Five: five now seven and a half seven and a half. Now ten, ten ten ten ten, now twelve and a half twelve and a half, now fifteen twelve and a half and oh fifteen twelve and a half. No now fifteen sold five and a half dollars. You should you should do that on your lexus presentation.

What do you guys want to list your house for it? One nine, nine, nine, hey so welcome back to the podcast, i am so excited to have bethany benner with us today from oak ridge realty real estate. I believe it is in cedar falls iowa. Now. What you don't know is.

This is the second time we started this podcast because the first time i was in jackson, hole and 30 minutes into this very riveting, no pressure on you bethany, but unbelievable podcast. All the power went out so here we are again bethany welcome to the show well. Thank you. Thank you for having me again.

Yes. Well, i'm gon na i'm gon na give him a little scoop on. Why why i have you here so just you know. Listen up uh for the people listening right now, so bethany has really taken real estate by storm uh.

The note i wrote down is you know. Maybe it was the fact that she was a three sport college athlete that's pretty badass or the fact that she's just a battle tested sales in negotiation. You know rockstar from being a vp of marketing and sales for 15 years running a family business plus a family auction business. And yes, i will be testing her on speed and chanting sometime today, but listen to this in just two and a half years of selling homes.

She has literally gone from zero to 182 closed transactions in that time period. 41 sales her first year, 74, the next year as we sit here in whatever month, we're in i think august she's already had 62 transactions, so she's absolutely killing it bethany. Thank you for being on the show again. I want to start with the obvious question.

You were in a vp of sales and marketing you, you had a family business. You were helping to run help people just give them a little taste of what that looked like so they're gon na have a little more context for how you sold 41 homes. Your first year in the business yeah so um, you know i just i help i kind of grew up in the business um, my dad's, an auctioneer and uh yeah, just being a part of this real estate business in general, so um it. I knew it was something that i always wanted to do was get into this business just because it was just second nature to me to to see the transaction happen just in a little bit of a different way, um and so um.

It's just been really good for me to transition, but i spent 15 years in that in that vp role wanted to do something outside of what i knew um and uh, and it's been a it's been. It's been interesting, the last couple years to see what i can do on my own, so right so so unpack for people, though uh the auction business was it land. Was it real estate like what were you guys selling in the auction business uh d? All of the above so uh yeah yeah, so he uh. We grew up.

I grew up on a farm, so have that farm work ethic, and so we i would growing up. We would clean out people's houses and we would do household auctions. We we had a big two big farm machinery auction so that we would have every single year we do land auctions, um and so anything really uh toy auctions and antique auctions. So all right all of it love it so and obviously you can do the champ.

I i can't i'm not i'm not as good as my dad um, but i can i can definitely. I can definitely do it. Give us just a little taste. Oh, i always tell people i don't do this unless i've had a cocktail or two hold on quickly get her a drink.

Maybe we'll do that later. All right, she's like hold on, i need to warm up chad. This is awesome. So so you did that for 15 years and there's a lot of dynamics in running a family business and then you decide to transition into residential real estate, so you've been around it, but not really in it.

So so how did you make that decision and maybe what were you looking at if it wasn't going to be residential real estate? What was your plan b yeah? So i helped my i helped my dad like he really ran it. I was really there for support. He had him and his um wife and my stepmom um really run it she's. Now a broker um at a real estate organization, um back home, and so she they really run everything.

I was there to just help them support it. I just was a big piece of it um, but just i didn't really want to run the family business. It was a big conversation and i saw how hard he worked. He works his tail off.

They both do and um, and so that's why i decided to break off, went to college, got my masters and decided to i kind of grew up in the business of cell phones and so um ran that for 15 years, but just would always see their life And everything that they were doing, and so that's what i then i branched off of saying - i don't want it really anything to do with that business. I think you guys are doing. I couldn't do it justice. My dad is incredible.

Him and his wife are incredible. Doing that i couldn't do, i couldn't fall in their footsteps. I wouldn't do it, i'm not good enough for that. So um they just do a really good job.

So that's why i decided you know what i want to just do a piece of it: um. If that real estate, i watched them and how they took care of their customers and their clients and built that relationship, so i literally just mocked what i saw from them and that's when i decided after 15 years of being in the corporate world, i wanted to Do real estate, but i wanted to i watched what i saw from them and that's what i took and ran with my own. I love it so talk about the corporate side really fast before we talk real estate just to give people more context right, so so, 15 years of corporate in in the cell phone industry or like which company give us just some like some objects there yeah. So it was, i started off as like a regular sales associate in college, just needed a part-time job, and it just kind of took off from there became an area manager and and then worked my way up to the vp role of sales and marketing.

