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#458 – The Mail-Right – Thinking of Hiring a Real Estate Remote ISA in 2025?

Monday, January 20th, 2025

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Thinking of Hiring a Real Estate Remote ISA in 2025?

Looking to hire a Real Estate ISA in 2025? You can learn how to find the perfect candidate and optimize your lead generation strategy.

This informative show discusses the advantages of bringing a Real Estate ISA in 2025. From enhancing your team’s efficiency to maximizing lead conversion rates, we cover essential factors to consider before making this critical decision. Whether you’re a seasoned agent or just starting, understanding the role of an ISA could be a game-changer for your business.

#1 – Screen For Basics

– a – Do they have a business-level Internet connection

– b – Strong English language Skills

– c – Strong Thinking Skills

#2 – Time Zone & Culture

#3 – The Right Incentives (significant)

#4 – Are You a Real Leader?

#5 – Trust Your Intuition

#6 – Final Thoughts

Episode Full Show Notes

 

[00:00:06.600] – Robert Newman

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to episode number 358, marked by the passing of one of my favorite directors of all time, David Lynch. So that’s your bookmark for you in our show for 2025. We’re going to talk today about hiring real estate remote ISAs. This is a subject that my podcasting partner, Jonathan, has selected. I’ve got a lot of experience in this area, so I’ll probably be contributing heavily to this particular podcast. Jon, as we get queued up to talk about, to have a healthy dialog about hiring an ISA, why don’t you go ahead and explain who you are to those people who may not know?

 

[00:00:56.060] – Jonathan Denwood

Oh, thanks, Rob. I am the joint founder of male-right. Com. We are a online marketing platform to help you get leads in 2025. We do that mostly through the combination of Facebook and WordPress. We can provide services where we run, set up and run Facebook paid campaigns, or we offer a platform where you can do it yourself, linked to a fantastic website. Back over to you, Rob.

 

[00:01:30.550] – Robert Newman

All right, ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who may not know who I am, my name is Robert Newman. I’m the founder of the only real inbound marketing company in the real estate space, InboundREM. And I am a lifetime salesman Sales guy who also these days focuses on SEO. All right, without any further ado, are you looking to hire real estate ISA in 2025? And we’ve got a lot of different things, but I’m just going rapid fire, some pros and cons. If you’re lost in the mix in your real estate business and a lot of low value activities, things having to do with your calendar, things having to do with phone calls, things having to do with follow-up, things having to do with very basic types of marketing, like repetition-based marketing tasks, writing things, emails, I can go on and on. If the answer for you is yes, then I’m going to give you an equation that I’ve always used on the phone, John, for when people are trying to establish whether or not it’s time for them to hire an ISA. It’s pretty simple. You take your income for the last calendar year, 2025, and let’s say it’s $300,000, you make the assumption, and this is oftentimes not true for many of you.

 

[00:02:46.880] – Robert Newman

You either worked more or less, but you have to start with the baseline. You take 40 hours a week plus however many weeks you felt you worked. If you worked 50, you put 50 weeks in there. Then you go, All right, so I I worked 10,000 hours last year, divide that into $400,000. How much should I make? $40 an hour, whatever it is, whatever the number is. Usually much higher, actually, for real estate agents. Usually, you make a surprisingly high revenue per hour. Let’s just say it’s $125, which is about average across my account base. It’s $125 an hour. John, once I’ve established that, that logic, breaking it down to the ridiculous is that exercise. It was created by Zig Zigler, or as far as I know it was. And that breaking it down to the ridiculous allows you to understand very carefully how much time you’re spending. Should you be paying yourself $125 an hour to write emails? No. In case you didn’t know the answer. Not usually. Or scheduling your calls or placing follow-up calls to low and medium quality leads? Absolutely not. All those things should be done by somebody else. That is where we finally walk into, are you thinking of hiring an ISA in 2025?

 

[00:04:12.660] – Robert Newman

If the answer to these questions are yes, you absolutely should hire an ISA. You can get an incredibly good ISA for between $5 and $10 an hour. We’re going to explain how in this episode, The first thing on John’s list is screen for basics. Now, I would argue that if you’ve written a really good ad on Upwork or you’ve done a very good job of looking at Fiverr that you really don’t necessarily need. Number one, it does depend on the task. Many, many tasks can be run off a cell phone these days. However, if you’re thinking of hiring an ISA part time, established connection, then I think these questions are valid, which is, do they have a business level internet connection or reliable access to the internet? Strong English language skills and strong thinking skills. Now, you pulled this stuff off the internet. Am I thinking that correctly, John?

 

[00:05:20.750] – Jonathan Denwood

My research for this section, Robert.

 

[00:05:23.690] – Robert Newman

Okay, so if you had any experience where you can illustrate… It felt to me like number A, I felt like it might have something personal behind it. It was so basic. I don’t even ask that, usually. It’s such an assumption. Have you had an experience where you’ve tried to hire somebody and discovered they didn’t have regular Internet access?

 

[00:05:47.360] – Jonathan Denwood

No, not really. But I actually do think this is valid. I think having a checklist because there’s been nothing worse than hiring somebody and investing some time in them. And then you find that they haven’t got a decent access to internet connection. And I think you got to check. They might have good verbal English skills, but I think you got to have some mechanism to check their language skills, their written, their grammar, because they are representing you. And And I think the last one is, I think really is quite important, but you’ve got more experience in this than me, is that there’s certain And they’re not being disparaging here at all. I think there are sizable cultural differences where people… I have noticed it in the teams that I run, which are more coding-focused, and a couple of people that do help us with male right, is that certain cultures, there’s a strong need to keep you happy. I know that sounds strange, but what I mean is they don’t like any form of confrontation. So they really want to keep you pleased. So they don’t And that’s a two-edged sword because they can just do stuff which you didn’t ask for, or they can just go off and do stuff which wasn’t agreed on, and they’re not doing it out of malice.

 

[00:07:45.910] – Jonathan Denwood

They’re just doing it because they hope that will please you, keep you happy. So that’s my bit.

 

[00:07:55.720] – Robert Newman

So I have found the language and using somebody… So mostly, John, I hire from the Philippines. I have hired from Argentina, Chile, the Philippines, Mexico, Ireland, a long, long list of other countries. And what I’ve discovered is I have pretty eliminated all hiring except for Macedonia and the Philippines. And the reason I’ve eliminated everyone else is because number one, the income disparity between these countries and ours is great enough that talent can be found and hired. When I’m paying somebody $9 an hour in the Philippines, that is well above average for that country. They are making way more money.

 

[00:08:46.130] – Jonathan Denwood

What is the monthly average wage? I think it’s around $450 a month, isn’t it?

 

[00:08:54.350] – Robert Newman

Something like that. A doctor in their country makes no more than $10 or $11 an hour, equivalent US. So when you’re paying them nine, you could literally say to a Filipino, I need you to learn English better for this job. And if you’re offering them $7 to $9 an hour, that is something they’ll probably go do because it’s worth it to them. It’s a better opportunity. It’s a greater opportunity. These days, people that are going to the University of Cebu and other places are focused on on their training to be of service to people here. I don’t know how many people know this, but the Philippines oftentimes ships a great number of their human resources to the US to be nurses. They account for something staggering, like 30% of the registered nurses in the US. To those nurses, they send their money almost entirely back to their families. They look for in-home living nursing situations so that they can not pay their own rent. They eat here, they cover all of their expenses from the job, and they literally send every penny possible back to their family, and oftentimes a single nurse is supporting up to 15 people back in the Philippines.

 

[00:10:21.150] – Robert Newman

It is absolutely nuts. It also creates a culture where there’s a lot of sadness over partners leaving and things like that, but they’re They’re very religious in that country. There’s also a staggeringly low amount of divorce or separation, despite everything I’m saying. They don’t do it. It’s not allowed. This creates a unique ecosystem to There are people that will stay at your job that you’re offering X amount of dollars for. It is a very huge priority to them. Then, Macedonia, which is where I have my entire development team located, it’s basically a European country, but their average wages, for whatever reason, are a pittance of all other European countries.

 

[00:11:10.010] – Jonathan Denwood

I think it is the poorest country in Europe apart from Albania. I think Albania, Mastodonia, are the two poorest countries in Europe.

 

[00:11:24.210] – Robert Newman

Which creates in and at like… I’ve had the same experience in Mastodonia, except that they speak almost perfect English and that their tech skills are off the charts. All the troll farms and everything else that bothers the US that everybody’s accusing Russia of doing. When you dig down into that, John, you discover that those farms are located in Macedonia. They’re not in Russia. Russia can’t afford to hire a whole bunch of Russians, 10,000 Russians, or they’re too cheap.

 

[00:11:54.790] – Jonathan Denwood

I mean- Or they’ve left the country or they’re dead already.

 

[00:11:59.260] – Robert Newman

Yeah. When you’re looking for really talented tech people at a price you can afford, my recommendation is try Macedonia. It takes a while because most of those people do have jobs similar to the Philippines. My lead developer who is nothing short of a genius was working for… It was closely related to the Russian mob. He developed a huge of Black Hat skills. We don’t use them that way, but he’s an incredible security expert because he understands how the thinking is going when people are trying to attack our stuff. Because of all of that, and because he’s a Masedonian, he’s never once thought about leaving, or let me rephrase, he probably has thought about leaving. He hasn’t left, and he really could have based upon his talent, his level of skill. But he he prefers to stay with a single employer and build a relationship because Mastodonia, if he gambles and he gambles wrong, he’s in trouble in that country. That’s a US opportunity. It’s a huge opportunity of almost any kind. We pay them 75% less than we’d have to pay an American developer of an equivalent skill set. It is also worth mentioning that get a much better deal on these other countries in terms of money.

 

[00:13:36.410] – Robert Newman

But of course, if you really want to get the top value out of these people, you have to understand what you have and treat them the way that they deserve to be treated. My developers as an owner, so are some of my Filipino resources. They own pieces of the company because they’ve earned them. And just like me, for them, the golden parachute, like 100 grand in their local currency would be like the equivalent of a million to ours. And it’s a reasonable… That’s a reasonable exit for these guys, which makes a company of my size, even though I’m very small and I’m very not high in revenue. Nonetheless, it’s an opportunity for them, John. And so if you can provide anything like that, like a real estate business that you intend to sell out of at some point or something like that, then you should be thinking about building in another resource from another country. We’re We’re going to count that as number two on the list was time zone and culture, but we just talked a lot about the Philippines and culture. We’re going to say that we’ve covered that, and we’re going to go to break a little bit early, about 20 seconds early on the Timer.

