KGCI: Real Estate on Air - 2024Digital Marketing Domination for Real Estate Agents

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

Good morning and welcome. I see Rubin's doing the little intro dance over there. That is intense. Right. It's hard not to get excited after you see that, right? So welcome to our winners. Just do it again, Ruben, for us? There you go. You got some tunes over there better than me. It's what we do. So welcome to our winners Wednesday where we interview top producers all over the

country every single week to share their best practices, tips and ideas to better help other agents in the industry. So if you've seen, if you've joined us before, I'm sure you recognize this guy, Mr. Ruben Garcia, all the way from Fayetteville, North Carolina. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. So you also know he's a ball of energy, right? So always a wealth of knowledge, but also a ball of energy. So I'm wearing my shirt today. Oh, it's just cold. It was cold. But it says, oh, it's going to be hard to read. There we go.

But it says energy. Anyways, it says energy meets you at your commitment. To tell you the truth, man, I was not a lot of energy before we jumped on this call. I was, I was, honest, I was like, man, why did I play music and just kind of get hyped up? Because I don't think I even talked till now. It's been like head down grinding, you know? Right. Right.

man so you know your energy meets you at your commitment guys so i do have energy but you guys would have more energy the more commitments that you set throughout the day more appointments 100% and that doesn't mean we don't all have down days i mean i know i was on a zoom what was it monday morning and i was just i've been pulling 14 hour days exhausted and i got on the zoom and i literally looked at everybody and i went like this wake up and i'm like trying to snap myself out of it because i could tell my energy was down and when you're interested in you're energy down and then you just mirror that off of other people. So yeah, um, you know, for sure. So it, I, I do believe energy, psychology, mindset, confidence is everything, which actually leads to our

time with that restaurant too. Sorry. Oh, yes. No, yeah. As you guys can tell, I'm at the restaurant right now. So we just launched a new restaurant bar and grill. Um, yeah, 14 hour days, uh, 7 a.m. to pretty much 11.30 p.m. every day, but, um, it's good. It'll be all good. I'll just say real quick. One, congratulations. And two, I feel like it's been a while since I've seen you, like Winters Wednesday, the last few, I think it was at EXPCon or maybe something. I don't even know what it was. But your face is like slim down, dude. Like you're loose. I would have never, that would have never been a thought or anything until I see it. And I'm like, oh, you must be like getting into it, man. I got my protein shake. I'm trying to stay on track because it is hard. When you run a

restaurant, it's hard to stay on track because they want me to try all these foods and try all these drinks. And I'm like, oh, guys, you were going to blow all the hard work that I can do me. Well, it shows, man. So I just wanted to say that. You look good. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. It's still got a ways to go. But, you know, back to the conversation about energy and everything. I mean, your health is everything. And I know for me, I was so busy. And it's not an, this is totally an excuse, but with family and businesses. And I did let my health. go for a while. And so it was really something that's important to me to get back on track. And now that's mirroring on my kids. My oldest son has been really taking care of himself and going to

the gym every day and watching what he eats. And so I realized how much I have an influence I had on him as well, which we want to be a positive influence, right, not a negative. Totally, man. That's awesome. That's a good story. I mean, and you're right. You're right. And it's funny because they're going to watch you more than they hear what you say. So you're doing it. You're being a great example. so I love it. Thank you. I appreciate it. So really what I want to talk about today, and in Rubin, you started it out perfectly. We're talking about your commitment and your energy because we all know that, you know, Tony Robbins says it best that 80% of your success is from your energy and your confidence, and your psychology, which, you know, the topic today is digital marketing domination. So I think this

is important now more than ever. And so some of you might be thinking, well, what does energy and commitment have anything to do with digital marketing. Well, the reality is, you know, when you look at your online presence in terms of your website or Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or what have you, your energy does show through to that. So I think people definitely feel that. And is you're, are you giving an upbeat vibe? Are you giving a vibe that you have the confidence or your business? Are you doing the same thing that what every other real estate agent does? So that kind of leads me into our first topic is just back to the basics of how do you create a strong online presence? And Rubin, I know you've been really good at this. We both have really built our businesses online. So

what suggestions just to kind of take it back to the basics do you have for somebody? They're like, I don't know where to get started, but I realize I need to have a strong online presence. Yeah, I think everybody does, especially depending on if it's going to hit certain goals that you have set out. I think it's super, super important. Number one, I'll say, you know, it just, everyone's got to do it. One, kind of get over yourself, you know, the way you sound, the way you look. And I know you've probably ones who are listening, heard this before. But if you're still having a chat.

