← Call Her Creator with Katelyn Rhoades
Call Her Creator with Katelyn Rhoades
Ep 61. Mastering Instagram Reels: Growth Strategies for Busy Entrepreneurs & Realtors with Dan McKinnon
00:44:26
Loading summary
Transcript57 lines
- [00:00]
A
Yeah, you guys being on here, I just hit record. I want to tell you what I just told Dan and I hit the record button and I said, let's rock and roll, buttholes. And that's what my sister in law taught my children. And Dan's. Dan's a dad. So let's get this going.
- [00:15]
B
Oh, you got to love her for teaching your kids that. That's.
- [00:18]
A
Gotta love it, gotta love it. So welcome back to another episode of Call Her Creator, Powered by Stan. I'm your host, Kaitlyn Rhodes, and today I have a very special guest who is not only a friend, but I feel like you're a colleague because you're in the space of Instagram and you are absolutely crushing it on Instagram with your reels and your content. But beyond that, guys, he is a full time realtor, so I don't even know how he manages all the things that he does. And he's a dad and he's a husband. So, like you're a unicorn basically, Dan. But what we're. Yes, you're welcome. What we're going to be talking about today is if you're a busy entrepreneur who's trying to grow your account and make money from social and you really just don't know what you're doing or where to start, we're basically going to pick Dan's brain and figure out how he does it all. So maybe you guys can get some tips from him to do it yourself. So, Dan, we're just going to dive right into it. Before we get into your Instagram growth journey, tell us who you are. Tell us about you. How'd you get started in real estate? Did you always know you wanted to use social media to grow it? Fill us in. Introduce yourself.
- [01:30]
B
For sure. My name is Dan McKinnon. I am here in Sarasota, Florida. I live on the Gulf coast, about an hour south of Tampa. I am here. I've lived here for about five, no, six years now. I originally grew up in the Boston area, just north of Boston. I went to school for advertising at Johnson and Wales University. So I've always been kind of a creative guy. I started my own advertising agency in college and ran that for 10 years. And during that time I started a seafood festival, an events planning company that did a seafood festival, hit some, you know, as much as the world goes through, I had some mental struggles and had a little bit of a, a mental breakdown and kind of wanted to get out of New England, sold those businesses, moved down to Florida, lived on the east coast for a Little bit. And I got into E Commerce and E Commerce was really a fun tool for me to kind of process the change of life for me. I got sober and so that was a really cool, cool thing for me to go through. But at the same time, E Commerce was a kind of cool opportunity for me. At the same time, obviously, in E Commerce I was importing a lot of goods from China. I needed to find a way to get a lot of money to order the products. And I had some friends in real estate. And that's literally everyone says, how'd you get into real estate? And I go, I needed $300,000 to order flashlights from China. And that's literally the story. So I, I got my real estate license to fund another business. And I realized the crazy part about it was, is, is I had some friends that ran a team here locally and they had some, you know, nice leads platform set up so you could just jump right in, just do sales and roll. And what I found was, is, you know, to answer your question and kind of why we're here is video really did well for me and content in general. And when I say content, I mean anything that communicated what I was about to the public. And I think that I found a lot of really great growth on Instagram. And so I made 300 grand and Covid happened and E Commerce didn't. E Commerce didn't go anywhere because, you know, I wasn't importing stuff from Chinamore. So I literally sat there, I was like, well, I guess I'm pretty good at real estate. And that was after like one and a half years of in. In real estate. So you know, fast forward, I, I started becoming at the same time I started a local Instagram page called All Sarasota, which is all is a local life. And my real estate company is called Local Life Homes. So that basically was another way for me to share the area. So I would collab with my own Instagram page. My Instagram page is Dan the Realtor. So it's a lot of real estate based stuff, but a lot of lifestyle stuff. On All Sarasota, I grew that as like a main hub for people to find why you would live in, in Sarasota and the local businesses and stuff. So long story short is I ended up staying in real estate and I still do that now and, and I run multiple Instagram profiles to, to gain communication hubs and different ways to promote the area and lifestyle. I'm very much a lifestyle agent. I sell through showing people the area and not really? Homes. I don't do a lot of home tours. I don't do a lot of facts and, you know, talking head style stuff. So, yeah, so that's a little bit about me and my start. Obviously. I have a bit of a background in advertising and creative arts and I think that's really helpful. But at the same time, there's a lot that I've learned myself and I think that it just comes from a passion of wanting to learn.
- [05:07]
A
Yes. Love that. Yeah, you. So Dan has added me to his little green circle people and it's always like inspiring, wanting to learn motivational stuff, but you actually are always successful. So sidetrack, guys. I do trainings for a brokerage twice a month. And Dan, you're always in my presentations because your content is so good. So Dan doesn't focus like you said, like on the generic, like educational type talking head videos. It's more. So like, here's why you want to live here. And your. Your videos are beautiful. So two questions here. First one is, was there one video that took off in the beginning that you're like, wow, this could be something powerful, or was it like a trickle effect of everything?