 

[00:14:44.570] – Robert Newman

When we come back, we’re going to discuss incentives, which I dug into. Are you a leader? Trust your intuition, and some final thoughts. Ladies and gentlemen, stay tuned for us, and we will be right back with Three, two, one. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. It’s episode number 458. John and I were just talking about… Actually, I’m doing most of the talking right now. We’re talking about thinking of hiring a real estate ISA in 2025. Let’s jump into what would you think… If it was you, John, what I’ve done is very controversial. I have had a lot of people counsel against it. What are your thoughts about incentives? Let’s just say you have some people that you think are crucial to your business, do a great job. What would you offer them?

 

[00:15:45.800] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, I think I pay them. I’ve got a couple of developers in Vietnam that have been with me for about eight years now. Can’t believe that. And they’re pretty good. It’s a family operation. He’s got a couple of people work for him all the time, but then I think he’s got a host of friends and relatives. And then I’ve got a couple of other people who have been with me for five years. I think it’s that… What I gather by the research I did was that, if it’s just Just based on how many leads they can give over to you, that’s not a very good incentive. That seems because if their sales were in, they’re just going to… Or you’re just buying into a call center, and it’s the amount of so-called qualified leads that they’re going to send over to you. I think you might be disappointed, where it’s that they are really treated as part of the team, that even though they’re in a foreign country and they’re virtual, they are part of a weekly call where you’re talking to the other people that are based in the US, and they really are treated as part of the company.

 

[00:17:30.320] – Jonathan Denwood

And they’re given tasks, but they have also asked for their opinion, their feedback, and they’re treated with respect. That’s what I gathered from my research, where you get more success.

 

[00:17:48.300] – Robert Newman

My team has been incredibly fruitful, incredibly loyal. I’ve had zero turnover. Only people that we’ve lost have been people we fired. Once somebody works for me, they We have no so far, never quit. And we do all those things. We have a weekly meeting. We talk to people. I ask for input. I don’t just ask for input. I actually take input. I actually do the things that they recommend, even though sometimes I don’t feel like they’re the best thing, which is weird for a leader. But every once in a while, if you want people to get comfortable making decisions, Sean, and become autonomous, you have to get them used to letting them see the the results of decisions that they’ve made. So if it’s not cataclysmic, I let the decision roll forward and let the mistake or whatever it is happen or the slower process or whatever it is. The only exception to that is all things customer-related I handle myself. I don’t allow little mistakes there, but process and the way they go about things and occasionally bad suggestions such as, Can we use AI in our process? And I’m like, Sure, up to the point, it affects quality.

 

[00:18:59.710] – Robert Newman

So our AI experiment lasted less than eight days, and then we had a complaint. And then we took it out of the process. But I let the person roll with it and told them, Hey, you need to read the content. They, Oh, I promise. I will. I will. Every word. All right. Then no longer than eight days for a client to catch it, say this looks like AI, run it through an AI tool for me to turn around and go, Was that AI? The person to go, Yes, it was. And then I’m like, And now you cannot use it. Anyway, Are you a real leader? Wow, John, that’s a hell of a thing to throw into this. How are we supposed to answer that? I think I’m a decent leader. I try hard at it, that’s for sure. What do you say? Do you think you’re a real leader?

 

[00:19:51.860] – Jonathan Denwood

I can be when I want to be. I can be an asshole when I want to be as well. Well, if you look at Elon Musk, it’s the That’s the goddamn thing. Yeah, but he doesn’t know that he’s an asshole sometimes, does he? I think that’s about if you think you’re just going to bring on a virtual ISA on, and they’re not going to need direction and supervision and bedding down and help and guidance. If you’re just going to use them as a black box, lead generative black box, and you’re just buying a human service, and that’s your attitude. I’ve seen this with some real estate agents that I’ve been involved with. Their churn of either in-house that are in the office or virtual ISAs is a constant churn because they’re not very good at taking the responsibility of their bad leadership, or they expect the people to be mind readers and just know. They’re not going to know anything. Especially if they’re virtual, either domestic or offshore, because they’re not there with you. So they definitely ain’t going to know. But I think you’ve touched on this, that you’ve spent a lot of time writing out procedures, everything’s documented, every new person that comes into the company, you’ve got a lot of documentation.

 

[00:21:48.410] – Jonathan Denwood

It’s all planned out. Well, my experience with a lot of agents, they’ve got no documentation, they got no onboarding process, they got nothing.

 

[00:22:00.580] – Robert Newman

The secret to success is twofold, I find, if you’re growing an operation and using ISA-like resources. And that is having processes and having people that you can apprentice under. And definitely, John, in both cases, what has made me successful in both those areas is having material that is redundancy, yes, and here’s the bitch of ISA is every time and where most people fail, somebody, you, preferably, has got to be the person that trains them to do things the way that you want. You got that first person or that second person or that third person You spend a gob of time with those people, like a ton. I’ve built quite a few teams in my career, and it is more time building the team than it is getting the result. Let me repeat that. There’s more time spent building the than getting the result. Once you have good people, getting the result to everyone else around you looks like magic. But that’s probably because at some point, you took the time to elevate somebody’s skill level and temperament to close to where yours is. I’ve got 35 years sales experience. It really requires a lot of time for me to explain communication methods, mirroring, how you want to respond to people, cushioning, never say no, I can go on and on.

 

[00:23:33.720] – Robert Newman

All those things, yes, eventually they do get written down. You do create procedures around it. But at the same time, what’s best for new people coming in is you assign them to somebody you already trained. Then it becomes easier and easier and easier, and the operation scales faster and faster and faster. Because at this point, I’ve got three or four people who do everything that do it better than me. But I did originally train every person, and they love me for it because I taught them something new. It developed some way. It’s an incentive of a kind, and you called it out in your explanation of incentives. It’s an incentive because most of the people in these other countries, John, they get treated like garbage. I don’t think that we treat our coworkers all that great here in the US, but these guys actually get treated like garbage, like real garbage, ignored opinions, discounted entirely 100%, treated like with a rampant amount of disrespect. And yet their livelihood generally depends on five-star reviews. So they got to take it all from everybody all the time to have somebody come through the door that’s willing to teach them, train them, add them to meetings, just like you said, it’s an extraordinary thing for them.

 

[00:24:51.260] – Robert Newman

And of course, they respond to it. They’ve never seen it. They don’t get that. They don’t get that ever. So expect Especially if you teach them something and then tell them how they compare. Because my experience has been with these are teaching that nobody else is willing to teach. Boy, oh, boy, do they throw themselves into it, John. Or the people that I have do, they break their back. I’m talking studying on weekends. They’re already working 8, 10 hours a day. Then they’re going on the weekends. They treat my customers honestly. I wish this wasn’t true, but probably better than I do. I have 24/7 attachment to communication, which I think is a pretty good entrepreneurial thing. But when it comes to act like reactivity, I’m not available during those hours. But my team is. They’ll see something come through and respond outside the hours I normally pay them for. The only reason for that, John, I am convinced, is that they’ve been taught, they’ve been trained, they have love and respect, they feel appreciated and seen. And very rarely I have to give out what you and I might consider traditional incentive, like front somebody a loan, something like that.

 

[00:26:10.640] – Robert Newman

And it’s always in line with… I think the biggest loan I’ve had to front out is a few thousand dollars, which was for an extraordinary situation. So it ultimately… And I did it because I want to say yes, because ultimately my experience My experience has been that you get out of these resources what you put into it and all of the five-star reviews I have speak for themselves. It sure as fuck isn’t me, though, dude. It’s not me. Did I build a great website? You damn well know I didn’t build Squat. I didn’t build a website. I have people that built a website. Yes, I constructed the requirements in the original format. They’ve moved off it fairly heavily at this point. I They’ve started with the outline, they’ve colored it in themselves and created something really magnificent. I have no idea if that makes me a real leader. I’d like to think that it does, but real leaders also are usually more driven than me and have a different viewpoint than I do, which is more money-focused. So maybe I’m a certain leader is what I would probably say, as opposed to a real leader.

 

[00:27:27.300] – Robert Newman

Trust your intuition. I have no idea what you meant by this, John. Or I think I did. I mean, maybe when it came to choosing people, but why don’t you explain what you thought when you put this on here?

 

[00:27:36.250] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, a few people mentioned this, and I thought about it, and I agree with it. When it comes to business partnerships, when it comes to personal relationship partners, it’s normally unless you’re dealing with a real expert psychopath or a really intuitive psychopath, normally it’s all in front of you. And for business needs, you’re in a bit of a corner, you just decide or you’re attracted to a person and you give them more slack than you would. You know in your heart, in your gut, that this isn’t going to work out, but you rationize it away. So it’s normally unless you’re dealing with a skilled psychopath or skilled narcissist, Basically, it’s there, but you’re choosing not to listen to your gut and to see the obvious.

 

[00:28:57.970] – Robert Newman

I agree with that. Intuition plays a huge part into my people’s selection process. I really don’t choose that badly anymore, but I think it’s… I dislike strongly saying things that are egoic, but I have hired about 30,000 people over my career.

 

[00:29:19.760] – Jonathan Denwood

Can I ask you this question? Would you hire I had to ask you.

 

[00:29:37.090] – Robert Newman

It depends on what role.

 

[00:29:40.500] – Jonathan Denwood

That’s all right. I’ll let you carry that one. I just couldn’t resist it.

 

[00:29:44.840] – Robert Newman

I was expecting to say no. No.

 

[00:29:51.920] – Jonathan Denwood

You’re kidding, mate.

 

[00:29:55.480] – Robert Newman

You’d have to have the ability to have autonomy, and that would be complete autonomy. That’s how I would view you.

 

[00:30:04.590] – Jonathan Denwood

I can work with people. I’m not looking for an argument, honestly. When my dad said this, many, almost 35, 40 years ago, I thought, What the hell is he going on about? And he said, Son, I was running a business at before, and I was dealing with some rubbish, and he said to me, Son, you don’t have to go looking for trouble because it’s just going to find you. And he was right. He’s right, you don’t have to go look for it. It will come your way, whatever you do. So don’t go looking for it.

