mb breakout session internal use only

What are the things that are solving problems for buyers today? So the reason I brought the home builder one, because they are actually solving with some of this stuff. I do think there's downsides to buying new homes too, like you have to pay for land. There's a lot of unforeseen costs that people don't consider. So we can bring that up in another video, but that was one idea. Like buydowns and, you know, temporary buydowns, permanent buydowns. If you show the numbers on something, you'll get more views. So the goal is— How would we structure our content? So what I found is when you show numbers and charts and things like this, it's actually reducing the cognitive load on the viewer. It makes it easier for them to understand. When I say it, you have to connect the dots in your head. What is he saying? How does that mean to— if I just show you the numbers and circle things, they're like, Oh, it clicked. So it's a subconscious thing, it makes it easier. So anytime you're like, hey, I want to teach this program, I want to show buy now, I want to show refi, just show the math and you'll automatically smoke more people, like more people watch your videos. So the ways I do this are against that whiteboard, the vibe board. They just ship you one. 'cause they want more people posting about this. But if you want to buy one, it's like 3 grand. You don't have to start with that. You can just use an easel. Somebody's like, hey, I'll start making those videos when I get that board. I'm like, go on Amazon, it's $5. It's made by a company called Post-it. You just write on the shit.

Yeah.

But the other way I do it is I will write and then Pablo just come over the shoulder with the phone. So you're mic'd and so you would say, Guys, I wanna show you how my clients are saving this money. I wanna show you what the interest rate drop means to you. So interest rates have fallen by example. What does that really mean? Check this out. And the reason why I'm rushing in the beginning is you wanna try and get to the showing like within the first few seconds. If it's like 20 seconds in, the benefit of it is lost because most people scroll past your video. If you start good, people stick around. If you start slow, they kind of just leave you in the dust. So I'd say I would have a good hook and then go into showing mode. So I would do it over on a notepad. The other way I've done it is I'll start like this, selfie mode, and I like talking to the back camera because it's better quality and you can use the wide angle. So I will put this on the wide angle video and then, uh, obviously wipe the lens because this was dirty. And then you'll notice if I do this on the wide angle, can you guys see this? Am I in the video?

Yeah.

I don't have to hold it as far away. You can hold it a little bit closer. You don't have to do this whole thing. And it's not all up in your grill. I hate it when you can see up the dude's nose and his teeth and shit. So, you know what's weird? People get their teeth so white these days, it's blinding. Is that a thing now?

Ross Radio?

Have you seen that shit? You're pointing to her? She doesn't do that, but no, that's not like— No, but I saw this guy, he was like one of the guys who does video and he popped up like this and it was like, oh shit, I have to wear glasses. Like it was so bright that I messaged him like, what happened to your teeth? And he just went an extra few shades. You know, he thought that was the look. I'm like, man. I have ADD, so sometimes I get off topic, sorry. Well, so this is the video. And you know, I would hold it at arm's length. And then I'll be like, so if you're struggling to buy a home in this market, you know, I'm right there with you. Or if you look, if you think home prices are too high, or if you think interest rates are too high, you need to check this out. So I call out like a problem. This is just one strategy that we'll learn together, is like call out the issue. And then I'll jump to show them. So I'll literally like show the screen and point to things on the screen. Or we could switch to a tripod like this, and then I could just be looking at math. And my— I'm still mic'd up, you know, the voice is still there. And then you can just put these clips together really quick, or you can give them to an editor, whichever you prefer. We teach both ways, but it's actually a lot easier than it used to be because you can just put these, these videos— like I did, I did that video in one, in one continuous take where I would start with that, show my screen, and then end it right here. So I like the fact that you can flip back and forth if you use the back camera. in one continuous video, which is really cool. So what I'd like to know from you guys is like, what keeps you from doing more of this stuff? Is it what to say? Is it the technical aspect? Like, where do you guys get stuck?

Editing.

Editing, okay.

Editing.

Okay. What else besides editing?

I make like a 2-minute video and it takes me 4 days to edit it. It's just, and I get so discouraged.

Okay, so let's diagnose this. What's that 2-minute video about?

Real estate, you know, various real estate things. You know, I wanna put like a picture of a neighborhood or picture of a house or family.

