We're going to talk ad nauseam in depth about events today for your 2023 marketing mix and I am joined by a rock Star Perfect Living Walking example of how to leverage events properly in their marketing Mr Dave Archuleta Fundamentally, the job of marketing is to help position your brand as an agent as a team in your local. Marketplace On the consideration set of buyers and sellers in your local community, a lot of people look at marketing and think, oh, it's way too technical, call it's too much work involved and I'll be honest, there's a lot of marketing that is technical, but there's some marketing that it's so good and it's so easy and it's such low hanging fruit that it's like you don't even know it's marketing at all. And so today we're gonna have a conversation about event-based marketing that's actually fun marketing. I Actually think all marketing is fun, but go with me on my point: I'm trying to make event-based marketing that is so embedded into how you do life with the people in your local community, yet at the same time they'll be coming to you as their buyer's agent, as their listing agent as their agent of choice. We're going to talk Ad Nauseam in depth about events today for your 2023 marketing mix and I am joined by a rock star Perfect Living Walking example of how to leverage events properly in their marketing Mr Dave Archuleta Dave Thank you so much for coming on the show. We are super happy to have you. Thank you so much for having me! Chase I'm glad to be here. Yeah, it's going to be a blast! Okay so for those watching who don't know the wonderful day of Archuleta can you give us kind of the back story and context of your business? Yes, uh, my name is Dave Archuleta I I'm actually farmer out in Rancho Mission Viejo California which is out in South Orange County I Kind of consider it the last city of Orange County We're technically not a city yet, but uh, you know we've got about 15 000 homes coming in the future and we will be our own City one day. So that is my business where I'm at I work alongside my wife Julia Archuleta who keeps me and the family all together in one piece and what else do you want to know? Jason All right. So I want to know? Um, because I know the back story and I want them to How long have you been selling real estate yourself? uh myself? I I will be my third year, Uh in January of next year. Okay and then how about your wife? How about her? My wife has been doing it almost 14 years. Okay and then so you transitioned in and kind of talk about that like transition and how that all went down. Yeah you know we have five kids and before I had my license uh we were found out we were having our fifth and so I could see how stressed my wife was trying to handle all the kids, me working another job and her trying to run a business. So I said you know what? why don't I get my license and see if I like it and maybe I could help and so I did it I got my license and I did one weekend of an open house and I I loved it and I I said this is for me I want to try this Uh so I did it part time for a couple months and then I just went all in uh January of 2020 and then covet happened. Yeah and then but then your business exploded and so you've already described the marketplace. It's sort of a not city but one day we're going to be a city in Orange County kind of a situation. Uh I've been to this area. it's a super cool area. Really really awesome spot to live. Um, how many homes or what kind of a business are you all doing in that area? Just give us some production context. All right. So 2019 we did about 12 million and then I came on, started helping my wife. We did 44 million and then the following year almost 48 50 million and we've kind of slowly transitioned to where my wife has kind of Taken full time with the kiddos. Um, because she just wants to do that and I want her to do that And so this year I've been on my own and I'm on track to do 80 million and yeah, it's nuts. It is nuts. And the other thing that really stands out about your business is I Find this is the case in a lot of California markets where you can be in like different kinds of markets Across America and you'll find agents who are doing 100 200 Sales and you have those High unit numbers I don't see as much as that as much of that in California Uh, but talk to us about how many units will you all close ballpark this year? Uh, I'm on track for about 75. um, which is a lot for us. Typically we do about 40 to 50. Um, you know when you're filling out your business plan like last year I Remember filling it out in a loom and you know you see all the sellers you need. all the buyers you need, all the you know, your research, where they're going to become from and then I tallied them all up and I was like wow, that's 71. That's that's almost impossible and here we are I've almost reached that. I've already reached my goal in sales which is it's just unbelievable to me. I'm just incredibly grateful and you know it's because I follow everything that you tell me. Well, today we're going to tell some extra stuff that we haven't told everybody else yet. Uh, so talk to us about your event strategy and I'm going to kind of try to set this up and I don't have formal questions to ask you I just want to have a conversation because I think what you all are doing with your event strategy is like