← Travis Makes Money
Travis Makes Money
INTERVIEW | Make Money by Building a Real Estate Business That Actually Supports Your Life, feat. Lacey Newman
00:39:09
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- [00:00]
A
You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by GoHighLevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet. Just go to gohighlevel.com travis.
- [00:14]
B
What is going on everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast where it's our mission to help you make more money. Today on the show I'm talking to a new friend of mine, Lacy Newman. Lacy is a top 1% luxury listing agent and leader of the elevated living advisory at Compass and host of the Emmy nominated and telly award winning TV show show the American Dream. Through her rapidly growing coaching program, Lacy shares the proven strategies and mindset up levels she's used to. Go from zero to running a multi seven figure real estate team. With over 20 years now in the industry, Laci guides agents to magnetically attract high end clients, create captivating consistent content that boosts their brand visibility and build a business that supports the life that they truly want to live. Lacy, what's up? Welcome to the show.
- [01:00]
C
What's up Travis? Thanks for so much for having me.
- [01:03]
B
Oh, of course, of course. I saw so many things that we had in common. First off, we're both in Las Vegas, so.
- [01:10]
C
Oh no, I'm in, I'm in the other Vegas. Nash. Vegas.
- [01:13]
B
Oh, you're moved.
- [01:15]
C
No, I've been in Nashville for 23 years.
- [01:19]
B
23 years, wow. Okay. Where did I see something about Las Vegas?
- [01:22]
C
I don't know, but we've got a lot of similarities these days, so it's an easy mistake.
- [01:26]
B
That's really funny. Oh, oh, oh, I see. I see What? I see what it was. I was reading it too quickly and saw like LV instead in my mind, instead of tv and I thought like, oh, she must be in Las Vegas. So that is my mistake. That is my mistake. However, Nashville is basically like a second home for me and my wife anyway, so pretty sure we're going to be there in like two months.
- [01:47]
C
Well, we'll have to grab a coffee when you're actually in town.
- [01:50]
B
Yeah, absolutely. It's basically the same place, you know what I mean?
- [01:53]
C
Pretty much. We've all got it. We both got a strip with a bunch of crazy people on it and.
- [01:57]
B
A bunch of bachelorette parties.
- [01:59]
C
Yeah, for sure.
- [02:02]
B
So let's, let's dive in back in time here. I assume that there's some sort of an origin story about you getting into real estate that it probably wasn't what you wrote down on your like career day in high school about what you wanted to be when you grew up. So tell me that story first.
- [02:18]
C
Absolutely. Well, I mean, honestly, real estate agent was never even anything I was aware of, to be honest. My parents grew up, or I grew up in the same home that my parents built when I was 2. And so I, I didn't even really have a concept what this real estate industry was about. And then when I was about 25 years old, as you do, I started looking for my first condo. And I met this girl, this real estate agent. She drove this little white Mercedes and she looked so cute in her little outfit. She'd go pop open a lockbox and show me a condo. And I thought, wow, this girl has got it figured out. What a fun job. And I bet it's so flexible and so much fun. And so this would be the perfect job to have when you have kids. I mean, I had all these dreams about what real estate was going to be like. And the reality of the matter is that while it can be all of those things, it also can be a major grind.
- [03:15]
B
And the worst thing ever.
- [03:16]
C
Yeah, can really suck. And the truth of the story is that I started in 05, but by 2012, I had completely burned out. I had never earned more than $50,000 a year. So selling real estate in those first few years, I had two small kids. that point in time, I felt like a complete failure at work, at home. I knew I was underperforming in my career, but I didn't know, I really didn't know what to do to change that. And I had these two little kids that were depending on me. And so I became one of the 85% of real estate agents that fail out of the industry. And it wasn't until a few years later when I got divorced and my back was really up against the wall and I had to decide, am I going to go play it safe and go get a W2 9 to 5 job? I started looking into those, I was like, ugh, I don't like this either. And I decided to come back into the real estate industry. But at that point in time, I was in a completely different place. And so I started looking at my business in a totally different manner and that actually shifted everything. And I 5x my business the very first year back, and then over the course of the next handful of years, took my real estate team to the top 1% in the country, started earning seven figure commissions year over year, and the rest is history.
