B (2:54)

Yeah, no, and I, I remember taking accounting classes. Basic bookkeeping, I should say classes in high school. But there's, there's no.

A (3:03)

Shocking that they don't. Yeah, it's like business acumen and even like goes deeper than that, like mindset and stuff is not taught like it should be. Tell me a little bit. So you've been in business, I think you said like seven years, real estate agent out of Missouri. So what are you running into pain point wise? Are you having problems in the accounting system that you're using? Do you even have one? Do you know, like, what was the GCI that you took home in the last six months? Like, where are you trending right now?

B (3:32)

Well, I use the past couple years. I, well, 20, 21, you know, the COVID years. Everybody was making money. So I hired an accountant and I use, now use Quicken Books, which is a big help. And it does it QuickBooks or is it QuickBooks?

A (3:51)

Is that QuickBooks?

C (3:52)

I'm intuit QuickBooks. Okay.

A (3:54)

I just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing. Okay, Perfect.

B (3:56)

Right?

A (3:57)

That's what we use at Acre, brother. So that's good. Okay. Yeah.

B (4:00)

And it gives you all your, all your stats and breakdowns and stuff like that. It's great. But as a new agent, you're already dumping all types of money into getting your business started. To hire an accountant just doesn't, you know, and if you have a bad year and you still got to pay the accountant and then you've got your, what it costs to have. Yeah.

A (4:25)

So what has been your volume so far this year, Jean?

B (4:29)

My volume this year has been slow. I'm rough. I'm just under just over a million in volume so far this year. I've got some really nice things coming up. It's going to push me over two here in the next month or so, but it's, it's still for me that's slow. I'm, I'm, I've got the taste of blood in my mouth. I want more and I want more and I want more.

A (4:53)

We got Gene, he's like a shark. So Gene, is your question just so I can understand it Is your question. You know, hey, I really need to get my accounting in order and I'm struggling to do that. Is your question. Should you have hire. Hire an accountant right now? Like, I want to get to the heart of like your question to help you. What's the. Because we all agree that there's a problem with not teaching this in the industry. But what's the struggle for Gene right now with the accounting and the numbers?

B (5:22)

I think still the very basic bookkeeping, where to put your numbers, how to read your numbers, how to use those numbers, and also how to budget those numbers. You've got your advertising, you've got your marketing, just your basic day to day costs, your licensing, all that stuff, how to budget that in there somewhere and then. Excuse me. And then have your accounting, you know, to show how you're actually producing.

A (5:57)

Yeah, this is such a good question, Stephen, I'm going to throw to you because I know we made the mistake of not doing good accounting early on with Acre brothers and our property management and everything that we've been doing. And you know, Cody, you could probably cry a little bit for the pain we've gone through with that. But Stephen, you want to tell everybody kind of how you look at the P L and like from a real estate perspective, you guys are a little different. You have a team of four agents. Right. Gene's a solo agent, but still the concepts are the same. So you want to walk them through that?

C (6:29)

Yeah. I mean, first off, we, we did struggle for years and this has been a pressure point from Luke, you know, because obviously we're partnering together and he's like, you got to know your numbers, we got to get this together, that kind of thing. But as far as like QuickBooks, we take a stance and we go, hey, we want to be 30% expenses, 40% cost of sales and 30% profit. Right. And so that's how we look at it and budget everything out. We. When it comes to QuickBooks, the reason people don't use it is because the focus point when you're starting should be revenue, and revenue only because one, you probably shouldn't be spending money. You should be doing the activities on sphere. You should be doing the activities on open houses, you should be doing the activities on circle prospecting. And those don't cost much money at all.

A (7:14)

All sweat equity activities.

C (7:15)

Sweat equity, right. So I think that's the reason. But we all agree, you know, that it should be an educational, you know, standpoint. There are plenty of places, Gene, where you can download a chart of accounts for real estate agents, honestly, if you just chat GBT it, if you just googled it, right, it's going to populate that and then you can upload that chart of accounts to your QuickBooks. They allow you to do that and you could follow that system. The key, that thing that we learned throughout this process was that it's just like the CRM. You know, if you, you've heard the best CRM is the CRM that you use. And so there is no magic formula. Just like everything else when it comes to running accounting, it really is knowing your numbers. And so I just had a meeting with our property management division and this was a point in which I made to them yesterday, which was we're going to review the P and L every single day. There will be no expense that comes through QuickBooks and the bank feed that we will not know what that is attached to. And the only reason, the only way to cut down on expenses is to do it this way because there's so at least running a business, right, where you have so many expenses going out and you're not in control of everything, it's is probably the number one thing that you can do looking at the mathematical equation because that's going to determine like if you were to start a team, your splits, right, that's going to determine your salaries, it's going to determine everything. And so I would just encourage you one get the chart of accounts, look through it. But I would start. We label everything. And Cody, if you want to go off on this, you can because we label everything extremely specific in our QuickBooks because what we realized when we downloaded the chart of accounts is there was a lot of broad stuff where when you're trying to look at numbers and move a big ship, we're trying to move a big ship here. You have to be able to accurately determine things very quickly. And so if you're not in there daily going, instead of this just being vehicle expense, was that gas? Was that the fee that we're paying out to the, the showing agent that goes out because we pay for their gas fee? Right. Was that actually some thing that went wrong with the vehicle and when we had some maintenance with it, we want to know all of those numbers very specifically so we can say instead of paying them for this, let's buy a company vehicle.

A (9:51)

And if you wait till the end of the month, Gene, or even bi weekly to put in those details, in other words, it won't happen. Like what we have found from our experience is on your calendar every day at the close of every day, you need to balance the account every day. And this is the same for, like, Reminder Media has a VP of finance, has an accountant, and guess what they do every day they are going through and balancing the account. When I worked at Verizon Wireless and Radio Shack years and years ago. Right. Is every day. At the end of every day, we had to print off all the receipts. We had to get the cash register drawer back to $120 in the cash register drawer. You had to bounce. And where real estate agents fail is they don't think of it as a daily process. And that's where you'll mess up.

