KGCI: Real Estate on Air - The Marketing Secrets Top Real Estate Agents Use to Dominate

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

Summary:Discover the closely guarded secrets of top real estate agents who consistently attract more listings and convert every listing into a powerful lead-generating machine. This episode dives into proven strategies for nurturing your database, mastering your online presence, and leveraging each "Just Sold" property to cultivate new opportunities. Learn actionable tactics to identify motivated sellers, stand out in a competitive market, and significantly boost your pipeline with high-quality leads.Bullet Point TakeawaysMine Your Database for Gold: Learn to proactively engage your sphere of influence and past clients. Your CRM is a goldmine for potential listings if you segment contacts, automate re-engagement campaigns, and follow up with forgotten connections.Dominate Online & with Social Proof: Establish a strong online presence through an optimized website and active social media profiles. Leverage video content (Reels, Stories, YouTube) and showcase testimonials and reviews to build trust and authority that attracts sellers.Strategic Pricing & Presentation: Understand the "secrets" of strategic pricing within buyer "bands" to ensure your listing is seen by the right audience. Combine this with professional photography, virtual staging, and compelling property narratives to maximize online appeal.Convert Listings into Future Leads: Transform every "Just Listed" and "Just Sold" property into a lead magnet. Implement strategies like targeted mailers to surrounding neighborhoods, open house playbooks designed for lead capture, and personalized outreach to neighbors.Diversify Your Lead Generation: Don't rely on one source. Explore a mix of strategies including door-knocking, engaging with expired or FSBO listings (with a value-first approach), running targeted online ads, and attending local community events to expand your reach.Topics:Real Estate Listing SecretsGet More ListingsReal Estate Lead GenerationListing Conversion StrategiesTop Real Estate Agent TipsCall-to-Action:Ready to unlock the secrets to a flood of listings and leads? Listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform and transform your real estate business!

Welcome to Real Estate Real World, where we talk to the movers, shakers, and leaders that are getting it done right now in the real estate industry and beyond. I'm your host, Marguerite Crisbillo, and I started this podcast simply dedicated to calling people about what's really happening in this crazy roller coaster ride of real estate. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes and stay up to date on the newest stuff by adding yourself to the list at www. real estate real world.com. Now let's dive into the world of real estate. Hello and happy Valentine's Day. I know you won't be seeing this actually on Valentine's Day because we're recording it. But for all of you out there, share and spread the love and enjoy the day with the people that you care about. I am Marguerite Chris Pillow with Real Estate Real World and we're excited, excited today to have a very special guest. I'm always fascinated on how I randomly meet people, number one, and then how we have so many

connections, which is kind of crazy. We were talking a little bit beforehand today about some people that we have in common. So please, everybody, I have Andrew. All right, now I'm going to mess up your last name. Fogliato, Fugliato, Andrew, and he's got, you got to be Italian. I'm half Italian, but Andrew Fogliato, he's the owner of real estate magazine and just sell homes and has worked as a realtor trainer and prop tech consultant too. He likes to geek out on real estate, building businesses, and writing biographies in the third person for other people to read out loud before he comes out. He always thinks they're too long no matter how short he writes them. In his spare time, he has three kids with his super amazing, fabulous wife who definitely approved this intro,

loves basketball, and mountain biking. Please everybody, welcome, Andrew. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. All right. How do you say your last name? Did I screw it up? Foliato. So the G is silent. Oh, foliato. Okay. So my most... Everywhere I go, I'm just used to the G now as like a thing. My maiden name, well, my name, first of all, my husband's Spanish.

So my whole name is 19 letters. So people always screwed up. But my maiden name was Sconcio. And growing up as a kid, we always pronounced it Sconcio, because I didn't grow up with my dad, until I went to Italy and they're like, you're not even saying your name right. Yeah, that actually happens a lot. Like I went, I did a trip when I was young to Italy and like it was the first place time of my life. I could walk in somewhere.

Like I remember I walked into the first hostel and they're like name. I was like, Andrew Fuliatto and didn't ask how to spell it. They just wrote it perfectly. And I was like, it happens. Yeah, like you start to notice that a lot because like people Americanized, Canadianize their names when they come over. But like Italian's a hard rules on the. It's not like English where there's like eight different ways to pronounce the same word. Exactly.

Like a hard rule. And so it's like, other people talk to me and I'll be like, that's not how you say your name. You know, the funny thing is, it's growing up. So I mentioned I didn't grow up with my dad. He passed away when I was young. But my dad was the Italian side. My mom was a mutt, right? English, Swiss, German, something.

Anyway, my mom and I would get in arguments all the time. She goes, you're yelling at me. I'm like, I'm not yelling. Like, I mean, we were getting these fights all the time. And I always thought there was something wrong with me until I went to Italy. I'm like, oh, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm just Italian. It just doesn't make you.

