Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Ep #116: How to Be "The Digital Mayor" and Sell a Home Every Week

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Ep #116: How to Be "The Digital Mayor" and Sell a Home Every Week · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
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1:17
Mortgage Marketing Radio Brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute.
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Your number one source for truth in mortgage marketing.
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Hey, everybody, Jeff Simphor welcome to this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio.
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I am your chief truth teller.
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Okay, so secondly, this episode is brought to you once again by the mortgage marketing.pro
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membership.
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And if you're looking to take your business to the next level, you're looking to get
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Okay, and of course, if you haven't yet checked out our friends over at the industry syndicate,
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do so because they are real estate's first media network.
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It's kind of like the Netflix for real estate, right?
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You're looking for more good shows, well guess what, that's where to find it.
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syndicate.com, Google and looking up good peeps over there, good shows, good content.
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Okay, let's get into my very special guest for this week's episode of mortgage marketing
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radio.
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I'm diversifying a little bit.
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Some of you have told me you do want to hear more real estate agents on the podcast for
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a variety of reasons.
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And today, my special guest is Alex Wang, Alex is a superstar rock star media celebrity.
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If you will, he wouldn't probably tell himself that, but I am.
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He's really taken, taken to, you know, got a grasp of this whole become the digital mayor,
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you know, to use Gary Vaynerchuk's term there as a matter of fact, he got that idea from
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sitting in one of the Asian 2021 conferences and where Gary talked about becoming your digital
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mayor and producing content.
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And immediately after that, Alex hired his own videographer, like his own D-Rock and
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had him follow him around documenting a day in the life, creating content.
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And now he's got his own YouTube channel with tons of videos, thousands of views.
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He's built an incredible personal brand and a very competitive market up in Silicon Valley,
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Palo, Alta, area.
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And in 2018, his personal branding, his content strategy paid off in a super competitive
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market.
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56 transactions for about 80 million bucks.
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So basically, he sells about a home a week, home a week, hey guys, that's pretty damn
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good, right?
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So Alex, what we do is we kind of unpack what caught my attention originally about Alex is
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that, first of all, he's an advocate for the real estate business.
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This would be an interview you want to share with your real estate agents, right?
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Because Alex is the real estate evangelist and he's got a great perspective on success as
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a real estate agent, what it takes truthfully, right?
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We tell the truth here on the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast, Alex is telling the truth
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as well.
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So we're going to unpack this discussion.
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We're going to jump into things that, like, personal branding, more about his becoming
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a digital mayor concept.
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What should agents be talking about?
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That's originally how he got on my radar.
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I saw him talking about that.
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I'm like, Alex, would you come on the podcast and share what you think agents should be
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talking about, which is helping you.
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As a matter of fact, he told me 50% of his 52 transactions, 50% of 80 million dollars,
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all came online from people finding him searching, googling, finding him on yellow, looking at
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reviews, all came from online.
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So we have a nice frank discussion about, right, agents and lenders who have told me, hey,
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I've been in this business for 15 years.
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I'm not on Facebook.
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Why do I need to be online on social media?
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We're going to answer that question in this conversation.
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We're going to talk about ranking and Google and locals, and we have a nice frank discussion
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as well around Zellos and I, there's the future of real estate agents and lenders.
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And it's a great nice frank conversation.
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I do you to listen and share this interview with your real estate agents.
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So without further ado, let's get into this week's show.
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Alex, welcome to the show.
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Hey, Jeff.
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Thanks for having me.
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You bet, man.
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You know what's interesting?
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I'm bringing more and more real estate agents on to this show.
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It's largely been focused on the mortgage, you know, long officer mortgage community.
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But what I'm finding is that it's useful to have relevant conversations with real estate
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agents who are doing some pretty cool things out there like you are.
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So that's why I wanted to have you on today.
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So for those listening, give us a brief background on Alex, where are you at?
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How long have you been in real estate and what do you love about it?
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Yeah, so I'm at real estate agent here in one of the fastest markets in the world, Silicon
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Valley.
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I've been selling real estate for 17 years than everything from being independent agents
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to joining a team to having a small broker owner of a small boutique firm to having acquired
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by a larger company to be an leadership team and out running my own team.
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And so I've done all, I would say not all of it, but I've done a lot of it.
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And yeah, just love the real estate agent business because it's just a really, really amazing
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business.
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You can have 10 successful agents doing it, 10 different and completely different ways
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and being successful.
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Yeah, that's interesting.
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So I want to come back to that actually because there is not, you know, it talks about
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how you have to be everywhere on social media or you've got to be doing this or that.
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And I love that we'll come back to that in just a second.
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Okay.
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So I'm going to make a note on this here.
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Let's open it up from from this standpoint.
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Well real quickly, right?
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People are always curious.
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The numbers transactions in 2018.
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Well, I think like 56 transactions, that's all about a homo week and average volume.
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I waver in the past couple of years, but anywhere from 80 to 125 million.
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Awesome.
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Yeah.
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And that's a tough market up there.
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Isn't it competitive?
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It is extremely competitive.
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I mean, just when you have everything moving so quickly, and obviously, you know, we
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have high, very high price points, thankfully, right, that, you know, it does get very,
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very competitive.
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Yeah.
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So you came across my radar originally, I believe it was an interview that I, or a clip
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I saw of you in a video and what you were talking about is what agents should be talking
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about.
