Fixing a $20 Million CEO’s Personal Brand in 1 hour w/ Andrew Flachner

In 2026, the game has changed. The biggest founders in the world are now building their personal brand. Why? Because they realize that people buy into people and stories, not just products. And so for today's episode, we have someone who's doing just that. His name is Andrew Flackner. He is the founder and CEO of Real Scout, which is a SaaS company for real estate. This guy was the youngest real estate agent at Keller Williams before the age of 30. He had found it and had two exits. He's Forbes 30 under 30. And he started this company from nothing and scaled it to a multiple eight figure business.

Oftentimes people say that startups are an emot roller coaster. I worked for 10 years and almost lost everything.

Thank you so much for being here, Andrew. This is awesome.

Hey, it's good to be here, man. Thanks for having me.

And I'm really excited for the combo because you are doing the thing that so many others are trying to do right now, which is build your. Build your personal brand, start a podcast, do all the things, meanwhile run this huge business which takes up all your time. Meanwhile, you got two kids at home and you're starting a family and all that stuff. So my first question to you before we get into all the tactics is, is why did you make that shift? Because I noticed a big shift in the last year.

Yeah, well, I think the lines between business and its founders are starting to blur. Right. And like you said earlier, people are building more connection with people than they are with companies. So I found it to be the tide that rises all the ships, Right. There's actually not one ship that a bigger personal brand won't benefit the company. So whether it's, yes, people often talk about it in terms of growing business, growing revenue, getting more prospects, but there's also the benefit to recruiting talent or morale at the company or retention, you know, customers feeling like they are betting on the right horse because they see leadership of the company on stage at conferences or impression through podcasts and things like that.

Yeah, I think it's really. I love the fact that you brought this up to start because that is probably the biggest benefit. I talked to a guy, Jesse Itzler, who's a billionaire, or I believe his family's a billionaire. He's probably worth hundreds of millions, but his wife is a billionaire who famously sold the company Spanx. And so he's had so many cool businesses and exits along the way. And he told me the biggest benefits from his personal brand were things that he didn't have on the roadmap they were wins that were unplanned.

Right.

It was a conversation that started and then this happened and this happened. This connected with so and so and so. I just think for people who are building the brand, it's like, what are you doing that has connected you to an asymmetric opportunity? You know, like symmetric. Be like, you invest this time and money and you get this return, that's fine. But you're doing something where the return could be nothing or it could be completely unlimited. Upside.

Yeah, well, I think there's this thing called a cumulative advantage. I think it was made popular by Malcolm Gladwell in the book Outliers. But the idea is that every win is a springboard into a bigger win. And, and that's something that I find is true in personal branding or in content or relationship building. I mean, when I started my company, I was in my 20s. I had very little credibility or brand awareness in my industry. But you had to start from somewhere. And for me, it started with relationships. And it was, and it still is, a lot of old fashioned, you know, belly to belly, you know, getting drinks or, you know, meeting somebody at a conference or having a meeting. But content is certainly a way to scale that. It's a way to build relationships with a bigger following. And some of those relationships may just start with somebody viewing your content, but then maybe down the road and down the funnel, they are engaging with your content, they're commenting, they're messaging you. And realistically and oftentimes it turns into a more meaningful business relationship.

Yeah, that's awesome. So I'm thinking for this episode, what's going to be really helpful is going to dive into your strategy and how we could, like the questions you had even right before we started of how Andrew is scaling his content team, the questions he had about hiring, also where content should go. What's the best strategy? Because I feel like if you're going to be putting out content and this would work for you, whether you're bootstrapped and you're just starting off your personal brand or whether you are at a certain place of success and you want to take it to the next level, it's the same process. But I think the big thing is, you know, not just spinning your wheels. Like if you're going to do something, you want it to get results. Because we all have limited time, Right. And so if you're going to do a podcast, we might as well spend the additional time or effort to package it correctly. So that way more people see it.

Right.

And that's the crazy part is like not just being consistent, but being intentionally consistent. Right. Because if you think about, hey, I have to spend this much time on content on the pod or on these clips. Well, you're going to spend the time anyway. What if we just made two tweaks that doubled, tripled 10x the views?

Right.

Like, that's the tweaks you need to reach to put in the same effort. So I just think of working smarter, not harder.

Right. And I'm learning. I mean, we all are, we are students of this, of content creation. And all the rules are changing, all the technology is changing. And so I've actually been enjoying the podcast because it's forced homework. Right. Before I interviewed you for my podcast, I, you know, was forced to watch a ton of content and take a lot of notes and learn a lot in the process.

Yeah. So it's like networking on steroids, but then also you're learning the subject matter expertise of the guest.

That's right. But I will say that the networking on steroids, I severely underestimated the impact of that because, remember, I've been doing this for 13, 14 years now, building my company, Real Scout. But even though I have relationships with a lot of the playmakers in the business, it wasn't until I sat down for an hour or two hours with my interviewees that the relationship went to a whole nother level. And now I consider myself friends with a lot of the people who I once looked up to and thought, oh, my gosh, like someday, you know, I might be the CEO of a company as large as theirs. Now we are working on strategy together, working on partnerships together. So that has completely exceeded my expectations.

Yeah, I think about this a lot. Like, you talked about the ancillary benefits and how it gets you there. So what? When people think about a roadmap with personal brand, I think they think of things the old school way, which is like, do this, get this, and we'll just keep moving in this, like, you know, horizontal plane. I think that this is like a squiggly line all over the place.

Right.

And that's the hard part. But you just have to know that there's huge upside. So this is a strategy I recommend, and you're doing it, and then now we could squeeze it for more. So it's starting a podcast, and it could be a weekly upload, it could be a monthly upload, depending on what you want to do, but with. With the right guests. Right. So there it's not just with everybody, but it's finding the right guests. And so you want guests that would bring value to the audience, but then also would be a good connection for you and your business. There's something, some collab there that you could work together with. And so I think about first and foremost, like, you started off wanting to serve the audience of real estate agents with the pot. I think it's expanding now to entrepreneurs, honestly. But in the beginning, I think you, you have an avatar which is a real estate agent. Correct?

Right. Industry, it can be real estate agent, team leader, brokerage executive. That was really the trifecta that I was going after. And you could say, hey, this is my desired business outcome is to connect with these people. So how do I, how do I develop content that would appeal to them? But in many ways I did the opposite, which I looked at like, what is my superpower? My superpower is connecting with people. I love connecting with people. It's sincerely what brings me joy and, and through enough time in this industry, I have developed relationships with a lot of the biggest playmakers in the business. And this was a way to extend what I'm already doing, double down on what I'm already doing. So if you are an educator and you are constantly educating your clients or educating your customers and your prospects, then it probably makes sense for you to do more like talking head more your take on the daily news, things like that. But for me, I wanted to just expose my audience to the conversations I'm already having with people like you and allow them to tap into those conversations and learn something from it.

Yeah. So I think the lesson for everybody is if you were going to do a podcast, who are the people that would bring value to your audience? But then also, how could you leverage that to do more? So for example, somebody watching and listening is like, hey, well I don't have a tech company. Well, what are you selling? Right, right. You might be selling real estate, mortgage, you might be insurance, whatever, or coaching, consulting, whatever. Who are the, like the next level relationships? I think people are always like, hey, how do I get my next client? It's what's the strategy to get your next a hundred clients or a thousand clients? And so if you're on a podcast with someone who has a network of 10,000 real estate agents, that's a great obviously connection. But then it's not just like, hey, how can I get them to buy my to real scout? It's like, hey, if I develop a relationship with this individual, maybe they're going to have me speak at their next thing.

