How to Get Free Leads, Social Media Struggles, and Team-Building Truths

Summary

Stay Paid Podcast Episode Summary

Episode: How to Get Free Leads, Social Media Struggles, and Team-Building Truths
Date: September 29, 2025
Hosts: Luke Acree & Josh Stike (ReminderMedia)
Guests: Stephen Acree, Cody Smith (Acre Brothers Realty Team), plus callers Matt (Nebraska) & Olivia (California)

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Episode Overview

In this lively call-in episode, the Stay Paid team tackles real-world questions from real estate professionals and entrepreneurs, focusing on no-cost lead generation, common struggles with social media, and the often-overlooked realities of team leadership and building an effective real estate team. The conversation is candid, laced with honest advice, tactical strategies, and relatable anecdotes from both the hosts and the featured callers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How to Generate Free Leads as a New Real Estate Agent

(Caller: Matt from Nebraska | 01:00 – 17:34)

• Matt’s Backstory & Team Challenge (01:39 – 04:56):

  • Small team of three buyers’ agents plus admin; Matt personally handles 60-70 transactions out of ~100 per year.
  • Struggles with helping new agents generate business without buying leads from big platforms like Zillow or Realtor.com.

• Luke’s Advice:

  • Leverage Your Sphere:
    "The number one lead source in all of real estate... is your sphere, right? Sphere is free. They know, like, and trust you. But... What is your proactive outreach plan?" (05:18)
  • Proactive Outreach:
    Don’t just rely on passive social posts or email newsletters; directly call people in your sphere and explicitly ask for real estate referrals. Track these calls in your CRM.
  • Sweat Equity over Paid Leads:
    Circle prospecting, open houses, FSBOs (For Sale By Owner), and expired listings are all “free” if agents are willing to put in the time and effort.

• Cody & Stephen’s Perspective:

  • Minimum Standards:
    New agents are challenged to hit 50 contacts/day or 100 calls with double dialing. One team member recently made 400 calls in a day (07:40).
  • Team Structure Realities:
    Leaders must decide if they want to enforce high standards (and possibly lose weaker agents), or maintain a smaller, elite, more manageable team focused on sphere and open houses.
  • Knowing Your “Why”:
    Before imposing new standards, get clear on your team’s goals; the “messy middle” of scaling may not be worth the profit loss and management headaches.

• Memorable Quotes:

  • “If you want to live in the 1%, you can’t be like the 99%.” – Luke (06:18)
  • “No one will follow you if you’re not living and dying by the system you’re preaching.” – Cody (11:31)
  • “You’re the producer, you’re not the business owner yet for that portion of your business.” – Luke (18:33)

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2. Team-Building Truths & The “Messy Middle”

(Ongoing throughout Matt’s call & after, 08:44 – 19:15)

• Pain of Team Leadership:
  Agents leaving after becoming successful; risk of enforcing new standards and losing people.
• Defining Team Vision:
  Decide between an elite, small team with personal oversight or a scalable larger team with operational complexity.
• Profit vs. Scale:
  “Most people don’t want to go through the messy middle... Just choose the route that’s going to make you a lot more money, higher percentage wise.” – Cody (13:50)

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3. Improving Conversion from Cold Leads to Appointments

(Caller: Julian, write-in question | 19:15 – 22:28)

• Problem Statement:
  Low conversion rates from cold calls/door knocking to actual appointments.
• Benchmarks Provided:
  • For new agents: aim for 10% conversion from conversation to appointment; as skills improve, 15-20% is achievable.
  • Of four appointments set, expect one to actually show.
• Stages of Mastery:
  Agents progress through three stages:
  1. Bad (learning, lots of mistakes)
  2. Knowing but still not great
  3. Competent and efficient
     “You can never get there [stage 3] without the first stage.” – Stephen (21:35)
• Coaching and Reps:
  Improvement comes through repetition and possibly outside coaching.

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4. Social Media Struggles: Building an Audience & Getting Business from Instagram

(Caller: Olivia from California | 22:39 – 37:56)

• Olivia’s Challenge:

  • Has strong engagement from personal sphere but little follower growth or inbound deals from outside her network.
  • Wonders if she needs to change tactics to attract more business via Instagram.

• Hosts’ Diagnostics & Advice:

  • Perspective Check:
    Most agents’ main ROI from social is engaging their sphere, not generating cold inbound leads. “Your main goal should be your sphere on Instagram.” – Luke (25:13)
  • Content & Audience Growth:
    • Leverage local collaborations (tag local businesses, talk about local news).
    • Share hyper-localized, “clickbait” content: “What can $500,000 get you in [your area]?”; neighborhood spotlights, upcoming developments.
    • Avoid comparing yourself to the outlier stories of mega-influencers.
  • Learning from Top Performers:
    • One local top producer gets 20 deals a year from social, but most of her posts are about her life, not real estate.
    • YouTube strategy: posts with a controversial angle (“Why open floor plans are overrated”) sparked the most engagement (over 5,000 views).
  • Long-Term Mindset:
    Real ROI from content and branding comes over months/years, not days.
  • Offline to Online:
    Use real-world relationships to drive social following, not just the other way around.

