Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast, we're talking with Erick Spiegel from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and I'm excited for Erick because he's a brand new agent, literally a month into his real estate career.
We took a walk down memory lane today and talked about when I was first getting started in real estate, what motivated me to get started, and what a really actionable plan would be for Erick. This is what I would do starting out in Eau Claire Wisconsin or in Poughkeepsie, New York, or in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for that matter, wherever you are.
If you're brand new in real estate, this is the plan I would follow.
So take a listen with that in mind and think about how this applies to you.
Links:
GoGoAgent.com
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Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep122
Dean: Erick?
Erick: Yeah. Hi, Dean.
Dean: How are you?
Erick: Doing awesome.
Dean: Oh, good. Well I'm glad you're here. So Erick, where are you? Where are you calling from?
Erick: Good question. Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Dean: Okay, nice.
Erick: Cheese head state.
Dean: I love it.
Erick: Yeah.
Dean: So, I'm super excited to get to chat with you, and have some evil schemes here. So, tell me the story. What's been your experience so far? How long have you been in real estate?
Erick: Yeah, just got into real estate, just about a month ago, got my license, there just joined the office. Brand new, just bought our first home just a couple months ago. I actually wanted to become an agent first, and then my aunt... Do you want the whole story?
Dean: Yeah, of course. Yeah. I would love to see how people got to here.
Erick: Yeah.
Dean: There's a lot of good clues in that.
Erick: Yeah, would you mind, I've got a question first, I've just been dying, dying to ask.
Dean: Okay.
Erick: If you can remember back to, I don't know, 19, 20 year old Dean, what about real estate? Did you have a life before real estate?
Dean: Yes and no. Real estate was my first adult world. So, I started at 21. So I got my real estate license, I was 21, and yeah, and that's 1988, and yeah, non stop since then.
Erick: What about real estate drew you towards it? Were you always entrepreneurial?
Dean: I was always entrepreneurial, absolutely. I mean, that's something that... I had one job ever, at the bowling alley, and my friend Neil and I got jobs on the same day. And I only did two weekends, because we were making $2.50 cents an hour, and I found out that, I realized, I could make... I always had a paper route before that, because you couldn't get a job until you were 14, right?
So, at 14 we literally got these jobs on the same day. But, I had a paper route all the time, which you could do, and one of the things that they had that was an opportunity for us, was to sell coupon books that the newspaper would publish, as a another thing from the publishing company. I figured out that I could make $15 or $18 an hour selling these coupon books door to door, and that was my first contrast into the results economy.
Erick: Yep.
Dean: As my friend Dan Sullivan calls it, where you're not just being paid for time and effort, you're being paid for results. So, I could, in an evening, make a lot of money, or I could spend a Saturday morning. This was what the big contrast was, is I could spend a Saturday morning selling coupon books for a couple, or three hours, and make more money than I would have made all day for two weeks at the bowling alley. So, that was my move into that. So, whenever I came into the business world, that was what was appealing about real estate to me, is you get an upside.
Erick: Did you have somebody that you looked up to?
Dean: Yes.
Erick: That was like, "I want to be like that."
Dean: Yeah, absolutely, I did. And this was a very influential, because I was a tennis player, and that was down in Florida playing tennis, and realizing that you have a shrinking window for that, and I was just fortunate to meet a man who was a former professional tennis player, who had got up to 180 in the world, and then had a knee injury that had him sidelined for about six months.
In that time, he realized that that could have been career advice. Luckily, it wasn't, but he realized that he had a shrinking window for it, and there was only, in theory, 179 people in the world that were better than him at what he did, and he's living hand to mouth kind of thing, like 180 and the world, you're not getting rich playing tennis that way, and he had a shrinking window for doing it. And his thought was, that was the clarifying thought was, "I wonder what the 180th ranked businessman in the world is making right now?"
Erick: What a good thought.
Dean: And so, I immediately... That channeled my competitive thinking, right? My competitive and results thinking, into business, that if I started in business at 21, I'd have this long runway to get better, and better, and better, and I'd only be getting more, and more valuable as I got older. Whereas, if I were to go down the tennis path, as you're aging, you're getting less and less valuable. So, that was a big influence to me.
Lars owned a real estate company in Florida, and that was a... Yeah, so he had the life I wanted, he drove a Porsche 911, he had a house on the inter coastal with a boat, he had his office building right there, in Vero, and he had a condo on the ocean, which was literally a mile away from his house on the inter coastal.
