Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / How to Use Homebot to Partner with Agents and Build Your Future Pipeline with Ricardo Bueno
Transcript
- 0:00In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
- 0:04the real estate agents is essential for success.
- 0:06However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
- 0:11With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it
- 0:15can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections.
- 0:20Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
- 0:25Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
- 0:31And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
- 0:34with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
- 0:39To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
- 0:45of the case study today.
- 0:47You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million
- 0:52in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can, too.
- 0:56Don't miss out.
- 0:57Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
- 1:03Hey, listeners, what's up, Jeff Zimper.
- 1:11Welcome to this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio Podcast.
- 1:14Appreciate you tuning in as always.
- 1:17Hope you are doing well through the chaos, through the capacity issues we're having in
- 1:23this industry with the REFI boom right now.
- 1:26And hope you're also planning and preparing for your future pipeline, 6, 8, 10, 12, 18
- 1:33months down the road.
- 1:35We've got to pick our head up.
- 1:36We've got to look down the road.
- 1:38We've got to figure out what's our source of business going to be down the road.
- 1:41Because obviously the REFIs are coming at us fast and hard, but we all know those are
- 1:46going to dry up at some point and we need to get our eye back on the ball, which is
- 1:50the purchase business.
- 1:51Some of you are doing a better job of that than others.
- 1:54And the question I always ask originators when I interview them is, you know, what's your
- 1:58number one source of business?
- 2:00And in most cases, which you hear is a pattern of, you know, people saying, hey, real estate
- 2:04agents are always among the top list, top of the list, right?
- 2:06Top one, two, or three, which makes perfect sense.
- 2:08I've talked about that before in previous podcasts, you know, there's an average of about
- 2:12five million transactions that happen in the country every year.
- 2:15That means five million sales, right?
- 2:17Homes that are sold, realtors still touch 80 plus percent of those.
- 2:21And you get yourself in front of those.
- 2:23You get yourselves attached to the realtors that are actually doing the business.
- 2:26That's called an oil well.
- 2:28That's called an annuity.
- 2:30The question, the struggle, the frustration a lot of originators have is how do I attract
- 2:35agents?
- 2:36How do I convert agents?
- 2:37How do I build loyalty, build relationships and consistency, right?
- 2:40In that business, on one of our previous episodes, you heard me interview Sean Uihara.
- 2:45What's up, Sean?
- 2:46Shout out to you.
- 2:47Sean's online, you know, digital bootcamp process that he has.
- 2:50He's pivoted in a post-COVID world, still leading with an educational platform to attract
- 2:54agents to show up differently, to have different conversations and to be very selective about the
- 2:59agency's using.
- 3:00He's working with today's episode, I special guest.
- 3:04Notice a theme prior to COVID led with an educational platform teaching agent classes.
- 3:10This COVID has pivoted and teaching those classes online in a Zoom setting right now.
- 3:15Guys, have you noticed?
- 3:16Have you thought back?
- 3:17I can tell you of the top producer interviews that I've done and there's well over 150
- 3:21of them out of these 180 episodes.
- 3:26The bulk of them are leading with an educational platform.
- 3:28Their bulk of them are leading with how do I add value to my agents beyond the transaction,
- 3:34beyond closing on time, delivering great service.
- 3:37That's part of it, but that's not enough.
- 3:41If you have been listening to me for some time and you haven't taken action yet to check
- 3:45out our turn key done for you online educational platform, it's called My Agent Classes.
- 3:53It exists under what's called the Mortgage Marketing Pro membership.
- 3:56Well, you can check that out now, today.
- 4:00Go over to MortgageMarketing.pro, watch the brief video I put up there and know that
- 4:04everything you see and hear there has been adjusted and pivoted for a post-COVID world.
- 4:09We're working with loan officers who are now delivering these online classes over Zoom.
- 4:14Following our signature method, our process that helps get agents to show up, attending
- 4:19your Zoom, doing an incredible job during the meeting, adding tremendous value, and then
- 4:23following our post-class process to be able to have agents book calendar, book meetings
- 4:29on your calendar through a simple link that you give them at the end of the Zoom meeting
- 4:33so you can drive conversations and qualify, sift, and sort agents and start to build your
- 4:38pipeline out for the next 12, 18, 24 months down the road.
- 4:42If that's of interest to you, once again, go to MortgageMarketing.pro.
- 4:46Now, my special guest for today, Ricardo Bueno, good friend of mine from Orange County,
- 4:52good friends with Scott Shang, who owns his own brokerage in Orange County, who's been
- 4:56on the podcast here before, and why I wanted to bring Ricardo in the conversation today
- 5:01is because he's talking about two primary things.
- 5:04One is Homebot, and some of you've heard of Homebot, some of you used Homebot, and I guarantee
- 5:08you're probably not using it in the way him and Scott and Scott's business partner, Josh,
- 5:13are using Homebot, using it as a way to get access to real estate agents databases.
- 5:18Right now, Scott Shang and his mortgage team over there have over 1,000 emails that go
- 5:22out every single month to databases that are not owned by him, but are owned by the real
- 5:29estate agents that he partners with.
- 5:30So he's expanding his fear of influence by a way of Homebot.
- 5:34You'll hear the unique setup for how they do that.
- 5:36Then part two of our conversation is Roberto's process for capturing online reviews, leveling
- 5:43up his Google, my business game, and generating business leads referrals directly off of
- 5:49both Google and Zillow, because people, let's face it, they're searching, they're getting
- 5:54on Zillow.
- 5:55They're looking, they're reading reviews, and whether you have reviews or not, that's
- 5:58going to make a difference.
- 6:00I checked out a loan officer's Google page the other day, he had one review on his
- 6:04Google, my business listing, one, and it was a one star.
- 6:09Do you think that's negatively affecting him?
- 6:11I guarantee you it is.
- 6:12So if you've been reluctant, remiss, need help, want to level up your game for getting
- 6:16online reviews.
- 6:18This conversation is for you today.
- 6:20I hope you enjoy it.
- 6:21Without further ado, let's get into this week's show.
- 6:23Hey Ricardo, welcome to the show.
- 6:26What up?
- 6:27Thanks for having me.
- 6:28Thanks for being here, man.
- 6:30It's crazy to think.
- 6:31I think the last time I saw you was at the aim event in Vegas, what was that like two
- 6:35years ago?
- 6:36When people were socializing and hugging and shaking hands, having drinks, it was a different
- 6:41world back then.
- 6:42I cry for the days to go back to normal, see it's weird, I never would have expected
- 6:48us to be here.
- 6:49Yeah, I know, right?
- 6:50So that's funny, because although a lot of us have pivoted our businesses and we'll
- 6:54talk about that, like how we're doing business in a post-COVID world.
- 6:58But I think what this has proven for everybody is like the desire for human connection, right?
- 7:04It's seeping out of my pores.
- 7:06Seriously.
- 7:07Everything that we did was that we enjoyed or found value in or connection in, like being
- 7:13around people, like you said, shaking hands, looking people eye to eye in person, I wonder
- 7:18people are stressed out.
- 7:22It's wild, man.
- 7:24I thrive on interaction.
- 7:26I say I'm a nambiver, there's times where I love being out socializing, networking,
- 7:32I mean, I grew up that way.
- 7:34Scott says he's an introvert, but when we were at that show, he was out networking like
- 7:38the rest of us.