• Memorable Quotes:

  • “The main use case of Instagram is your sphere… that’s actually a direct correlation.” – Luke (29:43)
  • “If you want social to be your thing… it’s got to be like your life that you’re showing… all-in.” – Stephen (34:00)
  • “It almost challenges your offline to feed your online.” – Luke (36:11)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s 20 years of overnight success. That’s what it is.” – Luke, on perception of ‘lucky’ agents (03:43)
• “If you start enforcing standards like that that you haven’t enforced before… you will go through losing the agents.” – Cody (12:55)
• “The enemy of progress is comfort. Maybe you’re a little too comfortable.” – Luke, challenging Matt’s complacency (16:59)
• “Most people don’t want to go through the messy middle… Just choose the route that’s going to make you a lot more money, higher percentage wise.” – Cody (13:13)
• “For cold calls, as a brand new agent, I’m looking to get you to 10% conversion [conversation to appointment].” – Stephen (20:21)
• “I really know of just one [agent] that does it at a high level that gets, let’s say, 20 deals from social—and all she posts is about her life.” – Stephen (34:00)
• “Focus on its relationship… all the people that follow you on Instagram, you should be following up with them in other categories.” – Cody (35:06)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Matt’s Question about Free Leads & Team Building: 01:00 – 17:34
• Discussion on Team Structure and Management: 08:44 – 19:15
• Julian’s Question on Conversion Rates: 19:15 – 22:28
• Olivia’s Social Media Struggles & Advice: 22:39 – 37:56
• YouTube & Instagram Example Results: 34:00 – 35:40

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Actionable Takeaways

• Free lead strategies:
  Tap your sphere intentionally, commit to “sweat equity” (calls, open houses, circle prospecting), and track everything in a CRM.

• Managing (& Growing) Teams:
  Decide your desired lifestyle and profit goals before building or growing a team—don’t get caught in the "messy middle" if you don’t want to manage many agents.

• Social Media:
  Be consistent, showcase your authentic life, mix in local and “clickable” content, and remember most deals come from relationships, not pure online visibility.

• Conversion Mastery:
  Track your ratios, get coaching, and understand improvement comes in stages as you get more reps.

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Overall Tone & Style

The hosts and guests were down-to-earth, using practical language and candid humor. They promoted no-nonsense advice and continuously stressed the value of personal relationships and clear intentionality in business planning.

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“The difference between top producers and mediocre producers... Top producers take action. Take action on that today.”
– Luke Acree (38:39)

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For further resources or to get your questions answered, visit staypaidpodcast.com or follow the show on Instagram @staypaidpodcast.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Today, we are answering your burning questions in real estate, business marketing, and more. On these episodes, we take live calls from listeners of Stay Paid. And if you want to have your question answered live on the show, make sure to follow us on Instagram @staypaid podcast or go to remindermedia.com ask and submit your questions there. My name is Josh Styke, Chief marketing Officer of Reminder Media, joined as always by Luke Acrey, president of Reminder Media, and from.

[A]

Oh, I was gonna say, it's good to be back, ladies.

[B]

Also with us as always, from the Acre Brothers Realty Team, Stephen Acrey, founder and leader of the Acre Bells Realty Team, and our director of sales there, Cody Smith. Welcome, gentlemen.

[C]

Thank you, sir.

[B]

All right. And today we are going to bring in Matt. Matt from Nebraska, I believe. Matt, welcome to Stay Paid. How can we help you?

[D]

Hey, guys. How you doing?

[A]

Doing fantastic, Matt. How are you?

[D]

I was starting to get bored.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[C]

You're like, I like it.

[B]

They're two minutes late.

[A]

Come on, like, you got to get up here.

[D]

Hey, man, I'm a busy man. I'm sure everybody. You talk to you. And this is.

[A]

Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is crazy. You're either talking to a real estate agent in the car or, you know, they have their phone going off a hundred times during. Which is understandable. Real estate's that one game where it's like, man, you can never turn off your phone. It's kind of crazy. But what can we help you with as you're looking to grow your business? Obviously, we're going to give you our answers in the trenches of what we're doing. But what. What kind of is your question that we can help you answer?

[C]

Well, I.

[D]

So I'm a team leader of a small team, and one of the questions I get from my team and I have, specifically, I have a brand new agent that sold. That sold one house in the last couple of months. And, you know, we're doing open houses. I just sent everybody the. Your open house podcast that I just listened to is great. Send it to the team, of course, and said must listen, you know, but it's like, how do. How do I, as a new agent, get more leads without, you know, paying Zillow, without paying realtor.com, you know, how can I generate leads? And I've been really harping on the open houses because I had a lot of success with them when I started out. I've got all kinds of stories, you know, about. You have one, you meet somebody and the other got a house to sell, and then they introduce you to their sister, and she's got a house to sell and wants to buy, and next thing you got four deals going down. You know, so that was my question I had for you guys is like, what. What ideas do you have for other good generation free leads?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And especially the free is the. Is the real valuable part. Can you give me a little insight into. You said smaller team. What's kind of you guys, Transaction counter volume. How many agents specifically? Just so get us a frame of reference.

[D]

Yeah, we have me and then I have an admin and I have three buyers agents, so.

[A]

Okay.

