← Estate of Mind — The Art of Selling Luxury Real Estate
Estate of Mind — The Art of Selling Luxury Real Estate
Navigating Lead Generation and Social Media Strategies in Luxury Real Estate
00:38:08
In this episode of Estate of Mind hosts Tami Simms and Jack Miller are joined by special guest Lisa Culp Taylor as they discuss the importance of both organic relationships and digital lead generation in real estate. While most business comes from repeat and referral clients, digital platforms have proven to be successful. Many lead generation services often don't deliver on their promises, so it's critical to carefully evaluate each platform before committing. Learn how working with the right lead generation tools can provide a solid supplement to organic business. Also discussed is the need for patience and consistent follow-up with leads, as converting them into clients can sometimes take years. Balancing personal branding, maintaining authenticity, and being cautious about oversharing on social media, especially during politically sensitive times, is vital in today's real estate climate.
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- [00:00]
Lisa Culp Taylor
Foreign.
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Tammy Sims
Welcome to A State of Mind, a podcast series all about motivating, inspiring and educating you in the art of selling luxury real estate. The podcast is brought to you by the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing. I'm Tammy Sims, lead trainer for the Institute and a full time real estate professional in St. Petersburg, Florida for more than 20 years. In this episode we're going to explore expanding your sphere of influence with digital marketing and lead generation. Today's podcast is brought to you in part by Real Marketing, the only marketing firm recommended exclusively by the Institute. Real marketing utilizes over 25 years of expertise and their products are built and customized for you to dominate any neighborhood anywhere. Go to realmarketing4you.com that's realmarketing, the number4you.com also look for past A State of Mind episodes with CEO David Collins as our guest. Now I'm here today again with my co host Jack Miller, a 25 plus year veteran luxury agent with Onward Real Estate in the greater Nashville, Tennessee market. And today we have a special guest joining us, Lisa Culp Taylor, also with Onward Real Estate. Lisa captains an 11 person team based in downtown Franklin, Tennessee and she has over 25 years experience in the luxury market as well. Welcome to both of you.
- [01:38]
Jack Miller
Hi Tammy. Thank you, thank you.
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Tammy Sims
Lisa, we are really glad to have you with us today and I'd like to start by giving the audience a sense. How did you first enter the luxury space early on in your career?
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Lisa Culp Taylor
Well, I've worked for builders and developers my entire career and so I really got into the luxury space in that manner with, with a development, worked with a couple of other agents on a large development in Brentwood and kind of that was my first foray into luxury.
- [02:16]
Tammy Sims
That's interesting. I can, I can think of a number of, of different colleagues that have gotten their start from that direction and really taken it, taken it away. So Jack, why don't you tell us why you wanted Lisa to be with us today.
- [02:34]
Jack Miller
Well, Lisa has had a really impressive career and we not she and I both worked at Parks previously for most of our real estate careers, in my case, my entire career. And she came to parks, as she indicated, shortly after working in with builders and developers. In fact, she worked with the most some of those prominent luxury communities our market offered at that time. And that's where we met early on. And Lisa is really a force to be reckoned with. I wanted to point out, you know, we had the recent Olympics and to do some team building here in office at Onward because we're a new Company, we had Olympics after hours. We had an Olympic happy hour and we played some sports here in the office, kind of like college sports, for example, beer pong, you know, some stuff like that. And Lisa and one of her team members pretty much killed us. So she's, she's terrific. But seriously, Lisa, I wanted to ask you about that whole team thing. So we, you know, Tammy mentioned on the onset you've got an 11 person team. I should point out it's not just 11 persons, it's 11 females. It's all female team. And they are amazing. Tell me about when you went from working originally with builders, developers and you were a solo agent. Early on, at some point you built a smaller team. What was, you know, what was the impetus for that? And tell me, tell us how that went.
- [03:57]
Lisa Culp Taylor
So originally when working on a development, it was really more of a partnership with another agent that had a long standing history in new construction as well. And once that neighborhood was finished, we dissolved the partnership because we weren't in that neighborhood anymore together. And then I was back as a solo agent and really it became, I noticed that I was missing opportunities, whether it was from sign calls or somebody referred someone. And I just didn't have enough time in my day to handle everyone properly. So I was actually at a parade of homes and that was in. Would have been 2016 Parade of Homes, I believe. And there were a couple of agents that were working the homes with me and kept talking to them and really had a lot in common and similar work ethic. And so they had asked, I'd had people over the years ask if I'd ever thought about a team. And I kind of thought, why would anybody want to be on a team with me? Well, what am I going to bring to the table? What's all, all of the things that we question.
