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Best Free Real Estate CRMs for 2025
Looking for the best free real estate CRM in 2025? We’ve rounded up the top contenders to help you succeed. Find out more now.
In this show, we dive into the top free real estate CRMs for 2025, highlighting their unique features and benefits. Whether you’re a seasoned agent or just starting out, these tools can streamline your workflow and enhance client relationships. Join us as we explore user-friendly interfaces, powerful automation options, and insightful analytics that can elevate your real estate game. Don’t miss out—watch the video now to find the perfect CRM for you.
#1 – AgileCRM Launch in 2013
#2 – ZohoCRM
#3 – Bitrix24
#4 – ClickUp
https://clickup.com/templates/real-estate-agent-t-4392666
#5 – HubSpot
https://www.hubspot.com/products/crm/real-estate
#6 – EngageBay
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to episode number 462. Today, we’re going to talk about the best, and I’m going to change the title here slightly, the best free CRMs for 2025, some of which can be used for real estate. I’m very interested to get into this because as we were discussing before the show, my incredible co-host here, who is far more diligent than I am oftentimes with show notes, has actually done his research on all these CRMs. I’ve used two of them but not research the others. I think this is going to be an interesting chance for John, who I’m going to ask to introduce himself, to really strut his stuff and share his thoughts about all of these CRMs and what he thinks that they we can do for our audience. But before we get into any of that, John, why don’t you explain who you are and why you have an opinion on this subject?
Yeah, thanks, Rob. I’m the joint founder of mail-right. Com. We’re a CRM ourselves, but plus we’re really a marketing platform using the power of WordPress with Facebook to get you quality leads. Back over you, Rob.
Beautiful. We’re going to start off with number one on our list, which is agile. Now, I do know of agile. I’ve just never heard.
Can I say something first?
Always. You do anyway.
The way I see this, Rob, is that in real estate, and we’ve had this conversation before, is that I think the word CRM is is one of the most abused terms in real estate digital marketing, because it’s utilized as a term as There’s a blanket term for something which isn’t a CRM. To me, a CRM is you’re a salesperson and you’re keeping records of customers, interactions, birthdays, when you might have only spoke to a person six months ago, then they’re suddenly ringing you up and they expect you to know the details of the last conversation. And unless you got a photographic memory like an elephant, you probably can’t remember the conversation. So that’s why you need a CRM. But the problem with the real estate business, a CRM is then linked to what I see as the true purpose of a CRM. It then is utilized as a blanket term for a website, for marketing optimization. For a landing page builder, for a website, again, for email and SMS text messaging. It’s all combined into one generic, meaningless term. I see that as a problem, Robert.
That I agree with you on. Before we go into this list of free CRMs, and the reason I haven’t… I’ve heard of agile, John. I just haven’t used it. And the reason I haven’t used it, because I just spent five seconds on its page, and I can tell you why I’ve never looked at it. John almost said, hey, do you want to cancel the show and move on? Because This idea, but I want to explain to you why, though, John. I’m not pooh-poohing. So I’m on here and I’m looking at the drop-downs. It’s like a lion desk, and I’m just trying to glance this. I am an expert in CRMs. I’ve used them my entire career. I built a few. I can barely understand what Agile is trying to accomplish in its website intro.
I wouldn’t bother too much because let’s start with Agile. Agile seems to offer an enormous I might be wrong with this, and if anybody from Agile is listening, don’t hold it against me. I don’t think it’s an active development. I think it’s not dead I have had a couple of people ask me to integrate it with WordPress. It was a couple of years ago, I could never get it to work properly. There was always something either the the forms or the optimizations, especially the free product, I could never get it to work. Of all the ones that are on this list, I would highly, and this is my personal opinion, folks, I would not recommend it.
Well, here’s something that everybody should understand. I’m saying this so clearly. If you follow me for a while, all of you would know that I’ve run call centers for Sprint, AT&T, and MCI I’ve had thousands of people on the phone using customer record management systems. And this is, I don’t know what this is. This is not that, though. It’s trying to be everything that I laid out at the beginning of this podcast.
It’s trying to be a Swiss army knife, sales CRM, landing page, marketing, optimization, email, you name it. It It does it. But unfortunately, based on my experience of the free product and also the paid, it does it. It works sometimes, and sometimes it doesn’t work.
And therein is the The complexities of all-in-one systems. I use HubSpot. Hubspot has become a billions and billions of dollars worth of a company. They had financial backing from Google. They’ve slowly started to become like And they are not necessarily free, like an all in one system. They connect exceptionally well into WordPress. It doesn’t work all the time either. It works most of the time. But I will tell you what, it is more intelligible than this. In terms of what you’re looking at, PPC management, website recording, what is… I know what they’re aiming at with that comment, but I doubt one person out of 100 reading the sales language on agile would even understand what the hell they mean by website recording. What is that? From a thousand-foot high overview, whether or not… And John gave you his opinion. My opinion is I would give Agile a firm miss, mainly just because of the unintelligible nature of their website as you’re trying to sign up?
Well, most people that I… It was because the free element, and you seem to be given a enormous amount. But as they say, you get what you pay for? Well, you get what you pay for some of the time, based on my experience I’ve been on the planet. But normally, you do get what you pay for with Provisos. There’s a good reason why it’s free. Basically, based on my experience, it don’t work. That’s why I don’t think it’s in active development. They’re based in India, which I know a few of these are, or the next one is. Shall Can we move on to the next one?
Zoho, another one of my favorite all-in-ones. Go ahead. You start off.
I did utilize ZOHO. I used the free version, but I only used it to store records to keep my notes about when we last maintained a website, when I said I was going to give a discount to somebody if they came back, Because whatever you say to a client, it could be two years ago, they will hold you like you swore in your mother’s grave, anything you say to them. My memory is not that good anymore, Robert. I used to use this. The free product is better than agile. It does work. The problem with the free product is the email sending is crippled. You don’t have access to the email field and trying to send emails out or receiving them. Bits of it work, but other bits don’t. You have to go to the paid version and the The paid version, it starts off at $20 per seat per month. It just isn’t competitive. There are better solutions on this list. There’s one that I’ve actively moved which now I use, which I can highly recommend. They’ve got a suite of other products, and one or two of them I do use, and they work.
I use the free versions, and they do work. Other parts of their empire, they’re real dogs. They just don’t work. They’re based in India. I think they’ve got about 3,000 to 4,000 employees. The list of products, the fins they’re into is enormous, and people get attracted to it because they offer a lot of these services. They offer for free. I was in discussion with them about a year ago about sponsoring my other podcast, and I must have had endless meetings with them, and they have no idea what they’re doing. This is my opinion. But they’re big. It’s billions and billions of dollars of turnover they’re using. I think particular products, they do work in the free version. This does work, but the email side on purpose has been crippled.
I think, ladies and gentlemen, you really need to listen to John carefully on this ZOHO, I knew was an Indian team. I’ve never had any interactions with them. I’ve never used them. Part of my reasons for never using them and never paying attention to them for the real estate space is you tell me what real estate professional, and not just a professional, a broker, anybody of small to medium size. You’d have to be a sea-level tech executive to come in here and even have an understanding of what ZOHO, what needs ZOHO was trying to fill. Telefony, social media. I’m just under omnichannel. Sms, live chat, service portals, web conferencing, and real-time notifications. Now, I think that basic channel is probably the most intelligible channel that there is. But coming out of this industry, I almost can guarantee you, John, that nobody understands what telephony would be or why it would be applied to a website. I do because I was in it, but very few other people would be And so you come in here and you look at it and you go, what is it supposed to do for me as a real estate professional?
And I don’t think that most people would be able to understand it. Free or not free. I don’t think that they’re going to come in here. You go to sales enablement and it goes, portals, Wizards, calendar, okay? Wizards as the second-Well, you are one.
You’re a lizard, aren’t you? I am a lizard.
I am a lizard.
You look like one.
Let me I’ll tell you what a real estate salesperson is not going to understand. You go into sales enablement in the second portals, okay, maybe they figure that out. Wizards, huh? Yes, I think some people- I like doing this podcast with you.
I don’t get much out of it. I like doing it because I just like you laugh at my jokes. You’re one of the few Americans that gets my humor. Shall we go on to the next one before we go to our break?
Yeah, Okay, so Bittrix24.
Yeah.
I’ve never even heard of these guys, so please, enlighten me. Russians. Russians, okay. They’re Russians.
They’re here in Russia. They got office in Virginia, and you won’t find anything on their website that they’re Russians.
Okay.
But they are- They’re Russians. They’re Russians. And I haven’t got any practical experience with it, but I did do a dive on it. And it’s like ZOO, they throw in the kitchen sink. The email side by what they say on the website and the reviews that I watched isn’t crippled, but it It’s agile CRM on steroids. They throw in the kitchen sink. The interface looks like a dog’s breath. It looks like something that was knocked up in the ’90s. Wow. They seem to be… Their UX design seems to be based on Craigslist. I’m vicious today, aren’t I? I’ve had too much coffee, haven’t I? I’m vicious today, aren’t I?
You’ve been on one from the very beginning, from the very second I Don’t like my subjects, Robert? Fine, we won’t do the show.
I’ve had some difficult clients today, and I’ve had to give some home truths to a couple of people today.
Might as well keep going. Might as well keep going. Okay, So once you’re looking over it, you got even more experience than me on these damn things. And most of these free ones… Here’s the honest truth, John. I would ignore most of these free ones. I haven’t seen a free product that I really like since HubSpot, and HubSpot is revolutionary. So it’s so completely overshadows and dominates the free list in terms of what they’ve done, what’s capable with it. I think that HubSpot for most small business is better than Salesforce. And Salesforce is pretty fucking good. It’s one of the biggest companies in the world. So when you start talking about how good of a job are they doing, the answer is they’re brilliant and they’re aimed at content marketing, which is what I do. So you go, all right. And it’s what I feel like most small businesses should be at least partially focused on. So when you say Bittrix and you say ’90s, I’m off the train already, dude. I don’t want to look at this. I don’t even want to take my… I mean, I will look at it long enough if I thought a lot of people that were listening to our show had ever seen Bittrix.
I doubt that they have.
I was just going by what other people’s reviews. So I looked at it, I have checked it over. Yeah, that’s all I’ve got to say. Shall we go for a break now?
We shall. All right, ladies and gentlemen, grab yourself a cup of coffee, get a little bit of tea. Don’t have as much coffee as John, please. Then come back and rejoin us because we’re going to cover three more CRMs now. These last three are all more things that you might have heard I’ve heard of ClickUp HubSpot and Engage Bay. Our last ones, I think ClickUp is something that I’ve heard a lot about, but I haven’t looked at it, so I’m excited to hear what you have to say about it, John. I hope you all are excited to hear about what John has to say about it, too. We’ll come back the show in just a minute or two. Stay tuned. Three, two, one. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. It is episode number 462. I am Robert Newman, the founder of Inbound R-am. I am joined by John Dinwood, the founder of WP Tonic and Mailright, and a hundred other things. No, I’m just kidding.
They keep me occupied.
Yeah, they keep you occupied. And today we’re talking about CRMs, free CRMs, specifically CRMs that have free elements, free components, free signup, free something. The next one on our list is ClickUp, which I have heard of. I do think it has penetration inside the real estate space. John, I haven’t looked at it, though. What can you tell us about it?
Well, it’s the one I use. I use the free version. It’s off this list apart from HubSpot. I’m not so enamored with HubSpot as what you I’m probably putting words in your mouth, but you correct me. Clickup, it’s in a different league apart from HubSpot than any of these. It’s the one I use. I use the free. It isn’t crippled. The interface design is nice. It does the job. I use a WordPress solution for my email marketing and optimization, but as my sales CRM, it does the job. It’s head-to-head with another thing called Notion, which is more project management. Its origins is from project management, but it also can cope with sales is, I think it’s better than Pipeline. I think it’s better than monday. Com, which don’t offer free programs. They I also do offer a template specifically designed for the real estate business. I did look over it last night and it looked pretty cool. And I think this list, Phoenix Free, if you combine this, I think this is as good as anything that is specialized in the real estate industry. If you can combine it, there are a couple… I think It’s like wise agent or nine desk.