You start doing this a lot. Like everybody there, I was like, oh, they're all like me. It's just, I'm just Italian. That's the problem. Well, nice to have you on the show. I was mentioning that it's so random how sometimes you meet people and how you connect with them. And you and I were in this little group on a Zoom call and you mentioned you're in real estate.

I was like, really? And we started chatting. I'm like, I need to have you on my show. So tell me a little bit about what you do. I'm really fascinated by what it is you're doing. So let's hear it. Our main kind of main thing to simplify as much as possible is we do digital marketing within the real estate world. Like I'm our business like our main one, which is our agency is like Facebook ads for realtors type of thing.

But like what I'm really kind of passionate on this size like content marketing. That's like I love creating content. And I love doing like what makes it work, what doesn't make it work. And kind of that's where I really start to nerd out is on that side of it. But essentially our main thing is we help real estate agents and brokers kind of grow through the online world. So we're very specific on that side. And that's what I like to talk about is like what works and like the mistakes we see. And like the big one for me is like there's so many people in the industry who like get on podcasts and stages.

And it's like you can tell they've never actually done it. Yeah. Right. Like this is a big one with like I joke. There's a lot of like people who play a realtor on Instagram. And then like what happened is like they got started and like they had maybe, you know, 500 followers and just like people from their office. And they started making funny videos that they liked. And then they started like doing more of that. But now they had no clients from it because all their time was like other agents. Then it's like, okay, now you have to sell a course on social or get a downline. But like I have to pretend to be an agent while I do it. You know, it's so fascinating that you say that because, you know, as we mentioned a little bit before the show, I've been 31 years in real estate. So when I got into real estate, we didn't, we didn't have computers. We didn't have email. We didn't have internet. We had old MLS books, you know.

Hot cheese. I'm really debating myself now. But so the whole social media thing has been a big adjustment and challenge. And even for me, like my team all the time is like, get us more video. get us more video. I'm like, I'm outselling houses. Like, on video, you want, you know, like, I think I got to pay the bills. I can't be on, you know, on doing video all day long. And then when I do video, it's my biggest challenge.

I'm sure I'm, I know I'm not the only one. So it's a little bit of work. Like there's some really easy ways to get comfortable, like two parts kind of get comfortable. One is like most people are overcomplicating their videos and doing like super polished stuff. Like if you look at my Instagram feed, I literally just grab my phone each morning, pointed at me and I essentially like answer a question maybe the way I'm framing it it doesn't seem like I'm answering question but it's like I get a lot of questions about marketing so I'll

just make a point in the video like my reels which get me they don't like the views aren't huge like 400 500 but like I get business from it because it's the right people watching but it's we just six seven minutes max for me from idea to film to posted I've now got it down to about a seven minute process. So we just think about it. And the other one that really helped me because like I used to be terrible on video. Like you see my videos from when I was a realtor. The one actually friend of mine who is honest with me and I appreciate that. He watched one of my original videos. And his response was this looks like an ISIS hostage video. There's a really high quality videos because I was super awkward on it. And then we're actually

learned and I kind of figured out. And it was the first time, was like it put it together for me. It was a little bit. I actually had an event speaking with Tom Ferry. And we were at the back of the room chatting. And like super, I don't know if you've met him. Super engaging.

I just actually saw him speak last week. I was at his event here in Sacramento area. And very like down to earth when you're chatting with him. And then someone came up from the event because it was a multi-day event. Like could you shoot a video for us that we can post to like give people FOMO to make sure they come tomorrow? And so he did. But like as soon as he went on camera,

He like, to me, having just chat with him, seemed like he became a completely different person. Like, just like put it on. And I was like, that's so inauthentic. But then I saw the video. And he came across as the guy I was talking to. And what I kind of started piecing together over the years, like they say the camera at seven pounds. Also cuts your personality in half. Right?

Like you have a lot of the time when you're trying to do videos, like, let's say like right now you shot a video. you're alone in your office with there's no energy in that room right so you're matching on camera the energy of the room you're in so you can have to pick yourself up and like go overboard a little bit yeah so that you come across as and that's when you start seeing like get more engagement on it and you start doing like more people responding like oh that's a real person not like this because most people when they start doing video seem very wooden and they're like there's like no personality even though they're super engaging in person and no one's because there's filming in a room quietly somewhere and they hadn't put that together yet that is so you know it's so interesting that

you say that because I was just talking to somebody yesterday I'm like if you take me and put me on the stage I'm fabulous I mean not that I'm you know the best ever but I'm totally comfortable I'm in my zone I could talk till the cows come home I can engage the audience I could do all that stuff but again put me just me and my phone and I'm like, uh, yeah. That's what like the, that first one I mentioned with the, the, the Isiside. There was another one like that that hit hit it hit it for me, which I was talking to a friend. And he, I'd uploaded a video the night before, we had like, good info in it. And he was asking me a question about it. And I just like, we were having a beer.

