KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Rebuilding from Zero: Closing $40M via Relatable YouTube Content and Strategic Pivots

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

Summary:Mark and Kelly share their transformative journey of moving from Houston to Tennessee and rebuilding their real estate business from zero to $40 million in production within just two years. The episode highlights their strategic pivot from hyper-local community marketing to high-value YouTube content focusing on relocation and short-term rental investing. Agents will learn how to leverage authentic, long-form video to build a national "community" of interest, the importance of professional editing once traction is gained, and how to use technology like CRMs and G-Suite to manage rapid growth.

Welcome to Next Level Agents, the podcast that's all about breaking barriers and building empires. I'm Kevin Kaufman and together with my crew bringing you straight up fire. Interviews with top tier agents, game changing thinkers, plus the strategies and mindset shifts to dominate in real estate. Whether it's personal growth, leadership packs, or next level tactics, we've got you covered. So tell me, what does the next level look like for you? Buckle up because we're about to take you there right now. Hello, listeners. This is your host, Katie Dewitt, and I have two incredible agents I wanted to share their story with you today. Mark and Kelly, why don't you guys say hi? Hi. Hello. These incredible human beings have a story that I wanted to share because they not only are a husband and wife team, I do want to jump into some aspects of that because that's always just a whole new dynamic. And we do come across a lot of real estate agents that do partner.

up with their spouses. So I do want some advice and tricks what you guys have done to develop that relationship while working. But the more important part is I invited them to be on the podcast because they were originally from Houston. And two years ago, they decided to move to Tennessee. So they know no one, no community, brand new market for them. And within two years, they just closed out last year at over $40 million and sold production. So that, right. right there, anything. If you're a brand new agent, you should be listening to this. Even if you are from your city, you are going to be able to apply what they did to grow such a massive business in two years. And so there's no excuse. If you are brand new, you don't know anyone or if you've

been living in the same city, what's get some tactics of what they did to grow such a massive imprint on a city that no one knew them. So you guys, share your story. How did you do this? Well, look, I think there's a lot into it, Katie, and I'll start by saying that actually, we got a lot of great advice from various leaders, various people with the ESP organization, not the least of which is our podcast host. So thank you for the direction you help provide it as we were kind of kicking this off. But this was something Kelly's been an agent for close to two decades now. This is her third state that she's licensed in.

I actually came from a corporate background. And so we're coming with two very different skill sets. We'd never worked together before other than raising children and being married for 20 some odd years. So it was a new for a for both of us. But I'll admit it was it was not easy. We came up here. I think we both thought it might be easier than anticipated. And year one was a crazy struggle.

Just trying to get our feet on the ground, get directed and do everything we needed to. So if there's any one thing for anybody who's listening out there, A, don't give up. Because this business can really kick you in the shen. it can feel like you're going nowhere. And it's when you just keep grinding away it, that all of a sudden you tend to turn a corner and things take off.

So from that standpoint, we had to get organized. We had to kind of focus. We had to figure out where we wanted to put our efforts in. So once we did that and quit kind of trying to use every single tool in the toolbox all the time, I think we started to kind of gain some ground. Do you want to add to that? Yeah, I mean, it was pretty scary at first because like you said, we moved over here. We didn't have any community whatsoever. So the sphere of influence, all of our

spear of influence was back in Texas. And now we found ourselves here in Tennessee. So we kind of had to rebuild the wheel, if you will, and we really leaned into social media. We leaned into marketing. We leveraged that out. And we started to do YouTube as well. And so slowly but surely, the leads started to trickle in, and they all told us, well, it's because you guys are so relatable. We also relocate, you relocated from Texas, Tennessee. We're looking at doing that same thing for our family. And then also, we do a lot of business in Gatlinburg. We're investors there. And so people that wanted to buy cabins in the smoky said, well, you're an investor as well, you know what it's like. So we want your advice. So that's how when the light bulb went off. Mark, Mark,

and I were like, so that's our kind of value add to people. People can relate to us to our particular situations. And so we decided to go after a lot of the relocation leads and a lot of the investor leads. I love that you guys share that this A isn't easy and two, that you didn't have a very clear direction in the beginning, right? Like you moved there and you thought, oh, this, we're going to do X, Y, Z. Like, get involved.