C (10:40)

And then you're being sold, Luke, by every company that's out there. So what happened when I first started is everything looked like magic to me. I was like, man, all of these lead platforms are incredible. They're. They're guaranteeing this amount of leads and this amount of closings. And when you become educated, you realize it's not about the lead platform, it's about how I can execute that lead platform. It's because, like, a lot of companies work, but you have to work them. And so it really filters out all your decision making when you come to spend, because you go, well, I have to run at 30% expenses, so I have to increase my revenue here. You know what I mean? I have.

A (11:17)

Stephen, can you give some color to the cost, what you include in your cost of sale? Because you said 30. 40. 30, right, 30 expenses, 40% cost of sale. 30% profit is what you're shooting for. Y. Can you give a little color into what you guys include into your cost of sale?

C (11:36)

So cost of sale would be all of our agent splits. Right. It would be all of our bonuses that we send out for the ISAs that are on there. It's going to be all of the things that lead to the activity of the cell that come in with getting the actual, you know, sell of the property.

D (11:54)

Yes.

C (11:55)

And then you're. They're going to be more variable expenses than your. Your expenses. Right. They're going to be fixed.

A (12:01)

Right.

D (12:01)

So, Gene, are you an individual agent?

C (12:03)

Are you.

D (12:03)

Do you run a team? You know, where are you at in like, that kind of the business format? Is it just you where. Yeah, where you go?

B (12:11)

Yes. I'm a primary agent with ReMax here at the Lake of the Ozarks, and I had been on a team for a couple years. That's where I actually started learning the process. I came from a small boutique in Illinois, and a great. You Know, a great company and stuff like that, but once again, you know, we didn't have that structure for the accounting part of it.

D (12:38)

Gotcha. Yeah. Because the reason I asked that is I want to fit to like what you're doing. So what he's talking about a cost itself, like for a team. What we're paying out in splits for you would be what you're paying your brokerage. Right. So whatever your split is, you know, 3070, whatever. You know what? That would be your cost of sale, and the expense would be, you know, for you, most likely, marketing team or whatever.

C (12:57)

Yeah, it's gonna be much lower.

D (12:59)

The one thing I want to speak to you about specifically, man, is like, you do, you know right now. All right, what's your goal in profit for the year?

B (13:08)

What my goal and profit is for the year?

D (13:10)

How much do you want to make?

B (13:12)

Well, how much do I want to make? I want to make. I want to make the sky.

A (13:17)

Yeah.

B (13:17)

I mean. Yeah, I love that.

A (13:19)

What's the number?

B (13:20)

Yeah, 120,000 is. Is my. Yeah. Is my goal. And anything above that is. Is the gravy gold. Yeah.

D (13:28)

You know, because the one thing we always say when we're talking about budget, when we're working through accounting is profit first.

A (13:35)

Yeah.

D (13:36)

Nothing else matters. Right. Profit first. So you're going to start your accounting, obviously, and I think you might know this, Gene, but you're going to start at your profit to figure out this is how much you want to break. And then you make decisions based on your expenses. Right. Of what you need to do to get there. But it starts there, and then it starts with activities and then what, you know, working down the line. All right, so if I do this activity, I do this many times, I set up this many appointments, I meet with them this many times. I get them signed, I get them under contract, I get them closed to get.

A (14:04)

It's just a big math problem. Right. And to summarize for Eugene, so you can, you know, take away is you need to go get the chart of accounts set up for your QuickBooks. If you haven't use AI to, you know, do that or go and Google, there's tons of them out there. And then you need to implement a daily process to mark everything that's going in and out of your bank account. What you focus on expands. Right. Where your focus goes, your energy flows. So if you're looking at your bank account every single day, you're going to get really good at what's producing and what's not producing. For you, Gene. You've been amazing, man. Thank you for coming on the show. I hope this has been helpful.

B (14:43)

Don't you think, though? I mean, what you're telling me right here, though, to a person who's seven years in already and even maybe somebody that's two or three years in, it can be too late.

A (14:55)

It's not too late. No, no, it's too late.

B (14:58)

But I, I, I, it's more painful.

A (15:02)

Oh, 100%. We're in total agreement. This needs to be done. Day one. Brokers should be teaching this. It should be in the real estate class. It's a shame that it's not. And I'm not beating up every brokerage out there, but some teach it. But it should be. But it's not too late. It's only just more painful when you haven't done it. We lived through that as Acre brothers. We have lived through doing the accounting wrong and have finally gotten it to where it's in a good footing and it makes a world of difference. But just go through the pain of the everyday process of tracking your expenses, labeling them with specifics that will then teach you to apply what Cody has taught you, which is lead with revenue. If you have that goal of 120,000, what are the activities that are producing the, the actual income? Where are my expenses going out? And you'll only know that by what you focus on. But let's connect on social because we can talk more also offline to try to help you out in this instance. Absolutely. But it's awesome having you on the show and I know this has been helpful for other people, not just you.

C (15:59)

Thanks.

B (16:00)

Thank you, guys. Keep doing with what you're doing. It's.

A (16:03)

Thanks, Gene.

B (16:04)

I'm thoroughly enjoying it and learning a lot.

A (16:08)

Thanks, brother. Have a great one.

B (16:09)

Have a good day.

C (16:12)

Yeah, it is funny, Luke, because most people are in Gene's position. I mean, it took us seven years to get to the place where we had it super accurate.

A (16:20)

And it's just accounting is so hard to get right. And it's because it takes the daily activity and that's where we fail as business owners. I want to bring in. Speaking of business owners, I want to bring in. Get to our next caller. Right. Because to help as many people as we can. Get your questions in, if you want to be live on the show, if you want a question answered, you don't even have to have your face on the show if you don't want to. I don't want to scare people. Go to remindermedia.com ask or go to Staypay podcast on Instagram and submit your question. We would love to have you on the show to help you out. I'm going to go to Jay Quigley here. Jay is a real estate agent out of Florida. Jay, want to welcome you to Stay Paid podcast. Jay, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for coming on.

E (17:04)

How do you know Brian Quigley?

A (17:09)

Are you related to him? Yeah. Are you related to Brian Quigley in bluebell, Pennsylvania?

E (17:16)

No, just in Tampa, Florida.