Right?

Maybe more people in their company are going to get to know me and then we can have the conversation about.

Like, more people, partnership or. Yeah. When I look in the rearview mirror of what's driven our success as a company, it's all started with relationships. And that's true for anyone in business. And so if you take out a whiteboard and you look at this blue sky analysis of, like, who would be the people that you want to get closer with in order to propel your business forward, that would be a good starting point. And then what you said about driving value is really important too. Right? There's some pretty influential and powerful people in real estate who I'm not interviewing because I just don't think it'd be as relevant to my audience. So if you could have that Venn diagram overlap, which is like, people in this circle are the people who are really powerful and influential and can bring your business forward. And then in this circle, it's the people who are have a lot of value to impart on the audience. Where that overlap happens is where the magic is.

So I hope you're enjoying today's podcast. I wanna quickly tell you about something that's really helping my audience. Once a week, I send out my forward focus email. This is one tip that's gonna help you move the needle in your business, your personal brand, your content strategy. And honestly, I have never received this much positive feedback from a single piece of marketing ever in my whole career. So I know this is really helping people. It takes you about 60 seconds to read and just gives you that clarity in a world of all this chaos and noise. So if you wanna get access to this week's issue and get this every week from me, just check out the link, it's in the description below, and I'll shoot it over to you. And for now, let's get back to the episode. Yeah, and just like, just to kind of take a step back, we're going to go through, like, a framework of. Okay, we talked about this before. Content connection conversion, or I have a move framework, which is really important on how we move people along a path to eventually working with us. And this would work for any business, any entrepreneur. It's like MOVE is the acronym. It's like M is going to be make them notice, like, pay attention. The O is going to be to offer them clarity. And then the V is interesting. It's vibes. It's like the connection, the personal thing, stuff that maybe people aren't comfortable sharing. And we're going to dive into that. And then the E is going to be enable the next step. Like, what are those next steps to working with us, collaborating with us, all those things. And if you use that full framework, the success that you have with your personal brand is like, next level. And I think people don't think about it that way. So that's what I wanted to dive into. So the first part is content strategy, which was the podcast, but then there's also like just. Just straight talking head videos. So can you talk about, like, when you think about making an educational piece of content, what are you posting right now? What are you thinking about? And then we can go through how to double, triple, quadruple those views.

Yeah, so I'm not doing a lot of that, but I have experimented a little bit and it's worked really, really well.

So I noticed you did newsjacking a little bit.

I did, yeah. So there was an article that came out basically, Compass, the largest real estate brokerage in the US came out with a product. And that product looked a lot like a product that Real Scout had developed in the past. And so instead of getting defensive about that or pointing fingers, we actually just broke it down for the audience. Like, hey, what does this product do? And why should we be tipping our hat to Compass for hopping on the bandwagon and bringing this product to market? So we kind of broke it down for people. The product was like, how do you expose buyer demand in a way that can help you win more listing appointments and generate more business? And so we broke down like, okay, what does this mean? Why is it good? And then B, like, what is our take? And you know, we have a very nuanced take because we're experts in that field.

Okay. So the takeaway is you have news that affects your, your subject matter expertise or your industry, it would affect the audience. And you're bringing that news and you're taking take on it.

Right, right.

And so I think one of the things that I would recommend to you, which would crush right now, is anytime you look, you scan the news and you can put this on Apple News and you could set alerts in Google, whatever. But look at the. Just scan it really quick in the morning. And we do this anyways. Like, you're in the business, you do it anyway. But like, if you ever have a feeling or a point of view on one of those things, right, just save it, like screenshot it and put it in the things to talk about right column. And so, like, if you could make that piece of content today, maybe great but most of the time your day stacked like. But at least you'll have the idea for when the time comes.

Yeah, it goes in the icebox.

Correct? Yeah. Because I feel like people go to make content and they're like, I have so many things I could talk about right now, but I don't know which one and I don't do any of them.

Yep.

And so I just think for you, if you ever have a point of view, that is something that's gold, honestly. And that will likely be a really high performing piece of content for you if you have a point of view on it and you can do it in a respectful way. I'm not saying, like, go on there and give rants all day. That's not, that's not your vibe anyways. Right. But if you do have a unique take, like, here's something I believe, and this is where the gold is for everybody. Like, people are always asking, what's the number one way to win on social? And they think it's going to be your packaging, your hooks, your headlines. And those are all, like, good. They're very important. But honestly, the number one way for a personal brand to win is going to be what is your unique point of view on X.

Right.

And fill in the blank.

Yeah. Because people can flip through the headlines on their own, but they want, they want to anchor themselves in an opinion of somebody they trust.

Yeah. And like, you might. Somebody might disagree. But I have found, like, people think it's divisive. It's not. If you do it in a respectful way.

Right.

You don't. Like, I have people where they completely disagree, but we can still be friends.

Well, and by the way, where this whole conversation comes together is, you know, when I'm doing my podcast with playmakers in the industry, oftentimes what's being spoken about is breaking news. So a good example was I interviewed a guy named Errol Samuelson, who is the chief development officer at Chief Industry Development Officer at Zillow. And I interviewed him at their conference in Vegas and they actually had some announcements that they were breaking alongside this podcast. And so then it was actually a really great way for me to bring news and my perspective on that news to my audience without actually having to look outside of my own content.

Yeah. And so I think about anytime that news hits, one thing you could do, like, that was a perfect example. But, like, you break the news down and this is in a short form piece of content, you could do this once a week, and it will likely be your highest viewed Video every single week. It's going to be, here's what happened. Did you guys see this? Make an observation.

Right.

I love the fact that, you know, a lot of content that performs the best is not you forcing your expertise on people. It's just making an observation, hey, I noticed this happened. Or did you guys see this happened? Here's what this means. And then also here's one thing that no one's talking about.

Right.

Because that gives them, in the beginning of the video, in the first few seconds, indication that there's going to be a unique take here. There's going to be, as my wife says, like some tea or some. Something spicy about this. And it doesn't have to be like something crazy.

Right.

I think people are afraid to make that promise because they're like, well, my take's just nothing. Well, your take is something I'm not hearing. Or it could be like, I've seen this and it needs. There's some nuance needed. Like people need to explain this more. They're just giving you the thing. But that, by the way, a lot.

Of people are already doing that just by posting a comment on an article or something like that. But think about how much value that brings to you and your business to leave a comment on someone else's post is there. It's pretty much nothing compared to if you could just spend, you know, a few minutes turning that comment into a really short take that you can post on your channels. That's going to get, you know, thousands or tens of thousands of views.

Yeah. And so one another hack on this, which was you can use a headline, and the tactic is like, put the headline up for the first few seconds, it's from a publication that people recognize. Then you insert your point of view inside the video the other way, like you just brought up, which is glad is. Which I'm glad you did, is you take a comment so there's somebody else broke the news or the publication or the thing broke the news, and you see a comment in there where you believe that that comment is. You have an opinion on it, or you could answer it that question, you can reply that comment as your hook.

Right.

And that video will blow up for you. So if this is something you're not doing, I would encourage you to just throw that in the mix.

Yeah, I'm not doing that. I didn't know that you could do that. So I'm happy you brought it up.

