Shannon Gillette (2:31)

Yeah, no, that's a great question. And this all started, I mean, for me to be sitting here. I was first on your podcast many years ago. I, at that time wasn't leading one of the top teams in Arizona. I wasn't selling hundreds of homes a year. Um, but today I sit here and I'm proud to say it's crazy. I never thought, I never thought I'd lead a top team and everything that's going on. And what I have to thank for that, obviously, is God. But when I left new home sales in 2014, I had no money to buy leads. I had no Instagram followers, I had no idea how I was going to make this all work. And I knew the stat. I knew 87% of real estate agents don't make it past their first two years. And, and I didn't want to go back to new home sales. I never saw my family. I was living in my new home sales office pretty much. And I couldn't even afford to change the brakes on my used minivan. Like, life was hard. But during that time when I would go to Instagram, I noticed the accounts I enjoyed following were people outside of the real estate space. Small business owners that were sharing who they are besides their job. And it wasn't a nonstop commercial of buy my product or in real estate. Just listed, just sold. I knew their dog's name, I knew where they like to travel, I knew the things they like to eat. It was really weird, but I enjoyed watching it. And the average US adult is spending two hours over two hours a day on social media. They don't want to be sold non stop. So in 2015, I believe God, like just gave me this vision. Just go all in with video marketing, listing marketing, and start sharing who you are besides your job on social media. It was really weird back then to share your breakfast and all of that. And I just went all in. And I made a commitment to post at least five stories a day every day of the year behind the scenes of my life. It could be behind the scenes at work, behind the scenes Sunday morning at church, behind the scenes with my kids. I have three boys and my dogs. And slowly my following started to grow. I'm so blessed to have nearly a hundred thousand followers now, but I started at zero. And I realize if you're trying to be for everybody, you're Going to be for no one. So, as real estate agents or any small business owner, you truly have to build a personal brand by writing down three to four things that make you you besides your job, and just go all in and post it. It's going to feel weird, it's going to feel cringy, but you, you're going to attract the people that will be your tribe.

Luke Acrey (5:08)

Does the cringiness ever go away?

Josh Dyke (5:10)

What if it actually is cringy?

Luke Acrey (5:11)

Yeah. I literally still, to this day, still struggle. I mean, this is what I do. And I still struggle when I'm out about at a restaurant or something like that to, like, you pull out your phone with all the. And like, how do you. Does it still feel cringy for you or is that. Has that faded because you've done enough of it? Is like, the reps actually lower the crazy.

Shannon Gillette (5:33)

No, it is. Trust me. I still post. And I get caught up in views as well, where I always try to remind myself, Even if only 20 people see your Instagram story, that's 20 people you're getting your brand in front of every day. And now with a large following, if my reel only gets 8,000 views, I start to say, I'm going to delete that. That is horrible. What? I was 8,000 people?

Luke Acrey (6:00)

Yeah.

Josh Dyke (6:00)

Wow.

Shannon Gillette (6:01)

I went. I went to a concert last year.

Luke Acrey (6:03)

And I. Shannon, you're making us feel really bad right now, by the way, because most of us would love 8,000 views.

Josh Dyke (6:07)

No.

Shannon Gillette (6:08)

Well, it just goes to show, like, we all get caught up in that. But I was at a concert that had about 70,000 people in the audience, and I was sitting at the bottom and it was, like, quiet. The lights were down, and I looked up all around and I'm like, there are 70,000 people in here. And we have the ability, no matter what your following is, to get your content in front of 70,000 people.

Luke Acrey (6:32)

It's so true.

Shannon Gillette (6:33)

Is that.

Luke Acrey (6:33)

It's so true.

Josh Dyke (6:34)

What has that done for your business? Like, I know you've done how many transactions you do last year. How has social media impacted your business?