Erick: Whoa.
Dean: And he played tennis all the time. I thought, "Wow, this is a great life." So, that was my that was my inspiration for getting into real estate.
Erick: Good story. Thank you. Good. Yeah, mine's not quite so exciting. Well, a little bit. I come from the personal training world, I was a personal trainer at a gym there for the last bunch of years, and it's a couple years ago, I broke. There was a lot of stuff going on at the club, a lot of unethical kind of things, and I had my entrepreneurial spirit kind of stirring a little bit, like I had managers telling me what to do. They were taking my clients from me, and giving them to other people just because they were the new guy, and I was already overloaded and everything.
So, then I broke off on my own, just kind of like, "That's enough." Going off on my own. Tried to start as an online personal training business, and that was my jump into the entrepreneurial world, and then learned how to, like, "Oh, I've got to learn marketing." I learned Facebooking, I've got to learn all this stuff. So that sent me down that route.
Dean: Yes.
Erick: And then came across you all, I Love Marketing podcasts, and that route, and I didn't realize I had... You're quite familiar with the shiny object syndrome.
Dean: Right.
Erick: Yeah, so I ended up getting my hand in a couple different things. That one business can turned into like three or four others, in one day, I was in a fit of frustration about what to do. Three different routes I needed to focus on, and meanwhile, learning marketing, and all that from you, and then from lot of people that were like successful. And today, successful first in real estate, and then off doing amazing things in the world, just like you.
There's like Darren Hardy, maybe Dean Graziosi, all of them. I was like, "Gosh." That's like you were talking about earlier with your mentor. I'm like "Gosh. If I could have those guys'... Do what they can do and change the world like that, that'd be so cool."
Dean: That's awesome.
Erick: Yeah, so I made a list, I just put down real estate, I'm like "How about this for an option?" So I just put down that, and then I was actually working at the time on the side, was Uber Eats, I was delivering food to somebody's house there that day, well, I was like, "All right, give me a sign, universe. What do you want me to do? Which one of these to do?" And on the list was real estate. And then, so I drove to the person's house that ordered that food that day, and I got out, and there in that yard was a for sale sign, and real estate.
Dean: Ah, there's your sign. Yeah.
Erick: There's my sign. Yeah. And it gets better too, because it was actually my... The only real estate agent that I knew at the time was my aunt.
Dean: Oh, wow.
Erick: And she was a REMAX real estate. It was her house, her listing, they ordered that day, that food, and I just happened to be the guy to deliver it. So I was like, "Well, looks like we're going into real estate."
Dean: That's amazing.
Erick: Yeah. So, ended up talking to my aunt, the one that was part of the sign there, and she goes like... We were just renting at the time. So she was like, "You've got to go buy your first house first. People that rent, don't do very good as an agent." So, that makes sense. So, that brings us here now. So, got the license a little bit ago, and then just buying out house, and then COVID stuff. So that was fun.
Dean: So you're literally just getting started now, then.
Erick: Just getting started. Yeah, yeah. I was thinking like starting off, and you're - that guy to me. You're that. "Aww man, I want to..." I love your, "I know I'm being successful when." And I know you started out with the first time home buyers, and I know, us buying our first home, we just made every mistake possible.
Dean: Yeah.
Erick: And we got a pretty good market here in Eau Claire, it's kind of an underserved market -.
Dean: Yes. What's the population of Eau Claire?
Erick: Good question. We are right around 70,000.
Dean: Oh, wow, that's a great size. Yeah, that's my favorite size because it's big enough.
Erick: Is it really?
Dean: Well, it really ism because it's big enough, but it's not too big. It's still self contained. Is Eau Claire... I'm not, I don't really know Wisconsin geography that much, but is Eau Claire kind of standalone, or is it like a suburb of Milwaukee? Or, is it some? Yeah, I don't know.
Erick: Yeah, that's a great question. It is actually standalone.
Dean: Okay.
Erick: We're about a couple hours from the capital, Madison, we're about six hours from Milwaukee. We're actually closest to Minnesota there, the Twin Cities.
Dean:Okay.
Erick: About one hour and a half away from there. So we get a lot of Minnesotans in this area. And it's kind of a cool city, because it's got its own little mini suburbs, that together, they kind of get lumped in the same, so together it's about 110,000 population, where there's like Chippewa Falls, and Altoona.
Dean: Oh, I like this already. Okay, that's great. Okay, so this is... And have you grown up there? You're a longtime resident there?
