Growing and scaling a business can be a huge challenge for some entrepreneurs.
You can be pouring your heart and soul into something and still feel as if you are dragging your feet through the mud.
In this Truck Talk, I wanted to share some thoughts on mindset, thinking bigger and knowing how to shift within your business without losing your focus. Growing your business, and reaching the next level is 100% possible when you take the time to follow these steps.
Listen in!
Read the Full Show Notes Below…
Playing Bigger | My Massive Mindset Shift From Russel Brunson’s Mastermind
Hey everyone! It’s 12:09 am, and I am just getting back into town after attending Russel Brunson’s Mastermind out in Boise! When I started my business, I knew I didn’t want to have to travel in order to grow my business. I wanted it to be by choice, for things like this event, which can completely change the way you see things.
I’ve talked about MasterMinds in the past, along with my journey with them. A great one we did was with my friend Jason Medley, founder of Collective Genius. While there are numerous Mastermind groups out there, investing in the right one will change your business and your life.
Limiting Beliefs
Looking back to only about 3 years ago, I was feeling a bit dragged down. I wanted to grow my team but I didn’t know how. I doubted my ability. I thought about hiring a CEO, and I even thought about selling the company and starting over with something else. I never thought I could lead a team of 20 or grow my company to over $10 million.
However, by changing my mindset, thinking bigger, and surrounding myself with people who had been there, we were able to grow Carrot into something truly awesome. We now have 27 full-time employees, with 30 on the books by the end of the year!
Scaling and growing a company can be a huge challenge for entrepreneurs. Let me know in the comments if growing your business, scaling, and building a team are things you would like discussed on the podcast as we move into 2020!
You can also check out Episode 66 of the Carrotcast in which I discuss the 8 steps I had to take to become successful in getting over the hurdles I was facing within my business.
Playing Bigger
Back around 2010, I wanted to figure out what it was I wanted to do. I was fortunate to attend one of Gary Vaynerchuk’s first speaking gigs, which challenged everyone in the room to do something bigger.
Some friends and I ultimately started a Mastermind group called the 100,000,000 Mastermind. Did I really believe I would build something that big? Probably not. It was an audacious goal. At that time I was doing a couple of hundred grand a year, which was great, but I needed to take several steps before thinking about $100 million.
I use the analogy of a seed quite frequently in that when you have a seed, it is just a seed. It is not an apple tree, it is not an apple, but it has everything within to become a massive, sprawling tree if taken care of properly. By watering, feeding, and nurturing the tree, it will grow into something huge. Now if you are always planting seeds, forgetting about them, not taking proper care of them, nothing is going to grow. The same holds true for your business.
At the time, I didn’t know how hard getting there would be. The first million took a lot of work, however, the second just sort of happened. It took some more work getting to 5, and getting to 10 required a new marketing strategy and technique. I had to shift my mindset and what we were doing.
I’ve learned, that the people with the most success didn’t get where they are from that first initial goal. Over time, their goals, priorities, and methods shifted. It’s about taking the next step, nailing it, and moving onto the next step.
Choosing Your Number
Dan Kennedy always talked about the importance of having a specific number in mind for your financial goal. Without a specific number, you will always be chasing, looking for more, and never happy with what you’ve achieved. That is… unless your number changes as you blast through your limiting beliefs.
As you grow, take a look at the companies you admire most. Take a look at what is working for these companies, and model what you can. If you are a brand new agent, it doesn’t make sense to model the biggest agent in town. Look for an agent doing 10-15 deals. Look at how they are doing that as the strategy will likely be different from the big guys down the road.
Finding Your Niche
There is a great book by Al Ramadan called Play Bigger. In his book, Al talks about the importance of finding your niche, and becoming a “category king.” If you are an agent who handles luxury properties, niche down and become the absolute best, go-to source for luxury property in your area. Go all-in with your message so everybody thinks of you before any of the competition.
My final takeaway is this: As my business has grown, I’ve learned not to ask what do I need to feel happy. Rather, how much do I need to do to make the biggest impact as possible? Today, I want to use my money to do things to positively impact the community where I live. I want to invest in local businesses that help to touch people’s lives. Money is no longer a need, it is a tool.
Let’s bring the humanity back to business guys!
We have some great training here at Carrot to help you build credibility, niche out, and reach the goals you have set for yourself. Check out our webinar here or sign-up to take our 30-Day, Authority Building Challenge!
All everyone is talking about is content and technology to grow your business, but it’s nothing without the ability to effectivly communicate and convert the attention you are generating.
– Sam Khorramian
Within just a few years, Big Block Realty has grown from a small one-room office to the fastest-growing brokerage in the state of California! By focusing on what the agent needs to successfully sell real estate, Big Block is able to attract some of the best talent in the game.
Today, Sam Khorramian breaks down their insanely-effective real estate content and sales funnel strategy for both real estate agents and investors.
Ready to stop chasing business and instead learn how to have it chase you? Sam’s here to teach you exactly how.
Read the Full Show Notes Below…
100% Commissions and 100% Support for Agents | Welcome to The Netflix of Real Estate w/ Sam Khorramian, CEO of Big Block Realty
Hey guys! I am really excited about this week’s podcast. I got to sit down with my good friend Sam Khorramian, one of the founders of Big Block Realty. I first knew Sam from another one of my companies, then I came across his name again while flipping through Inc. Magazine. His company was listed as one of the fastest-growing companies in the US! Not just the fastest-growing brokerage, but #26 on the fastest-growing list of companies! This happened year after year as the success of the brokerage took off.
Big Block was founded in 2012 by Khorramian and Oliver Graf with the desire to build a brokerage that was for the agents. By being so agent-focused, they have been able to grow their team to over 100 agents, doing about 3B in volume.
It is only just recently that Sam and I have gotten to know each other and I am excited and inspired by the work he is doing. The way they are marketing and using content is truly amazing. They are truly adding more value for the agents as the market is beginning to change. Currently, we do some work together through The Closing Table Mastermind Group.
The Convergence of Retail and Wholesale
Retail and wholesale have always been very separate. But nowadays, the customer is ultimately just looking for a solution to their problem. They want to sell their house, it doesn’t matter if it’s to an investor or a private buyer. The way the market is going today, the same company should be able to offer multiple solutions for buyers. Investors should be agents and agents should be investors.
