Secrets of Connecting that Lead to Converting

If you've been listening for some time, would you do me a favor if you've been getting some value out of the podcast conversations, the content? Always appreciate leaving a review. You know where to do that wherever you're listening to this right now, likely there's a place you can give us a thumbs up as four or five stars, whatever you think is appropriate. And I appreciate you leaving a review or even better, you know, somebody who could benefit by listening to this episode to this podcast, share it with them. That helps us reach more people and we're always looking to reach more people. So I appreciate that. Appreciate you for tuning in. Speaking of reaching more people, this conversation, my special guest is Grant Wise. Grant Wise is, I'll call him a phenomenon. How's that? Grant Wise is somebody who can swoop into a business parachute into a business and put on his strategic biz dev cyborg laser focused goggles and be able to identify untapped under optimized areas of business with the existing resources they have in uncover revenue uncover missed revenue. And that's a unique skill set. And that's why I enjoy the conversation I have with Grant in addition to Grant and I consulting together grant is helping me consult on my business also and giving me insights into areas to grow my business. And so we got together in Vegas recently for a fun little gathering at a podcast studio and just have a kind of a straight up open ended conversation about marketing and about, you know, connection over conversion and there's going to be a lot of nuggets and takeaways. Now, Grant is somebody who works with some of the largest real estate teams in North America. We're talking about people who close upwards of 2000 transactions a year, right large teams high producing people that have large teams, but also just high producing individuals as well. And that's what Grant does is helps people optimize what they currently have to get more ROI out of the year, investment their time and effort. So I hope you like this conversation and if you do please leave us a review as I said, give us a like and make sure you check out the show notes for links to go follow Grant and any of the other resources that you want to learn about that we talk about on the podcast. So let's get into this weeks show. Grant wise. What up? Welcome to the show. I would say your last name, but I don't know. That's okay. Yours is easy. You flew all the way from Arkansas just to be here just to see you man. Yeah, yeah, right. Just to get in and get in the room with you and talk talk shop. Right. So we're going to get into the talking shop. I know this is going to be an awesome conversation about real estate marketing. Before we do that for listeners who may not be familiar with you, who is Grant wise. What does he do? I think it depends on who you ask. I am a growth marketing expert. I step into companies and help them understand how to make a lot of money over the last decade. My focus in the real estate space has been paid media as like a means of client acquisition. So helping agents understand how to generate leads, how to do things like remarketing to build brand, how to convert at a really high level. And I have been around. I've been doing it for a minute. I've been on all the stages. I've got to speak. It's some really cool events. Yep. The NARS, the in-mins, the Agent 2021s, where we meet in person. Right. Spoken it. John, Chepp Blacks events and just a lot of really cool things with a lot of really amazing people. I can work with a lot of the top teams in the real estate industry now. I've earned my stripes. I've been doing it long enough finally. Right. Come into organizations and identify opportunities and build marketing and advertising plans to help them have success. But my company, Whitley, what my team does day in and day out is just social media advertising. Whatever agents need Facebook Instagram within the realm of lead generation, video, video remarketing. Any ads strategy you could possibly think of, you know, we're implementing for agents every day. Okay. So you work with a lot of top producing teams. You've named a few of them. I've seen you, you know, as you said, be called up on stages, but you get to align yourself with some of these mega producing. Yeah. I mean, give us a sense of like, when I say mega producing, like, how many transactions is that? Yeah, like 2000 a year. 2000 transactions a year. So that's not your average real estate deal. What's that? Yeah, that's a lot. What do you find unique and different about people who build a business that big, right? As a real estate agent is what they are. Yeah. This is such a really good question because from marketing and advertising standpoint, my job is to come in and do a bit of an audit on things and identify opportunities. And sometimes people don't realize when you're climbing in the real estate space, it's just growth mode and growth mode typically means some stuff gets. Oh, yeah. It's messy. Some stuff gets missed. Yes. And so it's actually not as difficult as you would think to walk into a team that's doing a hundred a year, five hundred a year, a thousand a year, two thousand a year from a transaction standpoint. And identify very clear areas of opportunity. And the reason I say that is because like if there's an agent maybe watching this or a loan officer that's talking about, you know, agents that do five or 10 deals a year, 20 or 50 deals a year. The reality is is the top producing teams from like a business standpoint from a marketing sales advertising standpoint. They're actually not that different. They still buy leads. Yeah. They still do follow up. They still got a manager database. They still got to build brand. What I find is different about them is just who they are as people. Okay. And I think that companies that grow that big, it's a reflection of the leaders that are in place growing those organizations. Some of the people that I get to work with, some of the nicest people I've ever met my entire life. Yeah. And I think it's a very good, genuine people that want to help, want to serve, want to create an environment where real estate agents can come in and have a lot of success. Whether it's on the team or, you know, futuristically, them going out and having success on their own. But it comes down to who they are as people. It's more of a personal game than it is a business game. Businesses actually really easy. It's the people that run the businesses that are typically pretty hard because we all got our stuff. You know, we've all got our things that we've got to work through. And I'm sure maybe you've heard that saying it. New levels, new devils, right? Yeah. There's a new set of problems that every step that you go and typically it's the person's individual ability to overcome those challenges. A lot of people don't do that. They get to 100 transactions and they're happy there. And they build an amazing life. And that's not to dismiss the success because it's quite an accomplishment. But that's what I find is the most different. Do you like working with the people that are doing, you know, that superstar level 2000? Or, you know, I mean, do you feel like you align with those people better than somebody who's doing 100 or 200? I love it. Yeah. Absolutely. I love working with all of them because everybody's, you know, doing their own thing. Everybody has their own level of success. But getting in and work, I was actually nervous as hell to start doing it. Yeah. Not bad. You're working with somebody at 50. You're working with somebody at 100. It's like working with somebody. Which is actually interesting. Maybe you can unpack that because that's relevant to you, as you know, most of my audience is originators. Some, there's a few select people that I know that do work with big teams. Yeah. But that is a journey in a process to go from I'm working with 30 agents who do three, four deals a year to I'm working with six teams who do 200 a year. Yeah. So how does somebody make that shift? I think it's one of the core contributors that I can see to that success is getting in the right room. Okay. So how do you do that? Masterminds investing in coaching. So attending real estate events and things like that? Attending real estate events, hosting real estate events, being consistently seen as the person that is putting on successful events, I think is. So I love what you do because the reality is like when you're building brand, perception is everything. It's not like perception, we get caught up in it as entrepreneurs with guilt and should we have this yet or should we do that? The reality is like perception is reality. It's a 99% of people. So if I see you wearing a nice watch, I see a hosting event driving the Lambo like my perception is that you are very successful and I am gravitating towards that because it's what I see from myself. So if you can be hosting events even where these top producers are attending, you're being seen. Yeah. So you're kind of latching yourself to success and it's a very successful way to build a brand and build a relationship with the market, which is what your brand is. It's funny to say that because I'm thinking back to locally here in Vegas where I hosted a summit, social media summit where we had a panel of top producing agents. And these weren't like mega, you know, not 2000, not even God. I mean, that's just so stratosphere, right? Like one couple was, I think, doing a roughly a hundred or so. Then there was another guy who came up fast in the last two and a half years exclusively from Instagram and TikTok. I think he closed 16 transactions, which sounds very small compared to, you know what I mean? But for, but still that's like incredible, right? 