Jonathan Denwood – An Easy To Use Real Estate CRM And Powerful Lead Generating Platform

#469 – The Mail-Right: Content Marketing: It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint


Listen Later

Content Marketing: It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Real Estate Professionals content marketing: It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Discover the secrets to long-term success and sustainable growth in your content strategy. Learn more now.

In this insightful show, we explore the long-term nature of content marketing, emphasizing that success is not achieved overnight. Learn why patience and persistence are crucial in building a sustainable strategy that fosters audience trust and engagement. We’ll share practical tips on creating valuable content that resonates over time. Don’t miss out on these essential insights—watch the video now to elevate your content marketing game.

#1 – How to Build Your Real Estate Content Marketing Strategy

#2 – Tips for Creating a Killer Real Estate Content Marketing Strategy

#3 – Finding the Smaller Wins within the Larger Goal

#4 – Are You Appealing to All Stages of the Buying Process?

#5 – Are You Accurately Tracking All Stages of the Lead Lifecycle?

#6 – Final Thoughts

Episode Full Show Notes
[00:00:00.000] – Speaker 1

It’s just that I’m half asleep. I got to fake it till I make it. Here we go. We’re live. All right. It’s episode 469. Hard for me to forget that number. Three, two, one. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. It’s episode number 469. I’ve been up all night and into the day because it’s been a crazy couple of days, and I’m overly caffeinated and carrying on the show. John will have to be the voice of reason in today’s podcast. Are you ready for that, John?

[00:00:37.380] – Speaker 2

Well, that’s what the show finished.

[00:00:42.530] – Speaker 1

Well, for those who don’t know, my English co-host is Jonathan Dinwood. Jonathan is a long-time veteran of being an entrepreneur and designing and developing on WordPress. He owns or is the founder of a creative lead of a podcast that talks a lot about this. He created a second service specifically for realtors, and he’s been maneuvering this second service to try to find the magic sweet spot with real estate agents, and he may have done it. I don’t know. But right now, we’re much happier where we are.

[00:01:25.380] – Speaker 2

Much happier.

[00:01:26.890] – Speaker 1

Currently, he’s got an interesting… I just wanted to let you finish because I’m trying to sizzle you up here.

[00:01:33.480] – Speaker 2

Sizzle, sizzle.

[00:01:35.030] – Speaker 1

Yeah. John has an interesting thing going on, and he’s decided to take the opposite approach and offer an almost unbeatable doorway into a service. It’s $50?

[00:01:50.950] – Speaker 2

Did I get that right? $49 a month.

[00:01:53.460] – Speaker 1

$49. It’s not unbeatable, but engaging with anything in today’s market is a reasonable price point. So he’s taking a nod to things being a little more complicated for all of you. And it’s a marketing and all-in-one service with a website attack. Anyway, without any further ado, though, John, why don’t you introduce yourself to the audience? Based on your performance during today’s show, they can decide if they want to call you.

[00:02:22.710] – Speaker 2

All right. There’s no pressure. Thanks for that, Rob. That’s no pressure. Cheers. All right, folks, I’m the joint founder of Mel-Right. We’re a CRM and a lead generation platform. We offer an excellent service. Like I say, it starts at $49 a month. For that, the value is fantastic. If that’s piqued your interest, go to Mail-Right.com. Please look at the feature page and what we’re offering, and then maybe book a demo and chat with me. We would love you to come on board. Back over to you, Rob.

[00:03:13.830] – Speaker 1

All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Robert Newman, and today we’re going to dig deep into one of the areas that I do consider to be one of my core competencies, both as a person and as the founder of a company. I found Rob, put no pressure on Rob.

[00:03:32.280] – Speaker 2

Rob is a well-known expert on content marketing. So if you don’t get real value, complain to him.