I think it’s much superior than those two, much superior. There’s a couple of others in the real estate industry, but they’re combining a CRM with online marketing. So I think you can use a Pacific system in the real estate industry for the online marketing. The other great thing with ClickUp, it has a load of integration Notions, and they do work. It works quite well with WordPress as well. I think I highly recommend it.
We’re finally talking… I haven’t looked at ClickUp specifically, but we’re finally talking about stuff that I can actually contribute to. Everything that you’ve mentioned from Notion on down, I’ve used as a company, as an individual. I finally have some opinions. For my customer record management system, I basically use Base Camp, and I’m probably not going to move off Base Camp anytime soon because it’s simple.
I could never get my head around it. I never liked it, but other people love it. You love it. I could never It’s simple.
But I would supposition to you, John, that one of the reasons that you love ClickUp, because I’m looking at the boards, here’s some things that are different automatically on ClickUp. When you’re talking about some of these new modern workflow management systems, you need to see how the workflow actually works to decide whether or not it’s going to work for you. Clickup actually has screen caps of the way that their layout is, and it’s very similar to Asana, Trello. It is one of these things. For the people watching this show, John, imagine, and may not be as familiar with these tools. A lot of these tools were based on the simple idea of this, the Post-it pad. What What they did is they came up with this way of putting notes and groups of notes into boxes, squares, cubes. And then as you drill down into the cube, you find other navigations into things until you granularly drill down. That was the original idea behind Trello. Then they changed it into a much more complex tool over time. They did the same thing with a lot of these tools. Now, ClickUp seems like a really cool drag and drop interface.
Am I guessing correct in Yeah, as for you are a little bit as well, I’m a UX snob.
So that does not appeal to me to use something that looks like it came from the early ’90s. I do expect So I think the interface is up to monday. Com on pipeline.
And that’s important, ladies and gentlemen, because here’s where we all have to get off the train. If you’re a ’90s kid like me and John and haven’t bothered to spend 100 hours updating your CRM knowledge, tools like Outlook and other tools that you’ve become familiar with the way that the UI and the UX is supposed to work. That is the user interface and the user experience for those that don’t know the acronyms, the abbreviation, sorry. These things help you adapt into the platform. Now, for those of you who are younger who’ve already gotten used to tools like and Trello and Asana, ClickUp would be a natural extension for you to look at.
I think it’s as good as follow up, boss, to be fair. It hasn’t got the specific themes that follow. But the problem with follow up, boss, is it’s now owned by Zillow, so I wouldn’t use it. For that, I’m sorry, but if I was a real estate agent, I wouldn’t give my… I don’t care what they say that they fire a wall. They’re just not going to get my… I’m just not going to get my business. End of story. But it hasn’t got the specifics, functionality, but the UX design, and I think that’s pretty high praise because I always thought follow-up boss wasn’t perfect in any shape or form. But when it came to UX design, it was one of the better ones out there. The people behind it did a great job.
I agree. This right here with ClickUp, again, I totally agree with you. Not only is the UX design good, but I’ll give you an example under their integrations page. They have image-based cubes that are talking about their integration instead of, which makes it easier to understand because the cubes contain the logos of companies that you’re probably are familiar with. You have Z Outlook, MS Teams, GitHub, Chrome, Google Drive, and Slack. An image-based communication is becoming far more common than anything else, which is probably one that, and as a person who’s got dyslexia, probably extremely It’s comfortable for you personally. It’s comfortable for a lot of other people, John. It is really a great way to go. Now, the only thing I’m going to say, the same complaint I had about Notion, is that occasionally when you get into these list things and all of a sudden you are looking at a wall of text with little checkboxes next to it, which I’ve seen a couple of screen grabs already on ClickUp that have that. I always found that part of notion confusing, and I think I would find that part of ClickUp confusing.
The other caution I would give you is you can go I’m really crazy with this, Finn. You can set up a very elaborate optimizations, which you can do, follow up, boss. I’m a bit wary. The skill is keeping everything as simple as possible. It does the things you want to do without it becoming… I have seen a few people that I’ve consulted and they’ve gone absolutely batshit with this. What I mean is they’re gone just automation potty. Some of the support documentation encourages you to set up really elaborate set-ups, and I wouldn’t go down that road. I’ll try and keep it as simple as possible.
As would I. But that’s probably a differentiation in philosophies, ladies and gentlemen. And John and I both, we’re slightly different. I am more extreme on the attraction marketing side, but John isn’t exactly a maven for push marketing, in my opinion. Anyway, we could get lost in this. So before we do- Shall we move on to your beloved HubSpot? Yeah, we should. But before… Just a footnote for you, John, we might want to do a show on what attraction versus push marketing actually is. That might be a fun conversation for us. Okay, number five on the list, HubSpot. This is my… And we’re going to go into bonus territory here, ladies and gentlemen. The original show is just about over. We’ve got a few more minutes, and we’re probably going to spend the next- He’s woken up, folks.
He was thinking this was going to be a dreary show, but I can tell he’s interested now.
Hubspot is definitely one of those- I’m going to talk about free CRMs, Jonathan.
I just didn’t see that, but I still maybe don’t see the application for a lot of these for real estate agents.
That was my complaint.
Come off here. There’s some real geeks out there. I’ve had some insane conversations with people that actually have taken it much too far. They’d be better off-With It’s real estate agents? Yeah, I’ve known a few that really geeked out all this stuff. They’ve known even more than I’ve known. And I thought, why are you asking for a consultation for me? You know more than I do. They’re only rare, but I’ve had a few of them.
Well, I didn’t- I’m not really attracted that type. I won’t say that they are common. They do exist, but boy, oh, boy, are they rare? I I don’t find many of them, John. I’ve done this 16 years. They exist, though. Hubspot. Hubspot is a dream. If ever you had enough technical knowledge to get yourself into trouble and you’re working on WordPress, it would be a content marketer’s partner for sure inside the real estate space if they were trying to do- Are you sure?
I’m going to be nasty. I think the interface doesn’t in any shape or form compared to ClickUp. My biggest problem with HubSpot is the pricing structure. They’ve got over six choices when it comes to pricing structure. I think they got two or three with ClickUp. It’s been the bug bear that I’ve had with HubSpot for years. Is there insane pricing structures?
Yeah, they’re absolutely out of hand. John has that absolutely right. Passed free, you’ve got free, and then you’ve got $50 a month. That’s the next lowest pricing tier, and then it quickly jumps up to $800 to $1,200 a month.
Almost as bad as Salesforce falls. Not quite, though.
Not quite. So the pricing structure is insane. What I get for $50 a month, though, I’m incredibly happy with because that’s what I spend. I spend $50 a month and I spend some money on agents, and for that price per agent, $50 per agent, they get the ability to have a US number, text, and call call all out of HubSpot. Our team is not large enough to require the severe footprints inside of CRM that other agencies would require or that you might think that you need. So we don’t pay much attention to any of that. It’s more like the ability to call, the ability to track, the ability to integrate with WordPress, which all of those things HubSpot does better than most other platforms I’ve used, but I haven’t used ClickUp, John, so I don’t have any experience with them. I don’t know if they integrate seamlessly into landing pages and lead forms.
I love main bear, and I might be wrong here. Don’t hold it against me. He will do, folks. If I say anything, he’ll bring it up next week. So I think you only get a thousand companies or individuals for the free plan. It’s not crippled, but they’re a bit stingy on the It’s a bit of a limite. But apart from that, I think the free plan, it works most of the time, doesn’t it? I think it’s one of the better ones, isn’t it?
Yeah, it is. It is one of the better ones. So yes, it is one of the better ones. Well, we’re going to move on. We can spend a whole show talking about HubSpot. I use HubSpot. I love HubSpot.
I’ve been horrible to them, but I don’t think I’ll be unfair.
No, but You are right in the sense that there is a trap, a quicksand-like trap with HubSpot. Because once you’re using it and you use the kit of free tools, when you want to elevate to, let’s say, their marketing, because they do marketing, a marketing package, a sales package. That’s how they divide it up. It’s an incredibly expensive price leap every time you go up a scale, like to their marketing thing, which is what gives you all the website integrations. All of a sudden, instead of $50 a month, it’s $400 $550 a month. It’s an extreme upgrade. The only reason that I would say HubSpot should or could be interesting for real estate agents is that real estate CRMs are actually more overpriced than HubSpot is, John. Because real estate CRMs traditionally charge you $500 right out of the box. That’s their Interactive, that’s Chime, that’s all of them. You’ve got some good low-Oh, and I’m the one that does it, though. Right? You never mention it.
You never write about me on your website, but there we go. I’ll be nasty to them, but it’s not personal. It’s just I’m a bit peaved today. Shall we move on to the last one?
Sure. Number six, Engage Bay. I don’t know much about Engage Bay, John. Why don’t you fill us in?
It wasn’t on my road until I did my study for this podcast. Another Indian company, they look like they hired it. When it came the actual functionality, it’s more marketing-focused. That’s the sense I got, but it has got the sales element to it. When it came to… I haven’t used it, but when it comes to the actual interface examples and the reviews that have been done at it, it looks a more modern interface. I don’t think it’s as good as ClickUp or HubSpot. The only thing with the free program, they’re a bit tight. I think I’m correct. I’m going by a memory here. I didn’t write it down in my notes. Is that the free, you only get 250 contacts. I think I’m right about that. That really seemed really stingy to me. The price is after that. I wouldn’t say it’s the… Well, that’s the thing The thing about BRICS24 that got me was that horrible design, got the free thing, but then if you went up to the paid, the next paid version, they wanted $60 per user. I thought, you got to be kidding, mate. You got to be what dream world, Russian dream world you’re living in.
But these people, I think they’re a little bit cheaper. But I don’t know too much about them, but they’re on all the the list that I’m looking at. It doesn’t look bad, but I just think there’s better ones on this list, basically.
Just a quick look at their… 78% is what they were rated on Facebook from 11 people that reviewed them. They are using G2.
They all live in India.
Yeah, G2 is enormously well known for being manipulatable. That’s why so many companies are using G2. I personally wouldn’t trust G2 ratings. Okay? That is for everybody that’s listening to the show.
Well, Google seems to trust them. Do you think they got money in with them? Do you think they’ve invested money in that lot as well?
I don’t think so. I think that what’s probably going on with G2 is that there’s good and there’s bad, and Google isn’t going to bother to penalize them for the bad. But a lot of these people, like Reddit, just lost big in the latest Google update. So don’t think that G2 is going to… If If Reddit is losing, G2 is definitely losing.
Honestly, folks, listen to Rob there, he’s spot on. I don’t even go to it. I’ve heard it’s so easy to manipulate the results, and every startup, bootstrap startup in the SaaS business. I know quite a few, there’s even tutorials about how to manipulate it. It’s bad, isn’t it?
It’s bad. It’s very, very, very, very, very bad, which is why so many people use it because they can manipulate their own reviews, which sounds like good business on the surface, and maybe it is, but it creates a lack of trust, which means that the actual platform itself is losing all value. I don’t trust, nor used nor referenced G2 ever. It’s all, as far as I’m concerned, a big scam. When you look at Engage Bay and they’re saying on their homepage, Hey, look at our G2 reviews, that automatically puts a warning flag up for me that goes is, okay, these guys are probably full of shit. Now, whether or not they are or not, guys, it’s just my opinion. I have no idea. I’m seeing all these awards that they put on their Facebook page. They all look fake to me. That would definitely be. And the fact that they only had a 78% recommendation, which, John, as you and I both well know, when you can only get 78% when you’re writing your own reviews, that’s a problem.
But we don’t know that. We’re surmising that. We’ve got to be a bit careful with the language we’re using.
Well, Rob isn’t. I don’t have to say- It’s me that’s received two letters, two emails about Rob’s comments.
It’s not been my actual comments. It’s got me complaints.
And anybody listening to this show, this show, isn’t going to believe that because you’re normally so careful. Not today, my friend. Not today.
I’ve been more entertaining today, haven’t I?
You have definitely been more entertaining today. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that’s going to wrap up our list, though. Thank you so much for listening. Listen, John and the team over at Mailright make an exceptionally compelling all-in-one CRM. I haven’t talked about it much because, John, I’ve still never dove into it and understood it in a very deep way. But I’m going to say that what it does for the price that it does, it should automatically get it a look from any budget-conscious realtor looking for a marketing solution that does all the things that the other systems do but doesn’t want to spend $500 a month without even getting into the advertising it because it’s expensive. It’s incredibly expensive. Real estate CRMs, even for what you do, in theory, we could look at it and just really collectively say, Okay, $250, how is that? That’s actually expensive. It’s expensive for a CRM. It’s got to do something for that money.