And we haven't spoken in a year, over a year. And, you know, you had a completely different direction a year ago of, hey, we're moving here. We're going to be community involved. We're going to do X, Y, Z. We, that local, hyperlocal sense. So it's interesting to see how, and again, relatable because we all jump in this thinking we we know it's going to be this one way. I'm going to be a luxury agent or I'm going to specialize in manufacturers.

I'm going to do this. And the funny part is, is we don't know what's actually going to stick. And so the fact that you guys win in with one idea and we're able to pivot quickly and adjust is just says something about why you're at 40 million because you could have usually stuck your your feet in and then your dug your heels in and said no we're going to only do it this way which could have been harder and more at a dead end sooner so kudos to you guys for realizing that and looking at your books and saying what's actually working so when did you guys decide to actually pivot and say you know what investors is our thing obviously you're getting feedback from people

since you guys are proven investors what led what went from the conference of, hey, we are relatable investors. Let's go to YouTube. Where was that jump? So I guess it kind of twofold. One, it was when we started kind of pursuing YouTube. And with the first production group that we were working with, they're kind of prescribing, do this video, then do that video, do a lot of the things that other people are doing. And that's great. And I do, I would say, there's elements that absolutely work. What was interesting is we, I think, kind of pushed on things a little bit to say, listen, we can do all these, but like we want to talk about things that we feel really good about.

And like one of them is we get a lot of questions just from friends and family about our experience with like short-term rentals and the smokies and owning cabins and running cabins and everything else. And so to loop back to like what you were saying before is that it wasn't that we never decided to invest in our community. I don't think we realized offhand what our built-in community was. community is whatever other people identify with you via interest, involvement, desire to pursue a path. It's not necessarily the people who live within four blocks of you. It's the people who are within one to two touch points that want to do the things that you're doing

or that want to have a shared experience regardless of whether it's real estate or anything else. And so I guess in many ways we kind of backed into who our community was. And the community was other people who wanted to get that first investment in a short-term rental that wanted to experience what it's like to have an STR in Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge or whatever else. And certainly there's lots of folks out there who do this and do it well. There's other people who are in the real estate business who cover this area and do it well. But I think we were unique in that we were very candid and very open about what it takes to do it. I think a lot of people, if you start talking with folks about that,

they come off a little salesy. I think we're kind of well beyond that. We tell you it's not easy. It's not hard. In fact, we've turned down clients, not because we didn't like them, but we could see that they were more passionate than they were ready, and we didn't want to see them, like, blow themselves up and fail.

Like, great example. I've got a client right now who literally, there was no way that we were to do it. When we started talking, they're like, well, we really want to follow you. And I think in two and a half years, we'll be there. Well, I mean, they did the whole. rice and beans, beans and rice, did everything that they needed to. And all of a sudden,

they brought that timeline forward like a year and a half. And they've gone from a small initial investments and now looking at things that are $700,000, $900,000, $900,000 is their first investment. But we told them like, you're not there yet. And then we would talk about it and we put him in touch with our preferred mortgage lender. And he worked with them about what they needed to do to be ready. And all of a sudden, I mean, these people turned a corner in no time. And now we're on the cusp of literally I'm going to tour a property for them tomorrow that we think probably is the one. And it's just, that's been transformative. And to be to piggyback on the smoky's thing and leaning into what what is, I guess, relatable or what your strength is, we were struggling in year one

when we moved here and I was talking to our broker about it. And just the power of the XP, she connected us, she connected me with another agent. And she said, I think you guys would be great referral partners. He has a great YouTube channel and he's looking for someone. He gets people asking about the Smokies all the time because we live in Knoxville and he doesn't know anything about cabins, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge. So she connected us. He reached out to us. We did a video for him on his channel and he started referring us people and we said, well, wait a minute, if if people are contacting him to get to us, why are we not just doing this ourselves? Ding, ding, ding, ding.

Love that. Yeah. So. Yeah. And to be fair, we still, we still work with them. Like, we still like, we're all about, yeah, we're all about, look, send our way. We'll still cut to the referral fee and everything else and every one of them that comes through. So you can never know what conversation you're having that day will lead into.