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And correct me or maybe guide me a little bit on the context.
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I assume what you meant by that was in their branding, in their, you know, if they're
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showing up online and social media, is that what you meant by, you know, what agents should
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be talking about?
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Yeah.
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I think, well, when the things about being out there, being in front of people is, what
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are you going to talk about?
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And I think agents have to have their own, understand their own value and then be able
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to how to promote that to others and explain and not try to pretend they know something
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that they're not talking about.
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Or if they're trying to just act as if or try to fake it, I think that, um, that authenticity
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when you go online and share is super important.
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And so that, yeah, that's where I was referring to.
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Do you think they should be talking about, um, do you think they should talk about real
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stuff?
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I think it should be a part of it, but I don't think it should be every single week,
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every single post should be, hey, look at my new listing here.
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Check out my new Lamborghini, you know, that kind of stuff.
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Um, I was really disenchanted.
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I was part of a reality TV show.
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And um, they came up, crew came up, I said, wow, I'm going to be on TV.
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I'm so, I was so excited.
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Who said, make sure you come to the first few day and bring seven changes of clothing.
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The seven changes of clothing, what do you mean by that?
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And apparently they shoot the seven days all in one day.
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And so, so then I take out my, my, my change clothes and shoot again.
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And then basically looks like it spans the whole seven days.
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And all of us completely fake.
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And I just, I was disenchanted.
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I said, you know, I really want to be able to share it with people what it is.
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Truly be a roasted agent.
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I mean, there's so much behind the scenes that people don't know about.
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And it's not an easy business.
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I mean, it's simple.
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It's just not easy.
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Yeah. And so that's a great transition actually into the other thing I noticed.
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You're doing on your YouTube channel and stuff.
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And by the way, we'll put links to everybody listening.
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If you want to go check out everything we talk about, there will be links in the show notes.
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But uh, speaking of that, like a day in the life of a real estate agent,
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you started documenting that.
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And if I recall was, was the whole Gary V thing, right, document, uh, your inspiration for that?
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Absolutely.
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I mean, I started following his, uh, content reading his books, probably 2014 and 15, uh,
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and then heard him speak at Iman, uh, at, uh, sat in the front row.
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And so I think it's gosh, this guy really knows what he's talking about.
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And I can really see the trend towards that direction.
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And so I ended up hiring a, uh, the DRock or, you know, a videographer to follow me around for a year.
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And, you know, we're, we're still editing and, you know, putting that content together as we speak.
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And I'm looking at, oh, really putting it together as we speak.
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How long have you been working with the videographer?
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Uh, it's probably about a year and a half.
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Uh, but, you know, you've taken up so much of a, a bank of content.
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If he's recording 24 or seven, why don't you 24 or seven, but at least see the 40, 50 hours a week.
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Uh, that's a lot of sticking with you.
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Yeah, exactly.
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There's a lot of content to go through.
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That's the, and I'm looking at, so are you putting that on your YouTube channel?
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Is that where that goes?
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YouTube channel, we're cutting up the pieces of micro content on LinkedIn, on Facebook.
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Um, yeah, those are primarily the main channels.
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And we're trying to develop an Instagram, um, platform.
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We're on the Instagram platform, but uh, it hasn't, we haven't launched it yet.
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And, and what's your intent in doing that as it relates to you and your real estate business?
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Yeah, so three different audiences.
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Uh, one obviously is my traditional Alex Wayne group.
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Is that's my sales team.
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And so that's just really bringing awareness to people locally in my area where I buy and sell.
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Uh, second one is mainly the, my own personal brand as it's involved to become the real estate evangelist.
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I'm big, big, big, uh, promoter on how, how much of a, how honorable a profession this is.
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And so I want to teach others as well, what I've learned.
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And, um, and then lastly, I'm working on a, uh, systems, uh, virtual assistance support for real estate agents to stop the crazy real estate agent assistance cycle.
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Explain what you mean by that.
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So basically what it happens typically is a real estate agent starts off.
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If you don't have an assistant, you are the assistant.
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And so they spend their time, you know, you know, pushing paperwork or doing whatever.
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Finally, they get to the point where they're selling some real estate.
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They need to hire an assistant.
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Yeah, but they're too busy and real estate agents aren't trained to hire and fire and manage agents.
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They're trained to, you know, we're trained to build relationships and negotiate.
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And so they, they picked the closest person that can fog a mirror that's next to them or, you know, a junior agent.
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And that works out for maybe maybe maybe six months, seven months.
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And then what happens?
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That person that assistant either, you know, decides to move out of the area or even better yet looks at the agent, go, wow, real estate is really easy.
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I'm going to do that too.
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And then, uh, become your competition.
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And then you got to train and fire and hire again.
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And so, you know, my goal is to be able to help support agents to try to help them to kind of break that cycle.
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How many assistants do you have or how many people support you?
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I have five assistants right now.
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Wow.
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Are they some of them virtual or one virtual, but one local and one remote, but still in the US.
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And they have different roles, obviously.
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Yeah, and I consider my team members on my team as assistants as well.
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Just like I am, I'm their assistant sometimes as well.
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Everybody's all in together, right?
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That's right.
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One big happy family.
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Right.
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So what's been the impact for you and your business, right?
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In terms of generating listings, buyers, whatever.
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When you started documenting, you know, a day in the life and putting it out there.
