Cold Calls to Warm Connections with Neel Dhingra

There's a gal, bro, who was sitting in a room, a real estate agent. And she's sitting, she's like, hey, how can we make new content? You know, she hires a Gen Z content creator, you know, to come be on her team.

Yeah.

And the gal's like, you know what? I think we should go play hide and seek at the listings.

And now, escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along. Escape the Drift. And it's time to start right now. Back again, back again. Like it says in the intro, with the show, that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today, people live in the studio. Got an amazing guest for you. This is a dude that much like myself, heavily involved in the mortgage and real estate industry. And several years ago, he decided to just pour gasoline all over himself in what I mean is through the form of content marketing. And not only did a lot of his business on fire, but he now has basically inflamed the entire industry. He is the founder of the Ford event, which is what I think in that arena for content creation for, you know, mortgage real estate professionals or anybody trying to change their business, it is the best event out there. Held annually here in Las Vegas coming up in July. If you are someone that wants to learn how to effectively use content, want to know what's working right now to help your business, you need to tune in because it's your lucky day because live in the studio. Welcome, Neil Dingra. Neil.

Thank you, bro. This is fun.

Yeah, man. Glad to have you, dude. Always good to see you. Friend of the show, multiple time guests. Always glad to have you on.

Yeah, man. I've been seeing you at all the personal development space, like I think through mutual friends for years now.

Yeah, for years. Yeah. I've been lurking in the shadows a little bit, but as we all know, that's I'm emerging rapidly. It's funny, I posted the other day, I was speaking at Emin and I always wrote, I wrote on the passion that back from my extended tour of Scandinavia in the subcontinent, because I had to have some sort of excuse for why I've been laying low and that was it.

Yeah, you seem to like come in and out. Like you go hard for a while and then we don't see it for a few months. Then you come back Well, I try to.

You know, I'm one of those. I like to only say things when I feel like I got stuff to say.

That's.

That's good, because I find that the people that always seem to have to have something to say, most of us are listening to.

Yeah. Especially right now. If you think about how much noise there is, dude. And it's just some people saying the same shit, you could tell they're not really into it. I would say right now, if you're not excited about what you're doing, it's not going to work. Like, just think about it right now. There's never been this many people posting content at a specific time. Everybody and their mom has a podcast piece of content. They're trying to do a YouTube channel. And so how do you cut through the noise? Well, one way is just being in. Being excited about what you're doing. Like, so I just see people, a lot of times, they're just. My wife says, shouldn't say this term. But, like, I just feel like it's flaccid, you know, I'm trying to think of what's the better term, Bro.

No, that's pretty accurate. So, yeah.

Would you say the content is just flaccid? You know, the event, the business is just. Your plan is just flaccid. Like, you're not even into it.

Oh, God.

And so that's the first thing that comes to mind. I'm like, so then it's dead on arrival right now. So what you got to do is I cut through the noise.

I almost just said, yeah, it's, you know, it's kind of floppy, but you just try to shove it down their throat anyway. That's probably not appropriate. But that was. That was the analogy I was coming up with from that.

Yeah, this is why I shouldn't use the term. But, no, you get what you got.

Your mind goes a certain place when you use that term, Neil. That's how it is. So I think. I think you're right, though. I think being authentic talks about authentic. What does authentic mean? You know, you got to be authentic, or people can smell it. But I think it's really believing in what's coming out of your mouth.

So, like, let's just say you are in real estate. You want to make content about real estate. You want to be. Do you even like what you're doing? You know, like, the other day I was speaking to an event, and half the room was, like, dead. And I said to the people, I said, bro, if you Guys aren't into this. Like, if you hate this job, you hate this business. You guys were happy about it when rates were low, but maybe you're not happy about it today. You don't really believe in homeownership or whatever. Dude, just quit. Go do something. Go sell insurance. Go sell something else. Because it's hard enough for the people who are into it. Imagine if you didn't even like it, you know? So I think that's the first thing is you talk about being authentic and be yourself. Well, what if you don't even know what you're doing? Like, you don't even know yourself. So maybe you should look at what you're doing, find some passion. Like, decide, like, I'm not one of these guys that says, oh, go find your passion. Because I was not passionate about anything until I got good at it.

Yeah.

You know, and then you get good at it. You get good feedback. You're like, oh, I like this all of a sudden. So you can become passionate about anything. But I just think if you absolutely hate what you're doing, you should look to pivot or try something new, or if you want to just get re. Re. Engaged in what you're doing. I was driving the other day, I was joking about this. There's a building being built next to our office. These dudes are out there. It's 100 degrees outside, bro. They're digging ditches, they're putting up out in the heat. I get to push numbers on the keyboard, bro. I get to post videos on the Internet. Things could be a lot worse, you know, so, like, get some perspective and get excited about what you do.

Well, it's so funny, when you walked in, I was on a zoom right when you walked in. And I was on with a bunch of agents. And one of the guys was asking, he said, hey, you know, I think I need some coaching because, you know, what do you think about this guy or that guy? And this and that. And was going through some different coaches that are out there, well known names. And he goes, you know, because I work with this job. But I hate cold call. I hate this, I hate that, I hate that. You know, I hate, I hate. Started laying out all the things he hates about this business. And I said, bro, um, the problem is not who your coach might be. The problem is that you hate everything that you gotta do to be successful at this business. And you've either gotta change your perception of do you really hate this or do you. Do you just not find the under the meaning behind it, like, it's not gamified for you. You find no satisfaction in it. And we're talking about things like, like door knocking, for example, which is really effective right now. The old school hand to hand combat stuff is doing very, very well in real estate. And he's like, well, I just, you know, I can never. I'm not gonna be a door knocker. And I'm like, dude, I'm. I'm a guy that. I would never walk up. Like, the solar guys. And they're like, bang, bang, bang. Hey, do you see what we're doing at Mary's house down the street? No, but if I got a good reason to knock on that door, I had no problem doing it. For example, if I just sold a house to my clients, my clients moved in, you know, at this house, I will knock 20 doors in every direction, and I'll just say, hey, John Gaffer with Vegas. We just sold this house to my clients. I just want to make sure they feel very welcome in the neighborhood. So when you see them moving in, we. Would you mind just stopping and saying hi? And they're like, yeah, no problem. Okay, cool. They're moving in on Sunday. What was your name so I can.

Give it to them?

Oh, I'm Bob and Mary. Okay, Bob and Mary. Blue house, big bush. Got it. Okay. Here's my card if you ever need anything.

Yeah.

Now those people, when they shut the door, they're thinking, honey, our realtor sucked. He didn't do this for me.

So there's also, when you. I've seen you when you talk to people, you're, like, excited, you know, your presence when you walk up and you coming in with the energy, people can feel that, you know? And so I think part of it is, like, you told this dude, like, hey, let's get into it. But I would just say this. Like, this is actually a really good thing for people in our industry who want to make viral content. You want to make viral videos, the best thing you can do right now is to say the thing that everybody in the industry is afraid to say or the thing that's on everybody's mind, but they're not saying it. So I asked you about this the other day through DMs. I was like, bro, why is nobody in real estate talking about the fact that prices are cooling off? It's like they're afraid to say it. Maybe for their listing, the listings they have, or they're just used to saying prices always go up. But, like, yes, prices go up always. Over time, but you see pullbacks, you see correct mini corrections doesn't mean it's a crash. By the way, why aren't agents talking about this?

Well, the problem is because agents, much like consumers, read the headlines without looking at the data. They don't look at what it really means. So what I try to do for our people here is say, let's look at this headline and let's look at the data. And so, and let's see what it really means. For example. Right. You probably seen stuff all over the place. Inventory is up 97% in Las Vegas. 97%. 97. The average person sees that and what do they think? A flood of homes across the market. The, the number they're started with last year was 1.6 months of inventory. 1.6 months. So 97% is now 4.2 months even. Well padded for.

Because you're coming off a very low number.

Right. But a healthy real estate market is six months of inventory. So even with that giant number, we're still under. We don't have enough inventory still. So I'm like, take this, take this information and use it to attack the market. Like I told everybody today, if you want to send it, you want to send an email out today to your entire database and get more response than you've gotten in the last six weeks, send this. Why June may be your best opportunity to get a great deal on a house. Yeah. Why?

Or, you know, take it a step further. I think specificity is what works right now, you know, because people get a general message. And that's a great message, by the way, because people are looking to get a deal. Even I've noticed this, John. Even rich people want a deal. They always want to, you know. A deal. Yeah. You got a guy haggling and he can afford to buy three of the homes cash, but he still wants the best price. So getting, letting them know that there's opportunities out there. But the next thing is be specific. So one email or piece of content that would crush would be like deal of the week.

Yeah.

