I'm actively fishing on Instagram I Make it a point to start conversations on the platform because that's where I want to be. The dream on social Media is to attract leads, buyers and sellers who want to work with you. and they subscribe to your thought leadership. They watch your videos, they watch your content and over and over and over again.

you chart. You start to work that audience to the point where they say I want to work with an agent just like you That's the dream. But so many agents are struggling to figure out how do I bring this together? How do I bring the right mix of content together that moves an audience and attracts the right type of clientele for my business. How do I build my business on Instagram On Social with video.

It's what every agent wants to know and it's exactly what Chris Benjamin has done in his business to not only just grow his own business, but scale a team around making amazing, entertaining, educational content on social media. Instagram and Beyond So today's episode of this week in Marketing is going to be a blast. It's an interview with Chris Benjamin and I want you to think of me: Jason Pantana, your host of this show as your investigative journalist. It's my job to dive into the details of his business and break down exactly what he's doing on Instagram and with Video and Social to scale his business so effectively so that you can rip off and duplicate to quote Tom Ferry So welcome to this Week in Marketing.

My name is Jason Pantana I'm your host and I'm so glad you're tuned in. If you're new to the Channel please make sure to tap that big red subscribe button so you can find out whenever we publish new videos just like this one where they're at and watch them. On Demand So you can integrate the strategies and ideas as quickly as possible and get results as soon as possible. this one's going to be a blast! Chris Benjamin Welcome to the show! thank you for having me! Jason I Don't know if I can live up to that intro.

My man, you, you already have Man, that's the reason you're here. And I'm so glad you're on for today's conversation because when I look at the landscape of social media marketing, especially in the real estate space, we all know that video is the ultimate medium. We know that there's no marketing format like video. We recognize that social media marketing is unprecedented in terms of the access it gives you to the consumer.

I Mean you can do postcards and events, and there's lots of other marketing strategies out there, but there's nothing that's quite as intimate in terms of building a subscribership and having influence and attracting business. Quite like social. Yet, there are so many things that can go wrong and it can become a major distraction for agents who don't have the right strategy in place. And so I'm excited for our conversation to break down What you're doing that's working in your business for social just for those watching.

If you could kind of give us the back story, it'd be really helpful in terms of what is your Instagram what have you done on there strategically and walk us through how it's been a pillar in your business? Absolutely. Uh, so I think it's I think it's important for everyone to recognize that my first day on Instagram didn't look anything like the profile that you're seeing today and candidly. I'm sure, just like your own social media profiles, they've evolved. And they've They've evolved because we show up consistently enough to see what needs to happen for it to change.

So if you were to scroll back through the feed very transparently it was after attending the I think it was either Summit or Elite in 2018 I had just gotten into business nahid my mom. my partner brought me to the event and Tom was on the same soapbox that he's on Today videos videos videos and at that time I remember not being able to contribute a lot to the business I had just transitioned into it from practicing law I really didn't have a book of business that people were you know, knocking down my door for me to represent them and I thought to myself, what could I do to help move the needle forward? And if Tom says do this and my mom says do this, it's free why not do this So Circa 2018 This is pre-instagram green screen. I Used to print once a week I Think that's the biggest thing is committing to a number that you can commit to consistently once a week every Sunday I would print a KCM article or a a chart that they would that they would share with us and I would hold it next to the camera like this I'm not sure if you remember me making these but I would hold it and I would just talk to the Chart I would talk to the camera I would point at the chart and it was once a week I would drop them every Monday and I built that muscle over time to sort of evolve into the person that I am. Now if you would have asked me four years ago, I guess that was five years ago.

Now you know, Do you want to make content to show up every single day multiple times a day? I would say there's no way I don't have the bandwidth, but it really started with just that one time a week until I felt comfortable enough to add to the mix and um, yeah. God bless keeping current matters and Tom on that stage because that's really where it started I see I Love that and I Remember those videos that was back in the early days and you were finding your groove. Your backstory is fascinating. So you went from lawyer to Realtor and now you've become your super successful Realtor.