Yeah, well, it’s easy. Well, as you know, we have a little bit of CRM, sales records, but it’s really a marketing platform. But before we finish, we’ve just gone full circle to the beginning of this episode, this abused term, this totally horse that’s been whipped to death. What is a CRM? Ours, we use Facebook, you can do your own Facebook landing page, blah, blah, blah, with a bit of record thrown in. A record, ClickUp isn’t going to get you any leads. Well, it’s not in the digital world, but it’s a good platform. I say they’ve got a lot of features, unlike the other ones we talked about. Most of them do work. But I don’t use it for that because I’ve got WordPress. I just use the sales conversation part of ClickUp, and I use it, but I only use 20% of the functionality of the platform.
I couldn’t agree with you more. Language is wildly abused for all the people listening to the show. The reason that you guys get frustrated, because that’s the number one thing I get from all the people that I talk to, is frustration about unclear language, what’s something supposed to do. That’s literally the number one thing I take from veteran agents and new agents alike, which is one of the very few common thread complaints that you get no matter where somebody’s at in their real estate career. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not just you. John is right. They are absolutely destroying, slaughtering any semblance of what the language is around the tool that they’re building. Customer record management systems are supposed to be that. Customer record management systems, not read nurturing systems. Systems, not email marketing systems. Yes. Do you have a function to send an email to a customer? Absolutely. Are you supposed to be able to have 100 fucking templates to send them a sales message as part of your customer record management system? Not traditionally, no. It’s two different things. You have an email marketing system and you’ve got a customer record management system because you’ve got somebody who is a live human being managing the relationship with the customer.
That’s what those systems were supposed to do. Is that what any of them do? Really, technically, not really anymore. Crm is a misnomer, and John is 100% right about that, and it It drives me absolutely insane because it’s like, what is ClickUp? What is Bittrape? What is ZOHO? Because now you’re also talking about telephony integration. We always had a telephony system on top of a CRM. That’s literally the language you use when we’re running call centers. We had one piece of functionality that recorded calls and tracked calls and did stuff, and you integrated it into the customer record management system so that you could get some of that information logged into the customer record. Two separate pieces of functionality. No, that’s not what they do anymore. It’s all in one. It’s fucking not all in one.
Jesus.
Anyway, you got me on one now, John.
Yeah, I got you worked up. We better call it a day.
You better take your-We better.
You better then, then you can take your tablets, can’t you?
All right, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for staying tuned to… We’re going to call this the Customer Record Management System Rant Show. That’s what we’re going to move it into. Anyway, thanks so much for tuning in with us. We really appreciate it. John, if somebody wants to look you up and complain about their free CRM, how would they do that? I look forward to the conversations.
I’ve had some rough ones this morning. Go to themail-right. Com website and book a free chat with me. And if you’ve got any questions, I’ll be more than delighted to give you some of my advice. Back over to you, Rob.
For your learning, education and entertainment, you go to InboundR With all things related to inbound marketing, you go to inboundrem. Com. If for some reason, some of you would like to speak to me or learn more about me, you can also go to inboundr. Com/about. There’s always links to my calendar on my services page and my About page. Easy to get in touch with me should you choose to. I am still doing personal one-to-one calls in 2025 every year. I think it’s going to be my last because I really do. Maybe 2025 will be that. If you do want to talk to me directly and get a consultation from the great Robert Newman, you’re going to want to go to my website. All right, that’s it, ladies and gentlemen. We so deeply appreciate you spending some time with us until next week. Do you know what we’re talking about next week, John?
No, you have to email. He’s got a good theme for next week if he emails it to me.
Okay, I got to email it to you. All right.
Yeah, you do. I know it’s stressful, Rob, but you do have to email me.
Hold on. We’ll turn it off and I’ll ask you the question again of what the heck it was.
I can’t remember now, but it’s been entertaining. See you soon, folks. Bye. Bye.
Let me know when we’re.
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Greg McDaniel literally began his career at his father’s knee. It would not be an exaggeration to say he has Read more
Personal agent photography is really important but usually semi-forgotten. We have a great guest "Preston Zeller" on the show who recently Read more
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Don’t miss out on the next big thing in social media for Realtors. Could you determine which platforms will dominate in 2025 and how to leverage them?
As the real estate market evolves, so does the social media landscape. In this video, we explore the new hot platforms that every realtor should be on in 2025. Learn about innovative features and audience engagement strategies tailored for real estate professionals. Equip yourself with the knowledge to harness these tools and elevate your marketing game. Click to watch and get ahead of the competition.
#1 – Bluesky
The Bluesky social network uses the AT Protocol, an open-source framework for building social apps. The AT Protocol creates a standard format for user identity, data, and follows. This allows users to move freely between apps that use the AT Protocol.
#2 – Pinterest
#3 – Mastodon
#4 – Reddit
#5 – Telegram (Groups)
#6 -Snapchat (Stories) live for 24 hours
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to episode 460 of the MailRight podcast. I’m here with the amazing, fantastic, and generally outstanding Jonathan Dinwood, and we are talking about what the… Well, okay. What are the best video content ideas for realtors in 2025, and what are the alternative hot social media platforms for 2025? Are we doing a dual subject today, John?
No, I just got the wrong thing. We’re doing the Hot Social Media platforms.
Awesome. Okay, so we’re doing incredible social media platforms. And let me tell you, everybody, this is very rare, but John was ready to go. He was so ready to go. He messaged me an hour ago and asked me where I was. Where were you, Rob? I was happy amid a team meeting, training some people on video stuff. Anyway, John, I have ribbed you a little bit, and we’ve introduced you vaguely, but why don’t you introduce yourself specifically to anybody who doesn’t know who you are or wants to hear who you are for about the thousandth time?
All right. Thanks, Rob. I’m the joint founder of mill-right.com. We’re a platform that allows you to advertise on Facebook and also provide a great-looking website. Back over to you, Rob.
All right. Well, for those who are new listeners, my name is Robert. I’m a founder of an inbound marketing company focusing on real estate and SEO. For those that are returning visitors, you already know who I am. I’m gently, lovingly reminding you that Inboundrm.com is a great place to learn how to do all the relevant things for your business in the digital marketing space in 2025. All right, today, we’re going to strut our stuff, John and I. We’ve got a beautiful topic prepared for you. It’s an alternative social media platform in 2025. We mainly cover the proliferation of people escaping the idea of Facebook, threads, and many other things. This is a, really, really, really I think we’ve seen this over the last couple of years, that on especially Facebook properties, meta properties, the main two are Facebook and Instagram, that if you don’t pay to play, you’re not going to get much reach.
We’ve also seen the last couple of years, not only on meta platforms but also on meta platforms such as LinkedIn. Since Mr. Musk bought Twitter, if you have links in your posts and content to drive traffic to your website, the reach of those posts has decreased considerably. So, the methodology used to drive traffic to your website has diminished quite a bit. That’s one of the beautiful things about YouTube: they don’t have that policy. So that’s another reason. So, there’s no point in producing great content for your website if you can’t get traffic because nobody can read it or do something you want them to do. So, people are looking at alternative social media platforms that don’t have these policies. That’s what our list is based on, Robert.
Got you. All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I don’t have a strong of opinion as John does about most of these subjects. That is because that as a content producer and a person, I built the vast majority of my audience on three channels, Google Local, YouTube, and Traditional Search, which are the same three things that my company focuses on. That doesn’t mean that these other channels aren’t viable, aren’t valid. The channel that I’ve done the best on personally, that just are organically, literally without much are focusing on it are Pinterest and LinkedIn. As to Mastodon and Threads and X and all those in the real moment, like microblogging sites, they’ve It has required too much time and energy to keep up with them for me to really be an expert of any kind. I have followers. I have thousands of followers on each of these platforms, but all I’m doing is sharing content from my website. So Anyway, I do like one of the ones in your list. I’m really excited about it. We’re going to talk about it when I get to it. But Blue Sky, I have literally no experience with this. I understand what it is, and I’ve seen it.
Have you used it, Jon?
I’ve done a bit of work with it. I’m going to be using it a lot more. I’m not going to give up on Twitter. I won’t call it X. I refuse to call it X. But I’m going to probably use both. Blue Sky, it was started by Jack Dorsey, who was the joint founder of Twitter. He invested quite a bit of money in it. He isn’t controlling it anymore, but I still think he’s invested in it. It’s very similar to Twitter, but Twitter before the present owner bought it, it It has a much more open API, so you can do more with the data that you get from it, which Twitter basically, they shut the door on using the data that you get from the platform. And it does have some really great elements to it. One thing that people got to understand, it is based on a open protocol. It’s based on a protocol that’s called AT. And why should you care? Well, it’s very similar to podcasting. Podcasting is based on another protocol called RSS Feeds. And this protocol that Blue Skye, and another one that we’re going to be talking about in this show, that means that if you ever want to leave Blue Skye and you build audience, and long as the other platform that you’re moving to is also based on this AT protocol, it’s going to be much easier to move from one platform to the other, which is quite attractive because that’s one of the problems of moving away from Twitter, people that are built quite a large audience, which is like me.
I’ve got about 7,000 people that follow me on Twitter. That’s a bit pragmatic. So it’s growing, I think they got about 30 million users now, which is quite good. It’s still much smaller than Twitter and some of the meta properties, but it’s growing quite considerably. But the main thing is when you post on Blue sky and you have a link to your website and you are investing time in writing content, you won’t be finalize having that link. You will have as many natural people that show interest in the post. And this used to be similar to Twitter or of 10 years ago, you could drive a lot more traffic through Twitter than you can now. So that’s the main thing that really, I think, is relevant here. It’s a great driver of traffic to your website.
So I have little opinion about Blue Sky, strong opinions about Jack Dorsey. The idea The idea of Jack in his many companies because he’s done Square, he’s done Cash App, he’s done Twitter, he’s done many things. Jack, I followed him. He’s a really unusual and extraordinary personality inside the tech space. One of those founders who really just does things for the sake of doing them is already wealthy beyond comprehension and doesn’t typically pay that much attention to it. He’s noted for his humble lifestyle, extreme and eating habits. He’s definitely got this idea, John, when I see him start stuff where the user is in control, like his point of sale stuff, his cash app, all the things that he has done have usually empowered users. Even what you’re talking about with Blue sky, where you can move your account history from one place to the other. It’s like the 1980s old school developers of old. He’s one of those guys. I used to call those guys Fuzzy audiologic people because my parents were one. They are people who are more focused on the idea of the internet as this great place that you can go and share ideas and share concepts and help each other, open-source conversations, things like that.
Jack is one of those guys, and I really love him for it. It doesn’t mean anything personal. In the sense of the businesses that he runs, I don’t use Cash App, I don’t use Blue Sky, I don’t use Square, okay? And he probably has some others as well. I barely use Twitter. His idea is that he has aren’t the ideas that I gravitated to. That does not mean they aren’t brilliant ideas and that he himself isn’t making interesting things. If any of you are looking for a place to go, I think that Blue Sky is really great place to look at based on the knowledge alone that Jack is behind it. Because number one, nobody’s going to buy this dude out. He sold a couple of things, and I think he’s learned to regret it. He sold Twitter. I think he regrets it because he’s starting a competitor. And he could have probably done this whenever he wanted, John. For him, building out a second app of the same type, probably not that complicated. All right, but let’s move on. Because now we’re talking about one that I do love, Pinterest. Okay, and then I have lots of experience with it.
I have 23,000 followers on my Pinterest account, something like that. I don’t actually know.
I’m going to look right now. Yeah, I’m going to do something with that this year because it’s the same. The fundamental thing is what is Pinterest? Well, basically, it’s visually based. You put images up, You can build, I forgot the terminology, categories of different images, and you can share your links again, and you’re not going to be penalized. So it’s another great platform, the driving traffic to your website. Because like I say, if you’re going to invest money on content and you haven’t got the money to utilize Facebook meta or Google ads. These alternative platforms you can use as a strategy to invest in content on your website and then drive traffic to it. So It’s another blue sky. You won’t get penalized for the links that you have when you pin something. And I think they are still slowly growing, and And they get enough traffic, so it makes a difference. Back over to you, Rob.
