Latest / Know Like Trust for Real Estate / He's Anti-Personal Brand. I'm Not. Here's What Happened With Marc Davison of 1000Watt

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He's Anti-Personal Brand. I'm Not. Here's What Happened With Marc Davison of 1000Watt · Know Like Trust for Real Estate

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole reason to create a brand is because nobody likes anybody else's business.
0:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I love Apple.
0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I have 16 different Apple products right on my desk here.
0:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like the Apple Corp.
0:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like anything about Apple business.
0:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But I love the brand.
0:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a facade.
0:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a halo.
0:16
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a projection.
0:17
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a thing that businesses put over itself to distract people from focusing on the business.
0:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what is that facade made of?
0:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It's made of ingredients that get me to see myself inside of it.
0:30
[SPEAKER_00]: When you build a personal brand, it's all about you.
0:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't see me in it.
0:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey everyone, welcome to the NoLikeTrust for Real Estate podcast, where I help you craft branding and marketing strategies that align with your strengths.
0:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Christine George and agents who work with me grow their business on average by 40% by aligning their marketing with who they are, not what they sell.
0:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Today, I am super like crazy excited for you to meet Marc Davison.
0:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Marc Davison is the co-founder and creative director for 1000W, which is a branding and marketing firm for real estate.
1:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Aside from his 40 plus years building brands across a variety of industries,
1:12
[SPEAKER_01]: He's very, very curious and he is not afraid to ask the really hard questions that get at the heart of what a brand stands for and what it's all about.
1:22
[SPEAKER_01]: He has certainly challenged me over the years and it can be really tough when you get some really hard questions that you really haven't heard thought through.
1:30
[SPEAKER_01]: He's just amazing and I have the greatest respect for him.
1:34
[SPEAKER_01]: He's an incredible marketer and very well known in the industry and I'm so excited for you to meet him today.
1:42
[UNKNOWN]: You
1:55
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't know what, they know they want something called branding, but they don't quite know what it is.
2:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we start delivering work and they're looking at it and they're like, but that's not what they're used to.
2:08
[SPEAKER_00]: They're expecting something they call branding, which is not.
2:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this morning, after building out this whole foundation for what this brand is about.
2:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And that includes, you know, like,
2:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Creating the persona for the brand and the voice and the tone and all the characteristics and traits.
2:26
[SPEAKER_00]: which they don't know how to use, they had asked if I could just take some of the word copy from the deck and show them how to use some of the words on a home page.
2:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And I started doing that and I realized like, no, what they really need, because they're rebranding, they're leaving a team, they're leaving a brokerage, taking a whole team with them and renaming the team,
2:51
[SPEAKER_00]: and repositioning the team.
2:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is a true brand, like rebrand.
2:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So this website needs to have us, like it needs to activate.
3:00
[SPEAKER_00]: What the branding is and that actually be what the brand is.
3:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So I showed them something this morning that had them kind of flipping out in one way because they never, they never pieced it together.
3:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that a website could actually activate a brand.
3:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, get your zestimid find out what you're in all the tricks of a website.
3:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you see the light turn on, like as it did for these folks.
3:27
[SPEAKER_00]: they started going, oh, wow, then can we do this with this thing over here or can we do this and like, like, yes, that's what you supposed to do.
3:38
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that's a real branding.
3:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And just so to see that light turn on and to see them like actually put it together and now know what to do makes me feel confident that they're going to succeed with this.
3:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's, you know, I get that get a ton of joy out of that.
3:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I do too.
3:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I do too.
3:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I find that my biggest biggest why is helping them clear through the noise because they don't.
4:00
[SPEAKER_01]: They just don't know how to stop being like everybody else.
4:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And they don't understand how to tell their own story.
4:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually have a great question for you.
4:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know what, we're going to start.
4:10
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to go back.
4:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It's your show.
4:14
[SPEAKER_00]: What everyone to do.
4:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let's start at the end and then go to the beginning.
4:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to start at the end?
4:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
4:22
[SPEAKER_01]: What do we do that?
4:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's flip it on his head.
4:26
[SPEAKER_00]: What's your last question?
4:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, so we're going to start with a rapid fire.
4:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
4:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You ready?
4:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
4:32
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
4:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
4:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I think early bird or night owl.
4:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Night owl.
4:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But I become an early bird.
4:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Huh?
4:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I used to be the, I wake up at 11 p.m. and I'm up to three, four in the morning and I'm a musician.
4:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So like I have things to do, I can sit and record.
4:51
[SPEAKER_00]: But now I go to bed, I'm falling asleep at 8.39 and I'm waking up at four and I'm rare and I go.
4:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So just natural like aging and biologies taken over.
5:00
[SPEAKER_00]: How's that work with Lori?
5:02
[SPEAKER_00]: She loves it because she's always been like an early go to bed and yeah, I would we go to bed.
5:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I kiss her good night and five seconds later she'd be sleeping and then I crawl off to the studio at the recording studio here.
5:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't do it anymore.
5:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like I fall asleep with her.
5:20
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what you're supposed to do when you married.
5:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, and you know as you get older it happens
5:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Coffee.
5:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Book your recommend most often.
5:33
[SPEAKER_00]: A book I recommend most often.
5:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, given the nature of my work, the 22 essential laws of branding.
5:40
[SPEAKER_00]: That and the here and the outlaw, the two sides of the branding coin, I read books, but I don't, I'm more of a music guy.
5:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't really have books that stand out as being things I recommend.
5:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel?
5:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I say neither?
5:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Neither, although I admire both of them.
6:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You're in New York, guys, so.
6:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, I mean, child of the, you know, born in 56, I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.
6:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I needed a guitar that day, after that next day.
6:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I...
6:15
[SPEAKER_00]: God introduced to the grateful dead early on, and I got very lucky to end up getting to know them playing music with them.
6:28
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, through like connections, friends, my best friend became their booking agent.
6:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So I got to meet them by going to shows and letting that to another.
6:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Late 70s, I saw the New York Dolls at Max's Kansas City, and I got musically, I understood what punk rock music was starting to become.
6:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And that became a band I put together, and we ended up with a record deal.
6:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I was into the clash, big time, super important group.
6:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of the 80s stuff, but like Billy Joel, to me, they were corporate rock.
6:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And although Bruce's first album was amazing, that first record was incredible.
7:04
[SPEAKER_00]: But after that, it just became very formulaic for me.
7:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't like it.
7:08
[SPEAKER_01]: A brand-new admirer outside of real estate.
7:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Defined admirer.
7:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, do I admire them for the brand work that they do or are like dogs?
7:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Well.
7:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me one of each as a brand marketing person yourself, who do you admire, and then as a consumer, who do you admire?
7:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Volvo, I admire Volvo.
7:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Volvo is a brand that represents one thing, and that is the one thing everybody buys the brand for.
7:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And while they never really say the one thing, if I said Volvo,
7:43
[SPEAKER_00]: What word would you, you know, what, what do you, but word of so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-
8:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So I admire them because they represent an ideal and everything that they do supports that ideal.
8:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Their cars aren't sexy, they're not fast, they're not this, they're safe.
8:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's they've never chased anybody else.
8:17
[SPEAKER_00]: For some things, yeah, I think I'm brand loyal to sneakers.
8:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
8:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I've long been a salkanee and converse all star ever.
8:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Converse is always young salkaniques because they're comfortable and they're about running.
8:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And they again, I admire their focus on running.
8:38
[SPEAKER_00]: They are the shoe for runners.
8:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, like, it's very stiff and I love gravel.
8:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the gravel brand is awesome.
8:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I have every gravel product.
8:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Maiden is a really cool brand.
8:51
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
8:52
[SPEAKER_00]: It they're called made in.
8:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I like the way that yes, yes, yes.
8:57
[SPEAKER_01]: They advertise it and work and it's like that, yes.
8:59
[SPEAKER_00]: But their pants are even made in France or made in Italy, like the home.
9:03
[SPEAKER_00]: The way they turn made in, which is not a great name, but they've made it a great name because they tie it to story.
9:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
9:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I admire that.
9:11
[SPEAKER_01]: A trait you value most in people.
9:14
[SPEAKER_00]: People listen.
9:15
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people talk.
9:17
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, listen very well.
9:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's better to be a good listener than a good talker.
9:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I agree with you.
9:23
[SPEAKER_00]: To be engaged, I remember my grandfather.
9:27
[SPEAKER_00]: was a man of notoriety.
9:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And whenever I would meet people who tell me about my grandfather, I would say when you would talk to your grandfather, you felt like you were the only person in the room.
9:38
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always sticking to my head, like even when I'm in an event, you know when you're talking to somebody at an event, their eyes are roving around and somebody will come up and say, oh excuse me, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I will always say, but you are interrupting, I'm talking to her.
9:53
[SPEAKER_00]: because my grandfather was like that.
9:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to, that's an ideal I admire.
9:57
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm with you, I'm with you.
9:58
[SPEAKER_00]: That's your my focus.
10:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, we succeed that way, but like I admire that in people who make me feel like they're listening to me.
10:06
[SPEAKER_00]: If you could make somebody feel like that, you elevate.
10:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
10:10
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, always use this example Christine, but like give her, like go into a store, a bank, or whatever.
10:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's somebody ahead of you, and they open the door, and then they don't hold it open for you.
10:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you would immediately think that person's, whatever, you know, an S. But the other person who holds a door open actually lets you win ahead of them?
10:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
10:33
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know anything about them, but you don't need to know anything about them.
10:36
[SPEAKER_00]: You only have a sense.
10:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know everything you need to know and that person made you feel special and and I think brands should do that.
10:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I think businesses should do that.
10:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think real estate goes enough for that, but I think that that is a trade.
10:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I admire what energizes you this sunshine.
10:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, life.
10:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
10:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know that vitamin D burns cholesterol?
11:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so like that's the whole science of it.
11:08
[SPEAKER_00]: You get sun, the sunshine burns your cholesterol and turns it into, the sun is not pouring vitamin D into your body.
11:17
[SPEAKER_00]: It's converting your cholesterol into vitamin D. You know, after 13 years of living in rainy Portland, Oregon, and it's they
11:29
[SPEAKER_00]: to energizes me.
11:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, being with people I love, like that energizes me.
11:36
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, my wife, you just met her, like spending more and more time with her.
11:39
[SPEAKER_00]: That's energizing.
11:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you can relate to this.
11:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You get hired for work, and you do work, and you deliver work.
11:47
[SPEAKER_00]: When that work works, and the client uses it, and it works for them, and that's energy.
11:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
11:54
[SPEAKER_00]: They got what they paid for.
11:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, they paid for something.
11:57
[SPEAKER_00]: There's now no regret.
11:59
[SPEAKER_00]: They're seeing ROI.
12:01
[SPEAKER_00]: That's very energizing.
12:03
[SPEAKER_01]: What's a trait you struggle with yourself?
12:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what that is.
12:06
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you?
12:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Good trait.
12:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I guess I should, you know, sometimes when you know you're right.
12:14
[SPEAKER_00]: and you know everybody around you doesn't have it right.
12:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I got fine, it's getting easier for me, but it used to really, really get to me that I just can't get through the noise and write the wrong.
12:27
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some people in real estate who just have amazing, and in life, in the world, that it's have amazing charisma and can sell anything to anybody, whether it's good or bad.
12:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have that.
12:40
[SPEAKER_00]: and something that I want that, but sometimes I wish I did have that, just so I can get people to understand, you're not getting it right.
12:49
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what you should do and you are going to be fine and I make, I get nothing out of it other than to see you succeed, but it used to really bother me that they are that I'm not getting through.
12:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And why do you think that is you?
13:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I find you to be like a very articulate and we know each other.
13:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, like we flip we're flipping this interview right now.
13:08
[SPEAKER_01]: We're we're going from the end to the beginning Yeah, you are that person like you look at things from different angles.
13:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think people just can't Wrap their head around that?
13:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, because of what you just said see I don't look at things from different angles What I see is the angle everybody should be seeing because it's like science.
13:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It's real like you take my Craft of branding everybody goes well.
13:32
[SPEAKER_00]: You so outside the box
13:34
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm not.
13:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in the box of global branding and marketing techniques.
13:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Real estate is outside the box.
13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just trying to get everybody to realize that I'm not the one that's different.
13:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to get you to stop being so different and do something right.
13:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's frustrating because look, when was the last?
13:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not ragging on anybody, but like in mind, doesn't have me on stage.
13:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not on stage at leading the arena.
14:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody's asking me to talk to the audience.
14:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that like, I can prompt not that I want to talk to audiences, I actually don't like speaking.
14:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just went through a whole thing in thousand water earlier, but all the stage time that I don't want to have at our single event, why isn't what I'm saying more popular, not just from me but from other people.
14:19
[SPEAKER_00]: the point is the trait, I should just let it go.
14:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't let it go.
14:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll just keep on keeping on, keeping on, keep on, bringing it up and
14:29
[SPEAKER_00]: beaten the drum.
14:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that it's not unpopular.
14:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's just you have a totally different perspective from the million real estate agents who are out there doing what they're doing every day and they just don't they don't haven't lived in your world.
14:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I shouldn't let it go like, but I want to save everybody.
14:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, don't want you to let it go.
14:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's where the trade backfires.
14:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I was last week.
14:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I was at an event speaking and I was with my wife So like we had planned on doing something later that afternoon after I spoke my session ended at 330 I'm still in the session room at 530
15:06
[SPEAKER_00]: with people who have a lot of questions and I am not going to stop into the last person's question because at least there were some people there who wanted to know more and I had and so like you know it's I guess that's a good thing too but like you know not knowing when to stop not knowing what to call it not knowing when like where my dividing line is of like now it's my wife and the room waiting for me I should get up there so I lose track of that sometimes
15:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Well that's your creative brain.
15:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's part that's the the trade off to of having a creative brain right there's always a a trade off to whatever your strength is it can also be you know the the other side of it but trains you
15:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Zoom, nothing else, but Zoom, staring.
15:51
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one thing when you're live.
15:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's different when you're with somebody.
15:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not looking through a screen.
15:57
[SPEAKER_00]: The light from the screen, I have glasses that I wear sometimes to help protect some of the blue light.
16:03
[SPEAKER_00]: But I find that draining.
16:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you can relate to this too.
16:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Delivering work that you know is bright.
16:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It's exactly what the client wants and there's somebody on the team that's just struggling because they don't get it.
16:15
[SPEAKER_00]: You've been through that, right?
16:17
[SPEAKER_00]: and
16:19
[SPEAKER_00]: like you're just trying to educate and educate and they're just nitpicking and annoying.
16:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, but that word, that word's too negative.
16:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, no, it's not negative.
16:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's truth.
16:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's patterned to rock.
16:32
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something you say that has real emotion to it.
16:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I find that draining.
16:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, I don't second guess my doctor.
16:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't second guess my lawyer.
16:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even second guess my age.
16:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Why you?
16:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is everybody second guessing this stuff?
16:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I feel like, and I don't mean any disrespect to our clients out there, but I definitely feel like everybody feels like they're a brand, a branding expert, or a marketing expert.
17:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, all of a sudden, they have a cousin, they took a marketing class or a graphic design class.
17:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
17:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So, okay.
17:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I took a real estate class.
17:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I know?
17:08
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
17:09
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
17:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything about real estate.
17:17
[SPEAKER_00]: that has done a great service for the people who sell this, but it's not done a great service to the people who buy into it.
17:27
[SPEAKER_01]: What's something people often misunderstand about you?
17:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that I'm a one trick pony.
17:34
[SPEAKER_00]: If you look at the history of my conversation to real estate, it's been about one topic on one topic only.
17:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you'll never see me write a blog about compass and anywhere and listings and AR like, do I have opinions or I know about that stuff?
17:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm well read, it's just a believer in consistency.
17:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So like,
17:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I write about one thing.
17:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I talk about one thing.
17:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the one thing I do.
17:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what you know me for.
17:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to be all over the map.
18:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's branding.
18:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, yes, exactly.
18:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I am the way Volvo is about safety.
18:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I am about brand and marketing.
18:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's all I talk about.
18:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had people say, you know, I'd love to have you come out and speak.
18:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you do anything else rather than, I go, no, that's what I talk about.
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I can talk about other things.
18:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I can talk about SEO.
18:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I can talk about AI.
18:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to.
18:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
18:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not that guy.
18:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not that person.
18:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
18:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I do hear time to time that I come across, this is what I've heard, that I come across as a little bit.
18:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not part of the game.
18:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't go to conferences.
18:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't socially network.
18:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't really post on social media.
18:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't follow.
18:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So, people sometimes might think I'm a little standoffish.
18:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've heard that.
18:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, you know what?
18:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really good one-on-one, man.
18:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not a social media guy.
18:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not.
18:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like going to events.
18:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't drink.
19:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't stay out late.
19:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't put myself in any kind of situation.
19:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something that's always going in the back of my head.
19:06
[SPEAKER_00]: There's always going to be images that are going to be posted online and I just don't want to ever show up in any kind of situation where I have to explain myself to anybody.
19:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I go to an event, I either go to dinner quietly with Brian and then I go to my room and that's I don't socialize.
19:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think sometimes people think I'm not friendly.
19:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you have that New York essence about you too, and I think sometimes people don't always, they feel like it's abrasive.
19:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying you're abrasive, but I don't agree for that to that.
19:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
19:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I've tried to temper that in my life.
19:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't hear that in New York accent.
19:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like you used to have more of a heavy accent.
19:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I never really had that, I think that it's in there.
19:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I get a little bit like overpassionate about something, it'll come out a little bit more.
19:55
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm around New Yorkers, so we have a client right now who's a New York brand.
20:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever I'm on with them with in 10 minutes, I sound like them.
20:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It just naturally happens.
20:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, I grew up in New York City.
20:10
[SPEAKER_00]: My road subway is to school.
20:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I had to fight for every single thing in my life as every other New Yorker had.
20:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, like you get to the point, people will get to truth for me.
20:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've tried over the years to package it better.
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, it wouldn't be you, Mark.
20:28
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
20:28
[SPEAKER_01]: What is your brand in three words?
20:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have a brand.
20:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yes you do.
20:33
[SPEAKER_00]: No I don't.
20:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And that could be a great topic for conversation, but I am anti-personal brand.
20:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Or I have a whole, I don't, yes, I, you know, I have an opinion about that, but no, I'm just me, I'm just me and we're going to park the anti personal brand for a second because I am like so pro personal brand.
20:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Hold on, we're going to park that.
20:58
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to come back to that.
20:59
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you refuse to compromise on my opinion about personal brand?
21:07
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, when do you feel most proud of your work?
21:10
[SPEAKER_00]: context, I no longer do the work.
21:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I influence the work.
21:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Insofar as my company is big enough, we have creative teams and they do the work.
21:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I will contribute to the work, I will direct some of it, I will not direct some of it, I will tweak a word, maybe I'll write a thing, but like I'm part of a team.
21:29
[SPEAKER_00]: When I feel that everybody gave it everything they got.
21:33
[SPEAKER_00]: there was no compromise.
21:35
[SPEAKER_00]: They dialed it in.
21:36
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when I'm so proud because then I saw the they got to do the best that they can do.
21:42
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know it's tricky because great work belongs to great clients.
