Are you a phone warrior? Do you spend your days chasing new real estate business? Even if you are a master at conversion, there are only so many hours in the day to contact online leads. What if you could attract new clients rather than having to track them down? What if you became a local celebrity, and your community automatically thought of YOU in association with real estate?
Eric Eby is a listing agent with Curtis Realty Group, Northwest Arkansas’ digital marketing leader. Eric excels at converting online leads, but to reach his goal of 100 transactions in 2019, he made the decision to leverage video to attract additional clients through referrals. So far, Eric has produced six videos as part of the Naturally NWA series, and he is quickly becoming a local celebrity in the community.
Today, Eric joins me to discuss his decision to employ video in an effort to attract new clients. He explains why he chose to focus on the ‘local love’ in NWA, establishing referral relationships by selling free advertising to small business owners. We offer insight around the significance of a creative hook that catches your audience’s attention right away, and Eric shares the incredible response to his latest video. Listen in to understand the value of having local expertise as a real estate agent and learn how Eric’s growing status as a local celebrity is already paying off!
Today’s Topics
- Why Eric is leveraging video to attract clients
- The challenge of coming up with a creative hook
- Eric’s decision to focus on the local love in NWA
- How Eric’s videos establish referral relationships
- How to sell free ads to skeptical business owners
- The value of having local expertise as an agent
- How Eric builds rapport to convert online leads
- The incredible response to Eric’s latest video
- Why it’s crucial to open with an attention-getter
- The referrals Eric has generated after 60 days
Connect with Eric Eby
Learn more about Curtis Realty Group at searchnwa.com and email Eric at eric@searchnwa.com. Contact Eric through Facebook at facebook.com/ericebyhomes/ or give him a call at (479) 263-1075. Take a look at his video series, Naturally NWA, on YouTube at youtube.com/channel/UC66ugcydl3Bv20le1LaDFjA.
Resources
Full Transcript
A good realtor will spend three hours a day calling. This is not your typical boring real estate show. This is real estate marketing redefined, uncensored and unedited in what’s working today in the market minus the fluff. This is real estate marketing dude, because just having a license isn’t enough. Now please welcome your host the unprofessional professional Mike Cuevas
another episode of a pop up podcast with real estate marketing dude, and we got a doozy for you today. This is the first time we’re streaming live in the real closer Facebook group. What’s up real closers? Hope all is well we got a good show for you today. And what we’re going to be talking about is how to become a local celebrity using video in your business. And we’re going to go through and we wanted to bring on someone who we’ve been seeing just literally making waves in his little town in Northwest Arkansas. And we’re gonna go through exactly what he’s doing and how he’s doing it and what’s happening around it. I think this is a topic a lot of people sort of overthinking it. I think it’s really a lot simpler than that. So without further ado, what we want to do is go ahead and introduce our guests, Mr. Eric ybe, Northwest Arkansas. How you doing, man? I’m great, Mike, thanks for having me on today, buddy. Yes, yes, Eric, please go ahead and tell the listeners here a little bit more about yourself sort of background and whatnot. And we’ll get right on into the interview and see exactly what the hell you’re doing.
Okay, sure. So I live in Fayetteville, Arkansas, which is in Northwest Arkansas, home of Walmart world headquarters and Tyson world headquarters. And it’s about anybody that does business with Walmart’s got offices here. So it’s a growing area. And I’m in my third year in real estate, and I’m on Brian Curtis, his team, the Curtis Realty Group team here in Northwest Arkansas, and I’m specifically a listing agent on our team. And I just love this business. It’s such a such a satisfying thing. It’s such a satisfying business, I just love it.
So let’s start off here at the beginning. And let’s go through sort of your journey. So if you guys don’t know who Brian Curtis is, he does a lot of business. And he’s one of the probably top marketers I would say in the space. But he drives a lot a lot of leads. I mean, if you guys got leads coming from every bit every angle, and when you and I originally met, we’re sort of like, Hey, what are started talking about this at least we’re like, Hey, where’s the human side? Where’s the referral side? Where’s the branding side of that? A couple. When did you start the video stuff? Like when did you actually start creating video content? How long ago was it?
