📞 LIVE CALL-INS: 3,000 People in Your Database and Only 2 Deals? Here's Why

Summary

Stay Paid Podcast: LIVE CALL-INS – "3,000 People in Your Database and Only 2 Deals? Here’s Why"

Date: July 13, 2026
Hosts: Luke Acree & Josh Stike (ReminderMedia)
Episode Theme: Real estate agents and entrepreneurs call in live to tackle business challenges, especially around maximizing lead generation, leveraging databases, digital marketing, and building solid relationships for long-term growth.

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Episode Overview

This episode features live call-ins from agents at different stages in their careers, each wrestling with fundamental business-building problems: how to get ROI from limited marketing time, how to turn a large but underperforming database into real results, and how to break through mental blocks holding back business focus. Luke and Josh provide tailored, actionable coaching focused on practical digital marketing, relationship nurturing, and strategic use of tech and content.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dawn – North Carolina: Maximizing Social Media ROI in Only 2 Hours/Week

[00:45-17:41]

Dawn’s Challenge:

Brand-new in real estate and insurance, Dawn wants to be her community's “digital mayor” but has little time—she asks which marketing platform and content approach brings the best ROI.

Key Host Advice:

• Document, Don’t Create:
  Luke stresses the value of “documenting” over “creating” content for social media. Just share what you’re already doing—taking a podcast, showing a home, solving an insurance problem, etc.—rather than trying to invent new material.
• Content & Value Pillars:
  Decide on 3-4 “pillars” (topics) you want to become known for (e.g., real estate, insurance, family, hobbies), then cycle your posts among them. Tie each piece of content to a value approach (educational, inspirational, motivational).
• Leverage AI for FAQs:
  Ask AI for the top questions clients have about real estate/insurance, record yourself answering them (alone or with a friend on Zoom), and use tools like Opus Clip to auto-generate social content.
• Platform Focus:
  — Start with Facebook (where your sphere already is), parallel-post on Instagram (same company, easy cross-platform), and consider YouTube Shorts for repurposed video clips.
• Blend Personal & Business:
  Luke: “Right now, your page looks professional but not personal—people can’t get to know you.” Mix curated business content with glimpses of your actual life.

Memorable Quotes:

• “You want your social media to be more like a reality TV show than a TV commercial.” — Luke Acree [14:46]
• “The best social strategy is: just document, then engage with real people.” — Luke Acree [16:33]

Tactical Steps for Dawn:

• Post 1–3 personal posts/week alongside curated business ones.
• Use personal and business Facebook pages (but expect engagement mostly from personal).

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2. Doug – Pennsylvania: Turning a Massive Database into Real Results

[18:17-29:41]

Doug’s Challenge:

Second-year agent with ~3,000 people in his sphere but only 2 transactions this year (down from a solid 2025). Frustrated by "noise" from marketing companies, he wants to know what actually works for converting contacts into closings.

Key Host Advice:

• Follow the Data:
  “56% of buyers and 64% of sellers come through referrals or repeat business. Go where the fish are.”—Luke Acree [20:07]
• Identify Your ‘Core’:
  Don’t lose touch with all 3,000, but go deep with a “core 100–300” who really know, like, and trust you. That’s where relationships and referrals happen.
• Give, Give, Give—Then Ask:
  According to Gary Vaynerchuk: provide value (info, events, gifts, check-ins) before you ever ask for a referral.
• Client Events & Touches:
  Hold simple annual events (pie day, summer BBQ, ice cream, ice skating) allowing organic invites and in-person connection.
• Be Direct and Personal:
  “Out of your 3,000, there are 210 deals happening this year. You just have to get intentional and personal with those people.”

Notable Quote:

• “Most agents build a database but never train or ask their database for help… You will never feel comfortable asking unless you’ve really showered them with giving.” — Luke Acree [23:34]
• “3,000 in your database? You should be doing 25–50 deals a year easy—once you go deep.” — Luke Acree [28:02]

Tactical Steps for Doug:

• Select, call, and connect with core 150–300 regularly.
• Engage via email, phone, and events. Ask pointed, non-salesy referral questions after delivering value.

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3. Serena – Texas: Going All-In on Real Estate Amid AI Fear & Part-Time Paralysis

[29:53-37:54]

Serena’s Challenge:

Insurance industry veteran, licensed in real estate for 4 years but never focused fully. She worries about AI “replacing” Realtors and wonders if she should commit to real estate full-time.

Key Host Advice:

• All-In Is Non-Negotiable:
  “You don’t want a part-time doctor or lawyer, right? You want someone all in.”—Luke Acree [31:14]
• AI Isn’t a Threat—Focus on People & Process:
  AI may shift job roles in the long term, but the business right now (and for the foreseeable future) is about building relationships and orchestrating solutions, not being a “doer.”
• Database is Everything:
  Serena already knows a ton of people. Get them into a CRM. “7% of your database will move each year—so just nurture your list.”
• Prospecting Calendar:
  Block out 8–11 a.m. daily for speaking with sphere, checking in, and expanding your network.
• Start with Warm Leads:
  Use email blasts to your insurance database, offer free home equity reports, and run open houses to meet warm prospects.

