Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast, we're talking with Dylan Kennelly from just outside Las Vegas, Nevada.
This is a really exciting episode because Dylan's a guy who, just a few months ago, started falling in love with marketing. He came into our GoGoAgent world here and began implementing all of the ideas we talk about on these podcasts.
He started getting his top 150 together, and we talked about how to ramp that up. He took action and has twice mailed the world's most interesting postcard to the list he has, and already has some interesting results that you'll hear about.
Then we talked about Getting Listings and how he can secure a gold mine area he's found, so we spent a lot of time focused on how to really establish himself as the 'Go-To' guy in this particular neighborhood.
Dylan's going to be someone we can watch over the next 12 to 24 months as an amazing case study, so the question is really going to be, will you stick with us, watch what's happening, and let's see if it can be you too.
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Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep101
Dean: Dylan?
Dylan: Hey, good morning, or afternoon for you, maybe.
Dean: That's it, barely. It's noon, right?
Dylan: On the dot.
Dean: So, welcome. Where are you calling in from?
Dylan: I am based in Las Vegas, in Nevada.
Dean: Okay. Well, perfect, well Happy New Year-
Dylan: Same to you.
Dean: Good way to kick off the new year. So I'm super excited, we got the whole hour, and I'm anxious to hear all about ... How do I say your last name, Kennedy or Kennelly?
Dylan: Kennelly.
Dean: Kennelly, okay. I'm anxious to hear the whole Dylan story and see what we can focus on for you today.
Dylan: Cool. Yeah, I'm super excited, too. I am fairly new, too. I started out learning about you and Joe Polish through the I Love Marketing podcast, probably two to three months ago, out of desperation to figure out a better way to move forward with business and make things a little bit easier, a little bit more fun, and have a better idea of where things are heading, so-
Dean: That's awesome.
Dylan: This is pretty cool for me as well-
Dean: You're in the right place. So are you new to real estate as well, or new to the marketing approach?
Dylan: I am new to the marketing approach. I am 28, I started in real estate when I was 23, I'm about five and a half years in at this point. I had a mentor, I still do, I started with a guy named Brett Runion, produced an agent around here, he consistently does over 100 transactions a year, he was nice enough to take me under his wing in the beginning, and basically follow him around every day for six months and really fast-track me learning the expertise of the business and the right way to handle people, and-
Dean: That's such a great way, I mean people don't think about apprenticeships like that, because it's not required in real estate, I mean you go into any other business, it's just kind of funny to me, if you go be a brick layer or an electrician or anything, you've got to do an apprenticeship, right, for that level of stuff. But to help somebody with decisions and guidance and advice on the biggest financial endeavor they'll take on, and you don't have to be an apprentice, you could literally come right out of the gate, and as long as you know how to fill out the paperwork, you're on your way.
Dylan: Well, sometimes you don't even have to know how to do that.
Dean: Yeah.
Dylan: But, yeah, so that was a great start on my end, for him, and we share the same values about how to treat people; our office is based in a small town, and one of his first pieces of advice is, "If you feel the need to hide your face in the grocery store, you're doing something wrong," so-
Dean: Yeah, that's true.
Dylan: And pointed me in the right direction, to say the least.
Dean: Awesome. Yeah, it's a great career. I was 21 when I started, and that was 32 years ago, now; it just flies by. That's awesome. So how have the first five years gone? Tell me about your business and what your approach is.
Dylan: I'm sure you've heard many times, especially from real estate agents, a lot of times there isn't a complete approach with generating leads and systemized way of thinking. A lot of people that get into it don't realize that it is a business, and I didn't realize that for quite a while, and the way to generate leads, you think that they'll find you; if you're out there and you call enough people to-
Dean: "I'm in the office, here I am."
Dylan: Right? Yeah, you make a post, saying, "Hey, I'm licensed, call me when you need me," then it'll happen and, after a while, you find out it doesn't. I had a pretty good start. My first year, I think I ended up doing something like 12 or 14 transactions; second year was about 20 or 30, or 25; and had a bit of a hiatus, I broke my back at the beginning of my fourth year, and that really sidelined me for six months or so, and really gave me a chance to sit back and really start looking at things and how I'm generating leads, but I took a little bit of time off because I had to focus on recovery. So, I'm still in the process of that recovery now, but things are heading in the right direction, and I think it's going to be better and more systemized than ever, and I'm starting to feel pretty confident about where my leads are coming from, and being able to generate them myself.