- [05:52]
B
I. I've only ever had one viral video and it really didn't do too much for me. Maybe I've actually had two. But honestly, it was. The interest came from when I moved to Sarasota, I said to myself, I think it was even out loud, I said, how do not more people know about this place? And I. And I think I said that out loud. And I was like, there's something here. There's something here that I want to share with other people. And I, you know, coming from New England, it's, you know, dark and dreary for half the year and a little bit depressing. But I think that for myself, I wanted to share. I had lived over in Boca Raton, Delray beach area for a bit, and it was super busy, a lot of traffic, and I found siesta in Sarasota super calming. It just was this different feeling and I just wanted to share that. So there was no ever metric or there was no reason to really share other than wanting to share. And I think that that's why I found immediate success in it because I saw other people go, oh my goodness, I didn't know about this or oh, wow, that's so cool. And I had this genuine back and forth and I, I think it came from curiosity. Like I was new here, so I wanted to be like, hey, let's explore more you know, and people that have been in a city for so long probably take it for granted certain things, you know, and that's just life, and you get used to it. But for myself, I was curious, and I was always curious to show people what are the different beaches? Like, what is it like walking up there? What is the parking lot like? And just being. Being curious. And I think that that showed me small success. And it was never a viral thing. It was just one off conversations. Now in real estate, it's a little different. Right. I'm not selling a trinket or something that, that I may have a profit margin of three or four dollars. Right, right. I know that world, so I get it. But with real estate, it's one conversation, right? One conversation can lead to a 10 to $20,000, you know, transaction for me. So for me, it was always about shock and awe. How can I shock or awe people in my content to bring them closer to ask the question or to remember me or to share it. Then from there, it was just trying to say, like, what brought you to my page? Like, what brought you to wanting to move to Florida? Everybody has some side kind of way that they want to move to Florida or this vacation world, right? But I think that asking people more questions was my secondary success in Instagram, because it wasn't in it. I guess that's really what a lot of people have found in messaging now and trying to get people into direct messaging, but was just asking people, like, what do you want to know about this? And I think the curiosity is what kind of drove me to a little bit more attraction.
- [08:37]
A
1,000%. You saying, why don't more people know about this? That's exactly how I started my own story is, holy shit, I can make all this money from social media. Why don't more people know about this? And then you just want to sell that. You almost sell that lifestyle, which is what you do with your. All of your videos. Kind of what I do too. I do a lot of educational stuff as well. But I've noticed that these accounts that share the lifestyle of what they're doing, they end up going viral or going off or they're making seven figures, you know, because they're sharing that lifestyle. And then you also talked about the shock and awe, which I haven't heard that phrase in forever. I feel like it's like from the 2000s, but probably it's exactly. It's exactly what reels are too, and what you have to have to stop the scroll. So, like, with what comes With a shock and what makes a shock and awe for you?
- [09:35]
B
Yeah. So shock and awe was like the basis of all, all Sarasota stuff. So if you go to all Sarasota page, it is the reason it's grown over to 33,000 followers now. It's just, it's just really shock and awe content. And when I say shock and awe, it's not anything bad. If anything, Sarasota's paradise. So it's always really good stuff. It's always good news. But shock and awe is something that is. Ooh. Oh, wow. If you can get that reaction to someone when they scroll, it's like, oh, if you can get someone to stop on your videos. Yeah, well, and, and that's. But that's. I have thousands of videos and I have thousands of content ideas and stuff, but I never share certain things because to be totally honest, I am a perfectionist. And this is not going to be like, there's. There's gold inside perfectionism. And I think that there's been a long time when people are like, oh, perfectionism is the worst and this and that, and it is, it's horrible. It can paralyze you. But there's a piece of it that's good with branding because it, it makes you so focused on certain types of content and the way we make people feel. And so that's with the shock and awe. It was more of just. I really wanted people just to stop. I wanted to stop the scroll. And that was, to be honest, I really wanted to do that. Before that even that stop the scroll kind of idea came out was because I just wanted people to stop and take in nature. And that's what I did. When I came to Sarasota, I just sat at the beach and it didn't feel like corporate America. It felt like small businesses. And I love small businesses. I started seven different small businesses myself. So I'm all about that small person against corporate America and big box and concrete world. So for me, I really wanted people to take in, you know, the waves slowly coming in, the sunset slowly going down. And if you look at some of my content, I don't. Yes, I do. It's all mixed, so I'm not going to say one phrase or not, but there are a handful of stuff that I don't do. Quick cuts. I'll just let a seven second sunset just sit there.
- [11:35]
A
It's healing.
- [11:36]
B
The thing about that is, for me, I'd rather see what the audience wants. Like, I play with it. And so it's always Been curiosity to me where what can I put out there for people to find? And, and that's where I found really great success in reels is because people share it over and over and over. And so the shock and awe has always been something where it's like if I can just share something that most people aren't sharing and share it in a way where other people want to share it. And there's techniques to that. Like if you want to dive into deeper that it's like making sure my branding's not all over it. I want people to share that.