[D]

And then I do most of the listings. Now I do allow my team, if they generate their own client. You know, they're. Well, they're. They're able to do, like, not all the listings funnel to my name. They're able to do their own listings and stuff too. And, you know, I'm fairly new at running the team just a few years, and it's evolved and we're. But I'm constantly kind of trying to improve it. And I'm also trying to, you know, find ways to be more profitable, too. And I feel it's really my responsibility to guide those new agents. This is my 23rd year. I'm one of those people where my phone just kind of rings. One of the agents says, you know, the quote was, can we cuss on this podcast?

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

One of my realtors or my admin, she's like, just falls into your lap, you know, and it's like, well, not really. It's 20 years. My name out there.

[A]

It's a. It's 20 years of overnight success. That's what it is. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, but like, how many transactions as a team? You're obviously doing the most of them, but how many transactions as a team we have?

[D]

I would say we're probably somewhere around, you know, 90, 100 transactions a year. I'm personally doing anywhere if I have a good year from 60 to 70, you know.

[A]

Yeah, so you're the main rainmaker there, which makes. Makes perfect sense. And then I'm assuming, like, the pain point is, you know, you got to get your agents producing. They don't have a lot of money to spend, and if they don't produce, then they leave the team. Have you gone through the pain of losing agents that you've recruited yet or no?

[D]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Which in a way I expect. Right. If someone turns out to be, you know, like, this business, isn't it for everybody? I just Heard a stat that like, 80. I think it was on your podcast. 80% of new agents don't make it two years. Right? So.

[A]

Yep.

[D]

And then there's the people that have the talent for this business, and they work really hard, and then the next thing you know, they're going from 2 million to 5 million to 10 million. And by the way, I'm coming from Lincoln, Nebraska, where our average home sale is 300,000 or so.

[A]

Okay.

[D]

Yeah, we're not selling $2 million homes very often.

[A]

Hey, well, you got Acre Brothers beat. Their average is what, 270?

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

So we know your pain, my man. We know your pain. Okay, so that makes perfect sense. And it's. It's going to be even better. If you haven't experienced this yet, Wait till you make them a top producer and then they feel they don't need you anymore and they leave you. You know, that's.

[D]

Yeah, I've had that a couple times already.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So the pain of being a team lead. Okay, so I'll give you my take on the free leads, and then I'd love to hear Cody and Stevens, because obviously they're living it every day. The number one lead source in all of real estate. And everybody knows this, but so few execute. Well, is your sphere, right? Sphere is free. They know, like, and trust you. But here's the catch, and here's what I would tell your agents. It's not just about going, hey, it's your sphere that's going to use you, and that's your leads. It's what is your proactive outreach plan to your sphere to ask them specifically to give you a real estate referral. And this is where most people fall down, is when I ask them, hey, how are you trying to stay in front of your sphere? You know, people will talk about social media, they'll talk about sending an email newsletter, but they don't have any proactive outreach campaign. And so for everybody listening to this and for your agents, I would say, hey, show me your CRM. Show me your database. And not just the touch points. Show me the last time you called every single person in your sphere and you specifically asked them to help you with your real estate goal this year.

[D]

Right.

[A]

And I'm telling you, if you do that, you. I mean, every blind squirrel finds a nut. Not to be funny, but you will find and uncover gold in your database. So that is the first activity I would have them do. Second, when it comes to, like, free leads, you're already hitting on one, which is open houses, right? Which is great because that is where you always want to go, to where the people are. If you need instant transactions, you want to go to where people are actually looking. Right. So you got open houses, expired fizbos, all those can be free because it's not truly free. It's called sweat equity. I would encourage the team, hey, look, you're just getting started. And when you just get started in any industry, the failure rate is massive because it's not easy. If it was easy, everybody would do it. Right? But if you want to live in the 1%, you can't be like the 99%. So what does that look like? What that looks like is the sweat equity that you're putting in in circle prospecting and FSBOs, expireds and then the open houses. The only problem with open houses is you're limited based upon the inventory and the availability. If you're a new agent and you don't have any and you can't get the other agents to give you one of theirs, but you're not limited in circle prospecting. Our guys. How many dials are you challenging the new agents to make?

[C]

Gu. Well, what did Gray make the other day?

[E]

Yeah, he did 400, but the minimum is 50 people. 100 calls. Double dialing.

[A]

Yep. Every day.

[D]

Per day.

[A]

Well, yeah, so there you go. There you have it. Is basically where people listen to this. Now, granted, we all want to be where you're at, Matt and where Steven you're at and Cody you're at where the referrals come to you. But it's like you guys pounded the pavement for, for years and years and years. And everybody wants to live in your now, but not realizing the journey that you went through to get there. And so I would encourage your agents go, hey, look, you're either serious in a business or not. And if you are be willing to put in the grind for the first few years in the grind at the same time you're making the calls, make the YouTube videos, make the social post, because you'll build a brand. But that brand's not going to generate overnight. I think it was Tom Toole who posted maybe yesterday or the day before. He was like, if you think posting on Instagram is going to generate you a lead right now, he's like, that's a failed strategy. And his point with that is it will in the long term branding in the long term referral based. But it is not an effective strategy for lead generation in the moment. Really the outreach is. And that's through calls, door knocking, Stuff like that. So I'll throw it to you, Stephen Cody, to add your kind of spin on that.

