How to build relationships while #StayingHome

Sean, you started this concept staying at home. And what I want to do for everyone is just kind of unpack it step by step, how you ended up there, the execution of it, and then the results that you've had. Because one of the things we want to do is start to just share with all the next homies what's been working in various markets and help that idea, idea a thon get. Just help those ideas get percolating. So to start with, I'll be the plus size model, but here's the T shirt that you put together. Right. This is it. This is mine. It's my one.

Looks good.

Thanks. Thanks. I'm eating in place as well as sheltering in place. The refrigerator's like. You again, bro. You again. I got you. So just talk to us a little bit about how did you end up, first of all, with this concept? Right. And maybe to start with, just tell us what the concept is and how you ended up coming up with it.

So initially we wanted to show some support to our first responders. We have a number of clients who are police officers, nurses, hospital administrators. So the concept started with, how can we show them some support? Then we started talking about how can we brand that. And then I ran across the front porch project on Instagram, which is a professional photographer who was taking pictures of families on their front porch. And other professional photographers started joining, and it turned into this huge thing. And I thought, I kind of like that idea. And we could do it safely. We could drop off the T shirts on their front porch, come back a day later, take a picture. That's where it started. And what happened was it became more of humans over houses.

Yeah.

Kind of morphed into me telling a little bit about that person or that family and how this was affecting them. And it grew and it just kept growing.

I'm going to show some of the posts that you've done just so that they can see the sort of how it really has taken shape. The one that I pulled up first is Chelsea Renee. And again, this is just. You dropped off the shirt. Maybe you take a picture out front or they have someone at home take a picture and then you just end up telling their story, Right?

Correct. And she's a great example, a Facebook friend. She's local hairstylist. I've never even met her, but she wanted a shirt. And her business is affected. Obviously it's closed. And so we tell a little bit about her. And then the neat thing about this is people are posting it on their Facebook site. Not only Am I doing it and tagging them? Then they're typically sharing it. And it just grows. And people have been reaching out to me saying, hey, can I have shirts that aren't clients, that aren't necessarily close friends? You know, we. We know each other in this town because we're fairly small town. But yeah, people. It started out, we were really targeting our clients and those that were first responders and grew to, I just want a shirt like that. I want you to come take my picture. I want you to tell my story. And it's been. It's been really neat to see.

Truly viral, right? It's gone viral in its own way. While we're talking, I'm just showing some of these images here for folks to see. So you started what you call the staying home series, right? You started with number one, because that's where you start if you have a series of things, I guess, and you're up to like 25, something like that.

I think we're at 25 today, and we probably got 25 more to post right now.

So how did you like. We'll get tactical now and I'll leave. I'll just keep kind of spinning through these so people can see. But what was it like the first time you reached out to the first person to talk to them about this staying home idea or concept? Were they super receptive? Were they like, sean, that's kind of weird. Or wait, you want to drop off T shirt? Like, literally, what did you say when you called them or what did you email them?

I actually, I texted them and I would say, out of. We probably ask 75 people to do this to date that we asked, that we reached out to, and only one declined and just said, I'm not really, not really into that. Oh, I can see these now.

Oh, my bad. I thought you guys could see those all along. Luckily, Rachel, the amazing and talented Rachel Jackson. Let me know.

Slides, please.

So here they are.

Yeah, I had one person who very politely declined and was an older couple, just said, hey, we're good, you know, and they were a client. They just said, we're not interested. It's been really interesting to me because as you know, the division on staying home or not staying home, that divide has grown deeper and people are more vocal about it. But with these shirts, we have had people that are extremely vocal on social media about not staying home who want.

A staying home shirt, want the shirts.

And they have asked the shirt and they have reached out and said, this is a great idea and I love it. And can we have them and will you come take our picture? When on their Facebook feed they're extremely vocal about hey, let's all get back to work and this is all a big hoax or conspiracy or whatever.

Sure.

So it's been really neat to see a joining, I guess of a division where people are saying, hey, we don't care, we just want a shirt and we want to participate.

Yeah, yeah, that's so it really has sort of taken on a life of its own.

It has. And it's become, like I said, more a human interest story versus a stay.

At home or Covid statement or even a real estate statement. It's more just. That's because you're telling the stories, right. You're telling the stories of the people who are impacted and how they're dealing and coping with it.

Yes.

In these times of feeling pretty lonely, a lot of us. Right, Yep. Knowing that other people are going through it and here's how they're dealing with it. And you're sort of being a voice for that in your local community.

And it's been a soft market. Nowhere on the shirt does it say next home. No, it doesn't say real estate. It's just Luke and stay home. And the other thing that's been interesting is so once somebody gets shirts, it may be a week before I post them, Right? Well, they're watching. Every day I watch them, they can't wait for me to see, to see what I'm going to say about them.

Yeah.