And it's for a small uh regional carrier in iowa um and ran some stores in iowa and illinois and in the process also, the the owner had a salon, and so he asked me to help run that um as well. So i kind of did both roles. So i had um understood the commission side from um a contractor side from the commission from the salon world, but also understood the compensation side from the cell phone world, because that's just how i grew up. So that's what i did for 15 years and um and just helped with that business and understood the business from the ground up, love it.

So you go into real estate and again, like the backstory, always gives us more context right. Otherwise, like it's like it's like. Looking at a puzzle, that's upside down right as soon as you look it over and you're like wait, a minute. Okay, i see all the pieces.

I understand how it all comes together, um, but i got ta. Ask you first, three sports. I know you played golf because we talked about it before what were the other two sports you played in college yeah, so i went um softball's, my passion. I do love a good softball game, um and then basketball and then play golf.

So do you think the um, the competitive nature of just obviously, your dna plays into this, like you, walked into the office and you're like who's number one i'm taking i'm taking her out or hit me like like? Was that your mindset? Do you have a little that killer mindset or or is just work ethic like help me understand and then we'll get into all the details? Yeah honestly, both um i'm super competitive. Most everybody knows that about me um and that's just me. That's just my mindset. I see i kind of figured out who did what and i'm like.

Oh i can you know, that's my goal. I'm gon na i'm gon na. Do that. That's my goal.

I'm gon na go after it, but you can't get there without work ethic and growing up on a farm um you don't and and helping my dad. You don't have a choice if he says we're gon na go clean out a house, we go clean out a house, that's what he's done so just the work ethic from the minute you get up in the morning to the minute you go home and and that's Just what you do to make it if you want to hit your goals, you got to put the work in yeah, so somewhat some would argue like. Oh my goodness, could you imagine this gal like worked in like new york, city or beverly hills? You know west west side la where these monster sales prices right. Do you think, do you think it would translate um? I absolutely think it'll translate, i think, in in real estate.

You have to work hard like you, can't just sit back and hope that it, you know, falls in your in your lap and you get really lucky. Don't get me wrong. I've gotten lucky, but i always think the harder you work, the luckier you get 100. So so, let's let's talk about year, one right! If you go back and reflect on, you did 41 transactions.

You started in may from memory right, so you started in may and you did 41 transactions called in your first seven months. Tell us about a typical day. What worked, what didn't, what were some of the big lessons you know reflecting back on this long career of two and a half years, yeah yeah really well um, so i think my first closing was may 6th. I remember it like it was yesterday um and so 41 transactions from basics till the end of the year um.

You know i walked in um and literally looked around the office and was like. I need to figure out who is successful? Who can i steal ideas from because i'm not here to recreate the wheel like there's no secret sauce that i have um, but i went around and said: how are you successful? Can i have five minutes of your time? I just want to know why. How did you get to where you're going you know like or where you're at, and i just started, taking everything from everybody and i tried to you know if somebody was going on a showing i'd be like? Can i go with you listening appointment? Can i jump in, i just want to be a mouse. Can i i just want to hear sometimes it's just riding around with people and listening to conversations with clients, so i did a ton of that um just to be able like.

I can talk to anybody, but i feel like i needed to know what i was talking about right. You need to learn the specific language. So so you know what's so brilliant about this is bethany most people that come in the industry and and sort of the joke. Is you go through training right? You pick an office and they sit you at a desk and you look around and there's like five other people that are all brand new sitting in the brand new section of the office, and none of them are selling any houses.

And that becomes your role model right, so tuesdays is mexican. Food is what you got from a role model versus you went out and you actively pursued the most successful people in the company who was doing what and you're like. Can i just go follow you? Can i just go: listen like there's just something to that that gives you that that extra edge that confidence but talk about, maybe what didn't work. What didn't work like reflecting back on your first year, where, where did you struggle? Where was it hard because 41 sounds like a lot of success, but i know you got punched in the gut, a bunch metaphorically, oh for sure, um.

I i think a lot i think. Back to you know i i did um i invested in some things. I probably shouldn't have because i just didn't, know um, so i did some online stuff that everyone's like. Oh it's going to be great and it just tanked so um, i kind of messed with some of that stuff.

I think my biggest thing in my first year was you have to invest in your business to make it a successful business. So that was one of my investments that i felt like. I would never do again: yeah um. I think that um i should have for me, i felt like i got really busy really quickly and i would have set up some systems ahead of time and i feel like that's what i did last year and this year i.