[C]

The nuances to. There's so many different team structures. I can't tell you how many teams I've talked to. And so, like, it does start with you going that, you know, like, hey, what kind of team do I want to be? Because, like, I would say that the battle is, is that we can, you know, there's so many different pillars, right? You could do circle prospecting, right? They're going to cost you barely anything for the last. Won't be free, but it will be close to. And that's a great one. But the problem with it is your agents, if they don't want to make the calls, if they don't want to make 200 calls a day, you won't be successful at it, right? And so your battle is going, am I going to enforce a standard, right, on these people where I'm going to actually have a retention rate that's going to go, you know, like, no one's going to stay. I can't enforce the standard because I know my agents that I currently have will not be on the team later. Right. And so you have to decide what kind of team you want to be. Because I would choose if you want to be the team that's like elite and, you know, a little bit smaller and you don't want to deal with, like, managing the agents that are on the team every single day, I would 100% choose fear. I would come up with the plan of action. And Luke can work with you big time on this, but how are you dripping them? How many calls do they need to make? Because that's easier to make a call to, you know, a warmer relationship than it is to circle prospect. And then I would choose open houses, right? Because you can get the team to hold. There's. It's easy to enforce the standard of this many open houses. That's not going to take too much management overhead for you. But if you want to become the team where they're doing, you know, 36, 40 transactions each on the team, you're going to have to move to some of these other pillars which are smiling and dialing, right. The problem with it, when you're a small team, the management overhead of that is going to put something on your plate, right. Which you probably don't want. But if you want it, you know what I mean? And you want to scale the team, I'd say go that route all day long. If you don't Want that extra job, you know where you're going to go eventually you're going to go, I need a director of operations, I need a director of sales, I need a manager of the ISA department. You know, that kind of thing. If you don't want to get to that level, don't go through that messy middle and just stick to the ones that are a little bit easier. Bottom of the funnel leads, open houses. Your easy relationships with Sphere. Choose Those lead sources 100%.

[D]

Right? Right. Yeah, I appreciate it. One of the other things I do, talked about my team about, it's like, I'm very streaky. So when I get hot, I get off the phone with somebody and says, hey, we accepted your offer. Like, I'll hang up the phone, I'll get the paperwork going to get that one under contract, and then I'll make 10 calls right away because I'm in the mood, you know, I just sold one. I'm gonna go and I'll, and I'll stir some stuff up just by making calls to my people because I'm, I'm hot, right? I got the fee, I got the vibe, I'm feeling good. I just sold one. And I will get crazy streaky that way. And I'll have the next thing and I've got like two listings and I've got showing scheduled for Saturday or whatever.

[C]

No one will follow you. No new agent's going to follow you if you're not living and dying by the system that you're preaching them to live. Even though you're going, dude, I'm 20 something years in the business, 23 years in the business and you're going, this didn't happen overnight. Right? There's a look at you going, you're trying to enforce a standard that you don't live by and it won't work. And so, like, you got to be okay with going, well, I know my vision, right? I know where I want to be. And then you go enforce the standard with knowing that you're going to lose the agents and then build from scratch with the agents that are a level talent that have the, the drive right, to do the phone calls and all that good stuff. You just have to know that you will go through that. So, like, the problem when we coach teams is most of the time they have a problem and they, we give them the answer, but they don't want to go through the pain of what it's going to take to get to the conclusion. Right. It's as simple as that. And you will go through losing the agents. If you start enforcing standards like that that you haven't enforced before. And so you know that. So that's why I'm saying choose where you want to be. If you're happy with where you're at and you're like, I just want to increase it a little bit and I can force these standards. Do open houses, do sphere. And for sphere, you already know how to do it. Right. So then it's going to, you know, reminder media, going to a company that can actually automate that for you and for the agents, and then you just hold them to quarterly calls for that, Right?

[E]

Yeah. Because, yeah, you might just want to go, you know, turn one of them to a buyer agent showing agent route and, you know, do that and build a business that way. But if you want to add agents, also the free part, like, obviously everyone wants free leads, but you. We're gonna have to invest something, you know, if you want your agents to grow in that way.

[D]

Yeah, yeah, of course.

[C]

I want to speak into existence. Like, we're talking to teams. Like, most people don't want to go through the messy middle. The problem with this whole idea of starting teams is people don't understand the grind that it takes to get through the messy middle to where you're actually a business infrastructure, where it's like, yeah, your Profit margins are 20, 25%, but it's on a big amount of money. Right. Rather than the elite team making tons of profit with where you're at, I'm like, don't do it. You know what I mean? Don't go through that messy middle. Just choose the route that's going to make you a lot more money. Higher percentage wise, higher percentage.

[E]

All comes back to what you want ultimately. Like, well, yeah, what is your goal for the team? I love to hear that.