I have always loved Pinterest. I had an automated tool, which I’m trying to log in right now and realizing that it’s not letting me log in. So it would appear that my automated tool that I use for so long is probably defunct. It would appear that way. But what I’m going to say to you is that before it got defunct, that tool grew my audience from zero to 18,000 followers. Most likely the reason it’s defunct is eventually, Pinterest realized that automated AI tools were ruining their ecosystem and probably figured out a way to shut them down. But in the meantime, I It worked very well for me in terms of what I was ultimately trying to do, which was create a following and get people to go back to the inbound RM website. Because here’s an interesting thing about Pinterest, John. Still to this very day, one of the very, very… It’s now run by a Google executive taken directly from the Google C-suite team. And the reason he went to Pinterest in the first place is that Pinterest is the only social platform that is image-based, that is popular, that allows communication between the platform and the search engines.
What does that mean? That means that you can use Pinterest for SEO, for search engine optimization. Everything on here is readable, viewable. If you get an image that leads to a thousand people going to your website. That means that you’ve got backlinking and traffic from a high domain authority, or a high authority domain, which essentially means that without question, Pinterest What is the most valuable social media platform for SEO that is out there. Not even a close second.
I think you find that Blue sky is similar. It allows Google to track it.
We will find out. I haven’t seen anything I’m not thinking about it so far, but I hope that that’s the case. That it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the case, but Twitter was never like that, John.
No, it wasn’t.
We’ll see if he decides to fix that with Blue Sky. But one way or the other, and if he does decide to fix that with Blue Sky, I will tell you all right now that I’ll pay a hell of a lot more attention to it. Because when the search engines can read something, collecting data and understanding user behavior is the golden ticket in the information age, which is the age that we’re in right now. So these guys that are blocking down and locking out their platforms and not allowing data to be transferred are only interested in you being on that platform and basically thriving and surviving there. I hate that, mechanic John. Always have, always will. That somebody’s stealing all your information and not even bothering to give you all the value for it. They’re saying, We’re going to collect all that user data, but we’re keeping it on the platform. Nobody else gets to see it but us. And we’re going to use it directly to sell advertising back to you. So we’re going to take your interesting conversations and then monetize them effectively. If you give me something back, I don’t mind. Twitter does a little They can give you a lot back if you build an audience, but it requires so much work.
Whereas with Google, it doesn’t require nearly as much work. They proliferate your information everywhere, and they give you a big return on it, in my opinion. But moving on. Number three on the list is Mastodon. I’ve heard a lot about this. I have a lot of friends on it. I’ve done nothing with it.
How about you? I’ve chosen, it’s probably going to be Blue sky, Mastodon. So basically, Mastodon uses the same protocol, this IT protocol, but it’s more techy. You have to set up your own server. That doesn’t mean you need a server, actual physical box, because you got things like drop-its and cloud servers, but you do need to set it up. And funny enough, with Blue sky, you can set up your own server with Blue Sky, but they just made it… They provided a hosted form of Blue Sky that just makes it easier for non-techies to use it. Where Mastodon, you just got to go through more loops to get it set up. But it does mean that you really do have ownership, and you have to join different Mastodon feeds, and it’s just a a little bit more clunky. I think they’re based in Germany, the people, or Russian. I think the Eliphid is the… I think, I can’t pronounce his name, but I think the founder, one of the founders of it is Russian. I don’t think it’s growing like Blue Sky, but that might change. I think I added it because if you are trying to build an audience or group and you can use it, it’s the one that you have the most control over.
Okay. I don’t know much about Mastodon. Actually, I know next to nothing. And truth is, it’s very low on my list of apps or tools to explore currently. I would be more interested in Blue Sky for sure. But We’re going to go to break, and when we come back, we’ve got Reddit, Telegram, and Snapchat. We’re going to have conversations about each one of these. I have a lot to say about Telegram. I’ve used Telegram. It’s one of the few that I have, and I have various No specific opinions about Telegram, about what’s going on there. But we’ll cover all of that when we come back. All right? Stay tuned, everybody. Three, two, one. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. It’s episode My number 460, my absolutely fearless co-host and I are talking about what are the hot alternative, hot social media platforms for 2025. I think that if it was me, and I don’t generally comment on this shit, but I’m going to say that I would probably go with this slightly, what’s all the buzz about with social media platforms that aren’t Facebook or something like that. I would change the name of the title because the way that people talk to me about stuff is slightly different than the way the title is.
It’s more like… I don’t think the people, John, can really have a proper discussion about, let’s say, bailing on Facebook. I can’t just bail on Facebook.
No, I’m not suggesting that. I’m just saying that I think, unless you’re going to, this is just my opinion, unless you’re going to put money into it, I think as a medium to build an audience and drive traffic to your website, unless you’re going to cough up some money, I think Meta ain’t going to play ball with you unless you’re prepared to set up a Facebook group and invest time in that. But then obviously, they’ve got a track record. They’re always changing how things work on Facebook.
So that’s They are changing how things work, but they did just come off their most profitable year ever. Nobody’s hurting. Facebook has complete control over a certain piece of the market, and I know why they do. You can’t just close. Once you’ve got 10 years of conversation on a thing, you can’t necessarily just close it down. It depends on who you are and what you’re doing. But even on my personal account, John, I’m really I don’t consider myself a social media guy, but I have generated on my personal account 1,700 followers who are not necessarily my friends. Now, it’s not a very big number, but my profile identifies me as a digital creator I’ve gone through the 1,700 people. I’ll give you an example. I have a very famous photographer that follows me, and I don’t know why. You must be interested in what I have to say. I’m not a photographer. I don’t take that many pictures. But And I think that he has similar social ideology thoughts as I do, and I’m not political on my thing, but I do talk about philosophy a lot, stuff like that. And so do I want to lose all those connections that could become something at some point?
Probably not. I’ve spent very casually 10 years building them. It would be crazy for me to stop being on Facebook.
I’m not suggesting that you should do that. I just think that you might be best to diversify a bit. But there we go. Shall we go on to the next one then?
If we must. Reddit.
Yeah.
So Reddit is a big one. I actually do use Reddit a lot, but I use it as an SEO tool. How do you use it, if at all?
Well, it’s like all these. I think who would believe in 2024 that a Quisar forum network would come boring back? But Google have decided, because of the world of AI, to promote Reddit content highly. And it’s a forum-based experience. It’s various topics. You can set up your own topics, and it just It’s a lot of… If I was trying to build influence in the area around real estate, like I say, I would look at Princis, I would look at Blue Sky, and I would definitely, in my quiver of social social media platforms, I definitely would try and build a group or be part of a group that talked about real estate in a particular city area and postcontent And you can also link content you got on your website. And it’s definitely something I would look at if I was trying to build influence as somebody that knew something about property in my local area.
I use Reddit for SEO exclusively. I every once in a while, I find myself on some Reddit threads because it’s a good microblogging platform and it’s still like a fairly… It’s like 4chan. It’s a fairly organic environment. You can still find some interesting people saying some interesting things. What I really love Reddit for, though, John, is become one of the best SEO platforms that is out there because the links carry a lot of value. It’s easy to get followers. If anything, so Google is looking at a lot of user behavior to add value to links and stuff like that. Now it’s getting harder and harder and harder and harder to fool the search engine. You don’t just have to have a link. It helps if the link has traffic coming through it. Now it’s like if you want to make a valuable post on another platform and then that goes viral and then they a whole bunch of traffic to your website. That is actually a great SEO tactic. Reddit is really good for that. So is Medium, but Reddit’s better. All right, let’s go on to Telegram.
Yes, Telegram. Yes, developed by a couple of Russians, or one Russian that became a French citizen. And I think he’s still facing charges by the French government. All that might have been dropped, but I think he’s got some with the French government. But it is very popular with a particular set. I’ve never used it. It has this group feature. And I just think in real estate, if you’re trying to build influence, and there’s a telegraph group talking about property in that, and it’s around your particular city. It could be something worthwhile joining. Once again, to build influence in it?
I have seen this used for investors. I have never seen it used on the residential real estate wholesale site. I’m just going out there and trying to be an agent. I’ve never really seen it for that. I’ve seen it in investor groups lots, crypto lots. It’s a secure place to have conversations, and for some reason it’s been embraced by the business community more than, let’s say, Discord and other tools that are similar in type. But Telegram is really been well used by certain business communities. And I love it for that. I do. It’s features very similar to… There’s another one out there that is also a… It’s a secure place to have conversations.
It’s encrypted, isn’t it? It’s supposed not to be broken. Who knows how true that is, but it’s supposed to be. There are things about using it that you got to understand to make it truly encrypted. But I think investor groups and certain people that are buying property, if you got that group and you can join it, it might be worth the effort.
I like Telegram. I’m going to agree with you. I’m going to say if you haven’t checked it out or if you haven’t checked out some of the conversations happening there, it might be worth a peruzal. The first way that I would get into using it would be to find some interesting groups and join them and just see how people are leveraging the platform and decide whether or not it’s for you or not. I didn’t think I would appreciate it, but security-minded, a surprising amount of people who are security-minded, who are actually credible, go on Telegram. You also have a lot of scam artists. So as with all these platforms, you have to be careful. Of course, no platform carries as many scam artists on it as WhatsApp right now, but that’s okay.
All right. Or Twitter, or the X, maybe.
Right. Snapchat.
Yeah. Well, it’s still pretty big. It’s the sleep Looking giant, really, of the two founders. They’ve done well out of it. It has this feature called Stories. It’s a bit like what you get on Instagram Instagram. They only last for 24 hours and then they disappear. But does it really matter? A lot of social media, you get the initial pop and it’s just gone, isn’t it? And I’m thinking it does have a quite a large user base. I haven’t used it myself, but I think it’s something if you’ve got content and I just think it’s really hard to get going on a platform like Instagram. I think you said, but you’ve had some examples that come on your radar where people have got a lot of success on Instagram. So maybe you can look at Instagram, but also look at Snapchat as well.
Well, the average demographic for Snapchat is between 13 and 34 years old. You name somebody in the US that’s between 13 and 34 that owns a It’s not really where I would go to find our users for residential real estate marketing. Now, having said that, India has the largest number of Snapchat users, followed by the United States. Snapchat is a interesting concept, and not to be dismissive, it shouldn’t be dismissed because newer, younger people become older and it’s not very focused on. I think that for me, the recommendation would be Hey, listen, if you are a bleeding edge technology user and you happen to just have gotten your real estate license and you’re new and you’re young and you’re looking for an edge over other people, I would say, why not try Snap? Because there’s very likely very, very, very few realtors trying to do anything on there. Just because I’m saying, Hey, I don’t get how the application would be. We had a TikTok guy on here a long-ass time ago, and he was already making money on TikTok. I I’m sure he’s probably made 50 to 100 sales off TikTok.
I agree with you, and I don’t agree with you. It depends on where you are. If you’re in LA and the type of person you described, it’s worth a punt. If you’re in Portland, if you’re in Seattle, if you’re in a major city, it might be worth looking at to see if you could get an audience. A group of people in LA are in their early 30s and have a lot of money. There are a lot of people in our way who have two heightlies to rub together. It just depends.
It just depends. And you’re not wrong about the demographic. And so we leave it up to you. I respect the opinion that Snap wouldn’t be the first place that I would go to most of the time. However, if I were in the circumstances I was describing to you and I was looking for an edge, I absolutely would look at Snap because of all the channels that we talk about at this point, because we and everybody else have been talking about them for so long, they’re established. Even on YouTube now, I’m noticing competitors in most cities. It didn’t used to be that way. It is that way now. Instagram is very saturated, and so is almost every platform we discuss. It’s not a new idea. Snap, that might be different.
I’m glad you put it on the list. It is certainly something I would like to think about. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll wrap it up. That’s our show for today. We sincerely appreciate you joining us. Before we go any further, I’m going to drop this idea in your hat if you’re listening to the show. Hey, listen. John and I both have free consultations. We want to sell you stuff, but only if you need it.
