Elevating the Consumer Experience

In spring of 2024, the Lawton team welcomed Real Estate Team OS inside their 200 agent 2 dozen staff 5 office operation across Phoenix. That turned into the Inside the Lawton Team series in which you can meet and learn from eight different team members in different positions in that organization. To kick off 2025, COO Billy Hobbs and founder and team leader George Lawton invited me back this time for me to share my passion and expertise for customer experience and video messaging at their all agent meeting that is right here for you As a subscriber only episode, you'll learn a framework to make every single client interaction more impactful and more valuable. You'll get a definition and a map of customer experience to help you think through the way you're communicating, connecting and converting. And you'll get five specific ways to use video messages to rehumanize your digital communication. If you haven't checked it out yet, be sure to see episode 58 with George and Billy. We recorded a couple of days after I was in town to give this presentation. Right now, here's elevating the consumer experience Real Estate Team os.

As I mentioned, guys, I've got a chance to know Ethan over the last year and a half, but I've known of him before that, so great communicator, great questions. I think you're gonna, you're really gonna enjoy the content, but be prepared, guys, like take notes. Let's go ahead and like make sure that we got some good questions here. At the end, we're gonna do a little bit of Q and A. And then as always, anytime we bring somebody in like this, what are you going to execute in your business? From what you learned today, at least pick one thing that you're going to execute on. Okay, cool.

Awesome. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks.

Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna put a little bit of a spin on language that I know you're all very familiar with, which is elevating the experience. So before I get going, just a huge thank you to George and Billy and Hannah and to all of you for allowing me to share these ideas. I'm very passionate about them. I think you'll feel that as we go through it. So my name is Ethan Butte. I joined Follow Up Boss about a year and a half ago. And my first order of business was to develop and launch a show that turned out to be called Real Estate Team Os. It didn't even have a name when I was joining. And of course many of you are familiar. Based on my conversations and just Entering the event here today, you all know that we spent some time with several of your team members in a series taking you inside the Lawton team. We've also since gone inside Whissel Realty Group. So diving deep into these teams and I'm bringing up with them the same things that I'm bringing up with a lot of folks. And really, it's a question of our time, which is essentially what's the right job for people and what's the right job for machines? Right. Like the threat of is this machine going to take over? No, it's going to complement you in George's language, which I absolutely love and frankly, I've adopted. I'll give you credit even when I'm not in this room. It's like the goal of technology is to make you a more consistent and a more efficient agent. And so that's what we're going to be talking about here, how to elevate the experience. But first, I want you to hear from George very specifically, in case you only watch this episode once, you nailed

it with the Last mile. Technology can't solve that. Right. That takes human to human interaction. That's the highest and best use of our agents. Time is being face to face with consumers, with clients, the ones that understand that the ones that I can help make their business more efficient and allow them to be at more appointments. That's not ever scalable. Through technology. We know that the highest and best use of their time is getting face to face. They own the relationship and they build that network of loyal, loyal customers. I would love to say that people continue to work with us because of the Latin team. People continue to work with us because we have amazing agents. Right?

Right, right. So human to human, face to face, building a network of loyal, loyal customers. That was what we're going to be talking about today. And I'm going to start with just a bit basic logic. The more conversations you have, the more presentations you can give. Right. And the more presentations you give, the more contracts you tend to write. And the more contracts you write, the more closings and commissions you tend to produce. And this is fantastic. Rinse, repeat, over and over and over. But this isn't enough. This is functionally transactional, at least on its face here. What we're looking to do is to create loyal customers by elevating the experience, an increasingly digital experience, an increasingly automated experience, putting you in your highest and best use. And so making loyal customers through an elevated experience is what makes a business, a real business, a sustainable business, a Remarkable business that people talk about. A satisfying business that you wake up every day excited to invest your time and energy into again. But it all goes back to conversation. So how do we produce more conversations? Well, four channels that I think you'll agree are very, very common. Phone calls, we're making phone calls, we're sending text messages, we're sending emails, and we're doing stuff on social, ideally in comments and DMs. Not just mass blasting generic posts, but when you look at all of these, they're characterized by something I call digital noise and digital pollution. Noise has been relatively benign. It's just the sheer volume of stuff. It's when you haven't checked that inbox in two days and it's just loaded with stuff. And every time you're reaching out to someone, whether it's by text or by phone or by email, you're reaching people in a very noisy environment. Right. So we need to be sensitive to that. It makes it more difficult to get attention. But worse, these channels are also polluted. They're filled. Like According to the FTC, in 2023, $10 billion was lost by Americans in these channels to fraud. So these are polluted environments as well. So even though you're showing up earnest, you're showing up sincerely, you're there to help. You have to know that you're arriving in front of these people in noisy and polluted spaces. So not only is attention difficult to get, trust is also super difficult. So we're gonna like lean into that. And of course, as a consequence of this, all these channels are regulated and increasingly regulated. I'm sure you're already talking about. And we'll continue to talk about changes to TCPA coming up. We're like less than a week out now from another update to this kind of robocall robotext robo dial situation that is frustrating and in many cases enriching people in a not appropriate way. So we're talking about elevating the experience. I'm gonna give you a framework to help you break through that noise, to help you truly connect with and ultimately to make every interaction more impactful. Every single interaction, whether it's in those channels or other ones. I'm gonna give you a definition and a map of consumer experience to guide your thoughts around your own communication connection and conversion plan. When I show you that map, I promise you will already be thinking about different things that you have in place, different things that the team has provided communication that you're doing at different points along that. So that's to help you. And then also this is like I spent a dozen years working in video, email and video messaging. So I'll certainly give you some ways to rehumanize these digital interactions that you're having in order to put your best face forward to make them more face to face, to make them more human to human, and to make them be a lot more impactful. So if you want to connect with me in any channel, I'm going to share a lot of information. I'm going to continue talking at this pace just by like normal excited. I care about these ideas and I know that they will be helpful to you pace so so if I ever go too quickly, make a note, reach out to me. My email address is on the screen. That QR code goes to a bunch of channels. I would be happy to hear from you anytime. I make time morning, nights, weekends. If you have a specific question about anything I share here or come on the edge of, but don't actually dive into, I'd be happy to hear from any of you on any of these topics. Just by