Erick: Yup.
Dean: Okay. Nice.
Erick: Yeah, yeah. I grew up out in the country, about a half hour from it, and then yeah, I went to college here, got my personal training degree from, there's the UW Eau Claire, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire College, and there's a couple of technical colleges. Yeah, so I went to school here, and just been living here in this town for last... I'm in my mid 30s now, so about the last 15, 20 years ish.
Dean: Okay, this is great. So, well, let's start to kind of build a plan. What have you done so far? Are you active now? You've got your license, you're up and running, and how long have you been up and running? Just a month, you said?
Erick: Yeah, just the last couple weeks. I've got the office all fitted out there, I ended up joining my aunt's firm, the one that was part of the sign, ended up joining her firm, and we're part of REMAX there, and we're all independent contractors.
Dean: Yeah.
Erick: And I was just like, "Who do I know more then? Well, obviously the first time home buyers, but I have yet to sell or buy a home as an agent, so I'm like, "Well, might as well go with who I know more then, right now."
Dean: Okay.
Erick: Yeah.
Dean: And I'm going to tell you something, though, that there's no... You don't necessarily need to limit yourself like that, in a way. You don't like to think, "Well, I need to start at the bottom, and work with first time buyers."
Erick: Okay.
Dean: Yeah, it's okay for you to sell million dollar homes, too, you know.
Erick: Really?
Dean: Yeah, there's nothing, nothing wrong with that. But let's get the lay of the land, because, have you been listening along to the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcasts? How familiar are you with the approach?
Erick: From the very beginning my friend. I -.
Dean: Okay. Okay, great. So here's what we're talking about then, is step one, the first thing that we need to do if we're going to build a listing centric business, we've got to get your system for getting listings established, right? You've got to have a way to get listings. Now, when I look at this, because you're just getting started. So, let's strategically think about your rollout plan here, for the next five years, let's say.
Erick: Five years.
Dean: Well, do you plan on real estate being a career kind of thing? Or are you transitioning?
Erick: Absolutely.
Dean: Okay, so you're thinking this is the thing, right. So, when we look at it, tell me about Eau Claire, and what does Eau Claire have that is desirable? What are the most desirable things in Eau Claire? Do you have lakefront homes? Do you have... Yeah, what would be a category of things?
Erick: Yeah, we've got a boat. There's a number of hostels. Yeah, there's lots of parks, and we actually bought, our first house we bought was just right by the park. And yeah, there's lots of waterfront. There's two rivers that run through us, and then there's a couple of lakes on the outskirts of it, Lake Wissota, and then, I'm trying to think of the other. - part and the other was there.
Dean: Well, how many homes would be... Are there homes built right on the river?
Erick: There is, yep. Yeah. Because the river runs right next to, right through the college. So, it's a lot of the college houses that are going through the river there, but yeah, it's outside of the college there. There's quite a few that are right on the river there.
Dean: Okay.
Erick: Yeah.
Dean: Would there be 1000 homes on the river, in the area?
Erick: Yeah.
Dean: Yeah?
Erick: Yep. In the area. Yeah.
Dean: Okay. So that's a good... And is that something that would be desirable? Do people say, "Oh, we'd love to get a house on the river?" Or...
Erick: Yeah.
Dean: Yeah? Okay. So, what would be the price range of the homes on the river?
Erick: The ones on the river, I'd say just based off of when we are, our median home price, just an Eau Claire selling price is just short of $200,000.
Dean: Okay.
Erick: So based on that, I would say probably like 240, 250 for the homes on the lake there.
Dean: Okay. Okay, so they're not super... They're not luxury homes on the river kind of thing, or they just happen to be on nice lots?
Erick: Yeah, they're a mixture of both there.
Dean: Okay.
Erick: There's nice ones, and then there's luxury ones, and then there's also the ones that are just on the lake there.
Dean: Okay, perfect.
Erick: Good looking ones.
Dean: Yeah, so, part of the thing that I always look at is, let's identify some, well call categories, for them.
Erick: Okay, sure.
Dean: So, if we say riverfront homes is one thing, and lakefront, if there's 1000 of them, that's a viable category, right? So if you say, riverfront homes is different than lakefront homes. Or, you could combine it as waterfront, but-
Erick: Which you prefer.
