How to Scale Your Real Estate Business Beyond Referrals

Summary

Stay Paid Podcast Summary

Episode: How to Scale Your Real Estate Business Beyond Referrals
Date: October 27, 2025
Hosts: Luke Acree, Josh Stike, Cody Smith
Format: Live Q&A with real estate agents

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode of Stay Paid focuses on helping real estate agents scale their businesses beyond referrals by incorporating systems, diversifying lead sources, and optimizing outreach strategies. Hosts Luke, Josh, and Cody take live questions from agents across the country, addressing common pain points such as transitioning from solo to team-based production, maximizing the ROI of marketing tools like ReminderMedia’s magazine, and building effective systems for consistent growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Moving Beyond Referrals to Scale a Real Estate Business

Caller: Gina, Seattle (Latino Market Specialist)

• Challenge: Transitioning from solo "rainmaker" to building a scalable team, largely reliant on her own referrals.
• Production: 26 homes sold ($22M volume) in past year, most by Gina herself.
• Team Setup: 4 agents, 1 admin, plus a new Inside Sales Agent (ISA).

Key Insights:

• Leverage comes from systems and people: "It really comes down to leverage… and leverage comes from systems and people." (Luke, 03:16)

• Database Growth & Diversified Lead Pillars:

  • Focus on adding one new lead pillar at a time (circle prospecting, paid ads).
  • All business should be "relationship-driven" with the database as the central asset.
  • Scaling isn’t just about more direct deals—it’s about growing the database you can nurture.

• Circle Prospecting:

  • Use events (like a new listing) to call an entire neighborhood, focusing on data for target language/market (e.g., Spanish-speaking homeowners).
  • “Circle prospecting… you are calling upon a neighborhood… you are doing it with a goal and intent to build your database.” (Luke, 05:29)
  • Gina can delegate calling to her new ISA but should master the process herself first.
  • Use data tools (e.g., DealMachine) and scrub against the DNC list.

• Paid Advertising:

  • Facebook and Google can add long-term leads, but require diligent follow-up: “Conversion is only going to be around 3% and it’s a long tail game—10.8 months nurture on average.” (Luke, 07:27)
  • “Do not do Facebook or Google Ads if you are not willing to call… you’re wasting your money.” (Luke, 13:31)

• Agent Standards & Operational Cadence:

  • As leads ramp up, set clear expectations for agent activities (e.g., daily prospecting blocks, follow-up cadences).
  • Begin thinking of standards for your team early—e.g., “Is it two hours of prospecting a day? Do they have to call leads a certain amount of times?” (Luke, 14:17)

Memorable Quotes:

• “If you’re going to do something, go all in on it… everything compounds.” (Cody, 11:08)
• “Never do [a new lead pillar] at the detriment of your cadence on your sphere… your sphere is really where the ROI is.” (Luke, 16:07)

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2. Maximize the Impact of Marketing Touches, e.g., ReminderMedia Magazines

Caller: Cindy, Maryland (returning after health issues)

• Challenge: Uses ReminderMedia magazine with her sphere—wants effective follow-up, and to jumpstart her real estate business after a slow year.

Key Insights:

• Follow-up with Purpose:
  • Magazine is a passive touch; proactive calls are essential for impact.
  • Use the magazine as a sincere reason to check in—frame the call as a “thinking of you” with the magazine as a valued gift.
  • Use the “FORD” conversation framework: Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams.
• Referral Ask Framing:
  • Transition from life-catchup to business ask:
    • Tie in personal goals (“My goal is to help 10 families this year—if you know anyone I can help, I’d love an introduction.”)
    • Remove pressure (“Maybe they’re not looking right now—I love to build relationships for the future.”)
  • “People want to be a part of your journey… clients ask ‘What number are we towards your goal?’” (Luke, 28:01)
• Utilize Magazine Features:
  • QR code feature on cover for free market analysis—signals client engagement and provides a specific follow-up reason.
  • Magazine can add value and create reciprocity (feature partners like elder care attorneys or assisted living facilities).
• Jumpstart Strategies:
  • Consider client events (invite sphere, even if most won’t attend).
  • Seek partnerships with lenders, attorneys, service providers.
  • Explore the rapidly growing “silver tsunami”/senior downsizing market, especially if you have relevant experience.

Memorable Quotes:

• “The key is, the magazine is passive… it’s not proactive, meaning you still have to reach out.” (Luke, 20:50)
• “My personal thing is I want to be an add value person—that when people think of me, that’s what they think of.” (Cody, 33:28)

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3. Creating & Implementing Standard Operating Procedures as a Solo Agent

Caller: Joni, Arizona (Seasoned Referral-Based Agent)

• Challenge: Operates mostly from experience/"in her head"—wonders if she needs written standards and how to set them.

Key Insights:

• Systems Force Accountability and Scale:
  • Even top solo producers can benefit from documented processes, especially to avoid “slippage” or lost tasks (“…there’s no way. Especially you did 40, 30 deals in the past… it’s impossible to remember all that unless you have a system” - Cody, 43:24)
  • Segment your database for different outreach cadences (VIPs: monthly + Popeyes; A’s: quarterly calls/events; B’s: annual check-ins).
  • “When we don’t have standards, we’re often missing the cadence or the efficiencies to get us to where we want…” (Cody, 41:43)
• Leverage Technology for Systemization:
  • Use tools like ChatGPT: Verbally outline your process, have the AI draft checklists or SOPs.
  • “You have a gift right now, which is called ChatGPT… just turn on the voice mode and tell it what you do… It’ll document it all.” (Luke, 46:40)
• Track & Measure KPIs:
  • Targets without measurement won’t drive improvement; track calls, touches, reviews, conversions, and profit to better analyze results.
  • Attribution is rarely one-to-one, but measuring leading KPIs (e.g., referrals per Popeye) creates focus.

Memorable Quotes:

• “Operations drives measurement… and measurement creates freedom.” (Luke, 53:01)
• “If I do 70 Popeyes, how many referrals?” (Cody, 53:34)
• “What’s the value of a cup of coffee with a friend? It’s not about direct ROI, it’s compounding relationships.” (Luke, paraphrasing Gary Vee, 55:17)

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Notable Quotes & Time Stamps

• “It really comes down to leverage… and leverage comes from systems and people.”
  —Luke (03:16)
• “Do not do Facebook or Google Ads if you are not willing to call… you’re wasting your money.”
  —Luke (13:31)
• “If you’re going to do something, go all in on it… everything compounds.”
  —Cody (11:08)
• “The key is, the magazine is passive… it’s not proactive, meaning you still have to reach out.”
  —Luke (20:50)
• “People want to be able to help you out. People want to be a part of your journey.”
  —Luke (27:38)
• “Operations drives measurement… and measurement creates freedom.”
  —Luke (53:01)
• “If I do 70 Popeyes, how many referrals?”
  —Cody (53:34)
• “What’s the value of a cup of coffee with a friend? …It’s compounding relationships.”
  —Luke (55:17, paraphrasing Gary Vee)

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Important Timestamps

• Gina's Team Scaling Problem Introduced: 01:12-03:46
• Circle Prospecting & Paid Ads Advice: 05:10-07:57
• Practical Circle Prospecting Process: 09:12-12:08
• Lead Pillars and Agent Standards: 13:31-15:16
• Cadence & Follow-up Standards: 16:07-17:57
• Cindy’s Follow-Up Script & Referral Ask: 21:47-31:15
• Using QR Codes + “Adding Value” Philosophy: 31:36-34:02
• Client Events & Senior Market Openings: 34:10-37:27
• Joni's SOPs, Tracking, & Measurement: 38:07-46:40
• ChatGPT for SOPs, KPIs, and Performance Tracking: 46:40-56:53
• ROI, Attribution, and Continuous Improvement: 55:08-56:53

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Summary & Action Steps

The hosts repeatedly stress that top producers differentiate themselves by taking action and embracing discomfort—whether that means adding one new lead pillar, following up proactively after every magazine mailout, or systemizing what’s already in their heads to amplify growth and avoid dropped balls.

