Back to the Basics

Real Estate Marketing Dude

Business has changed and it's scary. What do you do in a downturn market? You go back to the basics, because there is still a lot of money to be made now.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The basics of marketing in this economy.
• What you're doing wrong right now.
• Why this market is so scary, but doesn't have to be.

Resource

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Transcript:

So how do you track new business? You constantly don't have to chase it. Hi, I'm Mike Cuevas to real estate marketing. And this podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust and most importantly, refer. But remember, it is not their job to remember what you do for a living. It's your job to remind them. Let's get started

what is up ladies and gentlemen, welcome another episode of the real estate marketing dude, podcast, folks, we are gonna get back to some basics today.

People are wondering what the hell do I do? What should I do in business isn't the same as it was 18 months ago, we don't know what the hell's going on anymore. And people are like, freaking out. Chill, dude, these are the best brand building opportunities to take share and territory than ever. But I understand it's very scary for a lot of people right now. Because reality is most of you have never seen a shift. None of you guys have seen a down market to the tune of about 85% of you. And if you've never seen a down market, you're probably shitting your pants right now and rightfully so. So what we're gonna be chatting about today is what do you do in a down market, this will be my second and a half one, I believe in my career. And we're gonna give you guys some very, very basic advice. But it is basic. And unfortunately, what we're chatting about today is you got to go back to the basics. One of the gurus I followed when I first started my career, I think, as Craig forte, who said, You must be brilliant at the basics. You got to be brilliant at the basics. And I think that's correct, but if not, whoever it is, thanks.

I still think about that. And it's absolutely true. The big teams out there right now and there's a lot of you guys are listening to this, you're getting your ass kicked right now that $20,000 of ad spend, you've been spending monthly? Well, the ROI isn't converting the same way it is because when there is a market shift, what you can't control are consumer habits. And that's exactly why today's episode is gonna be going back to the fucking basics. So without further ado, we have Mr. Jake Dixon on the show today, Jake runs the locker room, which is a coaching company, a really kick ass coach, coaching company, very bottom of the line guy and he's dealing with this in all markets across the country, because they have students everywhere. And I think what you're going to get today is a lot of insight on what you should be doing right now. So quit freaking out, grab your pen. Stop running on your treadmill and listen to what Jake says Jake, how you doing, dude? Doing great, Mike. Glad to be here, man. Let's rock and roll. Thanks for coming on the show here. Why don't you tell everyone a little bit about yourself? Jake's a dude.

I'd say why don't you Tom, how'd you get your why you guys have so many coaching students? Why should ever listen to you? Well, you guys been doing? Yeah, I'm gonna dudes. Dude. I'm a coach dude with the marketing dude, what a great combo here. So yeah, my quick background is I played college and professional baseball. Hence inspiration for come coming up with the locker room, a lot of symbolism, a lot of sports analogies, some of which I'm sure I'm gonna drop on you and your audience today. But we specialize in working with broker owners team leads, as well as the agents who we feel are underserved I lovingly refer to as the blue ocean, which are any agents launching their careers, their dual career, they're selling fewer than 24 homes per year. That's right Blue Ocean Strategy book. And that is that's our bread and butter. There's plenty of coaching options out there for the mega mega superstar agents and producing agents. And we can serve you as well. But our messaging and our specialization is really birthed the newer, lesser producing crowd that wants to level up. I remember when I first got into real estate, I was doing a keg stand. And then a week later walking down Michigan Avenue wearing a suit and I'm like what the fuck just happened. And I joined a company that was called home touch. They're out of business since but we had a kiosk and water tower mall right next to Fannie Mae chocolates. And if you've ever been to water tower mall, it's a tourist trap. And there's a lot of people now you might not be able to walk through there without getting mugged. But that's a different story.