- [04:41]
B
Well, what'd you do differently? The magic question.
- [04:43]
C
Everything. No, but really I think that what real estate agents in general have are really, they have one thing they are absolutely exceptional at if they make it in this industry, and that's serving clients. There are bad eggs out there, of course, but for the most part real estate agents are really, really, really good at serving clients and we are really, really, really bad at running businesses. But because we're capable and we're over performers and we're people pleasers, we can get it done by white knuckling it.
- [05:19]
B
Yeah.
- [05:20]
C
What changed for me is that because I all of a sudden had the limited time with my children, I was determined not to let that hustle and that unregulated schedule take me away from my kids any more than my schedule already was. And so I started running my business like a true business and I put boundaries in place and I started looking at myself not just as the operator doing transactions, but as truly the CEO of a company. And that, that mindset shift more than anything changed the way that I did my day to day.
- [05:57]
B
I grew up in the, in the real estate industry space. My dad's been an agent since I was like three. So I was sort of the opposite. I grew up walking properties and going on caravans and open houses and sitting in offices late night while he's drawing up offers and paperwork and whatever else. And that, that is one thing that I've noticed that you mentioned earlier, which is that is that even though most real estate agents refer to their book of business as a business, there's such a small percentage of them that actually run it like a business. It they, they almost just treat it like, like they are an independent sales rep and that's sort of it rather. And then you, you start realizing the people, like the people who are doing seven figures in commissions every single year, these are people who treat it like a business. And, and that's why by the way, that you have, like whenever I see somebody cross over from entrepreneurship, like they're, they're used to running whatever a plumbing company or something like that, and they, they built that to 3 million and they sold it for a couple million or whatever and they move into real estate, it's like they tend to do much better because you're not going to rise to the level of your ambition, you're going to fall the level of your systems. And if you're entrepreneurial minded, you think through the systems piece of it, then that's where the scalability of the business starts really coming into play. So it's like you, you either are basically just Like a side hustler, real estate person. Which is fine if that's what you want to do. If you're, if, if it is something like where, where you kind of first started, where it's like dual income household. I don't have to make money. I like to make money. I'm with my kids most of the time. It's super flexible. I can make 30 to 40,000 extra dollars a year. Great, fine, do your thing. But if you're trying to make this into a full time thing where you're creating real wealth for you and your family, we're talking about two different undertakings here.
- [07:41]
C
Yeah, different animal.
- [07:44]
B
So where in the first year if somebody's like, nope.
- [07:49]
A
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- [08:11]
B
Whatever you want, really.
- [08:12]
A
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- [08:36]
B
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- [08:37]
A
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- [09:04]
B
Things that you can step on and.
- [09:05]
A
Fall on top of. And so we got this shoe organizer. So we have one place that all the shoes go. And now when the kids walk in the house, they know exactly where to put their shoes. So we got that from Wayfair recently. They even have a treadmill that goes under your desk and stuff, which is probably going to be my next purchase. So get organized, refreshed, and back on track this new year. For way less, head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com Wayfair Every style, every Home this episode of the show is brought to you by Shopify. Starting something new isn't just hard, it's terrifying. So much work goes into this thing.
- [09:40]
B
That you're not entirely sure it'll work.
- [09:42]
A
Out, and it can be hard to make that leap of faith. Trust me, I know this. When I started my podcast, I wasn't even sure what I was doing, to be honest with you. What if nobody listens? What if I make a fool of myself? What if I'm embarrassed? You know, what if nobody buys stuff that I put out there? Now I know that I was right in believing myself in launching this podcast and subsequent businesses that have come along with it, despite all the fears and hesitations. It also helps when you have a partner like Shopify on your side to help. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names like Magic Spoon to brands just getting started, you can get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand's style, accelerate your efficiency. Whether you're uploading new products or trying to improve existing products, Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography. There's really no excuses anymore, people, because Shopify literally does all of this stuff for you. And did I mention that the iconic purple Shop pay button that's used by millions of businesses around the world is from Shopify? It's why Shopify has the best converting checkout on the planet. It also helps boost conversions, meaning less carts going abandoned and more sales for for you. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com TMM go to shopify.com TMM that's shopify.com TMM.
