KGCI: Real Estate on Air - How to Rank #1 with Your Google Business Profile as a Real Estate Agent

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

Real estate rock stars, welcome back. Today's show is all about Google business profiles, every freaking detail on how to set it up, what you should be asking for in those reviews. Why your hours of operation matter? What actually happens to the algorithm when you don't answer a Google call? And so much more. I'm actually obsessed with this human. She is freaking powerhouse. Her name is Holly Meyer Lucas and she's out of Jupiter, Florida. And she's been an agent for nine years, closed 1,100 plus transactions. And this past year alone closed 156 million. She is a team leader and leads a team of 30 agents. Holly is also hilarious to watch. So make sure you head over to YouTube and subscribe, comment, what you think. And now, ladies and gentlemen,

please welcome Holly Meyer Lucas. I did say it. Dude, I love it. Google Business, Procedure. So I stumbled across you doing a different interview, and you went deep into Google business profiles. And this is something that I don't think that many people in our industry, other than the fact of it's like, oh, I know that I should have a Google profile of some sorts. I think that that's like the extent of their knowledge. And you for the Meyer Lucas real estate team, you have 181 five star reviews. And the last update that you guys did was an hour ago. So like it's a very consistent process.

So can we pretend I know nothing? And what do I need to know about Google business profiles? Oh my goodness. I love this so much. Google business profile is hands down by far the platform that everyone, if you're focusing on any platform whatsoever, focus on Google business profile, forget Instagram, forget TikTok, forget Facebook, forget all of that. Focus on Google.

If you only have the bandwidth for one platform, I guess I should say, it's hands down made us so much money and continues to. Because if you think about it at its core, Google Business Profile is what people are searching for online. If they're searching for a realtor in your area, that's where you want to be showing up. It's not necessarily going to help you to have a bunch of content on Instagram if Aunt Betty is looking for an agent in your city and you don't show up. You know, so there's as real estate agents, we all get business different ways. And in the online lead, I mean, there's so many ways to get online leads. but I really think that that platform is, I mean, TLDR, Google Business Profile is the goat.

Wait, TLDR, what is that? Too Long didn't read. Have you ever heard of that? You haven't? I've probably seen it and just didn't give it a goog. So, LDR is what the Gen Z ears are saying of like, when you're being long-winded, like, TLD. Like, you put it at the top of emails, like, T-LDR, like, this was resolved, but here are the notes. Too long didn't read.

Oh, my gosh. dude the Gen Z thing. So I'm definitely a millennial. I'm not up with with the cool kids. I was like, are you, you're not a Gen Z. Are you? No, I'm 33 years old. Oh, good for you. Good for you. Thank you. But how old are you? Are we same same? I am the 37. Nice. And I'm wicked pregnant right now too. So I'm four months pregnant. And my eyes have like changed significant. Like I'm just, I am old. You're going through. Okay. Well, Well, I don't think you're old, but let's get back to the Google business profiles. Okay, so let's say, you know, hands down number one platform to focus on, but what do I need to focus on?

So like how do I set it up? Let's start there. Okay, so Google business profile is very, it's very rigid in terms of what you can and can't put on there. There are all kinds of hacks and tips and tricks that that exists with setting up your profile in terms of like what to put in your name. Like if you can get a way, with it by putting your city's real estate agent in the so if it's Shelby in albuquerque Shelby real estate agent albuquerque if you can get away with that with Google more power to you a lot of times they won't let you do stuff like that but there are all kinds of hacks with that that um jason pantana actually have you had him on your show not yet he's amazing um he has a whole like diatribe about

this actually um how to even just set up the name of yourself as you're google it's like your handle on Instagram, right? Like, but don't make your handle on Google business profile the same as your handle on Instagram. But the importance of there. Yeah, but you, okay, you've said some tips and tricks. And yeah, we'll have, we'll have Jason on. But like, what, what are some tips and tricks that we should be trying? So if you can get away with having your, if you can get away with having. So the city and then what you do. So real estate in the in your name, try to get away with that. They might get kicked back. You need to be verified. So your account gets verified. by having a physical mailing address and a phone number.

Google will send you, and they're actually, they're pretty far behind on verification. So you just have to be patient with it. Don't call their support number. It doesn't exist. But you have to be, you want to be verified. And then you need to start getting reviews on there, like as soon as possible. The reviews are in my opinion.

Like I will take one Google business profile review over 10 Zillow reviews, like any day of the week. the Google business reviews are everything to me and my organization. And in business in general, it's like having, they're just worth their weight in gold. So you want to get a bunch of reviews on there. You know, obviously have a profile picture. You can put, you can put pictures of the inside of your brokerage, of the inside of your office. You can put all kinds of different things. If you have a team, you can put your team roster. You do have to submit a background check for each of your team members if you want to do local ad services, which is something that Google recently rolled out. Actually, they rolled it out probably two or three years ago now. But in order to

qualify for that, you have to do the Google background check, which includes submit your social security number, which with team members, it gets kind of dicey asking them to do that sometimes. Give me all your socials. It's fine, trust me. It's kind of a weird thing. It's funny. I don't think about stuff like that. Maybe I'm too loosey-goosey, but I remember when I, the first time, this is years ago, but the first time I asked my team to submit their background stuff on there. I got like a little bit of pushback, which is kind of weird. So yeah, so you can add your team roster. And then you want to add your listings as products. And whatever you're posting on social media, you want to be dumping onto your Google business profile

because I call it Google Juice. Like it just, it juices the profile. And it helps you rank you definitely, it definitely behooves you to have your own domain. This is something I'm pretty passionate about. A lot of real estate agents will use the website that their broker or their brokerage gives them. And it's just, it's such a mistake for teams to not have their own domain that they can own. And, and whether you, like, I built my website in-house and I still maintain it in-house. If that's not-ex-abby, there it is. Do as I say is not as I do, maybe with that, because it is kind of a ball of yarn to get like an IDX feed and all that stuff onto your website. But owning a domain is something that's so, in my opinion, so, so, so important.