the new blueprint for how folks who are farmers. as you put it I know people are going to watch our call and be like what do you mean a farmer Like we plant seeds and stuff like a geographic farmer in your marketing. Uh, I think you're going to be giving people sort of the blueprint of what that looks like going forward. So kind of walk us through. Let's start with what your event strategy is today and then I want to go back to how it started. so let's see how it's going. how it started. Okay, well first off, I I only do events that really match my values of who I am as a brand. Um, so my, my events aren't very. uh, you know I don't just do them to do them. they have purpose behind them. Uh, because it matches who I am as a person and that matches who my business is. So uh, right now I've got a softball Club that's co-ed that's in my farm and it's anyone that wants to sign up. We meet every single Tuesday night so I'm always in front of them every Tuesday night I play in every single game I'm there at every single game. talking with people that watch the games. Um, are you any good? I'm not as good as the broke agent, but uh, exactly. Uh, Okay, so every Tuesday night you're holding a softball game. Every every Tuesday night we start at six o'clock We usually end around 9 30. Uh, so that's my commitment to that. Uh, it's honestly one of my favorite night of the weeks. And I you'll hear that from so many people in the league that that's their favorite night of the week because we just get to get out. have fun. It's competitive, uh, within certain limits and boundaries. Yeah, it's great because all the families come out, all the kiddos come out. there's a playground there. Uh I always bring candy for the kids. We always got music pump in. uh you know. last night we had our championship game. So I had my best 80s music playing so we had. you know all the hits Spice Girls were in there. they're not 80s I know? Okay, you know it was. It's fun music and it gets people laughing and having a good time. Uh, while we get to play. So it's funny because when it's not there when the batteries die because sometimes that happens. Yeah, everyone's bombed. Where's the music? So so I've heard you describe this club before and I'm like I want to live in a place like that? It honestly sounds like just a super fun, connected place where people Bond and make friendships and you know real estate is a relationship business. It's a know you like you trust you kind of business. We tout that message over and over and over again. and so when I look at your event strategy which I want to get to what the proof is in the pudding I want to get to the numbers and what are the results of this but I want to Prime and frame it through the lens of if you're building Community with people If you're building relationships with people, it's sort of like Field of Dreams and you're Kevin Costner if you build it they will come. Yeah, if you create the infrastructure that Fosters that kind of community it's gonna lead to Deals it's gonna lead to sales. So just for those watching who are like uh, how does playing softball get me deals, tell them what is done for your business. Okay so in the nine months to a year I've done 25 plus transactions just from softball. Okay, you know and this is pretty awesome. That is pretty awesome and it didn't really cost me anything except my time. but at the same time I'm doing something that I really like. you know? So if it, if it wasn't happen to be business related I'd probably still be doing it right. Yeah, yeah, that's what I think is special about the events that I do I do things that I'm passionate about. Um, you know like I got another club it's called The Ranch seller and it's a wine tasting club and you know my wife has an agricultural business background so she knows everything about wine and to me I think wine tastes purple. yeah I was going to ask you I was like do you even like wine and I and I really want to because I have so many clients that love it. My wife loves does it. Everyone in my family loves it. but I think wine tastes purple or if it's white or gold I think it tastes bronze or gold. you know that's my description of wine and that's kind of been the catch phrase of the club. Whether you think wine tastes purple or your wine connoisseur, come and hang out with us. Aubergine was that. I Every month I have four hours because we meet from six to ten with about 80 to 90 people that live in my farm and we're all stuck in this events room uh, at our local restaurant that we get to go and support and they provide us appetizers, five wines, or three beers if you don't like wine. So it's a really cool time to connect with people. and what I find is that what I really love is that people are connecting with other people. So when like last we had one last weekend and I think it was like 22 people have never been to this event. All right, About 10 of them just moved into the community, didn't know anybody. So here they are being able to connect with people on their street or in their in their neighborhood. Maybe they have same age kids and now they've got these connections because they just spent four hours hanging out talking with their new friends. So one of the cool things Dave It sounds like your community has really taken the idea that you started and made it