A (17:18)

Okay. Just, it's another Brian Quigley. So Brian is an amazing agent here that's helped me buy a property before. And so we've been good friends for many, many years now. So. Hey, man, great last name though, Quigley. Cause Brian's a stud of a guy, so I'm sure you are as well. But what is your question? That is, you know, maybe in business, maybe you're. It's holding you back from going to the next level. What do you want to know about that we can help you with?

E (17:43)

Well, as you can tell, I don't have the camera on because in the industry, radio industry, I have a face for radio. So I did radio right out of high school and, you know, bounced around in a couple of careers before I landed into real estate. And, and I've been enjoying your podcast now for easily over a year. And you know, I was curious, has that podcast helped your company build its brand and client base? That's my first question. And then my second question is if someone like me was thinking about starting a podcast, are there any nuggets of wisdom that you could provide?

A (18:28)

Great question. So tell me a little bit about where your business is today, volume wise, and what type of like GCI or profit are you getting out of your business today? Because that also will help me craft the answer of whether we think you should spend time doing a podcast or not. I'll still give you my thoughts on what ours has done for us, but how much volume have you done year to date, Jay? Wow.

E (18:53)

I wish I had been told I needed to give you some, some clear numbers, but just looking at the last year, last year, which was a decent year, 24 transactions, you know, $16 million.

A (19:08)

Awesome. Yeah. So you're a great producer, man. Congrats on that. Yeah, always know your numbers. We just got off a call in where we were talking about accounting systems and I use the phrasing, you know, what you focus on expands, you know, and where your focus goes, your energy flow. So I think a lot of rich people, they, they tell you Check your bank account every day. I tell that to real estate agents all the time. Check your bank account, but more importantly, check your numbers of activity. Because when it's top of mind, you can't avoid it, you can't ignore it. So let's get into then podcasting. I'll share kind of our experience with Reminder Media. Like, the biggest pain in podcasting is called Pod Fade. And Stephen and Cody, you guys can speak to this because you started a podcast that didn't keep going. That's because you joined a better one with the Pod fade. It's basically 90% or so of podcasts don't make it past 10 episodes. And so, you know, the biggest pain in podcasting is producing content consistently and especially when you're getting no traction. For three years, we did Reminder Media Stay paid. So for those who don't know that are listening, I run a marketing company called Reminder Media. You know, work with real estate agents, of course, but you know, thousands of other businesses. And the podcast was really our way to go. Hey, we need a way to get educational value out to the space that people. It would build an audience, build a tribe, and also help our clients know how to implement their products. And so we started it about eight years ago. For the first three years, nobody listened. For the first three years. I really, believe it or not, even though we were decently big at the time, in terms of company size, I didn't have any connections. I interviewed my personal property and casualty insurance agent for the.

C (20:47)

It was, it was bad. When he first.

A (20:48)

Don't go listening to first episodes, guys. It's. Go binge them if you want to see how awkward.

E (20:53)

I'm going to go, I'm going to go find him right. I'm going to go find him right now.

A (20:57)

But it's an evolution. So two things is. One is I started it with a guy interviewing me called Sefton. He was one of my content writers at the time. We lasted like three episodes. And then I brought Josh, my CMO on, and I loved it so much with Josh that I was like, hey, Sefton, I'm going to have Josh host it with me. And so that's the key takeaway for people is like, hey, when you know, you know, you got to make the move, even if it's not what you started out with, you got to evolve it and iterate it. So Josh came on. He's an incredible co host. We did episodes Mondays and Thursdays for the first, really probably six years of the show. First three years, nobody Listened. I'm talking like nobody. I have eight or seven siblings. There's eight kids in our family. My even siblings weren't listening. I don't think you listen, Stephen. Shame on you. Maybe our mom listened is the joke I make, because, you know, my mom loved me. But we kept going. That's the point I'm trying to drive home for three years. Imagine getting on Mondays and Thursdays, releasing episodes, no views, no listeners. Not sure who you're going to interview next. I interviewed people in our company, like our sales management, client success management. I interviewed my insurance agent. And then finally we started to get a little traction. And the key is in podcasting is not actually the listeners. The key is the relationships of the people you have on. Yep. That is really the gold behind podcasting is like, jay, you're meeting us and we're able to meet you. And if we were doing a full interview, it's 30 minutes of no pressure. Like, from a sales standpoint, we get to know each other, we hear each other's journey, and now there's just a connection there that if I reached out to you after the fact, you would probably take my call in a different way because, you know, Luke. And so we started to realize out of the gate. Well, I shouldn't say out of the gate. Three years in that, oh, man, we are really getting to know these people. And I remember interviewing Andy Dane Carter, who has a big following on Social, and he reshared our podcast. And then I was able to go, okay, we've had Andy on. Who's connected with Andy. That's a bigger name that I can then, you know, essentially go, hey, we had Andy on. We'd love to have you on. Get Andy to introduce me to him. And then from there, it started kind of that snowball effect. And it has been. It's probably our number one brand builder. It has gotten me speaking on different stages, a bunch of different places. We have a partnership. Do you know Bam? The Bam X community? Jay.

E (23:20)

I've been following them recently.

A (23:23)

Okay, so awesome. So they're incredible, right? But we interviewed Eric, the broke agent on our podcast. From there, I was like, eric, man, I love what you're doing. How do we do stuff together? He introduced me. We partnered up with Bamboo. And so that came from the podcast. So it's like, there are so many of those I can speak to that go, wow. The podcast was so instrumental, but it is not a direct response piece. It is a labor of love that you will never truly be able to go one to One, I did these episodes, I generated this much revenue. Unless you're selling ads, which we don't. But it has, the connections and relationships it has made for us over the eight years has been unbelievable. And Cody and Steven talk about what the struggles were for the podcast you launched and why did it ultimately not keep going. And, you know, I know you stopped the brand and all that stuff, but talk about that, because I think that will help. Jay.

C (24:15)

Yeah, I mean, like, so we started. So I think what you said is perfect. So Grant Cardone has the same saying. Like, he talks about stages. Get on other people's stages. Because just like the band, we did that BAM webinar yesterday, and I was telling Cody, you know, I peaked at my Instagram this morning, and I had had like a hundred and something followers right through BAM stage and platform, because they already have influence. Now I have all of. Not all of, but I have a lot of bam's followers now looking at me. And the reason that we stopped is because you really need a profit center, right, for what you're doing through, like, what is the reason you're starting a podcast? We're not just starting it just to have influence. And I think some of the best ones are when you just do it organically and all that good stuff. But when we started, we had no way of really going, why are we doing this? Are we doing this? Yeah. Are we doing this to acquire agents to our team? So do we need to be real estate focused? Are we doing this for the consumer so that we can generate lead flow to our team? And we just didn't have a clear picture and couldn't see the trajectory that was there. And so we. We stopped it. And with that, you know, Luke invited us on the podcast and I said.