Uh-huh.

And have, you know, a little intro and outro and I just quit.

Yeah.

So I have all these little videos that are great, but I've never put 'em together.

You never put 'em together. So you have multiple clips. Okay, so what's cool about Instagram is, and you can also do this in any third-party editing app, like CapCut is one that we teach, but you can put the clips in, you could select multiple clips, and it will put them together for you in one video. But that, and then you could pick like audio to go over it if it was, uh, if it was just imagery and you didn't need, you weren't talking in any of the videos, like, but if you're actually talking and you want to put the clips together, then you'd have to like do some dragging and dropping. So what I found for talking videos, it's hard to clean all that up. So is there in that 2-minute video, is there a 40-second version you can make?

Probably.

Yeah, and so I've just found that like I'll make a video that's 90 seconds, there is probably a shorter version. And the reason why is because we are all giving extra context that may not be necessary to the video. So I would do this sometimes, I would say, hey, had a crazy day, busy, just, and been on the phone back to back, but just got off the phone with the client and this happened. What was the context that are necessary for that story? What if I just start? And sometimes you need to say that to warm up, so you could just trim that off. But I realize we do this a lot where there's, we're repeating ourself, we're adding extra details that maybe not necessary. So how I got better at it was through practice, trial and error, of course. And I would see people scroll away when I didn't do it right. And then I would keep more retention when I did it. But then when AI came out, it made it a lot easier 'cause you can literally, just word vomit the story or brain dump and then say, how do I make this clear and concise? And it will give you a better version. And then you could, you don't have to read it word for word, but you can say it. That guy who was just teaching the teleprompter and then he turned himself into a woman or someone on stage. What was that shit?

Thank you.

Yeah. I actually kind of like the app aspect, but the scripts that were on there are dead on arrival, just so you know. Like it was like, 'Hey, this is Neel Dhingra, here's the current rate up.' Like, that's a nice video if you haven't made video, but you're going to be dead after, like, nobody's gonna watch that video, honestly. So you'd want to just not give the context and just give the most important part. We had a storytelling thing the other day in our group where one of the most powerful piece of content is to tell a quick story. And so I asked like people like Natalie in our mastermind, like, hey, what do you guys dislike when when someone tells a story, what would you say? What bothers you? When they go on too long and ramble. When they ramble, right?

Or when they introduce themselves.

Introduce themselves, yeah.

Hi, this is Tara Hart.

Well, they're following you, they know who you are. Yeah, good point, there you go. So they ramble on, sometimes I'm like, where is this going? Especially when you're in a meeting. Yeah, people get really anxious, and it's not like they voice this, just subconsciously something's uneasy when you don't know when this will end. It's a weird feeling. Like we don't know where we're going or when this is going to end. That's why I always love when I'm teaching, I teach in threes, because the brain is easy to handle threes. So today I'm going to teach you guys content connection conversion, and we're going to go through these 3 steps and you'll be able to put the dots together at the end. Sound good? Let's go. And then you check in along the way, make sure people are with you. But all this to say is like, okay, let's teach the 40-second version of that video without the extra context. And you might be having a bunch of extra stuff in there you don't need. On the 40-second video, you might be able to nail it. And so many times video is just like, okay, I'm just gonna go through the whole thing. I could try and edit the best lines from this one with another one and try and marry it all together, or it might be faster, and in your case it would be faster, just try it one more time. 'Cause if you can nail it in one take, you're good to go. The other cool part about the app is, and this works in all the editing apps now, is if you need to pause just to think of the next line or to look at it, just pause and keep the thing rolling. Keep one continuous video. And then you hit cut silences and it takes out all the gaps where there was no talking. So I might start recording and then need to think of what I wanna say next, just pause. Mm-hmm. But keep it recording as one file. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

That's CapCut. That's CapCut and Instagram. It's called Cut Silences or Cut the Gaps, Cut Pauses. And it just identifies all for you, which is really cool. The other thing is with storytelling is if you can put the most impactful line first, it will crush, like you'll get way more views. So we had somebody tell the story of like, okay, My client just closed on this property and it's so amazing. And you know what's crazy is they've been looking for 2 years and didn't realize, but the house is right here. And so that was like the line, that was the good line. And it was in the middle of that story. So we re-shot that video and put that line up front and automatically we got 4 times the views because you're giving the most impactful line up front. So, they were literally looking for a home for 2 years, and it was right underneath their nose, 'cause they ended up buying a house that was like 2 homes over, that wasn't on the market, it was off the market, but they just asked the seller. So they started door knocking, and they found the home that they wanted, in the neighborhood they wanted. So, anytime you're telling a story, as you're going through it, think of like, what's the most impactful part? If you move that up front, and then tell the story, it works way better. Go ahead.