So my about me video came out? The first one I want to say is the beginning or mid November of last year?
So about two months, we’re in about 60 days. 67 days? Yeah, somewhere around? What’s the total amount of videos you have done? Five, six,
I think six. Okay. I have my about me video, I think there’s been five business owner interviews and the About Me video.
Why did you want to get on video to begin with? Like, what about it? What are you trying to accomplish? And let’s start with that. Okay,
so I’ve got really big goals, as you kind of said, you know, Brian’s, the way our team is geared is Brian does a ton of marketing and he buys a lot of leads, and he gets leads from all these different sources. And so we’re chasing business constantly, you know, we’re pounding the phone, and we’re calling all these leads and going after, you know, a lot of nurturing and a lot of you know, a lot of it’s not cold calling, necessarily a warm calling, maybe. And you know, it’s just pounding the phones, and I’m good at that. I don’t mind doing it. But I felt like we you know, we do client events and stuff like that to try to get referrals. But we that’s one of the things that we’re not real strong at is getting more referral business, because we’re always chasing that that new business that’s coming in through the leads that Brian buys. And so, you know, I wanted to do 100 transactions this year. And I’m you know, last year was my best year. And I didn’t really hit it hard all year. But I did write 50 transactions last year. And you know, I knew that if I did hit it hard all year, I can probably realistically do close to 75. But that 100 numbers sticks in my head is that’s my goal. I want to do 100 deals a year, consistently. And I knew that either I pound the phones harder, which I only have so many hours in the day to do that, or I start doing some stuff to start attracting business to me. And so you and I had met actually a club wealth event and listen to your presentation and heard what you were doing in Chicago. And I said, and this guy’s got that end of it figured out. He doesn’t do any of this stuff that we’re doing. He probably does more business than you know most of the people on our team. And I just recognize the value right away and what you were doing and how that could add to What I’m already doing with all of the calls being a phone warrior, this is the phone warrior. Yeah, that’s what I do, man. And so it’s, you know, the video thing I thought was a really brilliant idea to, you know, basically get myself out in front of people and remind them that I’m in real estate without hitting them over the head with a lockbox all the time and just calling and asking for referrals, you know, we do the client events. And that’s, that’s a great way to remind people that we’ve worked with in the past that you know, that I’m in the business, and we’re still doing this thing. But you need more consistent getting out in front of people rather than just a few times a year for those client events. And so, you know, when you when you started your new company, and got the program set up to where, you know, I’m not a techie guy at all, I like to say I’m tech targeted, I’m not good at technology, I don’t like it. And so I knew that I wanted to do this stuff. But you know, I learned a long time ago, do what you’re good at and hire out the rest. And so, as soon as you started talking about your new company, I knew that I definitely wanted to work with you, I’m developing my own brand within our team, you know, I have zero plans of leaving the team, you know, I’ve got a really good situation where I’m at there, but you know, it’s going to help me get more business, and it’ll ultimately help the team as well.