So I'll start off with the very basic. If you're still having a challenge with it, something that helped me was I joined a very large organization here in our area and I became a greeter for it. So I just started greeting people to like break myself out of the mold of putting myself out there. So do something like that. Just become a greeter and realize that no one really cares at some level. They got their own life that they're doing. And I think you're stressing about it too much.

I say that to say, just the mindset check up from the neck up before you start doing social media stuff or digital marketing. And then from the foundational stuff, for me, I only got into the social media space as soon as I got my license. So it was more of a business move in the beginning. and what I found from the beginning and still works to this day, which you may have heard me say this before, is to just tell your story. So maybe what time you wake up, you do it all the time,

maybe post that, going on a listing appointment, buyer's appointment, maybe you had this crazy, like I had this one seller that he's a younger dude and he had a lot of equity and he was like, should I sell? And I was like, probably not.

This thing needs to be a rental, man. and start building some wealth, you know? He ended up selling anyways. But I put that on social media. I was like, I'm the worst realtor ever. I'm telling people not to sell their homes. But what am I doing, right? I'm just telling the story of the stories that are presenting themselves throughout the whole day. It doesn't take much to do that. You don't have to think extra about it. You're just posting literally what's going on during the day. Start off by doing that. And I couldn't agree more because a lot of agents are like, what can I post? What's content? I'm like, especially when I teach CE classes. And I'm like,

you should be taking a selfie right now. Pull your phone out. Take a selfie and say, hey, I'm sharpening my skills as a real estate agent. Here's the class that I'm taking. Right. Or like you said, you know, just just waking up. What are your goals for the day? People want to share that journey with you. I think a lot of times we're like, oh, that's too boring. Nobody cares. What I find, and I'm sure you probably find this too, is I meet people and they're like, oh, I follow you on social media. know about your kids, I know about your travels, I know about your personal life, I know about you opening the new restaurant, whatever, because I share and I document all of that with the world. Here's the key. They may not be liking and commenting, but they're watching. So just because

you're not getting a ton of likes or comments doesn't mean people aren't watching. Yeah. And I'll say, I was just talking to someone about this the other day is like, if you're worried about the likes, the hearts, the shares, and all of, in my mind, a digital marketer is like, Nope. I go the other way. But in my mind, none of that stuff matters. The only thing that matters is when people start to engage and like you see your core advocates, the ones who do like you, the ones who do love you, the ones who do trust you, if they're liking it, then great. You're kind of connecting with the ones that you want to connect with. It's kind of like a, what is it? There's a saying where you have a lot or you could have a little, but it's really good.

the little was really good. Quality over quantity. It is a quality over quantity play, guys. I mean, would you want, you know, 3,000 people that don't even know you could care less about you, just scrolling to hit the like? Or do you want 30 people who love you, trust you, and will always give your name out to another person? So don't think about the likes. Please don't get caught in that circle. Just tell your story.

You'll start to attract the ones that you want to attract. And you better believe, just like Micah said, I was just on a call. way earlier this morning. I pushed it all the way up. But it was a call from a guy who wants to know more about EXP because he's seen me online. Doesn't like my stuff, right? But connected with me through Instagram

and then we started the conversation there if we're a good fit or not. Jumped on another call or this was a text message with another guy. He's not a good fit. He said, I want low fees and free leads. And I was like, no, sir, not around here. You know, so it's like people watching you,

even if you don't think, just like you said, and then at that point, once you do bring them into your business, whatever need you're trying to fulfill, you can find if they're a good fit for yourself, buyer, seller, talent. I kind of rambled. No, I love it. And I always believe on quality over quantity. You know, I always teach agents instead of going after your sphere of influence,

which is basically everybody that's in your phone or that you know, go after, you know, 10 sphere of power that are your personal cheerleaders that actually want to see you win. right? And I think that's no different with social media. As a matter of fact, you can create custom Facebook list and have your sphere of power on there. And those are the people that you're constantly working to build that relationship and engage with. So now let's talk about, you know, we know that we need to be, we know we need to have a website. You know, obviously at EXP, we're fortunate enough to have KVCorps. So every agent has a website literally built for them. We know that we need to be on social media. I always recommend picking a couple different social media platforms.