- [11:16]
B
The side hustle stuff. That's not for me. I'm going all in on this thing. First year what. What. What can somebody reasonably expect in terms of workload versus Year five?
- [11:30]
C
So I always heard, and I don't know that this is true because again, it's been 20 years since I was a newbie in real estate, but I always heard that if you break even the first year, that's kind of the expectation. W yeah, I think in actuality you probably would do better than that in most cases these days because homes are so expensive now that commissions are significantly higher than they even were five years ago. But the biggest mindset block that I think holds so many people in real estate back is they do their job, they get a commission check, they take the check, they deposit it in their bank account and then they go try to find the next client. And what they aren't doing is putting any of the money in their actual business.
- [12:15]
B
That's right.
- [12:15]
C
You know, anybody else, go back to your plumbing example. He's not just pocketing all that cash, he's putting it in the business. He's, we all know, like you start a business, you keep as much money in the business as you possibly can, you pay yourself little to nothing for the first few years to allow the business to grow. And that's just not how agents look at it for the most part. And so trying to get them to go, hey, don't look at that $10,000 or $30,000 or $100,000 commission check as yours. Look at it as this belongs to the business. And only take out what you need to and keep reinvesting. I mean, that's, that's the difference. The, the easiest shift that I see people make that starts to help them step into that actual business mind.
- [13:05]
B
What about structuring their day? So you're, you're day one on the job. You are not sure exactly what you should be spending your time doing. What are the core, what are the IPAs, the income producing activities that agents can be working on most and should be working on the most.
- [13:22]
C
So every day what I see is agents, they get up and they look around and they look at their calendar and maybe it's got a couple things on it, maybe it doesn't. They go in their email, they use their email as their to do list and they kind of just sit there and wait for something to happen. And what I actually recommend is to, I have a, I have an acronym byob. Okay. It does not sound stand for bring your own beer. Though you and I both being in Vegas would think that it stands for book your own business. So what I tell my clients that I work with to do is to fully book their entire calendar. I want their 9 to 5 Monday through Friday to be packed wall to wall where they know exactly what they are intending to do in every time block for the whole week. And I do it based on, I call it the three P's of purposeful prioritization. Because I love making money, but I also want to I don't want to only make money. I want to live a life that I want to live. That's the whole point of making money to me.
- [14:28]
B
That's right.
- [14:28]
C
So I tell people to start with their purposeful priorities, the things that are actually what they care about in life, and the things that move their life in the direction that they really want. Then I tell them to book in their personal priorities what are the things that they have to do in order to be that person. So if I want to be, for example, part of my purpose in life is to be around as long as possible for my children and my parents and to really, what do they say, like, die as young as possible, as late as possible. Right. So that would be one of my purposeful priorities. So a personal priority would be going to the gym every day, because that's one of the things that has to happen for me to live up to that. So I go purposeful priorities first, then personal and then professional last, which is often backwards of the way that most people would think to do it. But when you book your entire calendar out according to those three levels, then whenever, let's say somebody calls and says, hey, I want to go see a house right now, well, great, you're going to jump, you're going to go do it. But what you're going to see is what you're giving up in order to say yes to that. So you're going to see what priority you've set that you are turning down now in order to go be reactive to the thing that your business needs in the moment, and then you reblock that somewhere else on your calendar. And if you do this, if you, if you really account for all of your own time based on not only the financial goals but the life goals that you have, then you don't tend to live in that reactive place that seems to be the default that so many, not only real estate agents, but entrepreneurs in general get stuck in.