- [05:14]
Jack Miller
Early on, there really weren't many teams around. That was a fairly novel concept, at least in our market.
- [05:18]
Lisa Culp Taylor
Right.
- [05:19]
Jack Miller
The national market. I mean, when, early on, when Lisa and I met, there might have been a half a dozen teams in the entire marketplace where today it's become almost the mainstream model for real estate, at least again in our, in the middle Tennessee area and probably a lot of places in the country.
- [05:33]
Tammy Sims
Yeah, very, very true, Jackson. Very true.
- [05:36]
Lisa Culp Taylor
So at the time I thought, well, maybe I don't really know what that entails. So I talked to a few friends of mine that had teams and what I quickly found out, I talked to three different team leads and I quickly found out there's no two teams that are doing it the same way. And it has to be what works for you and what works for your team members. And so I thought it through of, well, if I were going to join a team, what would I want and how would I. What would make me want to be on a team and then stay there? So I set it up that way and I'm always, you know, happy to, to share exactly how we set things up. But the, there were people that went ahead and joined the team. We originally were like four agents and then six agents and so on and so forth. But I'm, you know, pleased to say that our original team members are still on our team. And that's, you know, we met at the parade, A lot of us met at the Parade of Homes in 2016, started the team in 2017. So, you know, seven years later, we're all still together.
- [06:51]
Tammy Sims
And that is, that is saying a lot for sure. And we're gonna, we're gonna talk a little bit more about that team concept, especially as we're talking about building your sphere of influence, because you've got to feed a team. But I'm curious, this question comes from my experience with colleagues who have, who have started in, in new construction and development in my market area, more so condos. But did you find that those folks that you represented from the, the builder side then came back to you when they were ready to, to sell and find something new? Was that kind of a natural flow there?
- [07:32]
Lisa Culp Taylor
It was the developments that I worked in, worked with a lot of custom builders. And so it, it really became that I started representing some custom builders or if they needed, like they had somebody that was interested, but they wanted representation, then they would call me and, and basically get. Give me a client because they knew I understood new construction and that I could help the, throughout the process. And so a lot of it came from that and then a lot of repeat business from people I'd sold houses to in those neighborhoods. Then they called me because they were just so familiar with me from being on site.
- [08:11]
Jack Miller
Excellent and interesting too, Tammy. I, I would say when you look at, when you look at teams in our marketplace, Lisa pointed out that, and I know this prop, this podcast in particular, is not focusing on teams. We want to start there. But it's very interesting too, because when you look at what's going on in our marketplace, there's been lots of teams come and go. And even on the teams that have been around for a long time, you rarely see teams with the same team members. The team members constantly come and go so having something, you know, that they put together that's lasted this long, I think is really impressive. And she had a team before 2016 too. I mean, she's, she's done this for a long time. And, and I think where a lot of agents fail is you mentioned, Tammy, you've got to feed the team. That's going to tie in what we're going to talk about with lead generation a few minutes. But I think a lot of agents come into the business thinking I'm going to be a team, and they just think it's going to happen overnight and they suddenly call here, let's call seven or other agents and do a photo session, hey, look, we're a team. And then they realize it's not just having nice photos. You've got to have content, you have to have substance. And that's where I think Lisa, that's why I wanted to have Lisa on the, on the podcast, because her team has been extremely, extremely successful in, in both, in having a large team and generating large business. I think at the peak of your business, Lisa, in two, which was peak for most of us in 202020 and 2021, what was it, 350 million or something like that? That's is it?
- [09:37]
Lisa Culp Taylor
Yeah, I think it was Mike. 300. 300.
- [09:40]
Jack Miller
Just 300 million.
- [09:41]
Lisa Culp Taylor
I mean, I just, I don't.
