For many agents, buying leads online has stopped yielding the results it used to, so they have to completely shift their lead generation. What are some of the reasons for the drop in online lead ROI? Why did our guest choose to double down on branding himself? How does he use social media and podcast interviews to build his credibility? On this episode, Dallas top agent, Chris Bentley, shares on the cautionary tale of relying on buying leads, and how to lean into building a brand.
The value of being interviewed on a podcast that is for the industry is it’s a super credible link to your website. -Matt Johnson
Three Takeaways
The Problem With Buying Leads Now
When you buy leads online through Google PPC, a lot of agents go into it thinking that it’s going to turn over very quickly, or at the very least, that they can cherry pick the top leads, but it doesn’t work that way. People are registering for multiple sites, and they are starting their home search online way earlier than we see them, so we might not even be able to get business.
Why going away from the bandwagon can get you more attention
Most people jump on the bandwagon and refuse to do the opposite of what everyone else is doing. The problem is their voice gets lost among the other thousands of people on the same bandwagon.
How to use LinkedIn to target luxury buyers
If you’re targeting luxury listings, LinkedIn is a great place to post really eye-catching photos. High level executives and luxury buyers spend most of their time on LinkedIn, and they don’t just use it after work or on weekends as they do with Facebook and Instagram.
How to generate content that builds credibility
You don’t just want to have a couple of lines come up when someone Googles you. You want there to be a ton of content because it makes you a lot more credible, and that makes you stand out.
Through the experience Chris had, the cautionary tale is you have to build up a brand before you do anything else. For a multitude of reasons, the dynamic with buying online leads has massively shifted to the point where it doesn’t make business sense anymore. Having a strong brand in your local area and being micro-famous will yield more results over and over again, and your business will be less affected by shifts and changes online and in the market.
Guest Bio
Chris is an award-winning agent and author based in Dallas, Texas. As one of Dallas' most aggressive real estate magnates in the making, Chris is quickly growing into one of the most popular people on social media. Through his social media posts and videos, we're able to experience what's it's like to be a Realtor®. His achievements to date include being voted in 2017 and 2018 D Magazine's Best Realtor® and being 4x Multi-Million Dollar Producer. Go to https://chrisdbentley.com/ for more information and follow @ChrisDBentley on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. To find him on Facebook, go to https://www.facebook.com/Chris.D.Bentley.Realtor/.
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People often let ego guide them into expansion prematurely. There are several things that need to be considered when growing a successful and profitable business that has room to expand. How do we hire people who are capable of handling business growth? How do we know when our business can expand successfully? How do we grow and maintain our profit margins? In this episode, Aaron Rian shares his knowledge of and experience in expanding his real estate business.
It doesn’t make sense to go into another market until every market that you’re in is running tight, making the margin, and is profitable. –Aaron Rian
Three Takeaways
Hire people based on where you see your business going
Hire staff who have the capacity to deal with where you want your business to go, not where you’re at today. When you hire people to deal with your current capacity only, they often can’t keep up when growth starts to happen. The most important thing to look for in people is who can handle the growth and leadership of the business into the new markets as you expand.
How to know when expanding is a good idea
Expansion should only be a consideration when you have a consistent 55-65% profit margin for at least 12 months. You must know your numbers, from your top agent to your newest hire, and keep track of what’s being brought in and what you’re paying to support your employees. If you’re not meeting that margin or paying attention to your balance sheet, you won’t be able to expand successfully and run a profitable model.
How to grow your profit margin
When your profit margin is not hitting the mark, you need to decrease your expenses. Examine your numbers carefully, see where you’re bleeding money and either try to get that back or lose that part of your business. You should also know where your ROIs are and focus on what’s bringing in the best return. Don’t make the mistake of trying to expand when your main hub isn’t profitable to the level that it makes sense to operate as a business.