Take advantage of the fact that you can find some guys who know a reasonable amount about marketing. If you don’t remember a sensible amount, you should reach out to one or the other of us and ask a few questions. Marketing is one of those places where you make a mistake, and you could take your year, whereas a few more conversations may help steer you in the right direction. Having said that, John, if somebody did want to, let’s say, reach out to you, how would you like them to do that?
You need to go on Snapchat. No, I didn’t do that. Go to the mail-right.com website, and you can book a free chat with these right in the top navigation. Or you could use Telegram to get hold of me. I don’t know.
You could punt a little I have a message on Snapchat to John.
What about you? I suppose it’s Pinterest. For you, isn’t it? I know. I need to find your Reddit, don’t I?
I turned off my Pinterest notifications for messages so long ago. I can’t even remember when that was. No, no, no, Pinterest. All right, ladies and gentlemen, if you’d like to contact me, do so at robert@inboundrem. Com. You can also go to Inboundrem. That’s the word Inbound, rabbitedwardmichael.com. You can also look at the About Pages Services pages. Not only are there links to my calendar, but you can also find case studies and pricing of the services if you’re curious. If you’re not, if you want that free consultation, email me at robert@inbounderam. Com. I’ll happily set up a chat with you. Just mention the podcast, and I will do everything I can to help you. All right. Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you, John. Take us offline.
We discuss with our special guest Greg McDaniels the importance of quality photography connected to being a successful real estate Read more
Agents need to do more than blogging to get results in 2016. We discuss this during this show with our two Read more
Greg McDaniel literally began his career at his father’s knee. It would not be an exaggeration to say he has Read more
Personal agent photography is really important but usually semi-forgotten. We have a great guest "Preston Zeller" on the show who recently Read more
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Discover the best video content ideas for realtors in 2025. Boost your real estate marketing with these engaging and effective strategies.
In the fast-paced world of real estate, staying ahead means embracing innovative video content strategies. This video dives into the top video content ideas specifically tailored for realtors in 2025. From virtual property tours to engaging client testimonials, discover how to effectively connect with your audience and showcase properties like never before. Don’t miss out on these essential tips—watch the video now to elevate your marketing game.
#1 – Short talking head videos
#2 – Long-form market update videos
#3 – New building and subdivision overviews
#4 – New Listings
#5 – Wondering what $_____will get your in (your city?)
#6 – (FAQ) Frequently ask question videos
#7 – Schools and other local information targeted at those who are moving from out-of-state
#8 – The latest interest rates and financial news
#9 – Pro and Con videos connected to your areas, town, and city
#10 – 7 things to consider before buying in your?
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. It’s episode number 460 of the MailRight podcast. We are so excited to bring you something we’ve never done before. He says, Ironically, we are We’re going to talk about video. But it is the first time in 2025. That is that we’ve dedicated an episode. Before we jump into it, I am joined by my amazing co-host, the founder of The Mailright Show, the founder of many businesses, the founder of the WP Tonic podcast, the one, the only, Jonathan Dinwood. What would you like to say about yourself, sir?
Thank you so much, Robert. It’s a slightly It’s a slightly different show because we’ve discussed the importance of video quite a bit, but we’re just going to give a little bit of guidance around the different types of video you might consider doing in 2025. I think you’ll get some value from I saw a lot of value from it. Back over to you, Rob.
Okay, so ladies and gentlemen, those of you who like to take notes today, we’re going to give you basically 10 video making tips. Okay, that’s what this really Today’s video making tips. We’re going to start off with number one, and please, if you haven’t already done so, take a moment, take a break, save the podcast, save your notepad because you are going to want to write these down, especially with the subtext, or you’re going to want to save this podcast and come back to it over time. Before we jump into the subject, John, I’m going to add a little oomph to it. I’m going to say that this year, as I’ve started talking to my customers, which I do once a year at the beginning of the year, every year, all my existing customers, in addition to the prospects that I usually talk to. I am full of fresh data about the videos that have actually been producing deals. For those that don’t know, I run an SEO company. I’ve got about 150 very elite clients that are all doing all sorts of vertical, like all sorts of real estate. I am freshly off conversations with about 10 of those customers.
I know what’s working. I know it’s working for them and where it’s working, and we’re going to share it with you as we go along here. Number one, talking head videos. John, why is this on your list, sir?
Well, I think it’s really popular in short No, it’s just on video, stuff that you see on TikTok, shorts on YouTube, Instagram.
Treat me like I’m an idiot. I’m so sorry, that’s the wrong way to say that. Not an idiot. Just pretend I zero about digital. What’s a talking head video?
I do quite a few of them for my other channel where I just look straight into the camera. Okay. And we see those beautiful blue eyes.
Yeah, exactly.
The stunning personality just comes over the camera, doesn’t it? You look straight into the camera and you talk about a subject, minimum editing. It can be for a couple of minutes, like I say, short form will be 30 seconds, and you just got one quick observation, one quick tip. It’s like you’re reporting on the road. If I was doing it as a real estate agent, it’d be just talking about things that happened during the day, things I’ve observed about the local market. But it should be quick, one point, right to the point you looking at the camera.
Okay. What camera would you do this at your desk or using a mobile camera on a gimbal or something? How would you specifically do it?
Both. You can use a webcam, but probably I’d just be using my phone and just looking straight in it. Like we’ve discussed, the main thing is get the sound decent. That’s the main thing that will stop people from watching it is if the sounds rubbish. That’s about the rest of it. Just keep it simple. But obviously, just one topic and get it over in this short form video.
All right. So ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to add a little bit to that talking head videos do a good job. They keep your audience updated. So for those of you who already have an audience or an email marketing list, I might consider doing a talking head video to entertain them. I would absolutely do a talking head video to update my reels. For those of who are a little bit more advanced into social media and you probably are wondering what is the differences or advantage of doing this type of content. I love talking head content. When I have two minutes, I have something important to say that I’ve thought of because I’m ADHD, and I will throw it onto a Talking Head video, I will send it over to my editing team and say, This is a reel, and forget about it. The next thing I know, about a week later, I’m seeing 10, 20, 50 extra views on my channel from what was literally two minutes worth of work for me. They have their place, talking head videos. You can also do long form talking head videos. I only recommend these in the rare case that you are truly an expert in a very defined niche, and you have something extremely important to communicate to your audience, at which point a talking head video becomes low effort, low cost, and high impact.
All right, moving on to number two on John John’s list because John is the producer of the show. He produces the questions. But this does happen to be a subject that I have a lot to contribute with. So long-form market update videos. Oh, boy, do I have a lot to say about this? Let’s let you go first.
Yeah, It’s the opposite, really, of the short form, really detailed, orientated, probably once a month or once a quarter, going into what is really happening in the local market, what What property is selling, what isn’t, what are the market trends? What are the new developers? What are going on in the mortgage market. Just generally where the market is, what type of property is selling, what aren’t, everything thrown in, but long form, 30 minutes plus. Just a load of information. You can also use it to help you formulate your monthly newsletter and throw it in. It all works together. Over to you, Rob.
So some of the greatest realtors in the country by production and some of the best realtors in Canada by production, use this type of update. Ryan Surhont uses this type of update. Tom Ferry uses this type of update. Please do not underestimate the value of your particular voice at like, sent to your clients once a month, a well thought out market update. And when I say well thought out, John hit a whole bunch of really good points about well thought out. You So what type of inventory is moving? Here in California, who is impacted the worst by the fires and how has that impacted how people are communicating with you and what they are asking about? One, people are fascinated. Two, they may be in the same position and may just not have called you. Giving out the solutions you’ve created for others is an incredibly potent market update, and it also does something for you. It allows people the opportunity to create a relationship with you and tune in over and over again, because there’s many people who do only buy a home every 5 or 10 years, if not most. That does not necessarily mean they don’t want to occasionally tune into what like a qualified professional’s opinion is.
That’s where these market updates make beautiful email marketing strategies. You can update them. You can also, as part of your marketing strategy, connect long-form updates with email campaigns to say, subscribe to my YouTube channel. So you’re automatically updated. You can connect social media along with email in terms of campaigns and use long-form videos video updates as the core reason that everybody wants to do this. Just depends on how much time and energy you’re spending and how good at it you’re willing to get. Now, here’s one that’s fire. Okay, FHIR. I have a great story, and I’m going to share it after. John, why don’t you start us off?
Yeah, you’re talking about number 3, new building and subdivision Overall?
I am.
That’s what I’m talking about. Well, got a very static market. It depends on what region you’re doing business in. Obviously, Florida and some other markets are seeing some large changes as we speak. Other areas are seeing prices going up still. Other areas, just static market, not really much activity, but where the activity is, is in new building, new subdivision. Because the big housing builders are offering a lot of inducements to new buyers in basically subsidizing interest for a couple of years and other packages, they have been very aggressive over the last 18 months because they got a lot of housing. They’ve got move, and they’ve got the resources, the financial resources, so they can offer these inducements. So it’s something you should be talking about in your videos. Over to you, Rob.
So Ladies and gentlemen, there are a new and burgeoning type of real estate marketing expert. This expert type is creating landing pages and ideas surrounding only one principle, which is working with and targeting new development. Now, I have been hearing about this for the last couple of years, ever since inventory started to get tight. And I had a client call me and ask me about this type of idea. We talked about it for a while, and it turned out that there was a brand new development with just a sign on the side of a field, and it was 20, 30 miles from his house. And he’s like, What do you think, Robert? You think I should go out there this early on? There’s nothing there. They haven’t even created the brochures, but it was an established developer with a history. So I’m like, yeah, why don’t we find out what will happen? Go out there with a camera and take a picture of the fields and paint a picture. Get creative. Say, based on these past developments, here’s what I would expect and how this would turn out. So he went out there with his sister, and it’s just him in front of a freaking farm field, John, and a sign and a camera.
That’s it. There’s nothing. I mean, there is not It was a pre-development work happening. Nothing. A field. And we threw it on his site. And here’s what we were thinking. All the developer done has put up a sign next to a freeway. That’s it. That’s all they said. New development coming in, whatever, 2026, right? Some years away. No other advertising, no other conversation around it. So the thought was, well, let’s see how hot real estate really is for new development because it’s just a Really, that’s the whole thing. So we threw it up on his website. And I’m not joking, John. This is a guy I’ve been doing business with for four years. We have already doubled the traffic on his website from this strategy, from the single page. He has hundreds of pages on the site. I’ve never seen a home run like this ever. There’s no ancillary support work. There’s no TV commercials, there’s no radio, there’s no anything. There is a sign on a freeway and him. That’s it. And yet we’ve got 3-500 people per month coming in to his website. Why? Might all of you ask? The developer hasn’t even bothered to put up a page on their own website.
So everybody’s thinking that he knows something that the developer themselves does not. And needless to say, he doesn’t. But here’s what he’s doing. He is getting out there and establishing a relationship with everybody before there’s any other marketing, before there’s any competition. He’s the first voice to market, and he did a great job on painting a picture based on his opinions about past developers. Now he’s in front of everybody, and it’s going to be like 20,000 home. It’s a staggering It’s a fairly large development, but it’s also long, long, long plan. It’s like a 10-year plan. He’s out there in front of everybody in this 10-year plan. It is very possible, John, that this one little move is making the rest of his career. Maybe it could. Worked right. Do not underestimate the power of some of these ideas that we’re giving you. Application and how you apply it is everything. New Listings is number four on our list. So, John, help us out.
Well, it’s the old favorite. That’s the great thing of being a real estate agent or is people can’t get enough information about property. They just can’t get enough of it. And people can’t get enough about new listings in the up market, down market. They still watch stuff. They still want to know what’s new on the market. Talking about new listings, showing is the price, if it’s a listing listing that you’re representing, or it could be listings that you’re not representing. You can still talk about them. It’s probably easier to be brutally honest when you’re talking about other people’s listings. Over to you, Robert.
Well, you know what? As long as you can get creative, listing data is always one of the greatest lead opportunities that you’ll ever have, and it doesn’t have to be your listing. That’s the beautiful part It’s not about being a real estate agent. If you have a license in somebody’s house is up for sale, generally speaking, you’ve got permission to go and market the hell out of it. You can do whatever you want with it, just like Zillow does. Everybody is creating a lot of leads off listings. Here’s It’s a big thing, though. A lot of what’s been done has been done, and people don’t pay attention to it. It is just another tree falling in the forest and nobody hears it. You’ve got to get a little creative. I’ve talked a lot of times on this podcast about a creative 19-year-old that I met that made about $300,000 his first year in real estate, doing nothing but taking other people’s listings and marketing them. What did he do? He took his phone, he went to a listing somebody else’s. He just started to pick and choose places in the MLS that he liked. Then he drove there with his car and he filmed the fast forward video.