Finally, i realized i was like i'm in a hamster wheel. That's not stopping, and i really should have set up some things to make me successful so that it i felt like i was sometimes running like a chicken with my head cut off, and that was not. That was not efficient, um with my time and efficiency with what i was doing right i mean i, i hear that from a ton of people like god, if i just would have slowed down and actually put the systems in place, whether it was a checklist or A process or your marketing: this is how i do it um, but let's go back just for a second. How did you generate clients in that first year, like what was your like? Did you just call? You had a big sphere, you just called everybody, and everyone said: oh i'd love to buy a house from you like.

What did you do? What worked, what didn't from a from a lead generation, standpoint yeah, so um a lot of my friends where the reason i got into oakridge was one of the partners. Here was a good friend of mine, so anybody that bought a house any of our friends was buying through him. So nobody was here at that point. I was like i'm not gon na count on my friends because they already have a relationship, so i got ta figure this out on my own.

I can't um and you know, give them a couple years to kind of get comfortable with me. So for that, for that instance, i think um for me, where did i get my leads? I i invested in - and i did online leads out of the gate just for some quick successes to put some money in the bank so that i could really get myself set up for success. Um and - and i was smart with my money when it came down to you - know, tax account and marketing money and what i was going to do with that. I wanted to make sure that i was really i didn't want to always do online leads.

That's not my goal. My goal is to always for that base. That's going to constantly refer, but i knew out of the gate. That's i saw that around the office.

That was one of the things that a lot of people were doing and it was working um. So that's that was the one thing i did that i felt like was very successful for me for that first year. So you also mentioned, though, in the earlier part, when i asked you about like what didn't work. You said there were some online things that i bought into that didn't work and - and you know without, like you know, having disparaging comments about you know a bunch of these different companies, because there's so many lead aggregators out there, which one for you worked just giving People some context yeah, so in our area, um zillow worked really well for me, um and realtor.com.

So those were the two that i felt um in our area. That's where we were getting um. I did some facebook generation leads and i was getting a ton of them, but they were. There was no there's nothing.

I was getting 20 30 40 a day i couldn't keep up. I was wasting my time. I closed one out of a thousand that i had so it just um. My return on my investment with zillow and realtor.com were better for me absolutely so.

If you go back to, you know that first year, you're taking on all these leads - and you know, rdc and zillow and others there's there's a bunch of great sources out there. Facebook, no doubt is effective for branding and letting people know who you are and we get. You know people will slide into your dms and it's more of a past client transaction that do you counted as facebook or not otherwise. It's super top of funnel and great to just put in your database and nurture, but you're right, like the conversion.

Is you know one out of 500 right so so what did you learn about online leads specifically because it sounds more buy side in the beginning, correct yeah? I was very, very heavy, buy side um. My first day in my second year, um 34 out of the 41 transactions were on the buyer side. Um, that's for me, and that was i only had seven sellers um. So what i learned um.

I am a follow-up. I i mean i was on my phone. If you called in, there was a reason you called in and i'm gon na figure out that reason and i'm gon na get in front of you and i'm gon na figure out how we can get you. You know you to achieve whatever that that end goal is, and if that's you wanted your dream house whatever that is but and i use and it followed up like i um constantly every and even to this day.

That is something i felt like. I've been really really good at is. If i get 20 minutes, i was constantly hey. Did you see this house? This would be a great fit for you.

Let's meet um, you know just trying to try and just keep in front of them. Yeah and again like i know, maybe for someone might be listening - that's brand new and they're, like oh, my goodness like so does this mean i need to go to work for my family business then go become a you know, a salesperson, the vp of sales and Marketing to have her, you know her professionalism, you think the answer is yes or no. Do you? I think what you did by acquiring leads just accelerated your opportunity to have more at bats, sort of metaphorically, with uh softball yeah um. I don't think you need to you: don't need to do my my uh professional path.

I think for me like when i talk to any of our new um uh realtors that have come in the office. Now i sit them down and i'm like here, here's what i did and here's what you need to do. Here's take take the five things that i wish i would have done or with you know, or the five things that i did, that i think you need to copy and go and talk to everybody else. But you don't need to follow my path.

You don't need to be in the business for 15 years to you know to get that experience um. I think the biggest thing is just to be humble enough to take it in and don't think that you know it all. You have to learn from everybody around you, and maybe you don't take everything that everybody says but take something, because we need to learn every day in order to be successful and because this business is changing every day. Right right, i mean that's, why you know you're.

So perfect in our culture, because it's all about r d right find out what everybody else is doing: rip off and duplicate right um. But let's talk about time and we're gon na get into year two because year two is a pandemic. So you know you, you accelerated your growth, which doesn't shock me at all, but it was a very different environment um. But managing your time - and i know you're married your husband's got his own business.

You got two daughters, so so you know, do you have like 15 people on your staff like how do you? How do you manage it all, because it's especially being so buy side heavy like talk to us about time? Hacks things you do. What worked do you have an assistant? Give us all that yeah, so i um i did not have an assistant in year, one or year two um. I did it all. On my own um and um.