Dean: That's great. Tell me about how your business works now, what are we working with here?
Dylan: A lot has changed in the past couple months, after starting to listen to your podcast and running through your work. Previously, it had been mostly social media-based, and those once-a-year Christmas cards. Then I started implementing a little bit more about sending them a card on the anniversary of their closing, "Hey, you've been in a house two years, you're free of capital gains," all those sort of things, and that was pretty hard to hit a lot of times, too.
And then I recently went through a program that was all social media-based, about picking a niche, and drawing people towards you, using a lot of Facebook free targeting and Facebook chat bots, I saw not as great of success as I wanted to from that, but it was definitely heading in the right direction, it made me a lot more self-aware of what was going on and what needed to be done. And then, like I said, over these past two to three months is when I really started seeing the results, and it was that last piece of coming across the I Love Marketing podcast. I sent out two months worth of World's Most Interesting Postcard; I sent out, the day I saw it, from GoGoAgent, sending out the postcards to a neighborhood and getting in the price report; the day I saw it, I sent out the postcards, and then I figured by the time they would get there, it would give me enough time to put the whole package together-
Dean: Nice, that's the great thing, this is what it is is just throw the ball a little bit ahead of yourself, and then give yourself time to figure it out, that's the whole thing. And the good news is: you don't really have to figure anything out because we've already figured all the creative stuff out, you just need to assemble it all, that's really all it takes. So, good for you, to take action like that, I love that.
Dylan: I have leads coming in from that because I sent that out last week, I actually had another lead come in last night, and I picked a pretty affluent neighborhood around here, so having inbound leads from the top .5 or 1% of prices for-
Dean: That's got to make you feel good, right?
Dylan: Yeah, absolutely. I think, the last time I checked, it was at like 8.5% conversion rate on the landing page, so I'm pretty happy about that.
Dean: Nice. Good for you. So let's unpack a couple of things there, before you go too far ahead, because you're doing all the right things immediately, like my first course of action is let's lock in your top 150. So you're sending The World's Most Interesting Postcard, how many people ... you already had your list because you were sending out the anniversary and the Christmas cards, so how many people are in your top 150 right now?
Dylan: Right now, I have that list narrowed down and soon to be expanding, but right now I think it's at like 60 people, 58, 59.
Dean: Okay. And so, yeah, you're in the buildup phase, what we want to do is start building to the 150. How long have you been in that town? I imagine you've lived there longer than the five and a half years, right? Because you didn't start your career and move somewhere you're brand-new?
Dylan: Correct, yeah, I was born in Vegas, and there's a small town called Boulder City, that's where I really grew up, it's where the Hoover Dam is, so it's a small town, about 15,000, 16,000 people.
Dean: What's the population? Okay, 15,000. That's great, that's a good size. I know that you know more than 58 people, so that's the thing. Here's what we need to do, job one, is to go on your Facebook, for one thing, look through your friends, you got to have more than 58 friends on Facebook, I'm sure, so start there, and what we're looking for are the top 150 people that you would recognize them by name; if you saw them at the grocery store, you'd stop and have a conversation with them, but they're not your client. Even your 58, you've done more than 58 transactions, you must have even people who are living in a house that you helped them buy.
Dylan: For sure. And that was one of my questions is: who to direct that to? And I had narrowed it down to people that I would consider good referral partners that had some involvement with my business, and that's where that 58 or 59 people got narrowed down to.
Dean: Right. And then the others are the ones who you would hope that they would consider you to be their real estate agent, if they ever had a real estate agent.
Dylan: Gotcha.
Dean: Those are the ones that we're talking about, to start with. And we want to get that up to 150 because that's going to give you some leverage, right, it's not about just the people who have done business with you. You've drawn a fence around, you're going to say, "I'm your real estate," you're going to declare that, yourself, to be their realtor, and you're going to start adopting them and treat them like that.
Because that's job one, you want to make sure that if they ever have a need, that they would call you, and the surest way is to make sure that you're in front of them and they've got your contact information, at least every month, there's no way for them to say, "I totally forgot that you were in real estate," or "I didn't know you were in real estate," or whatever it was, "It totally slipped my mind." I'm sure you've had, in five years, a situation that has surprised you, or that took you by surprised, that somebody bought a house or sold their house or did something without you.
And you're at the age where everybody's getting married and buying houses now, or coming back to town. Yeah, you want to be among all of your peers that you're the one that now they've got a guy. "I've known this guy for my whole life, I went to school with him," that's the kind of people that you want to have in your top 150 because they're going to be starting their real estate career, or they're going to be having friends that are doing the same thing.