A (25:26)

Luke, you know, it was really out of pity.

C (25:31)

Better than you do, dude, so let me just get on your stage. No, but I think ultimately that's how I would filter it is like, what is. What's your ultimate goal through the podcast? Do you have a profit center that's going to come from it? Because like you just said, Luke, you spent three years of blood, sweat and tears to do this thing. But you. You did have an end goal of going.

A (25:54)

Yeah. My justification was one, retention of clients, current clients at Reminder Media. I gave them more value. I could retain them. So that was a goal. Second goal was a brand building, which is not. It's a little bit intangible, but it's why we get billboards or run ads and stuff like that. And then third was how do I leverage the connection of the relationships to get on their stages? So like Cody Askin with 8%, he has one of the biggest stages in insurance, interviewed him on the show, ended up speaking at his event through that connection and that relationship. So Jay, if I'm giving you tips of like, hey, what should you do to launch a podcast? Stephen has the greatest tips. Begin with the end in mind. Stephen Covey, what's your end in mind? Is it building relationships with other business owners in your local market? Is it sharing market knowledge to build credibility with your sphere and your database? Like, what is the end goal? Is it a combined of those? Define that. And then realize that most podcasts fail because of Pod Fade. So like take this call in show. This is a new series that we released on Stay Paid. We have five pre recorded in the bank already. And so this won't release right away for everybody listening. But why did we do that? Because the biggest fear you have in anything is that you start something and stop and you don't have consistency. And consistency crushes or breaks trust if you don't have it. And so if we're going to do a call in show, we have to know we're committed to doing it for and have it in the backlog. So if something goes wrong with our show or something like that, we still have episodes that we can release. And so I would prerecord four to five episodes before I launch. Hype up your launch through your email list, through Facebook before you launch it so you can get some views. Ignore the amount of views you have. But we have a show coming out with Matt Hollerin. The guy produces podcasts for businesses like yours in the financial services space and stuff like that. He's done over like a thousand different podcast, like produced them for people. And he says a good rule of thumb from a viewership standpoint is how big is your sphere. And if you can get that in viewership, you're crushing it about a year in. So if you have 200 people in your database, if you can average about 200 views, you're crushing it. Like, that's a good metric for you to follow. So hopefully these are helpful in helping you think about podcasting in general.

D (28:15)

Yeah, and I was going to add one thing for you, Jay. The reason we got into that conversation is what Luke Das in the very beginning as far as like, hey, what are your numbers? Because it doesn't matter if you don't have money coming in the door, because then you're not gonna be in real estate, you're not gonna have a podcast, right? So, like, for you, it's too. Like, if you're gonna focus on this, it's gonna take a lot of time. Like, it's not just an hour, right. Luke, how much time, you know, a week did you spend setting that up? You know, so it's gonna. It's. It's one of those things where if you're gonna add this, we talk about adding another pillar. It can't take away from the pillars you already have in place. But it's. Dude, this is so full. And then you're going to add this on top of it, you know, you're not going to take away. You're gonna add. Because the podcast, at least at first and for a long time, it's not going to bring a lot of value, if any. It's a year to two.

A (29:01)

We're still trying to figure out if state pays worth it, honestly.

D (29:04)

Right. But it's such a great note because, like, the one thing you can do is pick up something and then you forget what you're currently doing and then you go down. Right. It's an adding on top of what you're currently doing to build your business to where you want it to go.

A (29:17)

Go in. In. The equipment's not usually the problem. Don't worry about the equipment. There's easy way we use Riverside. As you can tell, we started out on Zoom is how we did them. And so we use. We do some in person, but most are just interviewing over Zoom. We find that to be easier. And then like anything, you can do the work, but then it's how you promote, right. The work you've done. So as long as you're willing to promote. So if you interview the local business owner, then make sure you do the work to get the local business owner to share it on their Facebook, their Instagram, their LinkedIn. Make sure you collaborate with them when you post it on Instagram, make sure you're sending it out to your sphere. All these things you've got to ask yourself, do I have the time to do this? And if you don't have the time personally, then you need leverage, people and systems. And so who can you pay or leverage to do this for you? But if something's worth doing, it's worth doing well. So don't do something and not try to do it well like that. That is the key.

C (30:20)

Podcast.

A (30:20)

Yeah. Stephen wants to be on your show, Jay, man. He tries to leverage every stage he can get. They're not. I don't know, I can't control him. But hopefully, Jay, that that's helpful for you. Are you gonna go start a podcast now?

E (30:35)

Well, you know, I have the equipment. I've been playing around with Zoom. I've done a couple of trials, you know, just kind of myself. I think it'd be way easier if I had somebody cool like Cody or Steven to bounce things off of. But definitely this was great information. I know it's a lot of work, and I think that's one of the reasons why I've hesitated moving forward. Because to. To Yalls point, you really do need to, you know, do it with both feet on the ground and, and hit the ground running. And that's what I want to do. And I do have some free. I have some free freed up time and I'd like to, to. To plug something worthwhile into it and with my love for radio, because I was a former radio guy.

A (31:20)

Yeah, when you have a great voice for radio, I can tell. When you start the podcast, send it to us. Yeah, we love to share it here on the show. Be full circle moment. So when you start that and get the episodes launched, please send that to us. You can send it to us@staypaypodcast.com or, you know, just chatted over in the emails that you've been going back and forth with, I think with Chris. But we'd love to shout that out on the show and that way it's full circle moment. And then, you know, have Cody and Stephen on. They're okay. They're pretty cool. But, Jay, I really appreciate you coming on the show, man, and I. And I'm glad you're on here and I know this will help a ton of people. So follow us on Instagram. We'd love to connect offline.

E (31:57)

You got it. Thanks, guys. Have a great day.

A (32:00)

Bye.

