We Discuss The Two Things You Need to Thrive As Agent In This Economic Climate

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JONATHAN: Welcome back folks to the Mail Right show. It is episode 248. It is going to be an internal discussion between me and my great co-host Robert Newman. We’re going to be discussing all things around databases. What you should know why it’s important and how you should use and Robert, do you want to introduce yourself to our new listeners and viewers?

ROBERT: I do but I’m going to add a little something on to John’s introduction of the show. So, what we’re really talking he’s right. The core element will be talking about how to use the information that you have and how to get the information that you need. But the objective is how do your future proof your business in an uncertain marketplace? And that’s what we’re really going to be talking about is how to future-proof your business in an uncertain marketplace. Now if you’d like to learn more about me.

My name Is Robert Newman. I am the founder of Inbound REM which is a real estate marketing company that focusses on real estate SEO. And you go to inboundrem.com and see great reviews on products and services like Boomtown, Cinc, Placester, pretty much everybody that is popular. You can also read my thoughts about how to do prospecting and all sorts of other topics as well.

JONATHAN: And I am the founder of Mail Right. It is a suite of software that helps you market yourself in a box basically. There is a strong emphasis on using Facebook, paid advertising to get leads, and then convert them. But there is a lot of other parts to it. So, if that sounds interesting, go over to Mail Right. Have a look at what we are offering and if you want a free demo and have a free discussion with me about your marketing leads, you can book that on the site as well.

What you can also do is remember that you can watch the show live on the Mail Right Facebook page and Robert and I If you comment or have any questions during the show you can post on the Facebook page and we will answer either during the show or afterward so do remember that. You can watch the show live on the Mail Right Facebook page. So, Robert how are we going to start the conversation?

ROBERT: Well, I would like to set it up a little bit more. I did right there but I want to have. John and I are going to talk about this, but when you have been sitting across from each other for a year. Once a week, twice a week, we kind of know-how each other thinks and feels about a lot of these topics. But today we are going to talk about what are some things you can be doing to future proof your real estate business. Because nobody has a crystal ball, not me not Jon, not anybody, there is just nobody, however, we do know that there are some things, not 100 %.

JONATHAN: Can I just slightly interrupt. I was saying this to a friend. The present moment is like been a character in a Steven King book. You don’t know what the hell is going on from one week to the other.

ROBERT: I totally agree, but what we do know, what we can control is we do know that one way or the other people will continue to buy real estate. If anything, the last few months have shown us cause right now we are doing this show on June 25th we all went into lockdown in February at lease we did here in California. Were you in lockdown in February Jon in Reno?

JONATHAN: I think it was slightly later, I think it might have been the beginning of March.

ROBERT: Ok, so March for him, February for me. So, we did the lockdown, and honestly, my business kind of dried up in terms of people contacting, and a lot of the reals estate people I was talking to in February said that they were not getting very many calls. And then as states started to open the calls to my business started to come back, and now with most of the states open, I am almost as busy as I usually am. This tells me that my clients are almost as busy as they usually are which leads me to this point Jon.

I think no matter what, Real Estate will be there. Now whether we are going into lockdown again that is a huge question I think for everybody. So, what can you do to try to make sure to get through all of that in a marketing sense as well as plausible? And that is where I feel like the conversation about how you manage the data that you already have from your customers the right way. Do you kind of agree with that setup?

JONATHAN: I do, but I am going to say something, mention a company that you are not going to like.

ROBERT: Sure, go for it.

JONATHAN: He is not great fans of Curator and their two founders’ folks. I am a little bit less critical of them than you are. I was listening and they were doing their podcast and they had a real estate company that is a client of theirs and they were discussing how they utilize Facebook. Cause this real estate company through Curator and they do a ton of Facebook advertising. And what were their mechanisms and how did they utilize all the leads that came through Facebook advertising and what was the methodology they utilized to convert those possible leads into actual clients.

And it was nothing that extraordinary, but before they started using Facebook there had been a large Zillow user, but Zillow got so expensive and so competitive that they decided to look at another mechanism to generate. And what was interesting they were really utilizing the lead came through Facebook and then they had a resident agent, he was a qualified agent that was their digital master who forward the brokerage and he was the gateway. You know as the leads came in; it was just sent to a pool of agents. The ones that were available would get the leads.