So just if you committed to doing this, you would crush if you just did every, every week, 52 weeks a year, you decided to put out the deal of the week on social and through your email and pick a property, look at the property, what it was listed at versus what you could get it for today. There's going to be a big difference there. Sometimes because they listed it too high or maybe there was, you know, they're chasing a comp. That was last year. That's no longer applicable and whatever. And then look at that deal and talk about like, hey, here's the numbers on this deal. And then people are going to be just inspired or just intrigued by that one. They're going to look at the other one. It's not about that house. It's about getting the wheels turning in their head.

Yeah.

So I do this very all, all the time on social and through email is I pick one program, one deal, one specific result, talk about that in the piece of content. And then that gets the wheels turning. People ask about it for their situation.

Do you find that with real estate's a little difficult, right? It's kind of difficult to do that. This is available deal because here's this house. Like you said, they're overpriced. What would it. Because this is what we kind of do, right? You tell me if it's right. I. I'm. I'm deferring to your expertise here, my brother, which is. I like to lean into the FOMO on people, right. Which I'll say, like, look, like I did with you in the DMs. When you asked the question, I was.

Like, bro, you just got a deal. And you told me.

Exactly. I was like. I was like, there's. I told Neil this story offline, but I said, no, one of my clients. And we've told all of our clients a story now. It's five identical houses almost for sale in. In Southern Highlands, right. Ranging from 1.88 million to 2.2. We figured out which seller was the most desperate. We went all the way vertical on them with the offer. We just closed that house for 1.65.

Huge.

Like, now I want people to hear that because that's not like maybe that's a this happened here story that we told today.

That's specific.

Well, story we told today, which was one of our clients, you know, again, we. We love luxury real estate here, but I'll hit. We hit every pitch, right? We're not. Not snobs in that manner. One of our clients, first time home buyer using naca, which is a down payment assistance program, needed all their closing costs paid a year ago. No. No chance.

Y.

No chance. This client went into escrow in a house three days ago, decided they didn't really like it, and got an escrow on another one, same terms two days later.

Wow.

Twice in three days. A buyer that was completely out of the market with the everything with the credits and everything that was totally out of the market 12 months ago, now has choices. So if You're a well qualified buyer that can pull the trigger. What are your choices look like?

Exactly. So talk about these scenarios. And then the other thing that the consumer always thinks is when they see a pullback, they think it's just going to continue. That's why people miss, you know, what's the average stat for, you know, people who try and trade the stock market in and out. I think they 90% plus lose money.

Yeah.

Because they just can't time it.

You can't time the market.

So what happens is when it's coming down a bit, you think it's going to fall further and you don't buy. Then when it's up, you're like, oh shit, I want to chase this thing up. And then you buy. So you're using emotion. But if you look at the data, anytime we've seen one of these pullbacks over the last 10 years since the, you know, post crash, I guess every pullback has been an opportunity to get in the market. So I'll give you the same example. We wanted to live in Summerland in Red Rock Country Club. Cuz my wife wanted to make sure the kids could go to the school, the private school over there. And we were looking in that area, it's a really nice small community there. And we couldn't find a house, whatever. And then all of a sudden this was 2022, the rates had just spiked. Okay. From like the lows to up. And the market cooled off. Yeah, just that winter, I remember 2022, winter, things got a little bit slow.

Yeah.

And so there was a flip. This guy had listed, it was luxury flip in Red Rock Country Club where we live. And he had listed it at the peak price, which was 2021 price based on those comps. And it was just sitting, it was like on the market for five, six months. And so I just talked to him, I was like, bro, we love the house, we can close before the end of the year. Because he needed to get this deal off looks. And I said, what's it gonna take to get this? Like what's your bottom line number? And we came to an agreement and it was just like your example, hundreds of thousands of dollars off the list price.

Yeah.

And that would not have happened six months later or six months before. So it was like I saw the opportunity and so these things happen for buyers and most of them are just asleep and they just missed the opportunity.

Well, when you see the stats coming out, they're talking about like, you know, all price drops, all these household price, think about this. I want to know what your thesis think about the last time in Las Vegas a seller had to worry about.

Selling their house in quite a while.

2011.

Yeah.

Because the hedge funds moved in in 2011, started buying everything. So 2011 was the last time you had to kind of worry about it. So that's 14. It's a 14 year run. I'm just saying, you know what, I know it's only worth X, but let's just throw an extra 40, 100 grand on it and see what happens. Right. Which has been the market. So now what's going on and is you're seeing re education of sellers that are having to say, okay, I need to get realistic with what I'm doing because either I'm going to set the market on my neighbors or my neighbor's going to set the market on me.

Oh. Especially if somebody needs to get out for a certain, they got another house they're closing on, they're moving to another area, they got a new build, whatever. And so the agents are having to come educate the client on like, look, you need to get out of here in the next 90 days. I, I want to make sure that happens. If we list too high in this sits, you're going to be, you know, from a position of weakness now. Yeah, it doesn't look good. So I think that's what's happening. People are like maybe being stubborn and then coming along to like, okay, I got to cut the price.

I want to ask you this, I want to go back to something you just, you just said when you were talking about say the things that nobody is scared to say. I think that one of the en vogue things to do and it was when the market slowed down in that 2022 winter, one of the in vogue things to do is to be that guy on YouTube with this face, the oh yeah, you know, oh, market crashed because you know, if it bleeds, it leads. Trying to get clicks.

I remember Patrick by David did a bunch of content on this. None of it came true. But he went super viral for all of it.

Because if it bleeds, it leads. So my question is being, being the content guy, I'm gonna defer to you in the long run. I always tell people like, you got two choices when the markets get choppy, right. There's people that wanna do stuff and the people that have to do stuff. So focusing on the people that have to do stuff don't. But you got two choices. You can be the guy that's standing on the beach yelling, hey, the seas are rough, you're going to drown. Or you can be the lighthouse that safely guides the people that have to go through in the long run. Is making that the sky is falling content going to hurt your career? Or do people. Is it going to go away fast that people just don't remember?

So this is called being a contrarian. Right. So this is a great strategy to get more views on Instagram, YouTube, whatever. It's to have a contrarian viewpoint, against the grain. But the other part is you need to be the correct contrarian. You can't just be going against green just for the sake of getting views, because eventually you look like an idiot. They'll be like, hey, dude, everything this guy said didn't come true. Stop listening to him. So I think what you got to do is like, hey, this is not a crash, but there are opportunities. And let's pull up a chart of like Apple and S&P 500, whatever. Look at the best companies. They go from the lower left to the upper right. But there's all these little bumps along the way.

Sure.

These bumps are what we're talking about. We're in one of those bumps in your market, maybe. Every market's different, by the way. Like, I'll say this. And then San Diego is like, dude, we're not seeing that.

Totally.

Okay, yeah, I'm not, you know, whatever. But it's just crazy because people think how it is right now is how it's always going to be. So I would make a, a piece of content about this Gallup Years or Klein Ears. That's like, hey, she got all the seller credits she needed to make the deal happen. Yeah, first time buyer couldn't get credits last year, now she got the credits. Cool. And then people would tell me, that's not happening in my market. You know, that's, you know, good luck with asking a seller for that. Like, well, you know, it's possible. It just depends on where you're at. So the national headlines don't really help anybody. And like you say, amen, brother. It says freaking Zillow says prices are going to cool off 1%. Well, that's nothing. You just got that client 200 grand off their property. 200 grand sounds a lot different than 1% pullback. Right. So every deal, every listing, every property is different. So I think you can put that message out there and then let people know, like, hey, the data changes. I'll update you as it changes. But I think it's like it goes back to the part about being authentic. If you're going to say the same thing that everybody expects you to say all the time, regardless of market conditions, bro, you're just. No, it's just noise.

Yeah.

Like, when are you going to tell the truth? Like, let's talk about what's going on in politics. You don't have to get into that whole thing, but like, say something comes out that affects our industry. Give your opinion on it. You know, I'm always talking to agents and they're like, dude, I'm scared to give my opinion because it might piss somebody off. I'm scared to give my opinion because I could be wrong. Well, imagine you work at freaking Microsoft over here. And I come to John Gafford, who's been in the industry for decades, and I'm like, hey, John, what do you think is going to happen the market? And then John says, you know what? I don't have a crystal ball, man. Your guess is as good as mine. I'm like, dude, I was hoping you would have some opinion.

You got to have, you got to have some of it. You have to.

Yeah, but this is what agents do. They're like, dude, I don't want to say the wrong thing. So I think you have to have an opinion. If you're not stand for something, you stand for nothing. And you can give your opinion even on stuff that comes politically from, from the administration. And you don't have to take a side. You could just be like, here's what happened. Here's my opinion on it. Yeah. And you know what? I think I respect people now, bro, that, that disagree with their political party from time to time. Dude, if you're just saying the same that we would expect you to say always, then you're nothing more than a. It's like an npc. It's like a robot.