Notable Quotes:

• “The key to this business is it’s a database business. Get your target audience to know, like, and trust you.” — Luke Acree [33:32]
• “The agents I see succeed are those who put prospecting on their calendar every single day.” — Luke Acree [35:13]

Tactical Steps for Serena:

• Build her CRM; nurture and consistently communicate with her sphere.
• Dedicate daily, focused time to prospecting and database growth—starting with those she already knows.
• Initiate open houses and send “what’s your home worth?” offers to her insurance contacts.

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Most Memorable Advice/Quotes (with Timestamps)

• Document, Don’t Create:
  “You want your social media to be more like a reality TV show than a TV commercial.” — Luke Acree [14:46]
• Give Before You Ask:
  “You will only feel comfortable asking for business or referrals if you have really showered them with giving.” — Luke Acree [23:34]
• Database Math:
  “If you have 3,000 in your database, 7% will move each year—there are 210 deals you can find. But you have to go deep, not just wide.” — Luke Acree [22:29]
• Be All-In:
  “You don’t want a part-time doctor or lawyer. You want someone all-in and committed. That’s what your clients want too.” — Luke Acree [31:14]

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Noteworthy Segments (Timestamps)

• [00:45–17:41] Dawn: Social strategy, platform focus, content pillars for time-strapped agents.
• [18:17–29:41] Doug: Building meaningful relationships in a big database; client events; referral asks.
• [29:53–37:54] Serena: Overcoming the fear of AI and part-time mindset; all-in commitment; prospecting routines.

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Actionable Takeaways

• For all agents:
  • Identify your core sphere within your database and increase meaningful, personal touches—don't rely on mass blasts alone.
  • Social media ROI comes from genuine documentation and showing your personality—"people buy from people they trust."
  • Don’t be afraid to directly ask for referrals after you’ve added value.
  • Block focused prospecting time—even two hours per week, used well, can move the needle.
• Embrace tech as an amplifier, not a replacement, for your relationships.

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This episode delivers a strong, motivational push for agents and entrepreneurs to focus on their networks, show up authentically online, and take simple but consistent action to generate business—no gimmicks, just relationship-building and smart process.

Transcript

[Dawn]

Foreign

[Josh Dyke]

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. If you want to have your question answered live here on the show, make sure to follow us on Instagram. We're @staypay podcast. You can submit your questions there or go to remindermedia.com/that's remindermedia.com ask and we will get you scheduled here on the show. My name is Josh Dyke, chief marketing officer at Reminder Media, joined as always by Luke Acre, president of Reminder Media. Here we go. All right, our first caller today, dawn, calling from North Carolina in the real estate business. Dawn, welcome to StayPaid.

[Dawn]

Thank you for having me. It's great to be here, Dawn.

[Luke Acre]

It's awesome to have you on the show. What can we help you with?

[Dawn]

Okay, so I have my biggest question. That is, I know I need to be the digital mayor of my town to stay on top of my businesses. Right. So. But I'm struggling to try and figure out how to keep my production going and wondering if I had, like, two hours a week, what would be the. A specific platform to use for marketing or content with the. For roi?

[Luke Acre]

Okay, right now, great question. So give me a little bit of background on what you're doing so far. So are you currently using Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn? Like, what's your current content marketing strategy?

[Dawn]

Right now I am just using mostly Facebook Marketplace. Not Facebook Marketplace, but Facebook.

[Luke Acre]

A lot on Facebook Marketplace. Don, I can.

[Dawn]

I know. Well, I just got done posting some stuff on Facebook.

[Luke Acre]

You and my wife Megan have that in common. It's just like the strange things you're able to find on Marketplace. Yeah, I know.

[Dawn]

Well, I have a few extra businesses besides real. I. Besides doing real estate, I do a few other things.

[Luke Acre]

Nice.

[Dawn]

So Marketplace is one of them.

[Luke Acre]

Okay, so Facebook is where you're mainly at right now for your business.

[Dawn]

Right. Or word of mouth.

[Luke Acre]

Sweet. Do you know your page? Like, is it just your name? Because, Josh, you can maybe look that up as we're talking so we can see it is.

[Dawn]

I can tell you in just a

[Luke Acre]

second what it is and give us background on what type of volume or transaction count are you doing a year. So we understand kind of where your business is at from a growth standpoint.

[Dawn]

Okay. So my Facebook page is Homes, Homes with Dawn or Homes by Dawn. Okay. And I am new. I have not done much with real estate. I've been a realtor for about a year. But I'm also an insurance broker. So insurance Was kind of the biggest thing for the last year, and I've only done it one. Sell that so far this year. All right.

[Luke Acre]

All right. So that gives me a good feeling for where you're at. And are you trying to use your social and this content to drive real estate? Are you trying to use it to drive insurance or both? Have you thought about that?

[Dawn]

I'm trying. I want to try and do both. Okay.

[Luke Acre]

Try to do both.

[Dawn]

Okay. Real estate's. Real estate's the first one, but then once I learn how to do one, then I'll dabble back in on the other one.

[Serena]

Yep.

[Luke Acre]

So the reality, what I like about what you're saying is you want to invest two hours. I think you said a week to it.

[Dawn]

Right.