way of qualification, I've written two books on these themes and topics of building human relationships in increasingly digital environments and digital experiences. I've also hosted three shows. The first one I started and ran for about five years is called the Customer Experience Podcast. So you're certainly going to be getting some of the ideas that come through that. So first big idea here. Every single message you send is training people to open or delete your next message. Every time you're asking for someone's time and attention, they are judging, typically subconsciously, whether or not you value their time and attention, whether they should give it to you. Again, the other interesting thing about what's happening in today's environment is that machines are learning what people are doing and what they're not doing on an individual basis. Three people could send both of you the exact same email, and the way that you engage with it is going to affect what happens from those providers to each of you in the future because the machines are paying attention, not just you. So we have to be sensitive that every single time we're asking for someone's time and attention, we need to value it, respect it, and reward it. I would extend this to say not just every message, but every call, every text, every appointment you go on, you're training people whether or not that appointment is worth their time and attention. Simple idea, but a big idea. And it's one that we need to remind ourselves of and be conscious of a little bit More often because this is the path to attention and trust in the future. So after I wrote the second book, Human Centered Communication, I decided to make a map of what happens when we get someone's attention. So up at the top, we're not going to go through this whole map, I promise. Up at the top is attention. And it's about 30 or 40 years ago now that Herbert A. Simon coined the term the attention economy. You may have heard that. You know, it's been popularized even more recently by people like Gary Vaynerchuk who said attention is the currency of the economy. Well and good. I don't think it's true. I think attention is the necessary precursor to what truly matters. The true currency of the economy is trust. Trust is grease. Trust is glue. Trust is grease. And then it makes everything go faster. Where there is no trust, there is friction. Where there is trust, it just goes, oh, heck yeah, I'll do that for you. Oh, okay. I trust what you said. Everything goes faster. It's also glue. It makes good people in good situations stick. So anytime we're operating in any channel and we're playing games that are about attention, we're playing the short game and it's a losing game. Especially as AI starts to control different people's access in different channels. People are no longer gonna get your email if you're constantly doing things that people don't respond to. The goal is to operate all of this toward trust. And I'll get into that green left side here in just a minute. Just know that every other path on here besides trust and more trust goes to ignore, delete, and block. It's easier than ever to ignore, delete or block. I guarantee half of you in this room have ignored, deleted, or blocked someone's message this week already. Right? It's easy to do. And we can block people forever. And that's not who we are. That's not how we operate. Our goal is to use these channels to get face to face and create human to human interaction. So that green left side, just a quick walkthrough here. When we show up in front of someone, we're asking for someone's time and attention. We want to be recognized as familiar. We want to be recognized as trusted. These are subconscious things. These are feelings and subconscious thoughts people have about us. When our name hits their text message, are they excited or are they anxious or are they. Who the heck is this? Swipe, delete. Then we need to demonstrate warmth and competence. These are the two criteria by which every single social judgment is Made. And warmth trumps competence. The colloquial way we've been saying this forever is people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Right. So we need to demonstrate warmth before we deliver competence. People don't care about your competence until you've demonstrated your warmth. This is, I see you, I understand you, I appreciate you, I care about you, I'm here to help. That's warmth. Competence is all the ways I'm going to help you, the information you need to make a good, healthy, safe decision for yourself, etc. Then we deliver some form of value that builds more trust. Repeat, this is what we want in all these channels, what it sounds like when we get there. Oh man, I like hearing from Tony. Tony has my best interest in mind. Or Tony is always so helpful, man, you've got to meet Tony. Oh, really? Are you thinking about like, oh, you got to talk to Tony, right? That's what we want. This is how we know that we're there. And one way we can achieve this is a framework that I developed with my friend Steve called Human Centered Communication. So this was the second book that we wrote. If you hit that QR code, I'll put it up again. You have access to it right there. It's the digital copy for free. So what is that term? It's just a combination of two big ideas. One is human centered design, which is a 30 or 40 year old practice. The other one is our daily digital communication. So we're applying the concepts of human centered design to the emails, text messages, social messages that we rely on every single day to create conversations and to help people. So IDEO is a design firm and they're arguably the world's foremost adherent proponent, practitioner of human centered design principles. Decades ago, they developed the first Apple mouse using human centered design principles. That was obviously like a physical, ergonomic thing like how does this work, how big should it be, how do the buttons work? So they applied that much more recently they applied human centered design principles to develop water systems in Africa. So a much more complex thing. So you can apply this to anything. We're just applying it to our daily digital communication as real estate professionals. So it happens at the intersection, that fuzzy section, the middle of these three big ideas. What's viable for your business, what's feasible with technology and what's desirable among humans? In other words, what are the requirements for business success of this thing that we're making or doing? It could be an email, it could be a text message, it could be a presentation, it could be an update to our listing presentation. Whatever the case may be, what's required for business success? What does technology allow us to do? What does technology make possible? And what do people actually need and want? Makes sense. It seems pretty straightforward. Like what are you telling me this for? I'll give you an example. So let's think about that open house that you really hope gets some good attendance this weekend. What do we do? We start with the requirements for business success. Man, I want double the number of people at this open house than at my last three open houses, right? Then we go to what does technology allow us to do? Well, frankly, it allows us to spam people, right? And the problem is we often stop there because we're in a hurry, really need this to happen. My clients are getting kind of anxious. I want to get some good showings here. I want to maybe get a really good conversation, not a contract. And when we stop short of this, we're training people that we don't value their time and attention. So our ability to get their attention with something else in the future is diminished. You do that two, three, four times and it's over. Right? And so all we need to do is shift to the middle and operate at the intersection of these three ideas. And we do it by straight starting with what's desirable for humans. Again, pretty simple, pretty straightforward. But it's not a matter of habit. And I'm telling you today, this week, this month is the time to start developing that habit. I'll give you some really practical ways to do that at this point, because it's not a habit for you or really we're just all in a hurry. It's just a pause. And I'll give you the question to ask yourself in that pause right here. So again, I worked at a software company called Bombbomb for years. I was in a very customer facing role. And we questions, like the questions on the left all the time, why didn't she open my email? Why didn't he play my