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How This Toronto Agent Gets 30% of His Business From Instagram · Know Like Trust for Real Estate

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: My own book of business is probably about 70% repeat and referral clients and 30% from my Instagram channel.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: In terms of leveraging it as a tool for my business, a lot of what I do is just share about my life.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's an engaged audience who cares about what I post.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey everyone, welcome to the No Like Trust for Real Estate podcast where I help you craft branding and marketing strategies that align with your unique strengths.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Christine George and ages who work with me grow their business on average by 40 percent by aligning their marketing with who they are, not what they sell.
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm super excited about today's guest.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Chris Wanamaker is with us.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: He is the co-team leader at the W Group at Remax Connect in Toronto.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's eight years in the business.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: he joined his partner eight years ago after a very successful career in PR and advertising.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: He gets 30% of his business from Instagram.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like what?
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he's here to tell us how we did it.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Chris, want to make her.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so excited to have you here.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I'm so excited to have some of our friends from Canada here over these next few episodes.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: How are you?
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I am doing well.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for having me.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm thrilled to be here today.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Me too.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm I absolutely love.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, part of the reason I do this podcast is because I love to learn about other people.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then we like to think that the real state space is the same all over the place.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it really, it is in many ways and in other ways in different parts of the world, even in Canada.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's different from what happens here in the US.
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm super excited to have
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, my audience, which is primarily US-based to learn a little bit more about your market and how you market yourselves at the W Group.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you spent almost 10 years in management consulting in PR before you moved into real estate.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tell me, what, how did that experience prepare you for coming into the real estate space?
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Great question.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Honestly, yeah, those were really fun years of my life.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I absolutely loved working in PR and advertising and management consulting.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was really, really fun and I do think it does prepare you just like many different careers can prepare you to be successful in real estate.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: I found it was so fun being creative and a big part of my job was, you know, strategy and advertising, creative campaigns.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's something that I really love pulling in to real estate and to working
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: marketing our team, so I think being creative with something, a muscle that I still get to flex today, and I'm glad it didn't have to leave that behind when I switched careers.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I also think, you know, you get pulled in a ton of directions when you work at an agency and you have all different clients and, you know, one day you're working on this and next year you're working on that even every half an hour you could be switching years.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's kind of like what it's like in real estate too, you know,
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: You could be working on a lot of deals, working on internal things.
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: You could be trying to put yourself out there, running around doing showings, and no day is really the same.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what it was like in management consulting and PR.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then lastly, I would say from a client management perspective.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I did a lot of creative things, but I also did a lot of account management.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think it really end up for my work that in PR.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's called Adelman.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: the world's biggest PR firm.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: It really prepared me to be a consummate professional in a way that I don't think I would have been able to be prepared if I didn't start there.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's something I definitely bringing into all of my client touchpoints now is that professionalism and client management.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and I could attest to that because the couple of meetings we have had, you have been extremely prompt, right on time, and extremely prepared, and in fact, I always know that about a person because you actually emailed me before I had a chance to email you about the details of today.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that barely happens.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I get it because I also came from a corporate background, 16, for 16 years of my career, we're working for Fortune 500 companies.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no better training than that to really understand how a business works and to be held up to a level or a standard that, you know, unfortunately in the real estate industry that we're in is not always evident.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that is definitely one of the things that makes you stand out from others is that level of professionalism that you expect of yourself.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you and Edward are co-leaders of the W group and life partners and I want to know he you came into the business he was already in the business before.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: First of all what why did you come into the business after having such a successful career and number two when you did like how did you figure out who was going to do what?
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: When I was starting to think about entering real estate, I was reaching a point in my career where I was feeling a little bit of burnout.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Actually, quite frankly, a lot of burnout.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And at that time, I was doing well at work, but it wasn't feeling well at work.
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: If that makes sense.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I was winning a lot of new business or helping my teams win a lot of new business.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Having success on my accounts, but I was just working a lot.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I wasn't feeling too happy in my own skin from a career perspective and that was starting to bleed into my personal life.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: At the same time, my husband, who then was on my boyfriend at the time, Edward, he was also feeling pinched.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's been, you know, at the top of his game as a solo agent for a number of years before we met.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he was feeling stretched too without that much support.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when I was starting to feel the pinched too, I was like, maybe there's something here.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I'm doing a lot of account management running a lot of new business.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of like sales.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're selling yourself every day as an agency.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: and as a practitioner I'm sure I think there's something here that we could work together and both benefit from this and you know they a lot of partners or family teams in real estate do really well because it helps you know blur the boundaries you don't get so upset when someone has to take a call in a nursery dinner I think like that.