• Don’t try to implement everything at once—pick one new pillar or process and commit.
• Track the results of your activities to understand what actually moves the needle.
• Leverage technology (CRMs, AI tools like ChatGPT) to create and refine systems as you grow.
• Treat every proactive touchpoint as a chance to deepen relationships and plant a referral seed.

Final word:
“The difference between top producers and mediocre producers is top producers take action. So for all our callers, take action on one of the things you heard today. And for all those listening, you heard something you know you should be doing—take action on it. Don’t just sit around, do it.”
—Luke Acree (59:23)

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Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Welcome to Stay Paid. 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 here on the show, make sure to follow us on Instagram. We are at Staypay Podcast. Shoot us a DM there. Or you can go to remindermedia.com Ask a S K Ask and submit your questions there. We'll contact you to have you here on the show. My name is Josh Dyke, Chief marketing officer at Reminder Media, joined as always by Luke Akrey, president of Reminder Media, and from the Acree Brothers Realty team Director of Sales, Cody Smith. Welcome, gentlemen. How we doing today? Good, good.

[A]

I'm doing okay. You know, I'm doing. I'm doing pretty good. Sorry, I was posting this on Instagram, so I need to make sure this Instagram came.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

All right, all right.

[C]

Gotta say anything.

[B]

There you go. Look, multitasking doesn't work.

[A]

Exactly. I can't multitask. I'm in. It's just a queue in my mind. That's all it is.

[B]

Oh, well, we are going to get to our first caller, Gina in real estate calling from Washington. Gina, welcome to Stay Paid.

[D]

Hello. Welcome. Thank you for having me.

[A]

Yeah, it's great to have you on the show, Gina. I'm super excited to talk to you today. What is your problem that's going on in the business or what is the kind of barrier that you need to tackle to grow your business to the next level?

[D]

Well, I have several problems. The first one is I have a very huge market. I have a team of four agents plus me. We're five. And we focus on the Latino market in the Seattle area. We're all bilingual. That's part of our value proposition. And we want to grow. And I had been a solo agent for several years, and. And it's difficult for me to let go of my business and be a leader for my agents.

[A]

I. I hear you 100%. And Cody and I know Stephen can really attest to this because you guys just got Steven out of production, what, the last three months? Cody, right? Yep, yep. So he's, you know, he. We tried to get him out and we scaled up the team. I forget where it went to. It was like 14 agents or something like that. And then we had some top producers leave and Stephen had to get back into the business. So we've kind of been on that roller coaster ride. Tell us a little bit about your production, like how many deals or what's Your volume been this year for you and your four agents?

[D]

Well, in the past year, we have sold 26 homes. Most of those homes have been sold by me. Okay, we can sold eight and another, my other against the rest.

[A]

Okay, okay, so 26 homes. What is that volume? Just so I understand, you know what, what's kind of your volume range that you're doing with those 26?

[D]

Oh, it's about 22 million.

[A]

22 million. Nice.

[B]

Awesome.

[A]

So you got a solid foundation there for growing your business. Okay. And your question is what that you're trying to figure out how to get out of being the Rainmaker, essentially. Is that the main question for you?

[D]

Happy? Because me and I have sold blood.

[A]

Okay, so tell me a little bit about. So we understand your lead flow because in order to get you out of production, it really comes down to leverage. Right? Leverage comes from systems and people. So it seems like you have the people with the four agents on the team, but you really lack probably the systems. And part of those systems are probably how you generate leads. Can you tell me where the majority of that 22 million is coming from? Is it referrals? Is it another lead source?

[D]

It's on personal referrals, actually. And that's the issue. I. I think to scale this only so much you can do with personal referrals.

[A]

Yeah, there. There is truth to that. Is like referrals will get you. So far it's the best lead source, but you also have to like, here's the way I look at it, I should take a step back. Is all of your business should be what I call is relationship driven business, referral and repeat business. So then it's just about how do I scale my relationships? Because you are getting a certain amount of business from the current database you have, and you need to grow that database. And that's why you add other lead sources. Whether it's geo farming or paid advertising, you add these other lead sources not just because you get a direct response from a Facebook lead that wants to buy. It's truly because you're trying to grow your database that you can then nurture for long periods of time and grow your referral and repeat business essentially in that database. So right now, do you do any other lead sources besides referrals? Any other marketing?

[D]

Well, I do have my reminder, my reminder media account. You know, I said that it's for my sphere. You know, I send the emails to send the magazines, which everyone loves, but still it's me it. And I want the people to trust my age.

[A]

Yeah, Exactly. Are your agents doing anything for their sphere?

[D]

We have a lot of interlapping sphere, but no, it's usually me.

[A]

Okay. Have you, have you made your agents sit down and get their sphere in a database? Okay, perfect. All right, so you're doing some of the things like where I start is go. Okay. Number one rule is you got to make the agent sit down and actually curate their database together so you can market to that database, because that's where the majority of the business is going to come from. But it sounds like to me you need to add on one or two other pillars and start with one right now. Try to add two at the same time. Start with one more pillar to see if you can grow the database, and I'll give you just a couple suggestions and then I'd love to throw it to you, Cody, to talk tactically because I know you guys are executing on this. One way that you could add is by circle prospecting. And, and circle prospecting is where you are calling upon a neighborhood, a region that you want to be known like and trusted in, that you want to get deals in. And you're calling on that neighborhood usually because something has happened in that neighborhood, maybe a listing has come on the market and you're trying to call all the other homeowners. You, you might know this. Not sure. But just for the audience that doesn't know, you're calling on the neighborhood based upon an event that's happened. And you're basically asking them, are they interested in selling their home? Have they ever been interested? But you're doing it with a goal and an intent to build your database. Maybe they're interested, maybe they're not. But you're trying to grow that database. Cody, how many deals have you guys done this year from circle prospecting?

[C]

We've done about, I think, 24, 24 prospecting. So good amount.

[A]

And the reason why I went to circle prospecting first, besides going to like geographic farming or going to Facebook ads, is because right now I think there's a ton of pent up demand where there are a lot of sellers sitting on great interest rates that really actually want to sell their home. But they're uneducated, they don't really know what's going on in the market. They're reading headlines, they're like, well, I have a 4% interest rate. Interest rates are at 6 and a quarter right now. Like, I don't know if I should sell or not. And when you call, you're basically finding sellers and you're educating them. And they are interested. They just have never talked about it with anybody. And so I think there's a lot of pent up demand that you can uncover by calling on circle prospecting. The second area that I would point you to is what I call is paid advertising. So that would be running ads on Google or running ads through Facebook that traditionally is going to get you a decent amount of leads. Conversion is only going to be around 3% and it's a long tail game. So it's 10.8 months usually to nurture one of those leads to conversion. But that's a great way to get your brand out there in the community and actually generate leads. I saw that you had a question. I saw you were going to start to say something. Gina, do you have a question on.

