KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Gogo Bethke

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Go Go Bethke, not only a real estate agent, not only an amazing real estate agent, building a team, building multiple other businesses, but also the reason I got her here today is we're going to talk a little bit more about social media because we've been picking away on that last couple weeks. And again, next week, we're going to talk about that some more. So social media queen of real estate, go, go, Bethke. Come on down. Well, thanks for having me. I love having you here. If there's any one thing I would say that you've done amazing in social media, which really makes you stand out is, the fun, just have some fun with it, right? Have some fun with it. And I think that's what really stuck out to me. So would you say that's one of your recipes? I always say the good, but and be ugly, right? So if you want to do social media, right, you have to do it. You have to do everything. And always the truth and nothing but the truth. And also keep in mind that if you're doing this for real estate leads, right? Like if you're looking for the next buyer and seller, you have to keep in mind that

they're only on the market in every seven years for about people moving average every seven years about seven more the way where they live it's i don't know what's up with this number seven right and they're usually on the market from what four to six months until they finally close on the next property right so if you think about it if you're doing this for the next real estate transaction you have to entertain them now for six and a half years okay so so you know it's kind of funny i was talking to somebody recently and they said real estate agents look at real estate deals as transactional when in fact it is really truly much more relational but it is not a client it is a client for life right so you have to

start thinking it's a client for life because you're seven years between buys what do you do between that just ignore them and hope you catch the time right you got to stay there the whole time social media is brilliant at staying in contact and staying top of mind so I love that I love that part brilliant like to say I was not real listed, I sell myself and my services constantly for seven years. So they don't have a chance to forget it. So think of it this way. Do you think people think about you? No, they don't freaking think about you, right? No, everybody has their life and they go on with their life. What I'm trying to be, I don't have anybody walk up today and was like, I wonder what

Gagos is doing right now. Like, nobody does, right? You more so than me. I mean, they might be like, hey, I wonder what vest Russ is wearing today, but I'll post a picture. Our job is to stay top of mind. So what I'm trying to say to that, they're not going to read every post you do. They're not going to watch every video you make. They're not going to comment. They're not going to like it. But here's what you need to do.

You need to be an option. You need to stay on top of their mind. And the best marketer wins. Actually, write us down because this is probably the most important sentence today. The best marketer wins. So what you want to do is you all going to take a phone, right? Like imagine when you are like just cruising the internet in the middle of the night, you have like you doing this one eye open trying to fall asleep right when they're doing the same

thing when they're cruising the internet right there and you pop up right that you're just going to be in their feet they might not even click it they might not even watch it they might not even read caption that you spent 15 minutes typing up right but what's going to happen is in their mind it's going to be like oh there's a go go go chick again she probably sold another house oh there's probably whatever the this or that or that right so your job is to make them remember who you are. I don't know the exact stats, but I think Norse said something like 80 to 85% of the people who closed with the realtor, which they all close with the rioter, not all, most. We'll forget the realtors named within two years. Yes, yes. So eight people out of

10 people that you worked with, two years ago. So however many closings you had two years ago, let's say you had 20 closings, right? 80% is going to forget you. That's like 16 people. 16 out of the 20 is going to forget your name. Yes. You know, go. Yes. I saw this. So this might help you too with like there was a Brian Bofini segment that he used to do.

And I'd seen it posted on a couple of his different videos and so forth. And he had Joe Nigo on the street. And what Joe would do is Joe'd walk around. This is old school. He had a wired microphone. He's like, hi, my name is Joe Nigo, blah, blah, blah. I'm stopping random people. And they stopped a person.

Hey, have you bought or sold a home in the last 10 years? And the person would say, yes, great. What was your real estate agent's name? And they're like, when did you buy or sell? And they're like last year, what was your real estate agent's name? And they're like, like, it was literally, literally like one out of 10 could spit out their realtor's name. And it was one that's like, oh, my person is blah, blah, blah.