[Luke Acre]

Because you're. You're already thinking timeline of consistency. And what can you do? What I always coach people with content. It's always difficult to be a creator. It's a lot easier to be a documenter. So it's like instead of waking up every day and going, how can I create a post for social media? Or what can I create? This week? You can do more just documenting your life. So you know this. For example, you're on Stay Paid right now, educating yourself to grow your business. You could take out your phone and just literally going on the Stay Paid podcast right there, a picture of us with you and going, learning how to grow my insurance and real estate business to serve my clients better. And that's a post, right? And it's great because it's showcasing what you do. It's giving people behind the scenes, and it's just documenting. So it's so much easier. So when you're like. Another example would be when you're going about your day and maybe you're showing somebody a house you can literally document, hey, out here on 1100 First Avenue, showing my amazing buyers, Julie and Tom, this house. And you explain the little details of it in the journey. And now you're documenting. But it's great content that is synergistic to your business. And then you take it one step further and you go from just not only documenting to being what I always call as the educator. So people buy from people they trust. We tend to trust people who educate us. So we tend to trust coaches, teachers, pastors, therapists, you know, things like that. So you've got to get yourself into more of an educational lens for your clients and followers that comes from answering people's frequently most asked questions. So I would go to AI and I would say, well, what are the top 20 questions that people are asking about X. Your business in real estate, you know, your business with insurance, I don't know if you do health and life, Medicare, whatever. You're doing everything, boom, okay, perfect. So that then you get those 20 questions that becomes what? That becomes content that you can now produce. You can literally answer those questions. So this is kind of, kind of giving you a framework of what type of content could you be doing in the two hours per week? And now we can get into, like, the how of doing the content. The last thing I would give you on what type of content is you should do or give some thought to what value pillars you have or content pillars you could call them. So me business is a content pillar for me. Reminder Media, what we're doing in our real estate, that's our podcast. Also a content pillar for me is my family. So, right. I'm married to my wife Megan. Two kids now, three technically, because we just had Hannah Grace. And so that's like a content pillar. And so now I know when I'm going to post, I'm like, man, what do I post about? What do I want to post and document? Well, part of my content pillar is my business, so I want to document things about as part of my content pillar that I committed to is my family. And so you need to decide what are your top three to four content pillars that you want to be known for? Insurance, real est, Is it family? Is it faith? Is it. Are you into, you know, music? Are you into running, like a run club? Like, what is it that is one of your hobbies that can become a content pillar? Now you have your content pillars, and then if you want to get really deep. I think we learned this from Brock Johnson. It could have been, I think her name was Millie, right? Josh, the other really big Instagram influencer. So I want to give credit to the right person. But they said then you take your content pillars and you make them essentially your value pillars, which is how do you want to. How do you want to go about that content? So there a value pillar would be like, I want to be educational, I want to be inspirational, I want to be funny, I want to be perceived as motivational. So then you go, hey, I'm on the Stay paid podcast, learning how to grow my real estate insurance business. If you ever find that you're down and out in your business, I'm right there with you. You got to get around the right environment. Like, now you're taking a motivational lens through how you're Documenting that, does that make sense, what I'm saying? It's like you have your content, so you document, you have your content pillars that you're documenting. And then you think, am I trying to educate my audience here? Am I trying to motivate them? Do I want to be perceived as funny and just authentic? Like, what is my value pillar that I'm trying to get across? That's a great framework to think through when thinking about your content. Then when it comes down to the actual where do you post and how often and how do you create leverage? If I'm you, you're already on Facebook. That's probably where most of your friends and stuff are. I would commit to one, if not two platforms. Meta really owns Facebook and Instagram. So I would commit to Meta and be posting on Facebook and Instagram.

[Dawn]

And I would love to do YouTube.

[Luke Acre]

But YouTube, I would love for you to do YouTube. It is a bigger commitment. You should be doing it. But it's a bigger commitment because.

[Josh Dyke]

But it's still a great platform for those same shorts. Like you could launch a YouTube page and not have to do long form YouTube content. You could still post as your shorts the things you're posting on Facebook and Instagram as well.

[Doug]

Yep.

[Luke Acre]

And then you, you could also do long form educational topics or long like listing videos. So YouTube, you could do listing videos. You could.

[Josh Dyke]

And the great thing is like you can sit down, do a webinar or like do one of those long form educational videos, pull up a webpage, talk about the market, and then use like Opus Clip or use what we use Riverside. And it'll literally create a Instagram reel for you, it'll edit your video for you. It'll find the best hook, it'll find the best pacing, it'll clip it up for you. Automatically gives you like 20 different options in Opus Clip. And it literally.

[Dawn]

I'm not technology.

[Josh Dyke]

It's no technology. Like, that's what I'm saying. That's the great part about it's like literally jump on a Zoom, record yourself, throw that into Opus Clip and it'll literally give you 20 clips that you can just download it. It subtitles them for you, it edits, it cuts it up for you, finds the best score for the content. Super, super easy. Like really, honestly, very easy.