But the main thing is when it came through and it got in their C.R.M they would phone up that lead two times in the morning and one time in the afternoon. And the next day they would phone that lead two days, but they mentioned that the ones they couldn’t get a hold of on the phone or through texting or email they would still try to contact that person unless that person made it totally clear that they didn’t want any further outreach from the company. And they say they have clients where they have attempted to phone and they keep records.

They have had some clients they have attempted to get a hold of that client over 300 times. But that client, in the end, had turned into a large client, some hadn’t, but some of them had. He said just keep on ringing and try to contact that client until they tell you to clear off completely. Cause he says there are a lot of people it’s just about ringing at the right moment when they have a need for you. But don’t get disheartened that you are not getting an immediate response. I thought it was fascinating.

ROBERT: Well, I spent a lifetime in phone sales. If somebody gave me a hundred names of people that are vaguely interested in my product. I am going to call those hundred names as many times as it takes to get on the phone with these people. And I am going to prompt them with I am leaving messages and other things, I am going to give them outs to stop the contact. Respond to me and let me know if you are not interested, but if I don’t hear from you, I am going to keep reaching out to you. And you can leave creative messages and manage all those contact attempts in a creative, so people don’t feel pestered by you. And a lot of people, by the way, Jon, and my experience when you’re doing calls, they don’t really say yes or no.

They will oftentimes respond with things like I can’t talk right now. They don’t really say don’t call me back or do call me on Friday. They just say I can’t talk to you now. So, they respond, but they don’t give you enough to go on. So, for me, they must still be interested. A lot of people would hear that as, Oh, they didn’t tell me they’re interested. I’m not going to call them anymore. I hear that as, Oh, they didn’t say buzz off. They literally kind of keeping the door open for me to be reaching out. So, I’m going to keep calling them until I get them on the phone.

That’s what I would do. And so, Mitch Ryback, talk about that. you’re talking about the Conversion guys. If you have a list of leads you should be calling those leads two to eight times every single person. And that’s what, Ryback said, that’s what you’re saying with Conversion. That is what is necessary today to get the best results. If you’re going to do the calls yourself, sit down, schedule a couple of hours every day and do nothing but calls, no matter how many times you’ve called the lead until you get them and have a good CRM where you’re prioritizing your calls so that you know, hot leads for like newer leads first, people that you’ve called 20 times would be your last priority, but you’re calling them again.

JONATHAN: Yeah, Thanks, Robert. to get back to your question, I think it’s very linked to the guests that we had on the show a couple of weeks ago, which is Ricky Carruth, and he’s a great trainer and a great agent. I think I agree with him. I think it makes your company resistant to external events. It’s really building a personal relationship with your clientele and then having mythology of consistently filling the funnel of consistently getting new clients and also our outreach into our old, but also have been trying to attempt with your old clients to build up a real relationship with them. So, they have no hesitation in referring, new people to you. So, I don’t know what you think about that.

ROBERT: So, okay guys, I like to give actionable information. So, John, to answer your question, I think strongly about it. And I love Ricky as an example because I really think he does his best to share his specific system, how he’s managed to sell a hundred homes. I think he’s transparent. I’ve now listened to even more calls than the last time that we talked and even reviewed more of his material. But guys, the way that Ricky keeps in touch with his clients is he does a weekly email. So, he’s been generating leads and making phone calls. And his method of generating leads for him is he uses a phone system and he calls out to people and he does what’s called circle prospect.

And that just means he calls buildings and such and gets a hold of every owner in the building and targets buildings that he has done a lot of transactions in and basically says, Hey, I’ve done 17 transactions in your building. I’m really experienced with it, but here’s what he does just to keep his business future-proofed he sends out a weekly email and he calls it a weekly email report. And what he basically does is a, is a market report done weekly for his clients. Now that’s not my personal favorite kind of outreach, but to the depth and level that he does it, he’s not using a non-customized template. He’s customizing his template. So, he’s giving personal information when he sends out this weekly report, not just some report that he generated off some service. So, if you’re going to send a custom report every week,

JONATHAN: Yeah. You got to put some value into them. You really got to spend, you got to be dedicated and make sure it’s consistently got some decent value because otherwise, it’s a total waste of time. I feel.