their own. How are they all contributing to the experience? So it's not just all on your shoulder so to speak. Yeah, no great question. So for example, the softball club. uh, there's so many people that, uh, say hey, would it be cool if I bring my cotton candy machine popcorn machine and maybe bring some pizzas and we'll just invite everybody to bring their kiddos. um you know I love that because it's not me doing it, it's everyone just organically just wanting to do it because they see the value of connecting people. And you know we had a championship game last season we did a potluck, everybody brought stuff, every team was in charge of certain things and I just love that kind of stuff. So like, we just ended our season last night and uh, you know, in a couple weeks we're going to be doing an uh, you know, an event at the brewery that's in our farm and that'll be really cool. We'll have food trucks and you know everyone will bring the kiddos and just you know, hang out. So those are the kind of things that I I just love. It just makes my job so much more fun and fulfilling. And uh yeah, dude, it sounds like a party is what it sounds like. It's good times. What inspired this idea for you guys? Um, you know, softball kind of just started because Kovid was happening, right? Yeah, um and my wife has a tennis club and she just loves tennis and she plays all the time. So I was jealous I'm like, well I want a club I want to do something where I can go out and have a night away. Uh, like for my night, you know? So I said I'm gonna start a softball club and you know my wife's like you don't know anything about starting a club and I was like you're right I don't But I'm gonna figure it out. So the tennis club is the tennis club recreational or was that also used for pseudo-business purposes? No. Julia just started it because she wanted to play tennis just for tennis. and naturally it turned into friendships. It turned into, you know, helping people buy and sell homes. Yeah, and then you did it with softball. But candidly, the league seems like it's exploded because honestly, more people can play softball than can play tennis. Yeah, and so there's a huge opportunity for connection. So what's the? You might have already mentioned this, how many people are participating? So we got about 200 people. Uh, right now we got nine teams I put about 20 people on each team because not everyone can be there every week. Yeah, um, typically there's about 12 13 players each week. Um, but what What is really special about it and you know? I I Love connecting people and helping people feel welcomed, loved and valued. And I really wanted the teams to be like orchestrated by the street that they live on the community they live in because we've got different communities within the big Community right? So I was able to structure all the teams that way. No one knew that until they're playing with their team and the third weekend they're like. So what street do you live on and winners? Court You know they're like wait, that's the street I Live on, we're neighbors, you know. So that's how it like really organically just happened where now I'd be driving around on the weekends putting up my open house signs and I see people hanging out together playing softball with their kids and their kids and I thought how cool was it that I got to be a part of something like that that are making those lifelong connections with people and you know they all have uniforms. They all have team names I didn't come up with that they did that all organically and you know it's been turned into something really special. Yeah, I think I Think the grander principle here is again, just remember this is relationship business. the house people live in. It's where they do life. It's where they do community and so if you can put yourself in a position to be the connector of those relationships, this is where I think a lot of Agents They don't see marketing for what it is. Marketing is just a neutral term. Marketing could be digital marketing. It could be super technical or it could be super relational. It is what you make it to be. And so I think like the reason I wanted to invite you on to this show and talk about is because I Just think what you're doing is awesome I Think it celebrates the right values, It brings people closer together and it works for your business. Um, talk to folks about some of the logistics if they wanted to start their own League or their own recurring events. What are some of the lessons you've learned over time that you would say like hey, don't do this or make sure you do this Well First off, it's a lot of work. It's not easy, but I knew that going in. but what I did is I I relied on people that have done this before. so I called every softball club person that I knew Uh, All In Orange County I found out you know because I had to have rules I had to have regulations for the HOA uh to be able to put the club in there because they're asking me what's your, what's your rules, what's the writer and I was like I I don't know So I literally had to figure that out and um, you know. so I called on so many people. uh, so many people were willing to help. So I think if you're going to be starting a club like this, it's always how can you involve other people to help you so you're not just doing it alone. So you know