[D]

Any of those two regarding the circuit prospecting? Do you recommend that I do it like we do it ourselves? Because we don't have an inside sales agent that just started this morning. Because for me, like it completely makes sense. And what we do, it's. I'm starting to call people could self identify as Latino in my target neighborhoods.

[A]

Because you're trying. Your ideal target market is Latino with inside these neighborhoods. Okay. So I would recommend both. I would recommend have your ISA do it. But you should do it as well. And you should do it as well so you can master and know what you want the ISA to do. It's really hard to coach and oversee somebody that you have not experienced what they're doing. It makes it very difficult. So I would recommend you actually do that. I also recommend when you're buying the list that you're going to circle prospect to see if the data provider can mark speaking. Like, I know for us, when we sell data for people for our postcards and stuff like that, we can do it by language. So you can, you know, a lot of times you can find who speaks certain languages and that can be the start of your circle prospectings to that list. Cody, you want to walk through kind of the how you guys practically do your circle prospecting.

[C]

Yeah. So oftentimes we'll either choose like a neighborhood that we want to be in or we'll also like for agents specifically, I'll coach it toward listings that they have or open houses that they're going to do and then circle prospecting that neighborhood. My, my question for you, Gina, real quick. So you want to. You have a team of four, is that right? Okay. And then how many admins do you have? One. So then it's like a tc.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Sweet. Say it again.

[D]

We also have a beautiful assistant out of the Killic Games.

[C]

Okay, nice. So you have a TC local and a virtual assistant.

[D]

This.

[C]

Okay, awesome. And then what. What is your goal in building the team? Like how many. Do you have a number you want to get to? I know you said like you'd like to be out of the business, so I'd love to hear that. What's your goal now?

[D]

Yes, I thought it was going to be easier actually. I. It's the first time that I manage people. I've been a Solar agent for 12 years, but my ball realistically right now is to get to 6 and have them all get to maybe 10 million a year each and then build from.

[C]

Okay, and what's the goal behind 10 million? Why 10 million each?

[D]

Oh, because I think that in this market, you know, the. Even the Seattle area, that's something that's doable. It's what I'm. What I've been doing consistently and very easily. So I want them to get there.

[C]

Okay. Yeah, I love that. No, that's awesome. See, Luke's right on point then. Cause you've got. Cause my often my question is like, do you have the admin in place and being operations? Of course I'm gonna bring that up. But yeah, so admin first, right? Support the people that, you know, need the support to have the leverage. And then yeah, lead sources would be next. So the circle prospecting is perfect. And the list, you know, diving down to like a niche that you're doing is great. Yeah. As far as what we do specifically is like we target certain neighborhoods that we want to call through. The biggest thing for agents is that you want to go all in. So like if I'm going to choose this area, I'm doing every open house in this area. You know, I'm door knocking, I'm circle prospecting. It's like an all in one because everything compounds. So one thing will maybe get you some deals. Compounding it all will get you a lot more deals and then you really have like a flagship there in that neighborhood. So that would be my encouragement. It's just if you're going to do something, you go all in on it.

[A]

Where do you guys get the data from? Cody, can you tell her where you guys get the data for your circle.

[C]

Prospecting deal machine is who we use to pull this through. It's. We've done several different websites and that by far for us has been the best as far as like just actually like good data and good numbers to call through. But we've also done, you know, the white. Just doing white pages, you know, doing a neighborhood and pulling. That takes a lot more time. So if you have an isa, I would do the list route and deal machine is by far the best we've had.

[A]

And make sure, Gina, that you go through the do not call list. I think deal machine will give you a do not call scrub list. But make sure you do that because I don't want you to get caught there. When they call, their ISAs are calling and they're double dialing. So they'll what, Cody? Call about 200 calls a day, hit about 100 unique people.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Is what their stats are. And usually set about one appointment a day is what they're seeing targets. And then you're seeing what, about a 25% conversion rate on those appointments right now from your ISAs, right?

[C]

Yep. Probably like a 25 conversion to, like, show up.

[A]

Yeah, to show up. So that just gives you an idea for them what they're seeing. Cody and their team just hit 200 deals for the year. And we're recording this beginning of September. So they just hit 200 deals a year. And if you think about it, you know, 50. So percent of their deals, Gina, are sphere. And then you have circle prospecting. That's 26 of their deals. Right. That they're seeing. So around 10% of their deals are circle prospecting. And if you go to like, Facebook, it's probably 6% of their deals are Facebook ads. Google is producing another probably 10% of their deals. And so they have a bunch of different lead pillars. I don't want you to start with everything, but I would encourage you. If you have the ISA get circle prospecting going, then I would move to Facebook ads. If you want, we run Facebook ads for Acre Brothers. We can talk to you about that. We can also show you what we're doing with Google so you can kind of mimic there the. The pain point I see for agents with Facebook ads and Google is you need to be willing to call because we're seeing an average of like 18 calls in order to convert somebody. And you have an ISA on the team, so you're perfectly kind of positioned for that to be able to call. But if any agent that's listening to this, deciding what they want to do, do not do Facebook or Google Ads. If you are not willing to call, you're wasting your money. I just see so many people do it. You'll get the brand impression, which is nice, but you won't get the Actual conversion that you want on those leads, unless you call. So I would start there. I don't want to overwhelm you with too much information. It seems like you're doing extremely well. 22 million. You have four agents on the team. You want to get it to six, each of them doing 10 million. What you really need is lead flow. Lead flow then makes you do what? It makes you build out the operational calendar for your agents. So the next pain point that's going to pop right up is that your agents are not treating the leads that you're paying for to generate well enough. And that's because you got to standardize what your expert expectations are for an agent. So be already thinking, what are your standards in your calendar that you want an agent to do? So is it two hours of prospecting a day? Do they have to call the leads a certain amount of times? Like that's going to be your next phase in building the team is now that you'll generate leads. You got to make sure the leads are treated correctly. That comes down to your agents running their day appropriately. Does that make sense?

[D]

Yes, completely. And we already have systems in place. We just leave it quiet?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

And what I was going to actually say exactly what Luke said. So I'm so glad he brought it up. But the. Because if you want production, your agents are going to have to start having some standards in place. So, like calls like, I know we talked about Sphere and like they're in the database. My question would be, how often are they calling them? Are they inviting them to client events if you have them? Or calling about the Reminder Media magazine? Do you have any cadence or system? And it sounds like you might. Where the agents have some type of. Hey, I have to do this standard to be a part of this team.

[D]

You know what? I never called anyone asking about the magazine. I. I just wait. It just had this aha moment. I just waited for them to tell me like I received it, but I.

