Introduction to B-School Weekly - Bringing You Into Our World!

Welcome to B School Weekly. And so the plan here is to just bring you into our world once a week or go through something in real time that's happening in real estate, in just society with the craziness and the pandemic and how it's impacting our real estate members, their businesses. What are we coaching on? Just to bring you into our world a little bit every week and add value consistently to a community. That is hard being a real estate agent or being a team leader. And I want to make it easier for your journey today. I want to talk about shifting your marketing and what I've done to shift our marketing over the last three, four years and why we've done it. This is inspired by a talk that Dave Hook gave. He's been in our world for, I want to say probably close to five years. I know his wife maybe four to five years. His wife Jenny was pregnant with their first child. They have three children now. And he was every bit of 80 hours a week doing, I think 80 sales a year. And he had an administrator at the time, not a whole lot of systems, not a concept of leverage. And he was on the just addicted to paid lead sources. So that's pay per click, Zillow, realtor.com, those types of lead sources. And we both made a similar shift in our business. He did, I think about 2 1/2 million GCI last year out of production for a couple years. He wanted to get out of production. And he focuses mainly in his business now on marketing, a different type of marketing. So there's a few things you need to do if you're going to make the shift away from those addictive lead sources that I promise you, the folks that are getting in between you and your clients, buyers and sellers, they. They're not out for your best interest. And you need to figure out a different way to market yourself if you're going to win this game of real estate business in the long term. And I'm talking business versus just being an agent, right. Real estate B school is all about making that shift from agent to owner. And so the first thing is that you must, must, must, must start tracking your business, your sources of business, where the business comes from. So if you're paying for lead sources, that's okay to a certain extent. In some markets, those paid lead sources are still producing. Most markets, though those lead sources won't fit in an economic model. If you're looking to scale your business, you need to be on top of your tracking. So that includes lead sources Set medsign all of that deeper conversation. I just want to throw it out there. If numbers scare you, there's an easy way to do it. Second thing here is that you, you have to have a Clients for Life program and you have to be active in social media. It's okay to spend money on a lead if you have a way to generate future business from that lead source. And for us, it's our Clients for Life program. It's a low dollar, super high return way that we just keep in touch with folks that have been in our world and they have appreciated the service we provided to them. Then the second part of that one two punch is social media, not social media just for the sake of being social and putting stuff out into the world like a lot of real estate agents do. Very intentional social media touch points to add value to the folks that already know, like and trust you. So that could be a broader sphere of local folks that you know and definitely people that are already in your Clients for Life program, people that are already, already have used your services. So that's number two. Number three, this is the biggest game changer in business in any industry right now is a shift to client care. Not just any client care, but really over the top, emotionally driven, wow type service with your client care. This is where business gets fun. It's your ability to just knock the socks off your clients. And the fun part about this is that you can look at other industries for inspiration. If you shop at Nordstrom, if you've ever been to Disney, if you have been to like a Topgolf, which in our market is like the 22nd century golf driving range, right? If you've been to a lifetime fitness that's like the Taj Mahal of workout facilities, has spa and it has a cafe and it has tennis courts, a resort style pool. You know, when have you received an excellent experience on an airplane versus a not so excellent experience on an airplane? I believe in real estate, if you're not going to be marginalized and thrown to the side, you need to provide a service that's unlike any experience your buyers and sellers can receive anywhere in any industry. And so we have a local amusement park here called Carowinds and I contrast a Carowinds to a Disney or Universal Studios, right? They're not even in the same ballpark. And I'm willing to pay, I think it's at least twice the ticket price and probably twice the concession prices inside Disney or Universal Studios than my local amusement park. And then contrast that to like the county fair, the guys that pull in, they're like 18 wheel trucks and the rides are like in trailers, right. It's just not the same thing as Disney. So start thinking that way. No matter what size business you are right now, start thinking in those terms. That's where it really gets fun. And then after you put tracking in place, after you have a CFL clients for life program, after you have a deliberate, intentional social media program, after you're elevating your client care, then you need to start cutting non productive lead sources. So we never cut anything out until you're at the point where you can afford to cut those lead sources, right? I'm not going to tell you to cut out you, you know, Zillow, if that's your only way that you're making money. And even if the returns are low, it's still putting food on the table, right? So you've got to do these other things in advance of that in order to make the move away from those addictive lead sources. And then, you know, take a Zillow down from when I got out of Zillow, this was back probably five years ago, I went from, I only ever got up to 5,000amonth in Zillow. And this is in a $3 million business. So I was spending $60,000 on a lead source which at the time was seven to eight times return. They raised their prices four times in three years, I think. And our returns went from seven, eight times to one to two times. And I could hardly, I couldn't afford to even keep the lead source. And so I didn't cut it out until I ramped up our cfl. I ran up our social media and we changed the client care experience where we were measuring, getting referrals before someone left the closing table. So, so cut non productive lead lead expenses, lead sources. The last part here is to have faith and just commit to a long game in business. And if you just, you have to take a stand on this, if you're going to be in business for the long term and you're going to be in a service business in an industry where commission rates are getting challenged in my estimation. And the bet I'm playing with my business is the fact that I want to be on the premium side of that experience. I want to be able to charge more than the average real estate agent just getting out of real estate school. Right. So you had to have faith in this process. It's a long term play. There's nothing easy or sort of magic button about this, right? This is not the staples easy button. This is, I'm going to commit to this thing long term. And when I look at our most successful members, you know, taking Dave Hook as an example, he's in Central PA, 200,000. Average price point. He'll do, I think probably 300 transactions. Now. He's raised up two leaders in his business that have been with him, I think seven years and like 15 years, respectively. One, his main operator, Jenna, started with him when she was in 11th grade. And so I think that's like 16 years old and I think she's not quite 30 yet. And so, you know, just view your business as a long game. You know, how can I view talent? How can I build systems? How can I shift my mindset around where I can generate business and look at other businesses and other industries as inspiration? We had Zappos come in and speak to our boardroom group here at our boardroom retreat. Our boardroom is 1.5 million to 6 million in GCI. So these are folks that have. Have really well established businesses and just they're hardly a retailer. Right. The business side of it is not the thing that they focus on. They focus on delivering. Wow. Delivering happiness. Tony Hsieh, the chairman or CEO, I think now, he wrote a book called Delivering Happiness. And if you could take that approach in your real estate business, how can I just wow someone and just slow down a little bit and make their life better by working with me and my business and my team, everything will change forever. So if you're at the point in your journey where some of these things are a little hard to hear and you're a little bit like, oh, crap, I am addicted to a lead source, or oh crap, I'm not tracking, or oh crap, my client care isn't where it needs to be and my agents are just kind of doing whatever they want, or oh, crap, I'm maxed out and I'm a solo agent and I need help hiring an administrator, the thing I can offer you is a conversation. So there's a link below for you to take a next step. And that's just a conversation. Doesn't matter where you are in your business growth journey. Just give a few bits of information about your business and we will hop on the phone and we will let you know how to get from where you are right now to a business that is built on elegance and ease and, and that gives you true time and money freedom. It is possible there is a roadmap to do it. Suspend disbelief for now. Take action, and we'll see you over there. Be good.