#226 Mail-Right Show With Special Guest Zach Hammer

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The Local Celebrity Show Model For Real Estate Agents Which In 2020 Will Get You Quality Leads!

Zach Hammer is the co-founder of Real Estate Growth Hackers. Over the last 36 months, Zach and his team have managed ad budgets well over $100,000, generated over 25,000 real estate leads, and helped create over $50,000,0000 in business revenue for their clients. Zach is also a highly sought after speaker and consultant whose work has impacted some of the top Real Estate teams and brokerages across the country
Links
● Website: https://realestategrowthhackers.com
● Facebook: https://facebook.com/realestategrowthhackers
● Instagram: https://instagram.com/realestategrowthhackers
● YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmfQrc-I_JzT58NjXGx8dBg
● Twitter: https://twitter.com/regrowthhackers

Jonathon: Welcome folks to the Mail-Right show. This is episode 226. We’ve got a returning guest from last year. He was one of our most popular guests and he was requested back by audience. We got Zach [inaudible 00:25] back on the show folks. Zach, would you like to quickly introduce yourself to the new listener and viewers?

Zach: Sure. So yeah, my name is Zach [inaudible 00:41]. I am the founders/CEO; actually, I call myself the chief bottle washer at Real Estate Growth Hackers. It’s a company I founded about what, I don’t know, six years ago or so I guess now. But yeah, we help real estate agents with their marketing in all sorts of different ways. These days more so in terms of training and coaching, but we have a handful of services and whatnot as well. But yeah, we focused on helping agents to generate and convert leads.

Jonathon: Oh, it sounds great. And we going to be talking, our mind subject is what Zach calls the local celebrity show model, it sounds intriguing and interesting, so we’re going to be taking about that. And I’ve got my great co-host with me, Robert Newman. Robert, would you like to quickly introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers?

Robert: Yes. I am an inbound marketing wizard for real estate. No, I’m just kidding. My name is Robert Newman and I’m a web tech guy that’s been doing it for a long time. So check out my website if you want to meet me. Let’s talk to– now, you introduce yourself, John; then let’s talk to Zach.

Jonathon: I’m the COO and founder of Mail-Right, that’s consumed most of my money for the past three years, but it does actually produced results for real estate agents. We use the power of Facebook and some [inaudible 02:04] to get you quality leads and then our system automatically keeps you in front of those leads. If that sounds interesting, go to the Mail Right website. You can book and free demo with me and I’ll show you the power of the Mail Rights system. So Zach, the local celebrity– I’m terrible, I cannot talk.

Robert: Let me help you out, John. Today we’re going to talk about the local celebrity form of generating traffic and leads, something that we actually talked to our flask client about a little bit. Ray Petkevis if you haven’t had a chance, Zack, check out the show, you will be tickled, I promise you. It actually looks like we’ve got you not in your truck. I feel disappointed because I kind of feel I’m watching catch me if you can when I talk to you. Because, you’re like, where in the world are you? Where are you going today?

Zach: Yeah, its part of the RV life occasionally things happen, you break down; we’re in that phase right now. We’re currently in Council Bluffs, Iowa, which I think there’s the people that live in Council Bluffs, Iowa and probably their family members are the ones in the world who know where that is. But it’s next to Omaha, which is a little bit more familiar to people. But yeah, we broke down actually a month or so back in Wyoming. And so we’re in the process of getting it repaired and, or deciding if we’re going to get something new because it keeps breaking down. So probably we get a new RV at this point. But yeah, so like you were mentioning though, for anybody who’s watching that isn’t familiar. Actually, I live full time in an RV, traveling the country normally, so, I’m often in all sorts of different places, yeah.

Jonathon: Wow, fantastic. So on to celebrity show model, tell us more Zach. Tell us what all this is about.

Zach: So, this concept, the local celebrity show is the result of a good amount of time that I’ve been spending with real estate agents. And one of the things that I noticed is that as a real estate agent, most of your day to day expertise, the things that you’re dealing with day after day after day are real estate transactions and the inner workings of that. What’s going on with the market, what’s going on with, you know, how to get a home for the best price or how to sell your home for the most money? And these are the topics and the information that a real estate agent, you know lives and breathe and can rattle off readily. Unfortunately for, I’d say anywhere actually, I mean, you could pretty much do the math. At any given point, somewhere around 99% of the market, that content is completely irrelevant to them.