[A]

Oh, no, you got a call. Yeah, Gina, you got a call. Yeah, I love that. That's a huge takeaway from you. In our system for any clients that listen to this, because I know we have thousands that listen is in your system. We also score who's likely to move. So go into your platform and we'll score for you who is likely to list in your database in the next 12 months. So at the very least, call all those people because there are things happening behind the scenes, data wise, that could signify a move. Usually it's a life Event debt, divorce, tax things, things like that. So do that. Like, my action item really for you is you have a lot of good happening. I would standardize your cadence of outreach, and I would move into one to two other lead pillars. I would start with circle prospecting and then move to paid advertising. Never do that at the detriment of your cadence on your sphere, because your sphere is going to be really where the return on investment is. Do it as an add on, if that makes sense. So if you find that calling circle prospecting is limiting your reach, your outreach to your sphere, you've done something wrong. It should only be in an add on to what you're doing for your sphere already. And so it's not. It's like should. You should have these three lead pillars humming. And that will give you the opportunity to be able to coach your agents up on what you need to coach them up on, which is conversion. How do you close at the appointment? How do you actually get the people to show up at the appointment? You should be spending your time coaching on conversion. And then ultimately, when you get conversion up and maybe you get a sales manager to do that, then you focus on the thing that matters the absolute most, which is client service. Like, how do we service our clients to create raving fans? So, Gina, you have been amazing. Thank you for calling in. I hope you found this helpful, but let's friend up and because I want to walk you through maybe offline Google Ads and Facebook ads and stuff like that and help you out there.

[D]

Thank you so much for having me. I really had several aha moments that I'm going to name in right away.

[A]

Awesome. Thank you, Gina. Have a great day. Thank you.

[C]

Good luck.

[A]

Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, it is. It's so hard because when you have to do it all as an entrepreneur, it is so difficult because you're the rainmaker and you're trying to produce at the same time you're trying to get standards. And then you're like, oh, well, I don't have any leads. Right. People to call. So now you got to take all your money that you're making as the rainmaker and throw it in the lead generation. And that's why I think Alex Ramosi calls it the swamp, where you're like the sole producer. I think Dave Ramsey calls it the trail or the treadmill is what I think he calls it, because you're trying to keep up and in place, but you have to basically take a risk and spend your extra money or even go down in your income in order to grow. And we see this at every stage of the game, even reminder media now it's like we're having to go down in our net profit and income to try to hit new levels of growth so we can eventually go up. It's just. It's just wild.

[B]

Yep. Absolutely. Make sure to get your questions answered live here on Stay Paid. You can go to reminder media.com/ask. Next up, we have Cindy calling from Maryland. She has a question in real estate. Cindy, welcome to Stay Paid.

[E]

Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here.

[A]

Cindy, it's great to have you. What's your question that we can help you with today?

[E]

I send out the magazines to my sphere. My sphere or past clients. I send, love it, 50 magazines every three months. That's what my budget will pay for at this point. Tell me a little bit about how you would suggest that we follow that I follow up after I've sent the magazines when they, when they've arrived. What should I do next?

[A]

This is a great question. We actually just got off the phone with the caller, Gina, and she was talking to us about how to, you know, get leads in the door. But then we ended up getting into follow up the magazine as well. So maybe we should theme this call in show is how to follow up up with the marketing that you send. Because I will share with the audience that's listening. Maybe don't use reminder media. One of the things we do, Josh and I, we run reminder media. It's what produces Stay Paid and we produce. Our flagship product is we produce personalized magazines for real estate agents and other businesses to send to their spheres. You know, Cindy, you're a great client, but the key is the magazine is passive. So the magazine is something that is a passive outreach that gets your name in front of the people, but it's not proactive, meaning you still have to reach out. Just so I can get clarity on your situation, Cindy, because it will help me guide you on the best way to use the magazine and do the, you know, follow up. How many transactions have you done this year? Or what's your volume looking like? Has it been a good year, bad year for you?

[E]

It's been a little picture. I've done only two transactions. However, I've had. And this kind of goes into my second question. I've had health issues that have prevented me from going at real estate fast and furious. It's just.

[A]

I'm sorry to hear about that. I hope things are getting better.

[E]

Things appear to be getting better.

[B]

Awesome.

[E]

So that's kind of the second question is how would you jump start getting back in the game? That would be kind of my second question. But that's. Those are my stats.

[A]

Okay, that's great to know. Go ahead.

[C]

Previously Cindy, so like you said, you get back in the game. What, what was you in the game looking like?

[E]

Probably 10 transactions a year. I'm, I, that's all I really want to do.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Yeah. So 10's the goal. Love it. And then where is it? Mainly sphere was that from?

[E]

Mainly sphere. I've done real well with in terms of my clients, at least some of my clients passing on my name and such and I have a couple of investor clients that I can kind of count on for a couple of transactions a year. So.

[A]

Okay, love it. Um, so let me give you kind of my learnings over the years. So when we created the magazine it was really to fill that gap called the loyalty gap with inside business where people, they use their real estate agent, they say they'll use it again and it's like the stats are alarming. 90% say they will. It's like 11% actually do. That's why we created the product. But then what we realized real quickly and this came from Cody when you and Steven, you know, started Acrey Brothers and the growth that you guys have had, it's really taught us the difference between okay, you can have a great marketing product, but it really comes down to how you use it in implementation. So the obvious way is send it to your sphere to stay top of mind. But it led us to realizing, wow, the main use case for this is using it as your reason to call the sphere. And then from there that led us to the scripts of okay well how do you actually call the people who you're sending the magazine to? And I'll frame up for you a way, I'll give you an example, kind of role play it with you of how you can call. But I really want you to catch the key components you're looking to do. So if I sent you the magazine Cindy, I would simply call you up and go hey Cindy, you know it's Luke. Hey, was thinking about you today and reason why I wanted to watch reach out you popped into my mind. I just got my latest magazine of good to be home and it reminded me hey, I'm sending it to you as a gift. I try to send it to all my best relationships. I consider you sending you be one of my best relationships and just want to check in. I hope you're enjoying It. I really would love to get your opinion because I try to put it together and put recipes in it and things like that that I think people would love, but how's life been going, Sunny? I know it's been a couple months since we talked. How's life been going? And that would be my opening. Oh, I love it. You're going to role play with me then. Awesome. But that would be my opening. And the key takeaway. And this just doesn't apply to the magazine. Right. It applies to your outreach to Sphere. No matter what you're calling on, the key takeaway is, I'm calling you because you popped into my mind. I sent you a gift. So I want the elevation of what I'm sending you to be perceived as a gift. I also want to use the words, I send it to all my best relationships. Maybe you say, I send it to my best friends, my best clients. I want you to know right out of the gate, I consider you to be one of my best relationships. This is called framing in sales. Framing. I want to frame this as, hey, you popped into my mind. It's a thinking about you call, you're one of my best relationships. And then, how's life been going? I just want to catch up with you. And in that, the key remembering here for all people who have been to networking events, and you're trying to network with people and call your clients. The acronym to remember is Ford Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams. How do you talk to people and catch up with them? You want to find out what's going on in their family, what's going on in their life with work, what's going on with their hobbies, what's going on with their dreams? How do you get people to open up about that? You simply go, hey, how's life been, Cindy? You'll reveal probably limited information to me because it's a random call. So then I go, oh, man, that's great. Yeah. The other day, my wife Megan, we were taking Evelyn and William to church. I had to go early for Praise Team practice. And my wife texts me when I'm at Praise Team. And she said, I just was getting in the car and William peed all over himself. So it's like, that's where we're at in life right now is the potty training years. So what happens there? I'm revealing about my life to you, and that lowers people's guards and vulnerability creates vulnerability and combo. So if you want to have real transparent conversations with people in your sphere, you have to reveal about Your life. So your health issues that are going on, Cindy, like, it's up to you, but it's, like, revealing. Yeah, it's been tough recently. I've been going through some health challenges, and all of a sudden, you will bring such a vulnerability and transparency to the call that you'll start having real combos. So after that, then let's role play. How do you get to the referral ask? How do you get to the asking for business? Because you. You ultimately were hoping they're. They'll use you. So what I always do is depending on the client or person, I would go, hey, Cindy, how's. How's work been going for you? And that will get you to tell me what's going on with your work or if it's, you know, your spouse that's working or whatever. You know, how's work been going for that person? That normally causes the person in my experience to answer and then ask you, how's your work been going? So it's reciprocal. And that gives you a perfect opportunity to transition into the ask. If you ask, how's work been going for you? And they don't ask you how work's been going for you, that's okay. You can still transition and go, man, I'm so glad to hear that. Yeah. And my side of the business has been kind of an interesting market. You don't want to say good or bad. You always want to use the word interesting.