Expansion is a tough but rewarding game to play. It starts with having a healthy business and then figuring out which parts of it are reproducible in other places. It forces us to pay attention to systems in our business and to look inward and consider the construction of our team. To expand and be profitable, our business must have people who can grow with it and a profit margin that enables successful expansion.
Guest Bio
Aaron is the Founder and Operating Principle of The Brokerage House, home to a multi-million-dollar team and currently expanding cross-country. The company is currently the number one real estate team by sold volume and number of transactions in the local market, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. In Aaron’s seven plus years as a real estate agent, he has been a Top One Percent Metro Realtor and a Multi-Million Dollar Sales Producer. Aaron also won back-to-back-to-back “Top Real Estate Agent” awards from the Portland Monthly magazine in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 and was recently added to the “Registry of Business Excellence™” by America’s Registry of Outstanding Professionals organization. He has appeared in national publications such as “USA Today” and “The Wall Street Journal”, and was recently featured in “Top Agent Magazine”. Aaron is a regular expert on KATU’s AM Northwest Talk Show and has appeared on several television networks including HGTV, CNBC, CNN and Bravo. His first book, “Out Front: The Art of Closing a Deal”, was sold on Amazon.com and made the best-selling authors list. Aaron and his team are on track to close over 650 transactions with a value of nearly 250 million dollars in volume in 2018. For more information visit https://www.thebrokeragerealtors.com or email info@thebrokeragerealtors.com. You can also connect with Aaron on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronrian/.
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Many agents struggle to get anywhere with their goals, businesses and results because they are qualified victims; they know what to do but their negative mindset gets in the way. How can you identify if you’re a qualified victim? How do you move yourself up to being a qualified champion?
What is the difference between focus and awareness? On this episode, Spencer Combs talks more about the process for overcoming limiting beliefs and other stumbling blocks to our success.
Any bus will get you there if you don’t know where you’re headed. -Spencer Combs
Three Takeaways
Why more real estate training isn't the answer
You can know exactly what to do but if you don’t have the right mindset, the right thoughts and the right knowledge, you just won’t move.
It's what we know, but DO NOT do that's our problem
When we know what we need to do but we never do it, that information is useless. We have to bring what we know and what we do together in order to become unstoppable.
3 ways to identify victims in your life
There are three behaviors that can quickly help you identify the victims around you. Victims blame other people and even the market for their challenges, they constantly criticize others, and justify why they aren’t making progress.
In order to get unstuck and get over our own victim mentality, the first thing we have to talk about and get clear on is the accountability. We have to take complete responsibility for our lives if we want to change them. We have to focus on what we want more than what we don’t want, and align our beliefs with where we want to go. Lastly, we have to be flexible and focus less on the vehicle for getting results and more on the destination and the ultimate goal we have.
Guest Bio
Spencer is a Coach, speaker and founder of Spencer Combs Resources. He also serves as Director of Operations for the Jeff Riley team in Columbia, SC. Go to http://www.spencercombs.com/ or http://productivitystreet.com/ for more information. Join Spencer every Tuesday night at 6pm EST for his Facebook Live.
Rockstar Agent Marketing Toolkit - Featuring our favorite scripts, tutorials and quickstart guides to marketing strategies like Facebook Live, door-knocking, remarketing advertising, open houses and referrals. Get actionable ideas and tactics you can use in your career right NOW.
The thing that constantly holds us back from getting better results in business is mindset, and the influence it has on the actions we take. How do we connect the right mindset to the tactics and actions that will move us forward? How do we identify what we’re missing, and how do we implement that piece into our lives? What are the 4 types of agents, and how do you move towards the zone where you are most effective? On this episode, coach, speaker and author, Spencer Combs shares on how to go from victim to champion, he also shares why more real estate training isn't the answer, how to identify victims and why what we don’t do is what holds us back.