[00:03:42.710] – Speaker 1

I open my door. We’re going to talk about content marketing, which is always a cornerstone of most inbound marketing strategies, because inbound is oftentimes about educating or giving out knowledge, and a very popular way to give out knowledge is through the written word or content. It’s also often done through video and other methods. Content could be a term that covers many different things. However, one way or the other, Jonathan selected this topic today. It’s content marketing. It’s a marathon, John, not a sprint. Love the title. So on board for today’s show. Without any more ado, I think we should be able to get into it. Well, let me give a little more credit where credit is due. John has done, once again, the outline. He’s got seven different places where he collected some information. You would do yourself to look at his show notes and find, I guess, our show notes, at this point, and find out what he’s got to say, where he looked, and so on. I do that some of the time myself. He’s picked two of our mutual competitors, Sierra Interactive and Luxury Presence.

 

[00:04:59.970] – Speaker 1

It is on this list. So he’s been very, very fair and even-handed. I loved his view on that because another thing the inbound marketers and the content marketers do is that to be valuable to users, you must be equitable and separate yourself from any personal interest. So, without digressing even more, how do you build your real estate content marketing strategy, John?

 

[00:05:32.000] – Speaker 2

Yeah, I just want a quick comment before observation. I just want to see if you agree with this, Rob. As I was doing the research for this show and I was looking at the results that I have sent to you, I observed this. I’ve heard the information is very high tier, very high level, or it seemed to me very 101, very basic, and they didn’t seem much in the middle that really would give much value to a real estate agent that wanted to learn a bit more than 101. Or like the video link I gave you, that conversation was very high level. It’s just something I observed. It didn’t seem to be that much in the middle. How would you respond to that?

 

[00:06:41.050] – Speaker 1

I think there’s probably some truth to that. You’ve got two camps, and both camps are right. On the one hand, you’ve got 80% of the real estate industry are absolutely extremely novice marketers, many of whom I run across, John, who have never even heard the term content market. So when you haven’t even heard the term and you look at some of these posts, I consider them to be quite good, like the one on Luxury Presence. It tells you what content marketing is. If you’re looking for any type of actual, well, how do I do it? No way. It’s so basic. No, you’re not… Anybody like me or anybody who even took a marketing class in school is going to be like, No, this is super basic. I could have answered these questions myself, and thus this content for me is a waste of time. I really That middle ground person you’re talking about, like that, I’ve been doing it for a year or two and just want a little help. I don’t know anybody writes for that guy or girl.

 

[00:07:56.090] – Speaker 2

No. So to get back to your original question, I I think it’s having some pre-planned strategy on a one page. It doesn’t have to be something really detailed. I think the reason why this is so important subject is that if you’re a real estate agent in a local market where you can still be very effective by going super local, but through your website content, and especially through using social media platforms, being super local is still a very effective strategy to counter platforms like Zillow, reata. Com, some of the big regional real estate brokerages, franchise, you can get still some of very effective results, but you do need a plan of action, not just push stuff out when you got a spare moment. What do you reckon, Rob?

 

[00:09:20.930] – Speaker 1

Well, your number one thing on here is how to build a content marketing strategy. And I think that if it was me and we weren’t worried about making our content, your content, understandable and more broad, because to me, that title is broad. Why? Because every content marketing should actually be this. How do I figure out what I’m going to talk about? How do I know what I want to talk about? And I’ve always… The way I coach my clients and the way I coach myself is I just desperately… I really try to stick to things I want to talk about. Before the show, Ladies and gentlemen, I briefly wanted this rift about this stuff happening with Zillow, and I’m going to talk about it later on my own YouTube channel. And is it going to be the best thing to talk about from traffic perspective, keyword perspective? I have no idea. I just know I’m hot under the collar about it and I have something to say, so I’m going to say it. This is the same thing I recommend, and it does fall within the category of stuff that I talk about broadly. It does.

 

[00:10:27.900] – Speaker 1

I really recommend that people find That’s something that they’re passionate about, John. I took a call earlier today. I’ve been on a lot of calls in the last two days, and the call I took earlier today was one gentleman who is really mystified about where he wants to focus on in the Miami area. Just two hours of conversation later, we discovered that he has a love of mid-century modern homes, that there is a small but select amount of that inventory inside the areas he services. He had never really decided to talk on it because the price point is lower and everybody’s interested in condos where he’s at. Well, I was like, but we started talking about mid-century modern homes, and it was the first time in that conversation with him where he perked up, enthusiasm, lit his tone up. He was obviously passionate about the inventory. And because all of a sudden it became clear that he was really excited about that particular inventory, I was like, Dude, this is what you talk about. It doesn’t matter that it’s less inventory or the price point 30% less where you live. Talk about mid-century modern. You obviously love it.