He just used an app on his phone so you go like he’s doing cops, all all the way through the house, real fast. Then he posted it to Instagram and tagged it. Nobody else was doing it. I still think nobody else is doing it. It just looked interesting. It’s the same listing. You can see the pictures online. He didn’t do anything different. As a matter of fact, one could argue he did it worse. He just had an interesting approach to it. I talked to him, he had done 19 transactions He’s using that as his only lead source. Nothing else. Crazy, John. All right, number five.
Should we go for a break first?
Should we? You’re probably right. Yeah, we should. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to be right back, and we’re going to somehow blaze through number 6 because John and I suck at doing this stuff fast. But we’re going to try. And so when we come back, what you’ve got ahead of you is FAQs in school. Actually, you know what? You’ve got five more ideas. We’ll be right back. Stay tuned. Three, two, one. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining the show. Today’s show is sponsored by MailRight and InboundREM. We’re thrilled to have you. Welcome back. Today’s remaining subjects, we’re going to talk about six more ideas about how to create really great video content for realtors in 2025. So I’m wondering what X amount of budget will get in your city. I love this idea. I actually don’t know anybody who’s applying it. Did you capture this from somebody specific?
Yeah, I can’t remember who it was. I did it, looking at other people’s content and that. And I just think it’s a great idea because everybody’s got a budget. And if you can give them some examples of what a certain budget can get you in the market at the present moment, that’s really watchable. Over to you, Rob.
And I love listening from a sales perspective I would think that this idea is a high conversion idea. Giving somebody a specific answers to what 500,000 will get them, touring and then editing a video. I think this type of video would probably require a little bit of editing because a really well done one is going to be jumping into a couple of house types that you could buy for about seven. Here in LA, it would be 800,000 minimum. But whatever the number is median where you’re at, that would be what you would do a few different examples of what it could buy you and maybe even go so far as to get a couple of styles of houses such as Mediterranean, Spanish. We have all that in LA, in California, John. I don’t know if that would work for every single market. But if it does work, then you want to say you can buy a cabin for 500,000, you can buy a condo for 500,000. It’s a great idea. If it was me, I would have a channel that would have everything. Eventually, I would have a video that would cover the entire budget range that I typically sold, from 500,000 all the way up to 1.
5 million. I’m doing a $100,000 increments. All right, FAQs, Frequently Asked Questions. I love these because they’re so easy, and I’m going to jump We’ll jump right into it. Ladies and gentlemen, a little known hack when it comes to everything is you can always find what the most commonly asked questions are, especially in today’s world of AI. All you need to do is enter a search. An example would be questions people ask about buying a condo in Margaritaville. I’m picking a community in Florida that I’m familiar with, but obviously, it’s very far away from me, and I don’t know the answer to these. What we get immediately is a whole bunch of drop-downs. Are Margaritaville Homes a Good Investment? That’s the number one than people ask, because what you see is Google puts a thing there that says people also ask, and then you get a couple of blog posts, and then you get Reddit. Then all the questions right now are, are Margaritaville Homes a good investment? There’s three or four of them. So obviously, the number one thing that people talk about is, are Margarita Homes a good investment? You can make a video around that.
So easy to do FAQs and start with the number one question. All right, John, over to you.
Now, I got to have you in the same. Shall we go on to the next one?
Oh, yeah. Schools and other local information targeted those who are moving out of state. Well, I obviously took up the microphone for a while, so why don’t you start us off?
Yeah, to keep it short. It’s another natural, isn’t it? If people are thinking of moving into area, either they’re moving state in state or they’re normally moving out from outside the state, or they’re moving into the city or whatever. They want to know the schools, they want to know about the local employers, the local facilities, I want to know about the area. It’s just a natural for a real estate agent, isn’t it? Over to you, Robert.
All right, so schools and other information. So once again, I did this a long time ago with a guy by the name of Raymond Petkevis, and what we did is we went to a school called the Applicutimic School district. We grabbed the camera, we managed to make an appointment with the assistant principal because you had to have permission to come on the campus. We sat down and talked for a film of video. Six years later, it’s still one of the most searched videos for Applicutimic. Yeah, no joke. We just sat there, talked to her for 20, 30 minutes, and it’s still ranking and ranking his website. This is a great idea, especially for tight communities. Number eight, the latest interest rates and financial news. Yeah.
Well, you just had that yesterday with the Fed. People can’t get enough of it. And in a market where people are very sensitive for interest rates, talking about this is a natural. Over to you, Rob.
You could have a podcast to all the mortgage brokers that are part of my social groups and such. I mean, dude, they’re online almost every other day. There’s so much news related to interest rates, not the least of which is interest rates come down and loans go up. There’s so much dialog around what’s going on in this particular vertical. I would have to say that if you are even slightly numerically inclined, it would be the easiest thing in the world to create a couple of videos of the talking head format or sitting at your desk and just making some commentary about these notes. And by the way, if you decide to do that, please explain to me how the prime rate can go down and everybody’s rates can go up. I’d love to hear 10 different versions of that answer. All right, number eight. What?
It’s number nine, actually.
Oh, number nine. My bad. Pro and con videos connected to your area, town, and city. All right, Tom.
Yeah, Well, it’s another favorite, isn’t it? People love to hear the pros and cons of a particular area. They just love it. There’s a few of those about Northern Nevada, and I just I don’t think people can get enough of them back over to you, Rob.
I agree. Pros and cons is one of my favorite video formats. It’s neutral, so you’re never really tinking anybody. I use pros and cons formats when I go Traveling, I wrote a review on The Devil’s Pulpit, and it’s got 25, 30,000 people that have read that review so far. It’s a feature in Wales of all places, John. Strangely, I did pros and cons. That made it the most read review that there was because the pros were an unbelievable scenery, but the cons were you were traipsing through people’s cow fields that were actually more bog than field. So the getting to the spot was insanely complicated. And it didn’t say that when we was like, Oh, it’s a short walk through some fields. I’m like, Okay. And That’s why you do pros and cons. All right, number 10. Seven things to consider before buying in your question mark.
Area, town, city. It’s another can’t go wrong, really. A list of the things. People love lists, generally, don’t they? If you can knock through seven to consider before buying, especially aimed at the new buyer, the very inexperienced buyer, I think they can get value from that. And it’s just a natural, isn’t it, Rob?
It is indeed. And I agree. Listicles at one point, there’s a joke on some show that I watched, America Dad or something like that. It was basically saying, oh, my God, all the internet marketing is anymore is listicles. That’s it. That’s the full scope of what we do. And they’re not wrong. I’ve got five blog posts that have reached 500 elements because every time And like my blogging team looks around, they go, well, somebody beat us. They have 200 slogans or 200 this or 200 memes. And so we’re going to do 500. And I’m like, oh, my God, this is not I can, but okay. All right, list, but they work. That’s the thing. They work. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s been a fast podcast today. I think we’re going to wrap it up. For those of you who have the interest in some new ideas and would like some expert advice, I’m going to recommend that you talk to me or John. So, John, if you’d like somebody to touch base with you, how would you like them to do that?
Yeah, just quickly before, if anybody says that they got no idea to make a video on, you just need to listen to this video. There’s plenty of ideas out there on the subjects of making your video. That isn’t the problem. And if you want the easiest way, just go to the mel-right. Com website. Have a look what we got offer. And if you want to chat about anything, you can book a quick chat with me, and it’s totally free. Back over to you, Rob.
All right, beautiful. I also have lots of resources on the inboundrem. Com, and if you’d like to check those out or schedule a call, and I will be happy to spend some time and walk you through what I feel is best based upon wherever you’re at with your marketing strategy. You can do that at inboundrem. Com/aboutabout, A-B-O-U-T, and you’ll find a way to touch base with me and learn more about me and my company. Thank you, everybody, for tuning into the show. I’m so excited and happy and thankful. It’s been a hell of a week for me. I’ve been getting my butt kicked, which means that I get more grateful every day for the things that I’ve got. I hope your days are great. I hope all of you are doing well. John, I really wish that for you. Whenever you’re ready, take us offline, sir.
We discuss with our special guest Greg McDaniels the importance of quality photography connected to being a successful real estate Read more
Agents need to do more than blogging to get results in 2016. We discuss this during this show with our two Read more
Greg McDaniel literally began his career at his father’s knee. It would not be an exaggeration to say he has Read more
Personal agent photography is really important but usually semi-forgotten. We have a great guest "Preston Zeller" on the show who recently Read more
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Are you ready to supercharge your real estate business in 2025? This show reveals innovative techniques to generate many monthly leads using online platforms. We’ll dive into effective marketing strategies, essential tools, and best practices that can set you apart from the competition. Stay ahead of the game and elevate your lead generation efforts—tune in to watch the full video.
#1 – The truth about real estate lead generation and why only 2% of leads are hot immediately.
#2 – How to structure your CRM for efficient lead management.
#3 – The importance of building relationships, asking the right questions, and establishing your brand as a trusted adviser.
#4 – How to work with your sphere of influence and past clients for quicker conversions.
#5 – Steps to convert cold prospects through genuine, helpful outreach.
#6 – The power of a high-touch, value-packed weekly newsletter.
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to episode number 459. Today’s title is We do these titles to get your attention. It’s how to generate loads of monthly real estate leads online in 2025. Ultimately, we’re having this conversation and giving you the title of this email because if your lead generation hasn’t changed over the last year, then you’re one of maybe 1% of realtors who haven’t taken a complete smack in the face regarding lead generation. We’re going to give you some ideas about how to ramp up in areas that you hadn’t thought of or maybe this will be a reminder that this does work, always works, and should work for you. All right, without any further ado, John, could you please introduce yourself? You are the master of all things related to this podcast. He is the guy that puts the subjects together. I usually rift based on 35 years of sales experience and some about 16, 17 years’ worth of SEO experience.
But this is definitely something that John has been extremely passionate about since the very moment that we met, which is CRMs and CRM efficiency. Why don’t you both introduce yourself and explain why you’ve been so passionate on this subject since as long as I’ve known you.
All right. Thanks, Robert. I’m the joint founder of mail-write. Com, MailRight, and we produce leads through Facebook advertising with an integrated system, a website, easy to use CRM, and a load of other digital functionality that you get in one great package, one great price. And to find more, all you have to do is go over to the Melright website, and you can book a free trip with me. Back over to you, Robert.
You didn’t explain why you’re so passionate about CRMs.
I’m not sure I’m passionate. I think people are in interested, and I think it’s important. But it won’t, having a great CRM won’t generate leads. Just having it is using it the right way. And that’s one of the things we’re going to be talking about, aren’t we, Robert? Yep.
So first on this list is the truth about real estate lead generation. I’m just reading on John’s list here, ladies and gentlemen, the truth about real estate lead generation while in 2% of leads are hot right away. And this is a subject that I could talk all day on, and I have on my YouTube channel and other places online because the idea… But I also feel like any professional salesperson knows this, John. Like anybody who’s been in sales for a while knows this. The people that don’t know this are people that haven’t been in sales for very long. Because if you’re in sales for a long time, especially if you’re an incredibly good salesperson, you know that you can be the best salesperson in the entire But if the person that you’re talking to is simply not ready to make the decision, especially in real estate, which is a huge decision and requires many steps to become somebody that’s ready to move, ready to go. So the 2% of people ready right away, I think, refers to the idea in lead generation that you get a lead and they’re like, I am 30 days away from moving and I’ve got an approved loan and this is my budget.
Let’s go. Is that how you perceive that question? You probably took it from somewhere, but is that how you recognize that question?
Kind of, and I see why you’ve given that outline, but I had more of a focus around digital lead generation I think we’ve discussed this before, the misconceptions of what is a lead. I think some of that misunderstanding has been generated by those that are often lead generative platforms intentionally. But I also think in the real estate industry, those that are utilizing these type of platforms think that somebody filling in a form, downloading a lead magnet, that everybody that does that or signs up on your website is going to be a hot lead that’s going to straight away generate a possible sell or buy or generate some form of commission. And that just isn’t the truth, Robert.