You still are a Realtor of course, but you're also a social media influencer in many standards of that definition. And I look at your content and what's interesting is your content is pretty humorous. You're one of the funnier, more creative, inventive video marketers I've seen in a long time, so tell me a little bit like how to how is that transition going? What I mean I don't know what form of law you were practicing, but how did you go from law to Realtor buttoned up to all of a sudden you let yourself show who you really are on video. It's a great question and I think I've just tried to lean in to what's natural for me.

so I loved practicing law I was a criminal defense attorney I was a public defender for a number of years and I think What attracted me to the content is the performance is innate inside me and I think there's a level There's a level of satisfaction that I get from making content that I truly believe anybody who is showing up at a high level consistently has because if you didn't enjoy it, you wouldn't be showing up to do it. and I would say that I would even pose the same question to you I Understand, this is work for you, but you enjoy this process 100 percent. Yeah, if you. Yeah, if you don't enjoy it, then I don't think you will be able to show up consistently, um, and effectively.

so I really appreciate you saying I'm humorous. It's funny because I don't find myself naturally that funny I wouldn't use it as like my list of words to describe myself I really lean on being informative I think from my legal background I've always felt confident being able to understand information, synthesize, and then deliver it back and I really leaned exclusively on being this sort of knowledge broker info. The infotainment evolved, but it wasn't until I Really felt comfortable just giving the information and once I felt comfortable giving the information. Let's put a humorous spin on it.

and now once I have a humorous spin on it I Think this is like level 10. that's very difficult for people to get to. Let me start giving you my opinion. If you're watching or listening and thinking: I've gotta level up my social media game I Gotta get my video skills enhanced I've got to figure out the right strategy for what types of content I should be publishing on social.

Then you should check out our course. crack into social code it's part of marketing Pro Our online training platform designed to make you a better marketer. The course is loaded with over three hours of video content with screen share demonstration and walking you step by step exactly how to crush your social media game. Click the link in the description.

Foreign. So at first you're doing just videos holding up a sheet. the sheets. Just a prop for all intents and purposes talking about information.

I Assume the viewer wasn't supposed to be able to read what's on the sheet. it was just there as if you're holding, uh, you know some kind of a these are what's what the law says. Here it is I'm holding it in my hand something like that. You've always been the knowledge broker and I made the comment about your content being entertaining and educational and I'm thinking about when you launched.

Crispy Tips Can you expand about how you migrated from your version? 1.0 Market Updates right? Being the knowledge broker, coming from a place of synthesizing and summarizing what the consumer needs to know to make informed choices and then migrating into Crispy Tips I'd love to hear that transition. that's a great question and a great, uh, a walk down memory. Road I Think the transition was probably within 12 months because I felt that I was invested enough to actually start putting money behind what I was doing. So I quickly realized that I could only do so much by myself and once I realized that this was my bandwidth alone, it was time for me to be looking outside for some support.

The crispy tip really evolved because quickly, probably after I don't know half of the market updates I was delivering I realized I was competing against women in bikinis I was competing against guys in the gym I'm competing against sports cars and without figuring out a way to capture people's attention I knew that whatever I had to deliver to them was going to fall on deaf ears I don't know if it's I think it's really important and maybe I feel grateful to have this self-confidence but very early on probably listening to Tom I decided nobody cares what I look like nobody cares what I sound like and as soon as I was able to remove sort of the cool factor and I think that's a struggle for some people is how do I maintain this level of like bravado and cool as soon as you can kind of get rid of that. It allows you to create from a place of what the audience wants. so I'm not saying every single video I encourage you to jump out of a trash can. but if I'm willing to jump out out of a trash can and be the butt of my own joke for the expense of the consumer learning what supplemental tax is, I'm good with that.