Um, So, and like time management, right? You got responsibilities for your loans originating, your team meetings, and then you're doing public speaking at different offices, things like that. How do you suggest managing how many videos you're doing and when you're doing them? And what I mean by that is sometimes I'll just pick a wrong time of the day to do it, right? And that's nothing that you can improvise on in this room, but like—

Yeah.

I'm doing it when I'm drained and it takes an extra 3 hours and then burnout, don't want to do it. I'll do it for 2 weeks. Yeah. And there's other times I'll be on my game and I'll do 10 of them at one time and then have them for use, you know, in the weeks ahead.

'Cause you're locked in. Yeah, you're like, your brain, I've done the same.

I have consistency with that. So I'm asking like, how do you do that?

Yeah, so here's what I've found. Like making content, building your personal brand is something you're doing for yourself. It's actually gonna help your customers. It's gonna allow you to serve more people.. But in the short run, it feels like it's a cost because you're giving up your time, which would be time you might spend making money elsewhere. The problem is, if we spend all our time doing things that would benefit us now, this is how 10 years goes by and you're kind of in a similar position. I know that because that's me. So we have to also be doing something that would benefit, like, what would the you 5 years from now, like, he'd be like, dude, what's your name?

Justin.

Dustin, so Dustin of 2030-something. He's like, man, I just, or 2030, let's just say 2030. Dustin 2030 is looking at you, Dustin right now, 2025, and saying, dude, please do this more. Don't just do this. So it's like, what would he thank you for? 'Cause I know the dude, me right now, I want to thank Neel Dhingra 2020 for making shitty videos and taking the time, even though it cost me money, So first it's just that frame of reference of like, this is what you need to start thinking about. But then the next part is, somebody told me this, it totally changed the game for me. They're like, Neel, you can't create more hours in the day. There's only so many hours and we're too busy for content 'cause we have to run a business, like you said, we have families and we're trying to be content creators. Some people are content creators and that's all they have to do. I'm like, you fuckers can't talk, you can't say anything 'cause you don't have anything else to do but make videos. 10 things to do today. So what I realized is there's, you have to do an audit, and any coaching people will tell you this, audit your time, look at what you spent time on. Is there in there like 2, 3 hours of work that you could have delegated to somebody else, but you didn't? So the key is not to try and find more hours in the day, it's to look at what you could cut out of the day to make priority time for your videos. And if you know that making videos earlier in the day is a lot more time efficient for you because you're more, you're just more locked in, then we need to do it in the morning, you know? I have the same problem. If I do in the afternoon, it takes me way more takes 'cause I'm just tired. By the way, anybody older can maybe answer this question. Why is it as you get older, you wake up earlier in the morning? Does anybody know? Like, I can't sleep in. There's no way I could sleep in anymore.

Because you get hungover.

Hungover, easy. What if I don't even drink?

Avoid that.

Oh, okay. 13 and 16?

That's why.

Oh, really?

Yeah, your kids get older and all of a sudden you start sitting there thinking about all the crap they're gonna get into and you're up early.

Oh, shit.

You need to let them go out later. You're gonna stay up for them longer and then you're gonna be tired.

No, even if I stay up late, I'm up early. So it's just, I don't know why I even told you guys this, but there must have been a reason.

Oh yeah. How do people know?

