KGCI: Real Estate on Air - What You're Not Doing Right in you IG Stories

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

Real estate rock stars, welcome back. I'm Shelby Johnson, and I'm here with Will Grimes. He is prior service Marines turned a bunch of entrepreneur things in between before getting into real estate as an agent, a YouTuber, a public speaker, a leader. So listeners, if you are interested in growing a real estate brand and developing multiple streams of real estate income, not just out there slinging deals, this episode is for you. So, Will Grimes, welcome. How are you? Dude, so glad you.

I'm talking to tag you on this little Instagram story as we speak. Love it. Perfect. And just listeners, he is out of Denver, Colorado, has been an agent for six years and does about $200 million in volume annually with the team.

And so, yeah, if you're done posting, be good? I'm ready for you. 100%. What's freaking rock and roll. Okay, so take us back a little bit. Like, what's your journey getting into real estate? I don't know. I mean, it depends on how far you want to go.

Wave tops, probably. Well, we got a lot of to get into. I think my number one message for realtors that was very impactful for me when I first got in was I had to learn how to make real estate fit me, not me fit real estate. Right. So. And what do I mean by that? It means when I was first getting into real estate, you know, you're, you're insecure. You're trying to learn a ton. You're not really quite sure where you fit in. And typically when we're not sure how to fit in, we kind of like. get in where we fit in, right? So we, we try to look the part, we try to feel the part, we try to save the part, we try to, you know, put ourselves around people that maybe are having some success. Little do we know they have zero interest in helping us, right? And when you start feeling that, like you can feel a little bit lost. And I had to get back to just what I was great at. And for me, my real estate journey didn't start until I was 33 years old, right? So let's retract a little bit when I talk about making real estate fit me. So I played a little bit

of professional baseball, right? About five minutes. Super mildly interesting. I had a friend passed away in Iraq on his first deployment. And this is at a point where I was just burnt out from baseball, wanted to try to go accomplish more, just whatever I was doing wasn't serving me. And I felt like I had some, some ambition and some exploring to go do as a young man. And I decided to join the Marine Corps. And part of that journey was I did not know how to swim. And I'd never shot in a rifle until boot camp, right? Like my mom was a hippie, bless her heart. We're talking. in fifth grade when we watched the Lion King for indoor recess, she got mad at the teacher because she said there was premeditated murder in the Lion King.

She was like she was super mad about it. So like real, real hippie, right? So when I was at boot camp having to learn how to swim, probably not the best conditions with drill instructors, but I started learning how to like overcome some fear. And I learned just how hard you can actually work at something and then start to see a result. And I never really done that because. Baseball, although I achieved a high level, I'm left-handed and I was throwing the ball 91 out of high school.

So I went to practice when I was told to and I worked hard at practice because we were told to. But outside of that, I wasn't necessarily like really going all in and getting neurotic about something as far as like work ethic, right? This was the first time like no messing around. I really was not talented at something and had to test myself at that. And then in addition to that, I'd never shot a rifle. And this is where I had a great conversation with one of my drill instructors. Jones instructor Sergeant Graham, he said, we're at the rifle range one time. And you know at the rifle range, you were in the Army, right?

So when you're at the rifle range, this is where they're somewhat nice to you because you have a loaded gun. And they don't want you shooting anybody. So they're like kind of nice to you, correct? And Joe Structor Sergeant Graham knelt down to me. He's like, hey, what's the matter? Because I was sitting on this ammo can, probably visibly nervous or in my own head. And I said, I've just, I've never shot like all these guys. guys grew up, you know, with their dad's hunting and I've never even held a rifle like this.

And he goes, he knelt down. He goes, great. You have no bad habits. You're a blank canvas. He said, do what I say when I say, how I say to the best of your ability and you're going to crush. He's like, I fucking love guys like you. And I just like, paradigm shift. Like, oh shit.

That he's right. So the first lesson within real estate, right, is like, I didn't have any bad, you know, bad habits. I was a blank canvas. I could take some experience from outside of real estate and really apply them to how we approach real estate. In addition to that, growing that fitness company just prior to real estate, I helped a buddy with a franchise. They were like GNCs, but they were called Fit Republic. They were brick and mortar sores where we did food prep and some different stuff and supplements. And we built a great culture around video and events and whether it was educational videos on our social media to having people check in when they came to the store.

to throwing our own large events to sponsoring events, where we were just showing up and sponsoring event, I learned how much we grew a culture by through video and how people had an opportunity to know like and trust us through exposing who we were through content and the power of just getting out into a community, not expecting the community to come to us. So when I got into real estate and I meant like,

hey, I had to get back and like make real estate fit me, not me fit real estate. It meant I'm not farming how you're telling me, a farm and I'm not saying it doesn't work. It's just not me. But these tactics that you guys have been using for 25 years, no disrespect. A lot of people have built their business on it and there's still going to be some validity to it. And I'm good with that. But I knew there was just a new way to reach people digitally through the internet and just through social media, but in an intentional, targeted way through content. And I got back to that and I got back to a threshold of how to

actually work hard. And I got back to the confidence I had with, man, I'm a blank. canvas. I got no bad habits. But then it was like, well, but you've got to be so careful who who you take information from because the drill instructor that was helping me shoot, he was a distinguished shooter. He wasn't some fuckhead that didn't know how to shoot a gun. Because when you're a blank canvas and you have no bad habits, well, you're going to be okay as long as whoever is teaching you and whoever you're open to is adequate at whatever they're going to be instructing you because you don't necessarily know any better. That's the, that's the hard part to being a blank canvas and being new.

