May 30, 2024 • 21 mins
Unlock the secrets to building a thriving real estate career with insights from industry veteran, Sonny Moyers, who boasts over 50 years of unparalleled experience.
This episode equips you with some tools to achieve success through personalized service and technology.
Learn the art of creating original content that stands out, and understand the importance of integrating various marketing channels to craft a comprehensive strategy.
We also discuss "The Architecture of the Real Estate Practice," a must-read new book offering a detailed business model and practical advice for aspiring and seasoned real estate professionals alike.
Don't miss this episode filled with invaluable knowledge and actionable tips!
You can find Sonny Moyers here:
Website: sonnymoyers.com
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@arep2023
Want to reach out and learn more about Digital Journey?
You can email us at kaylee@digital-journey.net or check out our website, www.digital-journey.net.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up guys?
This is Kaylee Johnson herewith Digital Journey.
If you're a person that'swanting to learn social media,
maybe that's just for youpersonally, maybe it's for your
business.
This is the right place for you.
Hello everyone, today we haveSonny Moyers on the show.
Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm glad to be here.
I look forward to our interview.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
It's going to be great.
Sonny graduated from AlbineChristian University with a
Bachelor's of Science degree inManagement and Communications
and a Master of Science degreein Psychology, emphasizing human
behavioral theory,interpersonal communication
theory, organizational designand research methods.
He obtained his Texas realestate license in 1971 and his
(00:44):
Texas real estate broker licensein 1988.
Sonny is an award-winning agentwho has achieved great success
in the real estate industry inthe Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Between 2004 and 2018, sonnywas in the top 4% of all real
estate agents nationwide,depending on the index used.
Sonny was in the top 1% of allreal estate agents in Texas for
(01:07):
numerous years.
This is so exciting to have youon here.
Thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'm excited to be here.
I hope we can give some goodinput for your, some good
content for your listeners andyour audience, and look forward
to spending some time with you.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I'm sure it's going to be great.
So go ahead and tell us alittle bit about how you got to
where you are today.
We all know that's a hugeaccomplishment in the real
estate world.
So congratulations, and tell us.
How did you get to where youare?
Have you always been interestedin real estate?
What's your journey like?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, I was listening to your intro there and
realized how old I am comparedto you and your audience.
I've been a real estate agent50 plus years.
I actually got my license whileI was in college.
Okay, what happened was I had awife and a baby that I needed
to make sure I took care of.
I was playing football atAbilene Christian on a
(01:57):
scholarship and I didn't want tolose my scholarship and I
didn't want to quit school.
I covered this in my book, but Idecided I needed to do
something to make more money.
So I accepted a job as anassistant manager of an
apartment complex and the manwho owned that complex was a
real estate agent and a realtorand he was into shopping centers
, apartments and residentialalso, and he hired me as his
(02:20):
manager and then he took me onas assistant manager and then
promoted me to manager veryquickly, and then he asked me if
I wanted to be a real estateagent in the summers and I
decided that might be betterthan working construction laying
in 105 degree heat in thesummer.
And so I became a real estateagent and that's how I got
started.
It was kind of a journey thatbegan with an accident of me
(02:43):
needing to make money and endedup being a career.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
That's amazing, and I know a lot of people that
started real estate part-time toearn some money and then they
fell in love with it and we'relike this is what I want to do.
I want to learn how to servepeople and they're normally
great with people and haveawesome social skills and that's
super exciting that you jumpedon that young.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
My educational background.
It kind of belies the idea ofbeing in real estate, because
psychology is not often thoughtof as a prerequisite of being in
real estate, Althoughcommunications is extremely
important, because I had a minorin management and a minor in
communications and then amaster's degree in psychology.
But I found that working withpeople.
(03:26):
You asked what motivated me tobe in real estate.
I think it was the differentpeople and the different
personalities and therelationships that were built in
real estate.
Many clients become very goodfriends and they often work with
me for a period of 20 years.
Wow, I've had clients that I'veworked with for 20, 25 years
(03:47):
and I have clients that I'vedone transactions both in
commercial real estate,residential real estate and
consulting with.
So I've done.
My business model was quitedifferent.
My book delves into all ofthose because it deals with
relationships and people.
It doesn't talk about contracts.
It doesn't talk about contracts.
It doesn't talk about becominga millionaire overnight.
(04:08):
It doesn't talk about how easyit is to be in real estate and
how to make money.
It talks about how to build areal estate practice over a long
period of time and sustainsuccess for a long period.
In 2015, I was lucky enough tobe nominated for the Best
Realtor in Dallas.
It was a.
