Latest / Massive Agent Podcast / Should Realtors Cut Costs or Double Down?

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Should Realtors Cut Costs or Double Down? · Massive Agent Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: On this episode, I'm going to help you figure out if you should be cutting costs right now or if you should be doubling down and spending more and going all in on your marketing.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, sometimes the answer is yes and no.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: It just depends on what we're talking about.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to help you get into the nuances of the whole deal and decide for yourself now.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: The Massive Agent Podcast with lead generation tips and strategies to give you more leads and sell more homes.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love to buy houses.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I like to sell houses.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: It takes brass balls to sell it.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Wait a minute.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Leads a week.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: I've had better.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Have I got your attention now?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Here's your host, Dustin Brome.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is up, everybody?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to episode 238 of the Massive Agent Podcast.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Dustin Brome, and today I'm here in my new studio.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Air quotes, uh here in this temporary house before I move into the house we bought, hopefully in about a month.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: But uh for the next few weeks, this is the studio.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're watching on YouTube, you're like, whoa, different spot.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, different spot.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're making the making the best of what we can of the situation.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually not even that bad.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So all good.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the show, guys.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Today, should you cut costs or should you double down?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: I get asked this question way too much.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Way too much to continue not doing a podcast about it because the answer depends on the situation.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: It depends on you.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It depends on a lot of things, okay?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: You're hearing a lot of, you know, um just blanket statements made that uh aren't really taking into account your personal situation, where, hey, a recession's coming, we're already in a recession, you know, it shit could get really bad, shit could hit the fan, so you need to start cutting costs.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, that makes sense, right?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: But what if you're cutting the wrong costs?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: What if it's not really a cost?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: What if you're cutting an investment that's working and paying dividends, and then when you cut it, your business just absolutely falls apart.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want that to happen.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So today we're gonna talk about how to decide whether or not you should cut costs or double down.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll get into that.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you are new to the show, welcome.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Dustin Brohm, your host.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an agent in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I have um I don't know what I was gonna say there.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I have.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I have something.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have something to tell you, so I'm gonna continue.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have no idea.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: But welcome to the show, guys.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is a show for real estate agents and loan officers who want to be more profitable, who want to build a true legit business that they can step away from, agents and loan officers that want to build leverage and all the while having their income increase while having their lifestyle increase as well.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: If that's for you, if that's speaking your language, you're in the right place.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let's jump into it.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so I believe we are currently in a recession already.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: We won't know until the uh the quarterly uh inflation numbers come out.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sorry, not inflation numbers, but the um what the hell do you call them?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Where the GDP numbers, where we know if the economy as a whole, the American economy, is it increasing, is it decreasing?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if we get one more quarter of decreased economic growth, then that's officially by definition a recession.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: I believe we're already in that.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why I say I believe is we only know looking backwards.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're probably already there because of what inflation's done.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's great, you know, inflation's crazy.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: It came out this morning at 9.1% year over year, which is even more than the last one at 8.6.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And inflation is not slowing down.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So they're gonna have to raise the shit out of interest rates.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna have to raise the federal funds rate dramatically to get this inflation going the other direction, to start going down.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: So buckle up, all right?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, because of all of this, it has a lot of agents freaked out, thinking that, oh my gosh, I need to keep my powder dry.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, if you've been hearing that lately, that you need to keep your powder dry, I would challenge that a little bit.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you should, but also you need to get ready to spend or rather to use that powder, okay, to spend that money that you're keeping dry, that you're that you're keeping safe.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: But doing it intelligently is what matters.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: In look, over the last shit, ever since I got into the business, the market has been going up and up and up.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I got into the business right after the Great Recession.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: 20 2011 is when I got into the business, and the market had gotten stronger and home values have gotten higher every single year since then.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've been in real estate for less than 10 years, you you have no concept of what's about to happen.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, a recession happening is new to you.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Totally cool.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: The majority of the industry is new for.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: But we think that uh we need to start cutting expenses.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, okay, I need to be conservative, need to, you know, great.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Over the last 10 years, everyone's just been spending money and and because their business has been increasing, they're even if you're selling the same number of homes every year, when the average price per sale, the average home value is going up, you're making more money every year.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: So agents are used to just not well, a lot of agents are used to just willy-nilly frivolously spending money on shit to see what sticks.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when when there's the potential for a recession and markets to get harder, you can't do that anymore.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have the luxury of just spending money on everything to see what sticks.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be more smart, you have to be more thoughtful and more intentional about where you spend those dollars.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, look, that is not a bad thing.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care which market you're in, what the economic conditions are, that's smart and prudent in all markets, in all economic environments, isn't it?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So consider this a great opportunity to get your shit in check and to really be more thoughtful about how you're spending your marketing dollars.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: What because I see a lot of agents that spend a bunch of money on stuff that isn't really paying off, and but they're like, oh, well, we're making money, it's all good in the end because we're growing.