• 6:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and that's how we decided to start working together and then and then you asked you does what or how do we decide?
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, how did you figure that out?
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: The thing that I think is really important for how we work together is a we're different but we are pretty similar we have a similar outlook on things so that helps a lot.
• 6:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we have totally different clients.
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we work on the business, but we don't work together all day every day.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll do like an initial meeting together if it's some cold business that we're not sure about.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a wasn't referred to us or if we need some support or we feel like we've been a person from having the other person there but after that initial meeting, we basically work separately.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then anything management related with our operations director and things like that, we work together on.
• 7:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we aren't together at the hit day-to-day.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: We do have our own books of business.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that really helps.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's awesome and I think that is a little bit unusual because a lot of times with, you know, partners, they'll go to the listing appointments together and one is like focused on the negotiation and the other one is focused on the market aim, but you guys are doing similar roles because you have your own book of business.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we do a lot of crossover.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I will say we do have a few of our specialties like Ed has a ton of experience with investors.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I've been doing this for eight years.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've learned a lot in eight years that there's always more to learn.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So if I have a new client that's gonna be really investor-focused, then absolutely I wanna bring Edward along.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I have a background in marketing PR advertising.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So if there's somebody who you know might have,
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: maybe a higher level of taste or higher expectations.
• 8:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's definitely, I should definitely be at that appointment too to differ or for competition against some of the other big names in our area.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then I should be there to just to help us stand out.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's that's that's great.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you have you're able to actually stay married because you're you've got different books of business, but then you can cross over and support each other you know on a needed as needed basis.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about Instagram because when we first had our conversation about doing the podcast, you told me that Instagram was sort of your social media platform of choice and that you had actually gotten some you know a significant amount of
• 8:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tell me how it's such so hard for the average agent to, you know, really be able to understand what the return on that investment is.
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Overall, our business is probably like 985 to 90% repeat and referral clients.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: My own book of business is probably about 70% repeat and referral clients and 30% from my Instagram channel.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's something I'm really proud of
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: for me does not feel like a chore to do because that kind of grew up in the Instagram era.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got my first Facebook account when I was in high school and then Instagram when I was in university and I've been able to be on that platform more organically than a lot of other people and that's helped me.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: But in terms of leveraging it as a tool for my business, a lot of what I do is just share about my life.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: We do share about our listings and about our team and about real estate.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: page, my Instagram profile, it's a lot of my life, my dog, traveling with my husband, working out, being out with friends.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So people who follow me actually get to know me and real estate's just a part of who I am.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not my whole identity and I think that makes a big difference when trying to connect with people on a platform like Instagram or people who are bombarded with so much advertising and messaging all the time.
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, so having the right mix is really important sort of that balance.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you think is the right mix?
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is it like 80% 8020?
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like what is the right mix of personal versus professional?
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it is as much as you want.
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think there's a special formula.
• 10:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think you should be half fine sharing about yourself.
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Half fine trying to be authentic on the platform.
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when you've got listings or exciting things happening at work, share those two.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's, you can read so many articles that are, you know, post once a day, post twice a day, make your content calendar 10 post a week.
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you could, there's so many differing pieces of advice.
• 10:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a lot to,
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just don't take it that seriously when we've got things going on, I share it and when we have a listing coming up, I share that and I don't stress too much over the algorithm or what's going to happen.
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And even my audience itself is in huge.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I kind of was stagnant around 7,000 followers for a number of years and suddenly I just had a few post-go viral.
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm about 9,000 now, but these aren't massive audiences.
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just, it's an engaged audience who cares about what I
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that is more important than trying to reach everyone.
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just need to hear you say that again, it's an engaged audience.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like most of the people that follow me on Instagram, I probably met not all of them, but I met them or they'd come to me through some kind of referral or seeing my content.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it's not a huge audience.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a moderate audience, a medium sized audience, but that actually engages with my content.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, these aren't bot followers.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: But followers across Canada, that's not going to serve my business too well.
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have a pretty targeted base of followers located mostly in Toronto.
• 11:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that just through mostly my organic content is how I get a lot of referrals and business from that just sharing about myself and of course about our business as well.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: The size of the audience doesn't matter, although it's impressive to have 9,000 followers.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you're not Taylor Swift, right?
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: a lot of followers, right?
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I do think the important point there is that it really doesn't matter.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: What matters is that they're engaged with you and that they're loyal to you.
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what's really most important.
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I want to go back to, I want to follow up two questions.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: One is on the viral, like what went viral and how?
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So annoying, I post, we post so much about our listings, they matter about our business.