And so I want to make sure I was surrounding myself, not so much around real estate experts that knew contracts. Like I came from law. So I read and understood law really well. What I wanted to be around was like-minded people that understood at least at an entry level video concept and events and then putting yourself into a community to then grow that momentum and grow a following had very little to do with how many deals they did or the expert that they were.

It was more so around people that understood. the marketing side to growing something within real estate. I think that's so smart because there are so many people, agents within real estate, who don't understand the marketing side of the business. And then it's actually like the most important building your brand or creating like a repeatable machine that will consistently bring in business into your into your flow. So I think it's also really cool. You had multiple layers in which you stacked your experience on that led you to the

perfect storm when you decided, hey, I'm going to get in real estate and I'm going to build a brand and ultimately have multiple streams of income, you were able to stack all these layers. And that's something, too, that a lot of people get into real estate and they think, man, like, I don't know anything about real estate. But if you think back to the experiences that you've had previously in life, there's something that you've learned that will set you apart in a specific way that will help you be successful in real estate. I have a question, though. So why real estate? As your stack of these things, My real estate. Man.

So my significant other, she thought it would be a good idea. And I had a buddy named Alex Chapman. Good buddy of mine. He's also a 200 million plus volume guy. Great guy. When I was deciding to get out of the fitness world, Alex Chapman owns a company called Fitness on the Rocks. It's a once-a-year event at Red Rocks Ample Theater out here in Colorado.

It's world-recognized venue. And he throws this large fitness expo there. And he was also like a manager or a district level guy. for 24-hour fitness, but I had just grown a huge brand. And I wasn't sure. So when I left the Republic, I was still unsure if I was going to stay in the fitness world or, you know, doing my own thing, but within fitness or something else. And he's like, hey, man, why you're thinking about it?

Why don't you just come help sell vendors, a vendor spot for Fitness on the Rocks. It's coming up in two months. I can't make all these calls. Man, if you'd love to hop on it, any call you make, here's the minimums I got to make. anything above that, like you can just, you know, keep whatever percentage you go over the minimum he has to sell it to break even on those spots. He's like, sell it as expensive as you want, make as much money as you want. I can't make these calls. And, and I mean, I sold it out.

Anything, anything that was still available, I sold out. And we were talking about what he was doing. He had been in real estate for about six months. And he was actually going to start tapering out of the fitness world himself because he saw how lucrative real estate was going to be for him. And I mentioned it because my lady mentioned it. and he's like, bro, you would fucking crush real estate. And I said, cool. And I was still like a little unknown.

And I was also right. Like I made a little bit of money there. But like it was here today gone tomorrow. I had bills to pay. So I did that, but I was quickly starting to run out of money. So I didn't get rid of my, I mean, I was getting rid of my apartment. I was selling cars off. I was flat broke.

And my lady bought my real estate course. She just bought it while I was downsizing. And I was like, man, I don't, I don't have a. better idea. So my little Alex thinks like it'll go well. She thinks it would go well. Like, hey, let me just give this thing a year of work ethic and just having my finger on the pulse and making pivots.

You know, and so I, I had that idea. So I literally sold everything off, got rid of my apartment. And I slept in my buddy's mom's pantry, a food pantry. It's like an old, you probably aren't old enough to remember, but Y2K was a thing, right? Like that was the first real pandemic in America when like people thought. computers hitting 2-000-0 instead of 1999 was going to like blow the fucking world up and all the toilet paper and distilled water and canned food like everybody was buying stuff and so I slept in that pantry in her basement and um this is where I studied and if you guys go

to my Instagram like all the way down to my Instagram this is when I started my Instagram and I wanted to put myself out on public forum as an example of a start I didn't want to get to this point and then tell everybody my story. I wanted to document it as I was going through to keep myself accountable. But then to also just have context for people to see you can actually start and you can grow something. And we talked about Annie Fricela a little bit before we got on. That guy was always talking about how he like slept in a cot on a cot in the back of his supplement store because he couldn't even afford an apartment or anything. He slept in the back of his store.

And I wish I could have seen that, but I don't know if he had it on social media or his social media is even around at that time when he did that. But that kind of gave me the strength to just start. But I wanted to show that to everybody. And I also understood eliminating distraction and eliminating everything else but what I need to hyper focus on. I learned that within the Marine Corps. And after doing that, you know, after going through boot camp, not only was a high shooter at a boot camp for every battalion, but I was a distinguished shooter. And I was a distinguished shooter as a police officer. But there's an actual award in Marine Corps.