Yeah. So your answer to that comment, instead of just typing it, should be a video. And we just did this, like I said last night, and it in the video was a 10x of what it normally would be for me. So that would work. The next thing I was going to ask you about, and I think this is something you talked about in your own business strategy, but it also works with content, is punching above your weight class. And so I want to talk about how maybe one way you've done that when you were scaling Real Scout, but then knowing what you know now and what we're doing with your personal brand, how would you suggest or how would you have done a different using personal brand? Hmm. Because I know you've scaled this with relationships, but it was before you even posted a video or you weren't really doing much with content.

A lot of it has to do with brand affiliation. And this comes back to relationships. I'll sound like a broken record on this, but I remember thinking that when I went to an industry conference, there were dinners that I wasn't being invited to. There were conversations happening where I wasn't in the room. And what I decided to do was set my own table, right? Quite literally, I would partner with another entrepreneur. I would create a Leadership in Real Estate dinner. And you can just insert your industry in the placeholder of real estate there. But I would invite people to a Leadership in Real Estate dinner. I would leverage maybe just one or two powerful relationships with an industry influencer to anchor that dinner and say that, hey, I'm hosting this dinner and you know, the publisher of this big news company is going to be there. And that made it a lot easier to get, you know, person two, person three, person four. And we would fill the table and we would actually be. I would actually be the least influential, least powerful person in the room, which is exactly where I want to be. And once you do this dinner once, well, then it has a bit of a reputation. And we would find ways to dress these things up in a way that wasn't that expensive. Again, I would co host this with another entrepreneur, Melissa Kwan of Spatio. And basically what I would do is I would say, like, hey, come to this dinner. We have a chef who used to work in a Michelin star restaurant, which is actually cheaper than you think. And we leverage relationships to find a really cool spot, whether it's a private room at a restaurant or more likely, it'd be like somebody's house that we would literally just, you know, have a more intimate, personal feel to the whole event. So that's one way, right? And then leveraging that to do more. More things in the same vein. So this is huge.

By the way, just to pause on this is like. And by the way, this is this the reason why we're doing this live. Andrew is like, we didn't have any prep on this, but if anybody watching, listening, like, this is literally the first time I'm hearing these stories from Andrew, first time he's telling. And we're going to get into some stuff he said he's never told anybody before. So stay tuned for that. But think about this. This is one of your strategies, your core strategies. And so one of the things that you must teach with your personal brand is the things that got you success. So, like, and you would name it and what's cool about that, bro, is like, if somebody asks you on a podcast, you could be. You would start and you already do this to some degree, but you're going to take it to the next level now is you start to speak in sound bites. So when I would say, like, what's one way you would apply this or thing, you would be like, the number one thing I would tell an entrepreneur is you notice Sharon does this.

Yeah.

Every single answer is a clip.

Right.

Because he's thinking. So as you start to do pods, as you start to be more guests on pods, as you start to speak on stages, you start to speak in sound bites. This works great for retention because you're speaking in, like, in clips of value. But then also, you know you just made a clip, right? So I know you just made a clip right now because that is a strategy. The strategy is host the party.

That's right. If you're not invited to the right dinner party, make your own dinner party.

Yes. But, like, there's a way. There's a. A bar, as the kids would say, way of saying that.

Right.

You can use Claude or GPT to come up with like, hey, I have this thing I do. It's do this. It will give you, like, three ways to say it. And one of them is going to be yours.

Right.

That's going to be one of the Andrew Isms.

Yep.

Of business. And so you'll start to make a list. And I would encourage everyone to do this, including you, is like, what are those things? The secrets to your success. One of the secrets to your success is to be the host. Make your own party. Don't wait for it.

In the same vein, the craziest thing we ever did to grow Real Scout was a campaign where we hand delivered freshly baked chocolate chip cookies to open houses throughout the entire San Francisco Bay Area. And what we did was we got press on it. We said, hey, if you sign up for this link, we, we will hand deliver freshly baked chocolate chip cookies to your open house this weekend. And we had our entire team and their kids driving around chocolate chip cookies to all of these houses. And what it did was, first of all, realize that that had nothing to do with our product. Right. But it did have something to do with our ethos as a company and the way we care for our customers. And it got a ton of coverage. It got a ton of press. And then there was a whole nother press cycle afterwards where people wanted to know what was this viral PR campaign all about. And we broke it down. We broke down, revealed the DNA of this campaign. And that caught a lot of attention in the industry.

So this is the tweak I would make for. And this is like how you would apply personal brand to. This is now you're still doing these things to some degree, unscalable things, but now we just need to put a spotlight on them.

Right?

And so the way is like, as you're hosting this party, I'm sure there's media being created at the party.

There wasn't, because we did this like 10 years ago, but there should have been.

But even now you're doing it. Like, I noticed you guys still are at the events and you're doing things. If there's anything that you're doing, you need a photo person and a video person there. And it could be the same person to begin with. Eventually it could be too. Now, what's really cool about this is you want to post about it, but not only that, you want people there to post about it. So it's a. You want to host the thing. And so anybody's watching, like, how would I apply this to my thing? You can host a dinner, you can host a thing for business partners at any event because you know they're all in town, or you can host it for consumers. Like, just host something where there's a reason why you'd want to be there. Like you said, use the food thing at a nice venue. It's not that expensive. You're going to spend marketing dollars anyways. You may as well do it this way. But now that you're doing the thing, let's squeeze it for more. So how can we create media about this at it? So it'd be talking about what you're doing. Hey, we're going to be here. This is why we're doing this. I'm so excited about it. I have found that people will give it the importance that you give it. So if you talk more about the things you're doing, like, so many of us are doing things every day, but we don't really talk about them because it's just like we're busy. If we would just choose to talk about more of them, people will buy into it. It's like we talked about the beginning of the episode. Like, people buy into stories and people. So what are you building? What are you doing behind the scenes? One of the things I'm most passionate about is, like, we get to host these dinners and they're so amazing, and I can't wait for the next one that's going to set the table for this upcoming thing. And when it comes up, it's given more importance. Now somebody will say, I don't make it sound too cool because it's not that cool. Well, what I found is, like, the. How you display it, how they first see it is like their impression of it going forward. It's like the first impression judge a book by its cover. So we want that cover to be really nice. So, like, the video recap should be really cool. The photo should be great. I have found that if you encourage people to post about it, like, and you can even gamify this. Yeah.

Walk me through how you do that.

So I would say, like this. I would bring a photographer, and you need a photographer that can make the up gallery in real time. And there's many photographers that do this. The old way of doing photos is I'll take photos. I'll get you the photos in a week. It's too late. It's dead. I need it tonight. Like, literally, I need your. You can bring somebody or you take a bunch of photos and then get them into a gallery while you're here. So I could have the QR code already prepared and I could give it to everybody here. Now what I found is people won't post photos because they don't like the way they looked in the photo. So what you wanted to press wall. Like, you had the real scout press wall. Bring people in with a softbox, like, and if you're not local, bring a softbox. There's a local person who could bring it, make it look good. People will post the pictures if they look good.

Right.

