KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Step-by-Step on Building a Facebook Group to Close $20M/year

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

Welcome back to the Real Estate Rockstars podcast. I'm Shelby Johnson. And today I'm here with Laura Griffin out of Northern Virginia near D.C. Loudoun County. If you're from that area, I have a 703 area code. I went to high school in Northern Virginia. So like girl, I'm with you. She, Laura, is going to teach us how she built her business entirely off of her mom's Facebook group and now closes 20 million in volume per year with lead generation exclusively through that. group. So Laura, I'm so excited to have you. And listeners, this one is for you if you are interested in lead generation using Facebook to build your business. Laura, welcome. Thank you for having me, Shelby. I'm so excited to be here. What part of Northern Virginia are you from? Woodbridge.

Okay. A little farther. Yeah. Yeah. And I did say it right. It's Loudoun, right? It's Loudon, right? It's Loudoun. Yeah. So you had Prince William. So we neighbor each other. It's close. Yeah, no, exactly. But I meant to confirm before we hit record and then I was like, nope, just send it. Anyway, okay, Laura, let's take us back a little bit because you've been in real estate for 10 years. And can you talk about like how you got started through real estate, how you came to find this niche that you've locked in now? Yeah. So when I started, I was new and I didn't, you know, I didn't know what I was doing and joined a team who had a rainmaker who was buying leads for us. So we were doing, you know, all the usual suspects of online leads and doing open houses every weekend.

and I had a small, my daughter was just born when I first started. And then fast forward like two and a half-ish years later, I had my son. So I always had little kids. And so kind of online leads were not my thing. You know, I just didn't have that speed to lead. And I just, I hated giving up my weekends with my husband and my kids for open houses and, you know, all those kinds of things. I don't like to door knock. It scares me.

Just not that person. So I quickly started realizing that being a young mom and being in these moms groups and things like that, that I just, it just was easier for me. That was kind of my niche, was helping other moms with buying or selling a house because I had little ones. They had little ones. And so I quickly decided to start a Facebook group just for moms, not real estate related, and then realized that that was feeding my business.

So kind of transition off of online leads. I don't do open houses anymore, not even my own listings. I get all of my leads from my Facebook group and a few past clients, but I would say 90% is from my Facebook group because it's all moms and I'm a mom and that's just kind of my niche and how I do all my marketing. Okay. So when you started this, it wasn't specifically for real estate. Is it still specifically real estate or can you tell us about the page?

Yes. So the Facebook group is for my mom's and my group. Yes. Not page. Okay. That's a totally different thing. Yes. And actually,

Facebook promotes the groups more now because they want a sense of community. They don't like the pages. And what page you have to pay to play, groups, you don't have to. And no, I started it from a place of like, I'm a mom. I needed some mom friends. I hate to admit it, but that's why. And I had questions. And so it came from a genuine place.

And as I was in there kind of answering people's questions and, you know, when people would ask where's the best, you know, place to get your kids' hair cut or the best park or the best ice cream place, I would know where those were. And that would just naturally lead into I'm a real estate agent and then can I help them? So it started out just kind of organically. And I wasn't meaning to start it to get leads. It just happened. Okay. And how has it evolved over the years? Like listeners out there, they're like, oh, I want to use this for lead generation specifically. And I can start it and say that it's not, but should I?

So like kind of what does that look like? So I would say 90% of what I post is not real estate related. And the 10% of maybe real estate related that I do post on there, other than like the banner in the group is you can tell a real estate agent in my description is really just kind of not standing up and screaming real estate agent, use me to buy or sell. It's kind of just weaved in there. Like it's daylight savings time is coming.

you know, as a real estate agent, I always recommend checking your smoke detectors. Are they over 10 years old? You have batteries, things like that. So they kind of understand I'm a real estate agent, but yet I'm providing value. Or, you know, look at this cute, you know, I was on my way to listing appointment. I look at this cute like kids thing that we stopped and did this weekend before I went to work. So again, they see I'm a real estate agent, but yet I'm not screaming. I'm a real estate agent.

It just kind of naturally weaved into the conversation. So I think if you come from a place of providing value to your community and not using it as so often I see people just post real estate ads or their listings or they're coming soon or their buyer seminars and their groups, if you don't, you can't do that and spam people because no one will want to be in that group. But if you're weaving it in naturally into the conversation, it's really easy and people will start to remember, oh yeah, Laura's a real estate agent or, you know, Shelby's a real estate agent. you've got to use her. So it's about having kind of natural conversation, just like you would when you go to a party, right? You're not going to stand there and say, I'm a real estate agent at a middle, middle of a party, right? No, Laura, that's what I do every time. Stand on the table. I'm like, yo, girl, I'm in real estate. No, I'm just kidding. Okay. Do you write your name match too? Yes, yes. No, just kidding. Okay, so let's take it back to like super

tactical. So I want to talk about setting up your group, and then I want to talk about growing the page, how you get people to go there. And then I want to talk about some content examples. If we could go through all of that, setting up your group, you mentioned banner. And the header of your group should have, and obviously every seat's different for disclosure. So, you know, what might be here might be a little bit different for you. But I have, you know, I have my real estate logo on my banner in the name of the group. And then I have my name, which, you know, and my group.