No, it’s not. It’s not the truth. It’s not even close to the truth. And these are very, very, very, very good points. I’ve sold a lot of stuff over a long period of time, and in the last 20 to 30 years of my career, I’ve been somewhere towards number one or two at any sales organization that I’ve been part of. My philosophy is not complicated. You get on the phone, you find people who have the general qualifications of what a customer looks like to you. Then you build relationships, and relationships are what bear fruit. The same thing would hold true even if you’re doing hammering out calls, if you’re an opener for a real estate agent, a closer for a real estate agent, it doesn’t matter. You’re looking for people that you connect with, and then you keep track of those people. Then you build a schedule for yourself every single day, where on the phone for a few hours a day, filled with people that you know are qualified, that you’ve had conversations with before, that you know there’s a relationship and there’s some movement towards them making a move. Then you start to follow up, and you use the follow up not as an excuse to try to make a sale, but as an excuse to try to generate a better relationship, because that will absolutely lead to the sale every single time.
There’s a guy out there by the name of Harvey McKay, Jonathan, who is one of my favorite, favorite authors of all time, because he doesn’t teach tactics. He’s more similar to Dale Carnegie in how to win friends and influence people. And his methods are so simple and so human affirming people would have a hard time understanding them as sales tactics. Because what he does is he memorizes things about the people that he means, such as what’s their alma mater, when’s their birthday. He used to develop a file around people that he was speaking to. Now, he made sure that the decision makers he was tracking all this information for were extremely relevant to him. So he thought big, aimed high. But at the same time, he knew the secretary’s name, her birthday. Does she have a picture of a shitsu on her desk? Because this is back in the days in which you went to somebody’s house. But these days, you could do the same thing using social media. You find out a lot about somebody, you find the areas that are mutual areas of interest, and then you open up dialogs and relate to them on those fronts, and you focus on areas of synchronicity, not opposition, and you build a strong relationship.
And if you have enough strong relationships, you’re going to have a strong sales portfolio. You’re going to have a lot of sales. That is where I think this This is the whole conversation. Here’s how to generate loads of leads. Because you’re not wrong, man. I know clients, I know real estate agents that are doing incredibly well, but that’s because really experienced talented salespeople like Ricky Karruth do incredibly well in down markets. Why? They’re still getting on the phone and doing the same thing they always do. The people are less inclined to respond to digital advertising. They’re sitting on the fence. So what happens when you reach out to them directly? You have a chance to get them off the fence. That’s what Ricky does, and he’s losing less people to impulse decisions. So he’s got the people out there just sitting on the fence, raring and waiting for somebody to tell them what to do in a topsy-turvy market. It’s a fucking brilliant opportunity. Sorry for the language. You go ahead and read number two on the list. My screen isn’t moving, so I’m actually asking it because I can’t see that. Sure.
How to structure your CRM for efficient lead management. I would say, Keep it simple. Unless you’re doing a lot of digital paid advertisement and you got somebody in an organization that’s either spending half their time or is a full-time digital advertisement online manager, I think, and you got a central person that’s farming the leads out to various individuals in your boutique brokerage. If you’re doing this individually or you’ve got a virtual assistant or some form of an assistant, keeping the CRM system as simple as possible. And I think it doesn’t matter what terminology you use, but I would keep it to a free stage level. Those that are going to buy in the next three months, those that might buy or sell in the next 6-12 months, and those that aren’t going to buy or sell in a 12-month period. And you might add a fourth, which our previous clients. But I’ll leave that to your feedback, Robert.
All of that sounds great. Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve used tons of CRMs, massive amounts of them. And generally speaking, I have a strikingly simple way to manage my contacts. I learned a long time ago that my brain works better when I have everybody I’m I was to call on a single screen. No reminders, no pop-ups, none of that bullshit. So what I generally do is I go to… Well, let’s see here. I’m trying to see if I could share and do this, but I may not be able to figure out how to find the right page. Hubspot reorganized itself, and it’s not as simple as it once was. They think it is, but I hate I fucking hate these CRMs when they go through and they reorganize everything after you’ve got all this ages and ages of experience working with a certain UX, and then all of a sudden they change it and go, It’s going to be more efficient. You’re like, Oh, great. Thank you. Because now that only takes me a year to realize your efficiency. Ladies and gentlemen, and that’s my main thought about all of this, John, using CRMs, it’s like HubSpot is the best CRM out there, but you guys all just heard my frustration with it.
They’ve changed the UX, and I still don’t know where everything is. They think they simplified it, but I got used to it the other way. I had years and years of using it the other way, so they just upended my user experience. Nobody ever asked me if I wanted my user experience changed. And so I didn’t. I don’t. Once I learned something, I don’t want it changed. So what I generally use is I actually use Google Calendar or Outlook, and I create just a list of people, like I throw it into a calendar and just port them day to day and just take them, throw them into another calendar. It’s CRMs and everything. If you’re a really, really great salesperson, mostly overcomplicate a very simple process. Give me a list of people to call. That’s it. That’s it. Other CRM efficiencies such as email management, managing messages. If you’re a really good salesperson, you don’t want most of this stuff, John. I don’t want a machine sending out template emails to people I have just busted my ass building a personal relationship with because one bad pro forma templated email can destroy the sense of importance that that person feels with their connection with you.
And the very second you make them feel like a number is the very second you lose the opportunity.
I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t quite agree with you because obviously, MailRight, we have a landing page system that works with Facebook. Either we run the Facebook adverts for you. If you want to, you can do it yourself. You get a landing page system, and then it will automatically send out text messages or emails, and you can customize all the ones that we provide and put your own system in. So I stand in the middle road, but I do understand where you’re coming from, where people, there are providers that say, we’ve got this follow through system and you don’t have to customize it at all, and it will get the results and it’s all been scientifically tested and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I don’t really believe that. These are only tools, and they can be abused. And I think with AI, which I really love, it’s made a difference to me personally, but I also see it being totally abused as well. So that’s my two pennies.
Okay.
He’s writing this down, folks, I think.
Yeah.
He’s going to hold it against me forever, folks.
I just realized that we came up with another subject for a video, and I’ve also realized that when I come up with these ideas, if I don’tif I don’t write them down in the moment, send them to somebody on my team, that they won’t ever happen. And this was a good one because I’ve realized in the answering to this question, John, in my experience, while realtors tend to be very hard workers, they don’t work hard in the digital arena. What they do is if you and I create a template system for them and say, This is an outline, I’m a framework, but you need to fill it in with your own information to customize it, to personalize it. Well, they generally don’t. Almost 98% don’t. They say, Oh, it’s not worth the time. It’s not this, not that. Or people say funnels work. I’ve never… Whatever, whatever, whatever. More people fall towards the antiquated form of real estate salesperson that I’m describing to you than a digital marketer, which is why we talk about it and why we have a podcast. It’s worth talking about. People can listen to 100 of these shows before they’re willing to spend 10 hours learning how to customize Facebook follow-up systems or CRMs or whatever else it is that we’re talking about.
Which leads very nicely into number three, which we’re going to cover in a second here. But before we do, number three, we’re going to dig a little bit more into the value of building relationships because digital tools are only as good as the relationship that they surround, that they support. That’s it. At the best, at the very, very highest level, digital tools and digital marketing can open a door for you into a communication with somebody. But there’s this misconception that the digital is going to build the entire relationship for you. And while it can, it takes a very long time for that to happen. I know I’m an inbound marketer. It’s exactly what I do, but it’s not fast. It takes a long time to build a strong relationship without ever having to talk to somebody. We’re going to cover some of those interesting points when we come back. Stay tuned, everybody. Thanks for tuning in in the first place. We really appreciate it. Go ahead and do us a favor and thumbs up wherever you’re listening to this podcast. Yeah. All right. We’ll be right back. Three, two, one. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.
We’re coming back to episode number 459 of the Mailright Show. We’re talking about how to generate loads of real estate leads today. And we’re certainly trying to give you a wake up call to do stuff that you probably know you should be doing, but you’re not. Number three on our list here was the importance of building relationships, asking great questions, and establishing your brand as a trusted advisor. So, John, what do you think… When you’re asking somebody the right questions, how did you learn how to… Let’s say for another one of the businesses that you own, the learning- Two.
Two. Two businesses.
One could argue that all the podcasts you own are also businesses.
Yeah, The first one was started, it’s my biggest, but it started as a, well, accident. I had no commercial intent at the time. I just thought, if I built influence, it could be useful, and it has That’s been useful. The second one, this one, because I built Melright, and the number three, which is the Membership Machine Show, was done very intentionally because it generated hopeful, like this show, some interest in my target audience for my other business. But to get to this point three, I think digitally, I think the fin, and we’ve touched this on numerous times, and it has, and probably still is, one of the biggest lead generation tools for you has been video. Because the person who recommended you to me, and I watched your videos and I thought, Oh, I’ll just ask him if he would want to be a co-host on my podcast and just see if he was interested not, and you considered, and then you were gracious enough to say yes, was that I watched your videos and you were a bit edgy. You obviously knew what you were talking about. I thought you might instinctively, I thought you might be up for being my podcast co-host.
What would you lose? You’d only try it out, and if you didn’t like it, you just say, Sorry, it’s not my cup of tea. I wouldn’t hold it against I’ve used you forever. But you were introduced by your videos, and that’s why I think video, when it comes to digital marketing, is pretty important.
I agree. I mean, I agree, but what questions… And that, by the way, asking the right questions and establishing your brand as a trusted advisor. Establishing your brand as a trusted advisor, that bit right there. Establishing your brand as a trusted advisor. Man, oh, man, John. I think that for the individual salesperson getting his career started, nothing is more important than simply meeting a lot of people and talking about your business. That’s it. Face to face, one to one, that’s it. But when you start talking about, okay, I’m not doing that anymore. I’ve spent seven or eight years in the trenches. I’m a pretty decent salesperson. I know how to do that. Now it’s about building a brand, and it doesn’t matter. Personal brand, like your brand as a salesperson, doesn’t make a difference. Re/max or whoever you’re working with Believe me, they’re not going to support your career forever, even though that’s what they want you to believe. You want to create a brand where you can move it around wherever you go, whether it’s for yourself or other people, and have it mean something, that your name is connected to a certain level of service and it has nothing to do with the bigger brand that you supposedly represent.
There’s no more effective way, John, in my opinion, than video. I’m glad you mentioned everything you mentioned about me because it’s like, I am different and edgy, and I not at all. When you are talking about, do I appeal in my Tom Ferry? Hell no. I never will be. I never will be. I don’t want to be. It’s fine. I don’t want to be. But when you’re sitting here going, but do I want a brand? Do I want a business? The answer is absolutely 100 %, yes, I do. I just want to find people that are going to gel with me. And video, you’re right. Video has done that for me. You’re not the only one that vetted whether or not they wanted to work with me or talk to me through video. Big, huge guys at real estate marketing companies have done that. And they already know before they talk to me, can we handle Robert’s brand of edginess? And I suspect strongly I probably lose way more business than I gained, John.
Who knows?
Yeah, but at the same time, I’m not sacrificing any piece of my soul or heart to do it. So it makes me pretty happy.
I just want one thing that I don’t agree with what you’ve said, but I agree with most what you say, is, and this might be a little bit controversial, is I don’t think being a really good real estate agent is being a good salesperson. And what I mean by that is these… Obviously, the element I think is really important to study is dealing with objections. Because I think unless you educate about the element of being an effective salesperson around dealing with objections, I think you’re going to flap around a lot. It’s going to quicken your ability to be successful. But the other bits of traditional sales education I think have diminished a bit, really, because it’s going to be interesting how all this plays out in the next few years because of AI. But I think the traditional model, when it comes to real estate, I think it’s more about competence. It’s more about being seen as a trusted advisor. It’s more about, do you know your local market and can you demonstrate that? These are the key things that I think people are looking for. And then dealing with objections is the more pure self-practice and training side and having some structure to the madness and keeping the structure.
But that’s my view.