I think you're seeing more and more of that.

Yeah, you're starting to see like if some. Dude, I'm a Republican, but then if they do some dumb on tariffs, I'll like, hey, I don't agree with this.

I think you're seeing on the. I think you're seeing a lot of my friends that I think, I think it's almost like the Republican label is, is going away from a lot of my friends and now, now they're just identifying as conservatives.

Yeah. And same thing on liberals. Like, you can't just agree with everything blanket what's wrong with the disagreeing with your party. But it's like, hey, it doesn't, this, this, this doesn't sit well with me, that would crush on social because you would at least start a debate.

It's that tribal need. People need to. To belong to something, and they feel like they need. They need to win. They need to be.

I know several people on both sides that have something they don't agree with, but they would never say publicly. I'm like, so I guess, you know, maybe that's pushing the envelope for them. Start small. Start with something, you know, easy, but then let people know. And then what you'll find is if people. Cardone told me this, I was on a podcast with Grant Cardone. He goes, if people know you, they'll flow you. And so people know him, you know, he gets opportunities because of it. But if they don't ever get to know you.

Yeah.

Then what the freak? What's going to happen? Nobody can even decide if they like you or not.

Well, I'll be the first one to say it here. I think the military parade is stupid. I think I, I never thought I would see something like that here.

Crazy.

It's stupid. It makes no sense. Anyway, well, let's get back to content creation, because that is that.

Want to get into politics here.

No, no, no, we're not. We're not gonna do that. So let me ask you this. What content right now? Because obviously this shifts a lot, dude. And I wake up some days where I'm like, whoa, what happened? Like, Instagram's like, I no longer like you. This how it works. What's working right now? What's not working right now?

So if you want to do talking videos, it just. You have to be. The bar for information has gone up. So if it's something that you could just simply Google, there's no real value in it. It's better than doing nothing. But you need to. We just need to raise the bar. So I'll give you an example. Last year, you might have said, hey, here are three tips for selling your home for top dollar. That's just a general video. It's better than nothing. It's good, but it's probably not going to get a lot of views today. So the better result would be like, here's how I got my client this amount. Or here's the specific story of this. Or you know what? We were struggling. This, this, this guy was struggling. My friend John was struggling to get this price for his home until we discovered this. And then you tell them what you did. And those, those specific stories work way better than the general stuff. And so people share. Save this, share it. You know, and so that sticks with people a little bit more. So that's the first shift with talking videos. The other part is just teaching people, like some real shit. Like, you know, what are the real tips? I think you got to give away your secrets, you know, like, what are the things you do to get people a deal on the buy side? What are the things you get on the sell side? This is crazy, but I, I've told a few agents this and they think I'm crazy, bro. But I'd love to hear your opinion if an agent really wanted to blow up on social right now, you know, with all this NAR stuff.

Yeah.

So if a real, if you want, if you're in real estate and you want to go viral, what if you made content that said, here's how you buy a home without a real estate agent, here's how you sell a home without an agent. It's counterintuitive, right? You would tell them the steps. You would tell them the. But, well, but, you know, here's what happened. You would be like, dude, that career suicide, they're going to do it on their own. Well, what'll happen is, bro, the guy, the electrician who gets the most views on social, tells you how to do the work yourself. The plumber. Same mechanic. Yeah, it's diy. Everybody thinks they want DIY till you get home with the box from a.

And you actually have to figure it out. Yeah.

Then you don't want it. So. But what you have to realize is today's generation on social media, they all think they can do everything themselves. They, they think it's, they would love DI diy. So you just give them the info with no sales pitch. And then what happens is people start to like, really trust, engage. And then in your guides or in your, in your, in your emails and in your stuff, you're like, hey, if you want me to just handle all this for you or if you want run it by me, here's the link. Book a call and you'll get way more people that way.

Yeah, I think it's funny. I, I, I do agree with that. Show show people, most people don't want to make the sausage. They just want to eat it. I agree with that. But there was a guy, I don't remember his name or his handle. And very, dude, very rarely do I see something and call it out on social media. I don't need to be anybody's lifeguard. I just, I'm too busy to monitor social. I don't need to be the social Media, police. I got enough people trying to monitor what I do. There was a dude in Denver that had like, I hate realtors.

Yeah. Realtors hate me as whatever.

Right. You know the dude I'm talking about?

Yeah.

And he did this. I'm going to sell my house myself, show you how easy it is. Blah, blah. And then right at the end of it, it's like, o. Because it was so easy, I'm going to create a company that allows, like, okay, dude. Like, that's not the most transparent sales pitch. Like, it was. It was all done with the end in the beginning, and that's. It became off. Totally disingenuous. He got slaughtered, as he should have.

Yeah.

And it was because it just, I think, like, yes, but be honest about what you're doing. So if you want to do the thing where let me show you how to not use me and not how to not need me, that's fine. But be honest about it. Hey, I'm doing this.

You could say, hey, I'm. I'm an agent, and I've gone through this stuff, and I'm gonna give you the steps. I have a guide on this. Here you go. Now, my goal is that some of you, through me sharing all my expertise, will want to work with me. And I'd love to work with you, but if you want to take the information and use it on your own, that's fine. So what you have to do on social is you have to realize most of the people will never do business with you. Most of the people will just watch your videos and never talk to you, never DM you. Some of them don't even engage with your stuff. But there's value to just having them in.

In.

In your audience.

Yeah.

Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. So, like, if I told you to come to my event and there was three dudes over there, they're just sitting in there and there's no music on and it's boring. You'd be like, dude, Neil, Yeah, I've.

Been to that club. Yeah.

Yeah, you've been there. Nobody wants to go there.

Yeah.

But then if you go, you come to this club or this event or this thing, whatever, and there's people there and there's engagement. Now, doesn't mean that everybody there has to be my customer. But it's the same concept. Even in our event, there's a thousand people there. There's a few people who end up working with us on the coaching side or in our pro, in our masterminds, but not most people. Just come there, have a great time and go home. Yeah, that's cool. So same thing with the content. You just need people in the tent. So that way when the guy who is going to be your client comes across your video, there's a little bit of engagement, there's people watching it, there's some likes, there's some comments. Nobody wants to be the first comment. So now you look at it, there's a conversation going on. He might feel more comfortable engaging with you. So it's just taking that social proof and trying to make content that would appeal to more people than just your customer. But as a result, you cast a wide net and now you have an opportunity to get your customer.

Yeah. What's your process for seeing the trends in social media? What's Neil's process?

So you know, you can look at what's trending in general. So you can look at answer the public and they will tell you what are consumers searching for on Google? What are the trending searches in real estate, housing, whatever industry you're insurance, type it in, it will tell you actually in real time what people are searching for. You can make content about those topics. That's great. The other thing you could do is literally just if you're, here's the thing that people don't realize. If you're on social media and you're in business, you're a content creator, you shouldn't be just doom scrolling. If you're on social, you should be researching. So when I scroll for an hour, you know, I'm like, I'm wife's like, hey, put your phone down. Like, dude, I'm researching. You know, give me a minute here.

But I'm researching.

Yes, but like it's market research.

Yeah.

What are the videos that are getting a lot of reach? That's how I literally stay on top of it. Because you'll see in real time, hey, these videos are starting to take off. Yeah, I noticed these videos are starting to go better. That's how I noticed that a lot of these talking videos, the trend to change from these highly produced colorful captions and perfectly edited videos to more raw videos that are shot on your phone that changed over the last year. But you would know that if you're watching it because you'd be like, hey, I'm seeing less of those and I'm seeing more of these. Yeah, what's going on here? You know, and so I saw this with graphics as well. Right now if you want to reach a ton of people on social, people think all you can do is post videos. You can post carousels, which are just still doing well.

I see a lot. I see a lot of Cody Sanchez doing that, A lot of her mosey doing that.

These and these are blowing up.

Yeah.

Right now you reach new people. So it used to be those would just be shown to your followers. Now those carousels are shown to strangers so you can grow your account. You're following your email list all through carousels images. You don't have to be in the videos or shoot a video. So what I've seen on those is like people sharing more real, raw thoughts you can do. I've done this both ways. One that I've had blow up is literally taking my tweets. So I tweet on. On X. Yeah, yeah, screenshot it. And those are the slides of the 10 slides on the carousel. The other one, which is kind of crazy, is Cody Sanchez. I saw. I did this. She wrote something ugly on a note, just like kind of scribble, shitty handwriting. I was like, oh, that's a trend. So I just started writing my thoughts, taking a picture of it, bro, and putting as the carousel. Those ones blew up. So there's like. I would only know that if I had been watching social, you know, like just researching, like, hey, I. I noticed less canva pretty graphics and now more raw graphics. So maybe I should try that.

So do you think that, I mean, again, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Are. Are certain. Are certain handful of influencers driving the algorithm or is the algorithm driving them?