ROBERT: And as a bonus for this show, I’m going to ask John to put up the link to the tutorials for Ricky on his. He has a, how and why he’s got two video tutorials, one that focuses on how on, on why and the other that focuses on how in terms of the way that he does his weekly email reports. Now, if you have a database and you’ve been ignoring it, or you’ve been sending nothing but an automated response to your existing, I’m going to say something right now and please hear me, stop, start sending out customized messages right now during COVID 19. John, how do you feel if I make the recommendation about BombBomb? Because I think that’s a great way to

JONATHAN: I’ll think, you know, I’ve got no problem with it. It’s all, you know, I think
for a subset, obviously, if, you know, if he got caught, you start in building up a reasonable date, you just cannot customer, especially, but for values that are being identified as really hot prospects or people influence influences in your community or people that know that champ in you using something like BombBomb is a great idea.

ROBERT: Yeah. And I feel the same way about it. So that, which by the way, guys, that is one way, one service, one easy way. Cause it’s just actionable tips. It’s all we’re trying to give you. So that is a way to reach out to your database. So how would I use BombBomb? I think that BombBomb is great. If you’re an experienced agent with an existing list, that’s been hearing from you for a long time.

JONATHAN: Actually, I’m sorry to do this. Can we go for our break? And then we can talk about Bomb Bomb when we come back. Is that okay with you, Robert?

ROBERT: Sure.

JONATHAN: So, we’re going to go for our break listeners and viewers. And when we come back, and we are discussing BombBomb in a few moments.

BREAK: Do you want quality leads from homeowners and buyers, right in your own neighborhood. Then you need Mail Right? It is a powerful but easy to use online marketing system that uses Facebook to generate real estate leads at a fraction of the cost you’d pay from our competition. We stand behind our work with a no question, asked 30-day money-back guarantee. So, don’t delay get started today, go to mail-right.com.

JONATHAN: We’re coming back. I can’t believe that we got to the halfway point. It just kind of it just went really quickly. Well, hopefully, we’re not just off. Hopefully. I think Robert is trying to keep to the point, I think I am not helping. Over to you Robert about BombBomb.

ROBERT: Okay. So, here’s so if you haven’t already done it, please go back and look at our podcasts, John and I’s podcast where we were John acquired this great guest, Michael Hollenbeck, Michael Hollenbeck. talks about stages of a career, and I’ve been talking about that a lot because it, there are different stages of a career. If you’re already an experienced agent and you’re listening to the show, hoping to get a little bit of advice or a tip. I think that BombBomb is a great suggestion for you. If you have a database, even if it’s a hundred people that have been getting messages from you for a very long time, but let’s say you’ve been using automated IDX messages or like that to keep in touch with your clients or automated emails. And you haven’t really been personal.

The way that you can really capture their attention and get an 80-90% open rate on your emails which you want right now, it’s not like you are going to get all that business, but you want people to know that you’re trying to get in touch with them in a personal way. For you for that specific agent type, I think that BombBomb is an amazing suggestion. If you’re a new agent trying to reach out to new prospects and build up a database from scratch, I don’t know that I would add the extra expense of BombBomb yet. I don’t know that it’s necessary. I’m not sure that I’d feel great about that recommendation.

For almost everybody else. If you’re a broker with many, many agents, I think it’s going to be hard to take action and get your agents to use BombBomb on an individual level though, you probably could do a tools email with a lot of great suggestions about tools that your agents could use in order to leverage technology, to get a different result from their databases. And if I was a broker, by the way, that’s the conversation I’d be having with my team. This conversation, but with my team and what is another tool John, that you think would really, I mean, they could hire Warren. That would be another way. If you had money to spend in a huge database, that could be something you’d consider. Right.

JONATHAN: Right, to be serious well I am serious about that, I really think there’s some. Well, this conversation causes it’s in my mind is Curator. This actual brokerage, they were spending over a hundred thousand. I forget how many agents; it was a boutique regional brokerage. And there were spending about a hundred thousand dollars on Facebook, but they said they would get in eight times a return. So, every dollar they were spending on Facebook, they reckon they’re getting an $8 return, which is amazing. Isn’t it?