I think that’s very well said, You hit something on the on the head right there, you have to realize is that every single one person has a brand. And, you know, I think the biggest challenge becomes that we look at ourselves, it’s one it’s very fucked up to think about yourself as an individual brand as an individual agent. But you’re an independent contractor, and you got to really look at your business no differently than if you actually opened up a physical bakery, for example, yeah, you would still have to do the same thing. Now, in a business that 70% of people use the first agent they speak to, what should be that goal. The other way to look at it too, is like when we look at closed transactions, you either have a ton of systems working for you like I can only imagine what you guys have a Brian Curtis team, where you’re gonna go ahead and run Yeah, it’s probably insane. You probably have an automated text message autoresponder sent to a video email text to this to that when you’re able to compete in a way that most people can’t, because it’s expensive to operate that way, right? Absolutely. You guys. I think actually, if I’m not mistaken, I had Brian on on a show. And he said, He’s the one who got speed to lead was the number one rate and the speed to lead. So it’s always about being first. But here’s where I think a lot of people confuse the difference between what a brand really is, and a lot of people think it’s a it’s a logo. Well, a brand is not a logo, like if you think your brand is your logo, you don’t have a fucking brand. You have a brand when you could literally be a fly on the wall in a conversation and see, john and Jane speaking. And john and Jane are like, Hey, I’m buying a house and Jane’s like, Oh, yeah, really cool. Hey, you gotta use my guy, when your name is instantly associated with the term real estate and what you do for a living amongst your general public or the general audience. That’s when you have a brand. So brand is marrying that whole thing all together. But I want to start at the beginning of your journey. Because I think it’s important for a lot of people to understand before you started creating video, like, first you made a commitment to do it. Great. Right, but what do you think is the biggest challenging part on getting started? You know, it doesn’t? Yeah,
it does. It’s, it’s, you know, the, the creative aspect of it, you know, you don’t want to just put videos out there that that aren’t going to get seen, you know, you got to learn real quick and through kind of, you know, as each video as I get more and more comfortable doing it, you got to have that attention grabber right off the get go. And so I like to think of myself as a creative guy. But I’ve realized pretty quickly, I’m not as creative as I thought. And so, you know, we’re doing with you guys, where you can help me get those creative juices flowing and come up with a plan of, you know, here’s what we’ve got to do. And you know, just the hard part of getting started is just figuring out where to start. And, you know, working with your company, you guys send me everything I need you were able to write the scripts and like what the About Me video, I’ve never done that before, it was uncomfortable. And basically, you know, I had you there to kind of direct me through every line and how to say every line and, and I learned a ton, you know, just off of that about me video of you know, here’s the types of shots we need. And here’s that the energy that you need to have with it. You know, you can’t just, you know, you can’t be ben stein and just, oh, yeah, I’m in real estate, you know,
you hit on a point. And here’s the thing too, is that, let’s get this out of your heads right now. This isn’t a lead generating strategy. We’re not generating leads, we’re generating attention. When you have the attention of an audience or you have the attention, let’s just break this down, folks, cuz I want to get into psychological of it. And the math, this isn’t theory, it’s mathematical. So when you have the attention of a certain amount of people just take the whole numbers, let’s just say 100 people, if you have the attention of 100 people 100 people when they think of real estate, they automatically envision you like you’re the first thing that As a mind, kind of 15% of that 100 people are fucking moving this year, most of them don’t even know it yet, but at the same time 100% of those 10 to 15% have a referral for you. Or they do have referral because you see real estate’s really highly motional, which means that there’s highly conversational and that’s why it’s so referral based one of the reasons, at least in my opinion, now, the business strategy you did, let’s get in the context is getting some more meat and potatoes. So you’re doing small business owners? Yeah. All right. And so what Eric does is he creates small interviews of small business owners, but, you know, we sort of went more deeper into the strategy wasn’t just creating business owner interviews in general, right? We named your show naturally NWA. And let’s dive into a little bit on that, because I think a lot of people get stuck. What you said earlier is like, What do I say? And how do I sit?