Yeah, who? That's a good question. So I think what happens is the algorithm is basically what people will watch, right? So people try new things all the time. Creators try. And you can try new things all the time. There's a galbro who was sitting in a room, a real estate agent. And she's sitting, she's like, hey, how can we make new content? You know, she hires a Gen Z content creator, you know, to come be on her team.

Yeah.

And the gal's like, you know what? I think we should go play hide and seek at the listings. And the agent's like, what? What are you talking about? That's a. And she's probably, you know, poo pooing the idea. I'm sure. And the girl's like, just please, just give it a shot. And she's like, fine, let's go do it. So she goes to the house, holds up a mic and says, hey, you want to come play hide and seek in our new listing? Let's check it out she goes in, and then in each room, she's hiding somewhere. And then she pops out and they get to show the listing, bro. Millions and millions of views. Her account went viral over the top. And then there's all of her other boring videos started to get more views, too. Why? Because they just tried something new. So part of this whole process is, you know, people will try something and then it takes off. So you got to do some flops before you get a banger. Just try some shit. It's like, what happens if you fail? Nothing.

I'll tell you why I'm laughing. I was. I literally. I had this idea pop into my head.

I think it got like 30 million views. It's insane.

I had this. I had this idea pop into my head this morning, and it's like. You never had those ideas where, like, no, it's too far. That won't work. I'm like, I wonder if anybody's ever done home tours on only fans where you put, like, naked women in every room. And then all of a sudden, like.

Like, I'm like, yeah.

I'm like, yeah, that's too far. Because then I'm like, you may have.

Gone too far, but, yeah, but you could do some crazy shit, you know, like. And so people have tried this. And by the way, this was all shot in the iPhone. No. No Production crew. No. Drones.

No. And so I've been to weddings recently where the cinematographers at the weddings are running around with iPhones.

Yeah. There's a place and there's a time and place for highly produced videos.

Yeah.

And then a lot of people view those and they think, oh, this is produced. He's trying to sell me something. And so it's better sometimes to just pop on the phone and you can still make a clean video with the phone. You just have to wipe the lens and get a mic.

Yeah.

People need to clearly hear you and see you, dude.

It was funny the other day, I just. Because there was this guy had posted this video, and I did my standard thing and it was saying the Vegas market was going to crash back to 2008. Eight levels. And whenever I see somebody do something. Not this guy doesn't live in Vegas. He's just somebody who's chasing clicks somewhere else and had his data to support his. His hypothesis. So I did what I always did, but I said, hey, look, you know, I'm a broker in local market. We did about 4,000 transactions. I tell you what, I'll bet you 10 grand I'll put it in escrow. You put 10 grand escrow. You pick the date of the next 365 days that we were going to turn to that, to those values and yeah, winner take all.

And of course, you've been doing this for years, bro.

Years. I do this. I love people. Yeah, I love calling people.

They lose the bet every time.

Well, no, they don't. They. Nobody takes the bet, Neil. They're never going to take it because they have no interest in being right or giving correct information. It's just how many clicks like is.

Somebody'S being a contrarian just for the sake of getting.

Just for the sake of.

You get. Eventually get exposed just for the. That's bullshit. You should just do it for the helping clients, you know, the last.

The only guy I ever had that actually engaged with that, that was, that was the saying, oh, take that bet, blah, blah. Was that bull dude that's in jail in Utah now? Oh, yeah, that guy. Yeah, him. But I turned anyway back to the story. I turned on my camera just sitting on the front deck of my house. Some was going down. I was like, I'm going to go live on Facebook, which I never do. I'm like, I'm just going to do 14. And I talk for 14 minutes just about the market and what I think people should do, be doing, blah, blah. And that video blew up. It went everywhere. And I was like. And it was grainy. I mean, the quality was terrible because it was.

People probably just felt you're being real. I trust the guy. He's probably telling the truth. And so that's probably what attracts more people these days. You still need to be like. Like, it needs to be understood. It can't be like so grainy that you can't see it. But I think if it's so clean, like sometimes these agents, they'll get. And there's a place for this, like, you'll have a nice listing. They get a whole crew out there with the drones and they make a beautiful video. That's actually really good. It's a good piece for YouTube. Yeah, it's good on YouTube. And it's also good just to have in your, you know, repertoire. So when you go to your next list, you could show the type of quality marketing you do. But then where are the other videos? Like, why aren't you in there with your phone talking about this room or that room? Like, you know, every house or every property has the best piece of it, you know, like, and this is, this is a way that every agent could improve their home. Tour videos. Instead of just starting off with welcome to blah, blah blah. Let me, let me. Let's check it out. And this is what everyone does. Same shit that everyone else does, which is, I guess, better than nothing. But what if you went into the. The best part of the property? Like I, this is the. This is the best kitchen or this is the best view, One of the best views I've seen in Las Vegas. And then you go into the other part. So the big piece of content that people need to shift right now is taking the best part of the video and putting it up front. So a lot of times you'll go on a rant on social. 20 seconds into the rant, you'll say something that really impact. Like you say what the kids would say is a bar. Like, that was. That was it right there. Move that to the front of the video. Like, even in editing, you don't have to reshoot the video. Just have your editor move it to the front. That video is going to blow up now because you're starting with heat, you know, rather than warming up to it. People don't give you a chance to warm up.

Did I was before my time. Remember the show Survivor man? You know, they dropped that dude off. I did a video what time? One of my. I had a blue hair listing called Surviving luxury right in. We shot it backwards. So I didn't shave for like, I didn't shave for a while. So I had like a beard basically going on and like tie my tie around my head, rip my sleeves. And it was all about surviving in the super luxury house.

Like, oh, this is crush.

I know I would have killed it with this today. It would absolutely crush. I wish I had that video because.

Everyone'S trying to be Ryan Serhant and then you come out, you know, like, look at me. I think it would just stand out.

Dude. That was my, my only viral clip. When I had Ryan on the show, I said, you know, I blame you for ruining real estate. How do you feel about that?

Yeah, that's funny. But, you know, like, let's just. My brother, he loves wearing suits. He gets them made tailor made. So if you are a suit guy, you want to be like, all right, Sirhan, do that. Do you? But if you are deathly uncomfortable in a suit every day, don't freaking wear a suit in your video. Just be yourself, you know, like be. And I think like there's. You can, you know, go in a scale depending on who you're meeting with or the clients you're with. But I think the people who are not being themselves, eventually it just comes through in the content. That's what the audience has gotten really good at.

Yeah.

People scroll videos really quick. You ever watch someone scroll? They can scroll like 30 videos fast.

Yeah.

And then they stop. Why do they stop? Sometimes it's the way somebody said something. It's what their vibe, their energy. You never know. Like, could be that they're jumping up and down and doing something crazy. But a lot of times on talking videos, it's unknown. It's like, why'd you stop on that? Well, I don't know. I just. I kind of like the guy.

Yeah. You just. It looked like he had something to say or the. Which makes me. Next question, though. Are we seeing people? Are we seeing the shift away from the welcome to my garage with my Lambo and this. Are we seeing a shift away from that stuff? Working the flex. Yeah.

So I think there's a. You know, the influencers of before were like, look at me, look at me. Yeah, I got these, you know, look at my house, look at my cars, whatever. That really only would work today on dumb people. You know what I mean? Like, you think about someone with below average intelligence is like, easily, easily impressed by that today. Anybody who is the people you'd actually want to reach, they're not impressed by that anymore. So the new vibe should be come with me, not look at me, come with me. Right. So you. It's okay to be successful.

So come with me and see this house. Come with me, Check this out.

Or like, I'm. I'm successful and inspire people. So, for example, like, you ever see people shoot their video in their Rolls Royce? And I could say this to you because you have one.

I did it this morning.

Yeah, yeah, but you'll shoot it.

I was just driving to work.

But you just happen to be in a Rolls Royce Wraith. Okay.

Yeah.

Now there's another influencer, you know, out there who's going to do it. And he's going to go like this selfie style and he's going to move his head to the side.

Oh. So you can see rr. I don't do that.

We already got it, bro. Like, you're in a Rolls Royce.

Yeah.

So it just. It just. It's like you're begging for attention. So then all of a sudden the vibe is off. It's like, dude, you're trying to show off. So I think there's just an energy behind it. Doesn't mean you can't.

Just that one little headline. You Know, I know the head. Yeah.

And you know exactly why they're doing it. You know, they. And people do it all the time.

Yeah. Nobody's riding around like that.

Yeah. Nobody's like this.

And so they do scoliosis in the rolls. Yeah.

And then all of a sudden they're cured. Right. So it's just this is the problem is, you know, if I shoot a video for my backyard, people like, oh, dude, it looks like you guys live on a golf, like what golf course. That, that's a nice view.

Yeah.