Sam and his partners have been able to grow their business so quickly because of the amazing value they are able to offer their clients. Not only does their business serve buyers and sellers, but they also offer investment, marketing, and long term wealth creation services. As more and more tech companies and iBuyers come onto the scene, agents and investors will need to find the best ways to set themselves apart. By adding the additional services, Big Block is able to better present themselves as the authority to monetize the agent’s commission and ensure that their team is seeing as much of the commission as possible.
Making the Shift
For Big Block, they look at market shifts as places where they can thrive. They look at where things are now as well as where they think the market will be 5 years for now. No matter what the market is doing, they want to make sure that they are seen as the authority. This will ensure their agents are the ones being sought after, not having to do the chasing themselves.
Sam and Oliver want to support agents by doing more investing through the brokerage, helping agents to build and maintain wealth during the downturn. Their desire to remain agent-centric will continue as they will continue to offer 100% commission and support to their agents. Currently, Big Block operates in California, with plans for national expansion!
The Importance of Being the Expert
I always tell the real estate agents and investors that I work with that becoming the expert in their field is the key to building credibility and authority. And the only way to get there is through content. Big Block has been using content to position themselves as the expert for first-time buyers, as a resource for tired landlords, and as the place for investors to work and attain greater profits.
As the expert in their field, they have a greater influence and can ask for a greater commission uncontested. As the industry changes, your business isn’t going anywhere, but you will need to change how things are done.
Content That Works
Branding yourself with great content will help you to draw in more business. Whether you are a veteran to the business or just getting started, excellent content creation will help to build your influence and ensure your success. Big Block has an entire team devoted to video marketing and creating content funnels that work.
Their 3-step funnel looks something like this:
The first videos are for awareness, letting people know you exist
The next step is the consideration stage, letting people know they offer the solution
The final step is conversion – helping people become comfortable with the process and ready to pick up the phone
Everything they do falls into one of those categories. At the bottom of the funnel, they offer case studies and testimonials. Every post includes a CTA, taking them to the next step of the process.
Big Block is a great fit for solo agents who are actively producing, teams of 4-10 people, and investors who are working on the retail side of things as well. They offer 100% commission and 100% support. Along with many other benefits such as free training, free coaching, brokers who are also attorneys, an office that is open 7 days, and much more.
For Sam, his focus is and has always been, to solve the customer’s problem. By creating a brokerage of flexible agents with the ability to offer numerous options, I have no doubt that he and his team will continue to ride the next wave as it comes.
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Check out Big Block Realty, California’s fastest-growing real estate brokerage
With less than 10 minutes of effort, you’ll have video and real estate content for your blog that will boost your SEO, help you stand out with more credibility, and convert more visitors into leads.
Featured Resource: Our Free Video Marketing Playbook For Investors And Agents!
Cool update, the videopost we walk you through within this blog post actually ranks in Google for the phrase we went after. It took a month, but it’s ranked #1 now!
Video Transcription
What’s up y’all. Trevor here with Carrot
Creating content for your real estate website as an agent is easier than you think. Today we show you how to shoot videos without any fancy cameras or lights, or scripts.
Many of you guys are not doing what I’m asking you to do and doing video posts.
Putting content online is critical for standing out and building expertise, building authority, and our tool called VideoPosts turns your short videos into written content that ranks.
In this video, I’m going to actually do one in real-time, show you how I ideate, find the idea, research it, do the video, get it uploaded, and optimize it, all in one. It’s a real video. I’m putting it on my own site.
So first thing right here: doing a videopost in real-time. I’m going to go through it really quick.
First of all, we’re going to pick the topic based on the niche that you’d like to own.
Next, we’re going to research it using Google suggest; it’s crazy, easy, free, simple, cheap.
Number three, shoot the video, under three to five minutes using this fancy, crazy expensive tool called a cell phone.
Number four, upload the video to YouTube from your cell phone.
Number five, optimize and create the videoposts in Carrot, all in under 10 minutes.
All right. The first thing we’re going to do here is … I’m in Roseburg, Oregon. I have an entrepreneur cowork space called The Loft.
I want to rank a video there for people that are looking to find a cowork space. I’m going to go to Google right here. I’m just going to type up phrases that I think someone might want to search if they’re looking for a cowork space.
So Roseburg co … We’re at Roseburg cowork … Right there: Roseburg coworking space. Cool.
So that’s my title. I’m going to click this and see what’s ranking here. We’ve got this. The Loft Roseburg is there, but I want my personal website rank in there.
Okay? I want my personal website rank in there. So I’m going to create a video. I’m going to upload it. I’m going to optimize it for Roseburg coworking space.
I know that’s the phrase people like the search. I’m going to scroll down to see if there are any suggested searches at the bottom. That’s a pretty obscure search phrase so there’s not any there.
If there were, you can use those search phrases at the bottom.
Here’s an example. Let’s say it was North Umpqua river homes … Homes for sale.
You can use the suggested searches for ideas right here. These are ideas you can work into the words of your video.
One of the keys here, one of the keys right before I start to record this is you need to be saying the types of words in your video that people are going to be searching in Google.
So whatever you say is actually going to then get put in the video, which we’re going to yank the words out and put it in writing.
The way that you rank well with videoposts is to localize all of your content. I’m going to do it in real-time right here, doing a videopost to rank really high. We’ll show you the real results later for Roseburg coworking space.
[VideoPost Script Now Ranking #1 in Google]
Hey, this is Trevor Mauch here in Roseburg, Oregon. And I’m actually in The Loft in Downtown Roseburg right now: 950 South East Oak Avenue.
And I’m shooting this non-professional video on my cell phone, just to kind of give you a little tour of The Loft, of this space. So I just came out of my office right there. I’m going to flip the lights on here in a second, but this is our kind of general gathering room.
We have our gym right here. We have about 13 different companies all doing amazing things, innovative things here in Roseburg, a lot of people probably don’t know about.
Here’s our awesome content studio where Born And Raised Outdoors does podcasts. I do podcasts. Other people do videos and podcasts in this studio, available for Loft members.
Popping over here now, flip on some lights, we’ve got our kitchen. We’ve got our lounge. I’m going to take you over to the actual office space on the other side.