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Yeah, it was interesting because I can't really say that I got three more listings or X amount listings,
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X amount of dollar revenue from, you know, getting my personal brand out there.
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I can say that definitely it did help with awareness.
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And you think that agents typically do farming, right?
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And then they, I don't know if mortgage professionals do, but at least for agents,
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we farm a certain neighborhood where we carve out that area territory.
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Say, hey, that is our area.
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And then every month or even twice a month, we send stuff to them showing that we're the best.
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And that's typically traditionally what what farming is.
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I thought I would just take farming to the online.
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And it helps.
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I mean, I walk through school, my kids school, and people go, oh, I just saw your new video.
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Or I get a couple of engagement in LinkedIn.
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I had a client just yesterday reach out to me.
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I sold them a townhouse about seven years ago.
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Haven't been in touch with them at all.
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I mean, I've sent them invites to my client.
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I appreciate appreciation parties and stuff, but they've never attended.
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And then Facebook messages me and says, hey, Alex, I'm looking to sell my house.
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Can you come by this weekend?
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And so I don't think it would have been that easy if I wasn't out there on social media.
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Well, the point of farming is to really stay top of mind.
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So when that person's ready, you get picked, right?
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Yeah, exactly.
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So I think social media is just the same thing.
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Yeah, yeah.
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It's just a different medium for that.
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And the other thing about social media, you know, I hate the question of like,
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you know, what's the ROI of social media?
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And I'm sure you heard Gary's response to that, right?
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The ROI of your mother.
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Love that.
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Yeah, it's not like there's a direct line, but there's a dotted line.
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And I'll give you another example.
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So I was curious if this happened for you.
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Somebody else who I interviewed, she'll be on the podcast,
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released soon, Karen Carr.
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She's got a big YouTube channel.
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You guys have a similar follower base.
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But she gets an average of five organic calls,
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literally people calling her most of the time,
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from consuming her YouTube content.
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Just saying, hey, we've watched your videos.
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We're ready to buy.
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Have you had something bubbling up for you?
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Well, that's amazing.
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That's amazing.
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I think I found that YouTube is such a broad audience.
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I'm not sure what market she's in.
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Maybe she's specifically hyper-local in her content.
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Yeah, I've thought about that.
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And that could be that's definitely on the on the
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what love to do project list.
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It'd be specific to my area location.
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Just be that digital mayor like we've learned in an area.
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But it is a lot of work.
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I work on doing a local series.
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And by the time I was able to finish producing
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for one of the local bars that I shot a video for,
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the bar closed down.
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I had to rethink my content strategy a little bit
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because yeah, so I'm so sure.
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Yeah, that's it.
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You got that video out sooner, man.
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You're going to see the business.
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Exactly.
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That's awesome.
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All right.
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So how do you decide, so the day in the life,
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the documenting thing, how much for thought goes into that
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or is it just like, hey, you know,
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do you rock here, grabs a camera and follows you?
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So it was more so the latter in the beginning,
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just following.
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But then the matter of the editor,
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who's editing the footage has to not only,
17:21
if they're shooting and editing,
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they're shooting it, so they're living the time
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being there with you during that time.
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And then they could go go back to the computer
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and live through it again.
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That's a lot of time.
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And so I've started to be more intentional in terms of
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when I record and when I shoot.
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And because of that, I've actually shot less.
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But I do have a large bank of content
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that we're releasing over time.
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And so I do have that that helps.
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But yeah, I'm shooting less.
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I want to go see Gary at the agent 2021.
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And he's told me straight to my face,
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hey, Alex, you know, in a couple of years,
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you're going to have a team of five on your marketing team, right?
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For editor, for videographer, for copywriter.
18:03
And so he's right.
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I mean, it's a lot of work.
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And it's very, very time intensive.
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And I mean, the fact that you got this great podcast going,
18:12
I really want to give you props
18:14
because it's not easy to even on what platform.
18:18
Yeah, exactly.
18:18
And of course, I'm thinking now about, you know,
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getting onto YouTube and all that fun stuff.
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You know, people listening, what they're hearing,
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I think is people who really haven't gone down this road
18:27
yet of creating video content.
18:28
I know what they're hearing.
18:29
I mean, it's a lot of work.
18:30
It's a lot of work.
18:31
And so all of a sudden, these excuses are coming up, right?
18:34
How did you get started, man?
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Did you just like, you know, go full board?
18:37
Did you dip your toe in the water?
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And what do you recommend for people?
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Yeah, I think I just looked at the money
18:43
that I was allocating towards marketing.
18:45
Everyone has a different type of budget.
18:47
And I've got people locally here that are spending, you know,
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a couple grand for just newspaper advertising a week.
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Not even a month, but a week, yeah.
18:56
Oh, yeah.
18:57
I mean, I think the newspapers are only in business
18:58
because of real estate agents.
19:01
But that's their branding and their allocation
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of those marketing dollars towards branding.
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And so I said, well, I don't do really much
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of that print marketing.
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What I will do is allocate my dollars
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to high and so in full time, you know,
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full of time, 40 hours a week with benefits, you know,
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that kind of thing and jumping full, full force into that.
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And that's really, I mean, I think that you,
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everyone has a different type of budget.
19:22
We're looking at, you know, how to allocate that.
19:24
Okay. That's different.
19:25
All right. That makes sense.
19:26
Yeah. So for some people, they don't have the budget.
19:28
It's just get started.