 

[00:11:37.960] – Speaker 1

Now you have a category in a home type that’s very specific. Since the inventory is limited where you’re at, you also actually have a very defined target. That’s how you develop, how I would develop a content marketing strategy. We’re going to give tips about how to do this, by the way. That’s going to be what we talk about next. But, John, for me, the first things first would be, how do I figure out what I want to talk about? That’s it.

 

[00:12:06.450] – Speaker 2

Yeah, I totally agree with you. A couple of other things, especially when it comes to social media, that I think you’ve really got to understand. Number one, especially in my other business and around the WordPress crowd, as I call them, there’s a lot of spiteful comments and engagement because the community in that area is very passionate. But I’ve kept out of it because I adhere to these two things, Robert. Would I want my mother to read something? Secondly, if I was the end user, would I find it useful? And they’re the two things I appear to. Would I want my mother to read this and then talk? If I read this or on social media, on TikTok, on YouTube, would it be of any use to the target audience Would they find it useful? And if it doesn’t, so much of the canned stuff that comes from brokerages and templates and whatever, it’s not very useful. It’s It’s not very educational. It’s not very useful. I think the first point probably does… I think the first point is I’ll be very reluctant unless I’ve really done it on purpose. And I do know a couple of agents in Las Vegas that have gone down this road in purpose is not to go down politics.

 

[00:13:55.880] – Speaker 2

Do not engage in comments in a political element. But I do know a couple of agents that done it on purpose in Los Angeles. I would advise normally, unless you’re really conscious you’re going down that route to keep off that I feel like this is a little off topic, and we should have its own show on social media, like actual social media philosophy.

 

[00:14:29.790] – Speaker 1

I’m just going to add this.

 

[00:14:31.260] – Speaker 2

I see it as all content as well.

 

[00:14:34.760] – Speaker 1

All content. Okay, well, here’s what I will say about online, both for better or for worse. Anything you say is going to be there forever. And I think that people should really think about that. Whatever you say will be there 10 years from now, 20 years from now. You have to understand, if you type it on a keyboard these days, it’s in a server somewhere for sure, no doubt. So be careful. We’re going to go on in number two. We’re going to give you some tips for creating real estate content marketing strategies. And John, if you don’t mind, I’m just going to jump in here and take the lead on this one. For me, tips in creating content is, once I know broadly what I want to talk about, there’s all sorts of ways to refine that strategy and make it easier to understand. I use VidIQ and I look at YouTube strategies, and usually I’ve got… If it’s a subject, right now, I might very well go on to VidIQ and go Zillow. I just might put in the broad keyword Zillow and see what VidIQ or other tools spit out because they’ll rip off the things that people are creating or keywords people are searching.

 

[00:15:43.060] – Speaker 1

And the same thing is true with Google, except their Google search trends, which is part of their algorithm. You can go in there and list keywords, and you can see in a very broad way what keywords are going up or down. Once I have some I have some signals, some smoke signals is what I call them that I like, I like the way the smoke signals are going. They match something that I want to talk about. I then use more specific tools like Ubersuggest or Semrush or AREFs to find out what the keyword subgroups are that I might cover that have volume. All of this gets into SEO strategy, but a better way to think about it for all of you listening to the show is imagine this. Google is going to give you points for telling a good story, and you want to make sure your story is really answering people’s questions. You want to make sure that you’re being helpful. So the way to make sure you’re being helpful is to find out what people are searching for and make sure that you answer those things as if somebody has asked a question.