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then I posted an anniversary post for my husband to my second anniversary and it went viral.
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I got over a thousand followers from this organ.
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are you serious?
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, just not even a business related post.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Was it a deal?
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, it was a carousel photos from our wedding day.
• 12:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And just a little curated carousel, happy to your anniversary to my husband.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this is the one that went viral.
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that reinforces my point that it can't be all about business.
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because people are connecting with you about your personal life just as much and having a blended channel above is how you're going to reach the most people who actually will, you know, trust you align with you like you and vice versa.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's a receipt from my favorite restaurant.
• 13:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Normally, this is the kind of thing that ends up in my pocket, then my car, then gone.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not anymore.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: All I do is take a picture and text it to be.
• 13:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: No app to open, no category to select.
• 13:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nothing to fill out.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just sent a text.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And here's what comes back.
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: We already pulled the amount, the vendor, the date, and the category, straight from the receipt.
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: If anything needs to be adjusted, I just reply and plain English, but this looks right.
• 13:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'll just say, done.
• 13:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, if I want to see everything in one place, every receipt, every category, a full report, I go to my portal at my.bekeeper.ai.
• 13:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here's my dashboard.
• 13:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Every expense I've texted in is right here.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Organized, categorized, ready to go.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can see the full history, filter by date or category, and when I'm ready, I can run a report and have it sent straight to my inbox.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Clean records, no scrambling.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ready for my bookkeeper or my CPA whenever they need it.
• 14:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's beekeeper.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Snap text done.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: For more information and to sign up, go to beekeeper.au.com.
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, let's give some credit to who you are and how you show up, right?
• 14:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like you have a very warm face, you smile, you feel approachable, you feel accessible.
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: You feel like you're somebody that I could trust.
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we don't even know each other, Chris, right?
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like so.
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, absolutely.
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like what you're saying is that that comes across.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: when you post.
• 14:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you actually have to post about something that people can relate to and care about in order for that to really, that emotion to really, you know, be felt or are smoked by by you.
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's right.
• 15:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 15:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's our brand as well.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like the W group we want to be elevated but approachable.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: professional but not that serious.
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: We can have fun with real estate.
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't have to be so intense all the time.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't have to be so buttoned up even though it is very delicate in serious business with people's biggest investment.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's how I am as a person.
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's what our brand is and that's what I want to show on my social media as well.
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm taking about, you know, the folks who are listening right now.
• 15:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, yeah, that's really great.
• 15:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like I'm doing that.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: But like give me an example of a piece of business or transaction that closed, like, how did it from Instagram?
• 15:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did it start?
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And how did it get from someone who just started to follow you, got to know you all the way down to a closed transaction?
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, what was the timeline?
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And how did you authentically sort of cultivate that into a conversion?
• 15:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just this year, or maybe at the end of last year, we started putting a modest amount of add dollars behind our new listing videos.
• 16:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we're not trying to get people to visit our custom website for it.
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're not trying to get them to message us.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's mostly just for brand awareness to follow us if they have questions to let us know.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: So one thing we started doing with the, and I'm talking about $100 over two weeks, or $150 over a couple of weeks.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not talking about a huge ads fence.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Something pretty modest.
• 16:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Still real money, but modest.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one thing that we started implementing is for each follow that we get we actually reach out that same day with a custom message not like an auto and auto responder that is so instant that they know no way it could be real.
• 16:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'll look at all my follows of the day.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll just write them the message and I actually made it a shortcut on my iPhone.
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I just type LLL and my whole pop up comes up with what I want to say and I can post it so it's a little bit more again, but I don't need to type everything.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and we started engaging with people that way.
• 16:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you're probably getting annoyed by about 90, 95% of the people during that first message, or they say thank you.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: But since this year, it's been pretty incredible the amount of people who do reach out and say, hey, I just was curious about that listing or what I'm been saving, and I just don't really know where to start.
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: One thing that I believe in this business is you have to tell people what all the next steps are people want to be guided by you They they want to get that message if they engage they want to know what the next step is so I'm not just like thanks for letting me know I'm like okay cool.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's have a call like what's your name and can you share your email and home number?
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's have a call
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: So just over the last few months from having that call on deciding like is this a seller or is this a buyer like I have a listing now that was referred to me from somebody from my Instagram I have a buyer who purchased in like a
• 17:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: blue chip amazing neighborhood in Toronto that followed me on my Instagram from these ads and then I have two buyers that I'm working with right now and that's all just from this little bit of change and how we did things where we did a modest ad spend engage with every new follower and try to guide them let's set up a call let's actually get to know each other and then treat it like a regular buyer or seller onboarding and that's just over this year so far and that doesn't include the general Instagram business I was used to getting over the last many years which is just
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: like seeing something that I posted or seeing something that I've shared and then real estate gets woven into the conversation, this is like an ad, and we've done where it's the engaged with our ad, they followed me, I reached out and then booked something.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's the pathway.
