What you are doing today will be the results you see in 4 or 5 months.
– Gary Boomershine
How to Master Your Real Estate Follow-Up with Gary Boomershine & Robert Syfert of RealEstateInvestor.com
As they say, the fortune is in the follow-up. Gary Boomershine and Robert Syfert have mastered it. From flipping properties, offering turnkey rentals, and creating some of the most robust software, these guys have done it all.
Today we will learn about their scripts, sequences, and how creating great habits have improved every aspect of their lives. If you are struggling to convert the leads you’re bringing in, this episode of the Carrotcast is for you!
Read the Full Show Notes Below…
I’ve known Gary and Robert for several years and I have seen their businesses grow and evolve. They have now partnered up to create a wealth of solutions for investors and agents using their incredible software programs.
For our Carrot members, they will integrate their software into your site without any fees. So what is the focus of their software?
Follow-up.
And here is why it is so important…
Per Robert, If a phone lead comes in and you don’t follow up within the first 15 minutes, you are 400% less likely to close that deal. They have moved on. The time is even less with online leads. If you haven’t responded within 5 minutes, they are likely on another website, likely speaking with someone else.
The Art of Following Through
What if Michael Jordan quit? What if Bill Gates became discouraged by all of the people saying no, that he just gave up? So many people fail to follow through when they are so close to getting the gold.
For investors, the follow-through comes in the follow-up. You can’t reach out to a person one or two times and expect a sale. Many people you speak to won’t be ready to sell the first time you talk to them. In fact, most sales occur after the 6th contact or later.
Persistence Without Annoyance
Gary and Robert use a very specific follow-up sequence. They do what works for them, but you will need to set up a follow-up sequence that works for your business and personality. Above all else, it is important to be genuine.
Their system involves three key touchpoints to start.
They will reach out using all three methods for the first couple days, then sow down a bit. If there is no response, they follow up with direct mail. Everything is massively sequenced and set-up in advance. This is the only way to be consistent which is the most important part of the process.
Remember, there’s a 90% chance you won’t close the deal on the first call. Following up is the only way you are going to close the deals you want. And keep in mind, it costs ten times more to generate the lead than all of your follow-up combined.
Shaking The Skeletons
Robert and Gary use an overseas call center to manage and screen leads. At first, they didn’t think it was possible. But once they found the right people who were sharp, professional, and determined, there was no stopping them.
Many business owner feel a call center will turn into an objection from potential sellers. If they hear a foreign accent, they will question the credibility of the company. However, they’ve come up with the perfect solution.
If someone questions where one of their representatives is located, the rep will say: “Yes, I am in the Philippines. I was hired to help with calls so that we could pay you the most money possible for your property. How am I doing? Is there anything I could be doing better or do you have feedback for my boss?”
Once these words are spoken, the potential seller is disarmed. By openly stating who they are and why they are calling, they are building trust and making the call more personal. Once the rep has qualified the lead, they are then transferred to a team member in the US to close the deal.
These are two different roles that require two different teams. So anything you want to hide about your business, any skeletons in the closet, get them out there and make those skeletons dance.
Creating Habits To Improve Accountability
Just like staying consistent in your follow-up, it is important to stay consistent in all aspects of your life and business. We often talk about staying disciplined and creating good habits and just recently, Gary completed a challenge called 75 Hard.
This challenge helped him not only develop good habits but to also dive into psychological patterns he didn’t even realize he had. It isn’t about working out, it is about creating discipline and ending your excuses. The challenge goes like this:
For 75 days in a row you must:
Work out twice a day for 45 minutes. One of those sessions needs to be outside. Even if you live in Florida like Gary and it’s raining.
Drink one gallon of water every day.
Read 10 pages of a personal development book.
Get on a diet program – any program, and stick with it, no cheat meals.
No alcohol whatsoever.
Take an accountability picture every single day whether you feel like it or not.
If you miss any aspect of the challenge, you have to start over. Gary learned that even though he thought he was so focused on growth, he really wasn’t. He made excuses and put things off. Doing this challenge has helped him look within and change those habits.
Doing something like this can be difficult without the right support. Getting a coach can be a great way to do it. There are coaches out there that can help you with business, fitness, and personal matters.
Look around until you find the right one. To gain the support of those around you, don’t tell them what you want. Instead, lead by example. As my coach says… Be the lighthouse, not the tug boat.
Most real estate agents can’t afford to miss out on leads and deals. They don’t know it but having the proper lead generation tools for real estate agents is the holy grail of their business growth.
You probably became a real estate agent because you’re a bit of a “people person”… because you’re great at sales and know how to talk to clients.
But if there aren’t leads to convert into clients, your business can’t grow.
No matter how good you are at sales — no matter how convincing, charismatic, or persuasive — none of that matters if you’re not consistently generating leads for your business.
Consistent, high-quality, and high-volume real estate lead generation is the secret to dominating your market and building the business of your entrepreneurial dreams.
More leads mean more closings, which means a more successful business.
Of course, that’s easier said than done.
So how do you get leads in real estate consistently?
19 Lead Generation Tools for Real Estate Agents
Here are 19 of the best lead generation tools for real estate agents to help!
Many real estate agents start out by joining a larger real estate group or franchise. Their face gets added to the company website, and they receive a particular share of the leads.
But it doesn’t take long to realize that if you want to grow your own business, you’re going to need your own website.
Unfortunately, most agents think their website only exists to represent their business — as a sort of digital business card.
The most successful agents, though, know that isn’t true.
Your website is probably your company’s biggest lead-gen asset.
There are two ways that you can use your website to predictably generate high-quality leads for your business.
The first is paid traffic. Running ads on Facebook or Google is a great way to drive traffic to your website. But here’s the thing: that paid traffic isn’t worth a lick if your website doesn’t consistently convert that traffic into leads for your business.
(In fact, driving traffic to a low-converting website is expensive and usually a waste of money)
And our Carrot websites are built to convert and drive leads right out of the box therefore, can be one of the most productive lead generation tools for real estate agents.
We start with a compelling homepage header, which transitions into two separate CTAs for buyers and sellers. And we always include the agent’s phone number in the upper right corner for people who want to take action right away.
Take a look: the entire format is crafted to make taking action as easy as possible for visitors.
The trick to building a high-converting website is to give visitors exactly what they want, as quickly as possible… and to build trust along the way.
That’s exactly what Carrot sites do.
But that’s not all they do.
While paid ads are a great way to drive traffic to your website, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is just as powerful. SEO is working to rank in search engines (like Google and Bing) for keyword phrases that your target market types into Google. That way, those people click on your website and become leads.
And SEO leads are usually even higher quality and more consistent than paid leads.
SEO is a bit complicated but can be one of the best long-term lead generation tools for real estate agents.
This is why our Carrot sites make search engine ranking as simple as possible. Check out some of our best lead-generation features in the second point.
2. Carrot Features
Our Carrot sites convert better than any other websites in the industry.
We’ve generated more than 2 million leads for our members with conversion rates between 10% and 20% (most real estate websites convert at 2%)!
That means more leads and more closings for your business.
Here are some of our coolest real estate lead generation tools
Carrot Lead Manager — When you get a Carrot site and start generating leads, you need a way to keep track of those leads and organize them all. That’s why all Carrot members have access to our Lead Manager, where you can view mission-critical information, categorize prospects, and see how many leads you’ve got in the pipeline.
Campaign Tracking Links — When you run advertisements or post on social media, it’s nice to know how much traffic that content is driving to your website. With our Campaign Tracking Links, you can create a custom link with a single click, and we’ll track clicks and conversions from that link. This is super easy and a great way to test the effectiveness of your advertisements.
Visual Editor — All AgentCarrot sites are built to convert right out of the box. But you can still customize the site however you like, adding your logo, brand colors, and images and changing the copy to fit your business. Our visual editor makes this process super easy. It’s the best of both worlds: lead generation and website customization.
SEO Ranking Tracker — Want to know how your SEO rankings are performing? Just tell us what keyword phrases you want us to track for you, and we’ll give you regular updates on how your website is performing. That way, you can celebrate once you break through to page 1!
VideoPost — One of the most challenging parts of getting your website ranking in search engines is consistently creating content or blog posts. Because the more content your website has, the more keyword phrases you’ll be able to rank for. And with VideoPost, you can record a quick video and then, with just a few clicks, transcribe that into a long-form blog post that can rank on Google. SEO doesn’t get easier than that!