 

[00:16:54.890] – Speaker 1

So like, Homes for Sale in Tacoma. Well, make sure that you answer some questions about Homes for Sale in Tacoma. Just treat every keyword like it’s a question. And then make sure that you talk about it in the large group that falls under your main subject. So for me, it’s going to be Izzillo the enemy. That’s the name of my… That’s the title of my video, which is all I figured out so far for today, John. But I’m going to talk about… Before I go in and turn on the camera and my assistant is here, I’m going to make sure I know some subgroups. That’s how I’m going to do it. I’m going to look at subgroups, and then I’m going to talk about those subgroups, and I’m going to do actual keyword research to make sure that I understand what I’m talking about. That’s how I would do tips for creating killer real estate content. Now, that’s only killer. The tips I’m giving everybody right now is tips to make your shit rank and make sure that people are engaging with it. It’s not necessarily… It depends on what your definition of killer is, John, because a lot of stuff you could do that’s killer, that’s a lot of sizzle.

 

[00:17:59.850] – Speaker 1

And that’s never been me. I’m always informationally great. But sizzle, like sexy, with little robots.

 

[00:18:09.160] – Speaker 2

I don’t agree with that, Rob. You’re a sexy beast.

 

[00:18:13.150] – Speaker 1

How would you do it? What’s your tips? What tips would you offer? Because you do a lot of content now. You’ve upped your content game so much in the last couple of years.

 

[00:18:24.410] – Speaker 2

Shall we go for a break and then I’ll answer that question in a second?

 

[00:18:28.100] – Speaker 1

Yeah, so we’re going to come back and John’s going John’s going to knock my delicately served question straight out of the park. So everybody, stay tuned. I’m putting so much pressure on him today. I’m going to hear it after the show It was over. We’re going to go to break. We’ll be right back wherever you’re at, however your listening is. Do us a favor. Give us a thumbs up. Give us a little attaboy. We always love that. Talk to you. We’ll be right back. Three, two, one. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. John is still wiping the tears off his eyes. He was shaking and crying. I put so much pressure on him. We’re talking about content marketing, and John, who I just have let everybody know, he’s really increased his volume and attention to content in the last couple of years since I’ve been paying attention to his output. I feel like you’re going to have some great things to tell the audience.

 

[00:19:30.850] – Speaker 2

Yeah. Well, I, because of AI and other factors, rejected the traditional SEO model of looking at particular keywords and trying to rank for those keywords. What I’ve adopted is a bottom of funnel approach. I tend to select using certain SEO research tools and see what other people rank, what their most popular posts and pages are, and they’re making a determination, are they bottom of funnel? What do I mean that bottom of funnel? Terms and information that people are probably searching that are close to a buying decision. That’s what I mean by bottom of funnel. So I I tend to select topics which are probably connected to the two companies that I run that are looking at competitors, that have probably done some research and doing some other research around a buying action. So that’s what I concentrate on. And then I utilize a bit of skyscraper when I’m looking at the competition. And skyscraper came from a guy called Brian Dean. That’s well known.

 

[00:21:09.650] – Speaker 1

Actually, it’s Bruce Clay.

 

[00:21:11.600] – Speaker 2

I thought it came from Brian, the original. All right, there we go.

 

[00:21:15.060] – Speaker 1

Brian, everybody, myself included, all rifted from Bruce Clay, who’s a local guy to me here in California. He’s the guy who created and invented the term skyscraper, but it’s not… He came up with a brand It’s like whoever created the term evergreen content, which is just ridiculous that it’s so popular. Same thing with skyscraper. It just means looking at something that somebody already did and making it better. That’s it.

 

[00:21:42.230] – Speaker 2

I use a bit of that. What that means is you look at the competition for a subject, like I say, bottom of funnel, and you just make it a bit better by adding video, by having a podcast, by whatever what mythology ‘same’ you think would add a bit more value to it. And I just repeat and rinse, repeat and rinse, repeat and rinse, and I just keep at it. But I don’t… Some of the top terms are… I just couldn’t compete. The only way I compete is to what the term, it’s not a real word. I just made it up nicheify. It should be a real word, shouldn’t it, Rob? Nishify. I just find a niche, and I just concentrate on that niche. And it’s exactly the same process that I suggest that you should do if you’re listening to this podcast. What do you reckon, Rob?