If you’re looking to get a cowork space here in Roseburg, Oregon, if you’re looking for an entrepreneur workspace, you want to have a space to work with other amazing people, The Loft is the heartbeat of entrepreneurship in Roseburg, Oregon.
We’re growing our company here, Carrot, a fast-growing software company in Oregon right here. This is our lounge, kind of a break area. Over there we have a lot of cool parties, lots of fun stuff. You can lounge right here and hang out.
I’m going to take you over to this side now and show you some of the more offices.
So what do we have here at The Loft? We have a gym. We have a studio. we’ve got our lounge, our bar, our kitchen. I think it’s about 13 offices, I should have flipped the lights on before I did this video also, of amazing people. Now currently, as I speak, we don’t have any availability but there might be availability. Or at the very least come and visit us and see what we’re doing here at The Loft.
Taking you in the boardroom now.
This is our boardroom, so if you are going to be working and you want to do meetings, you’ve got the white board, you’ve got the big meeting area right here. And I’m going to be coming in here and kind of showing some of the other Loft members.
We’ve got a one of our offices here. I’m interrupting my team. Mr. Josh back there. This is one of our offices here at Carrot. Right over there is where my office is, where I started this video.
And then we’re going to take you over here by the rest of the offices, then take you out front so you can see what our building here in Downtown Roseburg looks like.
And if you’re looking for office space in Roseburg, this is a good fit. Once again, we’re currently full right now but we have amazing offices all over here, a historical building.
And most of these people here in Roseburg, in The Loft, are creatives. It’s people who are creative. They’re doing marketing. They’re doing video work. Once you move into The Loft, you’re going to get a sticker up here to be able move in and out at your leisure.
And I’m going to take you out front. You’re going to see where we are here in Downtown Roseburg. And once again, if you’re looking for downtown office space, we are so passionate about, and we so love the Roseburg community here.
But this is where you’re going to see right here. We’re in beautiful Downtown Roseburg. We have the coffee shop right across the way. We’re there quite often. This is The Loft, right here. You’re going to see it. This is Oak Avenue. Right up here you Have Main Street.
And so I’m going to finish it with this. If you’re looking for a coworking space here in Roseburg, if you’re looking for an office space here in Roseburg, if you’re looking for a place downtown to call home, to grow your business, to have fellowship, to be there with other creatives that are doing amazing things from software, from graphics to IT security, marketing, YouTube stars, the whole thing, come down here to The Loft and check it out.
So what are some other things if you’re looking for food? We have a lot of amazing food down here. We’ve got Brix down there, we’ve got Old Soul right there. So that’ll kind of give you an idea of where we are.
Check us out at theLoftroseburg.com or come down here to 950 SE Oak Ave. There’s one of our downtown residents right there, the owner of Umpqua Sweets and Treats.
Come down here to 950 Southeast Oak Avenue and join The Loft and check us out. Even if you don’t want an office, just come visit us.
If you’re looking for an entrepreneur coworking space and if you’re looking for a place to rent an office here in Roseburg or whatever, you just want fellowship, come check us out.
Cool. So, you see, it wasn’t perfect. I stumbled a bunch, I didn’t know what words I was going to say sometimes, but you make it through it.
And while I’m heading back to the office, I’m actually going to upload that on YouTube in real time.
So the title for this one is just going to be Roseburg Coworking Space, probably put a “dash, The Loft.”
I’m going to click “upload.” It’s now uploading on my phone. It’s going to take them a minute or so. And then from there, I can take that and I can put it directly inside of my Carrot site.
So I’m now logged into my Carrot site, over here, and I’m going to show you where to go for video posts.
So right here I’m going to log into my account. I’m going to click “content.” And we’re doing some things to make this even simpler and quicker. And then we go to “posts.” Okay, and then just go ahead and click “add new.”
Just go ahead and start a new post.
And there’s this little option right there that says “video,” okay? And what I’m going to do is I’m just going to go to my YouTube account … So YouTube.
So go to my channel. I’m not a professional on YouTube. I’m working my way through this as well. Okay, so right now this video is uploading. It’s crunching. It should end up here in my account here in a bit. I did mark it as unlisted, but you can see right there it’s still uploading right now. It’s about one minute remaining.
Once I get this video, what I’m going to do is I’m going to put it inside of video posts. I’m just going to take that URL. I’m going to paste it right there. It’s going to import everything in.
The title for video posts should be the keyword that I typed up into Google, which was Roseburg Coworking Space.
I’m going to maybe put a little bit of content on the back end of it so it’s not just this boring short title. it’s probably going to be Roseburg Coworking Space – The Loft.
Let’s go and do this. Roseburg Coworking Space, downtown offices at The Loft workspace.
That’s a long title. You have to make it like that. But you can see, I put my title right there. I’m waiting for my video to upload and start crunching.
Once I get the video in there, I’m just going to go ahead and paste the URL straight in there. Okay, I’m going to do it right there and then there’s going to be a button right here that you click and that’s it. That’s all you’re going to do.
So I’m going to take a video right now just for sake of time on this particular video, and I will put in my old Loft video.
I’m just going to go edit right there, copy and paste the URL. You can see our system imported the whole thing in there. And then if I was logged into an actual Carrot account, there’d be a big callout there that says “embed video” add your YouTube video, and click next.
So I’m going to do that. We’re going to check back in in a couple of weeks and see where that video post is ranked in Google.
That’s it. The steps were this, let me review them:
Pick your topic, whatever your topic is going to be. In this case, I want it to rank well for coworking spaces. That’s one of my niches.
Research using Google Suggest to peg a title, just like I did. Just go to Google and start typing in what your prospect might type in, find other suggested phrases. That’s now you’re going to be your title. Pick the best one of those for your title.
Make sure you say those words in your video in natural spots multiple times. Say different words that are related to that.
Okay. The next step here is you go shoot the video. Make it a three to five-minute video. That video I shot was four minutes. Upload it to YouTube straight from your cell phone.
The title of that should be the word that you grabbed from Google. Throw that now into videopost with Carrot and you’re done.
All right, I want to challenge you to make your first video post. You saw this whole video, including flub-ups, including us, walking around, actually not producing the video post, is right around 10 minutes.