They don’t care. They don’t want to hear about it, right, it’s boring. And so if as a real estate agent, all you ever talk about is real estate, you’re training most of the market at any given point to ignore you. And so what I wanted to do is come up with a concept that allowed real estate agents to stay in front of the market at large. Their sphere of influence, their past clients, their friends, and family as well as those in the market that they could build a relationship with, who [inaudible 05:30], sorry, my son is behind me waking up. I need to get my wife in here to grab him for me.

Jonathon: Kidnap him.

Zach: Kidnap him, that’s right. Anyway, I’ll continue. We might have a little bit of background noise for a second, but I’ll get my wife in here to deal with him. But anyway, so the local celebrity show is designed to that problem. It’s designed to give you something that you could talk about as a real estate agent that allows you to–

Jonathon: I just want to interrupt there because I think you’re so spot on. But that’s the depressive bit, but the good news, which I’m sure you’re going to say is that people are fascinated by homes, aren’t they?

Zach: Right.

Jonathon: I think what you’ve stated is totally correct, which is the bad news. But the good news is that if you talk about [inaudible 06:27] in the right way, most people are fascinated by other people’s homes, aren’t they?

Zach: Right. Yeah, absolutely, there are segments. Give me just a second up. My video is going to cut for a second. There are lots of things that you can do that work well to talk to the market at large. And you’re right you know, talking about homes that are better-good looking, that are interesting in and of themselves that are you know, interesting by themselves, that’s a worthwhile topic. Talking about lifestyle tips and things that you know, that just go into living in general. So things like DIY tips and current design trends in homes and things like she-sheds and man-caves and those kinds of things. Those kinds of things are going to appeal to the market at large and still be in this real estate realm.

But to me, one of the things that is the most advantageous and there’s a number of reasons for this but is to just talk about what’s great about your community, the businesses you love, the hikes that you like to do, what events are coming up this weekend? The kinds of things that show that you’re connected into your local area that not only allows you to be branded as a real estate expert, but they allow you to be branded as a local area expert with content that people want to hear, regardless of if they’re looking to do real estate or not. So it’s a great way to be able to stay top of mind and aware of the entire market instead of just that segment that cares about real estate right now.

Jonathon: I think you’re so spot-on there. And this is why I’m still so upbeat for the local passionate agent and why I think in 10 years’ time that there still will be agents. They might have to– the market will change to some extent, but I still believe in the local passionate agent. What do you reckon Robert?

Robert: Well, not only do I agree with both of you. I’ve been dropping videos this literally in the last couple of weeks Zach that talk about this general concept. Because, you’re talking about a real estate show and so I’m going to take a slightly different spin and just add my little dollop into it, which is, if you do any of that real estate show using video, like talking to local business owners and favorite piece of advice of mine. Then you can take that video and apply it to social networks that people aren’t all that familiar with, such as next door, which is specific to neighborhoods and specific to real estate. And so now you can become the mayor of your town, leveraging these social platforms that are kind of becoming designed for it. And I could, so I love the idea, but you’re the one with the boots on the ground. You’re the one, I think, who’s doing the consulting clients. Can I ask if you’ve gotten some of your clients to successfully adopt this strategy and if so, what has been the result?

Zach: Yeah, so we’ve got a couple of test cases out there. We don’t have a ton. Right now, we’re still in the process of launching this idea with clients of really getting the groundwork, the traction behind it. So we’ve started the process of launching a couple of shows like this, but we don’t have enough traction yet to really see results. So this is the kind of strategy that honestly, it’s kind of like direct mail, right? You’re going to get out and you’re going to do this and it’s going to take you anywhere from two to three months at the minimum, probably more before you really start seeing the impact, I think in your business because it’s a long-term, slow drip sort of strategy, right?

You’re not talking to the people who are the hottest most ready to do a transaction kind of folks. You’re talking to everybody. So it takes a bit of time to incubate and as the result, you know, it takes a while for it to ultimately cultivate into deals and turn into that. But yeah, part of what we are seeing is that we are seeing yes, it’s very easy to take that content and adapt it far and wide. Part of why I like the idea of starting with a show and honestly part of the reason why I call it a local celebrity show. You mentioned that the concept of being the digital mayor, and that’s a concept that I’ve heard as well, but I’m not sure if the mayor actually encapsulates the right idea.

When I think of a mayor of a town, I often don’t know who the mayor is, right? Like even at the places that I’ve lived, I don’t know who the mayor is. I don’t pay attention to the local politics as much. But if there’s somebody who I see day in and day out involved with the businesses that I love, that’s connecting me to the places that I love. I do know celebrities, local celebrities, people who are known in the community, and that’s part of why I like that term and that concept for this because it allows you to be somebody who is known and seen in the community in general. And so you could take this concept of communicating with your local businesses, talking about what’s great about your community, and then, yeah, you spread it far and wide.