And I'm like, it's not like I'm saying, hey, check this out. Look at, I have a nice home.

Just.

You just happen to be in one.

That's where you are.

So people start to just recognize, hey, this guy's putting in the work. A lot of people, John, are scared to show their success because they don't share the work. Right. So if you ever on vacation and you're like in a five star resort, you're like, dude, I don't want to post this because people are going to think I'm flexing. Why don't you show that? Freaking. When you're at the office at 10 o' clock at night putting a deal together, why don't you talk about this week was a rough week, bro. Two deals fell through, wife's mad at me. You know, I'm just venting today, but like I'm having a rough week and hope, hope it gets better. Post that video.

Yeah.

Nope, it's not a viral video. But you're being real. It's not like you're just showing everything. Yeah. People like, dude, my life's amazing, bro. Everybody's got problems. Even the most successful people I know are depressed sometimes. Like, be real. And then when you're on, like what happens is if you show the work and not just the ups, but some downs as well, talk about some struggle, then when you're on vacation, you know what the comments are, dude? They're like, dude, enjoy the time with your family, you know, good for you, bro. That's what the comments are like. Because people have been around, right. So it's not showing off anymore. So I think it's just showing people like full vision, being again, going back to just being real rather than trying to show off.

How do you deal with that? So obviously because you're not showing off, but you still look.

Oh yeah, you still get.

You can, you could literally post a picture of like a purple circle, nothing but. And somebody's gonna be like, whatever, bro, like in the comments, how does Neil deal with the haters?

I did. Last week. I had a video go viral. When I just talked about the tax bill, I said, here's the tax bill. Here's what I like. Here's what I don't like. People are calling me, you know, this. Look at this guy. And. And. And there's some good comments. There's some bad ones. Dude, eventually you just stop. You just ignore it. Like, what are you gonna do? The only person who is talking to you in the comments is somebody who is beneath, like, your level.

Everybody hits up.

Yeah, it's just somebody who's upset with.

Themselves or hates down, rather.

Yeah, they're. They're. It's never from someone you admire. It's always from someone who's probably in their mom's basin. Many times if you click on these profiles, it's faceless. It's just some random account. It's a bot. Sometimes. Yeah, you know, I think they're just trying to rally up. So, you know, you never heard of a guy on his deathbed, said, he's saying, you know what, Neil? I wish I would have spent more time arguing with strangers on the.

Yeah. On the Internet. Yeah.

Nobody gives a. So eventually you just stop caring. But I will say, like, I did the video the other day and I posted, like, here's my journey in education. I started teaching these classes. No one would come. And I started.

Yeah, we talked about it.

Yeah, I kept doing it. Kept doing it. And then now we're doing it at a high level. Finally got good at it. It takes years, whatever.

Yeah.

But I showed the pictures of the journey and me sitting in an office wearing kind of a collared shirt and no hat. And. And I put that in there. And then in the comments, there's like 90 comments. And all of them are like, dude, good for you. I'm so glad you stuck with it. Proud of you. And there's one comment, John, it's like, dude, now I see why you wear a hat. And I was like, what?

Why?

Yeah, why? I go to the page, it's some faceless account. So whatever, I don't care. But what's. What's crazy about this is, why do I only remember that one comment out of the 90 people who were nice? So it's just your brain is always going to remember negative people. So that's why I empathize with people. With, like, dude, I get some hate, and it pisses me off. I'm like, ignore it. Well, it's hard. Yeah. Because you Just remember the negative feedback.

Trust me, I. I had a point in my life where, when I was on the Apprentice, coming off of that show before. This is back before social media, kids, we didn't have social media back. There was a new site called Friendster that was just coming out. But any. There was a website called Television Without Pity and it was just forums about reality shows where people could go on and talk about them. And dude, you know, when it first started, somebody sent me a link and it was just this. I mean, you're talking about thousands of people because it wasn't like you had social media. They were just a handful of things you could talk about online.

Yeah.

And this was one of them. And everybody was talking about the Apprentice and dude, thousands of people talking about you.

Yeah, right.

It became like addictive to me at that point where I was like. And when things were going good on the show and I was doing well, I was like, this is great. Everybody thinks I'm amazing. And then I took my. What they call the greatest, you know, nose dive in reality show history and it got a little different.

Yeah.

And bro. But it consumed me, all the. All the vitrol that was being spilled on that thing. So maybe I had a little bit of an earlier start to it, but. But these days, man, I just tend to be like, yo, somebody says something terrible, I'm like, bro, you got me, man. You win, man.

Here's what you should do. If somebody talks to you, this is what gets them every time. Just reply to their comment. Their rude comment, sometimes really rude. Just reply lol, nothing else. And they'll be like, what? Like, why are you laughing at me? And it's just. They're like, they don't know what to do, so. Or you can be.

Nothing to do with my hands, what just happened?

Or what I found a lot of times is somebody will say something super nasty like, hey, you're an idiot for saying this. You go, well, you can respond with some facts and be like, actually, I was just reading the news. Like, this is actually what's occurring, you know, sorry if it offended you. And then they reply back and they're like, oh, no, no, no. Yeah, I wasn't offended. Blah, blah. And they walk it all back. So it's so weird how people are so. They would never say this to your face, by the way.

Yeah.

Nobody walk up to you and curse you out. But they'll do it in the comments, you know.

Of course, of course. They're keyboard tough guys.

Yeah. So. But it just. You just have to ignore it. And then what happens also is you'll have an overwhelming more positive. And then these will just be the few things that, you know, kind of. Yeah. They get outnumbered by the good ones.

All right, I want to ask you this question because I asked John Highland this. Who was the guy that was buying the liver? King asked him this question as well. Because your. Your dad.

Yeah.

Okay. Because you're in the business of content creation and teaching people, other people to do content creation. Do you wrestle with. Do you ever wrestle with any type of moral responsibility about adhd, short attention spans because we are feeding the animal that our kids are clicking?

Yeah, I think.

Ever wrestle with that?

Sometimes I think it's like you could. So here's the thing. Social media and all these apps, they are highly addictive. They people are. They have world class PhDs working on how to keep people on the app, especially TikTok. TikTok's one of the most addictive things and it's frying people's brain all the time. Right. So you have to limit your use. But at the same time, look at how every single person, bro. Is addicted to this. Right? So when you walk outside, there's going to be a guy who can't even walk from the door to his car without looking at his phone. Can't take a. You can't eat without looking at your phone. Right. People trip. They literally will hit a curb and fall because they're looking at the phone instead of looking. So I was telling my son the other day, dude, don't walk down the stairs looking at your phone like you're gonna fall. And that's gonna. You look real dumb, you know? So knowing this, knowing that everybody and their mom is addicted and people's backs are permanently curved because they're looking at the phone. How could you use this for good?

Yeah.

Could you put out a good message? Could you help people? Could you blow up your business? Could you build something that you can help a lot people, like, use it to your advantage. So social media either is something that is going to kind of ruin you, or you can use it to help. It's like, to pick which side you want to be on.

Yeah, I think that's. That's something that I struggle with sometimes where it's like, you know, am I making content that I want to go wide or am I making stuff that I genuinely think is helping people, like this podcast? I mean, you know, if this doesn't go viral, I'm okay with that. But if it really helps a certain amount of people, then great. That's wonderful.

Yeah. Then there might be clips that do go viral, but then overall, you're just reaching more people. So, yeah, like, sometimes I want to make a piece of content to reach more people, but from a standpoint, it's like, hey, how could I get this message across and not. And not get crushed by the algorithm? It's not necessarily like, hey, how can I get people addicted to the app? It's more just like, hey, dude, I have a really good message to share. The way this algorithm works is you got to be pretty good at this to get more people to see your video. So what could we do to make more people watch this?

Yeah, I love this because I know you coach a bunch of people, right. And I think people would tell content creators or people that are making videos, you have to be charismatic for them to work.

Yeah.

So how do you work with people that are just flatlined?

That's kind of crazy. So if you look at my content, I show people I was the worst. You know, like, I don't. I'm not a extrovert, I'm an introvert. I'm a nerd. I don't want to be on video. And then I was the last guy to do it. But what you'll find is if you have information to share, you can do it. Like, you. You don't have to be the polished, you know, charismatic guy. And what I found, actually, is some of those people aren't good because they. They're overthinking everything. They want it to be perfect, and they want to, like, come across a certain way, and they're. They're just in their head versus the guy who doesn't care. You know, he's put it out there. I saw this agent who's blowing up right now in Vegas. I'll have to find it and send it to you. Dude is just, like, seriously overweight, and he owns it, and he's just throwing the videos out there and he doesn't care, you know, and he's just like, everybody's vain and trying to be perfect, and he's like, you know, what effort. I'm just going to do the content.

Yeah.

And he's building an audience, just being himself, so there's room for everybody. But it's just like, you have to be okay with yourself first.