We know that you can do the same thing. My videopost was four minutes. It took me three minutes to upload it to YouTube, a minute to research it, four minutes to walk around filming myself, flubbing up words.
The people are going to love it and it’s going to rank well on Google. Do the same thing. Use videoposts!
When it does launch, you want to collect clicks from motivated sellers or interested buyers, and you want your cost-per-click to stay within budget.
Easier said than done, of course. You might think that a campaign will convert like a million bucks, but then you launch it… and it doesn’t.
(You’ve been there, right?)
How can you possibly know what will convert well and what isn’t before you even launch the campaign? Well, ultimately, you can’t. But you can use a few simple copywriting tricks to increase the chance that your ad is a winner.
When it comes to platforms such as Google Ads, it’s just words on a page, no images or video allowed. So let me walk you through 8 ad copy for real estate PPC campaigns tips that will have you lowering your cost-per-click and increasing your conversion rate in no time.
But before we dive in, you need to be aware of the different ad platforms’ character limits. Character limits can make crafting ad copy a little difficult, so you’ll need to have an idea before writing.
Google Ads:
15 headlines with 30 characters for each headline. 4 description lines with 90 characters for each description. Option to pin your headlines and descriptions in specific positions of your ads. Set your display URL path. Set your final URL like a normal expanded text ad.
Microsoft (Bing) Ads:
Titles 30 characters each, up to three ad titles Ad text 90 characters each, up to two ad descriptions Final URL 2048 characters, including prefix (e.g., “www.”), suffix (e.g., “.com”), and tracking templates
Facebook Ads:
Facebook ad specs for single-image ads are:
Text: 90 characters Headline: 25 characters Link Description: 30 characters
8 Tips To Write High-Converting Ad Copy For Real Estate PPC Campaigns
Tip #1: Write 3 Ads And Choose The Best One
Writing three ads from the get-go rather than one can help get your creative juices flowing and give you more ideas for connecting with your audience and getting them to convert. I do this for many different ad copy, and I find that the last one I write is usually the best, because you start getting in your flow, and the ideas become more solid as you write them down.
Try this: write down three complete ads, headlines, and descriptions, and see which one you like the most. More than likely, one will stand out among the rest. This is a quick way to ensure you’re not running an ad just because it was the first thing that came to mind. Your brain needs to simmer a bit before it comes up with high-converting ad copy.
Let me give it a swing to show you what I mean…
[Headline] Need to sell your home fast for cash?
[Description] Foreclosure? Probate? Divorce? We can help you through your difficult life situation, putting a fair cash amount in your pocket faster than anyone else (within a week).
[Headline] Need to sell your house for cash in one week?
[Description] Foreclosure? Probate? Divorce? Whatever you’re going through, we’re real estate investors who buy properties fast for cash to benefit sellers like you.
[Headline] Sell Your House For Cash in Just One Week (1,257 Properties Purchased)
[Description] Foreclosure? Probate? Divorce? Whatever you’re going through, we’re real estate investors who buy properties fast for cash to benefit sellers like you. We’ll make your difficult situation easier.
Tip #2: Run Consistent A/B Tests
If you’re in the real estate business for the long run, which you are, then you will be doing a lot of marketing. And the more you learn about what makes motivated sellers and buyers tick, the better ads you can write.
Perhaps the best way to learn more about your target market — what makes them click and convert — is to A/B test pieces of your sales copy.
Do not, though, A/B test two totally different ads. While that can be interesting anecdotally, you can’t possibly pull any quantitative information from those tests since there are too many differing factors.
Instead, choose which part of an ad you want to test, and then create two identical ads, save for the one element that you want to test (headline, for instance).
Here’s an example of an A/B test where the marketer tested the description (pretty significant difference in results for such a small change).
If you’ve spent any time as a copywriter, then you’ve heard it a million times: the headline is the most important part of your ad. It’s what people see first; in the case of Google ads, it’s often the only thing they look at before they click.
If that doesn’t illustrate the importance of your headline, I don’t know what does.
Make sure you dedicate a little extra time to brainstorming a title that resonates with your target market.
First, you want to start with a basic ad headline.
Sell Your House Fast For Cash!
Then, you want to look for places to add specificity to the title (specificity is enticing, vagueness isn’t). Here’s an idea.
Get a Fair Cash Offer On Your House in Just 24 Hours!
That’s a little better. We can make it even more specific if we’re willing to do more targeted advertising.
Going Through a Divorce? Sell Your House Fast For Cash
Or…
Dealing With Foreclosure? Sell Your House For Cash Now!
You can see how each title gets better as I spend a little more time thinking about it. The same will be true when drafting headlines for your Google ads.
Google Ads Tips: Including your keyword within your title can help increase your Quality Score.
Tip #4: Try Using These Power Words
Different words trigger different thoughts and different emotions. Fortunately, most people are very similar, and certain words trigger similar emotions. Using words that evoke the right emotion can be extremely effective at making your copy more enticing.
What words should you use? Here’s a list of power words for any sales copy you write.
You/Your
Because
Introducing
Welcome
Unique
Announcing
Secret
Hidden
Truth
Temptation
Now
Discover
New
Win
Cheap
Free
Lazy
Humiliation
Alone
Reject
Stress
Here are a couple of examples of these and other similar power words in Google Ad campaigns:
Here are a couple of examples of these and other similar power words in Facebook Ads:
If you’re a Carrot member, don’t miss the opportunity to learn from the industry’s top Facebook marketers. Check out the Facebook Leads Masterclass today!
Tip #5: Touch On The Prospect’s Emotional Pain Or Desire
When you’re writing sales copy, you aim to connect with your prospect’s emotional pain or desire (depending on whether you’re trying to attract sellers or buyers). No one buys anything or commits to anything without first seeing a vision in their head — a vision for how that product or service might solve their problem or give them something they desire.
No one buys a car without first imagining owning it. No one buys a house without first walking around and imagining living in it. And no one will work with you unless they can see the tangible benefits of doing so.
Your copy should wise up to that and try to get the prospect to imagine what it’ll be like to work with your business.
For example…
[Headline] Get Your Life Back — Sell Your House Fast For Cash
[Description] Sick and tired of dealing with the demands of foreclosure, probate, or divorce? We can’t solve everything, but we can make you a fair cash offer on your home and close in just one week… Can you imagine no more worry?