- [09:42]
Jack Miller
Just 300. Just 300 million. But anyway, just kidding. But anyway, you know, that's her numbers year after year have been, have been huge on her team. And when you break it down per agent, they've done an amazing job, period. So I thought that was really, really impressive. You know, we, Tammy and I have talked a lot about, you know, in the. Because this, this podcast always is about what happens in the luxury space. And so whatever the topic is, that's always the framework for it, obviously. So when you talk about where our business comes from, as you've already mentioned, our business typically comes from if you're working the luxury market, we're not typically agents who just come out of the shoot. Most of us across the country who work in the luxury space have done it for a long time. And so we have a lot of repeat business. We have oftentimes builders, new construction people who seek us out. Because I know you, you've got a lot of experience. But I'm curious, what about digital marketing and digital marketing platforms? When you have a team that large, have you had success with lead generation platforms like Zillow or realtor.com? what types of things have you done to Help subsidize, if you will, a team that large and keep everybody busy. What's worked, what's not working.
- [11:00]
Lisa Culp Taylor
So I think you're right when that you said, you know, you have to, you have to have substance for the team. So we have, we have always been successful with Zillow. And I know Zillow is like, you know, everybody hates, everybody cringes.
- [11:18]
Jack Miller
Yeah.
- [11:19]
Lisa Culp Taylor
But the truth of the matter is, for, for me, I, I'm more of a listing agent, and so I list a lot of homes. And Zillow is, is maybe not still, but it has been the number one search engine for people. So if Zillow is the number one search engine and I'm a listing agent, I want my houses, I want them hidden, because that's what I'm supposed to be doing for my clients. Well, on the flip side of that, a lot of my listings get a lot of interest. They're. They're luxury homes, so they get a lot of interest. So I'm going to buy the leads. I don't care if I'm buying back my own leads as long as we're getting them. And so our business, we have gotten a lot of business from Zillow, and it is something that feeds the team. And then we have, of course, you know, social media, we get leads from that and our website and, and all of those things. And we handle things a little bit differently than some teams. You know, our platform is that we don't do up an up system. So in other words, some teams, it's, well, it's your turn, and then it's your turn, and it's your turn. I don't like that. Because if your phone rings and they, you know, it's either Zillow or it's where I've said, who wants a lead? If you're with a client, then what are you going to do? Are you going to. It's your turn. Are you going to say, oh, excuse me just a second. So you're just telling that person, this is more important than you, but. Because I don't want to miss my turn. So we do it as whoever picks it up first, and you should see them scatter to grab the phone. And, and, you know, but the thing they also have, we have a lot of accountability on the team. We have weekly telephone calls with each team member to go over their prospects. And if they're not following up with their prospects, then I'm going to get notified that they're not following up. Because, you know, look, Zillow costs a lot of money, but it's, it has been a good revenue source for our team in the past.
- [13:30]
Jack Miller
I like the way you describe that to Lisa, because I've been in the field with agents. I'm sure the two of you have experiences too, where I've been in the field with agents, typically not luxury agents, although I've seen a couple be guilty of this where they're with a client, their phone's ringing, they're jumping off, you know, jumping out of the meeting, taking calls in the meeting, out texting, doing all kinds of stu. That's not related to the, to the appointment that they're on.
- [13:55]
Lisa Culp Taylor
Right.
- [13:56]
Jack Miller
And I think that's one of the complaints I've heard sometimes about from clients, speaking of former agents, is the agent being focused on them. And I think for the. In the luxury market, that's one things I think identifies the best agents. And certainly agents you typically see in the luxury marketplace, they are absolutely focused on their clients. And I think my clients and Tammy, yours and certainly yours, Lisa, when they're with us, they, they know they're not our only client, but they should feel like. I think they do feel like they're our only client. I think they're successful in the business.
- [14:30]
Tammy Sims
There's two things that I want to add to, to some of the points that were just made. So my team, Lisa, is. Well, it's my mom and I and our transaction coordinator. Right. So we're all female, but we are a much smaller, different type of team. And we also utilize a phone service that, that routes to all of our cell phones and whoever gets it first picks it up. And that has been really well received from our client base, vendors, even all of that. And again, staying in touch with each other, weekly meetings and that sort of thing so that all of us know what's going on with all of our clients has been important. But then, Jack, when you were talking about answering phones and that sort of thing when you're in a meeting, I have to say that I have really appreciated the Apple Watch in managing some of that because, you know, some people are going to call us directly. They just want to talk to us. And having the ability to absolutely discreetly be able to just look at the nudge on my wrist and see who's there. So that, for example, if you have someone in your family in the hospital, you know that you're going to break away and take that one. But if it's, if it's anything else to have some preset, just one touch of the button super discreetly sends a message that says, I'm with a client. I'll call you back as soon as I'm done. And it doesn't break the concentration. You know, often a client will say, oh, do you need to take that? And I say, absolutely not. You know, I'm, I'm 100% with you. But that's been a piece of technology that has helped me to, to manage that and still be present. Right. So many of the great leaders in our industry will tell you you need to be absolutely present with your clients. And, you know, I think that's really.