Carrot SEO Tool — There are a lot of rules to creating a new page or post for SEO. You should include the target keyword phrase a very specific number of times, you should have a certain amount of links, and you should use a certain number of images… all depending on the length of your content. It’s hard to remember everything, which is why we give all of our members’ access to our Carrot SEO Tool, which acts as an SEO checklist every time you create a new page or post. Just keep at it until the light turns green, and then you’re good to go!
Carrot IDX — IDX is useful because it allows real estate agents to automatically upload MLS listings to their websites. This saves a lot of time. And Carrot IDX allows you to upload listings and then customize those listings however you like.
Running Google and Facebook ads is much more complex than it probably sounds… especially if you’ve never done it before.
If you have tried your hand at paid ads, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.
You choose the targeting and craft the copy as carefully as possible, then hit launch with your fingers crossed.
But those ads end up far less effective than had hoped.
The truth is, it can take years to learn how to craft high-converting advertisements.
This is why we highly recommend delegating that part of your business to the marketing experts over at Silver Street Marketing if you have the budget for it.
They will manage every aspect of your PPC and Facebook marketing strategy so you can focus on closing clients and growing your business.
4. Citation Building Service
If you want to start building your SEO and website rankings to drive traffic passively to your website, then citations are a great place to start.
What are citations?
Well, first, you have to understand backlinks. Backlinks are the term used when another website links to your website, and they’re a critical indication to Google that your website is trustworthy. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the more that Google will trust your website (which means better rankings).
And citations are a type of backlink that’s easy to get.
You just go to sites like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., and list your business information. Doing this on 40 or more sites will typically give you an SEO advantage over your competitors.
But it can take a while.
With our Citation Building Service, we’ll go build 40 citations for you so you can keep your attention on more important business matters.
Direct mail is one of the most common lead generation tools for real estate agents.
Any real estate agents in your market who are trying to grow their business are probably sending direct mail.
That’s for good reason — direct mail is a great way to build brand awareness and generate leads.
The problem is, everyone is doing it.
Which makes it difficult to craft mailers that stand out from your competitor’s mailers. Because of that, many mailers end up in the trash before even getting looked at.
But Ballpoint Marketing is solving that.
They offer robot-written mailers that look hand-written (the ink even smudges and indents the paper).
And these mailers get an exceptional response rate.
It creates a personal touch that feels authentic and is difficult for people to ignore.
Your email list should be the backbone of your marketing strategy.
By consistently growing your email list and interacting with those prospects on a weekly basis, you expand your reach, build brand awareness, and nurture leads.
It’s like this: your ads and SEO leads to your website, which leads to your email list, which leads to follow-up and eventually closing clients.
It might not always be a straight line, but that’s the general flow.
And perhaps the easiest tool for building your email list is Mailchimp, which won’t cost you a dime until you’ve reached more than 1,000 subscribers.
Plus, Carrot easily integrates with your Mailchimp account!
The bigger that your business gets, the more cluttered internal processes becomes.
It’s a natural part of hte process. Promising leads slide under the radar and important tasks don’t get finished… all because your business is growing.
Remember the old saying: what go you here won’t get you there.
And when your business gets to new heights, you’ll probably find that you need software to help organize and coordinate your leads, workflows, and other internal processes.
Many of members love using Realvolve for that. You can schedule a demo on their homepage to check it out for yourself.
What if you could easily get your business and website mentioned on local publications?
With HARO — which stands for “Help a Reporter Out” — you can.
And the benefits are twofold. First, local and even nationwide publications will mention you as an expert at real estate. This will grant you credibility and even give you the chance to put a trust-building bar like this on your website…
Just add the logos of the places that you’ve been mentioned and voila! You’ll build immediate trust with your website visitors.
The second benefit is in regards to search engine optimization, which drives traffic to your website when people type certain keywords into Google.
One of the biggest factors of SEO is how many reputable backlinks your website has — a backlink is when another website links to your website.
And when other sites quote you as an expert, they’ll almost always link to your website.
Win, win.
So how does HARO work, and how do you get leads in real estate from their services?
Well, you can sign up for free as an expert source for journalists. Then every day, you’ll receive an email with potential articles you can contribute to. Just follow the intstructions and you’ll start getting mentioned in no time.
HARO is most effective when you consistently and quickly respond to prompts over a long period of time.
Even dedicating 10 minutes per day to can help to win HARO backlinks, improve your domain authority, and enhance your brand’s visibility.
Answering the phone is one of the biggest, most unexpected challenges of growing your real estate agent business.
If you don’t answer the phone when it rings, then your chances of losing the lead skyrocket. At the same time, you obviously can’t spend all your time on the phone… between negotiating contracts, house showings, and client meetings, you’re busy enough.
So what do you do?
Well, one thing you can do is hire a salesperson to answer the phone for you and make follow-up appointments.
Once they’re trained, you can use a service like Aircall to create multiple phone numbers, ensure that the phone gets answered when it rings, record conversations, and even assign different leads to different salespeople.
You probably don’t need this service when you’re just getting started, but it’s something you might want to consider when your team grows and the phone won’t stop ringing (’cause that’s a good thing, after all).
13. CRM
Following up with leads is an extremely important part of running a real estate business.
Not just so that you can do more closings, but so that you make the most of each lead.
The fact is, most closings happen during the follow up… people don’t decide to work with you after the first call or even the second call… but after the 5th call.
And while that might sound discouraging, it really just requires a little restructuring to be able to follow up consistently and effortlessly.
Really, it takes an effective CRM.
A CRM helps you organize your contacts, your leads, and your touch-points with them. You can keep track of how many times you’ve contacted each lead, when you contacted them, and tons of other person-specific details that make having a CRM one of the best real estate lead generation tools out there.
The first choice for most of our member is Realvolve.
But you know what really sets YouTube apart from other platforms?
Video.
More than any other media type, people love video content. It’s easier to consume and more entertaining than written content.
In fact, 54% of people want to see more video content from brands and businesses that they follow.
And by creating consistent video content on YouTube, you can establish yourself as a real estate expert in your market and encourage people to reach out to you when buying or selling a home.
But what kind of content should you create?
For inspiration, check out the Farr Group’s YouTube channel. They create videos about their listings, their business purpose, and they even offer educational advice.
Building your YouTube channel isn’t going to change your business or your life overnight, but it can make a big impact over the long-term.
The main key to building a following on any platform like this is to be consistent with your content creation schedule (publish at least once per week).
The more often that people see your videos, the more that they’ll view you as a real estate expert.
But YouTube isn’t just great for generating attention organically… you can also run YouTube ads.
And one of the greatest parts about YouTube ads is that your competitors are probably not using the platform at all (they’re probably just running Facebook ads). Additionally, you can target people based on location.
Which means that you can create a “YouTube commercial” that only targets people in your market.
Why not give it a try and see how it impacts your lead generation?
IDX stands for Internet Data Exchange and it’s the tool real estate agents use to bring listings from the MLS to their own website.
This is really important for a few reasons.
First of all, if people see house listing that they like on your website… they’re going to call you and maybe work with you.
(Especially if you have a high-converting Carrot site!)
If they see that same listing on Zillow instead… then who knows who they’re going to call for help? It’s just a roll of the dice.
And second, putting listings directly on your website gives you an excuse to drive people to your website, building brand awareness and generating leads.
Every you add a new listing, you can post on social media and email your list about it… just like the Farr Group does.
Facebook is one of the most popular places for real estate agents to do their online advertising… and for good reason.
It’s an extremely powerful platform with billions of people and remarkable targeting.
With just a few clicks, you can create an advertisement that targets first-time homebuyers, people interested in selling their home, or pretty much any other demographic that you can dream up.
And not only are Facebook’s advertising options versatile, but it’s also relatively inexpensive, costing between $1 and $3 per click.
Of course, before you run Facebook ads, you’ll want to make sure that your website is ready to convert that paid traffic.
Carrot sites are built to convert, but you’ll still want to make some minor customizations.
The best way to find out whether your site is converting as you want it to is to do a test run.
Use this calculator to determine what your budget should be in order to get a single closing, set that money aside, and run some advertisements.
If you’re getting closings while staying within your budget, then you have a winning system. If not, then tweak your ads and/or your site until you’re in the green.
It might take some time to get profitable with your Facebook ads, but stick with it and, eventually, you’ll figure it out.
You might be suprised at just how effective Instagram can be for growing your business and doing more closings.
At first, it seems like just another social media platform that’s easy to get distracted by, but it’s more than that.
Since Instagram is so visual and so full of images, it’s a great place to show your listings and to encourage buyers to buy and sellers to sell… through you.
As you can see below, their Instagram posts aren’t all that complicated, but they are quite effective lead generation tools for real estate.
They share new house listings, cool photos, and buying and selling advice.
And it’s working really well.