is also admin by my real estate page. So at the bottom, you've got a little bit of a banner that says, hosted by Laura Griffin, real estate, my brokerage. So there's some ways you can kind of hide it in there. And then you should always have your group as searchable, but not the posts are going to be private. So people can find your group, but yet they can't see the content in the group. And in your description, I have, you know,

thank you for joining my Loudoun mom's, you know, group, you know, a little bit about the group, why they want to join. I have my real estate disclosures at the bottom. It's run by Laura, and she's a real estate agent, blah, blah, blah, and I actually have a call to action there because I find a lot of people will initially find my groups sometimes when they're relocating to the area. So a secret tip is if you have a landing page for a relocation guide or a buyer's guide or a seller's guide, but I like the reload guide. Put that in your description. So when people are searching the groups and they find you, they can click on that link, go to your landing page. They can get the relocation guide and join your

group and you're capturing their information. So that's been really powerful is having like a relocation guide. What is your group titled? So mine, so the biggest thing with a group is you should have your location. So your city, your town, mine I use a county because our county is a little big and our little towns are just too small. So mine's the Loudoun moms. So you could do, you know, a mom's group.

You could do like Sacramento moms or Woodbridge moms. or you could do or Woodbridge Community Group. You could do the name of your town or city or county community group, something like that, because you want the location there for people that are searching because you want it hyper-local. You know, I don't want people from New York joining my group

or another state. The other thing, unless they're relocating, of course. But the other thing is Facebook will use it as a search engine. Some people are searching. If you have the location in the name, it'll help with that. And then you have to have the cities and the district. different towns or the county in your description too. So it acts as another place for people to really

make sure that they're joining the right thing and then they're local to you. Okay. So we have the group, which is search optimized. It's the location and then mom's group, community group, whatever you want. And then we have the fact that the group is searchable. They can find it, but the posts are private for a little teaser. You know, it's a teasing in here. And then the tip was in the landing page for, oh, wait, in the description, include the landing page for the relocation guide to capture the information. So my next question is, since it is private, what are the questions in order to get in?

Like, are you doing contact information capture at that point in, like, pulling into CRM or, like, what does that access point look like? Absolutely. So you have three questions, right? So I always ask where they live, because obviously I don't want, it's a twofold. I don't want people from outside of my area. But also, it's sometimes they'll be saying, oh, I'm moving from Orlando, Florida.

It's like, oh, okay, well, great, then I know you're relocating. The next one is, can I have your email? Because we're going to send you exclusive member content, sometimes discounts, and they get a weekly newsletter. So I am capturing their email. And I use a Chrome extension that actually captures that information and dumps it on a Google CSV file. And then it can upload to a variety of CRMs. So that way I'm not having to cut and paste emails like I used to do.

And then the last question, I just put, you know, if you're relocating or moving in the area, I mean, you need help with real estate, you know, here's my contact information or would you like me to contact you? And so people will put yes or no or yeah, absolutely, here's my phone number. And I'll contact them from there. So I really utilize my three questions. Unfortunately, you only get three with Facebook. So you've got to really maximize those.

Oh, okay. Learning, learning. this Chrome extension. I heard about this on another podcast. I'm sure there's several of them, but can you tell me about it? Because I'm sure there's many people out there who are copying, pasting, and they want this cheat sheet to pull it from, yeah, and actually, yeah, talk us through it. So they submit it and is the extension pulling it from your inbox and Facebook? Because, like, is that where it goes or? No, it's pulling data. It's pulling different metadata. So it's pulling their name, their location.

it pulls, I've got a couple different groups, so it'll pull which group it pulled it from. It'll pull the answers to your three questions too. So it's pulling some data out for you. There's a couple out there. There's two that I like. One is called group kit. And the other one is group leads. So those are the two that I really like.

You have to pay for them. And if it's not, it's pretty minimal. It's just like a few hundred dollars a year. I mean, in the grand scheme of life, it's not a lot of money. And do you use both? What's the difference? I don't use both. I've used both of them at different times.

Different ones sync better with different CRMs. So or email service providers. So if you're using like a mail chip or constant contact or active campaign, some of them talk a little nicer to those than other ones do. So it kind of depends on what CRM or. or email servicing company provider that you're using to see which one will sync up better for you. And the group leads ones I like a little better because it dumps it onto a Google sheet. So I've got a backup copy of my Google Drive.

And I'm just kind of like in case something gets missed one day or they're not talking to my CRM. I kind of like having that backup copy, in my opinion, is just an added bonus. I love a backup. Yes. Because things happen, right? You know, you never know. All the time. When will it stop?