Dean: Yeah, but I think there's something about specifics, that people know. They want to be on the river. And so, that makes a difference. Like here in Winterhaven, where I am, there's lots of lakes, and the lakefront homes, lakefront homes are the most desirable. So, we start out with that as a great category, and we want to establish now your opportunity to get listings in that area. So, if we were to take lakefront homes, what else do you have? There's a lot of townhouses, or condos, or horse farms, or what else would be a notable category in Eau Claire?
Erick: Yeah, good question. We've got a little mixture of it all.
Dean: Yeah.
Erick: There is the homes where there's acreage for horses. There's a couple ranches like that. We do have two golf courses. I don't know - you like the golf course -.
Dean: Yeah, it is there homes on the golf courses?
Erick: There is the homes on the golf course. Yep. Yeah, and then there's not so much in the condos, we're a little light there. There is a few, a little light on condos and town homes, though.
Dean: Okay. Well this is good to know. So this is the kind of thing where, if you take, and the mechanics of this are the same, no matter what you choose as the category. If we take, riverfront is a good option to think of. So, the mechanics would be that we want to identify, like you need to build your list of the riverfront home owners, right?
So now you just CAT scan perspective here, you look at your map, and you eliminate everything that isn't a riverfront home from your view for this target market. We need to know where those homes are, and we need to create the list of the people who own those homes. So whether it's, do people have vacation homes on the river, or lake there? Or is it primarily people who live, and work in Eau Claire that live there?
Erick: More and more so the last one you said, the last -.
Dean: That they live here. Yeah, okay.
Erick: -Yeah.
Dean: Yeah.
Erick: We get pretty, pretty crappy winters. So everybody -, they usually have their vacation home down there where you're at, in Florida.
Dean: Okay, great. Yeah. Okay, that's awesome.
Dean: Yeah, that's awesome. So, when you look at that now, then part of it is thinking, "Okay, so we've got a self-contained world here, in Eau Claire. And we've got these riverfront homes." Now, if you, you can get, and build your database of how many homes there are on the river, and that list is going to be your first sort of target there, when you start looking at the the riverfront homes. And it would be good for you to start thinking in terms of, what's the annual turnover rate of the riverfront homes? To give you a sense of, start to get to know that. Does your MLS have a way for you to easily search riverfront homes.
Erick: Yep, yeah, yep. There's a category, you can bring it down where yeah, they call like waterfront there.
Dean: Yeah. Okay.
Erick: Then you just do some simple math, huh? Just...
Dean: Yeah, because you want to get to know. Let's say that, so here in Winter Haven, there is 2,100 lakefront homes.
Erick: 2,100, okay.
Dean: Yeah. Now the good news is, that those are going to continue to be the lakefront homes, and just like those homes are going to continue to be the riverfront homes. Five years from now, they're still going to be right where they are, they're not moving them. Right?
Erick: You're very right.
Dean: Yeah. And if you look at it that in Winter Haven, because they're sort of more luxury, more likely luxury homes on the lakes, that they have a slightly higher price range, and they have a little lower turnover rate. But the yield is high, right? So they're 4% turnover rate, roughly. And when we were doing the initial math that means that there are going to be 84 people who sell their home in the next 12 months, right? That's a general thing.
So, if you take 1000 riverfront homes, and say there's a 5% turnover rate, there's going to be 50 people who own riverfront homes who put them on the market. And if, let's say that they have an average of 300,000, if you take a median, say, that you're in the neighborhood of, it's 300,000 or 400,000, or 250,000, whatever the number is, let's say it's $8,000 or $9,000 commission for you, for one side of the transaction, just the listing side, then there's going to be for $400,000 available, just in the riverfront home listings, right?
Erick: Right.
Dean: You following? And there may be more, you may have more riverfront homes than 1,000, and the price may be higher. Or it may be lower. Whatever it is, it's good for you to get a sense to know that.
Erick: Okay. Yeah.
Dean: Yeah.
Erick: Okay. I can do it.
Dean: And then all we want to do is, you need to identify them, get the list of the people who own those homes.
Erick: Okay.
Dean: Yeah, because that's going to be a valuable thing for you, right? If you take the time. I know you listened to I Love Marketing, but there was a great episode, with Richard Viguerie who-
Erick: Yeah, I loved that episode.
Dean: Which is great, because he found out that you could get the, through public information, the list of everybody who donated money to a conservative candidate, and he built an empire around that.
Erick: Built a foundation.
Dean: That was the foundation.
Erick: Yeah.
Dean: So, you've got that opportunity to build this list of riverfront homes, and you've got it. Now, we've got the entire getting listings campaign already laid out, I'd recommend, you've listened to Tony Kalsi, And Chuck Charlton.