 

[00:30:52.540] – Robert Newman

I think that intuition is tough to explain to people who are very used to telling themselves. I’ll I’ll give you an example about intuition. It took me a long time to study my intuition to be a mission-based entrepreneur. I made the mistake of not being a mission-based entrepreneur all the way, like the first 40 years of my life, always pursuing the money, made lots of sacrifices, nearly got myself thrown in federal prison a couple of times, all for the sake of the dollar, the Almighty dollar. It was always, You have enough money, you’ll be happy, right? Kind of. I didn’t I didn’t really buy into that necessarily, but I bought into it enough that I made some compromised decisions. In this business, I reshaped my focus to a very Ben and Jerry’s thought process. Build a good business is good for the people that use it, good for the people that are in it, and good for the people that are around it. Make sure that’s the thing you focus on. Then, theoretically, good business will come. That’s part.

 

[00:31:56.600] – Jonathan Denwood

The way I rationalize it, just to finish off, because obviously, you got to be off. I’m not overstating this. I think English, British, and American culture is a bit different. But there’s a sizable amount of these type of individuals in Britain. So don’t think, listeners and viewers, I’m hoping to go America, because America has definitely got some strengths. It’s just different cultures. But there is a minority in America that I’m going to be It’s controversial here, Robert. There is a sizable minority in this culture that would sell their own mother into slavery for some extra dollars.

 

[00:32:42.450] – Robert Newman

Okay. All right.

 

[00:32:46.620] – Jonathan Denwood

Basically, that’s it. They will sell their own children into slavery to make some extra cash.

 

[00:32:53.720] – Robert Newman

Well, there’s plenty of that in the US, too. I think that we’re-No, I meant that in the US, but I was saying that it’s also, to some extent prevalent in Britain.

 

[00:33:03.750] – Jonathan Denwood

But that’s my observation. There’s a sizable minority in this culture that would sell their own mother and their own children in slavery to make some more money.

 

[00:33:16.440] – Robert Newman

Well, I’m going to add my final thoughts, leave it open to you, and then, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to give you a way to contact either one of us should you choose to want to. My thoughts about ISA is that legitimately, once a real estate agent is making more than $150,000, there is very little reason that I can think of why you wouldn’t have an ISA. Most of the time, having ISAs gives you the opportunity to earn two or three times as much, not because you’re doing something different, but because they allow you to focus on activities that are more impactful to the bottom line of your business. I think agents are always surprised when all these tasks are removed, how many of them there truly are. That’s my final wrap-up thought on my end. John, what’s yours?

 

[00:34:06.860] – Jonathan Denwood

No, I think I’ve got nothing more to add, Rob. I think that’s totally spot on.

 

[00:34:12.060] – Robert Newman

Okay, so beautiful. Ladies and gentlemen, if you’d like to reach out to me to talk to me about whether or not you should have an ISA or talk to me about any other element of marketing your business in the digital world that we live in, especially with things like hyper local or SEO, then you can do so at robert@inboundrem. Com or simply go to at riem. Com, and there’s obvious ways on the website to contact me directly. Jon, how would people reach out to you?

 

[00:34:36.230] – Jonathan Denwood

Just go to the MailRight website, have a look at what we got to offer, and then just book a chat with me and we go through everything. If you just want some general help and information on online marketing, especially with a focus around Facebook and WordPress, I’ll be more than happy to have a chat. Back over to you, Rob.

 

[00:34:55.620] – Robert Newman

All right, beautiful. That’s the show for today. Ladies and gentlemen, join us next Thursday at 2:00 Pacific Standard Time. You can also message me or John if you’d like to join a live stream. We don’t have that often, so we’re not often conscious of time. But if we know some people would like to participate or at least watch the show in real-time, we will join you and make a conscious effort to be in chat while we’re doing the show.

 

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#457 – The Mail-Right: Real World Steps To Grow Your Real Estate Business in 2025

Tuesday, January 14th, 2025

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Fundamental World Steps To Grow Your Real Estate Business in 2025

Are you ready to supercharge your real estate business in 2025? This video offers a comprehensive guide filled with practical steps tailored for today’s market challenges. We explore innovative trends, client engagement tactics, and networking opportunities that can help you stand out from the crowd. Equip yourself with the knowledge necessary for sustainable growth—click play now and start implementing these game-changing strategies.

#1 – Getting clients with stories that speak to them!

#2 – Building a database of possible clients

#3 – Build a secondary database of loyal clients that can refer to you.

#4 – Have a follow-up strategy that works.

#5 – Building a personal local brand

#6 – Successfully combining person-to-person and digital online marketing

Episode Full Show Notes

 

[00:00:08.800] – Robert Newman

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to 2025. It’s episode number 457. John and I were talking real-world stuff, which, of course, he will edit out of this video, and you-Well, we weren’t recording, Rob. You will all be so grateful that we did because we’re having a gripe fest about fires and running small businesses and all sorts of different stuff. But we’re excited to be back, or at least I am excited to be back. I will not speak for John. I’m excited to be back to talking to everybody about all sorts of cool things in the year, sharing our vision, wisdom, and experience about marketing, and digital marketing, specifically, and then even more specifically, digital marketing ideas that we have for realtors. We’re kicking the year off with some real-world steps to grow your real estate business in 2025. We’re going to try to make these specific and actionable to all of our beautiful listeners. But before we dive into that, for those of you that are not familiar with the fact that I have a Pugnacious English co-host who is a rock star in the podcasting world, who took a very long break, took a 30-day break about their about and is now back by the skin of his shinny, shin, shin.

 

[00:01:36.990] – Robert Newman

If you would like to do us all a favor, John, give yourself a little bit of an intro. I’d love that.

 

[00:01:43.980] – Jonathan Denwood

Yes, folks, Rob. This was for 30 days in the county jail. I just got out about five days ago. No, that’s not true. I needed a break, folks. I was planning some travel, which I didn’t do, but I stayed at home I had a break from podcasting and I feel a little bit refreshed. I’m the founder of MailRight. We’re a CRM and we get leads through Facebook advertising, and we can provide a great website as well. Back over to you, Robert.

 

[00:02:21.410] – Robert Newman

All right. So it already knows, and John knows, I feel like between the doldrums of a slow real estate business, and by the way, it was slow right up to the December, John, and now I’m getting tons and tons of reports from clients. So for me as a real estate marketer, it’s still slow. But I am seeing lots of reports from clients coming in that they’re selling homes. There was a big, long pause, and now my client base is starting to communicate transactions are happening again, and I couldn’t be happier. However, there’s still a lot of conversations surrounding what marketing looks like currently. I’m getting more comments on old videos and stuff like that. Like, this is still true, things like that. We’re going to share some ideas that we think are valid, still valid in the world that we live in, the proliferation of conversations around AI, the proliferation of conversations about older real estate marketing systems that are aging out in some ways. We’re going to have those conversations. So without any further ado, John, why don’t you kick us off? Number one on our list here is getting clients with stories that speak to them.

 

[00:03:37.670] – Robert Newman

Why don’t you give an example that moves you?

 

[00:03:40.820] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, I think we touched on this in a couple of episodes before December in our break, and I think you really put it in the top of your own personal skill list, and I think it’s really important. It’s finding messages and stories that really resonate with target audience. If you’re a real estate agent, it’s finding niches. If you’re starting in the profession for the first few years, you normally have to take whatever comes your way. But as you build your customer base and your reconnaisation of your brand, your personal you should be focussing on finding a niche of some type in your town, city, region, wherever you’re practicing. The quicker you do that, I think the more you’re going to stand out and be more successful in a crowded industry. I think the stories that the more you niche, the more your stories, the more the branding message that you target target to the particular targeted audience will become more effective. I think with your own agency, that’s what you really concentrate on, isn’t it, Robert?

 

[00:05:14.160] – Robert Newman

It is indeed. Ladies and gentlemen and John, this personal stories and personal messaging, I’m going to give you a great example, John, a one-of-a-kind example that we will never be able to repeat again, hopefully, if we’re lucky. Right now in California, we’re You and I started talking about this. We were having this cataclysmic series of fires, and they are cataclysmic. I’ve already been thinking about doing a piece of content. I may very well use this video, John, this podcast as part of that, is that I have always believed strongly that every emergency, every cataclysmic situation, including the slow down, it is an opportunity for a savvy salesperson to connect better with their prospect list. Because when you’re having extraordinary times, that is the time to have extraordinary conversations. Right now, if I was a real estate salesperson with a long list of people I’d done business with for over 10 years, and I was living in Southern California. I’d be calling all my clients, past, present, and future, and sending emails and saying, Hey, can I help you with your insurance? Is there anything I can do to help you right now? I would be having that very real conversation.

 

[00:06:29.600] – Robert Newman

And if they said, yes, I kid everybody not listening to this podcast, I would help every single one of those people resolve insurance issues. Because what’s happened right now is 10,000 people have become unhomed. Probably the largest amount of people ever in California history simultaneously becoming unhomed at the same time. Some point, far in the future, these people will be looking for new homes. In the meantime, the person that gets in and helps in the most trying time of their entire life will have a client for life. That’s it. Full stop. If anybody is looking at this as anything other than an opportunity to be of service to human beings, number one, and then being of service to their career, number too, they’d be crazy. I’d be calling and emailing people and saying, I can help in this way, in this way, in this way. Let me know if any of those things, if you need me to do any of those things. I’d be focused on the mechanics of… Because these houses are completely lost. The Pacific Palisades is 75 %, 100 % destroyed. That means that some of the wealthiest Californians in history are all without homes, homes that they’ve had for 25, 30 years.

 

[00:07:43.050] – Robert Newman

If they’re not looking for help right now, I’d be flummoxed. You get out there, you help some people, and then when it comes time a few years from now, you’re going to have the best career of your life. For sure, being a good person and having good messaging And by the way, at some point after the service is provided, their life is back on track and they have new homes and everybody’s happy, those stories that you create, dude, you’d only need one of those stories to make a good real estate career, just one. And you probably have many. You see what I’m saying?

 

[00:08:17.610] – Jonathan Denwood

Yes.