video? Why didn't they reply these types of things? And it's a good question. You know, it's important to get better in the future. But the problem is it's already happened. You've already asked for that time and attention. You've already made it about yourself. It's about you, the source of the information or the idea or the message, right? So instead of asking after the fact that retroactively about why you didn't get what you wanted, we do what every good like Mindset book talks about or, you know, how to win friends and influence people. These ideas have been going on for centuries. We get what we want when we help people get what they want, and when we put what other people want first, we're so much more likely to get what we want. So all we need to do to take a more human centered approach, no matter the channel we're operating in, in person, email, text, phone call, whatever, why would she, why would he, why would they, why would they do that thing? And before we type a single word, or before we pick up the phone, or before we record a single second of video, we ask ourselves, why would they? And if we come up with even a basic answer, we're in a much better position to get what we want because we're proactive. We're doing this before we click send, we're doing this before we click connect, we're doing this in advance. And therefore we're so much more likely to be of service and value to other people and to get what we want ultimately and making it about other people. So that's very specific, like kind of practical, message by message. I want to step back a little bit, talk about the customer experience. I hosted 271 episodes of this show over about four and a half years time. I hosted CEOs and marketing leaders and sales leaders and customer service leaders from a variety of industries, including real estate, mortgage and some other adjacencies. And I opened every conversation with the exact same question. Because customer experience or consumer experience is a little bit amorphous. I could ask five of you to define it and I would get five different answers and there'd be some intersection. This is the intersection of 271 answers. Consumer experience is formed by every single touch point. Everything you do, everything someone sees, interacts with, hears, feels, is part of their experience with, with you, period. It's intangible. You can't put your hands on it at all. It lives as feelings, thoughts and stories. It's what we were showing on that other slide is like what do other people think and feel and say about you? Ideally, say about you if you're delivering a great experience, it fulfills or fails your brand promise. We can say all the things we want, we can put them, put like hyperbole in all of our marketing materials and presentations and things. But ultimately it comes down to the experience. Are we delivering on the promises that we're making these people? Are we fulfilling them? If so, then there's consistency in these things. Meeting or exceeding expectations. Therefore, People feel very, very favorable about us. There are really awesome companies that you've interacted with and you feel like, gosh, this company really let me down. And it's not because they really let you down, let you down. They just mismanaged your expectations. So there's a. And it's not just like set expectations low. It's set them, you know, where they appropriately are. But we need to fulfill or exceed those, or else we're failing our brand promise through the experience itself. Experiences where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. It's always happening. There is no pause. You can like, hey, I want to pause your experience with me as a buyer for two days while I get this thing sorted out over here, like, it's always happening, period. And again, it's every single touch point. It's driven by commoditization and consumer control. We all know that consumers control everything. They get to call all the shots. Commoditize is essentially the same product or service approximately delivered at about the same price. Certainly real estate is a commoditized space. And as a consequence, customer experience or consumer experience is your best differentiator. I would argue, if I had more time, that it's your only differentiator. And you are fundamental to the service that you provide. You are so much of the experience. So all of these digital touch points are a big deal. So there's the mechanical side, which is all. What are all the touch points, in what order, etc. I'll give you a map for that in just a minute. But the real essence of consumer experience is the other side of it, which is the emotional side of it. The essence of customer experience is how you make people feel. How do you make people feel about themselves? Do they feel like they made a good decision? Do they feel like they're in a good seat? Do they feel like they're moving forward? How do you make them feel about the problem or opportunity that brought you into a commercial conversation together and ideally, commercial relationship? How do you make them feel about you as a guide, a helpful person in this journey. So how we make people feel is the essence of consumer experience. And for any of you, that's like a little bit more hardcore Type A. You're like, this sounds soft. I'm not buying this. Basic logic. Our feelings guide our thoughts. And our feelings. And our thoughts are almost exclusively subconscious. 95 to 98% of our mental activity is sensory and emotive. It's below the waterline. We're not really even aware that it's happening. So sometimes it bubbles up. We become consciously aware of some of our thoughts and certainly some of our feelings, but the vast majority of it is below the waterline, and we can't articulate it. So once it's like, oh, I don't know, you ask a question to a consumer, they're like, I don't really know. They know. They just can't articulate it. It's in there somewhere. Our feelings and our thoughts obviously guide the words that we say, the actions that we take, and the decisions that we make. And if you're with me so far, it's a layup to say that the things other people say, the things other people do, and the decisions other people make affect your business outcomes. Do they make that introduction? Did they show up to the appointment that they set? Do they call you back? All of these things are about attention, trust, and delivering on an experience that makes them feel. You don't all have to make them feel the same way. You all have different personalities, and you're all winning in unique ways. Some of you are more hardcore, focused, analytical, and that's what you're trusted for. Others of you are gregarious, and you make people feel awesome, and you're the life of the party, and that's what some other people might want. The feeling doesn't have to be the same. It's not this warm, soft, fuzzy thing. But it's like the way people feel is fundamental to all of their behavior and ultimately your business outcome. So when we think about how we've been mapping consumer experience, this right here, Aida awareness, interest, desire, action, or attention Interest, desire, action. Familiar with the Aida funnel? Generally, the sales and marketing funnel. Okay. All right. Well, this was made 100 years ago. It's got some flaws. First of all, the physics are all wrong. No one jumps into the top of your funnel and slides down to an action, right? So the physics are wrong. In addition, it ends at an action. It's functionally transactional. In addition, a buyer or seller is taking multiple actions. So, like, you need to string a bunch of these together. It's not that helpful. Here's one that I like best from an organization called Mech Labs. Marketingexperiments.com awesome organization. You see that? They get the physics right, Right. You have to work up. You actually have to work up to the decision. The MI is a micro yes. The MA at the top is a macro yes. So you need to generate all these little yeses. And I'm sure you've heard that in sales Training before. It's like, get people to, like, kind of come along. It's a whole series of little yeses before you get to the macro. Yes. Value prop is kind of what drives people up the side of a treacherous slope to get to the ultimate decision. It's not an easy thing to do. It's actually hard to get someone there at the same time, though it still ends with a macro. Yes. Which is like, just one part of the whole process. So what I. A funnel that I prefer turns both of these on its sides, and we call it the bowtie funnel. Because it looks like a bow tie.