When I asked them about this, they even mentioned that some of their posts don’t get a ton of engagement, but then people will mention those posts as the reason that they reached out.
So your social media posts build brand awareness and might be having a bigger impact than you think.
We already talked about Canva, which is a great place to go design your own graphics.
But since you’re a real estate agent — and not a graphic designer — it might be safe to say that… well, you just don’t want to design your own graphics.
In that case, 99designs is a great website for hiring a high-quality designer.
Your first option is just to post a job, check applications and reviews, and then hire someone who you think fits the bill.
But another great option is to “host a contest”, which allows multiple designers to compete for the job. Each designer creates a graphic for the project, you review them, and then choose which one you like the most.
Pretty cool, huh?
That means you can see the designers work before you pay for it.
Social media is an extremely powerful tool for building brand awareness and marketing your business.
Unfortunately, it can easily turn into a time-sucking machine.
Posting turns into scrolling and scrolling turns into wasted time.
Why not avoid social media altogether — but still get all of the business benefits — by using a tool like Planoly to schedule your social media posts on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
This ensures that you won’t get distracted by social media when you’re trying to work.
And plus, it also allows you to create and schedule all of your posts at one time, so you don’t have to return to social media throughout the week.
Good for your business… good for your productivity.
Which of these lead generation tools for real estate agents is right for your business?
Hopefully, you now know of several lead-gen tools that you’ve never considered using before.
And more hopefully, you’ll give some of them a try.
Which ones do you think will be the most helpful for your business? Which ones are you going to use right away?
Which ones are you still considering? And which one do you think is the best lead generation tool for real estate?
Radio is the marketing channel that everyone knows about but nobody is using.
– Chris Arnold
All Radio. All Virtual. How I Used Radio Ads for Real Estate Investing to Build My Business and Lifestyle w/ Chris Arnold
Radio is old-school. Because of this, investors and agents will confuse themselves with their target demographic, avoiding radio advertising altogether. However, if you are an investor looking deals in your area, your target demographic is very likely listening to the radio!
Today, we sat down with Chris Arnold to learn more about how he had relied on radio advertising to build and grow his multiple companies.
Learn about what works, what to avoid, and how to build a business that offers freedom and impact.
Read the Full Show Notes Below…
When Chris first started out, he focused on direct mail advertising. This kept him on the hamster wheel, managing campaigns, fielding hate-calls, and trying to manage a team that was dealing with low-quality leads. Then one day it hit him – radio.
Using radio ads for real estate investing is something that none of his competition was doing. He knew that his target demographic wasn’t listening to Spotify when they got in the car – they were turning on the radio.
By advertising to them in this manner, he was able to appear less sleazy, build credibility, and create a name for himself and his brand. Today we are going to dive into his ad strategy and how he is running a virtual business that provides him with freedom, flexibility, and impact.
We love discovering ways to use offline marketing to create online demand and radio does just that!
Tips For A Great Radio Ad
Before creating your ad, you need to make sure it will reach the right people. To do this, reverse engineer the genre.
There are 3 main genres:
Urban
Rural
Over 50
Think about who is listening to these stations. If you are looking for deals in a city with younger people, choose an urban station. If your target client is a bit older, look for stations that appeal to those 50+.
Many stations have a team in their marketing department who can help you with your ad. While they are there to help, avoid them like the plague. They do not know how to position you to your prospective clients.
Write your own copy
Make sure the copy hits a seller’s pain points
Start with 60-second spots
Start with music stations vs. talk radio
Have your ads played during commute times or during prime time
Have your CTA lead them to a phone number so you can answer their call live
Once you get your first ad in place, you can always tweak and perfect it to get the biggest response possible.
The Benefits of Radio
Radio reaches your prospective clients in ways other marketing channels can’t. It can help you build celebrity status by positioning you as the expert in your market. Radio can help you build your brand without having to spam people with letters and calls.
Instead, they will come to you. Radio will help you to quickly build authority, putting you ahead of the competition.
Radio is great because you truly just set it and forget it. With direct mail and other types of marketing, you are always involved, scheduling, looking at reports, and creating campaigns.
With radio, they have a whole team to manage it for you. They schedule everything. All you have to do it provide your content one time and the rest is handled by them Your only job is to make sure you answer the calls live as they are coming in.
Building a Lifestyle of Freedom and Impact
Chris has always known he wanted to help people. In fact, he possesses a seminary degree and always thought he would work for the church.
Then one day it hit him.
He didn’t have to become a pastor in order to positively impact people’s lives. He could build a business that would give him freedom so that he would have the time to help people in the ways he wanted to.
15 years ago he discover real estate and hasn’t looked back since. Today he runs a coaching business, an investment business in Dallas, and a Mastermind Group. The best part is that he does all of this while working from his home in Tulum, Mexico.
Today Chris is giving back through his Mastermind and by coaching others. He has been through a lot personally and has taken these experiences to help others. Chris works with others in similar boats as he is, providing a true brotherhood and comradery, helping other fellow leaders avoid the isolation so many others often face. He has become a true example of someone who has built a business to create impact, freedom, and flexibility.
Thanks for listening and be sure to head over to Apple Podcasts to leave us a review!
I felt like I was on a hamster wheel… [what I needed was] consistent organic leads
– Jason Wardrop
How Jason Pulls 50 Organic Leads Per Day + Full Strategy Breakdown for YouTube, Facebook and IG Ads w/ Jason Wardrop
Imagine pulling in over 50+ leads per day. Now imagine doing it all organically. Generating high-quality leads is more than just setting up a website or launching a campaign.
Today, Jason is giving us a full strategy breakdown, sharing with us how he is crushing it on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram Ads, and more! He will share with us the framework and the formulas so you can get out there and crush it too!
Read the Full Show Notes Below…
When Jason started out, he was always a paid ads guy. He knew he was great at getting leads in the door, but after attending a Mastermind and seeing what others were doing on Youtube and other social media outlets, Jason knew he was about to go all in.
Now, fast forward to a few years later and Jason is killing the lead game with his company Arsenal Marketing. When I am looking for ways to generate more leads, Jason is the first person I call.
Jason’s goal is to help agents find more leads, generate email and text follow-up, and close more deals.
Leveraging Facebook and Instagram
You have likely heard about the Facebook algorithm and how it is consistently changing. Staying on top of what Facebook wants can prove to be a challenge. What we know now, is that the algorithm likes larger audiences. The targeting has become more limited. Every time you add an inclusion or exclusion, it increases your CPM – or cost per 1000 impressions.
A basic overview of Jason’s Facebook ad strategy is to begin with “housing” as the special ad category. If you are brand new, a lot of your ads will be cold. Doesn’t matter, go ahead and market through your business page.
Once you have built out an audience of people who have interacted with your page in some way, (liking, commenting, sharing, etc) you can begin to retarget these people with your advertising. You can create custom audiences and even upload your existing database to ensure you are sending the right message, to the right people, at the right time.
Which ads are working?
Right now, Jason is seeing huge success with a basic listing template that brings in leads for less than $5 a pop. He also uses a buyer leads template, which is basically a list of available properties.
Many ads are sent to landing pages or lead forms. The great thing about lead forms is that Facebook will auto-populate the form with the name, phone, email, etc, resulting in much less bogus data coming through.
Leveraging YouTube
Jason and his team have a hyper-focus on Youtube. In fact, they believe it to be the best way to build rapport, authority, and credibility. Many agents and investors don’t utilize youtube, because they may not understand what it can do for them.
Two years ago, Jason found himself in the hamster wheel of having to spend money to make money. After meeting other Youtubers and seeing what was possible, he made a massive shift and is now pulling in over 50+ leads per day, with sales almost every day.
Jason’s Youtube Growth Formula
Jason’s formula begins by asking what are the top 5 questions you get within your business. This could be things like determining home value, how to increase value, etc. From there, they create videos to answer the questions that are 3-5 minutes long.
You don’t have to be super professional with this, using your phone is fine. Spend the afternoon and bust out a few videos, then schedule them out for the next few weeks.
First, launch the video to your database via email. This will help you to get immediate views to your video, which Youtube likes to see.
Next, you want to get the video tanked organically via Google and Youtube. Our video transcription service is ideal for this by helping you turn your video into an instant blog post.
Once this is completed, you can utilize paid ads. Be sure to link back to your video in the description or in the first comment.
After setting up your paid ad, landing page, or lead form, it all comes back to the follow-up. You can segment videos based on the audience, then follow-up with them via email, messenger, or text. With a properly set-up drip campaign, you can send the right videos to the right audience… you don’t have to send everything to everyone all at once.
