On today’s episode of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent we’re talking about Shiny Object Syndrome, you know, how you get those calls and you’re presented with these quote-unquote opportunities to get leads and grow your business. Everything from, you know, ranking on the top of Google search engines to buying leads online, to other things that people are doing, or you’re thinking you should be doing and how to know which are the ones that you should actually do, and which are the ones that you should pass on and how not to be distracted by the next shiny object that comes your way and make really confident decisions about what’s best for you in your business. Welcome to this episode of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent I’m your host Jennifer Myers listen in. As I share exactly what I did to go from not being able to sell a house for years to becoming one of the top 1% of agents in the US even opening my own brokerage full of Agents to help me serve all the clients that are coming my way I taught those Agents the same strategies I used in day two became the top producing agents. Now through this Podcast and agent Grad School dot com, I’m sharing the same modern marketing and business strategies with you. Most of which I learned from looking outside of the real estate industry, no fluff, no theory, no outdated sales techniques or paying for leads, just the exact steps to get you the real estate business. You’ve always wanted it. And the life outside your business, you’ve always wanted to let’s make it happen and dive into today’s episode. Online leads from online sources, online leads. So do you need it or do you not? The first question is, is it something that you should make consider whether or not you should get online leads? So I think this is a big one for Real a lot of real estate agents because a lot of real estate agents buy leads online. So although I personally think that buying on buying leads online is like giving you a fish. You never learn how to fish. You never learn how to build your business. You never, never learn how to get clients. And so you were constantly hooked to these expensive online leads and if you stop paying for them and then you’ll stop getting those leads. So I am always a no on this one because I would rather attract my own clients than have to pay for leads. What’s your take on this? Yeah. So my take is, you know, I get confused sometimes because they’ll send me, you know, information about, we have X amount of people just waiting to buy houses and you know, or, you know, we have X amount of people and this Top zip code and it’s open now for you to purchase. And it does look kind of shiny and bright. You’re like, Oh yeah, these people are waiting. And you know, they, you know, it’s usually packaged, marketed in a way of like, you were a Top agent, you are the nuts, you know, as such a great thing, people are looking for You, you know, like, and I do get some of that too. Like, I don’t know. I get them in text a lot now, too. Right. And then like, they are, you know, For me we’re clients. And so as much as I know, it’s a marketing tactic because I’m in sales. I still it’s a shiny object that takes me away from my daily process and interaction and focus on my clients and what I know works. Right. Like sometimes it doesn’t take me away that much, but it’s still a distraction and it still puts a kind of like question Mark, like everybody probably in their own real estate, wherever you’re listening from any part of the country, like have your groups of people that you talk to. And there’s always that like, well, you know, such and such as making blah, blah, blah, from buying these leads, you know, or like this group is like really doing great because they buy X amount of leads and then you were like, well maybe it works. Maybe I should try. No, it does work. I’m not saying online. We don’t work. I just think, do you want to build your business that way? Right? And I think that’s, What It yeah. So it’s like another shiny object, but it’s, what’s weird about it is like I am building my business in a way that I have been successful and is continuing to be successful, but I still get like I still get distracted by the shiny object because there is that lingering doubt of like, well maybe I should add this to it. Right. Like, should I add this or should I put it on the side? Or should I focus on it? Even though what I’m doing is, is giving me business and you know, that’s a thing I think we all struggle with and real estate, how much business is enough business and, and always wondering, you know, and I think we all have that a little bit of fear. Like what are all of the business thoughts? Yeah. I mean, I think online, they have are good for people who could afford them. And B maybe in the very beginning of your career, if you don’t want to go like a, on your own or you don’t wanna go with the team or something and correct me if I’m wrong, I feel like I have a flashback from like five years ago when there was a minute you did buy like zip code or something. Do you remember this? I bought, I bought a technology that was quite expensive. How’d that work out for you? And it was very expensive. And luckily I read the fine print before I bought it. So it was able to get out of it if they didn’t perform certain analytics and they did not perform those, It had to be a certain threshold that they were getting me. So I did pay six months of it though. So that was like the tough part I had to let that money go. But I think it was like $700 a month Was a very expensive for me where I was in my career. Like that wasn’t like a small amount of money and it didn’t give me the ROI that I thought it would give me. I did try it. And I did put my effort into it, but you know, I would get like, it was basically like a technology system that predicts like the next people that are going to sell. Right. That based on all these algorithms that they have of who we’ll be selling next, and then you get all of those contacts and then those people are, you know, you can start directly like marketing to, and they gave you some marketing tools and, and it was interesting to me and I really it’s kind of like, did you get any clients thought of it? No. I got people who like were really mad. Like I’m in Florida, where are you calling me? And even though it was a bit, or like I don’t live in their area anymore, or I don’t know who you are or it’s a number in Germany are just like very, not even like