And I sold my first four, six houses right off the floor. And it was we'd have listings, sitting there, right? And listings would just be sitting there. And then people would stop and be like, Oh, what's that worth just certain note the same concept as a window shopping when you walk past the real estate office in a place you've never been to before you always say hey, what does that house going for here? Right? So it was very easy to have these conversations and I was only 22. But instantly I knew the name of the game was having conversations because of that. Right? And that's so basic, and the gurus will tell us so you're one more note away from your next Yes, the way I look at content creation brand and all that as your own more view away from your next referral and our client because 10 to 15% of the people that see your shit, they're moving and 100% of them have referral for you guys. So my version of going back to basics is always go back to the basics if not everyone you know that knows of that you'd invite to your wedding or funeral with an unlimited budget doesn't know the fact that you're in real estate. That's what I mean. Go back to the basics. Now. How hard is it? I've never understood this real estate. I can't get business I can't get business. How hard is it just inlet the with Facebook II

email, social media just know the let the people 100 to 200 people that you would say hello to in the grocery store. How hard is it to remind them? You're in real estate? This isn't rocket science.

No, you're exactly right. And that's why we say here our motto at lockerroom is real estate's a contact sport, it's time to get your jersey 30. Some of you are going home every day without a speck of dirt to be shown for on that jersey. And so, to emphasize the point you're making there, you're absolutely right, right. We have something a concept here something crunchy, maybe called the five to 25 challenge. All we've done is repackage something that otherwise becomes numb and unsexy and made it sexy again, because I can beat you over the head, like every other person about lead generation and making your contacts. But we just repurposed it, calling it the five to 25 challenge. So math majors out there. Here's what that is. It's five contacts a day for five days a week, over, let's say, 50 weeks out of the year. Anybody can do that. I don't care if you're launching your new business, your dual career are you the busiest superstar mega producer out there, you can have five intentional conversations every day, no excuses. So that's 1250 Real Estate conversations over the course of the year. And I've been tracking this religiously now for seven years. And again, keep in mind my audience, but I see consistently a 2% conversion rate meaning for every 50 people I talk to, it will yield me one new piece of business. So what's 1250 Real Estate conversations times 2%? Right? You guessed it 2525 sales in a year puts you now in the top three to 5% of producers according to Nar put that on your fridge, you know? And yeah, what am I gonna talk about? I can't just call people to say, What am I gonna say, Jake? Well, that's a problem. Mike, you know this as well, as I do is I work with so many agents who say, Well, I've already talked to everybody I know. And I call bullshit because what you actually have done is you cherry, pick your database, show me your your phone contacts, and then show me all the friends and people you have on your social media. You mean to tell me you talk to every single person, highly unlikely what you've actually done is just cherry pick your database, because you're so busy on or worried about what am I supposed to say? So it's not a contact issue. It's a skill set issue, which is scripts and dialogues and having the confidence to go speak with people. I hear that all the time people like, especially with content creation, like Dude, I'm not gonna send that video. On Facebook. Everyone already knows I'm in real estate. I'm like, Oh, really? How many deals did you last year, because I break down the math for and here you guys can break down the math, if you're sitting at home too. And how many deals you do last year, they'll say 12 how many friends you have on Facebook 1000? Well, out of those 1000 Friends 100 250 of them fucking moved. But all 1000 of them had a referral for you that you failed to get. And you're telling me you only did 12 transactions over the course of your lifetime. 80% of the people who moved us the first person they met.

What are you talking about? The numbers don't add up, right? That's basics. That's basics. It's being everybody's looking for the shiny object get rich, quick pill. And the reality is, last time I checked, unless you want a robot or artificial intelligence mechanism to replace you. We just got to get back to the basics, which is what this is all about. I equate this to a former life when I used to give young kids baseball lessons, right? Again, I have a significant background in sports like, and so I would teach a 12 year old for example, the same way I taught that kid how to grip a bat or hold that baseball properly,

is literally the same thing those guys on TV are doing earning millions of dollars a year. They're the best at what they do. Okay, so So the bottom line is this. If it's true in baseball, I've got to be I've got to be led to believe it's true in the sport called Real Estate that the fundamentals don't change, the fundamentals stay the same, right? It's just that the game speeds up. So instead of that kid throwing 55 miles an hour in Little League, now they're throwing 95 miles an hour in the major leagues. But guess what, the grip and the how they hold the bat is the same. So agents the same way you close 12 homes per year is the exact same thing it takes you to close 112 homes per per year, you just need to master the fundamentals. And then notice that the game speeds up but the game and the fundamentals don't change themselves.