Shannon Gillette (6:42)

I mean, it's incredible. If it wasn't for Instagram and YouTube, I honestly don't know where I would be. And what I love about social media is you build your brand where people know, like, and trust you. You don't have to sit at the dining room table with a seller and beg them to list their home with you. Instead, the tables turned. I have sellers calling me, saying, are you taking on new listings right now? Will you be my Real estate agent. I knock on their door, they answer and they say, oh, you're much taller in person. Because they feel like they know me and I am very tall and people don't realize that. So I, uh. It's so cool and it's not easy, but I'm so glad. I'm so glad. Like, it's such a blessing to have this platform not only for my business, but for my sellers because I'm able to get their home just a level of exposure that's really impossible for anyone in my kind of Phoenix market to be.

Luke Acrey (7:40)

Tactically, do you, when you think about your content, do you plan out the, the things in your day you're gonna share? Or have you gotten kind of the Gary Vee mode of just, you just document? It's like you just pull it up and this is, I'm at church and I'm doing it. Or do you actually think out for the quality of what you're going to share throughout your day?

Shannon Gillette (8:02)

There's not a lot of planning. It's really just whatever I'm kind of feeling that day. I really am trying to be intentional to get my camera out at least five times a day. And it may sound overwhelming, but if you think about it, 15 seconds, five times a day is really not that much. Now I know moms, and I mean anyone with a family, if you're getting like other humans in your content, they could kind of get upset about that. And it's so funny because I have three boys and they used to be like, mom, why do you have your camera out? Don't film me. And now they understand, like, they have a beautiful life, we get to travel the world and I'll joke with them like, oh, do you want to eat? Like, you need to be on my social media. Right? Because they understand it. Yes.

Luke Acrey (8:49)

So great.

Shannon Gillette (8:49)

Yeah. So you know, they got it.

Luke Acrey (8:52)

So then talk a little bit about like your willingness to share your faith. Was that something that you were just documenting your life? Do you feel like what has caused you to step out and go, you know what? I'm going to not only share my faith, I'm going to be more vocal about it. You had a reel that went viral about this idea of doing this conference, which is a faith based conference for real estate agents. How do you think about sharing your faith? Because most people don't want to share controversial things like politics, religion, money. How do you think about that?

Shannon Gillette (9:25)

It wasn't easy at first, right? Because especially when you're building your business. Like I was with no Money. I didn't know where I was going to find my next sale. Every sale meant so much to me. So could I potentially push somebody away by talking too much about Jesus? Maybe. But at the end of the day, like, isn't it so much better working with clients that you have things in common with? And if somebody is not going to hire me as their real estate agent, because I love Jesus and I love my church, like, we're probably not the best fit. And I think I just realized that, and it is who I am. I mean, it's the same being a mom. I. I speak, speak with other, you know, working moms, and they get nervous to even share that they're at their son's football game on a Saturday, because could that make you look weak? Like you're not out there hustling and doing open houses as real estate agents? Sometimes I think people forget we're human. Like, they, we have to be on call seven days a week. Like, you can't just put your phone in a drawer on Saturday. Like, there's emergencies that come up and, you know, our clients offer could have an expiration. Like, so many things going on, it's tough. But at the end of the day, I'm going to share my life. We were actually talking about this. I lead a team of 12amazing agents, and we were talking about this in our team meeting yesterday because they're nervous that if they're posting their life on their Instagram stories, their sellers are following them. And in Phoenix, we're very much a buyer's market right now. Homes are taking 60 to 90 days to sell. And we have had some sellers make comments like, oh, oh, well, you're on vacation. Or I mean, our clients are always so well taken care of. We have an entire team. But they're like, I don't want to post my life anymore. Or they want to delay their posts. Like, post what happened two days ago today. And I'm like, just don't worry about it. You know, post who you are. We work so hard for our clients. We, we have a five star review rating. We host client appreciation events every single month. We are humans. We're allowed to, like, go to our kids sports games.

Luke Acrey (11:32)

Hmm. Yeah. That is so. That is so powerful because I've had that same exact thought that you don't want to share all these things because it will make other people think certain ways. Like, maybe you're not hustling as hard as the example you get.

Josh Dyke (11:45)

Luke will text me and say, why.