It's because if you're in the, you know, in our age group here, not the 24-year-old dude, he's on his own out here. Everybody else in the room, if you're waking up earlier, your brain is not as locked in and it's not like at peak levels at 4 PM. If you're trying to like fit in the video at the end of the day, you're gonna be tired. Now if you get inspired and you have an idea or something cool happens in the day, please share it. But if you could structure the time block for making the videos early in the day, it's way better. The second reason why the video time doesn't work is because you're trying to shoot videos and you don't know what the videos are gonna be about. So you need to set separate time for ideation. So it's like, okay, I'm gonna block off these 90 minutes to come up with great video ideas. I'm also gonna look at what's on the platform. If I'm scrolling, I'm trying to use it as research. Let's look at what work ideas are working, what's my version of that video? And so I would spend time doing that, make the list, and that way when it comes to the day when you're trying to shoot, you have the ideas. They're not like you're starting to come up with ideas. So that's how you can get 10 done in one sitting. In our group, for those that are coming out, we'll give you guys scripts. Like we have a bunch that we've already written. We research topics and you'll never run out of ideas. And I haven't told anyone about this yet, but I'm going to launch this by the end of the month. I've been spending the last 6 months building an AI of myself through this company that's researching all this stuff. And they use 2 different models for it. And so I've been feeding it all the ideas, scripts, 5 years worth of teaching talks, calls, all this stuff, and it's like getting pretty good so I could release. So then you could be like, hey, I'm trying to make a video on closing costs, like, and here's the thing, what would you do? And the AI version of Neel will just give you the script real quick. Is it HeyGen? What is that?

Is it HeyGen?

No, HeyGen's Avatar, but AI, it's a company called Delphi if you ever wanna check it out. They make an AI version of you. To consult your clients. So you could create like the AI advisor, and it would allow you to serve more people. Some people are scared that's going to replace you, but I think it's going to allow you to serve more people. So that's the tweak you need to make there.

Is that what they showed us yesterday?

I'm not sure. I wasn't here. I got here today.

When Denise was on.

So Fuel, they built out a whole—

Fuel, yeah.

They built out a whole—

Asset management.

That leverages AI technology where you can basically tap into—

Todd's Brain?

Todd's Brain.

Oh, maybe it's similar tech.

Denise Donahue.

Oh cool, it might be this then, yeah. But I've been working on mine, like there's a higher level one you can purchase from them and they basically, you have to just feed it more content, you know? But yeah, so you wanna never run out of ideas if you have something like this. And then when you go to shoot, you can do it earlier in the day. And then as far as like making a priority, I just know the payoff is gonna be this. So what drives me is like if I'm gonna be teaching more agents or if I'm gonna be doing more stuff like this, I need to have proof. Like I'm not gonna be the guy who's trying to be the personal trainer but I'm out of shape. You know, you need to be in the game.

Right.

You know, there's people, nothing sells like results. You need proof over promises. And if you don't have the proof, nobody listens to you anymore 'cause it's so noisy right now. So I think you have to talk about these things, like make it the priority for you. And even though you have to realize it's gonna come at a cost, like hey, yeah, if you spend a couple extra hours that day, maybe you would've picked up a few more deals, but this is gonna pay off in the long run. Let's check the scoreboard in the fourth quarter, you know, who's ahead then. Who else had a question? I know there was one over here.

Go ahead. Yeah, so you touched on that device like we just saw from Jay, right? Yeah. Kind of curious as he was illustrating it, um, I do— I get lost in the editing and yeah, what's supposed to be like a 5-minute video turns into like a 5-hour project and yeah, I don't have time for it, right? And so when I saw that, um, particular platform, I thought, okay, this would be— maybe this is the answer to that problem, right? Yeah. I don't have— it's going to edit it, whatever. And in the midst of it though, I was like, How authentic? I could see a person like kind of losing a little authenticity in it too. Yeah. And so I just kind of wondered about like what you have—

What's your name again?

Alicia.

Alicia, okay, so Alicia, what do you think, what market are you in?

San Antonio.

San Antonio, what's the biggest opportunity right now you're seeing for buyers in San Antonio?

The biggest opportunity? I mean, concessions.

Like, tell it to me as if I'm dumb, like I'm not in the industry.

You're not in the industry.

Like I'm just a guy at the bar, I'm like, I'm thinking about buying a house, like what's the biggest opportunity for me right now in San Antonio?

Then nobody else wants to do it, and that's the best time to do it.

Really?