I gotta take a quick interruption here. Just to show how on brand Jake is and he doesn't catch us if you're not watching us on video. He's got a locker, like a gym locker behind him. And when we're talking about brand and all of this stuff not to interrupt as Carson has had to bring this up is that he's living it like he's not scared to do it. The way he's talking. He's using like all these analogies and I guarantee you that that's has a ton to do and people I feel like I get you dude, you know, but he's not not being himself at the same time. So when people are like, Hey, I don't know what to talk about. When I have these conversations. It's like what do you mean you don't know what to talk about? What do you an introvert. Like you just call someone up and say what's up? I would call up like my frat bros and be like, hey,

What's up, dude? What are you doing? And you just say, I've been talking to you I'm in the car, like realtors are in the car for like two hours a day, dude. Like just I would just call people up, like what's going on bro? And then eventually, during that conversation, you're like, so How's work going?

And then they're like, Oh, how's it going with you? I just sold the house. Oh, yeah, it's just that constant reiteration. And you never know. And then you're right. Like, what you'll find is like 10% of people, most people don't know they're moving yet to guys this year. Like, you gotta admit it. Some of these some of these people in here relate in your

relationships and your your database are going to be getting pregnant, they didn't mean to. Right, some of them are going to be like getting sick or losing their jobs, bucks, none of them are going to sell their damn companies, and they're going to want to upgrade, right? So it's just you don't know where it is. But what happens is that when somebody wants to freakin move, 80% of them hire the first person they meet with. And nobody wants to talk about real estate all day long, until they're in the market ready to buy or sell. But that doesn't mean you can't be talking

100% Man, I'm doing a class coming up. And it's called CRMs, but not what you think. And of course, I just like to have fun with people and mess with them. But so CRM is an acronym, because I get asked all the time, what's it going to take to make it through this market or, you know, survive, and whatever. So I put in an acronym CRM. So it's consistency. Number one, consistency. Number two is relationships. Number three is market knowledge. And number four, the s, of course, is skill set. If you master those things, and implement those things now, or whatever the cyclical industry is doing, you're gonna be just fine. And that's kind of what we're talking about getting back to the back to the basis, it's not necessarily the shiny technology object. Mice version of CRMs is consistency relationships, understanding the market knowledge and skill set development. Yep, go there. I think that, like, if we're, what we're really going here is like you're working on a business, you're working on your brand is what it comes down to. It's not chasing a bunch of leads, guys, like that's gonna burn you out, especially in a market like this. You know, like, I'm gonna assume that. I mean, we're about to see two more bank failures coming up. fads retarded, and they they're raising interest rates, and they're causing these bank failures that gets the writing's on the wall.

And I don't know, I don't know what's gonna happen. But there's an opportunity there, right? No one's talking about that right now on social. So like, what kind of conversations can you have on a brand? Well, I'm just gonna talk about current events.