Luke Acrey (11:46)

Aren'T you working yeah, I'm like, Josh, it's 4:00am, man. Where are you at? Why are you posting that? You're asleep right now. No. Okay, so now you translated that to take even more courage to start a conference. And for those who don't know, who've never been part of a conference or done a conference, they usually lose money. They're not money making plays, usually they're brand plays. But normally the people who do them, they just have a passion about what they're trying to do. What has given you the courage and the inspiration to do this faith based conference?

Shannon Gillette (12:17)

Well, I will tell you, I've done a lot of scary things over my career. This may be the scariest thing I've ever done. And every day I am asking myself what to do, what did I do? But I believe God gave me this platform for a reason. And if you are a believer and Jesus is important to you, if we are not using our platform to share our faith, I think that, I mean, I. I think we're missing a lot by not doing that. So I feel like God gave me this platform for a reason. For several years I've had this on my heart because I travel around the country. I'm honored to speak on stages like for Tom Ferry and so many big stages. And I go to so many real estate conferences and they are amazing and I learn. But I asked myself, what if we could make a real estate conference, but faith based inside a church with worship music and incredible speakers? Because the real estate industry is actually pretty dark. It's very stressful. There's a lot of pressure, there's a lot of money and greed and dishonesty, and it's hard to find that light in real estate. And I've just had this on my heart. And a few months ago I got my camera out and I spoke into my phone and just said, hey guys, I don't know, would you even go to something like this? Imagine a real estate conference in a church with worship music and incredible speakers. Would you go? And I put it out there and I was like, God, just if nobody sees this reel in my mind, I'm like, good, I'll just put on the back burner because this seems really scary. All of a sudden, the real has 90,000 views. Thousands of comments from real estate agents all over the world saying, yes, I'll be there. And I, I'm like, okay, I'm going to pick a date. February 17th, I booked a church that seats 3200 people.

Luke Acrey (14:24)

Amazing.

Shannon Gillette (14:25)

And I started reaching out to the Very best speakers I could think of in this space that aren't afraid to share their faith. And every single speaker said, yes, we have the venue, we have the speakers, and now we just need the people. And it's so scary. I feel like I'm gonna throw up three times a day. I don't even know what I got myself into.

Luke Acrey (14:46)

That's amazing. And also, like, you chose, like, you didn't choose a year out. Like, you, you chose February 17th. Like, that is like, when did you post the reel? A month or so ago? Two months ago?

Shannon Gillette (14:59)

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it just went on and. Yeah. And I, I keep telling myself, why didn't I start a little smaller? Yeah, like a few hundred people. But I just went all out. And I am totally trusting God that he's going to take care of this. I mean, he's already provided the most incredible speakers, like Ricky Carruth and Ryan Pineda and an NFL super bowl winner. And I mean, our speaker lineup is bananas. Like, I would 100% go to this event even if I wasn't hosting it, but it's really scary and I hope people show up.

Luke Acrey (15:36)

How are you overcoming that fear? The throwing up three times a day? How are you, how are you continuing to keep going?

Shannon Gillette (15:42)

I don't, I don't know. Just a lot of prayer because it is right around the corner. February 17th. And I could say, hey, I should have maybe started earlier or book this a little bit further out. But as real estate agents, I think real estate agents are a little bit kind of like spur of the moment type things. Not huge planners. So. Okay, cool. I could have released tickets in October, but is a real estate agent really going to book a conference in February and October? So I'm just trusting that God's going to fill the seats. And I know it's going to be amazing. Like, the speaker lineup's incredible and the messages are going to be so good. And Even if only 200 people show up, that's 200 people that are going to have an incredible experience. And I'm just going to trust God.

Luke Acrey (16:27)

Yeah. It's amazing is that one day.

Shannon Gillette (16:29)

It is just one day. Are you guys coming?