And that was all through an EXP partnership. And it's just, well, I'm putting yourself out there. That's great. You guys are asking questions. I mean, from day one, you and I were connected because you were looking into coaching. For you guys to move cities and say, okay, how do we do this? You guys are navigating again, Mark, you quit your job to do this. Like, you were brand new into this. You weren't even fully licensed when we were talking. No, nope. Yeah. So it was weird looking those notes. I'm like, holy crap, he wasn't even licensed. So, but that is a difference of someone. Usually people don't get into coaching. until five years into it. Three to five years is where I see that sweet spot. And then it jumps to like the people who've been in it for 15 years is what I've experienced. And so for you, for not even being licensed and moving to a new city, most people would want to regroup and take some time, see if they could figure it out and then look for help. And you guys are like, no,

we're jumping into this full balance. So I love that. And great job explaining community. Because, A, you just use part of your community. Your resource was your brokerage and saying, hey, who could help us? What can we do? And that led you to that direction and also just realizing your clientele that your clientele doesn't have to be the people in your backyard for community. It can be who's online, who's looking for you. Clearly, you guys have passion when it comes to talking about investments. So for you guys to lean into that was really smart. So talk about have you done YouTube before this moment that that light bulb of, hey, this guy's doing this. We're getting referrals. Let's do our own. So how did you make that jump? So,

So that was interesting. I wish we could literally pull up and show you. I will send you a link afterwards for you to see it. We did our own very first YouTube video. We're talking like Mark sitting down with Caput and like taking footage and it was one of the most frustrating and painful experiences. And I'll be honest, anybody who wants to get into it, I'm sure for some people it clicks, but if you talk to other people who do this, you're not going to get it every night. It's going to feel bad. It's going to, like, even when you think you've done a good when you're going to go back and go, oh, God, like, I just butchered that. And you're going to think that it needs to be perfect all the time. And I'm not going to do this. This takes too much of it.

You just keep doing it. It's like anything else. It's like taking inbound calls. It's like doing outreach with any one of these. Like, you're going to do it until you get better at it. And I'll be honest. Even when we shoot stuff now, they're a much better product. And people like, Oh, God, y'all are such pros at this. I'm like, oh, I wish you could see all the footage. I got thrown away that was supposed to be in this video. But at least we can get something done, especially if we're doing one kind of in studio.

We sit down and, I mean, we'll record an hours worth of footage, 30 minutes, Kelly, 30 minutes me, and then send it off to the editors, and we'll get a 35-minute video out of it. But it used to be, it was like a whole day to get 15 minutes. the real thing that comes down to, though, is like you're going to get better at it over time. And if you're speaking about things you're passionate about and kind of focusing on that, then it comes through. If you're just trying to replicate what somebody else did, it's going to come off with a lack of authenticity.

And that's probably the biggest piece of it is. It's not any different than doing mailers or doing open houses or whatever avenue that you try to create volume and flow to get out to a base. If it's inauthentic and it's not personal and it doesn't allow you to identify with people, then it's not going to work, right? I mean, you know that. You were the one who's like, hey, you got to make phone calls. You've got to do this. You've got to be willing to do this.

You've got to talk to other vendors in the area. You've got to build relationships. It's all about relationship building, but it has to be in a way that you're building relationships not based upon, I want to do business with you, but you're building relationships on, I want to help you. honestly, if you don't really need to do something, that's okay, I'll answer your questions. I've taken calls from people who are like, I haven't even figured out where I want to move, but I would love to hear more about Knoxville from you guys because you seem to really like the area. I'll sit there and talk to him for 30 or 45 minutes.

And there's people who would tell me, Mark, that's, you could have that time for something else. Yeah, I could have, but A, I got better at talking about it. B, I got to hear what people's concerns are. I carry that over to other conversations. C often gives me an idea of what they don't know about the area, and that improves what we do in YouTube videos going forward. So there's always something to be taken away from it. Yeah.

When you guys, so break it down because you guys have done an incredible job using YouTube, which is a pretty broad spectrum. It's not typically used for the relationship building. So you were able to use this platform for a national reach and make it a quote-unquote community for you. So how did you get from, again, never recording in your life to all of a sudden in your, I'm assuming using like your iPhone, whatever camera, you're doing this, you're editing it yourself. So tell me that process because you did it very quickly, like within a year.

So how did you manage to like, was it within one month? You're like, I can't edit these anymore. Then did you upgrade to anything simple? Like break it down. How did you transform in one year to get that much publicity online? Well, we started with kind of a group, a coaching group. YouTube coaching group where you would edit things yourself. It was just kind of a mastermind.

And then we did hire some editors. And they were okay. We did not get a lot of leads. And we just kind of started searching and switched over to someone that really knew what they were doing. And it's not cheap. And we were like, oh, my God, are we really going to do this? but we said if he can get us just one more closing a month, that will pay for itself.