Erick: Yup.
Dean: A good one to listen to is Kenny McCarthy, from Cape Anne, north of Boston, who does the ocean front.
Erick: Yeah, he did -.
Dean: Right, exactly.
Erick: Oceanfront, yeah.
Dean: Yeah. So that's a good model for you. There's lots of people who've gone before with that. But the reason that I talk about getting a category like that, is that now, at the same time that you're looking for those listings, you can now put together your report on Eau Claire riverfront house prices, or the guide to Eau Claire riverfront house prices. And that's for anybody looking for a riverfront home.
I mean, if you see the ads that we did with Kenny, and we've done it in everywhere, really, but South Beach, and Atlanta, and all these categories, where we have a beautiful picture that would represent the iconic thing of what you want, not the view of the house, but a view of the view that you would have, like imagine some of these riverfront homes, do they have have docks, or do they have beach? Or do they have... What's the riverfront area look like for them?
Erick: Yeah.
Dean: Is it a big river?
Erick: It is, yeah.
Dean: Yeah.
Erick: It runs all the way right through the middle of Eau Claire, and it goes right through the downtown area.
Dean: Okay.
Erick: There's a number of docks, there's a number of beaches.
Dean: Yeah.
Erick: There's a number of fishing spots. It goes right through the park.
Dean: So do people have docks, or decks, or sitting areas, right at the river front, if it's their house, kind of thing?
Erick: Yup.
Dean: Okay.
Erick: That they do, Mr. Dean.
Dean: So you imagine that, that you're taking a picture of the view that you would have, if you owned this river front home, kind of thing. So people can imagine themselves in it. So, you imagine them looking out at the river, and that's where we have a whole template for it, in Go Go Agent, with the... So we have a picture of the ocean front view, and the ad is saying, "If you're looking for an amazing oceanfront property on Cape Anne, read this." And we offer them the guide to Cape Anne oceanfront house prices.
And that's what we could do for your riverfront buyers. That way, you're putting yourself in a market maker position, where you don't have to have a riverfront listing to start becoming a riverfront specialist. You need a guide to the riverfront house prices that you can advertise to find buyers who are looking for riverfront homes, which will be your catalyst for all of this.
So, at the same time, you're sending the Getting Listings postcards to the riverfront homeowners. You're also running ads, looking for buyers of riverfront homes, and you are building this market maker list that you'll be able to match people up. So, it's one of the most amazing things. So, that's kind of a thing that I would definitely establish, as soon as you can. The way to think about this is to not think about what you're spending as an expense. But to think of it as a capital investment.
Erick: Yep. It's more valuable.
Dean: Right, because that list of people who are potentially going to sell their house in the next five years, I don't know if you've seen the infographic of the case study that we've been doing now for September, will be six years with Tony Kalsi. And what you're finding, is that the people who respond now, may not sell for two years, or three years. Some of them will sell now, but the real equity is in the long term of this. So, the asset that you're building is a communication line with any of those 1,000 or 2,000 riverfront homeowners that are potentially going to sell in the next two, three, five years. And your track record of being in touch with them, being the riverfront specialist to them, is going to be a real valuable position.
Erick: Awesome.
Dean: Yeah.
Erick: Is that where you would, if you were to go back? I know, you started off with running the workshops, and then you had the videos that you ran on cable there for the -.
Dean: Yeah, that was a great thing. The First Time Home Buyers. The thing that really was the big catalyst for me was when I discovered this idea of the guide to Halton Hills. So, I didn't know about that. If I could go back now, that would be the first thing that I did, was - Absolutely, yeah.
Erick: Good.
Dean: Yeah.
Erick: Would you... Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Dean: Now, the first time buyers are a great category too, and you're in a situation where, I don't know what the situation is in Eau Claire. But, is there a possibility that there might be some foreclosures coming up in Eau Claire?
Erick: There is, yeah.
Dean: Yeah. So, one of the things that we're kind of getting poised for, because it's not happening yet, but all the indicators lead to thinking that this is going to be a thing. That we put together... Back In 2009, when Obama first took office, in his first hundred days, one of the things that they did was announced a program for first time buyers to get an $8,500 tax credit if you buy a house. It was one of the economic stimulus packages. And so, we put together a whole program around this.
Erick: Oh.