- [16:08]
B
Yeah, and it's especially egregious to me, I think, in the real estate industry because it's so easy to. It's so easy to be busy, yet have zero productivity. You know, like, even, even that example, you just use it. Let's, let's go look at this house right now. Like if somebody's, if somebody has not told their time what to do throughout the day and they're just doing, like you said, reactive type work, working on emails, bullshitting at the water cooler, which happens way too much in real est. If they're, if they're working on all those other things. Then when that client texts and says, oh, I want to go see this house, in their mind, they're like, ooh, good activity to do. I should go do that. And it's like, theoretically, that sounds like a good plan, but ultimately it means that you don't have a plan for how to structure the time throughout the day. And what I've found, and maybe you can speak into this too, because obviously this is what you do. And I'm not a real estate agent myself, but what I've found just from client work and doing other businesses, is that those clients will actually respect your time more when they reach out to you and say, I need to go see a house right now. And then you respond with something like, hey, great, love it, let's do it. However, right now I'm working on XYZ. However, tomorrow, from 3 o' clock to 5 o', clock, I have a block open set aside just for you. We're going to go look at that one and I'm going to add a couple other ones in based on the criteria of this one that I want you to take a peek at too, because I got a couple in mind for you. Let's do tomorrow. Does that work? You know, it's like you, you're. You're reframing the conversation from a desperate commission seeker to a professional real estate expert and advisor who is there to. To be the trusted consultant through the process and not just there to earn their one commission check that's coming in over the next five months because they weren't willing to do anything else to go get business.
- [18:02]
C
Couldn't agree more. And I, I just call it making the offer first. So if you want to see a house and you call me up and you say, hey, Lacy, will you go show me this home, I'm going to say, absolutely, Travis, how's Wednesday at 2? And if I throw out the time first, then you instinctively, let's say you have a dentist's appointment scheduled Wednesday at 2. You instinctively are going to go, can I move that around? Yeah, I can do that. And so you will accommodate and fit into my frame. If I say, travis, when do you want to go see the house? You're going to say at 4 o' clock this afternoon, which is going to be right in the middle of my son's basketball game every single time. And then I'm going to be the one who's put in the position of going, okay, well, I didn't miss his game last week, so I can just miss it this time and it'll be okay. And I'll make it up to him this weekend. And so I'm the one contorting myself in a pretzel to make your to accommodate your timeframe. And that is the thing that really will burn you out in this industry more than anything else. It's just constantly taking your life and your family. I'm sure your dad probably jumped up from the table to take a call so many times you can't even count. And that keeps us, that keeps us in that burnout and really limits our ability to earn where if we can just hold our value and know exactly what you said, that we truly are seen as more professional when we have those professional boundaries, we'll end up making more money in the long run.
- [19:33]
B
Yeah, right. It'll be a better experience for everybody involved. And then the worst one too is when you have like one thing on your calendar that's like the this episode.
- [19:43]
A
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- [20:55]
B
Highest leverage activity that you could possibly do in my opinion. And again, I'd love to hear your expertise here. In my opinion, especially in that world is lead gen. It's like if you don't have any leads coming in, you don't get sales, period. You have to spend time prospecting, whatever that looks like for you. And I'd love to hear you give us like Sort of like a breakdown of what prospecting looks like now versus when you started. If it's cold calling, if it's social media, DMs, if it's content, whatever that looks like. But what I see happen in that space too much is like, because again, it feels like a high leverage activity because it feels like, oh, I have to bend over backwards for my client. You know, they're like, well, let's go look at a house, you know, tomorrow morning at 10am and it's like, well, you had a block in your calendar from 9 to 11 to do a bunch of cold calls. But because you hate that so much, you're looking for any excuse to just toss that aside and go show some client a house. It's like, look, that's already your client. Like, that's, you have to, you have to guard that time as if it is the most important thing that you do, because it is the most important thing that you do. But, but tell me, tell me your thoughts, your expertise on this and then what, what are, what are people doing wrong when it comes to prospecting these days?
