Change Creates Opportunity

Now I got to introduce my co host for this Flash webinar, Chris Burnley, who is the owner and CEO. I think that's the official title of Core Fact, which is our partner for print materials and business cards and other things. So, Chris, say hi to everybody.

Hello everybody.

Well done. You and I were actually chatting last week about some stuff for conference and Power series and what we're doing because we had to cancel.

And you and I ended up having.

Like a 20 minute conversation that I wished our company could have easedropped on. And so I said, hey, how about we do this exact same conversation again, but we just do it with an audience? And you were gracious enough to say yes.

I really, I've had a lot of.

Conversations with a lot of business owners since this whole thing started six, eight, ten weeks ago, whatever it was.

And I loved your mindset on it.

I loved how you had it broken into phases and how our mindset should shift depending on what phase we're entering or exiting. So I don't want to do any spoilers, but I thought it was a conversation that everyone should hear and I love that you were willing to spend some time with us. So thank you so much.

You're welcome. It was a good conversation and I think, you know, it's very apropos to what's going on right now. I know, you know, different agents are reacting differently and some people are afraid to go out and take new business and others are looking at this as an opportunity. And so, you know, as we look at it from our perspective, talking to so many agents at, it's really not about whether it's right or wrong to go after business. It's always right. It's just about how you do it and having the right messaging and really being sort of like a servant leader to your community in times like this. And then how do you find the confidence to go out and actually make the changes that you need to make in your own self to do it? And for us at Corefact, being in marketing, our, our goal has really been to help create content, to help with that and to tailor that, depending A, on your personality, but B, also on your needs and in your particular community. So that's, you know, that was kind of our conversation. And I think, you know, we're all in this together, as they say, but we're all in this at different points in time. And so, yeah, we're all in this. We are all in this and together.

But we're all in it in different ways, right?

Yeah.

And our Things about it are different.

I've said this on some other podcasts.

And webinars that I've done.

My dad literally checks every single box for risk factors. He's had heart surgery. He's got high blood pressure. He's got diabetes.

He's got only one lung.

Literally, he checks every single box. So when I think about it, I look at it through that lens because I care the most about keeping my father safe for others. They look at it through their lens. And so this is hard for me to do. Most of my people know I'm a control freak, so I'm actually going to let go of control and let Chris drive the slides. I'm petrified, but this is part of my growth. But let's really take them through kind of what we talked about and some of those various components. Sure.

All right. So can you see my screen?

Yep.

You look good.

Excellent.

So it's a screen.

All right. So after our conversation last week, we put together some slides, and I think we were even able to fit in your Pantone orange and your cool gray up there. So we've got the next Tomi's color scheme going.

Yeah, you've had enough conversations with my marketing department to know that's what you mean. And that's cool. We appreciate the kind spin on it.

I have a few scars on my back.

It matters.

As you know, it matters. Brand matters.

It certainly does. And so I'm titling this. You know, change creates opportunity. And as, you know, as we. As we kind of gone into this whole Covid situation, you know, for us, it really started almost, you know, in. Let's think back to January and where we were.

Yeah.

And we always talk about how you plan your work and you work your plan and pulling Hill said that. But it's true. And, you know, in 2020, at least here at Corfact, and so many of the agents we had talked to, everybody was thinking, this is going to be the best year ever.

And it was.

And it was for two months. For two months. It was.

It was really looking that way. And, you know, we had. We'd worked with on many marketing plans and we'd put together and we'd do our elite campaigns and things. And so we do a lot of marketing for agents and have it all mapped out right. And a lot of agents were investing in their business and taking risk. And what happened was, boom. Get this coronavirus thing hits. And it effectively felt like a punch in the mouth. And Mike Tyson said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. And that's effectively what happened. And so initially, we were in a state of shock. We needed to regroup. We started to make little adjustments. And then both as a company, we needed to make a bunch of changes. And then for our clients, they were also saying, hey, my messaging and everything else is no longer appropriate given what's going on in the marketplace.

Let me give you an aside on that, because you're so right. The shift happened. We have our internal CRM and we, of course, had written some template emails that are part of the marketing plan. Right. So people were sending out, hey, let's.

Grab a cup of coffee.

At a time where probably we shouldn't.

Be saying, hey, let's grab a cup of coffee.