Niche Down
As your database grows, you can further niche down, creating content specific to your different audiences. Whether you want to become the local new home authority or the authority within a specific neighborhood, the right video content will get you there.
The key is to stay consistent, create a schedule, and follow-through.
I would rather do something well once and get paid for it over and over again than continue to run on the hamster wheel.
– Tyler Ford
The 2-6-1 Formula | How to Buy 1-3 Properties a Month on a Budget w/ Tyler Ford
Just a few years ago, Tyler Ford was ready to give up on the real estate industry. Burnt out on chasing leads and tired of the competition, he needed a change. Fast forward to today, Tyler has developed a time tested formula that he uses to buy 1-3 properties a month, without spending a dime on direct mail, bandit signs, or chasing deals on the MLS.
Find out the exact formula Tyler is using to crush it as an agent & investor in this episode.
Read the Full Show Notes Below…
I’m so excited to have Tyler Ford back with us. He’s the perfect example of someone who has implemented what we teach, mastered it, and in Tyler’s case, built upon it. He tested some things, found out what worked, and has been able to bring freedom and flexibility into his life.
Tyler has been licensed for over 40 years, but by implementing some simple strategies, he has made an incredible shift that has put him on the path to true financial freedom.
Creating A Plan
For years, Tyler was able to get deals in the door, but when the big players started coming to Tucson, he had to think of a way to stay competitive. He lacked the budget to stay competitive with his outbound marketing. Running a large direct mail campaign, putting up bandit signs, and spend time cold-calling isn’t what Tyler wanted to do.
He realized that if he created high-quality, evergreen content, that would be of value to his ideal client, the leads would come to him. People would be sold on him before an offer was even made. When competition grew in his area, he took a step back, revamped his website, and created the content to make himself the authority in his market.
For Tyler, success is defined by time and flexibility. It’s so easy to get caught up hearing people say they are doing 10, 15, 20 deals per month, then striving to do that yourself. This is how people burn themselves out, which will often lead to them quitting. Tyler doesn’t want to be the largest in his market.
Tyler is more than content doing 1-3 deals a month – it is what he set out to do. He will make anywhere between $12-50k per deal, which has gotten him to his freedom number. He has been able to generate enough consistent revenue through his investment portfolio, that he is now able to have that flexibility we are all after.
Content Really is King
You often hear me talk about content and credibility. This has proven to work for Tyler who has successfully gotten himself into the top rankings for the most popular search phrases in his market.
One way Tyler generates great content is through our automated posts. With just a few minutes of tweaking and personalization, Tyler is able to differentiate the content for his website, providing valuable information to his potential clients.
A few things he may modify include:
Adding location-specific photos so sellers don’t think he is out of town
He does a deep dive into the tags and categories – making them specific to his market
He will review for any grammatical changes, making the copy more personal where needed
He will add in additional hyperlinks, linking content within his site, backlinks to other Carrot sites, or linking to 3rd party sites
He will personalize the SEO for his market and intent
He has an incredible cost per deal, all because he created great content once, which generates an ongoing flow of leads. In fact, his cost per deal is only $300!
When you do the math, he might be making more money than the guy doing 10 deals per month all because he is saving thousands on direct-mail and cold calling costs.
Writing It All Down
At the time of this recording, we are still dealing with the effects of COVID-19. While many people lamented the idea of staying home, Tyler wrote a book. In 45 days, he has been able to take all of the information he has been offering people through Zoom calls, written it down, and present it in a clear and concise manner.
A lot of people have reached out to Tyler, asking him how he does it. This led him to create the 2-6-1 Formula. The formula is more of a mindset to help people set clear expectations when creating content to generate leads.
The first 2 months will get the process rolling. At 6 months, you should start to see some traction depending on the size of your market. And by 1 year, things should really be starting to fall into place.
People will often get impatient and fail to build the proper foundation. In order to build your credibility through content, you need to stack bricks, and not be afraid to commit and run the course.
Tyler’s Book, How To Buy 1 To 3 Properties A Month, dives into what he does on the about page, how he generates leads with his location pages, and what he does to his articles to make them stand out. He also discusses how he is now leveraging multiple Carrot sites, ensuring he holds the top spots in his market!
I am so excited to be giving away TEN copies of Tyler’s new book! All you have to do is head over to Apple Podcasts, leave a rating and review, screenshot it, and send it over to trevor@carrot.com along with your mailing address. In the subject line, put “Tyler Ford Book Review” so we can easily spot the winners! The first 10 people to do this will get a copy of Tyler’s new book!
Shemeika Fox is a real estate agent in Santa Cruz. She’s marketing her business in ways that most real estate agents never even consider, and because of that, she’s cutting through the clutter in her competitive market. Since implementing Carrot and an Inbound methodology, Shemeika’s web page views increased by 227% and their closings have increased 2x.
Recently, she joined us on the CarrotCast to discuss her journey through our 30 Day Challenge, which has helped her take her market authority even further. She is quickly ramping herself up to be the leading real estate expert in all of Santa Cruz!
In 2019, Shemeika Fox doubled her number of closings. But it wasn’t by sheer luck… it was by clear-cut strategy and intentional action.
She’s marketing her business in ways that most real estate agents never even consider, and because of that, she’s cutting through the clutter in her competitive market.
Just before that success, though, Shemeika was tired and frustrated — she was on the hamster wheel of business, sweating for every single lead.
She knew something needed to change.
And that’s when she made these five key shifts in her thinking and her marketing.
1. Mindset Shift: From Hunting To Farming
Entrepreneurs are great at getting up early and working late.
There’s a ceasless motivation that drives entrepreneurs, and while that’s an important quality for success, it’s also not sustainable.
Ask any ex-entrepreneur why they got a day-job and they’ll probably tell you that they worked too hard and too long for too little payback.
That’s because most entrepreneurs hunt for their closings.
They pay for advertisements, ask for referrals, send direct mail, follow-up, and cold call. But here’s the thing: the moment that you stop doing those things… the leads stop flowing. Which means that the only way to generate more leads or to keep generating leads at all it to keep working harder and longer… to keep hunting.
But what about a farmer?
A farmer is different than a hunter. They plant seeds, nurture those seeds, and then reap the benefits of their careful attention.
All of the lines on the left are equal to the length of the line on the right, but more progress is made when focus is put in just one mission-critical direction.
Sure, it takes more time to see the results, but the harvest is much more plentiful and, in terms of ROI, it requires much less work per closing.
Now we’re not saying that you should stop running ads or sending direct mail, but you should be farming and hunting for your leads.
Hunt for leads when your business needs them immediately, and farm when you can allow a bit more time for results.
This was an important mindset shift for Shemieka to make and it’s important for all entrepreneurs.
Harder work is not the only way to generate more leads or grow a bigger business. Like the cliche goes, work smarter, not harder.
For Shemieka, that means consistently running ads and sending direct mail, but also spending plenty of time building her online brand image, posting content to social media, and growing her SEO presence.
2. Simple, Effective Lead-Generation Website
Building an effective website is one of the most difficult parts about building a real estate business.
You need one because everyone else has one… but how do you get that website to actually be useful and generate leads?
And in order to get the functionalities and features you need to get your website generating leads on autopilot, how do you build that without spending thousands of dollars on a custom design?
For Shemeika (and for more than 7,000 real estate pros around the nation), Carrot was the answer.
Before signing up with Carrot, this was Shemeika’s website.
It might look pretty, but the problem is that it wasn’t generating leads for Shmeika’s business, no matter how much traffic she drove to the site.
That’s why she signed up with Carrot.
Here’s her new website.
And guess what?
People don’t just visit that site… they opt-in, they contact her, and those leads turn into closings.
In fact, her website brings in so many leads that, in 2019, she doubled her number of closings.
Why?
Well, the genius of our Carrot methodology is in giving your website traffic exactly what they want. First, people tell you whether they want to buy a home or sell their home.
If they want to buy, then they can immediately start browsing through your listings — if they find something they like, they just have to dial the number in the upper right corner of your Carrot site!
If they want to sell their home, then they’ll be taken to this page which is designed to get them in contact with you as soon as possible.
And the conversion rate on Carrot sites is higher than any other website builder in the industry, which means more leads, more often.
This was a fundamental shift for Shameika. In her own words,
“Carrot has impacted my business so positively! I love the property websites, landing pages, the SEO rankings, blog and over all design of the site. I also love the landing pages that i use to drive traffic from ads that I run. And my favorite is to watch the increase on Google rankings with the more relevant content we produce. Really great web host!”
3. Focus On Blog & SEO
One thing we’ve found that separates top-performing real estate agents from everyone else is a focus on search engine optimization.