- [12:06]
A
No. Let's talk about three techniques when it comes to your video. What are some, you know, high level things?
- [12:12]
B
Some of these for sure. So I. Especially in real estate, everyone wants to protect their work. It's like one of the most dangerous things in the entire world you could do is protecting your work. Because our work is really just an evolving creative cycle of everything we see in our life. That's all it is. It's so everything we. We want to do or create is. Is we've probably seen a version of it at some point. So we're just learning from it. And now I'm not. I am so against the whole take what someone did and just reverb it to yours like all the time. Like, it's one thing to redo a video. It's another to just sit there and try to steal creative, creative ideas. But I do think one of the things you can do is be cool with people sharing. So the first tactic is make it shareable. Don't put all your crap in front of it. Don't put your face on it. Don't put your name on it. Don't put a phone number. I share a lot of move to Florida stuff. Do you know who the biggest sharer of those reels are? Are real estate agents. They go to my re. They go and they put on their story and they stretch just enough so my name's out of it. I see it all the time. Like it and it doesn't. It doesn't matter to me though. It doesn't. Here's the thing, because people are. It's sharing it. It's only gonna show more people my thing. So here's the cool part is I make it so other people, my competition shares my thing. So if anything I'm reaching a larger amount of people. Second thing, I make it very generic. So it's not of really like I'm super niche. I sell in Sarasota. We're not even that like what? The 54th biggest city in Florida. I made that up. I have no idea what the status, but it's, it's a small city, so. But here's the deal, here's the deal. I can make money also off of referring business around Florida. So I make a very niched audience for myself to talk about. But I also share broad ideas and broad things like move to Florida. So secondarily, you want to be niche in what you talk about as the expert, but at the same time you want to be able to be talking about broad things. If you're in, you're in H Vac. You can talk about how mildew grows in Florida over the drainage, but also you can talk about H Vac is in the whole southeast of the United States of America. Like it's all right to talk about that. So those are, those are two pieces. And then the third thing is do enough research to know what people are looking for. And when I say that, I mean, I posted, when I say generic, I post a lot of sunset or beach videos, right? Just plain videos. But what's in the caption may go with what people are looking for. So one of my best blogs on our website is Siesta Key Hurricane Rebuilding. Like, that's one of the. We Rank for like 1 or 2 in Google. If you just search Siesta Key, hurricane rebuilding or destruction like that. We do a lot of blogging, but what we do is we follow that with our captions. And what we do on online, when I say we, I'm talking about my, my seven brains up here. It's one person, I don't have a team. It's me. So when I say we, it's me. So what I do is I go off of that though, and then I'll have a video of Siesta Key and I'll talk about that. Hey, Siesta Key has undergone a lot of crazy damage because of the hurricanes that just hit last year because of the rebuilding. But here's the cool part. All the SEO works together. So if people are searching for that on Google, I know they're searching that for it on, on Instagram. So it may not give people a big dreary image of Siesta Key destruction, roofs missing. But it's giving people the same idea that, hey, this is beautiful siesta. But this is what people are talking about. So I think, I think share, share your stuff and make sure the people in your industry see it as a tool to expose your industry, but also be an expert at what you do and then be broad, but stay niche. And then I forget what the last one was. Whatever.
- [15:54]
A
You are a freaking gold mine. That was. That was good and powerful and so true. People focus in so much on, well, especially Realtors. Every training I have, I have to talk to them about their listings because are you selling your listing or are you selling your freaking headshot? Because you know what I mean?
- [16:16]
B
That's one of the really biggest pieces that I do. I'm also. And I probably should have said this in the beginning when I did my intro, I'm also a coach for Ryan Serhan's Sell it program. And so I'm one of their real estate coaches. I coach 12 agents across the country. And that's one of the main things we talk about is storytelling. And in real estate, it's so boring. I'm going to keep yelling that until I probably retire. Because 90% of our industry continues to follow the same thing of pulling their headshot on a flyer, putting the address, putting the first shot that their photographer sent them for the front of the home. Whatever it is, we can spice this up. We can have fun with it. And the first thing that comes to table is storytelling. Why aren't we telling more stories? And if you go to any of my stuff on Instagram, you'll see that any of my listing videos, if you go to my reels, I usually pin. Pin them. My listing videos are all stories. They're stories about the amazing. By the way, thank you very much.
- [17:11]
A
You have to tell us about one of them.
- [17:13]
B
Which one?
- [17:13]
A
Like, I don't know any. Like, what's your favorite one?