Yes. Okay. So at this point, we have the page and now they are trying to get access to it. And you are getting the information on where they live, their email address, and whether or not they want to speak with you, whether they're hot or not. And then now that you have this, use the Chrome extension to pull the data, do you automatically send them any welcome or do they just get plugged into the weekly newsletter? or what does that look like?

So they get a well, if you, in your settings on your back end of your group, there is a way for them to get basically almost like a welcome pop up that comes up with like rules and there's like a little like a letter you can write and stuff like that. They get that, but then they're put on my welcome email. And so if they are a relocation client, they're moving to the area, they get a little bit of a different welcome email sequence because it's got the relocation guide and a little bit more meat and potatoes about our area. They're just normal people.

It's like welcome to our group. a little bit about me, if they have any questions, this, and then they naturally get dumped into the Friday weekly emails that they'll get. So I like having a welcome email because sometimes people have questions or they, you know, they're like, oh, wait, we actually are moving to the area or it kind of starts to open up that conversation that, hey, I'm a real person and I've got kids and, you know, those kinds. It makes it feel more personal. Relate to me. We are the same. Okay. So I might have missed it because I was typing notes. Good student over here.

Okay. Homework later, right? Lots of homework. That's right. So you do the welcome, depending on whether the relocation or not. But did you also mention that you post on the group welcoming them, like tagging them, like, hey, you're new? Or like, is there anything in the group that's public? No.

No one will see. There is a welcome email that are a welcome posts that I do do in the group. I don't like. the automated one that Facebook does for you. So I have that setting clicked off. And I just do the post. And it's got a little link about, I put a little bit like, you know, like welcoming them. And there's some jargon in there about, you know, here's our rules. Here's where our guides are in our group. If you have any questions about real estate, you know, here's a little bit about that and a little bit about myself. And then it welcomes everybody. I mean, it kind of just starts the conversation.

It's a warm welcome to them. You can set it up so Facebook automatically sends them or does that post for you, but the image just looks really, I don't like the image that they use. They use a standard image. It's really, I don't like it. And it was like, welcome, you know, Susie Smith and Joe Blow and like all these different it. It's just very like, just been, it just looks fake to me or not personalized. Man, if it looks fake to us, it definitely knows to them.

I feel like they can smell it up a mile away. Yeah. Yeah, it's not genuine and salesy and everyone. Just smell the sales breath. Yeah. Totally. And then even like on posts, I know, you know, there's a lot of conversation about like, I'm just talking about social media in general, you know, outsourcing and using your time wisely

and all that stuff. And I'm 100% all about that. But the thing that I feel like I can't release yet is like my own like captions and stuff, just kind of similar to you. Because if I had someone else do it or if it was automated, it's like, ah, now it doesn't sound like me. It feels inauthentic. I feel like there's this disconnect between me and whoever.

I'm trying to reach. I don't know. I digress. Yeah, I does. And the same like with using AI now. I use AI a lot, but I've also manipulated the data. So that way it sounds a little more real, like a real person, like me. So yeah, I get it.

Okay. Before we move on to growing your page, you mentioned rules and guides. What rules do you have? And then we can, after you answer that one, we can go into like examples of the guides. Oh my gosh. I have to remember what the, um, what, they are off the top of my head. And it doesn't have to be specific. I'm just talking about like the intent. You put the rules in there for a reason. Most of them are around, it sounds really bad,

and everyone's an adult, obviously. But a lot of it is around like behavior, right? So it's like being, you know, some of them are generic Facebook has for you. So I think it's four or five. They have defaulted for you. So like be kind, no hate speech, no bullying, no shaming. No shaming. I've tweeted one to like no negative reviews. Nothing annoys me more than, you know, you bought a cake from a cake maker and they messed up the name or something and then you just slam them online. Like I don't, those are some things that I don't allow in my group because things happen and we're all, you know, I'm a business owner and I make a mistake. I don't want someone slamming me online. No promotions or spam because we get a lot of air duct cleaning companies and stuff like that.

respecting people's privacy, so like no screen grabs of the group. I don't allow any selling of any items. Like, it's a mom's group. So you get a lot of people who like selling used baby items. I just don't allow that. We had some issues with charity posts like GoFund me and stuff, especially during COVID. So we just don't allow that.

I don't allow any political, religious stuff in my group. And then we don't allow any business promotions in our group, except for on certain days or on a certain post because we were having a hard time with, you know, different businesses would be posting like every day. And it just got spammy and I don't do it. Then I kind of want the other businesses to respect the group and not, not spam us with their business every day. Yeah.

Although we appreciate the consistency. Yeah, I was okay. And it was a lot. It was a photographer. And I was like, you know, actually I do need to get my, you know, spring family photo. I was like, hi, you better just book it. It was like, the universe was. like the universe must be telling me, but after a while, look, we booked them.