close to getting a human being on the phone in that. And that was the frustrating part because I was okay. I bought into it and I was ready to go, but it just wasn’t delivering anything. And you know, even they had to, at the end of the six months, I’d be like the guy who sold it to me, like, of course, he never talked to me again. I had to talk to someone else and once he sold it to me, but they did let me out of the, it was a year contract and I was like, I’m not paying this anymore. Like I can’t, you know? And so they were like, okay, the analytics aren’t there. What have you, the idea was essentially that they were able to, you know, like online, when you go shop and then it tagged you and then you see those shoes everywhere you go. It was kind of like the same idea. Like they had this like brain that was going to be able to figure out in different locations who was going to sell, who was most likely to sell based on a whole bunch of criteria they had put together. What are you, are you at the point now where you definitively? Cause I get calls and emails every single day. Do you need more leads? Do you want the zip code? And I like, don’t even respond because this is not the business that I want. I’ve never wanted that kind of business. Are you at the point now where you are saying no to that stuff? Or, and how did you get there? Yeah. So I’m at the point now where I’m deleting texts. And I also learned a really interesting trick for anyone who doesn’t know that this trick. So when someone sends you a text, that’s soliciting you for something or it could be anything else, like, do you want these leads? And if you reply, no, they like automatically have more of your information or something like that. Like you’re not, you’re just supposed to delete it essentially. So I silly me had been trying to be a nice person in this digital age and go, no thank you for like a phone number, but apparently, you’re not supposed to do that. Yeah. You don’t respond. Just ignore it, delete it. And so I guess for those listening, like how did you go from being suckered into paying for six months at $700 a month to confidently at this point, not falling for any of that are not, not feeling like you need it because it does serve a purpose. Like, let me be clear. The online leads and here’s the zip code and all that stuff. It does work. I’m not debating. Now the question is, do you need it for your business? And do you want to spend the mental time and energy deciding whether it’s something that you want to do? And you were at the point where it’s a firm? No. How did you get there? And with confidence to now say, no, this is not how I want to do to deal with my business. No, because I, you know, I have a process and a plan in place for client retention and for sales retention. And so I don’t need those kinds of leads or those kinds of like, I don’t know what you want to call them. Like boost, your chairs or jumping-off points are like places to build your business. And it wasn’t really of interest to me, to begin with. I did it because I thought this could be a great way to grow my business, but I really prefer one-on-one transactions with people and building things more slowly than a vast database of strangers. That’s just my personal, the way I like to work. So I have a process in place that works for buyers and it works for sellers and I’m continuing to get referrals. And I, I liked to say that I don’t know. I, I, you know, I run my business pretty lean. You know, I like to say lean as far as like, I think you don’t have to do that. If you have systems in place, if you’re, if you’re able to be really client-centric and client-focused and to an inch of your life, you know, of like really being detailed, I think that you don’t necessarily have to have to pay for those leads. ’cause once you start doing it over and over and over those leads are just naturally coming to me to the point of wait. Sometimes I can’t take the business that I have a really key to say, no, I definitely don’t want these leads because I have almost more than I can handle at different points throughout the year. Right. It’s putting in a place that system, right? As we talked about Nu to grad school at before system and in the initial consultation system, during system and after system. So that what happens is automatically you have people coming to you and referring people without you having to pick up the phone or heart people are asked for business. It happens naturally when you have a system. That is what’s crucial. Now, I just sold my it’s slow to a client’s house and unspin it’s to those clients. Their neighbors were moving and I did a great job on it. So they said, who sold your house. And they said, Amy, and they called me and said, can you sell my house? So, you know, like, yeah. No, I didn’t go find him. He found me. Exactly. So yeah, exactly. That’s what we want. We want to create a business where you have people coming to you, instead of you reaching out to people one of 10 people who called this lead that filled out some form on some website, you know, and then As now being hounded by Agents to do something, it’s just a totally different dynamic. And so really when you’re thinking about building a business and building and using online lead, the question is, how do you want that kind of business? It’s a totally different business to a transactional business instead of a relational business. It’s the choice. It’s not better or worse. I know many real estate agents. I know you do to Amy that kill it with these online leads and are top producers in our marketplace. So it’s true. And they work. It’s just a different approach to business. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that goes back to like know thyself, right. But then have a process like no, that what doesn’t feel comfortable for you or doesn’t feel like something that you want to do. It’s not that you are not open to it, but like, you know, the more you can like learn about like, I like relational relate. I like relational clients, not transactional, you know, that’s just me, but there are lots of Agents like we said, who are killing it, doing it the other way. So it’s really about knowing yourself and knowing, and then on top of that, having like a process in place where the clients are coming to you, then you get to make whatever choices you want to make. And you’re not hostage to one way or the other, you know? Yeah. For me online leads were always like, I feel like I like tried them once or somehow somebody gave me one or maybe like I forget, but I like, I feel like I was really bad at trying to like, my personality is not like, I don’t know what the right word is. Good enough for me to like get in front of, you have to get in front of a stranger and like convince them to work with me. Like that doesn’t work for me. I’m slow and steady. Like, whereas some of my friends who do online leads, have big personalities and their fun to be around the minute you meet them, you want to spend more time with them. I feel like you said, it’s like a PR it’s like a witch kind of a person, are you? And I just never could sell myself in one interaction. One phone, call that a minute where people were willing to listen to me. You know, when I opened the door or something, I just couldn’t do it. So for me, it was just like, I literally couldn’t do it, which is why I’m like, never going to try it again. Okay. Let’s move on to the next shiny object that we all get calls on. Which one do you want to do that you want me to pick? Yeah. Yeah. So in the other one is, well, it’s not calls, but for me, it’s social media distraction. Okay. Let’s talk about that. What are you? Yeah. Which isn’t always like a ton of money, but it’s definitely a lot of your time. So, you know, when I was first starting and even now, you know, in the business like Instagram, Twitter, I think I told you that when I, I remember when I was like a couple of years into two, the business and I go, yeah, I have a Twitter account. And you’re like, what do you do with Is? Like, I mean, I I’d post things like What things. And now, you know, I was like, like open houses and stuff like that, but I, you know, and you’re like, but what are you doing with it? Like, what’s its purpose. And I’m like, well, I don’t know. I just supposed to have one. So, and you were like reading to get rid of that. And I still didn’t get rid of it for like a year. Cause I was like, I don’t think there’s all this pressure. You know, again, there’s these circles and colleagues and people talking, well, everyone had, and you have to have the little Twitter, like What icon or like you’re somehow not a good agent. None of this is relevant. But at the time I felt this peer pressure and, or however you want to call it right. To like to get to that, to that Shiny Object, or like Instagram, which is just like a visually beautiful platform, I guess. I mean, but who am I teaching? You were like, what? Who are you talking to? I’m like my mom, my brother, like you guys, like, I really wasn’t using it as a business tool, but I thought I was, I mean, I really thought it was. Yeah. Well, I feel like you open like a couple of things here. Number one. And I don’t know why this is in the real estate industry, the real estate industry. I think above all other industries, what we know what the real estate agents tend to do. And I, I really wish I understood why look around at what everybody else is doing and think like, I should do that to right. And so you look around and you’re like, everybody, all the real estate agents are on Instagram or on Twitter. So I’m supposed to do it too, but there’s no discussion or thought of like, what’s the actual strategy here? Like, wait, like you said, the social media is a tool, but a tool needs a strategy in order to grow your business. So for example, like I have, I talk to real estate agents every single day from around the country and they all tell me like, Oh, I’m being told to post on Facebook. And I’m like, what’s the plan? Right? Like, like what’s the plan with Facebook? What are you posting? What’s your cadence? What’s your strategy? Who are you talking to? Who’s your audience? What do they care about? And none of that. So I think what’s really important to know is social media may or may not work. The question is what value are you providing people in your post? You can’t just post, you have to provide some kind of value For me. I felt peer pressured. Like, and again, this could just be me, but it’s like, okay, XYZ Agents are posting this. So I’m just going to like throw out my pictures of the listing, sir. Here’s a picture of me shaking hands with a client again, what is, what is the purpose of this? I don’t know, but like other people are shaking hands with their clients. So I got to do the same, you know, and like, wait, and then, you know, and I, and you very smartly pointed out to me several times, like, okay, well what, what are you trying to do with that? Like, you’re shaking hands with a client at settlement. Like, where’s that going? What is that? You know, if that’s just right, like what is the purpose of that picture? And, and in that tool, you know, and I’m like, well, I don’t know, like someone went to a settlement, like, okay. All right. Yeah. I think specifically we talked about posting, about the settlement with, you know, people holding the hand, like the science is sold or, you know, I always, I always see those when I scroll through real estate agents, Instagram, and I think the difference is like, okay, you, you were telling people that you were successful, that you sold the house, but what really people care about is what can you do for them? How can you help them? And I think that’s the thing. Like if you want to post about a house that you sold, I think that’s great, but tell it in a way, post it in a way that tells a story about you, how you helped your client accomplish their goal, or make their dream come true or something along those lines that then says more than I sold a house or I’m successful, or look at me it’s how am I providing value? Or what can somebody get out of this that isn’t ready to buy a house, maybe right now you can, how can you inspire them? So I think that’s really important to think about when it comes to social media. What else? Anything else on social media? Yeah. And the same thing with, you know, I’ve heard of a lot of people doing really well again on like Facebook ads. Facebook has such an enormous audience and you can tailor it down and all of that. And you know, the thing about Facebook ads is that they’re not Uber X, you know, you get to set the budget, right. You can set the budget for $30 or $20 or $50 or a million-dollar, whatever you want to do. And so I’ve gone down that hole before To and not in a bad way, because it’s kind of like gambling. You were like, all right, 30 bucks, let’s see what happens. That’s kind of how I feel about it. Like, you know, I’m going to like, go gamble. Let’s see what happens. I’ll put 