- [17:16]
B
Well, you know what, you know, my favorite ones are, are the ones that tell a complete story. They're never actually the ones that I don't think my. The ones that go super viral or like that. Like, we just recently did the rap video where it was. The idea was that we did. You know, my. My elderly client here in Florida texted me and she asked me to do a rap video. And I was, I was like, what am I going to do? And then we had an AI bot like write us a song after we put some stuff in. And then it was really cool. You go check it out and it. And at the end of it, it says, I didn't say rap video. I said map video from the. You know, and so it's to. To go along with the idea that why would an old woman ever want a rap video? And so here's the cool part in the lyrics were everything about the home the neighborhood and everything else that we did in a fun way of just rapping so people actually listened to the lyrics. We showed off the neighborhood and all the cool stuff we showed off inside the house, and people eyes were glued to this. I mean, I think it's gotten shared over a hundred or something a handful of times it's been shared. And so here's the coolest part. As a real estate agent, I was able to communicate the great value in my client's property and the neighborhood and. And myself as an agent in finding out the best way to describe the home. And I kept people entertained. Now, that's one of my favorite. It cringes me out. I hate rapping. It was, like, cringed out. I was so uncomfortable. But I will tell you, you know what the cool part is, though. It hit and it was so funny because as. As an agent who does real estate. Exactly. Yeah. You get a little dance on it. So as someone that deals with, like, luxury pro properties, though, it's so funny. One of my luxury properties that we listed, we did, like, this classical look to it and this, like, nice thing. And the video didn't do anything. It really didn't tell a story that well. I don't think that well. We still did a good job in comparison. It, you know, did well. But my point is, though, the owners come to me and they go, when are you doing a rap video for our home? So it was this moment for me, as I'm still even learning, though, is because as much as I'm, you know, we talk about luxury real estate and this not. It was a story. They followed my owners of my luxury property. They go, oh, we just love the story. It was just so funny at the end when the woman said, map video. And here's the coolest part is if you made it to the map video, that means that you saw two minutes of the video.
- [19:32]
A
Ooh.
- [19:32]
B
And so I know that anyone says, oh, I thought it was so funny at the end. I don't sit. I am like Mr. Scroller. I just like people stuff, and I just move on with my life. I'm the worst. I'm the worst participant in this whole game. But what I will say is, if you can make me stop for two minutes, that's crazy. And so the fact that I'm able to do. Those are my favorite. And I have a couple like that, and you can go. Go check them out. And there's some different stuff. And there's one that, like, wouldn't be nice. And we did, like, the Wouldn't it be nice if you. And it turns into like going from me in a snow jacket to sitting down on the beach. And there's a lot of cool stuff we're able to do with stories. And you have to dig deep because none of these properties were pretty. I mean, they were pretty, but none of them were like these luxury mansions. None of them were amazing properties that were just blown out of the water, you know, shine on camera. Some of them were like boxed. Lennar builds. If you don't know Lennar, it's like the Walmart of builders. So it's like, you know, your most generic new build home. But we still have a story to tell. And that comes from two different things. It comes from either the property, letting the property tell the story and saying, hey, this is what your life could be like. This is what this property is, is how close is all those things. Or the flip side, it says, this is your client. You're up in the. You're up in the north, freezing your ass off. Your life could be here five minutes from the beach, living in here, and you place that person there. Now that story following along what I could do as a consumer or what the home could do for me as a consumer is much different than me flashing around, looking good in a car or showing up or like, even, even, like, I hate to say this, but like, I love comedy, but just making funny jokes. The point is I'm moving people an idea in their head and that. Let's go back to why we're doing this. We're here to communicate an idea to people. We're here to make them remember us. So as much as there's. If you're sitting out to be like, I can't make the funny stuff, I can't do this, I can't do that. Well, figure out how to tell story because that's the most valuable thing you could figure out how to do. And those are the biggest. Those are my favorite ones. Like, we all put out content we don't like. Like, I do it daily, or I'm just like, this is part of the algorithm. It's part of the thing. You know, we just put it out. It is what it is. And some of them do amazing and it's so funny when they do way better than the. My really great storyline stuff. But here's the thing. The storyline stuff always sells deals. It always gets me listings.
- [21:51]
A
I'll tell people that all the time. Like, yes, you can do these trends. You'll get high views, you'll get high shares. Cool. But like, if you take the time to really tell a story, it might be even a longer video, 30 second video, two minute video. That's what's going to convert your people versus these dancing.
- [22:07]
B
Well, it's hard because I think that we look at metrics and I think that's so difficult. And I think that it's. And you probably know the longer you're in this game, the more it doesn't matter, which is bullshit because I wish that I. I wish that I really believe that more. Like, when you don't have 10,000 followers, you want 10,000 followers. When you don't have this, you want that. I got more. I got more deals for my Instagram when I had under 4000 followers than I do now.
- [22:32]
A
Right.