Dallas Builders Association dealand three judges interviewed
(04:31):
the final three candidates and Iwon that award.
And I think I won it because ofmy approach to managing real
estate in the sense of managingthe business, the real estate
business and knowing how muchyou're involved in technology.
Technology is a huge part ofthe real estate business and
knowing how much you're involvedin technology Technology is a
huge part of the real estatebusiness.
It's a very important part ofit.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Absolutely, and a lot of people don't realize how
much technology can helprealtors, how much social media
can help and even how muchknowing a correct CRM can go
into that.
What do you think about CRMsand real estate management?
How much of an important roledo you think?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
that plays Well.
I'll give you a quick example.
Let's say that you start out inreal estate.
In the first few years youobtain maybe 30 people that are
on your what you might call yourP1 list very important people
that you're going to try tobuild relationships with over
time.
And in that list of those 30people they might have five or
(05:30):
six or 10 contacts or relativesor in their sphere of influence.
That should be important inyour marketing too.
So 30 times 10 is 300 names,and then along the way they get
added to your CRM.
So very quickly your CRM couldgrow to a thousand people.
Yes, Our CRM had over 5,000people in it when we were
(05:53):
ginning along full speed.
It was a lot of differentpeople in our group.
We had several people workingfor us, but we were the only
agents we didn't have a businessmodel where we were the primary
agents and everything we did inour business was use technology
and people to allow us to spendmore time with our clients.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
And so the approach to it was very different than
the typical real estate agentwho starts to be successful gets
overwhelmed with how muchinformation has to be managed,
and information management iseverything in real estate,
because you manage yourinformation about your
transactions but, mostimportantly, you manage
information about your clients.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And your sphere of influence and how you can reach
them.
So the way we used a CRM wasquite different, kaylee.
We used a sophisticatedmarketing approach with a
marketing mix that used a lot ofdifferent marketing methods,
one of which was social media.
A lot of other methods too, butwe used that marketing mix and
we managed that marketing mix toreach our target audience,
(06:54):
which was, first and foremost,our P1, p2, p3, and P4 clients,
but it was also to reach targetaudiences.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
To develop and grow our business to more people.
So what we used it was bycoding clients from P1 to P4 and
then looking at our marketingmix and how we were going to use
our marketing to reach thoseclients in a special way based
upon the client hierarchy.
Client hierarchy meaning P1,were the clients that we
(07:24):
expected to do the most businesswith us over time, and so they
required more contact and moreattention, particularly from the
lead agent, than the P4 client,who might or might not do
business with us in the future.
By understanding hierarchy ofclients and understanding how to
pay attention to them.
The CRM allows you to build asophisticated marketing program
(07:45):
that manages your resource sothat you don't waste time and
energy and effort on thoseclients that are not likely to
do business with you in the nearfuture.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
I love that.
I think so many people think ofa CRM more as like a Rolodex,
and there's so much morepotential.
One of the main things I use myCRM for is, for you know,
creating target audiences.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Well, let's give an example Account cycling okay,
account cycling no-transcript,and you want to contact those
people on a regular basisbecause they're P1.
They're the highest priority.
Then you have maybe 700 or 800people in your P2 group.
They're people that you knowbut you don't really know them
(08:26):
real well and they may be onvacation, they may be sleeping
right now and they need to wakeup sometime in the future and
when they wake up we want tomake sure they know that we're
there.
So we contact them in adifferent way, in a less
(08:47):
frequent way over time.
In the P3 group we might have2000 people and those are
targeted audience, people in atarget market, and we want to
reach those people in a verydifferent way and they can't be
reached in the same personal waythat the P1 people are reached,
because I don't have enoughresources to do that.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Right, and that would kind of freak them out if all
of a sudden they're like why isthis person acting like they
know me?
What is going on here?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Exactly right.
So we used account cycling tocycle accounts based upon their
contact method and how they weregoing to be reached during a
year a planned year so that wecould reach them a certain
number of times in differentways and manage our resources to
maximize the revenue potentialin our real estate practice, and
that's how we achieve thesuccess that we got.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
That's amazing People don't think about when it comes
to real estate is even onsocial media.
You have to have a targetaudience.
I have people come into theDigital Journey Group coaching
program and be like, all right,I need to be on all these
platforms and I'm like hold on,who is your target audience?
Yes, you're trying to sellhouses but depending on your
location, depending on the typeof things you sell, you still
(09:47):
have a target.
Thanks for listening to theepisode.
We're going to take a quickpause, real fast, and I have a
question for you Are youoverwhelmed and struggling with
your business's social media?
Are you putting so much?
Thank you so much for listeningto the podcast.