Yeah, so you know, Arkansas is the natural state. And that’s when it’s known as and northwest Arkansas, especially Fayetteville, but even, you know, even where Walmart is, with all the, you know, young executives, they’re starting to be more of a local push there, too. As far as businesses, you know, we got a lot of got a lot of chain restaurants, you know, all over the place. But the feel for the local, that local love in this area is is huge. You know, I’ve lived in a lot of other places, and there’s no local, anything, you know, everybody just goes with the chains, because that’s what you know, they’ve been told their whole life is good. And so that’s one of the things I absolutely love about this area is that it’s not about the chains, it’s it’s very locally focused all that, you know, people really go out and support local business and, and the restaurants here and, and that’s, that’s what I wanted to highlight. You know, there’s because of Walmart, especially, and Tyson and all these companies that they their headquarters here, we get a lot of relocation folks come in through here, and they don’t know anything about the area. You know, like, you know, I’m sure before you started working with me, you thought Fayetteville Arkansas, you guys, do you wear shoes and stuff like that, you know, are you wearing overalls to the list? overalls and boots, yeah, a piece of straw hanging out of your mouth or something? Yeah, you go 45 miles in any direction, it is like that. But this northwest corner is such a special place. And I just wanted to highlight that, you know, I wanted to be able to tell, you know, and the thing I’m noticing is even the people that are seeing my videos that have lived here aren’t aware of a lot of the places that I’m featuring, or the backstories with how these places got started, the business owners themselves seeing an increase in their business after my videos launch. And then just the the conversation that takes place, you know, among people in the area kind of gets a buzz around that business. And, and it feels good to me, you know, to be local, because that’s a big thing in this area. Well,
let’s I mean, honestly, that’s what brand is, the brand is not the logo and the brand is the overall perception of who you are and whatnot. Right? I like it. So folks, we’re talking about like diving into your content strategies, because Eric could easily go out there and film Applebee’s Chili’s and all of that. But there’s nothing that sticks. There’s nothing for him to connect with his audience. And really what you’re saying is, I’m a local expert, and I’ve been here my whole life, and then that rule to the area. Right, right. Right. One of the things that is a lot of fun with this is sort of cracking that brand or that message, because now you’re excited to go out and talk about and create content on those different things. So let’s start with business owner strategy, let’s talk about part of this strategy is to, you know, create referral relationships amongst people who are most likely to refer and regardless of what part of the market you’re in, or where you’re at, I mean, I’m sorry, but I’d rather not work with business owners because they share my mentality of referrals. And then others who don’t. So tell me about what’s happening with the business owners. I think the first time you tried people like who fuck are you? What do you do? Right? Yeah. It’s sort of like, what are you gonna do? What do you mean your new interview? Yeah, well, though, they probably thought I was gonna be some, like, live video shaky and bad quality and all that.
Yeah. So you know, the first interview I did was with a, what we call the friendly, you know, a guy that I had known that I knew he owned a brewery in Fayetteville. And then the second guy that I did owned a Italian restaurant, and I had actually sold his house and so had relationships with those guys. And I started out with him, the guy Corbiere that I interviewed first, he didn’t, you know, have any pushback. He’s like, Yeah, man, anything to promote my business I’m into then the guy at the Italian restaurant that I knew. He kind of like he agreed to do it, but he was just like, Hey, you know, whatever. Yeah, just come on, and do it. And he was, he was on over when I did it because he was he didn’t think anything like major. And, you know, video came out and you know, I went to eat dinner there like a couple weeks later, and he happened to be in the restaurant. And he came over and just thanked me over and over. He’s like, man, I was just blown away. And how nice that video turned. I said, I’m completely embarrassed that I was hung over during the thing. So I said, well, you couldn’t tell him unless you know, you. Maybe you would tell your melanin, his breath in the room? Yeah, there’s no, we don’t have smellivision, you know, yet. So he was blown away at how good it was. And then I, you know, I didn’t really have any other connections with people who own businesses that I thought would be a good fit for my brand, necessarily, you know, the people that had companies that work with Walmart, they’re not really pushing the product, they do more consulting type of stuff. And I didn’t think that was a, you know, a good subject for a video. And so I started going out and approaching other business owners that I didn’t necessarily know. And I thought I was good at sales until I started trying to sell free advertising. That was hard. You know, it’s like, If it sounds too good to be true, people think it