Yeah.

So on the left, you have a new leader prospect. On the far right in the gray text, you see you've got customer for life. This is the ideal. And you could tuck all of your activities and behaviors into this funnel. I call this a map of the consumer experience. So people need to become aware of their problem or opportunity. They need to be educated about it. They could be educated by multiple sources. They could be educated by your YouTube videos while you sleep, or they could be educated by you sitting in their living room or at the neighborhood Starbucks or whatever the case may be. They need to select you against Uncle Tim and their friend Jeff, but also against the biggest competitor of all, which is no decision not moving forward. So they need to select you. Get them under contract. You got the buying and selling process. You certainly have a number of steps that we can articulate there. We close the transaction. We stay in touch over time. And the key to this whole thing is the growth loop. That's what sends people back to the beginning. I have the same problem or opportunity you helped me with four years ago, or I have a new problem or opportunity, and I think you might be able to help me with it. Or my friend Jeff has a problem or opportunity that I think you can help him with. So it's like it's this repeated thing, Right. And it's got better steps. It's more realistic, it's more complete. And when we look at this, we know that not everyone makes it. There's some people that show up in the awareness phase that never call you back, they never text you back. Despite your best efforts, they never call you back. Or we have people that get into the selling process and they never actually get to close. Or we have people that we've closed with on the buy or sell side that never came back around and never referred anyone. So there are points of friction and failure throughout the customer experience. And I'm going to characterize a Few of them. You might have more of your own lack of attention. I just couldn't get their attention. They never responded. Lack of trust, right? Like, they responded a little bit. We just could never move forward. I don't know what it was. They couldn't articulate it. Trust is always a culprit there. Potentially. Lack of priority. Hey, I get everything you're saying. I like you a lot. But something came up and now I have new priority in my life that's more important than this thing that we're talking about. Lack of confidence. I hear everything you're saying. I don't know if it's me, I don't know if it's my finances. I don't know if it's you. I don't know if it's the market. I don't know if it's any. I just lack confidence that we can get this done the way you've described it. So I'm not going to move forward. Lack of clarity. Like, I just literally don't understand what the option is on the table or the biggest bucket of all. We've all lost opportunities due to this one. Anxiety, uncertainty and indecision. Things no one wants to admit that they're feeling. Things that you can probably sense, but things that they can't articulate to you. These things do not show up. If you look at all these problems on the bottom of the screen, these capture a lot of the reasons someone didn't make it from one phase to another with you, right? Or never came back around to the beginning. But when you look at these, these are human issues, these are emotional issues, these are communication issues. Ultimately, these are not going to show up plain as day, blinking on a spreadsheet or on a dashboard or in a report. People are not going to tell you, well, you know what, I just don't feel real clear about this situation. So I'm not like these are all human issues, emotional issues and communication issues. And very often this is happening below the waterline in a subconscious manner. You're not going to know. And I'm going to tell you that one of the reasons this happens is that digital communication is impoverished. It's visually impoverished and it's emotionally impoverished. It doesn't give human beings what they need. What I'm talking about here is faceless, typed out text. I'm talking about black text on a white screen that's communicating something not really clearly because it doesn't have any emotion in it. And it doesn't answer my question completely because I'm A layperson, I'm a little bit distant from this. You live and breathe at every single day. But you may have taken for granted some of the corners that we need to get around to get people where they need to go. It's impoverished. Human beings have evolved for millennia making good, safe, healthy decisions about whether they're going to survive and thrive by looking at other people and making these judgments, like subconsciously, quickly, almost instantaneously. I know that you have been introduced to somebody and said, gosh, I really have a good feeling about her. You maybe didn't even think of it consciously. You're like, I like this person. I want to engage with this person more. But you've also had the other one where you greet someone for the first time, you look them in the eye and you're like, there is something wrong in this situation. Happened to me, honestly. Happened to me yesterday with my Uber driver. I was like, like, I was just honestly. So I was like, I'm glad it's not a very long drive. I'm staying right here kind of on property. And I came from the airport. So like, it wasn't very, but I was like, this dude creeps me out. So we know this stuff right away. And when we're entrusting some of our most important and valuable messages to faceless typed out text, we're not giving human beings what they need to feel good, safe, confident, guided, supported. They don't have the cues that the human brain is looking for to satisfy that feeling of, I'm in a good place, I feel safe here. And the problem is if we don't give it to someone's brain, the brain literally makes it up. It wants this information so badly that it will make it up. And bad news for you, it makes it up against you. Not because it has anything against you, their brain doesn't have anything against you. It's just that in the absence of this information, the safest thing to do is say, if I can't judge safe versus unsafe, my brain is automatically going to say unsafe because it's the safest thing to do. So I'm here to tell you that when you look at the way that you're connecting and communicating with people and trying to convert from micro yeses to macro yeses all the way through and to create that growth loop that some of the failure that you're experiencing here is human, emotional and communication related. And sending some video messages in here can help. And here are three things to look for. If a message is characterized by one of these Three things. It's probably better to send a video than it is to send faceless typed out text. We'll get into more detail on that in just a minute. But the three things to look for is one, personal connection. Am I establishing or re establishing personal connection? If so, video is a great way to do that. And I'll give you a use case in just a minute. Number two, emotion and tone. Am I communicating something that's difficult to capture in typed out words? And if I put a little smiley face emoticon and you think it's going to let them know that you're kind of joking, but they're going to read it as passive aggressive and all of a sudden we have friction that didn't need to be there. It's because it's really hard to communicate in faceless of types out text. It's not the way we were designed to communicate. And then detail or complexity. Anytime you want to break something down, explain something, show something in layperson's terms, show and tell with a screen recording, you're going to go here, do this. These types of things. Video is better in all three of these cases than the alternative. The best case scenario is being there in person. But we all know we have limited time and attention. We all know it's really difficult to get across the valley. No matter how tight a geographic area you're working on, you are limited by the number of people you can sit down with and walk through a process. We need to do a lot of this digitally. And so those are three ways to help someone in this room, in the front row. I was always a front row student myself. I asked Tony a similar question to what I asked George. I was like, hey, what's something that you could automate in your business that a machine could do for you right now, but you choose to do it yourself?

