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- [00:00]
Luke Acree
Foreign
- [00:04]
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 here live on the show, make sure to visit remindermedia.com Ask Submit your question there or you can follow us on Instagram. We are at staypaid podcast. Shoot us a message and we will schedule to have you here on the show. My name is Josh Dyke, chief marketing officer here at Reminder Media, joined as always by Luke Acree, president of Reminder Media and from the Acree Brothers Realty team, team lead and founder Steven Acree. And joining us here on the show, our next caller, Amanda. Amanda, originally from Tennessee, I have here in my notes, but currently in Ireland. Amanda. Oh, wow.
- [00:52]
Amanda Navara
I'm here.
- [00:53]
Josh Dyke
Welcome to Stay Paid. How can we help you?
- [00:56]
Amanda Navara
Well, you know, I loved that poll you guys did a while ago and I wanted to hear more about systems, how we can move into the. The newer programs and still retain the. The high touch level of, you know, the old and pre Covid days.
- [01:17]
Luke Acree
Yeah.
- [01:18]
Amanda Navara
And then I also, if you have time, I would love to hear about some new programs that you have your eye on.
- [01:23]
Luke Acree
So, yeah, great questions. Are you living in Ireland or are you just visiting Ireland right now?
- [01:28]
Amanda Navara
I'm a travel advisor and we are. I'm currently on week three or four, so.
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Josh Dyke
Cool.
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Luke Acree
That is awesome.
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Josh Dyke
Doing research actually.
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Amanda Navara
This is Dublin right here.
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Steven Acree
Wow.
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Josh Dyke
Awesome.
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Amanda Navara
Yeah, that is downtown Dublin.
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Luke Acree
That's sick. Tell me a little bit about your travel business. Like what's the makeup of it? How many clients do you serve? How do you get your clients now?
- [01:53]
Amanda Navara
Okay, so I have been in the travel industry for about a decade and but I've only recently been independent. Independent for three years and only hardcore dedicated to it for one year. So I feel like this is my first year, honestly. But the growth has been astounding once you actually focus on it and that's your thing. Some clients, I started out six months ago with probably four and now I'm back up to about 320.
- [02:28]
Luke Acree
Holy cow.
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Cody Acree
Wow.
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Amanda Navara
Those are active traveling clients. And the reason it grew so fast, of course, it's com. You know, many things, word of mouth. I didn't even have my website up as fast as I have my client list built. But it was, I maintained relationships with my, you know, clients and people that I've met while I was being kind of, I don't know, casual about my business.
- [02:54]
Josh Dyke
Yeah.
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Amanda Navara
Then they were just what type of
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Luke Acree
revenue can a business like yours do? Is It. A couple hundred thousand dollars a year or like, what's the.
- [03:01]
Amanda Navara
Oh, a couple hundred thousand dollars in profit. Yes, yes. So in the last three months, I was actually looking at that since you asked about it before coming on the podcast. In the last three months, as far as revenue goes, I've made about 520th,000.
- [03:18]
Luke Acree
Get out of here. You deserve an applause. That is incredible. Especially in an industry like yours where a lot of people would say like travel, you know, agency, stuff like that are dying. Oh, not at all. Yeah. And you're booming, which is amazing. Okay, so your question really is like, operationally, how do you scale?
- [03:36]
Amanda Navara
Yes, because I scaled so fast, I need help.
- [03:39]
Luke Acree
So great question for everybody listening because essentially you're in the rainmaker seat right now, which is like you're the producer, you're both the salesperson, the service person, you know, the product delivery. You're everything. And so you've got to go through the process of essentially getting leverage. And leverage, I always teach people on the show is people or systems. So you either hire, which costs you money, or you buy systems which cost you time and money, because you have to. Well, I guess people cost you time and money too. So really, people cost you time and money. So for you, I think the fastest place to go is systems, especially in the age of AI. So I guess a couple clarifying questions. Do you have a good contact relationship management system? Do you have a good CRM that you manage all your relationships with?
- [04:25]
Amanda Navara
No, I feel like it's mediocre.
- [04:27]
Luke Acree
Okay.
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Amanda Navara
Everybody else uses, but I feel like it's. To me it's mediocre because I've been on the sales and financial advisor side and I know there are better programs out there.
- [04:37]
Luke Acree
Okay. I don't know the travel world as well. I would Definitely go to AI like Claude Research and have it research. What are the best CRMs? Contact Relationship Management systems for travel agents, travel companies. You might actually want to have a, like a Monday.com or something like that that has built in project management. But really you're at such a unique place too, because if you get the CRM right, that's going to manage all your contacts. I would make sure it's AI first or at least is headed in that direction because, you know, we are already. We do a lot of conference travel, so we send our teams to probably 45 to 60 conferences depending on the year. And we're booking a lot of hotels and we're booking a lot of flights and all that stuff. And I was teaching My executive assistant the other day, how you can hook up your Claude, you know, to hotels.com, you can hook up your cloud to all these different sites and have it go build an agent that goes and actually finds all these things. So for you, I feel like there's a ton of opportunity. And if you can get your business into a CRM where you have your contacts that you're managing and then maybe you use an Asana, a Trello, could be a Monday.com where you manage like your projects, then it just comes down to how do I create an agent within Claude, Cowork or Open Claw that can help me go do the research aspect of my job and the booking type aspect of my job that you verify. But it's doing a ton of that work because I'm assuming that's where the majority of your time is spent.
- [06:14]
Amanda Navara
Yes, and actually I agree with you 100%. I use that very efficiently. And I'm, I'm at the same age as a lot of other advisors are, but I feel like the AI, the use of the AI, even just chat GPT, doing that research, like I can do probably three times as many quotes in a day for a new lead as someone else who's not using it.
- [06:37]
Luke Acree
It's true. It's truly insane. Have you hooked up, have you used Claude like Cowork yet?
- [06:43]
Amanda Navara
No, I haven't.
- [06:44]
Luke Acree
You should try that because. And maybe I don't think can OpenAI do this yet. Maybe because they bought Open Call. But like Cowork, you can give it access to like, your folders. So if you download Claude right onto your computer, you can actually there's Cowork and you can give it access to your folders. Like give you a stupid example. I was getting asked to speak at an event and they needed a headshot and I knew I had a bunch of pictures of me on my computer. So I said claude and I gave it access to my folders and I said, here's a picture of Luke. And I just gave it a picture of me. And I said, go to my computer and go through all of my pictures and find all the pictures of Luke and put them in a folder for me. And it went and compared every image I have to the image of Luke, found all the pictures of me, put it in a folder called Luke's Pictures. And it's like, so it's like that just enables you think so there's so many leverage points for you that you could get. But really where I see also for you is this idea of of these connectors. Like, if you go to Claude and you go to like these connectors or, you know, these. Basically you can sync in with these different sites. Not everybody's on there, but you could literally go in. And I'm almost positive, like it has a ton of the travel stuff in there because I was just talking to my executive assistant about it. I was trying to look it up here as we're actually on the show. But we can come back to it. But that's where I would start if I were you. And that would be the leverage point. And then, you know, for someone like you, like, social's got to be huge. Are you big on social media like Instagram, all those things or.
- [08:14]
Amanda Navara
No, I'm still learning. I'm still learning and I've been. I've actually hired a lady to help me with it because she is. So she wanted in the travel industry until she learned more about the travel industry. And she comes from a user experience background.
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Luke Acree
Okay.
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Amanda Navara
And she was like, I really want to do groups, but I don't want to do what you're doing. It's a lot of work. And I was like, well, I really don't want to do marketing. Let's make a trade though.
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Luke Acree
Have you like every industry, there's niches. Have you figured out your niche is your niche. Corporate travel is your niche. High end families and resorts is like, what's your niche?
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Amanda Navara
Bespoke itineraries, More high end. And especially drawn to me. High end is drawn to me. And then. So my niche is actually foodie travel, epicurious adventure travel.
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Luke Acree
So like Anthony, you just described, yeah, you just described your Instagram feed. Like, it's like when you're in Dublin right now and you're a foodie traveler, you should be going to three top spots in Dublin right On your Instagram.
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Amanda Navara
Yeah, yeah.
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Luke Acree
If you, if you put reels out there with that, that would be huge. Because I know, because I have that in my feed. Like, that's been in my feed. It's like all. It's not food, but it's like these resorts, like the best resorts in Mexico, the best resorts, like, so that's what I would do if I were you. I don't know if you guys have other advice, but that's where I would focus. It seems like you have that down lock though. So I want to know your pain point. Like the blocker. Because everything I'm saying, you're kind of saying, yeah, I'm doing that. That's what I'm doing. It's perfect. So what's the blocker?