And so a little bit of it was taking a leap. We really vetted him. We talked to other of his clients that he did YouTube channels for as well. And so we're like, okay, let's do this. And so we kind of trusted him and trusted the process. And then it started really taking off. Yeah, to agree, I'll say you kind of get what you pay. for like anything else. I mean, you do cheap-looking mailers. People are going to go,

that's a cheap-looking mailer. It's going on the trash. If it's just purely promotional and doesn't add any value, they're probably going to disregard it. So anytime you're using a social media avenue, I think that's absolutely it, whether it's TikTok or Instagram, Facebook, whatever else, the effort in time that you put into it for a polished product means something, but it has to be paired with what value do people get out of it, right? It's also a little bit of a belief in yourself because we said, okay, we're going to do YouTube. And at first we didn't have a lot of success. But we kept looking at, for instance, our referral partner or all of these other agents that were like,

my God, look how big their channels are. Look how many subscribers, how many views. We know these guys are like so busy. They don't, they have so much business. They like don't even know how to handle it. And so it was a little bit of a belief in ourselves of, well, we just have to find the right avenue. We have to keep going and eventually something is going to click. We cannot give up. We have to be disciplined and we have to keep doing this and we will get better and better

and we are going to learn more. And so I think that was kind of part of it as well. Yeah, consistency, right? Just making sure you stuck with it. You didn't give it three months and then realize it was a failure and then drop out. You guys kept with it. And I want to give a little bit of credit to the first group that we worked with. To that end, I do feel like the quality of the final product that we get now is a, it's a higher quality product. But all along, there's a particular member of their team who kept saying, listen, I know this is frustrating.

You guys, it takes time. This is about doing it and like it will, it's going to slowly ramp and then it's going to pick up more. You've got to understand there's more going on behind the scenes with like the YouTube algorithms and this, that, and the other. and the technicals and what's going into the descriptions and how it's being put out there, it takes time for this to build. And true to form, even some of those earlier videos and they're not, they don't take off

quite as well as the newer stuff we're producing. But we've got stuff out there that for a long time is like, oh, look at 200 views. And maybe 40 of that is Mark wondering why this is so bad. And I go back and I look at them like, that thing, it felt dead. And all of a sudden it's at like 1,800, 2,800, 3,000, 4,000 views. And it's like, okay, so now new people are finding this stuff and they're going back. So it is a compounding deal, just like any one of these other fronts is once you get people who are kind of interested, then if they hang around and it tells the computers, hey, there's people watching this. Let's promote it to a few more people.

Oh, wow, those people picked it up too. Let's keep promoting it. So a lot of it builds on itself. So it is a durability thing. Yeah. So you guys are recording. You've got some mentors, some editing now, simple. And I love to that you progressed in that as you earned more, right?

Like you started with yourself and that's okay. That's just for anyone listening, pick up the camera and just start recording. It doesn't need to be perfect. Two, when it started getting traction, you ask for help. You got someone, it sounds like the medium quality of what you get for. and then when you could, you upgraded that. And going back, even from the beginning, you said, like, hey, instead of doing 10 things, we just said, let's just focus on one.

And so you got really good at just this, which, Mark, you move fast, right? So you were like, nope, like six months. Like, I'm going to do it, get it done. Got like, you are just moved. You probably did this what most people would do in like two years and what you did in six months saying like, I'm going to hire, I'm going to train. I'm going to move faster. So you guys can pick your pace, but I'm always, why not just do it faster?

It's not waste time. So I've always appreciated that about you guys. So it sounds like you're getting your information from real life exposure. I'm saying like when you talked with that guy for an hour, 45 minutes, you're saying, wow, he gave me like three different topics to do videos on. Is there any other sources like chat, GBT, Google? Did you ever just do stock topics or is it all real life? Yeah, I think to any degree you're doing, I mean, there's things that you can go out there

and figure out like, what is it that people want to know? This is not rocket science, right? I mean, in the end, it's like, you know, if you like to cook, you need a knife. You need a good sharp knife. You find out what works and then a lot of people buy the same brands, right? Which ones sell the most? The ones that show people how useful they are. So in the end, you are doing a lot of things that other people are doing.