- 7:39Yeah.
- 7:40So we long for that interaction.
- 7:41Speaking of Scott, shout out to our friends, Scott Shane.
- 7:44I think he's been on the podcast twice or call.
- 7:47We need to have him back.
- 7:48I don't think there's been a single person that's been three times, so he might be the
- 7:52first.
- 7:53So hey, tell everybody, who are you?
- 7:56What do you do, man?
- 7:57So I've been in the industry for a little over 10 years now, it's pretty well to think.
- 8:04I started out in the industry as a loan officer before the subprime market collapse.
- 8:08I was still in undergrad in college.
- 8:11I got really good at sort of, I built a website for myself, it ranked on page one of Google
- 8:16for the phrase Los Angeles mortgage rates for about a year, which was pretty well, and
- 8:20then I just got really good at building websites.
- 8:23My pitch became, to realtors, became, hey, I'll help you build a better website and a
- 8:27better digital presence in exchange I want your referral business.
- 8:30And I just got really good at building agent websites, creating systems and doing marketing
- 8:35automation.
- 8:36We haven't doing that for the last decade.
- 8:39Yeah.
- 8:40All right.
- 8:41And so you work with, as we said, our friend, Scott, and tell me what your role with Scott?
- 8:47Yes.
- 8:48So I work for a company called West, where marketing and technology company based here
- 8:52in Orange County.
- 8:53So I do a lot of lunch and learns.
- 8:55I do a lot of, like one-on-one trainings with individual agents and brokers.
- 9:00I do, I used to do office trainings where we pivoted into doing webinars and everything
- 9:05is via Zoom.
- 9:06Right.
- 9:07But Scott and I got together because I remember rates going up and down, up and down,
- 9:11up and down.
- 9:12And we were talking about, we did some lunch and lunch together.
- 9:16We talked about how to thrive in a changing market.
- 9:19And one of the classes we taught was, how do you sell or buy downs so that it's a win
- 9:25all around for everybody.
- 9:26You submit an offer up full price.
- 9:28So the buyer gets what they want, the seller gets what they want, and the buyer gets a
- 9:32house that they can afford at a price, et cetera.
- 9:35Right.
- 9:36So we-
- 9:37Obviously, when rates were higher, right?
- 9:38Yeah.
- 9:39That was when rates were higher.
- 9:40But we did that class together at a couple of associations and we started partnering together
- 9:45on doing these agent lunch and learns.
- 9:48It's a great opportunity for lenders to connect with agents and strengthen those partnerships.
- 9:52And I help with the marketing and automation stuff.
- 9:55Yeah, and I've seen the content you produce and, you know, as you well know, I'm a huge
- 9:59advocate of classes as well.
- 10:02And the content you produce is awesome.
- 10:03So it's no wonder-
- 10:04Well, I always like to ask this question for those that are, you know, that lead with
- 10:08an education platform, which I think is safe to say, right for you.
- 10:11Yep.
- 10:13So how do you rank that in terms of successful activities for capturing and converting
- 10:20real estate agents?
- 10:22Oh.
- 10:23I mean, I think it's, I like content as far as educating.
- 10:27Well, I mean, the using classes as your platform, online or in person, that is compared
- 10:33to co-calling or whatever the classes are, the classes are everything for connecting
- 10:38with agents like for me, because we work with our sister company, WFG, which is a title
- 10:45company.
- 10:46Yeah.
- 10:47The classes are everything.
- 10:48The classes put us in front of agents, the classes, you know, when you can bring value,
- 10:53that's the thing about this business.
- 10:54I think everyone says, I have the best service.
- 10:57I have the best rates.
- 10:58I have, I have the best customer service, you know, whatever everyone says on the best.
- 11:02And so it's kind of a cliche.
- 11:05Yeah.
- 11:06When you bring something of value to the table, I, I think that's a, that's really is a
- 11:11differentiator.
- 11:12100%.
- 11:13And I know we can talk for like an hour, just about that, right?
- 11:16It's a value differentiator.
- 11:17But we're here to talk about two very specific things that, you know, you're doing with
- 11:22Scott, Scott Chang, and what's the name of his brokerage again?
- 11:26Bywise mortgage.
- 11:27Bywise mortgage.
- 11:28Yep.
- 11:29Yep.
- 11:30Successful brokerage there in Southern California.
- 11:31So let's, we're going to have two things we talk about.
- 11:33First and foremost is home bot.
- 11:35Now I know some of my listeners are familiar with home bot, but what's the quick skinny on
- 11:39what is that really?
- 11:41So home bot is one of my favorite products, one of our favorite products.
- 11:47We don't really have any affiliation with them.
- 11:50I'm a fan of products that just work and it's gotten such a good return on investment
- 11:54for our agents.
- 11:55But it's basically, it's a way to put home values back to work for you.
- 12:00So every homeowner out there today has a preconceived notion of what their home is
- 12:04worth, right?
- 12:05Where are they getting it from?
- 12:06Getting it from Zilla.
- 12:07Right.
- 12:08Zestimate.
- 12:09Right.
- 12:10The dreaded Zestimate.
- 12:11So what home bot does is it sends your clients, your past client database, it could be your
- 12:15prospecting farm.
- 12:17It sends them a home value estimate every month, but what it does that I think is unique
- 12:22or that I think is entirely different is the data that it provides to the consumer is
- 12:27so incredibly transparent just in terms of delivery.
- 12:32It tells them this is how much your house is worth Riccardo, but then it gives them an
- 12:38entire breakdown of their equity position.
- 12:41Here's how much you've paid an interest.
- 12:42Here's how much money you would save if you refinanced and then how does how does home
- 12:46bot know that by the way?
- 12:47It pulls all that data from public brokerage data.
- 12:50Yep.
- 12:51So it like it's data source for the home values is I think core logic and black night.
- 12:57It was more accurate than the Zestimate.
- 13:00But then what it does that I think is very clever and totally transparent that no other
- 13:05company does is it gives them actual tailored scenarios for what's possible given your equity
- 13:13position.
- 13:14All right.
- 13:15So I mean, think about that.
- 13:17You help somebody buy a house, whether you're a lender or a realtor listening to this,
- 13:21you help somebody buy a house.
- 13:22For the next 30 plus years that homeowner is going to undergo a series of life changes
- 13:26in events that is going to raise a lot of questions.
- 13:30You have a growing family, like we just had a baby, you have a growing family.
- 13:34Your wife is thinking, honey, we really should consider getting a bigger house.
- 13:37I'm tired of using the living room as the kids play room.
- 13:40All right.
- 13:41They're having these conversations, but they don't necessarily think to ask the agent who
- 13:45helped them buy the house or the lender who helped them finance it because they don't
- 13:48want to get sold.
- 13:50They have those conversations.
- 13:51They might have it with the coworker.
- 13:52They might have it with a friend who they go watch the game with and they'll say, you
- 13:56should talk to my friend Stacy, she just got her license.
- 14:00What Homebot does is it's giving them that monthly home equity report and it has a section.
- 14:06Here's how much house you could afford.
- 14:09If you used X percent of your equity as a 20% down payment, you can afford your dreamhouse
- 14:14up to $2 million or you can buy an investment property worth up to $750,000, et cetera, et
- 14:19cetera, et cetera.
- 14:20That's what I love about how Homebot delivers that information.