So, if that was the case, I would keep feeding the beast out. I would be giving Facebook as much money as possible. If I was getting out every $1, I was giving to Facebook. I was getting an $8 return. But I think it was also them. They are mythology because they don’t think they said what CRM, but the Digital Agent who was a qualified agent, he was monitoring. And if the pool of our agent, if an agent got a lead and they weren’t doing the follow-through, it would be, then that lead would be taken and given to another agent. So, they were merciless about that follow-through, had to be done.

And they said they were trained. So, I think it’s really, having the system where you can see reasonably easily, who’s been talking to you, who opens your email and then sending it a subsite of your, of your list, a BombBomb message. You know, you could also use that response to either your Google ads or your Facebook ads, you know, consider sending the number BombBomb as you, um, as part of your initial engagement. The technique might be worthwhile doing that. You know, it’s just using something BombBomb is you just try and use a tool that a lot of our agents won’t use. So, you just try and to be a bit different. So, the, so the mass of our agents, aren’t you?

ROBERT: Yeah, definitely. I agree with that. Hey, this didn’t publish to my Facebook group. Yes. I think that’s, that’s very much the case. So in terms of tools that you could use guys, cause we’ve covered tools in our last show, but when you’re going to talk about like outreach and let’s just say that you have a list, which is probably, I think most of the people that are part of this show because we’ve talked about getting creative with lists. Like if you’re starting off in real estate, you have a list. You don’t have a list. You just have a list of friends and family and people and an outreach to those people is going to be like, Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve changed my career and I’m in real estate now.

And you’d email all those people and you’d, you’d send a message just like they were a group of prospects because they are, you obviously don’t press them or market to them too hard because they’re family and friends and you don’t want to hear about it at the next cocktail party. But you let them know that you’re doing the thing so that if they decide that they want to buy or sell a home, maybe just maybe they’ll call you. So, you have a list. So, what do you do to manage these lists? Well, one of the tools from last week’s series of recommendations with John just informed me at the beginning of this show has gone live. What is this service called? Broadly that’s for email outreach. There’s another service that John recommended, which was what now?

JONATHAN: Mailer Lite.
ROBERT: Mailer Lite That’s another email service. Mailer Lite might even be less expensive than Broadly. I do not recall.

JONATHAN: Well, it’s free. Up to 1000 subscribers, it’s totally free

ROBERT: If you’re just getting started. That would be where you go, right?

JONATHAN: Yeah. I think their free product is a better value because the landing page and the ad-on work is better value in a Mail Chimp. And I’m thinking a lot of people have heard of Mail Chimp. And you know, I think Mailer Lite is a better deal.

ROBERT: Okay.

JONATHAN: Yeah. And especially if you get over a certain threshold, because one of the problems with Mail Chimp is when you get to a certain level and then you get, you have to pay the jump is quite considerable. The jump between the free product and the paid product with Mailer Lite, that jump is a lot less, it’s only like $15. So, if you can’t afford $15, I think you’ve got a bit of a problem.

ROBERT: Well, maybe you cannot afford and not want to spend are probably two separate things. And I, myself, I have at times inside my sales career, even like when I’ve been making money, I just get in a weird headspace where I, for whatever reason, decide like I’ve eliminated a huge amount of my subscriptions.

JONATHAN: I totally, you’re totally right there to say that to me because, you know, you got to be all these SAS products. So these 15, 30, $50, they always add up don’t I, and then when you look at your expense, if you’re spending 500, $500 a month, so you got to make sure that, you know, you’ve got to be selective and you’ve got to be dedicated. You know, I am going to use this tool are I am going to dedicate much time to learn it. And, I’m going to give it six months and then I’m going to review it again. And if I can’t see, but it’s made a difference after six months, I’m going to junk it.

ROBERT: Yeah. And that’s to my point like right now I’m very reluctantly adding on subscriptions, which is why I like your suggestion about Mailer Lite if you’re new into the business. So just to break these recommendations up the start of the show, we made a recommendation about databases and emails for people who are probably in the latter part of their real estate career, maybe three to 5 years, three to 15, three to 20 years, that those recommendations would work for everybody. If you’re in your first couple of years, I don’t know that I’m going to go the route of recommending uncertain times which is what the title of the show is that you take on extraneous expenses, even really small ones.