Dean: Right. And I really identified that if that's going to be a big thing, is we started a program called Bank Owned Weekly, and it was like people could subscribe to an email list. We would advertise the inventory of bank owned homes for the week of whatever the current week is, and people would opt in to get the list, and then every week, we would send them the updated bank owned property list.
So now it's nice to see that. I would say to people, "You know those Farmers Insurance commercials, where they're like, 'Yeah, we saw it, and we covered it.'" Is like, I feel like this whole thing is, we know a thing or two, because we've seen a thing or two, and this this is going to be potentially a thing that we'll be able to immediately deploy, and roll right into action. And I've been telling people, our Go Go Agent members, that the great comfort that we have in being agents, is that we're not tied to one way, or the other. It does not matter. There's going to be some movement in the market, always. Right?
Erick: Yeah.
Dean: And the thing is, you just need to shift your attention to where the market actually is. And so, if it shifts to that there's a lot of bank owned houses coming on the market, and interest rates are really low, all of that is going to make first time buyers very happy, because they can get a house for less money, and with a really low interest rate now. So if you're the one that's providing all that information, that's a great opportunity for you.
Erick: Awesome, would you say I can focus on both at the same time? Or, what's the-
Dean: Have you got a budget? Have you got a war chest?
Erick: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Dean: Okay. So if you've got some money, like if you have money that you can invest, and that's the way I want you to think about it.
Erick: I love that.
Dean: Everybody thinks about, "I don't want to raise my expenses." They think that you've got to keep your expenses to within what your, as a percentage of what you're making. Well, I look at it the other way, that if you've got some money, if you've got capital to invest, that there's nothing that would be more valuable for you, than to put that money into an asset of a list of people who are looking to buy riverfront homes.
If you're running ads, and every day, you're adding people into a list, because they want, they download your guide to Eau Claire Riverfront house prices, and each week you're sending them the riverfront report, where, "Here's all the new riverfront listings that have come on the market each week. And whenever you're ready, here's three ways we can help you. Join us for a daily tour of riverfront homes. We do tours that 10 o'clock and one o'clock." That when people are ready, they'll jump out, and start to look at homes. Yeah. So, when you look at it, if you invest in a bundle of 100 leads today, of let's say, you can get these leads for, let's even go crazy and say $10, at the maximum, that you're going to spend for these leads. But let's say you got 100 leads for $1,000. What is the 100 week value of that bundle of 100 leads today? If every week you sent them an update of all the new riverfront homes, do you think that you could... We talk about that each one of those commissions is going to be $8,000, $9,000, $10,000, $7,000, whatever it is, that do you think that it would be likely that you would convert one of those people into buying a home?
It's more likely. I mean, we look at Tony Kalsi, on the Getting Listings side, he's converted over the five years 15% of the total list. So, if we say that you just look at what that bundle of 100 leads could be worth, if it was 10% that you convert over the next five years. That would be $80,000 value, from that $1,000 investment. Now, I want people to think about this like putting $1,000 into a CD, a certificate of deposit, or putting it in your- Right? And I would say to people, if you had picked the very tippy top stock, was Applied Materials that did 150%, which would mean that your thing would be worth one point... You'd put $1,000 in, and at the end of a year, it's worth $2,500, you look at what you've got with this opportunity to turn the $1,000 into $50,000, $80,000, whatever it is. That's the way to think about it. So, if you've got $10,000, think about a capital allocation. You're saying, "I've got $10,000 to invest in getting the Getting Listings postcards going, in getting running ads to find those things." That's the best way to think about it, whatever your budget is.
Erick: Awesome.
Dean: Yeah.
Erick: Good stuff. Yeah. Got it. I love the series you did with - was it LJ, or TJ?
Dean: Yes, exactly. You kind of remind me of LJ, because he came out with the fitness world, right.
Erick: Oh, that's right. Yeah, he owns CrossFit gyms. Yeah. Then Diane -.
Dean: And then Diane, yeah.
Erick: Yeah.
Dean: Now Diane works with me. So Diane runs our Go Go Agent, she's one of our coaches, and rubs our Easy Button program.
Erick: Yeah. What would that look like if I did the Easy Button?
Dean: Well there's the thing is, this is part of it, is that part of the thing, we look at the elements of the Listing Agent Lifestyle, are getting listings, and so we've got the whole program for that, where we can literally do all of it, where you just need to point on the map, where you want to get the listings, and any of the execution of it can be done from our office instead of from yours.
Erick: -The who, huh?
Dean: Yes, exactly. Who not how, that's exactly right.
Erick: Oh yeah.