 

[00:08:19.480] – Robert Newman

Building a database of possible clients. Now, John, to do you also a personal favor, to return the favor, I feel like this has been one of your strengths It’s certainly been one of the nails that you’ve been hitting on the heads. You’ve been talking about building databases since you and I started podcasting. And if I can remember correctly, even the name of the podcast had something to do with you thinking about database marketing. I may be wrong about that, but I do know that we have been talking since the very first conversation I’ve ever had with you about building databases. And you studied Bafini, and you studied other people in the real estate world that use this almost exclusively as a primary marketing tool. So what are you thinking about database marketing in 2025?

 

[00:09:09.700] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, I think some things have changed in the real estate industry. It’s only my perspective, Robert, but I do honestly feel it does depend on the target audience. I think phoning for leads is a dying proposition, in my opinion. I think to some extent door knocking is also dying to some degree. But you could say with COVID-19 and people working much more from home, that I could be wrong about that. But I think a lot of people don’t like people knocking on their doors. But if you’re up for it and people aren’t, so it probably could be effective. But I definitely think phone calling, because of the ‘s worth of mobile phones and people’s… The way they act, that’s probably declining. But one area where I think the truth is still relevant, and it comes from the Red Book. It comes from the million dollar real estate agent. I call it the Red Book. It’s all about building up databases. I still believe that when you look at the data that comes from the industry, that one area that still prevalent is the terrible follow-through that most agents don’t do, and they don’t build a list.

 

[00:10:56.800] – Jonathan Denwood

They don’t understand that there’s different types a database lists, and you should use different content for those different lists, and how important. There’s different stages of the buying process or selling process, and keeping in content to some degree with possible customers is really important. I’m sure you also through your consultations, have to still explain all this at the beginning of 2025. So that’s my thoughts about that, Robert.

 

[00:11:43.410] – Robert Newman

Database marketing, for those of you who are listening to this show, listen, I’ve been in sales for 50 years. It’s always been part of the business, database marketing. And it is definitely a thing that’s changed in modern times. In 2025, database marketing is probably about the same as it was in 2024. But the The idea of a database has changed. We rely very heavily on free services that gather our information. Many of them provide… Back in my day, we had tools like Act and Goldmine and other tools that managed all your data for you in a program that you downloaded onto on their computer. Now we can manage it through web applications, more commonly known as Instagram and Facebook. You can literally, much of your database management has moved into services that are managed by other people. Because if you have people join a Facebook page, or you have people join an Instagram channel, this is basically your database. You can create a database out of that, or you can go old school, which is what I just coached an artist friend of mine into recently because they were doing a lot of shows, getting no sales, no activity whatsoever.

 

[00:12:51.470] – Robert Newman

And then I discovered they were collecting no information from anybody who was at the show. And I was flummoxed. I was like, why would you hold a show and not try to meet your customers and create information with them. What’s the point of having the show? Anyway, so that’s what I would say to a real estate salesperson. Every time you’re out, is a chance for you to collect some information. Every time you have a good conversation with somebody, you make sure you get added to your Facebook page, your Instagram page, somewhere to keep continuously in touch and nurture them with your messaging. One way or the other, whether you do it the way that John and I do it through online marketing or drive people through paid traffic or however you get people, It is to trade information, to create connections, and make sure that they stay in tune with what you’re doing. That’s the objective. It’s changed a bit, in my opinion, but the idea has not. You must trade information in the age that we’re in with anybody that is theoretically interested in doing business. You must keep in touch with them. Database marketing, which is what we’re talking about.

 

[00:13:57.970] – Robert Newman

All right, build a secondary database of loyal clients that can refer to you? Explain this one to me because I was a little bit confused by this.

 

[00:14:05.810] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, I think the follow through, the way you keep in content, in in front to some degree of clientele that have already used your services and purchased a house or sold a house, should be very different to the people that have come in to your database that might be possible clients. It’s the same mythology, but the outreach is very different and the content that you’re going to be supplying, where the people on the secondary list, your previous clients, people you’ve had some one-to-one discussion discussion with, that should be more personalized. That should be more sending out content that maybe is more personalized for each one because the lead, if they do refer you, that is going to be a much stronger lead than somebody that’s never done business with you, that is in your database your marketing to them, but they could be just a possible new client. And this is, I’m probably boring because this is 101. But I just think a lot of people, they send out the same content to both lists. But the reality is they’re very different, aren’t they?

 

[00:15:58.400] – Robert Newman

They are very different. And I understand, what I perceive that this is is filtered, filtered lists, filtered database lists. And this is just you displaying your expertise inside database marketing. Database marketing, which is not something that I do at the very highest level and never really have, because I always intrinsically, I keep in touch with everybody in in a strong enough way that my… I always felt like your strong clients stand up and identify themselves. Now, there’s another school of thought that says that your clients can be built into great clients, and that requires a lot more outreach than what I prefer to do personally. But anyway, let’s move on. Number four. Actually, let’s go to break. You want to go to break, John? Yes. Okay. All right, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we’re going to come right back. And when we do, we’ve got three more exciting subjects from when we return from break. Follow-up strategies, we’re going to touch on those a little bit, building a brand and talking a little bit about the combined strategies of combining in person and online. All right, that’s it. We’ll be right back. Stay tuned.

 

[00:17:22.940] – Robert Newman

What the hell is going on?

 

[00:17:25.310] – Jonathan Denwood

You need to log back in. You’re frozen or you need to restart. I like the It’s a picture, though. You look very thoughtful.

 

[00:17:32.330] – Robert Newman

Okay. All right. I got it.

 

[00:17:33.760] – Jonathan Denwood

Or maybe you want to keep it because you do look thoughtful, Robert. Jesus Christ.

 

[00:17:39.000] – Robert Newman

Okay. I don’t see anything at all. I’m going to come right back. I’m going to drop out, okay?

 

[00:17:45.200] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah.

 

[00:18:45.300] – Jonathan Denwood

He’s back. He’s come back.

 

[00:18:48.640] – Robert Newman

I didn’t run away, John. Shocking.

 

[00:18:51.780] – Jonathan Denwood

What was that? Sorry, you lost that first.

 

[00:18:55.270] – Robert Newman

I didn’t run away.

 

[00:18:56.680] – Jonathan Denwood

There you go. I would have. So if you want to do, you can then go straight into it, second off.

 

[00:19:05.110] – Robert Newman

Three, two, one. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to episode number 457 of the Melright Show. As promised, we’re back with follow-up strategies, building a brand, and the combination of digital and in-person strategies. I’ve got a lot to say about the final one. So why don’t you jump into with us this follow-up strategy that works? What works for you, John? How do you follow up with your prospective clients?

 

[00:19:35.020] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, it’s quite simple. I do have a lead magnet on my WP Tonic web business. I haven’t got a lead magnet on the mail right. That would probably something we will change. But I’ve been just working on getting some traffic to that website. Obviously, I have a lead magnet. Then with the WP Tonic, there’s a free lead magnet which they can download. I get a few people a week to download that. Then what I do is then I send them a per email that offers a course that shows them how to build. It basically offers them a course that’s quite extensive at half price, basically. It gives them a coupon code. And then if they take the course, if they transfer some money, it’s only a small amount, with the coupon code, it’s about $25. If they actually purchase that, then I pursue them because they’re given a clear sign that they’ve opened their wallet. It’s not a sophisticated process because I get about 20 of those people per month, and I get about 10 to 12 per month that actually buy the course, and it’s done by one of the people that worked for me, and he did a really great job.

 

[00:21:11.880] – Jonathan Denwood

The same thing applies is that they come into a funnel, a digital funnel, and you need to offer some value, probably some form of download, and then they come in their funnel, and then they need to trigger something, and maybe you offer something of even more value. Then if they get that, you then need to pursue them through phoning them up. It gives a sign that this person needs more of your one-to-one personal time as a real estate agent to then maybe get them to become an actual real client of yours. There’s a process. I don’t think I don’t know what conversations you have, but I think a lot of agents, they have no process, do they?

 

[00:22:07.560] – Robert Newman

I think you are correct. I think there is very little process to a follow-up strategy that works. Our follow-up strategy has been collect data and send out valuable content, but it’s generalized. It’s not filtered, which is we probably could do a lot better as an agency if we filtered the follow-up. But we’re still so small doing proper sales strategy into our database is crazy hard for us because it would involve me personally reaching out to everybody. Honestly, while I would probably get a couple more sales, I’d probably lose some because of the way that psychology works with people, making me this distant figure that you can only set an appointment with that never calls you and never follows up, adds to the mystique and thus makes sales calls easier for me, which is which is what I like for my sales strategy. With a real estate agent, having a follow-up strategy that works, in my opinion, is making sure that you personally participate in one valuable message per month. Then oftentimes, as John alluded to, depending on where you are in your career, at the beginning of your career, you get that message out to people yourself.

 

[00:23:24.790] – Robert Newman

In the middle of your career, you probably have a service helper like somebody off Fiverr, and at the end of your career, you have an actual personal assistant. Those personal assistants get the message out. It gets easier and easier and easier to get your messaging out. Would you agree, John? As you establish yourself as a business owner?

 

[00:23:46.270] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, it should do. You should know what is working, generally. Obviously, things change. It’s a bit like my opinion, and I did quantify, it just depends on the target audience. Generally, when it comes to phone calling, if you’re dealing with audience that still have… I don’t have a landline. Most of the people I deal with don’t have a landline. If somebody calls me on my mobile and they’re not on my contact list, I’m not picking it up. If they can’t leave a voice message, they probably get deleted. If you’re dealing with a lot of people that I’ve got a landline, and it tends to be older people, phoning might still work. But I think if you’re in a sector that don’t have landlines that only have mobile, I think phoning for leads, I just don’t see it working, but I could be wrong.

 

[00:24:59.450] – Robert Newman

It I still have clients that do it. It is an ever diminishing effectiveness in terms of a strategy, but it does work. But stronger technical screening tools is a problem for outbound salespeople. It is. It is becoming you’re doing more calls for less of a result. Having said that, let’s talk about building a personal local brand. We’ve talked about this. We’ve done entire podcasts on this one subject. For those of you listening, this is going to be footnotes. I advise that you go back into our catalog of shows because we have talked about brand a lot. You can go on to the MailRight channel, the MailRight website. You can, to a smaller degree, come on to my website, but I’ll probably direct you to other content talking about building a local brand, not necessarily this podcast. If you’re listening to this podcast and like podcasts, you’re going to want to access them through MailRight. You You go there and you look up brand or local brand, and you’ll get so many great shows that we’ve done with the two of us and guests talking about brand. But having said all that, John, what is your top-level branding comments about building a local brand?