I don't need to see it for a day. Yeah, totally. Do you let other real estate agents in there? So that's a good question. And I know it's going to be the most controversial question. So I do not. I've gotten flack from other real estate. And I don't let lenders and I don't let title companies.

And this is my response to that. And, you know, if you run a group, you do, you do you. But my feeling is, because I've gotten burned. by title and lenders in the past that have been in my group, and they start recommending any other real estate agents, and they start saying, oh, don't use Laura, use Joe Blow or whatever. Yeah. But with the real estate agents, how I think of it is, it's like my own open house, right? So if I'm hosting an open house, am I going to let another real estate agent sit at the door

and talk to the people coming into the open house? And everyone always says, no, I would not. because you wouldn't, right? You wouldn't let an unrepresented buyer and let them get their information. So you're not going to let them sit in your group and get leads from it. So that's kind of my thought is, no, I don't let them in. And occasionally some will slip by and I just delete them out of the group. It's okay.

They can start their own and some have and it's okay. There's enough business and enough, there's enough room for everyone to have a group or get business how they want to get business in our area. Especially in Nova. I mean, there's a lot of people. You all got a lot of people there. Yeah, there's like tens of thousands of real estate agents. I mean, there is a lot.

Real estate agents, a lot of people. Yes. Okay, gotcha. So got the rules. Now you mentioned that you have guides right there in the group for anyone to access. What are some examples of those? So guides are like, they're really cool. There are things that Facebook rolled out,

rolled out maybe a year or two ago. And it used to only be for certain groups now everyone has access. But you think of them as folders, right? So if someone wants to go in your group and open your filing cabinet, you'd have things in there. So I have the first one's about me, a little bit of information. So if someone wants to know. And then I have a buyer's section with a buyer's guide, a little video, a link to my CRM if they want to look up houses. There's a seller's folder with the same thing.

It's just as, you know, what's your home worth. There's a relocation section. It's a little bit meatier. It's got like some school stuff, website. stuff that they may want to, different neighborhoods, maybe they want to look at, a relocation guide. And then I've got some community-based things, the best parks in our area. So if someone wants to look up a park, we have consignment sales in our area for kids. That's one of the biggest questions we get, what's the best fall in spring? So we've got that in there.

One that we update every January, February is kindergarten registration. We have a lot of questions around that in our group. And so the nice thing about it is if someone has a question about kindergarten registration on, you know, it's usually around the 1st of February, I'll say, hey, we've got a guide on it. And it's got all the information for Loudoun County, which you're going to need to bring. And it's got a link to Loudoun County's website if you've got any further information. So it's nice because then I can show that I'm adding value by saying, hey, go look here. We've got all this stuff for you. I didn't create it. Loudoun County did, but I just finessed it in my own way. And it's nothing secret. But people go, oh my God, that's so cool.

I just thought all the information. I'm just like, yes. It's so cool, but I didn't create it. And so it's just a Canva. It's nothing. It's just, it's a little prettier than what the county gives us. And it, you know, it's got a little bit of some nice colors to it. But it's super easy. I mean, you can put guides for anything, you know, best pizza parlors. You can put, we have fireworks, Christmas lights, pumpkin patches, all of that is in the guide. So it just is a great place to reference people back if they want information. It makes sense. And it's the stuff that people care about. Because if you created a, that's what I see too a lot. Like new agents will start actually a page, right? Or maybe even a group on Facebook when they get their license and they're like, real estate. Let's just blast with the 10 steps of home buying and the freaking things you need to know when you're getting approved and all. Like, no one cares. Like no one cares. They want to know what the best parks are and when the consignment sales are happening and how to get their kid into kindergarten. Yeah. And the thing I've actually done now, um, is I well and I sometimes I'll have a photographer go out or sometimes I'll make my husband or someone help me but um when new community the biggest thing for my group has been when new so you know we're in a housing crunch here as everybody is and new construction is just a little bit more accessible in our area and a little easier to get into than some of the you know resale homes because it just aren't as many and so we've been doing some about new communities that are coming up hey look at xyz community it's coming up here's a little bit information um if you want to get more information and I lead capture that stuff too. So it's kind of a way to lead capture. But the people like these videos and just a little bit of information because they think I know everything. And it looks like I do. Maybe I don't. I'll find it for you. But or we also have like some of my vendors are in there too. Do you need, you know, people like I need a house painter. I got a guy. It's in the guides.

So it's just a way to add value and show that you know, you know your stuff. Totally. There's so much power and being the connector. Like, I used to say a lot of it's like, I don't know anything, but I know people who do and I can connect you with them. And the thing I like about that, too, is that you don't have to always be keeping up to date with every specific thing that's going on. Like if you have a lender partner or the painter or, you know, the new construction, whatever, it's like you don't have time to be the expert in all of those things.