And she does this and this and this and this. And I go to her events and blah, blah, blah. And I was just like, Bing, Bing, Bing, lights popped on, right? A year later, they have no idea who I am. And that's my fault. Yeah. So my job is just to know they need to know my name and they need to know what I'm doing. Because if they know my name, they can freaking Google me. Yep. And I am everywhere. I'm on TikTok, on YouTube, on Instagram, on Facebook. I have my dot com, my dot work. I have Google's Real Estate Team.com, GoogleStreet.com, GoogleBathki.com, you name it. I have it. I have to own your dot com. Because you need to be Googled. Yes. So there's a lot of people here. They're like, yes. And there's people like me in the background. I do know now, but I would have to ask this question a lot because I'm not super tech smart. It's a challenge for me. It's struggle with it. I do enough of it, but I don't love it. It's not my real. Here's what you do. Go on go daddy.com.

That's what I'm asking. Go daddy.com. And up on the bar in top, it's going to say search for a domain. A domain is a website that you want to own. Now you can own a website in dot I. dot com.com.co. dot us, team, whatever, group, dot whatever. Dot com is the one that you must have. That's the most trustworthy. People will trust a dot com versus a dot to us, right?

If there's a chance for you to own your dot com, you need to own your dot com. Now here's the best step then I can give you, buy your children's name.com now. You don't know if your child is going to be the next time reading. That is brilliant. That's brilliant. So while you add it, it's going to cost you like 1199 a year.

You own their name. But 18 years from now, they're going to thank you for it because here's what's going to happen. If your child's going to, or whatever, if you grow a business, like here's another thing. My son walks up to me, he must have been like eight years old. And he's 60 now. And he goes, ma'am, can you buy beast foods? And I'm like, oh, okay, sure. I'll go buy beast foods at come, right?

So I buy beast foods at come. And guess what? Today is worth thousands and thousands of dollars than I can sell it for. Wow. And that is my, it could be his car payment. He just turned 16. It could be his college fund if he decides to go to college, even though he told me, here's what he said. He goes, mom, you didn't go to college and you're doing just fine. He's like, oh, I can't.

How do I fight that one? Yeah. I didn't go to college and I did just fine. Yeah. If he's willing to work, I mean, that's a difference. If he's willing to work hard and work smart and surround himself with other entrepreneurs, you find stuff. Like, heck, there's more money being made in trades right now than there are.

Like, you go to a college degree. You can make way more money as a plumber and electrician right now. There's nothing wrong with that. But I love the fact that you said, get your kids.com. Get your kids name.com. So if they grow up and they're good, you just, you give it to them when they turn 18. If your kids grow up and they're driving you nuts, you sell it to them. And that's the other thing, right?

So you want to look at, I joke when I do this presentation all the time, I say, hey, you can go to GoDaddy and buy your own.com or I will sell it to you for tens of thousands of dollars. Totally. Absolutely. I own, I don't know how many tens and tens and tens, if not hundreds of different. I own every version of my name that you can think of. And you should own every version of your name, right? Think of future things. Think about a book that you're going to create. Think about a coaching course that you're going to create, right? Think about those things that it's inside of your soul and you know you need to do it. Maybe not right now. But if you don't buy it right now, somebody else will, own it by the time you come up for air, right? And it's going to be too late. So go online, go and goaddy.com, buy your dot coms, and thank me later. Okay, beautiful. Brilliant. Okay, so let's drop right into social media. So we'll give me like, give me some parameters because everybody's got a little different take,

which is why I'm talking to multiple people about this. And I'm asking mostly the same questions. How often should I do this? What does that look like? Is like for a normal person, what should they be doing? My favorite. So when you ask me how often should I do this, I'm going to, follow up your question with a question. How often would you like to see results?