For me, I think it's just communicating the process where we're at in the transaction. You know, I know that we can set up automated emails for next steps and I certainly have things like that set up. But for me it's more person to person. And if I can't have that conversation in person, I'm sending a video text. And it's very personal. It's hey, Ethan, this is Tony again. Just wanted to send you, here's what's going on, the next step. And I've found that my clients really appreciate that because you hear the tone, you understand the importance of that next step that you can't understand through an email or text. That's something that I think I'll always do. I feel like that's a huge value to the client so that they really understand what is going on, what's next.

Clients value it. It's difficult to get the emotion and tone right. I want to create some excitement and some urgency. I'm just going to get out my phone and talk to these people as if I'm there across the table over coffee or lunch. But I'm going to do it in 15 seconds or 48 seconds or a minute and 32 seconds at my convenience, send it off and they experience me in person at their convenience whenever they have time and attention to look at it. So absolutely great application. I've sent more than 15,000 video messages over the past decade or so. Now I don't. I'm typically working at a desk. So these are all just like little webcam loops that are on the front of my videos. So I'm sitting or standing at a desk in all of these things. Simple, casual, conversational. You're not looking to make a television commercial or a movie trailer. You're just looking to create that in person moment with someone so that they feel what you're saying, they understand what you're saying and that you can communicate in a way that puts you in front of them more often. You get to own the expertise, you get to get to own the ideas. They get to feel the difference that you make in their business. So I'm going to give you some. I'm going to give you five use cases for video among hundreds I could give you. But first I want to emphasize if you're not reading the NAR Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report. They put it out every year. It's totally free. It is absolutely worth a 10 minute quick scan through. I pulled two slides from it. This one is which agent skills and qualities are considered very important on the buy side side. Honesty and integrity. Knowledge, responsiveness. Communication skills. On the sell side, what are the most important factors in choosing a listing agent? Reputation of agent Honest and trustworthiness. Knowledge, caring personality, Good listener. And when you think about those words are these things that you can tell people credibly. They may very well be true of you, but I'm going to tell you. My experience in this life and I'm older than a lot of you doesn't mean anything. Just saying it is that the more you insist on how much integrity you have, the less likely I am to believe you. Right. It's like a thou doth protest too much. But like in reverse, right? The more you insist on any of these things, the less likely anyone is to believe you. These are things people believe when they experience them. This is the consumer experience. When you carry yourself in a way that is honest and trustworthy, it builds a great reputation. But you can't go around telling people what a great reputation I have a great reputation. You're going to love my reputation. It's so good. Everyone says the best things about my reputation. Right? It just sounds disingenuous. This is why experience matters. This is the difference between the things we say and the things people actually experience with us and from us. So when we're thoughtful about the experience that we create with other people, we're leading them to the feelings and thoughts that are on the screen right now. And hopefully these are the things that they become conscious that they're thinking and feeling and they say it to somebody else, hopefully their spouse or their friend or another influencer on the decision to go ahead and work with you or to pick this over that and actually proceed and not to drop out of that map of the consumer experience, to drop out of that bowtie funnel to keep going with you. So when we over rely on automated, even if it's intelligent, faceless communication exclusively, we create a more commoditized experience than the one that we really want. If we want people to think and feel the things that are the most important to home buyers and sellers, at least according to that NAR report, which you already know intuitively, I think we could have all come up with that list ourselves. It's just nice to see it validated with legitimate data. We're creating an experience that looks and feels a lot like everyone else's. But you are a truly unique individual. When someone tells you you're one in a million, it's actually not that big of a compliment. You're one of a kind and there are billions of people on the planet, right? So we want to create and you're uniquely prepared to deliver. This is the experience we want people to think and feel and to talk about and to experience. Just like I pick these stock images legally and you'll notice a lot of them are screen based. Right? Like some of it is. It has to be mediated through screens. We can't do everything in person. This is what we want to create with people. We want these human to human face to face moments that create a network of loyal, loyal customers. And the way to do that is by injecting some video in place of some of our. One way to do it is by injecting some video in place of some of our faceless type of out text. Here are five use cases. Number one, the new opportunity. You get a new opportunity, no matter how it comes, whether it's a Zillow connection or whether it's a website form fill or whether it's an introduction from a buddy, whatever the case may be, you have that new opportunity. Typically, what you're doing, I don't know exactly what your cadence is, I know Justin does. But you're sending some emails, calls and texts in the first X number of days, hours, minutes. I'm here to suggest that when you mix a video in, let's just say a video in the first 24 hours, you're going to do each of these three things. One of the ways you could do this to establish personal connection. Again, that was the first of the three things to look for is put a video in that email. But before you send it, you're going to make the call and you're going to leave a voicemail, hey, I'm going to show up in your inbox with a video message just to introduce myself. And this is the reason I'm reaching out. Send the video email and hey, I'm the guy that left you that voicemail. Or I'm the gal that left you, that left you that voicemail. Just want to introduce myself, put a face with the name, continue on with why you're reaching out. Then you text like, hey, I'm in your inbox, left you that voicemail, just went. And by putting these things together and referring to the one and the other, and one of them is you. There's only one you. And we all know the stat that the NAR has been putting out for years, which is people tend to work with the first person they meet. People can meet you before they meet you. People can feel like they've met you even though they haven't met you yet because you're communicating in a more personal and human way and you're getting face to face earlier and more often in the relationship. Number two, before, and it's actually two in one before and after any appointment. Before the appointment, you're reaching out. Like if you're going to show up at someone's home and, or you're going to meet them at like a neighborhood coffee shop or something, what a value to them for them to feel like they've met you in advance. It's so much more comfortable, I promise you. Make this one a habit. People are going to greet you more Warmly and differently than they're greeting you right now because they feel like they've met you. And it's a weird dynamic. I've been experiencing it for years because I've sent, you know, thousands and thousands of these videos. So