19:30
And if you've been listening to this podcast for a while,
19:32
everybody knows you get started just with this beautiful little thing
19:34
called your phone.
19:35
Absolutely.
19:37
It's that simple.
19:39
Okay.
19:40
Oh, you mentioned the newspaper thing.
19:41
I'm just curious when I hear that.
19:42
Do you know if those people are getting results from newspapers?
19:45
Oh, there's, I mean, one of the biggest players in our market.
19:49
I mean, I was on a listing appointment interview and they said,
19:54
Alex, I'm looking at this, this local newspaper.
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And like competitor number one, he's got seven listing ads,
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seven pages of ads in the newspaper.
20:01
Wow.
20:02
Compare number two has three.
20:04
Alex, you have none.
20:06
I said, yes, you're right.
20:09
And then I told them why.
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But it is working, but it's a propaganda war,
20:14
and regardless, and you, your personal brand message,
20:18
and how you're going to get that across the people.
20:20
And, um, you know, some of that kind of throw,
20:24
you know, some people don't like being mailed constantly every single month,
20:28
or, you know, having these large advertisements,
20:30
but some cater to some, some other audiences do so.
20:35
So there's a couple of things in there.
20:36
I want to unpack a little bit.
20:37
I want to just, I wrote down what you said.
20:39
It's a propaganda war.
20:40
I haven't heard it characterized like that.
20:43
But in reality, it really is, right?
20:44
Because you're really trying to capture somebody's attention, right?
20:47
Yeah.
20:48
And be it online or off?
20:50
I mean, look at our, our government.
20:52
We're, who's our president.
20:56
I don't need to be political.
20:57
Yeah, right?
20:58
Well, politics has always been propaganda.
21:00
Yeah.
21:01
Okay, so let's go back to the thing I want to,
21:03
I wrote down for us a circle back on.
21:05
There's, you know, 10 or more different ways,
21:06
obviously to do this business.
21:08
You, and you've just mentioned somebody doing it with newspaper ads.
21:11
And here's what I love about that.
21:13
Because I talk to agents every day who are succeeding,
21:15
like door knocking and, you know, it's like, I get kind of pissed off when
21:20
people say, you know, this doesn't work.
21:22
Or you're, you know, what are you?
21:23
An idiot if you're not on social media or whatever.
21:26
Those kind of comments, you know?
21:28
So agent generating newspaper results from newspaper ads,
21:33
which some people, you know, would be like, what?
21:36
Guys run a newspaper ads?
21:38
That doesn't work anymore.
21:39
What an idiot.
21:41
Right.
21:41
Right.
21:42
And to that, our point earlier about,
21:44
there's 10 or more different ways to do this business.
21:47
How does an agent choose, you know, where to be?
21:51
Yeah, I mean, it's just tough.
21:53
It's very difficult.
21:54
I think you have to go alongside what you
21:56
personally are more comfortable with.
21:59
It's challenging.
22:00
I've got an agent on my team in which she's not on Facebook.
22:06
She doesn't believe it.
22:07
She, you know, privacy concerns.
22:09
All the things that I totally, you know, understand.
22:13
But I feel like in this day and age that if she's not going to do that,
22:16
that she needs to figure out something else that works for her.
22:19
And maybe it's being involved in her local schools.
22:21
Or maybe it's, you know, being, you know, volunteering at some
22:25
and building anywhere where you can build long-term relationships.
22:28
Personally, for me, in marketing, I've, you know,
22:30
Seth Goten came out with a book several years back,
22:33
actually called Permission Based Marketing.
22:35
And it just made so much sense because the traditionally,
22:38
when I, when I first start off,
22:40
is all interruption based marketing.
22:41
Right.
22:42
It's always just a door knocking, cold calling.
22:45
At least in my area now,
22:47
that stuff doesn't fly.
22:49
But maybe in some of the markets it does still.
22:51
It does, yeah.
22:53
I'm curious about the person who's not on Facebook.
22:55
But, you know, you were suggesting, you know,
22:57
the other more traditional methods, right?
22:58
School, soccer, baseball, whatever.
23:01
It's funny. I was writing about this actually this morning
23:03
because I've had that same thing come up.
23:04
I had a loan officer kind of get angry with me.
23:06
You know, when he asked if he's the same comment was,
23:08
Hey, I've been doing this business for 15 years.
23:10
I'm not on Facebook.
23:11
Never going to be, you know, why do I need to be online?
23:15
You know, and basically I just, you know,
23:17
I was probably a little saucy that day.
23:19
But I probably, I said something that affective will look.
23:21
I mean, even if your business is 100% referral,
23:25
is that right?
23:25
Okay, great.
23:26
Well, what's the first thing that referral does
23:27
before they call you today?
23:29
Buying letters, they're going to look you up.
23:31
And so, somebody said to me the other day,
23:33
I wonder what are you about this?
23:36
Today online, whether it's Google Yelp,
23:38
wherever you get found, right?
23:40
That is the equivalent of the yellow pages 30 years ago.
23:44
Like, how did you get found 30 years ago, right?
23:46
Yellow pages, people look you up and it's like,
23:48
well, if I can't find you in the yellow pages,
23:49
are you legit?
23:50
Are you real?
23:51
And nowadays, I'm wondering, like, with your friend,
23:53
who's not on Facebook,
23:54
even though you've got that, like,
23:56
circle of influence business,
23:58
we know they're still looking you up.