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what if you stop growing?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then what?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now look, I think the market is actually getting better, it's more balanced, it's better for it's better for buyers, uh, sellers maybe not quite as good for, but considering that sellers were having the easiest time selling and the hardest time buying, a more balanced market is also good for sellers.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: If they can sell at still very high prices, they're not getting 20 offers that maybe get one or two and takes a little longer, but then they can buy a house a hell of a lot easier.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going into a great market, and as long as you're filling your pipeline and following up with your pipeline, I think you're gonna be probably better off.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing yes, when economic times are getting crazier, prices are going up for everything, right?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hence the inflation numbers at 9.1%, ridiculous.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be smarter about where you spend your money.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the first step is to audit what's working and what isn't working.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, where is the majority of your business coming from?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you're spending$1,000 a month on Facebook ads and you've been doing that for a year and a half, and then you only have one or two closings, if that coming from it, is that really worth it?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or could that thousand dollars a month be better put into a content editor?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody to create and edit videos for you, a social media manager, maybe um go to a podcast studio that literally is turnkey, so all you do is show up, record, and they do everything else, and now you have a podcast?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, is that thousand dollars under Facebook ads really getting you the return that it should get?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're gonna have to answer that for yourself, but you need to critically ask the question.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be critical of every marketing dollar that you spend.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's working and what isn't for you?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Where does the majority of your business come from?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not sure, where did the last five deals come from?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Where did the last 10 deals come from?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Literally go back and look at all those clients, where did they come from?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: This one came from Google reviews, this one was a referral, this one was Facebook, this one was the social media, whatever, and just start to add that shit up.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: When you notice the trends, there you go.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: You need to do more of the things that are already working.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you find out that your social media content is crushing and you're getting a ton of referrals from your social media videos, you should probably figure out how to do a hell of a lot more and to get a hell of a lot more people to see them.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe the Facebook ads you're running trying to get seller leads for downloading a seller guide that's costing you$5 a lead.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you take some of that or all of that and put it over here to get your content seen by more people, which is a hell of a lot more cost effective when you're running ads.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: The cost per lead, leads is a much more expensive result.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to get leads from Facebook or Instagram ads, it costs a lot more versus getting someone to view a video.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can get a video view for you know a tenth of a penny.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: So reallocating where your money is spent makes a lot of sense too.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: You guys know that I'm not I'm not a huge Grant Cardone fan.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um I actually respect him a lot more now than I did a year or two two years or three years ago, mainly because I watched Undercover Billionaire with my wife.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: We watched uh was that on dis I think it was on Discovery.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: We watched Undercover Billionaire the season that he was he was on there when he was sent to Pueblo, Colorado, and he he was given a cell phone and a hundred dollars, and he had to make a million dollars within 90 days, I believe it was.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I will not spoil, I will not give a spoiler on how that ended, but uh just seeing a personal side of him um helped me respect him a lot more, even though he's still annoying with a lot of the shit he does.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: But regardless, I digress.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, the reason I'm bringing up Grant Cardone is he wrote a book called The 10x Rule.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I highly recommend if you find Grant Cardone annoying, maybe don't get the audio book, but read the book, okay?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I did the audio, um, and I believe it's one of the best books ever.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's one of the best guidebooks for what we should be doing ever, because back in the Great Recession, no one, well, very few people knew who Grant Cardone was.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Not like today, where he's a household name like Gary Vaynerchuk and whoever else.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's because during the Great Recession, while everyone else was sitting on the sidelines holding back, they were keeping their powder dry, they were not spending their marketing dollars so that they could be conservative.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: He went the other direction and he started spending more and more and more and more.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: First off, when you do that, you have less competition.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you're competing against fewer people in the ad marketplace.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you're you're gonna get cheaper results when you're running ads, and and there's just more people seeing your stuff.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: So over time, Grant was doubling down, tripling down.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: It he he was 10xing his marketing spend, and boom, after a few years, everyone sees him literally everywhere.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And now he's this household name and has been for many years, and now he's built a multi-billion dollar real estate portfolio.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, card owned capital, his all this stuff, right?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: He built that because when everyone else was pulling back, he leaned in.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you can't just do that and think, okay, well, I'm just gonna double my spend on everything.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: No, you need to double or triple your spend on the stuff that's working.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So is that your content?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: If so, how can you get more of it done?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: How can you increase the quality and how can you increase the quantity?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And how can you just get more people to see it?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Put your money behind that.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you're if you're doing a bunch of mailers and you know, paying someone to go knock doors and leave door hangers and all that stuff, and that doesn't really pay off, and you're like, well, it's branding.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: I get it, I'm all for branding.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: But what if you took those dollars and could get cheaper results on social media?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: What if by starting a podcast you got uh much better known in the community, much more credibility, all of that?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be so thoughtful.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So this is really simple, guys.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: You have to audit what's working and what isn't, and then be comfortable and be willing to pull the plug on the stuff that isn't working, knowing that it doesn't have to be forever.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: This doesn't have to be permanent.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you pull the plug on something and you're like, oh, I I hate that I have to stop doing that thing, well, do it for a month, three months, whatever.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're like, okay, I really need to get back to doing that thing, then get back to doing that thing.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, there's an opportunity right now because agents are freaking out about inflation, about interest rates, about the economy, about a recession.