I do have a family and my husband and two kids um one's now, she's nine. She just had a birthday and three so very busy um, but it everything in it. It happens in my calendar. If it's not in my calendar, it doesn't happen.

So i time block almost everything and then in between appointments. That's when i'm following up or doing different stuff, so, unfortunately, sometimes you know if you go out for dinner with your husband or your family, you you put that in your calendar, so that that way, it's an appointment because a lot of times, if you don't tell People that you've got to have some boundaries. If you don't tell people that, if you have an appointment, you can't do it then it just doesn't happen right right. So you know again you're speaking my love language.

If it's not your schedule, it doesn't exist um, but i guess the question is like where's. This drive come from. I mean you're, clearly going to do looking at the numbers yeah. This is going to be another phenomenal year.

80. 90. 100 transactions. You finally got an assistant, thank goodness right, but where does this drive come from i mean? Is it just the athletics, the competitive nature like? Do you have siblings that you guys would like see who could throw the paper airplane the farthest like? Where did it all start out for you yeah, so um? I think for me.

It's just that i got. I got my mom and my dad my my dad obviously is very successful in what he's doing and his business my mom and the work ethic. She worked in a factory for 30 plus years, so in order to you got to have a work ethic. If you're going to go to this job for 30 years and do the same thing over and over um, you know, i think, for me: it's the competitive side.

I do have a sister that i just got her in the business this last year: um, but we're 10 years apart, so we didn't really grow up together. So i'm, and essentially i was only a child um, and so it it just it's in my gut that i want to succeed and i have goals and i we my husband and i go every year we go away for a night or two nights and we We do a vision board, we talk about what are our goals for this year. What are your goals for your business? What are the goals for mine, and i i've noticed that when i put stuff on paper, it comes to fruition right right. So what do you say to the person that maybe is listening? Like god have? I just had her energy and her drive? Like you know, i just i wasn't wired that way.

You know things were too easy for me growing up. I didn't have those parents. What do you say to that person to have them understand that it's possible? It's all about your attitude, it's all about looking in the mirror and removing those excuses that everybody wants to give themselves. Well, i'm just too tired today or i'll, do it tomorrow or that buyer's not going to be there tomorrow.

That seller is going to find somebody else and this market. Unfortunately, that's just the way. It is a lot of people want things and they want them now and so a lot you just you have to have a sense of urgency to make it happen, and you got ta push yourself come up with a routine and you have to follow that routine. Every single day, and yes, your days change but and you need to find an accountability partner, you need to find somebody a mentor.

You need to find somebody that's going to push you um and in our office. That was, i found a couple, people that i would be like. Oh and they'd be like you said, and then they and they'd nudge me, but you have sometimes because you're everybody everybody goes and has a bad day. But you need somebody, that's going to hold you accountable and and going to make sure that you're trying to hit your goals because they care about you.

And can you overdo it? Can you have too much accountability? No, i mean yes and no, but i think it depends. I mean if it's done right. I think people that um people will respect that, at least for me, like there'd, be days like i want to hear it from you and they're like. But you told me you did and that's sometimes all it chuck yeah.

So when did you when did you first get a coach um just this past year, um this so 20. 20. 20.. 2021.

Actually, this oh this year got it even better yeah. So i just um, i looked at my numbers and i just felt like i was so buyer heavy and i really wanted to work um. I just felt like i needed some more time back in my life and i just felt like i didn't: have the systems in place. Still i felt like i was okay, but i just didn't feel like i.

I wasn't there yet and i needed i needed help. So i wanted we'll we'll explore that more because i was like the whole systems and tech is all you know something i want to unpack, but i want to go back to 2020. 2020 was a a rough and hard and challenging and emotional year for so many people, and yet you and i both know housing depending upon where you were in the world in the country of the us. You know really just took off whether you look at it april may june july.

It just it went completely gangbusters and it's almost hard to say that how many people i know that had their absolute best year ever last year, in the midst of all that tragedy, i'm just curious for you like what were some of the big ahas or takeaways Or lessons that took place in 2020 during the pandemic, that you're carrying into this year um good question so um yeah, i did have a great year. Last year, um we did have um. We didn't slow down a ton, but i um i did not slow down at all, but some people chose to do that and that's okay. I didn't choose to do that.

I figured out how to overcome the obstacle of okay. I can't go see the house right now, but i can do a virtual tour or um. You know we all need to suit up and have plastic gloves, and we need to have masks and these on our shoes and we're going to make it happen. You go in i'll, be right here.