I did not test out for that. was high shooter on everything I'd ever done within other Marine Corps designated marksman school you you name it I was high shooter out of them I was a distinguished shooter as a police officer so I learned like how to really hyper focus and get neurotic and dive in and commit to something so you know a lot of people ask me that were close to me hey why don't you just live with your girlfriend's family right like we're together for probably a year and a half at that point and good relationship with her mom and dad and this was around Christmas when I decided to to go ahead and just go all in with this thing I said hey man I don't need to be sitting around with our daughter, who's my stepdaughter.

She's never had dad. So I'm dad, right? So I didn't want to be sitting around the holidays, eating pie, watching Christmas movies with my, with my daughter, and giving any room for comfort, like any room for distraction or comfort or reason to not study as hard. It was like, no, man, I'm going to go put myself under the fire and sleep in a pantry because that's what's available. And it's so liberating.

But I had been under that pressure before. and I understand what comes from it with as little as distractions as possible. So I'd wake up, I'd work out, I'd study all day. And then at night, I'd go do Uber and Lyft to just make a buck, right? And you can still see it on my Instagram to this day. And I wasn't romantic how I needed to make money in order to get creative and create the opportunity for what I wanted to do moving forward in the future. And it was a super powerful lesson for like, for me to not only like decide and trust in

people that were around me that believed in an idea for me to get into real estate, but what was more important than just deciding to get into it was embodying certain tactics in a mindset and a physical environment. I mean, I even changed my gym because the gym I went to was right next to one of our fit republics. That was our corporate store where myself and my cousin and my buddy who owned the company works. And I would catch myself walking in there to say hi. And I ended up hanging out for an hour or two.

And I caught myself. And it was like, nope, that's two hours you could be studying. So I literally started going to a gym across town that I was unfamiliar with. I didn't know anybody there. I could put my hood on in my music and I could get in and get out and get home and study. And like eliminating financial distractions, eliminating financial commitments, eliminating emotional distractions with people. On a positive note, though, like I liked these people.

My girlfriend, my daughter, her parents, my freaking buddies I helped grow this company with, all positive people, all handcuffs and distractions. for me limiting how much I would actually put the work in. That was more important than the decision to actually do it. This so I love all of that eliminated distractions like fighting comfort and especially that piece at the end where you're talking about like the people in your life who don't mean to but are distracting you or supporting behavior that does not help you move forward towards your goals.

And and I said, you know, I said something just the other day to my husband. One of my favorite things about him is that he is one of the few people in my life. life who if I'm, you know, having something bad happen or I'm like complaining or whatever, he will be like, no, unacceptable, cut that, you know, as opposed of supportive friends. Everyone's like, oh, you need friends who support you. I'm like, no, you don't. It's like, I mean, the bottom of mind, you just can't expect your friends. Like, if I would go into Fit Republic and hang out and say hi, they'll say hi.

They don't give a fuck. Like they're not, it's not their job to hold me accountable to go study for my real estate license. Or if I'm hanging out with my daughter watching, you know, you know, a night before Christmas or some bullshit. Like, I don't know if Kate would be like, hey, get out of here. I also don't know if it's their, it's also not her responsibility. So like for me, it was just taking upon myself to like, I knew my weakness.

And if you know your weakness, that can also, that's actually a strength by knowing your weaknesses. Right. And like, I knew I would eat cake. I knew I'd want to hang out with my daughter. I knew I'd go into Fit Republic and bullshit with the guys and buy more supplements I don't need. I knew that. So before I even allow it to be this thing, I eliminated. Got it.

For sure. So, okay, you're in this pantry and you're building your real estate business. So right off the bat, are you jumping right into video or where's your business coming from, year one? All sphere of influence. I've never been a lead guy. I've never done zillow realtor.com. It was all creating content and what I would call like my outbound.

So if you look at the full year, I did a ton. I did 34 deals off of my social media, my first year. but more importantly like a lot of that came from what I call my outbound so when I first started and I started creating some content I had a lot of likes and a lot of support because people knew me from law enforcement in fit republics so I had a lot of social media support when I would post something real estate related but I wasn't getting anybody using me because they all knew I was new so you know having having an audience isn't necessarily a great thing they all know you're fucking new so they're probably not going to use you but they're super happy that you're doing it

they're supportive. But my outbound was really powerful. My outbound is what I describe as people that see me on a regular basis, but don't necessarily know what I do. So if I'm intentional with conversations and they figure out or find out what I do, they don't know I'm new. So I did seven deals out of those 34 from the gym. And that was just instead of drinking my pre-workout on the way to the gym and then losing my shit by the time I hit the door, I would drink my pre-workout at the gym and I would actually stretch and warm up and I'd say hi to folks and when they asked me how my day was going I actually told them specifically about what I was doing that day I'd ask them the same and as I would build those conversations and because I see them on a regular basis I see

these same people three four times a week when I go to the gym at the same time every day I would ask them what their Instagram was I would ask them what their Facebook was right like hey man like I appreciate your friendship in here man I love to follow you we should get together sometime and they They tell me what their Facebook was and what their Instagram was. And now they're seeing all of my real estate content on my Facebook, but I don't have to shove it down their throat when we're at the gym. I can just be a friend, right? But then they see my content.