Luke Acrey (16:32)

I'm going to. Yeah, exactly. I told Josh I'm going to drag him there. It has to be there now. But I'm curious. So you're going to have. Obviously it's in a church. You're going to have worship music there. Then you have all the speakers. Is it going to be a business centered faith based conference or is it a faith Based where they're sharing about their faith and their testimony. Like, how are you interweaving that? Or what's the thoughts behind that?

Shannon Gillette (16:56)

Yeah, so my vision here was to have the largest faith based real estate event in history, which if we fill all the seats, I believe this will be the largest for.

Luke Acrey (17:06)

I think so.

Shannon Gillette (17:08)

Yeah. So a majority of the crowd will be real estate agents, but honestly, everybody is welcome. Lenders, I mean, anybody in business. Because yes, there will be a lot of incredible real estate agents speaking on stage. But it's not going to be your typical conference where it's like, here's how to run a Google Ad. It's going to be very much like just a little bit of testimony, a little bit about how they're incorporating their faith in their business and how they've seen so much great success from that. But I truly believe everybody's going to leave this event, like feeling like a new person. And that's why it's called the Awakened Summit. Like this industry needs to wake up and like, we need more light in this industry and less darkness. And us as real estate agents, we are here to serve not only our clients, but our community. We are leaders in our communities and neighborhoods. And I just want people to, you know, leave here thinking of others before themselves and just really being, you know, closer in their faith as well. So I'm excited to see what God does with it. Super scary. And I asked myself, God, why did you choose me for this? I don't know how to run a conference. I'm just a real estate agent. But, you know, I'll take all the tips anyone has for me.

Luke Acrey (18:25)

Yeah. And I think you had mentioned in your reel that you had thought about doing it and then you didn't do it. And then you're just like, I don't know why. So you then put it out there and you know, going big, it's like our sign behind us take action. It's, it's the number one thing I see across all top producers of every industry is that they just, they don't overthink it. They step out in faith. They step out with courage. Right. Courage is not the absence of fear. It's just moving forward with it, you know, and they do and execute even when they're not perfect and doing it. And so I give you huge kudos for stepping out doing it. I love it. I think it is an amazing, amazing thing to do. I'm passionate about it. I think it was Billy Graham who said the next big mission field is the Workplace, Right. And that's one of his famous quotes of like, a lot of people think, because I grew up the son of a pastor, my dad's still a pastor. And you know, we used to. And you probably did this too, Josh, in your church growing up. Lottie Moon offering. Do you remember that, like supporting like the International Mission Board and you know, missionaries going, which is amazing. And we need missionaries, you know, all over the world. But, you know, there wasn't a ton of focus on business and how do you do ministry in business and you know, like everything, you don't want to come across too preachy or too religious. You want your actions to speak louder in your words. But the mission field of the workplace is just a massive amount of opportunity. And then for real estate agents, specifically, you're dealing with people in the biggest decisions of their life. And you know this more than I do, the stress that comes in real estate transaction. You guys are psychiatrist and psychologists all at the same time. And what you're trying to help people through. And it ties back to, and this is, you know, a question for you, is it ties back to purpose and how important purpose is for building a business and being an incredible entrepreneur or business builder. I'm curious, with your team, you said, I think you have 12 agents on the team. How do you help walk them through the why, building or their purpose? And when you select them to be on the team, how does the faith play into that with your current team that you're leading?

Shannon Gillette (20:43)

Yeah, so I was a solo agent up until about 2020, I think when I was first on your podcast, I had just kind of started a team and I never really, I don't want it to sound bad, but I never really wanted a team because I was very much like, you know, this is my brand. Can I trust anybody with this? Like, I mean, I, I go above and beyond for my clients, like all those things. But in 2020, when I was a solo agent, I was all things to all clients. Every home inspection, every call. I was missing a lot of dinners with my family. Like, my quality of life was just not great. However, you have to put in that work to get to a point to have a team. But as I started growing my team, I built the non traditional way where most team leaders will really bring on any agent that can sell homes and has a license. We've been so intentional. In fact, for every one agent we bring onto the Gillette group, we have about 40 applicants. If you are on our team, you have to be okay with praying together. Before meals and serving the community. And we host so many client appreciation events and I really want to have teammates that share those same core values. So we've slowly built and we are still fairly small for to be one of the top teams in Arizona and we're actually the, the highest producing, medium sized team at Real Broker, which is crazy.