[Headline] Reduce Stress — Sell Your House For a Fair Cash Offer in One Week
[Description] Stressed from difficult life situations? We’ve helped hundreds of people sell their house fast for cash and regain their lives. Ready to start enjoying life again?
Tip #6: Try Statistics or a Case Study
One of the best ways to make your Google Ads copy more enticing is to use statistics or a case study. This builds credibility for your business and makes your promise more believable.
Here are some examples of what I mean… notice how the data makes them far more enticing than some previous examples.
[Headline] Need to Sell Your House Fast? I Just Handed This Person $50,000… Cash (Case Study)
[Description] Let me tell you a quick story about someone who just sold their house to me in one week for $50,000. You can do the same thing… but first, I need you to understand this simple process…
[Headline] Need Quick Cash For Your House? We Can Help (1,500+ Offers Sent)
[Description] When you need to sell your house fast for cash, we’re the people you come to. We’ve made over 1,500 cash offers and helped hundreds of people out of difficult situations. Are you ready?
Tip #7: Respond To Common Objections
If you know what objections people will have when they read your ad, why not deal with them right from the beginning? Maybe not in your headline… but definitely in your description.
Here are some of people’s most common objections about working with real estate pros…
Can I trust you? — First and foremost, people want to know that they can trust you and your business. Real estate is a big transaction, the biggest transaction that most people will ever deal with, and it’s for that reason that people so carefully try to vet who they’re going to work with to ensure that they’re the real deal.
Can I buy or sell fast? — Speed is important if you’re dealing with motivated buyers or sellers. No one wants to wait forever to get their pain or desire fulfilled.
Will it be difficult? — People want to know that you will do all the legwork. They don’t want to have to do anything difficult themselves.
How much will it cost me? — No one wants to be nickel and dime’d. Tell people how much it’ll cost them and move on with it.
What’s the catch? — Most people think that everyone is trying to manipulate them, especially marketers, so indicating that there are “no strings attached” can be a helpful sales strategy.
Tip #8: Study Your Competition
A great way to get ideas for your own Google Ads campaign is to spy on the competition and see what top agents and investors in your market are doing. Then you can either copy them, try to do better than them, or do something completely different. Either way, you can make more informed decisions when you know what the competition is doing.
You can use a tool like ChatGPT to do competitive keyword research. Or you can keep it simple and type your target keyword phrase into Google and see what ads come up.
Conclusion
You can’t know whether an un-launched ad will perform as you want it to. Only once you hit the big red button can you measure your ad campaign’s cost-per-click and ROI.
But these eight PPC Ads copywriting tips will give your ads a far better chance of winning the click and the day. Give them a try, and let us know how it turns out!
YouTube star, Real Estate DO-RU, and friend of Carrot, Max Maxwell is back on the podcast to share exactly how he’s built a wildly successful wholesaling business from scratch and what he’s doing to crush his revenue numbers year after year.
You’ll get to hear: Max’s RVM and cold calling strategies, but more importantly why he’s shifting away from it and putting more energy into his biggest lead source.
What you need to focus on as a one-man-shop, and the keys to growing your team.
The #1 tool his team is using that creates more inbound opportunities, more intelligent conversations, and builds trust and credibility with sellers.
How to stay consistent with your marketing in order to catch sellers at the perfect time.
How to cold call without getting hung up on.
And where he’s finding cash buyers… Listen in!
EP 159: Building a $1M+ Wholesaling Business w/ Max Maxwell
Are you ready to take the next step in your online real estate marketing? That step is creating a Google Ads account.
Real estate investors face several challenges when it comes to generating leads. Traditional methods, such as direct mail and cold calling, can be time-consuming and yield low results. Even with a strong online presence, attracting qualified leads to your website can be tough.
This is where Google Ads comes in.
According to data, Google Ads can be a highly effective lead source for real estate investors. Without it, investors may struggle to compete in today’s crowded digital landscape. With Google Ads, investors can reach potential sellers and buyers actively searching for real estate solutions, resulting in a higher likelihood of conversion.
Furthermore, without a strong online advertising strategy, investors may miss out on valuable leads. The data shows that 97% of consumers search for businesses online before making a decision. If real estate investors are not visible in these search results, they may be losing out on potential leads to their competitors.
In addition to missing out on potential leads, not having a strong online presence can damage an investor’s credibility. With 78% of consumers saying they research a business before engaging with them, it’s crucial for investors to have a professional and user-friendly website. By using Google Ads to drive traffic to their website, investors can showcase their credibility and expertise to potential leads.
Overall, real estate investors who neglect to utilize Google Ads may miss out on valuable leads, damaging their credibility and struggling to compete in today’s digital landscape.
In preparation for creating a Google Ads account, there are a few important steps. While setting up the account itself is relatively straightforward, running effective Google Ads campaigns requires some groundwork.
Before You Create a Google Ads Account
First and foremost, ensuring that your website is relevant, user-friendly, and adds credibility is crucial. Your Google Ads account will drive traffic to your site, but once visitors arrive, it’s up to you to convince them to take action.
Your advertising efforts will likely be wasted if your landing pages are disorganized, lack relevant information, or are otherwise not conducive to conversions.
For guidance on creating effective landing pages that maximize the return on your PPC campaigns, we recommend checking out our land page best practices.
Before Starting a Google Ads Account, You Need to Consider
Your Google Ads account (formerly known as AdWords) can help you to bring qualified visitors to your real estate website. Once they’ve made it to your website, it’s YOUR duty to convince them to convert.
To make this happen, you must create pages that will compel your visitors to take action. If your pages are cluttered or lack relevant, credible information, you will have a leaky bucket and will likely be wasting money.
Take the time to focus on customizing your website a bit, especially your “Testimonials” and “Our Company” pages. Check why these two pages are so important. Also, be sure your real estate website is mobile-optimized. All Carrot websites are mobile-friendly. Therefore you’re maximizing the potential of your Google ads account.
2. Commitment. You must be willing to build Google Ads into your long-term financial and time plan.
It’s practically impossible to see the full potential of your Google Ads account from the start. It’s essential to recognize that PPC is not a short-term venture. Establishing a strong structure, expanding your keyword lists, identifying negative keywords, and testing ads and landing pages takes time.
