If I want to learn something, I want to go directly to the source. And I want to find the best in order to come on over and to help me with it. You guys, I'm sure you're familiar with Landon Donovan. He was a—he's like the most popular U.S. soccer player of all time. About a decade ago, he was super popular. Everybody in the country knew him. Now he's a little bit older. He's not playing, but he does have a statue in front of the Los Angeles Galaxy. And so Donovan, he played with Beckham at Galaxy. But we used to play soccer together when we were kids, and I remember his dad would let him work out with us as you know. Elementary kids. But then right after class, or right after our warmups, his dad would take him to the corner. And then his dad would bring outside coaches to just sit there and work with Landon. So he was with the team, but he was a little secluded. And then he was just drilling. And he had done that for years. And then we saw him elevate through the ranks. And now again, he's become the most popular US soccer player, literally of all time. And so I think that I learned a lot From seeing that. And then just as a young kid, my dad always did work for us education-wise. And then when he got to the point where he couldn't help, now it was tutors. So that's always been my mantra. Let me just go directly to the source and find people who are doing it better, and I'll learn from them. So I've done that over my decades in this business. I've learned from so many people. Business has come very simply to me because I just feel like I've learned so much. So I feel like that was my hack. So as I'm standing in front of an audience, I feel like I got a huge competitive advantage. It's not just the marketing, it's the fact that I'm talking to these accomplished, distinguished individuals who've shared their wisdom with me. So then that's when I thought, what if I was able to take information and knowledge that I've learned from so many and then put it in a format where they can learn? And then I thought, how can I do that? And I tried to think of different ways. Video interviews, maybe. And then I just thought, what if I was to put this in a book form? And when I told my wife about it, she hated the idea. She's like, nobody's going to read this book. And I said, okay, I think I'm on to something, because anytime my wife says something's not going to work, it always does well. And so I was like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. So I reached on out, I called 21 people, all amazing. I'm talking about these people are— when I say wildly successful, It's not even finances, but every one of them is in a very great position financially. But to me, it wasn't about who has the most numbers on the board. I looked at things like lifestyle. I looked at things like balance. I'm looking at the person who's really successful, but yet is still there for his family, still there at all of his kids' events. That was really important to me because as we grow older, my wife lost her dad about maybe 12 years ago. And then about 2 years ago, I lost my mom. And then less than 90 days after that, my wife lost her mom. So we went through a lot within a very short amount of time. And I think for us, that just totally changed our vibe where before it was always work, work, work. And then that's where we're like, okay, life is short. In fact, in my book, that's what I say. Life is short. Work smart, be efficient. We're not going to be here forever. I don't want to be— there's no badge of honor as I thought there once was. I'm the first one in. I'm the last one out. It's like, no, what if I just work, learn how to work a lot more efficiently? And I can do whatever I want, spend time with my family, going out on vacation. But when I want to put in the time and the attention and efforts, I can get back what I want. So that was the concept. So I interviewed 21 amazing professionals. They all fill in the gaps to create this answer as to how do I be successful in business, not even real estate. And there's multiple paths to success. We do— we discuss things like routines, the importance of routine, morning routines. Mindset, brand building, even just disconnecting and making sure that you have your recharge time. So it's not just I worked really hard to be successful. I did not want to make it repetitive. 21 people talking about how they worked hard to be successful. I really wanted key takeaways, and that's how I came up with the name 21 Strata Keys. I didn't even know what we were going to call it. I just did the interviews without any name, and then every chapter. Has 3 specific key takeaways from the interview, and then there's a challenge yourself question. So now that you've learned this, challenge yourself to go on out and to apply this to your business. And then there's a QR code so that way you can scan the QR code and then you can watch the full interview. And you don't have to buy the book to watch the interviews. You can go to 21strategize.com and then just watch interviews. And some of these interviews, they're— these real estate professionals, they really put their heart out on the line and they shared and it was really raw and rugged. There was like, you know, that's what I'm really appreciative of. And so that's ultimately how this all came about.
Great idea. Yeah. Awesome. That's really good.
And the, was, was your friend that does the forums in there?
He was actually the first person I called. Joseph Limo was the first person that I called. I had to. And then Christophe Choo, the, the broker out in Beverly Hills, he was ranked as the number one video influencer in North America by BombBomb.
Wow.
And Risk Media also ranked him as having the number one real estate website in the country— in the world, actually. And he's world-renowned. He's been, he's been flown out to markets like France and United Arab Emirates, first-class tickets, just to speak to realtors. And I'm like, you know what, I've yet to get any offer like that. I'm going to Denver, Colorado, you know, tomorrow I take a flight up north to San Jose to speak. But that's where the people that I reached out to They put it all out on the line. They pretty much asked me any question you want. Yeah, you have whatever time. And I made sure that I did my best to at least extract as much as I could from them.
That's so cool. Yeah.