And that makes sense.
Because if you rank on page one for a search phrase that is getting attention every single month, then you’re going to get a lot more website traffic and lot more leads than your competitors.
And by focussing on SEO, you won’t just get more leads, you’ll also get higher quality leads.
Our members have found SEO leads to be about three times higher quality than leads from paid advertisements, which means it takes about three times less leads to actually close.
The reason for that is simple.
With paid advertisements, you’re interrupting people who may or may not be intersted in your service.
But with SEO, interested people come searching for you.
So the question becomes, how can you build your SEO rankings?
Well, we’ve designed Carrot to help you do just that… and here are some of the features we offer that you’ll definitely want to take advantage of…
Ranking Tracker — Our ranking tracker will keep an eye on how your website is performing for certain keywords in Google. Just enter the keywords that you’re trying to rank for and our ranking tracker will do the rest, giving your regular updates on your website’s SEO performance.
SEO Tool — Whenever you’re designing a page of your website with Carrot, just scroll to the bottom to find our SEO Tool, which will automatically scan your page for search engine optimizations and give you a checklist of what you still need to do. Once the light is green, that means you’re good to go!
Monthly Blog Posts — If you sign up for a Content Pro or Advanced Marketer membership, then we’ll also provide you with blog content for your website every month that is customized for your market and written to rank for a specific high-value keyword in Google. Just publish the content every month and you’ll give your website a better chance of ranking!
VideoPost — One of Shemeika’s favorite things about her Carrot site is the ability to use a feature that we call VideoPost. This tool allows you to upload and trascribe any video into a long-form blog post for your website that can help you rank in Google. But instead of writing the article, you just upload your video and we’ll do the rest. This is a great way to quickly and easily create SEO content for your website.
4. Advertisements & Landing Pages
When we asked Shameika what her favorite thing about Carrot was, she mentioned that she loves being able to quickly and easily create landing pages that she can then drive paid traffic to.
With Carrot, you can create a new landing page with just a few clicks.
You can then customize that page however you want.
You can turn it into a sales page with an opt-in form, testimonials, and even a credibility bar… or you can turn it into a long-form blog post.
The choice is yours.
But one of the best ways to make use of this feature is to create a new landing page for each specific market that you’re advertising to… and then to drive that traffic to that page.
You might, for example, create a page for people who want to buy river-front homes, or a page for people who want to sell a home for over $500,000, or people who just want to learn more about you as a real estate agent.
Remember, the riches are in the niches.
And with a Carrot site, you can easily create a sales page for each niche that you operate in.
Here’s a Facebook ad that Shameika is currently running…
And here is the page that advertisement will take you to if you click.
See how the advertisement seamlessly flows into the landing page?
That’s how it should always be.
It should feel like one cohesive experience rather than two separate experiences.
And by leveraging the versatility of Facebook’s targeting and Carrot’s landing page builder, you can create a seamless experience for buyers and sellers in any niche or market.
Here’s one more example…
And here’s the landing page…
Shameika skillfully attracts her target market with Facebook ads and then gives them what they want most on the landing page.
In return, she gets their contact information and can then add them to her email list.
Or maybe she’ll be able to start working with them right away. Whatever happens, this is a great strategy for generating leads.
Create more landing pages for more niches and markets… and use advertisements to drive targeted traffic.
5. The 30-Day Challenge
What if you could take a system that’s proven to generate high-quality leads — a system that has made hundreds of investors and agents around the nation millions of dollars — and implement it right into your business in just 30-60 minutes per day over a 30-day period?
Sounds too good to be true, yeah?
Well, that’s the exact system that Shameika went through… and it helped to unlock her business’ full potential.
In it, we walk you through how to brand your real estate business, how to drive traffic, and — most importantly — how to get high-quality leads (and even how to obliterate your best month’s lead-gen record)
At Carrot, we’ve helped countless real estate pros beat their most aggressive market competitors, generate more than one million leads, and build businesses that support themselves and their families.
Over the last few years, we’ve learned a lot about what real estate marketing tactics work… and what doesn’t.
And we thought to ourselves…
“What if we created a tried-and-true, fool-proof lead-gen system for agents and investors — a system that would help our members become the go-to experts in their market, drive leads passively to their website, and build the business of their entrepreneurial dreams?”
This challenge is helping people even more than we could have imagined…
One of our long-standing members, Chris Wojciechowski, said he wishes we would have created this challenge 3 years ago!
So…
Are you ready to create a marketing system for your real estate business that generates leads like clockwork, that makes your business more predictable and sustainable?
Moreover, are you ready to spend just 30-60 minutes per day over the next month to make it happen?
Great!
Conclusion
What are your goals for 2020?
Do you want to generate more leads, do more closings, and grow your revenue?
Do you maybe even want to double the number of closings you do this year?
Well, we can no longer count on one hand the number of Carrot members who have taken their businesses to the next level.
There are many stories just like Shameika’s of agents and investors who have used online marketing, SEO, Carrot, and advertising to beat their competition and build the business of their entrepreneurial dreams.
Have you felt like this recently? Are you unsure if you should stop your Google Paid traffic right now?
You’re not alone, but stay positive. We’re in this together!
We’ve been answering these questions since March by providing data and challenging our members to shift their mindsets.
This has led us to create this blog post. We want to show you what we’re seeing, why you need to change, and how to make those adjustments to WIN in Google Ads during COVID-19 and other events that can cause accounts to go haywire.
What Our Google Ads Data is Showing During COVID-19
Numbers were compared from January 15-February 29 and March 1-April 15.
Sessions from Google Ads have increased by 4.01%.
Sessions are defined as…
“A session is a group of user interactions with your website that takes place within a given time frame. For example, a single session can contain multiple page views, events, social interactions, and eCommerce transactions.”
Leads havedecreased by 13.55%.
Across all members accounts, cost-per-click has increased by 39.3%, and to be expected, the cost per lead has increased by 19.4%.
What does this mean? In “normal times” a conversion issue could mean you’re lacking credibility on your website. Or, not enough website personalization and customization.
During COVID, it’s most likely due to searchers whose comfort level with the current situation is low. This presents a major opportunity to communicate with your audience in a different, more impactful way.
So…
Why Are Leads Down By 13.55%?
Our best-educated hypothesis… there is a lack of communication between your visitors and your website messaging.
Visitors need to know, during this time, that they still have options to sell their house right now. If they’re landing on a page that still has the typical message without educating them about what they can do, they’ll likely bounce for now.
Communication is as important as ever. You need to tell them what they can do during this time where people are uncertain. For example, communicate that they can:
Send photos of their house
Join a video call
Join a Facebook Live for a walk-through
Hop on a phone call
Get the selling process started without ever meeting in person
More on this below…
What Can You Do Right Now to Increase Leads by 33, 100, or Even 225%?!
The members (not all, but MOST) who have made the necessary steps to communicate to their audiences are seeing an increase in lead volume during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We wanted to give you some general tips to help make your Google Ads accounts more effective until this time in history is over.
3 Simple Things You Can Do Today to Increase the Effectiveness of Your Google Ads Accounts
Tip #1: Communicate and Build Relationships With Your Audience
During “normal” times, Google Ads best practices dictate that you dig deep into as much data as you can find so you can be all but certain your next campaign will succeed.
But, we’re in unknown territory holding a lot of uncertainty. No one knows for sure what to totally expect from their accounts right now.
The ones who will have the most success will be those who take their best, common-sensed, educated move and immediately put their campaigns into action.
Think of it this way.
If you don’t try and decide to wait it out, you’ll fall further behind your competitors.
If you make educated moves but fall short, you’ll at the very least have an idea of how to adjust your approach going forward.
You don’t have a lot of time to collect a bunch of performance data… we can help with that.
Your goal should be to find a way to communicate with your audience.
Or, adding more content to your website from blog posts. Carrot Content Pro members have access to blog posts such as…
Or, switch it up a bit and shoot a quick video, such as this Carrot member did…
Now, take your video a step further and create a VideoPost to add to your blog. Simply upload a video and receive a transcription for your content for a blog post in minutes.
This goes for your Google ads and any other paid advertising you create throughout the current pandemic.
Google Ad’s character limitations don’t allow much room to convey a deeply sensitive and empathetic message, but you can utilize space to communicate that you’re still buying as well as other key points.
We’ve seen ads use copy such as:
We’re Still Buying
We Can Rest Your Mind
No Strangers to Your Home
No-Direct Contact Required
You Can Still Sell Your House
A Phone Call Is All It Takes
We Can Buy Via Video, Phone, and Email
You want to create ads that showcase the options they have and the value your service can give them during these circumstances your audience is currently in.