probably is. And, you know, I had to call you that one day and said, Man, I’m just having people kind of push back and say, yeah, you know, maybe we’ll do this down the road, or, you know, I’m not interested in necessarily, and I was just blown away that anybody wouldn’t want their business to be promoted. And so when I took a different approach, it’s saying, you know, I’ve got a shot to kind of the real estate part out of it, and just said, you know, hey, I’ve got a show called naturally NWA, where I, you know, feature local businesses and different events and stuff in the area, and I need content for my video. And I think you would be a natural fit to be on my show natural fit for naturally interview, throw that in there, like that play with branding constantly, you know what I mean? And so, have something to brand now you have a concept of, exactly, you know, when I crafted My message to these people a little bit differently, and made it more about them and less about me, and just built it up to what it actually is, I got a lot more positive reception from people, I’ve actually got business owners contacting me now want me to do videos for them, because the first one had, you know, like 1500 views. And then the next one had, you know, another 1500 views, and then the next one didn’t have as many and then the next one had a whole lot. And so you know, that as I started getting more comfortable doing it, and figuring out what’s the secret to getting more views, and it’s just the content that you’re putting in, especially at the beginning of the video to capture that viewer, you know, to make them click on it and listen to it and stuff. It’s majorly important. And so, now I’ve got some data that I can share, you know, with business owners and say, you know, this is my reach. And this is, you know, what it’s doing and,
you know, you could honestly probably start charging for it. In all honestly, like, you could probably I you’re creating a mini TV commercial. I mean, you could literally probably start charging business owners 300 bucks, yeah, to do the interview, which will pay for the video. Right? It’s very interesting. I want to backtrack a little bit and just talk about the positioning of this right so a lot of our friends like a lot of our stat nerds Jesse colection shout out is in our in Inman this week, right? And last week, and I got a lot of messages, and I saw a lot of chatter, but what they said was like, Okay, what are all the data showing? Right, and the number one thing consumers chose that they want, or like, the skill that they want their real estate agent to have, believe it or not, was local expertise, right? A lot of times, a lot of questions we get are like, hey, how is creating a small business owner interview gonna actually lead the business? Or how is me creating a video about the parks or the forest preserves in my market gonna actually lead to close transactions? How does that work? Folks, we’re our storytelling. There’s an absolute difference between marketing and advertising. advertising is the stuff that you guys are doing on Brian’s team. Marketing is the consistent jab that you’re like, Don’t forget, I exist. I’m right here, dude. I am not going anywhere. Motherfucker, here, I Boom, boom, boom, it’s your constant job, that you’re in there. Right? What happens though, is that, would you be creating hyperlocal video content? If it didn’t have something to do with your expertise? No, people see right through that. That’s all it is. It’s you wouldn’t be doing it. So if I get on camera right now. And I start saying, All right, I’m a cook. I don’t know how to cook or shit. But if I get a camera, I’m like, start chopping up a bunch of vegetables in front of you. You’re gonna think I’m a chef. Right? Right. It’s the same thing. positioning is everything. And I think what people like most about you is your personality. And you don’t get in the car with somebody until you like them. Let’s have this conversation. I’m curious. I don’t know this about you. I want to know what your number one key because Eric is absolutely excellent at online converting leads. Like you can get someone on the phone and before you know it. This guy’s like in their car. Alright, he’s just really good at that. And agents either have that skill or not. But I want to know, what do you use to convert your online leads? I wonder what that answer is? What do I use? What’s the biggest skill? How do you get people to talk to you when you’re on the phone? You’re following back? Got an inquiry?
Just what’s the number one thing? Just building rapport with those people asking a lot of questions. You know, I’m not just going, Hey, you inquired about 123 Main Street, you want to go take a look at it. I’m asking questions What attracted you to that? Or is it some about the area? You know, and I asked a lot of questions, you know, how many people are going to be living in the house? You know, you have, you have kids, you know, and the school district is important, and it’s showing them that I care about their situation. And I’m there to help them find exactly what they need. And it’s and it’s, I guess, I get the skill from having a sales background. I don’t even think about doing it anymore. But as a train newer agents on my team, I realized that’s definitely not a skill that everybody has. And you just, you just have to learn how to dig deep. You know, I’ve heard Sam talk about over and over about digging deep and getting to their motivation. And so, lots of questions.