We're going to put a quickpause on it and I have a
(10:08):
question for you.
Are you struggling with socialmedia?
Are you overwhelmed by whatplatforms to be on, what to post
?
We talked a little bit abouthow, knowing where you should be
, I can help you.
Digital Journey is an exclusivegroup mastermind that teaches
you how to grow your socialmedia, to find where your target
(10:30):
audience is on, so that you canspend less time on social media
and increase your profits andgain new respect from clients
and grow your product in general.
You deserve that.
So if you're interested, I'dlove for you to set up a call
with me.
You can reach out atwwwdigitaljourneynet and you'll
(10:52):
be able to find me there.
If this is something you'reserious about, I want to hear
from you If you have a question.
Maybe you're still trying tofigure out where in the world
should I be for social media.
Let me help, and we're going toget back to the episode
Audience.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Social media.
I'm on LinkedIn and I have7,500 people I'm on LinkedIn
with.
Of those, probably a littleless than 5,000 of them are real
estate agents.
Why am I targeting real estateagents?
Because I want to get referrals.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And I want to sell property and, more importantly,
a significant number of thosereal estate agents are in the
Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Even though I want to getreferrals from Chicago or from
New York or from Memphis, Ireally want to focus on the
people that are here.
That's my target audience.
So when I do things on LinkedIn, I'm really trying to reach
(11:45):
those real estate agents, toconnect with them so that we can
form an ability to do businesswith each other.
Yes, help me sell my property,may help them sell their
properties, and that's how I usesocial media, particularly on
LinkedIn, in my real estatepractice.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Right, and different platforms are made for different
things, so LinkedIn is great tonetwork with other realtors.
I looked at your LinkedInprofile and I love how engaging
your posts are.
I'm used to seeing real estateposts because that's what I do
and they were catching myattention because you were using
the correct formatting.
Then, if you go over toFacebook, you might be more
(12:22):
focused on actually reachingbuyers, and so it's important to
tailor your content for eachplatform, but people don't
realize how simple that canactually be.
It doesn't have to be extremelycomplicated, but it's very
important to do.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Absolutely, and I think that brings us to a very
important topic, which is what Iwould call copycat marketing.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Now copycat marketing is run amok in the real estate
world.
Yes, An agent sees someonewho's doing something that they
think is good and they copy it.
It's not original content andthat causes them to look a lot
like other people.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
And one of the problems in real estate is, you
know, there's 1,520,000 agentsassociated with the National
Association of Realtors.
Oh my goodness, and that's acouple of years ago and there's
3 million real estate agents inthe United States.
Now think about this there's330 something million people in
the United States, and not allthose are buyers or sellers.
(13:24):
In fact, the average family isprobably about 2.6 people.
So if you take 330 somethingmillion and divide it by 2.5,
that's the number of householdsyou might reach.
Not all those households arepeople who are ready or need to
buy a real estate.
But when you have 3 millionreal estate agents, you look at
that, it's about 75 or 80 peoplefor every real estate agent.
(13:47):
Now how do you compete?
And if you make yourself looklike other real estate agents
with technology, especiallysocial media, for example, then
you start to look like other andthat makes you ubiquitous with
the world.
And when you're ubiquitous, thelogical question for a consumer
is what, how much do you charge?
They can't see a difference.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Right, that's one thing we talk about a lot.
There are structures to socialmedia posts, but you have to
make it your own.
Everything is so automatedright now and, like you said, so
many things look alike thatpeople want to get to know their
realtor.
Someone used the example of arealtor is like your hairdresser
they're hearing about the bigmoments in your life.
They're there for thoseexciting new house purchases or
(14:30):
those emotional selling things.
They want to have a connectionwith you, and so if on your
social media, you can present,you know they want to have a
connection with you.
And so if, on your social media, you can present who you are
and almost sell yourself as abrand, that's what's going to
make people want to come back toyou is by saying this is a
person that cares about me, notjust about selling houses, like
it seems like a majority of therealtors do.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Well, and a good example.
On my LinkedIn, I wrote aboutthe social butterfly and the
social butterfly had to do witha particular niche market where
it was a very social environment.
Okay, and I wrote about thesocial butterfly.
Now, how many other real estateagents wrote about a social
butterfly?
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
They did that to the tribute community in a
particular place in our area, sooriginal content is missing
today.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
People copy everything, and they copy it
because it's easy and it's cheap, but it's not effective and, as
a result, they use up theirmoney investing in things that
aren't effective and, as aresult, they run out of money
and they don't spend money onthe things that are most
effective.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
The majority of people that come through the
Digital Journey Group coachingprogram use automation, where
it's just posting the same typeof posts, and it's when we sit
down and say you can create yourown content and it doesn't have
to be complicated.