- 14:23It doesn't just blanketly say your house is worth $700,000, it says your house is worth
- 14:28$700,000.
- 14:29There's so much equity you got.
- 14:31Here's what you can afford to do with it.
- 14:34Does it also, when you say, here's what you can afford to do with it, is it that specific
- 14:39in terms of the language?
- 14:41What does it typically say?
- 14:42Yeah.
- 14:43No, literally there's a screen on Homebot that says, if you bought a different home, here's
- 14:48how much house you could afford.
- 14:49Yeah, I see.
- 14:50Okay.
- 14:51And it'll show them based on your equity.
- 14:53If you took $200,000 of your equity, you could use that as a 20% down payment on a new
- 14:58home purchase.
- 14:59Yeah.
- 15:00Or you could take $140,000 and use it as a 30% down payment on an investment property
- 15:05up to this much.
- 15:06Well, I'm hearing that the open rates on the Homebot emails are like unheard of.
- 15:11Ridiculous.
- 15:12I think a lot of my agents and even Scott, it's an email that goes out just depending
- 15:20on whether you're targeting homeowners and past clients or you're working with buyers.
- 15:25It's just one email that goes out every month.
- 15:28So on the sell side or the homeowner side, it says, your home value has been updated for
- 15:32one to three main street click here.
- 15:34That email every month is getting a 90% open rate and it's getting like a 35 to 39% click
- 15:40through a rate.
- 15:42Show me anything in our industry that gets that level of engagement.
- 15:46Wow.
- 15:47You'll find nothing.
- 15:48Yeah.
- 15:49And so if they click on it, they're going to some kind of a customized or personalized
- 15:53dashboard.
- 15:54Yep.
- 15:55It takes them to their personal landing page, which is basically like your credit says to
- 16:01me.
- 16:02Yeah.
- 16:03Right.
- 16:04And is it branded?
- 16:05It's branded to you, the agent or branded to you, the loan officer.
- 16:09So it'll have your picture, your contact information, phone number, email address, your
- 16:13NMLS number, your DRE number.
- 16:15Right.
- 16:16All the way at the bottom.
- 16:17It says, if you found this information useful, would you mind referring it to a friend
- 16:20or sharing it with a friend?
- 16:21Great.
- 16:22What's their name?
- 16:23Email and phone number.
- 16:24Wow.
- 16:25I'm going to have your logo and all that good stuff.
- 16:26How long have you guys been using it?
- 16:29We've been using it really aggressively for like the last year and a half.
- 16:33Okay.
- 16:34All right.
- 16:35So appreciate the setup on Homebot.
- 16:36That's kind of transition into that you guys aren't your average homebot user, right?
- 16:42Knowing who Scott is and, you know, the intelligence and like the minds combined between the two
- 16:47of you marketing minds, tech wise, all that kind of stuff, some serious automation geeks
- 16:52here.
- 16:53Is that fair to say?
- 16:54We talk to each other almost twice a day in the morning and the afternoon, yell at each
- 16:58other several times.
- 17:00That's awesome.
- 17:01Well, but it's funny because I have this saying, right?
- 17:03In terms of a business and how do you improve your business if, you know, so to me, it always
- 17:08comes back to people process and technology stole that from Marcus Lomonas, the profit.
- 17:14But anyway, so you, yeah, I think it's right on.
- 17:17So technology with Homebot is something you're leveraging.
- 17:20So we've talked about like the past database with Homebot sending out to them.
- 17:24That gets them thinking about possibilities.
- 17:27Plus, you get the metrics on.
- 17:28You get specifically who opened it?
- 17:30Yep.
- 17:31So you'll have, it's, it's really cool when you log into your dashboard, you get this
- 17:34activity timeline and that activity timeline, I'll tell you, you also, Homebot recently
- 17:39has a new daily like, I forget if it's daily or weekly.
- 17:43It's an activity email that says, here's what's happening in your account.
- 17:47So you'll be able to see who's doing what?
- 17:49Wow.
- 17:50So you'll be able to see that cliff opened his digest 12 times in one day.
- 17:54Wow.
- 17:55What do I know about Cliff?
- 17:56Yeah, Cliff's interested in something.
- 17:58Like, we had one guy who opened his digest 30 times in one week.
- 18:03Wow.
- 18:04That person literally converted into a listing.
- 18:06Is that right?
- 18:07Yeah, because they're, you know, Homebot said your house is worth $665, they opened it
- 18:1130 times in one week, the agent called him, hey Jason, just checking in, looks like you
- 18:16got the Homebot digest okay, wondering if he had any questions, he's like, yes, this
- 18:20thing accurate.
- 18:21If, if so, I may reconsider selling just now, I don't want to keep losing equity.
- 18:25They just had to put the house on the market and voila, you got a new listing.
- 18:28Wow.
- 18:29Now, was that a realtor that you guys had teamed up with on that, yeah, so it was okay.
- 18:34And you were sending, you approached the realtor on this Homebot thing?
- 18:36Yep.
- 18:37We did a class on either Facebook ads or we did a class on Homebot and voila, he, you
- 18:43know, got connected with somebody that he hadn't spoken to literally in six years.
- 18:47Wow.
- 18:48I'd say that that solidifies your relationship with the agent, huh?
- 18:52Yeah.
- 18:53That's pretty strong.
- 18:55All right, let's talk about how you're doing that though, because most people don't
- 18:57use Homebot the way you and Scott do.
- 19:01They use it right just to send their past clients and database.
- 19:03Talk about, I mean, did, are you guys the only ones who saw this opportunity or are there
- 19:08other people?
- 19:09What are you doing exactly?
- 19:10You know, I don't, I don't know, it, for us, it became part of a process.
- 19:17So, so Scott will we say this, we're big fans out of, get everything you can out of
- 19:22everything that you've got.
- 19:23Yeah.
- 19:24Homebot appealing to us is a couple of different things.
- 19:27First is really, it's really inexpensive.
- 19:29It's for an agent to sign up for Homebot.
- 19:32It's $25 a month for up to 500 contacts.
- 19:35Uh-huh.
- 19:36I mean, that's a no-brainer.
- 19:37Right.
- 19:38$25 a month is, is, is, is nothing compared to, you know, you close one transaction that
- 19:42pays for it several years over.
- 19:44Please.
- 19:45Yeah.
- 19:46Um, and when you think about the tools that are being pitched in our industry, this, like
- 19:53having Homebot as a system really is kind of a set it and forget its system.
- 19:58So once a year, a lender might sit down and do an annual review with a client, talk
- 20:02about, you know, hey, um, it's just about that time to do an annual review.
- 20:08Have your plans changed this year?
- 20:09Are you thinking of buying a new home?
- 20:11Are you thinking of buying an investment or no, nothing's changed?
- 20:14Hmm.
- 20:15There's a lot of manual work.
- 20:16If you're a lender that goes into creating that, there's a whole like level of automation,
- 20:20like Homebot could do that for you in a minute or less if you just set it up and let it
- 20:25run.
- 20:26Right.
- 20:27So for us, it was, you know, how can we, we, we also do a lot of digital marketing.
- 20:32So we run Facebook ads for agents all over the country.
- 20:37Um, when we run Facebook ads, we put them on an aggressive like seven day drip campaign.
- 20:43And if they don't convert our last attempt email says something like, uh, stay in touch
- 20:49question mark, it'll say, Hey, Ricardo, I'll take your not responding as a sort of back
- 20:54off signal.