- [16:22]
Jack Miller
Bringing a new sponsor, Apple, today.
- [16:24]
Tammy Sims
No. Oh, gosh, don't. I wish. Right? Yeah, we can all send some messages. Right.
- [16:29]
Lisa Culp Taylor
So I'll say it's a lot more expensive than an Apple watch. What I'm about to say, you know, one thing that has really changed my. I constantly get from different people. I don't know how you do everything and, and based on the listings and we all get that. But one thing that I have done and it has been a game changer for me, I have an assistant and it's somebody that's new to the business. It's. She's with me all the time. And so she's sitting across from us now and she's got my phone. She's handling my phone as we speak. But she's with, she goes to the meetings with me. It's invaluable to her and she recognizes it because she had an opportunity and she's like, well, I'd like to just keep being your assistant. I'm like, great, you know, because you don't have to try train somebody else. But she's, she's been, she is now well known to all the top developers. She, all the builders know her. She has, you know, spar. She's been licensed two or three years now, and she has at least 10 years worth of experience because of the things that she's seen. And so she'll go on. When she becomes an agent, she's going to kill it. And my assistant previously is an agent on the team and it's the exact same scenario. She was my assistant for 14 years and now she is one of our top agents on the team. And so I say that from a standpoint, it's more expensive than an Apple watch, but it's more personal and you can get more done if you make that investment and you're making the investment in the person as well.
- [18:17]
Tammy Sims
So, Jack, that makes me think about something that we've talked about several times on the podcast is the importance of mentoring. And to me, that seems like the best of both worlds of Lisa utilizing something that makes her more efficient and provides better service to her clients. But still is mentoring at the same time. And I'm not surprised at all that she's not ready to go yet. Yet she's got 10 or more years worth of experience to gain in the next one or two. So I think that's a great point. So if we get back to lead generation, particularly on the digital side of things, because I think that's an area that we want to explore more. Because historically in the luxury space, a lot of seasoned luxury agents have been hesitant to consider digital platforms for lead generation. It's been far more about organic relationships. And I'm a firm believer that is a great way to do it. But Jack, I know you have used some digital lead generation platforms as well, and so tell us how that fits into your overall business plan.
- [19:26]
Jack Miller
So it's not the most significant piece of what generates business, most of ours at this juncture, most of our business comes from repeat and referral business. But we have had a lot of success. Let me say this too, Tammy. I know all three of us and probably every other agent in the business gets hit up on multiple times a day. We can't run from it. They they find us on our cell phone, text message, email. There's somebody always chasing us, telling us what a wonderful lead source they have. And if you've been in the business for a few years, and for our listeners who maybe have not been in the business for a few years, let me assure you, the vast majority of people who contact you and guarantee leads and tell you how wonderful it's going to be, whether you're in the luxury space or maybe the broader real estate market, typically it's not a great experience. Very few lead generation platforms do what they say they're going to do or do it well. So back to your question, Tammy. I run from most of them. I delete the messages as soon as they come in. But there's been a couple that have been very successful. One is, and a lot of our listeners may not know, but I'm gay. And there's some lead generation platforms specifically for the gay community, because there are buyers and sellers out there, particularly those who are moving to a new market, and particularly when they're coming into a market like Nashville in the south, they've got preconceived notions about, you know, there being biases or whatever. And typically there's really not, but it gives them a comfort level. So there are some lead generation platforms in that arena we've been very successful with where we've gotten very high profile professional people who want to work with a gay real estate broker or a gay lender or certainly gay friendly. And that's been very helpful. So we generate some business there. But then there's another one that has been bought and sold several times through the years. I think it started out as being called top agent many years ago and now it's called referral exchange. Are you on that by chance, Lisa? So referral exchange is one that you, you almost have to be invited to be a part of it. Now it's based on doing a certain amount of volume and they only have a couple of agents in each market. And so I got acquired by their platform from a previous platform I was involved with. They don't generate a lot of business for us, but they generate really quality business for us. And so we, we have used those two platforms for, gosh, for the last 15 years and done very well with both of them. On any given year, we've done, you know, 10 to at least 10, 15 large transactions or larger transactions, I would say. Yeah. Which is great. Yeah. And we don't have to sort through hundreds of leads to get to those. And that's the other key thing.