You don't need to be on all of them. You know, for me, I focus on Facebook, Instagram, and I play a little bit with TikTok, but that's not really my demographic. So really, it's a matter of finding out who your demographic is and then seeing what social media platforms they're on. Maybe they're on LinkedIn. Maybe they're on Snapchat, right? So it's less than what you want to be on and focus on, but more where your ideal client is

and focusing on those methods. Now, so talking about website and even social media content to really bring it down hyperlocal, we need SEO. We need search engine optimization. Our KV core websites that we get through EXP, like I said, we're fortunate that they already have a lot of SEO built into them. But what do you do in terms of like hashtags or locations to, because I know you're in Fayetteville, right?

So you have a lot of people constantly moving, coming in and out. How do you build that SEO? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, some platforms don't take hashtags, like the new threads from Instagram. So they don't take hashtags. So some of them do, some of them don't. I still use them on Instagram, but not as effective, I think, as it once was. I used to use it years ago, probably seven years ago, to search people's conversations in Twitter.

And then I would jump in and be like, yo, I'm an agent here. That's funny, right? like I can help you because I would hashtag Fayetteville homes or something like that and just jump into people's conversation. So maybe not as much for me as it once was. But yeah, I definitely focus on like my big focus is on Facebook, Instagram and honestly YouTube now. Some of the things that I do to make sure I get more eyeballs on what I'm doing is I just posted this million dollar penthouse here in Fayetteville, which is not a thing in Fayetteville. You know, we do have a million-dollar homes, but it is far between, you know, few and far between. Anyways, I posted it.

Well, what did I do, right? As soon as I posted, one, I did a videos coming out soon post first, right? I'm like smiling in there. And what did I do with that? One, when I posted it on my stories, I tagged the location, Fayetteville, North Carolina, because it will allow other people in Fayetteville to see this thing. I tag the listing agent. Why?

They're not with EXP, but I want all their people to see what's going down, want our people. I did tag EXP. And then I put it in all the local Facebook groups. And it started a storm. People were like, a million dollars, you're going to pay for that in Fayetteville. And I'm like, keep it coming, man. Like, the more you guys discuss on my post within this group, more traffic is going to be driven to my YouTube and my, which I was going to touch on today, my Facebook group, specifically. to my location and guess what happened. I got a lot more friend requests. I got a lot more YouTube

subscribers and people going to the Facebook group. So once that happened, then I posted the actual video and right where do you think I put the link of that video in? In the comments where people were fighting of why this isn't the place you put a million dollar. By the way, it's got serious buyers looking for it, right? Looking at it right now. So it's a real thing. But I just, I played on that. I do go hyper local, like you were saying, by doing the tags of the local area, even the tags of the local restaurants and businesses around this penthouse downtown. I want all of them to know. And then I put, like I said, the video in the comments along with all the other social media platforms.

And then I'll ask a question, which is on my notes. What would you do with a million dollars in this penthouse? Could I be invited to your open house? right or your uh not your open house your um what is it when you buy a home and a welcoming party yeah like a welcoming party house warming party is it right like just ask people's opinions on that um i asked like how would you market it better i did that on social media and someone said sell weed i was like whatever like but just given the opportunity for people to give their opinions on your post don't get too emotional over it people have lives and some

people don't have lives and it just is what it is. But yeah, that's what I do. You're right. I use tag the location, tag local businesses, and I get super hyper focused and drop it in the groups that support that location as well. Yeah, and I like how you're repurposing content, which, you know, we can kind of get into that a little bit later. But just because you're on three different social media platforms doesn't mean you

always have to come up with new content. You can repurpose it in different ways, which we'll kind of talk about videos. But before I do that, I just want to really kind of highlight a couple different things that you said of, you know, tagging the other agent or doing the houseforming parties. And really now you've turned one client into 100 possible clients, right? And I look at it of, you know, not to, obviously this has nothing to do with the restaurant business, but we're opening the new restaurant. And I'm trying to think of the things that I'm doing now in order to gain that exposure that really can be translated into real estate. So we did two soft openings. One soft opening was up for all the surrounding hotels because we've got 50 plus hotels around us.