Dylan: Right.
Dean: So that's job one is to pump that up to 150. You can start that right away, that you've got that group now, and then the next postcard that goes out, you can bump that up to the 150. But I like that you didn't wait to get 150 to get started, you just started with what you've got, which that's great because a lot of times people keep putting off sending the postcard because they're thinking, "I got to get my top 150 together," and then next month it's the same thing, and then they're losing out on all the time. So you've done that now, how many postcards have gone out? One or two times?
Dylan: Yeah.
Dean: That was the second time? Okay.
Dylan: Yes.
Dean: Good. Has anybody mentioned it yet, or have you seen-
Dylan: Yeah, that was going to be the next thing that I brought up is that there's been quite a few, I'd say maybe four or five, and I actually had someone yesterday, funny enough, they sent me an email and said, "Thanks for it," and I would like to believe, as well, that it has gotten some people to contact me; there's some people I haven't heard from in a while, and they've contacted me recently, and one of them was fairly big, where she said that she needs to sell her house, she's getting married and needs to sell the husband's house, and they need to combine both of those and buy a new one, and - about two days after that postcard would have gotten in.
Dean: That's perfect.
Dylan: -
Dean: What you're going to find, too, is that it's exactly that, that it's very rare that it is going to happen as overtly as what we say on the postcard. Like, if your postcard said, "Hey, just a quick note in case you're someone talking about buying their first house this year, call me and I'll get your copy of my book for them," and somebody calls you up and says, "Hey, I heard somebody talking about buying their first house," it's going to be very rare that that overtly happens. But what's going to happen a lot is just what you described, that you mailed it out, that put the thought of you in their mind, and then two days later, two weeks later, they call you. And you can't say directly because it was the postcard, but when you look at what's going to happen over the next 12 months, you're going to notice a much higher volume of that kind of thing happening.
Dylan: And that's what I'd like to build my business on, that's my end goal.
Dean: Absolutely. I did an episode with Tom Storey, in Toronto just maybe in the fall, and there's a guy who it's all after unit-driven, and our goal for you is to get to a 20% annual yield on your relationship portfolio. We want to get you your 30 transactions just from your after unit, and you're on your way.
Dylan: Yeah, ideally, and I remember hearing you say that in, it was either the Guide or maybe one of the other podcasts, and I have that written down in my goals for this year as well.
Dean: Perfect. So what's going to happen with your friend now? Are you already in contact with them to start moving forward, or what's the plan, when is she getting married?
Dylan: She's getting married later this year, her husband is going to contact me either this week or next week, we're all going to get together, go to dinner, and figure out some plans.
Dean: That's awesome, man, that's so great.
Dylan: as well.
Dean: Congrats.
Dylan: I appreciate it.
Dean: Yeah, lock that in, and keep that going. The greatest thing about it is that once you get it in orbit, it's easy to just keep it going, because each month, once you've already got everything set up, it's very little maintenance to continue doing it.
Dylan: Yeah, it's definitely helped with all the systems you've put together and basically making it just a couple clicks here and there, write my name, and we're good.
Dean: That's it. Okay, let's talk about your Getting Listings area. Tell me about the area that you chose, and it sounds like you went up in the luxury end of the market?
Dylan: Yeah, that's always been my goal; when you get into real estate, you have some lofty dreams or ideal visions of what you want it to look like. Luxury homes is the reason I got into real estate, I appreciate architecture, I like when people truly love where they live; I'd like to be able to represent people that have a unique home and reasons why they love it, and putting together something really nice, media-wise, some nice videos, nice pictures, and really feel like I'm marketing a great product, so the luxury homes really fits into that for me.
Dean: Okay.
Dylan: With the taking-action-quickly mindset, I like to go big as well, and, "If it works here, it's going to work everywhere else."
Dean: Perfect.
Dylan: -advice, it fit the parameters perfectly, there's 748 homes in there, so it hit that 500-1,000, I think is what you recommend. It's a very well-defined neighborhood, it's a guard-gated community, it's called Anthem Country Club, everyone who lives in there recognizes the name instantly, it's not saying, "Hey, the southwest part of Vegas," you have to have guard access to get in, so it's very easy to segregate. Sent out postcards out there and put together that package, and it's cool just seeing these leads drip in.