- [22:06]
Lisa Culp Taylor
That is nice.
- [22:07]
Tammy Sims
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Quality versus quantity.
- [22:10]
Jack Miller
Absolutely. So it doesn't ring with. So both of those. By the way, my phone doesn't ring that much with those two platforms. You know, once or twice a week maybe I get a referral. Sometimes they're not great, but we, generally speaking, they're qualified and they're good. So that's nice. It's nice to have that to supplement the business that we have.
- [22:30]
Lisa Culp Taylor
Yeah.
- [22:30]
Tammy Sims
So I want to talk about social media for a little bit as a specific angle. So sometimes that feels a little more billboardy. Right. To use your phrase, Jack. And it's a little harder to track. But what are your thoughts, Lisa, in particular?
- [22:52]
Lisa Culp Taylor
So I personally don't like social media. I don't like to have my picture taken. This is, this podcast is a little uncomfortable for me, but our team does a lot of posting on social media, so I may have a listing. I'll just have one of the agents on the team go do a walkthrough on the home. It gets them more exposure. So it's a benefit for, for the agent. I'm getting the house out there. But we have definitely sold homes from social media. We have gotten buyers from social media. It's, it's really more about the house. We try to make it. We're not, we're not doing too many crazy things, you know, on, on our social media. We're not too gimmicky, I don't think.
- [23:42]
Jack Miller
But still we've talked about that. By the way, I'll just interject real quick. Tammy and I both talked a lot about that. I think is one of the defining features of being a luxury broker is that when you enter that arena and if you look at all of our friends and colleagues, not just within our own firm but the other firms that we cooperate with, you know, when you see other brokers out there that if there was one thing I would say that everybody has in common, you don't see gimmicky type promotions.
- [24:08]
Lisa Culp Taylor
Yeah.
- [24:09]
Jack Miller
Ever.
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Lisa Culp Taylor
It's, they get more followers that way and so you, there's a bit of a double edged sword there because sometimes the gimmicky whatever is trending, that gimmick gets more followers. But are they followers that are really going to make deals?
- [24:27]
Jack Miller
Right. Or are.
- [24:29]
Lisa Culp Taylor
But if by the same token, if somebody likes it and they share it, you never know. It's just exponential how far it can go. But you know, it's still just not my comfort zone.
- [24:43]
Jack Miller
It's not, it's not mine either. It's like, you know, I don't even have, I don't know about you, but I don't, don't even have my photo on our business card.
- [24:50]
Lisa Culp Taylor
No, we have our photos on our business cards.
- [24:52]
Jack Miller
Well, that's how uncomfortable I am. Well, but just like to not. It's interesting because when you look at social media, I did use that term billboard, Tammy, when we talked about this because it is very hard to track. We know it works, we know it works well and some agents capitalize on that much better than others. Lisa, she's being, you know, trust me when I say this, her social media marketing is tremendous. They have a really high impact. And I think the best way that we measure social media marketing is not necessarily by the leads that we track. They come from social media marketing, but from when we talk with people that maybe we're meeting for the first time or we talk to clients we haven't spoken to personally in a long period of time, you know, face to face. They seem to know a lot more about you and what's going on with your business. They understand the nature of your business. I've had long time friends who don't live here in Town. They can't be one of our clients, but they have a really good understanding what we do because they talk to me about it. They'll. They'll send me messages and screenshots of things that we've done, and they'll. And so it tells me the message is getting out there and it's working. So we do know that converts to leads, and there are some we can track and say, yeah, yeah, there's leads that we know that came from our social media platforms. But, but we know that it's working, certainly for branding purposes. And we've talked that in the past.
- [26:16]
Lisa Culp Taylor
Yeah, it is. And, you know, it's interesting. Oftentimes maybe you'll talk to a client you haven't talked to in a little while, and they do. They're up to date on everything that's going on because they're following your social media. And it's a, it's kind of one of the nicest compliments I ever hear is how much they are a cheerleader for what we're doing because they're watching and they're supporting and they're like, well, we kind of stalk you on social media, but we're just so happy that this worked out or whatever. And, and it's, it makes you feel good to know that there are people out there just following you and being happy for, for whatever success or whatever the circumstance is. It's just a nice feeling.