- 20:55I totally get it right now.
- 20:56It may not be the right time to buy for you, but whether you're looking to buy in two
- 20:58months, six months or two years, my team and I are here to help.
- 21:02In the meantime, I'm going to set you up with the Homebot Monthly Market Digest.
- 21:07Here's what it'll help you do.
- 21:08It'll help you explore markets based on, uh, what's most important to you.
- 21:12If you have any questions, you can get in touch with me through Homebot.
- 21:14Otherwise, I'll be in touch with you from time to time to, uh, to give you the latest
- 21:18updates on, uh, changes to loan programs or, you know, whatever.
- 21:23So then we just let Homebot take care of the automated long term nurture process where
- 21:27Homebot is going to email that person once a month.
- 21:31Here's the latest hits up, Ricardo, the markets around Costa Mesa are changing.
- 21:34Click here to see what's new and that consumer will be able to see the change to the average
- 21:38sales price in that area, uh, the current active listing inventory, the change to the average
- 21:43days on market.
- 21:44But then Homebot does something unique that I like.
- 21:48A lot of agents will tell me, well, Ricardo, I don't want more buyers.
- 21:51I want more listings like, okay, some percentage of those, about 10% of all of your buyer
- 21:57leads are actual listing opportunities.
- 22:00So Homebot, Homebot's onboarding sequence on the buyer side.
- 22:05As it's nice little onboarding sequence where it'll ask, hey, Ricardo, where are you searching?
- 22:09I'll say Costa Mesa because I live there.
- 22:12It says, great, when do you want to close?
- 22:14Let's say I'm renting.
- 22:15So I have a lease that doesn't expire until February of 2021.
- 22:19Homebot knows that the average days on market is 85 days in Costa Mesa.
- 22:22So it's going to say, great, you should get pre approved on this date.
- 22:25That means you can start the home search and bidding process on this date.
- 22:27If you submit an offer on this date, you'll comfortably be in your new home by mid February
- 22:31of 2021.
- 22:32But then here's what Homebot does that I think is valuable.
- 22:36Homebot will say, are you looking to purchase your first home or are you looking to buy
- 22:40a different home?
- 22:42Somebody says, the first home, nothing happens.
- 22:44If they say, I'm looking to buy a second home, Homebot says, well, hold on a second.
- 22:47It looks like you currently own.
- 22:49Why don't you give me your address?
- 22:50And I'll add you to our monthly wealth digest as well.
- 22:53Now you've identified a potential listing opportunity out of that new buyer lead that
- 22:57you got.
- 22:58Right.
- 22:59And so that's where we saw, we have this faucet of online, online leads that we're generating
- 23:05using Facebook ads.
- 23:07So we take all of those buyer leads and we automatically dump them in the Homebot and
- 23:11we let Homebot take care of sort of, yeah, so you're building your future business pipeline
- 23:16a future business, baby.
- 23:18Yeah.
- 23:19And it's all happening automated and you can track the interest level for each individual
- 23:23as it spikes up because they're going to log into their dashboard more often.
- 23:26That's exactly right.
- 23:28That's exactly right.
- 23:29And now you can filter your database when you log in the Homebot.
- 23:33You couldn't, they really didn't have a way to filter before, but now you can filter
- 23:36by closing date.
- 23:38So you can see, well, I don't even know what month we're on August.
- 23:43You can see who scheduled to close in, you know, September, October, November, December.
- 23:47Really?
- 23:48So you can see how far along people are and reach out and sort of prioritize your follow-up.
- 23:52Okay.
- 23:53So you're doing these, these classes, Facebook ads classes and you guys get on Homebot.
- 24:01You have a light that pops on and you're like, hey, my gosh, you know what?
- 24:04So these leads were generating for agents from these Facebook ads that we're doing on
- 24:08their behalf.
- 24:09Homebot would be awesome to snap onto that, right?
- 24:11That's right.
- 24:12Okay.
- 24:13So who's following, who's handling the follow-up with those ready to list or whatever,
- 24:18you know what I mean?
- 24:19Where it's just like, hey, green light, buyer's ready, you know what I'm saying?
- 24:21Who handles that?
- 24:22You're the agent.
- 24:23So that goes to the agent.
- 24:25So the agent gets a newly notification email from when we start running the ads, the
- 24:30agent will get a newly notification email that will automatically get added to their CRM.
- 24:35The newly notification email says something like, heads up Ricardo, you have a new buyer
- 24:39lead on your listing at once to their main street.
- 24:41Here's our first name, last name, email and phone number.
- 24:43Here are their answers to our qualifying questions.
- 24:45We asked them a lot.
- 24:47Do you already have a pre-approval letter?
- 24:49So yes, I'm already pre-approved or no, I like to speak to a lender.
- 24:51And then we say, when would you like to close 30 to 45 days, 3 to 6 months, 6 to 12?
- 24:56You guys, if I recall, nothing to wrap, but you have a lot of questions you ask somebody.
- 24:59On your lead form.
- 25:01Just those two.
- 25:02Oh, I just thought it was more than that.
- 25:03The qualifying.
- 25:04We were doing a lot more, but what we noticed is when we narrowed it down, when we trimmed
- 25:08it down, our conversion rate went up.
- 25:10Oh, really?
- 25:11Our conversion rate went up and our cost per lead went down.
- 25:15So the fewer the questions, the better.
- 25:17And one of the questions people hate is, do you need to sell a note or to buy?
- 25:21Why do they hate that?
- 25:22I have no idea.
- 25:23How do you know they hate it?
- 25:25Because we tested it.
- 25:26They don't answer it or what?
- 25:27They don't answer it.
- 25:29We could literally see our lead costs going up.
- 25:31Because they see it as a pitch, probably.
- 25:33Probably.
- 25:34Yeah.
- 25:35But get to the point of like, now you've got these leads generated and you've got,
- 25:38and you're automatically adding these people to Homebot, 3, 6 months down the road.
- 25:43Who's getting on top of that hot lead, 3, 6 months down the road where Homebot identifies it?
- 25:49That's the agent.
- 25:50That's the agent.
- 25:51That's how I was going to ask, how can you ensure that the agent will do that?
- 25:55So that's a, that's a hard one.
- 25:57That's a hard one because so for half of these agents, like it's totally up to the agent
- 26:02and I don't, I don't necessarily spend time with them to micromanage them that far out.
- 26:10Now what Scott and Josh, what's unique to them that they've tried to implement is they'll
- 26:14do accountability calls once a week.
- 26:18And so those calls are one-on-one.
- 26:19No, they'll try to do like a one-on-one.
- 26:21So they'll have somebody on the team call the agent, especially if we're running ads
- 26:25for the agent.
- 26:27They'll have somebody on the team call the agent to say, hey, how did it go this weekend?
- 26:30Do you have any buyers that we need to qualify or cross-qualify?
- 26:34By the way, how's it going with all these other records in your account?
- 26:37Yep.
- 26:38So, so there is that layer of accountability there, but, but I don't know.
- 26:42It's, well, up front you guys are doing some, some qualifying though of the agents.
- 26:46You're not going to approach every, you know what I'm saying?
- 26:48What is your criteria for teaming up with an agent on this Homebot or Facebook ads strategy?
- 26:55So the criteria is that you have to have the long-term mindset, and there's, you have
- 26:59to have a long-term mindset.