[E]

Right?

[A]

It's been kind of an interesting market, and then you move into. In fact, it's so funny. I have such a lofty goal for my business this year. I would love to help 15 families, or in your case, 10 families this year. That's my goal. I have a lofty goal. I want to help 10 families buy or sell or find their dream home. I don't actually. In fact, Cindy, you know, if I could work with 10 of you, it would be amazing. But do you know anybody? Maybe they're not looking to buy or sell right now, but I would love to. Any of your friends and family, I would love to help them out, be a resource to them. You know, this. Like, my business is all relationships. So if you ever know anybody that you could introduce me to, maybe I'd love to send in my magazine. I just love to meet new people. That's my business. Anybody coming to your mind now, Cindy, that you can introduce me? Do you have any friends or anything like that that I could help? Because I really want to hit this goal of 10. Not.

[E]

Not right now.

[A]

No. Problem at all. Well, hey, I just. If you think of anybody, just remember, I want to be your person. And it doesn't matter if they're looking to buy today or in five years. My goal is, you know, to be there for them when they need it. The key here now, Cindy, is that one, you've planted a seed that's the most important. But ultimately, as you want to share with people your goal, what you're trying to accomplish, here's why it's better to give than receive. People want to be able to give. People want to be able to help you out. People want to be a part of your journey. We interviewed a top producing real estate agent in North Carolina. Taylee Hunt, I believe was her name, does 100 deals a year by herself, solo producer. And one of the main things she shared with us that she does is she lets all of her clients know about her goal every year and she updates them consistently throughout her phone calls and her social media posts. So much so that her clients, when they close a deal with her, they'll go, what number were we? Towards your goal? What number were we? We have applied this same methodology to when we reminder media go out to real estate conferences and we're selling at the trade show booth, we actually tell people that were pulling in. We'll be like, hey, Cindy, our goal at this conference, we want to help 60 agents. You would be number five for us if you sign up. And people respond to that because they want to be a part of what you're doing. So much so that we'll have agents come back to us the next day at the trade show and go, hey, where are you at? Towards your 100, where are you at? Towards your 60. And they'll help bring people over. So you're tapping into the same psychology. It's not the end all be all, but you're trying to help them go, hey, I would love your help. And I always compare this. Like if you post on Facebook about your goal, it's kind of like the weight loss journey. People always cheer you on when you post, I lost 10 pounds or I'm trying to lose 30 pounds. They always turn you on. It's the same in business. So I would summarize this going, Cindy, I would call your clients, check in on them, catch up on life, use the magazine as your non salesy reason to call, then say, share with them what your goal is. Got a lofty goal. I would love to work with people like you, elevate them, let them know, do you know anybody that is looking to buy seller invest this year. And now here's the key takeaway. Don't, don't just ask and then wait because most people are going to go, I don't know anybody right now. And they're going to say no right then say they don't have to be looking right exactly now. But I just want to build relationships with people so that eliminates the pressure of they don't have to be looking exactly right now to buy seller investors. And then that then allows eliminating the pressure. And then if they have somebody, great. If they don't, great. Because guess what? Three months from now they're going to be getting another magazine from you. And guess what? Three months from now you're going to be checking in and seeing how they're doing and you're just going to be watering that seed. Every time you check in, you're reminding them of who you are and you're reminding them of what your ask was. And over time what you'll find is people. It will build up so much value and pressure that people will want to give you those referrals. So that would be the tactical way I would follow up to the magazine and ask. I'm going to throw it to Josh and Cody, see if they want to add anything. And then I have one more idea for you that I think can help you jumpstart your business where you're at right now.

[B]

The only thing I was going to mention there is because the magazine is passive and it does require that follow up phone call really to have the greatest amount of impact. But we have released recently some new features that will allow you to get interest from your database for the magazine. Have you tried the QR code feature where you're featuring a call to action on the front cover of your magazine?

[E]

Not sure.

[B]

So that's a good one to try. And we can definitely get you hooked up with that. What that'll do is it'll signal intent in your database. So it's a new cover design, it has a QR code on it. The item of value that you're offering is a free market analysis on their home to see how much their home may sell for. It's really how much the Internet says their home is worth.

[C]

Sure.

[B]

But may say sell for in this market. Each person that scans that QR code with their phone, you'll see. So they don't even have to fill out the form for you to be able to tell who filled out who scanned your QR code. We'll actually tell you which Recipient scanned your QR code, and then that gives you, number one, it's a more proactive way of getting interest. And then number two, it gives you, like Luke is saying, you have that reason for following up. If you don't know where they're at, it's just general checking in. If you saw that they scanned that QR code, you have a very specific reason to show up. Give them a phone call, and you will have their market analysis available for them whenever you make that phone call delivering that item of value for them.

[E]

Okay, that sounds great.

[A]

Love it.

[C]

And in full agreement. The only thing I add to Luke's script is I'm. I'm big on the. The terminology of the word adding value. So I send the magazine. It's to add value. Is there anyone, when I'm going for the pitch at the end, hey, is there anyone else that you know that I could add value to like I have with you and that we've done together that could just use some, you know, no value added to their life? So I like using that. So, you know, recently at a client, she went Fizbo first. I was like, hey, can I add value to you and hold an open house for free? And then she's like, yes, of course. And then we end up meeting and signing. And I was like, yep, I always look, just add value. She's like, you won't believe this, but you've already had value to me. I had a magazine on my counter, and I picked it up, I was reading it, and then noticed you were on the COVID and I didn't even know you were sending me those. And it was such an add value for me. So, like, I like to program that.

[A]

Amazing.

[C]

They think of my name. They think of like, oh, Cody likes that value. So I just, like, try to whatever your key term. Like, I know Luke used relationships. Like, I'm a relational person. Whatever is your thing, Cindy. And, like, what's personal to you? My personal thing is I want to be an add value person. That when people think of me, that's what they think of. So whatever you've done with your clients, because obviously you've been in the business for years, you know, doing 10 deals, what has been that thing, and use that be personal. Like, this is about you, is about your relationship with your clients. So whatever that thing is about you, use that as the authentic piece of what you do.

[A]

Love it.

