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The Most Overlooked Lead Source in Real Estate · Massive Agent Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most overlooked lead sources for real estate agents is sitting right under your nose, but nobody really gives this the time of day, or nobody really thinks it's a real strategy.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: But today I'm going to share with you what this strategy is and how you can leverage it to get more business and sell more homes and ultimately make way more money as an agent.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: The Massive Agent Podcast.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I love to buy houses.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I like to sell houses.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Wait a minute.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Leads a week.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've said better.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, have I got your attention now?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Here's your host, Dustin Brom.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: What is up, guys?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to episode 453 of the Massive Agent Podcast.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Dustin Brome in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Today, I'm going to share with you something that changed my career forever, changed my life forever, actually, changed the finances of my family tree forever.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's an opportunity that every single one of you has right now.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I've taken it further than some of you will, and that's totally cool.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: But right now, I'd say 99 out of 100 agents are wildly underestimating and overlooking the like one of the best lead sources out there.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: That lead source is your fellow agents.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: See, back when I was struggling dramatically to build my business, like I was just learning how to leverage social media to get business coming to me.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually blogging first.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was writing blogs to get indexed in Google and to have people find me when they go to a Google search.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this was 10 plus years ago, probably like 12 years ago.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then I learned, wait, in order to get people to see it, I need them, like I need to learn social media so they can actually like see the content.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that helped me promote it.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: But during that, uh during that process, I learned that what I was learning was actually very valuable to other agents.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just started to share on it was Snapchat at the time, actually, what I was doing to get business.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was sharing what, like what I was doing on social, what I was doing with ads and all of that.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like I would even show, hey, I'm going to put this sign in the yard, you know, listing this house, blah, blah, blah.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And other agents were watching it.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And something really cool happened out of that that I wasn't expecting.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: This certainly wasn't my intention at the time, but I started to get other agents in other markets who I was connected with on social sending me business.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think up until that point I'd ever received another referral.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I don't even think I knew what a referral was.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like I did conceptually, but it wasn't top of mind.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: It certainly wasn't like what I was going after.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: But as I started to become known by other agents and other markets, they started to know me as the Salt Lake guy.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it and all of a sudden, if if they're in Denver or Miami or Knoxville, Tennessee, and they have a client who's moving to Salt Lake City.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And now all of a sudden, I'm the only agent they know in Salt Lake.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Naturally, I get the referral.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so this started to happen.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So in that first year, after I started to network with other agents, really, even though it wasn't the intention, I think I got three or four referrals, like solid actual referrals.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think I closed two of them.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I realized wait, this is actually a legit lead source.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is a legit lead gen strategy.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I leaned into it.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And leaning into it just meant I started to network with more agents, deepen the connections as much as I possibly could.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I started to write articles for Inman, for Housing Wire.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: BAM was not around back then, unfortunately.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: But now I'd write for BAM, uh, Riz Media, RIS Media, whatever the hell.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I'd start to write articles about what I was doing to get busy, what was working for me, and I'd write it for other agents.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was uh it was so different than what I thought and what my strategy was, which was trying to reach the consumer directly.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And now I was networking with other agents, and something crazy happened too.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was more fulfilled.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was having more fun because I didn't feel so damn alone anymore.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: When it was just me in my basement office trying to reach buyers and sellers in my area, it was super lonely.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, my mentor, who taught me a lot of good stuff, but a lot of bad stuff, one of the worst things he taught me was to never connect with other agents on social because they might see what I'm doing and steal my ideas.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized that is the opposite advice that anyone should be given because it has changed my life in so many ways.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll get to like, you know, how this eventually came to be.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: But just by networking with other agents in my market and out, I started to get all these referrals and I started to be able to give referrals.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I had a seller one time that because of work, they were moving to, I forget where it was, I want to say it was somewhere in Kentucky.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I just happened to know an agent because we were friends on Snapchat in that area.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was able to set up the referral.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I actually got hooked on outgoing referrals.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're a if you're a producing agent, getting referrals is fantastic.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I believe giving a referral to another agent who actually gets the deal done is the greatest thing ever because you're getting paid 25 or 30% on it and you don't have to do the work.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now you did the hard part.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: You did a crucial part by getting the client to begin with and then passing that over to another agent is super valuable.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I became addicted to giving referrals.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So referrals from other agents should be a it could be.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be careful here because I'm not saying you should stop doing what you're doing and just go focus on trying to get build a referral business.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can do this on top of what you're already doing.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I would hope that you're already networking with other agents, that you're already creating relationships and be friendships with agents around the country.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're not, you're so limited.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Building the referral business, the referral network on top of what you're already doing makes everything work better.