So it also seems like crispy tips follow the trajectory or the rise of vertical video and it seems like you stepped into those mostly when reels came about and you're like oh wow, this is a trend short form vertical videos I'm gonna absolutely crush this and you're spot on the audience's attention is fleeting the the way the predominant means of using Instagram or any platform like that is to scroll through content. and so people are like switch switch. they're scrolling through content so quickly if you don't hook their viewership really really fast, you're not going to and then I Remember I saw your the first crispy tip I saw I think you were in a full karate ghee practicing martial arts in the middle of a park or something. Totally random and you always started with I'm gonna make you say it, but you always have a signature start to how you started those.

how did it start? oh hey, oh hey, that's right. As if we just caught you doing something like what are some Okay, so if anybody hasn't washed, Crispy Tips give everybody listening sort of the the mental picture of what a crispy tip is. a crisp Benjamin tip For those just listening, the visual uh, that you should be thinking of is me in a variety of locations. It really doesn't matter if it connects to the idea that I'm delivering, but you'll catch me in a karate ghee in a kitchen, in a trash can on a roof.

It really doesn't matter, but you will catch me and say that again, Zoologist, zoologist. I will find myself in a place that I get people to stop for just a few seconds and then jump right into something informative that I want to deliver to them and that was a crispy tip I Gotta ask you a really personal question oh please on Amazon and it's showing you recommended next purchases. How many of your recommended next purchases are strange costumes you buy? Oh my Gosh! I can't believe you you just asked me that and what's funny about it is I just got one today that was like latex paint, a weird wig and um I've been having this Dave Ramsey skit and ever since I started the Dave Ramsey thing I get some weird things in the algorithm but yes I do get them because you got to have like a crazy cut if people are like I'm gonna go find these crispy tips. but I digress: What? I love about your approach is out of the gate.

As a new agent, even you recognize what matters is giving the consumer information and I'm gonna do that as best as I know how. And then through an iterative process it got better and better and better. And you evolved. Your process evolved.

You started understanding how the platform functions and you started seeing the trends of vertical videos and you got creative to talk about candidly, boring subject matter in the most entertaining way imaginable. So that was crispy tips and that was I believe you launched those around when the pandemic started I Want to say it's around when the rise of reels came to be thing? How is your content involved? Even from that point to where it is today, the content has evolved so much so that I've I don't want to say I've abandoned crispy tips but I don't do them nearly at the volume I was because I feel like this is like so artistic of me but it's like as you evolve you kind of want to grow and I feel like I've just outgrown it. Although when I hear this kind of like feedback, it makes me think that I want to revert back to it so the content has really evolved I think mainly with me now feeling like I'm in a position that I'm confident enough to give my opinion and I know that sounds sort of. That might sound basic but I don't think it's easy to show up on camera and tell the audience this is what I think about something.

This is what I feel about something. It's much easier to just say the sky is blue This many houses sold in this market. The difference is and the level that people really want is this is how many houses sold in this market. This is what I think it means for you Man, what you're saying is absolutely true I was having a conversation uh, several conversations over the past week exactly on this topic.

And the bit of advice I've often fed to my clients is when it comes to the videos they make and being a knowledge broker I'll put it like this: I want you to give your opinions based upon facts that's always been the commentary because people are looking for a thought leader somebody to follow and learn from and that's going to require a high degree of vulnerability in terms of being willing to share your insights and observations. I mean what if you're wrong and I had a conversation with a gentleman the other day who was acknowledging he struggles with the idea of sharing his thoughts on a certain matter because what if he's wrong? or what if somebody calls him out? or what if they expose him to be some kind of a fraud and he's facing imposter syndrome just like everybody else is. I mean candidly. The only people who are on some level facing imposter syndrome are narcissists.

that's I mean candidly. But here's the conversation we had and I'm curious. Your thoughts on this I asked him, who do you, who are you influenced by who's like whose videos do you watch and they influence you and and he mentioned me as a matter of fact I was talking to him and he watches my videos and I was like do you think that I know my stuff about marketing and he said well, yeah and I said have you ever considered that I don't think I know my stuff about marketing and he said well, no and I said but I don't care what I do, it's not about what I don't know, it's about what I can learn and so my mentality and it seems like you're Cut From the Same Cloth It's always been man, the person who gets stumped the most times and is willing to go figure out the answer is the one who ends up with the most information. And so when I look at the people who are giving the most high value content, they're unafraid to be stumped because they're hungry to learn something new and that has to.