And then, and then they all have their own audience. So it has, it has really taken off.

Did you email them first or call them? And if they say yes, you swing, you schedule like when you're going to drop it off or do you just drop off the shirt? How do you ask for the photograph or do you just tell them up front? That's part of the gig. Like pretend. Yeah.

I usually was texting because I have most of these guys, you know, or if I don't like people I don't know as well I met, I message them on Facebook, hey, I'll drop it off. Such and such a day. We can come back and take the picture. Or even better yet, if you'll take your own. And then some people are more creative than others. Yeah, it's been really good.

They're either taking it themselves or you're taking it. Question from the audience is, are you hiring a professional photographer?

No, I actually have a very talented 16 year old daughter who took most of these.

Gotcha. So Malia, he Uses child labor that's not available for you personally. Because I think I'll go back to the first. The first one. This probably was just taken by someone in her home, right?

I think she took it herself.

Yeah. So, like, to me, this is such. Just a real. It's okay if this is kind of guerrilla marketing. Right. This isn't. This isn't perfection. This isn't. You know, I can hear Rachel screaming into the screen because marketing should be perfect a lot of the time. But on something like this, where it's really just this kind of viral thought, I think it's very okay that it's imperfect. So don't let that stop you from. They can take a selfie and send it, or you could take it yourself with, you know, with your iPhone 27 or whatever number we're on. It's got 57 cameras facing both ways.

I think it's very authentic when they take it themselves.

Yeah, Yeah, I agree. So the message that you just sent is something like, hey, I'm doing this new photo series called Hashtag staying at home. I drop off a T shirt. You take a photo, I tell your story, promote your business maybe a little bit, and just help encourage people. Is that kind of the gist of it?

That was kind of it. And honestly, Keith, to begin with, I wasn't even. I wasn't even telling them I was going to tell a story. Our original intent was to just take the picture, show support. We have a client who's the CEO of the hospital here. We have the chief of police as a client. We just. Numerous nurses. We wanted to show them, hey, we care. And then as I started posting them and telling a little story. Yep. That. I mean, like this couple.

Well, this one.

No, one more back. This. This couple. This. They run a local martial arts studio here. They're well known. The studio's closed down. They have a special needs child. They are impacted by this.

Right.

And I love the picture they sent. They took.

So awesome. So great. Yeah. Okay, so I think people are getting the point. You put the liquor store in one for me. I appreciate that. Malia asked about shirts. I reached out to the Orange Appeal store. The Orange Appeal store can do these shirts for you, or Sean might have a provider as well, so you can reach out to Sean directly. But Orange Appeal store will have these shirts. You probably won't see it on the website. So you just need to email Jess direct for now. They'll get them on the website eventually. We just put this together. Rachel, if you can put in Jessica's email address in the. Dang. She's good. You're good. So if you just email Jess at the Orange Appeal store, you can order these shirts if you wanted to do something similar with it, Sean. So how. How, like, you've got 25 more in the can that you're gonna be doing with this?

We. Yes, we have. We ordered 250 shirts to begin with, and I think we have probably 25 left.

Wow.

We'll have more than 25 more posts. They'll probably. I'm hoping they'll be close to 100, because it grows every day. Every day somebody messages me and says.

Hey, so now you aren't reaching out to anybody. People are reaching out to you, and you're just responding.

I'm just responding.

How long did that take? Did that take? How long have you been doing this? When did you first start this?

I've maybe been doing this two and a half weeks. Okay. Okay. Yeah, it took off on its own pretty quick. And. And I think it's become more. We're all in this together, regardless of which side you're on. Yeah. Everybody's affected. And. And I. And I think it has also helped people to see other people that are affected.

I see some people in the comments saying they're on your page right now and they're blown away. Yeah. If you get a chance to go to Sean's site, to his Facebook page and check it out, it's really cool. I mean, they always catch my eye when you post one. Given the turnaround time for shirts, do you think it's too late to start something like this? Malia, I do not. I think you'd have to hurry, but, you know, maybe you're. Maybe. Or maybe you like, okay, maybe I missed the boat on this. And if you feel like your place is coming back online, maybe your shirt could be something different. Right. But I think if you hurry and you're purposeful about it, you could do this with relative speed. He's only been at it two weeks, two and a half weeks. So you agree, Sean? Do you feel like this is too late?

No, I don't think it's too late. And I also think there could be a change. Just like you said, the slogan could be something different as we all. As we all get to a new normal, so to speak. There could be something else, but I think the opportunity is still going to be there. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. Okay. We've shown that last one was Charis and her kids, so that's another great one. That's fun to put out. What was the hardest part of getting this off the ground?

Probably the actual hardest part was the logistics of the ordering. And it wasn't that difficult. But, yeah, I have a local provider and he jumped on it right away. And corporate, I will say corporate approved this shirt in 24 hours. I was thrilled. Yeah.