Dean: Yeah, that's awesome. That's great. What's the turnover rate in there?
Dylan: Let's see, off the top of my head, it was on the higher end. Did you recommend something like 10%?
Dean: Well that's ideal, but it's very rare that you find something with 10, but typical would be in the 5-6% turnover rate.
Dylan: This one, it was either right at 10, or it might have been a little above, I mean it hit every parameter that you had outlined, perfectly.
Dean: That's awesome. So 75 homes in the last 12 months would have sold?
Dylan: I could actually probably pull it up right now, I have it in front of me. In the last year, there was 100.
Dean: Wow, so that's amazing turnover. Are they still building new homes in there, or is it all resale?
Dylan: This is all resale. I think they stopped building new homes in there, probably about '06 or '07, there's no plots of lands over there anymore.
Dean: Wow, what an amazing turnover rate, that's great.
Dylan: I think every price in there was about 8 or 900 for the sold, the average price in Vegas is about 300 right now, 310.
Dean: Yeah, 8 or 900,000, that's awesome, man. So then what does that translate in commission dollars for you, for a listing, just the listing side?
Dylan: I charge 6%, split down the middle, so -.
Dean: So 25,000, say, it's about what that would be, each one, right? So the good news about finding a gem like you found there, I mean Anthem Country Club sounds like a gem because it's high end, high turnover, distinguished area, gated community, all of the parameters, you just hit the jackpot with it, and the good news is that it doesn't cost any more money to send postcards to Anthem Country Club than it does to send to the trailer park.
Dylan: I never thought about it in that aspect, but, yeah, that's completely true.
Dean: Right. So your ROI, if we look at it, let's even just call it $700 a month to do that for 12 months is $8400, but it's less than that for mailing just the postcards. But, at that level, you're still talking about that one transaction is four times your money, for the whole year, so it's very easy to get a positive ROI on this. Is there any one agent that dominates that area?
Dylan: That's something I looked at, too, I went through all the sold, and there's really no one that's taking over, there's a couple that have-
Dean: Oh, boy, here we go.
Dylan: I went through probably-
Dean: You're the one.
Dylan: 40 or 50 of them, and no one had more than three.
Dean: That's great. You're the one, this is going to be awesome.
Dylan: That's what I'm hoping.
Dean: For sure, you are.
Dylan: When I ran through all this, I was so excited, I tried to send it that day, I was like, "This is it."
Dean: I've seen this story, I know how it ends, so you're on the right track here. And so how many replies have you gotten so far?
Dylan: I think, last night, it was five.
Dean: Okay. So you've got five, and all we're worried about, the only thing we're focused on is the 100 that we're looking for, those are the ones. So if the postcards just hit ... so you mailed the first time, this was the second, or the first mailing?
Dylan: This is the first mailing.
Dean: Okay, this is the first mailing for there, when did the first lead come in?
Dylan: I can get you that exact date, let's see. That one came in on January 3rd.
Dean: Okay, so last week, so the leads are still going to come, you'll still get some leads coming in from that first mailing, and then the second mailing will go out. But if you look at this, if you just extrapolate from that, that you're at 50 or 60 leads over the course of the 12 months here, and those are all ... we're only speaking to the people who are going to sell, that's all we're looking for are those ones, so we don't need to get a huge number of replies, what we're most interested in is what are the real numbers here.
And I'll tell you some really encouraging things, like we did, with Tony Kalsi, the six-year case study, and he's up over a million dollars now, and the thing that we did, we dug back into the first year, and he's done 23 transactions from people who responded in the first 12 months of his postcards; over the six-year period, there were 44 people that sold their house over that six years that had responded to the postcard, and he got 23 of them; so over 50% of the people who sold, he got.
Now, that's pretty amazing, when you look at ... and so he's getting almost 15% conversion on the total, so far. So when you look at the numbers at that asset that you're developing now, those five people, when we spread that out over the next 12, 24, 36 months, there's no way that those people are going to choose anybody else but you. And that's going to at least give you a chance, at least you'll be in.
Now, the real thing is going to be start looking for buyers for Anthem Country Club before you even get any of the listings, and that's going to be a really great opportunity. Tell me about the Country Club, is there different styles of homes in there, like are there some villas or condos and some luxury homes? Or are they all single-family luxury homes? How does it play out?
Dylan: There's a bit of a blend, there are some that I guess would be considered closer to a town home, where they're single-level, they share one wall, just two homes; then you have, obviously, all the normal single-family that are semi-custom, and then you have the really nice double-gated, completely custom 5, 6, $7 million homes, so we've got a nice blend, but the cheapest generally never hits below 400.