[Luke Acre]

So practically you could think of it as you go to AI. You ask AI to give you the top 20 questions consumers are asking about your services. Then you get a friend to get on Zoom with you and ask you the question. You then answer the Question on Zoom. Record that Zoom. Then take. Download that video from your Zoom, because you can do that. And then take that and upload it to Opus Clip and it will clip up those videos for you. And now you can have that to run on your YouTube. So it's literally three steps. You ask AI to give you the questions. You get a friend to record it with you asking you those questions either on your phone or Zoom. You upload that video to Opus Clip and Now you have 15, 20 clips that you can use. Josh, were you able to find her Facebook page?

[Josh Dyke]

I found a Facebook page.

[Luke Acre]

Might not be yours.

[Josh Dyke]

Don, it is your name? It is. Insurance, real estate in Raleigh. Yeah.

[Dawn]

Can you.

[Luke Acre]

Are you able to share so we can see that and we can give you some advice there?

[Serena]

Yeah.

[Josh Dyke]

One thing to know, it did take me a while to find it, so I just want to make sure. And you have a unique name, so it should have felt like it should have been easier. And I can't find you on Instagram, so I'm not sure if you have your Instagram as a business page or a personal page, but. So here you go. This is you.

[Dawn]

Yep, that's me.

[Josh Dyke]

Okay. This is your business page.

[Dawn]

This is my personal page. And my business page is Homes with Dawn.

[Josh Dyke]

Perfect.

[Luke Acre]

Sweet. Looks good. Compliments to you there.

[Dawn]

I helped.

[Luke Acre]

Yeah, there you go. Gotta love it. Yeah, I think like, you know, business pages I always tell people are like a. What do you call it? Like almost like a business card or a website like Facebook limits who it shows it to 1% to 2% of your audience. So of the people that are following you, the 45. So I would request more people to follow you. But of the people who are following you, it's only going to show that, you know, you know, 1%, 2%. So it's really more of a business card. Where you're posting really should go is on your personal profile too. And I mean like what I'm talking about with the documents in your life. Do it here as well. Right. I love that you have some of these curated posts going up. So now just add in. What you're missing is there's no personal. Right. So I can't get to know Dawn. So you need the curated as a. It's almost like a subsidy to also the personal. So personal you should think, can I post one to three times a week a personal post. And now you're, you know, ways to improve your security in your new home. Fantastic. Meatball biscuits. Fantastic. But in between those, because those are both curated you want to post personally so people can get to know Don now. So what's going on in your life? And you're missing that stuff. That's what you need. You're missing the personal aspect here because people want to get to know people. And do you have a hesitancy on posting personal stuff? Is that why you haven't done it? Yeah.

[Dawn]

Okay.

[Luke Acre]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dawn]

Because just trying to figure out, you know, do you post this, do you post that?

[Luke Acre]

You know, so that's what I get into. Then the biggest tip we can give you is become a document or not a creator. So you woke up today. What'd you eat for breakfast? What have you done since you woke up? You know, you're on the Staypay podcast now. What are you going to do this afternoon? And it's not every day I'm eating this for breakfast or every day I'm at the gym. But that is a post you can do, you know, once a week. Hey, you know, hitting the gym again. Or on with the Stay Paid podcast. Hey. With my clients, Tom and Judy. Oh, man. Just had a crazy insurance case where we thought these people weren't going to be able to get approved or whatever, and we were able to make it happen. I love having this opportunity to help clients. Hey, if you ever wanted me to take a look at your insurance quotes, I. Let me know. So many people just don't understand their coverage and so would love to help you out if you need any help there. And that's literally like you're documenting, but you're also pitching.

[Serena]

Okay.

[Luke Acre]

So hopefully that makes it easier for you because your. Your page looks good, you're posting consistently, very professional. It's all curated, so that's not terrible. It's just not going to drive engagement. It's going to drive professionalism. So you're professional, but you need now the relational. And the relational is your personal post.

[Dawn]

Right. So learning how to incorporate the business with the personal.

[Luke Acre]

Yes.

[Dawn]

Yeah. I've always tried to keep them separate.

[Luke Acre]

Yeah. And I would not. I would, I would move, merge them together. And the easiest way to do that is just documenting your life. If you think about the people that do social extremely well, they are just open about their life. And that in the saying is your social should be more like a reality TV show than a TV commercial. And most businesses make the mistake where it's a TV commercial, it's always professional. It's always producing a product or something like that. Where a TV reality show is way more crazy and it's showing Everyday life.

[Dawn]

Right.

[Doug]

Sweet.

[Luke Acre]

Okay, awesome. Any other questions on that to give you clarity?

[Dawn]

So would you, if you're doing the platforms and would you like with Facebook, would you keep a, keep a business page and with your personal.

[Luke Acre]

Yep, absolutely. Because your business page helps you with SEO, your business page will help you, I'm sure with AI. And your business page will also help you with professionalism because you can get reviews, you can make sure all your contact information is up there right in searchable, that your business page is not going to be the place to engage most people. Some people get lucky in their business page, get some engagement, but most people do not get engagement through their business pages on Facebook. So it's more of a business card online. And your personal profiles where you're going to get a ton of the engagement. And so your personal profile, you can reshare what you did on your business page. You know, it's your personal profile that's really going to give you that engagement. And if you're putting two hours a week. Right. I would. If I'm you, it's like 15, 20 minutes a day where you are going in and you document, you do a document of what's happening and then you use five minutes to engage with people, comment on their pictures, like their stuff. That is your best social media strategy is you just document and then you engage yourself with people.