Plus, you will likely start constantly changing keyword bids to fit your budget and keeping your ads in relevant, high-performing ad positions. Getting the first phase dialed in typically takes 1-3 months.
3. Dedication. You must be willing to spend time or outsource your account.
Your account is now up and running… you can sit back and relax. WRONG! There is still plenty of heavy lifting.
If you haven’t managed a PPC account before, I recommend taking serious time to learn. You must be comfortable with the Google Ads dashboard and educated enough to make good decisions. Making the wrong choices can cost you money and cause your account to take a step back in productive data.
Once you are comfortable to embark on the challenge, you must monitor your performance thoroughly. That hard work will well pay off in the end.
Take time developing your strategy, identifying your goals, and calculating your cost per lead/deal. You must know how much you will spend on Google ads to close a deal. As we know, all market profits aren’t created equal. An investor in New York might need to spend more to get one deal closed over someone in Memphis. You must know your market.
After you know your budget, you’ll need to have a solid keyword strategy in place. It’s a good idea, especially if you’re new to Google Ads, to start with highly targeted keywords and expand into broader terms as you get more comfortable.
Creating a New Google Ads Account for Real Estate
Step 1
Head to www.ads.google.com to set up an account. When creating an account, you can create it under your existing Gmail account or set up a new one. I like to set up a new Gmail account ahead of time, which I use specifically for Google Ads management. This way, my personal email isn’t bombarded with emails from Google Ads.
Step 2
Now that your account has been established, you must complete a few housekeeping items, such as entering your business name.
Step 3
Enter your website URL.
Step 4
Review your website visual on mobile and desktop devices.
Step 5
Choose your main goal. For most real estate professionals, the goal will be to generate more leads.
Step 6
Google offers the opportunity to connect your Google Analytics account. If you do not have a GA account, you can choose to “skip for now.”
Step 7
Time to create an ad. Choose three headlines and two descriptions, and enter your phone number.
Step 8
Google will present different keywords based on a theme. You can always adjust your keywords later.
Step 9
Next, you’ll be asked to add your target locations.
Step 10
Set your daily or monthly budget.
Step 11
Review your campaign.
Step 12
Finally, you are prompted to set up billing information.
Congratulations
You are now ready to start creating your Google Ads campaigns for real estate. We wish you the best of luck!
Be sure to hit us up with questions in the comments section below. Also, if you’re a Carrot member, join us on our weekly Coaching Calls, where we cover many PPC topics, SEO, lead generation, website design, and much more!
Not a Carrot member? What are you waiting for!? Check out our plans and get started today!
In the spirit of our Carrot core value of consistent improvement and innovation, we’re excited to share some improvements we have been making to all Carrot member sites!
Carrot sites have beautiful custom fonts available to help differentiate your site and look great. Previously served from Google Fonts, we’ve now simplified the font loading process and moved font files to the Carrot CDN (Content Deliver Network) – reducing lookups, and optimizing delivery.
We’ve also audited all Carrot site themes and improved font weight selection to ensure your sites have great readability across more devices and rely on fewer different weights to load
🎉 Result: An average of about 2 points increase in PageSpeed score, but more importantly, a visible speed improvement in your browser for when the site looks loaded.
Bonus: If speed is your only goal… there is now an option to forgo web fonts all together and just use the default browser fonts.
Embed YouTube Videos w/ No Slow Down!
What’s new?
Better looking YouTube Embeds
Faster page loads with YouTube Videos
No performance hits for adding multiple videos
Video is a great interactive way build credibility. Whether it is an informational video on your home page, or a series of testimonial videos. Unfortunately… loading up a YouTube video can take a lot of resources, and performance (especially on mobile devices) is worse the more videos you add to a webpage.
We’ve solved this issue by implementing deferred loading of video embeds!
Now, rather than loading all YouTube embed assets, scripts, etc. for every video on your page immediately, your Carrot site automatically shows a preview placeholder for videos until the visitor clicks the play button.
Once the play button is hit, the YouTube embed is loaded and starts playing!
🎉 Result: We have seen dramatic load time reduction, for a page with single video this can improve PageSpeed scores by 15+ points (out of 100). Adding multiple videos, this can show an improvement of multiple seconds on your page load and as much as 25 PageSpeed score points!
More Responsive Billing Feedback
We also want to take a moment to share some more behind the scenes updates – we’re hard at work improving the visibility of your billing status for your Carrot membership.
You will now get real-time updates in your account about the status of your credit card expiration or missed payments.
We are also rolling out new systems to ensure that billing related communication comes your way more reliable, should there ever be a problem with your card.
You’ll now also be prompted immediately upon sign-in if your billing has lapsed past the 10-14 days when your account will go temporarily inactive. That way you will have the quickest path to keeping your account current and your Carrot sites live!
How to activate these new updates?
You don’t! We’re already on it for you – that’s the beauty of Carrot 😄
Nothing to install, nothing to update 😎 We’re on it!
Let us know what you think!
Check out your own sites, and reach out to Carrot support if you have any questions – we love hearing from you!
In 2018, PPC was the second highest lead generation medium for our members.
Trying to rank on page one of Google can be a daunting task for some. It takes time and resources to invest in a full, all-out SEO strategy. Even then it could take months to notice.
What can you do in the meantime?
Well, many of our members make use of both PPC and SEO — using the former to generate short-term traffic and the latter to generate longterm traffic.
In this intro to PPC for Real Estate, we run down what you need to understand if you’re considering this route. Including:
What is PPC for Real Estate?
How does PPC work?
What are the benefits of using PPC advertising for Real Estate?
PPC is a broad term used for various cost-per-click platforms real estate professionals use to get in front of their target audience. These include Google Ads (AdWords), Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, and numerous retargeting options.
Overall, PPC is a digital marketing strategy in which you advertise within a search engine’s sponsored results by bidding for the keywords, ad sets, and/or retargeting list connected to your real estate niche.
Pay-per-click is exactly that… you pay each time your ad is clicked. Although, there are times you can be charged for impressions (number of times your ads are shown).