Well, all the time. Oh, stop it. That's not fair. So if you would like to see results once a week, post once a week. If you would like to see results multiple times a day, then you should post multiple times a day. You also have to look at it. This is my job. I don't cold call. I don't Dornat. I don't buy Zillow leads. I don't buy third party leads. I don't farm an area. I don't send out post. I don't, you name it, I don't do it. I never bleed. I'm five foot two. I'm not going stranger danger knocking on someone's door getting a dead by a pit bull. Not doing it, right? So when you decide to do social media, I have to look at it. It is your job. Yes. Yes. So put in your camera. If you can't under it eventually, it takes 90 days to create a habit until your brain

knows what you need to be doing today. Put a new calendar. Right. Well, but you know, I think the fun part is that at some point you kind of get certain recipes that you like and I've been teaching people from a social perspective, start living a cool life and do stuff. And they're like, well, Russ, I don't have a whole lot of money. Do you have kids? Yeah. Well, take them to every cool place to take kids in town that's free. Take them to all the play parks in town. Take your dog to every dog park and shoot a quick. Like you opened up this with like, I knew exactly what you're doing. You're shooting the screenshot because you're going to retread that a hundred times, right? And you're going to put it out there and be like, here's what we're doing. Here's where we're

going. And you're showing, it's not just real estate. It's you out there doing stuff, right? It's go-go the realtor doing stuff. It's not, look at me, I'm a realtor, please sell a house with me. It's go-go the realtor, living a cool life, doing interesting things. And, by the way, here's something you need to know. Does that sound like a fair assessment of what you're doing? You got it. Down to your teeth.

Okay, perfect. Good. So that's what I picked up from you. I'm not scheduled. I know some creators out there in the world are very scheduled and they're using scheduling softers and stuff. I don't because I need to be inspired in the moment. I can't sit down and start creating 10 videos because I know.

I need to have 10 videos for this month because then if I'm annoyed by it, it's just going to come through, right? Instead, I hate when I'm inspired, which means if I, if something just happened, I'm like, oh, that's a good idea. Let me should record it about it, right? Record it as it's happening, right? So, for example, I just shot another recording for corporate. And Curtis, Dexon asked me three questions, and I thought it was amazing questions, right? So I shot a quick little video right after that, turned it into a real.

And while I was waiting in the background right here, I was editing my reel. Nice. And by the way, Curtis Dixon asks the most amazing questions. He has an amazing question asker. Okay, so let's dig into good, bad, ugly, because I'm not letting that drop. Okay, give me a couple of examples of good. Okay, we got the dance one that's kind of fun, right? And play games on your spouse, always entertaining for me to watch.

So that's good. Give me a couple of other examples of good. I mean, good can be multiple things, right? Good is shooting good things, like good things that happen to you, good things that you can help somebody else change their life, so it's good for them, right? So good can mean multiple things. Let's start with the shameless self-promotion. Yes.

Right? Like last night I got a notification for Bright, the city of Brighton. I was the agent selected, number one, whatever, for five years in a row, which put me in the Hall of Fame. So I took a picture of that and I shared that last night, right? Why? Because people need to see, if they are following, they need to see that you are doing what they want to do. Yes. And you are actually having results with the things that you are doing, right?

So then they would want to do the same thing so they can see results. The other good thing is when you have knowledge for something, right? So help the other share your knowledge because that thing that you just learn, it can change someone's life for the better, which is good for them, right? So share your knowledge so they can learn through your mistakes or through your life lessons so they can get to their success much faster. Good to be the results of the hard work. It's a good life, right?

So it could be showing the good life. Like, I do a lot of that because this company, EXP has absolutely changed my life. Yes. I would not be where I'm at today. If it wasn't for joining EXP four and a half years ago, which was the best business decision I've ever done, right? So good things came of that,

which is the ability to have financial freedom, the ability to have location freedom. Even though I'm licensed in Michigan and I have a team in Michigan, we live in the Tampa area in Florida. It's time freedom. It's, you know, all of those things. So you need to show that this company can also change their lives by showing them the good life that it gave you. Yeah.

So I think the other thing also is being careful to balance this thing, right? It's a balancing game because some people, we get the same, some people doing certain things over and over. Yeah, you just had a little hiccup there. Don't worry about it. It unhicked up, unhickpped. So you got to have a balance here, right? Because we see people doing the same thing. So I know a guy local in Detroit Market, by the way.