- [22:33]
B
Do you know why? I guarantee I don't know for facts. There's no way to actually know. I think it is because multiple people have told me, Dan, I think you're too busy for us. Dan, I think you only deal with a certain set of people. Dan, I see that you're all over the place, and I just don't know if you have time for us. So if you're out there with less than 5,000 followers, less than 2,000 followers, less than a thousand followers, just know that there's probably people like you that will beat me out on deals. All you have to do is just tell you the story of why you want to beat them out. Now, guaranteed, I still get deals because of my following and other things, so it's. It's not the end of the world. I'm not saying that's worse, but I used to get more leads. I used to get more organic leads of people that said, hey, Dan, our family's moving from Iowa. Wow, we'd love to help. We'd love to have you help us. Because I was always there saying, hey, how can I help now? I love my life and I love where it's going. I'm doing different things and I'm growing a lot of different stuff. And I am busy. And people see that because I'm true to who I am now. My goals in branding on social media now is a little different. I'm doing more public speaking. I'm more, you know, in a sphere. And I. Yeah, and, and I think that for me, that's where my branding lies. And I need people to see that I am, you know, I mean, because I am busy. But at the same time, when you're in the game of attraction, of helping people, that's the other tool. You need people to feel like they can reach out to you. The whole point of doing it, all of this, the videos, the attraction, the pushing, the filming, the cutting, all the stuff, is just to get conversations. So why aren't we out there trying to pursue a conversation with 1, 2, 3 people? So I urge anyone with a lower following to understand that you have as much opportunity as I do or anyone else in our industry. And don't look at metrics. I can tell you how many people in real estate have fake followers, and it's hilarious. So please don't care about. Please don't care about metrics or followers or like that will care. What I care about is the three conversations I see under a reel and someone says, oh, my goodness, I've been looking to move here. Can you tell me more? Yeah, Greg and Sarah from Ohio are about to do a deal with you. That's what's about to happen.
- [24:39]
A
Yes, yes. You're talking about these conversations. So do you have a specific strategy when it comes to, like, engaging with these people? Like, do you send them a dm? Do you reply and comp. Like, what does that look like for you when these people do comment on your. Your content? Because I think this is where a lot of people drop the ball. They'll let people comment and they're just trying to get as many comments as possible. And then guess what? They don't talk to anyone.
- [25:05]
B
Well, I think that there's two pieces of that. Don't be scared to sell. That's the first thing. We are salespeople, everyone. Honestly, if you break it down to, like, everyone's job, everyone's in sales, I think that you can't be scared to sell in the fact that if someone says, oh, my God, that's so gorgeous, click on their profile and see if they live in the area. If they don't have anything, like, you have to make a guess and make an educated guess. But most people that are posting on mine and you can see, like, you know, they follow University of Michigan or something. Like, you can make an educated guess on some things, like if you have mutual followers or something like that. If they don't just write, yeah, when are you coming down to move here? And you could be off on something and they could be like, oh, we actually already own a vacation home. That's so awesome. Don't you love living here? That's your conversation back and forth. The other one, it's like, hey, when are you coming down to visit? I don't know. My husband And I are looking. My response to that would be, let me know. I don't deal with rentals, but let me know if you ever want to have a discussion about that. I always try to push people to DMs. No matter what, it doesn't matter. I always tell people I don't deal. I don't actually deal with rentals. So I can never help with rentals. I can never help with jobs here. I know people, but I, like, don't. I'm not like a job board. I can't get you into schools. I'm not any bigger than anyone else. Like, I have all these questions, but here's the thing. I'd much rather have someone ask these questions to me in private because then I have a, A relationship factor where they feel comfortable asking me questions. So when you're saying, do I have a script? No, I, I'm a human. That's what I say. The script is being a human. And if you're like, oh, Dan, I'm an odd human, I am too. But no, I, I get it. Where you don't want to, like, sell someone, but just ask the question. They went out of their way to, to write a comment. If the comments, three hearts. Just be like, what did you like about it? Once again, be curious. If it's, if it's like, I love this place, what did you like about it? Yeah, when are you coming back? Like, all continue the conversation. And here's the thing, that's what I would want. If I actually have genuine reciprocal reciprocation in communication, I want genuine talking. So if it's like, someone's like, oh my God, I love this. Like, okay, well, tell me why. Like, I understand that people are quick with their social media responses, but, like, what do you actually like about it? If they don't respond, maybe they're just supporting me and being nice, or maybe they're busy and who cares? But if they're like, oh, I actually just love this because my kids, I've had this response. I've put in a video out there of how light the waves are and how much I love for my kids. I had a mom that wrote, oh my God, this is great. And I was like, it is really great. And it's a much safer place for kids to play on the beach. She contacted me in the private and she goes, you know what? That's one of my biggest fears in Florida is water safety. And I went in on telling her about, my kids are in swim and all this kind of this. And that they ended up moving here and using me as a real estate agent. They were looking at. So here's the thing is, is like you don't know where your conversations or your. Your help is going to go. You need to have every conversation like they're going to be your next client. And even if they're looking. Oh, my God. I. I'm not looking to move to Florida, Dan, but we are looking to move to Georgia. And do you have any insight on, like, mortgage rates right now? Yeah, mortgage rates are really high right now. It's a really struggle in the industry. I do know a couple agents up in the Georgia area that would really help you out. Could I help you out and introduce you them? I just went from. Most agents will look at that as a wasted opportunity to making 25% of whatever that referral is. Hey, yeah, Referral point is. Is. It's. I'm helping. That's it. I'm just helping. I'm just being a human. I'm just helping and I'm being curious. So you need to be curious with your questions. You need to be curious with what people want out of it, and you need to be okay with selling. And I hate to say this, but, like, we're in the cool age of selling. It's not as much used car salesman anymore. You can be genuine, you can be cool, and you can be helpful and sell. Still selling. Say, hey, do you want to know more about the property? It's okay. They say no.