Right? And so we had to go in fast and strip all those emails out, go through and reread every single email that's in your CRM and eliminate the ones that aren't appropriate for that moment in time. So that regrouping process and adjustment making is important. And I think for a lot of us, and we talked about this the other day, it's kind of gotten to the point where, like, yeah, for some people, it was maybe a couple days or a couple weeks until they were implementing their plan B. I think everyone now is like, okay, I get it. I understand it. What's. What's my plan B and how do I execute? So I think you're right. Like the stages of grief. Right. Like we're now in. We're at the stage of where it's. It's action time and we're ready. We're pent up.

Yeah. You know, one of the things we saw was that. And when we've been preaching it for years, too, is that so many people are using marketing automation. Now, the idea with marketing automation is that you pre plan your year and you, you know, you set up your campaign and, and you got the right message for Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and so on and so forth. And then you, you can go and do your job and you don't have to worry about it. It's taken care of. But what happens is, you know, when there's a change, those marketing messages keep going out.

Luckily, we only sent a few. Let's get coffee. But once we heard back, we're like, oh, yeah. And then we fixed it fast.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. So, you know, with corefact, we do a lot of direct mailing. So I'm gonna talk about it a little bit. I'm not gonna. I'm not here to sell you guys on anything, really. I just want to talk about, you know, what the way we think about it. And then we'll get into sort of what we're calling the four phases of this, you know, Covid response toolkit that we put together. Chris, just because we may have some.

People who aren't familiar with Korfact, if you wouldn't mind, why don't you give sort of the quick history you guys have been in and around residential real estate for literally generations providing print services. Why don't you give a little context? Just because there's some people. This will be their first time hearing about Corfact.

Yeah, so Corfact, we are a. We're a marketing company. We work primarily in the real estate and mortgage industries, providing everything from digital services software to print related materials. So everything to help agents generate leads, to promote their listings and build their sphere of influence and things like that. We work, I think our database of active real estate accounts just passed 220,000 real estate agents, which is a lot. So I started this company in 2005 and have been growing it ever since. And you know, we started doing IDX websites and then we bought this print company and now we've been doing that for 15 years. And ultimately, I think the mindset we have here is that real estate is a difficult business. And to be successful in real estate, at least our belief is that you need a set of tools, you need the right mindset, you need to actively market and be involved in your business. And in particular you have to find partners to help you be more successful. Because what we've always seen, and I know this because my mom and dad and my stepmother, we're all real estate agents. And so, you know, I've seen this since pretty much birth. But the biggest challenge is you got to get out of your own way and you have to have tools to make you be efficient so you can really focus on your clients, getting your next listing and so on and so forth. And so Korfac was really started from that mindset of understanding that you don't just go buy a Mercedes and start driving people around, make millions of dollars, that there's a process and a pattern and a marketing plan. And if you do that, you can build success and it doesn't happen overnight, but it's really a long term strategy where you grow your business and by the time you're in maybe year three, you're starting to do well. And by the time you're in year 20, you're really thinking about how do you transition and sell this business? So it's a full life cycle and oftentimes people get into the business, they don't think about the long run. And that's why you have great brokers like yourself and partners that can help and that have seen this so many times that can help kind of steer and coach in that direction. And for us, you know, we started, we had a lot of success in direct mail early on. And so we often talk about that because it's still a really powerful tool with respect to marketing, even today. I think in this Covid situation, it's increasingly important because it's becoming harder and harder to get through to, you know, your homeowners and your sphere of influence through email and some of the social media pieces, which I'll talk on. So as an example on the slide we have here, you know, with emails and we'll take an example. I don't know how many out there, but over the last probably five or six weeks, I've received, I don't even know, tens, maybe even 100,000 emails. It's just insane. Everybody's Covid response and I don't even read them. I just, they go right into the archive. They're often, you know, not tailored to me. So it's, it's like the level of personalization is really weak. Now, we do believe you can be effective with email, but you need the right, the right content. And there's so much competition because it's, it's nearly a free medium, everybody does it. And so not only are you showing up there, but probably 10 of your competitors are as well. And so an example being with direct mail, there's certainly less saturation. Typically they have what they call the mail moment where you go to your post your mailbox every day and you pull out the five to 10 pieces and you generally look at every single one of them. So in terms of that brand recognition and awareness, if they're seeing that next home orange and the cool gray with your face on it, it's going to leave a permanent mark in their brain, particularly after you've done it a few times. And then while we are sheltering in place, and many of us are still are, you know, it's actually something to do.

Yeah.

And so can we make, can we make it fun? Can we make the messaging important enough to get a little time with it? And then, you know, let me unpack.