And it behooves you to have that to be able to connect to the Google business profile. Okay. So to recap so far, try to get away with as much as possible with your naming convention. So city, what you do, push the limits to try to get Google to approve that. And then make sure you get verified by being patient with the verification process, having the physical mailing address patients. And then after that, you mentioned getting good reviews and dumping all of your content onto there. But I want to step with reviews. Is there anything specific that you ask people to include? Does it lead to SEO help?

Yeah. So there are a bunch of different schools of thought on this. So I would say that so Google constantly is changing their algorithm and is constantly changing. things. And this is, by the way, the disclaimer with this. It's end of January, beginning of February, 2024. Like, this information could change tomorrow and then it's, you know, something else. But consistently, I would say that getting a review in general is important. If there's an anecdote and a story and a real name, beyond like, you know, Shelby was amazing. Like, cool. Okay. What else? Like to give me more. If you can get your friends and family and your past clients to give a real life story, like that's

worth its weight in gold for sure. Here's the thing, though, it's really, really important to respond to every single review that comes in. You want to demonstrate that, which is like no, duh, if someone gives you a compliment, respond. Like, it blows my mind when I look at some of these businesses that have a handful of reviews and like nobody's response. Like, if someone says, like, I like your glasses, like you got to respond to that. Like, cricket. Yeah. So engagement is super important, demonstrating that you're a real human and a real business and are really grateful because you should be. Those things are worth their weight in gold. Yeah. Okay. Question for reviews, reviews still. You know, there's that idea of like, you can get

character reviews if I'm a new agent and I don't have any actual, you know, closings to have on there. So what are your thoughts on the person who goes through their phone, all their friends and family? and it's like, hey, will you give me some sort of review even though you live in Canada and you live in New Zealand? And so on that, what do you have? Okay, so first of all, everyone when they start out, every single person has the mom and the brother and the thing writing a review. Like find your neighbor and have them write you. Like it's, it's perfectly fine to get your first one or two or three reviews from randos who have interacted with you. And it's easier on Google business profile.

On Zillow, they audit, you know, you have to like tie it to a property now. which is I love that like fair game on Google it's you can be a little bit loosey-goosey but also we're real estate agents and we we consult right so when I first started I would have people literally like like they would come to our open house and leave and I would if they weren't buying a house they were working with another agent I would literally ask them like I would send them a link to our Google business profile this is right when Google business profiles first became a thing and I would be like hey did we provide value for you today like if we did do you mind throwing up a five-star review and they would do it like that's one of the

biggest reasons why we have so many reviews is when people end up not working with us, but they end up having a positive experience. You know, I'm not just willy-nilly asking people to throw reviews up. But with rentals, for example, if we helped someone identify that they aren't able to purchase and they ended up having to rent, but we still help them, like, that's a golden opportunity for you to ask them for a review. And usually people will feel like if you've done right by them and they ended up not giving you money, you better go get some other equity. And that can come in the form. Yeah, they feel bad. Yeah. So they'll be like, Like, that equity is worth, I mean, if you're going to get a $500 commission from a rental,

like I would turn right back around and give that $500 away to get a review. Like, it's so valuable. That's so interesting. Okay. And then as this, you know, new agent, I'm building my reviews. How long before that starts to move me up in the act? Because hypothetically, you know, I'm in a big city, maybe. And by the way, I do this thing all the time where I'm just pretend where I'm one of the

listeners. I'm in a big city and I'm looking on Google and there's all of these other agents ahead of me and there's no way I could ever catch up. What do you say to me? I say you have to start somewhere. Like, let's go. It's hard to be consistent. Listen, I pay an army of people to be consistent with our profile. Like you just said that we just posted an hour ago. Like disclosure, that was not me. You used to be. For sure. That was not me. So I'm, eventually, in theory, people like me will run out of gas and then you'll be right there like like I don't it's such a good question I think it's kind of demoralizing when agents look at teams like mine like like I'm never going to but it doesn't it doesn't matter like there is going to be a buyer or seller who wants to work with

you and wants to give you an opportunity and by the way I would probably be that person actually like I love more than anything giving someone a leg up and an opportunity when they need it most like that's, I always say this with personal brand, be the person you needed when you needed help the most. And for me sometimes, like, I love going on a podcast, for example, that has like, like a brand new podcast where they're shooting their shot, reaching out to me and are like, hey, will you be my guest? Fully expecting me to say no. And I'm like, fuck yeah, I'll be your guest. Like, you have two listeners. Let's tell them some stuff. Like, let's go. I love that stuff. Dude, that's hilarious. Okay, God. Yeah, and that's so true. Like, I remember my first year in real estate. I had someone reach out just because they, like,

liked my headshot. They thought it was like different, you know, than the other ones. And I'm like, I have no credibility at all. And yet you're still. So it's, it is one of those things. Just shoot your freaking shot, right? Amen. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm pulling up your Google, um, business profile right now. And I'm just going to go down because I want to make sure that we hit everything. And we have, you know, the Meyer Lucas real estate team. And the first, you know, after after your, I see your reviews, I see real estate agents, your location. Next is ours. What are, is there. Is there. any tips, tricks on hours of operation? This is a really good question.