people greet me like they know me, but I've never met them. But it's awesome because you get to better places faster because you've created that trust and that comfort in advance. So you're going to talk about how exciting the appointment is, how you're preparing for that appointment, and if there's anything they need to do, you're certainly going to communicate that, communicate that in text as well. But the video allows them to feel like they've met you and to know that you're putting time and attention into this and you're excited to bring it to them. It decreases no shows. I don't know how often that happens to any of you, but it increases show rate when you are greeting people in advance of it. But the money one, if you only do one thing that I've talked about here after the appointment, I promise this will make you money. After the appointment. It could be a simple holding out your phone, sitting in your car safely parked. Never record videos while driving. It's dangerous, very dangerous. Even if you have like the auto drive thing on, like, don't do it safely parked in your car right after the appointment. While everything's top of mind, you're saying, thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate it. Then you're going to hit the thing that they're single most excited about. What is driving them forward? What are they looking forward to? What does a great outcome look like? And you're kind of lean into that a little bit and take some ownership and partnership in the one thing they were most excited about. So thank you. One thing they're most excited about. Then you're going to readdress their most important concern or question or objection. Even if you handled that in the conversation itself, you're going to reiterate that because you're going to diminish any fear of a lack of success. You're going to increase the perception that this is going to be a successful thing. And then you're going to give them the next step. Whether it's something you're going to do, something they need to do the next time you're going to communicate with them. That's it. And if you do that after every appointment, not only are you going to win against their uncle and their friend, you're going to win again against the biggest competitor of all, which is no decision. I can't make a decision. I'm anxious. There's some question marks. I don't know if I should proceed. You're building excitement. You're building confidence. You are the person who has put together the plan. You're excited, excited about that plan. You have an idea for all the concerns and objections, etc. Number three. Thank you. This one's really easy. This is actually a great place to start because it's the easiest thing to do. You're going to reach out and thank people who did something nice for you or people who came to mind. In this case, it's really easy. And you could set it as a Every Thursday morning from 7:30 to 8, I'm a Morning person. I'll adjust. For some of you who aren't. Every Thursday morning from 9:30 to 10, it's going to be thank you Thursday. And throughout the week you're just going to keep little notes. Whether it's a digital note on your phone or whether it's like a little handwritten note in your notebook, you're going to think of people like when people come to mind just to write their name down. And then Thursday you have a time block and all you're going to do is sit there and send short thank you videos. Tim, thank you so much. I was driving around a couple days ago. You came to mind. It's just when you did that thing, you made that introduction, did that. Whatever. It's just so thoughtful of you, is totally unnecessary and so greatly appreciated. You're awesome. I owe you lunch. Take care. Have a great day. Right. Simple things. So thanking people and telling them why you're appreciative of them not only great for the relationship, it's actually insanely healthy for you. Like this habit is as important a habit as any of the other healthy things you're trying to do while. While we're still in January here, right? There's a big difference between typing it out and pecking an emoticon and sending it like that's exclusively an intellectual exercise. The idea of breathing. I know this is going to sound woo woo to some of you, but the idea of breathing your gratitude into real life and saying these things to people with your whole self is a lot different. And it's super healthy and it's great for your business. Number four, Unsolicited cma. This one's a more complex move. I like this one. Unsolicited cma. What are we going to do here on that map. It's either in that education phase, a potential seller that never moved forward, or more likely it's on that far right side staying in touch phase. You know someone you help buy a home and it's best done as a screen recording. You're going to show and tell you all use cloud cma. So you pull the report and you find, I'm sure all of you already have your one or two or three most favorite pages of that. They're like the most information dense. So you're going to do a screen recording. Like you're going to be a bubble. It's going to be on the screen. It's not just going to be you reading off that page. You're going to greet them by name. You're going to talk about what's going on. You're going to give them a couple details about their property and what's going on, but you're going to add your own expertise on top of that. What's going on, you know, right now. Some language you might use. Thank you again so much for trusting me. It's an awesome responsibility. I'm privileged to step into it. Hey, I know you've only been in your home for about two and a half years, but if you're like most of my clients, it's your most valuable asset. And I like to keep my clients informed. This is just something I do. It's part of what I do. I do this all the time. I know this market inside and out. I took a look at your property. Here's some things that I found. And then depending on how you like to sell, hey, if you or anyone you know wants a deeper dive, it's just a little bit of information. It's like a little two minute video where I'm giving you some specific information about your specific home. But if you want to have a full conversation or if anyone you know wants to have a conversation again, do this all the time. Happy to do it with you. Thanks so much. Have a great day. This is just like active. This goes into your prospecting hours. So you're wondering like, when the heck am I supposed to do this? These fit in with what you're already doing. It's just optional. It's just another thing you could do instead of some of what you're doing now or in addition to what you're doing now. Most of the people I've been talking with the past year and a half on real estate team os, whether it's a team leader talking about Their agents or agents talking about their practice have. Maybe it's a power hour in the morning or maybe it's like an 8 to 10 is my prospecting time. I talked with a gentleman who prospects alongside his team for three hours from 8 to 11 and they start with actually with a half an hour of role play, then go into like active prospects. So whatever your habit looks like, I would suggest as follow up BOSS users that you look at your smart lists, your inbox and your tasks and you zero them out every single morning. Now, it's not always possible depending on how that day shapes up, but we all know how the back half of the day goes. It gets kind of wild. We want to get out, we want to see people, things go sideways, etc. This is the most important work. This is your pipeline for tomorrow and next month and next quarter and next year. And so this idea of doing some of the most important work first thing in the morning is helpful. And when you look at some of what's being called for here, why these things are surfaced for you, you're going to recognize that some of these might be better with videos. This idea of unsolicited CMAs could fit into here, or thank yous could fit into here, your appointments could fit into here. So these are all you can fit this wherever you, wherever it makes sense for you. And I tell you, as follow