It was one of those like between days of a conference beers that night. And he asked me a question about the video I uploaded and I just chat. We ended up trying for like 30 minutes. And he goes, Andrew, I need to stop you for a second. how are you so engaging when we talk about this over a beer but you're so boring when I watch you on video so I was like it's fair uh that's like you start piecing these pieces together so like that's like my one of we were mentioning backstage there of like I had that show called over a pint that was kind of one of the initial things that made it be like okay I'm really engaged when we're sitting down having a beer together all right I'm going to go have beer with people and

film it that's like for a few years. I had a show that. We just sat down and drank beer and it was great. That's awesome. I love it. So with that, like with your and I want to clarify because you said agency, I think some people might think it's a real estate agency. It's a marketing agency, correct? The marketing agency for primarily realtors. We work with some brokerages and associations like, but essentially it's the residential real estate industry. Okay. We focus our business on. Okay. And so within that agency when it comes to marketing, I, remember, and we were talking about him earlier as Dean Jackson, who's one of my favorite people on the planet. And Dean, I remember him saying he used to do these internet marketing weekends where we would go down to San Diego and we would bring our computers and we would sit there and we would, you know, come up with all these domain names and all these websites. And he said, the biggest mistake agents make is they think that they are selling homes.

What they really need to focus on is being master marketers. and learning to market because if you learn to market, you'll never struggle for business. You can always get the business in the door somehow if you learn how to market. But if you never learn how to market, you'll always struggle in my opinion. Do you think that's true? Yeah, like 100%.

Like even when I'm looking at everything an agent does, like you have to think about it from a marketing lens. Like even down to the service you're providing your clients when you're out with them. that is a form of marketing so that they'll refer you later on. Yeah. Right. So like every single touch point is about that. Now, how you approach it.

Like I think there is any way that someone can build their business through it. Like there's a million different ways you can build a very successful business. I have a few that I prefer. Like I hated cold calling, but like I did it a lot. I door knocked a lot. I tried everything. But like the online worked for me. So like that's where I like to do it.

But like if you don't know how to market, it's it's a grind. Like you burn out. Like I know we had a one of my mentors when I was first in sales. He was not a marketer. Like you didn't know anything about it. He was just a cold calling machine. And he got his business up to like number two in town and hustled. But eventually kind of just started burning out because it was like so much time and effort.

So like for him to do 50 deals a year, it was a grind. And it never got better. better. But if you can you, I think like when people are starting out, sometimes you have to do that type of grind just like get those first few deals in. 100%. As you're building up the branding, the marketing, the reputation so that they start coming to you. And I think that's where it's like if you don't eventually make that transition, then you're going to just burn yourself out. Well, and it's funny because like I'll always make the comment. A lot of agents get in the business. They piss off their family and friends and they get out. Right. So they do they do. They do. couple deals with close family and friends who agree to work with them. But they never learned the basics. They never learned the skills. They never learned the marketing piece, which I agree, I think is probably one of the, I think it's the most important thing. Yeah. And learning how to

market yourself. Yeah. There's a photo. So years ago, like, we obviously like for the agency had like client avatars of different types of realtors for different programs. One of our programs was specifically that of that person who got in the industry and they sold. old to all their friends and family, but now their database is moved and they can't figure out how to do that next part of like, okay, how do I get people who don't know me to do business right now? So we actually had built a program just for them of like, you've done pretty well for two years because that's around where they start to struggle. And then they go from there. Sometimes they get lucky and like, you know, a couple listings rolled over the right way and got

some neighbors calling. But like most of them, it's once that database is done, they're done. Yeah. And that's, we had to end up building a program just for that exact scenario because we were getting so many calls about it. So tell us a little bit about what your programs look like. Like how does it help the agents to be able to do more business? Because ultimately that's the goal, right? Like we wanted to sell more houses. So we kind of had two main ones. So like the primary bread and butter over the lot because we've been down the agency for about 10 years has been Facebook ads. But as you like you've been around long enough in the industry to know too. I just start sending you a bunch of Facebook leads. If you don't know how to convert them,

if you don't have the systems in place, you're just wasting your money. All day long. And we, so we actually early on, especially had a really big problem with churn of agents would come. They'd run ads for truth because we don't do contracts. We're month to month.

And we get people like two, three months. They start getting leads in. They might not even call them or they call them once, thinking that that's enough. And like, oh, and we just had this massive turnover of people who couldn't convert leads.