And that brought the attention of one guy. And this is outside of these seven deals. But one of those seven deals, a gentleman named Michael Brown, also gave me seven referrals that same year. Go figure. And it was literally just him and I talking in the sauna about real estate, right? because we have a friend at each other and we'd see each other every day at the dumbbells or in the sauna. And then we, I friend requested him on Facebook.

He started seeing my real estate stuff. He goes, hey, man, you do real estate. Right. Like he's like, we're looking at some remodels to do on my town home. You know, like we want to update it and do some things. I said, great, man. He goes, do you, can you do anything with the refinance? I said, yeah, man, I've got guys that do that.

Let's just take a look at it. Long story short, he never refined. He didn't have like the process to that compared to the benefit of actual. just selling the place and buying something bigger that was already updated, was just more so in his cards. We figured that out through just looking at it and seeing the cost and the ROI to it versus also asking him if he's considered selling because the market was great a couple years ago, first town home.

But where most people would stop and just send them the lender referral for a refi, I didn't. I went and saw his house. I went and saw his town home and we talked about it. And I brought my lender with me to talk about it. And it ended up coming into a sell buy. But again, you don't know what it's going to turn into. I was in it for the relationship of it.

He was one of them. One guy heard us talking about real estate in the sauna. And he had two fourplexes by Denver University, which is a pristine area. He had two fourplexes over there that he wanted to sell together. So that was a several, several million dollar off market deal because I brought the, I brought the investor to that. So I had both sides of that deal as a transaction broker. So that was a huge deal.

but it was so and then like my daughter's school when they had a field day i was sponsoring it with the cotton candy machine or i was putting up a tent and saying how to parents and parents love supporting other parents and they saw that i was in real estate and i can market that but all those parents that i was meeting at daddy daughter dance and field day and all these things i was friend requesting them and following them on instagram and on facebook so when they would see my content in addition to it they didn't forget about field day that oh i was the realtor at field day that i was the realtor at day. No, they, they see my content through social and consistent and they would reach out because I've got that no like and trust with them. So my outbound daughter school, gym, church, coffee shop, you name it. I was having intentional, engaging, relational conversations with people and building value and actually giving a shit about what their day was like and having a conversation. And after I'd see them a couple of times, I'd follow them. They would follow me back. And now, again, I don't have to shove real estate down there and throw every day at the gym.

gym, they're seeing it within their newsfeed. Yeah. This is exactly what I did also your one. And it, and it almost, the thing that I love about even listening to you, it's like a lot of people will say, I'm too busy to either market or lead gen or whatever, but like you didn't add anything new. Like you took, you looked at your life and you're like, yo, I go to the gym. I'm going to church. I'm supporting my daughter. These are things that I'm already doing. How can I capitalize on these people that I'm going to be around anyway, strike up an authentic conversation where you genuinely care. You know, you got to care for people don't know how much you know until they know how much you care, right? And then capturing that social and using socials instead of generating new business,

but it's cultivating the people who are already interested in you because you were interested in them. Right. And here's what happened. After I started crushing my outbound for about six months, I had enough content of showing inspections and closings and just different things. Like I'm not a big closing photo guy. I take them and I'll explain that a little bit later as far as like where we share those into private groups. But I was documenting what we were doing at an inspection. It was literally like, you know, talking about the top things we learned.

What was a big deal? What wasn't a big deal? Hey, whether you're working with me or with someone else, make sure when you're going through your inspection, you're there in person and you're looking out for these things. That was the type of video I did. It was very educational to the consumer. So once I got my outbound to start throwing me some deals, right, or earning some deals, I now had more content on it on my social.

So then people that knew me that didn't necessarily trust me yet when I had six months of content going through. Now all the people that knew me started reaching out because now they thought I was actually going to stick to it. And I was doing well and they had some trust. And that's when it really took off. Yeah. They're like, oh, he's legit now. Now I'll try it. And guess what?

No problem, man. Like, these are the most expensive buys and sales of people's lives year to date, right? I've never had a client yet unless I just didn't ask the question. I've never had a client buy something less expensive than the last one. I just haven't unless you're going to count, you know, investment deals where they're taking some of their equity on a refi and they're buying their first rental. Some things like that, yes. But when it comes to like traditional, I'm buying my primary home traditional stuff.

real estate, I've never had a downgrade. It's always been the most expensive purchase of their life so far. Like, why would I expect them to just use me because they're friends or because you, you know me from law enforcement and no, man, like, I don't expect that. Like, I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to earn my keep and be a professional. And I knew that documenting my truth and not trying to fake the funk and look like something I wasn't in the beginning. I knew potentially it could be a slower start. But I wanted my authenticity. I wanted that because I I knew that in the long run would have a huge ROI to it that will stand the test of time versus these flashes in the pan of people that try to act like subject matter experts that they're not

and they end up fading. And what I didn't have a slow start. I thought it would. But if you look at that full year of 34 deals, 34 in your first year isn't, it's not the best. You know, there's been people that have done more. But, you know, no leads, no nothing, just procuring that. I felt did really well. And if you look at where we're at now, like, it's respectable.

And that's all I wanted to be, but I never had this expectation that because you're my friend, you're supposed to trust me with the most expensive purchase of your life that goes into legal docs and just different stuff. It's like, no, let me earn that. But then once I earned it, it really took off. Compounds. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So we have the lead generation piece through authentic relationships and social media cultivation.