So now I want to thank Andrew for hosting this. It was one of the best parties, one of the best things we didn't do because they looked good. Like, they buy into the feels. The food could be average. But now the food tastes better because the photos looked better. So you want the media to look really cool. So and it's what, $500 thousand dollars at the most for that person to shoot the photos that night and get them into it. And there's usually a lot of media people at those events anyways. So shoot the photos, get em up and then make. I would gamify them posting. So say just a quick thing. I want to give you guys the QR code to the photo gallery. I want to give you the link or make a short link to the photo gallery. You guys look amazing in these photos so you should definitely download them. Look at one right now. Like if you have a screen in there, check out this one or look at this one and they're like, wow, I do look good. Cool. So download those and post. And then just a quick side contest. Anybody here post a carousel and tag us or. Or do this and we're giving away X, right? Or I'm giving away this, I'm giving away this thing. And then they'd be like cool, like gamify and you would think that's cheesy. Nobody does it. Everybody does it. Yeah, I noticed every real estate agent is so competitive. It's like high school. They want to win every contest, especially the good ones. Like some of the guys, they're worth like millions of dollars in my group and when I have a contest, bro, they're like, they like run over somebody to win that contest and like the prize is $200. What do you care, right? So anyway, do that and you'll encourage more people. Even if you didn't make the contest, if you just told them about the photos. Like I found most photo galleries, nobody even knows they exist.

Right?

So make that so you would post about it. And the quickest content you can make from this as a practical thing is a photo dump. Super easy. Carousels are blowing up on Instagram. Just post the pictures and write in little caption. And your team could do this or you could do this and post eight pictures, eight to 12 pictures and a caption, boom. Put music on it. That can get organic reach. Plus you reach more of your followers. I think a big mistake people make is they only post in their stories. You should post it in the feed.

Right?

So that's one piece of content. Then the other piece would be maybe you talking about what you're doing while you're there. A quick recap.

Yeah, I mean it seems like a lot of this would be made easier if you have systems in place. Right. You know, when you host, you host an event, there's a system, there's a checklist, you have the right people on it. Because oftentimes, and I'm sure, you know, many of your listeners are guilty of this themselves, you put a tremendous amount of work into an event.

Yes.

It could be like a physical event or something online. And then once the event is over, we all pat ourselves on the back and we walk away and move on to the next thing. And there's so much, much content and so much juice that we haven't squeezed from the fruit. And this is actually, you know, coming up for me a lot. Like, we just hosted a massive, massive product launch. I mean, we had thousands of people on this webinar, we had the media there, etc. And to this day, like literally this morning, there were like two big podcasts that came up and two news. Two news, two news articles that came up. But we're not doing anything to, like, really, I shouldn't say we're not doing anything, but we're not doing as much as we could to take pieces of that collateral, atomize it and get it out there. So that's something we're going to be investing a lot more in.

Yeah, I think like the content from those launches, the content from this dinner, the content from the event, it should live longer.

Right.

And I'm doing this and I could do more. Like, you could do more for sure. And just think about, okay, what's the checklist of minimum levels? It's photos. There's a recap.

Right.

While you're there, there's influential people there or people you'd like to connect with or people who are killing it with your product or service. There should be a collaboration, quick video. So I'll give you an example. Sometimes I'll be like, I'll give you Sharon as an example. Because he's great at this. I know if I ask him a question, his answer is going to be a good video.

Yeah.

So I go up to him and if you have your content creator there, they could film you. You guys have a wireless mic or you can do it selfie style in a pinch. I've been with Sharon, two examples. One time we were at Disneyland, bro, and we did it around a group of people and I literally asked him a question on his birthday in Disneyland. That turned out to be a semi viral video for both of us.

I remember that one.

Yeah. I remember doing one in the lobby of a hotel. You know, like, what's your number one tip for People doing this. So ask successful people something that would help your audience. Post that as a collab with them. So now you're making content. So it might be like on your checklist, it's photo, a recap while I'm there. A minimum of two collaboration videos.

Right.

And you would put this on a team member or you of like, we must do this. And then they would prompt you like, hey, dude, we need to collab. Can you go ask? And it's, it's a 45 second video. We have time, Right. And then more the better. But then those can make the thing live longer. And then, and then if you get the people to post about it, then it lives even longer. And so we're just squeezing the juice out of it. And then what are the stories we can tell about it? Like with the product launch, I feel like there was a huge amount of hype leading into it. But then I have the same thing on your that you're feeling now, which is this run up and a fall.

Right.

And it's like it's over. And that's the problem with 2026 is something amazing can happen, but the news cycle is so fast that it's forgotten. Right.

And that's why we're beefing up our team on this too, because we have an amazing team of marketers, but they're all stretched very thin on other projects. And so we are going to be beefing up the team so that when we have an interview like this one, we can take bits and pieces of it and, and run with it longer.

Yeah. Okay, so we'll talk about hiring, then we'll get into the, the other steps of that, of the conversion process, which is the, the Vibes piece and the connection. But from the hiring perspective, you had a few questions before we started, right. What hires have you made so far on the heavy?

Well, we kind of backed into digital content creation in some ways. Like we hired a new CMO about a year ago who takes content very seriously. And so he started reorienting the different marketers on the team around content. But there's a lot of content that we do. I mean, we're a much bigger company now. So in terms of like me as a personal brand and how that benefits Real Scout, that is going to take additional resources. And so a good example is like I do these podcast interviews with different industry leaders, but we have, you know, an hour long interview, it goes live. We do cut a few reels and publish them, but there's a lot more we can be doing. And there's footage of me on stage and all of this stuff that just sits on hard drives. And then to your point, the news cycle is over and that's yesterday's news. And so we need to beef up the team. So we are looking to hire a, basically a content director. Somebody who can really be in charge of storytelling, but also a little bit on the technical side too, like cutting the videos, cutting the reels, packaging them, thumbnails. I mean, we are really looking for a Swiss army knife in this hire. And I'm curious what your take is on that.

Yeah, this is huge. So for the first hire, you know, Andrew's talking about cmo, then he's talking about contract director and he's doing top down hiring, which is the correct way to do it in a company.

Well, at our scale. Right. I mean, I would do it differently if I was starting Real Scout tomorrow.

Correct. And so for. I'll give you both ways. Well, one way would be bottom up. Like what's that first hire if it was just you, Andrew, building personal brand, bootstrapping Real Scout, like your early days. So for that person, it's a content creator, It's a. It is that Swiss army knife. It's the guy who knows how to shoot, edit and post. It's not a videographer, it's not a YouTube strategist. Like we can get into all those mini roles later. But it's someone that can shoot, edit and post short form. They can repurpose it on multiple platforms and they are a Swiss army knife. You want to do podcasts, they know how to set up a podcast, you want to cut clips, they know how to do that. And so that person I've found is anywhere from like you said, 50k to 80k higher. Now in your market, you have to pay a little bit more if you're in a higher cost of living area, you know, and maybe there's bonuses. I saw so many teams where they bonus their that person for each video that does well.

Yeah, tell me about that because I think that variable comp is something most people are not doing.

Yeah, this is huge. You want to align incentives with your team. Right. And then the other part that's really important about this is what gets measured improves. Like if you're not measuring results, nothing happens. So me and my guy, we sit down each week, what went well? What are the pieces of content that did well this week? Okay, what didn't do so well? What can we learn from both? And so it's a quick meeting. Now if you have your content director. That would be the person doing that meeting, not you. But if it's you and this person in the beginning, that's fine. And you would look. Okay. Well, when. Hey, dude, when I noticed when you talk about this, the audience loved it. Let's do more of that, right? I found a huge mistake that people make is when you find your thing, you just kind of move on. And no, that's a indic. That's a signal from the content gods that this could be it. Like, let's go, let's double down, triple down on that idea. So you have to test things. But I think, like, there's validated ideas that we know would work and then there's stuff that we're going to test. And on the testing what worked, what didn't work, review what worked, do more of that. So that's.