So like— So like everybody that's hanging out and hanging back because they're worried about the rates, you're missing out on what you can capitalize on. Buy from all that's available at the table because there are sellers that have to sell.

Yeah. That's it.

That's the video. So there's no fancy edit. It's literally like you need a prompt. And I think like when I said I'm dumb and please tell me, you like turned on for a second there and you just started talking. And that's you, you didn't need a script. You have the knowledge. How long have you been doing this?

8 years.

Yeah, so you didn't do nothing for 8 years. Like you've been helping people, you have knowledge. So now it's just about refining it.

The more practice you do with that, the better.

So I would encourage everyone to start speaking in sound bites. You know, like that's why when some people speak, the audience listens. Other people speak, it feels like, and no shame, it's just they kind of don't, they're not engaged. So you, so someone says, hey dude, what do you think? What's the opportunity I want? Dude, the biggest opportunity right now, I haven't seen this in so many years in Vegas, is this, you know, and you start talking about it and you speak clear and concise. So you just practice this. But as you get good at that, now you can just deliver those off the top of your head. You can still ideate and have scripts and stuff, I do that too. But I think for that, those type of videos when you're overthinking it, we just need to get a piece of content out. And so, you know, someone's like, "Hey, how do you have time to make the videos?" And I'm like, "Oh, I have time to brush your teeth." You know, it's not that hard. Sometimes it's literally like walking from the car to the door of the office is a video. And it's like, man, the biggest opportunity I'm seeing in San Antonio right now is the fact that so many people are not feeling the market. And so there's this thing, there's a quote by Warren Buffett that says, what is it? Buy when others are— what? I'd have to get the—

Fearful.

Yeah, fearful. Yeah. And so now there's no fear, there's not that much fear right now, but it feels like that in certain pockets of the market. And smart buyers are taking advantage of that. They're getting credits from sellers, they're getting lower interest rates, and they below market rates. And so this is the opportunity I'm seeing right now. Now sometimes you can turn that into a sales pitch and say, and so if you're curious about this stuff, just reach out, I'm happy to help anytime. That's like a soft sell you could do in it, or you could just cut it off, whatever you want. But you just don't want people to think that the only way they can learn is if they hire you. That's the problem with most Realtors on the Levels content is like, hey, I've got this information, but it's behind lock and key. And if you call me, I'm happy to help you. If not, you just stay on the outside and hope you lose. You know, it's like, that's the vibe. It's a terrible vibe. So I would just be like, here you go, here's the information. And then people trust you.

Go ahead. I have a horrible time simplifying. Yeah, to me, I, I don't like it when people brush over nuance, and because I think that's not giving you the whole picture. But there's no way for me to explain something with nuance in 30 seconds, so How do you deal with that?

So I had the same problem. And so what I started doing is explaining the nuance in the caption, the written part below the video. So you could say, guys, there's more to this. I put it all in the caption, check it out. So if I'm like, hey, you know, did you guys know about Section 121 of the tax code? It allows you to exclude half a million dollars for a married couple when you sell your primary home. This is probably the biggest tax loophole in the US tax code. And it's meant for real estate. It's really cool. Like we just helped a client, they closed on this house, they have a $373,000 gain. It's tax-free, zero tax because of Section 121. Now there's a bunch of rules and nuances, actually. You have to have lived in the home 2 years, you have to do this, blah, blah, blah, right? So I could quickly say that at the end, like go into the announcer voice and all the brrr.

Yes.

Or I could be like, you know what, like make sure there are rules associated with this. Make sure you check with your tax advisor. And I put some comment, I put some of the info in the comments. Below, or in the caption.

Check it out.

So you can just tell them to go elsewhere for the nuance. Yeah, go ahead.

Multiple target audiences, whether it's the client, the realtor, the builder, the loan officer you're trying to recruit, do you speak to all of them at different times or different platforms?