You start with video, but you take that video, you turn it into an audio podcast. You take that video, you chop it up into smaller meaningful segments that you can put out on Instagram and disperse far and wide on Facebook and on Next Store, and all over the place where this type of content makes sense. So it’s a simple strategy where you can have these consistent conversations that also flow and form a much wider marketing network form the assets for a much wider stream of content that you can be putting out, which is part of what makes it so powerful and leveraged.

Robert: Okay. I don’t disagree with you like in terms of being a mayor and versus a celebrity, I totally agree with you. But it is more traditional and more like a common concept to say that you’re the digital mayor of a town. It’s been popular since Foursquare made it popular when their app was a little bit more explosive than it is right now. So you’ve got these general ideas like go out and you like talk to businesses and get in front of people, do you have like a boots on the ground mechanics way? Like, how would you say approach a business owner as an example? Or would you even provide that advice? Would you stay at top level or would you go deeper into it?

Zach: Yeah, so I mean, what we’re doing right now is we’re actually setting up and running the full suite of service. Where essentially, what we’re doing is we’re trying to take care of it so that all the real estate agent has to do is show up for a show; record the content. We’re booking the guest, we’re reaching out to the folks, we’re laying the groundwork so that all they have to do is record the concept. So, yeah, I can give some very practical information about what we’re doing to approach guests and get people booked onto shows. It’s honestly; it’s incredibly simple because first and foremost, these local businesses, they want to be featured, right? People who are there locally, they want this free publicity, right? If you come to somebody and you say, “Hey, we’ve got the ability to get you in front of our audience of people in the community, I’d love to just build up your business and talk about what’s great about you, get you featured in front of my audience. Would you be interested in coming on my show?”

And it’s one of the easiest yeses you can get. And yeah, I think to me, one of the key tricks and like for anybody who’s listening. In terms of getting this implemented, the key trick is to learn who you should be reaching out to and why. I’ve got some recommendations on that front as well if you’d want to hear them.

Jonathon: Well I think we do, but we’ll leave that to our second half folks. We’re going to go for our break folks, but we’ll be back and I already think this is a fantastic episode with great knowledge. So we will be back in a few moments folks.

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Jonathon: We’re coming back. I like the feel of this show itself. We’ve had a good run of shows since the New Year, haven’t we Robert. I think we’re on a high, the standard is getting higher and higher with Zach. Just before you’re going to go into your points Zach, I think the other thing is that there’s been no better time for doing something like this because you don’t even have to bother even with podcasts. I love podcasting, I just love it. But you got to set up RS feeds with iTunes. You’ve got to have somewhere to store your episodes. You’ve got to have a platform like zoom to record it. There are a lot of small steps, which Robert doesn’t have to deal with that I do, so lucky Robert. But if you’re just going to do this with your iPhone and just do it on Facebook live, but do it at the same time every week, you could just literally cut out all these small steps that I don’t mind. But, it’s literally a page of little steps that you’ve got to follow to get it onto iTunes basically. You can just avoid all that, can’t you?

Zach: Yeah. So my motto and anybody who’s followed me for a while you know, I’ve got a group called my Inner Circle that hear this from me all the time. But my motto is, done is better than perfect. I think at some point I’m going to get that tattooed on my body somewhere. And you’re exactly right, I mean, the reality is if somebody wants to implement this concept and just get started, yeah, it’s as simple as pulling out your phone, going to the business and recording something with them. Like you can do it as impromptu as that or just recording something yourself saying, you know, “Hey, these are the top five places that I recommend for a taco in my town and here’s why.” Like, that kind of content will do well and will still promote you this way, and it doesn’t have to be over-thought in order to be effective.

What I look at offering with a service that we’re running is, to help people take that to the next level where they’re accounting for not just the people that are on Facebook, but also the people that would still consume the show if they’re driving in their car, right, that’s where the podcast feed potentially comes in. That, you could still get that exposure even if you don’t have somebody captive and listening to you, or if they’re not going to take the time to go to your website or if they’re not going to take the time to check out an Instagram, where you have all of these different ways that you could still reach those people and be having those conversations and be in their mind and in an existence. But you’re exactly right, I would much rather somebody start something that isn’t perfect then try and do everything and then fail.

Jonathon: Well, basically, you know, they’ve got a powerful, let’s say they got iPhone 10 in their pocket with a grill as stand and two-wire mikes; you’re off, aren’t you? That’s basically on Facebook, that’s it basically or you could choose. I actually would advise people to start on Facebook and then promote the video with a little bit of money as well, maybe, I don’t know. What do you think about that?