So we in, so I'm in Jupiter, Florida. In Jupiter, Florida, which is halfway between Miami and Orlando, we are in, we are very much on the East Coast, right? Doesn't get more east than us. Actually, I don't know if that's true. I digress. We have a lot of people moving here from California. So I want to be really, really sure that when someone in California is on our profile,

they're seeing the hours aligned with their time zone too. And, I mean, listen, I have 30 agents. Like, there's going to be someone that can take a call at 10. p.m. That's 7 p.m. California time if someone's off work wanting to make a phone call. So depending on the time zone you're in, you want to buffer it. So I would say if you're on the west coast, this is a hot tip. If you're on the west coast, I would probably buffer your hours earlier. So someone on the east coast, let's say you don't start working till not, or you know, you don't start working until nine. You probably want to put your hours as open

at six. So someone on the east coast sees it on their end. That's nine o'clock on the east coast. Does that make sense? because it doesn't say like it won't say local time in their time zone. What time zone are you in? Eastern. Yeah, okay. So if you look at our profile, you're seeing the Eastern time. But if you were in L.A., you would be seeing those hours as skewed three hours different.

And you have, and it's, let me check, make sure. Yeah, it is Monday through Sunday with your hours. So weekend hours, I mean, we're in real estate, but anything else on like that sort of thing. Yeah. I mean, I feel like that, you know, some people. will put like 24 hours open. Like to me that that kind of discredits you like where you're open like anytime. Yeah. You don't sleep. Cool. Be responsible with what you're putting out in the universe, maybe. Okay. Gotcha. And then next on here is your website, which you have your own domain,

which again, why is that important? Okay. So TikTok could go out of business tomorrow. Instagram could go out of business tomorrow. Not really, but they could shut down. They could change things, right? They could force businesses to start paying like an insane amount of money. You know, meta's kind of dabbled with that. Blah, blah, blah. Long story short, your domain is something that you own, you control. Every single piece of content that you have should live on your domain as a blog post or as a standing, a freestanding landing page. Everything that you're creating, all of these videos and even podcasts, everything that you're creating should end up on the domain that you own.

because again, TikTok could change its algorithm tomorrow and everything that you've created there is gone. You know, like it literally could be gone. Your Instagram account can get hacked. So you should be doubling down on everything that you're creating and putting it on your domain. And I would say a fair way to do that also is on your Google business profile. But listen, Google could start charging for those too. So having a domain, I'm so passionate about this, having a domain and even I would say second to that is an email list. your followers, if Meta decides tomorrow, like if Zuckerberg goes nuts and goes like, we're done, shuts it down, your followers are nothing. If you get hacked, how many people,

how many of your listeners have been hacked? Like, it is freaking me. I don't have Facebook right now. Like, I don't exist on Facebook because I got hacked. It got disabled. And it's been like two and a half months and I still don't have. I don't exist on Facebook. That's insane. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I didn't know that that happened. But great example. No, it's a great example, right? Yeah. So, I mean, it sucks when that happens regardless, right? But the best way to mitigate that is to have at least a bank of stuff that exists house somewhere. Yeah. And hosting on your website is the best. Totally makes sense. The domain is a new one. Well, it's not new for, it's newer for me. Because I just went to traffic and conversion summit back in the beginning of January.

And they were just talking about similar, you know, where it's like you have to get the, data, you know, the email and the phone numbers and whatever because just like my example, it could, Facebook could be gone. But also it's like so many platforms right now are just algorithm controlled. And so like your your content may be doing really well on Instagram or TikTok now, but then just like you said, it could change tomorrow and suddenly you don't have the reach. And if you don't have your own domain or your own the data, then you're just like shit out of luck. 100%. 100 million percent. Yes. Okay. Moving right. along your page. Next is the LGBTQ friendly identifies as women owned, like importance of that

stuff or strategy. Yeah. So that was, I mean, honest. Like I am very LGBT. What is the LGBTQ? Dude, I don't. I can read it again. Hold on. Right. Or whatever that algorithm or whatever that. Yeah. I'm not a lot of LGBTQ plus. Yeah, very supportive of that community. And very inclusive with our agent. I mean, our agents are, in order to be on my team, you have to be, in my opinion, you have to be a good person and you have to be, like to me,

it's almost no question to have that as, like, that's a no-dob position to take. But we have, um, being female owned and operated, my entire leadership team is female. very, very, I wouldn't say I'm a feminist by any, because I think that there's a lot of negative connotation that comes with that. Like, I am a champion of women and, and having that on there has, has, I don't want to say has gotten us so much, it has, but it's also, I hate saying that because it feels like I'm being, like, strategic with that and there was no strategy involved at that. There's a- Well, you're just taking a stand, really about, you know, believing something, right? And people admire that, maybe? You know what I mean?

In Florida, I think, you know, so many people have moved here. And Florida has a, you know, being in Florida, like, Florida has a weird reputation. And so it's always been important to me to, like, point out that like, despite the fact that we're in the land of, of, you know, trumpiness, like, you are welcome here. Okay. And so now at the bottom, it has the, the from the owner. And I, this is where that, you know, price and improvement post from an hour ago is located. So can you talk about, you mentioned that you, every single thing you guys do as a team is also posted for the Google Juice? Yeah. So we, anything that we're posting, typically, anything that we're posting on our social media

channels, so on, on IG or on Facebook, anything that, any assets that we're creating, any activity that we have with our listings, we're always doubling down and putting it up there on Google. Now, Google does have its own parameters. around the formatting of its graphics. So it is important that you format the graphics to accommodate what their dimensions are. And they actually, they get kind of tricky with it. They change it fairly often. Of course they do.

Yeah. I think right now it's actually aligned with Yelp and with Facebook. I think the dimensions, but again, this is January, like it could change tomorrow. But yeah, we're formatting it. We are adding, here's something really important. We're adding the geo data and the mess. metadata into that photo too. So what we're uploading, if it's a graphic that says, you know, price improvement, we're going into the metadata of that graphic and we're adding the location

of the property, if it's a listing thing. We're adding all kinds of different tags. All the metadata in the background of that picture is really, really important for your ranking. Dude, I think what are you even saying right now? What are you saying? You're adding the metadata of the graphic. How do I do that? What is that? What do you mean, Holly? So here's, okay, here's the easiest way to do it because Apple just hooked it up. So if you have an iPhone and you open a picture and you swipe up on that picture, like you just move up, right?

The picture, if you have location services enabled, then it'll, the location will show up. But if you don't, then you can add the location and you can add metadata into the Apple, into your actual photo on, on if you have an iPhone. That's the easiest way to explain it. Metadata is important, though, uploading anything onto your website. should have metadata embedded into the pictures. And honestly, it's like the best way to describe how to do that is to Google it. And I hate saying that, but like the step-by-step guides you can find online on how to do that is,

it's really easy to do, especially if you have an image. That's crazy. And I wonder, I mean, I very well could be like the only one who's living in a cave right now. But you just blew my mind with the fact that I'm supposed to embed data into my image. before I upload them. So they're like in the back. They're like behind the scenes and like talking to the Google things. There's so much SEO juice in what you upload.

Like it is if you caught it's so funny. I feel like I feel like so many people get so hellbent on discussing hashtags, right? The more important thing is the metadata and your photos that live on your website. Like in my opinion, like that is what is going to get you found on the Google machine. not hashtags, but it's the same concept as hashtags for sure. So embedding metadata into, like if you're, if you are posting a blog about the 10 best restaurants in your area, and you have a picture of each one that you, um, that you have either that you took or that, you know, you paid someone to put on your blog. Each of those posts should be,

um, should have geographic data in it, uh, that corresponds with the area where you sell real state so that Google sees that and goes, there's so much content here on this website. I'm going to rank this profile higher because there's all this metadata in the background. That is so interesting. Can you can you do that with video as well? With video, it's trickier because you're embedding. I, okay, so I contradict myself with video, with my strategy with it. I like to embed from YouTube because I would rather have, because YouTube is also owned by Google. So I would rather have where our video lives, which is on YouTube, rank higher on

YouTube, than help our website. Does that make sense? So anything on our website that I upload video-wise, I'm uploading onto YouTube and then embedding onto our website from YouTube. Yeah, that makes sense. And actually, just a little sidebar before we get back to the Google business profile is, I know that YouTube is owned by Google. How much, I guess, I guess, So if you, if you right now, you would rather your YouTube video, you know, do they talk to each other? Like your YouTube profile? Can you link it to your Google business page and be like Google that knows? Yes, 100%.

Google does know that you have. So what the more complete your profile is, the better. And those two things are are absolutely like. Now, I will say that our YouTube is, and I'm pretty outspoken about this. Like, like the platform that you have the bandwidth to feed is the one that you should focus on. So what we upload to YouTube are our property tour videos. They're mostly unlisted because we want them to be unbranded so I can pull them into the MLS. We don't, I've buried a lot of our YouTube content over the years because it's content that I haven't

necessarily been proud of and it was ranking too high. And I'm saying this carefully because a lot of it is old podcast episodes, news stories that I've been on things that I just, I don't necessarily, like literally YouTube was right, our things were ranking too high. So I very slowly have started to kind of parse down what we have out there. And the biggest reason for that is I, I, I don't like it competing with more relevant information. No, it makes sense. Yeah. Okay. So continuing down this profile. Next, there's questions and answers. Is this something that you guys put your own prompts up or are these like actual questions from people that you are answering?

Okay. So we had a bunch of questions on there that I put up and answered them like ourselves. And I actually got rid of them because it felt so cheesy. And I wish that someone would put you should put a question up there so that I can answer it. Okay. I will. I will do that. I'll make a lot.