 

[00:22:45.630] – Speaker 1

I love the nicheify, I love the skyscraper. These are solid, solid strategies. I don’t have much to say about that.

 

[00:22:53.800] – Speaker 2

We’re going to-I hope you’re impressed, Rob.

 

[00:22:56.880] – Speaker 1

I am very impressed. I’m very, very impressed. We’re going to talk about John’s next item, which is finding the smaller wins within the larger goal. I got to tell you, of all the things on this list, where I’m impressed, John, is that you picked up on, and remember to put this in here, because the number one challenge with content marketing, especially in real estate, it’s a long term strategy. It’s very, very rare that you do some amazing informational video and then everybody starts calling you the next day. It really doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work that way for me. It probably doesn’t work that way for John, just a guess. It really doesn’t work that way for real estate agents. It takes time. You have to figure out some smaller, more achievable benchmarks that are going to give you a dopamine hit to keep you in the game. John talks about that that’s on the list, and I am just so impressed that you finding the smaller wins within the larger goal. For me, smaller wins, John, are checking, ranking, finding keywords that are starting to rank. Visibility is one of my main markers of a smaller goal.

 

[00:24:11.300] – Speaker 1

Like, are we getting visibility? My next smaller win is looking at engagement. I really pay attention to engagement. That’s actually my benchmark, my hallmark for everything is, are people engaging? How much do they watch of it? How long do I keep them on this video? I look at how many minutes are consumed on my YouTube channel every month. And these things are more important to me than views and other metrics that a lot of other people follow. I barely follow them. I barely even look at them.

 

[00:24:47.370] – Speaker 2

I think that’s the right thing because I think people… Unless you’ve got a very large website and you’ve got a large volume and you’re up against some really serious competition, I think it’s best to just have some key things that you’re monitoring and being consistent in just monitoring 2-3 things because that’s all the bandwidth you’re going to have. And the more things you’re monitoring, the harder it is to be consistent.

 

[00:25:24.470] – Speaker 1

Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. And that is like a I really enjoy the benchmarks that I look at. I really like… They’re almost as sweet to me as… By the time I get the result of somebody calling me John, honest to God, I am so enthused about so many other small wins that I’ve gotten before that moment. It allows me to not be overpressured by the rarity of calls with content marketing. I think I’m working on… I’ve had seven or eight inquiries so far this month, and only two have actually showed up for the call, which is pretty rare for me. They almost always keep the appointment, not this month. But the two people that have kept the appointment have been incredible, really great. But I’ve walked into the call super relaxed and super ready to engage, mainly because the small win of how engaged they were with the content and all the other things that they said that were nice. I already walked into the call thinking it was going to be a win, a victory, because of how well they consumed all of the content. And then one last note on this, everybody.

 

[00:26:48.650] – Speaker 1

Something that 30 years of being a salesperson and 30 years of being a top salesperson has taught me is you scale your goals to the season, to the era, to the time. Really, really super aggressive salespeople always try to push themselves, and I appreciate that, but I’ve never done it that way. The way I do it is I look at where we’re at with the industry. I look at the people that are taking the calls with me. And I go, my God, I’ve had a huge victory this month because while everybody’s running for the mountains, I’ve still got people, not many, but a few, that are aiming for the sky. No, they’re not running into a cave.

 

[00:27:32.190] – Speaker 2

They’re really-Well, I thought last week, I thought you said something that really stuck in my memory banks about really good quality sells people in do better in a difficult market because the competitions days and they’ve got a book of business and they’re just good at it. I haven’t got precisely what you said, but the drift of it is still there. And I thought that was so insightful, Rob.

 

[00:28:07.540] – Speaker 1

It is absolutely a true thing that professionals Excel twice as fast inside their business. What I was saying last week was you keep up your ground game because you’re making twice as much progress even if you don’t see it. That’s what I said. You keep up as a marketer, as a salesperson, because honestly, most people are running for the hills, folding up their tents, acting with half the energy on the call. And when things are rougher is when you actually have to really kick everything into high gear. It’s crazy, and it works really beautifully. Did you have something like… How did you want to… Did you want to talk about smaller wins?