You know whatever that i you, you have to meet the buyers and the sellers and where they're at and where they're comfortable and you have to be flexible and that's just what i learned last year is you just have to roll with it? You got ta, you got ta figure out because it change change is hard for a lot of people, but if you're not willing to change and willing to change your strategy, then, if you're gon na do the same thing over and over again you're going to be In the same place, right right, so obviously you know you, everybody can hear the consistent theme of sort of your mindset around like hey whatever it takes, i'm going to do it. Work ethic drive family business, corporate life starting in real estate um. So so was there a low point for you at all last year or no, it sounds like you just motored through um, there was a couple there's a, but there was a couple weeks there where we were uncertain. What was going to happen right and you know i just i came from a six-figure income job and i was a year into it thinking.

What did i get myself into? Nobody i mean, would it nobody would have written this on the wall, that this was going to happen, yeah? What what what i do so for a couple weeks. It got really really quiet because the shape the state started to shut down and we were trying to figure out the banks were trying. The lenders were trying to figure out. How do we still meet with clients? Can we meet with clients? Some of them didn't? Have the zoom set up things that just technology wasn't there um, and so i think for me, just was like okay sitting down and figuring out, i can't panic um.

I have buyers that still want to see things. I have sellers that still need to sell. Let's focus on what we can do rather than what we can't do, um and just move forward. That way, because that's about all i can do, i can't can't control.

I can't control the uncontrollables. How much did you up your own game when it came to tech? Last year, um were you on zoom prior like were you? Was that a platform you were using all the time like yeah and in my past life being in that role? I did a lot of virtual stuff because i had just a bigger territory, so i was very very familiar with it um but yeah. So we usually have meetings, we went to some in-person meetings but then had to do some zoom stuff um. I did meet with some people, some of my sellers and some of my buyers via zoom um, where i wouldn't normally do um, but i met them with where they were at so if they were comfortable with you know, maybe we met outside on a picnic bench Because it was, they felt more comfortable that way, um and maybe they didn't want to sell for a couple months.

So we tabled some of that and we work through that. But technology wise zoom would probably be the biggest thing that we really implemented to you from a virtual standpoint, um and then videos which we were already doing for listings and stuff so putting them into the our access, our paragon love. It love it yeah. I think it's it's so much fun for us to reflect back as a company because we started zoom.

We started using zoom as a coaching platform almost five years ago now. So when i remember like doing my first pivot event, which was happening all in the middle of you, know the very early stage of code in the us just telling my clients - hey, you already use zoom, just send a link to your client and say we can Meet this way and they're like oh right, it was you know what i mean like you just saw these people, just like lights, went on they're like okay. I can do this right, so so, let's talk about 2021, so you you make the decision to hire a coach. How did how did that come about? Well um.

I definitely um creeped on you for a very long time. You know i felt that i felt that yes, i think that was one of the things when i started i went to every podcast, i went to every video um, you know i i that was. If i had any down time. I was trying to listen to everything trying to learn, and so obviously they came up a lot um, and so i did reach out in um, 2019 and 2020, and at that point i just didn't feel like i was ready.

I felt like there's a ton of chaos in my life and i was still learning so i wasn't ready to jump into that um. So that's when, at the end of 2020 i was like i can't. I took on 63 buyers in 2020 and i was like i drove my wheels off and i so that's when i just said you know what i think i need to step back and i need somebody to help me really organize myself and come up with some Goals and really hold me accountable and stretch me so nine listings sold, if i, if i'm doing the math correctly and 63, but i have a client big shout out to naheed benyamani if you're listening uh. She would love this because she is just the queen of buyers in southern california and and she'll do 60 or 70 buyer sales right as a solo agent.

Now, with like a team her, you know her son's involved and some others, but like she just loves it right. I mean obviously you're good at it, but you had an intention. It sounds like to become a little more listing dominant, so so talk to us about what you and your coach have started to put in place, because this is clearly still new we're sitting here in august right. It takes time to implement these kind of bigger, broader changes, because you still have buyer demand coming in so tell us how you're balancing that out and what you're focusing on to get more listings yeah.

So we really came up with her and i just came up with a strategy and she said what are your goals and i just said i need to figure out. I still want to do a great business. I still want to do some buyers, but i would like to spend some more time at home. I think i was gone five or six nights a week, and so i said i would just like a night or two back um with my memory, um and so she's um.

I said i'd like to pull away from some online leads and really focus on my sphere and my client base, and so we just came up with uh with our goals or my goals of okay. What does that look like so um? We put a marketing plan in place um i switched my crm um to. I think it's a little bit more user-friendly um and i've organized my database. So my sphere, my past clients, um, i'm doing an online newsletter right now, um we went to homebot like just really just she.