C (32:02)

I want to know how 16 million dollar producer has time on his hands. That's what I'm talking about.

A (32:06)

Yeah, that's what we should have got into. If he's producing 16 million and he's thinking about doing a podcast, that would be amazing. All right, so let's go right to our next caller calling. And we got Courtney Thompson, real estate agent, calling in from Virginia. Courtney, welcome to Stay Paid.

F (32:25)

Hey, thank you so much for having me.

A (32:28)

Yeah, it's awesome to have you on the show. Thank you for calling in. What is the thing that we can help you with in your business to take you to the next level? What question do you have?

G (32:36)

Sure.

F (32:36)

Well, thank you so much. First of All I am a brand new agent in Richmond. I just recently transitioned out of teaching and I've been binging your podcast. So thank you for that. It's been really helpful. I have learned so much. My question is, what do you think the most overlooked move for turning a casual connection like a social media like or maybe a quick chat back and for into a loyal client or even a referral partner.

A (33:04)

Man, such a great question. Okay, so you're brand new. Thank you for being a teacher, by the way. My wife was a special education teacher before stay at home mom and so she. Now you guys know why. Megan can put up with me two of the hardest jobs and require a ton of patience and a ton of heart. But I would love to know, have you sold any homes yet?

F (33:24)

Not yet.

A (33:25)

Okay, not yet. And how many months have you been in at this point in time?

F (33:30)

Three weeks.

A (33:31)

Okay, three weeks. Okay, not even a month. So you are in the thick of it. You have your license, you've chosen the brokerage. You're really trying to get off the ground. So love your question, but would love to kind of take it in a different route because I think it'd be super valuable if Cody, you can maybe talk about because you are onboarding three new agents right now, right onto the team that started you give. I don't know how we want to frame it, but maybe a 30 day type view of like, hey, Courtney, if I'm you starting out in this business, this is what you should go do. Knowing that we want to lead with revenue so we want to get her deals flowing in right away.

D (34:07)

Yep, yep, 100%. So yeah, we're in the third week of our training, so they started similar to you in the very first week. The only thing we focus on is fear. The only thing we do is call sphere. We won't make one other activity. We won't do anything. We won't call any type of lead. We don't even focus on social media. We do nothing else besides call the people that we know because that's going to be your biggest lead generator, your big referrals. And it's being intentional in one. How I typically start the conversation is just your typical, hey, how's it going? How's work? Blah, blah. They're going to ask you, how's work? Because anytime you ask where, ask me back and go, oh, awesome. I actually just got into real estate and I'm super excited because I get to help people with some of their biggest goals, which is the buy and sell homes. I'm super excited about it. I joined for us, it's like we joined the number one real estate team. We actually do events quarterly throughout the year. I wanted to make sure I invited you to our next one. So adding some type of pitch of value. So how can I add value to you? This is what we do. And you're starting the beginning relationship because when we think about real estate, we talk about career focused, not year focused. Right. We want to Crush this year 100, but we want to crush our careers and how we can add value. So even if it's not right now, if it's one year, two year, five year, and I say this in the conversation, I don't care if it's one year, two year, five year, I want to be the person you use or you think of when it comes to real estate. And you're adding that value and then following up in a cadence from there. So I.

A (35:38)

Beautiful.

D (35:39)

So from there I would tear out your three.

A (35:41)

Three.

D (35:41)

Your three spheres. You're gonna have your VIPs or the people that are gonna shout your name from the rooftops, they're gonna be your people. They're gonna refer you, they're gonna love you. They're so excited for you. Your VIPs, you know, typically it's going to be like your top 10% of your sphere. And then you're gonna have tier ones. Which tier ones are people that you're gonna call quarterly, invite to things. They're gonna cheer for you, but maybe not be like your, your focus point. And then your tier twos are ones that you follow up annually. Yeah. And you want to try to have a list of a hundred. So one last.

C (36:12)

And that's so perfect too, because you're a teacher and teachers are known to be the best real estate agents because you're, you're an excellent communicator. You've been up in front of people, you're disciplined. You know, you've got to do all the students plans and you got to do them after hours. So your work ethic, I'm curious, because we hear social media all the time. Courtney, what made you go to social media first? Because there might be a reason and maybe we can go that direction to give some advice there. But what made you think social media first?

F (36:44)

I think it has a lot to do with that is how I feel like I've been marketed to and not just in real estate and everything. You know, I feel like I'm on Instagram on a sudden. I'm like, yeah, I need that thing or this is. Yep, this is right for me. Oh, this course looks interesting. And I, I feel like that's how I'm getting word of the things that I'm buying. That's how I'm finding out about what's interested. Interesting to me.

A (37:08)

Yeah.

C (37:08)

And it's great and you should be doing it. But most people have the wrong foundational thought when it comes to social media, where social media is going to get me a lead, I'm going to pull a lead into my database and close someone. When social media for us, I'm just sharing what it is for us. Right. So there are people that crush it on social media that gain tons of leads and tons of business. Right. And you'd have to go to them, you know, for some advice. But for me, the way I look at it foundationally is social media is just to make my sphere, my sphere of influence. These are the people that know like and trust. You already show that I'm an active realtor doing business in my local area.

A (37:49)

That's an amplifier. It's an amplifier.

C (37:52)

So.

A (37:53)

But I would add on to that. Steven too. Courtney, write down that it's that you're doing business but also who you are as a person.

D (38:01)

Yeah.

A (38:01)

The pillars of who you are as a person. Because people will continue to do business with people they know like and trust. And like is built upon commonality, like is built upon shared values, all the stuff we know. So sharing that you were a teacher, things like that matter. Sharing like if you go to church, sharing that, if you have a family, sharing that because that just naturally builds trust because one component of trust is built off rapport. And so your social is a way to amplify. And Stephen, to double down on your point is what Stephen is saying is don't go in with an intention going, I'm going to market on social and get a ton of leads go in going, I'm going to share my journey on social to amplify who I am to my followers. If you want to use social media for leads, there are ways to do that through paid advertising and stuff like that. But what you'll find is the absolute rock stars, the Killers, the Marie Boatsman's, the Shannon Gillettes, these are two people you can follow. They crush it on YouTube, social, all that stuff. But they aren't really doing direct response type social.