 

[00:28:51.720] – Speaker 2

No, let’s go on to the next one.

 

[00:28:53.980] – Speaker 1

Are you appealing… I’m going to let you… Let’s let you take this one.

 

[00:28:59.220] – Speaker 2

Yeah, well, it’s It’s a bit linked to what you said about content takes time. Well, this is the other thing, which I think a lot of people don’t understand, and it’s, are you appealing to all stages of the buying or buying buying or selling process? We’ve gone on about this consistently during this podcast, haven’t we, Rob? Is that people are at different stages of the buying or selling process. It’s very… Unless you got a a lot of volume and you’re paying for paid traffic, you’re going to pay for traffic organically or not. It all costs time and money, folks. Social media, organic, website traffic, paid traffic. In one way or another, it costs money and time. But these people, unless you’ve got an enormous amount of volume of traffic coming in, only a very small percentage of those people are going to be selling and buying the house there and then. But it’s getting them on an email list. It’s getting them to sign up to social media, your YouTube channel, TikTok, it doesn’t matter what it is. So you can keep in front of them. So when they are ready to buy or sell, you get the phone call, not the competition.

 

[00:30:33.810] – Speaker 2

And I don’t know what it is, but there’s a lot of real estate agents that don’t grasp this concept, Robert. They find it very hard.

 

[00:30:44.460] – Speaker 1

And that is, I think, just a lack of education on a lot of realtors’ parts. And to be fair to those realtors, so 80 % of all realtors are basically referral realtors working off something called the circle of influence, which we’ve talked about countless times. When we do, you generally bring up some of your people that have influenced you more, which is the Bafinis. I think he’s legit.

 

[00:31:12.970] – Speaker 2

That’s why I think they’re It’s legit, people.

 

[00:31:16.070] – Speaker 1

No argument. You mentioned them quite a bit, which is fair because they are legit, in my opinion. I happen to agree with you. The thing about that is, though, 80% And of all, realtors do their business off referrals or life cycle or circle of influence. In other words, they’re not really influencing. You can’t really influence. Hear me on this, everybody. It is very difficult to really influence a decision as major as real estate, no matter how good your sales skills are. What you’re really trying to do is be a better fisherman with a better net with less holes, catch more fish than the other guys. That’s what you’re really trying to do. The ones that are out there that are already in the pool, already swimming around and there to be caught. Are you really creating the fish, nurturing them like a hatchery? Not generally. What you’re doing is you’re really wanting to make sure that you just acquire, capture people’s attention. Then hopefully, if you’re a really incredible realtor, staying in touch with them and staying top of mind for the 10 years between home purchases. Because if you’re a good realtor, you get them the first time.

 

[00:32:31.120] – Speaker 1

If you’re a great realtor, you get them the second time. If you’re a one-of-a-kind realtor, you get them for a lifetime. Joyce Ray talks about that quite a bit. She acquires clients for a lifetime. When you think about your customer relationship in perspective of a 50-year career. Now, all of a sudden, John, if that once every 10 years is correct, one client is worth five transactions. Now, if we say the first transaction was 1 million, second was five million, third was 10 million, which is Joyce’s math. By the time everything is said and done, that one client is worth $50 million. What people don’t realize, though, is that if you want to catch them, market to them, capture them, you’re trying to capture them somewhere in that 10-year life cycle. The conversation around real estate changes a tremendous amount depending on where you are in that 10 years. If you just bought a new home where you’re going to capture somebody who’s talking about home improvements, in the middle of their cycle, you can start to capture their interest with how much their home is worth because they’ve had it for five years, they have a little equity, and now they care.

 

[00:33:41.930] – Speaker 1

Then if you’re at the end of the cycle, you can stay at home improvement all the way. Because now it’s about capturing maximum value out of your investment as you get ready to leave it and move into the next thing. You want as much rocket as you can get to launch you into your next part of your real estate trajectory. That’s what people don’t understand, John. Are you appealing to all stages of the buying process? Think about what I just said. It’s 10 years of that. Ten years. Are you even trying to have a conversation with somebody who’s not within a year of buying or selling? Probably not. And you should be, in my opinion.