24:00
So, does that then play into some doubt or some questions about
24:03
legitimacy if I can't find you online?
24:06
Oh, absolutely.
24:07
And to your point, to that gentleman,
24:09
or that that loan agent, I would say,
24:11
do you know Blockbuster and Kodak?
24:15
I just want to stick with their old old ways.
24:18
But going back to, yeah, I think social proof is what I call it, right?
24:21
It's being able to be, you know, proof online.
24:24
People word of mouth was back in the day.
24:26
It's like, hey, you got to use Jeff,
24:28
you know, he's a great mortgage guy.
24:29
Got to use him and then he tells a friend,
24:31
hey, an infant has another friend, it's word of mouth.
24:33
Now, it's word of keyboard.
24:34
And word of keyboard is by far so much more expansive, right?
24:40
In terms of people read an online review about you
24:43
and see what you're doing in the work that you do,
24:45
that shows credibility and social proof.
24:47
And then other people are working with you
24:49
and that reinforces it.
24:51
And I have competitors in which, you know,
24:53
I get selected as the agent because they go to the competitors' websites
24:57
and they both look the same.
24:58
Exactly.
24:59
And template, template a website with just a different picture.
25:02
And, you know, do you want that to be the type of marketing
25:05
that people use to market your home?
25:08
Interesting.
25:09
So what you're saying by that is, you know,
25:10
that cookie cutter thing, all websites look look the same,
25:13
but they come to Alex's website.
25:14
It's clearly, it's thoughtful, it's unique,
25:16
it's different, it probably highlights you in some unique ways.
25:20
That's important in getting chosen as well.
25:22
Yeah, we're not templated, you know,
25:24
we're not templated real estate agents, right?
25:26
So we shouldn't be using templated websites.
25:28
We should use something, you know,
25:29
really we focused on our own personal brand.
25:33
Yeah, it's funny.
25:33
I was just thinking about the personal brand question.
25:35
Because I've even heard Gary, Gary Vee,
25:39
I've heard him say two different things, you know,
25:41
and like, I don't want to get in a sidebar about him,
25:43
but you know, I've heard the whole comment of like,
25:45
you know, personal brand is all you have,
25:46
but then I've heard the comment of like,
25:48
you know, personal brand is like,
25:50
not that big of a deal in certain situations, in certain context.
25:55
Yeah, I mean, he's a dichot, walking dichotomy, right?
25:58
Exactly.
26:00
I think it goes down to reputations, like you said as well, right?
26:03
It's what are you trying to,
26:06
what kind of a reputation do you have,
26:08
or trying to convey to others to see?
26:10
Hopefully it's true.
26:12
It's not, you know, smoking mirrors,
26:14
but you know, if you don't put something out there,
26:15
someone else can put something out there, right?
26:18
And so you got to kind of control, control the message.
26:21
And I think that's where we can differentiate.
26:23
I, whether it be loan agents or real estate agents,
26:25
how we can, that's how we can differentiate from the competition.
26:28
Awesome.
26:29
Okay, so I'm looking at my show notes,
26:30
and last time we talked for some reason,
26:32
I wrote down ranking number one in Google Level Search Yelp.
26:35
And so what that allows me to think
26:38
is that you do a pretty good job in ranking on Google.
26:41
Yeah, I mean, if you're going to be typing,
26:44
I'm here, we're currently here in my office in Paul Alta.
26:46
And so I say, you know, he's going to Google
26:50
and go to incognito mode so that, you know,
26:53
there's no cookies or anything like that.
26:55
Privately browse and search for
26:57
Paul Alta real estate agent.
26:59
And hopefully I'll be there on the first page
27:02
and hopefully I'm up towards the top of the list.
27:05
And that kind of, I got very, very into
27:09
just understanding which websites rank on that list.
27:13
And to be able to understand if the Zillow is there,
27:16
that I better be on Zillow.
27:17
If realtor.com is there, I better be on realtor.com.
27:19
If the Yelp is there, I better be there.
27:21
And then building those profiles based upon
27:24
that kind of reverse engineering search.
27:27
Yeah, so you are number one in terms of local,
27:31
like when the map comes up for a local search.
27:33
Oh, good. For sure.
27:34
Yeah. And then let me see.
27:36
You probably have more than one feature.
27:37
And yeah, then you're like, fourth down as well.
27:39
We got Zillow popping up Yelp.
27:41
That's probably a little past the ads.
27:43
Yes, yes, those organic.
27:45
And that organic is really where I really wanted to focus on,
27:48
rather than paid.
27:50
But now, now if you have the budget doing both,
27:53
is I mean, just it's just accelerating.
27:54
It's even more so there's it's called Google.
27:57
I'm on an expert on this Google local search.
27:59
I had the guy from Yaks down here.
28:01
Though a while ago, I should have known that.
28:03
Google My Business is the program business.
28:05
Thank you.
28:05
Yeah, it is free.
28:07
And whether you are a real estate agent,
28:09
a mortgage agent or a coffee shop,
28:12
you better be on there.
28:13
It's very cool.
28:14
In fact, here, look at here.
28:16
You see that little, there's a little blue sign right there.
28:19
It's one of my reviews.
28:20
Google actually took the review and set me a big poster of my review.
28:24
Oh, no, and that's pretty cool.
28:27
So Google My Business, yeah.
28:28
Google My Business.
28:29
Yeah, I think it's google.com slash business or something like that.