So then we created a kind of eight week intensive program where we actually build out your whole marketing strategy for you, get it up and running, train you how to now continue it with the idea being that will help over here on the ad side for you to stay as a client because now you have the systems to work them. But then the more we started doing that, that ended up being the bigger part of the business at points because people wanted that program. So we've kind of been doing a lot on like, all right, let's just train you on how like the full marketing system works. So like over the past few years and I've rebranded it a few times and different things like that. But like we just created a framework. But like the easiest way to explain is like I basically can break someone's marketing down with six questions. So the first one is just how do people find out you exist? And then how do you get them to start talking to you?

How do you get them in your database? How do you convert them into the clients once they're in your database? How do you earn their trust and how do you earn their long term loyalty? If you get someone to write those six questions answers to them right away, almost every single time, you can see what the gaps are. Because they'll, and they'll like for one of them, they might have like eight things in it. And then they'll have nothing for one another one. Or they'll have like one thing. Or they're like, I don't even know what that means.

It's like, if you don't know what that means, then you definitely don't have anything. For sure. So once we go, okay, there's where you have it. Now you can sub in the things that close the gaps there. and that starts giving you that kind of cycle that the more you do it, it starts to grow. But you need to make sure you plug the gaps in it so you're not losing people. Well, and I find it so interesting because I've said for many times, like, if you run an ad and you get no calls, the problem is the ad, right?

If you run an ad, you get calls and you don't get any appointments. The problem is you need to figure out. But it could be a good ad to the wrong audience. That's true too. Right. Like there's a, that's where we, like we try to work with this.

Like it has actually come from someone we worked with years ago and he had a great line, which is just because an ad didn't work doesn't mean the ad doesn't work. And it's like sometimes it's, I haven't added that part to it. So sometimes just a couple words here. So I'll give you an example. We had a client who he tried one of those campaigns that was like,

get a guaranteed cash offer on your home in 24 hours. You know, that type of style of ad. And he wanted to run. to a 16 question survey off Facebook. So it was like a Facebook traffic ad to a 16 question survey. And if they answered it within 24 hours, you'd send them an offer.

If someone wanted to buy your house in cash, here's what the offer is. And we've probably sent a thousand people to that survey from Facebook, direct. Not a single person filled it out. So the initial thought was this doesn't work. But we ended up going back to the drawing board and we added a step,

which is we turned it from a traffic ad to a Facebook lead form. So we got their name email phone number, then sent them on the thank you page of the lead form to fill out the survey. Ah. And so what happened now is when his ISAs started calling the people, they were calling to walk them through the form.

Got it. And so like that little adjustment, now they started getting people through. But it was just like 16 questions straight out there. Because like a lot of times if you're on Facebook on your phone, you're like, you're not in a place to, sit and answer 16 questions about your home. And like some of them you had to actually like stop and think like

when what, when did we replace the furnace? When did we do the roof? I got to go look that up or like, what is it? What kind of sidings on my house? Is it like, and they may not always know that. They have to go searching. They're not going to do that. But if you pick up the phone, call them or sometimes he'll set the appointment where it's like, all right, so like tomorrow night you're going to be home. I'll call you then and we'll walk through the survey together. And then I, within 24 hours that I can get you your offer. And so it's like, we should have backup. So that's so that's so. interesting because I mean what it comes back to

is tracking which agents are not very good at right is if you're actually tracking you know what and you know split testing and all that kind of goes back to what is actually work which part of the puzzle is not there which part

of the you know railroad tracks is missing so to speak that you can now take and tweak that and figure out how you can make that work right Yeah, we had a team leader who just impressed me the hell of me one day. Like he came in and a brand new client. He's like, all right, I'm going to give you four weeks to see if this works.

And I was like, like new lead sources, stuff like they take time to know if they're going to work. Because, you know, and he's like, no, like, and he brought out his numbers and we started looking at them. And he's like, I have a broken down to like for every lead source, I haven't figured out that if we don't connect in the first two weeks with at least 30% of the leads, it's like, it's like, an unprofitable lead source. And our goal is 50% connection rate with all leads. And they had like the very specific system. But he had it broken down to like as soon as that connection rate, that number came in, he knew if long term if that'd be profitable or not because he attract every single

thing down the line. And so his basically models when someone was bringing him, he'd try any new lead source. After two weeks, it wasn't 30%. He said you can make adjustments or you can stop now. Right. And it's like if they continued. He was thrilled. Same guy we did the cash offer idea with.

That's why we had to make an adjustment. Two weeks in they weren't getting the traction they needed. So it was like he really had those numbers now. There's other people like, they'll be like, oh, how many leads do you get in a month? And they're like, I have no idea. Like, I don't know, like one a day. And I was like, okay, like pull up your CRM. And they're like, oh, I've had like 10 in the last 30 days.