 

[00:34:22.780] – Speaker 2

You should be if- I think it’s even more important. That’s pretty bold, but I just put this, and I’m not sure if you’re going to I agree. If you are giving really good service to your customers and you keep in contact with them, it’s that when that person is asked, Do you know our agent ‘Do you know an agent? Do you know somebody that can help me? ‘ That person is going to recommend you. But if you don’t keep yourself in the top of their mind to some degree, they’re going to forget And that’s how it’s also the building up this free referral network that’s outside of this really close group that Perfini goes on about. But it’s a concept. I can see by your reaction that I’m not off target here, but it’s something that a lot of agents or a lot of online resources don’t talk about, do they?

 

[00:35:29.670] – Speaker 1

That Yeah, they don’t. They don’t, and they should because the actual best sales strategy that you can ever give a realtor is actually building the skills to maintain somebody properly for a lifetime. For that, I’d recommend for those who are looking for tips, there’s one book that’s head and shoulders above all others, and it’s not a real estate book. Even John will be surprised. I’ve never dropped this on the show before, ever. It’s Harvey McKay, How to Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. It is the best book on relationship and network and referral selling that I’ve ever read because it deals with the mechanics of building up a long, very deep relationship-based connection to somebody. It is technical. Harvey McKay is one of the best salespeople that ever walked the face of the planet as it relates very specific Specifically to long term account development. And that’s what makes it so good for realtors is that you should be thinking of, John, if I was your realtor, I’d be looking you at… Yes, you’re an older dude. Who knows? Are you going to move? Maybe not. But I don’t know that you’ve moved two or three times.

 

[00:36:49.500] – Speaker 1

You are an investor. If I’m looking at you, the possible upside far outweighs any downside to me trying to develop a robust relationship with you. Far outweighs it. I want to build up that relationship. I want to know when your birthday is. I want to send you a card. I want to know what your alma mater is. I want to send you a joke about fugilists every once in a while. I want to do all of that while inviting you to go to a place that I have a lot of information about, let’s just call it improving your home’s value, what real estate investors are maybe paying attention to today, right now in 2025, It’s shit that you might be curious about. Maybe, maybe. I’d send you there so that you were looking at me and going, I’m top of mind. If you’re thinking about another investment at some point, you’re at least going to call me and ask me some questions. That’s how I would view it. A lifetime client. That’s more valuable to you than new clients, new client acquisition. John has some great… God, everybody could tell, including John, I’m just so into this subject.

 

[00:37:59.630] – Speaker 1

Are you accurately tracking all stages of the lead life cycle? Do you actually track your leads, John, or do you think that’s something specifically for realtors?

 

[00:38:10.220] – Speaker 2

No, because I’m not in I’m not into the high figures. Some of the clients, we got… Some of my clients are very big, and they’re on big retainers. It’s my other business. I’m aiming in the male right at a smaller figure individuals. We have built some websites, but I’m purposely aiming it at the not so much handholding because I’m on the brink. I’m a bit pushed, producing all the content in my other business and blah, blah, blah. I think it’s linked to the things that you said it monitored. Keep it simple, but keep it sustainable. Have some measures that you religiously monitor, but you don’t have to go enormously complicated, because I see some things online, YouTube, aimed at real estate agents. And the training is ridiculous as far as I’m concerned, because it would be fine if you got a brokerage and you got somebody in in-house as the analytical Marketing Manager or whatever, and that’s their full-time job. But I think most agents just haven’t got the bandwidth, so it’s better just I would look at 2-3 things.

 

[00:39:49.840] – Speaker 1

I agree with that. I’m going to do two things. Say how I do it right now, and then how I apply this to real estate. Right now, I do it with Inbound R EM because I have a conversation with somebody, and my entire lead generation strategy is inbound. I make no efforts whatsoever to have any pre-conversation with anybody. I take appointments that are scheduled through a calendar. Once I’ve talked to somebody, they get no follow-up, no email threads, and nothing from me. They get added to my company’s newsletter mailing list, to which we often spend as long as a year building out a single piece of content, doing things like case studies and deep client studies that we then pass that data along to all the people on that list. They care or they don’t. But we spend a lot of time doing the work. If somebody reads it and is interested, they will find something valuable. Then I have my team scrub all the people who didn’t call me back or touch me once a year. Some people on my team run through the list and call everybody.