Yeah, that's a great question, bro. This happens to me a lot, 'cause I speak to consumers, and then I also speak to partners in the industry. And so it's like a 50/50. So what I found is if you really want the fastest growth, like that guy Steve Saxton who grew from like 0 to 200,000 followers fast, he just picked one lane, talked about one thing nonstop, the algorithms, and it just blows, it like eventually takes off. And he talks about all things money. He calls it ATM, is his brand, all things money. So not just mortgage, but money. And so that's why his account took off. But for me, I wanna build like a more variety personal brand 'cause I'm getting business from multiple places. I'm also doing things within the industry. So I would grow a little bit slower slower, or a lot slower in certain cases, but it's more, the people are more connected with you. So from the business standpoint, I found when you make consumer content, they're not offended, they actually are trying to copy you. So say you make a great, your content goes to the next level, talking to consumers, their needs. Other realtors and lenders wanna follow that because they're like, dude, he's doing it the right way, I wanna know what he's doing. I can learn from this guy. I love the way you make your videos, man. Thank you. I love the way you explained the interest rate thing there. So they follow it and then the consumers get value from it. Now, on the opposite side, consumers are watching video and you're posting it directed towards real estate agents. What are they gonna think? Well, they would think, they would either scroll past or they'd be like, bro, I think this guy's a teacher. He's a thought leader. Good for you. So I have people who are on the consumer side who don't care anything about when I'm teaching this stuff, but they just, they see it and it just increases my status with them. So it doesn't hurt, it's not like a negative thing.

Are you scientific about it? Like 50/50?

No, I just do it.

Just whatever feels right?

Yeah, but I would suggest having some guardrails of like, okay. And you'll notice that you'll get more views on consumer content than you would from business content. 'Cause everybody's trying to tell you what to do in business, you know? And not many people know. But you know, some dude came up to me at an event in Canada. He's like, I'm a coach. And he wanted to go over strategy. And he looked like my son, who's like really young. And I was like, bro, how old are you? He's like, 22. I'm like, you're a coach?

What are you coaching?

You know, but I mean, he had a unique angle, but it is weird how many people are trying to like coach other people. So think about that. Like just giving out the advice. And then some of the business advice can be life advice too. Money advice. So there's cross-section. So I put out a lot of investment and money advice that helps both categories. I also found out that the realtors, they need help on the mortgage stuff just as much as the consumer. Have you noticed this?

Yes.

We think they know this shit. They don't know, some of them. I mean, I know we have realtors here too. I don't wanna offend anybody and they're probably really good at it. But there's other realtors like, dude, tell me about non— they don't even know what non-QM means. So I think it helps both categories. Go ahead in the back, sir.

Yeah, so what— so this may fall into the category of the problem, but what if you— I think you're going to make a lot of mistakes when you start it, but what if you accidentally crush it, right? And like, you know, I heard Denise talking about Brian saying he's a great social listener, and I would assume that means you're hearing, you're seeing responses and comments and interaction, and you're doing that. How do you do that if you don't have the superstructure built?

Yeah, so it's a great question. So let me tell you what happens if you accidentally, like one of your videos accidentally takes off, which is a good problem, right? You get a bunch of comments and somebody's asking you for information. Maybe you do a lead magnet, you're like, "Hey, comment this word and do it," and you never even had the dang thing. So, you know.

Happens more than you think.

Happens a lot, yeah. I've done that before too. So let me just fill you in. Like nobody comes to your home the next day, hey, just wanna let you know, what was your name, sir?

Tim.

Tim, we're with Instagram and we noticed you did not respond to the comments. You didn't send out the lead, you didn't follow up with your leads, Tim. And you know, we're gonna, you know, nothing happens. So the reason why, you know, real estate is the way it is, is there's so much unfollowed up with people, like the amount of leads that never get contacted, It is like a mind, you know, it's like a, it could go for a country's worth of people.

Like, it's crazy.

So think about this is, you know, you can start doing this stuff without being ready for the thing because a lot of people want the system first before you can start. Like, you can build it as you go. The first time you do, somebody's like, hey, how do you set up the ManyChat? And for the people in our group, like, we'll set up for you. For anybody else, you can go to their website and learn. Like, it's not that difficult, but it's just some time you have to allocate to learning it. You can hire somebody to do it for you if you want. But you'll notice that in the beginning you don't really need it 'cause there's only 4 people commenting. So someone's like, "Hey, what's the automation tool for this?" I'm like, "How many comments you get, 4?" I'm like, "You're the tool, bro. You just literally open, you go in there and you hit bot, you respond. It's not that hard." But like, yeah, so I think you can set it up on the, like you could be like, you know what guys, I'm not wasting any time with that. Fancy thing over there, I'm only gonna do it once I get to this point, and then you could decide to do it then. Go ahead.