By the way, you know, you and I met at the Livonia Marriott back in like 2019 when they did an event there, blah, blah, blah. I met Dave Knorrh back then. I didn't even know who he was at the time. He and I had a nice little chat. He ate a cookie, had a coffee and then went on stage. You were on stage and I was on stage. I'm like, yes, that's my peeps. I like her.

We're good. One of the first people then I met, yeah. Yeah. So phenomenal stuff. And you go back and you're like, it seems like a lifetime ago, right? Okay. So a lot of people get stuck on just doing the one. post. I see the guy post all the time. It's like, here's a picture of me in my card. If you need a

real estate agent, don't hesitate to call me. And that's his post all the time. He's gotten almost no likes on it at all ever now. I see it almost every day. And it just, it just alienates people, right? So, Russ, how long do you think you've been following me? What's that? How long you think you've been following me? Four plus years, right, right, right? Right after that. Have you ever saw me, heard me, read something where I was asking for business? Not once. months. So you're GoGo, the realtor, doing cool stuff, educating people, sharing stuff, showing successes, and showing the path, and showing the, hey, let's go to the, let's go to the next one. What, what, are you sure you want to post bad? Like, give me some examples because some people are like,

my life sucks. I'm like, click. I don't want to do that anymore. Things like that, what are you asking for, when you're having a pity moment, when people do like. I just said the worst day. Looking for sympathy? No. Yeah. What does that mean? Like what happened? Is it condolences?

Is it I'm so sorry? Do you have a flat tire? Did you can't die? What's the worst day ever, right? Like when people are looking for attention, that's not like that. What I mean by that is I want people to know that being in business of whatever kind, whatever the view are doing, right? I own multiple businesses today.

Not every freaking day, if I can say that is sunny and 75. Yes. There are times when stuff is going silent. ways. Yes. Right? And then you are just there to try to fix it. But that every person is going to be nice to you online. Every post is going to be successful. Sometimes I'm like, oh, this is going to be the best one ever. And I have like two likes on. I'm like, what is going on? Yes. An algorithm just shoved it or was it really a bad post. Right? So I want people to know that there are going to be bad days. Yes. There are bad people. There are bad decisions. There are bad times. There

there is bad too. Just as there's good, there's bad. Okay. So not just talking about the bad. It's like, here's what happened and here's what we had to do to fix it or here's what's going. You guys aren't going to believe this one. I've never seen this before, right? It's not all, it's not all roses, you know. Hey, it's 11 o'clock. We finally got the deal closed. Like Friday night at 11 p.m. There's a moving truck in the driveway. This is not an ideal scenario. Thank God we got it done. Right. So that's the, that's the stuff. So it's kind of like I'm a firm. I'm a huge believer that life is happening for us. But sometimes it's happening to us.

To us, yes. And sometimes. That's a bad day. Yeah. And there's times when you step in stuff. And it's like, hey, by the way, if you're walking around in a dog park, guess what's going to happen? Right.

So like don't walk in dog parks. Like people, sometimes that's a lesson. It's like, hey, I actually created this one. I should have been more careful where I was going or I should have been more careful how I did. Or now that I know this, I would not do it like that. again. Exactly. And ugly? Do you remember when I didn't have a front tooth for 18? This is an implant, a $14,000 implant, a $14,000 implant in this one tooth. Wow. So I broke my

front tooth and I thought I'm just going to go and get an implant, right? Like I'm going to get an extra and the doctor says you're not going to have a front tooth for eight months because you have no bone. That's why your teeth broke in the first place. So I had to have bone graft, which had to heal and yada, yada. Like, talking about ugly, like, that was the ugly. I wish I had a photo for you guys right now. But if you go, like, way down with a bit of my Instagram, that's ugly, right? And sometimes there are ugly days.