It's like that's not one a day. Well, that and then we, you know, I would say, say probably maybe the number is higher, but 90% of agents are not tracking anything. No. And I always say like start it simple. Like in an idea world, you're tracking every stage like that guy. Like when you're a solo agent,

you're focusing on like just track how many new conversations a day, how many booked appointments, whether it's a listing presentation, buyer presentation, and there's how many signed a deal or signed a contract. Like if you just start with this is how many people I talk to in a day and this is how many appointments I booked from it, you can do pretty well.

just starting there. Yeah. And then the other big one of tracking is like making sure you're doing something with the information. Like a lot of people will like, they'll start tracking and they'll be like, oh, the numbers are down this week. Well, hopefully they're better next week, but they're not like actioning them. Right. Like it's that you have to add that part of like, okay, why were they down this week?

Why were they better this week? What can I do to make it better? And that's where I'm like, you got to have that part too. And a lot of people think, okay, I'm tracking because someone said on stage I should start tracking. And that's always a big one. It's like, people just like copy what someone did on stage. And they're like, all right.

So I'm tracking my numbers now. My business just start growing. If not, you have to do something with that. You know, it's funny because you mentioned Tom Ferry in last week. Like I said, I was in his, he had like all day. Well, it's not really free. I guess your title people, you know, pay for you to be there. But he had his all day free event.

And I was sitting there towards the end of the day. And I was one. I mean, there was probably a thousand people in the room. It was a big event. And I was sitting there thinking, I wonder what percent. I mean, he had a bazillion ideas, right? I mean, he's smart, even though he's never also never sold real estate. His dad was Mike Ferry, who was a master cold color.

But I would venture to say that more than 90% of the agents in that room will not do one thing. They took all kinds of pictures and wrote, made all kinds of notes and they go back and they don't, they don't do a thing. Two to five percent of an audience will actually implement when you go to. to an event. So like I prefer if I'm hosting how to do smaller ones where we do the work together, even if it's like, let's get you the like MVP version of what we're doing just so you start doing it. I love that because I feel like that's where people need like they don't need any more ideas. Yeah. There's an, what they need is they need action. Like it's hard work in the sense of like you got to get out there and do it. But it's not a hard

business to do it. Like you're not putting a guy on the moon. Like that I would have. have no idea how to do outside of throw a lot of money at someone who does. But like real estate, it's not complicated. Like to oversimplify, you just have to talk to a lot of people and find the ones who are selling. Yeah. But like it's not hard in the sense of like I can't figure out. It's not calculus or anything like that.

It's just you got to put in the hard work. So one of the questions I have, you know, today before we get done here is if you you are a newer agent and you are trying to figure out where to put your time, energy, and resources, obviously I'm sure their budget is minimal in the beginning when they're first figuring it out. Like I think about a lot of the training I've been through and they basically said, okay, there's three buckets. There's business connections. There's advertising.

And there is your database, right? That's pretty much the three main pillars of business. So your database is your database. And I love how agents are always asking like what database you use. It doesn't matter. We all know the famous answer to that question. Just pick one. It could be a Rolodex for goodness sakes.

There's Google Sheet from my calendar when I started. Yeah, cell phones, right? You got it right here. And then there's business connections, more networking, the tip, you know, B&Is, things like that. But the conversion rate on advertising most of the time is the lowest, right? conversion rate of ads is the, if you choose the conversion rate from your database, it's usually three to four to one, business connections might be 10 to 15 to one, but advertising many times can be 100 to 1 or higher, especially internet advertising.

Am I correct? Depends on how you do it, but most, like, 99% of the time you're correct. So like, but there's ways to do your ads to get higher conversion. But like, to simplify, it's like, let's say here, your general public that, These people have never heard of you before. These are just people that are out there. This is a signed client. And this is the path from them going from,

I'm going to move to I bought a house or sold my house. So if you're doing online ads, you're getting them here. And now that you've got their information, you've got to bring them this whole path here. If you get a referral, you're getting them here and you just got to go like that. Right.

Right. And then like different things are along that way. Like an open house might be here. You've got to take them from here to here. A sign call. here to here, but like a cold Facebook lead, it's all that. But if you say, okay, I know that that is what it is. What if I now put out a lot of content and did like retargeting that as that promoted my

great content, built that relationship with people online? And now all my ads are really like building my reputation and doing that side and doing this content. They're going to go all the way here before they've reached out. Okay. And so like that's how you can start. getting higher quality leads, but similar like farming in a neighborhood, that doesn't happen overnight, right? Like it's, you got to take your time and do it, but that's when you start

getting people who are like, I've been following you for years. I'm ready to go. Yeah. And like, you've never heard their name before. You've never done anything. But like, most people just like, okay, I'm going to get a lead here. And this is what we always, there's a red flag for us. If someone comes to our agency to run Facebook ads and I ask them what percentage of your business's referral. If that number is over 50%, and they've been in the business 10 plus years, I can almost guarantee they're not going to like working with leads because they're going to treat it like the referral that comes in. They're going to do their follow-up, which is only designed to go from here to here on the lead that needs it to go from here to here. And you have to build

that out for them through different systems or they're never, that's where we had to build that program to do that because it's like they've never had anything to, they've never had to experience that huge gap and like that referral almost came over that gap for them. So it's like figuring that out. So I've never had it explained that way. And it's funny that you say that because I'm not agent, right? Like I've been 301 years in real estate. And the majority of my business has come as a result. I mean, when I first started, I did open houses until the cows came home. Right. I did, you know, nonstop open houses. And I figured out, luckily I got involved with Dean and Joe early. I mean, I started in real estate in 95, 96. I signed up for Joe.