Are there a metric, other tools that you use to basically track performance across platforms?

Yeah. So the. Dylan, what was that tool we just used for Instagram? We just started. We just tested it for tracking analytics. We just started using one. We're testing new ones all the time, but we found one, it's a European company that helps you like, analyze the tools, but. Oh, not just analytics. So we'll use not just analytics to analyze Instagram performance, short form performance. And that one works really good for ig. And then honestly, on the back end of meta, it analyzes Facebook and Instagram. That's the platforms we're focused on. For YouTube. The easiest way is just the content manager inside of YouTube. It tells you and like, it gives you retention, gives you all the stuff that you need, where the traffic's coming from, even spikes in the conversation. Like there's so much analytics on the back end of YouTube. So looking at what worked, whatever. But then there could be incentives on. One way to structure it is overall, are we growing this week? And Facebook and Instagram will give you a green arrow, a flat line or red down arrow. And like, you could have a bonus, a small bonus where as long as the arrow is green, you get this. That would be cool because you know we're going in the right direction. And it's not like you get penalized if you fall, but you're not getting the bonus. Right. Or it could be content. I've seen teams do this where it's per piece of content. So a viral video is one where we get 10x the average. So if your average is 3,000, you need a minimum of 30,000. What's the bonus if we achieve A viral video this week.

Right.

Here's the bonus. Same thing on YouTube. And you could make the. The bonus should be more for long form versus short form. And it shouldn't be something that's gonna break the bank either, but it should be something. And I've found, like I said earlier, even a small amount goes a long way with people because it could be date night for that guy this week. That's cool.

I think it's smart.

Yeah. So just in line. Incentives. That's cool. And then the next thing could be that job description. So I noticed you just posted about this. And for anybody watching or listening, if you. If it would be valuable for you for us to, like, publish the job description, just let us know in the comments. I'm going to go through. I'll give it to Andrew. We don't have time to go through on this. On this video. But, like, if you think that would be valuable, let me know in the comments and I'll publish it. But that's something where you need to make sure you're hiring for the right person.

Right.

And testing. And there's a few questions you can ask people that would indicate whether they're thinking the right way.

Yeah. What are those questions?

So I would ask, like, okay, what are. Okay, you need to shoot a piece of content, and we have an hour notice. Andrew's in town and we have this studio, and you have an hour notice. What's your thought process to get that set up? What are you looking for? What's the checklist? So think, like, you just want to know how they think.

Yeah.

And they would go through it. Okay, cool. You need a video. Went well. What are the things that you would look at for that video? And how would. What would you do with that information? And just see how their mind thinks.

It's an old dry run. It's a dry run. And we were talking also about even, you know, hiring on contract.

Yeah.

So that you can set some, you know, benchmarks. Like, hey, this is what we're looking for in terms of performance. And then, you know, turn that into something more long term.

Yeah. So you'd be like, hey, I'm doing a podcast this week. You have 45 minutes or you have an hour to set this up. And then here's what's expected afterwards. The long form, the minimum of this clips, and list out your work process and any tools you would use to enhance that. And they might be like, you know what? Afterwards I would put the transcript into this AI tool. And the AI tool is Going to generate the most, the meaningful moments. If they said that in this answer, that's like, okay, this person's thinking like how I want.

Right.

Versus if they're, you know, they don't know. They don't know. And it's not. Again, you can train this, but it'd be much cooler if somebody already knew some of the things. Right. So ask questions that would indicate whether someone's a winner in your eyes and they don't have to know all the latest stuff. But like just think about this. And then, so those are. There's so many more questions you could do. So the way I would encourage people to hire for this is not send them to like a full application is send them to a quick type form questionnaire where you could score the winning applicants.

Right.

And you can just quickly scan those. So anytime we're hiring for one of these roles, we send them to a few minute questionnaire and you'd be surprised how many people click on that and it says it's going to take six minutes to complete and they don't complete it. It's like, okay, that was the answer I needed right now.

Yeah, I'm already seeing some of that with this posting.

Yeah. And you don't make it like a 50 minute thing where like, I mean, that can work against you because now someone's, hey, you're trying to get me to do free work. I had a, you know Sahil Bloom.

Yep.

He's a, he's.

I'm actually going to be interviewing him in January.

Oh, that's a great guest for you. Because he has so much valuable content and his book blew up five types of wealth. Yeah. What's crazy about that is he blew up his personal brand for years in order to launch the book, which became a crazy bestseller. Like what a great. You should have him break down that strategy. But I noticed he posted recently for this position and he asked people to create a piece of content for his brand and that was the test and then I'll evaluate it. But he got a bunch of pushback and, and it said, hey, you're exploiting people, you're getting a bunch of free content from us for free and you're only going to hire one person. So like, you know, there's a little bit of balance of like don't make them do too much work. But yeah, I don't think it's unreasonable to say take 10 minutes to answer these questions.

Yeah. But also if you could thread the needle and assess somebody's abilities with a case study project that is actually unusable, meaning it's like slightly different content or a slightly different prompt. I've seen some companies in Silicon Valley do that really well, where if it's like Uber's hiring for a role that they'll ask, they'll try to understand how you think about solving a problem without solving a real problem. For Uber.

Yeah.

Right. You have to thread the needle because you want to make sure they can actually do the work, but you also don't want the candidate feeling like they're just doing a bunch of free work. Right. So it's like, hey, you have a cotton candy business. You know, how do you scale that? Maybe that's a little too far off from Uber, but if you could find something that just is. Is close enough, but also isn't that you're not going to use their work as. As work product. I think there's something unethical about that for sure.

A hundred percent. So that would be the way to hire this position. Now, just moving on to like, the different things of the components of your brand. And when we talk about, on that move framework, the V, which is Vibes and them getting to know you, I noticed you're doing this and we can even scale it up more. You're sharing, like, your family. Like, I don't. I haven't met your family yet. But, like, one day maybe if I'm in town or vice versa. Would love to meet your wife and kids and. But I noticed they're on social. Right. And so I know some people are uncomfortable doing that. And then you've kind of like, made decision. I'm cool sharing this stuff a little bit. So what was your process there? Because I see so many founders, like, I don't want to know. I don't want the audience to know anything about me personally.

Right. I mean, part of it is I'm resigned to giving up privacy in some ways. I mean, there's a limit, of course, but I mean, if somebody really wanted to know something about my life, there's just enough out there where they could figure it out. And also, like, this whole thing started for me as something that's deeply personal and rooted in relationships. Right. I mean, for me, Instagram and Facebook and probably for many of the listeners on this episode, it started out as. It started out as something personal. Right. It started out as, like, you and your friends and where your friends would keep up with you. So I don't want to lose that. And, and also there's something I'm going to bring it back to what you said at the beginning, where people connect with people more than they connect with companies. How is somebody supposed to connect with a person if they are just a robot talking about news headlines and business all day long. Right. I think that it's important that you reveal a bigger part of yourself now. It doesn't have to be pictures of your kids. It doesn't have to be pictures of your w. It could be pictures of you pursuing a passion other than things in content or mortgage. And so I have found that some of those posts actually outperform some of my industry focused posts. And it's because people just want to know that I'm a real person and that I have values that align with theirs.