Yeah. And the ugly is usually doesn't come up often. I would say ugly is probably 2% of the time. That is maybe 5% of the time. And then the rest, 97 is good. Well, 93 is good. I think that's a good balance, right? I think, you know, for me, like, when you did the tooth thing, I was like,

oh, ha, she got some kind of funny spoof. And I'm like, oh, no, she seriously lost her tooth. Oh, crap. You know, that was not, yeah, I thought you were goofing at first. And then you're like, no, here's my temper. I just, I rocked it. I was like, hey, first I had a, I'll be honest. I had a three-day pit party.

I was like, oh, my gosh. Yes. Like, I'm just social media queen of real estate. I'm not going to have a friend to for eight months. Like, how am I going to speak on stage? I'm going to go on all of these Zoom calls. Like, what am I going to do? Right?

And after that, I came out with, they'd be like, hey, God doesn't give you what you can't handle. So he must think I'm a badass, with or without a front tooth. Right? And I was like, we're going to rock it because this is what I got going on. It's the ugly. I'm rocking the ugly. Yeah.

Yeah. It's the funniest thing because you always come out of a unique take on things. So is there anything you definitely don't, don't, don't do? Don't touch it with a 10 foot pole. Light it on fire before you do it. I think self-pity party stuff is probably one of them. Yes. Right.

So it's a matter of just finding like the fun stuff in life and and recording interesting things in life and those aha moments. And when something pops up and you're like, hey, wait a second, I've never seen that before. I've never done that before. Never heard that before or never been there before. I was like, why not? It's like, hey, I've never been here before.

Check this out. You're at the petting zoo at Domino's Farms. Right? Why not? Grab it, right? Especially me, I mean, if you're doing that to allow people to get, to know the local market, right? Like, they're going to come to you as the expert because they know when they ask you,

he, go, go, where should we move, we have kids and we just want to make sure that we are, or we love biking. We're the closest trust, right? Like, whatever that is when they realize that you are the local expert. Like, yesterday I got three listings in St. Pete down here in Florida, guys. I'm not even licensed. Yes. Like my reputation from Michigan, my neighbor, ex-neighbor in Michigan,

moved down here for the winters. Her neighbor down here, built three properties, Her relationship with the realtor down here went south. She was looking for a new wheelchair. I know the best one, right? And she referred it to me. So when she called, I'm like, oh, I'm sorry. I know I lived town.

I'm not licensed down here, right? So I refer it out, but that's your goal. You want people to think of you as their realtor every time it crosses their mind and then you did your job. But the pirate one is a video, so I'm not going to play it now. But your next question was what after that? What would I? What would I, would in touch with a six-foot pole?

Yeah, what are the reports? Yeah. Nobody cares about the market report. Hi, my name is Gogobacki. I'm your favorite realtor in Brighton, Michigan. Let me tell you what's going on the local market. Well, we have 240 homes in average on the market. They say, in the market for 17 days. The average price is this, the average square footage is this. Nobody cares.

You do know I teach people to do that all the time, but not that boring. You know who's going to care? Probably two people who are on the market at the time. So send it to your buyers. Yeah. To send it to the world because they don't care. Not a lecture, but you've got to make people know that you actually understand what's going on in the market. And that can be a short nugget and a short cross-section of what you do.

Otherwise, people just go on there like, but do they know anything? Something along the lines of like, hey, guys, I just created a video for my buyers and sellers of what's going on in the local market in Livingston County. If you would like a copy of that, just put your email address below and we'll show it out to you. There you go. I'm not going everybody else to sleep because there's 67,200 and some of people on my Instagram that would be bored out of their. Right, understood. Find out what's going on in Livingston County, Michigan. Sure, understood.

You're thinking more global versus hyper-local as an agent, too. So I think a lot of agents, I love what you're talking about being local expert, not just being local expert what's going on. Hey, by the way, did you know we're at a 0.7-month supply of homes in Livonia currently? Did you know that? That's crazy, right? And by the way, here's where the dog is. But it's the local stuff. Like if somebody comes into your town and says, hey, where do I go for, where do I go for a fun evening?