30 bucks on the table, you know? And I, you know, and then it gives you like a little analytics about like XYZ. People are looking at this, but I’ve never gotten the client out of it. Now I will up the budget a little bit sometimes, you know, I’ll try like different things to feature different like vice sold a house or, or the house itself or something like that. And you know, I’ve never gotten a lead off of it, but I’ve heard that there are many people that are literally built their business off of like Facebook. Yeah. Yeah. And what about the strategy behind the ad? There’s a few. So it’s who are you talking to? Like, well, we talk about all the time and age, the crowd. School right. Who, who are you talking to? How do you help them? Why do you help them? What do you do? And if you can have a strategy around that, and then the second most important thing is what happens after they click and having a follow-up funnel, then the Facebook ads work. Right? No, I think that’s the stuff that I forgot. That’s so valuable. And that’s why it’s like, obviously important to talk to you. Like, and I think a lot of people think like, well, the action itself will get me the business, like putting the picture up there or like, my name is up there. I think we all, I think I, for sure To we all live in our microscopic little world. Like I’m because it’s somewhere that anyone can access it. Everyone must be seeing it. You know what I mean? And it must have value too, like some people. And I think the truth of the matter is very few people see a lot of the things that are posted. Yeah. And I think there’s a lot of statistics that I don’t have them in front of me, but there’s a lot of statistics about like the percentage of people. Like if you post something, so the post is different than an ad. And this goes for Instagram or Facebook, right. When we post something, we’re talking to people that we already know, we’re not talking to people we don’t know. Right. I always say, I need you to grad school. Like you could only market yourself. You could only talk to To groups of people, people that, you know, people you don’t know. So when you do a post on Instagram or Facebook, you’re only talking to people, you know, which is great. Right. But then you have to again, say like, what do we want these people I know to get out of this? Right? So there’s a very strategic approach that you need to make when it comes to Instagram, the approach is who, who are you? What do you stand for? What is your belief about real estate, right? And your Instagram and your Facebook posts, support that. So that people understand, right? We always say, show don’t show. Don’t tell you’re showing people how you’re different. And you’re answering that question. Why should they choose you? Right. But you’re doing it in a much subtle visual, kind of a consistent way. That’s another thing. If you’re going to post be consistent about it once a day, at least your ads on the other hand are a way that you reach typically people you don’t know. And now there’s an ad strategy, which I love and use, which is if somebody’s been to your website, you can follow them on Facebook and then they see you everywhere and that kind of stuff. So technically you can talk to people, you know, with Facebook ads, but you need to realize that most of the point of doing Facebook ads is to open up your audience to people you don’t already talk to. Right. All right. You don’t already know and trust you. And so what’s that strategy that you’re going to use to not only get their attention once, but keep it long enough for them to take action or feel like they know, you know? Yeah. And I think those are all the points that unfortunately I learned after the fact, right. I got learned in by the shiny Object and I had to go through it. And then, and you know, and I’m not saying social media, I there’s a lot of things I like about it. I haven’t like closed the door on it, as far as using it and my business forever. I just don’t use it in a consistent way. Like you’re saying, which is why I don’t get consistent results. And, and in a strategic way, you know, looking back at the beginning of my career, that’s where I feel like, you know, I was like, well, I just have to do these things, but there was no, there was no strategy around them, you know? Oh, sorry, go ahead. Yeah. And I think like, that’s what that’s like, what we’re talking about this doing it, because everybody does this, like getting swayed by that Shiny Object like I had to look back and say like, was that, that time valuable? Not really. Yeah. You know, I’d say social media is something you add at some point it’s not the thing you necessarily start with. And there have been many, many, a business, real estate and non-real estate, related that have grown on Instagram. I’m not saying it doesn’t work. I’m just saying what’s the strategy. I think about it from a strategic standpoint yet. And until you have a strategy, that’s a waste of time. Yeah, exactly. And I, and I think that that’s the way they say the cart before the horse. I think I was always like buy the lead and, you know, without any kind of thought about how and why and what its intention is, or just even posting, you know, it’s so easy to post things, but like, and if it’s for friends and family, like, you don’t need to put thought into it, but for business, that’s a different proposition because what you don’t want to do to do is just post stuff without a strategy. And then, you know, I think that’s just as bad. I mean, nobody’s looking at it, but then you’re just wasting time. And really It’s genuinely for your personal affairs. Like that’s a different comp, that’s not the conversation we’re having. Right. We were having like, are you posting from a business standpoint? And I’m not talking about posting on your business page, I’m talking like, how are you thinking that you are spending time on social media? Whether it be Facebook, Tik, Tok, wherever Instagram, and thinking that you’re going to get clients From that. And then YouTube, you know? Yeah. YouTube to you. You need a strategy. Yeah. Okay. Anything else on Social media? I want to add before we go to the next shiny object that distracts us from doing what we should be doing, getting clients. So, okay. What’s that? Oh, It’s a good one yesterday. I feel like it was yesterday that I got an email that was, do we, do you, do you want us to get you on the top of Google search engines? Do you want us, you know, essentially like ranking the Top on a search engine or S E O that’s a big one. I feel like so many real estate agents get caught up in the SEO top of the search engine conversation. What are your thoughts on the fund? Yes. So same thing. And there’s a way for me. Yeah. The same thing, right? It’s SEO. It’s like technology, you know, it’s technology that Agents usually aren’t, It people first. So when, again, marketing people come to me and they say, well, don’t you want your name to be the very first one that people find Google Capitol Hill. Yes, of course I do. You know, and, but what’s behind that is a whole lot of like work that like a 90% would have to do time energy. And that costs a lot of money, you know, but that’s not really what I usually am told upfront. It’s just like, we can’t, you know, you know, they’ll say things like, you gotta work at it though. You know, you got to keep like writing new content and then you’re in the Google algorithm. We’ll get you hire and like all of these things. And, but they don’t tell you, you tell me how much money I’m going to have to spend, you know? And, and for me, it’s like, again, I had to think about my business, do a lot. And I said to myself, there’s a lot in my business, come from strangers or online, or from advertising, you know, traditional like paid media, like, is that where my business is coming from? And my answer was no, you know, my business wasn’t coming. So it was, it was critical for me because I felt this pressure to do it. Like, almost like don’t you want to be in Top on Top. Well, yes. That’s of course. Right. And if someone Googles my name, I want them to see me in these areas. But how many people are randomly Googling me? You know? Or like, if I have a website, if I have other resources that people go to, when they’re referred to me, do I need to add this onto my layer of marketing? Is it worth that correct? Like, yeah. The, the FTO game is a losing battle unless you have literally a billion dollars to spend. Right? So do not, if you hear me loud and clear, do not try to show up on the top search of Google. It will cost you thousands and thousands and thousands, and maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars to get that consistently enough that you can rely on it from a business standpoint, there are the same thing with like SEO. Don’t pay people to try to like bumped you up in SEO. There are so many organic strategies that are free. That work actually better because Google knows the ones who pay for it and the ones who don’t and who aren’t getting searched organically. And Google prefers to show results that are Google, that are organic. So, perfect example, if you literally Google and Oh my God, this was funny. Last night I was searching for a, a, a tenant, a landlord attorney because I have tenants that don’t pay me rent. So I’m getting an attorney as a problem right there. So I Google Washington, DC landlord attorney. And guess what? On a second, this is the second page. The second page was my own article about being a landlord. Indeed. That’s weird. That was not my target audience, right? Like I wasn’t trying, but, and then another time I was randomly searching for our clients and I, and I was looking for, you know, the steps of becoming a landlord in DC. And I was hoping that what was going to come up was the DC government website of like, here’s the steps, right? That’s what I’m Googling for. So number one thing that came up was if you Google, you know how to be a landlord in DC, my article at dwell is the first thing that comes up. So the very first article higher than The the DC government owned a page about that topic, Something that you wrote for. So it was your time. That was all. And that was invested. That’s all, It, I’ve never paid a dollar. I’m not saying that, like, if you Google, you know, D C H street realtors, I’m the first thing that is going to show up. But to your point, that’s not how I plan on getting my business. I get my business from being relational, but every single day, I mean, you see the leads coming in, Amy, every single day we’d get leads from the internet. And I’m like, I don’t know how they sell out a form on our website and we get a lead and it’s because of content marketing and because organic searches, so I haven’t paid Google or anybody, a dollar to show up, but somehow people are not somehow I know exactly how people are finding us online. It’s through the organic and there’s a strategy they’re through the cracks, The writing. Yeah. Because you bet you were very targeted about who your trying to target. Yeah, exactly. And so those people find us online, Consistent across the website and over and over and over. And there’s a lot of content for that. So, yeah. Yeah. So there’s a whole content marketing strategy that actually beats it’s number one free. It just takes some time, but it beats the goop. My point is, is that it eats the Google ads stuff because Google prefers organic searches. Okay. So you do that. You don’t okay. Lots of, lots of, lots of money, because it takes lots of, lots of, lots of money and you still might not get the results that you want. And I think the question for me was, you know, is this going to grow my business? And the answer is maybe after millions of dollars, you know, that you don’t have, so the answer was no, right. It does get the ROI was, was very Whoa to almost non-existent unless I do it, you know, like you said, organically and through content and to that, then I could, I could more easily let that one go. Some of the other Shiny apps. Yeah. But it’s still a learning cause right. You still want to be on it. Like it’s like, they ask you a question that you can’t say no to do you want to be on there on the top of search when somebody, blah, blah, blah. Real Estate do you want to be on the top? It’s like, yeah, of course I do. You were like, yeah, sure. And then they go, well, we do all of these things and we need to put these meta-tags on or whatever. And then, you know, we have to keep working in the content, which is AKA for spend more money. Right. You know, for me, it was like, I don’t want to attract, like, you know, I built a business that is relational. Right. And so for me, I’m like, okay, I’ll take people in the internet, but I’m not going to like, invest my money in finding strangers on the internet. You know what you mean? Like if it happens organically and I know how to do that, and that’s what I teach, you know, the students that I need to grad school is the content marketing and like