And then you're documenting the journey. So you have even more content and you're building legitimacy and your business. two different directions. You can choose, which choose your journey. I want to know about what you said about the closing photos and the private groups, but I also want to know about, so this was year one, how did we shift into growing, you know, have the YouTube. So like, how did the evolution go from there? Yeah, it's just having your finger on the pulse and just understanding where markets are and being resourceful and eager to learn. And we've got some good buddies, Jesse and Jackson, that were on top of the YouTube concept before we were, we were crushing social media. and doing great there. And we decided to create a podcast. I started getting invited to be on podcasts because of our success. And no disrespect to anybody. But we were like,

I was on some top 10 nationwide podcast for real estate. And I'm like looking at the production. And it's like, this isn't fucking hard. Like, man, maybe we should have our own and do our own podcast. We started our own podcast called Day $1.0. Is it? Agent focused? Nope.

Entrepreneur focused. Entrepreneur focus. Okay, gossip. Yep, just to speak to a broader crowd. And remember, like, I've got a pretty large following from, like, my military background and stuff like that. So, and a lot of things entrepreneurial-wise are conceptual across the board. And the more realtors start understanding they're an entrepreneur, the better off they're going to be. So, you know, like the real estate specific stuff within training and the private coaching I do or our YouTube course that we sell, 100% practitioner and ROI positive for your business. But before you even get to, like, specific playbook.

and things like that. Understanding idealistically, the mind of an entrepreneur and how to pivot and how to grow something, it's across the board. And realtors, again, the sooner they figure that out, the better. So we wanted to speak to it all. But long story short, I got recommended to have Jackson on our podcast because they're like, hey, this guy's also a buddy of ours that owns a pretty large real estate podcast. It's a real estate uncensored.

He said, hey, man, I just had this guy on Jackson. and man, he's a good dude. He's doing some cool stuff also in the social media world. You guys should have him on. You'd love him. So he connected us to Jackson and we had Jackson on. And he was talking about all the wins they were having on YouTube versus like the wins we were having on social media. And it was just, you know, my business partner, Eli, it was just our curiosity of always want to level up and be better and be more versed.

And through being resourceful and open-minded and scaling our podcast and meeting people and taking action on. On ideas, we adopted the YouTube process, the YouTube framework that they had created, and then put our own twist on it and put it on steroids. But the framework of what it was, was very powerful. And that was just our next step. It just, it's like the domino effect, right? As you do one thing, it leads to another. We were crushing social media, but it also gets a little bit self-limiting if you're

just meeting people in your immediate area. So we knew YouTube had the ability to help us scale world. worldwide with the tactics that we were using. And it was like, yep, it just makes sense. That's, that's the chance we should take to get in front of more people. You know, and as we did it, I mean, we were on the Drew Barrymore show because of it. We were on CBS out here in Denver because of it. We're in the second phase of having our own show on Netflix or something right now.

I can't talk too much about it. Like, maybe it'll happen. Maybe it won't. But that's the power of brand and that's the power of reach. You know, like, people ask us like, how did you, how did you get on the Drew Barrymore show? I'm like, dude, I don't know. Like Drew Barrymore was moving her show back to her hometown.

So she thought it'd be cool to have a couple episodes covering other cool hometowns. So her producers started YouTubeing or Googling cool hometowns. Denver was one of them. And guess who's videos they see with everything that has to do about Denver? Them. So they hit us up and they said, hey, we love you guys. Can we come to Denver and film you? And highlight Denver and everything.

Denver has to all. offer as a hometown. We're like, yeah, great. The production company, that's an Emmy Award winning production company that wants us to have a show. That's a whole different process because it's actually like a large production that they're trying to produce. They found us as well.

And that's what I love about brand is you get into these indirect levels of success because you're just out there, right? And your proximity, your reach is just so powerful. Opportunity start to knock on the door, which is really cool. Totally. And I love that about YouTube in general, too, because I wasn't always on the YouTube train. And now mentally, I am so there because if you think about it where there's like Instagram or Facebook, people aren't going there to search something specific that will bring you up in a way that they do on YouTube, which I believe is the second biggest search platform directly beneath Google. And Google even owns YouTube.

And so if people are going on there and like for you in particular with your, you're living in Denver channel. It's like, you know, costs of living in Denver, pros and cons of moving to Denver, all of these things that people would be searching. That's when you guys get to pop up. And the other cool thing is, so they're going to find you in that method. But the other cool thing is you can do a video today and come back in a year, three years, five years, 10 years, and it's just gaining traction. Whereas with Instagram, you post and it is down the news feed and gone forever. So, yeah, YouTube. And it, It's also like, remember, like one opportunity turns into another, right?

Like our big thing is wanting to help as many realtors as possible. So we have a YouTube course, right? Like we sell that. You've got several. You've got handfuls of agents now that make over $400,000 a year. Just being a solo agent running the YouTube course that they've got are running their YouTube channel based off the course that we provided for them. So not only does it, you know, create another, another lane of income for us.