- [22:02]
C
Oh, yeah, okay, so here's the thing. And you said hating it, right? All right, so here's the thing. Cold calling works. Door knocking works. Open houses work. Social media works. Farming works. Every single prospect activity. And if you need more ideas, you can go ask ChatGPT. What are 50 ways a real estate agent can prospect more business? They're not a secret. And they all work if you do them consistently and at a high level. But the problem and what you clicked on is that we tell ourselves that we should be doing X, Y, Z. I would rather lay in the road and be run over by a truck than okay, back over me five times, like, I'm not gonna do it. And so I will be that person who would do anything if I to avoid cold calling. But cold calling is not, never has been and never will be on my business plan because I know that about myself. And so the thing that people are doing wrong with prospecting is telling themselves they're going to do something that they don't want to do. What I believe and what has been the secret to my success is that if you fill your time in your calendar with things that you're good at and that you like, you'll actually do them. And so I would say choose one or two things, not five, not 10, one or two things and go all in and be world class and do them with total consistency. And you will get so much farther than filling your Filling all of your, your action plan, your marketing calendar with a bunch of stuff that you're just going to look for any excuse not to do.
- [23:46]
B
What is your prospecting activity of choice? What are you recommending?
- [23:49]
C
Social media. Social media. Yeah, it is. I mean, I think it's the fastest, best, most effective. I mean, it's 2026. Like, if you're not on social media, you are way behind. And. And what people get wrong in real estate, in particular about social media, is they post a few times or maybe they're. Maybe they're consistent. They're posting for six months or a year and they're doing a really good job. But what they have this expectation of is that somebody's going to send them a message and be like, hey, Travis, I saw your post. I would love for you to buy, you know, to sell me a house. And it's a stranger from the Internet, right?
- [24:26]
B
Yeah. I saw your just listed picture on your Instagram and I want to buy that house.
- [24:30]
C
Right, okay. No, it's not going to happen. I mean, there are ways that you can create content that attracts new followers that you can bring into a funnel that you can nurture in a, over a long period of time that you can convert into sales 100%. We do it all the time. But what people forget about, that's even better than that. And more important than that is that you are staying top of mind with all the people who already know, like, and trust you. And so if, Travis, you and I are big buddies and you call me and you ask me to sell your home for you and your wife, you're not going to say Lacy. And the reason I chose you is because I've been watching you post for the last six months.
- [25:12]
B
Right?
- [25:12]
C
You're not going to say that to me, but I'm in your head, living rent free because I'm showing up all the time. And so you are choosing me because of that. It's just not this, like, overt thing. And so people get really down when they aren't seeing randoms from the Internet beg them to sell their house, but they're forgetting that they're actually staying top of mind for the people that matter. And their business is growing because of it, even if it's not. If it's not something they can really, like, see and feel every day.
- [25:43]
B
Every post you make is like putting your face on a billboard in your local community. You know what I mean? It's just that the difference is that billboard never has a chance of reaching 10 million people.
- [25:54]
C
Right.
- [25:55]
B
Like, that's the beautiful thing about social is like, you can post and post and post and post, and if you have whatever, you know, following that you have, you get an average of 500 views a video. And you're telling yourself, like, this isn't, this isn't worth it, that I, you know, I'm taking too much time to do this. It's like, well, people spend a ton of money to buy billboard ad space in your area that will never get more traffic than it on average is going to get based on the population of that area, the traffic that drives by that billboard. Yet they still spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on billboard space. And you're sitting there wondering if the zero dollars a month that you're putting on social media content is worth it when one of those posts could a hundred x the total viewership of that one billboard that somebody paid 12 grand to be on. It doesn't make any sense. Now, from a social media perspective, though, on your front for prospecting specifically, is it, is it posting content? Is it cold dming people in your area? What do you, what are you finding? Like, when you're coaching your real estate clients is the most effective.
- [26:55]
C
So it's about, to me, it's about posting. But remember, it's not called posting media, it's called social media.
- [27:00]
B
Yeah.