28:33
Google it and you'll find it.
28:35
And so we just, what do we need to do to kind of get,
28:38
you know, present to show up and just create a profile,
28:41
create a profile, add some pictures,
28:43
you know, basically write a little bit of a copy in terms of your background.
28:47
It would help to have social proof,
28:49
which comes from reviews of people that I work with you.
28:53
I recommend you not try to gain the system and try to, you know,
28:56
try to tell all 10 of your immediate family members to
29:00
review you ever at once.
29:02
Right.
29:02
Definitely, I think they look at organo or organo or organic reviews.
29:07
And so let it come organically.
29:09
And you can at least, you don't have to be, I've got, you know,
29:12
I don't know, on Yelp, I've got like maybe 115 reviews.
29:15
You don't have to have, go from zero to that.
29:17
I mean, it took me since about 10 years.
29:20
That's all to get there.
29:22
That's all.
29:22
That's all.
29:23
But you can start with just having a couple
29:26
because I mean, if they're going to be looking at you
29:28
and the other two competitors are trying to choose somebody,
29:31
you know, at least you have a couple of reviews shows
29:33
that credibility and social proof that someone's
29:35
work with you and they've had a great experience working with you.
29:38
What's your process for getting reviews?
29:41
Do a damn good job.
29:44
There you go.
29:45
Enough said and ask for the review, right?
29:48
Yeah, yeah, it's asking.
29:49
I mean, you're not supposed to solicit reviews.
29:52
Yeah.
29:52
And so I encourage if you do such a good job for people
29:55
that you never have to ask, right?
29:57
When is the happiest time that the client, you know, for a buyer,
30:01
the best time for them to, to, that they're happiest
30:05
is when they get the keys, right?
30:06
And great opportunity to say, hey, no, I'd love if you could share,
30:09
refer me to your friends, family members, co-workers
30:11
or share your experience working with me online.
30:13
People, I love to.
30:15
If they had a good experience.
30:16
Right.
30:17
Right.
30:18
But you don't do like the post closing email with pick one, you know what I mean?
30:21
No, I did that before.
30:23
But I think now it's just a little bit more.
30:26
If I do a good enough job,
30:27
I do remind them in the very beginning, quite often my, my business.
30:30
And one of the questions that you had was, you know,
30:31
where most of my business comes from.
30:33
Yeah, after the comes from online.
30:35
Half of the comes from online, so explain online.
30:37
So I have time comes from people who, who I don't know,
30:40
don't have a relationship with, but they go online and they find me
30:43
and learn more about me.
30:44
And a lot of times they already convinced that they want to hire me
30:48
before I even meet with them because they've read the reviews,
30:51
because they see the pictures, because they gravitate towards me
30:55
and my brand.
30:56
And some people look at me and go, I don't think I could work with that guy.
30:59
And that's totally fine as well.
31:01
But that's fine, that's life.
31:03
Yeah, exactly.
31:04
Well, that really actually goes to our other point earlier about, you know,
31:07
the conversation of do I need to be online?
31:08
Look, you're getting 50% of what the heck was the volume?
31:13
50% of 80 million, was it?
31:15
Yeah, yeah.
31:16
So 40 million dollars, right?
31:19
In volume in sales because of your online presence.
31:22
So for those who are asking, you know, do I really need to be online?
31:25
You know, it's like, well.
31:27
ROI.
31:29
Exactly.
31:29
And are you doing any like paid traffic or anything?
31:32
I do, I do Google AdWords behind some of the video content that
31:37
push out as well.
31:38
And then we push Facebook ads.
31:41
We're working with a new campaign to kind of push go even deeper into it.
31:46
So I'm just really tapping the surface of paid media right now.
31:49
Just getting started with Facebook ads.
31:52
How have you found that to be?
31:54
I think it depends upon what the what the objective is, right?
31:57
You have a couple goals.
31:59
If it is for brand awareness, it's been great.
32:01
If it has, it's been for engagement.
32:04
It's been good.
32:05
If it's been for it, it needs.
32:07
Yeah, but I have to say though, it goes back to the local content, right?
32:11
Like, I live in a city.
32:12
I live in Los Angeles just right next right next door here.
32:15
And to be part of that Los Angeles community,
32:18
I think there's going to be another.
32:19
There's a reason to have that kind of digital mayor,
32:22
local group as well, but separate from your other stuff.
32:25
Yeah, I'm glad you pointed out the specifics about the Facebook ads,
32:30
because first of all, I just taught a class to Realtor yesterday on that.
32:33
And that's the same thing I was saying is like, you know, start with the awareness
32:37
and the branding and the engagement.
32:39
And this is to the point about why you should be producing content anyways,
32:43
you know, online on Facebook, for example.
32:45
But most people, they just like run right to the lead conversion thing.
32:48
And you haven't built the base before that.
32:51
Therefore, you're suffering.
32:52
Right. Absolutely.
32:53
I think the agents are too quick to try to find that silver bullet.
32:58
Right.
32:58
What is that that perfect?
32:59
Oh, if I do social media, oh, that's perfect.
33:01
Then I'll have all this business.
33:03
I mean, like I mentioned earlier, it took me 10 years to get my social proof
33:07
to where it's at right now.
33:08
And still continue to hone it, audit my reviews, audit my people,
33:13
just, you know, be able to understand where my business is coming from
33:16
and the reputation I have online.