That has to be your mindset and it goes back to your comments earlier about it's about your audience. It's about feeding your audience. It's not your ego exactly. and I think the thing about feeding the audience and doing the legwork to deliver them the information in a concise, entertaining way forces you to really understand and comprehend these.

Concepts and I think that's one reason I feel so confident in a lot of what I've learned about the real estate business about the real estate industry is because if I'm going to deliver, you deliver to you a message about what is escrow I better damn sure understand what escrow is and not even just understand it at a high level. but to synthesize it in a way that I can give it to you in 60 seconds or less. So it's fascinating what content creation has done for me when it comes to not just real estate, but the communities I serve local businesses. Other people that I get to have conversations with I'm forced to become this expert in a short period of time and but for making the content I don't know if I would have ever dove in with that level of detail.

What's your process like for preparing for a shoot man? I wish it was more organized. Is this like me personally or what I pitched to everybody? Yes, Yes! I Just kidding. So my process is pretty straightforward and it's always sort of fluidly happening. So I have a notepad on my phone.

the iPhone Notes I Don't think this is very novel and it's just called ideas Anytime I have an idea I will quickly jot it down or more specifically, any time that I see an article or Instagram post that I find inspiring I will copy that link to that note page so then I can go dive into it later in the perfect world. but just I do the exact same thing as you. By the way, it's exactly keep going though. Yeah, thank you.

That gives me like you know you don't. You want to keep it easy and content is not in a vacuum. It would be beautiful if every idea happened when I was sitting at my desk. But it's not like that.

so you have to take some sort of conscious effort to be able to document these things because they're fleeting. What? I have on my calendar when I am most accountable is two times a week Mondays and Thursdays I have on my calendar one and a half hours to exclusively brainstorm and write scripts. Um, with the child that just entered my life. And like all of everything else that's been thrown at me, I haven't been consistent at scheduling the time to come up with the content like the scripts and the ideas.

So now before a shoot day, I'll have my running list of ideas and I will allocate a few hours depending on how many videos I intend on shooting and I will flesh them out to the T I Don't just come up with Concepts unless I'm trying to do something just conceptual, but I have to the T This is what I'm gonna say. this might be what I'm jumping out of. This is sort of the concept and the reason I'm kind of surgical in the preparation is the shooting can take so much time and if you're paying for somebody's time or you have limited of it yourself, right? You don't want to spin wheels by trying to have to change words. You don't want to have to spin wheels by coming up with ideas and that is very frustrating.

I Think that's probably one of the reasons why people don't stay consistent is when the process is very uncomfortable for them, they don't want to come back to it and if the process for you is coming up with the ideas, shooting the ideas, editing them, and then writing the captions all in one take. So God bless you, it's a lot. You're the kind of person who enjoys the artistic pursuit of what you're doing. So the writing the creative ideas.

it's what gets you going. What do you say to somebody who struggles or says I'm not good at coming up with ideas? That's a great question. What I would say to anybody that struggles with believing that they don't have the ability to come up with ideas is twofold. One Agents are arguably the most creative people that I know when we problem solve, how to put together an escrow when the buyer and seller hate each other.

That's creativity When we problem solve, how to you know, put a request of repairs to get somebody to agree to something that's creativity. So the first thing that I would say to somebody who doesn't believe they're creative is to adjust their definition of creativity because if you think it lives in the vacuum of making videos, you're grossly wrong. That's the first thing. Second thing that I would say is there are portions of every business that we don't like.