- [27:01]
C
So while posting consistently is important, what's even more important is that you are being social. So I'll tell you one of my absolute favorite hacks for getting real engagement with followers on socials, and that is that when you go into your account and you can, you can click on any person and you'll see the button that you would push to follow someone. Well, if you tap that button again, it allows you to add them to your favorites. Okay, so let's say I'm going to go follow you on socials. I'm going to add you to my favorites. What that does is that tells the algorithm I want to see every one of Travis's posts. So whenever you post, I'm going to see it because I'm training the algorithm that you're important to me. Now, why is that good? Because since I'm seeing your posts, I have the opportunity to comment on your posts, to like your posts, to notice when your kid graduates from college and starts looking for, you know, you and your wife are starting to look to downsize or whatever the case may be, it allows me to get a bird's eye view into your world. And so what I would recommend you do is go in and take your top 50 clients, the people who've referred you the most business, the people who've done as many deals with. With you over the course of the years, and make sure that you are favoriting them for yourself so that then whenever they're creating content, you go engage with them, and then it creates the dialogue and it trains the algorithm. Okay. Travis isn't just important to Lacy, but Lacy is also important to Travis. And so Travis is now going to see even more of my content. And so you can really train the algorithm to put you in front of the people that you want to be in front of. And so, you know, you might get a post that gets. That gets a thousand views, let's say, which isn't a huge number, obviously, but if you think about the fact, you think about how many people a thousand people is. It's a ton of people.
- [28:58]
B
Sure is.
- [28:59]
C
It's a ton of people. But we get so down on ourselves.
- [29:02]
B
You never. You would never turn down that speaking gig. You know what I'm saying? Like, somebody offers, like, even if you have to fly across the country, take four days away from your family, stay in a hotel, do all the trap, like, all the stuff, you're gonna go speak at that gig in front of a thousand people, but you're balking at doing it.
- [29:19]
C
Open house.
- [29:20]
B
Yeah. Right. Right, Exactly. But you can do this, like, sitting in your spare bedroom with, like, nothing but, like, you can do it with a shirt and tie on top and boxers on the bottom and just. And film. You can put it out there right now. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And you can do that. I. I don't know. It just. It doesn't. It doesn't makes sense to me why. Why people are so opposed to it.
- [29:41]
C
Well, you know what it is, is what I found. It's comparison.
- [29:45]
B
Yeah.
- [29:45]
C
It's that we look at ourselves, and it doesn't matter who you are, and it doesn't matter if you're old or you're young or you're new or you're a veteran. You look at other people and you think that that person is posting something that's cooler or better than you. Because we are all our worst critic, and we let our perception, you know, our insides compared to somebody else's outside keep us stuck. And that's. That's the biggest thing that I think is holding so many people back from making the kind of money that they want is just frankly comparing themselves to other people. And so one of the other things I tell my clients to do is go unfollow go. You don't even have to. You don't even have to unfollow them. Just mute them.
- [30:26]
B
Mute them.
- [30:27]
C
People that are in your office that make you feel less than the people that you're telling yourself a story that they've got it figured out and you don't, you're never going to be as successful as they are and they're prettier and they're whatever, go, just go mute them. You don't need to. You don't need to see that. You don't need to see anybody that makes you feel bad about yourself.
- [30:46]
B
That's right. Yep. You just gotta let go. Let go and start doing something and be cringy.
- [30:52]
C
Just go, yeah, exactly.
- [30:55]
B
Embrace. Embrace cringy even, you know, like that's. I had Evan Carmichael tell me this a few years back. He's a big entrepreneurial YouTuber and he was just like, expect to suck and it's okay. You know what I'm saying? Like, okay, you've never put out content before and you're gonna feel silly doing this trending audio dance or you're gonna feel silly doing this direct to camera talking thing or capitalizing on this big trend that you're seeing. Who cares? And by the way, if you feel, if this is something that's generally holding you back, start a new account from scratch that nobody that you know actually follows you on right now. Now, you know, if you're that worried about it, my. Now my initial gut is just to say, get over it and start posting. But if you're that worried about it, fine. Your existing followers, your friends and family, your local community, all that stuff, they don't even have to see any of it. Just start a brand new account, Real Estate with Lacy, Real Estate with Travis, whatever, and start posting it there. Then if you are so concerned with what other people are going to be thinking about you, but you're going to find through the practice of doing it, it's like, first of all, you're going to suck. And it's going to take some time to get better at it, but ultimately it's going to just be a part of your normal milieu. And then once you get some results from it, then it's like, then it's like, you know, getting a taste of cocaine. You know, it's like you're going to be a customer for quite some time because it's just like, oh, I put something out there for free and it made me a $18,000 commission. Like, that's a pretty Good return on time investment there. Not to mention it helped build my brand. Not to mention it helped put me in touch with these people who I never thought were going to give me the time of day. There's just so many other reasons to continue doing it. And you've sort of mastered this on another level too, Lacy. And you got the TV show and stuff. How did that come about and have you found that process?