- [28:54]
A
Yeah, you're right. We don't have to look at it as being cringy and salesy, but we.
- [28:59]
B
Have to ask for the sale. We have to.
- [29:01]
A
You do. And I'm not a salesy person very much, but I do know when I do have those conversations or I do talk about it, I typically will get the sale. So you can't be scared to have that conversation.
- [29:12]
B
Well, I think that everyone looks at it like we don't want to. We don't want to, you know, do what people do to us all day.
- [29:18]
A
Right?
- [29:19]
B
No, we're not. We're. If we're coming. And that's where I always tell myself, go look in the mirror, Dan, and ask yourself a question. Are you coming from value? Do you want to help them and do you want to give them a high level of service? If the answers are yes, then go sell them, because you're going to help them away from all the other scumbags that are going to screw them over, not help them and take their money. If you're in business for the right reasons, it shouldn't be hard to sell. We should be helping others to save them from getting into all the other crap that other people are.
- [29:48]
A
Right? You're doing them a disservice if you don't take 1000%.
- [29:52]
B
How can I help you? Oh my God. I don't really cover Tampa, but I know someone great up there. I can make the decision on how I help them. But at the end of the day, it's like I think we need to have, we need to come from a service based conversation especially. And here's the thing is, if you're not in real estate, it may be a little bit more transactional, right? If you're having a hundred conversations a day because you're selling blankets, that's different. And I get it, you have to be a little more transactional. There may be some AI and leverage on automation for you that helps and then you have a deeper conversation. But the point is you still need to have an opener. A point where people can ask something or say a statement and that you draw them in with that opener. Oh, would you like to know more? How can I help you find out more about this? What was, what was holding you back from making the move? What was that holding you back from hitting the purchase button? We have to ask questions and if anything, social media, that was the, the reason everyone loves social is it's a one to one on the basis, right? Like I can put out a video, 300 people see it, and then people can comment with me right away. Now let's bring it the next level down though. They can comment with me, but then I can continue that level of conversation and trust and that can continue going through the thread, right? And then we move it to DMs. But we're under a base level of trust at that point and I'm much farther in a communication cycle with them than anyone else because they're one to one. And so I think that the exciting piece of social is now gone because it's not so one to one, like, oh my God, look who I found. Because there's so much out there. But it's. That same ease is easy when you jump down into the level of conversation and go, hey, I'm a local expert, how can I help you? Like if you ever need a plumber, like a hairdresser, like, I know all the people here value they, at some point in my, my world, I'm cool. If you buy in two, three years, I'll, I'll take a Client in two, three years. Freaking four years is fine. Yeah, come in four years and still remember me. But my point is, is that we have to take these levels of conversation deeper than just, oh my God, that's so great. I know. Isn't it awesome? Why do you think that?
- [31:56]
A
Yes. Do you. You. So you talked about you're really good with sales, which is probably why you're a realtor. You talked about. I do use. What kind of AI do you use? Here's my question. Actually, this is a loaded question. You're a dad, a business owner, a coach, a husband. How do you handle all of this? Do you. Do you use AI to streamline any of your.