21:47
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're a great client, you're going to get great work because everybody wants to perform for you.
21:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And your hard client, the team just feels beaten.
21:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's hard to get that out of them, and that's a challenge too to override that, but like a most proud one, we deliver the best that we could have done and the client sees it.
22:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's, you know, an in-work in business, that's my answer for that.
22:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And my last rapid fire, if someone described you after meeting you just once, what would you hope that they would say?
22:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I was so surprised that he's Jewish.
22:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, well, what was the question again?
22:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, if someone were to describe you after meeting you just once, what would you hope that they say?
22:34
[SPEAKER_01]: They'd say.
22:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he's a good listener.
22:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it goes back to the treat you admire most.
22:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
22:41
[SPEAKER_01]: We are talking to Mark Davison, he is the co-founder of 1000W and in true fashion, the entire interview script has been blown up, we started from the end and we're coming back towards the beginning and now everything's really going to be broken up because we totally disagree on something very fundamental, which is personal brand.
23:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want you to start and tell me why you're so opposed to personal brand.
23:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And this actually connects perfectly to what we've been talking about, because clarity in your business isn't just about marketing, it's about what's happening behind the scenes too.
23:16
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're a solopreneur, you know how this goes.
23:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Receipts everywhere, expenses for gotten, and then tax season shows up, and, well, it's just not fun, right?
23:24
[SPEAKER_01]: That's exactly why we built BeKeeper AI.
23:27
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23:35
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23:40
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23:42
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23:47
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23:51
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23:55
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24:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll see you there.
24:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a manufactured concept.
24:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't exist prior to, I've tried to trace it back in time, and here's what I got.
24:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Back in the 1970s and 1980s, agents were, I don't know if you were in the business then, but agents were part-time.
24:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a big boy, but ages were par timers, it wasn't a career and you worked for broker.
24:34
[SPEAKER_00]: The broker was the entity in the marketplace, and people contacted the broker, or maybe they knew they knew whatever, Deborah is on the PTA, and I'm on the PTA, and she sells real estate.
24:47
[SPEAKER_00]: But Deborah didn't have listings, Deborah didn't have souls, she didn't have a portfolio, it all belonged to the broker, Deborah was a salesperson.
24:55
[SPEAKER_00]: She sold real estate, and the broker, their job is to promote Deborah.
25:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So the broker took out double truck ads in the newspaper or took out ads and said, age you know the month Debra and had Debra's headshot since Debra didn't really have anything.
25:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the only way to really promote Debra was Debra wore red hats.
25:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Debra has a dog, Debra can talk on a phone, Debra's on the PTA.
25:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Deborah does this, Deborah does that sell her personality, because everybody has a personality, and that's what you did in the absence of having a career, a profession, process, a belief, a philosophy, a client experience map, you know, all the stuff, right?
25:52
[SPEAKER_00]: that thing that every agent wanted, which is like me, put me holding my phone, posing with my dog, and they called it personal branding, and that's where it happened.
26:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now, all the Debra is in real estate who had nothing else, but there are pepsid and smile in their puppy, could have these little personal brands.
26:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Today,
26:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Every real true you know and every real true I know have a book of business.
26:20
[SPEAKER_00]: They're running a business.
26:22
[SPEAKER_00]: They have an enterprise.
26:24
[SPEAKER_00]: They have listings.
26:25
[SPEAKER_00]: They have clients.
26:26
[SPEAKER_00]: They have reviews.
26:27
[SPEAKER_00]: They have everything that you can possibly ever want to build a brand.
26:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And to stay stuck in the, oh, look, look, this is me on my phone personal brand stuff building it around your person you're sitting on a on a explosive vault of good stuff that you can build a brand on you don't need to build it around yourself build it around all the things that you created and make it a brand brand.
26:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll just tack on this other thing.
26:59
[SPEAKER_00]: When you build it around yourself, then it's all about you.
27:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And that would be like Volvo building a brand around its founder.
27:07
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole reason to create a brand is because nobody likes anybody else's business.
27:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I love Apple.
27:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I have 16 different Apple products.
27:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know my desk here.
27:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like the Apple Corp.
27:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like their business practices.
27:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like how they charge.
27:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like anything about Apple business.
27:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But I love the brand.
27:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So what is that?
27:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a facade.
27:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a halo.
27:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a projection.
27:32
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a thing that businesses put over itself to distract people from focusing on the business.
27:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Because nobody likes anybody's business.
27:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what is that facade made of?
27:44
[SPEAKER_00]: It's made of ingredients that get me to see myself inside of it.
27:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do people buy Volvo because they, I self identify as people who care about safety?
27:56
[SPEAKER_00]: When you build a personal brand, it's all about you.
27:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't see me in it.
28:00
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no facade.
28:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just about you when you're a business.
28:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't love you or your business.
28:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
28:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that the, you can build a personal brand, but you're just doing what Deborah did 40 years ago.
28:14
[SPEAKER_00]: You're leaving all the other good stuff that could become part of the story that would take it outside of you as the person.
28:21
[SPEAKER_00]: That's my take on it.
28:23
[SPEAKER_01]: your perspective, I think is very purist and I appreciate that and I actually wrote down a quote from one of your blog articles that I think goes along with what you're saying.
28:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You said authenticity has become styled and manufactured through fabricated personas and influencers style content created to win business from people making one of the largest financial decisions of their lives.
28:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I remember writing that came out of my keyboard and it was like, uh, that was articulate.
28:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you're talking about authenticity, right?
28:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, and how it's an overused, it is.
28:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a buzzword.
28:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It's overused.
28:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I think what I hear you saying is authenticity is you standing with your phone, is you with your dog, right?
29:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It's this whole persona of Deborah.
29:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's fake because the Deborah doesn't walk around all day long on her phone.
29:10
[SPEAKER_00]: 100%.
29:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Deborah is a real person in real life doing real things.
29:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Show me that I want that head shot.
29:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's what that's, and that is why I believe a personal brand.
29:23
[SPEAKER_01]: is viable and important to our industry because they don't need, they don't need the brokerages anymore.
29:33
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't even need the independent brokerages anymore.
29:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we even got on and started recording, we were talking about teams.
29:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You're in particular working with a
29:47
[SPEAKER_01]: and as am I right now actually now that I think of it and so they don't need the what the broker juice to give them and we it you and I both know because we we're living in it brokerages are dying to find something that's going to create stickiness for agents to stay.
30:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So here's where I come in with a personal brand right like I believe that your values
30:16
[SPEAKER_01]: are so much of what your brand is about.
30:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you think about, okay, Deborah, right?
30:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Who's a real estate agent?
30:24
[SPEAKER_01]: What does she value?
30:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Who does she want to work with?
30:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And how does she want to work?
30:29
[SPEAKER_01]: No different than you and I, don't want to take on clients that don't align with our belief systems, right?
30:35
[SPEAKER_01]: The agent shouldn't be doing that either.
30:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, I agree with her.
30:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
30:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I do agree with that, but that's not I am a purist.
30:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that one of my maybe my stubborn, my negative, my negative trade is I've just been.
30:54
[SPEAKER_00]: completely stubborn about getting off that purism because that was this was drummed into me from my early days at Y&R in New York.
31:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Brand is something bigger than the person.
31:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Brand would be if Amazon was called Bezos Books and the whole thing was about Jeff Bezos.
31:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Jeff Bezos' values.
31:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the problem.
31:16
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a despicable human being.
31:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you build a brand around yourself, you are counting on you being so magnanimous, so awesome, so amazing, that you could actually build something that people want to but think about who, who in the world has ever been able to really accomplish that?
31:38
[SPEAKER_00]: You know the bank whole play?
31:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Chris Martin leads singer, an amazing songwriter, an amazing singer, an amazing performer, what's his personal brand.
31:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Even he doesn't have one right when I ask agents when they talk about their I go what what your brand They don't even know they have no answer.
31:57
[SPEAKER_00]: They go.
31:57
[SPEAKER_00]: It's me.
31:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
31:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I go.
31:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you're you're you're a person You're a human being you're not a brand.
32:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not buying you.
32:05
[SPEAKER_00]: There aren't people lining up to pay extra money If you're a brand, okay, brands are worth more money, right?
32:12
[SPEAKER_00]: You buy a branded item you're paying for the brand
32:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know agents that out there are getting 10% or 20% and this really extends up into the luxury agents.
32:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a luxury agent.
32:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so you must charge 20% for your services.
32:26
[SPEAKER_00]: No, actually, I charged less than most agents.
32:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So I said, well, that, well, it's you luxury.
32:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I know when I buy something luxurious, I'm paying a lot of money for it.
32:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm not because my wife won't let me buy it.
32:38
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like that stupid.
32:39
[SPEAKER_00]: You could get it the same thing for cheaper without the brand name.
32:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think what you're talking about is building profile.
32:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It's building personal profile.
32:51
[SPEAKER_00]: The word brand to me,
32:53
[SPEAKER_00]: is the word we use to describe the entity that you build up and around you that distracts me from the business you're in and connects me to something bigger than just you.
33:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's that's technically, look, the books that I recommended earlier, you read the books, you realize, like, I mean, that's the reason.
33:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
33:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
33:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you, you are, you create archetypes and you create personas, like values are important, reputations important, visibility is important,
33:24
[SPEAKER_00]: all they are is values reputation and visibility if they're not built into a strategy that projects something bigger than you so i'll give you an example is a woman in in Scottsdale
33:38
[SPEAKER_00]: she's like my age.
33:39
[SPEAKER_00]: She has a business that's booming a real estate business and she's got social media that would make any one of your listeners envious over her engagement.
33:51
[SPEAKER_00]: She gets stops in the street and people ask for her autograph.
33:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not her name.
33:56
[SPEAKER_00]: The brand is SW55+, she built a brand, the brand represents people who are 55 and all they're looking to live in 55 and all their communities, and the brand is all about so when you go to her brand, you don't see her, you see you, you see pictures of you.
34:15
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, like minded people, people you can self identify with playing tickleball and doing all the things that people my age should be doing that I don't do.
34:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not that client for her.
34:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I said to her, I'm just so surprised that you didn't, because nobody cares about me.
34:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I die, this thing will die with me.
34:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I branded it.
34:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I can put this in any market, in any place
34:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, a personal brand has no stamina.
34:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't scale it.
34:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Christine, you know what I mean?
34:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Agent, teen leads, I get teen leads, economy going, I need to change the name of my brand from Christine George team to something because agents can't build their own thing within my thing.
35:05
[SPEAKER_00]: because it's name and name and name.
35:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, yeah.
35:09
[SPEAKER_00]: These personal brands are running into scaling issues as they grow.
35:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
35:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think what you and I agree with is like, you can build a very strong profile around an individual.
35:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I just call it quits one we start using the word brand.
35:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I, yes, yes.
35:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I think though with this, with this, yes, with this example you gave with the SW55 plus.
35:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I would disagree, unless she's got like a huge team of people and nobody's working with her.
35:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I would disagree.
35:39
[SPEAKER_02]: She does.
35:40
[SPEAKER_01]: She does.
35:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
35:41
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're a solo agent though, people do care about you because they want to make sure you're going to give them the best service.
35:47
[SPEAKER_00]: 100%.
35:48
[SPEAKER_00]: But still build a brand.
35:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Build a brand.
35:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't be it.
35:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I give you really want to take pride.
35:55
[SPEAKER_00]: You own a brand.
35:57
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't need to be the brand.
35:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody in real estate's Beyonce.
36:01
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a Elizabeth Taylor's, it's just a bunch of real estate agents that, you know, it's real estate agents.
36:08
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea that you're going to build a brand when celebrities don't even like, so, you know, I get people say, well, what about surhan?
36:15
[SPEAKER_00]: That guy built a brand around surhan, so we can still have your name.
36:21
[SPEAKER_00]: He owns a brand.
36:23
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not the brand.
36:24
[SPEAKER_00]: He was when he was solo, but he's figured out how to make it bigger than him.
36:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not saying you don't have to, you can name it your name, but just get out of your own way.
36:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't make it about you.
36:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Make it about the clientele.
36:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Make it about your belief system.
36:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And now you got something way more valuable.
36:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I think we're saying the same thing just I'm wrapping the world word brand around it and you're saying absolutely it's not because you're more of a purist than I am.
36:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're smarter than me because more people want personal brand than what I'm selling what I'm selling people go oh, but I want personal I want you to build it around me is like, that's not interesting.
37:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You know it's talking to that guy to wreak.
37:08
[SPEAKER_00]: You know to.
37:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
37:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
37:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, he's on TV, you know him, Joanna, whatever, and you know, from, you know, they've built, well, she's got Magnolia.
37:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So she built a brand around herself, which is like, that's smarter.
37:27
[SPEAKER_00]: She's 10 times more success.
37:29
[SPEAKER_00]: You look at Joanna gains success versus Tariq.
37:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Rick is stuck in the personal brand done to Rick.
37:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Joanna owns Magnolia.
37:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Magnolia owns a farm.
37:39
[SPEAKER_00]: They own an FA.
37:40
[SPEAKER_00]: They own a silo like yes.
37:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I go go big, man.
37:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And it can still be you.
37:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You know the best of both for us.
37:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
37:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
37:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And they really just depends on what your goals are, right?
37:52
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're a, you know, a $20 million agent and you don't care about scaling beyond, like, like, sur-handed, that's a different, that's a different story.
38:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's a different goal.
38:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a different client, it's a different goal, and what I would say to that client is, if you build it around you, again, goes back to this.
38:13
[SPEAKER_00]: If you build this all around you before, your storytelling is all about you.
38:16
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's what you sold and what you listed and what you think and you're the face of everything,
38:22
[SPEAKER_00]: then what you stand for, what you believe, what you're about, the big payoff of working free with you is not evident and what you lose and you all lose this is the client that hired some other agent that you go, that client should have been my client and the things they didn't know that because you're so busy telling everybody how great you are and what you sold, you're not telling them the story they want to hear about themselves in their journey.
38:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's yes.
38:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I hear you saying two things there.
38:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm totally against pounding your chest, telling them how much money you made, what your GCI was, how many transactions you did.
39:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's really important data for your back end business.
39:03
[SPEAKER_01]: But nobody cares how many houses you sold.
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the strangest industry that goes out there.
39:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And
39:11
[SPEAKER_01]: beats that drum.
39:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's so weird.
39:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think consumers think, hey, you don't need my business, you're making too much money or be, you don't have time for me.
39:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the message consumers get when they hear that.
39:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But the other thing you mentioned, and I actually did want to talk to you about this was the customer journey, because I do believe when you're building a personal brand, it doesn't need to be about what the customer experience is.
39:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And in one of your other blogs,
39:38
[SPEAKER_01]: the customer journey and what the website purpose is as it relates to the customer journey.
39:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And you actually, you had these great personas in that.
39:51
[SPEAKER_01]: blog posts, talk a little bit about that, what the customer journey really is and how you should be building your brand around that.
39:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And then tell me talk specifically about the website because actually we started talking about that in the beginning of this too.
40:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you ever went to like at home, it's a, you know, a store that the big department store that sells home furnishing.
40:14
[SPEAKER_00]: You go to at home and from the minute you walk in there,
40:20
[SPEAKER_00]: within two seconds you're already confused.
40:22
[SPEAKER_00]: You have no idea where to go.
40:23
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some chairs over there.
40:25
[SPEAKER_00]: This chair is over here.
40:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where anything is.
40:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And so begins your customer journey inside that department store of confusion.
40:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a result, you miss out
40:38
[SPEAKER_00]: because you've got to find the thing you went there for.
40:40
[SPEAKER_00]: You're so busy trying to find that you're missing things along the way.
40:44
[SPEAKER_00]: What I key a figured out is that if you make the journey through our store, so much easier and simpler, people are going to really enjoy their experience here and end up buying more the customer journey and the science of it, which is mapping the customer journey.
40:58
[SPEAKER_00]: is something that if you are calling yourself a brand and you're not doing this, then we are not, you're not a brand.
41:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You are missing out on the thing that makes you a brand, which is understanding the moments where customers fall off a cliff.
41:14
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no industry, more right for that kind of work than real estate, because there's just so many, there's so many pain points.
41:28
[SPEAKER_00]: agents are aware of the pain points, and they not only allow consumers to enter those pain points, they invite them into those pain points.
41:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to do it.
41:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
41:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
41:42
[SPEAKER_00]: A sharp example.
41:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
41:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You get a just sold postcard in the mail.
41:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And it says this home that's five houses away from yours sold for $950,000.
41:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Your first thought is, shit, my home is worth $5,950,000.
42:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna, I'm thinking of selling.
42:02
[SPEAKER_00]: The Asian get your call.
42:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So they succeeded in getting the phone call.
42:08
[SPEAKER_00]: and what they've just invited themselves into is the holacious conversation they need to have with you as to why your home is not worth $950,000.
42:16
[SPEAKER_00]: They just invited Missouri, and they invited Missouri by marketing the thing no one cares about.
42:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care what you sold it for because they'll find out.
42:27
[SPEAKER_00]: What people want to know, and I ask this, what do you think the neighbors really want to know?
42:34
[SPEAKER_00]: How did it sell on five days?
42:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Why did it take nine months?
42:38
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you do to sell it?
42:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody tells that story.
42:42
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the customer journey.
42:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So as a result of, and I got to the very end of the journey, which I guess a pattern of always starting at the end.
42:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But like, there's an example of like, you've missed out on the whole journey that a seller has and how they start perceiving.
43:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you get a seller, who tells you what they think your house is worth, and you don't look at yourself as possibly even being part of the reason why they think it's worth more because of all the just souls that they've been getting from you.
43:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Real estate sets people up to be in a bad situation and it begins I think people don't even know when the buyer journey starts.
43:27
[SPEAKER_00]: They have no clue because they don't study it and then they're not aware.
43:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So I usually have this handy but I brought it to an event.
43:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have it on my desk.
43:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent 2024 mapping the entire customer journey for buyers and sellers.
43:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I stopped at a hundred pain points for buyers and a hundred pain points for sellers.
43:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Moments went a buyer reseller as entered into that moment to pain and I run teams through these exercises of pick one of these moments out of the hundred.
44:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I select that moment, understand it, figure out how you can solve it in when.
44:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can,
44:10
[SPEAKER_00]: obliterated from the journey like why would a client need to go through a pain point okay here's an example
44:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a lot of buyer agents, agents working with buyers, and you sign them up for a listing alert, the listing alert takes the buyer to an MLS page.
44:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You can go to an MLS page and look at listings.
44:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's horrific.
44:32
[SPEAKER_00]: It's horrific.
44:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So you as an agent just sent me into a horrific experience when I have zero that I could look at with no mention of like, so what do you do?
44:47
[SPEAKER_00]: what a brand does, is it solves it, it eliminates it, it improves the experience.
44:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe you can't change a listening alert, but you could send an email to the client and say, hey, look, I'm about to do this to you.
45:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna send you into the 1900s websites, circa any design.
45:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to do that because the MLS actually has best data of all, but here are also the links to the properties on Zoho.
45:19
[SPEAKER_00]: On my broker site, or yeah.
45:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I altered the experience so that the person getting the email goes, you know what, she thought about me.
45:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, when you're a person and brand and all you're thinking about is yourself, you're not allowing for the moment where you are thinking about others.