Joe Stumps the referral only. So I was in their marketing system early. And I figured out how to do a lot of different types of marketing. But the marketing we did back then is not what works. I mean, it still works some, but not at the same level. The concept works, right? Like I did client events. I did, you know, referral marketing.

I did lots of that stuff. But what you just said about taking it, like I've always done this end of it, that, you know, that little last piece that you said, I've never really done the whole piece that gets them there. And that's majority, like, most people have been in the industry for a while. That's the kind of the problem when they start getting leads is they just, they've never had to do that before. Because like, even if you're not doing referrals, even if you're all open houses, those people are still pretty close. Like they're out there showing that intent. Right.

Like someone who's just like, oh, that's a pretty house. Let me check out and get more information about it. or it's like, I want to know my homesworth. Well, maybe their tax bill went up and they're trying to fight it and they need to reassess. Like that's not someone who's thinking of selling. Like that's the other big thing when you probably hear this all the time. Like, oh, online leads are crap or like normally more colorful language than that.

And what we actually talk about is like those are people expecting prospects when they're getting leads. Like in the B2B world, they refer to them as MQLs and SQLs, which is marketing qualified leads, sales qualified leads. and I think it's a huge disservice in our industry that no one talks about that. A marketing qualified lead is just someone who put up their hand saying, I have an interest in the real estate world.

But that doesn't mean they're moving. A prospect is someone moving. And most of the leads you generate are MQLs. Like they've, oh, I wanted to see more photos. I wanted to know the price. Maybe it's my neighbor and I have no intention to moving. I'm just curious. I'm just like, that's a really nice house.

I wonder how much is worth. Shear curiosity. Right. So those are MQLs, marketing, well, they're not sales. Like a sales qualified fleet is now I know they're moving. And I have to do it like, this is actually one of my favorite Dean Jackson. You know Dean Jackson has a way with words where he gets. Oh, yeah, he's brilliant.

One of my favorite ones, because he has like the farm animal ones. He refers to it as candling an egg, which is like when they're looking at like a farmer's looking at eggs to see if it's a viable fetus. They hold it up to a candle and like you can see if the fetus is alive still. He's like, that's what you should do with, think of the eggs as your leads. and every time you get one, you're holding it up to the light to see if there's a prospect in there.

And the ones that are, you keep them, the others you discard. But it's that idea. So he refers like the initial lead followup as candling. I love his way with words, but that's where most people are trying. When they say online leads are crap,

they're expecting prospects, but they're generating leads. If you want to generate prospects, you're not getting that at five bucks a lead from a Facebook ad or two bucks a lead. Like if you want to generate prospect from Facebook ads, you're probably three to five hundred bucks per prospect. And that most agents don't have that budget to run a campaign like that to the point

that it is like predictable and tested. Because like you got to get 50 leads in on something to truly understand how well that campaign's working. And if you're trying to generate like ready now clients from a Facebook ad at three, four, five hundred dollars per and get 50 of them, you do the math, most people aren't going to spend that. Well, it's interesting, too, because I remember when, you know, Facebook not first came out, but when it was newer and we were doing Facebook advertising, and you could blow through money quick and accomplish nothing. And so a lot of people got, including myself, got very discouraged.

I'm like, oh, I'm not doing that. I got to figure out something else, you know. And I just heard a statistic and maybe this is accurate or not, you might know better than I, that like over 50%. of clients now are coming from social media. Yeah, I bet most of those are still on the organic side. But like you can build a very good business off it. But like, I mean, Facebook ads especially before housing category was allowed, we're so much fun.

But like I remember one of the first clients I got from Facebook ads was actually, I used to coach kids basketball. I was like before I had kids, just like a hobby of mine. And but I didn't want to be that annoying person who's like, by the way. also a realtor. So during tournaments and game days, I would target the gym because I could go down to a single building with my ads. I would just target the high school gym that we were doing tournaments in.

And I was with remax at the time. So I just put my face on the big balloon. And that was it. That was the whole out of just that. And then I'd get parents coming up to me being like, you know, during halftime I was on my phone. I saw your real estate.