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you do that?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: How do you build a referral network of agents all around the country in different markets that you can refer to and they can refer to you?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: How do you become known as the Salt Lake guy or the Omaha girl or the Knoxville, Tennessee guy with all the other agents that you know?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So social media, obviously, putting out content, making it very clear where you do business, showing off your market, which works for reaching consumers as well, but other agents that you're connected with will also start to connect you with your market.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So they they think of you as the Knoxville agent or the Salt Lake agent.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you could also create content specifically for agents.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is dangerous because I I've seen way too many agents start to do this, trying to trying to create funny content for other agents.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't really have a strategy in mind.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So have a strategy around it, but it could be a distraction.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're creating some portion of your content for other agents, I don't necessarily think that's a problem, as long as it's intentional and you're building yourself up as the expert and the go-to in your area and someone who's credible and knows what the hell they're doing and can get a deal done.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mentioned writing for industry publications like Inman, Housing Wire, BAM, RAS Media, and a bunch of others.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Be a guest on other agents' podcasts.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great way to network and to build your friend group.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've been doing this show now for eight and a half years.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're at episode 453.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the best, one of the things that's come out of it that I've gotten the most from is becoming legit friends and colleagues with the guests that I've had on the show.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of them at the time, I was like reaching up, hoping that they would agree to be on my show.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then over time, like becoming friends and peers and equals with these people.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, like a lot of my network amongst the industry leaders, amongst other industry influencers and big shots, if you will, in the industry is because I had them as guests on my show.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you can have you can do the same in reverse.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a podcast, great.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Have other, have other agents on your show, but you can also be on theirs.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, commenting on other agents' posts.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is where if you're watching, if you're in Knoxville and you there's an agent in Seattle, comment on their stuff.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like be human and social on social media.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do it in a way where it feels like you have a strategy where you're just like putting random comments that don't really mean a whole lot on someone's stuff.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like they can feel if it's just if you're just kind of doing it to check a box, or if you're doing it because you actually want to be social and actually want to be friends, actually want to be cordial with that person.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: So comment thoughtfully in and um not intelligently, well, do that, but comment intentionally on other agents' content as well.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how that's one of the great ways you can create a friendship and a relationship.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: You've heard me say this a million times networking with other agents in person at local events, industry events, conferences, all of it.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: When you go to events, please talk to people.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Go out of your way to meet someone new or a few different new people every single time.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: If not, yeah, you might have learned some new cool things from stage, but the real value comes from the relationships that you that you make, the people that you get around, the problems that they've solved that they can help you solve, all of that stuff.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and look, what one of the one of the big reasons why agent relationships have changed my life is because my business model allows me to partner with agents and share in the revenue through my brokerage whenever they sell homes.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So over time I've been able to build this big network of now over 1,400 plus agents.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever, you know, those 1,400 agents, when they whenever they sell a house, a little bit of the revenue is shared from the brokerage's cut with me and it's created a pretty awesome, pretty awesome business.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: That could be a bonus on top of what you're already doing if you if you want to, but if you're at a certain brokerage that has a revenue share opportunity or even a profit share opportunity, it it's a great, it just makes, how do I put this?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: All right, the revenue share model, I believe, makes it so agents are no longer competitors.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't ever see an agent and think that's a competitor.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a potential partner, that's a potential collaborator, that's a potential business partner.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that is really freaking cool.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: It lets you live in abundance at all times when you don't, when you don't feel like you have to like compete or shield yourself, you know, from someone.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So everyone, every agent, there's a way to potentially partner so that both of you make more money is pretty awesome.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, masterminds, speaking at events, going to local board events and brokerage events, Facebook groups and online communities for agents.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is a great way to network with others and to build friendships and relationships, but you have to, you can't just be in the group.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: You have to participate in the group.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to comment, you have to engage, you have to, you, you've got to participate in the conversations that are happening.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: You have to initiate some conversations, you've got you got to participate.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, no one's gonna know you.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can't just be in a Facebook group.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say there's a Facebook group for Washington agents.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you're in there, it does you zero good unless you're unless other people are seeing you participate and connecting with you through the stuff that you post, share, and comment.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I by the way, this all takes effort.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is not a lead gen strategy that you can just be like, uh, I'll put$500 into this and it's gonna give me 12, 12 leads.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: No, this is something that could that could pay you millions of dollars over time.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: For me, my business model now, where agents are partners, business partners, collaborators, has paid me millions of dollars over the years, but it's taken a hell of a lot of effort.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, I'd say most times, you don't see what can be what can come from a relationship until way later.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like usually looking back, you're like, wow, had I not gone to that event and gone to that one dinner and been introduced with that one agent, I wouldn't have been able to partner with them and then, you know, open up this market for my brokerage.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking of a very specific situation where that happened.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Had I not gone to speak at an event and then go to the speaker dinner and get introduced with this one particular agent in one major market in the midmo in the Midwest, I'd have 150 fewer agents in my network.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's significant.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: So pretty crazy how one thing can lead to another.