[D]

You know, so two things I started the team for and this. You're gonna love this. Probably not your ideal team starter, but number one was to, you know, obviously make money off of other people. Right. So I'm big on diversification. I have a rental real estate portfolio that I own a commercial building. My wife has a property management business that she runs. So we have multiple income streams coming in from real estate. It's like I get money off some of these other real estate, not only for my brokerage, but also from a team. And then the other part was in my office would joke that I'm on the golf course all the time, but was kind of for my lifestyle. Right. I. When I started, I tell a story My wife would call me and say, you need to come home because you need to help get the kids to bed. Right. Because I'm up here working at 8 o' clock at night when I first started. And I don't do that anymore, you know, because I don't. Number one, I don't have to. I've had success over the years. Right. But I. A little bit of starting the team was to help me with my lifestyle, so I didn't have to work so damn hard. If I have a client that wants to show some houses, I can put a buyer's agent on it. I'm not. I don't have to show houses every Saturday. I don't have to do open houses every weekend. And I used to do, you know, one of those where I would do one at 1 to 2:30, pick up all my signs, directionals, run over to the next one, do open the other one, sweating my guts out, you know, do two open houses back to back when I started. And, you know, that's the kind of thing I teach my team now. Like, you want to be successful, man, you gotta hustle, right?

[A]

Yep.

[D]

If you want to make some money, sell some houses. I'm very old school that way. You know, it's like that.

[A]

That's not old school, man. In my book.

[D]

Go work, you know?

[C]

Yeah. That's just smart.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

And like, are you feeding then your buyer's agents, your buyers, so you only look working listing, so.

[D]

No, I do. I still work with some buyers. It's. My team would love me to give them more of my clients, but I'm still a little bit of a control freak. And I do have some clients that I will keep if they're long time and they've come to me and they want me, if somebody finds me off.

[A]

The Internet, you know, your issue is, brother, your issue is, and I love you, you're telling. Your issue is you haven't decided what you really want. You're. You're in, you're torn. And that's not. Yeah, that's not an attack. It's just, hey man, you got to decide what you want because you have the talent. It's not a talent issue. It's. It's actually not even a knowledge. I could tell as we started telling you the lead sources, all this stuff, we're just telling you stuff you already know. What you, what you really need is you need someone to tell you, hey, man, what do you want, dude? What's your income? Like, are you making half a million dollars? A year. You're making a million dollars a year. Do you want that? Because success is in money. But at the end of the day, you've got to get real, intentional and clear on what you want. And that will change the game for you because I can already tell, oh, you have the talent. If you put your mind to it, you'll easily do. I shouldn't say easy. You'll grind your way to doing it right. But. But at the end of the day, you haven't decided that. So you decide that and then apply what you know to be true of what we just said with the leads. And you will. You will crush it. But it sounds like you have a pretty good life. So it's kind of one of those things of, hey, man, maybe, you know, the enemy of progress is comfort. Maybe you're a little bit too comfortable. You gotta go make a big investment to make. Make yourself have to get more money and then that. That will go there. But, dude, I really appreciate you coming on the show. We have our next caller calling in Olivia, that we got to get to. To help. But I really appreciate coming on. I would love to connect with you on social so we can. Yeah, so we can continue the combo. We can jump on a call separately and. And you guys, you can see what.

[D]

Steven, you know how to get a hold of me. I give you a bunch of money every month, so I love it.

[A]

Hey, man, that's what I love to hear now.

[D]

It's a huge honor to be on the show. I really think it's great. I'm very appreciative. Thank you, guys. Great to talk to you guys.

[A]

Yeah, thanks, Matt. Thanks for coming on.

[D]

See ya.

[B]

All right, there you go. To get your questions answered live here on Staypayed, you can go to remindermedia.com ask and submit your questions there.

[A]

He. He was awesome. But yeah, he was not giving us the real question. I mean, the real question was, you know, how do I actually get a team to do what I want them to do but not actually have to do the. Yeah. You know, the operational part, which, you know, that is totally understandable. We've all been there. That's why we went through, you know, you guys lost John and Lolly and all that stuff, you know, and have gone through that same rodeo.

[C]

Yeah. Clarity of what it's going to look like, how many roadblocks they're going to run into, which is just. It would be so enlightening for him because then he would know which direction he's going to go immediately.

[A]

Yep.

[C]

Which I think would be the small elite team. I think most people should do the small elite team. They should do the sharing agent instead of the buyer's agent. They should get two TCs instead of one. Right. And just go out and rock, rock and roll that way.

[A]

Yep. And then live the life they want it. Because it comes back to always. What you said, Cody, which is, hey, man, your clarity of your goal is not there. And you know, you know it immediately. And this is a lesson to all of us. You got to know your numbers, right? Right out of the gate. What's your numbers? What are you doing? You know, how many have you actually done, you know, this year? You got to know that stuff because what, Matt, you are a rock star agent in a killer producer, which is why you've been successful, I mean, 23 years in the business. Good gosh, 100 deals, he's doing 60 of them. Right. He's an assassin. But you're, you're the producer, you're not the business owner yet for that portion of your business. So.

[B]

All right, we did have a write in question. We. They weren't able to come on. But Julian asked this. Would love to get your opinion on it, guys. Because she's saying. Or she. Or he. I'm sorry, I don't know if Julian, Julian.

[A]

I had a friend named Julian, used to go to the old church I went to.

[B]

Sorry, Julian. They say. I finally realized this year that my conversion to appointment rate is really weak. Is there an existing episode or could you bring on a guest who is an absolute master at converting cold leads into appointments? Cold. All in caps. I cold call and door knock around sold listings. I think we've got a. I think we got some masters.

[A]

No, dude, we need to bring in like Tom Tool or something. These guys are masters.

[C]

Yeah, there's so many questions there. It's like, what is the. A bad conversion rate? You know what I mean?

[A]

Yeah, exactly. That's what I want to know.

[C]

Appointment.

[A]

Yeah.

[E]

I love that they're asking that question though.

[A]

Yeah.

[E]

Because no, that's like you're going for percentages and to know how many you have to do. And I mean, that's a great question.

[C]

What is our conversion from conversation to a appointment right now?

[E]

So we always say for new agents, the goal is 10 conversion from conversation to appointment. The better that you get, you'll get closer to 15, 20%. And again, that depends on your lead source like Sphere, and all that will be higher. But yeah, for cold calls, as a brand new agent, I'm Looking to get you to 10% conversion. And then you're gonna set four appointments and 25 of those show up. So you have one's gonna show up. So that's your kind of conversion metric. Try to get the 10 conversation to appointment, and then you're most likely going to be the appointment of 25 from set four, one show.

[A]

Okay, awesome.

[E]

So that's typically the, the conversion.

[C]

Yes, it's probably not as bad as you think it is. Now then, your question, you might be bringing this question for, like, I'm not closing them at all, you know, so then it would go back to how many? Because you may not be setting up enough appointments. I mean, we, we go to probably 10 listing appointments a week with the ISH market, and we're converting maybe one of those into an actual transaction from that.

[E]

So. And I always say two, you gotta.

[A]

Up those numbers, bro. Those are rookie numbers, man. That means you don't have very good qualified appointments. You know that you're going to this.

[E]

Person get a coach, because you're gonna need coaching on how to do your conversations better, to listen how you're doing them and all that. And two, I, I tell our agents there's three stages to becoming good and getting those ratios up, and it's all time. So you're going to start really bad. You're not gonna know what the heck you're doing, and you're gonna suck at it, but you're gonna do it anyways. The second part is like, yeah, I somewhat know what I'm doing, and I'm still pretty bad at it, but at least I've got an idea. And then it takes all that to get to the final one, which you know what you're doing, and you're doing pretty good at it. You can never get there without the first stage. So for you, you're just stuck at your ratios. Yeah, your ratios are gonna suck.

[B]

Absolutely.

[E]

And you have to do all that. You never get to the end. That's what I tell our guys. I'm like, you're in the stage one. You can't expect to be stage three. You haven't gone through stage two yet. So, like, you're in stage one. In three months, you're going to be in stage two. I guarantee it. And then by the end of it, we'll get to stage three. Just going to take time.

[A]

Awesome.

[B]

Thanks, fellas. All right, joining us next is Olivia. Olivia out of River. River Creek, I believe. California. Olivia, can you hear us?

[A]

Olivia? I think we're connected on Social I recognize your name. Are we friends on Instagram?

[F]

We are, we are. I'm watch you grow, your children grow up with you. And I'll be the one person who tries to comment on, like, the kids are so getting so big all the time because they've just grown so much. But yeah, we're friends on.

[A]

Yes, that's. That's right. Yeah, that's why it pops up into my mind. That's the. That's a great lesson for everybody listening to this, that if you actually engage with people, they will remember you. Because I. When I'm seeing your name on the screen, I'm like, oh, I know this person. How do I know this person? So that's awesome. Thank you for calling in. What can we help you with your business? Like, what's your, your big maybe struggle right now or area of opportunity that you're trying to grow in that we can contribute to?

[F]

Well, there's a few things. So the main thing that I'm calling out is first because it has to do with Instagram. On Instagram, one of the things that I have is that I do have some interactions sometimes with my posts, but I kind of see my standstill when it comes to my Instagram follower, the followers I have on Instagram. So I'm grateful that my sphere of influence, they comment, but I don't get a whole lot of comments from outside of that and definitely not a lot of business from outside of Instagram. Maybe one time. So I just don't know exactly what I'm doing wrong. I know there's algorithms and all this other stuff that has to do with your post and who's seeing what. And I try not to completely inundate with real estate only. I try to put some engaging other items in there as well, but it doesn't seem like with my Instagram that I'm really getting a whole lot of followers. Like, my biggest post that received the most views and interaction was of a post of me and my husband on our anniversary. And I think it's because we were in an airplane and, you know, in the flight deck. And so that was exciting to people, I think. So I don't know. I have probably some posts that I have, like, I do better going live.

[A]

I heard you. It basically, I heard everything up to where you said your most engaged post was your one with your husband. I think is what you said on Instagram. Is that right?

[F]

Yeah. Correct.

[A]

Okay, so the question that I'm hearing from you is basically, hey, you have, you know, engagement on Instagram. With your sphere. But where you're struggling the most is you're kind of at a standstill. Your followers aren't growing, you're not really getting business outside of obviously your sphere or through Instagram. And I understand the question correctly.

[F]

Perfect.