You're just trying to be as helpful to your community as you can in the way that you do it. And being relatable, that's what allows it to happen. because you can sit there and you can read a script, and it's going to sound like you read a script. Absolutely. There's details and things that people want to know, and they want to know the honest truth. I sit here anytime and people say, like,

hey, it sounds like Knoxville is a great place to live. I'm like, it is a great place to live. Here's why I like it, but here's also why some people aren't going to like it. Like, I came from a top five metroplex in the United States. So people here will constantly talk about, oh, man, the traffic. terrible. I'm like, you have no idea what you're talking about. You don't have to keep in mind. So I have to

keep in mind when someone calls us and reaches out and says, hey, I heard y'all talking about this. It sounds like it's not that bad. I'm like, let me give you a point of reference. I want you to understand. Like from here to here, I can get there in like 35 minutes. It's like 17 miles. So I'm not going to, even though most of it's interstate, I'm not going to just like fly. How does that compare to what you're used to? Keep it out of mind. Oh, I heard it's really cheap there. I'm like, okay, what do you think cheap is? Right. Oh, I can get five acres in a home for a half a million dollars.

I'm like, you can. 27 miles that direction. In the city, that's not going to happen. So we have to spend a lot of time trying to dispel myths and everything else. So the more transparent you are and the more you speak to examples and specifics, the better it starts to resonate with people because they're like, okay, now I know it's not just promotional. I'm actually getting informed. And also you live.

it. Yeah, doing these videos and going all over the city and scouting out different locations of where is it good to film at or different topics or whatever. It has really forced Mark and I to become really local experts of Knoxville or we do a lot of videos in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. It has really forced us to get to know different areas and different parts of these cities and what's happening here, different projects that are going on. So that's really built our confidence up too. When we are able to talk to people that are going to relocate here as well, we can tell them now like what parts of the city might work best for them.

Yes. Diversification. I mean, God, just getting outside of your home or your rut, right? Having a passion project talking to local business owners. I love when just start a blog. If you can't think of anything. It's just like that one topic will get you to talk to different people. It'll get you outside to interview and look at different streets and to film and to look at things.

I love that. Like it's so easy to get in that rut. And again, for you guys to move to a new city that got you guys to explore on a different level. I always joke that like you should either buy a moped or go running in any city you're in. Because it just instead of driving the same route, it makes you explore. It makes you see it from a different perspective. It makes you understand the laws different. I mean, even biking to work one day.

You take an alleyway. You take different sight scenes. You see different neighborhoods. Just changing your perception. So I love that you guys did that. And you're choosing to use the film in such different parts of your community. So now we've got, you guys have got some videos going and people are interacting with you. How are you converting those people? Oh, so that's a fun. You want to talk about our latest little project here about moving over to a new CRM and everything coming along with that? I mean, yes, we are moving over to the CRM. We do have different ways for people to contact us via YouTube. We have different guides, relocation guides that will put up on the screen and they can scan for the barcode, brings them to a contact us page that then will go to our email or they might call our business line, things like that. We have also set up, what do you call it, set up things where like they will message us and immediately our CRM will text them. them our calendar link and say, go ahead and schedule a meeting with us for this time, whatever. And so we'll set up phone calls that way too. Yeah, I think, yeah, the critical element there

is being brand new to it, I've used like corporate level CRMs for my old role in like finance and investor relations before I put that on the shelf and came into this. And I think Kelly had used, having been with another brokerage, actually two different brokerages before coming to EXP, they'd always had certain like CRM capabilities and everything else. I think what we have found is that is one of the most critical elements is how you identify, track, interact, and follow up with people because you can spend all the money in the world doing marketing, get tons of the inbound. And if you don't take care of them, they're gone. And not one, they're not coming back because you don't get a second chance at a first impression. So it's one thing to have been working along and stub your toe

along the way in the process. And people go, I get it. People get busy. Kids get sick, whatever else. But if you don't get back with them soon, express real interest and then follow up on that, the business is probably gone. So having that take care of, but it's really hard. When you're growing at the pace that we have, I mean, I'm, now I want to alleviate this for everyone. This needs to go on the record, we have been working 65, 70 hours a week for a while now. On our 20th anniversary, we went on a trip to Mexico for six days. We stayed in the hotel room and worked almost two full days while we're on our 20th anniversary trip because we were not going to lose the momentum that we had in this business. So yes, this job comes with sacrifice, especially early on.