- [27:00]
Tammy Sims
And that. Sorry, no, that, that takes me back to the point about authenticity. Right. So your Persona on social media, authenticity, as opposed to the wow factor, to generate as many followers as possible. You want, you want the right followers, right. Quality versus quantity. And for, for our institute members, you know that we have a great partnership with marketing. We've had some great special guests and also webinars. And I remember Andrew talking to me when we were focusing on some of the social media content in the training. And he said, one thing that agents need to know, particularly those in the luxury space, is that their, their social media presence may not be the way that they're generating new business, but it is a way to stay in front of your existing spirit of influence. And for those folks that are new to you, perhaps they've been referred to you, perhaps they're thinking about calling you. They are going to go check you out, and your social media presence is going to tell a story about you, and they're going to make decisions about whether or not they want to work with you based on that authenticity and the messaging. So, Lisa, you're Talking about focusing on the houses, you know, your, your content. There's. While it may not be generating a new piece of business, it can be completely playing into whether somebody who's on the fence decides they want to work with you or not. So I just, I wanted to, to bring that up as kind of reinforcement for all the underlying things that we're saying, regardless of what kind of lead generation.
- [28:43]
Jack Miller
And then. Yeah, I've noticed something on this too through the years. Couple, couple trends. And one is that are ultra wealthy clients, a lot of those folks are not on social media at all. They, they basically try to, you know, cleanse everything on social media, everything on the Internet, other than things that they control from a business perspective. They don't want to be on social media at all. And then I've got a whole entirely different level of clients, also wealthy, that are all over social media, but they never post anything. They, they, as you talk about, you know, the. What was the word you study? Stock. They.
- [29:22]
Tammy Sims
Stock. Yeah.
- [29:23]
Jack Miller
They love to watch. They like to stay in tune. They like to see, they like to see your social media. They watch our social media, but they never post anything. Have you guys experienced that with your own clients?
- [29:33]
Lisa Culp Taylor
And that was my client's term, not mine. I wasn't.
- [29:36]
Jack Miller
No, no, no, I get it. We know what it means.
- [29:38]
Tammy Sims
Yep.
- [29:39]
Lisa Culp Taylor
They, there are, I think there have been studies that say more people watch social media and look at it than ever commenting or something. So they're, they, they're seeing it, which is where you get into impressions and all of that stuff. I don't know. But it, it, they are, they're, they're watching and they're paying attention. And a lot of times they do have accounts. It's just not in their name. It's in some random name that, you know, you're never going to tie back to them or they have a spouse, a husband or a wife or, or whatever that, that are, they're on and they're following from their information. I've found that a lot too.
- [30:19]
Jack Miller
Well, and to, you know, we, again, we work in Nashville and then this is not la, it's not New York, but we have a large number of celebrities in our marketplace and I've talked to some who have, who have shared with me. They have social media accounts, but like Lisa says, that's not in their name. You know, they're, they're, they're simply watching and enjoying social media as an observer, not as an active participant. But again, it contributes to the overall branding and who knows what Referrals we may or may or may not get from people who watch social media, but don't necessarily, necessarily participate actively.
- [30:50]
Tammy Sims
And you know, it also makes me think about that as a, a tool for us. We know how important it is to communicate with our clients in sphere of influence in the way that resonates with them. I can think off the top of my head of some of my wealthiest clients who are all over social media in their own names, posting about their crazy trips to Antarctica and all these places. And if they're behaving in that way, then that tells me that they want me to comment on that the next time that we talk to say, oh, how was the trip to Antarctica? Right. Because they're the outward kind versus the ones that are, that are stalkers, like we said. So one of the things that I've always loved about social media is that it's like permission based marketing. People are telling you what's going on in their lives and they are absolutely sharing with you things that can be valuable communication tools for sure.
- [31:46]
Jack Miller
And, and I think this is a good place to share with our listeners that as you talk about sharing, sometimes it's important to know when not to share. Some of our colleagues, I've noticed, share a little too much from time to time. And I think as we enter this political season, that's a good time to bring that point up. It's not the point of our podcast, but I've noticed some agents being extremely verbal on social media on their pages. I'm thinking, boy wonder what their clients think when they read these comments.