[D]

Okay.

[A]

So, Cindy, I would encourage you. Like, the action on for you is really call all of the people that you send the magazine to.

[E]

Right.

[A]

We'll hook you up afterwards to make sure you get the QR code feature that Josh is talking about as well as the likely to move algorithm. And then here's some a couple rapid fire ideas for you to get you jump started. So one idea is client events are massive right now. So if you have the ability I would think about having a client event and invite every single person that you know your sphere advertising on Facebook because majority of people won't show up but you will touch everybody with a value add and you'll be able to the network really re kind of inspire your sphere network by inviting them to a client event. So that'd be one idea. Second idea would be partnerships. So lenders, title companies, insurance companies, home security, financial advisors. Here's a really good one for you elder care attorneys. I would look at all those in your area, whatever location you're at and go give me all the elder care attorneys, go to Google, go to you know, chatgpt and go give me all the elder care attorneys and try to introduce yourself to them. Because partnerships are such a powerful way to get your brand out there and jump start you in that kind of business community and the things that are happening. And then last but not least, they call it the Silver Tsunami. The Silver tsunami is upon us right now. The transfer of wealth is in the trillions of the the seniors who are looking to downsize. And I have a agent, Brian Quigley, he has just dominated the space in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. He, he does 39 deals closed last year just from referrals from elder care attorneys, assistant living facilities. There might be an opportunity in your market to go how do I partner with the assistant living facilities in my market so I can be the downsizing specialist, so I can be the senior relocation specialist in my market. It is a massive opportunity. I've been talking to Stephen at Acrey Brothers about it to go, how do we add this to Acre Brothers real estate to where we help seniors know how to downsize their home and prepare. And there's so many ways you can reach them and market to them. And that's where the wealth is right now. They have the homes, they're looking to transition, whether it's into a 55/community assistant living facility and they need guidance and oftentimes they want to work with a professional, someone who has been in the industry, someone who has your experience. So I would just throw those three ideas. Client events, partnerships at the local level with lenders, mortgage companies. And then last look into the silver Tsunami. Look into that and see, hey, that's what they're calling it out there. But look into it because I think there's a huge opportunity there.

[E]

That's funny you should say that. My previous, in my previous life from real estate, I was a marketing director of Senior Living Communities.

[A]

Oh, my goodness. This is destiny. Take that as a God thing, Cindy. That's where you're supposed to go. But yeah, seriously, like that. I would look into it. I'm encouraging people.

[C]

Yeah, go back to that.

[A]

And the magazine is perfect for it. Let's feature the assistant living facility on your magazine. Let's feature the elder care attorneys on your magazine as a way for you to build reciprocity. Don't charge them anything, just feature them for free. And then we send it to, you know, the different senior stuff.

[F]

So.

[A]

Awesome, Cindy, you have been fantastic. Thank you so much. We'll be in touch. But really appreciate you coming on.

[B]

Stay page Cindy. Appreciate it.

[C]

Good luck.

[B]

All right, bye now. Also, make sure to get your questions answered live here on the show. You can go to remindermedia.com ask and submit those there. Next up, coming on the show, we have Joni out of Arizona has a question in real estate. Joni, can you hear us?

[F]

I can hear you.

[A]

Awesome. Joni, it's awesome to have you on the show. What question can we help you with?

[F]

So I am an independent agent. I've been in real estate about 13 and a half years, and I tend to operate out of my head. I have a 95% referral base.

[A]

Scary. What's in your head? You know, that's. That's a scary place to be.

[D]

I know.

[F]

And that's why my question is I don't have any specific written standard operating procedures. And I was wondering what solo agents do have and how in important is it that I do. I've been doing fine, but I still. I'm just super curious.

[A]

That's awesome. I'm going to throw it to the master Cody because he runs, you know, all the agents there at Acre Brothers and is an expert at this.

[C]

Yeah, I would say. Well, first off, do you have a CRM or is it like in your head in Excel, doc?

[F]

Oh, gosh, no, I have a CRM and it's. I'm with Buffini and Company, so I have that CRM.

[C]

Okay, so it's not all in your head. You do have a system within a CRM, right? Okay, perfect. So when you're asking standards, when I dive in a little bit, asking standards, what standards specifically are you thinking of? Like, how you're reaching out to clients. Yeah. What kind of standards, like, operating procedures are you thinking of?

[F]

So, I mean, I typically. I do, like, calls notes, Popeyes, my magazine from you guys. I get rave reviews on. I'm doing those.

[A]

Thank you.

[F]

So those are kind of a standard procedure, if you will call that procedure. But I know that a lot of people have, like, a listing transaction tracker or a buyer's, you know, like a tracking list of the steps that you do throughout the process or whatever. And, I mean, I could. If I'm being really honest, I can say once in a while there's been a small item that's maybe slipped through the cracks. You're like, oh, I forgot to do the final walkthrough. Darn it. You know, like, not the actual walkthrough, but the paperwork for it, you know?

[A]

Right.

[F]

And so it's just things like that that once in a while I feel like maybe I should have. And I can see the importance of it. If I'm getting ready to build a team and I don't really have anything I can pass on to them, as this is how we kind of do things. But right now, it's all in my head.

[C]

Yeah. So then my next question is, so what, like, current production do you do? Like, maybe units or volume? And then what's the goal to do? So what are you currently?

[F]

My average. My average is about 12 a year, typically. It used to be much higher, you know, back in 20 or 22, 21 early.

[A]

Those were the golden years. 2021. Oh, I love that year.

[B]

Had a lot of fun that year.

[F]

I mean, I had done 42 in a year and 38 in a year. So I've had my really busy times since I've been an agent. I sold about $68 million worth of real estate. So, you know, and I'm. I'm not on a team anymore. I. I did that with my broker when I was starting out a while back, but I've been solo for a long time.

[C]

Okay, and then what's your goal? Like, are you hitting your goal at 12? Do you want to do more?

[F]

You know, right now, business is really slow. What's. One of the pain points is what's going on in the market? And I feel like I spend most of my time right now just trying to educate people on why you don't have to gamble. And they're waiting for interest rates. How much lower do you want them to go? They're the lowest they've been since 2020. You know, just trying to convince them of, you know, the market and how.

[A]

There'S a lot of fear in the market.

[F]

There is so much fear. So right now I'm not anywhere near my goal. And I would. I would love to have back up to it, like a consistent, you know, 20, 22 a year deals a year.

[C]

I love that. And so the reason I ask all those questions, because that's where standards come in place. When we don't have standards, we often missing the cadence or the efficiencies to get us to where we want because we're all in our head. So we have our CRM, we've got our people, we have. We have a protocol that we follow, but we don't actually keep to it because we don't have, like an accountability system on what I'm doing. So my encouragement to you would be like, all right, how do you. What's your main lead source?

[F]

It's referral. I really. I'm. I'm referral based. So somebody tells somebody else, they connect to me, and I follow up.

[C]

Perfect. So what do you currently do for your sphere to get referrals?

[F]

Like I said before, notes, pop bys. Like, I wrote 50 notes in the past.

[A]

So you're really following the Brian Buffini methodology is where you're. Which is awesome. Yeah, I love Brian.