You know one of the things that kind of blew my mind was like she's like well. How many times are you contacting your your clients and i'm like uh and she's like you, should be contacting them 24 to 36 times a year, and i was like well i'm not doing that. So that's where really um putting some of those things into place has really helped me with make that shift yeah, so so uh. So your online newsletter, like an email newsletter, which you know, i'm a huge fan of email marketing and it's such an untapped opportunity for most real estate professionals.

So you went from zero to homebot, which is awesome. You should break down how you're, using it and then email, then we'll talk about the database sort of reorg, but talk about homebought. First, in the email newsletter and - and you know what what worked, what didn't, what have you found and then how's it working yeah, so email newsletter, i looked at a ton of them and then actually came back to all of them. Just felt really boxy to me and i wanted it to feel very local and very genuine.

So i just created one in um in canva and it's very local to our area like here's, the things that are happening in our area and then i do a little insert of hey. This is what bethany's talking about now and i'll put a picture of my family like i just want it to be very genuine. This is what's going on yeah hyper local. So how much time does that? Take you to put together is that now some of your assistants doing for you yep, that's what my assistant does, so i don't even touch it other than telling her nope.

I don't like this or change that yeah you get to be the editor, not the not the chief staff writer and then what about homebot like. Why did you select that product versus others? This is not a shout out for homebot, but like we have a lot of clients that use it. So why did? Why did you do it yeah? So i did it because i wanted um. I i felt like um i'd talk to my coach and she's, like i really love it, and so i kind of dabbled in a little bit.

But i really did it because once you put the sell, once you put your clients in there, they can check back and then you can see when they're looking at it. So i can reach out and be like hey. What do you think about this? You want me to send you one: are you thinking about selling um and so really talk through to make sure that i'm staying in front of them? If? Because if i can see it, some of them are looking at it twice a week or you know whatever, and i can be like. Why are you looking at this? Like? Are you thinking about selling? So it just really gives me that conversation starter.

Is it creepy for them they're, like how do you know like what do you? What do you mean? How do you know that i'm looking at it at 1201 at night? What how do they respond to that when you call it's all in the delivery, it's all and like hey, what's happening like just as long as you're, genuine and you're, just like hey, i just implemented this new system. What do you think i saw that you looked at it um? Is it useful? Do you want better numbers like i'd, be happy to meet with you? What are you thinking yeah so good? It is it's all delivery right, because you, you can still be looking at their tech and know that they're on it not come across like a creeper, um, so home mod email database. And then, when you said you reorganized your your you went to a lions desk. I think it's the crm you were using or from lighting's desktop to follow up boss, love it fallout boss will be happy to hear that they're one of the sponsors at this year's success summit, so yay follow-up, boss and lion's desk.

Those guys are great. I'm not rousing them um, so so what did you do in terms of organization of your database yeah so um before i lines us? I had just done it because um and i just i felt like for me - it just wasn't working for me. So i went in and put everybody in there and then integrated all of my leads that we'll just dump into there so now zillow lead comes in it, just it's a zillow. So if i want to send an email database to zillow, i can just get zillow people um.

I put my sphere in there, so if i just want to send a postcard to just my sphere, it goes to my sphere. If i want to do everything email wise, my whole email newsletter goes to everybody, so it can be varied. I can target very specific things. Um one of the things that um, i integrated that i the reason i kind of started this was there was a old um.

I pulled some old realtor lists, so um realtors in the area that are no longer licensed um and that are we are calling them abandoned clients, and so i put them in a specific list. So i can target them that hey you've owned your house for five years, so very specific list for them very specific letters to them wow. So i want to be clear agents that are no longer in the business you're marketing to their their former client or five or ten or whatever. It is yep yep.

If they don't have somebody - and you know if i know that you know - maybe they didn't do a ton or do whatever yeah, um and uh or i've reached out to you, know clemson and and i've done it in my office. That's really where just to keep in touch um and and it's worked - i've gotten um a listing off it. I just sold a house off of it. So um and i've just started that probably four to six months ago on it good for you.

So there's uh. There's my friends at thousand watt big shout out to uh to brian and mark and the gay and the the gang there i joined this little insider group and one of the reports they recently published um is is really let's just call it the the impact of A lack of loyalty and, and what they're referring to is consumers right? What they want is they want to talk to their real estate. Professionals, like 82 percent of them, want to hear from their agent, but the number of agents that actually follow up with startlingly, as we all know low. Now you know you could argue that there's a bunch of people that are just hacks in this business that sell a house now and then versus professionals like yourself and the people seeing this podcast.