Let’s apply this whole client journey thing to dating. Alright, people want to get an idea of who you are and what how you were all before they actually decide to do business with you. So on your case, I like converting folks it’s the exact same thing if Eric just go straight for the kill on the initial Hey, what’s up you call it 123 cherry lanes you ready to buy now or tomorrow? I’m sorry. He’s getting hooked up hung up. He’s asking questions to build the report when you’re creating the content and videos and content online with all that’s happening is people are allowed to check you out. And if you guys don’t think that people judge a book by its cover, you’re insane. They all freakin do. And shirt This is that we’re attracted to like people now. Eric, the last 10 people that you closed from cold leads not to want to say because I hate saying that, that you closed that you help acquires buy or sell property. Did you realize that like nine out of 10 of them were your beer drinking buddies. They became that Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s because you attract like people we all do. So when you put yourself out there, all you’re really doing is putting yourself in front of your brothers from another mother, your sisters from another Mister, what’s your thinking? They’re like, hey, yeah, well, my hair is not done, right? Or my fucking eye bags under my eyes. Perfect doesn’t exist, except in one entity, his name is God. So think that you have to look perfect. As a matter of fact, the less perfect the better, the more authentic. I think that’s when people really resonate to you. You’re just like, dude, right?
Yeah, yeah. And, and then one thing that, you know, I was, nobody hardly knows this about me. But I’m covered in tattoos, I’ve got a lot of tattoos. I didn’t know if you were gonna share that or not. But please go heard it. You know, and I’m in the Bible Belt. And so there’s still a lot of a lot of people around here that will judge you for the colors of your skin, you know what I’m saying? And so I was very nervous about, you know, doing the videos, you know, because even in the summertime, I’m wearing long sleeve idle conversations. Yeah. And so, you know, I just don’t want to I didn’t want people that have a reason to not want to do business with me before I got an opportunity to meet them. And one thing that you said to me that really resonated is you really want to work with those assholes Anyway, you know? And the answer is really, no, I know, you know, and so I’ve, you know, like, I’ve had a couple videos where I’m, I’m not worried about covering up and I just,
I feel like you opened up a lot, just when you figured out what your voice was, and you don’t, anymore, you know, now let’s go back through the business owner strategy, and there’s a lot of different types of content. I think you’re gonna start doing some neighborhood tours and you know, different lesson or whatnot. But at the end of the day, I wouldn’t focus so much on what you’re saying as much as how you’re saying it. Yeah. Let’s go through the last few videos you’ve done. What type of view count are we hitting? What are you looking at? And just tell me what’s sort of happening behind the scenes because we haven’t had a chance to catch up entirely and yeah, everything both sorry about the last. The last video we have right now is the best one you’ve had, right?
Yeah, absolutely. So I did a video for a it was a Valentine’s Day theme video for a chocolate shop. And so there have been a bar maker here in Northwest Arkansas and they have a lot of retail location and a factory where they make the chocolate here locally. And Forrest Gump is my favorite movie. Listeners may have noticed that I have a little bit of an accident and I can sound like Forrest Gump and I, you know, I told you Hey, man, I have this idea that I want to do a chocolate shop and I was thinking about maybe the opening scene for Forrest Gump where you know, he’s sitting on the park bench and offers the lady a chocolate and you know, all that kind of stuff and you help me kind of craft that script to have a little bit of a real estate swing to it. And that video hit on Tuesday, four o’clock in the afternoon my time and as of right now, the last time I looked about an hour ago, just on just on my personal Facebook with no ads or no boosts or Anything like that, I’ve got a think 6000 views or 5500 or something like that. And then on LinkedIn, it’s got over 1000 views already. And it’s just just insane. Like it’s it’s had how many shares? It’s over 50 shares already hundreds of likes and shares, likes and comments close to 100 comments probably. So that one’s been my most successful one. So far. The only thing that’s different from it from most of the other ones is just that opening scene where we got more creative, you know, in the Bentonville square, like I had several people asked me if I went to the actual spot where Forrest Gump looks similar. You know, it’s a real thing. It looks like the scene of Forrest Gump. Yeah, I went to Goodwill and bought a light tan suit when I had a blusher.