Where do I go take my kids? If my grandpa comes in town, where do I have to bring him? What do they need to see? I think the difference is, I mean, if you want to hyper focus on a location only, then yes, maybe do some market reports, walk some neighborhoods, do videos about those neighborhoods. I guess I have taken my business to a different level where I want to ask people this question. Let's say you say you want to make $100,000. You might want to make a million, but let's just keep the math info. Okay, let's say you say I want to make $100,000 this year.

Let's say it's $10,000 per commission. So it's 10 transactions for you versus you could do 40 referrals in a year. You don't have to move a single finger besides making a phone call or a text message, right? And next thing, you know, making a quarter of somebody's commission. Which one would you prefer? Right. So I don't want to work hard for the rest of my life. worked hard for so long. Don't get me wrong. I can work hard, right? But if there's a way how you can make

money without working so hard for the rest of your life is what I want you to concentrate on, right? So in order to do that now, you have to build a referral business, which means you have to broaden your umbrella because nobody in Livingston County, if they are a Livingston County agent, they're never going to refer to you in Livingston County because they're going to be doing those transactions. Okay. So I appreciate this. conversation for a couple different reasons. Number one, I see things a little bit different on some stuff, which is great, right? Like, you're different, I'm different? Perfect, right? You find what works for you? I find what works for me. The key is you got to find what works for you.

But I think the, I think the interesting part is you're pushing a little different of a thought process to me saying instead of being hyperlocal, focus, hyperlocal. Of course, do that because that's where you're working and so forth, but also make sure you're doing other things that are casting a wider net so that you have the ability to potentially get somebody to say, you're my expert even though you're not here and referral fees can really add up yeah well maybe you will say hey i'm going to have a facebook profile that says go go back key your living sin county realtor there you go and then i'm going to have a go go backie profile right so anything that's super local focused i'm going to have it on go go go back key your living in the future and anything that applies to anyone

anywhere in this world is going to be under go go back key so there's a million ways to do this i just don't want you you stop at local because you will be so limited of how you can make money. Understood. Understood. I appreciate that perspective. I think that will amend some of what I do when I talk about that too. So we talk about getting really good at the hyperlocal. If I want you to do anything, you're more likely to get business from hyperlocal because

you're, those are your people, right? More likely smaller sphere, which is limiting, but at the same time for a lot of people, just doing that well would be a massive improvement for their business. So I like the fact that you're talking about taking that and just saying, okay, that's part of it. separate it out, go-go-Livingston County, and then go-go worldwide. But also, F you, so if I look at my business today, right, like how I got the referral yesterday, and from a client who was my client in Michigan, moved to Florida,

the nose, I mean, for a nose and I have a team, right? So it will go full circle for you, right? If people, if you share the details of your life, they will follow along, meaning they'll know that, yes, go-go-move to Temple, but they have, but she has a team in Michigan, right? So as long as you share those steps in your life, even if you just keep it all under the umbrella of your name and not break it up into sections so then you don't have to manage multiple profiles, right? Then people will always follow you. Like I have my people who have sold and bought with me. Gosh, first year of my career, they'll come back to me.

Right. It doesn't change of how much I have changed and how much my life had changed. Their love to me and their respect to what I do hasn't changed. And they still come back to us. Like we literally have a mom and daughter who are doing three transactions with us right now. But that's their transaction number five, six, and seven with me. Right. So I think this ties right back in with what we called earlier, what I called out earlier,

which is start looking at clients as clients for life, not just a transaction. It's a transaction. And then it's a lifestyle to be in touch and stay in touch and continue to be just there. I'm their realtor for life. and what would you do differently if you're the realtor for life? Well, you're going to stay in communication and you're going to be ready because it's not just that deal. It's that deal plus all the other referrals and things that go with it. Affiliate income and all of the different.

Sure, sure. You are amazing. Thank you for everything you do. Thanks for giving your knowledge. Appreciate it a bunch. Have a good one. All right, go, go, Bethke. There you go.