I think. I think the flawed humans do better now than the. Well, obviously, if you're trying to link people again to only fans, the better off it is. But I think just like the normal, like, look at the people in Vegas that have built these huge followings. You know, Brandon from Vegas, who's a realtor, that, that does a lot of restaurant stuff that has nothing to do with real estate. But you know, I. Sorry, Brandon. I don't think he was calling. He's not calling himself a looker, you.

Know, model or anything.

No, he's not a model.

He's not himself. And he's putting out the content and he's. And at some point it's just a game of attrition, bro. Who's gonna stick with it? Who's. Most people, bro, they try something for a month or two and then they say this doesn't work and they quit. Yeah, that's the common person. The people who are winning are like that guy who stuck with it for years and then figures out a way to funnel his traffic into business so that you actually monetize it. The platforms aren't going to pay you much. You know the deal on YouTube? Yeah. You get a million views, you get a few dollars from AdSense. It's nothing. It's not going to change your life. But if you can get clients, like we're in a high margin business.

Yeah.

Each client is a, is a big lift to our bottom line. If you do a piece of content that reaches a few hundred people and it gets you one client that's viral, like I would say, that's, I would say this VFM viral for me didn't get a million views. But you got a client that's viral.

Yeah.

If you got a new relationship, that's viral.

I want to talk about this because this is, this is poignant. Just happened not too long ago here in Vegas. You had the, the content creators get in the fight on the Strip and then one of them shot the other two.

Oh yeah, I saw. That is, that's crazy. That's.

Yeah, so, so look, I.

Obviously there's probably some mental illness for.

Sure, but I'm just saying it's like now you got content creators beefing like the 90s East west rap games, right? Like is. Is this where we are now? Are people.

That is crazy. I saw that video and I'm like. And everything's being captured on video this morning. Crazy. A plane, just huge tragedy, by the way. Like a plane just crashed in India with 250 people on it. A Boeing Dreamliner and everyone's dead and somebody caught it on video. And the videos are going viral everywhere. And it's like, this is crazy. Everything's being documented. You can't hide from anything, you know, so. But it is wild to see content creators, people putting out weird crazy shit, people doing all kind. It's almost like they have a new sense of ego. Ego?

Well, it's, it's, it's people's ego is being driven so much by clicks and likes instead of anything of actual value.

Did you ever see a video where somebody's getting attacked or injured and then everyone's just filming it? I'm like, why didn't anybody help Put your.

Yeah, put. Put your phone down. Help somebody like.

Or hand your phone to somebody else and go do something. Like. It's just weird that everyone would rather capture it on phone. So do you see?

This is it.

Kevin Hart. He's, you know, he does the show in Vegas all the time at Resorts World.

Yeah.

And so he was talking one of the events and he's like, dude, I love the fans. They come up to me. But it's getting crazy where a fan will just walk up to you with the. Put the phone in the face, says, take a photo. He's like, dude, can we shake hands? Like, nice to meet you, love your work. You know, talk first and then, yeah, you want to take a photo, cool. But people are just. The only they care about is the clout. They want a picture so that you can post on Instagram. They don't even care about meeting the person they want to capture a video. You go to concert, like, yeah, I'll go to a concert. I'll film some clips. I'm going to give it because I want to post about it and I'm excited.

Unless it's a tool concert. Then you take your phone out, you get kicked out.

Yeah, exactly. Thanks, Maynard, but I'm not like trying to film the whole dang thing, you know what I mean? Like, you put your phone away at some point. So it's just weird, people. It's a weird environment where everybody's trying to document everything.

Do you think I saw. I saw a stat the other day that said that 67% of Gen Z doesn't drink alcohol.

That's good. So that's crazy.

You look at how addicted we are to our phones now, do you see a time when there's backlash? And this. Do you think this is here for good or is this kind of weighing?

Yeah, so there'll be something. I'm sure it's already coming out where people are. There's more add there's more, you know, just health effects because of scrolling. Yeah. Being addicted to this. It's Just you can't keep kids attention. And now with AI it's even worse, you know. So yeah, I think there'll be something, it'll change. But at the same time bro, I remember being a kid and playing video games for all night. Playing Nintendo or freaking whatever. Xbox.

Yeah.

And before that it was something else and before that something else. So like, like yeah, I guess there's always some villain of the day, you know. Right now it's cell phones and, and the Internet but people eventually come around to like responsible use or not, you know.

Yeah. You talked about AI.

Yeah.

How, how is AI currently impacting content creation and how will it, and how will it do you see it affecting in the future?

So it helps right now if you suck, it'll get you to like a place of average. So like if you don't know what to talk about, you want some ideas, you can just prompt Chat GPT. I'll give you some ideas. But what I found bro is if you are actually smart and you actually know a few things and you prompted, you can get crazy output from AI. Like if you have a conversation with it and really get what you put in is what you get out essentially. So anytime I ask AI for anything, it's a huge. This is a great tip for anybody who's using chat GPT. This will improve your prompts and what you get all the time before you get a result. So you ask it a question, say before you give me your response, what questions do you have for me? And it'll go back and forth with you and then the output gets 10x better. So like you, you're not giving it all the info it needs to make a really good output. And if you just tell it, give me something, it'll give you some trash. But if you go back and forth, it's crazy.

Well I, it's funny, I think the one, the one thing I see people don't do enough with it is train their own GPTs to have a specific GPT to do this. I mean I have a Nevada broker now that I've been training for like six months and she's right.

Every time bro, this is crazy.

Every time I ask her a question, she's right.

We, we just. I went to New York to speak to this group and then they previewed, they're on the mortgage side, they previewed. They have a AI process that will close a transaction, an easy one. So like a simple purchase for a, you know, a guy who works at MGM and got his dogs, no problem, simple deal. You don't need people anymore. From start to finish, they'll complete the deal, underwrite it, everything you've been cut. So for the basic stuff, it's going to replace a lot of these functions it already has. I'll give you another example. We have a. We were getting a small event space studio here in Vegas and so we found a place and I need to negotiate the lease for the last 20 years in business I was give my lease to my attorney guy, corporate guy. He reviews it, gets it back, we pay. I probably pay a couple grand for that service. Dude, I just dropped it into GPT, said here, please review the lease, let me know it did the whole thing.

Where do I have a problem, bro?

And then it said draft, I said draft the email to the broker to tell them what revisions I need. Here you go. Copy paste into Gmail, you're done. Like this is pretty crazy. It just replaced a couple of GS worth of basic attorney work. So for those basic functions and all jobs, real estate, it's going to take it away. So that's. If you are in a business where you sell fulfillment, you're like dude, I'm really good at the job, I'm really good at the paperwork. We have a great process. That's not what you should be focused on. You should be focused on just making sure you can meet as many people as possible, build your brand so you can connect with more people and then you use AI to just handle way more business.

Yeah, I think the human connection is the one. It will be the. It'll be the last thing to go. Right.

It may be here forever because at some point you'll be tired of dealing with bots. So when you see content. When you asked about content. Yes. Right now there's a lot of content being generated by AI. There's videos being generated by AI and at some point you're gonna. People will be looking for the signal. Is this a real human or is this AI? And the real stuff will cut through.

Do you think that is the platforms see the AI stuff and they, they knock it down?

No. So what it is is they'll allow you to. But they have a button when you post it says Mark.

Yeah.

That this is generated with some AI, either all or some AI. And you're supposed to self. It's like on the honor system, you're supposed to click that button.

Yeah. Good luck.

Yeah, good luck. It doesn't limit your reach. So I have some videos where I generated an avatar of me teaching and it looks pretty good. It's like 98% there. Pretty close. It'll eventually be 100% accurate. And I posted it and I put the AI button. It still gets the same reach. So it doesn't hurt you by doing that.

I. I have a video that we made because, you know, obviously digital fraud within the title industry. I have an AI bot I made with Vidyard. I think it's me. It's an avatar. Talking about digital fraud and like, how. Why you've got to call and verify with actual humans things and have a password. Yeah. Well, I end the video with the reason you want to do this is I didn't even make this video. This is a completely generated thing.

This isn't me.

So if I can. If you're watching this thinking this was me. This was all done.

Yeah. Just to just super deep fake. Yeah. To let people know.

Yeah.

And I'll give you one more piece of content that's crushing right now.

Oh, what is that?

Is if you can pick. So this is. This is going viral every single week for people in our group. And then you can translate it into business as well. But you pick what's going on right now in terms of trends. So news. Trends about AI news from politics, whatever the news is. Remember the fires in. In la, that was national news.

Yeah.

People. So in my group of people, we coach, there's a few creators who started making content about what happens to your home when the house burns down. What happens to the mortgage? What happens to, like, how does this all get covered? Like, what happens to the. Does the insurance just rebuild it? What's the process like? Because what happened is the entire country was now worried about what would happen to our house if it burned down. Right. So not only covering the news of, like, here's what's going on in la. Fires.