D (39:08)

Yep.

A (39:08)

I, I highly doubt we'll have to ask them but it's been a while since we've had it on the show. I highly doubt they're even doing sophisticated like lead generation through Social, they've built a brand that is amplified through social. And people love Shannon Gillette because of her values and her family and, and just the, the quality content she puts out. And that's what, so social is a long term game in that aspect. A hundred percent do it. But apply what Cody's telling you even more importantly, which is have you made the list yet? Like how big's your sphere? Have you made that?

F (39:45)

I've made it. It's not super huge, but I've made it, yes.

A (39:49)

How many, how many people are on it?

G (39:51)

60.

A (39:52)

60. Beautiful. That's awesome. So 60 people. So all those people you should try to follow on social and get followed by them if you haven't already. All those people you should give a phone call to and do exactly what Cody said and I would not shy away from. The reason for my call is I wanted to catch up to see, we haven't talked in a while and I also, you know, this is a huge thing happening in my life and I wanted to make sure you were aware of it. I would come right out with saying that because otherwise it's going to come across inauthentic, insincere. You just gotta come straight out, you know, hey, I actually got into real estate. You can even leverage if you're nervous. You can even leverage, you know, and my, my mentor here at the brokerage is telling me that I should reach out to all my sphere and make sure they know in all my best relationships. And I consider you one of my greatest relationships. So use the terminology best relationship because that's gonna make that person feel special. I'm reaching out to you specifically because they should, said I should reach out to all my, you know, best, you know, relationships and friends. And I consider you in that bucket, Courtney. And I just wanted to let you know what was going on, you know, with my life and what I'm doing. And they'll go, oh, that's great, awesome. And then you can go, hey, well what's happening in your life? I'd love to catch up. Like what's happening? You know, what's that? And if you know them personally, what's happening with the kids, what's happening? And then you can offer because you don't maybe have the client event yet that you're throwing, even though you should throw four client events a year, start with one.

D (41:24)

But you should do that, do like a cookout or something super simple.

A (41:30)

Like we have a episode on client events. I'll have to find it and send it to you. But, you know, you want to add a value. So a value that you can add to everybody right now is giving them free value of what their home's worth. So, hey, would love to, you know, just send you a free value of what your home is worth that way, you know, because one of your greatest assets always is your house. And a lot of times, people, they have a financial planner, but they don't have a financial planner for their house. That's what I want to be for you. I'll send you a free value of your house. If you have any questions on it, let me know. But it will just give you a comparable of what it's worth today in today's market. So you can track the value of that, and that is something you can add as an item of value that you can send, and immediately you are elevated in credibility when you send that CMA to them.

F (42:19)

Okay, that's a great idea.

D (42:22)

The last ad for you real quick would be just for social media to make. A simple, quick game plan is you're gonna do five things on social media three times a day. Super simple. It'll take you 30 minutes. And it's all that you should be focusing on social right now, in my opinion, which is you're gonna like three. Three things. You're gonna reply, comment to three posts. You're gonna make three posts a day, whether that's two stories and, you know, one post, two posts, one story. You're gonna add three friends and your direct message. Three people do that every day.

A (42:56)

Yep.

C (42:57)

Yeah, it's just the systematic, right? Yeah. So it's like foundationally, we probably should send to anybody that wants it. Well, let's send out like, the SOP loop for any of our new agents on the team. Just like. Because, like, foundationally, you have to start with a plan of action. So it's like, if I were to ask you, Courtney, what are your goals for this year? You know, your new agent, you're three weeks in, you'd probably be like, I, I'm not sure, you know, how what to define there. Right. And so you need to backtrack and go, here's my goal. And then once you have the goal, here's the plan of action. That plan of action beat should be filtered by some top producer or broker in your office to say, these are the actions that actually got me there. And then. Then it's just the activities after that. And the reason he says it that way in the social media, because everything comes down to consistency. You know, I posted the team and Alex Rosi quote today, and he's so big on his, like, do the boring stuff over and over and over again. Like, there is no magic formula to social media. It literally is just the consistency behind it. But you have to first foundationally start with your goals.

A (43:58)

And there's a lot. I just. I don't want to overwhelm you, but there's a lot of tips we could get into on another call of how you get people to engage with you on social. Doing polls in your story, you know, DMing people. Like Cody's saying, Lindsay Jo we had on the podcast, she's awesome at social as well. And she does a lead guide through her. It's like a local guide that she puts together. So you think, here are the best restaurants in Richmond, Virginia, and that can be a guide that people can request. Here are the best school districts. And you create that little PDF, you can go find Lindsay Jo's episode on Stay Paid. She's awesome. She's out of dc, I think, so she's not too far from you. But Courtney, awesome question. Congrats getting into the business. Thank you for being a teacher. And now go teach people how to buy and sell real estate. The key is, like Steven said, just be relentless in the activity. Don't overthink it. Just relentless. Call all 60 people, add to that database. It doesn't have to be perfect marketing doesn't have to be the perfect script. It must be frequency. Frequency creates greatness. Whatever you do, do not get paralysis by analysis. Just every day, have 20 conversations in real estate. That won't probably happen every day, but if you talk to 20 people and try to talk to them about real estate 20 times a day, you will be a top producer. Guaranteed. Guaranteed. You will. You will be a top producer. So hope you have a great day. Thank you for coming on the show. Let's connect on social, but appreciate you having you on.

F (45:31)

Thank you so much. Bye.

A (45:33)

That's great. Yeah. And you can tell, like, it's like, who. Once you start going, you're kind of a little overwhelming. That's why I love what you said, Cody, of hey, keep it simple. Don't even do social. Don't call that sphere and come back to us. Come back to us in a couple days after you've done that. Because that is the key at the end.

D (45:50)

I just want to be like and reminder. The only thing I said here that you should like. Everything else come back like, she was great, though. You can tell she's in it, though, right? Notes like paying. Like dude, eyes glued. I loved it. She's in it to win it, you know?

A (46:05)

Yeah.

D (46:05)

Oh my gosh.