If you can get to the heart of how your services can bring peace and closure to your customers’ lives, during this crisis and other times, you’ll stand a much better chance of surviving and thriving in the future.
Tip #3: Trim Wasted Ad Spend
During “normal” times, it can be easy to keep average-performing ad groups or keywords live as long as they’re bringing in some leads.
But right now a shift to pause those ad groups or keywords and add to negative keyword lists might be a smart approach.
Of course, you can then revive these ad groups and keywords once we’re out of this pandemic.
If you need to cut your budget, a simple strategy would be to pause ad groups and/or keywords that haven’t produced a lead in the past month or two. Or, those ad groups and/or keywords that have converted one or two times in the past month or two.
These might be low-hanging fruit keywords. Choose to pause those for now and hang onto the ad groups and keywords that make the most impact.
Negative keywords will prevent your ads from showing up for future searches that seem to be related to your service but have nothing to do with it.
We’ve seen terms that seem really good but aren’t converting into leads. Such as…
“sell my house in 55+”
So, that term is becoming an exact match negative term for now.
We’ve also seen an influx of game-related terms, possibly due to more kids being without things to do. Terms such as…
“how to sell your house in Rocitizens Boblox”
These are search terms that can’t be predicted.
Even during times like these, the old saying “you gotta spend money to make money” holds true for paid traffic. Merely pausing your campaigns altogether just isn’t the way to go.
But, there are just smarter ways of figuring out the most efficient way to keep your campaigns live.
You should always be looking for the most cost-effective approach to Google ads, but right now, it’s okay to tighten the spending up without feeling like you’re missing out on leads.
Wrapping up
The Google Ads industry changed entirely in the last month. Much of what we considered certainties only a few short weeks ago still remain today, but there are things you need to view a little differently for now.
Adapting during these uncertain times will help you to continue to grow.
It’s likely that you have already come under pressure to reduce spend or, at the very extreme, you’ve paused your account. These are sensible reactions given the circumstances, but are they the only options?
The answers to these questions depend a lot on each individual’s situation, but in this post, we hope to educate you on how to make these positive decisions and how to best adapt Google Ads during these challenging times.
Don’t worry so much about your content not ranking. Keep linking to it within your website. Keep sharing it on social media. High value content will bring in leads no matter where you’re ranking on Google.
Earl White
These “House Heroes” Predictably Pulled in 3,551 Motivated Seller Leads in 2019 Using These Three Simple Types of Content
Times are a little crazy right now! Coronavirus is throwing a wrench in the gears of many investors and agents all over the country. You may be wondering if you should pull back on your marketing and ad spend and what you can do to keep your leads rolling in during these wild times. This is exactly why we wanted to share with you this very special episode of the CarrotCast.
Back at the end of February, we help our Market Leader Summit with some of the nation’s top real estate minds. Lucas Machado and Earl White are often referred to as “The House Heroes” and they shared with us how they are able to pull in motivated seller leads like crazy – over 3,500 last year alone!
They will let you in on the ONE marketing channel that isn’t taking a hit with everything going on! You may hear a few things you’ll only get if you were with us at the Market Leader Summit – but none the less, this episode is pure gold.
Read the Full Show Notes Below…
We had Lucas and Earl of “The House Heroes” join us for our Market Summit this year because I was blown away by the number of motivated seller leads they were getting and what they were doing with their digital marketing.
Lucas was a former project manager in the Bay Area and Earl is a former attorney in New Jersey. With zero SEO experience, they have been creating content that ranks nationally, which brings in several leads per day, and that takes up very little time to create!
Creating this high-value content helps the House Heroes to build trust and credibility, thus helping them to gain more leads and close more deals.
Three Ways To Create High-Value Content
Lucas and Earl have three primary ways they go about creating content for their website. Depending on what they are trying to rank for, how competitive the phrases are, and who they are trying to reach, their strategy will vary.
Strategy #1 For Creating Content:
The first way Lucas and Earl create content for their website is by loading and modifying our pre-written articles. They have seen great success with one article in particular which currently holds the number one spot on Google and required only about 20 minutes of personalization.
This one article is responsible for at least one deal, resulting in thousands of dollars in profit.
Strategy #2 For Creating Content:
The next way they go about creating content is to research the more competitive, high-value keywords, and create long-form content that is specific just to them. They will look at what the competition is doing, then do whatever it take s to make their post better.
For one article, in particular, they noticed their competition used video. They added more robust videos to their posts and made sure their article was longer, more informative, and more engaging.
Strategy #3 For Creating Content:
The third way Earl and Lucas are creating content is by utilizing our video post feature. We recommend creating a video that is at least 3 minutes long so that your post will have enough content.
Earl made a great video that was about 5 minutes long, had it transcribed using our video post tool, he tweaked it, and it is now an incredibly popular post for them. They made a few notes, shot the video rather quickly and got it posted without having to write an entire blog post from scratch.
The Other Legs of Their Marketing Stool
While content and organic SEO is a huge part of their marketing plan, they also utilize other forms of marketing to ensure consistency and momentum. By incorporating direct mail and SMA campaigns, they have 3 marketing channels that support the business.
As things ebb and flow, they are protected as they can always count on leads coming in the door one way or another. 3,500 leads last year alone is proof of this!
Marching Toward Freedom
As the leads keep rolling in and the content keeps flowing, both Earl and Lucas are looking to step back more from the day to day operations in 2020. By creating documentation of processes, systems that can be reproduced, and a team that is just as driven as they are, I have no doubt the House Heros” will continue to crush it in 2020!
Lucas and Earl are always looking for ways to partner with other investors and give back! They welcome your calls and emails and are always happy to share what they have learned which is something I really admire.
If you purchased our latest Market Leader Summit, be sure to check out more content and our library of recordings. There is some really great information in there that can help you no matter where you are in your business!
During this article, I’m going to be talking about how you cope with these major changes in the economy, real estate, and the way that we’re working and living and thriving.
Get Quick Context About This Blog Post Before Diving In…
Listen to the Full Podcast Episode Below
Now everybody’s going to be impacted in some way, shape, or form. But, you don’t have to be impacted negatively.
There are people that I know, businesses that I know, that are actually doing better than ever right now because they’re geared and they’re set up and they planned for things like this. Or, maybe they just got lucky and they have certain products, of course, that are just in high demand for these times.
I’m going to be talking about how to better prepare for what’s to come.
How Do You Come Out on the Other Side of This Stronger?
How do you as a real estate investor or agent plan and prepare for what is going to happen?
I’ll be the first one to admit that I didn’t treat this seriously enough early on. I thought, it’s just this, like a lot of people were saying right, it’s this cold, it’s this flu. The flu numbers kill more people than this is killing. And that was honestly just a full misunderstanding of how pandemics work, a full misunderstanding of how math actually works in these types of situations.
Preparing for the Financial Impact
The financial side is what I want you guys to prepare for. What happens with all the shutdowns? The shutdowns are where the devastating part is on the financial side because there’s the health side of it, which is a huge deal, but it’s going to likely be shorter-lived, months rather than years. The financial side though is where it gets really, really interesting and possibly scary for many people.
So if you have stay-in-place orders in California and Washington (now in Oregon) and all over the place, and kids are out of school here in Oregon until the end of April now rather than just spring break…
That leaves over a month and a half to where parents have to figure out a way that they can work at home while trying to take care of their kids still. We’ve got team members who have multiple kids at home, who are working and they’re trying to do their best work. So we’ve put policies in place to give our team members more flexibility and more leeway during these times. And we said, “We’ll take it two weeks at a time during the next two weeks.”
But, we’re not pumping the brakes.
This is when we actually need to hit the gas more than ever to help our customers more than ever, to help you guys wade through and win in this market.
And that’s where I’m going to come to next because there are so many people doing amazing right now still because so many people are pulling back and I’m going to show you guys exactly how to do that, but we need to be doubling down and helping you guys win even more right now, not pulling back ourselves and going, “Hey, let’s wait and see.”
Don’t Pump the Brakes… Give It More Gas
I think if you have a wait and see attitude, then you’re likely going to get impacted way more negatively than you wish.
We put in the policy, where for the next two weeks, put in the hours that you can. We don’t want you to have to make a decision between being a good father or mother and being a good worker. I would rather have you make the decision to be a good father or mother versus trying to fit in all 40 hours. So if you’re only able to get 35 hours of good work in, good focus work in, awesome. Report the full 40 during these next two weeks, and then we’ll take it two weeks at a time after that.
So if you’re an employer, find out ways that you can really help your team members wade through this. Help your team members have confidence in the way that you’re doing things…wade through it with them.