• 18:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that $100 or $150 is going to, it's going to pay you back.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: It already has, yeah.
• 18:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, yeah, I think the most important point that I heard, and I think where many of us lose our patience is instead of doing many chat and just having that automatic response, you're actually looking at every in-gate piece of engagement and you're personally,
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: responding and asking questions and you know, engaging back in a very real authentic way.
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that takes time out of your day.
• 19:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think if you systematize it, it's about five minutes per day or less.
• 19:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: to have that because I have like a little shortcut I can type that puts the pop up paragraph that I would want to send and I'm not talking I'm not getting a high volume up follows I'm getting two to eight follows a day maybe it is a good day or I'm like we were cool the takes five minutes to go through and again not everyone's responding but when somebody replies hey that's someone worth engaging with
• 19:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, that's great.
• 19:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's amazing.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about your content workflow.
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of this sounds to me, like it's sort of sporadic, you know, not really just kind of in the moment, right?
• 19:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I'll bet you there's a strategy around sort of your your overall content workflow in terms of the tools you use, the calendarization, the batching, things like that.
• 19:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Please tell me there is.
• 19:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so we have a lot of systems on my team.
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the way the reason things feel smooth and why I don't feel stressed is because we have a great admin and operations team.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And basically everything we do, aside from this, these engagements that are me on my own channel, but a lot of stuff has systems behind it.
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's really important for our content.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: We, for all of our listings, we have the same video mix more or less the same video mix that we know is going to happen every time.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have,
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: photo, like the photos for the listing, and we're actually in at least one of all of our listing photos.
• 20:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we show up on the photo day, we're in the photo, and then that's a little bit more interesting to people than
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: a random photo of a house when they're not looking.
• 20:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: If it's like a photo of me and my husband like in hellscoat having a coffee in the living room, it's a little bit more funny.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: We get more engagement.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's one.
• 20:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: The we're in the photo.
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did you see housecoats?
• 20:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, we we do funny stuff sometimes.
• 20:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: We do a more polished reel that might have text on it.
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're not in it.
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we do a walkthrough video where we're in the video.
• 21:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we have a similar caption that is derived from our listing that's going to fit each one of these things and it doesn't take that much time because it's the same every time of course we make changes over over the years but we know we're going to have these three core content pieces for every listing so that's number one and then number two anything that's happening about you know special projects we've got going on our advance we have the support of our team to help us make that but it doesn't take much time once you get with the flow don't overthink it a lot of our text comes from the listing right up we already have made
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know, or if something like not a lot of people want to read 10 paragraphs of chat GPT garbage these days.
• 21:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So just a quick little cute message of exactly what you want to get across for some personality is a lot more effective, I think, than a staccato.
• 21:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: three lines of of being every time.
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: So those are really the systems, though we don't have like an overarching content calendar.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Our core content is surrounding our listings.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Those are of course on a calendar.
• 21:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: We know what's happening there.
• 21:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then the rest of our content is my personal stuff or things pop up in the business.
• 22:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, it's that mix of having the right systems in place, having, you know, the right processes in terms of, you know what every listing is going to get and it helps you to time manage to totally get.
• 22:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Especially because, you know, a lot of this is templated.
• 22:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: We know what the captions are going to look like.
• 22:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: We know what information we need to have on our listing.
• 22:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you're just similar to what goes on our website, similar to what goes in our printed feature sheet booklets.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's all part of the same ecosystem.
• 22:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: It takes time to get there, but I don't believe in reinventing the wheel every time.
• 22:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: We don't need to overhaul everything all the time, so.
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and that also gives you the brain space to, you know, come up with the creative ideas in the moment when they're happening to put that personal stuff on your social media.
• 22:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: What would you say to an agent who thinks that they need 50,000 followers before they can ever get any business?
• 23:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Would say that is absolutely not true.
• 23:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's people.
• 23:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: don't want to do real estate transactions or be represented by a celebrity real estate agent.
• 23:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: They want to be represented by somebody who they know, who they relate to, who they trust, maybe who looks or is a little bit similar to them in some way in terms of community or neighborhood.
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like I mentioned earlier, my audience is not huge, it's decent around 9,000 people, but it's not a huge thing of strangers, it's a very hyper-engaged audience.