Strongly disagree, but I appreciate your view. I think that the art of negotiation and and subtle manipulation, there is no career or profession where it’s more necessary than a real estate agent. A real estate agent sales process, John, can be two to five years. And so that requires a massive amount of both sales and relationship building. And I think what you’re talking about is the old idea that sales is just about a single instance in which your salesperson is in front of a prospect and they close five times, overcome objections, so on and so forth. Whereas a real estate salesperson has overcome about 100 objections over time, all the way from, why can’t I paint my wall screen because I like it and who the fuck cares about these new buyers and blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever, right? All the way to, which some people could argue is relationship building. But I think that’s all part of the professional modern salesperson’s skill kit and package. You have to be all of these things. I have a client who probably wouldn’t phrase himself as a great salesperson, Derek Vawn. He just posted a video not too long ago where he managed to get a 35% bump over asking on a teardown, on a teardown.
It wasn’t just like some fancy home that he got people into a bidding war. He actually got investors to get into a bidding war for the home, which is harder to do. He explained how he did it. It was really a lot of just rolling up your sleeves and doing some old-school perseverance and discipline. He contacted 17 different people that expressed interest and basically, through his own diligence, created enough of a relationship with the teardown through his sales skill and practice, basically explaining how good the market was in South Pasadena. So he didn’t sell one person. He sold 17. And creating an idea of urgency and limited market availability and all the things that you need to do in order to create momentum so that at the end of the day, of these 17 people, two of them bought into his marketing, you might say, and that yielded 35% more revenue for his customer. It’s just old-school persevue Perseverance. The idea of sales is really about tenacity, perseverance, and overcoming. I think that all those three things are no more important in real estate than any other profession. I think they top the list. But if you’re going to say the old-school idea of a person coming into a single conversation, overcoming objections, the only time that’s relevant in real estate and a lot of other sales is when you’re initiating, like you’re trying to create a lead.
You overcome somebody’s objections about why they don’t want to get into the market or buy the widget or talk about the widget at this exact second. That requires a lot of like actual traditional sales skills, overcoming objections, things like that. Let’s talk about number four on your list, how to work with your sphere of influence and past clients for quicker conversions. So did you come up with an answer to that?
Well, I think it’s being aware that most of us, and we’ve We’ve talked about this quite a bit, which we’re bound to, aren’t we? Is that when you look at statistics, unless people are bought into very specific cells, morphologies, that are out there in the real estate industry that really aim at keeping close to a tight group of people. When you look at most of the statistics, really most agents are terrible about keeping in contact with previous clientele, previous people that they’ve had some interaction with. They are awful at it. When you look at the statistics. And I think they’re about right, but I’m interested in your views on it.
I think that you’re right. I think that I’ve designed my marketing company shooting for the lowest possible load-bearing system to keep in touch with people. That’s why I think inbound… That’s why I established inbound marketing, the idea is because the only thing that I’m overcoming is that realtors think it takes longer to see fruit, but it’s less work over time. But the reason it’s less work is that maintaining of your sphere of influence, I produce one good piece of content content per month. My only follow up to every single person in my database is trying to get that content in front of me. The quality of the message may not be one that they want to engage with. But when it is something that they want to engage with, I want to make sure I created something worthy of their attention. That keeps you top of mind. If they want to call you, they’re going to call you. That’s my opinion. I teach my clients the same concept. With most of my clients, a really strong piece of local content they do, John, to keep their sphere of influence warm, is talking about their local marketplace, like a market update once a month.
Depending on how good you are at tuning in to what the people who either live or are thinking of living in your area care about is how effective that market update is going to be at warming your sphere and keeping them engaged and then reaching out to you. I will tell you this, though, John, my handful of clients that follow the monthly updates prescription produce about 20 to 30% more sales consistently than the clients that don’t. The thing that is frustrating for most people who are really great salespeople is that there is no rhyme or reason to it. You’re not controlling the flow of the relationship. Whereas if you were calling them, you could control when and how and where you’re going to follow up. You’re essentially adding pressure to the client to make a decision within the time from, maybe one that they committed to. But still, people’s minds change, whereas the email system and updating them, it allows lots of variants, lots of mind changing. But the difference in thought processes is the reason the inbound leads are so strong is somebody may have thought they wanted to call you 50 different times, and they never did.
But by the time they do, they’re really ready. Does that make sense?
Yeah. Also, I think So I forgot. Excuse me, but utilizing something like Bombom and having in your database, in your CRM, a previous people you’ve done some business with, and then producing something of value about their property and then send in a Bombom video with the report or some content. I think in a quiet period, that is something that you should investigate doing, which is very different to optimization and other digital processes where you’re using Facebook or you’re using organic SEO and inbound marketing techniques So, yeah, that’s what I was thinking about.
I got you. And I don’t disagree with that. All right, steps number five, to convert cold prospects. So, ladies and gentlemen, we’re now in a bonus territory. You’ve officially sat with us for 30 minutes, and if you’re going to sit with us for a few more, what you’ve got, what you’re sitting here for is we’re going to talk about how to convert old prospects. We’re going to talk about some of the ideas or the value propositions in a high touch follow-up process. These are definitely 100% things for those of you that are mentally, emotionally geared for them. There’s no doubt that the following two things we’re going to talk about will generate you more business. There’s no doubt that in a tough market, the passive way is not for everybody, which is me. If you have any aggression in you whatsoever, any concern about your income, you’re really going to want to listen to these bonus subjects. So number 5, John, steps to convert cold prospects through genuine helpful outreach. Now, we covered a form of genuine helpful outreach from my perspective. What do you consider a form, a single form? Just give us one example of genuine helpful outreach.
Yeah, sorry. I did touch that. I should have left it at this step, but I thought I didn’t know we were going to do the bonus content, which is I outlaid it, which is utilizing Bombon.
Oh, got you. Okay. That’s fair.
But I think you can do it generally in sending out more customized email to that particular list with more customer, higher value reports or value content that’s really tailored because you’ve already had that relationship with that person. So it’s probably worth your while or somebody in your team to customize more content for that particular individual.
Yeah, a really powerful, powerful, powerful, powerful structure for content is a mix of in-person and digital strategies combined, connected together, strung together. Here’s an example that I’m pulling from my actual account base from a top performing team in LBI, Long Beach Island. High-end luxury oceanfront real estate in New Jersey. What the client did, and we collaborate on, is we create some really focused lifestyle blog posts. We just did a big one on pickleball. It’s just pickleball is big on the island. It’s not big everywhere, John. It’s just big on LBI. They’ve got big pickleball courts and things, and it’s not a big island. So to say that there’s multiple places you can play pickleball is pretty impressive. So they dialog not only about pickleball, but they followed it up because there was like, pickleball, amateur national championships and things like that on the island.
Do you think it’s going to be a series, The Wives of Pickable?
Probably. I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this, this is what I think is genius, and it has generated a lot of interest from them. Not only did they talk about it, but it’s a family that’s running this project with me. And one of the family members went to the court during some of the games, the group championships. They put face to their informational brand and probably added some additional content. I don’t remember if they did or did not take some pictures and add it to their blog post, but I think that they did. And the end result is that not only do we have a top-ranking blog post for pickleball in this particular location, but we have involvement from the team inside the actual group activity. You connect these dots and you get an ever-increasing momentum-based reason to have high touch with the people that follow your blog, because not only did we talk about it, did we start to see some ranking on it, but now we showed up, created more content from showing up, pictures and video and stuff like that. Then we’re able to say, Congratulations to the winners. These are the winners.
Then we’re able to send that out to our entire list. Every single person on our entire list now that is really deeply involved in pickleball, whether as an entertainment in a sport or as a actual serious pursuit, they all are like, Oh, God damn, these guys are the guys. It’s like being a soccer player and having a realtor who used to be a professional soccer player. If Pele was a freaking real estate salesperson, everybody in the pro league would buy their home from them. I guarantee it. Do you see what I’m saying? So Anyway. All right. The power of a high touch, value-packed weekly newsletter. John, I’ve never been great at weekly. I’m great at monthly. I’m terrible at weekly. So are you good at weekly?
Yeah, I do send a weekly on my other business. And what’s helped is what I’m doing now is I’m talking to the camera and just spewing my thoughts it out and I’ll put it into AI and then it gives me… And I put in a prompt that I specifically copied from somebody else and adapted it. And it goes through the video and it gives me copy, and then I’ll go in and give it a little edit, and boom, that’s a more customizable, more content opinion piece for my weekly newsletter.
I think it’s a great idea, ladies and gentlemen. I think when it comes to AI shortcuts, we’ve already done some shows, but, John, you need to keep dropping that information. I’m so sorry, but you put this business on the street enough times that I feel comfortable sharing your business, which is John is dyslexic, which is why I am the voice of the show. This show is founded by John. It’s not founded by me. He has let me host it because at certain times, his dyslexia has caused issues, most when we had guests, not really when it’s just the two of us. But because of that, he asked me to be the voice of the show. But I got to say, your application for AI has been legitimately inspiring to me because I think that you’re working… I think the AI for people that might be challenged, such as like you, is going to be a freaking game changer, like a game changer. Imagine how much time your saving over trying to struggle through both the research, which people don’t understand. We do a lot of research to create content. So John has to read and stuff, and I have to write.
I’m terrible at writing. I’m ADHD. So writing is my problem, but reading is not and comprehension is not. I consume knowledge at an incredible rate, but I can’t regurgitate it in anywhere near the same speed or clip. So I think it’s an inspiring way to use it, and I’m really glad that you mentioned it. In terms of high touch, like value-packed weekly newsletters, while I could easily recommend them to everybody, ladies and gentlemen, I don’t do it myself. I think in the digital realm- Well, monthly.
I think one of the services that you provide to your clients, you’re a prominent provider of templates and content to your clients for producing a monthly report, aren’t you? Because I’ve seen some of them, you and your team spend a lot of time on it, don’t you?
Yep, absolutely. We spend a tremendous amount of time. So, like many, a few hundred hours each month. But we’re teaching and training. So, we spend a ton of time on our content most of the time. Every once in a while, we cut corners, but most of the time, we don’t. Because my driving force, like John, I’ll spend money on the value of a message. I am good with it. I want things to be valuable to the people consuming it, and I overspend on all content-related items. But having said that, if you’re going to be like me and focus, quality is essential to you, and you’re very anal about your informational brand, it’s probably one of the only things I am anal about.
Ladies and gentlemen, a monthly is going to work great for you because it works great for me, John. As long as the value is there, people do tune in. I learned that from Neil Patel, by the way. As long as the value is there, people will tune in. If you ever do deep research pieces where you spent years gathering data and then you put a lovely spreadsheet, little like Maaz, Neil Patel, and everybody ever who’s created SEO has been wildly successful.
The problem is, of course, that it takes a long time. But All right. That’s a good place to stop. We have added… We are strictly about 10 minutes past the bonus content. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed the show. I’ve been Robert Newman. I’ve been leading the… Well, my voice has been the one guiding the podcast. John is the one who produces the podcast. But if you’d like to talk to me about anything online marketing, digital marketing, or SEO related, you can still reach out and get a free consultation from me at inboundrem. Com. I hope that you’ll do that. John, how would you like people to reach out to you?
I’ll go to the mail-right. com website, look at some of our services, and you can book a free chat with me. I chat about anything, and I’ll try to help you. Back over to you, Rob.
Lovely. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been Robert and Jonathan. We are collectively the MailRight Show. We appreciate you tuning in, listening, and giving us some of your time. We respect and value your ears. If there’s anything we can do to help you, let one of us know. That’s it.
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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
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?
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.
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.
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?
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?
My research for this section, Robert.
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?
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.
They’re just doing it because they hope that will please you, keep you happy. So that’s my bit.
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.
What is the monthly average wage? I think it’s around $450 a month, isn’t it?
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.
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.
I think it is the poorest country in Europe apart from Albania. I think Albania, Mastodonia, are the two poorest countries in Europe.
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.
I mean- Or they’ve left the country or they’re dead already.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Can I ask you this question? Would you hire I had to ask you.
It depends on what role.
That’s all right. I’ll let you carry that one. I just couldn’t resist it.
I was expecting to say no. No.
You’re kidding, mate.
You’d have to have the ability to have autonomy, and that would be complete autonomy. That’s how I would view you.
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.
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.
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.
Okay. All right.
Basically, that’s it. They will sell their own children into slavery to make some extra cash.
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.
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.
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?
No, I think I’ve got nothing more to add, Rob. I think that’s totally spot on.
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?
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.
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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