45:37
[SPEAKER_00]: There's empathy that is missing from real estate and this happens hundreds of times during a journey.
45:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
45:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's behind the scenes.
45:46
[SPEAKER_00]: There are things going on like, oh, I'm Christina.
45:50
[SPEAKER_00]: We're about to make an offer.
45:52
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to now get your mortgage locked in.
45:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, to get you qualified for mortgage, you're going to be like, what are you talking about?
45:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I just, I pre-qualified two months ago.
46:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, actually, that was nothing.
46:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, that meant absolutely nothing.
46:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So now you need to gather all this paperwork 24 hours before you need it.
46:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, another, you're lobbying anxiety at the wrong time, wrong place.
46:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
46:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So what two questions follow up questions.
46:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do you think this particular business that we're in is riddled with all of that?
46:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the industry has not allowed itself to grow up from Deborah the sales lady who sold real estate in the 1980s to Deborah the brand, who's running a business running an enterprise, who's an entrepreneur, who needs to think about customer service.
46:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there are, again, look, we're all innocent.
46:51
[SPEAKER_00]: We're all, we're all innocent.
46:53
[SPEAKER_00]: We come into an industry.
46:55
[SPEAKER_00]: It's complicated, we get trained.
46:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Broker's throw was right into training, and from day one, we're trained to not do these things.
47:02
[SPEAKER_00]: We get trained to do all the things that don't really help us build.
47:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And everyone's in a while, you will get, you know, and there's tens of thousands of these superstar agents who have figured out how to build strong businesses and solve for these problems.
47:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
47:21
[SPEAKER_00]: There are agents who have figured out how to not only eliminate pain.
47:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is some who have figured out moments when there's happiness and they do things even in those moments who accelerated into ecstasy.
47:34
[SPEAKER_00]: They are operating at a level of brand branding that I would say that's luxury.
47:39
[SPEAKER_00]: You can make somebody.
47:40
[SPEAKER_01]: That's probably like 1% though, Mark, you know.
47:44
[SPEAKER_00]: It should be more than that, but like that.
47:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, look, not everybody in real estate comes into this industry with all the available aptitude and depth to make it the most that they could make it.
47:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody, we all have bars.
47:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
48:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And but like we're not elevating.
48:03
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
48:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You seem to think about this, you and I, we blog and we write and we podcast about branding and marketing.
48:10
[SPEAKER_00]: These are important things.
48:11
[SPEAKER_00]: But we don't get the same audience as these knuckleheads who are out there pontificating about listings about NAR, about Compass and anywhere, and about lawsuits.
48:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Like,
48:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, these things are important, but like none of us can control any of it.
48:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all out of our control.
48:28
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, they grab our ears and our eyes and they hijack our brains and we get fixated on things that we have no control over.
48:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes.
48:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Our industry has a magical ability to like side-swide people's attention and not focus them on what they really need to be focused on to the strongest business.
48:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
48:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's so many, you know, shiny objects out there, too.
48:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I think, you know, not to just the tech space, but, you know, the tech space in particular seems to always flash, you know, new shiny objects for, you know, these entrepreneurs to, you know, be distracted all the time.
49:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I also think, you know, that the barrier to entry.
49:12
[SPEAKER_01]: is that the foundation of what the major issues are, I mean, there needs to be a much higher barrier to entry for people to get into this profession, because it is... A thousand percent.
49:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Trading the people's largest asset, I mean it's so critically important.
49:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I will never argue that I support that a hundred percent, it should not be
49:39
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when I think about the responsibility that I carry with a client, it pales in comparison to the responsibility in Asian ass with a client and to get into this profession, I not only had to like put in years of academic knowledge, I had to like get mentored and apprentice and work my ass off for no money for a long time, like my first job, I got paid
50:08
[SPEAKER_00]: and learn nothing I wrote ever got used because my job wasn't to write better copy than the senior copywriter.
50:19
[SPEAKER_00]: My job was to learn how to live within the pecking order of an agency.
50:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of my copy have been written used.
50:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, like I thought it was good, but like I had to pay my dues.
50:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Real estate agents, you know.
50:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, a hundred percent.
50:35
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you're in it, if you can get in, if you get easy entrance into it, you know, maybe there's a positive side to that.
50:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, what a wonderful industry that, you know, anybody can come and work in it, but then where's the training?
50:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Where's the apprenticeship?
50:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Where's the, you, you will not sell a home to a single consumer for two years until you buy yourself.
50:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, like again, back to my, my nagging point, things that I don't like go, you could be an agent and within two weeks have a website, have a profile and look as branded as every other agent in the marketplace.
51:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I think this puts the pressure on the season of agents to step up and do something that
51:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Joe Blow first time is can't do, I don't think this industry, I don't believe the real estate industry gives a shit about the consumer.
51:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the only people who are going to have to give it a shit about the consumer is the agent who represents their buyer seller.
51:42
[SPEAKER_00]: The industry
51:44
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, annual dues.
51:45
[SPEAKER_00]: All MLS's care about it is data and dues, burgers they just care about market share.
51:50
[SPEAKER_00]: The agent, the agent, they're the most important, you know, it fumes me, these freaking lists that get created of the most influential, the most powerful, where are the agents on that list?
52:02
[SPEAKER_00]: They're the ones who make all the money that this industry lives off of.
52:06
[SPEAKER_00]: They're the ones who touch every deal.
52:08
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't see them on the power, ever anything where the most influential or the
52:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the industry's got it all backward.
52:16
[SPEAKER_00]: It's why I'm hard on against, but it's why I also invest all of my energy into writing for them and working on their projects.
52:24
[SPEAKER_01]: They are where the biggest opportunity is for sure.
52:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel the same way you do.
52:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I love working with agents, because I just feel, you know, especially the ones that aren't part of bigger teams where they are doing everything.
52:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love when their eyes get wide when they're like, oh, I mean, I don't have to be doing five million marketing pieces.
52:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I can just break it down to these three because this is where I'm focused.
52:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And these are the people I'm trying to talk to, and this is the value that I bring.
52:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
52:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, wow.
52:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that just takes a lot of pressure off of me.
52:58
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I mean, I just love them.
53:01
[SPEAKER_00]: they're getting truth from you, you know, like I read you.
53:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I have followed you, I see a work.
53:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I know you say you're building personal brand.
53:11
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are, but like the work you do is actually in my book elevated, it's higher than that.
53:17
[SPEAKER_00]: They look like brands, they sound like brands.
53:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're right, they don't need to do them.