A few months ago, Alex was gonna take me to Hawaii, but that fell through.
To buy some cool shirts.
We'll get there. We'll get there. Yeah, exactly. Shirt haul. We need new shirts. We need new shirts from the motherland. Yeah. But yeah, no, I, I fully believe in mentorship. That's why, you know, I learned under Joe and it's completely changed my life. So this is basically like 21 mentors right here in, in the books. And then I, I did see on the website you can just check out the full interviews as well. So I think that's a great blend of, you know, analog and digital right there. So congrats on that.
Thank you. We're excited. And you did mention about this is one of the hottest selling books in the, in North America right now for real estate, which we're super stoked about. Amazing. And it's opened up a lot of doors of opportunity for us and Like, for example, tomorrow I'll be flying out. I'm doing an event with the founder of Lab Coat Agents out in Northern California. And then I just got selected to be the headlining speaker for the Colorado Association of Realtors Conference, which is coming up. And so this, for me, like I tell everybody, I tell 'em about this book and I say, I just wanna promote it. I want to get it into the hands of as many practitioners as possible because I'm already now getting the stories from realtors who are reading it and they're circling certain parts that are resonating with them. Or even just letting me know that they watched these interviews themselves and how it impacted them. Uh, because we have some pretty amazing stories, uh, from, uh, professionals in this book. Love it.
Nice.
Uh, this is part of the show where we want to get your reaction. We pulled up, curated a few videos, um, and I just want to get your, your reaction on it. It's, uh, some, some social media and marketing stuff. So pop on the headphones so you can hear, hear the audio. Producer, what we got?
Our first video is social media strategy for realtors. All right, here we go.
Agents are always looking for how they can get their content and their branding to stand out so they get clients coming directly to them. I'll give you my number one piece of advice. The big problem is that most Realtors are looking at everybody else in the real estate industry and just doing exactly what they do, which ends up making them look exactly like they do. And ultimately they blend in with the crowd. What you want to be doing is looking at role models outside of the real estate industry, like Gary Vaynerchuk and Alex Hormozi, bringing that into the real estate industry and putting your own spin on it. Because when you do that, it ends up becoming innovative and you stand out from the rest of the crowd. Agents are always looking for how they—
Thoughts? So Alex, uh, Charard, he's a, a great guy and I had an opportunity to connect with him a couple years ago. And I am, I like his content and he's absolutely right. I think it's kind of one of those things where if you purposely put yourself out of this bubble and simply not try to do what everybody else is doing, but just try to look ahead. But if you look at Gary Vee, what has he been talking about forever? And he's still talking about the same thing. Give value, right? Jab, jab, right hook. Give, give, give before you ask for anything. And I think it's right in alignment when I'm talking about creating content in order to educate buyers, educating sellers and all that. And then he does a really great job where he has the balance of different jump cuts and then also use of emojis, things like that. And if you notice the cadence in his voice, it's speedy as well. It's not like this if you want to create video. And I think that's important just to keep that.
Yeah, absolutely. I didn't even think about that.
He saw my first videos when he started. Yeah, yeah.
He was like, hey, I'm Joe Homs. Yeah. Good to have it. Yeah. That's, that's, that's great. I mean, even with Alex Hormozi where he is got like the free lead, basically, you know, your lead magnet, or you just provide value for free. And then eventually when you do ask, you have your whole audience. Next.
Next we've got most common mistake real estate agents make with social media.
Agents are always looking for how they can get their content and their branding to stand out so they get clients coming directly to them. I'll give you one piece of advice. The big problem is that agents are always looking for how they can get the content and their branding to stand out so they get clients coming directly to them.
Mixed up the videos.
Mike Shirai just does such a great job.
We listened to it twice. Yeah.
Agents are always looking for how they can get clients.
Links are doubled up in my show notes. Sorry.
Okay. It's the same link twice. Let's go to the last one. Okay.
Last one is 5 quick tips to optimize your Instagram account.
Here's 5 quick tips to optimize your Instagram profile.
Number 1, add location and/or your realtor role in the display name, which is separate from the username.