[Dawn]

That sounds good. I think I can handle that.

[Doug]

Sweet.

[Luke Acre]

And then I'll give you massive encouragement of in your position. Right. Especially because you're brand new in real estate and just trying to get off the ground is don't think of social as a influencer type social. Think of social as a way to connect with your sphere. Think of yourself right now as I want to friend all of the people in my database, all of my clients, all of my prospects. Because social becomes a. Just like an email is a touch point. Just like a magazine is a touch point. Right. The social is a touch point. So don't think of social as like, I have to be some influencer that's posting great content. Think of social as like, oh, it's Bob and Judy, they went on vacation. Hey, Bob, Judy, your vacation looks awesome. Wish you catch up soon. And it becomes a, a system to keep you in front of your sphere. And from there the deals will start pouring in and every once in a while you might get a really engaged post. But the majority of your posts are just to keep top of mind with your sphere.

[Doug]

Sweet.

[Josh Dyke]

Thank you so much.

[Luke Acre]

Yeah, thanks for joining the show.

[Josh Dyke]

We're going to follow your journey. All right, thank you.

[Dawn]

Thank you.

[Luke Acre]

I go crash it.

[Josh Dyke]

All right, bye. All right, there you go. Make sure to get your questions answered live here on Stay Paid. You can go to reminder media.com ask and we will get you scheduled here on the show. Or you can follow us on Instagram. We are at staypay podcast. Next up, we have Doug. Doug is calling from. Let me pull it. Texas, right? No, Pennsylvania. You're our neighbor, Doug, in real estate, right down the street from us. Welcome to Stay Paid.

[Doug]

Well, thank you for having me. As you said, I'm right up the road from you here in Pennsylvania. And you know, I'm relatively new in real estate. Been in real estate for two years.

[Dawn]

Okay.

[Doug]

I do have a very large sphere of influence, however, you know, I feel like real estate agents are constantly being bombarded with companies promising the next big lead generation strategy. Product or service. Inventory is very low in our area. As you know, it's a very competitive market and sometimes it feels like we're all fighting over the same 3% both inside and outside our sphere. So how do you personally cut through all the noise and decide what is actually worth investing in and sort of beyond just generating leads? What have you found that really works when it comes to turning those leads into actual transactions and long term relationships instead of just a bunch of hype?

[Luke Acre]

Yeah, great question, man. And congrats being in the business. Give me an idea of how successful your year has been so far. Any closes this year? What's your closes our volume look like?

[Doug]

Yeah. So I will tell you, to be very honest, it took me nine months to complete a transaction. That's 2025 was a really good year. I was really happy with the number of transactions I did. My average price was twice the average for our county.

[Luke Acre]

That's awesome.

[Doug]

Doing really well this year. I feel it's been off. 2026, I feel has been a, a slower start for me and you know, trying to figure out like, how do I sort of jump start that? There's stuff in the pipeline, but yeah, I feel like it's moving slower.

[Serena]

Yep.

[Doug]

Love that.

[Luke Acre]

To hear that you had a killer 2025. 2026, I'm not surprised. It's a little slower. Can you give me an idea? Like, have you closed any this year? Like, what's your current volume? Like how many?

[Doug]

Yeah, I've, I've closed like two this year.

[Luke Acre]

Two this year. And is your average price point 500,700?

[Doug]

Well, this year it's been much lower. Last year, my Average price point was like 450 to 500. This year it's, you know, like 250.

[Luke Acre]

Okay, okay. So I love what you're saying too about it seems like everybody's calling real estate agents and promising them the world. I agree with that. It's just the number of marketing companies, you know, ourselves included are marketing company that are calling real estate agents. I always tell people, don't listen to what people say, watch what they do. And I believe this so much. About 10 years ago I convinced my own brother, right, to get into real estate and say, hey, we're going to live out our own marketing strategies. We're the number one mid sized team in Virginia. We've closed a hundred and well now more. But 167 deals this year already with 10 agents on the team. I don't say that to brag. I say that to tell people, hey man, I agree. Everybody's promising the world and very few people are living it. We're actually living it. What I tell people is, you know, listen to what Luke says, look at the data. So if Doug, you're going after buyers and sellers, where do buyers and sellers come from? Not what Luke says, not what another marketing company says. What does the data say? And the national association of Realtors does research every year and is literally 56% of buyers and like 64% of sellers come from referral and repeat business. Yeah, I always share with people. It's like if you're going to go fishing, why would you not first fish and put your effort where 50 plus percent of the fish are. And so you got to start with, well if it's referral and repeat business, what causes refer and repeat business? That's a relationship. So that's your sphere. And that then gets down to well, how do you do relationships at scale? And if you look at the stats, like Tom Ferry came out with a stat, I think he partnered with fellow to get it. It's about 7% of people move a year within your database. So how big is your database right now, Doug?

[Doug]

Oh, we looked at it the other day. I think I have close to 3,000.

[Luke Acre]

3,000.

[Doug]

Awesome.

[Luke Acre]

So there are 210 transactions that are going to happen on average this year in your database. So plenty of business for you to find. Now obviously you're only gotten two this year, so you're not finding the majority of that and so you got to go. Why? I would say the reason why is because you probably haven't gone deep enough with a subset of that 3000 so you've got to carve out. Don't lose the 3000. Continue to drip on them. But you've got to get down to your core hundred. Your core 150, maybe core 300 people. I think of Garrett Maroon. Garrett Maroon does 80 plus deals a year. He has 200, like, 90 people in his database, but he's gone very deep with them. Because when I say deep, what does that mean, Luke? It means these people know me. They like me. They trust me. We actually have a real relationship. And most importantly, and this is the key for everybody listening to this, yourself included. They know I need referrals. And I have physically asked them, do they know anyone that they could refer me to? Or do they need any help buying, selling, investing in real estate? This is the mistake most agents make is they build a database, but they don't actually train their database or ask their database for help. Ask their database for giving them referrals. Why? Because they don't want to be perceived as salesy. And that's where Gary Vaynerchuk's knowledge is so valuable. You need to give, give, give before you take. So you need to go, who are my core 150? How do I give to them? How do I give above and beyond? How do I share with them education and info on the market? How do I do a client event and invite them to the client event, Free ice cream, ice skating. How do I pop by their house and just, you know, maybe do some cool little Popeye gift? Or better yet, how do I go for a cup of coffee with each of them maybe once a year? Call them and check in once a quarter, just see how they're doing. Just giving. Hey, man, come to my client event. Hey, did you know your house is worth this right now? Hey, how are the kids? We haven't talked in a while. How are the kids doing? Give, give, give, and then you can go, hey, Doug, you know, I have a lofty goal for my business this year, man. I want to help 100 families. And I was just thinking, man, if I could help 100 dogs, it'd be amazing. I don't know. Do you know anybody that you could introduce me to? Maybe they're not looking to buy, sell, or invest today, but I would love to build a relationship with them. You know, I'm counting on you. If you know of anybody that needs a real estate agent. Do you know anybody, Doug, that pops into your mind that you could refer me to? And you ask them that question after you've stacked the giving and that's where you'll get referrals, you know, out of our business, you know, 53% of it is coming from referrals right now. All right. Of all those 167 deals, whatever, closed. And so I tell people where, like the mistakes in this is what one is. You have 3,000 year database. You need the core 150. You need the core 300. So that's where you like, that's a first action item for you. Your database is awesome. You're probably dripping on it. Fantastic. I think you're a client of ours, which is freaking Love you come across the screen, give you a hug, my man. But you gotta narrow to who are my top 50 that I'm sending the magazine to. Top 100. Have I called them, have I invited them to a client event, Have I asked them for a referral or asked them if they need help buying, selling, investing. And that's the key activity. You will only feel comfortable doing that if you have really showered them with giving. And that's where the magazine comes in. That's where the client event. Have you done a client event yet?

[Doug]

My brokerage has some things that they've done which I've tagged on to. Beautiful and taken advantage of.

[Luke Acre]

So, yeah, that's fantastic because it's awesome. If your brokerage does something I know, like Tom Toole, right? He's local to us too. He's a client of mine. They do like, he has a team, like 50 something agents. They do like a pumpkin patch thing in the fall. And, you know, all the agents invite their people. Acre Brothers. The four events we do that have worked really well is one is we do PI Day. We give out pies to all of our clients on March 14, actual pie day. And then number two is we do a summer barbecue. So we rent out a pool and a picnic shelter at a local park. And we do hamburgers, hot dogs, drinks, stuff like that. Number three we tend to do is rent out an ice cream shop or have an ice cream truck, like Kona Ice Truck, something like that at our office for four hours that people can come by, get free ice cream with the kids. And then number four, we rent out the ice skating rink in Lynchburg, Virginia. And for four or five hours you can come, bring your families by. And it's phenomenal. Why? Because we're able to call and invite all our people to the event. So that's one touch. We were able to check in, not sell real estate, check in on them. Then when they come to the event, not everybody comes out of the 260. So register for the pie event. I think 130 showed. Right. But we still took the rest of the pies because we had a lot of extra pies. We took the rest of the pies and went and popped by all the people's houses that had registered. Right. And gave them the pies that didn't show up. So I just want to encourage you. You have a good head on your shoulders. You're thinking about the right question. Block out all the marketing companies that are promising you the world and go, hey, I don't. I'm not getting enough out of my database. That's where I should focus. 3,000 is amazing. But who are your core 150? Each of them know three to five people. That is hundreds of deals and potential that you could get. You should at least be getting 25 to 50 deals a year, easy, out of that database that you have.

[Doug]

Okay, that's great.

[Luke Acre]

So your action item 150, call them.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Luke Acre]

Yeah. Ask them for the referral. And because we're local, Doug, we should connect up. We should grab coffee sometime because you're Burke's native and you're local to us. So we're over. King of pressure. Well, now Wayne. We moved the office.

[Josh Dyke]

Wayne. It's weird. Yeah. To say we're Wayne.

[Doug]

It is weird. It's still close enough. Yeah, definitely.