[C]

Yeah. Then I would have. Perfect. So, yeah, then I would have a cadence of, like, how you're tracking that. How many calls are you making? Do you make them four times a year? How many times do you do Popeyes and just. I would write it all out so there's nothing missed. Right. Because that one miss, that one client miss that you didn't follow up with, could be the one that takes you to that next level. And you just build and build and build. So that's what standard standards and operation does is accountability and efficiency at a very high level. So if we're looking like, all right, how can I make sure I'm hitting everything I need to oftentimes in your head, there's no way. Especially you did 40, 30 deals in the past. That means you have a hundred plus clients, most likely. It's impossible to remember all that unless you have a system and an operation to follow. So that's why I would do it. So I would write out the standard.

[A]

Can you watch or can you walk them through? Cody, like, walk Joni through your cadence of how you guys reach sphere, like what your methodology is of how you group them.

[C]

Yeah, 100. So we do three stages for sphere. We have VIPs so VIPs are ones that you would do, like Popeyes, for top of mind. They send you referrals or they've done a deal with you recently, like within the past year. You're going to want to put those in the VIP because you want them top of mind. Right. Popeyes calls next would be, let's just say Class A. Like VIP is an A, where you're going to call them quarterly. They're not sending referrals all the time, but they're people that you enjoyed working with, you want to work with again and you want to continue that relationship. So for us, we send monthly newsletters, we send the magazines, and then we do quarterly calls inviting them to our events and then hopefully they come to the event. So we have all these touch points of keeping in contact, whereas the VIPs is more of like a monthly basis of like, I'm keeping track, like monthly with these people. So then. And then you've got, let's say class B, which Bs are like, maybe you call in the. The home anniversary. They still get like your emails and your magazine, but you may not call them quarterly. Maybe they weren't the best relationship that you had. But, you know, obviously if they could send something, you would take it so very. I would do the minimum amount on them with like a yearly annual anniversary call about their home, congratulating them on another year. And that's how it's siphoned the three. So each one have different cadences on how much I call and who I need to focus on is the biggest point. Because you've got, like I said, over a hundred people, it sounds like in here. Who do I need to hone in on to help my business and to help more people. Right. How you can do that is by segmenting them.

[F]

I think I might be doing a little bit too much because I have my A pluses, my A's, my B's and my C's, but I really do it all of them. And I do do client events and I. So I. And I invite everybody because I want them to feel that community and what it's like to, you know, work with me and be included. And I send, you know, the magazines are mostly to my, my top people, maybe my A pluses, my A's and some of my B's. But I feel like I do have them categorized. I mean, I know I do. I have all of them categorized and I do that. But I feel like I might be doing. I probably do like 70 pop buys every other month, sometimes.

[A]

Oh, man, I love that. That's crushing it. I need. I need to interview you on how to do a successful Popeye. Like, that is freaking 70. It's amazing. That's why you're doing well.

[F]

Love it.

[C]

A top team in Richmond, what they do is to create inclusivity or for the VIPs, is they have specific events for VIPs. So. And in order to be a VIP, you have to send a referral in the year or close within the year, and then that. That's you. She has. They have six events, but two of them are only for VIPs.

[A]

That's a great idea.

[F]

Great idea.

[C]

I love free ice cream. Or they go to somewhere and they do, like, a free thing, but it's only for VIP club clients. And then it. It allows you. And then they do Popeyes for those too. So not everyone gets Popeyes. VIPs do. So it's like an extra step up to, like, hey, this is what you get.

[A]

What I'm hearing from you, Joanie, and I think about, like, reminder media. One of the things we're redoing right now is our training. And I just literally had a conversation with our director of sales training, where I told him, hey, because he's not good at operations, it's all in his head. And I told him, hey, man, you have a gift right now, which is called ChatGPT. And what I want you to do is record, just turn on the voice mode of ChatGPT or Gemini, whatever one you use, and literally talk to it, tell it what you do, and it then now has all that info, and you can say, hey, based upon what I've told you, can you give me the flight checklist for how I run a listing? Can you give me the flight checklist for how I serve a client? And it will document it all out for you. And then from there, what you want to do is, like, the first thing is to set the target like Cody was getting at. The second thing is to track the activity. The third is to measure the activity. And then the, you know, fourth is to improve, to pivot, to iterate, to change on the activity. So where you got to start is you have the target. You know, you want to do 20, 22 deals a year, you need to now document what the activity is. So in order to do that, especially on the things like how you launch a listing or how you service a buyer, you've got to get the. What I call the flight checklist right in pre and post and all that stuff. You can do that very easily by just talking to chat GPT and you tell it everything that you do and then it will put in a checklist format for you. You just tell it what you want and then from there now you can start tracking what are, what are called the KPIs. How do you measure like leading and lagging indicators in essence of whether or not Joni is doing a good job in her processes. And so like one example would be like in your post for selling a listing or helping a buyer, do you reach out and get reviews? And you should be getting reviews from every client you service and that should be part of your checklist. And your ability to get reviews in your star rating is a KPI that then flows in. So essentially for you, it would help you a ton. I get a sense, but we, you know, we can't only go so deep on a, you know, 15 minute call. But I get a sense like you are a talented producer, very. But you're lacking the benchmarks that tell you whether or not you're doing a good job. Did I make enough calls? What were my conversions on those calls? In essence, when I serviced a client, how many of my clients gave me a review? When I have done all these Popeyes, how many referrals are you getting from the touches that you are doing? That's a KPI that you can then track in quarter over quarter. You can see, am I approving, improving upon that? Am I not improving? Like what's going on? I think you need to map out the leading KPIs for your business. And if you think about it this way, you kind of can think of it like a funnel. The very basic is how many leads am I getting a month? That's a KPI, right? How many leads? So how many people am I putting into my database as a real estate driven lead? A conversation. Then you go to the next part of the funnel, which is conversion. How many of those the leads that I getting are converting? And conversion usually is by campaign. So everybody listening to this when you're thinking about your business referrals and Sphere is a campaign. Facebook leads is a campaign. Geographic farming is a campaign. Client events you could tie to Sphere, right? But it's a campaign and you go, what is my conversion rate of each of these campaigns? Then you go down and you go to what I call is like churn in our business. How many clients like Jody Churn? So you're like client retention, you're a client of ours. So how many jonies am I keeping? Versus how many jonies am I losing? Like how many people? Now, Reminder Media is a little different than the real estate business because we, you know, deal with thousands of clients buying our platform or not. But we're measuring churn and that's a KPI metric for us. Like, how many clients am I losing? So how many clients are you not getting the repeat business from? How many clients are you not getting referrals from? Could be an avenue from you of like, how do I measure client healthiness right here of keeping my clients? And then you, you have this other thing called budget which guides all of it. So it's essentially you're going, how many leads am I putting into my database? How am I converting upon these leads? How am I keeping clients happy from a churn perspective? And then ultimately, what's my cost of all of this to do all of this which guides. And so I would really encourage you to sit down with chat, GPT and document to pick one because you're never going to tackle the whole business. What's the one you're passionate the most about? Is it your listing process? Is it how you service a buyer? Is it your lead generation and how you do lead generation or your conversion and document? Have a combo with ChatGPT and say, take on the role of a executive within a real estate business. I'm going to share with you my process in X. Please ask me any clarifying questions that you would want to know in order to help guide me to creating the right KPIs and processes to really make me the best agent in the world at X. And I would have an interactive dialogue with the, with the AI.