• 23:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: You don't even have to start with your real estate content.
• 23:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Have fun on your Instagram channel or your TikTok or your Facebook, whatever channel you want to just posting about your life.
• 23:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when there's an opportunity for you to have a piece of business and real estate comes up, show that too, that's a part of who you are as well.
• 23:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Don't be don't don't worry about the number of followers.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Focus on the quality and authenticity of your content.
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to know too outside of Instagram.
• 23:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where else do you spend time and resources to market your business?
• 24:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Great question.
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: We...
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: don't actually spend that much money on Instagram.
• 24:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's more just time and a little bit behind each a little bit of money behind each listing post.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: But what we do spend a lot of money on per year is engaging our existing database.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we have a big client event every year that we do this year.
• 24:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think we had over 200 people and it was at a beautiful new building in downtown Toronto in a restaurant
• 24:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: all this stuff.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we do that.
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: This year we're going to focus a little bit more on smaller micro events to engage more deeply with our with our audience.
• 24:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And because you know 200 people's a bit like a wedding, you don't get to talk to them.
• 24:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 24:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to have we're going to do some smaller events.
• 24:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we do things like you know holiday drop off.
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: We take clients up for dinner.
• 24:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have our CRM.
• 25:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, we do our newsletter and things like that, that's mainly what we do, but Instagram is just a part of that.
• 25:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: We really spend our money getting and working with our database and, you know, having our top, our AAA clients and our our AAA investor clients and trying to stay engaged with them.
• 25:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and that's really taking me online offline with that.
• 25:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, a lot of the systems behind that are
• 25:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like it tells me that I need to do it, but I don't like when it's someone's birthday it reminds me that that's it's a person's birthday But like we don't send an automated birthday message Yeah, I say I just shoot a text here It's like it's your birthday.
• 25:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Have a great day.
• 25:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hope this is your best year yet.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and it's a lot more personal than you know Just everything being always on in need last Exactly, I feel like there was a time in in the real estate industry where
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: everything was on an e-blast, right?
• 26:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everything was on an automated email, it was on an automated text or voicemail or whatever it was.
• 26:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like, do you feel, I feel like, do you feel like we're getting away from that because people are just so fed up with, it's just feels like spam.
• 26:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I am the king of Marie condoing my inbox.
• 26:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: If something brings, does not bring me joy and subscribe.
• 26:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I do not want to get spam.
• 26:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I do not want to get automated emails.
• 26:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's how I want to run my business as well.
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: People want to hear from me.
• 26:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: They don't want to feel like they're just in my system.
• 26:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just waiting for them to have the next opportunity to sell or bring me money.
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think also AI is a big part of that too.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like AI definitely is a useful tool.
• 26:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we do use AI in our business.
• 26:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: But people value human connection now more than ever.
• 26:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's really important.
• 26:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, we could have a whole other podcast on that.
• 26:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
• 26:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: First thing, as we start to wrap up, I want to know how could people find you.
• 26:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
• 26:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: So my website is wgrouprealistate.ca.
• 27:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And my Instagram is at c1s.
• 27:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: So at cw a and s.
• 27:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Finish the sentence, and I will shout out.
• 27:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: No like trust is.
• 27:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: No like trust is a great place to learn from others and realize that there's so many wonderful ways to run this business in a way that's authentic to you.
• 27:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to give a shout out to our friend, Kathleen Black, who introduced us.
• 27:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a partner in her coaching business, KBI.
• 27:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you are a client, right?
• 27:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I am.
• 27:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love and respect Kathleen so much.
• 27:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we tried several coaching companies in the past and I just love what she stands for.
• 27:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not all about your business.
• 27:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's about your life and how business fits into a life you want to build.
• 27:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't even know we were going to be talking about this say I'm just I gosh about Kathleen all the time.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really respect her and working with her and working with her coaches really helps our team again.
• 27:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of the systems we have now, we might have got there eventually, but not in the same way that we were able to.
• 28:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as efficiently, if we didn't work with Kathleen Black and her team, so I really love working with her.
• 28:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Chris, thank you so much for being with us today.
• 28:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I so appreciate you and your time.
• 28:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much, too.
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate it as well.
• 28:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks so much for listening.
• 28:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you loved this very special episode, I would love it if you would share it with your friends.
• 28:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Make sure to follow us on whatever podcast platform you're listening.
• 28:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're watching us on YouTube, click that subscribe button.
• 28:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you never miss another episode.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And make sure to sign up for our newsletter, the sunbeam, go to postbeamcreative.com and sign up.
• 28:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Christine George and you're listening to know like trust for real estate.