Let’s talk about the attention getter. Cuz I think this is this is the key, I believe the attention getters. Everything is the first 10 to 15 seconds. And yeah, like I want you guys to do your own. Like, this is common sense, right? This isn’t rocket science, what we’re talking about. Now, let’s just put yourself in the viewers in the consumers shoes. Like there’s two different types of videos I can create, I can create a video talking about today’s interest rates, today’s market updates, and I can put out there it’s gonna be with me in front of a whiteboard with a white with a pen, and I’m gonna go check this out, check this up. Now, I’m gonna probably get like 10 comments. Eight of them are from title reps, mortgage brokers, and a couple other people. They’re trying to date me to take my business. When the other two, I might get one or two and I might get 100 views. Now, when I see you in Forrest Gump, I’m like, What the fuck is he doing? And then I’m like, that’s sort of funny. Let me turn the sound on next. And I’m like, Oh, I gotta watch the rest of this. Yeah, it is just the attention getter. And I want you guys to this is no different than dating. Like, if I go and try to when I met my wife, I wasn’t like, Yo, what’s up with go What’s going on? I was like, I had to tell a joke and to get her to laugh, because I have to sell her on why it’s more interesting to get to know me. In video, you can do the same thing. Here’s what this is about. This is interesting. You’re gonna take note of it and blah, blah, blah. And when did you start with the attention getter? Because I think the results like doubled if not tripled?
Yes. So So this video did the forrest gump the one that I launched a couple weeks ago was for axe throwing place that just opened up my opening scene was you know, I got in front of the camera with X was like looks like Northwest Arkansas. And then I turned around and through that, he stuck it in the target and and that one was a really cool video like I was like, I was blown away at the responses that one got because you know, you told me off the get go that usually the About Me video gets more engagement than most of the other ones because it’s more about me and you know more about personable? Yeah, absolutely. So I was real surprised to see the backs house video surpassed my, my about me video and the number of views that I had. And so I was like, Okay, I’m starting to figure this out. I guess the first attention getter that I really did was I did one for a burrito place here in Northwest Arkansas and I recreated like, like an infomercial, where you know, the the people who are screwing up on the infomercial, they are overly dramatic, and I rolled a burrito and just fuck the whole thing. Just destroyed. And you know, we turned into the screen turned gray and went. And that one that one probably hasn’t done as well as I thought it should. But you know, it’s a learning curve, you know, I’m getting used to it, you know, it’s figuring out what those things are that are going to capture that attention. And that infomercial part wasn’t in the first five to 10 seconds, it was probably 15 to 20 seconds. And so if it would have been right at the very beginning, I feel like that video would have, you know, gotten more engagement than it did you live and learn, you know, it’s not an exact science, you just have to try some different things. And when you figure out something that works, you need to try to duplicate it as much as you can.
Let’s talk about other people in your market other agents is are you seeing anybody doing anything similar to you? I get that question quite a bit. No. I think it’s something Yeah, I think it’s coming.
I hope not but if they if they want to bring it I’ll I’m out doing I don’t care.
Big competition of attention. That’s all it is. That’s the fun part about this, though, is that how what’s the amount of time it takes you to shoot a video and then I’m down
to like 1520 minutes and I’m in and out. The most time consuming part is really like setting up the tripod making sure the microphone is working and know all that crap. You know the interview, when I do the interview, it’s basically the same questions that I’m asking every single business owner just kind of crafting it to their business a little bit. And sometimes the business owner wants to get a little wordy and they kind of will start rambling a little bit, you know, we can cut that I let them know upfront. Hey, you know, say everything you want to say I probably won’t use all of it. I mean this video to be about three minutes long. And I just let him you know, ask him the questions and I’ll elaborate on stuff when I feel like there’s another point that they should make you ask a follow up question. That’s just my, I guess my sales trainee, just always ask more questions and get more information. And so I feel like that’s something that I’ve been able to figure out how to do pretty well. And it gets the full message out there that that business owner wants. Yeah, man, I just love it. It’s so much fun to do. And like, no, to answer your question. There’s no other agents in our market right now, doing any kind of video, like I’m doing, you see, mostly just like Facebook live videos when they’re going to do an open house. And that’s about it.