I think I’m going to go with, if you have under a thousand contacts, absolutely use the free tool that John is mentioning. There’re no worries unless you get above a thousand contacts. I use Mail Chimp for years for free before I finally got to the point where I had to pay for it. And honestly, I got more value out of that than any other tool ever, because I sent out tens of thousands of emails without paying a single penny on Mail Chimp. So, I’m sure that Mailer Lite would work the same way. And you’d probably find it even easier to use then Mail Chimp. So, take John’s recommendations and run with it. If you’re in your first three years of their career, it will cost you nothing.

And yet you will be able to reach out to your clients and stay in touch with them and personalize your emails. Now, my last recommendation, which is a, an outliner is, so we’ve talked about doing BombBomb, we’ve talked about email. We’ve talked about getting in touch with you personally using market reports and Ricky’s approach. Here’s one last approach. It’s not something that anybody that I know of is doing or very few people. And that is this. As part of these emails, I suggest that you do a YouTube video. I’m a static one that you put on your YouTube channel. And I would talk about your views on COVID and the way that it’s impacting the way that you do business.

That’s it, it’s not a sales pitch. It’s merely a, this is how COVID it has affected me. Please look at Christophe Choo’s channel. If you have any questions about that because Christophe is great about explaining how he’s changing his business model to match COVID. All this does is just lets people know in a very subtle way that you’re taking COVID seriously, that you’ve adapted your business to doing business in the days of COVID and that if they contact you, this is what they can expect. What do you think about that Jon?
JONATHAN: It’s a great idea. I think it really shows that you’re in tune with the market and it’s professional.
ROBERT: Perfect.
JONATHAN: Well, I think a lot of people, you’ve got to get on whatever system you use. If you hire a Robert, you hire a Mail Rite, you hire Curator to hire whatever to get you leads.

You got to have a methodology, you have got to have a system where you’re going to keep trying and keeping contact and get that first one to one conversation going. You know, this is what the game is about. And you don’t, in these higher-powered scripts that people use, it’s not my cup of tea. I think you’re more experienced with telephone sales than I am to an enormous extent. But what I’ve learned is that when I was first doing telephone, I tend to wrap it too much. it’s kind of English. Hopefully, it’s understandable in the US, I tended to want to fill the silences with my own voice.

And as you get a bit experienced, what is important is that you allow, the prospect of the talk and the more you can, get them to talk to you. And the more you learn about why they are looking to either sell or buy a house, the more chance you can understand their needs and wants that you’re going to, they cannot become your client because people don’t move home or look, start looking for homes in a very consistent way because it is a total pain in the ass moving their house. Isn’t it?

ROBERT: Yeah.

JONATHAN: Well, we got to 30 minutes. I think Robert is done his best. I think I have confused the waters terribly. I apologize. This is abuse. I’m going to let Robert control me be a bit. Well, I think we’ve got a guest next week anyways. So, I’m sure Robert is going to tell you about it after we end this show. But I don’t think it was totally all my fault. Hopefully got some, insights into this folk. Cause on a serious note, I think if you do the things that Robert said, and, I’ve tried to say it will you’re your business more resistant to the ups and downs. Don’t you see which is natural in this industry? We’ll be back next week. We have hopefully a great guest. We’ll see, soon folks.

ROBERT: We’re not seeing as we’re closing out here, everybody, please do John a favor. All these, this content is hosted on his YouTube channels. I copy some of this stuff onto my channel, but, but I’m not as religious about it as he is. Do John a favor, add some likes, put some comments in the shows. He works hard on this stuff. It’s always nice. You don’t have to do any business with either one of us. You don’t have to call us about our systems. We’re not asking for any of that. Just if you hear the show, you’re listening to it. Now it’s over a thousand of you are please comment like it. Give them, give them a little feedback. The man obviously needs it. You can tell.

JONATHAN: I don’t know how to respond to that. That is a cutting compliment. That’s two-sided Isn’t it? I think I have looked reasonably happy for the week I have had. That was very English humor actually? I must be really growing on Robert. We’ll see you next week, folks.