Go back to your connection, right? How much time do you spend engaging as opposed to content creation and pushing? How much time do you actually spend going out and creating a relationship?

So that's a great point. So this is huge for social. It's like, let's just say I'm trying to connect with Nellie, and I'm on the platform. So maybe I go to her posts and her story, and she's an agent I wanna connect with in my market, or a business partner. Somebody I wanna network with. So I start watching her stuff. And you would leave genuine comments. You don't wanna spam people. You know, somebody uses a bot for this, and I remember somebody had their dog died or something, and then they like, "Congrats, high five." I was like, "Bro." Oh my gosh. Like, you just ruined your whole thing off of trying to spam this. So be genuine, don't use bots for this. But I would comment, leave a genuine comment. Well, for somebody who doesn't get much comments, like that comment stands out. They'd be like, "Oh, who's this Neel guy? Let me go see." And you wouldn't be creepy about it either, but you would just engage here and there. And now if they come to your page and you actually have good content and you have some stuff on your thing, it's a great way to connect.

How much time do you spend doing that?

So I would spend, in the beginning I spent a lot. As you get more, you get your own traffic from the platform, you don't have to do it as much. But I remember doing it for, 'cause I wanted to grow and this was, I'm doing this with intention, I would do it for an hour in the evening. Like just at home, like during that time when you're supposed to be scrolling or decompressing, I would just start doing this for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour if you really want.

—which is way far away from me— at some point you stop doing that because you become the magnet.

Yeah, you just attract more people to your page. And so then I still do it to some degree, but you don't have to do it as much. You can just do it like on the Uber ride. This is kind of another off story, but I was thinking about getting a new vehicle, and because this is not relevant to anybody here, but we got robbed and my car got stolen, you know? So I was like, oh shit. I end up getting, before the time I get a new car, I was just taking Ubers and I realized how much more productive. You know how much time we spend commuting?

Yes, we in Dallas do know.

So yes, so imagine spending that time sending messages back to your clients, getting back to emails. I was like, dude, I think the real flex is having a driver, okay? That would be like, okay, just get a driver. And it's actually like, I was thinking of like if you're trying to buy a, a vehicle that's 6 figures, it might be cheaper just to get a driver. But yeah, all that to say is you need to create some time to engage with other people. So one great way to do this is Instagram Stories. So say you post a story and it's like date night for you and your wife somewhere, and it's like, I might wanna curiously, like genuinely know, where did you guys go? That looks great, that looks awesome, man. Or good for you, or whatever. So I would respond to that story with either emoji or some text. And when you respond to Instagram Stories, you know how it opens up a DM with that person. So now you're in one-to-one conversation. What's crazy about that is even if you don't follow me, I don't follow you, next time I post, because we have open DMs, you're likely to see my video.

Right.

So if I know tomorrow I'm gonna be posting it, like, I want as many open DMs as possible because these are the people who might see my content 'cause the platform thinks we are, you know, connected. So I spend a lot of time doing that intentionally with people who I want to connect with. And then when you reach out to do something, it's warm. It's not like cold, you know, it's like lukewarm or warm. Depending on how far along you got. And then the more cool stuff you're doing, the more you'll get that inbound too. 'Cause anytime I share things, it's another opportunity to get lucky where people will connect with you. Go ahead.

This is completely shifting gears, but earlier you had asked what's our hard pause, what's causing us to not do things. Yes. And then you gave a quick example of like, hey, walking from your kitchen to the, like, walking off the floor could be a video. And it's like, yes. And then also there's this aspect of how you present on social media that I feel like is also very present or front of mind for a lot of us. Like, what is our brand and does it fit with our brand? If it's not curated, is it going to be well received? And so how do you measure the value of what you're saying compared to the image of what you're presenting?

Yeah, okay, so See, bro? So this would be like, say you're doing produced videos and they all look like a certain way, and then now you're gonna post one that's just kind of raw with the phone. So even if I'm shooting something raw, I'm still thinking I want it to look as good with what I have right now.