33:19
Absolutely.
33:19
Wow, that's good stuff.
33:21
And I'm just curious for the Facebook ads,
33:23
because this is kind of like lately my study.
33:26
I've been diving deep on this.
33:27
Are you doing them yourself?
33:29
Do you have an agency or are you part of some kind of group?
33:32
I have an agency that I work with closely,
33:34
that creative agency on one side and the paid media on the other side
33:37
and they're working together to put the campaigns together.
33:41
Okay, awesome.
33:42
Just curious.
33:42
Okay, cool.
33:43
So in the last few minutes, we have back to the notes here.
33:46
I got to, I guess, have a conversation about
33:48
Zillow, Ibuyers, just total open conversation.
33:50
Because that's another one that's, you know,
33:52
charged with energy and Zillow haters.
33:55
And this and everybody's saying Zillow's trying to put you out of business.
33:59
I don't know if you've seen the Tom Ferry interview he did with,
34:02
was it Greg Schwartz, the president of Zillow?
34:05
No, that's good.
34:06
It's not a consignated link to it.
34:07
It's about a 15, 20 minute interview.
34:08
And I think it's pretty good.
34:10
It's real candid, it's straightforward.
34:11
I've got my own kind of perceptions based on that.
34:13
But what's your take on that?
34:15
Do you think Zillow is trying to crush you guys?
34:18
I think if that crushing us makes the money, I think, yes, for sure.
34:23
I mean, I advertised on Zillow, I made money on Zillow
34:28
and I paid a lot of money on Zillow as well to get those leads.
34:31
But those are leads.
34:32
Those are not relationships.
34:33
And I tell agents that I train, I said,
34:35
hey, guys, stop buying leads and start building relationships.
34:39
Because that is really where the focus of the real estate business should be.
34:43
But all these disruptors, quote unquote, disruptors, right?
34:47
So let's start off the business, you know, with this whole
34:49
estimate thing, just to get the eyeballs on the internet.
34:51
Once they got the eyeballs, they've already won.
34:53
They got the eyeballs on the internet.
34:54
They got the traffic now.
34:55
But when I'm working with buyers in this area,
34:58
they, I explain to them,
34:59
Zillow is, it's third party data.
35:01
They're not a brokerage.
35:02
They're scraping data from another source.
35:04
And it's not as accurate.
35:07
Does Zill care?
35:08
Probably not, because they're getting the eyeballs, right?
35:11
Eyebuyers is the same thing.
35:13
I think that, you know, I've got this,
35:16
there's so many of these startups.
35:17
I mean, I'm in Silicon Valley, right?
35:19
There's so many of these startups with the Eyebuyers.
35:21
And a lot of VC money behind it.
35:24
This is one very, very successful company.
35:26
And one of the co-founders was buying a house in San Francisco.
35:30
And he kept on getting out bid to make an offer to help bid.
35:33
So he started, he started a new company to really bring,
35:37
I'm not going to say the name of it, but bring transparency
35:39
to the real estate offer process, right?
35:41
Maybe basically like a bidding process.
35:44
And everyone can see what's going on.
35:46
Buyers want that.
35:47
Buyers want that transparency.
35:50
Sellers don't.
35:52
Sellers are looking for the one thing.
35:54
They're looking for the highest possible price, right?
35:57
I had another listing a few months ago,
36:00
in which on the market, one offer for one of these
36:03
Eyebuyer kind of offers, they had a paying
36:08
significantly amount of money over the asking price.
36:12
But they were the only one to offer.
36:14
And that was more so because the agent was not experienced,
36:17
was not local, did not know the kind of where the market was at.
36:21
And so I feel like these,
36:23
yeah, I mean, there's all this disruption happening,
36:25
but I think that the value of the real estate agent should be,
36:27
it's even more important, a good real estate agent.
36:29
Someone who has that local knowledge, that experience,
36:31
and particularly that negotiation skills.
36:33
To be able to come in and be able to help represent the buyers or sellers.
36:38
Are you trying to play the game of get to the customer first?
36:42
I think speed is super important.
36:44
Even just being utilized in technology,
36:47
it's not to replace it with the buying process,
36:50
but to get in front of them first and be able to be
36:53
see the getting in front of the client and build that relationship before anyone else does.
36:57
Let me ask you this though,
36:58
so we know all the eyeballs are going to Zilla, right?
37:00
That's the destination for people looking at buying a house,
37:03
typically, right? 186 million on average together every month.
37:07
Are you also, I mean, where does your website and your listings play into that?
37:11
Are you trying to drive people to your,
37:13
sounds like an obvious question, but I got to ask, right?
37:16
Drive eyeballs to your own individual page,
37:18
or how do you, how do you plan in that strategy?
37:20
So the three main, I mean, I don't have the budget to compete against Zilla.
37:24
I don't have the budget to compete against Redfin.
37:27
The IDX searches on websites is dead.
37:30
And I can, I'll take that to my grave.
37:32
There's no reason why that there's no,
37:34
the user interface and technology on on Redfin, for example,
37:37
is so much better than my site for, for search.
37:41
So, so I've got clients that,
37:44
well, let me take a step back.
37:45
Let's talk about Zillow first.
37:46
Zillow is great for information about the background of a certain property,
37:52
but it's not very accurate in terms of, in terms of search, right?
37:56
It's not accurate. It talks about foreclosures.
37:58
There are no foreclosures in this area.