Zach: Yeah, and that’s exactly what we do, and recommend as well, so going give is great. Now, I have found that some people have a mental hurdle of going live, right? It’s something that they struggle with; the concept of actually doing mentally. I would rather somebody record the video period if they need to not do it live, then don’t do it live. If you can do it live, there’s definitely the benefits of that, right? Like you get that live interaction, there’s a different feel that you get when you have that live feed going on. But, recorded however you need to, that gets you to actually do it. But yeah, if you get it onto Facebook; Facebook is currently one of the best places to cheaply get your video in front of people natively in a way that they’ll consume it so that you can, you can grow your audience for stupid, cheap.

I mean, it’s one of the things that I’ve talked to folks about. The average cost per piece for Direct Mail, let’s say it’s about a buck now, it can be cheaper than that. You could definitely get direct-mail for cheaper than that, but postage and everything included about a dollar per address that you’re going to hit. So that means if you want to hit a thousand people via Direct Mail, you’re going to spend about a thousand dollars. Give or take a few hundred maybe depending on where you’re getting it printed. But, if you want to reach the same thousand people on Facebook, it’s going to cost you about 10 bucks. The average cost per 1000 on Facebook is about $10. And you can do that time after time. You can reach that same 10 people. If you spend $1,000 reaching that same 10 people, you’re going to hit them every day that they’re on Facebook over the course of a month, multiple times. And so you get drastically more exposure, drastically more influence and with content that they actually want to see. So yeah, it’s amplifying a bit with some paid promotion is a fantastic way to make sure that a show like this takes off and gets in front of the people that you want to see it.

Jonathon: And so– go on Robert, sorry.

Robert: No, my bad because we lost the break thread. He was going to, but go ahead, you finish what you were going to say.

Jonathon: Thanks for pointing that out, and I think the other fact here is that you retouched it, you can repurpose this content, but you can also get the show transcribed, get it on your own website and then the SEO local benefit of doing that is enormous, isn’t it Zach?

Zach: Absolutely. Absolutely, especially because, and I know Robert, I know you’re much more on the front of the Inbound, the SEO, and so I’m sure you’d agree with this aspect. But those local keywords, those local topics are drastically easier to rank for the more of those generalized terms. And it makes it such an easy but right form of media, especially when you get those videos together combined with written articles, you get that all on a page, you get people interacting with it well for keywords that are easy to go after. Yeah, it’s a strategy that just goes so far and wide. And it could literally be the foundation for almost all of your marketing aside from the real estate specific stuff to the people who have raised their hand and said that they are interested in the real estate information, right. The people who are looking to buy, who are looking to sell right now, but I mean, it still works for them too. It still keeps you top of mind for those people.

Jonathon: Well, I think it’s combining the two keywords that I think agents have got to remember in 2020, that’s video and going super niche. And if you can go super niche and always have video, I think you’re going to win in 2020, aren’t you?

Zach: Absolutely, absolutely.

Jonathon: Over to you, Robert.

Robert: Just circling back around to, we were talking about– you were mentioning like how easy it was to book shows with people locally and we talked briefly like we were going in another direction. I said, “Hey, are there some other tips that you could give people?” And you said, “Absolutely”, and we went to break. So what were, I think, what were some of those other tips? I think that was where we were at.

Zach: Yeah, so I always like to have a systematic strategy to consistently know like who am I going to go after and why? So, if I’m going to book a guest on a locally focused show, I want to start with the most likely guests that are going to already have a connection with the local community, right, the people that are already loved. I want to find the guests that maybe already have a good audience in and of themselves, that you get that halo effect. So when you’re promoting that business and they then promote your show, that they have an audience to help you grow as well, right, so you get that bleed-over effect. And so the ways that I like to do this, so first and foremost, I think your passion for the content is going to matter more than anything else. So the first guest that I would always recommend going after are the businesses that you love, right that you already love. For whatever reason, you love their tacos. You love the yoga program that they produce. You love the events that they put on, whatever it is you love it, talk about them.

Go to people, talk about how much you love them. But if you, you know, at some point you run out of businesses that are your favorites, so maybe you can’t get them all booked, right? And so how you could systematically go after other businesses is, I like to go to the sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp and sometimes Groupon. I’ll explain Groupon in a second, but TripAdvisor and Yelp both have sections where you can look at the businesses that are the most popular or the things to do, or the restaurants in an area that are the most popular; the highest reviewed, the most recommended. Now, what does that tell you? That tells you this is a good business that their customers love, right? If they’re well ranked, if they’re well-reviewed, people are consistently giving them positive engagement, right?