That are a lot more, let's say, attentive to their clients needs, but it was like something like 46 of every consumer after they bought the house wanted to know how much is my home worth now they want to keep like they. I want to know that's why i love the homebot product and other products that do that um. So when you hear those numbers like, are you shocked by that the lack of loyalty, the i'll just go to zillow or someplace else, because my agent's not reaching out um, i'm not actually shocked because i've been in that zillow world for the last couple years? That's been really interesting and that's why i reached out to you guys from a loyalty standpoint, because i found that with some of these zillow leads like, i would show them two or three houses and then they would be like. Oh well, i'm going here, and so i was like.

Oh my goodness like i can't have my people that i have built a relationship with do the same thing. I've got to figure that out, and so that's why i put those systems in place, because it's it's a punch to the gut. When you see one of your clients list a house or a brother of a client, a house with somebody else, you're like what what could i have done, i should have done right right, um. While i was interviewing you two days later, i was interviewing tim and kurt harland who were some of the great agents in jackson, hall wyoming, and they said we.

You know we used to have the the wall of of fame, but we decided to put up the wall of shame, which was every transaction we lost, because we didn't follow up and i was like, oh like we could all feel that pain right talk to me. Talk to me about marketing, you said i put a marketing plan in place and you know coming from your background. I would assume you would have done that, but you come into real estate and there's just so many things to do and you've got buyers and you're showing houses. You got kids and life so so tell us about the marketing plan.

How did you put in place? What's in it, what does it look like? What's a typical week or month from a marketing standpoint, look like in your business, yeah, so um, i i like. I said i coming from a marketing background. I we had a plan, it was great and then, when i got into real estate it was uh it went. It was gone so um, i'm too busy learning too much going on.

So that's um. So this year, i i literally just printed out a google calendar like a blank. Google calendar um and just started writing. Okay.

I want a postcard to go out this day. I want a letter to go out this day to this person. This this needs to go on this day and we literally just stick to it every single month i have a calendar, i'm in my office now i have a calendar, a dry erase board here's what this needs to go out. This needs to go out.

My assistant has one over here. She knows when she needs to do stuff, so it's just sticking to it um and just making sure that we're following it, because if you miss one month then a lot of a lot of stuff, you did just went to waste right. So so you broke down all the pieces, all the people and it sounds like it's email. It's direct mail, um.

What about phone calls? What about social? Are you active on instagram and all these things that you know we all talk about and see so many people doing give us a little insight on the social side yeah, so we um, we have a platform that it here that is called back at you, so It has some content um for us. I really i i can do so much better on social media, i'm probably better personally than i am on my business um, but i do post my assistant posts every time i sell a house is on there and um, and that goes on my newsletter too. So people can see she's busy, she's working. She knows what's going on yeah, so that's really um, but i could do so much better on social media.

I see everybody's stuff in videos and i want to be like that. Um, i'm just not there yet um. It's coming at some point, but my biggest thing is to be super genuine with just people in my sphere i try to friend um clients and then, when they have a birthday or they have you know a kid or whatever. I try to comment as much as possible because i know that, like when i post something, i love it when people reach out - and you know that stuff and it's another connection yeah.

So so certainly you know more on that coming soon at the summit and - and you know all the stuff you can do with the loom jason pentana courtney who's right here inside my office um. Let's talk about like the future. What do you think of the next? For for you, if for everybody listening right now, i don't care when you're listening this, if we're still in in 2021, happy new year, because this year is over right, everything that you put in place last year, you're getting the positive or negative. You know impact from so you started all these systems and processes, and you know bethany, like the real impact of your marketing plan, is going to be your business in 2022.

Right like that, that's just the way it works. So my question, for you is you and your coach? What are those three four five moves? You're thinking about making for next year and for the following year, yeah um. So next year, following year, is continuing with this marketing piece. Um uh just continue with the marketing plan.

That's number one, and and really digging in and doing some different things in that marketing piece. One thing that we did this year was i partnered with some local businesses to do like a um. Buy one get one pizza buy one get one ice cream because i just feel like i was sending postcards and not um. It was like oh look at me or do this, so i'm i want to do some give give give stuff um.

So that's kind of what i want to want to continue doing is just making sure that there's some there's some substance behind that um. So for sure marketing coming, that's exact. That's i want to make sure that i'm reaching out um. I do some drop bys a lot and i'm gon na continue doing that um and really that that those conversations and just you know, text messages back and forth.

Um of hey, thanks for the halloween basket, or thanks for the easter basket things like that, so um those will continue um. I think i still can really re refine my my crm and what i'm doing - and i think i can, i think for me - just really buttoning up some listing presentation stuff to make sure that i can be a better listing agent um as well. So but i think for me, just overall marketing and just making sure that i have those big pieces, because i don't think i mean i i started my farm. I haven't seen anything from my farm this year.