Yeah. And I think you mentioned that you agree with me on this before, but we should put this on record on published content right now that I believe that your personal brand will connect you with somebody who completely changes the trajectory of Real Scout. It's going to be a strategic partner, it's going to be a liquidity event or something's going to happen in the future because of Andrew's personal brand. Right. And so if, you know, obviously you continue this, which I think you will, so that's the big upside that we don't know yet, but it's like coming. And so in order for that to happen, you have to connect with more people and it's got to be about the, the, the personal things. And so each thing that you incorporate is another opportunity to get lucky.

Right.

So I think about Andrew Flagner and Blank. So the first one is Andrew Flagner and Real Scout. We can fill in that one. Next is and, and family. And what is that Blank? You know, Sharon's like tennis or, or, or he's owning the docs. Yeah, whatever. Owning the ducks. What is that thing for you? Like Gary Vee wants to own the jets. Like, what's that thing for you? So, like, if there's one thing that you haven't shared on social, that is a big piece of your ethos, your personal brand. Like, what is that thing?

Great question. And this is going to blow some people away. And it's a bit of a funny and meandering story, but we met a stranger at a restaurant in San Francisco who ended up completely changing the trajectory of our lives. Let me break this down for you. So my wife and I were there with a couple of friends. We were enjoying our meal and there was a woman at the table next to ours who said like, hey, I'm sorry to eavesdrop But I heard you talking about Burning Man. Okay. And we go to Burning Man. It's something we've done. And we ended up finding that she wanted to go to Burning Man. We ended up striking up a really incredible conversation. We ended up bringing her to Burning man with us. And through that process we became family. And ultimately we ended up developing this really healthy friendship with her. And she asked if we wanted to, you know, she was going to move to New York. She asked if we wanted to move into her home, the four of us. This is me and my wife and then a couple friends that we have. This is, you know, 10 years ago. And so what we decided to do, we were a little uneasy, like, oh, we're in our 20s, I don't know if we want to have roommates. But it was such an incredible place that we ended up moving in and it ended up being this incredible life unlock. So for the past 10 years we've actually lived with another couple. These are friends of ours. And we end up, you know, if you combine our resources, can buy a big enough house where we're not like living in a two bedroom apartment. But it's been this incredible life unlock. So I do post about that occasionally on social media and it kind of just makes people's heads explode because, you know, when you have kids, for instance, like what better unlock could there be in having more resources and more, you know, childcare? Like, we help take care of each other's kids. So it's unusual. Probably rubs some people the wrong way. People have all types of weird ideas about what that actually means. But it's friends living in a house and it's nothing new to humanity. But that's like a very, you know, niche example of something that I think would resonate with some people because a lot of people have had this idea of living with their friends but never actually pull it off. And then, you know, again, there's probably some people where that doesn't resonate with them, but it's something that I share openly because it's something that makes me unique and it's a big part of my life.

Yeah, that's huge. I actually had a framework here and this was actually, I just taught this is to help framework. And so you think about when you're trying to tell a story like this, it's hard because there's so much nuance, there's so many tangents we can go on, but you're trying to tell it in a 45 second video. So it's, it's Hook, event, lesson plan, meaning, like, what's the takeaway for the audience? Right. Help.

Yep.

And so think about, like the hook, meaning the most important part or what we'd grab them. And so I think about this lesson is like, I met a stranger in a restaurant that changed my life. That's a good hook. There could be more hooks too. Like a random opportunity that changed everything. Like something like that. That would just mean like, okay, we're into the story. I think a lot of times people, we set the table when it's not necessary and it actually causes people to leave the story. So I'd be like, I want to tell you about a story about something really cool that everyone left. Like, the good part's about to come and they all. Most people left. Like your circle is going to stick around because they know you, but all the strangers leave. So if we're trying to make like a semi viral, you know, 10x post. Right. How could we start it off better? And then the event that happened and then the lesson. But then what's the takeaway for the audience? The P, like the plan. Meaning, like, okay, you told me this whole thing. What's the point?

Right.

So. And the P could be the plan or the point of the story.

Yeah.

So what would be the point for the audience of like, okay, because you told me this. Now I tell you all this because what?

Yeah, I think you just need to have your eyes open to how every interaction, every relationship, every connection you make can completely change the trajectory of your life or your business.

Yeah. So it's a value of relationships.

Yeah. And it's keeping your eyes open because I think sometimes you run into somebody at a coffee shop and, you know, you don't know if that could result in, you know, a new transaction or a referral or a great friendship or something that changes the way you live your life.

Yeah. That's huge. Okay, so this is one story that I think obviously you can. You can talk about more. And I think people think about, hey, I've told that once. Well, a, they don't remember it. And the people who see you all the time to see all your posts, they don't mind you telling it again because they're your friends. And then the new people that will see this is the part you're going for. Like any post that has a outsized reach, it's people seeing you for the first time or they haven't seen you in a very long time. And I just think people don't, you know, people need to be reminded More than they need to be taught.

Right.

So how could we tell some of these same things and the Andrew Isms, like, how could you put them into your content? I've been talking about some of the same things for six years, but just repackaged, said differently.

And that's my biggest takeaway from this conversation. Right. Is to, like, be able to understand what your winners are, what's resonating with your audience, and then doubling down on that because too often we move on to the next thing.

Yeah. And then so I would like to ask you a question which you've probably never been asked before on a pod or maybe never even talked about publicly, which is the entrepreneurship journey. And this is the most powerful piece of content any entrepreneur could make or any personal brand could make. It will likely be the number. Like, number one connection piece may not be your most viral video, but the number one connection piece is, was there a dark period in your growth where some. There was a moment, there was like a fork in the road. There was a transformation. There's something you did to overcome it. And because of how you handled that situation, it set you on a path of success. Is there some moment where, like, shit went wrong and then you changed, you know?

Yeah. Oftentimes people say that startups are like. Oftentimes people say that startups are an emotional roller coaster.

Yeah.

And sometimes that feels, like, too fun because the analogy is more like party hats and razor blades. It is a really, really intense jump between the lowest lows and the highest highs. And I'll never forget it. As I was building the company in the early days, I was in my 20s, right. We had, you know, we have dozens and dozens of investors, but there were a few investors that were urging us to invest more, spend more, and get to an answer on whether or not this is a viable business. Faster, which is oftentimes an incentive of bigger investors. And it resulted in us building a shaky foundation for the company. We made a few really great hires. I hired the former CFO of Dropbox, and I'll never forget, she looked across the table from me and she said, you are not the right CEO for this company. Right now. Right now, she reports to me, right? I'm the CEO, she is the cfo. And that was some of the best advice that I had ever received. Because if you fast forward just a little bit, we were building on a shaky foundation, and it was time to hire a new CEO. So I swallowed my pride, hired who I considered and still consider to be one of the best CEOs in the business. He took my place for five years, seven years. And then when I had learned enough and matured enough and understood what it would take to bring this company to the next level, that is when I stepped back into the game. So that was a big lesson in swallowing your pride, ultimately doing what's best for shareholders, the team, our customers, and myself, ultimately. Right. It took a while to see that, but now I feel more prepared than ever to take the reins and take the company to the next level.

If you hadn't shifted that thing, the company may not even exist.