 

[00:26:18.490] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, my observation in the industry is a lot of people aren’t very good at it. But the successful agents or the successful micro-brokerages, the boutique brokerages, they do find a niche. They do successfully build a brand. There’s no one way of doing it because there’s too many variables. But there are definitely, we’ve covered it quite a bit, finding a particular niche, finding a particular group of clients that have a specific need that is a little bit different than the general market with enough volume that can get the results, the income that you’re designing or need, and then pitching That’s why you need a website. That’s why you need your social media strategy. That’s why you need to put videos up, all the things that we discussed during 2024 that we’ve spent the past four years talking about consistently, isn’t it, Robert? And hopefully, it hasn’t just fallen on. But I think we’ve got a small audience, but I think they’ve stuck with us. People say, but the majority of agents, it can’t be done overnight. It is difficult when you’re dealing with clients and the normal weekly ups and downs of being a real estate agent.

 

[00:28:06.020] – Jonathan Denwood

It’s really easy to put this on the back burner, but if you can be consistent and really understand why it’s important in the end, it will pay big dividends, I feel. What do you feel, Robert?

 

[00:28:20.250] – Robert Newman

I think that building a brand, informational in nature, qualitative, in other words, you can, and I believe brand, I believe that most brands are qualitative quantitative. That just means that you can identify the quality of the brand that you’re dealing with before you deal with them. And it’s part of your brand, part of your messaging. I believe that strongly. That means that you’re well-reviewed and that there are many people out there talking about using your product or service and giving many details about it. That’s what I mean by a qualitative informational brand. I think that plays directly into a local brand as well, which can also mean, again, it’s qualitative and quantitative. You go out and you meet with people and you put that stuff up on your social media channel. And that allows people to understand how you engage with the world. And that’s part of building a local brand. But I strongly believe that everything you said was correct. And I strongly believe that local branding, local branding, if anything, John, is becoming more and more important for real estate agents. It’s more important in 2025 than it was in any other year, and it probably will continue to gain momentum that way.

 

[00:29:25.420] – Robert Newman

Specificity, separating yourself from the proliferation of of agents that are jumping into AI tools and stuff that does not provide personal messaging of any kind, is you have a massive opportunity as an agent to set yourself apart by that by doing personal things, like this podcast. This is really me and John. We’re not AI agents. We’re having a real discussion.

 

[00:29:51.110] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, you might be real.

 

[00:29:56.470] – Robert Newman

Okay, I speak for myself. All right, we’re going to go into bonus material, ladies and gentlemen. It’s going to be about 5 or 10 minutes, and today’s bonus subject is going to be successfully combining person-to-person and digital online marketing. And John, if you don’t mind, I’m going to jump into this one because I have a lot to say about this.

 

[00:30:21.900] – Jonathan Denwood

I just want to quickly say, I think it would be really interesting to hear what you’ve got to say, but I I think my observation, Rob, is a lot of agents that are really good on the one to one are really bad on the digital, and those that are really good on the digital tend not to be that great on the person-to in-person, and the one that’s going to be really successful in the next couple of years, in my opinion, are those that combine the two.

 

[00:30:55.980] – Robert Newman

I agree with you. And here’s some examples of the way that clients that I work with have combined the two, digital and in-person. So number one, taking control of your time as a real estate agent and having a more fruitful career Career-work-life balance is so incredibly relevant when it comes to having the conversation of how do you mix digital and in-person. Because one of my top clients, his name is Brett Wallace, we’ve We work together, he’s five times his income. All of that’s great, but you know what hits me personally the most because I’m that guy, is that he’s also spending more time with his family, which doesn’t make sense. Making five times as much, but spending more time at home and spending more time with his kids. How do you do that? Well, when you really focus carefully on using digital the right way, you can eliminate 80% of your driving as a real estate agent. That’s number one. So how do you do that? You do all of your consults, all of your initial. You insist that everything with a client happens with a Zoom conversation first. You look at them, you say, before we get in our cars, before we meet, what are you looking for?

 

[00:32:13.350] – Robert Newman

You do all the qualification, and you make sure that you should be getting in your car, number one. And then number two, you make sure that you have an understanding of what they want. Number three, you look at online pictures so that by the time you hit any property, it is a de facto thing that you know that they’re interested in it. You’ve already done all the work online to get to a place where it’s just making sure that it looks in person like it looked online. Eighty % of what we do now with Brett is digital, and he’s not alone. Even in the category of 5, 10, 15, $25 million properties, my luxury clients are moving in the direction of instead of having foreign investors look at to fly in LA and spend a week with this one foreign investor, which is a common thing in the luxury market, in the ultra luxury market. That’s been common. That involves passports, travel, private air fare, a whole bunch of stuff. I now know luxury agents that are selling these properties almost site unseen or using agents like local representatives that walk in for these foreign investors.

 

[00:33:27.740] – Robert Newman

But most of the conversation is place digitally. That’s selling the property. In terms of marketing properties, what you really want to do is you want to make sure that you’re directing people to your online presence as much as possible every time. The way that I have this conversation with my clients, the way I’m going to have with you, John, look at your time as the resource and you spend it much better than you spend your money. I’m terrible with money. I’m with my time. I am so good with my time. If I look at something and go, Can I accomplish more digitally in terms of saving my time? Will I do it? With a single exception of establishing strong connections with people. That I still do personally. I still take my time personally to do that. But once the connection is established, the relationship is 100 % maintained digitally. And usually I look at efficiencies. I use Base Camp. The only reason I use Base Camp is because all members of my team are communicated to simultaneously on every single client issue affecting a project at all times. That just means that no individual emails or messages are going anywhere else.

 

[00:34:45.120] – Robert Newman

And I love that. It manages the account with 20 people touching it. It manages the account seamlessly. So we don’t have a lot of emails going out to my team. And I love that efficiency of time. When you’re looking at digital, ladies and gentlemen, ask yourself the question, can it replace normal marketing more efficiently? You and I talk about this incessantly. Video replaces door knocking. It should because you can get in front of a lot more people with a lot less effort than knocking on doors physically. It’s a great digital medium. Now, does that mean that you want to eliminate all personal contact? No. You just want to make sure that somebody has done all of their homework, and then you do a call. That’s my thoughts, some thoughts on successfully combining person-to-person and digitally online marketing, at least the ones that I wanted to talk about today. How about you, John? What do you have to add?

 

[00:35:38.970] – Jonathan Denwood

Not really. I just think the people that are really good person to person, really have a local network. They tend just to concentrate in that particular marketing way, and they not to want to invest time and money on the digital side. The people I know that are into databases that are the principle of a small boutique brokerage, they are the lead generated to a small team. There’s a few that I’ve worked with. They tend to focus on either Facebook advertising or Google Ads. It’s paid placement and with organic as well, some element of organic. But they really don’t concentrate on building… It’s all through paid traffic, basically. They don’t invest a lot of time on organic or they don’t invest any time on personal networking in their area. I just feel combining the two is the best methodology. I haven’t I’ve seen many that have come on my radar that really do both to the extent that they could.

 

[00:37:09.600] – Robert Newman

Sure. I agree with you. And that’s an interesting thing. A lot of my ongoing clients for many years, John, it’s just they continue to get access to my calendar, like one call a year, which is what? Because like I said, I’m good with my time. And that one call a year, I get on and tell them to do the things, a lot of the things that we’re talking about and tell them how to blend their business with digital and physical all at once. And those efficiencies, like with Brett, he’ll say he considers me as a business coach, and I happen to do SEO, and he happens to get calls, and he happens to make some deals, but he also gets a lot of advice that he follows with me. That advice that he’s followed has yielded more revenue than the physical services provided. And so there is that small element. And that is another way to do personal and digital because I provide that personal advice. I do Whiteboard Thursdays now, and that is all because of Brett. I just continue to provide business advice so that I don’t have to do the individual calls to guys like Brett anymore.

 

[00:38:19.220] – Robert Newman

I just put it up on a piece of content and direct my clients to it because it is the same advice, as you well know from doing this podcast with me over and over We’re just waiting for people to listen and do it and apply it. Then what I would love to see in the podcast world, which never happens, is I’d love for our clients to reach out to us and said, Oh, I took that piece of advice and it shit the bed, Robert and John, or I took that piece of advice, and it was fantastic. It was game-changing. But we all get that advice from our grandmothers or mothers or brothers or sisters or fathers that we know is correct, and we don’t do it. We need- You’re true.

 

[00:39:03.400] – Jonathan Denwood

We need to wrap it up, Rob.

 

[00:39:07.260] – Robert Newman

Yeah. So ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, if you’d like to reach out to John, how would you do that, sir?

 

[00:39:14.720] – Jonathan Denwood

I’ll just go to the MailRight website and you can book a free chat with me on the website, and that’s a half hour and that’s totally free. Back over to you, Rob.

 

[00:39:28.270] – Robert Newman

If you’d like to reach out to me, you can email me at robert@emboundrem. Com. You can go to my website, emboundrem. Com. Get all sorts of incredible, incredible, incredible lessons on real estate marketing, digital marketing for real estate. There is no cost to any of it. We occasionally ask you for your email, but we don’t even always ask you that. So please go to that site if you’re looking for some good help, additional help other than this podcast with your marketing. It’s a great resource. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for tuning in. This has been your first show of 2025 for the MailRight Show, and I’m so excited to be here. I’m so glad John is back, and thank you all for tuning in. I’m so grateful.

 

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#456 – The Mail-Right: Why Do So Many Realtor Fail?

Monday, November 25th, 2024

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Why Do So Many Realtors Fail? We Provide Insights and Advice So You Can Succeed in 2025)

In the competitive world of real estate, many agents need help finding their footing. In this week’s show, we dive deep into the reasons behind high failure rates among realtors. From inadequate training and lack of mentorship to unrealistic expectations and poor marketing strategies, we uncover the hidden pitfalls that can derail even the most passionate professionals. Don’t miss this essential episode.