You know what I mean? Like that, there's so many ways you can go out and do it. But the other thing you want to think about in times like these is that so many people are very quiet right now. And that's why you want to be very loud. And in a shift, that's where the opportunity is, you could take territory and territory doesn't have to be physical territories attention, guys. And the more attention you have, the more territory you're gonna get, and more people know you are then the more conversations you have, like we're talking about. And it's nice when you have these conversations, and you do them with content or you reach out one on one, whatever it is. You're building a brand at the same time. It doesn't happen overnight. Jake wasn't an all star pitchers first round were you Jake. I mean, I'd like to think I was maybe in my head, but hell no, it took a lot of work a

lot of reps. No, I love what you're saying there because it's it goes back to being human. We are human beings and stop making it weird. Like, dude, sometimes the word lead generator prospect freaks people out. I don't know, I'm just a small town, dude, from the sticks of Illinois. To me, it's going out and making friends and having real conversations. Congratulations, you lead generated because in a normal conversation, which means it's back and forth. If you ask somebody enough questions, they're bound to ask you back something like how are you or how's your business? That's when the real estate Gods open up the clouds and it's your chance not to blow it. And because you can subtly input something about real estate, like you said, here's another little little trick on words, one of our coaches, which I thought was genius, recently was targeting this the subject of like, well, what am I supposed to say, you know, I can't just call him when I need something and beat him over the head with who do you know, look at a buy, sell, invest in real estate. That's the worst. I hate that. Don't do that. Please, just stop doing that. Don't do that. That's like saying, Who wants to sleep with me today? Right.

It's a booty call.

So so check it out, though. So she said we need to start need generating and stop worrying about lead generating need and Edie if I call somebody say how are you? What can I do for you, especially in that post COVID era, all that other stuff will take care of itself? Start position yourself of being a person of value in a connector and asking how can I help? What do you need from me? And the rest of the stuff will take care of itself. So maybe some of you need to start need generating and quit worrying so much about lead generating. I love that. I got an email today from one of our clients. She's a mortgage broker, and I think she's the last mortgage broker I've left as a video client.

Because you guys all quit, because you're scared. And what happens is, is that she's crushing it. She actually reached out this morning and she's like, Hey, I have a real estate agent. And her and her husband also own a bakery, and I want to add value to her. So I'd love to feature her on like a business type interview and mend that relationship. I'm like, That's an excellent idea.

Because she's swimming upstream guys, like, you know, she's thinking in the future she's cultivating and every other lender in her market are dying, and they're sitting underneath the desk shaking,

scared and not doing anything, just worrying about what's gonna happen tomorrow. But she's being proactive, and she's taking territory. This is what I mean by that. And it's super super. It's not rocket science. It's grassroots, you know, and you're right. So you can do it from the numbers game with the database, or the five to 25 challenge. But again, to your point, just there, you know, I'm a strong advocate of forming your top 50 MVPs. I don't care if you're a brand new agent and a new market or whatever. But who are your MVP is those raving fans, those core advocates, and some of them are probably most of them are in the form of other people within the real estate industry, insurance agents, carpet cleaners, pest control companies, general contractors, on and on and on. If I have coffee or lunch with one of them a week for 50 weeks, you can't tell me that 50% of them probably are going to refer you a piece of business this year. That's 25 sales right there. Yep. Now make it a symbiotic two way relationship. It's not all of what's in it for me. But hopefully your listeners are, you know, get what I'm saying here. You approach it the right way. But you got 50 People like that in your back pocket, and even half of them deliver for you every year with one referral. Jackpot. Yep. So

besides reaching out cultivating relationships, what else can we be doing?