organically show up in searches. That’s one thing, but I’m going to pay for that. Right. A wholly different clientele. So there’s the, you know, the shiny objects, you know, I think of them are to see them as like trends, things that people are talking about, things that you, you know, you want to be in the know about. And, and that’s that kind of peer pressure, well, such and such. Did you see their videos on YouTube look really good? And the thing is like, maybe they are really great and maybe YouTube is really great for that person or what have you. But I think the central question I have to always come back to is What It who am I trying to talk to you? Like you said, what is my stress? And then what is my strategy? You know, where am I going to find these people like in, how do I do and how do I talk to them? You know, my 20-year-old nephew is on YouTube all the time. I’m not trying to sell him a house. No. So, you know, and I’d be interested in putting a video together for me personally. That’s not something I’m interested in doing, you know, but it’s still something that I’ve taken my eye off, like and thought, well, like these people are doing these things and maybe this is a good strategy for my business. And, but it’s not, it’s really just kind of like a tool I could use, but Can we actually talk about videos for a second? Cause I feel like that’s a big one. I get a lot, Agents talking about videos because they are told they should be on YouTube. So I want to give you two examples of videos. One is awesome and a perfect way of having a strategy. And the other is like, really think twice about the strategy. And the first is neighborhood videos. That’s something I see on so many real estate agent websites, Is neighborhood videos. And the question you have to ask yourself is, does having a neighborhood video make sense for the clients that you’re trying to? I think Amy and I, I mean, we talked about this yesterday, right? A neighborhood video. Isn’t going to help people who already live in the neighborhood. They want to buy, right? Like, unless you’re talking to an audience that is relocating or doesn’t know which neighborhoods to choose because they don’t live anywhere in the neighborhood, right. There’s no need to spend money or time doing neighborhood videos about the different neighborhoods, in a sense, a certain area and less you attract you are attracting clients. We’re moving from out of the area to get to the area of service. Right. That is the only reason to have those videos. Otherwise, they’re useless if people like most of the people that you and I serve, Amy are people who live in the neighborhood and they wanna buy in that neighborhood. Right. I talked to a potential student Jess yesterday and she asked about video and I said, well, tell me about your strategy. Tell me about like what you’re doing with video. And I was like, you are so brilliant. This is so good. She is doing these hilarious. She has like a really funny personality. And she’s doing these hilarious videos that she’s posting to people. She knows. So she’s posting it to Facebook. And she’s like doing these kind of satires on like what not to do to sell your house, for example. And she’s just like, you know, don’t have your trash cans out. Don’t have, you know, your sprinkler on when people are like, it’s a brilliant, right. And that’s a great example of like she’s choosing to entertain her audience and people, she knows. So obviously if you entertain people, they will be more likely to think of you when somebody needs to buy yourself. How do you see how there’s two different totally strategies, same tool, video, two totally different strategies that one work. And one only works if you are talking to the right people. Right. And then how many neighborhood guides have we seen, whether it’s real estate or like the County that you live in or the city that you live in or like, you know, and the thing is To with the neighborhood guides. That is, it’s such a, I think like such a failure on the part of the real estate industry is, you know, I have clients who have different neighborhoods in mind and when I meet with them and talk with them, there’s a lot of reasons they pick that neighborhood that have nothing to do with neighborhood guides. Like I have a lot of people who bike all over, right. And they bike to work and they like have certain routes. They take all the time. They don’t really care about the coffee shop. They care about the bike route. You know what I mean? Like these neighborhood guys are necessarily going to like, it’s like a cat, it’s a nice little catch all, but it’s not. That’s why our business is hands-on and very relational because really people there’s not like one size fits all. Like I want to live in X neighborhood. Therefore I like these things. No, I have a lot of people who don’t have a ride bikes or you live in the same neighborhood as people who do you know what I mean? Like what’s important. And, and so it just feels like it’s such a waste of content to put it, to put it for, I see a lot of websites where it’s like front and center. And I just wonder why. Well, unless it’s a area that a lot of people are relocating. I think it’s a valid, I think the bike route one, I think is a great example. Like if you’re a real estate agent and you are big on biking, you’re going to attract people to you, clients, to you that are bikers, bike, sharing, bike routes from different neighborhoods that actually would work. Yeah. That actually works to attract the clientele that you want to attract. Yeah. Yeah. So that is a good way to like break in and also to, yeah, because I mean, there are so many bike routes and so many bikers here that like have this whole network of like how they around and all the trails and the different things that they do. And yeah. But yeah, but like you were mostly neighborhood site guide is going to be like a coffee shop, dining entertainment, you know, a lot of clients we’re going to be like, yeah, I just need to know, like it was close to the such-and-such trail or this, this route. Right. So anyway, to be strategic with a video and be whether or not your audience needs a neighborhood guide. And if they do what aspect of the neighborhood guide that would be most appealing to your clients? Like, so again, maybe the, one of the reasons that we get a lot of bikers is like, at least me, I got a lot of bikers because there are a lot of first-time home buyers who want to bike to work versus, you know, I had to drop my kids