Dean: I love it. How many communities like Anthem Country Club are there in Boulder?
Dylan: This one's, technically, in Henderson. In Henderson, there's probably three or four of them that would resemble it.
Dean: Okay. So I wonder, now, are there other golf course ... How big of an area do you cover? Are you basically that side of ... I forget which side Henderson is of Las Vegas.
Dylan: Henderson is between Las Vegas and Boulder City. I do a lot of work in Boulder City, and then I like to do Henderson as well, I like to stick to the southeast side of Vegas.
Dean: Perfect. Is Henderson where Red Rock is?
Dylan: Red Rock would be Summerlin, that would be in the northwest area, but mostly-
Dean: That's the other side? So there's a resort in ... we used to do big real estate seminars there, was it Green Valley?
Dylan: That's exactly where I'm talking about, that's where I live, and there's Green Valley Ranch right over here.
Dean: Green Valley Ranch, that's where we used to do our events, they've got a big casino and stuff there, right?
Dylan: Yep, and that's very close to this Anthem Country Club, everyone from there heads up to those restaurants and the casino.
Dean: Okay, perfect.
Dylan: -or anything like that in Green Valley Ranch, but that's the hot spot for people that live in Anthem Country Club.
Dean: Okay, perfect. All right, so now I know the area you're talking about. I haven't been there in a long time though, probably 2008 was the last event we did there. What I'm thinking about now, I'm already jumping to the next step for you because you just need to stay the course on Getting Listings, you're doing all the right things. The postcards, we'll set them up on autopilot for you so they'll just go out every month; then you'll send the reports, the Top Dollar Newsletter, and we do a monthly newsletter that is already done for you so you don't have to do any of the creative stuff with that, you just personalize it, and you'll send the cover letter, which I've already written, and the update of what's been going on in Anthem Country Club; so, each month, the updates of "Here's what's new on the market, here's what sold." And that's it, every month that's going to go out, and we got a great envelope label that envelope, it looks cool, it goes out to them so they know what's coming.
Dylan: What are your thoughts on paper mail, compared to email, for something like that?
Dean: I'm telling you, don't get tempted. Paper mail, what happens with it is that it's mounting physical evidence that you are going out of your way to help them, and that's an important thing. It's different, anybody could set them up on an automated email thing, it's not going to be the same, so don't get tempted by, "It'd just be less hassle or less expensive to do it by email."
Do the right thing, and stick with it just the way it is because so many times what ends up happening is people, when they see this mounting stuff, they're putting it in their house file or they're putting it on their desk, or they're keeping it around, especially the ones, I'm talking about the five-star prospects now, the ones who are actually going to sell their house, that when they're getting this information, they actually see this as valuable because it's pure market data, it's really what's going on, it's not your opinion of what's going on and what their house is worth, it's the actual market data, so they revere it, they look forward to it.
And the fact that you're delivering it physically is demonstrating that you've taken some initiative and some time and you've literally spent money for them. And that triggers their need, psychologically, to reciprocate that. It would be difficult for their conscience to think, you've been doing all this great stuff for them, you've been sending them all the information, they're not in the dark, and you've done it for six months, let's say, that it would be difficult for them to then turn a blind eye to that and say, "Okay, now, let's see who we can get to sell our house." You know what I mean?
Dylan: Yeah, absolutely, that definitely makes sense.
Dean: Yeah. And so that's part of the thing is the two things that are going to differentiate why this Getting Listings approach works is because we're taking the long-game approach to this, and we're physically doing something, not just ... everybody else who's doing the listing-getting game is mostly interested in getting a lead and chasing them down and listing the house right away; and if they're not ready to list right now, then they're bad leads. And that's the thing, we know that they're even more valuable the longer you get to nurture them. Did you see the infographic of the way that we track everything for the case studies that we did with Tony?
Dylan: I didn't see it previously, but I googled it, and is it the Getting Listings Result?
Dean: Yes, that's the one, yeah.
Dylan: Yeah, and I actually pulled up, that was the first result when you google Tony's name.