- [32:11]
Tammy Sims
So yeah, yeah, Lisa, I want to go back to something that you said about paying for leads on Zillow. And this, this has been an age old. Right. It's, it's almost as controversial as whether or not you should have your business card with your photograph on it. Right? Like that, that kind of old school debate. But the frustration within our industry of, of any type of industry where you have to buy back your own leads. And for those in the audience that don't know what we're talking about, if you look at a property on Zillow, it's going to say, it's going to give you an option to click a button and say, I'd like more information about this property. And to Lisa's point, people are out there using Zillow as a search tool. It's very effective that way. So what most people don't realize is that by clicking that button, they are connecting with someone who is actually paid to get that lead. Right. They've paid to have their, their name and contact information there. It's not necessarily going to the listing agent which most people assume that it is. So Lisa's point that if her listings are getting enough traction there, it is worth it to her to pay. Right. And it's kind of like the paying for my own stuff. Right. And it gives you a little heartburn. But if it's effective and it allows you to capture that information and to give good current information about the, about the listing that somebody who's, who's just getting the click doesn't know, I think that that's actually providing a service to your sellers. And so a lot of listings.
- [33:54]
Jack Miller
Lisa, Lisa has a lot of listings to 10. What have listings do you have currently? Roughly? Would you say 25. Yeah, 20, 25 listings. And these are not, these are 25 primarily luxury home listings, very high end listings. So it's clearly a good investment and with the team members that she can, you know, with the assistance she has with her team that can capture those and have those conversations. Makes perfect sense. Good for you.
- [34:17]
Lisa Culp Taylor
And they know, I mean I, nobody wants to pay for things you don't have to. But I've always looked at it as enhancing my listings by paying for Zillow. That's.
- [34:28]
Tammy Sims
Yep. And at the end of the day that's what it's, that's what it's all about. So I'm hopeful that our listeners have, have come away with, with maybe some, some new thoughts about digital platforms for generating leads and, and, and business. And so I would encourage. Jack, Lisa, any final thoughts that you want to share?
- [34:56]
Jack Miller
The only thing that I would say when it comes to purchasing leads, this is really geared more towards some of our listeners who are newer in the real estate market in general is always look for references, find someone else who has used that service. Even if you have to go to another market to find someone who's used that service before you make a commitment. Because some of these, some of these lead generation services are very expensive and many of them don't generate or don't do as promised I would say. And so I think doing your homework is critical when you're, when you're, you know, assigning such a large portion of your budget potentially to lead gen, you want to have a good source. So.
- [35:37]
Tammy Sims
Yep, absolutely.
- [35:38]
Lisa Culp Taylor
I would also say you have to make the commitment of the time because those leads that come in, they aren't necessarily going to buy in the first week or in the first month or in the first year. And you have to make the commitment of time. If you're new in the industry, it's a great way to build your database because as long as you're going to work the database, I mentioned that we have weekly telephone calls because we're following up on, are you working your leads? Are you working your prospects? And some of those prospects have been on two or three years, and they then will sometimes come through. And maybe it comes through and it's a $5 million house y. The $500,000 house, but it still comes through eventually. And it's surprising how often some of those prospects that you're following up with consistently, and they don't respond. They aren't. They aren't answering the call. They're not responding to the text, but they know you're calling. And then you'll hear that someone referred you, and it's the person you've been calling that hasn't been responding.
- [36:45]
Jack Miller
So we've done an entire podcast on working your database, and you can see now that that's. That so many of the topics we've covered in this podcast, Tammy, they're obviously all interrelated. You know, the leads are only as good as working the database. It all ties together. That's. That's terrific, Lisa. Thank you.
- [37:04]
Tammy Sims
Yep. Yep. Absolutely. All right. Well, I know that we could continue on this path and cover lots more ground, but our time is up. And so I want to thank all of you so much for joining us on this episode of A State of Mind, the art of selling luxury real estate. If you're interested in learning more about the institute, you can find more@luxuryhome marketing.com if you like what you just heard, please share it with a friend. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. And if you've got a hot topic that you'd like us to discuss in a future podcast, feel free to let us know, send an email to infoluxuryhomemarketing.com thanks so much for listening.