It pays out if you do it, though. So you suck it up and you get it done. The other piece is leverage technology. Take the time to ask lots of questions of the people around you who seem to be doing well and experiencing growth in their business and find out what, not just what are they using. Because what they're using may not work for you. Find out why they're using it. Why has that been the right solution so that you can pursue that?

If you're using tools that don't work well for you, then you're wasting time. And time is not something that we get back here. Technology used effectively is the greatest lever to increasing your productivity for every hour that you spend in this business. Period. You nailed it with the reality of you can go get as many leads as you want. You can go and get the best sources for any platform. I love the first agent, whoever gets licensed, they always go and buy leads right off the bat.

Like, you idiot. Like, what are you going to do when you have 100 leads? How are you going to remember to call all of them and contact them and follow up with them? And what about the person who said they wanted to buy in one year from now? How are you going to remember to call that one person? So you nailed it with the importance of the CRM and following up. So what would you advise someone going into YouTube? Like, is that something you guys learned that discipline as you went? Or did you first already have? have that from coming from corporate background, Mark and your experience, Kelly, like, from just doing this, did you guys learn as you went? Or were you like, no, we're going to hone in on this activity first before we go and get this platform from YouTube? No, we learned as we went. Yeah. You know it earlier, Katie. I'm more likely to run out and try to tackle somebody without putting my helmet on. You'll get on the site about getting it done.

So there was some of those moments. And so you take a shot for that. and you go, all right, next time, let's get the helmet on. And so you work through it, and that's one of the reasons that, like, it's been kind of exhaustive on hours is the amount of time you're spending with clients, you've then got to go back and go, all right, it's moving at this pace. We've got to get this project moved along faster. And that's where you step out and you get help. Yeah.

We will have scheduled. We work with a lot of people that are out of town. So the more personal you can get, especially on that first connection, it's not normal. a phone call. We always like to schedule a Google meet, so we are looking at them face to face and get that personal connection. And then after that, it's a checklist of items that need to happen. Is their search set up? Do they have a lender? Did we go through the whole buyer wreck with them and what that means post-Nor settlement of what happens? Just setting their expectations and then a lot of these YouTube leads, they may be six months out. They might be a year out.

So they want to come in and schedule an exploring trip. So we have to, we put that on our calendar too because sometimes we've, we've kind of messed up on that. Like, oh, they're coming into town. Like, we need this on our calendar. So we have started living by our calendar a lot more, too, just as as a family, like in our business, the calendar is absolutely key. So calendar and CRM. and out of CRM, yeah. Yeah.

So like one of the reasons I use, I like using Google Meet versus like Zoom or something else. A, we like the G Suite of all the different things, just the way it's integrated online, right? But Jim and I will allow you to set it up so that it records, just like you can do with Zoom, but then it gives me a meeting summary, it gives me a transcript, it gives me bullet points that walk away and everything else. And I can take that, and as soon as it hits my inbox, I can forward that to my VA and say, make sure this goes in and anything that it says is an upcoming date, please put that out there as a task for us to accomplish. Yes, love it.

Not having to worry about doing it all myself. So I'm getting to leverage that. And the truth is, I mean, I would do more phone calls, and we do a fair amount of phone calls, but we're trying, that's one of the reasons we're moving to this particular CRM is now we know we're going to have these new phone numbers. And like when we make calls out of the CRM, it's going to replicate the same thing that we're doing with this.

So now I'm not having to try and redirect people to using the medium that works for me. I'm going to be able to use whatever medium works for them. So if they call because they're older and they don't want to do whatever a G meeting is, that's fine. We don't have to do a Google meet. We can just talk on the phone and it's still going to take care of that for me and it's going to tie into their profile. So capturing those details, having them there and then having the automation, be able to do that makes a real difference.

And I'll throw some props out to another major player, next level agent in the Pacific Northwest. Adam, thank you. I'm not using Otter anymore. But it was starting with Otter that I figured out that I needed to be doing that or everything. So thank you if you actually had this podcast. You were a great influence. Adam's the man. Yeah.