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And there's such a big opportunity for you to lean in while they're sitting down and be seen more often for a lot less money, for a lot less effort.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, me personally, I've noticed that the content I do on social drives everything else.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm doing more content, I'm trying to figure out how to make it better, do it more often in more places.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm and so I'm putting marketing dollars into hiring a marketing guy, hiring uh an editor that does all my reels and TikToks.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I have an editor that does my podcast, like I'm I'm trying to outsource as much as possible so I can do more.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I'm spending my money.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: If that's not you, if if all of your business is coming from referrals, then you need to figure out how to get seen by the seen more often by the people who are referring you, and then doing client appreciation events, you know, community events, stuff where you can be generating more referrals.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you're getting referral business, where are the referrals coming from?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening to cause those referrals to happen?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: By having this awareness of what's going on, it's going to make you absolutely formidable.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, other agents don't have a fucking clue.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: But if you actually are thoughtful and think the shit through and know what's happening in your business, what's working, what isn't, and then putting more of your marketing dollars into what is working and pulling it away from and out of stuff that isn't working, you can absolutely dominate.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can absolutely take over.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're all worried about this recession and all worried about interest rates and all this stuff, you're just looking at it wrong.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Most average agents are going to get hurt and they're going to lose business.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of them have already quit the business.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: I heard this insane stat from the Phoenix area that they've already lost like 50,000 agents in the first half of this year or something like that.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: If that's incorrect, correct me, let me know.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I I heard that the other day.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't fact check it, but uh it's just some ungodly amount of agents have already left the business.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: They've already become inactive in the first half of this year in the Phoenix area.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine what's happening nationwide.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: That means your comp your competition is getting less and less.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a bad thing?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a great agent and you that's not really something to complain about.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're average and you're sitting back waiting for shit to fall into your lap, you have a problem.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Those who are aggressive, who are proactive, who are willing to put their marketing dollars into things that work and willing to double or triple or quadruple that marketing the marketing spend, those people will crush it.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Those will be the next mega agents in your market.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: You could be one of them.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: You could absolutely be one of them.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: But time will tell, won't it?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I challenge you, as simple as it sounds, take the time, whether that's five minutes or an hour and a half, really dive into what's working in your business and ask all the critical questions.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: What's working, what isn't?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you stop doing this, what would happen?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you do more of this, what will happen?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can do that, if if you're willing to do this exercise at all, I promise you you're gonna win.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: But it's those of you that hear this and you're like, that's a great idea, Dustin.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I absolutely need to do that.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then a month from now you still haven't done it.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Two months from now, still haven't done it, and forgot you ever said you would.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: You are the ones that are not gonna see much growth.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: You are the ones who are at risk.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Not the doers.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Doers and action takers kick ass.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: They just do.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And those that don't take action, those that second guess and dilly-dally and wait for shit to happen to them, guess what?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: It never does.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, it actually does.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not it's just not good stuff.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of stuff happens to them, just not good.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Just not positive, just not the shit that they want to happen.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: So please execute.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that you really should be doing is looking at the systems, all the platforms you have subscriptions to, all the shit you're paying for.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've done this recently and I'm like, okay, I don't really need that, don't really need that.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not reducing, like I'm not uh cannibalizing the stuff that I needed to grow, but I'm I'm looking at the frivolous stuff.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's a you should be cutting costs on the frivolous things.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you guys are paying way too much money for a shitty CRM, some of you guys um aren't paying enough money for a shitty CRM.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um but the systems you have in place really matter.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can get so much more out of a CRM, uh having systems in place, drip campaigns, task lists, action plans, you know, texting and video through um, sorry, video through texting, all that stuff, that is worth spending some time to implement and to make sure you have the right platform.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I highly recommend that you do what all the big agents, teams, brokerages are already using.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're using follow-up boss.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're all using follow-up boss already.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, not a hundred percent of them, but the vast majority.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, success leaves clues.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: So let's take that, let's take their hint.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: All you need to do to try out follow up boss is go to massive agentpodcast.com slash follow up boss, and they will give you, because you listen to the show, not just a 14-day free trial, which you'd get if you go to their website, they're gonna give you a 30-day free trial.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna give you a full frickin' month to test out the platform.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: A month is a lot of time to plug some transactions in there, to get some drip campaigns going, get some follow-up with leads going on there, to find out if that is going to help you build, build the right foundation for growth.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: For a lot of agents, for most agents that I speak to who have used follow-up boss and tried it out, they're like, oh my god, I didn't know what I was missing.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that it could be better.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm using this platform here, but I didn't realize that by making it more streamlined and adding these features, or you know, doing this, this or that, that I could be so much more productive and do so much more business.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I am yet to speak to an agent that started using Follow Up Boss, really dove in and used it, and is doing less business.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're all growing.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you could be one of them, and all you have to do is try it out for free.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: They don't even ask for your credit card.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I highly recommend you go get the trial, massive agentpodcast.com slash follow up boss.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I will see you guys next week with another episode.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.