53:22
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't need to make reels every day.
53:23
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't need to flood social media with content all day long.
53:27
[SPEAKER_00]: They should be selling real estate
53:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So the website, like, what you saw me do is what you saw me do.
53:40
[SPEAKER_00]: is really just take a little excerpt of the customer journey, which is we know that people are using AI to get a lot of information about real estate, and we know that people are asking AI to recommend agents.
53:53
[SPEAKER_00]: What we know is that AI goes to certain sources to get information and doesn't go to others.
53:59
[SPEAKER_00]: AI is not looking at TikTok videos.
54:02
[SPEAKER_00]: AI is not looking even at Instagram videos.
54:05
[SPEAKER_00]: AI looks at Reddit.
54:06
[SPEAKER_00]: AI looks at YouTube.
54:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and more and more, you're going to see the rise of Gemini is going to become ever more prominent, because it's baked into Google, people's habits are still very much on Google, even though they use a lot of chat, GPT, but like when you ask an AI to recommend three agents who can help me sell my home in my zip code in my neck and the woods,
54:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to get better and better and better recommending agents who operate in those zip codes.
54:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So what you saw me do in that blog post is extract out, I did an AI search, I asked AI to recommend three agents in my zip code.
54:45
[SPEAKER_00]: It then gave me a list of three agents.
54:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, okay, if somebody clicks on that link on that first link,
54:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to assume understanding their journey that they've already been searching for listings.
55:00
[SPEAKER_00]: They likely have information.
55:02
[SPEAKER_00]: What they need to know is that I'm right for them.
55:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So what you saw me do is create a web, a homepage with just a hero message, that basically says, hi, I'm Bridget.
55:14
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're a first time buyer looking to buy homes in Tanka Verde, I know this area better than,
55:20
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm that consumer, I'm done looking.
55:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
55:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I've landed exactly you have just read my mind.
55:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You have made this all about me.
55:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is so powerful to tie that together.
55:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to do.
55:34
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's not hard to do.
55:37
[SPEAKER_00]: If anybody's listening to this, just ask Christina to help you do that.
55:42
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, but like, yeah, it's not that hard to do.
55:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You just, this is the work we do, it's science, you're mapping information and putting it together to create a journey that when that nobody gets a hitch in the middle of it.
55:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I did mention this off camera before we started.
56:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So going back to starting at the back and going to the front, which is how I read magazines anyways, by the way.
56:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do you do?
56:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
56:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I had the back.
56:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Me too.
56:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Always do.
56:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a great respect for Mark.
56:16
[SPEAKER_01]: We've known each other quite a few years now.
56:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I just love the way your brain works.
56:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I love.
56:21
[SPEAKER_01]: how you challenge the industry.
56:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I love how you teach us to be better marketers, how you teach us to be focused on the consumer.
56:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that we have the same hair.
56:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And my God, we might be related.
56:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll finish this by, I'm gonna ask, how do people gonna touch with you, Mark?
56:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm easy, Mark M-A-R-C at 1,000-1.NET, I respond to everybody.
56:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You do.
56:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I do.
56:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You do.
56:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God.
56:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And do you remember, like a month back, we had this thing going with Sherry Pisa?
57:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you were texting me from New York in the middle of the night.
57:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
57:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I had no idea.
57:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, she was like, oh my God, you and Mark know each other.
57:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you?
57:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
57:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You were out at a show that was fun.
57:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway.
57:15
[SPEAKER_00]: As much as I tried to escape people during COVID, you know, grew up in cities, I was a city guy, I used to threshold COVID and I had to move a number of mode.
57:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm way out, I'm surrounded by cactus and coyotes.
57:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do get off on interaction with people and dialoguing and meaning people.
57:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't go to events, but, you know, email?
57:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
57:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
57:43
[SPEAKER_01]: If you respond very quickly, right?
57:46
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it doesn't important to me.
57:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're, we're, we're a brand agency.
57:51
[SPEAKER_00]: To hire us, it's expensive.
57:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you, every client that comes here, we put five people on a team.
57:58
[SPEAKER_00]: We, we may not be a, a solution.
58:00
[SPEAKER_00]: you're probably a better solution, you are a better solution, and your work is really impeccable.
58:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't say that often.
58:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I usually am a critic of everybody's work.
58:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember when you were talking to me about possibly doing this?
58:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought, well, like, how good you're designer?
58:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, are you going to do logos?
58:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And now it was all high and mighty on the design.
58:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
58:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Email me.
58:32
[SPEAKER_00]: They should see.
58:32
[SPEAKER_00]: See you on it.
58:33
[SPEAKER_00]: We should, you know, together.
58:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Help them.
58:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
58:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
58:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We'd love to do that.
58:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to just stay in touch.
58:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is just also goes to show.
58:41
[SPEAKER_01]: We can do similar work and still get in a room and collaborate and have a great respect.
58:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, my God.
58:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a huge fan of other agencies.
58:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Anybody that does good work.
58:51
[SPEAKER_00]: is on a fan.
58:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I will do is we haven't a free newsletter.
58:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll send you a QR code.
58:57
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we have like a 70% open rate, but it's also a mountain of work to put that together every week.
59:04
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got some good people to Jessica's.
59:06
[SPEAKER_01]: She does great work.
59:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Great writing.
59:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I love her stuff.
59:08
[SPEAKER_00]: It does great writing.
59:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian does great writing.
59:10
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a design team that contributes.
59:14
[SPEAKER_00]: We put a lot of effort into it and the open rate shows.
59:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's free.
59:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like it's called the dose and it's a dose of inspiration.
59:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're sharing what
59:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Things that inspire us.
59:26
[SPEAKER_00]: See, two, three minutes, scan, and we don't really get two in the weeds of real estate.
59:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll give you a QR code to people want to snap it and sign up.
59:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It's free, like, uh.
59:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
59:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds good.
59:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Mark, thanks for being here.
59:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been awesome.
59:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Should I hang on or like, how do you want to end it?
59:42
[SPEAKER_00]: We just say goodbye, man.
59:44
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll say goodbye here and then we'll hang on.
59:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Goodbye here.
59:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Goodbye here.
59:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But thanks so much for listening.
59:53
[SPEAKER_01]: If you loved our conversation, I would love it if you would click that follow button if you're listening to us on your favorite podcast and if you're watching us on YouTube, make sure to click the subscribe button so you never miss another episode.
1:00:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're interested in our Sunbeam newsletter, go to postenbeamcreative.com and sign up.
1:00:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Christine George and you're listening to No Like Trust for Real Estate.