Boss users, we're continuing the march toward what I could consider the holy grail of sales and marketing communication. And that is the right message to the right person at the right time in the right channel. It's what we've all been trying to do forever. It's why we swing and miss. It's why we produce noise or pollution even though we don't intend to, is that we're not getting the right message to the right person at the right time in the right channel. We're giving you all kinds of stuff in there. We are reading behavior, we're reading activity, we're reading interactivity and we're surfacing the best stuff for you. That's coming up right now in things like smart lists, but it's coming to more and more places. So for example, you know we have that whole summary of every single client, right? You can see all the interview, you see how the TC was interacting with them, you can see see your own old messages from them, but you got to scroll it. So what we're doing now is AI summaries for you so you can get like a summary of who this person is and what's going on with them, suggested tasks and what you should be doing next. A definition of the kind of the property that they're interested in buying preferences, the last conversation you had and some details about it. So we're. It's just like, it's like a little AI summary. If you don't have access to it now, you will soon. I know you guys tend to get access to a lot of things and now everyone has access to yet. And it's not just in the main app, it's also in the mobile app as well, like these summaries so that you can get a quick look so you can spend more time creating these human to human face to face moments in person or through video or other touch points. I promised you five, that's only four. Number five is price reductions. How many of you experienced a price reduction recently or having a great. So you can also extend that to listing extensions. I saw someone taking a photo. If you missed that, hit me up. Happy to share these slides. So price reductions, obviously this is an emotional thing. It's emotion and tone and it's got a little bit of detail and complexity. So video is a great application for. This is obviously in the buying and selling process. It's people in the selling process that don't get to close transaction. The best way to do the price reduction is to earn it, obviously. And what you're going to do potentially, if you're not doing it already, is like, hey, now that we're under contract, every single Tuesday or every single Wednesday afternoon, or every single Friday morning whenever you want, every single Wednesday afternoon, I'm going to be in your inbox with an update on what's going on with your listing or with your home. Right? And in this way you're going to preempt questions because they know something's coming or you just delivered it to them. When someone reaches out with a question, you have no idea were they stewing on this for 10 minutes or 10 hours or three days before they chose to reach out to you? This is all negative experience and they're not going to cognitively take responsibility for anything that's going on. It's you, right? So the idea of making this promise in the beginning and then delivering on it through the experience is a great way to earn the right to have any conversation you need to because you're out in front of it from the beginning. Hey, I want you to have all the information. That's what I'm doing here. I want you to have all the information. What is that information? Well, one thing you do is set up custom alerts around things like new listings in the neighborhood that came on at a similar or lower price. We're seeing like four new houses came on that look a lot like yours and they're, you know, asking 25 grand less. Price reductions on similar listings, obviously sales of similar listings below the asking price. How often is that happening? If it's none of the above, then really the grounds for price reduction conversation aren't really there. Right. There's something else going on that's not creating the showings and the conversations that you want to have around the property. But if you're seeing some of these things, you need to know it and the client needs to know it. This is important information. Some of the details to include in the video, any actions, inquiries and feedback on the listing. Actions are like views like saves, etc. And then what information about listings and sales, sales in the area, what's going on, what's changing, what's kind of emerging are things like they were before, nothing has changed, etc. So it's a combination of these two things. And at the time of the ask, should you find yourself in that position, you can use your own language, obviously, but the concept is, hey, we have two choices. One, we can keep the same price and continue to get the same results, which is not very many offers and obviously no contracts. Or two, we can put on a new price and create a more competitive position in the market. That's all this is. We're positioning the home for sale in a market that's dynamic. And if we want to create a more competitive position to drive behavior, to drive conversations, to drive showings, and to drive offers, then that's what we can expect. If we change the price, some reminders to include whether it's in an email, a video, or in person, hey, all we're doing here is positioning your home to sell at the best price within the time frame. That's all we're trying to do here. The list price doesn't define the value of your home. I know you're attached to your home. You love your home. Your home is worth $15 million in your mind. But the list price isn't the actual value of your home. It's just a marketing tool. You're positioning the price as a marketing tool. All we're looking to do is drive action. And one way to drive action in new interest is to change the price. Reduce the price goal is to create activity. And if we're not getting activity, then we need to look at what we're doing overall. If the market validates that more things are moving at a lower price point or that things that were priced here are actually selling for here, then we need to entertain that that's the reality of the market. So try to help them emotionally detach from the value of their home versus the list price and have them recognize, as you do, that the list price is simply a tool to generate conversations and behavior. I understand. We're on the same team. You always want to stay on the same side of the table. No matter how you're feeling about the client and the situation, you're on the same side of the table. And you might use that language, hey, it's my job to advise you and guide you to the best possible outcome, best price within the time frame. That's my job here. I'm here to advise you and guide you. That's why I'm providing you this information. So why are we going to do this in video? It gives you and them something to refer back to. This happens with a lot of different video types, by the way. A month from now I can look back at exactly what I said and how I said it to somebody and I can see that anytime I want. It's actually in that activity feed. Potentially you're showing and telling with screen recording. You can show some of the activity that's going on with the home. You can show some of these other properties that are selling and how they're selling. It Demonstrates is the key word here, empathy and expertise. You're not just promising that you're paying attention to what's going on. You're proving to them experientially that you're paying attention to what's going on and that you understand their thoughts and feelings around this stuff. This one's really subtle. It adds your presence and it informs their conscience. What do I mean by this? I mean them reading an email from you that's three paragraphs long about what's going on in the market is not nearly the same as them experiencing you recording a video from your desk with your webcam or just sitting in your car with your smartphone describing what's going on, sharing some of this information I just outlined, you become part of their superego, their