Next thing, if you’re an employer, you need to be doing weekly updates with your team members at the least. I did one last week, pulled up a bunch of slides and just walked through…
“Hey, here’s what we know about the pandemic so far.”
“Here’s how we can serve you, even more, to make working from home even better than we already have.”
Then the next thing was…
“Let’s go through the financial picture. Let’s go through how much cash reserves we have. How long could we run this business if some big things happen that cut our income by 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, or 50%.”
Now, the 10% is realistic, 20% possibly. 50%, I don’t believe that that would happen, but there are cash reserves that we have and could survive and thrive with that.
I also covered hiring…
“But also here are the plans that we have. Are we going to be adjusting our Q2 plans of growth in our hires? Well, we’re taking some of our hires and moving them to contractor roles until this shakes out.”
We’re not stopping those hires because we need them. We need them to grow, we need them to help serve you guys better. But we’re moving them to contractors instead to kind of add that extra buffer in place.
So that’s another move that you can make. If you have any hires coming up, make them contractors instead of employees the next few months to see how things shake out.
Survive and Thrive
The next thing, I’m going to give you guys some really, really actionable steps. How do you wade through this, thrive, and survive?
The first thing is you have to have reserves.
Let’s look at the foundation level. The people that are going to be getting in trouble are the people that have been kind of running fast and loose the last three, four, five, six years.
Thinking that whatever their situation is, it’s going to go on forever in a good way and not stocking away reserves. So the one thing I’ve always had pretty good discipline in, and then we carried it through the previous years as well, is carving out reserves.
Every quarter we look at our profits and I always set how many months of cash reserves we want for operational expenses for the business. And some people suggest three months, six months a year. I suggest six months is what every business should have in operational cash.
What I mean by operational cash is, what does it actually cost you to run your business? If all of your revenue disappeared, what does it cost you to run your business?
That includes all of your employees, any of your fixed expenses, things like that. Add that up for six months. And then I think that’s what you should have in your bank account for reserves.
As I said, the likelihood that you’re not going to bring in any cash for six months is very low, but at least it gives you breathing room.
Now it gives you time to pivot and adjust and change course if you need to. If you only have a month or two or three months, you’re in crisis mode at that point. You can’t really get very crazy creative and have time to really pull back, think, and pivot. You won’t have the luxury of planning a little bit.
Building Reserves Now
What can you put in place right now to ensure that you’re building up your reserves?
Do that now. Start to stock away cash and start to build up that six months reserve. Do the same thing on the personal side. Start to stock away more cash than you normally would right now. Build it up in reserves, six months, personal expenses, your mortgage…
What does it cost you to live on a personal basis? Do that. The next thing is even if you don’t predict a downturn in your business, start to cut expenses.
Start to look at things like that because we want to plan for the worst, but hope for the best. Okay, plan for the worst, hope for the best. And those of you that are not taking this seriously enough are going to be bitten in the butt in several months possibly.
Now we hope not. But as I started to dig into this, the financial ramifications when parents are staying at home and when businesses are closing, all of a sudden unemployment’s going to go from 3% to 5%, to 20% for the next month or two and unemployment benefits rush in there.
Then all of a sudden you have some people that aren’t able to pay their rent. So what happens to landlords during this time? Well, some landlords might struggle to pay their mortgages because some of their employees might be restaurant workers. They might be workers that are having their position shutdown and they might not be able to pay their rent.
What if you’re landlord, that’s over-leveraged, that doesn’t have cash reserves for a while? That now can’t pay your mortgage. So now you’re going to go behind in your mortgage and then all of a sudden, let’s say a bunch of landlords start to default on their mortgages three months from now or two months from now, then you have some sort of banking issues as well.
The Economy
Now is it going to be the same as what happened back in 2008? Let’s dive into some economic stuff right now.
The likelihood that that is going to happen is extremely low. They’re just totally fundamentally different factors that are happening in the economy right now.
Back in 2001, 9/11, what happened was that it was an event, a terrorist attack, that completely wrecked the economy for a period of months. And it wasn’t because there was something fundamentally wrong with the economy. This event wasn’t a bubble…
But, there was the .com bust that happened several years before that. That was something fundamentally wrong with the economy. There was way too much over-investment in the tech world. No one knew what it was. Too many IPOs that were too overhyped. And there was a bubble that popped.
9/11 an event that was a black swan event. Kind of like this pandemic where it’s outside of most people’s control. It’s not something that you could really easily plan for very well. But it does impact things vastly.
After 9/11 people basically stopped traveling. And when people stop traveling, that sort of decimated the travel industry. Hotels, airlines, the same thing that’s happening right now, which then trickled down into everything else, unemployment rises.
But all that didn’t last for too crazy, crazy long. Go back and look at the history books. Some of it lasted for the course of the year. The travel industry took a little while to recover, that’s for sure. Some stuff bounced back within months. But the overall economy, the stock market did take a hit, but real estate prices continued to appreciate actually.
So real estate prices did not depreciate, they continued to appreciate. That is a little bit different though because that was coming out of the stock market crash, the tech bubble of ’98, ’99, 2000.
Things had already started to kind of improve there a little bit. The difference here is we’re at the end, almost overdue of a bull cycle the past 12 years in the stock market and real estate market.
All these things have been amazing for the past 12 years. And for the past couple of years, I’ve been preparing Carrot and my team for a recession. We don’t know when it’s going to happen, but arguably the current policies are helping to prop up the economy longer than I think it should have been.
Bubble?
So is that creating a bubble? Possibly.
There could be some things there, but this black swan event of the pandemic now started to kick it forward, started to kick it down the curb. I do believe that this will kick off some sort of a step into recession.
Now, will this recession be like it was in 2008? I don’t believe so.
Once again, it doesn’t have the same fundamental economic issues there that the mortgage crisis created. And also, the issue of this time has not related to real estate per se.
The issue last time was directly related to the real estate market being overheated. Too many people buying properties that shouldn’t because it was way too easy to get loans.
We’re not seeing that right now. I don’t predict that real estate prices will take a crash because they haven’t been overinflated as much as previously.
Now, will we take a little bit of a dip in prices? I think so. I think toward the end of the year you might see some markets start to slow down a little bit, but I think it’d be more of a softening.
How Real Estate Agents Have Shifted
In the short term, I’ve been talking with lots of agents about what they’re seeing, what are they experiencing in their world.
The experienced ones aren’t missing the beat.
Some have turned to doing virtual showings now over Zoom or Facebook Live instead of having big open houses. They invite everyone to tune into their Zoom room during a certain time and they walk around the house and they talk about it. And then they give people a tour. They’re still showing houses.
One agent said that there have been buyers who still want to buy but they’re going to kind of tap the brakes and wait this out a little bit. There’s also been a seller or two who didn’t want to have a bunch of people going through their house during this time, which is understandable, but they said, in general, they’re still closing the houses. They closed six houses last week alone.
What a lot of other people are kind of using, they’re letting fear stop them from doing this. They’re assuming because all this stuff is happening, then real estate is not working. That none of this is going to continue to work.
That’s just not the case. That’s just not the case at all.
For more information about the coronavirus and realtors, check out this guide.
How Real Estate Investors Have Shifted
Talking to investors, yes, some are worried about their portfolios because they have so many renters that are lower income. That should be an issue. You should be tight. You should be getting as much cash liquidity right now as you possibly can, just to plan for the worst, hope for the best.
But for people out there flipping houses, wholesaling houses, buying houses, things like that, we’re not really seeing much of a slowdown. Now there are some municipalities that are closed down or they’re not processing transactions.
I talked to Cody Sperber down in Phoenix, Arizona last week. He’s coming out for a podcast issue for CarrotCast here shortly. Cody did say that he had a transaction or two canceled at escrow, but what we’re seeing is more around the financers. It’s more on funding. It’s more on the private lenders that are pulling… They’re tapping the brakes a bit.
Let us wait and see this out. Let us dampen our risk in this process. And let’s wait for a month or two before we start to deploy cash, so that’s what you are going to see some private lenders doing that.
Now, how do you contend with that?
Well, number one, you need to be going to your private lenders if you’re a house buyer, and talking with them and educating them on what opportunities there are in the market and how you’re safeguarding their investments.
Go to them right now and talk. Do a Zoom call with your investors and talk to them about the market, about what you’re seeing on the ground, about what other investors are seeing locally, about how you’re going to safeguard in their investment during this time, but also about the opportunity that there is going to be, in this time, to add more value and have them get even greater returns.