That that's when they startseeing results and say people
are reaching out to me becausethey like my personality, they
like my brand, not just becauseI posted what's the seven best
(15:56):
tips you can do to sell a house,exactly, and that's what really
makes a person stand apart.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And thousands of realtors have posted seven
things to sell your home.
Yes, you've got to come up witha unique angle, and I love
social media in that regard.
Now, when you take the CRM andyou take social media and you
take print media which I stillbelieve in, by the way,
particularly luxury magazinesand things of that nature and
when you take personal contact,and when you take association,
(16:22):
involvement, involvement in yourcommunity, being a part of a
nonprofit you create what'scalled the marketing mix.
What blend of things should Ihave in that marketing mix to
reach the target audience?
And that blend might be verydifferent for one person, one
realtor, than from another.
They're copying someone who maynot be trying to reach the same
(16:44):
target you're trying to reachand, as a result, they copy them
and push themselves and createa negative brand, not a positive
brand.
And so when you talk aboutbranding, there's too, many
people that think of brandingand try to copy people, to
create brand, and they haven'teven created their own.
I mean, if you ask a typicalrealtor, tell me three things
(17:04):
that are going to make youdifferent and make you stand out
from compared to the other1,520,000 agents that are
affiliated with NAR.
Tell me what you're going to dothose three things they can't
tell you.
Tell me what you're going to dothose three things they can't
tell you.
So I wrote my book because Iwant people to have a better
understanding of marketingtheory, the use of technology.
We went to a technology seminar, kaylee, and this seminar had
(17:27):
about 300 real estate agentsthere, OK, and those 300 real
estate agents were all there tolearn about emerging
technologies.
Now, this was 10, 15 years ago,so I'm going back a ways, but
the concept's still the same andafter a few minutes we realized
what they were doing.
They were calling us all,dinosaurs Essentially what they
(17:48):
said was you're all old, which Iwas.
You're all operating like youused to operate, which we
weren't, but they assumed thatwe were.
And they basically said you'reall going to.
You used to operate, which weweren't, but they assumed that
we were.
And they basically said you'reall going to be extinct in a few
years because the customer isnot going to need you.
Wow, and if you don't adopt newtechnologies and get on board
(18:09):
with these new technologies,you're going to become extinct
and you're going to become adead dinosaur, not a live
dinosaur.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
That's a little aggressive, but all righty.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Now, when we left that meeting I said to my wife
Judy I said you know we learneda lot today, didn't we?
She looked at me kind ofconfused, like what do you mean?
They just basically called usdinosaurs and said we better get
on board with all this newtechnology.
And what I said was look, wehave to focus on technologies
that bring us closer to ourclients, our target audience,
(18:41):
and that's the P1 and P2 group,because that's where we're going
to make the most money in theshortest amount of time and be
able to fund our business.
Yes, if we did everything theytold us to do, we would be
moving away from our clients andnot toward them, right, do?
We would be moving away fromour clients and not toward them,
right?
We want to take the technologythat we believe works, as long
(19:04):
as that technology works, tohave us be a closer relationship
with our clients, not furtheraway.
And so we went back andrecommitted ourselves to be
personal contact, to usingtechnology to reach people, but
reach people in a personal way,not in a way that is distant.
If you're not making thosecontacts out to the people they
know and building networks andbuilding connections with other
(19:24):
realtors and prospects, they'regoing to probably find a point
where their business isn't goingto grow and isn't going to
spread Definitely Well.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Thank you so much for coming on.
That was amazing valuableinformation.
Where can we find you?
What about?
You said you have a book out.
What's all about that?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
If I may, this is my book.
It's called the Architecture ofthe Real Estate Practice.
It's a hardback, it's 300 pagesand, kaylee, it's not your
typical real estate book.
It's a textbook.
Okay, it's not something youcan read in one night.
It's not something that you canread and go oh, I've got four
good nuggets out of here.
You know, it's 200 nuggets andit's how to build a real estate
(20:04):
practice.
Most important part of thatbook is a sample business model
which I actually use to build mybusiness.
Wow, and that sample businessmodel is how I did it.
Okay, the book is available onAmazon and other retailers.
It's also available on my bookwebsite at realestatebookorg.
Okay, I also am on YouTube.
(20:24):
I have probably 18 hours ofpodcast interviews like this on
YouTube.
Just look me up and find me.
And you can go to my YouTubechannel at A-R-E-P-2-0-2-3.
That's Architecture Real EstatePractice A-R-E-P-2-0-2-3.
That's Architecture, RealEstate Practice A-R-E-P-2-0-2-3.
And that's where they can findmy channel.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
That's amazing.
We'll have all of that linkeddown below, so if you're driving
doing laundry yard work, don'tworry about it, it'll all be
linked down below.
Well, sonny, thank you so muchfor coming on.
This was a pleasure.
I know I learned a lot and Iknow my listeners did as well.
So thank you for coming on,thank you so much for having me
on.
What's up guys?
This is Kaylee Johnson herewith Digital Journey.
If you're a person that'swanting to learn social media,
maybe that's just for youpersonally, maybe it's for your
business.
This is the right place for you.
Hello everyone, today we haveSonny Moyers on the show.
Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm glad to be here.
I look forward to our interview.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
It's going to be great.
Sonny graduated from AlbineChristian University with a
Bachelor's of Science degree inManagement and Communications
and a Master of Science degreein Psychology, emphasizing human
behavioral theory,interpersonal communication
theory, organizational designand research methods.
He obtained his Texas realestate license in 1971 and his
(00:44):
Texas real estate broker licensein 1988.
Sonny is an award-winning agentwho has achieved great success
in the real estate industry inthe Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Between 2004 and 2018, sonnywas in the top 4% of all real
estate agents nationwide,depending on the index used.
Sonny was in the top 1% of allreal estate agents in Texas for
(01:07):
numerous years.
This is so exciting to have youon here.
Thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'm excited to be here.
I hope we can give some goodinput for your, some good
content for your listeners andyour audience, and look forward
to spending some time with you.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I'm sure it's going to be great.
So go ahead and tell us alittle bit about how you got to
where you are today.
We all know that's a hugeaccomplishment in the real
estate world.
So congratulations, and tell us.
How did you get to where youare?
Have you always been interestedin real estate?
What's your journey like?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, I was listening to your intro there and
realized how old I am comparedto you and your audience.
I've been a real estate agent50 plus years.
I actually got my license whileI was in college.
Okay, what happened was I had awife and a baby that I needed
to make sure I took care of.
I was playing football atAbilene Christian on a
(01:57):
scholarship and I didn't want tolose my scholarship and I
didn't want to quit school.
I covered this in my book, but Idecided I needed to do
something to make more money.
So I accepted a job as anassistant manager of an
apartment complex and the manwho owned that complex was a
real estate agent and a realtorand he was into shopping centers
, apartments and residentialalso, and he hired me as his
(02:20):
manager and then he took me onas assistant manager and then
promoted me to manager veryquickly, and then he asked me if
I wanted to be a real estateagent in the summers and I
decided that might be betterthan working construction laying
in 105 degree heat in thesummer.
And so I became a real estateagent and that's how I got
started.
It was kind of a journey thatbegan with an accident of me
(02:43):
needing to make money and endedup being a career.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
That's amazing, and I know a lot of people that
started real estate part-time toearn some money and then they
fell in love with it and we'relike this is what I want to do.
I want to learn how to servepeople and they're normally
great with people and haveawesome social skills and that's
super exciting that you jumpedon that young.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
My educational background.
It kind of belies the idea ofbeing in real estate, because
psychology is not often thoughtof as a prerequisite of being in
real estate, Althoughcommunications is extremely
important, because I had a minorin management and a minor in
communications and then amaster's degree in psychology.
But I found that working withpeople.
(03:26):
You asked what motivated me tobe in real estate.
I think it was the differentpeople and the different
personalities and therelationships that were built in
real estate.
Many clients become very goodfriends and they often work with
me for a period of 20 years.
Wow, I've had clients that I'veworked with for 20, 25 years
(03:47):
and I have clients that I'vedone transactions both in
commercial real estate,residential real estate and
consulting with.
So I've done.
My business model was quitedifferent.
My book delves into all ofthose because it deals with
relationships and people.
It doesn't talk about contracts.
It doesn't talk about contracts.
It doesn't talk about becominga millionaire overnight.
(04:08):
It doesn't talk about how easyit is to be in real estate and
how to make money.
It talks about how to build areal estate practice over a long
period of time and sustainsuccess for a long period.
In 2015, I was lucky enough tobe nominated for the Best
Realtor in Dallas.
It was a.
Dallas Builders Association dealand three judges interviewed
(04:31):
the final three candidates and Iwon that award.
And I think I won it because ofmy approach to managing real
estate in the sense of managingthe business, the real estate
business and knowing how muchyou're involved in technology.
Technology is a huge part ofthe real estate business and
knowing how much you're involvedin technology Technology is a
huge part of the real estatebusiness.
It's a very important part ofit.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Absolutely, and a lot of people don't realize how
much technology can helprealtors, how much social media
can help and even how muchknowing a correct CRM can go
into that.
What do you think about CRMsand real estate management?
How much of an important roledo you think?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
that plays Well.
I'll give you a quick example.
Let's say that you start out inreal estate.
In the first few years youobtain maybe 30 people that are
on your what you might call yourP1 list very important people
that you're going to try tobuild relationships with over
time.
And in that list of those 30people they might have five or
(05:30):
six or 10 contacts or relativesor in their sphere of influence.
That should be important inyour marketing too.
So 30 times 10 is 300 names,and then along the way they get
added to your CRM.
So very quickly your CRM couldgrow to a thousand people.
Yes, Our CRM had over 5,000people in it when we were
(05:53):
ginning along full speed.
It was a lot of differentpeople in our group.
We had several people workingfor us, but we were the only
agents we didn't have a businessmodel where we were the primary
agents and everything we did inour business was use technology
and people to allow us to spendmore time with our clients.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
And so the approach to it was very different than
the typical real estate agentwho starts to be successful gets
overwhelmed with how muchinformation has to be managed,
and information management iseverything in real estate,
because you manage yourinformation about your
transactions but, mostimportantly, you manage
information about your clients.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And your sphere of influence and how you can reach
them.
So the way we used a CRM wasquite different, kaylee.
We used a sophisticatedmarketing approach with a
marketing mix that used a lot ofdifferent marketing methods,
one of which was social media.
A lot of other methods too, butwe used that marketing mix and
we managed that marketing mix toreach our target audience,
(06:54):
which was, first and foremost,our P1, p2, p3, and P4 clients,
but it was also to reach targetaudiences.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
To develop and grow our business to more people.
So what we used it was bycoding clients from P1 to P4 and
then looking at our marketingmix and how we were going to use
our marketing to reach thoseclients in a special way based
upon the client hierarchy.
Client hierarchy meaning P1,were the clients that we
(07:24):
expected to do the most businesswith us over time, and so they
required more contact and moreattention, particularly from the
lead agent, than the P4 client,who might or might not do
business with us in the future.
By understanding hierarchy ofclients and understanding how to
pay attention to them.
The CRM allows you to build asophisticated marketing program
(07:45):
that manages your resource sothat you don't waste time and
energy and effort on thoseclients that are not likely to
do business with you in the nearfuture.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
I love that.
I think so many people think ofa CRM more as like a Rolodex,
and there's so much morepotential.
One of the main things I use myCRM for is, for you know,
creating target audiences.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Well, let's give an example Account cycling okay,
account cycling no-transcript,and you want to contact those
people on a regular basisbecause they're P1.
They're the highest priority.
Then you have maybe 700 or 800people in your P2 group.
They're people that you knowbut you don't really know them
(08:26):
real well and they may be onvacation, they may be sleeping
right now and they need to wakeup sometime in the future and
when they wake up we want tomake sure they know that we're
there.
So we contact them in adifferent way, in a less
(08:47):
frequent way over time.
In the P3 group we might have2000 people and those are
targeted audience, people in atarget market, and we want to
reach those people in a verydifferent way and they can't be
reached in the same personal waythat the P1 people are reached,
because I don't have enoughresources to do that.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Right, and that would kind of freak them out if all
of a sudden they're like why isthis person acting like they
know me?
What is going on here?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Exactly right.
So we used account cycling tocycle accounts based upon their
contact method and how they weregoing to be reached during a
year a planned year so that wecould reach them a certain
number of times in differentways and manage our resources to
maximize the revenue potentialin our real estate practice, and
that's how we achieve thesuccess that we got.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
That's amazing People don't think about when it comes
to real estate is even onsocial media.
You have to have a targetaudience.
I have people come into theDigital Journey Group coaching
program and be like, all right,I need to be on all these
platforms and I'm like hold on,who is your target audience?
Yes, you're trying to sellhouses but depending on your
location, depending on the typeof things you sell, you still
(09:47):
have a target.
Thanks for listening to theepisode.
We're going to take a quickpause, real fast, and I have a
question for you Are youoverwhelmed and struggling with
your business's social media?
Are you putting so much?
Thank you so much for listeningto the podcast.
We're going to put a quickpause on it and I have a
(10:08):
question for you.
Are you struggling with socialmedia?
Are you overwhelmed by whatplatforms to be on, what to post
?
We talked a little bit abouthow, knowing where you should be
, I can help you.
Digital Journey is an exclusivegroup mastermind that teaches
you how to grow your socialmedia, to find where your target
(10:30):
audience is on, so that you canspend less time on social media
and increase your profits andgain new respect from clients
and grow your product in general.