Why personally, I'm a big proponent of this, we need to be focusing on ourselves, how are you growing yourself? How are you protecting that thing upstairs in your brain or in your head called your brain? And so I'm a big proponent of personal growth. And that's why people are listening to your podcast. I have to assume Mike because they dig your content and it helps snap them out of the funk. Who you're surrounding yourself with what conferences what what things are you feeding yourself because right now, that sucker upstairs is very delicate, and there's so much fear so much noise that we can buy into and become a victim of or we can drown out the noise rise above it and be that agent who's standing there stronger than ever before, whenever the economy or whatever rebounds, because I suspect you feel the same way. I don't give a shit who's in the White House. I don't care what the stock market's doing today. I'm in control of things more than a lot of people care to admit, you know, and if we just stop paying attention to the crap and take control, we'll be just fine. Yeah, you got to surround yourself you're actually having an event coming up soon. I believe in Orlando. Why don't you tell them about that really quick? Yeah, go into events, get your ass out of the you got sometimes just gotta step outside your comfort zone guys. I always came back from events, implementing at least one thing, but more importantly, I got reengaged and reactivated because I was so burnt out. So I'd get the hell out of town go to an event. And then I come back and all sudden, I'm like a new man. What are you having? Yeah, as in you're right. I mean, there's tons of events going on. People are craving connection out getting out from behind these computers and zoom screens all over again. So yes, and everybody's gonna roll their eyes when I say this, but it's in Orlando in August. Oh my gosh, it's so hot. Get over it. We'll be inside. Okay, so August 10 11th. And 12 is our event in Orlando, it's called the TLR breakthrough event. You can go to TLR nation.com/breakthrough event to get all the details. We have two days for agents and two days. For broker owners and or leader leaders in general, it's going to be amazing. So yeah, we're looking forward to it. We've got about 125 spots for agents, 125 spots for brokers. We'd like to keep them small and intimate. And our events are very different from the majority, because they're very heavy on the workshop and collaboration. You're not going to just leave with pages of notes, you're going to leave with things done ready to implement when you get home. Yet, take action.

Folks, what I would be doing right now is learning how to use your damn phones and creating a whole lot of content. People are like, Oh, I can't create content. Yes, you can you have three options. One, you learn how to do it and you start doing a bunch of short form stuff. And videos, too. You hire somebody to do it for you. But that just depends if you have the budget, and then three

you do a little bit of both. There's no shortage of it. But like for those you that are short on budget, then learn the time put the time into what else you do and don't have any clients. So what else are you going to be doing right now?

Um, if you have if you're too busy then you have money because otherwise you wouldn't be busy so then reinvest that money could be in such a cheapass like, you have to focus on putting it into the business you guys, you can't be quiet right now I would I think created I saw create a lot of noise I saw an awesome probably the best ad video I've ever seen was Ryan car 32nd or 62nd real best ad I've ever seen on social at least for real estate agent targeting real estate agents. And he basically just said the same shit. Like he's like, dude, like, these markets are great double down on your brand. I never bought a lead in my life like the television show doesn't hurt. But same thing. You know what I mean? It's he's, he's on point is it's true. It's just a giant popularity contest. Yeah, you're right. I mean, we have a whole section on our event from Jeff fitzer. Some people might know Jeff, who listened to this and he's going to talk about marketing and videos specifically at our event. And it reminds me what you're just saying of Gary Vee, or depending on who you follow. There's all different opinions on this. But he says stop worrying about creating and start documenting. Right and so my buddy Josh down in Jacksonville, Florida, was notorious. He has 1000s of videos on his YouTube channel, mega mega agent 65% of his business comes legit from YouTube. And to make a long story short, one of his most popular most watched videos of all time, check this out now was he got a nasty letter from his HOA? Basically saying, dude, you got all these nasty hard water stains on your mailbox, it looks like shit, you need to you need to do something you need to paint your mailbox. So he could have just painted in mail his mailbox. But what he thought to do is repurpose that as an opportunity to talk to his neighbors, that where he lives works and plays, right? And so he flips his video camera around on his phone and says, Hey, what's up neighbors. It's your local favorite, you know, realtor, Josh here, blah, blah, blah, look, I'm getting ready to paint my mailbox, I got this letter. Here's a couple tips on how to go about painting your mailbox. So it looks like a million bucks. Like he was going to do it anyways. But it was just that I'm amongst the people. I'm a man of the community. And oh, by the way, I'm a real estate agent. You know, it was just beautiful. He's got so much business on video like that. Crazy. That has nothing to do with real estate. Like it's no, it's so we had a guy that started. He's just doing a that's a good tip. If you guys doing short form content, you have to upload it as a real please don't upload it as a regular video. So we had this guy and he was we're doing all of his editing work. And you know, he stopped talking about real estate, you start doing barbecue reviews. And in all of his videos, he's always wearing like a hat that says like, I'm a realtor or shirts that say I love real estate or something like that. So he doesn't have to say it. So he's just branding, the fact that he's in real estate, but it's very guy Ferraris. He's going around and just doing restaurant interviews. And all he's doing is eating. Right. And he's just he just he's a total dude, he looks like it. He started uploading them as reals. I mean, it shipped blew up like he's got like, every real now is like 3000 views, 4000 views, 10,000 views. And now he's become known as like this barbecue guy. On the flip side, we have an attorney I started doing content for and she's a bankruptcy attorney. And she's like, well, what can I do to stand a little bit different? She's like, 75 years old. And I'm like, what do you do on the weekends.