But if you just keep up with the relationship and you piece them together, they will always think of Laura. Laura is the one who sent me to Pater. Laura is the one who helped my kid in kindergarten. So powerful. And the guides are easy and they live there forever. And you can just update them and it's a great, like I said, it's a filing cabinet. And people can just reference it any time of day they want.

Okay. We were next, the next section is growing your page. Group. So you have like the ability to search, of course, and people searching for this. But are you doing anything else to get people onto your page? What are you doing? Yeah, so when I first started my group and to grow it, you know, obviously added a couple friends and they added a couple friends.

And you can add past clients. Another thing that's really powerful and it sounds so crazy, but people will do it, is you can run a contest. And you can get, you know, I've done it for $25 to Target and people will jump on that. Moms like that stuff or coffee or Starbucks or, you know, whatever store you like. But you can run a contest. Hey, you know, we'll run a contest for whoever recommends the most people to the group. and if you're using one of those Chrome extensions, you can see that information.

That data is pulled. So you can go, oh, yeah, you know, Laura recommended 10 people, you know, she did the most this month. You can run a contest and whoever recommends the most people gets a $25 or some sort of a gift card, just XYZ. The other thing is once you hit about 500, Facebook thinks you're real,

and they all start recommending you. So you really need to have your location, the location tags and the location in the name and the location in the description. So it's all tying together. And once Facebook, gets enough data on your group, too. It'll start realizing who your ICA is for that group, and it'll start going out to people. The other one that's really powerful, too, that I think a lot of

people forget is you can, if your business is the admin for your group, so your business page, you can run ads. And you can't run ads to your group, but you can run ads to a landing page, you know, off of your website or if you use like a MailChimp or something, you can create landing pages or your, you know, active campaign does it. All these email service providers will or convert kit or something I thought. But you can do a landing page and add to a landing page to join that group. And then you can collect their name and their email. So you're collecting it again, just in case something happens with them adding to the group.

And then there's a link for them to go to the group and join. So you can do ads. You can do contests. And then also add everyone in your database. So if you're emailing your past clients, say, hey, I just started this local group. If you think it's a fit for you, you know, you can join it. And here's the link to it in the bottom of like an email or something or newsletter.

So good. Okay. I got to go back running the contest. So I thought about this before for different things. I'd like to get a little bit more tactical. So like $25 to target, I understand conceptually running a contest. Does that mean that you are, you're going into the, group, you are putting it there, or you're also doing it on your personal page. You're doing it

on all of your pages. And then, okay, so you're nodding. By the way, listeners, if you're not watching, she's nodding. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then it's, can you just like run us through the example of what that might say? Yeah. So, you know, you could say, hey, you know, hey, Woodbridge moms, right? We hit 1,000 members in our group this month. We really want to get to 1,500. If you know of any other moms in our area that are looking to join our tribe, you know, here's the link, you know, send this link to them of the group and ask them to join or add your, or you can add your friends. You can invite your friends or invite your friends.

So you have to keep track. There's a little bit of data. And then the person who adds them or invites the most friends gets XYZ gift card. And then, you know, I've had some people who have done like 10 winners, right? So a whole bunch of people got maybe smaller gift cards because they participated, but the person who did the most, maybe got $100 or you can, I've had some, I know some people that have done like everyone's a winner and no one really knows that. It depends on your budget, of course.

But it's really, and you'd be surprised. Like people will do anything for a gift card to somewhere. So you just have to figure out what's going to be your carrot. You're going to dangle. Okay, one more question on that. For the tracking people, like you mentioned, so does this go back to your Chrome extension? Or how are we tracking? Yes. So your Chrome extension can say it or when you're adding people to your group, it's kind of broken into like people. So each person and it's like kind of divided. So there's like little blocks. When you go to add, say when you go to add Shelby, it'll say underneath her name invited by Laura Griffin, right? So you could just, you could even do it manually. If you don't want to have the current and you can do it, you could just put, okay,

Laura Griffin one checkmark, okay? And then you add that person. And then the next person, oh, this person's recommended by Susie Q. Okay, well, Susie recommended somebody. So you can just do it manually. It's, you don't need the fancy things if you don't have the big budget for it. And you can just do it that way. I want the fancy, Laura.

I always want the fancy. If he doesn't want to save time, I'm just like whatever cost, I'll just like, time is more valuable. Okay. That's my thought on that too, where it's like people say it's free. And I'm like, nothing is free. So you're either paying for it with money or you're paying for it with your time. So it just depends on what you find more valuable in that moment.

But yeah, I am much more of like, I like my time. Like give me as long as I'm not ridiculous. But okay, I think I'm good on that. You mentioned Facebook starting to recommend you. And you mentioned ICA. Is that like your, I guess your avatar, your target? audience. What is ICA? I deal client.

Right? I deal client avatar. Yeah. Oh, very good. Love. Okay. Got it. If you have a group, you can look at your insights and you can look at your membership and you can see what area people live in. Are they male or female?