- [09:43]
Amanda Navara
I love it, you know, it's wonderful. Hear somebody say, yes, you're on the right path. That's cool. I love it. But my pain is the organization of leads and follow ups and my sales. I want to track my sales better.
- [09:55]
Luke Acree
Okay.
- [09:56]
Amanda Navara
I want as much automation as I can get, but I don't want to lose the personal connection. I just can't mentally keep track of 300 clients, you know.
- [10:08]
Luke Acree
Okay, yep. No, that makes perfect sense. So you got to get the CRM and then the rule of thumb is, all right, there's six different frequencies of marketing and your goal is to be on all of them. And so what does that look like? That looks like, you know, for Acre Brothers, you know, they're going to have 86 touches, give or take, happening this year to their database. And for them specifically, it looks like 52 emails. So there's one email a week going out to their database. It looks like six of our magazines. Right? So they have six magazines going out. Every two months, a new magazine hits their database. They're going to have, you know, four to eight postcards. For those postcards will be just invitations to their client events. Four of them will be what we call like endearment cards or value offer cards. And so that's another lane that they'll do. And this does not include social media. Like that's totally separate because social media is usually one to many. And what we're talking about here is one to one. So you have 300 and something clients. So, you know, each of your clients should receive probably a weekly or bi weekly or at least monthly email from you. Each other.
- [11:13]
Amanda Navara
Gonna kill me, man.
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Luke Acree
Yeah, you think that. But if it's full of value, they won't.
- [11:18]
Amanda Navara
Yeah, that's true.
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Luke Acree
If it's, it's like, where are you traveling this week? Like, where's Amanda this week? Where in the world is Carmen? San Diego. That's way back. Anybody else remember that? Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [11:28]
Amanda Navara
And if I, if I'm, I'm tuned in to what they need, then it won't be just fluff. It's, it's, yeah, it's value.
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Cody Acree
Yeah.
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Luke Acree
Travel is fun.
- [11:35]
Cody Acree
Niches, the food thing, your food. Like if, if their niches, the, you know, your niche is the foodie, the travel. Like I would want to watch that and I would want to email showing your video of all the food sites you want to. It's like a quick thing instead of social media. I think that's a great hit because he says things of value. It's not like you selling something. It's more of, like, things that your clients would be interested in seeing. And, like, what open? Because then they're gonna see you, be reminded of you. And I want to go on that trip. Right? I want to do that.
- [12:05]
Luke Acree
And that's how, you know, let's pull up her Instagram. Let's pull up your Instagram.
- [12:10]
Amanda Navara
Oh, no, please don't.
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Luke Acree
Yeah, and your website. Yeah, we gotta audit it, because that essentially is the. The pain point, in essence. I don't try to find you.
- [12:20]
Amanda Navara
I don't even have a business Instagram yet.
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Luke Acree
That's okay. You just have to change your personal one to a professional account. What is the.
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Amanda Navara
It's going to be Amazing underscore, Nava.
- [12:31]
Luke Acree
Okay. Amazing underscore. The reason you would want to go ahead.
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Cody Acree
Are you against hiring Amanda? Like, is that something that you.
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Amanda Navara
I actually just hired two employees, so my first two employees, although one of them did convert from a travel advisor to my marketing person. But that's okay. I needed that.
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Cody Acree
Yeah. That's what you need. Yeah. Yeah. Because we always say hire, like an administrative person first.
- [12:56]
Amanda Navara
Oh, yeah.
- [12:57]
Cody Acree
And then salesperson second.
- [12:59]
Amanda Navara
We both saw the need and she said, I've got the skills. And, yeah, I love it. I post a lot more on Facebook, so if you want to find me there at all, probably be easier. And it just be Amanda. Well, you can. You can find Amanda. Let's see. Navara, where's my phone?
- [13:20]
Luke Acree
So I can already tell. Looking at your Instagram now. I know people are listening to this or watching on YouTube so they can't see it. Maybe, Josh, you can find it embarrassing.
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Amanda Navara
It's slightly embarrassing, honestly. And that's. But I. I'm not. I don't feel bad because, like I said, I see there's a gap and I've hired him.
- [13:39]
Luke Acree
Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, that's.
- [13:40]
Cody Acree
Well, you don't even feel bad.
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Amanda Navara
Yeah.
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Cody Acree
This is about you growing. Like, it's not like. I mean, you're killing it. You already said how much you did, you know, the past couple months. But this is about. All right, where's opportunities where I can grow.
- [13:50]
Amanda Navara
Yeah. And that's why I'm talking to you too.
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Cody Acree
Right.
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Luke Acree
You need to write down. This will help you. You need to. And we basically have already come to this consensus based upon this call, but you need to write down your content pillars. This will help you structure for you and your marketing person. So what is the content pillars that you and Amazing Navara are you Know, want to be known for. And one of them, obviously, is travel. Food in travel. And then, you know, maybe it's your personal life, like your. Your family. Maybe you're into fitness, whatever your content pillars are, and that's what you're going to post for me. And looking at your Instagram, like, it's just not consistent enough. No, it doesn't say in the bio what you do. There's no links to get to where you, you know, because you got to get to a business profile. So, like, a couple action items for you right away. Go over. Change your profile from a personal profile to like a professional business one. And you can just switch that over in your settings and that will allow you to start tracking your audience. Change your bio to state actually exactly what you do. Give a link right there to your website. And then I would, if I were you. You have such a golden opportunity with travel to do what is like, comparison, where you can talk like, you have this great post on, you know, this. You should try this in Rome. It looks like some, you know.
- [15:15]
Amanda Navara
Oh, the. The. Oh, yes.
- [15:17]
Luke Acree
What is it? Like a. I don't even pronounce it.
- [15:20]
Amanda Navara
Basically, like a stuffed donut.
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Luke Acree
Yeah, stuffed donut. Right.
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Amanda Navara
So donut.
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Luke Acree
Yeah, the three donors.
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Amanda Navara
You can hardly fill it. You can hardly. Oh, my God.
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Luke Acree
Like, that's a great piece of content. And it's like your feed should be filled with you doing reviews, comparisons, top threes, top five places to visit. Like, that is where you should get your marketing person to be. But remember that content on social, it needs to be social. And people get attracted to, like, values and share things. So it's your journey in experiencing these things as well is as important. So it's like the top three donuts I had in Rome, and you should have them, too. It's like those type of things is what I would give to you. So, like, I think your biggest issue is you already, you know, know, which is what we tend to find with the callers that call in. But auditing your stuff on Instagram right away, and I'm assuming Facebook similar, you're
- [16:16]
Josh Dyke
already blogging about it as well, right?
- [16:19]
Amanda Navara
Me?
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Josh Dyke
Yeah. Am I on the right. Okay, maybe I'm on.
- [16:23]
Luke Acree
You found me another competitor.
- [16:25]
Amanda Navara
Oh, you probably. Who knows? Who knows? I mean, I do. I do vlog, but just unofficially, connections. See, the thing about food, it's not just food. It's the legacy of the recipes that connect the different cultures.
- [16:39]
Cody Acree
I love that.
- [16:41]
Luke Acree
Okay, so then your action items really are. Amanda, it's like, okay, you Need a weekly email going out or at least monthly.
- [16:48]
Amanda Navara
Yes.
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Luke Acree
Somewhere in between. And you need to get your Instagram humming and Tick Tock. You should be on TikTok for sure. Tick Tock and Instagram can be the same type of content. I would get that going immediately.
- [17:02]
Amanda Navara
Okay.
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Luke Acree
And then from the other thing is, if you have a CRM, but it's not great, you need to get yourself a good CRM because that is obviously going to be your gold. But you're doing so much right. All you have to do is now add these little nuances because you really are. You're doing so much right. From a business perspective, we do work with, you know, travel agents. We have a decent amount that we've worked with over the years. It's a very similar business to real estate, very similar to financial advising. Relationship driven. So it's like you're on the right path. You just need to get organized, as you said.
- [17:36]
Amanda Navara
Yes, sir. And that's what I'm hoping that systems, I want to find systems that can help me with the organization.
- [17:42]
Cody Acree
What would you expect for her and her open rates on those emails look like what should be looking for if she's doing something wrong or doing something right with them.
- [17:50]
Luke Acree
If it's a great client list, then I would not be surprised. You should be seeing 30 to 40% open rates. If it's just a. You don't really have a great relationship with these people, but they know you, you're probably going to be down in the 15%, you know, range, 14 to 20%. Somewhere in there is what I would say, if it's a colder list and it's like not really opted in, they don't really know you. I mean, you could be as low as 3%, 4%, you know, so that's really not ideal. Most platforms will kick you off and
- [18:23]
Cody Acree
then a thing for systems too. I was thinking a minute. Do you, since you just had your first two new hires, do you have like SOPs for everything that you do? Like, do you have like I've got standing operating procedure or breakdown of like everything that you do throughout your day
- [18:39]
Amanda Navara
or that you do? I. I've learned that. That's a really good question. I learned that recently that I need more. I think I had the bones, but I didn't have them, you know, I didn't have it enough. I didn't have enough, like you said, for every little thing.
- [18:55]
Cody Acree
Yep.
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Amanda Navara
It's not enough to have the bones because then you've got questions still coming in like, so how do we do that. How are we supposed to do that? What's the procedure? And I like everybody on the same page.
- [19:06]
Luke Acree
You said you just hired two people.
- [19:08]
Amanda Navara
I did, Yep.
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Luke Acree
I personally don't love that you've hired two people. I don't think you have big enough revenue to hire two people. And are they salespeople?
- [19:16]
Amanda Navara
They are commission only. So they are in training. And like I said, the one, she actually decided to just be our marketing person and website design.
- [19:27]
Luke Acree
But do you have to pay a salary for that or is that okay? Then that's better.
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Amanda Navara
And actually they pay their own fees too. So we. The programs that we use, I gave them discount codes, but they pay for their own.
- [19:38]
Luke Acree
Okay, that's better. Yeah, because that's the only. If it's salespeople or, you know, like you were saying, commission based, then I don't have a problem with it. But at your revenue levels, to hire two people, I don't know if I would do that before. I would do it.
- [19:50]
Amanda Navara
No, I wouldn't either. I agree with you. But I love people who want to learn. And it doesn't cost me, you know, it doesn't cost me an arm and a leg for them to learn. It does nothing but benefit me.
- [20:00]
Luke Acree
I love those people too. The ones that do it. They're just pro bono.
- [20:04]
Amanda Navara
No, no, not pro bono. But yeah, time is money.
- [20:09]
Luke Acree
So it is.
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Cody Acree
I would definitely get those procedures and easy. And then obviously use AI to your advantage. But one thing recently. Have you heard of whisper flow?
- [20:18]
Amanda Navara
They'll say, no, I haven't.
- [20:19]
Cody Acree
No, no, it's a speak. It's like a talk to text that it's on your computer so you can literally, like talk through your ideas of what you do and then tell it to systematically do it. It'll just save you time. And it's an easier way to think when you're talking than typing. So whisper flow, it's. I learned it from some other AI. Like, they're into it big time and it just saves you so much time. So, like, as you're like, right now, you could be sitting down thinking of, like, what do I do? And literally talking to it. And then it'll, you know, you hit enter and then I'll process it all for you.
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Amanda Navara
Love it. I love that. All right. I think I abused chat DPT with a little bit of that.
- [20:57]
Cody Acree
Yep, yep.
- [20:59]
Luke Acree
Well, your list, your list is full, Amanda. Enjoy Dublin. But get executed.
- [21:04]
Cody Acree
Yeah, right away.
- [21:06]
Luke Acree
Right away. Get on your Instagram and tick tock like you're already there. I want to see the top three things in Dublin that I should be doing when I travel there next or the top three restaurants I should go to that would be.
- [21:17]
Amanda Navara
Oh, definitely, definitely. And we can eat in some really cool places. And we can eat in some really, really interesting places.
- [21:24]
Luke Acree
And remember, negative sales sells too. If you go to Dublin, do not go to this place. Like that will sell as well on social. So if you go to negative, I
- [21:33]
Amanda Navara
have, I have a homesick lasagna video that you probably appreciate. We've got friends that make it from scratch and I'm all over Dublin. I'm like, nope, that doesn't it. That isn't it.
- [21:42]
Luke Acree
Yeah, yeah, exactly. There you go. That stuff will sell like gold. You have great content potential there. So just go execute. Appreciate you coming on the show. Appreciate you listening.
- [21:51]
Amanda Navara
Thank you guys.
- [21:51]
Luke Acree
Have a great one.
- [21:53]
Josh Dyke
Bye. All right, there you go. Make sure to get your questions answered live here on Stay paid. Go to remindermedia.com ask all right, this, this is a write in question from Leanne. So Leanne is asking what is the best way to stay relatable to our clients over the years without being salesy or bothersome, yet staying relevant and engaging.
- [22:21]
Luke Acree
Did Leanne say what industry she's in? Is it Leanne Johnson? I guess as I see the name there. But she say what industry? Industry not. I do not. Let's just assume she's probably real estate, but you know, maybe not. You know, like I always say, like the best way is literally human connection, like personal relationship, you know, so it's like it's being a friend to somebody and getting to know their family and getting to know their, you know, it's the FORD acronym, Family occupation, recreation, dreams and actually getting into relationship with somebody, that's how you actually stay relevant and you can be in contact with them without coming across the wrong way. But you know, technically speaking for at scale you're not going to have a close relationship with everybody. And so the way I always break it down is the three E's. Entertainment, Education, Endearment. So education is going to be the majority of what you do for people. So let's say Leanne is in real estate. If you're listening to Associates. Awesome. So like what opportunity does a real estate agent have to educate everything around the home? You have the opportunity to be the hub for. And I think agents really drop the ball. I think we're probably doing a bad job at this, at Acre Brothers even, and this is what we do. But it's like educating people around everything around their Home. So for instance, you know, my home insurance, I should actually be hearing from my real estate agent every year about an update of where, you know, hey, you know, this is home insurance prices, this is what's happening there. And the real estate agent now has an opportunity to partner with that property casualty agent to be able to do that or my home equity or you know, if I renovate it. Like, you know, who does a good job at this and you know, shout out to them is homebot. Homebot does a good job of laying out like so much of this information for agents to be able to send their clients. But that educational stuff around my home, I constantly want to know what my home's worth. My wife and I are just remodeling our kitchen in our bathroom. It's costing us way more than I would have ever wanted to spend should I have spent this much. You know, those type of educational pieces make you the subject matter expert. And so I would heavily, heavily, heavily focus on that if I was a real estate agent. So first is relationships. Second is the education. And then if you're really, really good, you'll go the extra mile and you'll do the entertainment and endearment and the best way you guys do it, you know, and Steven Cody, you guys can speak to this, but is your client events. You invite people to client events that are non salesy, non educational, totally relationship driven, fun, entertaining and it goes a long way in helping you build that mind share without coming across the wrong way.
- [24:58]
Steven Acree
Yeah, yeah, you said it really well. Because I think the hard part in follow up with your clients and stay in relationship with them is people don't transact. But every like 10 to 12 years, right. So then you're just finding lights value proposition based. But the value proposition is not on selling a house because they're not in the place in which they're going to sell or buy. And so then it's just focusing on things that you know, that they do day to day. It might be the best restaurants, you know, in Lynchburg, Virginia. It might be like you said, Luke, rates are going up on insurance is what it should be. Might be a contractor vendor list that you send out to your clients. So just compile that. And again you can go to AI and just type in all the things that would be valuable to your clients. I'll give you a list of them and just start doing videos on that and newsletters that are sent out based around that. That information is what I would say.
- [25:49]
Luke Acree
And the best connectors I've ever Met like in the people who do business development at a high level. They're just really, really good at random outreaches. Like, they're really, really good. I think of the people we've had over the years, like Darrell and stuff like that, who has all these relationships with CEOs and high level people across the real estate industry. He just has no problem just chatting somebody, texting them and going, hey, thinking about you today. Hope you're doing well. We haven't caught up in a while and maybe he hasn't talked to him in like eight months. And he just doesn't even flinch. It doesn't bother him. And that I think is most real estate agents are people in general. We just get in our head that I haven't talked to Steven in six months. It's weird for me to just text him out of the blue. And you just get over that. Like if every day you systematize just texting a couple of people just to check in. And you'd be surprised how powerful that is because guess what? You, you didn't keep in touch with them, but guess what they didn't do? They didn't keep in touch with you. And so they are also feeling that same, like, oh, yeah, I haven't talked to Luke in, you know, eight months. Yeah, how's it going, man? How's the family? And that will help tremendously. And then a lot of the great real estate agents, I think of Garrett Maroon's agent, he gets most of his business. I don't know if this is still true to this day, but a couple years ago when I was speaking at a conference with him, he got most of his business from the fishing group. Yeah, right. He's in this Facebook fishing group. And most of his business was coming from just guys that he was fishing with. And you go, yeah, like, I went to church on Tuesday night. And this, you know, applies even to the church. We were talking about small groups and evangelism. And Robert, one of the leaders there, was just saying he, he is very intentional. Like he likes to, he, he likes to find out, hey, what are you into? And the person might say, hiking. He goes up, let's go for a hike. Like, let's. Like, he'll, he'll set up a time like, let's go hike somewhere, or, oh, I'm into golf. Okay, let's go golfing. And he goes, he just intentionally spends time with people and the things that they love to do because it builds relationship and it builds commonality, it builds rapport. And obviously he Likes those things too, so he's willing to do it. But that's really what you need to think about for relationships is the best people are the ones who are just, they're just playing golf with people. They're just, you know, grabbing a cup of coffee. They're just, you know, I like my loan time, so it's really hard for me to give up, you know, children.
- [28:09]
Josh Dyke
So.
- [28:09]
Luke Acree
Yeah, but, but every meal, I mean, there's a rule out there that, you know, or somebody wrote a book or something like you should never waste a meal. Like every meal you should be eating with somebody. Yeah.
- [28:20]
Josh Dyke
Never eat alone.
- [28:21]
Luke Acree
Is that what it's called? Yeah, yeah. But it's, it's a great principle, but love it.
- [28:26]
Josh Dyke
Another question here from Carly. Carly is in Michigan, also in real estate. How do you keep going when you feel like you're struggling? This is a good, timely question.
- [28:38]
Luke Acree
Sharon had a great post on this saying if you feel like nothing, like nothing's working essentially and you're struggling, it actually means you're doing good. And now it's like, yeah, that's great. There's so much truth to that perspective.
- [28:52]
Josh Dyke
Why you feel like you're struggling because you're actually making.
- [28:55]
Luke Acree
Yeah, you're actually doing anything. If it was easy, everybody would do it, as the platitude goes. But the way I have kept going over the years is I am intrinsically or extrinsically motivated, more than intrinsically motivated. So if I, if somebody needs me to show up for them and it and I have to deliver for somebody else, I will do it so much more than if it's just myself. I don't know why that's just me as a person. So I need that outside accountability. Even right now I'm talking to somebody that I'm going to hire probably as an executive coach. And he asked me, what's the main thing you want to get out of it? I said I need accountability that I have to deliver for somebody because if I don't have that, I just know I'm not as good. It's like that's one of the main things I need versus, you know, a couple other things too. But it's like I just am that way. So that's how I keep going, is I got to put myself out there for other people.
- [29:59]
Cody Acree
We were literally just talking about this yesterday with a guy on our team and it took him six months really to get his first deal and he's gone from 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the like six month marker to where he is now. And the whole six months of coaching was literally like, you're having. He never had sales before. And so it's like, you gotta just keep doing what you're doing. You're improving. His encouragements. Here's your pipeline. It's looking good. Keep building. And, like, it was just a constant encouragement of, like, you're doing the right thing. Because it feels like you're not. It feels like you're stagnant and you're not growing at all. And I'm on the other side being like, I've been there, bro, and I know what you're feeling, but trust me, when I'm seeing what you're doing and how you've improved from day one till now, it's crazy. The difference. And you have to keep going. And so, like, what you said is perfect. And it's. What that person probably really needs is like. Cause I think the main question is, and Steven said it the other day, was, am I doing the right thing? Like, am I doing right, or am I just doing something for nothing? And you need to be encouraged that you are doing the right thing. It just isn't hitting yet because it's not time. It's a buildup of a pipeline. Like, real estate is a time game. So it's like your biggest question, am I doing the right thing? We don't know. Obviously, you're not even here. But the thing for you would be to, like, check to see with someone that's been in it, that's done it, and are you doing the right things? Because you might not be, but you need to be encouraged if you are, that, hey, you're doing it. Just keep going. Yeah.
- [31:29]
Luke Acree
And nine times out of 10, you got to do more of it. People severely underestimate the volume of activity. That for sure.
- [31:36]
Steven Acree
Yeah. I was talking to someone the other day that has run like a double ironman, and it was pretty funny because I've thought, like, this most of my life. But like he said, I don't think think about the finish line. Once I start the iron man, of course, like, before he starts, he's getting amped up. He's like, once I finish this, it's going to be. I'm going to have this euphoria that's there. That has been nothing I've ever experienced in my life. But he said when he was actually in the ironman, he would break it down into just steps. So he'd go, I'm in a loop. If I take this loop five times, I'm this percentage done to my goal, and I think that's an important piece. I think a lot of people, you know, get. They think about being finished. They think about being retired. They think about having the money that they've dreamed about. And in reality, if you think about that, it's too far in the distance, you know, and so you just get discouraged with where you're at. So I think part of it is just going, I know where I want to be. I only reflect on that a certain amount of times throughout the year, but then I just focus on the actions. What's my next step? What do I have to do next to get there? And you'll always get out of those seasons by taking those steps.
- [32:43]
Luke Acree
What's her name again?
- [32:44]
Josh Dyke
Carly.
- [32:45]
Luke Acree
Carly. Because. Wait. And so, Carly, you actually don't have to do the hard anymore. You can just do the medium. That's a whole nother battle that I'm learning. I've got. I'm blessed. I'm at a place in my life where it's like, I could change Reminder Media into a lifestyle business. Like, we could make this so much more lean. We could just make our lives so much easier. And it is really hard sometimes when you face it versus Josh. Like, we could really, really.
- [33:15]
Cody Acree
Like, we didn't take that option.
- [33:17]
Josh Dyke
That doesn't sound very fun.
- [33:18]
Luke Acree
Yeah, exactly. But that's why they say when people say, you got to find your why. I think the component of the why that is actually true is the why of impact. All the other why stuff I think is just. Yeah, I don't. I mean, I think it just changes all the time. But the why of impact, meaning, like, what is the impact you're trying to make? And for you, it might be in a season, like, your. Your kids, you're trying to accomplish something so you can get your kids to a certain place or whatever. For me. And times I might hire Josh's daughter to help us babysit our kids. But. But the point being is, like, it's crazy how hard it is sometimes when you're like, I don't have to go through this. Like, we just had an employee come at us this week, and I'm just like, I don't have to do this. And it's like. But meaning the point being is, like, you go, oh, yeah, no, I do need to do this, because I need to help people. I need to help this person. I need to help, you know, the people that I serve. And that's a bigger mission for me. It's like, yeah, I need to Do. Exactly. It's hard for me to serve you. No, but the point is, it's like, that's really what it's about. The selfishness in you. Wants to go, why do I have to do that? I don't want to. Like, why do I need to put up with this or that? It's like, no, that's right. That's why you're here. Like, you want to help these people. I want to help this person grow and I want to help them succeed and get what they want in life. And the same, you know, for all of us here on this call. It's like, and that is so fulfilling in life. A life of service is a life of significance.
- [34:49]
Cody Acree
Yeah. Like, and I think it too, like real estate or even lending. It's like, why do I need to make this call for this client? Like the introduction call? Oh, I can just send them something and they can fill out a form or is the right thing to do to service them well is to give them the call, even though it takes more time and you might not need it, but it's a better service for them. But yeah, you're always questioning, like, how can I be more efficient? Or where I can take this when you forget about the service aspect of it.
- [35:15]
Josh Dyke
Yep. Awesome. There you go. You can get your questions answered here on Stay Paid podcast. Go to remindermedia.com ask and if we can't get you scheduled here on the show, we'll read them and you have to listen. You can't say anything back to us. Thank you so much for listening. You can dive deeper to this episode. Get the show notes and the video over@staypaypodcast.com make sure you are subscribed. Subscribe to the Screwed what is happening right now? Subscribe to the YouTube channel over at Reminder Media. Give this video a thumbs up. Best way to help out the show is simply to share this episode with somebody that you know. Make sure to follow us on Instagram. We are at Stay Paid podcast for this episode of Stay Paid. I'm Josh Dyke.
- [35:58]
Luke Acree
And I'm Luke Acree. And guys, my action item for you is most people, they know what they should be doing, but they're just not doing it. And the reason they're not doing it is because they just lack the confidence. And you need to go to someone who has the confidence. So I would encourage you this week to find a mentor in your life that has done what you want to do. Maybe they're not too far down the road from where you're at. And they can actually affirm for you that you're doing the right thing or tell you the direction you should go. That is the action item that you should take. The difference between top producers, mediocre producers in every business is top producers. Take action. Take action on that today. Sam.