And I found out that she knits picture that 75 year old who knits a My Great. Well, all I want you to do on video is just start, I want you to be knitting a ball of yarn. While you're telling me about bankruptcy. It's very simple. No one's gonna care what you talk about, but they remember how you said it. So it's very simple to build attention right now, you guys, you don't have to overthink this stuff. But you have to start doing it. Because right now, there's a lack of people doing it. A lot of your competition is scared. And when you just take the earnest and start doing it, you're gonna get the noticed. That's what a shift is. Yes, it won't pay off right now. Probably take 3678 months, but I could guarantee you in 12 months from now, a year from now, you'll come back and you'd be like, Holy fuck, I was so glad I started creating that content. That's awesome, man. I've never heard anyone who hasn't like I have not heard anyone who have it. The only time it doesn't work is if people don't like you. That's nothing I can help you with. You're in the wrong damn business.

So reminds me like I don't know if you follow like Dave Portnoy or somebody who just does pizza reviews. Oh, yeah. Love. You know, all the do does is pizza review.

Best pizza review was in the South Loop. I live in the city, Chicago, and he's doing a pizza review at eighth and state and it's a pizza place I've been to many times, and there's a cardigan stolen right behind him with a cop just sitting there waiting. And it's the best pizza review ever. And he's just eaten a pizza testing. And he's just like, dude, that car just gets stolen.

Right in the middle of the city, but that was one of the it wasn't just a pizza show. Like that's why I'm talking about I remember that. But now I'd also remember he's the pizza guy. So like, you guys, be you. That's the point though. Like the end of the day. What are we doing here? I would argue or submit at least it's to win the mindshare battle. If I can win their mind. Look, I don't have to remind them every day.

Some day or every conversation what I do if I'm doing my job effectively, they'll know. But what are we going to talk about between now and then seven years or nine years from now when they have an actual real estate need to buy or sell? We better find something else to talk about and stay top of mind with each other. So whether it's pizza or barbecue or knitting or whatever, take something you naturally enjoy. Create some video content like you're saying with it, and you stay top of mind amongst the people. Yep.

Not that hard, guys. You just got to do it. Folks, we appreciate you listen to this episode. Why don't we Jake, tell them again about that event. I might be going there. might check it out. Love to have you. So yeah, man. It's Orlando, the TLR breakthrough event August 10. Through the 12th you'll find your dates accordingly on whether your agent days or the broker days, just simply go to TLR nation.com/breakthrough event we'd love to have you cool, Folks, we appreciate you listening to Episode The real estate marketing dude podcast. Folks, if you need help building your content, I want you to visit our new software we just released it's called referral suite referral suite.com That suite s wet like the blue popsicle.com and visit it if you're having trouble staying in front of the people that matter most that are responsible for the vast majority of your business. Give me one to two hours a month and I'll make sure they all know who the fuck you are. Appreciate guys listening and we'll see you guys next week. Peace. Thank you. Thank you for watching another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast. If you need help with video or finding out what your brand is, visit our website at WWW dot real estate marketing dude.com We make branding and video content creation simple and do everything for you. So if you have any additional questions, visit the site, download the training, and then schedule time to speak with a dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai