KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Levi Lascsak Shares Tips To Drive Leads Using YouTube

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

Welcome to the Real Estate Fight Club, a podcast for agents where you'll witness a battle of opinions about topics affecting your real estate business. There are many ways for agents to achieve success. The secret is to find which approach will work for you. Now, always in your corner. Here are your hosts, Jen Mertland and Monica Weekly. Welcome to another episode of Real Estate Fight Club. What's up, Jay Mart? Monica, I am pumped for this one.

I know. Honestly, maybe some of the last, I don't know, 176 episodes we've done, I bet our listeners are going to get a real shift in their thinking about YouTube and actually some nuggets that they can put into play right now. Because anybody can do this, right? We're going to find out from our fabulous guest here today in a sense. Second. So today, Jen and I have the honor of having Levi Lassick with us, the classic Lassick. And this is a real honor because his schedule is super tight. And we're just glad you made time for us, Levi.

Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks, Levi. So today, you are like the YouTube master generating leads on YouTube. And we are happy to hear your top three tips for generating those leads. But can you first, I want to just do a quick introduction. You're at EXP Realty as a real estate agent. Your team is called the Living in Dallas, Texas team. Can you give us a broad overview of like your business as it relates to generating leads on YouTube? And then can we go into some of the tips? Of course.

Absolutely. So we released the first YouTube video on December 5th of 2020, which is basically whenever I started. Yeah. We started our real estate career. So Travis, my business partner, also got licensed in December of 2020. You guys are baby realtors. Yeah, we are. We just hit our two-year anniversary.

Happy anniversary. I didn't know that. That makes this whole thing even more, like, attainable for people. Yes. I love this. Okay, good. Yep. So, and here's the stats.

Of course, starting in December of 2020, we sold zero homes in 2020. We sold zero homes in Q1 of 2021. And so it took us 90 days to get the first deal under contract from YouTube. And we ended up closing the first two transactions in April of 2021. Now, the last nine months of 2021, we closed 64 transactions, $33.5 million in volume. And hit right at a million, $6,000 in commissions. Now, now look at 2022. It's been a complete snowball.

So 2022 is our second full year in real estate. and we are projecting right now with everything in place, because this is December of 2022, we will close right at 99.1 million in volume 188 transactions just at 2.8 million in GCL. I mean, who doesn't want to go from like two or zero transactions to almost 200 in two years? Hey, wait, though, Jen, if somebody is right now listening as like, I am not interested in doing 60 deals, I'm not refer it out or guess what? You might not have to work as hard as they do and you could make do 20 deals. It's fine.

Well, you know, that was actually my goal. I mean, I thought if I could just refer out two to four deals per month and at a 50% referral because I figured, well, if I give somebody volume or more than one deal in a month, I could probably get a 50-50 split because I didn't initially. Your team, Martland, Levi. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And so that was just kind of like the goal. I was like, look, I was just here. to kind of make a steady, Eddie living. I thought I didn't want to cold call in Doork and try to brand myself through postcards and magazine ads. And so I just thought, I can make some videos. I can talk about Dallas. Let me try that out.

I'll refer business to a couple of agents. And it was really whenever the first client started coming in, that's whenever I really met Travis. And we started to work together. And it was really Travis's ambition to really go hard, big, and fast. And so he was like, look, he goes, I want to sell 100 homes in a year. And I was like, man, I would just 24 or 36 would be cool for me.

And I was just, okay, well, we'll see. And so because he wanted to do more, I just, it allowed me to start producing more content. And that's what just started generating more business. Because he literally said, look, let me handle the transactions. If you want to keep doing videos because he didn't want to do videos, then I was like, okay, sounds like a cool deal. And that's what we started doing. And then it just started growing and growing and growing.

And it got to the point to where within our first year, we had to bring on a buyer's agent because once Travis hit like 10 to 12 transactions in one month himself, he was like, dude, I can't handle anymore. Right. You know, so you have to make that decision. If you start to grow, what do you want to do? Do you want to refer it out? Do you want to bring on a buyer's agent? Do you want to start a team? I never started with those ambitions, but we did not want to leave any money on the table. And so for us, it was like, well, we're going to start a team. Now, we didn't expect to have a big team. Just started with one buyer's agent. Then we had to bring on a second one because that one started getting busy. And then by January of 2022, we had 10 agents on the

team. And then that's what we closed. Yeah, we just started. I mean, we were doing a deal a day in the first quarter. And so if we hadn't had those 10 people in place, we would have left so much business on the table. And I'm very happy because I've gotten a referral fee on every single one of those transactions. But I've actually never opened one of those doors. That's amazing. Can I ask you, Levi, were you comfortable in front of video from the get-go, what was your positioning with the video? So I've been in sales for 20 years, but belly-to-belly-to-face. So I've never had a problem selling. I think I was not afraid of the camera. I think what I had to get used to was selling to a camera or speaking to a

camera or having a conversation. I was used to interacting with people, kind of touching and feeling without touching and feeling, right? Not be creepy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Don't drip on them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was, you know, people interrupt you. They ask questions. They have concerns. They have objections. Body language. Yeah, body, all this stuff you can read and adapt and adjust. And it's fun. It's interactive. And I always love that. But also what I realized it was every day I went home, I had to start over the next day because my conversations lived and died with that one person. And so it was never scalable for me as an individual. So as I made that move into real estate, that was the one thing I told myself. I said, okay, first of all, I don't want to get in that one-to-one scenario anymore.

Well, that's like how you get on the roller coaster and it's like up down, up, down, up down. And it's like nauseating, right? When you have that one-to-one stuff. Yeah. Okay. This is great. Are you listening, people? Can we pause here and make sure they know where to go to check out what we're talking about here. Because what's interesting, Levi, is that you didn't do the Elastic YouTube channel, Realtor Levi channel. You didn't do that, right? And talk a little bit about the name of the channel

and why you chose that and why that was a smart move and why agents should mimic that. Well, instead of getting into real estate and then trying to figure out a plan, I decided to figure out a plan and then I felt comfortable getting into real estate. So the thing was, is I did research over the summer of 2020. So actually, previously I had a financial services business

where I worked with all the teachers at Dallas, ISD, on their retirement planning. Well, all the schools shut down in April of 2020. And my business literally shut down overnight. And so over the summer of 2020, I thought, how do I pivot? How do I transition? I didn't see, I didn't know when schools were going to open back up. I didn't know when the world was going to open back up.

But I started to see real estate start to grow. That was like the only industry other than online shopping for toilet paper that was growing. So, you know. Hashtag essential. Yeah. And actually, you know, the funny thing is, is I've known Michael Reese for 20 years. And Michael Reese has been trying to get me into real estate for 20 years. I just never wanted to be a real estate agent.

So over the summer 2020, I just did some research. And I knew if I wanted to gain any reach quickly with the least amount of money, it would be through social media. But I didn't really like social media. You know, I'm at that 40-year-old age range and above where we have that love-hate relationship. We didn't grow up with it. It wasn't there in high school or college. And then, you know, we thought it's just people posting their lunch and stupid cat videos. So I was kind of like when I dug into YouTube, which that was my life.

last choice, I started a research and I figured out YouTube's a search engine. Okay? And so therefore, you can figure out, you can actually go into Google and YouTube and figure out what people are searching for on those platforms. And people are searching for information about homes. And those are intentional buyers and sellers. They're in the process. They're trying to make buying and selling decisions at that moment. And so plus, I knew they were looking for information on Dallas. I didn't know anything about being an agent, but I've known everything about Dallas. So I thought, well, if I can make content about Dallas and just educate them on the areas and the neighborhoods and suburbs, maybe I can attract people and they'll never know

that I'm a brand new agent because they'll think I'm so experienced in the area. It'll just look like, you know, I'm going to talk about. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's that's how that kind of came up. And so naming the channel, what I realized was that I was nobody. I had no brand, no reach. Nobody knew who I was. Nobody was. If you did the search volume then for Levi Lassick, zero. You know, so I thought, okay, well, why not name it a search term? Because then I could give my channel more exposure. And so I just started playing around with things about Dallas, Texas, moving to Dallas, Texas, relocating to Dallas, Dallas, Texas living in Dallas, Texas actually came up with the highest search results. So it's kind of like, okay, well, I'll name it back.

That was it. Boom. That's it. Smart, because to your point, nobody was coming to look for you. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So you've built this whole channel on the idea of just providing information about Dallas and then, of course, real estate as you got more into it. And nowhere when you go to it, does it say your name? Is that right? Or at least not obviously, correct? Not obviously, right. I mean, I introduced myself in the video, but I still don't start out saying, hey, I'm a real estate agent. Actually, I never really say I'm a real estate agent. I just say, if you're thinking about making a move, give me a call, shoot me, text, send me an email. And so that, I think real estate agent, my disclaimers, my IBS, all that's in the description of the video. So, you know, and what's interesting is my IBS form, I track those clicks. It's got thousands of clicks.

So people are going in the description of my YouTube videos and clicking on that IBS form to make sure I'm a real person, a real agent. What's that stand for? Information about brokerage services, at least in, yeah, in Texas. Like the compliance aspect. Yeah. Yeah. You have to post that in the consumer protection notice, you know, basically on your marketing or emails. You're supposed to provide that at your first interaction or communication with a client.

So for me, if I'm marketing myself in a way, I just posted it in there. There's not really any real regulations about that for social media, but I have it in there just. Yeah. I think, yeah, it's like, well, I think, go ahead, Monica. And then when we come back, Levi, do have time to talk about maybe the first five playlists ones should put together or the first 10 videos

or how to get started here. That's probably part of his tips. Well, yeah, I'm here for y'all. So. Actually, tips yet, I forgot. Let's take a break. We're going to get to the tips. He has.

Levi Lassick, he is the king of YouTube and has really in an organic and authentic way created a path for all of us to earn business through YouTube. So, Jen, but it's purposeful.

What's that? Get us back on track here. Yeah, right. But I think also, Levi, what I'm hearing from you, it is authentic, like Monica's saying, but is also very purposeful. Like, you are running this. You created the business first and you're running it strategically. So give us some tips on as real estate agents. Maybe we have a YouTube channel. We don't maybe have a ton of subscribers. But how do we get leads from that? What do we do? Yeah, you have to be extremely intentional and strategic. I love to say you can hyper learn any subject in 60 days because of the amount of things. information out there and the age you live in right now. So, I mean, if you want to be the best postcard marketer on the planet, if you actually studied postcard marketing for the next 60 days, you could do that and probably be better than 99% of the agents. So same with YouTube, I mean, the information is out there. There's YouTube marketing books. Now, I bought them all.

I bought like eight or nine of them. I narrowed it down to two, which was YouTube Secrets and YouTube Formula. Those are the two books other than our own that is coming out in February. we do have a book, yeah, passive prospecting, which we have coming out in February, which that is... So just get that, right? Because that will pull from everything. Well, it's really going to help you break down, yes. Well, in the first nine chapters, I break down the principles of why YouTube is so important and why it's so powerful over every other platform. And I believe just in marketing in general. I'm not saying that don't do anything else. I'm just saying that if you're going to be in business more than a year or longer, you need to

incorporate YouTube. And this is not just for real estate. state agents, it's for any business owner. So the first nine chapters are the principles. We compare a lot of traditional marketing versus marketing on YouTube and why it's so powerful. Then the last five chapters of the book, I'm actually breaking down the whole process for you to start your own channel, build it out, how to research, you know, how to create content, how to shoot videos. I mean, I explain that as in depth as much as possible in the book with pictures, snapshots from our channel, from the back-in analytics, all of that so they can get the best visual possible. I mean, that right there, I imagine the book's probably going to be, let's say, 20, 25 bucks. I mean, for that amount of

value in that book is priceless for that. So the thing is, is that if you don't do that, and you want to start right now, you don't want to wait until February, go out and you've got to do some research, first of all. You have to, what I like to say is that if YouTube, like a hobby, it'll pay you like a hobby. If you treat it like a business, it'll pay you like a business. So most people get on these social platforms and don't understand them. They just get started, which there's something about that. I mean, I admire that. I feel personally attacked, Levi.

Yes. We'll argue with you. Well, look, hey, I admire anybody that takes action. But I also recommend just taking a step back first and understanding, researching, getting a good, not analysis paralysis, don't do that, but get in a research, have a deadline to where, okay, I'm going to step. this for the next 30, 60 days. And while I'm studying that, I'm going to build out a business plan. Actually treat a social platform, whichever one you want to get started on, as a marketing

opportunity, as a marketing platform and understanding how it works first and foremost. Then once you build out your plan, you're going to understand through your research, what videos to shoot, when you should shoot them, how consistent should you be, how many times per week do you want to publish? So all of that should be laid out before you ever hit record because you don't want to record one video and then you'll lost after that. Or you get so excited and you publish it and then guess what happens? Life happens, health happens, real estate happens, family happens, and then nothing happens. And you don't post anything for the next four or five weeks and that will create a channel quick anything. So research, plan, film. And then once you film, I always recommend people film at least

a month's worth in advance. So if you're going to publish three videos a week, film 12 videos first. have them done, edited, scheduled, because when you publish the first video, you're already a month ahead. It gives you that entire month to film your next month's worth of content. And so by the time that month full month publishes, you have another month scheduled out. And guess what that allows you to do to start working on your next month. So if you can do that and then if something happens, life, health, or maybe you take a vacation, then you're still ahead three weeks instead of.

trying to just publish something every single week and always feeling behind. And then you can get back on track. But this is why this last year in 2022, we went to 25 conferences. And we spoke. Yeah, we spoke half of them. The other half, we were there just to meet people and build relationships and network and learn. And so we were able to do right under a hundred million in business and still being gone to 25 conferences in addition to that. And so we didn't have to be in our business every single day because the videos were constantly working for us. And that's the whole concept of passive prospecting. Most people that get in trouble with their families or especially when they're on vacation or don't, you know, the spouse is always like, you don't take any time off.

It's usually because they feel guilty about, you know, not generating leads and not, you know, being in their business, but when you have a channel working for you constantly and not just 24-7, YouTube doesn't take time. YouTube makes time. Not only does it make you time, it compounds your time. And the thing is, like, in one month, our channel has watched 11,800 hours in one month. That's awesome. Yeah, you divide that by 24 hours in a day. That's 1.34 years. So in one month, our channel prospected for us, 1.34 years. Wow. And so, yeah, that's what we're, why we're able to do the amount of business we're doing is because it's not just us shaking hands and kissing babies. It's not just us making phone calls for two hours a day. It is getting a multiple

compound of our time because the videos can be viewed by 100, 1,000, 10,000 people at one time. I don't care if you had a team of 20 inside sales reps. You would never be able to make the amount of phone calls still because those salespeople can only call one person at one time. And so the videos are Well, they may not even be calling the people that are, I mean, I make a ton of phone calls every day, but there's only a few leads out of that, right? So where this is like it's the right people coming to your channel. Inbound. Yeah, it's all inbound.

Well, Levi, do you, I know the book's coming out, but if people want to engage with you before that, how can they engage with you? Yes. Passiveprospecting.com is our website. You can sign up to be notified as soon as we release the book. And we'll be, for the people that do sign up, we'll be running some very specific contest, a lot of good stuff. I plan to give away a lot, tons of camera equipment, microphones, all kinds of stuff,

just so we can, we really want to push out the sales on that within the first week and see if we can hit a bestseller list, you know? That's awesome. Yeah. Would you, we're going to buy a handful of books so we can give them to our listeners. Will you come back to promote it when you're launched? Of course. I'd settle down a little bit after the launch for it.