I'm going to see that next year, i'm going to see that the year after yeah so um, so i'm in the process for everybody, listening of going through tens and tens and tens of listing attraction case studies right. So our clients are saying hey. This is what's working for me this year to get the most amount of listings, and you know past clients and sphere and agent agent referrals database. Geographic farming expired listings to fsbos, like the whole gamut right, but it's interesting going through a couple of them that were really good with direct mail and they all said the same thing when they added the qr code to the direct mail.

They started instantly generating more business. You know we're sitting there, you know at the trash can direct mail direct mail trash trash trash, but they're like oh wait, hold on. Yes, i am curious about the value of my home, or you know what happened with that sale or hey. I want to take advantage of that bogo as an example of the pizza place right so just for everybody.

Listening if you haven't played around with qr codes, they were hot 12 years ago, and i don't know like 11.9 years ago. They were no longer hot, they were in and gone, but the pandemics put them on steroids right. So so i would strongly recommend everybody listening right now to think about that. Let's talk about your listing presentation: where do you want to improve where, where are the gaps? Where are the holes? Where do you want to get better yeah, so i feel like sometimes um.

You know for those people that those engineers or those number you know bring a ton um and sometimes they really want to dig in, and we have a lot of that. But i also just feel like one of the things that i can do just so much better is just coming up with a very professional one. I feel like. We have a great listing booklet from oakridge in general and then i feel like i just kind of one piece after another comes on.

I think it would just be really nice to have like a bunch of stuff together, but just way more organized yeah. That's kind of one of my goals for the end of the year um, as i i mean i doubled my listings from last year to this year, and i just feel like that. I can just do so much more. If i, if i felt like, i was a little bit more professional, do you feel, like you, have the confidence you need going in on those appointments i'm getting there? I did not have it out of the gate and i still feel like.

Sometimes, when you know when i go in with numbers and pages everywhere that it kind of feels like oh gosh, what's she doing yeah but again, as we sit here, you're we're only eight months in ish into the new year and you've been taking nine you've had Nine listings sell two years back to back you're already at 18.. So that's a huge improvement is, is coach, colleen happy or is she still beating on you uh she's, very happy, but she's still she still beats on me. I had a feeling because she is tough as nails, so so your next three moves like continue on your marketing plan, which is brilliant right, brilliant basics, more drop, bys, more connections that personal touch love, it refining your crm. What does that mean like give me give an example like how will you know when it's refined like what are you gon na, do um, i think so i've been in it um.

I just need to be in it more. I need to do more follow-up. I need to do um and i think that just making sure that you it's it's, i don't care what crm you're using you just got to use it and that's where i'm at at this point, i'm like i need to use it every single day. My assistant's in it every day, i'm just used to like sending text messages and not and not being and then not not feeding into the system, because i just went down and do 10 or 15 of them.

So i really would like to pull some data at the end of the year and be like how many times did i really talk to them or touch them, and so that that way i know where i'm at, and i just don't have a good gauge on That right now yeah i love it. That's i mean listen, i'm all about it's. It's data driven right, data-driven decisions to make good decisions ultimately to to make what's the right move for my business next. Did i over touch? Did i under touch? Should i send more email? Are they on homebot who isn't on homebot? Why are they not on homebound? What can i do about it? All that stuff makes a ton of sense, so so what about in the future right? You mentioned that your sister's gon na get in the business.

Remind me your isn't your assistant also a relative. She is she's, my sister-in-law, so there you go okay, so she helped me with some of that stuff um and then my sister got in the business as well. I um she doesn't work under me um, but i've been mentoring. Her and she's been doing really well.

Um so yeah, so that's i don't know what the future is going to look like for me. I um i just um became partner in april um, which was really exciting. So there's five of us now um and so that's kind of been a that's, been a big weight on my shoulders this last year. Trying to are this last couple was trying to learn all of that um.

So really, just i think for me - is just really honing in and being more efficient and effective with what i'm doing and um just being more of a player in this market um that, even though i'm new and i and i've done a lot of business, there's Still, you know, there's still people out there that i think i can touch way more and get to know way more. So what would you do to expand your brand? You talk about your marketing plan and i know what your direct mail and email and homebot you know are. You are you thinking about video? Are you not i'm not attached? You know i'm a fan of video, obviously right, but i'm not attached what else. What else can you do to touch and reach more people um? I think video would be huge for me.

I just got to get over my fear of getting in front of the camera and doing it every day and thinking you know. I feel always feel like. Nobody wants to see me and i don't want to be annoying, but i also know that i think that would be. It would be really huge in my business, i think, with as many emails and i have.

If i could do a video newsletter or something i think it would. I think i could connect more rather than just something in front. I just need to get over.