- [32:19]
B
I. I don't know if I streamline my workflow. I use it daily, all day long. I use it daily, all day long for a lot of factual data. So I'll dump a lot of like keyword research in there, get ideas. So I use a lot of tools like semrush. I'm a big semrush guy. So semrush is my life. I spent a lot of time there. If anyone doesn't know what SEMrush is, it's search engine marketing. SEM is that. And it's Rush. It's just a company that does a service. They'll look up web traffic and organic and paid for keywords. And that kind of is like the precipice of, you know, search online, whether it be SEO or SEM or even, you know, social at this point. So I actually use a lot to do research. So I use a lot of research on SEM and then bring it into ChatGPT and go through different ideas or longer different ways to get more clients in searching for stuff. Really, at the end of the day, I don't use AI much more than that. I use it in a conversational. Like it's like a personal assistant to me. How do I handle everything in the day to day? I just wake up with an attitude of wanting to win. I don't. There is no perfect schedule, there's no perfect leverage, there's no perfect balance. Honestly, every day is an insane sprint that I just try to figure out. And every time I figure out a system that helps something, something changes. And I. I don't know, you mean like something breaks or something happens. So to be honest, like AI works for me. How I make it work. Like, I'm scared to put into models that run automated for me. Like I have automation systems in my CRM, but in terms of like actual content Producing, whether it be blogs or scripts and stuff like that. I can't leave it up to it to just do itself. I'm so customized. But I do love the, the amount that I use ChatGPT as like a. Yeah, that's pretty much all I use it, but I use it all day long. Like there's a couple different. If you're on this and if you made it this far, I should reward you. It's. It's called ChatGptQ. It's my favorite new plugin and use it on. It's a Google Chrome plugin Chat GPT Q and it's Q U E U E. Something like that. Q like the line, like UK line. Anyways, what it does is it. It batches prompts together so you can do like they have some scripts on it and if you made it this far, go find me on Instagram and I'll send you my, my prompts for it. They're like 20 line prompts that after every time. So instead of you having to sit there, hit a prompt, wait for the answer, hit a prompt, you just set it and it will talk to chat GPD for like 10 minutes and then give you an. Give you a full documented out thing. So I use it for like blogging and stuff like that where we do deep research into, you know, on the Internet about. About certain topics and then formulate a very good blog post with all high level SEO and H tags and all that stuff like that. And at the end of it it pumps me out an HTML version of it. So I just copy and paste into my blog. So I do things like that where I utilize it. But I'm still, I'm still using it like it's. I wish I could get to a point where I just feed it 30 things and then 30 blog posts just pop up on our website. But it's not there yet.
- [35:37]
A
So I'm not there yet either. And I just feel like they. I still feel like ChatGPT can be very chat GPT. So I have to go in and put my own spin on things.
- [35:48]
B
And, and that's the thing too is, is like you have to get really good with, with researching and making things your own. And I think that the best thing that I was ever able to do was since this is, you know, more than just social. I know you do a lot of branding from. The biggest thing I ever did to make it a success in managing my entire brand as I grow on all levels is understanding my communication behaviors and understanding how to communicate my language and getting really good at it. So in terms of ChatGPT, it would pump out a bunch of jargon bullshit, right? And then I realized I'm like, I should know how to say this. Pretty good back and forth. You know, I mean myself in terms of my product or my industry. And what I found was, is when I became an expert on how to talk and what to say in a generic space, I could either fix what ChatGPT was saying or respond to people kind of the way ChatGPT always responds to people in a very formulated, specific way. And because of that, I think it started to help me change out some of the descriptions from that by just being an expert on like case you want to move to Sarasota, here's the taxes, here's the property, here's the areas. Like, you just kind of know your specifics. You can kind of interchange a lot of your own content out to keep it fresh.
- [37:06]
A
Yeah, yeah, I like that. I like that. What about. Do you schedule your content?
- [37:11]
B
No, I think people should. I don't.
- [37:14]
A
How many times a week do you post?
- [37:17]
B
Three to six. I don't like scheduling mine because I think that I have a lot of stuff going on that I don't like to leave up to the world. There's so much. There's so many things going on that I always feel out the day and what's happening. I don't know why, but I'll have like, I'll have content saved up. So it's. I won't necessarily batch it, but I will sit and I think I have like six, four to six drafts at all time just sitting in there that I. That are generic. Right. And I run sets of things so I have like listings will launch list, like a listing reel, a listing, photos. And then I have like 3 generic posts I do which are like a move to Florida, stats about the area or a fun, you know, shock and awe video on my personal one. So I'll always have those three backed up. And then our listings are obviously come in as they come in now I won't post a listing. Listings have to be posted on certain days and listing reels have to be posted on certain days. And because of that the other things can't be scheduled. It's a very weird. And it's. Now that I'm saying this out loud, it's probably, I could probably fix it, but I don't. So I'm very protective of timing because I am a believer in real estate. You should always post before 9:00 and that is like one of the only times you should post on Instagram for some freaking odd reason. Unless you are have some crazy comedy viral thing. It's either like 9:00 in the morning, 8:30 in the morning, or it's like 2:00pm and that's it. Yeah, I'm sorry but like we pay a lot of money for these videos and, and like if you're doing a listing video and it cost me $700 to, to shoot a video, I am perfecting the time that it gets released. And the time is always going to be on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday before.
- [38:55]
A
9Am Is that just for your audience or you think for everyone?
- [38:58]
B
Unfortunately, I think it's everyone. And I do not want to go, I don't want to suspend, I don't want to tell everyone that because I don't want people to come to my inbox. But I guarantee try it. And you know why I want to say that is because on the east coast you have people that wake up at 6am and they're up before work on Instagram and they're not going to be. Those people aren't touching Instagram until they're at lunch or out of work. So here's the thing, you have to get like I'll have some reels go off at 7 o'clock in the morning and I'll have a hundred likes before any of my west coast friends even wake up. But if I post at 2:00 in the afternoon, that's 11:00 on the, on the west coast they're, they're mid working. Like not everyone works like me, where I can just grab my phone whenever I want.