Dean: Okay, there you go, it's perfect. When you look at that, when you look at the infographic there, the way that it reads, it shows the amount of money spent along the bottom, in the red dots. Each month, like now, you're going to spend, we mentioned, $700; this month, you've spent 700, next month it'll be another 700, which means 1400, and then the next month it's 2100, 2800, 3500, all the way up to 8400 at the end of the year. And then the green dots that we put are the commissions, when you do the first transaction, and you look at it that wherever that happens on the line, for you, you're immediately going to be way above that profit line. If it's six months, you'll get back your $4200, plus you'll have $20,000 in profit.
Dylan: - for the next couple of years.
Dean: Forever, yeah. And that's the thing because what you also have is you'll have 25 or 30 leads, that even if you stopped mailing at six months, those 25 or 30, as long as you kept in contact with them, kept doing the mailings with them, that they will turn into transactions for you as well. My biggest encouragement for you would be to don't deviate, just do it, and I know you're going to be fine. I've seen it, again and again and again, which is great.
And even on the luxury end, I mean we talk about, in Cape Ann, up north of Boston, he chose oceanfront homes, similar, the minimum in there is 900,000-something, and there's 900-and-something homes on the ocean, but they're usually in the 2, 3, $4 million range, and he's been doing it for several years, but just got a call from someone who had been on for five years, and they called him and said, "Kenny, we had to give you a shot," so he went out and listed it and sold it, and we were just talking about that. It was $75,000, and he invested one postcard and 60 newsletters into them. So you look at it, for $120 or something, he's secured a $75,000 commission check.
Dylan: Yeah, it's pretty absurd when you put it in those terms.
Dean: Yeah, it really is. As an investment, there's nothing better that you could be investing in that way. That's why I say to people to not look at this as an expense-based approach, but to look at it as a capital investment that you're making a capital investment in those five people that you've identified right now, that's the asset; and that asset, you're going to manage for a return. So if you just say even if it's one, even if you were to get one out of those five over the next 24 months, you're way ahead.
Dylan: Yeah, absolutely.
Dean: So, there, so I'm very excited about that. But now, the next step that I want to look at is how can we start finding buyers for Anthem Country Club now? And so it could be, if it's enough of a name and known enough that we could put together a buyer's guide to Anthem Country Club, to show what the different types of homes and the price ranges and the amenities and whatever somebody would be interested in, how many different styles of [inaudible 00:44:56] enclaves are there within Anthem. Like, if you did a topographical map of it, like this section over here is all the luxury homes, this section here is the villas, and here's another section of villas, and here's the club house, and all of that kind of stuff.
Dylan: There's quite a few you could divide it up into. I'm just looking at it now as well, you could probably divide it up into between 7 and 10 different areas in there.
Dean: Yes, perfect. And so if you were to think about putting together a guide to Anthem Country Club house prices, that you could advertise as an ad that we can run as an evergreen, did you see any GoGoAgent dominating South Beach ads?
Dylan: Was that for getting buyers, is it under that section?
Dean: Yes.
Dylan: I haven't gotten that far yet, I'm implementing everything on the Getting Listings side and as I go through it.
Dean: Okay, perfect. I love it.
Dylan: So I haven't made it down there yet.
Dean: So you'll see that we did these great, and we have one for Cape Ann, too, which is the perfect example, but if you had a really amazing view, describe the way that the properties would be from the country club there, is it on the side of the would you have views? Or is it the golf course view? What would be the iconic thing that would be the premium thing of what would be the best thing that you could get within Anthem Country Club?
Dylan: The best of the best if having your backyard pool facing the golf course, and then on the other side of the golf course is the view of the strip.
Dean: Okay. So if we have a picture of that at dusk or at the time when the sky is purple or pink, and the lights are just coming on, and you can still see the golf course and stuff, but you're starting to see, like you can imagine a great glamor shot of what that view would look like, maybe point of view looking across the pool, so you're not pointing to a specific house, but that's what somebody would be attracted to if they were looking at Anthem Country Club.
The way that we did for Cape Ann is this amazing dune view of the beach in the ad, and the same thing that we did for South Beach was the view from the balcony of a condo looking out at the ocean. And so we have an ad format that, "If you're looking for an amazing view property in Anthem Country Club, read this," and we talk about the Anthem Country Club and offer the guide to Anthem Country Club house prices so that buyers will be attracted to that. And that's what we could do as a Facebook ad, and if you have Homes & Land magazine, everybody's sort of down on print, in a way, but I'm so bullish on it still because the ROI is so high. Do you have a Homes & Land in your ...?
Dylan: Not really. For Boulder City, we do, and my office part-owns that magazine for Boulder City; but as far as Henderson and other communities, I've never seen one, if there is one.