So what, are there any like hard nose? Like how do you filter through these online leads? Do you get bad ones? Is there like a checklist or a standard that you guys have saying this is probably spam or it's not healthy? Like it's a waste of time. Like how do you guys buy? follow up. Is it just anyone who comments on something? Do they have to ask a direct question for you to

follow up with them? Do you want to go do that? Because there is some where you're going to there, oh, hey, we're just starting to think about it. I'd say we're still in a phase where, and because there's two of us, we may not both be on one of those calls. We actually do some of these calls together because people are husband and wife that want to talk to us as husband and wife with kids. And so while it may not be always the most efficient use of time, we do that for at least 30 minutes just to let them identify and say, yeah, we made the right decision in reaching out to Mark and Kelly. After that, it tends to be more of one of us taking things over. If it's one where it's very kind of loose and someone is like,

hey, who's wanting to know more about this business, not like I'm shopping, I'm pre-qualified. So you try to ask a few questions and figure out like, hey, have you been here? Have you talked to a loan officer? Do you know what you can afford, do you have specific, so you look at a specific area. The less that they can answer those questions, the more likely it is somebody just kind of fishing for info or whatever versus someone who has a purpose, has a desire, and is on that path. If they take the steps to actually click on the CalMlee link, fill out their information, tell us a little bit about why they're even contacting us, and they are up for doing that Google Meet, then that means that they're pretty serious. Not all the time, but if they're willing to do a little work on the front

end and register themselves and do all of that, then that kind of filters out a lot of spam as well. Yeah, that definitely, that's a good gauge on their interest for sure. Yeah. The other reason I've kind of like, whether it's general social media or YouTube, is I think a lot of the people who do click through on that, it's different than the paid for leads. I don't care. Every service that we've used that's paid for leads, leads, it's a very low hit rate on what's what's read. The YouTube leads are a lot hotter. Every time when we talk to people from YouTube, they're like, oh, my God, we feel like we

know you already. We've watched all of your videos. So unbeknownst to us, they've already spent quite a few hours with us before they're even talking to us in person. So that's another positive of YouTube. I think Kelly makes a real point there is that people don't, they don't necessarily, call you after they've watched one video. There's people going to follow you for a couple of months. And they finally get to the point where maybe something's happened that they now, now they know

they're getting the job transfer or maybe they, whatever had to happen for them to trigger and go, now I'm in a position to actually move forward with this. And I feel like I've gotten to know these people. And so now I can do that. That's why when you're doing mailers or anything else, you're not going to send a mailer to somebody and they're going to call you and be like, absolutely. first time ever got anything. Come list my $1.3 million house. Yeah. The party who came to one of your open houses is a neighbor and they got six of your mailers and maybe saw some information that you posted out there for free or whether they're like, this person is really out trying to help someone. I want to, I want to work with that.

Yeah. Do you guys do, it sounds like a soft approach, but because it's hitting more people and correct me if I'm wrong and that you're hitting a wider audience and you're just being consistent. So it sounds like that when they do reach out, you're getting higher quality leads and you get to follow through with that. Is there any like call to action that you guys have like a tagline or something that you do push for? Like you send them to your Instagram or or Facebook or try to get their home address or is it just straight up, hey, we're hitting the masses and then when they're comfortable, they reach out to us. It's real. It's the relocation guide or it's our investor guide. We have our VA. She does a great job with doing.

relocation guides or investment guides. So when we are doing a YouTube video, we make sure to say, hey, reach out, go ahead and scan for our relocation guide or say reload guide and then we have her send them the relocation guide. Mostly a lot of it is through those guides. That's kind of the lead magnet. The capture of all. Yeah. You've got to make the ask. Yeah. But it's not, hey, if you're ready to do this, it's always, listen, if you find this stuff informative, been helpful and you want to have a chat. Numbers at the bottom of the screen. You can grab the relocation guide if you're not ready.

We encourage you to follow along and catch some more videos. We try to post these on a regular basis. If and when you're ready to talk, give us a call. And so it's never, I mean, I don't think making a hard sell really works, especially for type A's. And you and I, we know some type A's, right? Just a few. If somebody tries to push you into it, you're going to go, no thanks.

I'm good, right? Yeah. Hey, let me know if I can be of help. I'm over here. My desk is around the corner, so I don't want to bother you. But anything you need, you need to pull keys or something. We'll do it. Okay?

And then you let them do that. And they'll go, they'll walk around if they're truly interested. They'll come back and go, did you say you could get the keys for me? You go, yeah, absolutely. Which ones do you want me to pull? Yeah. Our channel is called moving to Knoxville. And there's all these little subtle things like Mark make sure to wear.

an ex-P hat when he's doing a video or I'll wear some branding or whatever. So it doesn't have to necessarily be constantly like, oh, we're realtors. Give us a call. Hey, by the way, here's our number. It's just all of these little subtle things to make people feel comfortable to reach out to you and not feel like they're being sold. They feel like they're being advised in that you're being a trust, getting into that trusted position to where they feel comfortable to reach out to you. Go ahead, Kay. Well, you just nailed it that they're not being sold to. They're being advised.