[Luke Acre]

I'm more than happy to grab coffee with you. And I feel like all that you're missing is probably the unknown. It's like, am I doing it right? Am I not? And you're probably doing the right activity. You're just not doing enough of it. And you need to block out the noise of. I want to get you to do Facebook ads eventually. I want to get you to create a farm. Those are good things. Acre Brothers have those now. But that's not what we focused on to begin with. Until you get 25 deals coming in a year from your sphere, I would be totally hardcore on that sphere. And you are freaking a way ahead of the game because you have 3,000 in your database. Most agents have 20 names when they come to us in their database. You know, 30 names in there. You have 3,000 people that you can drip on. We need to leverage that way more than we're doing.

[Doug]

Okay, that makes. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I really need to focus on the. This sphere, the database, and really touching those people more often.

[Luke Acre]

Can you shoot me a DM on Instagram and we'll connect up?

[Doug]

Sure.

[Luke Acre]

Yeah. Shoot me A DM and we'll connect up there.

[Josh Dyke]

Awesome.

[Luke Acre]

Doug, thank you. Appreciate you coming on.

[Doug]

Thanks so much for having me, guys.

[Josh Dyke]

Yeah, take care.

[Doug]

Have a good one. Take care. Bye. Bye.

[Josh Dyke]

Awesome. There you go. Make sure to get your questions answered live here on Stay Paid. You can go to remindermedia.com ask and then since you mentioned your Instagram, Luke, we'll give that a plug real quick.

[Luke Acre]

Shoot me a DM if you want to connect. We'd love to connect with you.

[Josh Dyke]

Awesome. Love it. All right, next up we have Serena. Serena calling for. Serena's in Texas. I got those two mixed up. So I was on May. Serena in Texas, also in real estate. Serena, welcome to Stay Paid. Thanks so much for being here. How can we help you? Hit that unmute button.

[Luke Acre]

You gotta love.

[Josh Dyke]

That was a reminder, not a. Y' all are fast.

[Serena]

It just came in quick.

[Josh Dyke]

Yeah, I tried to give you a warning in the waiting room.

[Serena]

Oh, I'm sorry. I was doing an email at the same time.

[Luke Acre]

That's a good real estate agent.

[Josh Dyke]

Yeah.

[Luke Acre]

Multitasking. There you go.

[Dawn]

Yes.

[Luke Acre]

Although I've heard updating the listing.

[Josh Dyke]

Awesome.

[Luke Acre]

Even better. I've heard that people can't actually multitask, though.

[Josh Dyke]

It's just literally context impossible to multitask,

[Luke Acre]

to do two things at once. That's what I've heard. But what can we help you with? How can we help you grow your business?

[Serena]

Well, one of my biggest challenges right now is I'm a fairly new Realtor. I honestly haven't really fully focused on growing my business. And now with all this AI chatter, I'm just kind of wondering, like, do I need to go all in? Am I going to be replaced? Is it worth it? Right. That's my goal. That's my question.

[Luke Acre]

Well, I mean, you definitely need to go all in. You should not be part time. I don't, I don't know very many, if any, successful part time realtors. And so give me hate in the comments if you're a part time realtor, that's successful because I haven't seen very many. You know, it's like you don't want a part time doctor, right? You don't want a part time lawyer necessarily. You want someone who's super all in and committed. So that's just my personal opinion there when it comes to AI. I mean, long term, like my honest truth for, you know, the whole world is. Yeah, the whole world's going to shift long term. And, you know, human beings are going to become more directors and orchestrators than actually doers but that is, you know, nobody knows the timeline of that. Is that 10 years, 15, 20 years out. And we can't function in today's world going, are we going to be replaced? Like, we are a marketing company. It's like, will I be able to do all marketing in the future? Probably. So what does that mean? Well, you still need the orchestrators eventually, but I'm not going to function my business totally off of that fear of wait, we might totally be replaced. Real estate is a great business and it's a great way to make wealth and it's a great way to build something for yourself. How long have you technically been part time in real estate?

[Serena]

Well, I would. I've been licensed for four years. I've been in, in the business as an operations since 2010. So I know my, I know the, the Texas real estate. I've just haven't been branding myself as a realtor. So people don't know that. Serena Miranda does real estate.

[Luke Acre]

Okay, and what's kept you from going

[Serena]

all in other other jobs? I'm an insurance broker as well and I love my husband, so I'm like his business partner. But Now I turn 50 and I said I want to do my own thing. So that's where I'm at.

[Luke Acre]

Do you guys do property casualty with insurance?

[Serena]

Yes, I do.