People would ask more questions about our, about real estate things. But they just don't. And that's annoying. but in theory like a lot of businesses will have um in that section like if you're a coffee shop like a lot of them will have um questions about like everything from like what's the Wi-Fi code to like is there a Wi-Fi code um is smoking like things like that um we don't really have that many I've deleted the ones that I put on there I deleted because I feel like it was a little cheesy I just yeah on yeah okay so this at this point I ran through your entire um profile and hypothetically

I am Aunt Susie or whoever, and I found you on Google. Do how, what happens? Do they call direct through the Google profile? Is there someone manning that on your end? What does that look like? There are a couple different ways. Like the beauty of the Google business profile is there are a couple of different ways that leads, customers, inquiries come in.

And it's important that you enable the messaging prompt part. And this goes for any business, not just real estate. when you want to have the Google business app on your phone so that you can respond to the local ad services. If you can get local ad services, they're kind of limited in areas, but if you can get it, get it. And so you want to be able to respond to messages. Messages are by far and away how the majority of our leads come in. For some reason, people just love to text, man. It's like, I'd rather send an email or a message than pick up the phone and call. Having said that, phone calls are obviously wicked important too. So if you click, there are a couple different, like, ways that,

um, that the, the, uh, when you hit call, like I have them routed to go to whoever's working floor time on my team. Um, and then when they're off floor time, it goes to a different office line. Uh, but answering those phone calls, Google takes into consideration, like, they're monitoring those phone calls. So it takes into consideration, whether you're answering it, whether you're answering it, whether you're sending it to voicemail. Um, and so it's really, really important that whatever phone number you put on there is one that you can actually answer, which for me is not my cell phone. Because obviously if I'm sitting here, like I think one of the biggest mistakes agents make is they put their personal cell phone number

on their, especially if you're if you're a team leader and like the rainmaker of the team and you're like out, you know, doing showings constantly. It's really important that you have a backup answering your phone. That's like real estate one-on-one. I can talk about that forever. But particularly with Google business profile, they take that. Actually, that is actually a point I want to try to dig deeper into just because I literally, and I talk to agents all the time. That's all I do is talk to agents. But I've talked to this one agent and he has worked really hard on his Google profile and it's, it's gone up and he's starting to get a bunch of calls. But he, like you said, there are listing appointments, showings, like unable to man all that calls, but has like a lot

of limiting beliefs in hiring like, especially a virtual assistant, you know, maybe not stateside. So what would you recommend? Would you recommend hiring someone? Are there like service? What what is the solution? Yeah, I think if you are struggling to keep up with inbound leads and inbound activity and you're also, in addition to that, you're struggling with the notion that you need to hire, I think, and I mean this with all due respect, but you've got to have a conversation about your ego. You have to hire someone. If you're putting the energy and effort into building a platform in order to make your phone ring and your phone is ringing and you're not able to answer it because you're too busy, Like, you have an ego misalignment there because someone else needs to be answering that, or you need to stop trying to advertise in an area where you're now, you, basically it's like, it's like being out on a boat as a fisherman, and you have 13 lines in the water. And every single one of them now has a fish on it, which, by the way, is a real human, right? Like, these are people that want your services. And you can't get to them all. Like, who's, who's the problem there?

probably the guy that went out by himself yeah makes sense what for you what is your process with your team behind the same yeah so i have um i lean on my team so so heavily and by the way that advice is coming from someone who um struggled with that myself like i um i wouldn't say i struggled with that i hired early on i hired the wrong people and put them in the wrong seats on the bus as they say And then after that, it really took me a long time to relinquish control again and hire the right people because it was like, oh, never mind, I'll just do it.

And that's, I think, the biggest issue that real estate agents have is they make that first transaction manager hire. They try to onboard a VA. They try to get help. And it just ends up not working. So they create more work for themselves because they've now trained this person or they've onboarded a VA and they just end up shedding the bed. And it's like, never mind, I'll just do it.

It's like the hell to live in. I digress. My team, like I said, I have 30 agents. I have an amazing, amazing support staff. I have a chief of staff who I lean on heavily. Hiring chief of staff was probably the best decision that I've made. So everyone in my organization reports through her to me. And so she acts as a buffer for our agents and for basically everyone to eliminate me from the whirlwind of not even HR-related questions.

Like questions about training and about how to do this and how to do that. And she's like, and you're fine stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're an entrepreneur type mind like me, having someone like that in place is really important because I will stop what I'm doing.

And like, I mean, I just mentioned this. Like, I'll drop everything to help someone with like something basic, complicated, whatever. Like, if you need help, like, I'm going to help you. So putting a buffer in place to really protect my time and my energy is, has been a game changer. As far as the leads go, though. So I don't, I'm not in production at all anymore.

I don't work with buyers or sellers at all. I refer everything out to our agents. Not refer out. Agents on our team, the expectation is that they work with our clients. So most of the time when we get a cum list me call, which is the majority of our Google inbound calls are cum list me type calls. When someone reaches out to work with us, I assign it to typically two agents on the team, whoever is going to be the best fit. I thought I could get by with taking those off,

but I just can't see you. So annoying. If you're listening to this on a podcast and not watching it, I just took my glasses off and now I'm putting them back on. Speaking of which, go to YouTube, watch, subscribe, like, comment, all the things. Okay. Holly, continue. Go YouTube. Go, show the guys. So, yeah, and that model has worked with us for, for us for years. Whenever we get a lead that comes in on one of our listings, if you're the listing agent on the team. I don't allow that agent to work with that buyer. So I reassign that lead to someone else within the organization, which is fairly unique. And I would argue that the most recent NAR lawsuit stuff is kind of validated for me, at least, that that policy is a good one.