Yeah.

But also coming. Here's how it affects you as the average homeowner. Maybe you should take a look at your insurance policy.

Yeah. Note to self, make videos. What would happen to my mortgage if my house got completely looted by rioters?

Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah.

Same.

Yeah. Same thing, bro.

Viral all over the place. Because people were. It's just surfing on what's going on right now. Here's how this new tax bill affects you, the homeowner. Here's a new build that came out that could affect your ability to buy or sell a home this year. Here's this thing and what I found is the audience today wants to be in the know. They don't want to be on the outside. So when you start off a video by saying, hey, did you hear about this, bro? People just want to watch it. So it's not me saying I'm the expert. Watch me.

Neil, is that your best hook right now, bro?

Have you guys heard about this? Did you see this? That is crushing for me right now because people want to be in the know. And I'm not saying I'm the expert. I'm just. So. This is a. It's a psychological thing not to get too nerdy, but when you make an observation, it reaches more people than when you say you're the expert. When you're the expert, they have to psych. They have to decide in their head, should I listen to this person or not?

Yeah.

And even if they don't say it out loud, they're thinking to themselves, is this guy good? Or, you know, I don't know him. Because any video that goes viral, it's mostly new people, strangers watching your video. So if you take that off the table and you're like, here's an observation. Here's a headline. Here's what's going on. You already know the news exists, and then you give your opinion in the video.

Do you find that, like, what Jefferson Fisher does when he. When he says, this is why. Who I am, what I do, and why you should listen to me having that little blurb?

Yeah, that's great. And then what happened was he started for doing those videos in his course.

He's everywhere.

And then he just stuck with it. So he found a format that works, and he just stuck with it. That's what a lot of people miss. You know that dude who does the ice? Puts his face in ice. Astronauts.

Yeah.

And does the whole work. Dude, he did that for years, I think, posting those types of videos. And then they started taking off. He found a format that works, and he just stuck with it. Same thing. Jefferson Fisher, he gives these communication tips from his car. With a quick pace, he started doing them, and then eventually they started blowing up. And then he is known as the expert. Right. And he says it. So the. When it's a new person watching, he's like, dude, here's who I am. Here's why you should listen to me.

Yeah, I love that. So speaking of listening to AI, this is something I did with Erwin McManus last week that I loved, and I'm gonna do it with you today. So what I did was I asked AI to write me 20 lightning questions for you that. That were pertinent to you. They're not just stupid like, what's your favorite animal? They're actually pertinent to you. And I said, you feel free to throw some strange things in there. Okay, so here we go. You ready?

What is this? Like, is this rapid fire?

We're going rapid fire.

Okay.

Bam. We're going rapid fire. This is. This is what we're building our clips, Neil, As I say, you ready? All right, here we go. Question number one. Video written content. What converts better in 2025?

If you second video written content's way better.

Okay, number two, last DM you got that made you laugh out loud.

People send me memes all the time.

What was it?

Yeah, I think it was. It was just one of these ones of. It's a. It's one of these ones where somebody did something crazy. Like it was like a. A prank. Like one of those prank ones where these guys are throwing shit at each other and doing some crazy shit. So he would drop a bunch of, like a bucket of water on his buddy and then another guy did something else and just crazy pranks.

I love the two Asian guys that put the kazoos in their mouth and smack each other with the. I don't know.

These are viral videos. They make you laugh there.

Okay, number three, what would you rather? Would you rather sell out an event or have all your videos go viral?

Go viral.

Okay, number four, what's the biggest waste of money in marketing today?

The biggest waste, I would say, is traditional media, meaning like buying billboards and static image because you can't target people. And it's. You could do it for way cheaper on social.

Okay, what's the. I'm sorry, Instagram stories or TikTok lives?

I would go Instagram stories because that's my jam.

One creator who actually walks the walk.

Oh, there's a lot. Like, we just talked about Irwin. He's a. He's an older guy, but he's. He's the real deal. You always say the real thing. You know, there's so many people I know who are just being themselves that are not bullshitting you. But then there's a lot of people you've seen lately too, where it turned out everything they were saying was a scam. Some of these people are in legal problems now. It's crazy.

A lot of. I think. I think the day of the. The Flex Influencer join my coaching program is. Is rapidly going by the wayside. Yeah, rapidly going by the wayside. Okay, if today, what business would you start?

So if I lost everything today and I had to start from scratch, I would get into helping small businesses and. And medium sized businesses with social media marketing. Like, I think it would crush.

What's the most overused word in personal branding right now?

Overused Bird, I guess. Yeah. Be authentic.

Yeah.

Everyone tells you to be authentic.

Authentic. Yeah.

Like, what does that mean?

What does that even mean? What's the biggest red flag on someone's.

Content when they show that. That Headley. Yeah, yeah. The Lambo or the Ferrari.

The Double R Headlane.

What the. What did you say you call it? Scoliosis.

Yeah, the Rolls Royce. Scoliosis.

Yeah, that's what that is. We'll name it right here.

Yeah, it's. It's Scoliosis Royce.

Or they're like, show their watch or, you know, whatever.

You see the movie the Flex. All right. You're forced to choose funnels or followers.

Well, I think you would need. If you want. It's two things. If you want to build an audience long term, build brand followers and subscribers. But if you wanted to make a bunch of money, the funnels where you need to be, then you could just run paid ads to it and make more money.

Okay. One event speaker you'd book because you thought it was funny. Just to piss people off.

You know, I think we were going to get Dana White last year to come by, and I think half the people would be happy. The other half would be pissed. But there's a lot of people who are known to one political side or the other, and I would want to get them, but I'm worried that I would piss off half the audience.

Who's the number one person you'd pick?

That would be one of them. Who else is there? You know what? I think it would be cool to interview Donald Trump. That'd be dope. Like how Grant Cardone did. Yeah, I think there'd be a lot of people upset, but there is some really. Like, he is a good marketer. He used marketing to get the high. The most powerful position in the world.

Oh, dude, he's the best.

You know, it's funny, he was on podcast. They came up with the best marketing ever.

I saw a story about him the other day and it was. I don't remember who was telling it, but they said, you know, I had this opportunity to. To go to dinner. I had to go meet Trump in his country club for. For dinner and take it out there or somebody. And he was like, I went out there and the first thing he said was, you got to try the clam chowder. It's the best clam Chowder in the world. Okay. So I brought the clam chowder. And he goes, I ate it. It was okay. And then he goes, I had to go back out there again. And right outside, you got to get the clam chowder. You got to get the clam chowder again. Best clam chowder in the world. He was like, okay. He ordered it. His table. It was this time, the second time I ate it, I said, you know, I said, you know, this is really good clam chowder. And he goes, see, if I say it enough, you'll believe anything.

Yeah, that's funny.

And he goes, man, how scary is that? It's like that's kind of how it was. Which I thought was good.

That's good.

All right, next, what's the best investment under $500 you've made in your brand?

Under 500 would be. Well, it costs a bit more, but if you get a used one, I would get a new iPhone, you know, or like a used iPhone. And that. That would be the best investment you can make in your brand because you could. Now, if you already have a phone, it would be a mic or that. A wireless mic for that.

A wireless mic for that.

In a, like a light. You can get a simple light and mic for your iPhone for under 500 bucks.

Okay, true or false? The algorithm hates honesty, boss.

Yeah, it does. It. It would actually reward it.

Okay, which forward speaker surprised you the most, Good or bad?

You know what? Gary Vee is a buddy of mine, and it was kind of like, it wasn't. It was not a surprise, but it's. He just never has a talk. Like, he just comes there and just speaks his mind. And so you would think this guy is one of the highest paid, well known speakers influencers in the world, but he just comes out there, says his. His thoughts off the top of his head, and he may not be the best speaker, but people love him. And so I realized that and I was like, dude, I think Gary's way better in it. In a conversation, a Fireside chat. So we did a little bit of keynote and then switched it up to us chatting like this, and it crushed. But that was a surprise because you.

Would think he's gonna come prepared.

He's gonna come with the freaking. He's gonna have it dialed in. And he just shows up. He's like, hey, what do you want me to talk about?

I'm not expecting that I should figure that out by now, right?

But he's great. Like, he's awesome. Awesome. It's just he's just. That's how he rolls.

That's funny. All right, what's your guilty pleasure app when you're not working?

When I'm not working, I pretty much spend time on YouTube or Instagram. Tick tock sometimes, but mostly in social.

All right, how long does it take? How long does it take you to decide if somebody's full of.

Oh, I think, like, I was talking about this with Urban the other day. I think I could detect fairly quickly. And I was saying to him, my wife's even faster. She'll decide fast.

She an empath? Does she recognize herself as an empath?