- 27:00So you interview them?
- 27:02Yeah.
- 27:03A lot of agents will have a, I feel like a lot of agents are hungry just for that next transaction.
- 27:09Right.
- 27:10I want something right now.
- 27:11I want something to close right now.
- 27:12Yep.
- 27:13So we tell them, if you're going to run ads consistently, you have to have a minimum
- 27:17commitment of about four months, because you're not going to see results in the first
- 27:2130 days.
- 27:22You have your outliers, and sometimes you do, but it's not the norm.
- 27:25And a minimum requirement, they have a CRM.
- 27:27Yeah.
- 27:28Oh, absolutely.
- 27:29They don't use yours, right?
- 27:30No.
- 27:31They have to have their own CRM.
- 27:32And if they don't have one, then we go with Lyandesk, because it's member benefit through
- 27:35the MLS, or you can use follow-up boss, or usually the agent work, like if you work for
- 27:41first team, EXP, you have KB core.
- 27:46So we're kind of like product agnostic or CRM agnostic, but we'll help you set it up on
- 27:51whatever system you're using.
- 27:54But yeah, we say, set the minimum expectation that you should think of this as, it's a flywheel.
- 28:00Minimum advertising budget of about $400 a month, run it for four months.
- 28:05And if you're consistently doing these things, or following these steps, you should experience
- 28:10like what we call a compound effect by month four, five, and six.
- 28:14Like we had one woman who was running ads last year in September, October and November
- 28:20doing a $400 or $500 ad spend.
- 28:22She didn't close anything in September, didn't close any October, didn't close anything
- 28:26in November by December.
- 28:27She closed four transactions for a total sales volume of about $1.2 to $1.4 million each.
- 28:33Yeah, take that.
- 28:35Yeah.
- 28:36Wow.
- 28:37Do you ever run into agents?
- 28:40Are they skeptical?
- 28:42Oh, yeah.
- 28:44All the time.
- 28:45How do you get over that?
- 28:46So who are you, are you the guy running the ads, by the way, and choosing like, you know,
- 28:51images and, you know what I'm saying?
- 28:53So by now, we have it down to like a pretty consistent formula, specific types of ads.
- 28:58Yeah.
- 28:59We're running for sure running specific types of ads.
- 29:01Okay.
- 29:02Usually on just listed, not just listed, price reduced, virtual open house, you know, usually
- 29:09on listings.
- 29:10Okay.
- 29:11Right now, we're doing some rent versus buy ads.
- 29:13By the way, just to clarify, that's what people are looking at when they're clicking those
- 29:17because they don't come, you know, that we've talked about this listeners.
- 29:20You know this, nobody gets on Facebook to look at homes.
- 29:22However, when you interrupt them on their feed, what's going to catch their attention is
- 29:26that listing, that cool looking house or whatever they've been in their back of their
- 29:29mind.
- 29:30And they're like, Hey, I got two minutes.
- 29:31Why don't I click this, you know, right?
- 29:34So it's either me, Noah or Scott running the ads at this point, and then yeah, when
- 29:41the newly comes in, we just have it run through those automations.
- 29:45Yeah, good.
- 29:46The biggest challenge is the agent sort of coaching and accountability and like, if they
- 29:53don't sign up for Homebot and give us their database, not even give us.
- 29:58But like, if they don't have their database ready within a week, if we met on Monday,
- 30:04I give you till Friday to hop on a follow up Zoom call with me and go over your database
- 30:08to upload it to Homebot.
- 30:11If you don't do that, that's literally like, we see that as minimal effort.
- 30:15If you can't even get past that hump, then we're not going to work together because if
- 30:20you can't do that, then I can't expect you to do all of these other things.
- 30:24Are they giving you their database in like a CSV?
- 30:27I don't tell like, sometimes I have them give me their database if they want us to like
- 30:31scrub it, go through it, get rid of any duplicates or, you know, help, help them basically
- 30:36get organized.
- 30:39It's not, they don't have to give us their database.
- 30:41We just help them clean it up.
- 30:42Well, what I want to get to is, are they concerned, you know, the whole access to my
- 30:46past clients?
- 30:47Is it in a separate silo in Homebot that you couldn't let's say?
- 30:51Yeah, so, yeah.
- 30:52So, like, there's always a firewall between agent and lender.
- 30:56So if you are connected.
- 30:57So you can't like rape and pillage their database, right?
- 31:00Correct.
- 31:01And every now and then we do have some of that, like, it's not an overbearing concern.
- 31:05Yeah.
- 31:06If ever it is, we tell them, look, it just get your database organized.
- 31:11If you email Homebot, they'll take care of uploading it for you.
- 31:13You don't need to give it to us.
- 31:15Got it.
- 31:16Got it.
- 31:17Okay.
- 31:18Very interesting.
- 31:19You mentioned a figure to me, the, the, the, the closing ROI, 34.
- 31:23Oh, yeah.
- 31:24You have how many agents on the platform with you right now?
- 31:26So we have about 34 agents that are currently sponsored by, by one of our lenders, Scott.
- 31:35They've closed about 24 listings in 10 months.
- 31:38Just from marketing to their past client database.
- 31:42And do you have a sense of, like, how many loans you got out of that?
- 31:45So I don't know because I remember at month six or eight, Scott and I were talking about
- 31:51it.
- 31:52We're trying to figure out, like, who's, who's active?
- 31:54Who's not?
- 31:55Who do we need to boot?
- 31:56Correct.
- 31:57Who's upload it, you know, et cetera.
- 31:58And so I think we were at like six refives and a couple purchases.
- 32:04Okay.
- 32:05So let's just call it eight in, in your loan, average loan size out there is probably
- 32:08around three or fourish, right?
- 32:11So people listening to the math on that.
- 32:15And the other important point here, however, is don't just focus on what are the loans you
- 32:19got out of just that, but knowing that to your conversation when we first started value
- 32:25to the real estate agent, you're generating 24 listings for these 34 different agents.
- 32:30That's like gold to them, right?
- 32:33And you're creating this loyalty and reciprocal relationship.
- 32:36So they're going to be fighting for you on future deals and they're going to get, you're
- 32:38going to get their business, yep, which is really the end game of what we're trying to
- 32:42do here.
- 32:43Yep.
- 32:44Yep.
- 32:45Wow.
- 32:46And home bot for the loan officer side, the investment on that side is, like you said,
- 32:51250 a month.
- 32:52Yeah.
- 32:53So it's 200 a month.
- 32:54If you want to sponsor an agent or the ability to sponsor agents, which, which I think
- 32:58is the value.
- 32:59Yeah.
- 33:00It's the value, but it's also kind of like I can see where it's difficult.
- 33:03You have to be willing to work on the relationship.
- 33:08But it's $200 a month plus $25 for each additional agent that you sponsor.
- 33:13Okay.
- 33:14So if I was the lender and I had four agents I was sponsoring, I'm paying 200 plus another
- 33:18100.
- 33:19I'm paying 300 a month.
- 33:21Yep.
- 33:22Yep.
- 33:23However, we know we've got some toads.
- 33:26We've got some princes when it comes to agents, various levels of participation.
- 33:34But that's why you have a very tight timeline and you probably make it clear up front.
- 33:37That's why that's why we make it crystal clear up front.
- 33:40This is the commitment we want from you.