- [32:37]
C
Well, you know what's funny is I had never done any on camera social media content at all until I started hosting American Dream tv. I got this opportunity and I have no idea what inside me was like, I can do that, been on camera, on. I'd never even picked up my phone and talked in a story before. This was three, four years ago. And I said yes to this opportunity. And then once I started doing that, I was like, well, it's no big deal to pick up my phone and talk to the camera. Now if I can show up on TV and be streamed on the Internet, I can certainly post something silly on my Instagram. And so it really, I use that as a tool not only to help make connections in my community. I mean, this TV show is incredible. It's all about the people and the places and the stories that make our cities and our neighborhoods really awesome places to live. And so I got to connect with a bunch of great people. I got to share the neighborhoods and the parts of the city that I absolutely loved. And I got to create content that wasn't. Hey, I'm Laci, the real estate agent. Come follow me and let me sell your house. I got to start creating content about. I'm going to, you know, interview the CEO of Thistle Farms, which is a wonderful philanthropy. And I got to go behind the scenes and take a tour where these survivors of trafficking were now making candles and bath and body products and creating a living wage and coming up in the world, like, I got to do things that. That really, really mattered. And so I started to see myself as more than a real estate agent and really more of an ambassador of our community. And then when you. Again, it's another thing to just step out of that transactional mindset of sell a house, put the money in my account. Sell a house, put the money in my account. But, like, think bigger.
- [34:26]
B
Yeah, no, I love that. Especially for real estate agents in particular, I think that it's really useful to start thinking through what are the other interests that you have. Because. Because in. In the real estate world, in any industry where there's a really low barrier to Entry and a really high potential return for people who do it. Well, there's going to be a high volume of people doing that thing. So. Which is why you're probably inevitably, even if you're good at what you do, you're going to lose business to this person's aunt who got their license six months ago. And they just want to make sure that they support a family member. Like you're going to lose business, people like that. So the point is not necessarily, like you said, to display real estate expertise. It's more just to be top of mind and to portray potential commonalities between you and the clients that you're seeking. So if you're a real estate agent, that's what I see people get wrong all the time, is that they do the just listed, they do the just solds. It's like nobody cares that you just sold a property. No, nobody cares. Like they don't even really understand how the real estate space works because they're not in the space. So they don't, they don't care how many days on market. You know what I'm saying? That it took for you to sell this property, but you're probably wildly undervaluing some of the things that you do in your spare time. Whether it's spending time with your kids or being at the kids basketball game or, or you like to golf, okay, Create some golf content, you like to cook, create some cooking content, you like to eat out. Do some restaurant reviews for your local, like local, you know, community that becomes like a guide to people who are visiting from out of town and they want to know what restaurants like. Just create stuff that is meaning and important to you that would, that would give a, a potential prospect or client. This just like commonality point that they can look at that, that just makes them go like, oh, you know, you know, we're. Now that we're actually getting ready to sell our home or now that we're actually getting ready to buy a home, you know who would be interesting is that, you know, I follow that, that, that dude who does all the golfing videos, but he's a real estate agent, we should go talk to him. You know what I'm saying? Like you, there's so many ways to stay top of mind and does not have to be this boring ass, you know, just listed, just sold playbook that most agents are running all the time just because they want to check off the box that they posted something. Exactly. Posting something's probably better than posting nothing. But please, for love of God, Stop with the just solds and the just listeds. Just do something that you care about and you're going to find some other people who care about that as well. And eventually those people are also going to need the services that you offer.