You might not enjoy making phone calls, but we know as successful agents. making phone calls is an integral part of the business, so you don't have to love every piece of it the same. but you do have to show up to do it as consistently. With that said, your videos might never be Jason Pantana's videos, but that's okay because they don't have to be you to be the knowledge broker in their field just the same way that you know Now we're here.

name dropping but like I don't have to be Tom tool to be able to sell houses on the phone, right? But I have to be able to get on the phone and that's how I feel about the content I Like where you brought us on that point. There are certain core functions from a sales marketing standpoint that are unassailable and non-negotiable when it comes to real estate. Making calls is top of the list, and it's a good comparison Because let's be candid, you're going to struggle to run an effective business and maximize your potential if you're unwilling to pick up the phone and make calls right. It's funny, a lot of folks go to make videos because it's it's a substitution.

It's almost call avoidance and they're but it's not. The whole purpose of video is to prime those conversations so that when you have them, they're way warmer, way more lucrative, way more productive conversations. I Would also make the argument that when it comes to core activities from a marketing and sales standpoint, video is a core activity. It may not be necessarily your Forte, but the only way you get better at something is by doing it again and again.

You swing the bat over and over again and get better at doing it again and again. And the person who tells themselves I'm not good at hitting the ball isn't going to swing and so it's going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy in that regard. I Love that advice because everybody is creative. On some level, it's a matter of being disciplined enough to elicit from yourself your true creativity.

That's right, thank you and finding your own voice I Think that's always. The criticism is I'm not funny I'm not I I'm man I Hope people aren't saying I'm not smart, but they're finding reasons about what they're not to prevent themselves from making videos and what I've really found. It's that old adage, you gotta find your voice but how do you discover your voice if you're not singing so you won't really find one of those Tick-Tock Dance videos and I'm not here to criticize anybody making those videos where they point at things and dance. but I Really believe there's a lot of value to people that get started with those videos because level one is just getting comfortable enough to show up on camera, right? So if you're not ready for us to hear your voice, no problem.

dance on screen. and as soon as you're comfortable with that, now, go ahead and say something. Let us get familiar with your voice and that's how you really begin the process. How do you find your voice if you don't sing I Love that.

All right. So let's future paste it to where you are today. you're currently sitting in your own video. Studio You are all In On Video.

So just for folks who are at the beginning stages, show us where you're at Now in terms of describing it to us as if to say to everybody, this is what's possible This is why I'm all In On Video. Does that question make sense? Absolutely. So where I am now is Miles Ahead of where I started five years ago and the evolution was Me by myself. me sending the video to somebody to edit it moved to me expanding the budget and now Outsourcing the video content.

So I would connect with a videographer twice a month to shoot all of my content and then I would separately Outsource my listings. uh, to a different videographer and then anything sort of like this I was doing on my own and after three years of that process Outsourcing the video. you begin to get more strategic and analytical as far as like time and cost, time and cost. How can I make more of this? save myself money but increase the quality? You're just trying to do all of these business audits, right? So where we are now: I've brought in full-time a creative director Joaquin he's kind of the one that I have to thank for this whole beautiful setup and now he is responsible for all of the content that we are creating myself and nahid.

Uh, he's here supporting my team as well. so it's something that I leverage that I can offer to people that join us on the team. and uh, he's now also doing all of our listings. and by bringing that in-house it's been able to save me money, It's been able to save me time.

and most importantly, what I care about is it's allowed me to create even more at a higher quality. And I Do not encourage anybody to go hire a creative director like Day one, right? But year five Now that I found this to be my voice and keep in mind like I'm not spending ten thousand dollars a month on mailers. My budget is on video, right? My budget is on ad spend for V like so you pick your poison and what you really want to Leverage see I think that's that's the key I mean it's a marketing strategy and you've scaled your marketing up because it's effective in growing your business, right? I Have one final question. Probably should have asked it earlier, but it's still relevant now.

or I'm going to make it relevant now. There's a lot of folks out there who are watching other agents on Instagram or whatever social network it is and they're saying well, only other agents are watching this, the consumer is not even paying attention for everybody listening and watching and watching. Who's who's consuming your content and how is it driving your business I Think it's a limiting belief and also sort of the way to shrug off some of the real estate content creators to make others feel better. Um about what they're doing.