Yep. And I mean, that’s, at least what I’m saying. And that’s why people would do it. And this is about separating yourself from the herd of other agents and having different value props, any results yet? Are you seeing them I want to get I know you’re getting a lot of attention. And you got a lot of people messaging you and all that. But specifically, is there any I want to see what close transactions you’ve been added for 60 days anything coming yet? Is anything on its way? What are we looking at?
So, you know, this is like you said, this is not really a lead generation strategy. This is not a short term, low hanging fruit. I mean, I guess with anything you do, there could be some amount of low hanging fruit out there. This is a long term play, this is a branding strategy that you’re going to have to keep going and stay out there. You know, like you said, I’ve been doing this a little over 60 days, probably just in the last two or three weeks, I’ve gotten two buyer referrals. And then I had a friend of mine I guy used to work with in my previous corporate life that contacted me after my dog training video came out. And he was telling me that he was going to put his dogs and dog dragging, oh, by the way, I’m thinking about selling my house, let’s get together for lunch since I actually had lunch with him today. And I’ll be listing his house in the next month or so. So, and then closings yet, but I mean, I’m only 60 days into this thing, you know. So I’m starting to see that the business is going to definitely come from this. And you know, even business owners are starting to reach out to me, so I’m not having to like, go out and try to find stuff, they’re actually starting to come to me because they’re seeing what the brand is being built. And that’s the beauty about it is that people will come to you. And that’s what attraction is. Yeah, become somebody
people come here when you hide in the closet, then you go to them. And yeah, the main difference. Very, very cool. Eric, anything else? We’re at about that? 30 minute timeframe. But is there anything else that maybe you want to share? We appreciate you coming on sir experience sharing your experience, not just with working with us. But I think that our goal here is to really just educate our overall audience on just what video is and what the context of it is like to talk about real estate you don’t always have to feel like you’re selling something you could build a brand just you’re creating media around it, that doesn’t have anything to do with the business. I think it’s more important to connect emotionally and personally with people find out who thrive is and then beat the shit out of it. Like this is direct mail farming on digital form is all this is and consistency and repetition will brand anything as long as it’s the right audience.
Right? Right. Absolutely. You know, it’s, it’s something that you know, I’ve really really enjoyed doing kind of a little funny note, I’ve had so many people tell me I need to send my videos to a talent agency and I should be gone You know, actually I’m like, and I just want to sell houses like I’m having fun doing the videos. If somebody wants to approach me about the movies or TV you may consider it but I’m not that’s not my my end game no
my game. I think we do million dollar listing NWA Okay, um, I got a million dollar listing I love to sell sweet sweet dude we we appreciate it. Hey folks, if you guys have a referral I mean please go ahead and Eric give your contact info we Yeah, please if you guys need a referral area or not go and get your info and I’ll people can reach you and then we’ll get this Yeah,
yeah, thank you. So overall Northwest Arkansas, which includes Bentonville, Arkansas, Springdale, Arkansas, Fayetteville Arkansas are the main towns like I said, Walmart and Tyson and all these people are all these companies are here so we do get a lot of relo from all over the country. So I would love to you know love to help any clients that you guys have. You can give me a call my number is 479-263-1075 obviously you can find me on Facebook Eric Eb it’s er IC e b isn’t boy why my email address is Eric at search in w a.com. Get all them however you can and I will take excellent care of your customer at all. All my clients love me and I need I need more people to love me.
We love you too. Thank you folks. Thank you for listening to other episode The real estate marketing dude podcast. You guys know where to find me. It’s extremely easy real estate marketing, dude calm. We help build brands through video content that’s highly creative. It also resonates with your ideal audience and most importantly, we make this really, really easy. Thank you very, very for listening and tune in and download, show us some love. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, check out our YouTube channel if you wanna see our latest videos. But tune in for next week for another episode and Eric, I really, really appreciate it and we will talk to you guys later. Thanks, buddy.
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