But more importantly, it's allowed us to reach more agents and teach more agents how we do what we do. And our, like our channel made $812,000 its first year of existence. Okay. And then the next two years after that, it made over $3 million, year two, year three. So like it's powerful, right? So of course we're going to sell it. It's intellectual property. It's how to's on everything. We run live Q&As every other week for anyone that's purchased it. But the bigger deal is the amount of ROI you can have from investing in yourself from real practitioners that not only know how to do it, but have a playbook. and video on how to do it.

It allows us to literally reach as many agents as possible. And for a minimal investment, they can then change your life, right? Like you talked about Sam and your buddy Sam referring me to be on this podcast. Sam was new to Florida, new to real estate, new to YouTube. All three, trifecta. New to YouTube, new to Florida within a year. He was there, he's there 90 days, six months.

and he was in real estate less than a year when he decided to go ahead and do YouTube. And he made several hundred thousand dollars his first year. And he was able to not only bring on a buyer agent to help out with the workload, but then having that buyer agent with him to service a lot of this, let him be at home the first 90 days of his new baby's life. Like how many times as realtors can we just do that and be able to spend the first 90 days with our kid? Like that's where like I really get jazzy because money's great, having different lanes of income is great.

I love it, but it won't serve me long term. What serves me long term is stories like Sam and everybody else as far as like real agents, me and Eli, not all these knuckleheads that are outside the real estate space coming and selling us their book and selling us their course and getting paid to stand on a stage. Real realtors, real practitioners out there doing the showings and the contracts that have built a business now teaching you how to build yours. it's like it's so it's so satisfying okay i'm listening i'm i'm newish in real estate i have some experience in life i'm i'm listening to you and i'm like okay you've convinced me i want to build

a brand and i'm seeing instagram i'm seeing youtube i'm seeing podcast i'm seeing all these things if you could go back in time what would you do with the intent of building a brand what would you do today? I'm brand, not a platform. Right? It's not so much like the like the platform you should be on first. It's just being authentic to who you are and understanding the type of content that you should be giving. And then based off the platform, just different platforms do better with different types of content. But it's not about being a comedian on TikTok. It's not about doing your bullshit dances on TikTok. And I don't care how many views you get. It's about conversion, right? Like we talk about my Facebook and doing 34 deals. my first year. That converted. That went from people paying attention to contacting to closing.

It's not about 10,000 views. It's not about 400 likes, right? Like, I remember when I was at Thit Republic, you could put a pretty girl next to a protein shaker, right, and get 10,000 likes and not sell one shaker. Or we started doing educational videos and why to use creatine, what types of creatine there are, different types of protein. Why would you use a blended versus a and immediate release protein. We started educating our audience. And yeah, I got a third of the likes or views.

But our business went up 30% month by month by month. And then that turned into a concept that then sold 14 franchises. So you just have to understand that side. So I wouldn't necessarily do anything different or be on a different platform differently. Like I'd really like dive in and increase my circle of who I'm around. because there are just different plays. You've got to understand like when it comes to YouTube.

But so many agents are posting on platforms. And it's like, yeah, it's not that you're posting. It's what and why you're posting and how you're posting it, that creates the conversion. So if I'm listening and I'm consistently poached, whatever platform it doesn't matter, but I'm going to say Instagram. I'm posting consistent real estate agents,

educational content on Instagram, but I'm not converting. Will you help us with like whatever calls to action or however you're getting to go from education into an actual client? Yeah. So when everybody's on the shitter or waiting in line at Village Inn or, you know, wherever you're at, your kids soccer practice, whatever. Whenever you go onto your phone and your social media. Okay. Like everybody starts scrolling their newsfeed, correct?

it's what we do. I don't. Even to this day, here's where I start, my stories, okay? I click on it, I'm watching my stories, and then those three little circles down to the bottom left where it shows like people watching, I just click on those three profiles that are just on display, and it says activity.

I click on activity, you know, and I can see the couple thousand people that have interacted, that have watched this story, either loved it, liked, or at least watched it in the past 24 hours. And I start scrolling this. And I started seeing the people that I regular interact with. And I started seeing a pattern of people showing up that maybe I haven't reached out to in a while or haven't interacted with in a while. Right. So I'm going to scroll through that.

And okay, cool. Hey, ma'am. So I'll, and if I see a pattern, just like I did just now, cool, I haven't interacted with her in a while. I'm going to click on her and go to her profile. Hey, what is she posted? What's she got going on? Where's she up? What is she on vacation?

Like, okay? Oh, she's got some stories. Let me go watch her story. Posting a lot of different. Okay. Let me throw her a message. What are you messaging her? How's freedom so far?

She just like ventured out. She's doing like her own, um, uh, event planner thing. and we had talked about two months ago about her getting out from under somebody she agreed to go on salary with. And this big event, it's like car events, right? But she does her own stuff, but she got talked into just being exclusive for this car brand and doing shows and things like that. And she just didn't like it. And she was talking to me about leaving and doing her own thing a couple months ago. And we just haven't talked since.

So she's watching my stories. She was loving my stories. So I just click on it. And she's already messaging me back. Great, right? Like to recap. My point is like I interact with people like I don't care about my news fee as much as I care about people engaging and liking my posts and commenting on my post.