Dean: There's not one for Las Vegas?
Dylan: No. Not that I've ever seen one.
Dean: Okay. Well you want to see what the thing is, what's the makeup of the people buying in Anthem Country Club, where are they coming from? Are they locals moving up to there and they've made it? Or are they coming from another area and they've got a winter home there, or they've got a vacation home? What's the situation in there?
Dylan: For quite a while, it's seeming that luxury homes in something like this is generally locals. Over the last couple of years though, I think that may be changing because of so many people leaving Los Angeles and California that we're seeing an influx of those, I don't know exactly what that has done to the numbers, but I can definitely run some numbers and demographics and see what it looks like.
Dean: Gotcha. So just think about where would people be coming from. Part of this thing, when you've got those kind of things, those magazines are a great way to have an evergreen ad that you could literally buy the year and say, "I want to run this for 12 months," and it's 5 or $600 a month for the whole year. Anybody looking for a house like that, or know that Anthem Country Club is what they're looking for, is going to land on that page and go, "Wow, that's exactly what I'm looking for," and so that's a cool thing, I'm very excited for you about that.
Now, the other thing that you can do, aside from just Anthem, is to take one layer up and do south Las Vegas golf communities so that somebody looking for a gold community, and Anthem is one of them, and the other two or three are also included in that, that's how we start finding what I call "category buyers" for it, where now, on one hand, you're running the Getting Listings postcards to find sellers, and then at the same time, we're running these type of ads to find buyers who are looking for homes that, when a home in Anthem comes up, they're going to be excited about it.
Dylan: What do you think about Henderson guard-gated communities as that level up?
Dean: Yeah, that could be it, too.
Dylan: Because that would be ideal if I could get my business growing in that direction, that's something that definitely excites me.
Dean: Yeah, that's the thing.
Dylan: And that would give me this pretty broad overview.
Dean: Yeah, private gated communities, planned communities, gated communities, all of those things would be a ... that's what we're looking for, is to start that way. But the golf course ones are very specific luxury element to it, too, so that's a very specific thing. And not to say that you couldn't also expand up, but you're getting the idea now of how that all goes.
Dylan: Right, because there's really four high end neighborhoods or communities around here, and three of them have a golf course, but the highest of the highest end is pretty new, and that one doesn't have a golf course, I'm just worried about excluding that [crosstalk 00:54:35].
Dean: You're going to expand, in a way, but don't worry about watering things down or making it expansive, focus on we're trying to dominate Anthem Country Club first, so everything we're doing is about that. I would say when you do your first transaction, we're going to take some of that capital and allocate it to expansion now, so now you do the exact same thing, what's the next coolest country club?
Dylan: I'd say probably MacDonald Highlands, MacDonald Ranch.
Dean: Well then we're going to take this exact model and we're going to duplicate it in MacDonald Highlands and that, by the end of the year, by the time you get to three transactions, we're going to have you established in those three golf communities, and then, by next year, you'll be really rocking.
Dylan: Yeah, absolutely.
Dean: I love it.
Dylan: Yeah, I'm definitely excited for the future, it's given me some new life into this business and just made me a lot more self-aware, and even just existing business, just getting this on the right track, getting my mind right with your podcast and what you're teaching has really paid dividends, even with the traditional old style of doing business, I'm the busiest I've ever been, as of right now, the most deals in escrow I've ever had.
Dean: I love it.
Dylan: It makes me excited to work on the business the next day.
Dean: Well I'm so glad we got to talk. What's your recap, or your take on what we were talking about here, how did it land?
Dylan: I mean, like I said, I'm super excited, it really helped give me the big-picture overview, because I guess that I'm still working through the beginning of all the GoGoAgent blogs, so it helps me figure out. I was wondering how to attract the buyers and have them in my pocket and ready to go because I know that's where a lot of the deals really come from, and being of value is having both sides of the transaction, that's how this worked in the small town of Boulder City, knowing people who are looking for things and then, obviously, being ready to go when a listing comes up, even if it's not yours. So it's cool to see how to attract buyers for a community that you don't have a lot of pull in, at the moment. I'm looking forward to roaming that aspect of it and getting a little bit more clearer view on the numbers and what to expect. It's just nice to say I'm on the right track and basically just got to keep pushing forward.