I don't like people representing the same person at the same time. And I don't like the lack of transparency that I think that always causes. I've been doing that for years. So yeah, that's how we run. Okay, gotcha. If we have time, I'm going to loop back because I'm super curious about how your team structure besides, you know, 30 agents is a lot of agents and then the chief of staff. And I'm so curious about that. But we are on the Google train and we're not getting off yet. So you mentioned local service ads a couple times. So could you talk about you said if you can get them. So what are they? Why do I want them? Hit me. So with local ad services, I'm speaking. from our experience with local ad services. And I could be wrong about what is available in.

Like they rolled it out geographically in certain areas. And we jumped on it like immediately. Like the second I noticed it came available. We jumped all over it. And so full disclosure, again, I'm in Florida, Jupiter, Florida. So in your area, I don't know if this is available or not. They also limit the number of teams in real estate service providers that qualify for local ad services. So basically it's a way for Google to verify that you are indeed a real business. You're a good business. Your business that people want to work with. And if the terms, let's say, plumber in Albuquerque, if those terms are searched,

you're a company that can handle, they can give Google the trust factor to be able to handle that inbound inquiry. So you then qualify for a profile. You have to pay for those leads. So it's pay to play. I'm sorry, it's pay per, not pay to pay, it's pay per inquiry. So every time we get an inbound inquiry, that costs me money. You can set limits on like how much you want to spend per inbound inquiry. Again, I don't know how this works in other areas, but in our area, that's how it works. I always have it maxed out because to me it's like those calls are amazing. Sometimes it'll be

someone that's like looking for a bus stop or like a random person that like just randomly clicked on the ad and you can dispute those, which is cool. Google will let you say like, hey, no, dog, like this wasn't a real lead. Sometimes it's people who are being like foreclosed on their home and you have to like just unpack why it is that they're looking for a real estate agent. And turns out that they searched for like foreclosure attorney or something like that. So it's not perfect. But if you can get it, it's worth its weight in gold. And it gives you a different screen too. So on that screen, you'll see all of your, all of your leads, all of your active leads, any archived leads. It's fairly no. I think that this was rolled out. I want to say three years ago,

like before the pandemic, so actually four years ago. Okay. Yeah. How do I, where do I go for that? How do I just do I Google local ad services? I've been calling them local service ads. Yeah, I would literally Google local ads. What comes up when you Google it? Like, can you select it? Let me just give it a goob right now. Let me see. It's so exciting.

Yeah, it says ads. com is the first thing. Yep. Show up in your area on Google. Sign up for Google local ads to reach more customers in your area. I think it's limited by, not I think. I know it's limited by Indeat. So for example, real estate is an industry that they have opened.

And like I said, they opened it like four years ago. But different industries, like I was just telling you, I launched this creative agency, marketing, and PR hybrid agency. And I don't think we can get that for like a marketing company yet. But you know, I'll test it out and we'll circle back. Okay. Perfect. Before we move on from that, how much do you pay? do you pay? You said you always have it maxed out. What does that look like? Yeah. So I think that it's by, if I remember this correctly, it's by week. So like how much are you willing to spend per week? And I think

we have it set to like the max, which is like $500 a week. So it ends up being around $2,000 a month. If we max out the calls. Now it only charges us for calls that are legitimate actual calls. And like I said, sometimes it'll be like someone that, you know, is looking for a bus stop. And then I hit dispute because they, the calls are recorded. So they listen to the calls. And you also can get disqualified pretty easily from the program. Like if you're not answering, you know, back to the point about solo agents that don't have help. Like if you're not answering, Google doesn't want you. Why would they recommend someone who doesn't answer and makes people pissed off? Because Google wants everyone to be happy and stay on the platform. And the

minute that people get pissed and you're the reason, it makes sense that you would drop. 100%. Yeah. And you also show up differently. So if you search for like real estate agent, Jupiter, you're going to see, that's actually a good example to look at the, at how we show up there. There are a bunch of different real estate teams and agents that will show up and it gives you different options. It looks different than the Google business profile on the right side of the screen. It's just a different, different ad, I guess. But the two go hand in the app, can't have Google ad services without having an amazing Google business profile. Right. Okay. So step one is the rewind this podcast, re-listen from the beginning.