I know there's people in my community that uh, do this all the time they play Tuesday Wednesday Thursdays in different cities around here so you know those are my first calls and those guys really helped me figure this all out. and then it was my creative craziness that, well, what if we did it like this, you know? So yeah, um okay so this next question is kind of a trick question on purpose. How do you ask them for business? Say that again I don't All right I have never once said I'm a realtor I've never said sell your house with me People just naturally come up to me and say hey, I really like what you're doing it for softballers that's our club name and create it. you know I like what I like what how you're bringing people together and how that gives back to the community and if that's how you run your business I want to I want you to work with me? So yeah I think that's the best compliment I could ever get as someone that's in sales and an agent you know is I don't know because I I don't ever want to force myself on you know, trying to sell or force people to work with me like work with me because you want to work with me and I'll work with you because I want to work with you right? Yeah, Fundamentally, that's the correct answer and I think again, this is a relationship business and you've got to put a certain level of faith into the idea that if I genuinely and earnestly try to build relationships with people, the natural response will eventually be they will repeat, refer business with me and in fact, the statistics support you. We know statistically speaking, if you look at the National Association of Realtors data that they produce annually, we know that last year or actually this year 2022 for example, listings 63 of sellers found an agent by way of either repeat or referral business and so I say that to reinforce this idea that look, people are gonna do business with agents they know like and Trust So the question is, how are you putting yourself on the radar Is the person that they check? No check, like check trust and I think your event strategy is fantastic. Okay, one last question. wait before you go on. Yeah because I was thinking about this earlier like I think sometimes as agents we we put such a focus on we sell and buy homes and that's what we do. But I think my strategy is kind of reverse of I connect people and I make people feel welcomed and and loved and in return that helps me sell and buy homes. Bingo you know that's really been my focus in everything that I'm doing. and I think if as long as I keep doing that and it comes across more authentic, it builds way more trust. Um, 100 the former of what you described as a salesperson, the latter of what you describe arrived is a knowledge broker, is a confidant, is an advisor, a trusted local advisor, whatever whatever language we want to use to describe it. Yeah, it's a different thing and it's the winning combination. Uh, in in this kind of an industry, so talk to us about like what's the next iteration or next chapter of where you're taking this next. Okay, so I I got a new event that I'm doing in December So I I'm really big on branding and and having cool names because I think cool names make it give it a little bit more legitness to it. If that's even a word legitness, you know, like my softball Club is called RMV softballers and uh, my wine tasting is. You know the catchphrase is you know I think wine tastes purple Um so for this Christmas event I'm calling it uh, get elfed up for charity and it's gonna be a toy drive. uh in Christmas season and we're gonna have an 80s cover band and everyone's going to dress up like elves and uh, you know everyone's gonna bring a toy uh that we give to Toys for Tots So I'm really excited about it. I Just started promoting uh last week and you know we've already got a hundred and something to get sold. So awesome! We're expecting 600 people so it's gonna be fun. Uh, is your 80s cover band gonna cover Spice Girls Just kidding. maybe we'll see that was like the 80s 80.

oh okay, touche. I'll grant you that. Okay, um I I Hope everybody who's been watching and listening to this episode's getting inspired about what could you do in your local Marketplace to be the connector to be the person who Fosters relationship Everybody wants to be in community, everybody wants to belong and we talk all the time with agents about being the digital Mayor being that trusted local advisor and I look at events as just a fundamental way to Foster those relationships and I think the way you're doing it Dave is absolutely rock solid. Uh, tell the good people where they can connect with you. Connect with me on Instagram The Underscore Archuleta Underscore team and there you will build a connection with us everywhere else on social media. Our website the Archuleta Team.com would love to hear from you guys DM me if you got questions about a club softball Club Anything that you guys are doing I would love ideas. Uh, there's nothing else I would love to do more is more events so send me some ideas all right I Love it. Uh, good stuff I'd Love to hear your feedback in the comments here on YouTube Wherever you're watching or listening, we want to know what you think, what are your ideas. Let's get a really good brainstorm going in the thread and until next week. This is this week in Marketing.