I'll go message and comment them. People watching my stories like I'm interacting with them. And that's going to more that obviously puts my content in front of them more because now we're interacting in our DMs. But I just care. Like I care about what. people have going on and what they're doing. And I also, you know, so it's that if you're not getting a lot traction on the real estate educational stuff you're posting, you're just not interacting with people

liking it and commenting. And you're not interacting with people watching your stories where you're posting as well. And then the second thing would be you got to have a call to action. People need to know that you want to help them. Right. So like the call to action I gave you guys, on my example of when I'm done with an inspection, here's how I do like an inspection video and I just review, right? Hey guys, happy Wednesday. just got done with an inspection with my clients went super well. However, really glad they came because there's a couple of things that were mildly concerning, but still want to make sure that not only are they educated on it, but they see it before we get the inspection report done. And then also,

it gave our clients an opportunity to just learn more about the home that they're about to move into. So ultimately nothing concerning inspection wise that's going to make us fall out of contract, a couple fixes that are more than doable. But it was really fun to see them learn, right, on their first home, where the water shut off is. How to manage this? How to manage that? Like, hey, that was great. And listen, whether you're working with me or with someone else, make sure you show up to your inspection.

Here's why I would absolutely love to earn your business. But again, whether it's me or it's someone else, you just want to make sure that when you're going through this process, you're dotting your eyes and crossing your T's. And guys, this is the most expensive purchase of your life so far. Like, you should be at your inspection. You should be involved. And it's not just to figure out what's wrong with the home. It's to be educated on.

on the home, right? So, hey, happy hump day. I hope you guys have a great rest of your week. If you have any questions, throw me a DM or throw me a, you know, or throw me a comment below, would absolutely love to help me. Okay, perfect. Whenever the world isn't flying over me. Yeah. No, it's cool. The best thing that people need to understand about what I just did is if this, for example, if we're all in the multi-level marketing business, um, and I've got, not like, let's say, let's say this is like a, I don't know, it's like a phone case from the moon.

Okay? And it's like bulletproof, whatever, right? Like, I have to convince somebody of that product, correct? We've all seen the diet pills and the water detox crap on infomercials, right? And people do a really good job at just convincing you to buy it, correct? You're convincing them of the product. Got it. In real estate, we are not convincing people of a product.

The concept of selling and buying homes is already sold. So if the product is already sold, what's left? You, whether they're going to choose you to buy or sell a home with. That's it. You're the product now because the actual product product has already been convinced, has already been sold. People are already doing it and they're going to do it when you're gone. Right?

They were doing it before you got here. They're going to do it when you leave real estate. So it's the more I get a chance to articulate my value. have people know like and trust me and see that I care. And then also just articulate as a professional how we navigate inspections. I'm selling me. They're investing in me and my consistency of doing content. But the call to action matters when people are liking it.

Go see who's liking your stuff and go like their stuff and interact with them. And it sounds exhausting. Yep. The caveat is you actually have to give a shit. If you don't care and you just expect people to reach out to you or whatnot, you're in the wrong business. Yeah, totally. I think that was really helpful because, you know, it's a lot of times people are like, yeah, post on social media content create to earn business. And maybe they do it, but it's that conversion step. And I think you broke it down really well where it's like, step one is seeing who already likes you. And then you're not going from a cold outreach. You're going from a warm outreach because you know these people are actively following what you're doing and liking what you're doing. So that already takes a lot of the fear out of it. And then by going to their profile, and identifying what they're interested in.

You can be genuine when you ask their questions. And it's human nature that when you're asked a question, you reciprocate. You know, it's like, oh, Will, thank you so much for asking me whatever. Like, what have you been up to? And then you have the opportunity to plug without plugging without being asked. Because people don't like that. Doing a lot of video on social media, I was doing it twice a week, every week. And I had something real estate specific, something personally specific as far as like just what I was doing in life.

but that gave me a ton of rats. So when we decided to go into that YouTube adventure, you know, like, it's almost like social media is like hitting the midst and training because YouTube's a whole other beast and it's way more powerful. And we crush it and we love it. But like all those lives and all those videos we were doing every single week, twice a week on our Instagram and on our Facebooks,

it gave us a lot of practice on camera, on our authenticity on just who we want to be on camera. And we had talked about so many different topics. Once we went into YouTube, I felt like we were ready. But you got guys like Sam in Florida who weren't doing really any social media at all. They were new to real estate, new to Florida, new to YouTube, and it was still possible. So, you know, like either way, I think it's just your level of commitment and diligence in being authentically yourself. And then not being afraid to be yourself.

A lot of us might know who we are, but then we don't want to be that on camera. And the only thing I leave out on YouTube or on like Facebooks and stuff is like curse words. I'm talking to you guys and you're a realtor and we're talking realtors. Yeah, I'm going to say bullshit or because it's B2B. I'm just trying. And if you guys have been to a Tony Robbins event, when Tony Robbins is just talking to his people, he drops so many F bombs. It's not even funny.

But when he's on TV or when he's prison, like then it's different, right? And he's more appropriate. So I don't curse on YouTube. We're going for consumers and it's about them. It's not about me. When we're here, it's like all of us realtors, like let's cut the bullshit. Let's figure out what makes this, you know, work. A little different, right?