And if people do have a referral for you in Dallas, do they go to that same place or is there a different place? They should connect with you for that. They can email info at living in Dallas TX.com and, you know, our team will pick it up and be happy to help out. So info at living in Dallas TX.com. This is like so much nuggets. So many good nuggets here. I wish I had thought of this 20 years ago. Well, it was.

Well, now you know, Monica. I should start it right now. I'm going to do it. I absolutely love it. Real quick, did you say what your cadence is every 30 days, 12 videos? Is that what you said? Or did I make that up? Well, I was using that as an example, but I do three videos a week. And so we've been pretty consistent on that. Some people do two. Some people do one. Some do one every other month. I mean, you ultimately, you want to have some consistency in the beginning. I think quantity and consistency in the beginning is very good. Your quality is usually not going to be great in the beginning. Nobody really usually

comes out, not because I'm not saying you can't, but they usually don't come out making awesome videos, great quality, audio, you know, you kind of figure that stuff out. So just get through that. The more you do it in the beginning, the more of a muscle memory you're going to develop. And so it's going to be a lot easier. So I always recommend at least three videos a week for as long as possible until you really find your groove and get comfortable. And then that's whenever you start getting really creative and thinking about how to improve. And ultimately, the ultimate goal you should have with YouTube is to get better. You know, just get better every video. Is there a category of video that is watched more than others? Because I know you do different

playlist. Well, we do all kinds, but there's four main types. I mean, the vlog video actually taking people out in the neighborhoods and showing them around because anybody can go on an I buyer platform and look at the inside and the outside of a house, but they can't see the house across the street, the house next door, the pool down the street, the community center, you know, the Chipotle around the corner, all the important stuff. So yeah. So that map tours, I was very surprised by doing map tours. What I mean by is just simply getting on a screen share and walking people around a map of your suburb or your city or the neighborhood. And anybody can do that online themselves too, but they can't get your stories and your perspective. And so that's what people love about.

that. And then also, yeah, pros and cons, our number one video on our channel is a, we can't stand Dallas. So we're talking into people and moving to Dallas by telling them how much we don't like it, you know? That's awesome. Unfortunately, unfortunately right now, a lot of negativity on YouTube gets a lot of views. You know, on YouTube, you see every thumbnail has fire and, and, you know, and everything burning and crashing. And you're like, but home prices still increased this last part. Appreciation and value still increased this last month, but everyone keeps saying that.

So it is what it is. But I tend to stick on the positive side. I've made like three negative videos, which is, and I can't stand Dallas. That was really, we were talking about the cons of Dallas. But of course, we were like, well, look, you know, we've been here our whole lives. Clearly it's not terrible enough for us to make us move away.

Any area is going to do that. So, you know, in that list videos, top five suburbs, top six neighborhoods, top seven this, top eight that. People like list videos. And we don't say, we always reference a website or something where we find that ranking. So it's not us. We don't want to get in any trouble with. That's a good idea.

Yeah. Their housing or something. So we say, hey, recent article came out from Money Magazine or niche.com or something. They're listing these as the top six neighborhoods in Dallas, Texas right now. Yeah. Let's see what you think or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, let us know what you think or then at the end, I'll say, well, in my opinion, yeah,

mostly accurate. All these neighborhoods are really good, blah, blah, blah. You have a little opinion piece at the end of so, but you don't want to steer anything like that. So the main thing is that anytime we reference that top this or best of this or something, we put a little disclaimer on there. Love it. That makes sense. Levitic.

I love this so much, Levi. you are helping people show them a different way to lead generate. And this is what Jen and I fight about every freaking week. Well, and both of us are pro-passive income. So be sure to check out the passive prospecting book, the passive prospecting website. And if you're an agent and you want to find out how to partner with Monica and I so we can help you grow your business,

feel free to reach out by calling or texting at 513-400-1691. Levi, thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you. Have a great day. Bye. See you. See you next time, Jen. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Real Estate Fight Club podcast. Make sure to hit the subscribe button so you get updates when new episodes are available. And we truly love feedback and would appreciate all likes, reviews, and suggestions for future topics.