That a little because Betsy asked. She's in a unique situation. She's in the high risk group. She Checks a lot of those boxes like my dad and what suggestions would you have for me? And this is something we've done on a lot of the communication is this is a perfect time to one go deeper into your sphere of influence than you have. People are looking for that human connection. I am an introvert by nature and even I am getting to the point where like, man, I miss, like, I want to go have a barbecue with my buddies now. Some of my buddies were there like five days in even I am making it to where I miss that human connection. And I've always felt, I know direct mail doesn't sound sexy as, you know, AI or machine learning or any of the other new buzzwords of 2020, but it works. And you need this mix. We should be going deeper into our sphere of influence in this time because they need that connectivity and so do you. And a mix of email and direct mail is really important. So I think you're 100% on point with that message. Right?

And you know, if you think about direct mail, email, social media, it's really a medium to basically get your message out. And so, you know, most of us are active on Facebook, maybe Instagram elsewhere. And it's the same thing. If you have a quality message and a way to share that, it's going to get more views and as it gets more views then more people see it and so on and so forth. So if you have a poor set of communications going out, obviously they just come and they go and they have no impact whatsoever. And so, so the critical key is really to fine tune and make it not only personal, but remember, it's not just about you. It really is about the person receiving the email, about the person receiving the postcard and so on. And if it can be about, it's.

Never been just about you, but there's never been a time where it's less about you than right now. Right?

So.

So it's so important. Let's go to those, the four phases because I really love that approach and that thought process and how you built marketing for it too. You built marketing for each phase, which is awesome.

And I'll show you that in just a moment here. So effectively, when we first got this thing hit, we said, well, you know, this is gonna come and it's gonna go. And we don't know the timing, particularly of how long it's going to take to get through all this. And what we've learned over the past couple months is that everywhere is going to be at a different point in the Phases. And so we said, okay, we're going to identify how this is going to play out. In the first phase, we called it unity. We're all in this together. This is sort of the shock and awe phase, where just understanding how to be sensitive and communicate and help people not be afraid of what's going on was the key. And in most places, I think are through this, we've all come to realize what's going on. Which brings us to phase two, which was reality and we're sheltering.

Let me hop in on phase one for just a second, though, because I do think with the country starting to reopen, that we will see hotspots of COVID pop up again. And I think you can have a situation where not at an nationally, we've moved through phase one and into phase two. I totally agree, but I think you could have cities or local communities that end up moving back into phase one because they have a hotspot or something like that. So for the audience, I really want you to really lock in on this concept of phases of emotional experience and shifting and tailoring your marketing to fit each one. That concept, learn that concept through this, through this experience. And you can apply that to so many other things in your marketing. But that is the crux of all of this and so powerful. So we could. Your community could end up back in phase one. If that happens as a nation, I think we're definitely into phase two, maybe even transitioning some parts into phase three. But phase two is we're accepting this as reality now.

Right. And most people are in that phase, too. So if you go out and you, you know, you're partying on Laguna beach or Daytona beach, and all of a sudden you very well could go back to phase one.

Yeah, yeah, please don't do that right now.

Please.

I mean, you can go to the beach, but like, stay in the corner of the beach.

Stay.

Stay on your own little section of it.

Yeah, exactly. So phase two is reality is really, you know, where. Where many of us are at now. And we're really. We're kind of in between what we're calling phase two and phase three. Phase three is recovery. It's moving forward. You know, particularly in real estate, we've often found that most people who are thinking about selling their homes are often contemplating it either years in advance or at least within a year to six months before they really start to get to the point where like, okay, we've made the decision, we're going to pull the trigger. It's not the case. If you have, you know, a divorce, death, and so on. But for most people who are thinking about relocating out of the area, that process happens over a long period of time. What we see in the recovery stage is that, okay, we're outside of the panic, the shock. We've now realized what's going on, and we're starting to plan for our lives again. And so how do we engage with the people that are important to us, that are going to help us, shepherd us through this, this particular process? And I think this is the key time when, you know, we as real estate professionals really want to start engaging and building that future and helping people understand that it's okay and that there's a way to do it and that, you know, as a seasoned professional, you know, I know how to, how to walk you through this.

Yeah.

I was on a call last week with Wall street group that wanted to pick my brain. And they just trying to understand what was going to happen in real estate. And it was funny for people outside the industry, I could really hear the light bulb go on, on the call. Because most people move because of timing in their life, not timing in the market. Right. But they're for sure there's some percentage of the people that are going to hit the pause button because of a pandemic. But that external factor that was there, whether that's too many kids and too few.