And that's just you guys have chose a long format platform. And that's exactly it. So you're not just saying like, sell, sell, sell, sign up right now. And you're choosing a long form, which is building relationship. So really impressive that you've been able to use that platform for that specifically and not steer away from that. Because that's exactly you said, hey, we want a reason and a place for people to get to know us as a husband and wife. team who have relocated ourselves and we do the investments ourselves. I mean, there's no better way. Like, you've gotten it so narrowed down of saying, this is who we are and this is who we're appealing

to. I think we lose direction of that of trying to. I love the example of the restaurant that just says we have food. Like, that's not how you market. You don't just say, I have food. You say, I've got a vegetarian pizza and you're getting so, you know, today and tomorrow could be meat lovers, but it's very specific in who they're talking to. And I think you guys have got that nailed very well knell down. Yeah. I mean, then the other aspect of it is, though, we have not been, you never take your eyes off the fact that, yeah, like, do you need a decent website? Yeah, you need something. Do you need Google reviews? Do you need an online presence? Yeah. You're going to have to find a way to kind of get all these things done, but you have to find what it is that you think is going to resonate and connect with people and then backfill the rest to kind of catch up. So you can't just go down the one. rabbit hole, but you do need to pick a direction and kind of get after it on that because that's what proliferates and that's what allows you to grow a presence, right? I mean, we could have gone down the avenue of trying to have the most well thought out website that had all the back

in coding and everything else that picks up here and picks up there. We could pay for Google ads. That's one way to do it. But we also know there's a lot of other people who do that. is there anything truly personal about that? It's still just a review. Review is not you. Right. People need to connect on that. A review is not you. You or you. And when people get to know you, that goes a hundred times further. But I mean, YouTube is for sure our big net. But then they do check around all the other things for your legitimacy, right? So you have to have YouTube, but we also have a really nice website. We also are on Instagram. We're on Facebook. We do have Google reviews. Our main focus is YouTube, but they go around, bounce around all of those

different spaces and maybe someone contacts us through Instagram, but they found us because of YouTube. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We're all little good stalkers online. So, yeah. And that's true. Yeah, Google yourself, review yourself, right? So that's always full circle. But I love that you guys. guys demonstrated from A to Z just how to attack a new form of, you know, what I would say is a lot of people don't think as YouTube as personal. And you said, hey, I'm going to use this to reach out to everyone, give long form personal touches in order for people to get to know us and then have a way to contact us and move forward. You guys have nailed it clearly to get up to 40 million. So anyone listening, I love that you can apply what you said to not just YouTube.

that, I mean, really what you demonstrated overall is we tried something. It wasn't connecting. And you gave it six months to eight months. And you're like, you know what? This isn't what we thought it was going to be. Pivot quickly, especially this year, 26. It's starting off strong. It's going to be an incredible year.

So for you guys to, if something doesn't feel right, week three, four, five, ten, it doesn't mean leave something immediately. But look at the numbers, test it out. And Mark, you said before we started, make sure it's authentic. Like you guys feel and look so comfortable talking about this because you're just saying like, this is what we went through. This is who we are. And if that's not something you can find in your business, then that's part of the explorer period of saying, well, what part do I love? What part do I want to love?

What feels natural for you? And then you just found a platform where you could share that. And it's coming by full circle for you guys. So thank you so much for sharing your story. And we hope that listeners can take a piece from that and get their 40 million next year. Katie, you're the best. We really appreciate it. And thanks for allowing us to be on the podcast today.

Of course. Thanks, you guys. We'll put links for their YouTube for you guys and make it easy for you to reach out to them if you are moving to Tennessee. Thanks, you guys. Have a good one. Thanks, Katie. That's a wrap for this episode of the Next Level Agents. I'm Kevin Kaufman.

And we've just drawn some serious heat with my crew to level up your real estate game. What does the next level look like for you? Subscribe to the podcast now so you don't miss a single strategy. And head over to Next Level Agent. dot com, check out our events tab so you can find out all the information on our next virtual and in-person mastermind calendar. Let's keep this momentum rolling. See you next time.