There's no doubt that agents are watching and engaging in the content. but if for one second that you think the consumer is not watching just because they didn't leave you a comment or a like you are grossly mistaken because I cannot tell you how frequently people will say oh, I love that video you did X Y and Z or I love what you did here or I love what you did there and I'm like damn B you could have left. Uh, you could have left a comment that you loved it. You could have shared it with somebody that you loved, but uh, they are still watching.

So I would say when I did the numbers last year 2022 47 of our production came from a conversation that began on the internet. That doesn't mean cold, right? My database is following me on. Instagram if I finish a buyer consult with you, the last thing I say is what's your Instagram handle I'd love to stay connected when I knock on a door what's your Instagram handle I'd love to stay in front of you they are there watching I am also actively fishing I don't know if I'm going into the weeds but I am actively fishing on Instagram and what I mean by that is I make it a point to start conversations on the platform because that's where I want to be. So very simply if you share something on your story, Instagram allows you to see who watched your story I will audit who is watching my story I will scan by all of the Realtors and lenders that are in my feed and I will look for somebody that I have either bought and sold with or somebody that I would like to buy and sell with who also has a ring around their story telling me that they've published something and the reason why I'm looking for them to have shared a story is because I don't want to waste the time jumping into their feed, jumping onto the wall.

it's a Time suck. I will quickly watch whatever they've posted because I know that it's current I know that it's within the last 24 hours on the platform. we know they're active on the platform I will watch whatever it is and I will pick up my phone I will go to the direct messages I will open up the front facing video and I will let's use you. An example: you posted that photo of your two kids and your wife yesterday on Easter Yeah, I would see that and I was a Jason happy Easter My man, you have a beautiful family.

How did you spend your day? Hmm, send that five a day. That's that's a good move. There's so much clever about that move and and I I'm gonna it. Go.

It's proof that there's marketing and there's prospecting. You can't just post videos and expect people to come to you. You're also going to them but using the stories to see who's actually watching your content because to your point, you're right past clients sphere of influence contacts. They're not always leaving comments or likes or visible Trails of their attention, but on stories because we're tracking views.

What a clever way to see who's seeing your content, who's engaging with it at least on a top of funnel level. And then I Love the idea of the ones who have active stories I mean you just told everybody I don't have to repeat the whole thing, but that's super super clever I Love it And that's the perfect way to end this conversation because what you've done on Instagram is remarkable. You have built and scaled up a business and a team because of videos on Instagram All from the singular focus of it's not about me, it's about serving my audience. How can I take and summarize and synthesize the information they need to make informed choices and deliver to them in a format that serves their attention spans? They're on the platform.

How can I make it more fun and exciting for them? Everything you've said today is done to the lens of having a heart of service and it's evident in your content. And it's evident in your business that you care so much about your clients and so much about your community. and that's why you're crushing it. And I'm so grateful for today's conversation.

Chris Where can they find you on Instagram You are the Man Jason You can find me just about everywhere at Chris Ben You mean all right and you're gonna have to. Well, we'll spell it on the screen, but it's K-r-y-s We'll put it on the screen. That's right, K-r-y-s You the man. Thank you so much for watching this week of marketing.

We'd love to hear your feedback. What kinds of videos are you making? What are your strategies on Instagram On Social To connect and engage and serve buyers and sellers in your local community? Let's get a massive brainstorm going in the thread and until next week. This is this week in Market Thank you.