A (46:06)

So good guys. Get your questions answered here live on the show. Whatever question you have from hard to easy, whatever you think, think, we want to talk to you. Remindermedia.com Ask a S K Ask or go to @stay paid podcast on Instagram and DM us on Instagram or Facebook. We love to have you on the show. These have been such great questions today and we've got another great one now. Forgive me if I pronounce the name wrong, but I want to bring to Stay Paid. Shrovni. Is that how you pronounce it?

G (46:37)

You got it?

A (46:38)

Yeah, I got it. Man, that's incredible. Shraddh. Welcome to Stay Paid. We would love to help you grow your business. What is your, you know, question that you have that can take you to the next level?

G (46:51)

Yeah, sure. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. All of you. Great. You know, thanks for having me here. I am very excited to share my question because I know you guys are the experts. So in brief, so my company, we help professionals build their personal brands and my question is like sometimes our prospects, they mistakenly confuse our high benefit multimedia brand building features as an average paid press media agency. So how can we showcase our real value, outshine competition and attract the right clients?

A (47:30)

Great question and you know, very similar to us, you know, at Reminder Media trying to help people build their brand. Can you give me some understanding of the difference for you and what you're saying? The average paid media press versus you?

G (47:44)

Yeah, absolutely. So when we talk about any average press media, what they do is they are going to charge you just probably a couple of hundred dollars. They will say you write your article, give it to us, we'll just get it press featured.

A (47:57)

Yeah. So like pr, they'll go feature it on basic priority. Now what PR wise type wire stuff.

G (48:03)

What we do is we firstly we identify who these professionals are who are in the industry for at least 15 years. So they have at least a good story in their industry expertise to tell. We work with them, we write their stories and we have an article done on our digital magazine. We have yes, a press feature which is a wide media press feature feature. We also get them featured on the NYC billboards or we also do their LinkedIn outreach. So basically help them build an entire brand with their personal and professional story so their personal brand not out overshadowed by their company that they work for. So authors, coaches, consultants, even people looking for TEDx talks. We also Have a podcast. So we, we give them the whole bunch of features. Features, which is billboards.

A (48:55)

So what is the then pain point there? Your client is saying to you that they don't see the value over just the regular paid.

G (49:05)

Like, how are they when they interact with us, when they work with us, they absolutely love us. But when I'm talking about cold outreach. So sometimes. Why is your pricing different? Because I could just pay $97 and get myself featured here versus why do I have to pay, you know, a few hundred dollars or a couple of thousand dollars?

D (49:27)

How do you separate yourself is what you're asking from the competition?

G (49:30)

They, they sometimes when they do not interact with us or see us just by one ad, they do get confused. Like, how is it different from one Spark paid feature versus all these multimedia features that we are bringing in?

C (49:44)

Yeah, I could say something there, Luke, because, like, even like hearing your. Your pitch, like, I am confused, you know, on the, the difference there. And I would say, like the number one mistake that you're making is everything relates down to how much money are you bringing that company. And so you have to, like, if you have cases that the people that love you, that you're working with, that you know are 15 years in the business, if they're praising you, they're sticking, your retention rate is really good with them. There's a reason behind that, and that reason is money. You have to, when you go to your sales pitch, show how the differentiator, how it relates to bringing you more business as the consumer you're selling to the business owner that you're selling to. I don't have clarity on that as you're making the pitch. I don't know any of the terms that you're spouting out. I would say you just have three relate it back to the money. Like, how much money are you making them more than these other companies are making. The business owner.

A (50:42)

Yeah, usually how it flows is you. If you can share, maybe you have it, maybe you don't. But if you can share, this is what our average client sees versus the comparable. Right. The. The comparison and then outlay. Why? Right. And you've seen this in tech. Tech does this a lot where it's like the features you get with us. Check, check, check, check, check. In this one, it's like, check, check X, red X. They don't have this feature. Right. And you see the comparables. That's normally how, like these squeeze pages or lead pages try to showcase that, like, to give you a comparable for like, I think it's like Tom Ferry or Brian Buffini. They'll say our average client makes, you know, $400,000 a year versus the industry average of 65,000. So they compare their coaching client to the industry and that is the hook that brings people in to actually care about the differentiator of you writing the article for them, you doing the extra work. But to Steven's point, I don't care.

D (51:44)

Right.

A (51:44)

That you write it versus I write like as a, as a business person, it's like all I care about is the result. So and if you're telling me it's a lot more expensive to go with you, I got to see that. Well, what's the result you're getting over the other people? And this is where like if maybe yours is not a quantifiable result because you're in a similar land of like branding is a hard thing to quantifiable and branding. So yeah, the way to do this, and you'll see this in real estate too, it applies to all real estate agents, financial services. It's you've got to do niche based marketing and case study based. So that is you got to think about your target audience. You said I think consultants is one and it's okay, consultants, that's a wider range. Do you work with a specific type of consultant? You know, and this is just as example, I don't need to know the answer to it. But it's like you get really niche down on who you serve. So let's give this example. In real estate, do you work with first time home buyers?

D (52:41)

Yep.

A (52:42)

Do you work with luxury real estate? Like you get really niche of who you're going after audience wise and then that allows you to craft. Let me give you a case study of hey, are you a dentist? This is a dentist client that worked with us and this is what happened with their business. And so maybe you can't have the easy, you know, like hook based upon money, but you can do that same hook based upon niche drags you in. I'm a dentist in this local area and I'm now seeing what this dentist did.

D (53:14)

I help this and that.

C (53:16)

Yeah.

D (53:17)

Business. Then you get reviews to them praising you. So you've got a third way to do it.

G (53:21)

Yeah, I think, I think, I think what you guys are saying is very much echoing with me because of the time when I actually asked this question versus now we have actually done that with, you know, with people who got featured with us. So they got the digital.

A (53:36)

How is that working for you? Is it Is it working?

G (53:38)

Yeah, it's working good. Because we had the testimonials, we had the digital verified badge, we had their press features, they got it, we had them featured at the Times Square. So yeah, they are seeing that and so does our client.