Most of us know what we should be doing, we even know how to do it but we won’t take the action, and it’s almost always because of an incongruence in beliefs. -Spencer Combs
Three Takeaways
The 4 Categories Most Agents Fall Into
Unqualified champions are people have the mindset but not the mechanics to get things done. Unqualified victims don’t know the mechanics and don’t have mindset. Qualified victims know the mechanics but have a negative mindset. Qualified champions have the mindset and mechanics so they are able to get into action.
The 2 most dangerous words in the English language
Saying “I know” is very dangerous because it stops us from learning anything or taking the steps to get better and go towards our goals.
The power of clarity and chunking
The first step is getting clear on what it is we want to achieve, and then looking for people who have already achieved it, and starting to break down the chunks of action we need to take to get there.
No matter how much motivation, drive and real estate training we have, if we don’t actually have a detailed and broken down action plan, we won’t be able to grow our business. In order to get to that action plan, clarity is key. We have to find someone to model who is doing exactly what we want to do, and then breaking down the actions that will allow us to do the same. One of the most powerful ways to get traction is to put ourselves into a rhythm of regular planning. Ultimately, when mindset and mechanics are congruent, action will take place.
Guest Bio
Spencer is a Coach, speaker and founder of Spencer Combs Resources. He also serves as Director of Operations for the Jeff Riley team in Columbia, SC. Go to http://www.spencercombs.com/ or http://productivitystreet.com/ for more information.
Rockstar Agent Marketing Toolkit - Featuring our favorite scripts, tutorials and quickstart guides to marketing strategies like Facebook Live, door-knocking, remarketing advertising, open houses and referrals. Get actionable ideas and tactics you can use in your career right NOW.
Many agents have a really difficult emotional adversity to being rejected by new people because they take the rejection personally, but the truth is, a new person’s resistance is a natural reaction. What mindset shift should you make about this so you can persevere in prospecting? How can we go about putting ourselves in front of new people and then getting them to know, like and trust us? On this episode, Dale Archdekin talks about the have mets and the have not mets and how to overcome the fear we have around that.
Accept that a stranger is going to be naturally defensive and skeptical of us. -Dale Archdekin
Three Takeaways
A stranger will naturally be defensive and hesitant toward us. Don't allow that to hold you back.
From childhood, it is ingrained in us not to trust or talk to strangers, and when you’re a salesperson that’s an extra layer we have to break through. But don’t let the natural resistance deter you from talking to new people.
How strangers respond to us initially is not about US - it's about them
When people are skeptical of us when they first meet us, we shouldn’t take it personally. They are rejecting their concept of a stranger salesperson. Remember, if a person doesn’t even know you yet, it’s impossible for them to actually dislike you.
Everyone who knows, likes and trusts you was a stranger at some point
The people you worked with and delivered a great service to were also people who didn’t know like and trust way back in the beginning. You would have never gotten to that wonderful place with that person if you didn’t go through the tough part of front which is a their natural resistance.
The truth about every meaningful relationship in our lives is that those people started off as strangers and they didn’t know, like and trust us immediately. As a salesperson, whenever you talk to somebody new, you will run up against resistance, rejection and a bit of adversity. This resistance isn’t about us or anything wrong with us, and if we actually bring value to these people, they will also become people who know, like and trust us.
Guest Bio
Dale is a Realtor and founder of Smart Inside Sales. Go to smartinsidesales.com for more information, email dale@smartinsidesales.com or find them on Facebook.
One of the reasons many agents struggle to close on prospecting calls is that they haven’t mastered the basics of the call like introducing themselves quickly, and learning what the prospect’s true motivations are. How do you practice these aspects? Why is action more important than knowing everything? On this episode, Dale Archdekin shares what he’s learned from training agents and teams on prospecting and conversion.
There are 3 different stages of the script, who you are, where you’re from and what you’re doing on the phone call. -Greg McDaniel
Three Takeaways
It's not what you know, it's what you DO that counts
No amount of training and learning what works will change anything if it’s not put into actual action. What matters is doing, and even if you don’t know everything, that’s what helps you grow. In prospecting, it’s often about getting out there and just doing it, getting the practice, learning and getting better.