decision making process. And the conversation might go, let's just pretend it's a couple over coffee the next morning. You know, maybe she's right. You know when she said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That doesn't happen when you send an email that Happens when someone has an experience with you and you delivering the information, it creates a different type of memory for them and you become part of their decision making process in a different way. And then just psychologically speaking, bad news is more dense, it's heavier, it's more psychologically dense. It takes longer to process. So the idea of picking up the phone and be like, hey, had your phone list? Or sorry, we've had your home listed for, for five weeks now, and I think it's time we lower the price. What do you think? First of all, that's terrible. Second, this is bad news for them. They have visions in their head of the equity that they have and what they're gonna get out of it and what they're gonna be able to do with it. And so when we do that in real time, still acting like I have a phone here, we're expecting a response right away. Like you don't have a conversation. It's like, hey, I got some bad news for you. I'm expecting you to respond right away. But that's not the way the brain, like, we need to digest this stuff. We need to. It needs to sit with us. So the idea of doing it in a video allows you to deliver it with empathy and expertise, but it also allows the distance for them to absorb the information, to think about it, to sit in it. And then depending on how you send the video, I'll give you a few options here. On the next slide of ways to do that, you can see that they played the video, or you can just give them some time and take. Tell them at the, you know, at the beginning and the end of the video or in the text around the video. Hey, I'm going to give you a call tomorrow afternoon. Maybe we can talk about this. Give them some time to live with it, sit with it, think about it, digest it, process it. That's why we're doing it in video. Three ways to send video. You might be wondering, how do I actually do this? I just gave you three options. There are many, many options. If you google it, you'll find lots of different options. I'm here just to give you three options among many. The first one is free. So what Tony does gets out his phone and talks to people, has some pros, has some cons. The biggest pro is that it's with you all the time. You can do it right now, and it works for Tony, so you can talk to him about it. In the middle is freemium. It's free up to a point. The most common or popular one is called Loom. It's a Chrome extension that you plug in. It allows you to record your screen or to record yourself and send videos from your laptop. Paid Solutions There are many paid solutions. I obviously have a favorite favorable feeling toward Bombbomb. I've used it for years. Has the webcam option, has a screen recording option, Has a mobile app so you can do it with the mobile app. It includes some of your branding. It tracks like opens and clicks and plays and things. Has a direct follow up boss integration. So if you go to like video on the follow up boss website, it's the only one that's listed there as a direct integration. So it has a number of benefits. Multiple different options There are lots of different ways to do this, but phone and webcam is a decision to make and do I want to pay for it or not? To get some enhanced features and some branding and some tracking and stuff wrapping up here before you record a single second of video, there are three things you need to be very clear on. I would extend this going back to my first big idea takeaway from this thing. Before you type a single word of an email, before you type a single word of a text message, before you pick up the phone and hit connect, before you do any of this stuff, be clear on three things. What so what now? What what? What am I doing here? What's the purpose? Why am I reaching out? Why am I asking for their time and attention? 2. So what? Why do they care? What's in it for them? Why would they? Why would she? Why would he? And then now what? What do I do next? What's my call to action? Or what's the next step? What am I going to do next? Or what do I need them to do next before I can do my thing? Being clear on this before you create any piece of communication is going to make it more effective and you could push this out and think about the way that you're delivering a listing presentation, for example. All these same things apply. Whether it's a matter of positioning this and asking for the appointment or whether it's in the appointment itself or whether it's after the appointment. What? So what now? What? Three Tips on Video and then I'm Done Q and A Video is a gift of your time and attention, undivided time and attention, and it's only getting more valuable. We are in a time and place where undivided time and attention is at a low. You're not getting it from the people you want it from. You're not giving it to the people that you know you should be giving it to. So supply is low, but demand is as high as ever. Everyone wants to be seen, heard, understood, appreciated, valued, served, helped, etc. That's all any of us wants as an individual human being. And so supply is at an all time low. I don't know if that's technically true. I'll withdraw that statement. Supply feels like it's at an all time low, demand is constant. So this is something you can give that will elevate the experience. This is undivided. You could spend. Let's give the scenario. Someone reaches out with a question, they email you, or they text you, or they leave you a voicemail like, hey, I got this. You told me this thing yesterday and I'm wondering about this thing and I don't know why that works or how that works or why we're going to do it this particular way. You could spend one minute typing up a response and then another minute fussing with it and then another minute making sure that someone can understand what you're describing. Three minutes is what I just gave their send. Or you could spend 52 seconds, record, hey, great question, common question. I understand why you asked it. There are two ways to think about it. This way. But more importantly, I think, I think it's this way. This is based on what I know about your situation. If you want to jump on the phone, happy to do that. 52 seconds, done. Send. It's actually faster, but you're going to get so much more credit for that 52 seconds than you ever were. Whether on that three minute send, the mind doesn't even process how long did it take to type this response at all? This is a gift and it's a great habit. Number two, your imperfection is your perfection. You're going to look at your video, you're going to hate it. Hate the way I look, hate the way I sound. This is terrible. I suck. This is, is not for me. This is for them. It's not for. Your imperfection is your perfection. You may beat yourself up a little bit over how a conversation went or a presentation went. It's the same thing here. This is like sitting across the table over coffee or lunch. You're creating more of these little in person moments and you're not perfect in person. You're not going to be perfect on video. There's no reason to expect it. And in fact, what makes it endearing, what makes it land, what makes, what makes it connect, is that it's imperfect. And, you know, once the robots start doing videos in place of people and they're perfect, we're going to know the difference. I hope practice builds confidence, Confidence builds success. This isn't unique to video. This is any single skill you want to have. This is any skill you want to develop, any skill you want to be basically good at. Practice builds confidence. Confidence builds success. There's no path except three through, and that's what I brought. If you want to ask me about any of this stuff, email me or hit me up on any of the channels. There's a ton of stuff through that QR code. It's just all me personally. It's the show, it's podcast, etc. So thank you so much. I know I went long. I hope it was useful.