If you don't, I mean, I do a mom's group. So other than my husband being in the group as an admin just for like if I get kicked out of Facebook, there's a reason I have them in there. Mine's all women. And then tells you where they live. It tells you their age group. which bracket of the ages they are. So I mean, that's actually pretty powerful, too, because you can use your group analytics and your insights on your who's in your group to cater your content.

Because a lot of times those people are following you on Instagram. They're following you on your Facebook page. They're following you wherever else you are, YouTube, all those things. So you can go, oh, okay, well, I have a lot more people in this town. Like for me, for a county, I have a lot more people in specific town. So I know, okay, I need create content on those specific cities versus some of these others that like no one lives in that are in my group. So it's pretty powerful. You can get a lot of data from there. Data is so fun too. Like once you, once you understand it and you can use it to

build out legitimate strategies and then take your precious time and use it in the best way possible, it's just like this magical amazing thing. Oh, I was creating YouTube videos and other content on my other social media. And I was like, why am I wasting time on some of these other cities that like, like maybe 1% of my group is part of it, like maybe 50% as part of this other city. I started, I switched it and made a huge difference because I knew the data. See, data and strategy, best ever. Yeah. Okay, so we have growth.

We have running the contents. We have friends of friends. We have potentially ads, Facebook recommendations based on the ICA. Yep. And then you invited everyone your database. is there anything else? I assume you also talk about it. Like whenever you're out, you meet a mom.

I'm like, oh, my God, you should join my group. Yeah, other moms do. And I will, there's one more way to do it, but you have to be careful because you'll get your hands slapped real quick. Is if you're in other groups, and sometimes I'll see that. Since mine's a mom's group, I'll see people maybe a different group when they're asked, like maybe just like a not a mom specific group, some other kind of group. They've got a lot of questions.

I'm like, hey, I happen to run a group about moms. in Lawton County, and I'll put a link to it. You have to check the rules of that group you're in, because if they don't allow promotions, you could get kicked out of it and get your hands slapped. Or sometimes I'll say, hey, PM me, and I'll, you know, I've got, there's another group that might be a better fit for some of these questions you're asking, and then they'll PMA and I'll just send them the link to it. So, you know, there's another, there's other ways of doing that, too, if you really want to spend some time and go out and try to find people when you're first starting and wanting to grow your group, and you have the time. Okay, you have this group now,

and you want to consistently show them love and provide them value. Do you have a schedule for this? Do you have like a Taco Tuesday, whatever Friday? What do you got for that? So I have a content calendar and I will say I don't recreate the wheel. So I, there is no shame. I will repeat posts and it's okay. And I know it's going to be, she does what?

It's like, it's okay. I promise. You're all good. You repeat those. post, girl. No, and no one's going to be like, Laura posted that in March. This is not going to work. Like, what is she doing? Why are we saying? They don't care. And they never know. So it's a little bit of a mix of some community-based things. Like, hey, the new pizza parlor is opening up and blah, blah, blah, you know, go check it out. Or my kids and I went, there's a new restaurant here called Silver Diner.

And it just opened up by us. There's quite a few in the area. But I happened to just say, hey, we went, you know, look at these kids' meals. They were like, you know, the kids really liked them. So some community-based things like that. You know, I don't know when people are going to hear this, but, you know, the holidays are coming up. So it's like, hey, here's, you know, my kids and I just went by this Halloween light show or this Christmas light show. Go check it out. And then I do a little bit of some other community-based posting with, you know, the time of the year. So like daylight savings times, we've actually had a lot of house fires in our area recently.

So like I was saying, making sure your smoke detectors are up to date. we've had like four in the last like two or three weeks so it's really been yeah so I was like it's a time staying up to date um sometimes I'll see I'll also do posts that are fun you know the one my favorite one is this because if you're a mom you're totally going to understand this and even if you're not a mom drop a gift for how your morning went and who doesn't love and who does not whose morning is not a train wreck I mean I know mine is 90% of the time and it involves to be screaming at my job you got to get out the door put your shoes on the buses coming in five minute. And so that's more of an engagement post because you're just boosting the algorithm. And I love to do those because people, it's a quick gotcha thing. People are engaging. It's really good, too, to do that before you're going to post something of high value that you really want everyone to see. So your engagement's really, really high. Maybe you do two really, really high posts. And then post something that you really want people to see that's real estate related. So it could be, you know, it's the first of the month. Look at this cute little.

I was on my way to an open or a listing appointment, stopped by Home Depot with my kids. We made this cute little, you know, treasure box, you know, and do some pictures and stuff. So you're weaving in your real estate, but you're not saying I'm a real estate agent. And also doing some other posts that I like, which can help with data mining your group, is if there was one thing you could change in your home, what would it be? And people will always post. I'm having a new baby. I've outgrown my house.