 

[00:40:55.430] – Speaker 1

The only thing they’re saying when they’re calling is, Do you want to have another conversation with Robert? That’s it. That’s the whole pitch. Nothing else. No sales, not really. More like diligent follow-up. That’s it. That’s how I do it for Iram. How I would do it if I were a real estate agent is that I would do it quite differently. I would do a very robust lifestyle email list. I would manage and monitor text messaging, and I would be very event-focused if I were a real estate agent. I would send people to events and text message invites to events I found interesting, especially ones that I was going to be at personally and that had a lot of value—wine tastings, golfing events, things that were really relevant. I’ll give you one last example, and then we’ll move on. I live in Vanuys. It’s not a very sexy city at all, but there is a high school near me, and now and again, I hear this high school going insane with, like, they’re having big football games. It’s a massive racket in terms of bands.

 

[00:42:07.430] – Speaker 1

I can hear the drums like they’re right next door. I would invite people to these games, mainly if I worked in my neighborhood. Hey, will you be at the game? I’ll be there. I’m going to do a tailgate party. I’m going to grill some hamburgers, grill some dogs. Please feel free to join me if you like. When I was there and talking to these people, I would not be salesy. I would just be building relationships because if they were on my list and they met me there in the first place, shook my hand, and said, You invited me, I’d already know they’re qualified. That’s it. I don’t need to know anything else. I would say, Lovely to have you here. Do you like mustard or ketchup? That would be it. So, here are the last few of my final thoughts. John, do you want to lead us off, or do you want me to do it?

[00:42:57.500] – Speaker 2

My final thought is that we’ve provided great value in this podcast.

[00:43:05.490] – Speaker 1

I think that we have, too. And for those, again, John has done an incredible job of going out and finding some good content marketers that have done to varying degrees, simple stuff or high-end stuff in the content marketing space. And I strongly recommend that you check them out. Now, whether or not you… And failing that, you can check either one of our websites, Mail-Right.com or inboundrem. Com. We both have some great examples of what we feel is good content marketing because we do it on our sites. But I like this list, mainly because John and I constantly plug on this podcast. This list is complete of people that we don’t plug. So you should check it out if you’re trying to get value for your time. I’ve been Robert Newman. If you’d like to contact me at all, you can do so at inboundram. Com. You can check out the services or About page if you’d like to dive deeper into who I am and why you should read my blog. Or John, how would you want people to do that same research with you?

 

[00:44:19.230] – Speaker 2

Just go over to the Mail-Right.com website and look at our feature page. We’re going to be putting up some video. I got close to finishing the final part of our revamp of the system. We’re close to adding a library of starter websites. When we get that done, I’ll be putting some video walkthroughs of the product, and we’ll revamp the interface of the basic system and increase the speed. I’d love you to go there and book a demo, and I’ll walk through the system with you.

 

[00:44:57.960] – Speaker 1

Beautiful. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in. John, take us offline. It’s been a great show. Could you let me know if I can get off?

 

[00:45:08.640] – Speaker 2

Hang.

 

038: Good Quality Photography With Special Guest Greg McDaniels

We discuss with our special guest Greg McDaniels the importance of quality photography connected to being a successful real estate Read more

039: Why Agents Need To Blog Regularly

Agents need to do more than blogging to get results in 2016. We discuss this during this show with our two Read more

040: We Have Special Guest Greg McDaniels

Greg McDaniel literally began his career at his father’s knee. It would not be an exaggeration to say he has Read more

041: Personal Agent Photography With Preston Zeller

Personal agent photography is really important but usually semi-forgotten. We have a great guest "Preston Zeller" on the show who recently Read more

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Jonathan Denwood – An Easy To Use Real Estate CRM And Powerful Lead Generating PlatformBy Jonathan Denwood & Bill Conrad