Google Ads (Adwords) still reigns as PPC king for generating motivated seller leads. Facebook ads can also be an effective way to generate motivated sellers as well as buyer leads.
Facebook cost-per-click is also considered a lesser amount compared to AdWords. It’s important that you understand where your leads are coming from and the value of your cost per lead to fully understand which platform works best for you.
How Does PPC Work?
Starting with the basics. When a motivated seller types a search query into Google, the search engines provide two sets of results: pay-per-click ads (sponsored) and organic results.
As seen in the picture below, the first three results on top are sponsored ads (indicated by the green square around the word “Ad”).
The other results below the ads are organic results. More than likely, the organic website results have climbed the rankings by executing a solid SEO strategy.
With PPC, when the searcher clicks on one of the ads, you (the advertiser) is charged for that click.
The price of that click will vary per the competition for that specific keyword as well as your target location(s).
You can use specific tools to find keyword traffic estimates as well as the competition and cost-per-click estimates. Tools such as:
Advertising with PPC ads can have many benefits. Here are some of the top reasons you should consider using PPC as part of your online marketing strategy.
1. You Have the Opportunity to Control Your Position on Page One of the Search Results
PPC advertising allows you to gain the most valuable ad space on whichever PPC platform you choose to use. If that’s Google, then you have the ability to get on top of the first-page search results without having to dedicate the time and resources for SEO.
Claiming ad space where most eyes will see them will increase your odds of getting solid lead generation and return on your investment.
2. Place Your Ads in Front of YOUR Audience
This is two-fold.
First, you can use specific keywords in your PPC ads. This will allow you to reach a specific target audience based on your location. For example, using keywords such as…
“Sell my house fast in Baltimore”
“Sell my house in Chicago”
“We buy houses fast in Boston”
This allows you to reach the local audience by choosing keywords that are targeting your audience location.
Second, you have the ability to use geo-targeting to limit who can see your ads based on locations. For example, if you are searching for motivated sellers in Baltimore, it wouldn’t be smart to allow searchers in D.C to see your ads.
You’d be would wasting your budget to allow searches from outside of your target areas to see and click on your ads.
3. Control Your Budget
Adverting with PPC ads offers you ultimate control of your money. You set your desired ad spend. If your budget runs low, platforms such as Google Ads will notify you that your budget is limited. This allows you to reassess your current PPC strategy and make the necessary adjustments to optimize your accounts.
As mentioned above, the majority of your PPC campaigns will follow the model that you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.
4. PPC is Immediate
There’s no wait time! Unlike SEO, PPC is live the moment you decide to turn your campaigns live. If increasing your buyer list for your real estate website is your goal, PPC ads allow you to get in front of your target audience NOW rather than waiting the span of time it takes for an SEO campaign.
5. Testing
PPC ads are an excellent way to split test your website, ad copy, or images that resonate with your target audience.
Using the A/B testing approach, you can test your ads and landing pages to see what form, color scheme, design… etc., are generating the best results. Once you gather enough date, you can use this information to make strategic moves to your campaigns to maximize your PPC ROI.
6. Track Your Results to Maximize ROI
Proving ROI is a major part of being a marketer today. Luckily, PPC ads allow you to track every aspect of your ad campaign to connect your efforts to your results.
You can see how each keyword is performing. You can see how each ad is performing. And, you can see exactly where and when your leads are reaching you.
You want to prove the worth of your PPC campaign. You’ll want to be sure your conversion tracking is linked to your website and for most of you, you’ll also want to be sure your lead source is relaying to your CRM.
Then you’ll be able to track from click to deal to see your profits that have come from your PPC strategy.
Plus, PPC website visitors are 50% more likely to purchase something than organic visitors (i.e. they’re more motivated).
So, who should use PPC? Those who have the ability to plan, have patience, and are willing to spend money to get results.
If you make well-informed decisions from the time you launch a PPC campaign, you will be able to increase traffic and leads to your website.
However, PPC usually isn’t best suited for those who are looking to dabble. You need to have a mindset that provides enough strategy to sustain months and sometimes years. Those who have similar “go-get-em” attitudes have fared especially well with PPC advertising.
Real estate also has a bigger advantage over other industries who utilize PPC. Profit margins can more than justify the costs associated with PPC.
If you are looking for a simplified answer of how to get started with PPC advertising, it can be summed up into a relatively easy process.
Here’s a simple look at how to plan your own PPC for real estate strategy:
1. Conduct a competitor analysis.
Identify the competitors who might be outranking you in your market. Analyze their search terms and search volumes using tools such as Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest as listed above.
2. Choose the real estate keywords you want to advertise for.
Conduct keyword research to learn how your target audience is searching for your real estate niche. If you’re looking for buyers for your agent website, then use such terms as, “new homes for sale” or “homes for sale in”.
3. Create ads based on thorough research.
Develop ad copy that will resonate with your target audience. Looking for motivated sellers? Use ad copy such as “We Buy House in Any Condition” or “Sell Your House As-Is Fast”.
4. Split test ad copy and/or landing pages to compare how different aspects of your PPC campaigns perform.
For ad copy testing, track metrics like click-through rate and cost per click. For landing page testing, track metrics such as conversion rates to determine the success of your PPC campaign.
You’ll also need to continuously manage keyword bids based your results. This will help you get the most ROI from your efforts.
5. Optimizing beyond your ads.
Real estate PPC campaigns are created from many parts beyond keyword bids and the ad copy. It’s important to think beyond the landing page and start to think about optimizing other pages that will help build credibility and connection with the searchers.
Three important pages to consider optimizing are your “Our company”, “Testimonials”, and the “How it works” pages.
This heat map from specific PPC traffic, confirms the need to optimize these pages. PPC traffic is looking for confirmation.
Conclusion
Don’t feel overwhelmed by this PPC intro. By having a sound strategy, educating yourself and putting in some time, you’ll be off and running with a successful PPC account. Or, consider hiring a third-party to consult or manage your account.
Overall, PPC can provide immediate results and be a lucrative piece of your online real estate marketing strategy.
Be sure to hit us up with questions in the comments section below. Also, if you’re a Carrot member, join us on our weekly Coaching Calls where we cover many PPC topics as well as SEO, lead generation, website design, and much, much more!
Not a Carrot member? Whatcha waiting for! Check out our plans and get started today!