to do step one. But okay, what are your numbers from when, when did you start your profile and what would you say that it's done for your business? If you have numbers, great. If not, whatever you go. It accounts for, so ever, so starting in 2020, we sell over 100 million in real estate every year. So we're on our third year of selling over 100. And I would say it accounts. So here's the thing, too. It's really hard to determine, um, with some types. of leads that come in to my ecosystem. It's really hard to determine how someone actually found you, because a lot of times they'll say, like, oh, I saw your website, I found you, like, but did the reviews on Google, on the Google business profile that, where you clicked to our website, like, was it the

reviews that made you, first of all, like, that's the original source in my opinion always. So, full disclosure, like, that's what I consider always to be the original source. If someone says, well, I was searching for an agent, and I found your website, I chalk, up to being you found our Google business profile and then you found our website because our website actually funny enough doesn't rank as high as our Google business profile does. We have in our area like we're competing constantly with, you know, Redfin homes.com, compass.com, Zillow for the real estate related terms. So there is that. So I would say that about half of our business at this point comes from people searching and finding our Google business profile. And then, you know, you have to

you have to have proof of concept, which is not lost on me either. Like, and then the reason I'm saying this is because if you started, like I started this Google business profile, I think six or seven years ago. Um, I started it right at the beginning, like right when they launched it as a product, like years ago. And, um, so I'm just setting the expectation that that proof of concept, like when you our Google business profile, it's like, oh my God, they sell a lot of real estate, right? There are a lot of reviews. It doesn't, it's not like paying for Zillow leads and now you're just getting caused. Does that make sense? Like, you have to build it. But I will say if you build it, they will come. And to us, it's to the tune of like I could probably track every year around 50 million

that is directly related to our Google business profile. Which is so badass. And it's, well, it's one of those things too where when you think about like the marketing funnel, you know, the awareness stage at the top and then consideration and then conversion. And it's like if you are just feeding Zillow, you're, yeah, sure, you're getting those people in the bottom of the funnel. Those people generally that are like, hey, I want to go see this house. But generally, that's more expensive. And it doesn't have as many long-term benefits as if you were to put in a lot of time to building your Google business page and doing all of these things that you mentioned because they will, it's so much more powerful when people search Holly Meyer, you know, real estate,

as opposed to real estate. I don't know. I don't know if that makes sense. No, 100% makes sense. That's kind of what I'm getting at with. Like, I think it's really, and I think agents would be remiss not to take this into consideration when they're tracking their lead source.

Like, it's a big decision to work with a real estate agent, especially when you're selling a home. So when you're hiring someone to sell a home, I would argue that there are a lot of things that are being taken into consideration and a lot of different platforms that sellers are looking at, like not just the one. So if you, you know, we have a lot of,

of sellers that come from Zillow, for example. Like, I would argue that our Zillow profile is great, but they probably also Googled me. You know, like, totally. You know, and there are people that just go off of the one source for sure. But it's just, it's important to keep all the, the pieces fed if you can. Totally. Okay. Before we go on to wrap up, I want to talk about your recent launch, hype boss.

Is that what it's called? What is it? How can it help our listeners? Yeah. Thank you. So I just recently launched a creative agency, marketing firm, and PR agency. That's kind of a hybrid of those three things. It's called hype boss. And it is basically I saw this need. And I've been working on this for the last several years, kind of on the deal, trying to figure out like what it is that what it is that I continuously help people with over and over and over again. And the biggest thing is their hype. And I think that everybody that thinks that they need a marketing manager or marketing direct. director, I think they actually maybe need just a hype boss, like someone that's in charge of all of their things, all of the platforms, and can kind of corral it for them. So what we're starting out doing, I just soft-launched this in November. And by the way, I soft-launched it and like days later found out

that I was pregnant with our fourth. So I'm, I've adjusted my own personal bandwidth because my first trimester was like wicked brutal. So we're on a wait list right now for, for our first, our initial clients. But what we're doing is, is a brand blueprint to really help you understand what your brand is. So many people don't know who they are to. Like if you were creating a Google business profile, for example,

you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, dump all your content in there. It's like, well, what content? Like what, like my, my religious team brand is, is wicked strong. I've been working on it for, you know, 10 years. And I know exactly what that brand is. Me personally, I have a strong personal brand, but I might not know, like, what to share or post or, and it's meaning like if your brokerage is doing one thing, like you have a personal brand that you should be talking about and should be screaming from the rooftop. And if it feels braggadocious

for you to do it, then hire a hype boss and they will show you how or they'll do it for you. So you can visit hypeboss.com and sign up for our brand blueprint. It's a one-on-one session with me or one of the team members to really unpack what your brand is. It's 90 minutes. And then you get a blueprint back on who we think you are and what you should be posting. And then we take it from there with the creative agency stuff. That is very interesting. I love the idea of the personal brand.

and I'm fascinated by different ways to build it. And so that and digital marketing in general, I'm just like, those are my interests right now. So I'm like, taking nuts over here. Okay. I'm going to hit you up, Holly. Like the best influencers and collaborators, like the best, the people that are good at it are,

are good at it because they understand who they are. And I think it can be daunting for people. And I know this because I've been working with people for years on just on the side because I think it's fun and I'm good at it. Like helping them identify who they are to their community, who they are to their audience. And I think it can be really daunting when you look at like a brand like you have a really strong personal brand. Right. You're good at it.

Like you're good at digital marketing. You're good at being you. But a lot of people aren't. And it's mostly because there's confusing input that comes in. Like if you follow, you know, we're just talking about Matt Lianetti, right? And Glenda Baker. and like if you follow these in real estate, these different characters thinking that like Glenda's hilarious, right? Matt is hilarious. But if you don't have the ability to be funny like that,

and it's not in your bones, if you are more of a stoic reserved human, don't try to be them, even though they are successful in what they're doing, the person that hires you because you're more, and I'm using this as an example, but if you're a more stoic reserve personality, there is a buyer and a seller that's going to want to hire you over those personality types all day long. And so I think it's just really unpacking who you are to your community and being the person that you needed when you need to help the most. And yeah, it's been it's been really, really, really fun so far. Love. Okay, Holly, what did we not cover today before we had up into wrap up that you think would be important on this topic or just in general what you got?