You deserve that.
So if you're interested, I'dlove for you to set up a call
with me.
You can reach out atwwwdigitaljourneynet and you'll
(10:52):
be able to find me there.
If this is something you'reserious about, I want to hear
from you If you have a question.
Maybe you're still trying tofigure out where in the world
should I be for social media.
Let me help, and we're going toget back to the episode
Audience.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Social media.
I'm on LinkedIn and I have7,500 people I'm on LinkedIn
with.
Of those, probably a littleless than 5,000 of them are real
estate agents.
Why am I targeting real estateagents?
Because I want to get referrals.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And I want to sell property and, more importantly,
a significant number of thosereal estate agents are in the
Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Even though I want to getreferrals from Chicago or from
New York or from Memphis, Ireally want to focus on the
people that are here.
That's my target audience.
So when I do things on LinkedIn, I'm really trying to reach
(11:45):
those real estate agents, toconnect with them so that we can
form an ability to do businesswith each other.
Yes, help me sell my property,may help them sell their
properties, and that's how I usesocial media, particularly on
LinkedIn, in my real estatepractice.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Right, and different platforms are made for different
things, so LinkedIn is great tonetwork with other realtors.
I looked at your LinkedInprofile and I love how engaging
your posts are.
I'm used to seeing real estateposts because that's what I do
and they were catching myattention because you were using
the correct formatting.
Then, if you go over toFacebook, you might be more
(12:22):
focused on actually reachingbuyers, and so it's important to
tailor your content for eachplatform, but people don't
realize how simple that canactually be.
It doesn't have to be extremelycomplicated, but it's very
important to do.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Absolutely, and I think that brings us to a very
important topic, which is what Iwould call copycat marketing.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Now copycat marketing is run amok in the real estate
world.
Yes, An agent sees someonewho's doing something that they
think is good and they copy it.
It's not original content andthat causes them to look a lot
like other people.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
And one of the problems in real estate is, you
know, there's 1,520,000 agentsassociated with the National
Association of Realtors.
Oh my goodness, and that's acouple of years ago and there's
3 million real estate agents inthe United States.
Now think about this there's330 something million people in
the United States, and not allthose are buyers or sellers.
(13:24):
In fact, the average family isprobably about 2.6 people.
So if you take 330 somethingmillion and divide it by 2.5,
that's the number of householdsyou might reach.
Not all those households arepeople who are ready or need to
buy a real estate.
But when you have 3 millionreal estate agents, you look at
that, it's about 75 or 80 peoplefor every real estate agent.
(13:47):
Now how do you compete?
And if you make yourself looklike other real estate agents
with technology, especiallysocial media, for example, then
you start to look like other andthat makes you ubiquitous with
the world.
And when you're ubiquitous, thelogical question for a consumer
is what, how much do you charge?
They can't see a difference.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Right, that's one thing we talk about a lot.
There are structures to socialmedia posts, but you have to
make it your own.
Everything is so automatedright now and, like you said, so
many things look alike thatpeople want to get to know their
realtor.
Someone used the example of arealtor is like your hairdresser
they're hearing about the bigmoments in your life.
They're there for thoseexciting new house purchases or
(14:30):
those emotional selling things.
They want to have a connectionwith you, and so if on your
social media, you can present,you know they want to have a
connection with you.
And so if, on your social media, you can present who you are
and almost sell yourself as abrand, that's what's going to
make people want to come back toyou is by saying this is a
person that cares about me, notjust about selling houses, like
it seems like a majority of therealtors do.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Well, and a good example.
On my LinkedIn, I wrote aboutthe social butterfly and the
social butterfly had to do witha particular niche market where
it was a very social environment.
Okay, and I wrote about thesocial butterfly.
Now, how many other real estateagents wrote about a social
butterfly?
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
They did that to the tribute community in a
particular place in our area, sooriginal content is missing
today.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
People copy everything, and they copy it
because it's easy and it's cheap, but it's not effective and, as
a result, they use up theirmoney investing in things that
aren't effective and, as aresult, they run out of money
and they don't spend money onthe things that are most
effective.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
The majority of people that come through the
Digital Journey Group coachingprogram use automation, where
it's just posting the same typeof posts, and it's when we sit
down and say you can create yourown content and it doesn't have
to be complicated.
That that's when they startseeing results and say people
are reaching out to me becausethey like my personality, they
like my brand, not just becauseI posted what's the seven best
(15:56):
tips you can do to sell a house,exactly, and that's what really
makes a person stand apart.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And thousands of realtors have posted seven
things to sell your home.
Yes, you've got to come up witha unique angle, and I love
social media in that regard.