The value of real, live-fire practice
It’s not just about roleplaying, it’s about actually going through the foundational aspects and demonstrating them in real time. It’s about mastering aspects of talking to a lead, objection handling, and working the lead through to a closing. Getting used to this in practice means it will feel more natural on an actual prospecting call.
Why you shouldn't practice in your leads
Don’t practice on your leads because they are getting more and more expensive, and you want to be ready when you get on the phone with them.
If you’re already experienced at the basics of a prospecting call, role play is just a warm up, but a lot of agents still need to lay the foundation of the basics of the call. If you want to get better at cold business, practice your calls, from the opening to the close, from introducing yourself and stating the purpose of the call. It’s all about getting the most important question of the call answered and you get there by mastering all the pieces of the call.
Guest Bio
Dale is a Realtor and founder of Smart Inside Sales. Go to smartinsidesales.com for more information, email dale@smartinsidesales.com or find them on Facebook.
Rockstar Agent Marketing Toolkit - Featuring our favorite scripts, tutorials and quickstart guides to marketing strategies like Facebook Live, door-knocking, remarketing advertising, open houses and referrals. Get actionable ideas and tactics you can use in your career right NOW.
One of the 4 pillars of a successful and sustainable business is after sales follow up and building a referral-based business. If we haven’t been good at our client follow up, what are the steps we need to take to rectify that? How can we evaluate whether our activities are giving us a return on time? What’s a simple system for building more relationships? On this episode, Theresa Barnabei continues to share insights on becoming successful in business, and this time we focus on generating referrals.
Real estate is not a rocket science business, it’s a highly evolved people business. -Theresa Barnabei
Three Things We Learned
The early indicators of ROI
Production isn’t the only indicator of whether we’re getting a return on investment. There are initial indicators that tell us how well we’re doing. Use the acronym TEEM- Time, Energy, Effort and Money. Take a look at the time, energy, effort and money you’re spending on any one of those things, and evaluate if you’re getting a return on investment.
How to get back in touch with past clients
If you have not stayed in touch with your sphere, write an apology letter. They entrusted us with a life event and falling out of touch with them is unacceptable.
How to get more business
If you want to do more business, you have to get to know and like a lot more people. People will do business with people they know, like and trust. In order for people to get to and like you have to get to know and like them.
If you do a good job of keeping in touch with the current clients you have right now, at least half of those clients will come back for repeat business in 4-5 years. It’s all about staying in relationship with these people and getting to know them beyond the transaction. You want to be the person they think about and refer when real estate comes up. The goal of after sale follow up is basically continuing to get to know and like people.
Rockstar Agent Marketing Toolkit - Featuring our favorite scripts, tutorials and quickstart guides to marketing strategies like Facebook Live, door-knocking, remarketing advertising, open houses and referrals. Get actionable ideas and tactics you can use in your career right NOW.
Guest Bio
Theresa is a real estate business coach, educator, author and speaker. She is the founder of Flight Of Your Life Success Coaching With Theresa, TBConsults and Black Card Service. Go to http://www.multiplyyourrealestatebusiness.com/ to get a free copy of Theresa’s book “Multiply Your Business: 10 New Marketing Realities For The Real Estate Industries.”
There’s always a new training product, free webinar of eBook that promises to boost our business. The problem is if it’s out of our comfort zone, we just won’t stick with it long enough for it to work. What are the prospecting and lead generation strategies you should always start with? How do we work towards activities that are more out of our comfort zone? What are the 4 things we need to pay attention to in order to build successful, scalable businesses? On this episode, author, speaker and real estate coach Theresa Barnabei shares on creating a successful business on strategies and activities we can do consistently.
Never abandon what you do successfully. It is usually what you’re most comfortable doing. -Theresa Barnabei
Three Things We Learned
How to connect with people as an extrovert
Being an introvert in real estate doesn’t mean we can’t connect with people. We can still be a bit more extroverted when it suits us and our businesses. You can be introverted but still shine in getting people to know, like and trust you.