- [36:45]
C
Exactly. I couldn't, I could not have said it better. It's, it's. People do business with people that they like and that they see commonalities with. And if you're. Yeah, I mean, no, nobody cares. I mean, we have to, we have to market our properties on social media. So we're gonna have to post those just listed to kind of check the box for our sellers. But that's not what's bringing in business. So I mean, I would Recommend Doing like 4 posts that are either entertaining or educational or show your values or show who you are behind the scenes. For every one just listed or just sold that you post.
- [37:16]
B
What do you think about? Again, I've thought about this a lot just because I've come from this industry and I see so many people who are just leaving money on the table. I feel I, from just social media podcaster perspective, what do you feel about like this idea of niching down, at least from an audience facing perspective that, you know, I, instead of saying like, I'm real estate agent, anybody and everybody who wants to buy a house or list a house, come to me type of a thing versus being like, hey, if you're a entrepreneur, if you're a small business owner, I serve you. If you're a single mom, I serve you. If you are, you know what I'm saying, Like getting really narrow and specific with the people who you do genuinely find that you work the best with.
- [37:57]
C
Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, one of the best examples that I've got is I've got a couple great clients of mine who are, who are agents specializing on working with physicians families. They are both wives of physicians and they have based their entire business on helping physicians families. And they've lost. I got one who's launched a podcast that is behind the white coat and she interviews other wives of physicians talking about what it's like to be a family member of a physician. And they are killing it. And it's so perfect. And you know, are you, is there, there's never a world that you're going to be like, oh, well, you know, Amanda sells houses to physicians and so since I am a financial planner.
- [38:44]
B
Exactly.
- [38:44]
C
Not going to use Amanda, you know.
- [38:46]
B
Yeah, they're not going to like, like not use you because you called out.
- [38:49]
C
A certain avatar it's ludicrous, but it makes you so much more referable when everybody knows what your specialty is, because then everyone, you know, has their radar out. And the minute they hear a physician's moving to town, they're going to be like, you. They're not going to be like, oh, yeah, I know an agent, or, hey, here's five agents.
- [39:07]
B
They're gonna, my sister just got licensed.
- [39:09]
C
Amanda. They're gonna be like, you have to use Amanda. And that is a completely different energy from a referral standpoint. And so, yeah, I absolutely suggest getting as niche as you can. And then what's really cool, and I've seen this over and over with the agents that I coach, is they really start to fill their roster of clients with ideal clients. And then the real power move, the thing that makes me really excited that I'm seeing over and over again with them now, is once they get really clear about not only the demographics and psychographics of the types of people, the geography that they want to serve, but the types. Types of people they want to work with, where they're like, I want somebody that listens to what I say, that values my expertise, that isn't going to waste my time, that respects my boundaries, treats me as a professional. And then they get to the point that when somebody is out of line, they will fire a client. And there is no bigger, better power move as an agent than saying no thank you to business. And that's when you know you have made it, is when you look at somebody that's misaligned and you say, hey, thanks, but no thanks.
- [40:18]
B
That's right.
- [40:18]
C
That's it. That's the. That's the winning. The winning position.
- [40:22]
B
No better feeling than to love a toxic client. That is. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The customer is not always right. People. Hate to break it to you, Lacy, this has been awesome. I feel like we've covered a lot of stuff here. Where can people go to get more from you?
- [40:35]
C
Just come find me on Instagram. That's where I am. Hit me up in the dms. Go. Follow me. It's aligned with. With Lacy.
- [40:42]
B
Aligned with Lacy. That's L, A, C, E, Y. Aligned with Lacy over on Instagram. I just gave her a follow in the middle of this interview, so you should do the same thing. Shoot her dm. Tell her you heard her about her here on the show. Lacy, thanks so much for taking the time. Everybody else listening. Remember, money only solves your money problems, but it's easier to solve the rest of your problems. But you got money in the bank. So let's solve that one first here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you guys next time. Peace.