Luke Acrey (22:05)

Crazy.

Shannon Gillette (22:07)

But it's so cool to like share the same values with my team. And they, they also, if you follow any of them on social media, they also share about their faith too. So we consider our work as almost a missionary field. Right. Because we're serving our clients with one of their biggest assets and, and we just want to be, be the light and do the right thing and, and you know, just make a difference in this world. And, and now, you know, I want to really take that to the next level and make a difference in the real estate industry because I don't know how you could do this job without having faith because there's so much.

Luke Acrey (22:49)

I agree with you. Yeah, it is insane. Where can people find tickets? Like how can they get tickets? How can they find out information? Where can they buy those tickets? Because I want to make sure people get their tickets and they get out there February 17th.

Shannon Gillette (23:04)

Oh, thank you so much. And Arizona is so beautiful in February. Sunny. You can come and golf and that amazing point right there.

Luke Acrey (23:11)

Yeah.

Shannon Gillette (23:12)

Yes, yes. 80 degrees, hopefully. So in February. So it's awaken summit.com I've also got the link over on my Instagram. Everybody can follow me at Shannon Underscore Gillette. And I know it's going to be an incredible event and we just need to get it in front of more people. So even, you know, for those agents that have already reserved their tickets, which we have so many agents from around the country in Canada who have already reserved their tickets. Like help us share, like make sure everybody knows about this event because I really think it's going to be life changing and not only help take your business to the next level, but just really, you know, help you as a person as well.

Luke Acrey (23:53)

I agree. Love it.

Josh Dyke (23:55)

Shannon, thank you so much for coming on. Make sure to get tickets@awaken summit.com and Shannon gave you her Instagram there as well that you can follow. We'll include links to those here in the show, notes of this video and of course at all of our episodes over state paypodcast.com if you enjoy this episode or show your support, head on over to YouTube. Drop this video. A thumbs up. Drop it. A thumbs up.

Luke Acrey (24:18)

Well, do that too. Drop It a thumbs up.

Josh Dyke (24:20)

Give it a thumbs up. You drop a comment, subscribe to the channel. If you want to get hold of me or Luke, you can email us, podcast remindermedia.com and follow us on Instagram. We are Stay Paid podcast for this episode of Stay Paid. I'm Josh Dyke.

Luke Acrey (24:31)

Guys. I'm Luke Acre. Shannon, I am inspired by you. I really, really, truly appreciate you doing this for the industry. I think it's amazing. It's, you know, I've obviously come and faith and love for Jesus that you do, and I think it's an awesome thing. I hope people go. I also want to encourage the audience listening to this. Right. Is that there are some key principles that you can take away to help you grow your business. One is the authenticity on your social and in your content and being willing to just document and do it anyways. Especially when Shannon mentioned about the idea of like, you know, her agents being like, I don't want to post about me on vacation because my clients are complaining. But she's like, no, just do it anyways because you're human. It's. You're a real person. And in the end it's going to help you and having that confidence that is hard to do. So that's my challenge to you, is be authentic on your social media. And then I also want to challenge you. Two action items for you today is that you think about the thing that God laid on Shannon's heart that she knew she should take action on and do, but she didn't really want to do it because it's a lot of fear. But she stepped out in faith and started to do it not knowing how it's totally going to end up. And I just want to challenge everybody right now that's listening to this. I promise you, you have something in your life right now that is that, that you know you should be doing it, but fear is holding you back from doing it because you don't know what the outcome's truly going to be. And I want to just challenge you right now to step out in faith and attack that thing because you know that the worst thing you can do is paralysis by analysis and not take action at all because you'll never move forward. Remember, the difference between top producers and mediocre producers in every business is top producers take action. Take action on that today.

Shannon Gillette (26:29)

Sam.