My neighbor stinks. I don't like them. I hate my HOA. I wish I had a better kitchen. And so if you start reading through the comments, you can go, oh, this person might be thinking about buying. They're having a new baby. They're outgrowing their house or this person's gotten a divorce and they want to get rid of their husband off the house or their house is too small or their yards, whatever these things are. And what's so powerful about groups is you can click on their profile and you could say, ah, Laura Griffin lives in Ashburn, Virginia. Okay, I can go to my MLS, look them up in the tax second, or maybe I've already got her email. So then you can start sending me, if I say I'm outgrown

my house and I want to buy a new one or I just having a baby and I'm thinking about selling my house, you can look me up and start sending me curated content about, you know, trading up your home or outgrowing your home and it's the right time to sell and how to buy and sell at the same time. So it can be really powerful to data mine your group. Obviously, I can't post something that's trying to get real estate information from people like every week, but you can do it every few weeks or every few months and kind of roll with that content. That's a really good question. If there's one thing you can change about your home, what would it be?

Because everyone wants to share that. There's some things, you know, where it's like, hey, do you know anyone looking to buy seller invest? Like, no one really wants to share that. But if you're like asking about their home, they're like, yes, let me tell you about everything that's happening my life. Sorry. Sometimes you'll get, one time I got like a paragraph.

I was like, oh, honey. you find you somewhere else to live. It sounds like a train wreck of things. We're going to talk now. Yeah. Yeah. And if you can private message them. I mean,

you can't send everyone the same generic private message because I will say Facebook will slap your hand and you will be banned from sending private pms to people or you can get kicked off Facebook. So you got to be kind of careful. But you can totally look up those people and find out and, you know, send them a CMA or ask if they want. You know, I mean, there's just the group can be so powerful and you can get so much data from these few thousand people who already know like and trust you. It's so powerful.

And it's like I know we did talk about there is some paid things like Chrome extensions and contests or whatever, but it's essentially free to have this. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I think, so I think there's probably a lot of people out there who might actually no one in particular.

He has 17,000 people in his Facebook page. It started like a living in Greensboro Facebook page. Shout out, Scott Moore. And one of his issues has been like converting those people. And so I've noticed you've said weave it in. I think that's genius about how you are sharing your story as opposed to like, hey, I'm, you know, straight up, this is me at an open house, hardcore real estate focus.

Everybody cares. Like I'm on the way to the open house. We stopped at Home Depot. It's just like this beautiful little psychological little hack you're doing. Yeah. Love it. I do share some real estate. So we have a low supply as I'm sure everybody else pretty much does.

The one thing I do do for real estate related is like if I have a listing coming up, I use it in my sales feel with my listing appointments. Like, hey, I can promote your coming soon and your listing in a group of 10,000 moms. You know, it's an exclusive community and, you know, we'll market it, la la. But the thing is I do promote my coming soon. And I'll do it in a way of, you know, I know the market's rough right now. If you're thinking about buying a home where you have a friend is, this house is going in the market is coming soon because I'm a less, we can do it 21 days.

You know, and here's the, you know, I do the information. It's allowed in mom, exclusive homes. And it's allowed in mom. And I tag the mom in there. So then all her friends see it. And so I do do a little bit of real estate, but it's not like every week, home of the week. And look at me, aren't I cool? I just won this big award.

and that stuff, no one cares. They really don't. Okay, gotcha. And with this, so you're weaving it in, you have the newsletter. Are you doing specific, like, calls to action or are all of your calls to action the, like, not direct? Are you doing any that's, like, direct? Like, hey, are you looking to buy? Content in the group? Yeah. No. I don't do anything direct because that's not my intent of my group. and I will tell you they will they will call you and it's always ran it's like I've been in your group or I've been getting in your emails a little la and I want you just my husband I are ready to buy and sell home can you just come over tomorrow yeah sure but if I were to stand I think if I were to stand up every week and spam them with it in fact I know how I would feel because I like

it's like buying a used card me like I hate buying cars for the same reason I don't want someone bothering me all the time and calling me and selling me stuff and that's and people will leave your group. In fact, I've helped, I coach other people and I've looked at their groups and I'm like, what happened here? You're like, groups falling off a cliff. And then I look at the content. I'm like, well, you're putting house of the week up every week. No one cares. Or you're posting, look, my title companies doing a seller seminar or a buyer's, no, they don't. That should not be your number one purpose in your group. Okay. So you are providing the community. you are providing the value, you are sharing your story and weaving in real estate in a non-sales way,

nothing direct. And over time, by doing that, they will contact you when they're ready. They will. And in our email newsletter that goes out every week, there is links. And I have to have my disclosures in there, obviously. So there are links to things. And people do click on that. So it is sort of a call to action, but it's kind of at the bottom. It's not the first thing you're going to see. and so there is that. But like I said, yeah, in the group, I'm just not, I'm not, I used to at the beginning and I just found it's a, it's a huge turnoff and people can smell the sales breath on your, through the computer. It's just not, it's just not how I want to do my business. And I agree.