Dean: That's awesome. Well come on into the forum and introduce yourself and share what's going on, and stay connected that way because there's a lot of people who have been further down the road, gone through this exact thing that you are. And then if you can make it to our GoGoAgent Academy at the end of February, that would be great for you to get to meet everybody, too, if you can come there, we do it in Orlando.
Dylan: Okay, awesome. Yeah, I'll definitely check that out and see what dates line up, it sounds like a great event to meet with some like-minded people and get some advice.
Dean: That's exactly right, that's what's fun.
Dylan: Case studies from people in different markets, and-
Dean: That's it.
Dylan: A little bit more vigor, too.
Dean: I think what's going to be great, you're a great case study in the making here, really you're doing all the right things, taking action and just keeping it moving forward, so I'm super happy that we met, and I can't wait to watch it all unfold.
Dylan: Yeah, I appreciate all the help, I appreciate your time. I'm super thankful for everything you put out and all the free stuff, and making this easy, making it fun, and I'm in the journey of learning how to copywrite like how you do, and currently reading that book, How to Write a Good Advertisement-
Dean: Oh, good, yes.
Dylan: And I have a thorough appreciation for your copywriting ability, it blows my mind.
Dean: That's awesome. Well, I'll tell you, if you're going to go down the copywriting book, I'll say the top three books that I would recommend for you would be Cash Copy, by Jeffrey Lant, which is really great; even if you just read the 21 Egregious Errors that Copywriters Make, even if you just understand those, it's really a good win. Then Scientific Advertising and My Life in Advertising, by Claude Hopkins, are really a good foundation for how to think about the way the ads work. And the bible of it, the modern, if you ask any copywriters, their copy of Breakthrough Advertising is dog-eared and notated because that's got a real breakdown of the science of it. So you're on the right path, but those three are your MBA.
Dylan: Who's that one by?
Dean: That's by Eugene Schwartz.
Dylan: Okay. Yeah, I have a long ways to go-
Dean: Once that gets ignited in you, you're on your way.
Dylan: Yeah, I'm constantly analyzing, even if it's YouTube videos or [crosstalk 01:01:28], whatever it is I'm looking at, I'm like, "That's wrong because of this,"-
Dean: Absolutely. It's like you've got 3D glasses and everybody else is looking in a 2D world, right, you see everything that other people don't, but good for you.
Dylan: Yeah, and I'm excited about it, for sure, and I just have that mantra from the book repeating in my head at all times of, "Less of how it came to be and more of what it can do for me."
Dean: That's it. Awesome. All right, Dylan, I'm going to let you get back to work, and I can't wait to watch it all unfold, so thanks again and I will talk to you soon.
Dylan: Awesome. Thanks, Dean, and chat soon.
Dean: Thanks, Dylan, bye.
Okay, now, I loved that conversation, I loved everything about it. First of all, let's deconstruct what happened here. Here's a guy, Dylan, he has taken action, nothing but action, he didn't even know that we existed, three months ago; came into this world, came into GoGoAgent, took action, mailed out his first two issues of The World's Most Interesting Postcard, already getting calls, has particularly a call from someone who needs to sell their house, sell their new husband-to-be's house, and buy a house together, which he may or may not have ever gotten that call, but what stimulated it, for sure, is being right there in front of them.
He chose an area of homes that are at the top top-end of his marketplace, he got his ducks in a row, mailed out his first Getting Listings postcards right at the beginning of the year, he's got five responses, so far, of homes that are at a minimum of 8 to 900,000 and in an area with a 10% turnover rate, and he's just locking in all of the things that we talk about.
Now, the question that I want to presence for you is: if you've been listening to the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast, listening for more than three months, for six months, maybe even listening from the beginning, but you haven't done anything yet, you haven't come in and embraced what we're doing at GoGoAgent, I'm wondering what is it going to take to get you off the fence here, to get you into the world and starting to make things happen here? It's going to be more painful to watch what happens with Dylan over the next 12 months from the sidelines than it would be to jump in and take the ride along with him.
We've been doing this for a long, long time, I know that the systems that we have are going to work for you, I know that you're going to get more referrals, I know that you're going to get more listings, I know you're going to multiply your listings more, you're going to get more buyer leads, you're going to convert more leads, you're going to have more joy, more time, and more financial peace, it's what everything is about, that's everything that we talk about, and I've got everything just waiting for you at GoGoAgent.com.
So come on over, come on in, and let's make a case study out of you. That's what this year's for, brand-new year, brand-new start, let's get going and let's knock it out of the park for you. So, that's it for this week, have a great week and I will talk to you next time.