- 33:42We will help you every step of the way.
- 33:44But I need to know that you're going to do your part.
- 33:48How about is the price for homebot if you're not going to do, so it's the same price
- 33:52for homebot, 200 bucks out of the gate, regardless of you.
- 33:55If you're not going to sponsor agents, I think they have a lower price plan.
- 33:58I think it's $100 a month for up to 1,000 contacts.
- 34:02Okay.
- 34:03That's what I thought to.
- 34:04For those of you who are listening and you're not on homebot yet and you want to start
- 34:07with that, that'd be a good place to start.
- 34:10Because I mean, look at you're doing with the Facebook ads thing that you're doing.
- 34:14I'll be honest.
- 34:15Not everybody can do that.
- 34:18Because you're skill set and so forth, but the point is you could learn or team up with
- 34:23somebody who can help you do it, which is what you've done with Scott.
- 34:27All right, so I'm doing the math in my head on that currently right now.
- 34:32Your investment on that is, I don't know, grand or so, give or take.
- 34:37But we said it was like five loans to roughly, it was like 15, let's say five, like 1.5
- 34:45million into a loan volume through the math on that.
- 34:47It's about 15 G's just at 100 bips.
- 34:50Some people make more than that.
- 34:51Scott's got his own brokerage, so we know that's true.
- 34:54There you go.
- 34:56And then if you think about, like, so let's say Scott has a thousand contacts in his home
- 35:01bot account, that's how many emails are going out every month that says, you know, how
- 35:08many refund opportunities or cash out opportunity or purchase opportunities.
- 35:11But by partnering with other agents, you're not just connected to your database.
- 35:14Now you're exponentially connected to everyone's database.
- 35:17Yeah.
- 35:18But if any of those consumers have a financing question, you know, you're the loan officer
- 35:21on that account.
- 35:22Yeah, a great point.
- 35:23You're expanding your sphere of influence through a, is there an introductory email that goes
- 35:28out from the agent, you know, that introduces home bot or and or the lender partner?
- 35:33No, I don't, there's the introductory emails always come from that user's account.
- 35:38So it'll come from the agent whenever it's a financing question, there's an email that
- 35:42goes out to both the agent and the lender.
- 35:45And there's not, there's not really like an introductory email that says, this is your
- 35:48preferred lender, et cetera.
- 35:50Yeah.
- 35:51But the dashboard.
- 35:52Is that co branded?
- 35:53No.
- 35:54No.
- 35:55No, it's just branded to the agent.
- 35:56But if they, if, if, if, if, if I understand correctly, right, if they click on a link in
- 35:58the email, that's a financing related thing, is that still just go to the agent's website?
- 36:03I think, no, I think it, I think that'll be co branded or I think the email goes out,
- 36:08like it should have, I, I forget, I have to look at the emails, but I'm, I'm pushing
- 36:13you here.
- 36:14Don't worry about it.
- 36:15All right.
- 36:16So that's cool.
- 36:17So that's for anybody who's like interested in learning more about home bot, what it is,
- 36:19what it can do.
- 36:20If you really, you know, at some point, want to level up and, you know, use it as an agent,
- 36:25you know, nurturing tool to help them with, that'd be curious too.
- 36:29Look, Orange County, a lot of very successful agents, very competitive.
- 36:34You're doing these, these, these classes, showing them how to generate leads on Facebook,
- 36:39offering to do it for them.
- 36:41What do you run into?
- 36:44How broken, because I know you work with successful producing agents already, right?
- 36:49And when they come to you, they're successful, right, air quotes, they're generating transactions.
- 36:55But do you often find that their systems are still broken?
- 36:59Oh, yeah.
- 37:00Yeah.
- 37:01Because I find that people jump from one solution to another to another to another.
- 37:07And maybe that's an industry problem.
- 37:08Everyone's pitching like our solution is the best or this system is the best.
- 37:12Right.
- 37:13And so you, you do also run into a lot of snake oil, right?
- 37:17Yeah.
- 37:18So, so yeah, I tried this, but it didn't work.
- 37:20I tried this, but it didn't work.
- 37:21I tried this, but it didn't work.
- 37:23And it's like, okay, well, you don't have a lead problem.
- 37:25You have a conversion problem, and it's because you can't, you know, right.
- 37:29So, so true.
- 37:30So I just want to bring that up for everybody listening.
- 37:32I remember here in Vegas months ago, before COVID, I was doing in-person classes,
- 37:36and you know, meeting afterwards to consult this agent team.
- 37:39And they literally have been in the business 20 years.
- 37:41I'm serious.
- 37:42And they're successful agents, like very successful.
- 37:45And, you know, what was their answer to, well, where's your database?
- 37:48Well, you know, as soon as they start with that, right?
- 37:51Well, no.
- 37:53Well, it's in Excel.
- 37:55I hear that from so like nine out of every 10 appointments.
- 38:00Seriously, man, I'm like, you've been in business for 20 years, you're kidding me.
- 38:05I had somebody who was working off of 10,000 records on their phone.
- 38:09Oh, my God.
- 38:10How's that possible?
- 38:11I was like, I was like, you know, on the one hand, good for you.
- 38:16On the other, what?
- 38:18Well, so that's the old cliche that they're not, they're not succeeding by design.
- 38:23Right?
- 38:24That's right.
- 38:25By deep.
- 38:26Maybe they're doing a good job and stuff that reminds me the, you know, the quote I love
- 38:29from Tom Ferry is what he calls fading winners, you know, which is the people who are doing
- 38:34well because they're like, they're good with customers and they've been around a long
- 38:37time, but they're fading away from attention, right, because they're not where consumer
- 38:41attention is.
- 38:42Yeah.
- 38:43Or they're not good at keeping consumer attention.
- 38:45That's right.
- 38:46All right.
- 38:47So that's good.
- 38:48That's good part one there.
- 38:49Part two.
- 38:50Let's position and talk about another one of my favorite topics, which is online reviews.
- 38:54I've heard of a five star customer experience.
- 38:57You have a what?
- 38:58An 11 star.
- 38:59So, so this one was a, who did I hear this from?
- 39:03So a buddy of mine, one of the companies that I worked at was a startup that I worked
- 39:09at was a web personalization software.
- 39:12Mm hmm.
- 39:13It was actually pretty cool, not real estate related, but you can personalize your website
- 39:18and the consumer experience on your website based on what consumers are doing.
- 39:21Anyway, one of our clients was this guy who runs a, a coaching company and, and, and
- 39:27business and whatnot.
- 39:30He works with SaaS companies and he works with these other companies, et cetera.
- 39:35And it's this sensational sort of 11 star experience.
- 39:39And I think where he, I heard it from him and where he got it from, he got it from
- 39:43Brian Chesky.
- 39:44He's actually the co funder and CEO of Airbnb.
- 39:49Oh, wow.
- 39:50Okay.
- 39:51The point isn't to build an 11 star experience or even like nine star experience, but the
- 39:58ideas that you come up with while you're sitting down to ideate, like what goes into building
- 40:03a five star experience.
- 40:04Great.
- 40:05Yeah.
- 40:06And how can we take that further to build a seven star experience?
- 40:07So the ideas that you're going to come up with to build that seven star experience are
- 40:12actually a lot closer and within your reach than you might even think or consider.
- 40:16I love that.
- 40:17That's actually a great point.