#1 – Lead Generation

#2 – Not Understanding That You Are Now Self-Employed

#3 – The Need to Be Self-Motivated Month in and month out

#4 -Religiously and Consistently Using an Easy-to-Use CRM

#5 – Doing a Great Job For Your Clients

#6 – Don’t Become One of Those Invisible Agent Types

Episode Full Show Notes

[00:00:35.970] – Robert Newman

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to episode number 456. This, my friends, is our last podcast episode of 2024. I am so excited to announce that John is getting the out of dodge. He’s going back.

[00:00:57.260] – Jonathan Denwood

I might be.

[00:00:58.530] – Robert Newman

He might be. We. Whether he is or he isn’t, he’s taking a break.

[00:01:03.900] – Jonathan Denwood

I’m oscillating, Robert. I’m humming and hiring.

[00:01:07.830] – Robert Newman

Okay, well, he’s taking a break from me, ladies and gentlemen. So he will not see my glorious mug at the end of the year. He will be doing something else, whether catching up on work, seeing family, or combining the two. So. But today, before we go, you know, attractive send-off subject, we will do the following: Why do so many realtors fail? Okay. We’re going to provide a few insights and advice so that we can help you succeed in 2025. And yeah, I can’t wait to get into this subject. Forgive those tiny handful of you who logged in. Look at us on the YouTube channel. Forgive me. I am definitely in streetwear today, which is rare.

[00:02:00.990] – Jonathan Denwood

You’re very golf. He’s very golf.

[00:02:03.330] – Robert Newman

I mentioned to you that I don’t own any colors. I’m, I’m the real deal. I have the earrings, I have the tats. I’ve got it all. So let’s. But let’s dive into this. Oh, John, when you come back in 2025, I have one of my closest friends, previous co-workers, a guy that’s run many sales teams for me, just got into real estate, and I’m probably going to want to do a podcast with him.

[00:02:31.170] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, sure.

[00:02:33.090] – Robert Newman

All right, let’s. Let’s leap into number one because this is our favorite subject. Lead generation.

[00:02:40.180] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah.

[00:02:40.980] – Robert Newman

Okay. So, John, I’ve got a lot to say about this. What. What do you have to say about this?

[00:02:47.430] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, that is the crucial thing you know: if you still need to get a plan about lead generation, how you’ll get leads, and a lead generation plan that works, I think you’ll be in the real estate business for a while. You need to be realistic here, though. Unless you’re very experienced or have a lot of social capital, as I call it. Yeah, you, it’s. You will need a supportive partner or funding for the first three to six months. Or you probably need both. But at the crux of it, if you still need to get a strategy around getting leads, if you think your broker will get you leads, I believe you are deluded. I know some brokerages will provide some authority, but it will be down to you in most cases.

[00:03:59.980] – Robert Newman

Agree. So, I will give and echo a conversation that I had with two young, cold callers who called me the other day for an inbound lead for inbound rem. So they’re calling me about it. Well, they were, they were dual calling me one. They casually asked me how to do an SEO website. And as you can imagine, John, I get quite a few of these calls where they go. How long does it take? And you go, I don’t know, a year, two and a half. All right, what else do you think you could offer? So we immediately started calling. They started asking me a lot about what I do squeeze pages for. That’s. That’s what you do. And I sent this guy to you; he may have called you. And they wanted me to do a squeeze page and then do advertising—the squeeze page. But amid this conversation, I asked this young man what he was doing to generate leads today. And he had one of my favorite answers that I ever get on the phone, which is like, oh, I’m a cold caller. Like, how much do you cold call?

[00:04:56.790] – Robert Newman

He’s like, I cold call for three to six hours daily. I’m like, okay, so why are you calling me? He’s like, well, listen, I’ve been doing that for three years, and while it’s generating me an income, it’s getting harder and harder.

[00:05:10.510] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah.

 

[00:05:11.510] – Robert Newman

And I said, okay, explain. He’s like, he’s like, I just can’t get a hold of anybody number. Like blocking in, like, ways to block your number if you don’t already know somebody. Are Becoming more and more prolific. He’s like, I do. I don’t, I don’t. I do door knock every once in a while. That’s getting tougher too. There’s a lot of ring doorbells. You, you, you end up holding up your car to a lot of digital things at doors and stuff like that. And it made me realize, John, that the gateways to, to actual humans, which is what you need if you’re, if you’re an aggressive salesperson or if you just like meeting, stopping you in terms of lead generation. Ryan Sirhan says that he generated leads at the dry cleaners. I believe him because you can, if you’re good at striking up conversation with complete and utter strangers, you can make a lot of money in sales, regardless of what you’re selling. Having said that, if you’re actually trying to get people where they live on their phone at home, it is getting much, much harder. Which is why digital lead generation has been a favorite avenue of mine for a while.

 

[00:06:21.090] – Robert Newman

That’s why keep ringing the inbound doorbell, because you’re getting in front of somebody trying to address a question they’re already asking, so there’s no screening. You’re getting their eyeballs, you’re getting their focus, and you’re getting their attention. And once you’ve had their attention for a bit, if you were able to collect their information even without them filling out a form, they would be far more qualified, far more likely to be a viable prospect for you. I just believe so, like very strongly in that there’s other ways to do this. It’s a five touch introduction system. I’m just saying, let’s do it with inbound. There’s other ways to do it. You can do direct mail, but guess what, John, everybody, you’d have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to do it the other ways. How much does it cost you? If you’re starting out new, John, and you knew what you know right now, or a little bit of it about YouTube, how much would it cost you to do your first YouTube video?

 

[00:07:17.040] – Jonathan Denwood

We’ve got a phone, I have to get some form of mic. Less than $100 maybe.

 

[00:07:23.960] – Robert Newman

Okay. And how many videos do you think you could create on the backs of that $100?

 

[00:07:32.080] – Jonathan Denwood

Hundreds.

 

[00:07:33.640] – Robert Newman

Okay. And then let’s just say we’re gonna get you an optimization tool to help you optimize these videos. So they’re done. You’ve got, you know, you’re uploading them, you want them to get some more attention. How much do you think that would cost You.

 

[00:07:46.250] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, the one. The one that we both use now, I think that starts at. If you pay month to month, it’s slightly under $20 a month, isn’t it?

 

[00:07:57.080] – Robert Newman

So all in about maybe for your first year, three, four hundred dollars.

 

[00:08:03.320] – Jonathan Denwood

And the time.

 

[00:08:04.620] – Robert Newman

And the time. Yeah, but. Okay, let’s just let. Again, lead generation. We’re having that conversation. John, I don’t know that in all the things you’ve done, have you ever doorknocked. Have you ever cold call?

 

[00:08:15.950] – Jonathan Denwood

No, not in America. I don’t want to be sure.

 

[00:08:19.310] – Robert Newman

Okay. No, I’m just. I’m not. And I’m not trying to. I’m not trying to put you under the. I’m not trying to put you.

 

[00:08:25.430] – Jonathan Denwood

That was why. That was my very dry English.

 

[00:08:29.430] – Robert Newman

Okay, so I’ve done that in here in California. And you know what?

 

[00:08:34.590] – Jonathan Denwood

The young man podcast folks almost three years and steal wine by. I think it’s humorous. But Rob. Rob’s got used to it and he’s up for it. But I still lose him totally sometimes.

 

[00:08:48.630] – Robert Newman

Sometimes.

 

[00:08:49.380] – Jonathan Denwood

Sometimes I totally lose you, don’t I?

 

[00:08:52.290] – Robert Newman

Every now and again you do the. But. But here’s. And I also am so, so horrendously adhd. I have to. I have to hold on to a thought like a dog that’s just caught the bumper of a car is chasing. And so. See, I’ve almost already forgotten what I was talking about. So when this young man that I was talking. Talking about, he does three hours of calls every day. Every day, John. So that’s 18 hours a week, conservatively. So you’re sitting here going, well, besides the time, you know, a good video, how long do you think a good video takes you to produce?

 

[00:09:31.310] – Jonathan Denwood

Depends what you call good video. Because the videos I knock out video.

 

[00:09:35.600] – Robert Newman

A video.

 

[00:09:36.680] – Jonathan Denwood

Just a video. I’ll do the thumbnail, do some basic editing. Probably hour.

 

[00:09:43.100] – Robert Newman

It takes me a lot longer. But still, in either case, I don’t think it takes either one of us 18 hours. My lowest videos get a couple hundred views, usually, and my Highest videos get five to 10,000. So I’m basically knocking on anywhere from 100 to 200 doors for that three to five hours I spent, right? And I’m slow. Everybody calls me slow. My team calls me slow. I’m slow, you’re fast. If you ever got the same result, you would knock on 100 doors for an hour. Let me tell you, as a professional door knocker, you never come close to 100 doors, John, per hour. You have to run to the doors and even Then you wouldn’t be able to do it. If you got into one or two conversations, you really wouldn’t be able to. That’s just knocking. That’s not anybody paying attention. So if 100 people pay attention to something you do, you are literally at about 80% more efficiency or 800%. That is why when we start talking about lead generation, everybody who’s listening, watching the show. As a lifetime producer and user of leads, there is nothing more efficient than digital.

 

[00:10:49.000] – Robert Newman

That is the point of my entire conversation.

 

[00:10:51.810] – Jonathan Denwood

Can I say something extra?

 

[00:10:54.030] – Robert Newman

Yeah.

 

[00:10:56.140] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, I, I just don’t believe in phoning because of the factors that you just said. And I really don’t believe in door knocking to some extent. I’m more, I’m more accepting of the argument around door knocking than I am around phoning. I just don’t see in 2025 it’s got much future. Anybody that phones me that doesn’t leave a voice message that’s not on my contact list, I don’t pick it up. I. But I, on the other hand, even though I run a digital agency, I believe that this is a person to person business. I just believe in a hybrid model. But I believe the hybe. I still believe that you should be out there, not the invisible agent. You need to go to social events, you need to be part of your community, just not totally because that helps you produce the digital content that will get eyes on it. To some extent, I don’t either. I don’t believe in people that are solely marketing online, even though that’s what I do. But I’m in two sectors when it comes to real estate. I think you need that person content. But you do that by engaging in events in your community, going to business events, having discussions, meeting people, and then you have your digital outreach as well.

 

[00:12:39.360] – Jonathan Denwood

That’s what I believe in, Robert.