Yeah. Or it would be where it would. Would have been sold for scraps. Now the company is thriving, and 10.

Years where the work kind of lost.

Right?

Yeah. So that's crazy. So, like, that would be a story that you could package for social. Now, one way to tell it could be you write this out in a condensed way and you can. One way I found to improve this is like you dump it into Claude. Claude's better than chat at some of these types of things, Creative writing. And say, I'm trying to tell the story in a way that would be res. That would create emotional resonance. Like, I wanted them to feel something. You know, the best stories are when somebody feels something, it activates something, inspires them. Right. So think about, okay, how could I tell the story in a way that creates resonance in the reader or viewer? And it would. It would help you come up. Now, you don't copy paste that thing directly, but you would. It would help you refine this. That would be a LinkedIn written post.

Right?

Right. It could also be a video. It could also be something that you tell on podcasts in the future. It could be like your signature piece of like, I almost lost. And it's. Again, it's a hook.

Right. It's like, I worked for 10 years and almost lost everything.

That's it. That's the hook. Guys, I worked for 10 years and almost lost everything. Pause. It's also the beginning of a talk. Like, there's so many ways to leverage. It's the beginning of a webinar. Like, imagine you walk out on stage, bro, and it's like they welcome it to the stage. Andrew Flackner. And you come up and the first words out of your mouth are a pause. Guys, I worked so hard for something for 10 years and almost lost everything. People are like, what they're going to be like. They're going to be locked in on you. And it has to fit that talk, of course. But that's leadership. That's the stuff that nobody's talking about because everyone's all roses, wins. And then you tell the story of how you almost lost the business because of a decision and then what you did to fix it. So I think that's a huge thing, and I think everybody should make note of this. Is like, is there a moment of transformation in your personal life or your business? I even had a guy in my group. He told this story, and it was like, it was a moment of transformation in his marriage. He was like, hey, I was my wife, and I always kept score. And because of how busy I am in entrepreneurship, my brain's always on. I'm sure you guys can relate. I almost lost my marriage. And then he told the story of how they went to this thing, retreat, and they changed, and now they're the happiest they've ever been. And incidentally, his business is doing things. So the takeaway for you guys is fix your relationship first, because then you'll actually succeed in business. And that was the cool story, and it ended up being the reason why people do business with them, the reason they refer him. So I just think the more things like this that you've learned along the way, you think you take it for granted. Those will be your most powerful connection pieces. So that would be one thing that I would encourage you to do more of and do and tell more is talk about those things. The other thing that's really cool about this is you'll have people thank you in the comments for saying the thing. I don't know if you've already seen this. Yeah, like, people, like, thank you for saying that, because nobody ever talks about this. Have you noticed those types of conversations?

I have. Yeah. It's. It's validating. It's also a reminder that, you know, cringe until they binge, as you say, like, and it's.

How uncomfortable is it for you to share those things?

Uncomfortable? Yeah, Until I see that it's affecting people.

Yeah. And, like, I noticed one thing you even mentioned to me before we did is, is like, hey, I want to share more of these, but my wife thinks it's kind of cringe, you know, like, you know, you kind of have to. Like, I remember my wife saying the same thing. Or it's kind of interesting that you mentioned that, because I can shoot video in front of anybody, but if she's around, I feel weird. I have to, like, do it in another room, you know, so there's. Everybody's got that person. It's your coworker. It's your sister, it's your wife, it's your dad, your mom, whatever. Like you kind of have to push past that uncomfort. Obviously you're doing it for the right reason. You don't want to share something that would make them upset with you, of course, but like make sure you're not letting that be the reason you don't share something. But now we get to kind of the last step of this process which is enabling the next step and making sure that it ties to business results. I think your business is unique now where because of the scale and the number of people talking about Real Scout, like you don't even have to mention it. And it can benefit your business because we're talking about the concepts and we're talking about the thing. And so as you talk about the on the podcast, how intentional are you being? And then we can talk through like how we could do different strategies on this. But like do you actually insert Real Scout into the conversation?

I used to a lot more. I think I was impatient and just unaware of best practices in that realm. So for years I would be pretty pushy. I'd be pretty pushy about booking a demo or why Real Scout's so great or figuring out ways to explain exactly what we do even in a conversation like this. And it wasn't until recently that I realized that's not the right approach and that it turns people off and you're just not going to get the exposure. So leading with a helping hand is really more my mantra and how I'm thinking about it these days. And again, we have a lot of marketers at Real Scout who've helped educate me on that. And so we're trying to just provide a lot of value. And in the conversations that I have, even for my podcast, Real Scout hardly ever comes up. I mean, sometimes we'll put an ad in the interview, sometimes we won't. And it's really just about building this audience of fans, people who have some kind of resonance with the brand or with me or both. And ultimately when they're ready to invest in their business, they'll find us.

Yeah, I think enabling the next step could be on a long form piece of content putting in a mid roll ad.

Right.

Or an end of the podcast for.

A newsletter or lead magnet. We are doing some of that.

Yeah, that'd be really cool. And then once in a while I think it is okay to actually insert the ad for the new rollout you guys just did. That was huge. Like throw in a mid roll. I Don't think it would offend anybody.

Right.

And it could be like, guys, this podcast is sponsored by Real Scout.

Yeah.

For those who don't know. And I think there's something really cool you should check out and like they would learn about it in a 32nd, 22nd thing. Yeah. And then it's back to the convo, which is all value. I think there's something cool about, you know, us giving so much value and not being like, like afraid to throw a hook right in the content. But not every piece of content.

That's right.

That'd be really cool to tie it to more business because I know at the end of the day we are running a business, we got to tie it to results. But then the better, more sustainable way is with another resource. So then the ask is not even a ask, it's a gift, it's an invitation or it's a give.

Yeah.

So now you're not even throwing a hook. You're like, hey, I got this free resource that breaks down xyz. So I was just talking about this with another person, Sam Parr, who runs Hampton, who's trying to promote Hampton on his podcast, which is blowing up like right now. And so he will insert an ad read for the business once in a while, but then more often it's for the success secrets of entrepreneurs or the seven things you need to do. Or it's around tax time, like how to reduce your tax bill. As a business owner, like so many things that would help the audience. And then in there, I'm sure is an opportunity to learn about his product so you can sell behind the curtain.

Yeah, I like that.

So that's a great way to do it. And then if you ever are on webinars, I have this tip that would help anybody. It would help you as well as when you're teaching. And it's, it's again, you can host the party and bring in the thought leader, you know, so it's like, hey, I know this person would bring value to the audience. Plus I'm the host as real scout, so like I'm going to get benefit too. But then I need to tie this to my business back. And so the way that I've seen this done and it's worked incredibly well is selling behind the curtains. You don't even have to sell up front. It's all giving. But you would offer a free resource plus the slides in exchange for just answering a three question survey. And it would take the audience 60 to 90 seconds. Now the big mistake is People put that link up and then they move on.

Right.

If you pause and give them a moment to fill this out. And so here's how this would practically go. Like I'm teaching the webinar or there's a guest and I go, guys, by the way, I hope you're getting value from this. I just have a quick thing here. I will give either this resource which will help you implement everything you learned today, or the seven things like it was when we talked about video, it's the hooks or when we talked about this, it's that thing that's going to help you implement. I have this resource that's super valuable. Plus I'll share with you all the slides from today. Just do me one quick favor and answer this 60 second survey. So I'm going to put the link in the chat right now and answer that survey so that we can send all you, all the, all the goodies from today. So I'll give you guys a moment to do that.