- 40:19It's all about like, you know, like you guys talked about getting everything you can
- 40:22out of everything you got, right, Jay Abraham book there and it's like optimization,
- 40:27right?
- 40:28So how can we optimize?
- 40:29So if you're just thinking at a level of, hey, what's a five star experience?
- 40:32Well, that keeps you here.
- 40:33But if you go like, hey, man, how can we do for an 11, right?
- 40:36That's right.
- 40:37And then we're going to pick the five.
- 40:38That's right.
- 40:39And so a lot of our clients out here, like in Newport, higher end areas, we have to think
- 40:45that way, right?
- 40:46So, you know, one of the exercises that we oftentimes do is we have them go through
- 40:52this exercise and the way we do it is we say, okay, let's sit down.
- 40:56You are your team and let's kind of reverse engineer this thing.
- 40:59So we start by, you know, sitting down and jotting down.
- 41:04What does a crappy experience with your service look like working with somebody on your
- 41:08team?
- 41:09What does that look like?
- 41:10Literally.
- 41:11Initial, like prospect contact all the way through to close and post close.
- 41:17So then we say, great, what is an amazing five star experience working with you or someone
- 41:21on your team look like?
- 41:22And then we just keep going until the experience gets so absurd that it just sounds ridiculous
- 41:27like possible.
- 41:29How a copter rides in the post, pretty much.
- 41:34But then, you know, you find opportunities for like services like a client giant.
- 41:38Have you heard of client giant?
- 41:41Freakin' amazing.
- 41:42So, you know, a lot of my agents who service Newport and, you know, those sort of like higher
- 41:47end markets where the sales price is two million are up, they purchase that platinum package
- 41:51on client giant all the time.
- 41:54Because what is it like two days before or two weeks before you close?
- 41:57It says, hey, I have taken care of the following for you.
- 42:00What do you want?
- 42:01Your car detailed, like a housekeeper for the day, landscaper or handyman for a few hours.
- 42:07Most people choose the car detail.
- 42:08Uh-huh.
- 42:09So, two weeks after the transaction closes, it's, hey, I want to say congratulations.
- 42:13Thank you so much for trusting us with your transaction.
- 42:15Here's a complimentary dinner for two of BlackHero come pick you up and take you to a place
- 42:19of your choice.
- 42:20Wow.
- 42:21That's for those higher end transactions.
- 42:22Yeah.
- 42:23The experience that that delivers is like, are you freaking kidding me?
- 42:26I'll never use somebody else ever again.
- 42:28Right.
- 42:29That's, that's worth the, that's pays for itself, you know, X amount of times over.
- 42:34I have an agent who got six referrals, I think, in three months from somebody they close
- 42:39the transaction with.
- 42:40Wow.
- 42:41Yeah.
- 42:42So client giant, I'll put the link in the show notes, but I think it's client giant.com
- 42:45or search it.
- 42:46Yeah.
- 42:47All right.
- 42:48So tell us about your, how do you get online reviews?
- 42:50You have a specific process.
- 42:52So one of the things that we teach our agents, you, the ask doesn't come at the end of a transaction.
- 43:01You have to set the tone and expectation at the very beginning.
- 43:04So hey, Ricardo, I know you're going to be so satisfied working with our team.
- 43:09We're going to deliver through and through and I know you're going to be so happy.
- 43:13So here's what I'm going to ask you to do.
- 43:14Can I count on you to leave us a five star review when we're done with this transaction?
- 43:20And that happens on day one when you're sitting down for that initial, yeah, when you're sitting
- 43:23down for that initial buyers console, when you're sitting down for that listing console,
- 43:28you're just planning seeds or setting the tone and expectation.
- 43:31Because if you go all the way through the transaction and it's like, boom, can you leave me
- 43:34a review?
- 43:35It's, you know, you haven't really baked it in.
- 43:38And then I love that five word phrase.
- 43:40It's, it's, it's, it's a powerful five word phrase.
- 43:42Can I count on you, right?
- 43:45What's a person going to say?
- 43:47No.
- 43:48Right.
- 43:49They, they, they want to, you know, they want to say yes.
- 43:51So can I count on you when we're done with this transaction to leave me and my team a five
- 43:56star review?
- 43:57Well, you ever hear it's like, well, yeah, if it's good, you know what I mean?
- 44:01I'm sure.
- 44:02I'm sure.
- 44:03But yeah, like you're kind of just planning seeds and setting the tone and expectation.
- 44:07Do you think that would work as well on the lender side?
- 44:10Oh, yeah.
- 44:11I mean, I feel like Scott and Josh do that already.
- 44:14They have what?
- 44:15They have 50 five star reviews on Google and Josh is the one that's pretty adamant about
- 44:21chasing those down and Josh wants to know, especially with the realtor partners.
- 44:27He tells their realtor partners, look, we're an extension of you.
- 44:30So if we don't deliver a good service, then they'll never use you again.
- 44:35They'll never use, and you'll never use us again.
- 44:38So it's our goal to deliver that 11 star experience because we want to get a five star
- 44:42review.
- 44:43I want to keep, you know, building this relationship.
- 44:46Good point.
- 44:47So he plants those seeds early.
- 44:48And like I said, they have what, 55 star reviews on Google and they've gotten loans out
- 44:52of it too.
- 44:54Where Josh asked, hey, how do you hear about us?
- 44:55And he goes, well, I was Googling.
- 44:58I know interest rates are low, and I was Googling local company and here in Hunting
- 45:01and Beach and I came across you guys.
- 45:03Right.
- 45:04So, so, you know, I always tell our agents, we live in a five star review culture, and
- 45:10this stuff absolutely matters.
- 45:12Yes.
- 45:13So then the other part that we do is we, so I have an email that I send out, and we make
- 45:20that part of the automated lead follow up.
- 45:23So when you add a tag in your CRM, lioness, follow boss, whatever, when you change a tag,
- 45:30it automatically triggers an email to go out to the client.
- 45:33And what I try to do is I try to spoon feed them exactly what you want them to say.
- 45:38Because if, like I had an agent yesterday, ask me, I get stressed out asking people to
- 45:44leave me reviews because sometimes I feel like they ramble.
- 45:47Sometimes I, you know, I feel like I don't know what to tell them to say.
- 45:51I feel like if I don't tell them what to say, then they're just going to, like I said, ramble.
- 45:56So I say, no, no, no, you have to spoon feed them.
- 45:58So here's what I say.
- 46:00We ask our clients to give us a public testimonial.
- 46:04Here are the quick steps to follow, take less than two minutes, click on the link below
- 46:07to leave us a review.
- 46:08You can scan the other reviews to see what previous customers have said about us.
- 46:12And if you're thinking about what to write about, many of our clients have read the reviews,
- 46:16have told us that these are the following characteristics that have been useful to them.
- 46:20And then I just have a bullet list.
- 46:22They chose us because we had five star reviews across the board.
- 46:25They chose us because of our expertise and our accessibility.
- 46:29They chose us because, you know, there was something in particular that we did that
- 46:32they appreciated.
- 46:34Was it our knowledge and expertise over the local area market?
- 46:37Was it our patience, communication, and education throughout the process, especially
- 46:41if you're working with those first time buyers?
- 46:43And then would you work with us again?
- 46:45So I love those guys from BioWise Mortgage.
- 46:49They were entirely patient with these, you know, newbie first time buyers.