[A]

Okay. All right, so we can give you our thoughts there. I mean, my first gut reaction to you is really like, hey, are you getting the majority of your business from your sphere? Here's my reaction to hers. I would want to know, are you getting a majority of your business from your sphere? Because if you are, your Instagram is working. And not to underestimate that follow up question to her would be, hey, you feel like your followers aren't growing. That's a tangible metric that you're watching and you feel like you're not getting the deals off of Instagram. But what is making you feel like it is so important to grow that following base? Why is that a metric that you, you want to grow? And then number two is what's making you feel like you're actually should be getting a ton of deals off of Instagram. Where is that belief coming from? Because I think that in my opinion, a lot of agents think that because they see these massive influencers out there and they hear these kind of glamorous stories that they're getting all their business, they're selling, you know, X amount of millions through Instagram. But that is usually not the norm. Right? That's the anomaly use case. And it's not to discourage people from posting on Instagram, but it's actually going, hey, Olivia, your main goal should be your sphere on Instagram. And then if you want to grow your following on Instagram, you've got to kind of think about it this way is going well. How do I use Instagram as a tool to reach others in our community? We just had the Broke Agent come on one of our Q and A podcast and he great, gave great tips of hey, there's, you can collaborate with local businesses, you can tag them in your, you know, basically post that you're doing. You can talk about local things. So you think about the local schools, the local neighborhoods. A great thing to do is like right up the road from Megan and I, there's a new building being put in right across from the Wawa. And Megan and I were literally driving past going one wonder what that is. I bet it's a restaurant or something. If you're the agent, right, and you can find out what's coming into the town, there's a target coming in there's an Applebee's, there's whatever. Do a green screen with you and your neighborhood and talk about, hey, here's what's coming up in Lynchburg, Virginia here. There's new restaurants coming in. I see like Shannon Gillette do a lot of these types of posts. Another tip I would give you is people want to see you as the expert, but they don't want to just be inundated with like clinical real estate information, like just market report data. But a really cool video that you could do or Instagram posting that you could do is go, here's what you can afford to buy with $120,000 salary in Forest, Virginia. Or here is what the average price point is in this area. Like and showcase different things about different neighborhoods. That's going to really, really help you. Hey, Olivia, can you hear us?

[F]

I can hear you. Can you hear me okay, right now?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, we can hear you. Sorry, it cut off there for a second. But let me just share with you kind of our, you know, gut reaction to what you're saying. The question I have for you is are you getting the majority of your business from your sphere?

[F]

I am.

[A]

Okay, so what my question to you then follow up is what makes you think it's an issue that your following's not growing or what's giving you the perspective that you should be getting more deals from your Instagram than you are getting? Like, where is that belief system coming from? Like, what's the thought process there?

[F]

I think that in comparison to what I'm getting from other Realtors that are more, maybe they're more actively engaged on Instagram, I'm not sure. But I have, I attend association meetings and I get feedback like, oh yeah, I got this person on my social media and stuff like that. And I, I'm not a stalker, but sometimes I kind of look and see what they're doing. Some people have some really great videos, sometimes that are other people's listings and stuff like that. I tend to stay with my own stuff unless I'm at a broker's open or something like that. They do like high speed stuff that I am not completely savvy at or savvy with. I'm. I'm not great. I do have a marketing person that helps me my admin at my office and then I have all your guys's stuff that I use, of course. And your guys's stuff gets a lot of engagement sometimes too. So thank you. But I think some of those things there and I think I don't know.

[A]

I, well, I don't know what's great about this sounds like. Yeah, what's great about this is. That's what I thought it was. I thought you were probably seeing what other real estate agents are doing and you're hearing these of, hey, this person got this many deals. The thing is you got to be careful because I guarantee you, if you actually dug into their business, because I've just dug into so many agents business, they basically are telling you the one time they got a deal off of Instagram, like you told us, you got one and that becomes their thing. But they're getting a ton of business through their sphere, which is also coming through, you know, social, because your, your sphere is finding you on social. That's the main use case of Instagram. So I only say that not to downplay that need to be focused and do have a great Instagram presence and do great content. But I say it to add a kind of a perspective of going, you're probably actually doing really well. If you are getting most of your business from your sphere, your sphere is engaging with you on social. That's a direct correlation. So then it comes down to the tactic question of how do you grow your following and get more people into your sphere. In essence, using Instagram and the tips I would give you, I was sharing. We had Eric the broke agent on our last Q and A. I don't know if you were able to listen to that or not, but he gave some great tips of how to think about content from a local perspective. Just a couple ideas that I would give you off the bat. One is showcasing the local happenings that are happening kind of in your area. And the example I would give is like my wife Megan and I, there's a building coming in up the road from our house across from the Wawa. We were both curious what that is. It looks like it's going to be a restaurant, but we can't tell. There's no signs or anything. If you can be somebody that breaks that type of news, like a Walmart's coming into town, a new gas station is being put in and do a green screen type video and then tag obviously local things in that area. That's a great way when people are searching in in local content, obviously going to show locally. Another really good one you mentioned that other agents are showing other agents listings. You could start showcasing what's the, the best listing on the market right now in this area that you live in or in what neighborhood. You could also do one where you could say how much money you need to make to live in Forest, Virginia. I'm just quoting where Stephen and them are. Hey, what a million dollars will get you in, you know, Lynchburg area. Like you could do little Instagram things where you are giving, you know, good content because people are always curious, especially when you say money. They're always curious but it's about the market and that will then showcase the local people. The other thing consistently that you want to do and two great examples of this one would be I believe they're called like the Colorado experience on YouTube. And then Shannon Gillette out in Arizona, they both do listing videos and like market based videos consistently on YouTube. And you guys, Stephen here in a second can talk about Adam and what you're seeing him doing on your team. But those are like things I would think about. But my main encouragement to you is like I actually think you probably have a decent social. You just need to add to your sphere and you probably just need to do a little bit more localized content where you can collab with local businesses, you can reference local news and you can share showcase things specifically about a neighborhood. If you live in Forest, here's how the schools are rated, what a million dollars will get you in Forest Virginia. Like those type of things. I think if you had more of that going that would attract in a local audience. But go ahead Stephen and Cody, share with what Adam's doing that you guys are seeing on your team and kind of your experience.