Right.

So if I'm in here, I will wipe the lens, of course. If I'm more than arm's length away, I'd probably want a mic, 'cause I can, I don't want people to have to work to watch the video. So you want to be clear, seen, and heard. If I stand by that window on my face, it looks better because there's natural light. If I stand in the hallway, it looks worse. I look older and tireder, you know. So like, let's go to the window. So whatever you got in front of you, let's try and make it the best we can with that. Then I don't mind posting it even though it might vary from like a produced video because it's real. Like, you know, you're just creating the content. And so now your brand becomes the way you communicate, the message you give, you know, and you're just doing it the best you can with the conditions that you're given. So I think it's, you shouldn't have to worry about that. The only way you have to worry about that is if you're gonna say something completely off-brand that's detrimental to how someone would think about you, or the quality is way off. Like you got drunk and forgot to wipe your lens and you were slurring and I couldn't hear you. And I'm like, oh dang, that's a brand reducer, you know? So you would never do that shit, but that's the way you would think about it. Go ahead.

So obviously there's this whole influencer category, and for me, this could be my age speaking, I'm turned off by a lot of it. You know, these people like, I'm on a train to Bali, I'm flying first class here. Yeah. And I'm just like, that's just freaking annoying, dude.

Yeah, I think so too sometimes.

Creating that.

So there's an energy And the energy you're talking about is look at me.

Yeah.

Look at me, look at what I'm doing. You know, look at me. The energy that we want is come with me. That's the difference. You want come with me energy. So the come with me is inspiring people, it's telling stories. It's like if I'm on the train in whatever Bali or Mali or wherever they're at, it would be like with the family, like we've been looking forward to this trip for like 20 years and now we're here, you know, like, there's an energy behind it that's not like showing off. So you shouldn't be scared to share success, especially if you've shared the work that got you there. So that's why I love sharing like on a week when everything went wrong, on a Friday just be like, man, this week like life was lifin'. Like I had this problem, deals blew up, and I'm not trying to complain or get sympathy, but I'm just telling you, man, this business is tough. "And Monday's a new day though. I'm gonna take some time this weekend and reset. Hope you guys have a great weekend." Like, that's a post that nobody makes 'cause they're supposed to only share when they're winning.

I agree, yeah. You're really the best at that. I've followed you for a few years.

Yeah, thank you. Well, because you need to be honest.

Yeah.

And so the reason why you don't like that video is 'cause those people are dishonest. They're pretending that everything's perfect. And look at me and you know bullshit, that's what you're saying in your head, right? So we don't want anyone to think about when they watch your videos, bullshit. So it's just being more honest and then it won't have that energy. Do we have a few more minutes?

The show is about to start in about 5, 10 minutes.

Okay, so we'll do one more. Yeah, we'll do one more question and then we'll wrap. And then I'll be downstairs if you guys wanna chat too. Go ahead.

Next step.

Oh yes, great question. So for the group, we're gonna be doing, you got an email on this, but I know you guys are at the conference mode right now. So we'll send you the actual calendar invite. It's gonna be a call on Monday at 1 o'clock Pacific, 4 PM Eastern. We're gonna do a Zoom.

3 PM Dallas.

Dallas, yes. 3 PM Central. If you miss it, you can watch the recording, but hopefully you can be there live. We'll send you an email, we'll also text you, and we'll go over the game plan and everything on that call. We'll also send you what's on the call in writing. So you'll have it, but you don't have to worry about anything till Monday because I know people are traveling today and tomorrow and then, you know, take the time over the weekend, but we'll be kicking it off first thing Monday. Cool. Thank you guys so much for being here. Appreciate you.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Yes. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Oh, we got locked.

I got it.

Thank you so much. It's awesome.

Okay, you got it. Yeah. So I think you're going to have your work cut out with me. I am a guy who posts once a year whether I think I need to or not.

Okay.

Well, we'll get you there. This will be a cool challenge. —be successful.

Oh, you know, yeah, it's gonna be a big challenge for sure. Two things real quick though. I can't do the November one. I sent you an email about— can I do January?

Yes, so what you can do is you can sign up to get the current price. Okay, so when you— you still join the call, we'll get you all dialed in, and then you'll just be