[Luke Acre]

Yeah. That's perfect. So you guys have, you would have a super synergistic right business there because you would be a lead source for him and vice versa. He'd be a lead source for you. I mean, my opinion is I think you should go all in. You want to build something. I think you know, the real estate business and also business in general because you, you've been doing, you know, operations and it's, you know, I just got off the phone, you know, before you, a caller called in Doug, you know, and we were talking about, he's a couple years in. The key to this business is it's a database business. You got to get your target audience to know like and trust you. In real estate, the beautiful thing is almost everybody's your target audience because everybody has to live somewhere. And so, you know what I would encourage you to do is start with your sphere. Get those into a database if you have not, and then focus on building that database. The stat we told Doug is that 7% of a database will transact a year so you can start reverse engineering the business that you could have to go, man, if I had 100 core relationships, there's seven transactions happening there. You're probably not going to get all of them, because no one usually bats 100% there. You know, let's say you get 30%, 40% of those, hopefully more, but 30, 40%. Well, you're getting a couple deals just out of 100 people in your database. So then you go, well, how do I get 10 deals a year? Well, your database needs to be bigger. And you start building that database and marketing to that database to go all in. In real estate that the agents that I've seen that have been successful have one thing in common and is that they set up their calendar to honor it. And they put prospecting on their calendar every single day. And usually what I see is that it's in the morning from 8 to 11 is where a lot of people like to do their prospecting. So if I'm coaching you to go all in, I would say, Serena, start and get your database in order. Number one thing, you show up the next day and you prospect from 8 to 11. First prospecting you do is you show you prospect your sphere. Call them up, check in on them, ask them for referrals, see if they need any help buying and selling, investing. Then you move to growing your database, which is prospecting the anonymous public. Now, if you have some money to spend, you could prospect bottom of funnel, anonymous people, which is Zillow leads, realtor.com, you could do that. That just costs money. If you don't have a lot of money, but you still want to get people who are interested, you could go Facebook, Google, that's more top, middle of funnel. That will cost you anywhere between $8 to $20 a lead for those. Or you could go really top of funnel free, which is circle prospecting, which is you basically pick the neighborhood you lived in or live in, and you pick an activity that happens. A listing came on the market, something sold, and you call around the neighborhood and let people know of that activity and then ask them if they had any interest in buying, selling, or investing. And you build your database that way. So I'm not trying to oversimplify the business, but it is pretty simple. It's a database business. You have to build your database because 7% transact a year, you have to figure out ways to build that database. There's a ton of different ways to do that, but you have to commit to your calendar where every single day for two to four hours, you are prospecting to build that database. First you focus on nurturing the database you have. Then you move into adding new names to it. Does that make sense.

[Serena]

It does 100%.

[Luke Acre]

Okay. So are you going to go full time into real estate? That is the question, Serena.

[Serena]

You know, and I, I am because I, I'm a people person anyway, so I know a lot of people because I'm a business. I'm a business owner. So I'm around now I just have to ask for it. Right. And I have to start getting in front of them as Serena Miranda, the realtor. And I know that that's where I want to be. So I'm excited.

[Luke Acre]

Yeah, I would encourage you, like, if. If I'm. You just build your database. You probably have a huge one. You. Your insurance database could be massive. Send out an email to them for a free home equity report. That could be just a massive tap into all of the clients your. Your husband and you have and ask them, you want to know the value of your home and see any. Or if you were to receive a cash offer in your home, do you want to know what that would be? All those people were like, yeah, I would love to see a cash offer. Now those are leads for you that you can nurture and prospect. What's killing it for a lot of agents that I'm talking to right now? Killing it is relative, but what's killing it that I'm seeing is open houses. So if you could start running some open houses for some other agents in your brokerage, that would be phenomenal. And then move to leads. So first sphere, then open houses, then leads. That's how I would look at it if it's me.

[Serena]

Okay.

[Doug]

Sweet.

[Josh Dyke]

Awesome. Thank you, Serena.

[Luke Acre]

Thanks, Serena.

[Doug]

Appreciate it.

[Luke Acre]

Go crush it.

[Serena]

Thank you.

[Josh Dyke]

Take care. We'll see it. All right. There you go. You can get your questions answered live here on stay paid reminder media.com/ask. Awesome caller today. Yeah, great questions, like very she.

[Luke Acre]

Serena's gonna crush it. Like she's a true professional. Like they have a real business people person. Yeah. If they just tap into that business, yeah, she's gonna do phenomenal.

[Josh Dyke]

I thought that was good. A lot of really good tactical advice for veterans and new agents alike. There you go. If you like this episode of Stay Paid, go ahead and head on over to our YouTube channel. Make sure you are subscribed, you've got those notifications turned on and you give this video a thumbs up. And if you disagree with Luke's statement about part time real estate agents, we would like to hear about that in the comment. Maybe we can get like a new format where we battle, you know, debate.

[Luke Acre]

I will debate. I love debate. I will debate and are we going to be replaced by AI? Probably, probably.

[Josh Dyke]

But, you know, timing, nobody. We got to do it together.

[Luke Acre]

When you say replace, it's not. You're not going to replace. You're going to level up. Just like a software engineer doesn't code anymore. They do architecture, infrastructure. You're just going to level up. We just don't understand what that leveling up is going to quite look like. But you probably will not be doing the same task that you're doing right now. And quite frankly, I don't want to. I don't want to do the mediocre task.

[Josh Dyke]

There you go. Well, in the meantime, make sure to stay leveled up by listening to Stay Paid. Subscribe to us on YouTube. Follow us on Instagram. We are @staypay podcast podcast for this episode of Stay Paid. I'm Josh Ste.

[Luke Acre]

Guys, I'm Luke Ay. The difference between top producers, mediocre producers, top producers take action. If you heard something today that you know you need to do, take action on that.

[Josh Dyke]

Sam.