Can I have a chat with you after the game? And the amount of times I started having was like, okay, there's something here. Like we can do so like I'd start door knocking and I'd target the neighborhood being like I'm going to be in your neighborhood this week. If you'd like to find out what your home is worth, if you see me at your door, just invite me in and I'll kind of let you know what your home would be worth if you were to sell it. And someone saw that ad after I knocked on their home. Messed me like, hey, you're at my home today, but I didn't want to talk to you because my husband wasn't home. Would you mind coming back tomorrow night when he's here?

And that was like my first. So like first list of presentation I've regenerated myself. Wow. And it was just like those little things started putting it together and then started working really well. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it was funny because just this morning I was looking through some old files because I have all, you know, all the stuff I've done over the years in Dropbox.

And I found Dean's getting listings campaign that he did with, what was it? It's so funny because I didn't even know we were going to talk about Dean. And we ended up getting into that. And what did he call it as a Project Cyrus that he did this whole Project Cyrus? That rings a bell, but I don't remember what it is. Yeah. And, you know, the whole thing with free reports and letters and all that kind of stuff that went to the neighborhoods. And it's so funny that I just saw that before we were talking because we've been, we're big fan club here of Dean.

Yeah, he was like early in my career, probably one of the people I've learned the most from about marketing. Yeah, he's brilliant. Yeah. I ran into him at a mastermind where he was. was brought in, there's a group of 20 of us mastermind. And he was brought in as a guest speaker. And but it wasn't a real estate mastermind. And he just started using a lot of real estate examples.

And I was like, it kind of tweaked. And then he said where he's from where he's, because he used to sell. Yeah. Many years ago, it was like 40 minutes from my house. So like, he's Canadian. He's from Canada. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So like I like I'm say 40, 45 minutes north of Toronto. He was like, you. He was like east or no, a little bit west and a little bit north, but about the same distance that I was that way. So like we were in this, like I worked in his area, sent referrals there all the time. But it's funny.

I'm kind of funny when you're at this rain. I did a podcast with him probably eight, seven, eight years ago on his 50 minute focus finder, you know, how to learn how to how to focus. I mean, he's, he's, yeah, I'm a huge fan. Yeah, he's awesome. So I always try to learn from him when I can. For sure. Well, Andrew, this has been an amazing conversation.

I feel like we could talk for hours. I'm going to, we're definitely going to connect somewhere else on this planet somehow because I'm really fascinated by all that you're doing. So if somebody's interested in working with you and your agency, how would they get a hold of you and what would that look like? So we have our website, just sellhomes.com. You can go. Or if you just go DM me on Instagram, we can chat. So that's just my full name. No one else, as far as I know in the world, has the same name I do.

My name is pretty rare. So if you search me up with Foliato spelled properly, you will come to me. I think I'm in the same way. I don't think there's another marguerite crust below anywhere on this planet. I feel bad for the people with super common names. They're trying to break through. It's like, oh, like, imagine right now if your like real name was like Taylor Swift trying to rank and someone trying to find you. You'd have no shot.

Well, you know, it's funny kids growing up with such a long name, I wanted to give my kids simple names, which in hindsight I probably shouldn't have done. But so my son, his name is John. I mean, how much, you know, more common can you get? But my son, Jake, my husband is Spanish and he wanted a Spanish name. So his actual name is Hakobo, right? But everyone always messes that up too. So either way, what I have found in my. lifetime is that having a unique name stands out because people have to say it a few times

so they remember your name. But it's led to me to like accidentally develop tactics that have been really effective over the years. So like one that like I have accountantly for people to book sales calls and I would like on stage want people to go to it. But like there's zero chance. If I'm just saying go to accountly.com slash Andrew Folato, someone's spelling that correctly. Right.

And so I bought book andrew. Nice. And the amount of times I guess say that or like I've been on. stages and similarly I'd be like go to because at the time when I started my website was just my name like Andrew Foliato and similarly no one can spell it so for presentations everyone wants to copy the slides so I bought download the slides.com and but like you could be in presentations and be like as soon as someone takes out the front don't worry just go to download the slides.com you can grab a copy of my slides and those so you know simple domain names that they can spell I don't

want to spend too much time on this rabbit hole but what's funny is I mentioned earlier how we would do the internet marketing weekends. And the big thing with Dean back then was the domain name, right? Because nobody's going to go to Marguerite Chris Pillow, just like you said. I mean, the odds of them spelling my name right are like slim to none. But so I still have some of these domain names. I think I got your home sold fast. I got in a bunch of trouble because I did Placer County MLS for the multiple listing service.

And they tried to sue me and shut me down because I was using the MLS. It's also used for soccer. You can't you can't you can't you're it's not trade. I didn't know I was with remax at the time and sell with remax.com was available. So I bought it and my website for like two years was just sell with remax.com. I didn't realize as a remix agent you weren't allowed to use remax in your name. It was a similar thing where they're like you can't do that. And I'm like.