I mean, did we mention that Google Business Profile is important? I feel like we didn't. We barely touched it. This timing is actually good because the sun is like coming through my window. And I keep like leaning farther and farther and farther over like I keep in to figure out how to fix that. I think that one major, major takeaway with all of this is that if you have the bandwidth to do it, then do it and do it well. But if you don't, don't stress about it either. like it's it's like me like google business profile is important youtube is important

instagram is important but also me like i have an army of people that that do this and um and i would recommend if you are trying to show up more online and you don't have the bandwidth to do it yourself hiring a VA and hiring someone that that knows how to navigate that over you trying to figure it out yourself is like 10 for 10 the way to go um do you have VAs yes and there i don't how I could survive without them. That's what I like, when I like talk to people and they're like, I don't want to hire. I'm like, I don't see how you can't, where you're not hiring. Because for me, it's like, it's all of, first, the menial tasks, like the things where I'm like, my blood starts to boil when I'm like, I should be doing something more important, someone else,

and literally anyone else could be doing this. That's one piece of it. And then exactly what you just said. It's like the amount of time and energy to even baseline figure something out when you could hire someone who you're hiring not just for the hourly whatever, but also for the years of experience that they've put into that. It just, to me, it just makes so much more sense. So I'm really big on the VA train. Yeah, I could not agree with you more. I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's so daunting for people to make that hire, though, because a lot of times when they onboard, like, it's hard to explain what exists. Like, I think it's hard for people to, A, admit that they want to show up online more and look better online. I mean, it goes back to

like why I created hyposs. Like people feel it's self-aggrandizing if you hires like what you need help with, for example, is like creating graphics about how like for the content you want to shoot. But then you have to onboard someone and admit to them that like you want to do the thing that is kind of a vulnerable thing for you anyway. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's like a limiting belief within yourself. And yeah. Well, there's that. And well, there's also I feel like there's this reoccurring problem with VAs too where it's like people when they're finally like I'll hire someone especially if this is like their first hire they just expect that they can hire someone and that person will be able to know exactly who they are read their mind understand their brand their vision

all these things that they like with Hypot like most people can't even articulate that for themselves and then they get frustrated that the person that they hire doesn't understand when they don't even understand so there's like there's lots of layers to it yeah you know you just on the head in like a very like it's kind of a you just said exactly what it's like a chaotic it's a very very chaotic pushback that I think exists in people's like brain web and I think really taking a step back and admitting it to yourself is like the first step of yeah yeah totally I love it totally okay wrap up question number one what is something cool that you have learned recently. It can be business, it can be life, whatever. What's something cool?

Oh, my God. One thing that I'm kind of like really trying to, not to not answer your question, but one thing I'm really trying to do is, is not use filters as much on social media. There's an amazing reel that my girl, Jazeel just put out about, or no, she put it out a while ago. and she just recently reshared it. So it's on her feet right now about how filters are are doing you a disservice. And this is more for the girlies than anything. So I'm really,

really trying to lean into that. And like I usually will throw on like a light filter if I don't have time to do my makeup or like if I just don't have the energy to do my makeup, like to make my foundation look like it's done. But I'm really trying to not do that. What's her message behind that? Like what is the, you know, doing the disservice? Is there like a, is there a reason?

Yeah, it's like it's that you're creating an identity that is not real. And when you show up, one thing that I really notice, I speak a lot. And when I go to speaking engagements and I see other speakers who I follow, I, there are some that look nothing like they do online. And I think with AI and with, with the filters that are available, like it's just, it's a dangerous thing to concoct an image of yourself that you actually aren't. Like, people want the real you. So messages is around authenticity and that, that she starts it out by saying like, like, filters are fucking you up. And it's, it's absolutely true. Yeah, yeah, really good hook. And, but it's also something, it's like a comfort blanket that exists. And for me, it's, it's not because I necessarily,

like, it's, like, it's that, but not that. It's, it's that I, taking the time to, like, being okay with not having foundation on. Like, I think if you're a female that has, like, like, tough skin, for example, you know? Yeah. I think one of the things, like, women do not talk enough about their struggles with acne and their struggles with miscarriage. Like, those two things are like the things that we,

if you bring it up in a room of women, every single chick is like, oh, my God, me too. Like, like, it took me an hour to get my face to a place where, like, you know, anyway, I digress. But that's what we look like, you know? and being comfy with it is important. So kind of round of. So it's good. I accept.

Okay. Okay. Well, Holly, this has been so fun. I think you're freaking awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Really appreciate it. And yeah, sure, all the love. Give her the five-star reviews, all the things.

And if you want to hang out with me and the owner of the show, we are the Shelby Show and Aaron Amuchisagie on the gram. We love hearing. from you. Also, oh my gosh, we love five-star reviews too. If you could hop on over to Apple or freaking Spotify and boop that five-star, write a review, Holly is the best ever. Oh, my God, that would be awesome. And that is all we have for today. Real Estate Rockstars. Thanks for listening.