But a lot of us know who we are, I think. I think sometimes we just were afraid to be it or we think there'll be some type of, like, backlash. And I know there's this whole hater thing and haters and yada yada. I just don't think it's as bad as people say. I think haters are really romantic to talk about. And it generates a lot of like spicy content. But haters compared to like people that really support you if your intention is good and your content is good, it's got to be 100 to 1, at least for our experience.

For sure. Dude, it's so funny that you brought up the cursing because so I told you, you know, I've been hosting this for just a little while now. And military backgrounds, our entire organization is like all veterans. And I have not. And I did most of my real estate transactions in like a military town. And I have not had like a large pool of people who are outside of like the people who already knew me through that. And after like two episodes, Aaron, the previous host was like, yo someone you got to tell shelby to cut because she's just and so i don't know if you noticed but i'm so proud of myself i haven't cursed once this entire episode of i love i mean i don't know i don't know if like

i mean this is a podcast this is realtors to realtors right so like i think it's a little bit more those people were they were the ones who were watching the car with their kids which i do understand and you know if they're listening but it doesn't matter i just thought it was a funny side story i don't know the same people that are in the car with their kids that don't want to hear a curse word or also the people that probably say a curse word in front of their kids so i don't know i do like i do like you know even if i do cuss i want the like whatever word it is whether it's a cuss word or not like i want to be intentional behind what i say so if it's an f bomb yeah it's intentional that it's an f bomb because i want someone to feel like especially when i'm on stage depending on

my audience some places i cuss some places i don't but either way like i want people to feel and resonate in certain ways and So I don't know if you should eliminate your cussing versus maybe just be intentional with how you use it. Trying to create a certain impact, you know, with your words. Dude, I feel you. Okay, question now looking ahead. So what is something that you are working on, maybe struggling with or something that you're excited to get into in the future? Yeah, coaching.

That's the next pillar that we did. So I do elite one-on-one coaching and group coaching for lenders and realtors. and I've got a couple of folks outside of real estate that I coach, but my heart and my passion is still very much within our profession, and I'm still very much involved in our profession. So I keep it, I keep it here for the most part. And it's just really trying to reach as many agents and lenders as possible

and trying to get them to level up their brand and their business. And I don't like the coaching world. I think there's a lot of charlatans out there. I think there's a lot of smoking mirrors. I feel like between my background within the military and police, and actually growing a company, not just talking about growing a company, actually growing a real estate brand, not just telling people how to grow a brand. Like, I've done things outside of just telling people how to do it. I built it.

There's context there. But in our business, there's just a lot of charlatans, right? There's a lot of Fagasy. And because of my dislike toward the coaching industry, that's exactly why I decided to dive in and become something to the standard I think should be out there when it comes to coaching and just giving people a disliked. different option to actually work with to level up their brand versus if I'm not in it, then everybody's just subjected to everybody else I just dislike as far as who's going to be their coach. So my pride and respect for real estate and then my pride and respect for my peers, right? Like that was something big in the Marine Corps. I'm still heavily involved

with Marines and veterans and different things we're doing at our community for mental health and physical health and things like that. And like, you know, no man left behind. It's real. You know, like a lot of people think that's corny or whatever. For me, it's real. And it's also important for me to carry the same core values and the same self-respect I had in the Marine Corps and I had as a police officer into my new profession of real estate. And I feel like it's missing. I feel like a lot of people don't have the esprit of core like a lot of us do in the military and police. And I feel like if we had more of that within our industry, we would have, I mean, just a better quality agent, a better quality industry.

So I'm trying to lead the way with that by just really coaching and teaching people, whether it's one-on-one or group or the course that people get. It's really like setting this new standard of what leadership actually looks like and what coaching contextually from someone building something, not just telling you how to build it, right? Like how that should matter and just setting the new standard. Right. So that's our biggest embarkment. I think if there's a challenge I face, it's just that next level of reach, right? It's trying to literally reach as many lenders and realtors as possible while still being authentically myself and teaching how I want to teach. I'm also not for everybody.

I understand that authenticity or the hard work that's behind really building something. Some people, no matter what, they just, they want the diet pill that's going to make them lose the fat, no matter how much that diet pill doesn't even scientifically work. Right. It's that. So it's, you know, and then like as we scale and run advertisements and click funnels for our products and things like that, like that's, cool, but not to the point where I lose touch with who I am or what I want to accomplish. Right. So I think the challenge for me is the balance between getting as far as I possibly can within reach, yet still making sure that I'm authentically myself and I can give people my time.

Totally. And one second. We'll wait for the plane. Perfect. Love it. Okay. And listeners, if you want to hang out with me and the owner of the show, we are The Shelby Show and Aaron Amugustagie on the grand. please hit us up. And if you liked this show, hit the five stars, share it with your friends on your story, everyone you know. And otherwise, guys, that is it for today. Will, thank you so much for coming on the show. 100%. Super appreciate it. Man, if there's anything I can do for you, you let me know. But excited to have us let you have me on and where you take this show. Awesome. Thank you so much. And real estate rock stars, thanks for listening.