Now, when you take the CRM andyou take social media and you
take print media which I stillbelieve in, by the way,
particularly luxury magazinesand things of that nature and
when you take personal contact,and when you take association,
(16:22):
involvement, involvement in yourcommunity, being a part of a
nonprofit you create what'scalled the marketing mix.
What blend of things should Ihave in that marketing mix to
reach the target audience?
And that blend might be verydifferent for one person, one
realtor, than from another.
They're copying someone who maynot be trying to reach the same
(16:44):
target you're trying to reachand, as a result, they copy them
and push themselves and createa negative brand, not a positive
brand.
And so when you talk aboutbranding, there's too, many
people that think of brandingand try to copy people, to
create brand, and they haven'teven created their own.
I mean, if you ask a typicalrealtor, tell me three things
(17:04):
that are going to make youdifferent and make you stand out
from compared to the other1,520,000 agents that are
affiliated with NAR.
Tell me what you're going to dothose three things they can't
tell you.
Tell me what you're going to dothose three things they can't
tell you.
So I wrote my book because Iwant people to have a better
understanding of marketingtheory, the use of technology.
We went to a technology seminar, kaylee, and this seminar had
(17:27):
about 300 real estate agentsthere, OK, and those 300 real
estate agents were all there tolearn about emerging
technologies.
Now, this was 10, 15 years ago,so I'm going back a ways, but
the concept's still the same andafter a few minutes we realized
what they were doing.
They were calling us all,dinosaurs Essentially what they
(17:48):
said was you're all old, which Iwas.
You're all operating like youused to operate, which we
weren't, but they assumed thatwe were.
And they basically said you'reall going to.
You used to operate, which weweren't, but they assumed that
we were.
And they basically said you'reall going to be extinct in a few
years because the customer isnot going to need you.
Wow, and if you don't adopt newtechnologies and get on board
(18:09):
with these new technologies,you're going to become extinct
and you're going to become adead dinosaur, not a live
dinosaur.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
That's a little aggressive, but all righty.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Now, when we left that meeting I said to my wife
Judy I said you know we learneda lot today, didn't we?
She looked at me kind ofconfused, like what do you mean?
They just basically called usdinosaurs and said we better get
on board with all this newtechnology.
And what I said was look, wehave to focus on technologies
that bring us closer to ourclients, our target audience,
(18:41):
and that's the P1 and P2 group,because that's where we're going
to make the most money in theshortest amount of time and be
able to fund our business.
Yes, if we did everything theytold us to do, we would be
moving away from our clients andnot toward them, right, do?
We would be moving away fromour clients and not toward them,
right?
We want to take the technologythat we believe works, as long
(19:04):
as that technology works, tohave us be a closer relationship
with our clients, not furtheraway.
And so we went back andrecommitted ourselves to be
personal contact, to usingtechnology to reach people, but
reach people in a personal way,not in a way that is distant.
If you're not making thosecontacts out to the people they
know and building networks andbuilding connections with other
(19:24):
realtors and prospects, they'regoing to probably find a point
where their business isn't goingto grow and isn't going to
spread Definitely Well.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Thank you so much for coming on.
That was amazing valuableinformation.
Where can we find you?
What about?
You said you have a book out.
What's all about that?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
If I may, this is my book.
It's called the Architecture ofthe Real Estate Practice.
It's a hardback, it's 300 pagesand, kaylee, it's not your
typical real estate book.
It's a textbook.
Okay, it's not something youcan read in one night.
It's not something that you canread and go oh, I've got four
good nuggets out of here.
You know, it's 200 nuggets andit's how to build a real estate
(20:04):
practice.
Most important part of thatbook is a sample business model
which I actually use to build mybusiness.
Wow, and that sample businessmodel is how I did it.
Okay, the book is available onAmazon and other retailers.
It's also available on my bookwebsite at realestatebookorg.
Okay, I also am on YouTube.
(20:24):
I have probably 18 hours ofpodcast interviews like this on
YouTube.
Just look me up and find me.
And you can go to my YouTubechannel at A-R-E-P-2-0-2-3.
That's Architecture Real EstatePractice A-R-E-P-2-0-2-3.
That's Architecture, RealEstate Practice A-R-E-P-2-0-2-3.
And that's where they can findmy channel.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
That's amazing.
We'll have all of that linkeddown below, so if you're driving
doing laundry yard work, don'tworry about it, it'll all be
linked down below.
Well, sonny, thank you so muchfor coming on.
This was a pleasure.
I know I learned a lot and Iknow my listeners did as well.
So thank you for coming on,thank you so much for having me
on.
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