You want to generate more organic leads but you don’t know how to track your real estate SEO performance. That’s common.
You want to pull more traffic to your website (with less money) and you want to convert that traffic into cash for your real estate agent or investing business.
That’s good — you’ve chosen the right strategy: SEO. Since people who find your website all on their own are usually more motivated than those who see your ad on Facebook, SEO doesn’t just drive traffic but works to improve the conversion rate of your website. And with high-quality traffic and leads comes less time spent dealing with tire-kickers who’ll never convert, regardless of how hard you try.
In other words, SEO benefits your business in a multitude of ways. Less time spent on the wrong leads, more time spent on the right leads, more website traffic, higher conversion rate, consistent lead generation, and even financial predictability.
But there’s a problem…
How do you know if your SEO strategy is working? How do you know that you’re SEO performance heading in the right direction?
Here are 4 mission-critical SEO metrics to keep an eye on while you’re climbing your way through the rankings.
4 Mission-Critical Real Estate SEO Performance Metrics You Need to Be Using
1. Rankings
This metric might be obvious to you…
If you’re going to drive passive traffic to your website and you’re going to convert more leads without running more paid ads, you must get to the first page of Google.
But that can take months, years even. How do you know you’re making progress?
The simplest way to check is to open an incognito web browser window and type in the search phrase that you’re trying to rank for. Then click through Google’s results and see if you can find your website.
Problem is, that’s time-consuming, especially once you’re trying to rank for 10 or 20 different keyword phrases. At that point, you don’t want to manually check all those rankings.
This tool tracks your rankings for specific keyword phrases in near real time. You can use it to quickly determine where your website is at for multiple keyword phrases you’re targeting. Every page in Google typically has 10 results, so 1-10 means you’re on the first page, 11-20 is second page, and so on.
2. Domain Authority
Another way to determine whether you’re making progress in the eyes of Google is to check your website’s domain authority.
What is domain authority?
It might sound complicated, but it’s actually pretty simple when you get down to it. Domain authority is the overall authority that search engines (Google, mostly) attributes to your domain. More authority is better and means that your website has a higher chance of ranking in results. Conversely, a low authority means that Google is unsure of whether you’re trustworthy or not (yet) and it’ll be more difficult for your website to get on the first page of Google’s results.
But the more content you create, the more opportunities you’ll have to rank in search engines (each page or blog post has a chance to rank). This is why we include monthly expert-written content as a part of our (Carrot’s) Content Pro and Advanced Marketer Plans.
You might, for instance, get your website ranking for “real estate investors who run 6 miles per day”, but that ranking doesn’t do you any good if people aren’t already typing that phrase into Google — and not just anything, the right people.
The reason that it’s so important to do keyword research before you start executing an SEO strategy is that you want to make sure that the phrase(s) you’re targeting isn’t a total waste of time.
You can use Ubersuggest to check the search volume for any given keyword phrase.
Just type the phrases you’re thinking of trying to rank for into the search bar and click “Search”. This will provide you with some information about how that keyword phrase performs in Google and with other keyword phrase ideas.
[cta offer=”seobible” color=”orange”]
But, back to website traffic.
When you start ranking for your target keyword phrase(s), that’s when the rubber meets the road. Check your analytical information to see where your website traffic is coming from and if you’re actually getting more traffic from search engines.
Look at the “Traffic Sources” in the bottom right hand corner to determine where you’re website traffic is coming from and if you’re SEO efforts are paying off.
If they aren’t and you’re already on the first page for multiple keyword phrases, then you might want to target a keyword phrase with higher search volume.
4. Conversion Rate
Imagine that you’re ranking on the first page of Google for several different keyword phrases. Let’s even imagine that those keyword phrases are driving passive traffic to your website every month — maybe a few hundred visits.
When analyzing your SEO strategy, there’s only one more step in the funnel to make sure everything is working as it should: is that search engine traffic converting on your website?
Because it doesn’t matter at all how much website traffic you get if none of that traffic is turning into leads or, when you call them, they have no interest in your services.
So keep a close eye at how that SEO-based increase in traffic is affecting your overall business — are you getting more leads? Are you doing more deals?
You should be.
And if you’re not, then either something is wrong with your website (maybe it’s not building enough credibility or it loads too slowly — Carrot website’s are proven to be high-converting out of the gate) or something is wrong with the traffic you’re driving (they aren’t people with the right intention.
If you’re a real estate investor in Idaho, you might be able to get your website ranking for “The best mountain biking trails in Idaho”, but that website traffic isn’t going to do your business a whole lot of good. Something like “Sell my house fast in Idaho” would be far better.
Adapting Your SEO Strategy To Dominate Your Market…
In the SEO series we’ve been working on over the last few months, we’ve laid out lots of different strategies to help you get ranking in Google.
But here’s the thing: each market is different and different strategies will work better (or worse) in different markets. Some markets are more competitive and difficult to rank in while other markets will only require a few months of effort to see results.
In the end, you need to do whatever is best for your business.
Here are a few final thoughts that might change the way you approach SEO in your market:
Competitive Market — If you’re in a highly competitive market with lots of other investors or agents gunning for the same keywords that you’re trying to rank for, then you might be better off aiming for long-tail keywords to start. These are just long keyword phrases that tend to have a lot less competition (and are thus easier to rank for). Consider, for example, “Sell my house fast for cash easily in [location]” versus “Sell my house in [location].”
Uncompetitive Market — In an uncompetitive market, you might find that you can target more basic keyword phrases with higher search volume and still see results within a few months. In that case, take advantage of the market you’re in and create new content to rank for each phrase your possibly can.
Paid Ads VS. SEO— While we’ve talked a lot about SEO over the last few months, let’s not forget that paid advertising should be a critical part of your overall marketing game plan — especially when you’re just starting out. SEO will provide you with long-term success and financial predictability, but paid advertising works quicker and can get you leads by the end of next week. So use both as you need to to build a thriving business.
Conclusion
SEO has lots of benefits to offer your business if you put in the work to make your website rank.
It’ll take time… but stick with it and you’ll pull it off.
On your journey, you can use the above tips to track your progress and adjust your strategy based on your market.
And let us know if you have any questions along the way — we’d love to help however we can. :-)