38:01
And yet it talks about all this other information
38:03
that just wants to gather the eyeballs.
38:05
So most of my clients actually do not use Zillow.
38:07
They use it just to kind of have it as a reference point,
38:09
but then they go to, to Redfin.
38:11
And the, many of these Redfin is a competitor.
38:13
And they're a brokerage and they've got some kind of a discount model.
38:17
But the user interface and the technology is amazing.
38:20
And so most of my clients are using Redfin,
38:22
and then when they find the house,
38:24
then they call me and help them write the offer and negotiate the deal.
38:28
Why do you think they're not going with the Redfin agent if they're already there?
38:32
Because that person doesn't have the local knowledge and the experience.
38:35
I know that the pending sale down the street that just got on the contract yesterday
38:39
had four offers and it sold for it, you know.
38:42
Why doesn't the Redfin agent know that?
38:44
Because they're not, they're not local.
38:46
Their, their model isn't to be based upon local experienced agents.
38:50
They're a siloed, they're completely siloed into one agent does this,
38:53
one agent does that, one agent does this.
38:56
And so there's not that, uh,
38:58
that ability to be able to be in the know.
39:00
And I'm selling, I'm selling real estate and I'm helping
39:03
provide this by real estate all the time.
39:04
So I'm completely always in my market,
39:08
willing and dealing knowing what's going on.
39:10
And then I share that information with others that are doing the same thing.
39:14
And so we have a really 90, 10 rule in terms of 10% that agents are selling 90% of the real estate.
39:19
Sure, yeah, it's becoming more and more of the case.
39:22
So then is the game for the, for the buyer journey, kind of what you just laid out there is,
39:27
is, is, you know, we know people starting that awareness to use the Facebook terms,
39:31
their awareness, then consideration stage.
39:32
And when they're in that consideration stage,
39:34
they're bouncing around to multiple destinies.
39:36
They're going to Zillow Red, then they're going to come across your content.
39:39
And they'll be like, oh, cool, Alex has got some awesome content.
39:42
Let me save him.
39:43
So they're like, it's like all the metaphor or whatever I use is like planes and LAX.
39:48
They're all like hanging out there.
39:49
When they're ready to call that plane in, they're gunna.
39:52
Is that kind of a similar thing?
39:53
In terms of, like, use your business name.
39:55
Yeah, I think that for, for these buyers, they're going to,
39:58
they're no at some point.
39:59
They're going to need an agent.
40:00
And so they're assessing to see what their options are.
40:03
They can definitely go with the I buyers, which are kind of the more of the discount model.
40:07
Which generally is like, a lot of buyers think they can do it yourself.
40:10
Just like, you know, they don't need an agent to help them.
40:14
And there's that type of buyer.
40:15
But majority of buyers in this market, particularly I'm talking about Silicon Valley,
40:19
where we have a lot of multiple offers on property, not enough housing to go around.
40:23
And competing buyers, more than saving money,
40:27
buyers just want to be able to buy the house that they want.
40:31
Right.
40:31
And so who's going to help them to get that?
40:34
Is it going to be the agent that just kind of a part-time agent?
40:36
Is it going to be the agent that doesn't have as much of an experience
40:40
or do they want the really veteran agent that can make sure they give you the best chance
40:44
to get the job done?
40:45
And so when they look for that, that's really where I want to be.
40:48
Is that part of that consideration or hiring process?
40:53
So it comes back to trust then.
40:55
Absolutely.
40:55
It comes back to trust and trusting that, you know,
40:59
the right real estate agent is going to add that value
41:02
by their local knowledge experience and negotiation skills to get you the house.
41:07
And you're leveraging content, your personal brand, your personality,
41:11
being a real and authentic.
41:12
And that's how you're creating that trust with people online.
41:15
Get found.
41:17
People like what you do.
41:18
And they're like, I think I'm going to choose Alex.
41:19
Yeah, absolutely.
41:21
That's pretty much what it is.
41:22
Awesome.
41:22
Okay, cool, man.
41:23
Listen, I know you're busy.
41:24
I got another meeting pending here.
41:26
Last question I guess, closing out is,
41:28
what are you trying to do different in 2019?
41:30
What are you, you know, adding to your mix of marketing?
41:33
I think I'm going to be diving deeper into those three various channels that I mentioned,
41:37
right, targeting real estate agents, but locally as well for my real estate business,
41:42
and then just continue to help help other agents be better.
41:46
So I'm really changing my role.
41:49
I make real estate evangelists, right?
41:50
So I am a, and I am a evangelist of the real estate industry.
41:55
And why it is such an amazing job to be a real estate agent and a honorable profession.
42:00
And so I'm just going to continue on that path and kind of see where it leads me.
42:05
That's awesome.
42:06
We're going to put links in the show notes to everything for you in terms of your online
42:09
properties.
42:09
Is there anything you want to give us additionally though if people do want to connect with you?
42:13
No, well, I mean, it's probably easiest way just to tweet me at Alex Wayne on the Twitter,
42:18
so all right.
42:19
Yeah.
42:19
Love it, man.
42:20
Well, listen, appreciate you making time very much.
42:22
And listeners, as always, thank you for tuning in.
42:24
We appreciate you.
42:25
And if you like this episode, you know what to do.
42:27
Leave us a little love out on the socials.
42:29
And we'll see you on the next one for now.
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Radio one more truth in mortgage marketing.
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