- 46:53And I would absolutely work with them again.
- 46:55Wow.
- 46:56You're literally just spoon-feeding them what you want them to say.
- 46:59I love that.
- 47:00And you raised such a good point in that it's hard for people to write, you know, testimonials,
- 47:06book reviews, whatever.
- 47:07I mean, half the book reviews you've seen that was written by the author, you know?
- 47:11Yep.
- 47:12But I love that because you're giving them something to focus on and grab a few nuggets and make
- 47:16that a lot easier.
- 47:17So you're conversion right now and that's going to be a lot higher.
- 47:19Yep.
- 47:20Absolutely.
- 47:21Wow.
- 47:22That's fantastic, man.
- 47:23And by the way, is Google your number one focus for online reviews?
- 47:26Google my business.
- 47:27I do say, you know, Zilla, I know how a lot of people feel about Zilla, but like I had one
- 47:33agent who's been in the business for 25 years, 35 years, she's an expert, right?
- 47:39She's great at what she does.
- 47:41She was losing, but she has like three reviews on Zilla.
- 47:45She was losing business to a competitor who was in the end, who's been in the business
- 47:49for less than a year and a half, but has like 18 five-star reviews.
- 47:53Yep.
- 47:54Yep.
- 47:55This is why I say like we live in a five-star review culture and, you know, unfortunately,
- 47:59it's a level of social proof that consumers do pay attention to.
- 48:02Yeah.
- 48:03It's, they, you've seen the stats.
- 48:04They trust online reviews almost as much as a peer review, from a friend or a relative.
- 48:10Yep.
- 48:11Yeah, that's, that's a great example there.
- 48:13Wow.
- 48:14I'm not a fan of Yelp mostly because they're, they're super aggressive about,
- 48:19right.
- 48:20You know, they're advertising practices.
- 48:21I have maybe one company who specializes in rentals and they've been doing an amazing
- 48:28job just to advertising on Yelp.
- 48:29Yeah, I'm just an American company.
- 48:32I wonder to what degree Yelp's even a factor anymore to real estate specifically, I
- 48:38mean.
- 48:39Yeah.
- 48:40Like all the other, all the other services like plumbing, heating, air conditioning,
- 48:42all that.
- 48:43Sure.
- 48:44But it's clearly, it's, it's Google My Business in Zillow.
- 48:47Yep.
- 48:48In the mortgage and real estate space.
- 48:49Yeah.
- 48:50So, so if you're listening, that's where your online reviews are.
- 48:52And by the way, do you send them an email with a, how do you handle them actually inputting
- 48:56it?
- 48:57Is it choose one or is it?
- 48:58Yep.
- 48:59So I, I try not to give them a menu of services.
- 49:02I always say just pick one.
- 49:04You can say pick them.
- 49:05You give them the link then or?
- 49:06Yep.
- 49:07Yeah.
- 49:08Okay.
- 49:09Yep.
- 49:10In the email, just say click the link below to get started.
- 49:11Right.
- 49:12So my business will give you a nice short URL that you can, you know, pop into that email
- 49:17there to some people to do it.
- 49:18And if you don't have a Google My Business page and you're listening to this, you may,
- 49:21you may hit stop right now.
- 49:24Go look on YouTube or come to me, I have a Google My Business class.
- 49:29It'll take you 20 minutes or less.
- 49:31Well, you got to get the postcard though, right?
- 49:36How funny is that, right?
- 49:38To get very, I understand it because you're a local business.
- 49:40Yeah.
- 49:41But you got to wait for this postcard from Google, man.
- 49:43It took me like three weeks, not a month.
- 49:46I know.
- 49:47It's crazy, right?
- 49:48But well worth the wait.
- 49:49That's for sure.
- 49:50It'll be interesting to see how that platform continues to evolve.
- 49:52Do you guys do, you know how you can do photos on there and videos?
- 49:55Yeah.
- 49:56Are you doing any of that?
- 49:57Yeah.
- 49:58So I always recommend it because that's the one thing, especially in our industry, real
- 50:03estate, blending that I feel like nobody's taking advantage of.
- 50:08So optimize the real estate opportunity there, upload as many photos as you can.
- 50:15What I tell my agencies, maybe pre-COVID, but you have a photographer who is shooting
- 50:21your listing, right?
- 50:22Ask them to do at least three lifestyle photos, three additional lifestyle photos while
- 50:28you're at the property.
- 50:29This way you have some time.
- 50:30What do you mean by lifestyle photo?
- 50:31A photo of you walking around the house, touring the house, holding a contract.
- 50:35Something that you can repurpose or use as part of your marketing, you're already paying
- 50:38for professional quality photos.
- 50:41Why not get some that you can use in your business?
- 50:44Interesting.
- 50:45Yeah, there's lots of different ways to leverage the Google My Business platform.
- 50:50So focus on the people.
- 50:51All right.
- 50:52Cool.
- 50:53Listen, before we go, I know you're busy.
- 50:54I appreciate you making time.
- 50:55You yourself have a podcast.
- 50:56Tell everybody about it and how can they find it and subscribe.
- 50:59Yeah.
- 51:00So the podcast is the weekly boost.
- 51:02The idea being I consult with some of the best agents in the country and I just want
- 51:07to share what's working for them and what you can apply to your business.
- 51:10You can find it at ricardabono.com forward slash podcast and check it out there.
- 51:17All right.
- 51:18So you also have a special gift just for my listeners.
- 51:20Tell us what that's about and how we can find that too.
- 51:23Yep.
- 51:24I have a couple of awesome follow-up scripts.
- 51:26One is that you can use related to homebot to make it rain CMAs.
- 51:30That's the one time email that we send to people after you upload it in the homebot
- 51:33to get some more of those listing opportunities coming in.
- 51:37And the other one is my template for getting more online reviews.
- 51:41So if you just go to ricardabono.com forward slash MRR, you could download those templates
- 51:46for free.
- 51:47Awesome.
- 51:48Love it.
- 51:49Thank you for sharing that.
- 51:50I can't wait to get my hands on both of those because people need help with these online
- 51:53reviews.
- 51:54You know, you've done this classes with the agents.
- 51:57The joke is, hey, who wants to learn how to get more online reviews?
- 52:00Here it is.
- 52:01Big secret.
- 52:02That's right.
- 52:07Like you said, the agent, she's like, I'm afraid.
- 52:09I don't know how to like ask my, you know, okay.
- 52:11All right.
- 52:12And you're selling, you know, a million dollar homes.
- 52:14It's so funny.
- 52:17A lot of things I feel can be solved like if you just ask.
- 52:21Yeah, for sure.
- 52:22Like have you tried asking?
- 52:23No.
- 52:24All right.
- 52:25Exactly.
- 52:26I don't want to burden them.
- 52:27Okay.
- 52:28All right.
- 52:29Fair enough.
- 52:30All right.
- 52:31So listen, we're going to put links to all that kind of stuff in the show notes, man.
- 52:32Appreciate you being here.
- 52:33Hopefully we get to see you in person sometime in the near future sooner rather than later.
- 52:37All right, man.
- 52:38Appreciate you being here and listeners.
- 52:39You know what to do.
- 52:40If you like this episode, hey, leave us a review and we appreciate you and we'll see you
- 52:44on the next one.
- 52:45Bye for now.
- 52:46Hey, guys.
- 52:47What's up?
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