 

[00:12:43.480] – Robert Newman

That which is fair. And English attitudes and American attitudes are different. Having been to England, I can tell you that there are certain things, certain types of things that we accept here as a very commercialized country that they don’t accept in England. So you’re, you’re, you’re really showing a bit of your English flair, you know, with these notes. But I don’t, I listen, I’ve done, I love call center work. I loved it. I stayed in it for 20 years. I’m not ashamed of the first part of my career. It just was losing its efficiency to such a high degree. I saw the writing on the wall and I said, I’m going to go do another kind of marketing. And that’s, that’s how I ended up where we’re at right now. So. Because it’s just not efficient. And my job here is to educate people on the numbers part of it. Because the number. There’s just no touching the numbers. John and I could show you a way to get in front of like. And even if we could. So here’s another idea. I spent $160 on YouTube advertising. My first expenditure ever. And I got 30,000 views on a video.

 

[00:13:48.710] – Robert Newman

$160. 30,000 views. If I was better at making commercials, which I’m not, it would have done really well for me. But in the meantime, I got in front of 30,000 people for $160. That’s crazy. All right, moving on. We’re number two on John’s list. Last list, last subject, last show of the year. Did you hear me the first time, ladies and gentlemen, which is many realtors fail to understand that you are now totally self employed. John, shed the light on us, baby. What does that mean?

 

[00:14:27.840] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, it’s been like being a school kid and then going to college, isn’t it? You know, school, kid, everything. The teachers there are, they will pest you if you’re not doing your work. They would talk to your parents. If you’ve got parents that care, they will get concerned. Your day is measured. Then you go to college and nobody f cares. Nobody f cares that you get your assignments in. Nobody f cares if you turn up. Nobody cares about anything. They don’t. They get you into debt, probably. And if you, if don’t get anything out your degree, that’s your f problem, isn’t it? Well, that’s the same working for somebody and being self employed, isn’t it? I feel.

 

[00:15:26.160] – Robert Newman

And I look good. Like, nice analogy. I like the analogy. Yeah, yeah. You know, I have never understood. John, here’s a great exercise. The second that anybody ever, ever, ever becomes a salesperson, I’ve always said I bought into heavily when I was 17 years old, and I buy in heavily now that it’s the lowest paid easy work and the highest paid hard work that you’ll ever find. And the decision is mine, all mine. And guess what? That would mean that that is basically the same principle. Like, I love salespeople that walk through the door when I’m. I’m hiring and they’re like, the first questions are about the salary. How much are you going to pay? I’m like, in my brain, every single time, every single salesperson, I go, well, nothing if you’re so concerned. If you’re not asking me about the bonus structure or the commission structure, and those aren’t the first words off your tongue, you’re not a salesperson, full stop. You got to believe whether it’s true or not. You got to believe that you’re going to sell something. Like you got to believe it at the core of your being. And then you got to look at it and go, can I really do what I want to do?

 

[00:16:39.810] – Robert Newman

Anybody that’s walking in and asking about the salary is coming in to make the salary, like so. It is a terrible, terrible thing. And that should educate everybody listening to the show, what this is truly about. When you’re a real estate salesperson, even if you’ve managed to convince somebody to give you some kind of draw versus commission or something like that, man, oh man, you’ve got no safety net. You’re dancing on a tight wire. You will learn a lot of respect for both money and time if you’re, if you’re going to experience success. I couldn’t agree with you more. What the. Whether the analogy school or walking on a tightrope or whatever it is. Boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, what a learning experience being self employed is. John has five more amazing subjects. I’m going to read them to the audit. Four more. They need to be self made.

 

[00:17:30.970] – Jonathan Denwood

We need to go for our break first.

 

[00:17:33.110] – Robert Newman

I know. I’m telling them what they’re gonna, they’re going to face when they come back. For religiously and considered consistently using easy to use CRM. Doing a great job for your clients and don’t become one of those invisible agent types. So that’s what we’re gonna cover when we go. When we come back from breakfast. We will be right back. Did you hear me the first couple of times? This is our last show of 2024. All right, can’t wait. See you soon. Everybody. Stay tuned. Three, two, one. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, episode number 456. We are back from our break on the last show of the year. And the need to be self motivated month in and month out is our subject. How do you keep yourself motiv motivated? John, what’s your secret?

 

[00:18:23.680] – Jonathan Denwood

I don’t want to end up on the street. It’s a very strong motivation because I live in a small town of Carson City and every month there’s more people on the street and this is just a small, pretty middle class, not super wealthy but not poor. And there’s more and more people on the street in this town. And if you go To Reno. There’s a larger amount of people and I don’t particularly want to be one of them. And real estate, you know, you’ve got all these glamorous shows, haven’t you, with these top producing agents and their top producing lifestyle, where the reality is just grind, isn’t it? Grind and more grind and more grind on top of that.

 

[00:19:23.520] – Robert Newman

Yeah, yeah. So I agreed, agreed, agreed. You know what? I’m gonna. I’m gonna capitalize on what John said. Fear is a big motivator for me too. No, I wish I could tell everybody otherwise, but I’m gonna be really honest with everybody on the show. I’m gonna be really honest with you. I’m neurodivergent. I wake up anxious. I have been homeless twice. I’ve been in jail. It’s generally terrifying. Like, it’s just terrifying in LA is harder than where you’re at if we’re both super honest. So fear is a decent motivator. On my good days, of which there are less than my bad days, I focus on not. Like I’m just not a money person. So I usually focus on a task list and I keep myself motivated by having things. I try to make sure that I have one exciting thing on that list and it doesn’t matter what it is, just anything I’m excited about. And it could be meeting with somebody. You’ve worked with me a long time, John. You know, I get excited about weird things. Like sometimes I just get excited about a particular person you have on the show. And those days light me up.

 

[00:20:25.140] – Robert Newman

They’re really fun to do those podcasts with people that you’re interested in talking to. And I love good conversations with good people. It kind of sends puts wind to my sails for the rest of the day. And so that’s one of the ways that I motivated my motor. I motivate, I find little tasks. And then last but not least, the main task for my business that I do consistently myself is I hold on to the thing that I’m good at, which is sales and talking to people. I’ve spent a lot of time getting good at it. It motivates me to be on a phone and know that I did an amazing job, probably better than most other people could have done. I like doing good work. That usually gives me a little bit of motivation for later in the day. And I carry that through to other tasks that I really hate, like accounting and bookkeeping and operations. And I can go on and on because I do it all now because I am self employed.

 

[00:21:24.380] – Jonathan Denwood

Can I say so add something to it.

 

[00:21:26.520] – Robert Newman

Of course.

 

[00:21:27.820] – Jonathan Denwood

It’s a bit like our last podcast where we were interviewing Steve and I did like this concept and that’s why I asked him to come on the show this. Are you the favorite or are you the fool? He’s very traditional. He’s very intense, isn’t he? I mean, obviously knew what he was talking about, but he is intense. He’s more intense than you and your pr. You could be pretty intense. I can be, but not. I’m not generally as intense as you, but he was pretty intense. But that I believed in this concept. Are you the favorite or are you the fool and the video? You know, doing the video you are already when they ring you, if you’re doing video, you’re producing content, especially the video you are and they’re ringing you. You are the favorite. You know, even I. I’m not very good. I am very good at getting out of a cell, but even I bag the cells if they’re watching a lot of my videos. Because you are already the favorite.

 

[00:22:47.050] – Robert Newman

I do like that concept too. Steve was a fun guest for those of you who didn’t catch him.

 

[00:22:52.170] – Jonathan Denwood

That fun, wasn’t he?

 

[00:22:53.680] – Robert Newman

Yeah. You go to episode number 455 and you can check out Steve. He’s got a lot of good things to share. He is very proudly one of the very first performance coaches for Realtors. If not the first. He claims the first. I wasn’t sure about that, but I wasn’t going to say anything religiously and consistently using an easy to use CRM. Yeah, okay.

 

[00:23:22.110] – Jonathan Denwood

Which I don’t, I don’t. But I think if you are in real estate, I think writing notes and keeping information about is important, but I think it’s not gonna. It’s gonna help you be more efficient when you’re talking to people. But a lot of agents don’t follow through. They don’t touch base with previous clients. They don’t do a lot of real outreach. So ain’t gonna help them. But those that do it will. But the. And I forgot who said this. I think it was Tom Ferry Ferris. The best CRM is the one that you use. And a lot of these systems, unless you’ve got somebody in house that’s working with it 247 in your brokerage and that they godforsaken difficult to use, that nobody uses them.

 

[00:24:29.500] – Robert Newman

When I was using like I use CRMs at Sprint, I use CRMs when I was selling computer surprise. I used CRMs throughout my entire career. And I Had the simplest system ever. I used Last Action, Next action and opportunity grading. That’s it. That’s really what I use my CRMs for. So last action is what, what did you say and what was discussed. Next Action is what did you agree to talk to about the next time? Usually these things can be small and then depending on the grade. So I forced myself to give the client a score of 0 to 10 based on my perception of the match between us. Like how qualified they were as well as how excited they might be about my specific offer. It’s two of those things and so like a 10 of 10 when I, when I moved that call, the call opportunity was always at the top of my list because I graded it the highest and kind of. And then there was a rotation downwards. I’ve experienced more success with that very simple system than most people ever have.

 

[00:25:33.230] – Jonathan Denwood

Can I ask you about this? I’ve been thinking about this for a long show. You might have because you’ve got more experience in the real estate. I’ve been at it now for six years, so I think I’ve got some reasonable. You’ve got almost 20 years. Right. There’s a, there’s insane amount of discussion about CRMs. It’s, you know, it’s probably your most favorite videos that get watched are your reviews, the CRMs, blah blah blah. There’s a lot of miss terms about what is a CRM. We’ve got episodes where we’ve discussed the total wackiness. You know, a lead generated platform is seen as a CRM. I see a CRM as the way in the parameters that we’re discussing it. Right, right. But there’s so much talk. But when you look at the amount of agents that don’t ring up old clients, don’t do any follow through, don’t, don’t keep in touch with their old. It is mind blowing. So you got all this talk about CRMs, which is about to some extent mixing lead generation with CRM. And then you’ve got these industry surveys show even now that most agents to keep in contact with their old clients, they just don’t do it.