So you can be fairly sure if you talk about them that your audience is going to get a good experience as well, and that’s an important element. But you also know if they’re getting reviewed well– you guys could describe this right? Out of every customer that you have, how often do you get a review back? It’s always a fraction. It’s always a percentage of your total number of customers. You never get everybody to leave you a good review, right? And so these businesses that are well-reviewed within their town; that means that comparatively they either have more customers or their experience is that much better that people are driven to review them. So TripAdvisor is a site that I recommend going to. Yelp has a couple of different ways that you can look at this.

If you’re looking for a specific type of business, like a restaurant, you can just do the search for the restaurant and then look at the businesses based on the reviews, right? So if you want a type of restaurant or if you just want restaurants in general. But one of the other things that are really useful about Yelp is that they have a section called new and noteworthy. So new and noteworthy is a combination of things. Its businesses that have recently opened but that they’ve recently opened and they’re getting a good amount of reviews. So you’re getting new businesses that your audience may not already be familiar with, that you’re able to be the one to introduce them to something cool that they haven’t seen before, which really builds up a high degree of connection with you and your audience. But, keep in mind when the other things that I like to talk about with this concept is the point here isn’t necessarily to always introduce your audience to something they don’t know as much as that can be good. And that can be useful whenever you can.

But sometimes it’s about saying I’m part of the tribe, right? You really love Joe’s tacos. I love Joe’s tacos too, right? And you’re connecting with the people who are already part of that tribe, and basically getting to say, I’m one of you. You’re one of me. We are among the same people, and it’s another way to build that connection. So even if it’s a popular business that everybody already knows about, or if it’s a new business that not everybody knows about, both can have their benefits. And it’s good to get a blend of both.

Jonathon: I also feel that you can’t overestimate the benefit of doing this if you join the chamber of commerce. When you joined some local, the why you’re going to be seen is going to be completely different than the average bog-standard agent that goes to some physical networking event. When you’re doing this, you’re implementing it, you will be seen as a real resource, won’t you?

Zach: Exactly. Exactly, I mean, really it’s like a wellspring of just all sorts of opportunity. You’re exactly right. If you are a real estate agent in your community who’s constantly lifting up other businesses when those businesses who are day after day interacting with the community hear about somebody who’s thinking about doing a real estate transaction, who are they going to think of? You start to rise in their mind as well. You start to become the place where they send referrals where they want to refer business and that are just the side benefit of this, right? It doesn’t even have to be the reason you’re doing it. It’s a natural byproduct of being somebody who is a connector in your community that you start to see that influence and that connection comes as a result of this too.

Jonathon: I think we’re going to wrap up the podcast part of the show. Hopefully, Zach can stay on for some bonus content, which you’d be able to see on the Mail-Right website with all the links and to all the resources that Zach gives for free to people. And in the bonus content, I’m going to be asking Zach about his views on Facebook; 2019 [inaudible 28:18], wasn’t the greatest year for Facebook, but financially it was a super fantastic year for Facebook. I’m going to ask him about that, and almost like you’d ask him about living and traveling in his RV, I’m fascinated by that. So, I’m going to be asking him that, so Zach, how can people find out more about you and your views and what you’re up to?

Zach: Yes, so probably one of the best places, if what we talked about today is interesting to you, I have a simple page that I set up at localcelebrityshow.com. That’s local celebrity show.com. You can go there. There’s a video that explains everything that we’re up to. You can steal this entire concept. We basically walked through what we’re doing so you can steal it and run with it yourself. Or if you want to make it easy, you can hire us to do it for you. There’s a video there that you can find out all about that. Otherwise, you could reach out to us at realestategrowthhackers.com, check out our website there and see everything that we’re up to in general over and above just the local celebrity show concept.

Jonathon: Oh, that’s fantastic Zach and Robert, how can people find out more about you and what you’re up to?

Robert: I actually have updates. Oh my God, 2019 was a really slow year. I only did two blog posts, but guys, to give you a comparison and contrast, I’ve already done two blog posts in 2020. They’re amazing. I’m getting lots of comments. One is how to name your real estate business, and the other is my annual review of the best places making real estate websites. You can find both of those updated for literally this month, this year on my website, which is inboundrem.com, go check it out.

Jonathon: Oh, that sounds fantastic. We’ll be back next week with either an internal discussion between me and Robert or another great guest. And hopefully, we provide some great value for you so you have a more successful 2020 not only for yourself but for your family. We’ll see you, next week folks, bye.