For all the managers invited them out, hey, come try our menu, take it back. We'll give 10% off, you know, to your guest. Then we did a family and friends night. So not only did they get to test the menu, but it allowed us to kind of work out the kinks and things like that. And now we're planning a grand opening with some social media influencers and things like that. How does this have anything to do with real estate? How can you do the same thing in real estate? Ruben, you just talked about a housewarming party.

Most agents close on the deal. And then they're like, oh, here's your closing gift. Good luck. See you later. No, follow up with them. I know that they're busy moving, but say, hey, I'd love to come in. First off, pizza tonight is on me. I know you're going to be moving.

Dinner is on me. I like to come by and bring you pizza. In two weeks once you're settled, and three weeks once you're settled, I would love to invite all of your friends and family for a barbecue, for a cookout. Now, not only is it helping them because they have an excuse to invite all their friends and family over, but you automatically turn that one client in exposure to their sphere, right? And these are all things that you can create a private back to social media, create a private Facebook group, have them invite their people,

and now they're pushed out and getting exposure to you. Totally. So just to kind of piggyback on that. So let's talk about, you know, you're big on video, I'm big on video. Not everybody loves video, right? But how are you cross-refer or cross-utilizing videos? So like, for example, you use YouTube, then we need, we've got reels, we've got TikToks, we've got stories. How, oh my gosh, how do you even get started, right?

Yeah, I will say, you know, you'll get in a funk with videos. I'm in a funk right now, honestly, with videos. I'm not doing like my, hey, what's up, everybody? This is River Garcia. This is a beautiful day. And how many appointments? I haven't done it in like three or four days. I'm like, I don't want to.

So if you're getting in a funk, guys, you will. And it's going to happen. You'll hit the Valley of Despair and you'll pull yourself right back out of it. But the reason why I enjoy the videos is because the algorithm says they enjoy videos. To tell you the truth, you just follow with whatever that platform is saying is going to be rewarded, which is video right now. So again, I'm telling you, if you look at some of these viral videos, it doesn't. really matter if you just tell your story. There is some random tractor videos out there with

two million views because, and it literally says, I will prove that going viral isn't hard or something like that. And it's random. But what are they doing? The dude probably owns a tractor and it's just telling about his John Deere and what his crops are on his channel, but it's still going viral. It just goes back to telling your story, but just doing it in a video pattern. And the way that I'll do it is, say, for example, from this, I'll pull out three times. talking points that may be something I want to give a value to people. If I'm an agent, then I'll say, hey, I was on a training today, and here's the three things I learned. One, do Facebook groups. I'm going to put your listing in a lot more Facebook groups and get opinions on them.

Two, I'm probably going to do an open, or open house, a housewarming party with you and bring some barbecue or if I'm in Oklahoma, I'm going to bring some of the food that you have there. Or is it in Oklahoma? It is. It is. Yeah, okay. Yeah, ballers, exactly. And then number three, I will never let you go. I learned today that follow up with you, your family, your dog is six straight. Like just adding, what I do is always try to go away with three things I took out and just do a quick video on it. You could add captions for free or you don't have to be the one to put it in.

It's going to do it automatically on all these shorts and Instagram stuff, which is the reels, all that. So all you do is just say three things. add the captions, ask another question in the comments, and just push it out. Challenge yourself to do it. At least, I know, but at least once a day for the next 30 days. I know. But we have some of our agents doing it right now and it's working. Not all their content is a 10 out of 10 and who the F cares. It's a 3 out of 10 today. It's a 9 out of 10 tomorrow. The point is that people are going to start to get used to seeing them talk about real estate and you've done a really good job of taking mindshare for those 30 days.

You should just tell your story. Take two to three nuggets that you want to give value on and post it. Sure. And we know that people want to work with, you know, people they like, know, and trust. And video is really given us the power to translate that to the masses, right? So even though you can meet somebody you've never met in your life, but because they've been watching your videos like a winner's Wednesday every single week

or every single month, they feel like they know you before they've ever made.