off at the daycare and I need a car or this or that, like a different audience, different strategy. Right. And just make sure that whatever you’re doing in your marketing is geared and strategic too, who you are trying to attract. That’s it? That’s all we’re saying. Right. I agree. You want to do one more? I feel like we have one more. Oh yeah. Do you want to talk about all the times that certain magazines call us for advertising? Oh yeah. That’s true too. I forgot about that one. Yeah. And that tends to be like quite expensive for a one shot deal in my view. And so far, in my opinion, and again, I’m not speaking from anything, but my experience and where I am and I have done, like, there’s a, there’s like one magazine that always has like the Top realtors that I, that I do think has some, some value to just be a part of that magazine. I have gotten two clients out of it, one very successful and one not, it paid for itself. The ad in that situation on a one year that I did it one year, I didn’t get anybody. And then I’ve had, but you know, the, I think that the bigger you got in the bigger your numbers get, like you started getting more advertising solicitations, right? Do you want to be in touch and such mag in the fall magazine for this particular neighborhood or that particular thing. And again, they’re pretty magazines and they have all of these demographics about all of the people who, the incomes of the people who, you know, read their magazines and the reach of the people that are going and all of this stuff. But it’s a one-shot deal. I mean, yeah. A magazine sit around for a few months, but it’s, I don’t know. I don’t know what your thoughts are on. So here’s how I use magazine advertising. One is the first thing that I think about is does this is going to put me in a position that my ideal clients are going to be reading it. So for example, there’s a lot of luxury magazines where we’re from. Cause there’s a lot of really rich people where we were from and where I’m from. And I specialize in first-time home buyers. And so every single time that I get a solicitation from a particular magazine that it’s geared towards buyers, I kindly say to them, Hey, thanks for reaching out to me. I’m honored that I’m on whatever list the luxury magazine just doesn’t fit my clientele, which was the first time home buyers. So those are easy nos for me. But the other way, again, advertising is a tool. The question is, what’s your strategy. So for me, I do. And there’s a particular magazine. That’s important to be in for various reasons. And I do pay for an ad for that one, because I want to be able to say, you may have seen me in this popular magazine or I use the fact that I won an award from that magazine, which I know that advertising dollars sometimes equals awards like right. And those, those two things aren’t totally separate It. And so where I think that I can use it in my marketing in the future is where I will spend my money. So for me, it’s not necessarily about, Oh, I’m going to have a big ad in this magazine. Cause they think are going to get a ton of clients. It’s, I’m going to have an ad in this magazine because I can use it in my marketing forever to prove that like I’m around that I’m successful that you’ve seen me in this magazine. Right. So that’s how I use magazines. But again, I only choose the ones that would speak to my ideal audience. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s, you know, I think, again, it’s about the strategy of, like you said, of like you were trying to talk to where it makes sense and that’s the, and that makes a lot of sense too, that it, you know, it gives you more of a validity, more strength behind you, but you know, like I said, I’ve, I’ve done it, I’ve done it. And I’ve one time paid for the ad. And one time I didn’t pay for the ad, you know? So I guess I’m like, I don’t know, I’m even, but sometimes, you know, I’ll get solicitations and I’ll say, Oh, well what does it include? And you know, it’d be like $4,000 or something and you know, Oh, we’ll give you a photography session and you know, a full page or whatever. And I’m like $4,000 is a lotta money. You know? I mean, if I, if I got a big client out of it, but that’s a big if right. Like especially a magazine where I’m not like, it’s not, you know, I’m not, it’s not necessary for my marketing. It would just be nice to be in. Right. Yeah. And to be careful to me the ego stuff. Right, Exactly. I was going to say, for me, that would be a no. Yeah, it has, for me, it’s all like, how can I use this to track the clients that I want to attract and talk to the people I want to talk to, you know, versus thinking like, Oh, I’m so excited. I’m like in this magazine and there’s, there’s a difference. Right? Well, Amy, I mean, we could go on and on about the shiny objects that us realtors get distracted by, or try to get sold. But I think this, hopefully, it was a good kind of eye-opening conversation for real estate agents about how to decide whether or not the next big thing are the popular thing that everybody seems to be doing are the calls that you get, how to approach, how to decide whether they’re the right for you. But like we said, all along this conversation, every one of these things is a tool and they work. If you have a strategy behind them and if they are going to, if you’re going to use them to attract the kinds of clients and build the kind of business that you want to just think about that as you are deciding what to do. And then once you decide like, no, I mean, I don’t know if you want me, but I feel so good every time I get those calls and they’re like, don’t you want more clients? And I’m like, no, I’m good. But yeah, it does feel good. One thing I forgot to mention is really, and I think one thing I forgot to mention is that another reason I think the shiny objects are like very attractive and why they’re called Shiny objects is ’cause in the immediate, it seems like a lot easier to do. Right. Then the good work have like a meeting. One-on-one the client who you might not get there. Like, you know, the following a process where, you know, your client might fall through. It’s like, it’s like the promise. That’s why I feel like it’s kind of like gambling, right? It’s like that promise of what could be. And it’s so much easier than it seems in the moment easier, but it’s not, it’s a lot of money, but in the moment, you know, it feels good. It seems good. It’s surrounded by what you are. And I think like for me, that’s like sometimes, and I think a lot of people that can be like, I call it a con, it can be a shortcut some ways, but like, again, if it’s part of your strategy, I think like you keep talking about like that As then that’s perfectly great. And you use any of these tools if it’s like, and I can kind of feel in my gut, like if this is kind of like, I think I’m trying to, you know, if this feels like a shortcut or like way to get clients, but like, somehow it’s weird. Like if I spend a lot of money, then I’ll be more successful. I mean, I know that not to be true, but it’s, there are still, I still have to battle that inside myself, sometimes that it’s not about how much advertising dollars I’m spending. Right. Or how many videos I create. That’s not where my value proposition is, but I do get distracted. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s okay to get distracted, but hopefully I think you’re, I think now at the point you were conditioned to say, does this meet, does it meet my eye? Am I going to meet my ideal client? Here is the type of business I want to build. And you know, ultimately I think knowing you and me, you don’t take a lot of shortcuts. So I would, but I think the difference is like, I always say like, do you want to fish? Or do you want literally to be handed fish? Or do you want to learn how to fish so that you can build your business and rely on yourself to get your clients? That’s, that’s really the difference here. And on top of that, like what’s the strategy with the tools that you’re going to use. Did you want to add one of the other, like, it’s just a matter of like understanding who you are, what kind of clients you want to help or who you’re trying to attract and how you want to attract them and making sure that you went to the question, you know, why should somebody choose you among all other options? And no option is all at all. As you say, right? Or what do you not to buy herself? That’s an option too. People choose. Yeah. So all of these tools can be used or all of these To tools can be money wasted. It’s just a matter of the strategy. And so essentially that’s what we teach you, how to do at Asian Grad school. We teach you how to use certain tools in your business and have a strategy that actually works. You know, if you’re interested in learning that kind of business, then check out Agent grad school.com and join our wait list. So that you’ll be notified when our enrollment opens up again. And we can have these kinds of conversations that Amy and I just had every week. Yeah. I mean, and we’d love to hear so much like the flip side, you know, I’d love to hear someone who maybe had, did something different, like did a Facebook ads and God, you know, and what happened with that, that might’ve been different than my experience, you know, or social media and things like that in a way it’s like curious, even though I feel comfortable and good in, in my decision making, through the process of does it fit my strategy, but I always love to hear what people are doing. It’s one of the best parts of this business, you know, there’s no one way. That’s what I know. And that’s what’s, so that’s such the opportunity. And that’s the one thing I love about our weekly calls with our students is it’s so fun to see how everybody’s taking the same information and using it and spinning it in their own kind of unique way. And then one person will get an idea and then it just builds and builds and builds. So being in a community of people, we were kind of like-minded and helping each other and say like, here’s what worked for me. And here’s what didn’t work for me. And yeah, it’s just, you know, Hey, have you thought of this, everybody giving each other kind of ideas. So yeah. I agree with you, Amy. It’s fun to hear what everybody else is doing inside of the community. So thanks for being here. Thanks for sharing all your Shiny Object moments. And I’m glad you were at a point where you kind of feel confident in your answers and you really know how to make the choice, you know, and that’s what it’s about how to make the choice about what you’re going to do and what you’re not going to do. Yeah. It’s a lot about the place and not have that constant doubt, you know, and I think you’ve laid it out really well. The questions to ask yourself, cause that, you know, the opportunities as they call them are not going to stop coming, knocking on our door as the years go on. And as we continue to work, you know, there are still going to be Shiny objects are all around us, you know, but having like you created that framework of asking yourself these questions is like so much easier than just going, well, everyone else is doing it. I guess I shouldn’t do that. That wasn’t a really great strategy or everyone else is doing it. I can’t afford to, therefore I can’t succeed. That was another thought process. And I had to learn that that’s none of those things were the case that all of these were opportunities for me, but like you did, they fit this framework. And then, then I was able to like, let go, like, okay, I don’t have to stress about every opportunity that comes by me because you know, I’ve confidence in what works and what wouldn’t work and, and where I’m going. Exactly. That’s what this is all about it. You know? So that’s what we hope you got out of this episode today is just like knowing how to make these decisions in a way that like, you know, you don’t, it doesn’t drain your mental energy and you just kind of are easily able to make decisions and move on because there’s so much more to think about and worry about than whether or not you should claim the zip code or whatever it is that you are being handled. Well, thank you for being here. We’ll see you guys next time. On another episode of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Remember change happens when you take action. So apply what you learn today to your own real estate business. If this episode has helped you subscribe, leave a review and share it with all your real estate agent friends, and as always, if you want even more great resources to create the real estate business you’ve always wanted, and to have the life you want outside of your business, to head over to AgentGradSchool.com and sign up for the free weekly trainings, you’ll get free classes, discounts, and other goodies that only go out to real estate agents on that email list. See you next week right here on Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent the Agent Grad School Podcast.