Right.

When you do this in the right way, like 90% of the people fill it out.

Yeah. There's nothing else to do. Like they, it's awkward not to fill the gap.

And actually they want, like you said in our previous interview is the lead magnet needs to actually be valuable.

Yes.

And so that's something that you brought up, which is super important, is like, okay, this thing you actually want, it's going to help you now fill out the survey. Now the question is like, what did you find most valuable today? What's one thing you would like or help with on a future piece of content? Or like, how could we help you more in the future? Question three, are you open to learning more about this? Or like we have a tool that does xyz. Would you like to learn more about that? And then it would be like, yes, I would love more info maybe if it did this. Or like maybe, you know, it's kind of like a half passive, like I'm half in, half out and then no, I love you bro, but don't send me anything. Like it's kind of fun if you say no. It's not awkward, right? But I remember Sharon used this survey thing to scale real to, you know, like all the recruiting, it was all free opportunity, free opportunity, learn, learn, learn. But on the back end they were asking these questions and nobody even really kind of knew because it's all done behind the curtain. So I just found that with the survey you can sell behind the curtain. And then now you know what to send the people who are open to the, to this idea.

Right.

So I don't know if you guys are doing anything like that.

We're not. We're not. I mean, we obviously have a call to action during, you know, you know, beginning, middle, end of our content. But I think the pause is really important.

Yeah. Let them have a chance to fill it out and then, and then you'll learn exactly what to follow up with. And they could be drips and all those kinds of things, or you can send them a special opportunity because they said yes and you're. No, you're sending it to people who are open to the idea.

Right.

So it's just like getting the signal. I've just found that the best marketers are looking for signal, not sales. Right. They just want you to raise your hand so I can send you the right info.

Yes.

So that would be a great opportunity for conversion and then in terms of like furthering relationships, because I know now, I'm glad you, you mentioned this. So you said in the beginning you're super transactional. Now you think long term. Was there something along the way that caused you to shift that whole thinking?

I got feedback. Right. I, I would do interviews and you know, every now and then somebody like, hey, that was actually like kind of salesy for our audience. I'm like, oh, shoot, that's not how I want to be perceived.

Yeah.

Right. And so I think some of it also came from a place of desperation before. Right. I mean, we were, you know, as many startups are, we were just like just crawling our way to success and at some point, you know, the wind was at our back and, you know, it just felt easier to just lead with a helping hand and trust in the process.

Yeah. And then last tip, I think for the, for you and also for the audience is, is speaking on stages. Right. It's incredible lift to your personal brand.

Right.

I noticed I spoke in. That's how I actually first time I met you, we were both speaking at the same event and I noticed you post about it, but we could post way more.

Oh yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. Like I said, I have like hard drives of content. So like a lot of the hard part's been done. Now we just need to like get it out there.

Yeah. So I think about what's the checklist for when Andrew is speaking?

Yes.

So it's a, it's a recap. It's a collab piece. I remember you and I were having a conversation backstage and I was like kind of thinking in my head, I'm pissed right now because my content creator wasn't there. He was doing something else.

Yeah.

I'm like, bro, that was gold right there. You know, we should have been filming that. And we weren't at the time because the guy was doing something. But like, okay, is there any BTS style content interviews that we could have on site? The recap, obviously of you doing it right. Q and A's with people afterwards. So I don't know about you, but like afterwards I had conversations with members of the audience, real estate agents. All those conversations were micro content, some of them better than others. Of course we can filter for that. So that's another checklist item. But then the other checklist item I think that gets missed is what do you do with this whole talk? So, like, you talk for 20 minutes, what do you do with that? Well, there should be two to three powerful clips at minimum. And basic way is you drop the whole thing to Opus Pro, tells you the clips. Now, it's not perfect, but it's better than nothing. The better way would be for someone to actually go through and find the moments that matter.

Yep.

And clip those up intentionally. So that would be the clips. But then what do you do with the long form now? I don't know. I've done this a couple times. And you can choose to do this if you ever had a talk that was pretty good. Like, you felt like, oh, I like my energy there. That was good. You can publish the whole thing as a YouTube video.

Right?

That's a great.

Yeah. And then I can many chat on Instagram and say, like, hey, if you want to watch the full interview or the full keynote, then check out the full video.

And it's on YouTube now. The other cool part about that, as a side benefit to my brand and your brand is I got invited to speak on more stages when I published that.

Right.

Because they saw it wasn't just, hey, I'd like to, you know, I would love to speak at your event. It's like, you crushed it. I would love to have you at my event now because I saw you.

And when you throw your hat into the ring, like, people are going to want to do their research and look at the keynotes you've done before.

Yeah. So I remember speaking to a group of entrepreneurs in la. I got invited to speak at an event and I was like, well, this was a pretty good talk. It's also had a couple different types of people in that audience that would broaden my appeal to not just my industry or whatever. It would Kind of broaden it. And also, the feedback was really good because for whatever reason, I don't know if it's what I ate that day or, like, what we were in, like, in a zone. I could. When I said my jokes worked, like, everyone laughed when I did this. They said, ooh and ah. And I'm like, wow, that was cool. And so I'm like, okay, that we just published the whole thing on video. It's not a viral YouTube video. It has like 5 or 6,000 views over the whole year. But it's landed me so many speaking opportunities.

Right.

So I just think of that for you to get more in the future, because obviously, when people see you on stage, it's just immediate authority and they want to learn more about you.

Right.

The other cool thing about the clips is we've noticed the framing is really important. People are watching videos saying, why should I listen to this person? And so normally we have, like, that intro on the YouTube video. Just you starting off in front of 500 people is enough of a signal. Or you holding a mic on a stage for short form, enough of a signal.

Right.

So just to kind of wrap up this whole up as far as Real Scout goes, because I know, you know, there are people we can throw a hook here. Like, there are people who are in real estate, and I've heard incredible feedback on the tool. So how can people learn more about Real Scout?

Yeah, Real Scout.com is the best way to find out more. We essentially take all of the leads and contacts in your database, and then we automatically nurture them so you don't have to. And then you get to just respond to people who give you that signal that you're talking about that they might be interested in buying or selling.

So you guys take the same concept. This is super meta. Like, you take the same thing we just taught, and you do it in a product.

Yes. At scale. So, I mean, we have agents who have 10 or 15 contacts, but we also have the biggest teams in the country that have hundreds of thousands or even millions of contacts. We nurture that at scale to help them generate more business.

So Real Scout helps you scale the unscalable.

That's right.

There we go. This is awesome. And then from a personal brand perspective, is Instagram the best place for people to connect with you?

Yeah, just a Flackner.

Awesome. So we'll put that link in the. In the notes. And guys, if you don't. If you follow Andrew or you. And you saw him on this episode. Episode, shoot him a dm and just type the word Neil to start your dm like you saw him on Neil's show so that he knows we saw this. And then the other cool thing is give him. If you don't see him posting more.

About, please, please do.

Yeah, because we want him to blow up his personal brand even more than what he's doing right now. But I hope this is helpful for you. If you think about any of the things we talked about today that you would like me to go in deeper on more strategy on future episodes, I literally read every single comment. My team and I, we look at all these and your comments are what we make content about. So please leave a comment on what you'd like us to go in on in the future and we will see you on the next episode.