Probably. I don't, I haven't ever looked into it, but she's like telling me gut feeling right away on somebody, and most of the time she's right. But it takes me a while to catch up to that.

Yeah, I talked about that with her when I saw my wife is a super empath.

So she could tell you. Does she ever tell you, like, right up front?

I've had two seven figure business deals go south. I lost seven figures on them. Two separate deals. Both times my wife was like, I don't like these people. Don't do this deal up front. Both times, up front. And I was like, no, no, no, it's hot here's gonna be fine. So now we have an agreement. I will not do business with anybody. And we've been, we've been at events where like, I'm cutting a deal with somebody just to do something or look at something, blah, blah. And I'll say, you know what, hang on a second. And I'll go grab her because she travels with me, and I'll go grab her and I'll say, you got to meet this guy. Why? Because I just, I need to read on him. And she'll meet and be like, oh, yeah, he's good people, he's fine. And I don't do anything unless she's like, in on it. I'm, I'm out. So, yes. I, I, I love that you use your wife for the same thing.

Yeah, I love that it's important.

I love it. One thing most people misunderstand about you.

I think they would think that, you know, anything I do right now, that it's like, it just is easy for me. But all the things have been taken. I've taken a lot of, like, struggle or a lot of work or consistency. So a lot of times people see a success, but they don't realize, like, oh, shit, I struggled with that for five years before it worked. You know, so it's just like the whole thing of the tip of the iceberg and you don't see all the. Below it. So I think I'm guilty as just everyone else. It becomes a highlight reel. You only show the good stuff and you don't talk enough about the.

Speaking of which.

Yeah.

Number 18. What's the biggest flex? Most people don't know about you.

So, like, anytime I would say, you know, when I talk about flexing and I say, hey, I've. I have this property or this, you know, financial success or this, they don't see that. Before we did any of that stuff, we built our wealth through just buying rental properties. So, like, before I ever got a luxury, like a exotic vehicle, I made sure I own five or six homes.

Yeah. Something else is paying for it. Yes.

And so doing that first. And so people see the flex. But like, a lot of times people flex and they don't have any money or somebody will be like, hey, what's the payment on a Lambo? I'm like, I don't know. I just bought it cash, you know, Like, I don't. Here's the title.

Yeah.

But like, so I think that's. That's. The flex is doing things where you're buying something that you could afford. 10 of cash.

Yeah.

Like, not just doing it. Stretching your budget so that you could look cool on Instagram.

How am I going to figure this out?

Yeah. That's not cool.

Yeah. Would you ever run for Office? Yes or no?

No.

No.

I don't care about that at all.

All right. What is the Neil 10 years from now look back at the Neil today.

And cringe about 10 years ago.

No, no, no. What does the Neil 10 years from now look back at the Neil sitting on that couch and cringe about?

I think. So this is a good question for everybody to ask, including you. If you were the main character in a movie, right. What would the audience be screaming that you should be doing that you don't, that you're not doing? And so I think for me, I do so many different things in business, and it's. There's a lot of I have to deal with, but the num. The number one thing that moves the needle for my brand is doing more media. And so I was like, anytime somebody's talking with the coach, like, do you need to be doing more of that and less of this, this, this, and this and this? I'm like, yeah, but this pays the bills. Or this does this, or I'm still doing this. And So I think it would be, dude, you should have been getting focused on what is your level 10 opportunity. People have level 10 opportunities in life all the time, and they give them, like, level three effort. If you gave it level 10, you'd be like, in a totally different place five to 10 years from now. But the problem is you can't do that because you get your hands in so many different other things. Running this mortgage business, you're doing this education, you're doing coaching, you're doing this media. What if he just went all in? So this guy, Lewis Howes, you know, yeah, sure. Probably one of the better known podcasts, he was doing coaching. He's at a mastermind. He had something else. And he was also doing the podcast and he talked about this in some conversation, I don't remember where, he said, at some point, he talked to his business coach and he said, you know what? What if we just dropped everything? I went all in on the podcast and then you say, what happened?

Yeah, blew up.

Blew up. So level 10 opportunity he saw, gave it level 10 effort. And most of the time we don't do that. So there's probably something that you have an opportunity right now that if you went all in on it for the next five years, it would take you. It would set you up. It would be crazy. But we don't do it.

We don't do it. Yeah. All right, last question in this. I love this question. What's the one question you get asked on podcasts all the time that you wish they would stop asking?

I think people waste time, bro. This is the worst question on the podcast is they ask you for, like, your. Your, like, upbringing or. I don't think people give a. Maybe they do once they get to know you, but I think most people will listen to a podcast. They want to know what you could teach them. What. What is your story going to inspire them? Do you have some knowledge for them? What's the value? And it could be funny. Like, there could be others value, not just education. But I don't think anybody gives a shit where I went to school, what I did this or this. Like. And people will ask you a bunch of that stuff. And I'm like, dude, let's just skip to the good stuff.

You know what's so funny about this last week, which I have asked people that give me a background. No, no, don't think, though. But this is why I love this question. It's like I ask Erwin and he goes, oh, God. They just keep asking me if I could Give advice to my 27 year old. And I probably asked that question to people 100 times. I was like, bro, I love this because I'm never asking that again and I'm never talking about people's childhood again.

Yeah, I think like, there's probably a place for that if it was pertinent to the story. Yeah, if it was like, dude, I would love to know how you came from like this place to this place, then your upbringing be. Or if it was about psychology or some shit. But if we're talking about marketing, do people.

What difference does it make?

They don't give a fuck.

Well, dude, it's so funny. Like when I, when I innovated again, we talked about Sirhan earlier, but when I first started with him on, on the, on the, on the podcast, you know, we're talking, I was, you know, tell me about your guy. And it was just like, I could tell he was just so bored by the question. And it was just, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's what I'm like, oh, shit, I gotta break. I gotta pump some light for this. Which I was like, so I tell people all the time that, you know, million dollar lesson ruined real estate. You know, how do you respond to that? He was like, what?

Worked right up.

Yeah. It's like, yeah, you guys yelled at each other on the phone. That's not how deals are done. What are you doing?

Is it, Is it actually like those deals? Then they do it. Did he tell you? Is this all staged or.

No, no, no, no, no, no. So, so New York doesn't have an mls.

Oh, really?

So they have to kind of go to like those open houses and do all that stuff.

And mls, not really.

Not this cohesive that has everything. So they have to understand that the inventory, they have to know that. Which is why it works so well in New York. Because, you know, now every time you list a house, the owner wants a broker's open, right? Because they see it on. Dude, I've never seen any high, high, like there's no high net worth agent going to those brokers opens in Vegas. Because we have the MLS with every property on it. Everybody knows what's out there. It's fine. There's nothing. There's no, you know, I know that, you know, Robert Refkin is trying to change that with what he's trying to encompass and, and send us backwards a little bit, in my opinion. But that those things change that. But like them yelling each other on the phone, he's like, no, he Goes, you understand in New York that's how we do it. Because then the attorneys have to drive the contracts. There's no like boilerplate contract that gets sent over back and forth like your market. Like here, somebody calls and says, you know, hey, let's talk about this offer for this house. I'm like, I can't negotiate an offer I don't have. Send it to me. Send me something I can execute and I'll let you know. Either with the signature or a counter. Yeah, that's what we'll do.

Well, what's the deal with people? I was just in New York and people are just assholes in general.

Yeah, it's just a stiff world, man, I'll never forget again.

We're just rude af. I don't know what's going on, dude.

When we were filming the Apprentice, we were sitting there and they were doing an interview with me one day and we're sitting on the stoop in Brooklyn and they would sit there interviewing for like an hour and a half because his interviews ran fairly long. And this little old white haired lady kept popping into the, into the doorway. You could see her, she lived in the building. And I was sitting there until finally she kept popping up in the producers, like, ma', am, I'm really sorry, we're going to be done in just a minute. And she opens. A sweet little 80 year old woman opens the door and she goes, you've been here four hours, Fuck off already. I was like, I just met my first real New Yorker. Sure. There she is.

There it is.

There she is. Well, dude, I'm excited for the Forward event. It's going to be massive. If they want to find you, obviously you're everywhere. But how do they find you now?

Just DM me on Instagram. Is Neil home on Instagram? And then forward event we do every year in Vegas. Sometimes it gets sold out, like right now it's full. But occasionally there'll be a few seats that open because somebody canceled or something. So you can go to forwardevent.com cool.

I love it. Well, man, if you listen to that today, if you didn't get something out of that, something's wrong with you. But again, I think the key to this is if you learn anything today, I think it's got to be zero in on what makes you. You don't try to be somebody else. Everybody else is taken. And then let the world get to know you. Because the more that people get to know the real you, the more opportunity is going to show up for you. We'll see you next week. What's up everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escaping the drift.com you can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five star review. Give us a share. Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.