Yeah. This wasn't a hard one to approve at all. And these are the kinds of things we really want to encourage. So we're going to start doing some of these quick interviews. I mean, I don't even know what time it is yet. We've been on this for 15 minutes. Right. But I think this concept is so easy to communicate about. It really shows how to take action. I know you're a take action kind of guy, so I know that this question is going to probably, you know, but were there any reservations? You have any, like, I don't know if I want to put this out there like this or were you just like, ah, screw it, I'm going for it?

No, we just wanted to do it. And again, I had a different intent. And then it kind of changed. And we didn't anticipate, for one thing, how much kids like these shirts. I drive around and kids are wearing them all day long, not just for picture time. I see them walking around neighborhoods wearing the shirts. These little guys. You love them. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm sure mom and dad take the picture and, you know, whatever. The kids have them on hours later.

Yeah.

Or in pictures that come back a week later on somebody else's page. Not even about this whole series. I'll see the kid in the background wearing the shirt.

Yeah, yeah. And you can. What I like, too, is you've even, you know, the hairstylist. That's someone that wasn't even your sphere of influence a week ago or two weeks ago or whenever. And now she's a raving fan for you. Like, you are the one who she. I'm sure she knows some of the real estate professionals, but you're the one who reached out and told her story and gave her a platform to. To express herself. And that's really what it's all about. A couple people have asked for Jess's email again, It's Jess. J e s s at TheRangeAppealStore.com j e s s@TheRangeAppealStore.com and it should also be in the questions that you can see. Question on masks. We're looking at that. We don't have a provider for it today. There is some Stay tuned on that. We're working on. The big thing that we're working on primarily is what's. Let's get through this and then what's real estate going to be like? And is everyone going to need booties and gloves and masks? And is that going to be the new normal for a long time, or is that going to be something that was here for a little while and now it's gone? We're working through some of that, so. And more details on that later.

I have been amazed at the number of people who have even messaged me saying, great idea. Yeah, love this. That didn't necessarily ask for shirts. Great idea. I love what you're doing. I love seeing this. Sorry.

Any. If. If. Let's say I think this is really cool and I want to do it, what would you tell me?

Do it fast.

Yeah, Hurry.

Right.

Hurry. Hurry up.

You know, I think. I think different parts of the country are going to open up in different ways, but I don't think everything's going to be back immediate. So I think there's an opportunity. Definitely. Yeah, it's been great. It's been. It's been really, really neat. And I will tell you, I had somebody reach out this week who did not ask for shirts, but she said, I have to tell you, and she is not a client. She said, you own the color orange in Montrose. Whenever I see the color orange, I think humans over houses. No matter where I see it, that's what comes to mind. And she said, I just wanted to tell you that. And I am not. You know, Keith, I don't walk around town dressed like you are. Now.

I know, I know you don't.

You're.

You're. You're a pretty. Yeah. You don't run around in your orange Mr. Pickles outfit.

I don't. I don't. I don't. But I've been really happy. I mean, that made me feel great that she said that.

So, listen, take action. That's the first thing, right? That's the thing that I'm most impressed by. You didn't overthink it. You had an idea and you executed on the idea. And this happened to be one that blossomed into something really special. But it could have been something that was just kind of cool for some first responders, but you don't know until you try. So I commend you for that. I commend you for being purposeful about it. I want to encourage all of you that are on this to think about this or something like it Since I got a little platform here. We've got Zillow. We'll have Zillow on tomorrow. Sean, I hope you're there to ask all your hard hitting questions. I'll be ready. But we'll be talking to the guy who. What I'm really curious about is how is the buyer after Covid? So, AC, how is the buyer going to behave differently? And I think we'll get some good insight to their behaviors on the website that we can translate or extrapolate into possible learnings about how they're going to be different. So we'll take some of that data and see if we can learn some things from it. I absolutely love my shirt. Thank you so much. Thank you, Keith. I have Reese this weekend, so we'll make sure we get you. We'll be number, I don't know, 67 on the. On the list. But the photo will come. I think this is a phenomenal idea. I love that it's taken off in your community. I really want to encourage everyone to do it if it fits for you and if it feels right for you. Jess, Jess at the Orange Appeal store if you want to figure out how to get the shirts. I'm sure she can do some rushes and some quick turn times and some other stuff. So I'm seeing if anyone has any questions.

No.

Okay. Sean, you're the man. I love you, brother. Stay safe. Keep doing the good work. I love this concept. I'm happy that you were willing to share it with everyone and being so gracious. Appreciate you, my friend.

Thank you. Ditto.

All right, guys. Love you all a lot. Everybody take care of yourself. Take care of each other. And we got webinars on webinars over the next few days. So everybody be good. Talk to you later. Thanks, Keith.