 

[00:27:05.160] – Jonathan Denwood

What’s all this about? Robert?

 

[00:27:07.750] – Robert Newman

Well, call reluctance, sales psychology, you know, my fear and anxiety I discovered would put me at a standstill. John the only reason I like, I’d love to keep telling people stories about my drive and my motivation. I have legitimately been top one through 5%. That’s true. What I did though is I learned to use my neurodivergence to some degree in my favor. I walk in the office, if I have nothing to like, if I don’t have a list of people to call and there’s a cold calling list over here, I’m probably not calling anybody, John. That’s just the truth. I’ll figure out a way to waste time. And I think a lot of salespeople do exactly that. But if I walk in and I have a small, like, little list of people to call with the graded opportunities I already told you about, for some reason, it kind of generated me into the habit. The motivation, the cold call reluctance was. Was diminish. And so I would then hammer out a few hours with cold calls. And that made all the difference in the world because the cold calls led to more opportunities which you grade and put into future days.

 

[00:28:12.990] – Robert Newman

And it’s a system that builds on itself so that you walk into the office and you go, oh, fantastic, I’ve got 10, 20, 30 good calls. And then you’re like, okay, I ended that. You know, I still got an hour left before I’ve been here for eight hours. Might as well knock out an hour of cold calling. A lot of really driven, disciplined people do all their cold calling in the morning. I could never do that. Ever, ever, ever, never, never.

 

[00:28:36.420] – Jonathan Denwood

No, I couldn’t do that.

 

[00:28:38.040] – Robert Newman

So I think that what it’s about is that this psychology.

 

[00:28:42.380] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, but I’m not talking about cold calls, am I? I’m talking about people that they’ve done, They’ve met, they’ve got. Might have bought a house with them. They might have done a open house, they might have had a conversation. They don’t even outreach to those type of.

 

[00:28:56.470] – Robert Newman

I have no idea. A will, a desire to fail, a lack of organization and not understanding what the basic principles are of, like, taking their. Like, usually when I talk to salespeople and you’re coaching them, right, and you come down to, okay, how are you going to get back in touch with this person? And they look at you blankly, and you’re like, let’s say somebody’s doing an open house. You go, you do have their contact information, right? No. What do you mean? You don’t have their contact information?

 

[00:29:25.640] – Jonathan Denwood

No.

 

[00:29:26.130] – Robert Newman

What do you, what do you say to somebody? You got them there, you paid for hors d’oeuvres, they’re in the house, and it’s like, I didn’t ask for it, or I didn’t have a signing sheet or whatever the freaking is.

 

[00:29:40.760] – Jonathan Denwood

And you’re like, yeah, can I interrupt to be. If you, you, if you’re new to the Industry, you find a mentor, you find somebody, you be a junior with you. Do you say, well, for six months, I’m not going to have a social life. I’m going to be doing open houses every weekend, Saturday and Sunday. I’m going to be available to this mental agent, I’m going to do anything he wants or she wants me to do. And I just do religious open houses. And these open houses are for me to build relationships, to get these people’s phone numbers, emails, put me my bloody CRM and then call them.

 

[00:30:22.770] – Robert Newman

Yeah, exactly. Call them, message them, whatever it is. Right. But one way or the other, do outreach. And obviously calling them is the best process. Calling them and starting to try to generate a relationship. But honestly, a lot of realtors just lack process and they lack the intuition that you do as a business owner, which you think is basic, but it’s not. It’s not basic. Getting phone numbers, names. The very basic stuff that we is the dribble of being a marketer, the dribble of being a business owner. At the end of the day, you and I both know you can’t make a sale with if you don’t have somebody’s contact information. That’s basically business 101. Even you in your English frame of mind are going to be like, well, I would at least like your contact information. We can email, we can push out, we can not call them, but we need their contact information to do anything at all, like, full stop. So it’s basic process stuff, I think, John. Lack of. Lack of knowledge, lack of training, lack of confidence, doing a great job for your clients.

 

[00:31:32.810] – Jonathan Denwood

This is basic stuff. But it’s true, isn’t it? You look at Bill, you look at me, very successful in real estate. You know, some clients are. You never make them happy, you never make. But there should be a basic line of service. And when you start getting busy, that’s when the hit. Sorry, I’m gonna swear the hits the fan.

 

[00:31:54.660] – Robert Newman

You already have to edit this one. I. I started off the episode, Chris.

 

[00:31:57.780] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, because that’s when your quality standards start going all over the place because you’re busy, you’re stretched. But that’s when you know you’ve got some processes that actually work. You only know that is when you’re under stress and being consistent, when you’re being pushed is the sign that you’ve worked out these practices, isn’t it?

 

[00:32:26.130] – Robert Newman

Yeah, it really is. So, my goodness gracious, doing a good job. I’m just going to give one tip here, ladies and gentlemen, to the Good doing the good job part. You want to know if you’re doing a good job? Try to get a. Try to get your clients to do a report card. There’s no more like dual proactive thing than to ask somebody for a review, to prompt them with a template to say, will you leave me a review? If they say yes, you send them a template while you’re standing in front of them. I don’t freaking care what part of the process you’re in. If it’s a prospect, somebody you’ve talked to spent a few hours answering questions, this is a great time to ask for reviews. It’s a report card.

 

[00:33:07.800] – Jonathan Denwood

I know a platform. I know a certain real estate platform, marketing platform, Robert, that has that survey system in. Built into it. Robert.

 

[00:33:18.290] – Robert Newman

Oh, really? No kidding. You led the shit. Share it with the audience, please.

 

[00:33:24.090] – Jonathan Denwood

Oh, it’s something called Bill, Right?

[00:33:26.670] – Robert Newman

Okay. All right. John is taking off from the podcast, but he’s not shutting the doors of his business. So, should you want to reach out to him before the end of the year?. To talk to him about a real estate marketing system, call him, call him, call him, call him, or reach out. All right. Don’t become one of those invisible agent types.

[00:33:52.730] – Jonathan Denwood

Nobody’s coming to you. Nobody cares. They don’t care that you’re a real estate agent. Nobody’s knocking on your door to give you a commission check. Ain’t going to happen. And if you’re like 80% of agents, the invisible agent that does one or two transactions a year, a lot of. Many brokerages love it because of the split they can give to these one and two transaction agents. But if you have a proper career, you aren’t going to happen if you’re the invisible agent, right?

[00:34:30.260] – Robert Newman

Yeah, I agree. Well, ladies and gentlemen, invisible agents like not being seen or heard. That would be 101, but we’ve covered many fundamental things. And honestly, when it comes to real estate agents and why they fail, I will go back to something essential that Tom Hopkins said long ago when I was in a training class with him. And it was in the 80s, it was. That’s how long ago this was. He also said that the willingness to fail is the willingness not to be trained. And he was talking to a room full of wannabe real estate salespeople. I was taking a sales course, knowing I would use the information for telephone sales. And I had to go out to Arizona, where he was Training, to take the class in the first place. It was revelatory, though, because he basically kept saying repeatedly that being a salesperson is similar to being a doctor. You get out of it what you put into it in terms of your learning. Granted, he was selling training, but he had an extraordinary amount of people in the room who were successful salespeople attending the meetings, his training, the second, third, and fourth time, some of whom were selling real estate.

[00:35:41.320] – Robert Newman

He made half a million dollars a year in real estate back in the 80s. The 80s. So, the guy knew how to sell. When you’re thinking about what you can do and what you know, do you want to fail? I’m so sorry. But even more than me and John or digital marketing or anything on this list, I will tell you. Go back to basics. Read some books, listen to some audio tapes. Start becoming a professional salesperson and understand what you want to do; being trained creates confidence. I don’t. I don’t like, lack, or understanding. John, what would I say if I knocked on the door? I know what I’m going to say and what I’m going to do. I know what my elevator pitch is at all times. Like for, for inbound rem, for anything. I know what the elevator pitch is from the Mail-Right. I know what the elevator pitch is for half my competitors. Right. I know it, and I am not scared to say it. But all that came down to training and repetition and practice and drilling and becoming very good at something like 10,000 hours.

[00:36:49.680] – Robert Newman

There’s that old, super old training principle. It takes 10,000 hours to be an expert at anything. I’ve got my 10,000 hours on the real estate marketing side and actually on sales, way more than that. So that’s my advice to everybody listening to the show and closing it out with training yourself. Read some sales books. Read them from sales professionals and read them from people who are not sales professionals. Read little ebooks that famous salespeople have written in real estate because they all have Ryan Sirhant. The list goes on. Read their books. I read their books. I don’t like what they say. A lot of times, I read their books. You should do it because you want to know what they’re saying works, and then you want to practice it if you think it would work for you. That’s all I got. John, how would you like to sign off for the year? The year?

[00:37:41.960] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, I believe in the Hybrid system. You need to get out there and go to business events, kinds of community, social events, and discussions. Don’t be one of those agents that keeps handing your card out, but have discussions and, you know, do video, have some digital marketing strategy. And if you combine, you know, you might have to. If you’re new and haven’t minted, you’re not doing open houses, which you should do. You’re going to have to buy some leads. You’re going to have to go to reiter.com and buy them. But I don’t need to because I think as a newer agent, I’ll be a mentor with an agent, and I’ll do open housing. But I would do a video. I would have a decent website. I’ll get the package up and running and be at it. I won’t be doing cold calling because I don’t. If I thought it worked, I would do it. If it meant success or failure, I would do it. I’ll do anything. Right. Rather than end up on the street.

[00:39:06.310] – Jonathan Denwood

Right, Right. But I don’t believe it works now, so I don’t have to do that. Right. In my opinion. Right, Right.

[00:39:15.070] – Robert Newman

Right. I find no better way to sign off the show. I would like. I hope everybody listening to the show will mentally do what I’m going to do and wish you a farewell or success. Whichever. Whichever is more appropriate depends on what you end up doing, whether you visit your family where you stay home and get some stuff knocked out. Could you take a break from the marketing schedule? I have had a lot of fun in 2024.
I’m looking forward to 2025 and wish you well, sir.

[00:39:47.800] – Jonathan Denwood

All right, we’ll see you later, folks. I wish you and your family a happy Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year, and we’ll see you in 2025.

[00:39:59.350] – Robert Newman

Same, same. All right, take us offline.

 

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