[E]

There's there yeah, I can, I can go off that. And one thing I would say too, there's really out of. We got a thousand agents here in the Lynchburg area and I really know of just one that does it at a high level that gets let's say 20 deals from social and all she posts is about her life. Very rarely is it real estate like she. People know she's in real estate for sure, she definitely does that. But it's all about what she's doing throughout the day with her kids. She's big on like a. She has like farm animals and stuff and people love it. She had so many views and has nothing to do with real estate. But people know she's in real estate but then she's entertaining to watch. So that, that's one encouragement of. It's got to be like if you want social to be your thing of a lead source, it's got to be like your life that you're doing. You know, it's got to be like an all on in that way and Then Adam's piece with his YouTube videos he recently, he's been doing for about eight months now really consistently and he's got one video that hit over 5,000 views, about a hundred comments. And it was a controversial. While open floor plans aren't good, here's the reasons why. And he got so many comments on. Because it's controversial. Everyone loves open floor plans. What the freak you're talking about. Right. And then but people are like, yeah, it is like it, there's no privacy anymore and all this stuff, there's controversy. So it's just something to talk about that makes like, oh shoot, that doesn't really make sense. But it does. So that's been his biggest hit so far is finding topics that are like somewhat new but also controversial that will just get people talking and looking.

[C]

Yeah. And you got to remember too, it's like all these leads that come in from social, they're all the same, you know, kind of leads that come in from everywhere else. They're so they're, they're top of the funnel, they're not bottom of the funnel. It's not like you're going to get a transaction tomorrow, you know, from this. He's gotten four leads that have come from YouTube over that eight months. He posts every week and he two of them are going to buy next year. Right. So we have a pipeline for him next year. I think he had six people on it for next year. So just remember like this is, it's a long term game. You need to be consistent, you know, with it on social. But I like to your point, look like you need to focus on its relationship. And so like all the people that are following you on Instagram, you should be following up with them in other categories. Reminder Media's magazine, a phone call going out to them because that's who you want to transact with on social. You actually don't need to gain your following from just organic people just, you know, running to you. You need to connect with people in real life and get them to follow you on Instagram. And then that can be a piece that's a drip campaign for you to build the relationship up.

[A]

Yeah, it almost challenges your offline to, to feed your online. It's like how many people did I meet this month that I can get to follow on Instagram or Facebook? Could be a leading indicator metric that you track. But regardless. And I haven't been able to pull up your Instagram, Olivia. But I, I bet you because you of what you told us in the beginning you're doing great. You have your sphere. You're probably doing great on Instagram. I wouldn't buy into the too much hype that all these agents are getting so many leads, because everyone we buy, like, we even dive into. It's like they don't even know how many leads they're getting from their Instagram, which tells us it's way more sphere. But you should a hundred percent do what Adam and all of them are doing, which is I want to build a brand and I need local content. And some great ideas for local content is showcasing the local listings consistently, like your listing videos or others. Showcase the news that's happening in your area for, you know, different things coming into your town and then showcasing market report data on the areas you serve, but not clinically. So you got to do it like the clickbait type way. It's like, what can a million dollars get you? How much money do you need to make to live in this area? What are the best school districts? Is it this or this? Like, that is the local content that will get engagement. But awesome question. Sorry for the technical difficulties there. It was a little bit breaking up. I really appreciate you coming on, Olivia. And we'll have to connect on Instagram now that I know and recognize your name, so. And I'll check out your Instagram page and give you some direct feedback.

[F]

Okay, perfect. I know it's been a little quiet the last few weeks, so please don't judge on that time.

[A]

Okay, I won't.

[C]

Thanks, Olivia.

[A]

Yeah, go get him, Olivia. Really, we. We appreciate you. Thank you for calling in.

[F]

Thank you, guys.

[B]

All right, there you go. You can get your questions answered live here on Stay paid. Go to remindermedia.com ask and submit your questions there. We'll get you here on the show. And Stephen, thank you for those two plugs. You gave us. Two plugs.

[A]

What a guy.

[C]

Wasn't even trying.

[B]

What's your question? The answer is to send them.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. There we go.

[E]

Your social pay for the magazine.

[A]

Yeah, we're gonna have to have a disclaimer after every episode now.

[B]

All right, awesome, everybody, and thank you all for listening. You can get all of our [e-mail] you can reach Luke or [e-mail] and of course, you can follow us on Instagram as well. We are at staypay Podcast for this episode of Stay Paid. I am Joshua Steyk.

[A]

And I'm Luke Cakery. And remember, guys, the difference between top producers and mediocre producers. In every business. Business. Top producers take action. Take action on that today.