Dean: But we also have the mechanism, and the way for you to do it yourself, if you want to do it that way too. I just look at it that one of our lifestyle elements is abundant time. And so, we try and create this, that that's the thinking, right? Is the who, now how, and we can be the who to do all of the stuff. But, excuse me, we just talked about two of the things that you can immediately get in place, the Getting Listings, and finding buyers with that riverfront guide, and running Facebook ads to run for all, everywhere in Eau Claire, for people who are looking for riverfront homes. And then, do you have any listings right now, or do you have...
Erick: Nope, I don't have any.
Dean: Okay. So that's the first thing. But when You do get them, we've got a whole program for multiplying them, because we want to make sure that you get multiple transactions from one listing. But, here's where you've got a neat opportunity right now, is you have been a lifelong resident of Eau Claire, and I'm sure that you know 150 people.
Erick: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I sent out... That is something to get done. I sent out the list yesterday, first mailing is out, it was the world's most interesting postcard.
Dean: - Good. So there's your baseline right there.
Erick: Yeah.
Dean: Is, the things that you want to do is get your list together, which you've got, send out the world's most interesting postcard. We do a new one every month, so you don't have to do any creative work on that. We can do that whole thing for you as well. And now, do you have your Google Map layer set up, so that you can-
Erick: Not yet, no.
Dean: Okay. So Diane can help you with that, to set up, to take your data, and create a Google Map that drops a pin where all of your top 150 live. So, what we want to establish for you is another, I think Wisconsin guy, Ron Reed, who is-
Erick: Ron Reed, yeah. He's in in Madison, I believe.
Dean: Madison, I think you're right.
Erick: Yup. Good guy.
Dean: And so, one of the things that he's really taking a shine to as our market maker Monday, where every Monday, I want you to think about, "Who am I showing houses to this week?" Or, "Who am I..." Or, even around your office, just pay attention to asking people in your office, "Are you showing houses to this week?" So that you can... Imagine if you had a little conference with your aunt every Monday, and said, "Hey," What's your aunt's name?
Erick: Tina.
Dean: Tina. So you said, "Hey, Tina, who are you showing houses to this week?" Not, "Who have you got as prospects that are maybe looking for something." I mean, "Who have you got in the car this week, that you're showing houses to? And what are you showing them?" And if you look at it, and she says, "Well, I'm showing riverfront homes." And you've been sending the Getting Listings postcards to the people in the riverfront homes, or you look in your top 150, and do you know anybody who lives on the river?
Erick: Yep, I do.
Dean: So, you look at your thing, and you see, "There's two people I know that live on the river." And you send them an email, and say, "Hey Jason. My aunt is in my office here. She's working with some people who are looking for a riverfront home. She's showing the one down the river here, from you. There's only a few on the market right now. Have you heard anybody talking about selling their riverfront home? Maybe we can match them up with Tina's buyers." That would be an amazing... Over 50 weeks of doing that, an amazing thing.
What we've had now is we're getting offices involved in doing this as a group, where we created a landing page. We created a Market Maker Monday landing page, where all the agents in that office get a text in the morning on Monday, and they have until 11:00 AM to fill out their weekly Market Maker form of, "Here's who I've got, that's actually looking at houses this week." Or, "I'm going to potentially list a house like this, this week." Right? I've got listing appointments.
Erick: Gotcha. Yup.
Dean: And everybody submits that, and then somebody centrally takes all of this, compiles it all together, and sends out to everybody, a market maker hot sheet, so that you now, can look at that market maker hot sheet, look at your top 150, look at all of your Getting Listings people who've responded, and you can be a market maker like that. So you say, Jonathan from your office is working with someone, and you can send that same kind of market maker email to anybody that's appropriate in your top 150. So, you're individually layering on top of this base, of sending the world's most interesting postcard to all of your top 150. Now you're individually reaching out, with very specific referral orchestrations.
Erick: Yep.
Dean: And that's something that's free, and the ROI is crazy on that.
Erick: Absolutely. Yep.
Dean: Yeah. So exciting when you're starting out with something brand new like that.
Erick: Are you excited for me, Dean?
Dean: I'm very excited.
Erick: Yeah, I'm just a robot. So you can just tell me what to do. And I'll do it.
Dean: There you go. The good news is we're not testing theories, we've got a long track record of, these are the things that work.
Erick: What you think might work, nope. It's, but what actually does, huh?
Dean: Yeah, they're actually working right now.