How to switch from a selling mindset to a serving on
When people are prospecting and lead generating, they tend to have a mindset block. They think they are selling, and because of that they will struggle to get on the phone and have conversations with people. It’s important to switch the mindset to one of serving.
The best way to choose a prospecting method
If you want to be successful in business building, figure out what’s in your wheelhouse that you see yourself doing, that you can get excited about. The things you’re comfortable doing will be the easiest to commit to. Then from there, you can stretch yourself into activities that are out of your comfort zone.
There are 4 things we need to pay attention to in order to build a business that can scale and keep producing results. First, it’s the time we put aside for ourselves and our loved ones, then it’s taking the time to build business through prospecting, executing on the transactions we have, as well as after sale follow up. Prospecting can be a challenge when the required activities feel difficult for us to do. If the activity is not in our comfort zone, we’ll procrastinate, drag our feet and never get it done. Overcome this by focusing on the things you are confident and comfortable doing. Because you’re consistent with it, it will consistently deliver results.
Rockstar Agent Marketing Toolkit - Featuring our favorite scripts, tutorials and quickstart guides to marketing strategies like Facebook Live, door-knocking, remarketing advertising, open houses and referrals. Get actionable ideas and tactics you can use in your career right NOW.
Guest Bio
Theresa is a real estate business coach, educator, author and speaker. She is the founder of Flight Of Your Life Success Coaching With Theresa, TBConsults and Black Card Service. Go to http://www.multiplyyourrealestatebusiness.com/ to get a free copy of Theresa’s book “Multiply Your Business: 10 New Marketing Realities For The Real Estate Industries.”
The start of a new year provides an opportunity for us to set new goals. While a great opportunity, this can feel overwhelming. How can we achieve every resolution we’ve set for ourselves? Is there a way to level up more than one dimension of our lives at a time? On this episode, we speak with a master of goal setting and achieving, Morgan Oaks. Drawing on his personal experience, Morgan advocates a holistic approach to elevating your life.
A third-party view is critical: find someone with the nerve to tell you when you’re doing something wrong.- Morgan Oaks.
Three Things We Learned
Taking a holistic approach to goals
Far too often, the third parties we employ to help us with challenges we face only concentrate on one area at a time. For example, business coaches do not consider your relationships, in the same way that relationship counsellors do not take into account your business issues. The reality is, as a human being each of these areas plays a significant role in your life. Make sure you’re always aware of this.
The importance of exercise
Exercise is one activity that can help you level up almost every dimension of your life. In addition to the obvious benefits for physical health, it can also assist in reducing stress and maintaining focus. As we emphasize, when you achieve new levels of fitness, you experience a sense of victory. The feeling of achievement is carried with you, even after you leave the gym.
How to achieve in multiple areas of your life
Find singular, helpful tools that help you meet multiple goals at once. This does not require fully realizing each of your goals at the same time, but speaks to a process whereby you can achieve small victories. Meditation, for example, can help you slow down and enjoy the moment- and help you be more productive afterwards.
There is no better time than the start of 2019 to start adopting routines that will help you find success in every aspect of your life. Routines like exercise go a long way in helping you achieve goals in terms of both physical and mental health. The ability to meet two goals with one activity should never be discounted. While you may see the categories in which you place your goals as distinct, remember that they are all important to you for a reason.
Guest Bio
As a chiropractor, transformational speaker and high performance coach, it’s safe to say that Morgan Oaks has a diverse range of talents. Morgan points out that one of his greatest motivators is never feeling that he is getting enough out of what he’s doing in the moment. By thinking that way, he is always pushing for more and trying to best achieve his goals.
Rockstar Agent Marketing Toolkit - Featuring our favorite scripts, tutorials and quickstart guides to marketing strategies like Facebook Live, door-knocking, remarketing advertising, open houses and referrals. Get actionable ideas and tactics you can use in your career right NOW.