A (53:50)

Yeah. So it's just get really niche. Like I would have to pull up your site and take a look at your offerings. I can do that maybe later for you. But it's like the hardest part in business is saying no to opportunity. And the, the death of every entrepreneur is they just see the world as a blue ocean and they want it all. And I could think of Reminder media. We said no to being integrated into CRMs for the longest time. You know why? Because we wanted to build a CRM and we thought there'd be an opportunity for us at the CRM. And it's like that is such short term, it killed us because now I've lost years and years of being integrated into the most major CRMs out there in the industry because I thought I was going to do a CRM at one point in time. Like it just was so dumb. And I can think of so many examples that, oh man, get niche, get really niche, master that niche. So maybe part of the problem is you got to look at your business and you got to go, where does my revenue actually come from? Does it come from consultants? Does it come from coaches? Does it come from? Where does it really come from? And how big is that total addressable market? And if that's a big enough size, how does my reflection of copy be when I go to my landing pages, my website, how does my reflection of email marketing, my ads that I run, everything that I do to promote my business speak to that one niche? We serve thousands and thousands of insurance agents, financial advisors and 140 different other industries. But our biggest niche is real estate. So when you go to our site and we hear this complaint all the time, you think we're only a real estate company. But I still haven't changed that because guess what? Hey, my biggest niche is real estate and I haven't even mastered that yet. So I'm going to get all the other business. But every time I've tried to spread out to everybody too soon, it has killed our business. So I would just encourage you, Shravni, to get really niche in who you go after and then your value proposition will resonate. When you confuse, you lose. When you confuse, you lose. And how you're describing it to us, you're losing. Right? And that's to Help you go, hey, how you just gave your 15 second. Here's what we do. The three of us would not have known the difference. And I'm in the marketing space and I still had to ask you to clarify, well, what's the. What's the difference? So that's maybe just because, you know, you're on a show and it's hard to get out your thoughts, which is fair. But that spend time on that and we all are blessed right now in where we're at. Chat CPT man. Gemini, use the A.I. take exactly what you told us. Go speak to ChatGPT on, on record mode, on voice mode, I should say and go, hey, based upon what I've told you, how would you give a value proposition in 5 seconds based upon this? How would you. And you know that will help you a ton. But awesome question and very, very applicable to every entrepreneur out there.

G (56:41)

Sure. Thank you so much. Yeah, that is helpful, I think. I think that is something we have been doing because this was more like a something I did not do full time until this year. So I did not pay much attention on my own marketing because I had a lot of referrals coming in from the people who had worked with me previously. So all the things you're saying are not something I had consciously thought and worked on because people saw the value and they referred. But now that I have to go and market myself with an ad Amita and Google, I have to feature on that ad with that niche that you work.

A (57:16)

So yeah, you got to define your niche because referrals are great. But if you want to grow to add to your bucket, you got to know who your ideal target ads like.

G (57:25)

The, the open ads on Meta and Google. Yes.

A (57:28)

And then run your own campaign on yourself for that niche because now you have credibility of you use what you do. And that is the best way to sell people is to go, hey, it's like for us, I send thousands, 10,000 plus of my own magazines out to my list. Right. It's like we're doing everything. We Acrey Brothers. The beautiful thing about Acre Brothers, we sell to the real estate industry. Stephen, my own brother got in and we do exactly what we teach people to do. And that level of credibility, when you say, oh, They've already closed 150 deals this year, that level of credibility, it's not perfect, but we live it. And that will, that will bring people into your ecosystem in a trust that you can't get through marketing because people care what you do, not what you say Shravani. Very, very awesome. Please connect with us on social because we love to connect more. But this is fantastic. Thank you for coming on the show.

G (58:22)

Thank you so much. You all have a great day. Thank you so much.

A (58:26)

Go out there and crush it. Yeah, Great question. And I can tell like she has grown totally from referral, which is a credit to her, one, relationships and then two, probably the value that she actually has. But it is. There's difference between having value and communicating what that value is.

E (58:47)

Right?

A (58:47)

Yeah. And you have to be able to within and you have to have different versions, a 10 second version, a 30 second version, a minute version to be able to share. And I've learned this over, you know, doing interviews on podcasts and listening to them back and going, wow, Luke, you think you are clear, but you are confusing people on what you do. And because you're in the echo chambers when you're, when it's your own business, you're in the echo chambers of it and you don't realize how much context you already have that you're not giving to people and the clarity of what you're doing.

D (59:17)

And I like, like what we were kind of talked to as well. It's like so many real estate agents do this. It's like what you're doing is working, but there's no growth in it.

A (59:26)

Yes.

D (59:26)

Because you don't know what you're doing and you don't have a system behind it or you don't know the niche you're going after to then make a system of. But a lot of real estate agents out there, and we talk to them all the time, are doing well. But like I want to grow. We got to know your numbers, you got to know the system, the plan to grow your business. Because in order to grow, you have to get systemized. You can do what you're doing now, but for growth is systemization.

A (59:46)

Yep. So good guys. Man, what a great show. So many great call ins if you want to get your answers or get your answers, you want to get your questions asked. And I don't know what type of answers we'll give you, but we're going to give you answers from the trenches. We're going to give you answers from people who are actually doing it and try to point you to the resources that have helped us and you know that will help you and your business. Go to remindermedia.com ask. That's a s k remindermedia.com ask or DM us on at Staypay podcast and we will reach out to you and we will get you scheduled to come on the show. So we love meeting business owners all across the country that are suffering from the same things we have or are suffering from and we can mastermind together. Let's make this the best place to help you grow your business stay. Paid podcast. Thank you for listening. To get all the show notes and to dive deeper into our resources and other episodes, go to staypay podcast.com you can always reach out to me at Luke Acrey on Instagram. I would love to connect. Stephen, Cody. Where can they reach you guys?

C (60:45)

Yeah, Steve, reach out to me on my personal Instagram. So Stephen underscore. Underscore Acree. So two underscores there and yeah, and we'd love to get questions there. We'll bring them to Luke and we can get on the podcast and answer some of those questions.

A (60:58)

Awesome. Thank you guys as always for joining. Cody, what about you? Where can they reach?

D (61:03)

Cody Underscore Smith.

A (61:05)

Awesome. So all those links, we'll put those in the show notes. Really appreciate you guys listening. This show is brought to you by Reminder Media, our company. The goal is to empower you to live a life of freedom. So if you want to check out Reminder media, go to remindermedia.com until next time. Remember, the difference between top producers and mediocre producers in every business is top producers.

C (61:25)

Take action.

A (61:26)

Take action on that today. Sam.