- [39:35]
A
Right.
- [39:35]
B
People work in nurses in offices and all these other places. Like my wife looks at her phone like three times a day. Yeah, she knows it. She's not like me. Like I look at my phone every two seconds. So I am a believer in if I can get the earlier shares, the earlier comments, the better. When I show up on someone's stuff early in the morning and I'm a little bit better than everyone else's stuff in the morning, they're going to have an, they're going to be apt to do something with it. So if you're struggling with timing, just try a morning one. You never know. I could be completely wrong freaking everything that comes out. That's like the expert on Instagram. I have no idea. So who knows?
- [40:08]
A
I feel like there's a range based on, come on, when people wake up in the Morning and when they're going to bed. Now, you need to decide for your time frame. Are you east coast? Are you West Coast? But typically I do like 8:39.
- [40:19]
B
I'm selling homes and it's a ton of money. It's different than if I was selling candy. And that would be like, yeah, post at 2:00 every single day when everyone wants candy. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's different. What mine is like heavy subjects, like, should we move to Florida or not? Honey, like, that's right.
- [40:37]
A
Yeah.
- [40:38]
B
I want to be in the. In everyone's mind throughout their day. So it's. I don't know. I think that what I have found is that as long as I continue showing up with good content, it really doesn't truly matter. But with my perfectionism, I will say, like, yeah, there's definitely times, but I still just like putting out reels for reels, like the art sake of it. I really still. I'm very much in the artistic phase of it. And I like using music I like. I do not like. Like some of it's trending, but like, to be honest, most of the time I use music that I like because I like it.
- [41:10]
A
Love that. No, it is. It's like, it's an art I love. I just love posting. Sometimes I have to be like, stop, Caitlin. You have to wait a couple hours before you can post.
- [41:18]
B
Yeah. And I was like, no, have it. Sometimes I'll post three reels in like the same day. And I'm like, well, that happened. I was on a little creative kick. Should have left them in the drafts, but it doesn't. I. I think at the end of the day, it's like, here's the thing. The algorithm was going to algorithm, but at the end of the day, if people are searching for someone, just searching that and called me and they said, I searched for Sarasota Realtor and you were one of the first three people to come up. And I just liked your personality, the amount of people that say that to me. And I think that that needs to be honed down. Way more than timing, way more than tricks or anything like that. They just said, dan, I like your vibe. Vibe and personality comes up to me a lot. And I go, that's just crazy because I'm just myself. That's all I am. Like, genuinely, I love just goofing around, having fun, being myself, being, you know, a valuable person. But I think that when someone says to me, hey, Dan, I love your vibe or your personality, it makes me Stop. Because I go, holy crap. Like, this can be fun. I can, I can be myself. I don't have to. I don't have to shade to try to be someone else or, oh, my God, they're luxury. Put this certain shirt on. They see me in my tie dye shirt, running on the beach with my kids. Like, that's me. I've seen it. Yeah. So, like, like, I'm a hippie inside man. I'm a, I'm a chill dude. Like, I. This is me to make money. But I think at the end of the day, if someone sees you for your personality, your vibe, then. Then you realize like, hey, that's pretty cool. That means that they, they want to work with me because of who I am. And if, if that isn't the coolest thing in the world, I don't know what is. Because it's one thing to love your job, it's another thing that you love your job so much that other people want to work with you. And I think that for me, for me, it drives me to do everything.
- [42:52]
A
It does. It does. I. I listened to a podcast yesterday and it was like this guy chose who he was going to work with based on their enthusiasm. And that goes with your vibe or your personality. That, that is, that is why people choose to work with or not. This has been so insightful. You are just a gold mine of really great ideas and tips. And how can people follow you? How can they work with you? Tell us all about that.
- [43:20]
B
Yeah, find me. Just find me on Instagram, Dan the Realtor. I'm pretty easy to find. Dan Underscore the Underscore Realtor. You can, if you want to work with me on a real estate space in coaching, you can find me. Just message me on there. That's the easiest way to find me, to be totally honest. If not, you can check out all Sarasota. It's a page I run. If not, you'll be in. If you're in Sarasota, hit me up. I always appreciate everything you do online, Caitlin. I think that you are such a cool light for so many people that are starting, but also in a very much space where our, you know, being online is a big up and down thing where, you know, you go learn things and then you're like going down the precipice of death and want to give up, and then something good happens, it goes up and down. So I think that there's a cool reality that you bring to all this and I think that you are always curious as well to figure out how people can optimize and become better versions of their self. So continue doing this. And I was so happy to come on here, so thank you for the invite, and thanks so much.
- [44:17]
A
You're the sweetest. Dan, we'll have to do this again because I loved talking to you, but this was awesome.
- [44:21]
B
I'm down.
- [44:22]
A
Thank you guys for listening. And that's it.