[B]

The best thing about ChatGPT is you can say, what am I missing? What should I be asking? And it'll just, it'll actually literally tell you, oh, you should do this one next. And then all you have to do is speak the information to it.

[A]

Because when I meet someone like you, Joni, is you're doing well, but you're not doing great. And you're, you know what I mean? You're doing good, but you're not doing great. And the only thing I can point to is, well, you're, I mean, anybody who's doing 70 Popeyes, they're doing activity. So there's something missing in the activity that you're doing. But we can't get to the heart of it because that comes down to the tracking of your activity and the measurement system you have in place. You've got to get operations, not for the sake of Operations. But for the sake of measurement.

[C]

Yep.

[A]

Like, operations drives measurement. That's the key. Measurement, measurement, measurement. How do we improve? We got to measure it so we can improve it. And so that's really what I would go, hey, get like ops. Who cares? No offense, Cody. Who cares? Yeah. But ops drives measurement and creates freedom. Exactly.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And predictability. When we get into next year and you're shooting for 20, there's no doubt you're going to hit it because you have everything predictable about. If I do this, then this happens. If I call this many people, then this happens. So it's perfect for the.

[A]

If I do 70 Popeyes, how many referrals.

[C]

Right.

[F]

People have said to me, well, how many clients do you get from your Popeyes? And I'm just like, you know, I don't really know. I do so many different things. Not like, oh, I'm using you because I got your Popeye. You know, like, I. I just give them to everybody. Right. So it's really. It has been really difficult to measure that.

[A]

How many refer. How many referrals do you get a year?

[F]

I need to track it.

[A]

Exactly. So there you go. Like, that's the point is going. You can't. There's not going to be a one to one usually, what do you call it? Attribution. So one to one attribution of, like, you do Popeyes, you get X. That usually is not how marketing works or business in general works. It's what Cody has said before. It's a compounding effect of multiple things. But there is a leading KPI that you can measure.

[D]

The.

[A]

The ultimate is revenue and then profit. Right. So profit is either going up or down. Revenue is either going up or down. So is what I'm doing working? Is your profit going up, then it's not working. Right. If it's going down. Right. Is what I'm doing working, Is your revenue going up. And then you have to account for variables like time and what season we're in and compare it from that standpoint. But that's the ultimate. But you and I both know it's very hard to run a business effectively by just the huge leading indicator of revenue or net profit, because there's so much nuance. So that's when you go down a level to campaigns, and you basically go, well, what drives revenue? Well, I got to get more clients. Well, how do I get clients? I got to get leads. How do I get leads? Those are campaigns.

[F]

And then you go, well, what's one ratio? Or whatever.

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

And I For a lot. But I need to do that whole KPI thing because I have not done that before.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

And ask it. It will give you the standard of what agents are converting on certain campaigns. And like you said, be careful because it's not a one to one attribution. Like doing a client event. Like, what's the, what's the ROI of a cup of coffee with a friend? Like, that was a famous Gary Vee clip that went viral. And he, because people always are like, oh, it's not producing for me. He's like, well, what's the, what's the value of a cup of coffee with a friend? Like, how do you measure that? Because you know you're not going to go to a cup of coffee with a friend and get a deal. Maybe you do. Like, but it's so random. But it's, it's, you know, I'm investing in that relationship and because I invest in that relationship over time. And that's what your Popeyes are. That's what your magazines are. That's what all this stuff is. But you still don't. It still means you got to hold yourself accountable to the ultimate, which is, well, how many referrals am I getting? And if you're not getting enough referrals, then you should ask yourself, what am I doing wrong in the pocket? What am I doing wrong in the magazine? That is not allowing me to translate it because, you know, it's a good thing. But how do I translate it to an actual deal? And that's where you refine your, your pitch, you refine your sales process. And that's really where it gets good, is like, we have campaigns all day long with our callers on the phones. And our outreach, where we're like, okay, it's not producing, but it's not because the campaign is bad. Josh's team is kicking butt and generating a lot of leads. My sales team's just not closing. Oh, well, what's wrong? Well, when you listen to the phone calls, you're like, well, that's a bad pitch. Like, we got. We got to refine the pitch. It's not that the lead's bad. It's not that you should stop that campaign, Josh. It's just we got to get better at the conversion cycle on the sales side. So it's like, this is how you kind of build out your flow, but it starts with targets and then tracking the, the lead sources.

[F]

Perfect.

[A]

Awesome. Jody, this is awesome. Thank you for coming on. This has been amazing. And I do really want to Pick your brain on the 70 Popeyes. That is free. And that's the most. I had Garrett Maroon, a client of ours, come on the podcast and talk about Popeyes. It's one of the main things he. And he crushes it. He's in, I think Hampton Roads area, but I, I don't think he even does 70. Like, 70 is amazing.

[F]

People love it. And there's some months where I do like, like I always do, October, November, December. But then I won't do September because I know I've got three back to back ones coming. So I do probably it averages out to about every other month, maybe a little more amazing. But it's fun. And I love your Guys magazine. I've sent a lot of people your way and my thank you so much that are using it. They're like, you're so right. My clients love it. The text that I get from people when I get them and they are all on their coffee tables, you guys, it is good. So thank you so much.

[C]

I love that.

[F]

Thank you.

[A]

That means a lot. Well, Johnny, let's, let's keep in touch. Yeah. Because I want to, I want to hear how you execute.

[F]

Okay. Thank you, guys.

[C]

Bye.

[A]

Yeah, she's awesome. We should label this call in, show the magazine client show. I mean, this was fantastic. I mean, obviously most of our listeners, because we have thousands of clients are our, our clients. I really, really appreciate you guys calling.

[B]

In every other month.

[A]

Love helping clients. Yeah. For her, it's so funny because she's so talented. You can just tell in her demeanor, personality. She's closing deals.

[B]

She just needs a checklist.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So she doesn't have to think about.

[A]

She needs. She needs a you. Cody is what you need. She needs to hire an operator and she can focus on evangelizing and sales and servicing clients and then get an operator. Obviously she can't afford that yet, so she has to do the work to track her numbers. But that's ultimately where she would head. Right. This hiring operator.

[B]

Good stuff. Thank you all to all of our guests that called in and thank you all so much for listening. Make sure to submit your [e-mail] ask and we'll have it here on the show. And if you're a client of Reminder Media, the next time you log into your interface, we have a little survey, a little pop up there that actually allows you to submit questions directly to us. And then we'll reach out to get you scheduled here on the show. You can go to staypaidpodcast.com for the show notes and the video of all of our episodes. And if you like this episode, head on over to YouTube.com remindermedia make sure you're subscribed to the channel and give this video a thumbs up and the best way to show your support simply to share Stay Paid Podcast with somebody that you know. You can get hold of me, [e-mail] and of course, as I mentioned before, you can follow us on Instagram @staypaid podcast for this episode of Stay Paid.

[A]

I'm Josh Dyke Guys, I'm Luke Acre and you heard a ton of different options for you to help you improve your business. I just always like to close out every show reminding you that the difference between top producers and mediocre producers is top producers take action. So for all our callers, take action on one of the things that you heard today. And for all those who are listening, you heard something that you know you should be doing in your business, take action on it. Don't just sit around, do it. That's the key. Sam.