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: But at the time, I was just excited to meet someone new.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: He was a top producer.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, he was very respected, he was funny and awesome.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, cool, I have a new friend in this market in Columbus, Ohio.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um it wasn't until way later that that relationship turned into something where we became business partners.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: You never know at the time.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if you go into every potential relationship thinking, I'm gonna get this person at my brokerage, or I'm gonna become business partners, or we're gonna do this, or they're gonna be a referral partner, that that's great.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's nice to have that in the back of your head as a potential, but like just freaking be cool.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Be someone worth befriending, be somebody worth having a relationship with.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because if they feel like you have some ulterior motive, or that you won't be satisfied unless you get referrals out of these people, then they're just gonna forget about you.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I would like, I would too.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know those agents where you go to a conference and they they were like, oh, where are you from?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you think they actually give a shit and you tell them they're like, oh, well, you must need a referral partner.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in blah, blah, blah market.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm here for all your referrals.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they hand you their fucking business card, and it's just I instantly forget those people intentionally.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I I just block them out because that's not normal.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: That that's not the way that I like to be approached, and that's not somebody that I would see as a referral partner.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I would refer business to a friend, somebody who's a friend that I think is a great person and who can also do right by my clients and crush it for them.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the key with all of this, guys give before you ask.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: What I just that example I just gave you of the agents running around conferences, passing out their business cards, saying, Hey, I'll be your referral partner and you know, Tuscaloosa.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Become friends with agents and figure out how you can help them.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: How can you give them something of value?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a tip, uh, something that you do really well that they're struggling with, and you can just help them.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Give openly.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you'd be surprised at how many referral partners that will attract to you, who will then send you business because you gave first without asking or expecting anything in return.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Most of you do this backwards, unfortunately, is because you have that ulterior motive in the front of your brain instead of in the back of your brain.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: You have that outcome that you want, which is getting a bunch of referrals or attracting somebody to your brokerage or whatever.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's like your main priority, you're just not going to get very many of those.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's in the back of your mind, it's like, oh, cool.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like I know that that's possible as a result, but that's not my main priority right now.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: My main priority is to help this agent build a new friendship, create a new relationship.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's the right way to do it, which then gets you a shitload of the results that you are aiming for.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: So be cool, connect with other agents.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: You never know what can happen.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I never knew for the first seven, eight plus years of my career.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I had no idea that one day I'd be able to step out of personal sales and just pass all my leads off to my local agent partners and just do a referral fee.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I do it.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a local team.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: I just, you know, have a referral fee with agents that I send deals to.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I had no idea that agents would become my clients, so to speak.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Agents would be my business.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Agents would be my audience.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: I never would have guessed that.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: But the doors opened.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: I and I kept leaning in and found it way more fulfilling for me personally.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that you need to get out of production.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you need to do anything like I've done, but you know, having the income that I have and the amount of time, freedom, and flexibility that I have is something that never would have been available to me had I had I just stayed a pr a producing realtor spinning that hamster wheel.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: For me, unlocking agent relationships has unlocked something that will change my family tree forever.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Through the business model that I chose, through the brokerage that I that I chose to do business with, which makes a lot of this possible, with the people specifically that I'm partnered with, and it held a lot of hard work and time.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's been incredible.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: So don't squander what great relationships, what true relationships with other agents can do for your business in your life.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's it's easy to just focus on doing content, doing lead gen, paying for ads, doing open houses, knocking on doors, like doing all the stuff to get buyers and sellers all the time.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: You should do that stuff.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can also at the same time befriending, befriending more agents and creating relationships with more agents and becoming known to more agents all over the place.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you start getting an extra three, four referrals a year on top of what you're doing, that's a meaningful increase in your revenue.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you start to get a couple of referrals a month, we're talking something totally different.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you start, then maybe you're at a brokerage that incentivizes aligning with agents in a business partnership through the revenue share model.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's on top of the production that you're doing, that's on top of the sales that you're doing.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can double your say, you can double your income, you can 5x your income, you can 10x your income over time with the right model, with the right approach.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: But it starts with not seeing agents as competitors, but as potential partners and collaborators and friends.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that you unlock that part of your business.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you'd find this, I think you'd find real estate way more fulfilling and way less lonely.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because if if if it's just you against all the other agents all the time, that's freaking lonely.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: It gets really cool when all these other people who are doing the same thing, they feel they have the same pain points, same struggles, same stresses that you do, and you're all doing life and business together.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: That shit gets really fun.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it pays well too, in the right model.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Guys, I appreciate you listening.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you next week for another episode of the Massive Agent Podcast.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.