Erick: Would you like me to check back in like a month or two, and give you updates in the progress?
Dean: Yeah, of course. Yeah that's part. Like, you see now, get involved in the forum, and share what you're doing, check out, Ron Reeds started a thread all about Market Maker Monday, and you start to see all the things. But you look at, there's a lot of people with a great head start on you, that have been doing these things for a long time. But normally, we have, once a year in February, we have our Go Go Agent Academy, where we get together with everybody.
I think we'll be doing it probably by Zoom this year. We'll have another one in September. So, this would be a good chance to put some faces to the names, and connect with everybody, because we do a mastermind like that, and it's so much fun. It's a good way to brainstorm, because part of what I'm trying to create with the Listing Agent Lifestyle is this movement, where it's about creating a lifestyle business, that doesn't require just endless prospecting, outbound, pounding the pavement, or pounding the phones, or any of that. We want to create a business that, using marketing, that people come to you. Everything that I create, my whole provocation for it is, "What would I do if my phone only accepted incoming calls." So, really I've been able to create lots of great stuff around that. I'm excited that you're here. This is going to be a great experience.
Erick: Yeah. When did it like... Were you in real estate for a number of years before you got that itch to, "I want to show this to other people. I want to..."
Dean: Yeah, yeah. I started out in 1988, and then by 1996, so I was all about building my business in Halton Hills, outside of Toronto, and then when I discovered that guide system, it's creating the guide to Halton Hills, this is of course, there's no internet then, right? So this was like a very valuable thing, was running print ads that people would fax in their request form at the bottom, or they called my voicemail, and leave their info.
But when I started creating that system, I created it with an eye to creating something that can be duplicated. And that was what I did, I created a guide called 40 Great Places to Live Within an Hour of the City, and then I licensed my system to 40 different real estate agents, all within an hour surrounding Toronto. And I built a nice referral engine as well. So, we were licensing the system to them, but then I was running ads for the big guide, meaning people wanted to get a sense of where all the places were. And then we would refer the buyers out to the individual agents.
So, that was my first system. And then teamed up with Joe Stone, and we built, by referral only, for 15 years. Together we did big, main event somewhere in the country, every month for 15 years, and that was a great... We took that message then, out to, we had 5,000 members. It was a big coaching organization.
Erick: Oh, cool.
Dean: Yeah.
Erick: Yeah, yeah, you're amazing. Dean.
Dean: Oh my goodness, well, you can come back on the show anytime, Erick, I quite enjoy having you.
Erick: I so appreciate how you have... I don't know if you've ever had coaching, or schooling on just how to be a teacher, like just the way you put things, it's just so digestible.
Dean: Oh that's great. Yeah. Well, that's been my... I love real estate. I love real estate, I love marketing, and that was my laboratory, right? Is all of the things. I'm just applying all the greatest marketing knowledge to real estate, and I really am so happy with all this stuff we've been able to create, and to see the impact of it on people is something.
Erick: Yeah. Good.
Dean: So there we go. I think you're on your way.
Erick: I'm on my way.
Dean: Yeah, get involved. We do two member calls a month. So, you can join us on those Thursday calls.
Erick: Thursdays? Okay.
Dean: Yep. And well here, you get your updates from the field, and I think our next call is next Thursday, or the next Thursday, so, but watch your dashboard, and your email, for updates on them. But that was awesome. That was fun, Erick, I enjoyed talking with you.
Erick: Yeah, that was great. I know you got me wound up, and now pointed in the right direction. Got me fired up, and ready to go.
Dean: Perfect. Okay, I'll talk to you soon.
Erick: All right. I'll talk to you soon, DJ.
Dean: Thanks, Erick. Bye.
Erick: Bye.
Dean: And there we have it, another great episode, and if you'd like to continue the conversation, you can go to ListingAgentLifestyle.com. You can download a copy of the Listing Agent Lifestyle book, the manifesto that shares everything that we're talking about here, and you can be a guest on the show, if you'd like to talk about how we can build a Listing Agent Lifestyle plan for your business. Just click on the Be A Guest link at ListingAgentLifestyle.com.
And if you'd like to join our community of people who are applying all of the things we talked about in the Listing Agent Lifestyle, come on over to GoGoAgent.com, it's where we've got all the programs, all the tools, everything you need to get listings, to multiply your listings, to get referrals, convert leads, and to find buyers. And you can get a free, truly free, no credit card required trial for 30 days, at GoGoAgent.com. So, come on over, and I will see you there.