That needs to be done. You need to be reaching out to your investors right now to continue to build that relationship, to continue to build that trust and credibility with them so they’re comfortable in these crazy times.
The next thing, if you’re a flipper or a wholesaler is, there’s so many of you who are tapping the brakes on your marketing and you’re going, “I’m going to wait this out.”
That is insane right now. That is the worst thing you can possibly do.
Here’s Cody Sperber’s Game Plan During the Current Situation…
You Have an Audience Right Now
Right now you have some of the biggest captive audience possible out there for people to see your marketing message. Mail is still being delivered. There’s no plan, it doesn’t seem, for mail to stop being delivered. Phone calls are still being answered. Even more now so, because people are at home and possibly home from work.
People are going online and still doing the searches.
In some categories, they’re doing more searches than they were before. For house sellers, we saw a dip a couple of weeks ago. We’re going to look at the data and see. It’s barely, it’s like 10% or so.
According to a recent WordStream study, search traffic in the real estate industry remains relatively stable, as well as little change to search volume, CPC, or conversion rates.
But as we move into the next two or three weeks, some important shifts could have some important industry consequences.
What Can You Expect?
What I predict is people looking for investment properties might be kind of pulling back some of their demand right now.
I predict while in that first phase of the pandemic fear to happen, I think a lot of people will pause just because they don’t know what else to do. They’ll pause out of fear, they’ll pause meaning, “I want to wait a little bit to see what happens before I sell my house.”
But here’s the deal. If they start to have income issues, if they already had an issue with the property they’re needing to sell, and now he gets exacerbated with the economy, what’s only going to happen now is as the weeks go on…
That pain is going to actually increase.
So, if you’re an agent or if you’re an investor, you need to be out there solving people’s pain. This isn’t about taking advantage of people. There’s not one lick of that here.
What we need to be doing, as a society, is finding out how can we solve people’s pain.
How can we truly solve problems? How can we truly add value to people’s worlds right now when they need it the most and some people need it right now more than ever?
Right now is not the time to hit the brakes, right now is not the time to pull back and say, “I’m going to wait and see it out.”
Right now is not the time to pull your marketing back, right now is actually the time to double up on your marketing and increase your spend on marketing.
I was talking to Christina Krause, one of the biggest direct mail marketing consultants for investors and she said her three biggest clients have made their largest purchases ever with her these past two to three weeks. That says a lot!
So why is that? Because what they’re doing is there’s a lot of print houses, mail shops and things like that, that might be shutting down for business for a while, if there is a stay-at-home, a stay-at-place order. And a lot of those shops might be in California or some other states where they’re doing stay-at-home orders.
Get your orders in right now… To get your mailing pieces printed off before any stay-at-home orders are done.
Make those big orders and then pull back. The post office doesn’t seem like they’re shutting things down. Could that change? It could.
Make those orders, get your direct mail pieces in because what happens if you try to place your order and then they’re slowing down business for two weeks, all of a sudden you’re two to three weeks behind, maybe even four weeks behind because now they have a stockpile of orders they need to process.
You’re two to four weeks behind on getting mail out to people when they need it the most. Then those who are getting mail out consistently and often during these times are going to come out the other side winning.
Those who are going and looking at their Google PPC costs and saying, “Hey, there’s people.” What you’re going to see right now is people diminishing or stopping their PPC, their spend.
You’re going to see people stopping their PPC spend because, out of fear, because they’re seeing, “oh my gosh, my click cost is $45 a click or $25 a click and my leads are $300, oh my gosh.” But that’s if you’re trusting emotion, not math.
You need to go back to the fundamentals we’ve been teaching for years…
TRUST MATH NOT EMOTION
If your average profit per deal is $20,000, your for-average-commission per deal as an agent is $10,000 and as an investor, let’s say, after that $20,000 profit, it takes you 10 inbound online leads through PPC or through SEO to close the deal, which is about average, right around there, 10 to 15.
I would just about average, the highest lead to close ratio you can get with any lead. Any lead, as an agent and an investor, so if you’re closing one in 10 and your average property is $20,000 and you’d be willing to trade $5,000 to get that $20,000 deal done in marketing, that means you can pay up to $500 per lead and win the market.
And there are so many people cutting and killing their pay-per-click at $150 a lead, at $95 a lead at $225 a lead, because their neighbor over here is getting leads for $22 or $5 on Facebook or because they’re fearful.
Right now is when you need to actually look at your numbers again and say…
“I’m going to double down on this. I’m going to spend even more. I’m going to make sure I’m answering these phone calls quicker.”
Stay in front of those sellers and help serve them even better. Make sure to give them multiple different offers.
Can you imagine if, in this market right now, where there’s a lot of things happening and there are people who are wanting to sell, a guy like Eric comes in and says,
“Hey, here are three options…
#1…List it for the most money in your pocket.
#2… I can pay cash, but it’s going to be a discount, but it’s immediate and you don’t have to worry about repairs or anything.
#3… Or, I see there’s an opportunity to renovate your kitchen and your bathroom and add $60,000 in value with a $20,000 investment. I will put in the $20,000. I’ll bring in my construction crew. Then afterward, you and I will split the difference between the equity that was gained…
…On that extra equity where it’s going to add $50,000 in extra equity, I’m going to get my $20,000 back for the renovations, which leaves $30,000 left, and we’re going to split that. You’re going to get $15,000 extra over and above what you would’ve got if you’d have just listed it as is. I’m going to get $15,000. Then I’m also going to get the listing over here for the rest of the principle. Okay?”
Be Creative Right Now
Here are three things I want you guys to do right now.
First, create reserves for personal and for business.
Make sure you have six months reserves in the bank. Now, if you don’t have six months reserves in the bank, then should you freak out? No, but you should prepare for it. You should pull back and go, “What expenses can I trim right now where I can start to build up more reserves?”
Stop spending on the ice cream. Stop spending on things that don’t matter. Cut the Netflix subscription for awhile. Whatever you have to do, start building up cash reserves, not just for the pandemic, but if a recession does kick in, there’s always amazing opportunity, but only for those who are prepared, only for those who actually are ready for capitalizing on this opportunity with cash or with partners who have cash.
Second, go out there and start building relationships with private investors.
Start to build relationships with those private lenders because those people are the people that have been piling cash for years, and they want opportunities in the market when those opportunities arise.
Start to build relationships with people that are well-off in your area. Ask them about what their plans are, tell them about what you’re doing in real estate, and start to get them interested in it.
Don’t ask them for money, but if you talk about what you’re doing enough, they will be interested, they will ask you, and they will say, “Hey, yeah, that sounds amazing. Let’s chat about it.” Okay? How do you make sure that you are being proactive in building those relationships right now?
Third, grow during these times.
I don’t want you to pull back. I talked about before how there’s going to be a lot of people who are going to be doing the, “Let’s sit and wait.”
There’s going to be a lot of people who are doing the pullback and like, “I’ll pull back out of fear because I don’t know what’s going to happen.” Now is NOT the time to pull back, NOT the time to pull back business strategy-wise, NOT the time to pull back investment-wise and marketing.
Right now is the time to double down. If you’re an agent, get a darn Zoom account and start talking with your customers over Zoom. If you’re a personal trainer, start to do personal training from home with Zoom. Get creative right now, guys. Don’t hit the brakes on that stuff.
What I want you guys to do is grow personally right now.
Understandably, there are many people who are unsure and worried right now. But, don’t treat this as a vacation. This is not the time to treat this as a vacation.
Now is not the time to say, “Hey, this is where I can lighten up my load.” Now is the time when you need to get really diligent and grow personally. Read personal growth books.
This is the time when you need to actually double down on your learning. This is the time when you actually needed to take courses or focus on family.
We need to be more diligent, which means acting more decisively, which means less wasting our time, which means tackling an opportunity that’s in front of us and not doing the sit and wait.
It means being innovative and being creative and adding more value than you’ve ever, ever added in your business ever before.
Don’t pull back. Step in. Lean into this. Be healthy. Stay away from people if you have to, but get creative. We’re going to weather this with you. We’re insanely positive about this. Agents and investors are not stopping their transactions right now.
They’re still meeting with sellers physically or over Zoom. They’re still meeting with a buyer physically or having open houses over Zoom. Investors are doing the same.
Investors are doubling down on their marketing right now because they need to get that marketing out for the next three, four, five, six, seven weeks while people are really needing your services now more than ever.
They’re not pumping the brakes.
This is where you need credibility in your business more than ever right now. You need credibility. You need online credibility. You need performance from your Carrot system.
I’ll give you guys another update in the next week or two on pandemic stuff and how you can really strategically go out there and market better and differently and how you can change your business to work more remotely during these times.
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