So I owned to sell with remax for a long time. I was like, this is great domain. I was no one using this. This is brilliant. There's so many of those little ones. But like domains now, they don't have value from like an SEO standpoint. I know.

I know. I have probably still like 30 domain names. Like I have home zero down. You're home sold fast. I have a bunch. I have guide to marketing.com, which I like. I don't know what I'm going to do with that one, but I just like it.

At one point. Isn't it like being a hoarder? Like you keep all these domain names because you're going to use them someday. 80, 85. Like I want so before Facebook like we kind of killed the pixel a little bit I bought the or pixel broker and it was going to be a business where we'd go like out to people with like big traffic on their website and then sell access to the retargeting audience to other people so they could make money without actually having to do anything

and we were just going to go and like connect all these different websites and resell the traffic and you could like and it was like this at the time I'm like this is a brilliant idea And I was like, I'm building out the site, building out the systems. And like two months later, they announce like everywhere that they're killing the pixels. Oh, how funny. Yeah. Well, it has been such a true pleasure talking to you, Andrew. You're super sharp cat.

And I look forward to following you and seeing what else you got going on and hopefully connect with you at some point here. And then next to get to an event or something where we're at. I've never been to Canada. It's on my list. I got to get to Canada. Yeah, well, you just missed the best event we have, which is the BAMP Western Connection. And so there's like a Fairmont hotel in the heart of Bamp. And every two years, they do a big event there.

That one's always worth checking out. I put that. Like the next one will be, uh, 20, 20, 27, guys there were two years, but they had Jay Leno speak at it this year. And actually just one last little story because it was really cool in the real estate world. So they had a silent auction with the goal of racing like $20,000 for the children's hospital type of charity. Right. And I guess they told Jay about it before he went on stage. So he comes out at the end of the gal.

So he was like they instead of being like a session speaker, they had him at the closing gala come do like a comedy set at night. So people had a few drinks in them. He's having a good time. He comes out, does a set. And he goes, by the way,

I heard you guys have this silent auction for charity. I'd like to add something to the auction. We're a start an auction and we'll be. M.C. will do it. 100% of the funds will go. And here's what I'm auctioning off. A four, one person buys it.

They can bring three people with them next time you're in LA, you'll get a tour of my garage because he's famous for his car garage. Yes, yes. So I don't know what the MC was thinking, but like started at like a hundred bucks. So of course, someone puts their hand up right away. Jay makes fun of it. It's like, no, no, no, like we're not doing this for a hundred bucks. Someone goes 1,000, 2,000, 5,000.

And then someone jumps it to 10. So I figured this might go 20, 30, 40,000. And Jay stops. And he goes, 10. Okay. We're not going to keep this auction going. anyone else who puts up their hand and says 10 grand, you're all, you all get a tour of my garage. And he raised 150.

Oh my goodness. It's like you want from out of nowhere to three minutes, $150,000 for his chair. That's wild. Yeah. It was like you could just, and even just like the marketing inside me is like, that was brilliant the way you stopped it because you knew that would get you so much more. Brilliant. That's why because I spoke to the guy who put his hand up for the 10. He's like, I was just trying to drive the number up.

I wasn't finding I'm finding it. What is? Okay, so this is my ignorant side. What is BAMF? So that's like, it's an international park.

So it'd be like the most beautiful kind of, like if you just Google BAMP, B and FF, it'd be kind of like, like VAL or Aspen type of level of beauty. Wow. It's pretty great. That's amazing.

Well, thank you again, Andrew. This has been a truly, fabulous conversation. And again, I'm looking forward to getting to know you better in the future. So thank you. Enjoy those kids of yours. How old are your babies? Three, six, and eight. Oh, you got all young ones. Yeah. It's a little busy, right? They broke up. I'm from daycare shortly. My middle son, Hakobo, turns 30 on Sunday. So, yeah. Yeah, I'm 37. Oh, okay. Thanks. Thanks for that. I do. I do have a son who, is your age. So, yeah, Jacob's not my oldest. He'll be, he would have been 37 this year. So, yeah. Well, if you see any conferences in Canada, let me know. I go to quite a few of them.

Yeah, I would love to. I got to get to Canada. It's on my list. Thank you. I'm the odd one in the States too. I was supposed to speak. So you're in Cal, are you California? I'm in Northern California, yeah. Okay. So I was supposed to speak at the California Association Conference. Oh, yeah. It's in L.A. May 2020. Oh, shoot. Yeah. So I, I have. lost that opportunity. Well, we need to get you to come speak at an EXP event. I'll have to throw your name in the hat and get you out there.

Sounds good. Happy to. All right. Sounds good. Thank you again, Andrew. Appreciate it. Thank you, everybody for joining us on Real Estate Real World, where we get to talk to all the cool people, especially some of those Canadians up there. So thank you so much for joining us.

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