It'll make you more searchable in the Explore feed. Scrap the paragraph bio for an emoji bulleted list. Show me your face. Profile pics are tiny, so make it a close crop. Add contact buttons: call, email, or message. Use a Linktree type of tool to route web traffic and add story highlights. Do you go into depth on, you know, like the Instagram? I know you were more geared towards YouTube, but—
No, actually Instagram is our moneymaker. So YouTube Is when we talk about YouTube, you'll have your established playlist because people will go down the rabbit hole. The seller that I was at meeting with yesterday— can I take these off?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The seller that I was meeting with yesterday, he— I, uh, I drove, I just pretty much was driving by, saw that he had a sign. It was a makeshift sign, it said estate sale, and I was really thinking the city's going to stop by and penalize him for having this ugly sign pointing at his house. So I stopped by, started chatting with him, and then I bombarded him. I actually asked him. I said, he said, he patted me on the back and said, thank you, but I have two family members that are in the business. Almost like, yeah, get out of here, kid. And so I said, here's what I like to do. I like to shoot you over a text. In my text, I'm going to include two videos. One video that introduces myself and the second video that introduces a seller who's already worked with me, right? It's one thing for us to talk about how cool we are. It's another thing for somebody else to do it. And so when I did send this on over to him, Then he went dark on me for over two weeks, two and a half weeks. But I kept following up. I even recorded a video in front of his house. Little creepy. But I was like, "Hey Sean, this is John Reyes," and I was walking by your home and I couldn't help but think about you. So I sent him this message. So he sends me a text. He says, "I will be at the property from this time to this time. See you there." So I showed up yesterday, and as I was talking to him, he's sitting there mixing some stucco, putting on the wall, and I am like. So is this like a labor of love or are you just trying to save some money? He's like, save some money. I didn't think how difficult this was going to be. But as I'm talking to him, he said, I checked you out online. I saw your client testimonials and I really like how you market homes on the internet. You know where he found those? YouTube. But what I sent him were my intro video and a client testimonial video. But Instagram is where a lot of my business comes by way of my repeat and referral business. So the build property that I just closed a couple days ago, that was an attorney I met through Instagram. My— he refers me clients. On the way over here, I told you I was on the phone outside before you called me, and I was just working with my team getting the last document in to sell the building for the attorney. And that was somebody again who I connected with through the internet. So it's just constant repetition. He had been following my account, he saw me, and 6 months after he was following me, he's like, I really like the way you work, would you like to come on over and meet me for a cigar and a scotch? Well, I love cigars, but I hate hard alcohol. I'm a beer guy. And so when in Rome, I drank the scotch and I hated every drop of it, and I could not wait for it to be done. So finally when I finished it, I went down to grab my bag, and then he's like, oh, you're done? And he poured me a second glass, and I was like, oh my God. And I know it's expensive, you know, it's pricey, right? Because he's into the pricey—
Yeah, yeah.
Drinks. And so I'm like, that's great, down that one. And I was like, oh, but yes. It's been, it's been awesome, but it's a combination of both. So Instagram, those tips are all really, really good, and I believe that as well. The only thing that I like to do is I don't want to be a real estate robot. So it's like, what am I into? I'm into cigars, poker, traveling, and real estate. And so that's where you'll see a combination of those types of things online. And so I post a lot of my personal stuff of what I do, and I feel like that helps people connect with me as well. Because at the end of the day, people are people. I just want to make it a little easier. And so clients will reach out to me and if they're planning a trip, they'll ask me like, hey, John, have you been here? Or what do you think about this? And so that's where I've been more open in sharing my traveling ventures. I go on out to Europe once a year and then we will just hit different spots. And my wife and I, we bought a home in Germany. Nice. So yeah, we share some of those ventures and heck yeah. So, but yeah, that's really what it is. And that's all I'll show those trips like on my highlights, things like that.
Right. Right. Okay. I just took all my travel stuff off cuz I was like, eh, I don't know if people wanna see that, but maybe I gotta put it back on. I'll put it back on.
Yeah. Put it back on. It depends, I guess, who you're traveling with too.
You know?
That's right. Yes. My lovely wife. Um, awesome. Well, how, I mean, I, I'm gonna guess how people can, but how can people reach out and get in touch with you? What's the best way?
So I would say Instagram is a great platform just to be able to connect with me. And then if you like what I post, I post a lot of things with the intent of real estate people, agents, and just anybody in the business seeing my content with the intent of wanting to mimic it or copy it. Like I tell them, if I post it, I know you're looking at it, right? Follow my lead. And so that's through JD Reyes 01. So JD Reyes 01. And then also you can go to 21strategys.com. That's a great resource just for you to get more information on the books. And if you want to order one, you can buy it directly from our website. Or even better, if you have Prime, order from Amazon. And then they will ship it for free.
Now I did notice you brought 2 here. I don't want to presume anything, but who are those for?
I actually brought them for YouTube. Yes!
Awesome. Yes, there you go, folks.
That's the bookmark thing too. Yeah, that's the valuable part.
Heck yeah. And this is where the, uh, interviews are.
You can scan that to go directly to the 21 Strategies website.
Perfect. Yeah, we'll put a link in the description as well. So, you know, support John. He's out here doing the Lord's work. Appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Yeah. Well, thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you. No, absolutely. Thank you for doing it. Appreciate it.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'd love to have you back on and, you know, maybe do a little more in-depth training for these noobs out here.
Sounds good.
Awesome. Let's do it. Thank you guys so much. We'll be back here next week, same time, same channel. We appreciate it. Make sure you share this far and wide with any new or experienced investor in your life. See you next time.
We'll see you later. If you want some more advice on real estate investing, reach out to us one-on-one.