I love it. Cool. Okay, what did we miss? What do we not talk about that you think is really important to share with Facebook groups? Um, I think really just the name. Whenever, like your Greensboro, that's perfect. Living in Greensboro, that is perfect. Living in community group, those types of things.

I think whenever I look at a group for someone when I'm auditing them, when I'm coaching them, it's the name is going to be your biggest thing. And making sure that the location is in your description, because those are the things I really see people missing. And they'll say, oh, my group's not growing. And I'm like, well, I don't know, you know, you've got like, or they've got like a hiking group or a foodie group. It's like food a group of wire. Like, it doesn't make sense to me. So you really have to have the location in your name is the most important thing. Okay.

And you are doing 20 million plus in volume annually off this group, but you also have a coaching program. So hit us. What is the coaching program? What do they get? All the things. Yes. So I have a, so I have two options.

So one is a course that you can take. It's got everything from start to finish. We've got templates for creating. and rules and your entrance questions or your descriptions and your post, content posts and things like that, and how to nurture and all the things. So that's all in there. It's at groups toleads.com. We have a free webinar if you want to learn a little bit about Facebook groups.

It's groups, plural, two leads, again, plural.com slash webinar. And it's got a lot of information. And then I do one-on-one coaching. So if you want or if you already have a group, but you need a little bit of handholding to kind of get it back to where you want it to be. Then we have one-on-one coaching, and that's groups to leads.com too, and it's on the front page.

There's a coaching link if you want more information about that, on that piece of it. So I can help you get your, or like some people, the groups fall in off the, they just fall in off the clip, we can help you get it back up there. Or help you extract leads from it

because it's a powerful tool and it's free. So might as well use it. It's a pain for all those online leads from those other companies. Yeah, the thing I like about this too, It's that like if you pay for online leads, yes, you could get those leads and then over time, you know, get referrals off of your amazing performance and keep them in your database and they'll turn into more business down the road. But that's like a down the road play where it's like this, you have your whole your ecosystem just right there on Facebook. Like everything you'd ever need, 10,000 people and all of their friends and family.

And you know, I, so I'll admit, I mean, I have two kids. they're seven and ten now, but when they were little or this was easy for me. And it's still, like I can spend 10 to 30 minutes a day on it. And that's my prospecting time. Versus if you're calling online leads or FISBOS or expired. I mean,

you can be spending hours on the phone. And I kind of like that work-life balance of I kind of work when I want to work versus being a slave to the phone and when the person's going to call you back and, you know, calling people a million times a day and that kind of stuff. And people listening, they're like, gosh, Laura's so cool. where do I get to hang out with her? I have the website. I have the groups to leads.com. But Laura, where can people find you? I'm on Instagram. So it's Laura Griffin coaching or you can do Laura Griffin Realtor at Instagram. Either when you can find me there. Or on Facebook, but mainly on Instagram, because that's where I share a little bit more about my life.

I have two cute kids. I'll share them too every once. I followed you. I'm going to like all your stuff. Are you going to children? No, I'm kidding. Are you going to any events this year in person where people might be able to hang out with you? I just went to. I just spoke at empowering women in real estate. Actually, I was just a panelist on there. And actually, I think the video is up online. If you want to hear me talk more about Facebook groups, I'm in December. I'm going to go to Kevin's next level agent seminar. It's in Arizona because it's going to be like freezing here in Virginia. So the thought of Arizona, it sounds amazing. It better be warm. It's all I got to be. Okay, got you got your Instagram. We got the events.

And we already talked about where people can find you. Any last words of wisdom for our listeners? No pressure. Slam that one on you at the end. If you're on the, like I talk to people all the time, if you're on the fence about starting a group, just do it and don't overthink it. And the great thing about groups is if you're not posting stuff that's engaging or that people

want to like interact, you'll know real fast. And the stuff that people like keep track of it and reuse it, repurpose it. And use the scheduling tool in Facebook groups. It's free. And it's 60 days. Just post your content out for the next 60 days. And it's really not that hard. And if you're sitting there going, but no one, Laura, I don't know.

anybody. I'm new to a city like I was. No one's going to join my group. I started with 10 people. We've got over 10,000 plus a few thousand other like little mini new year groups in our area. But people will join if they feel that your content is worth it and you're providing value. But if you start selling to them, yeah, you're right. No one's going to join because they don't want to be sold to. Perfect. Guys, you heard it. Laura Griffin in the house talking about Facebook groups. make sure to go show her love. All of her links will be in the show notes for you to check out. And if you want to hang out with me and the owner of the show, we are The Shelby Show and

Aaron Mucostagie on the gram. As always, we want feedback. We want to know how we can improve who you want to hear on the show, et cetera, et cetera. And guys, that's all we have for today. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Laura and Real Estate Rockstars. Thanks for listening.