16 transactions just from Instagram and TikTok. But the, but getting back to the point is I remember being there as the MC, the guy with a mic and all of a sudden it's just like, yeah, people look at you differently by power of association. Yep, 100%. That's top contributor success because me getting around those people being in those environments. And that's again, it's investing in coaches, it's being at masterminds, it's participating in events, it's hosting events. It's doing those types of things is what put me there and it didn't start there. You know, right. Ten years ago I was sitting there trying to find somebody that wanted to sell one house. And I'm wondering that's what I'm trying to picture in my head is like that journey. You just took about what you said. You put yourself around the people, the places, the situations. So you became more and more well known. You started to learn more. Yeah. Well, I, you know, and I'm attending. So I'm in Vegas right now. Yeah, right. I'm attending a mastermind tomorrow. Yeah. And I spoke in an event last year. And I said this from stage, you know, I consistently come to these events and attend these masterminds. Because I want to learn from people that are really successful. And this group of people is the absolute most successful in the industries. The coach for a top 1% or 1% in production. But I said what I also want to understand is how to add value to the most productive people in the US and Canada. And that's really, I think it's not just being in the right rooms. You want to be there. You want to learn. But I'm showing up in these real estate rooms. And I don't sell real estate, right? Well, I'm what people would call a vendor. Like I'm sometimes like the guy that everybody wants to leave the room. Right. I show up because I want to learn from these people that are really successful because they've already been through it. But then I also want to hear what they're struggling with. Because if I can understand what your pain points are and I have a solution based on some type of experience I've had, that opens the door for us to have a legitimate conversation. And that's how all of those high level relationships that I have have started. I was in the room and they told me about a problem that they had. I provided a solution and I said, hey, let's connect on that later this next week if you want to chat through it. And 10 times out of 10, that typically led to some type of relationship down the road. And so I think that it's not always just being in the right rooms because everybody says that. What do I do when I'm in the room? Yeah. Well, listen and learn. But then also listen for what people are struggling with. Because if you can identify pain points that somebody has and you can consistently be the person that solves their problem, sometimes you're the second best choice because somebody's in a relationship right now that they're happy with. But something's going to happen. How do you, though, how did you become known, right? Or you're in these rooms and you're listening to the problems and you're like, hey, like if you want to chat, I might be able to help you. But how do you get to that point of like they're even open to you, this guy, grant wise, is like, who are you? Like what happened? What's your origin story, right? To be able to like, as they see, you know, oh, yeah, I know great. I know what he does. Kind of stuff unpack that. I spent years traveling the country speaking for free. Like at the end of the day, like I've been around, you know, now I can say I've been doing this almost a decade. You're like 76 now, right? Yeah, dog ears. Exactly. Or exactly. Right. You know, 10 years ago, I would have begged for like the easy thing. What's the easy thing that gets me on the stages? What's the easy thing that gets me to the people that are selling $2,000? But going through the journey of getting to where I am today is really what I have so much more appreciation for. I've made a lot of money. I've made a lot of, been able to buy cool things. Like, but, but that journey of transformation just becoming who I am today is probably been the thing that I will be the most proud of because I've had to overcome some stuff. I've had to really dig in and overcome some challenges. And it was just making those conscious decisions to invest and flying to Vegas for free. Sometimes on my own dime to speak at, you know, to a room full of 20 people. And then overnighting to Miami and hosting an event with a dozen people. And then a week later going out to Seattle and speaking to 150 people. And it was just doing that over and over and over and over and over again, consistently saying yes to the opportunities that I was begging for. And it always led to business. That's how I fed my family for literally two to three years as we were building technology as we were doing different things that needed to be done. There's a lot of business strategy and, you know, figuring out ads and figuring out time acquisition throughout that process. I was able to build a multi-million dollar training company in a very short time frame. Those types of things help. But off the back of that, it was the hard work of saying yes when it wasn't always the most attractive opportunity. Showing up to speak in front of an auditorium of people and they're only being 20 people in the room. And it's always fun. And getting psyched up to add value to the 20 people. Right, to act like there's 2,000 people in the room. And I've been there. I've been packed rooms. I've spoken at GaryVee's events where the room's full. It's standing room only and you get to add a ton of value. And I've been in the rooms where it looks empty. Right. But that would be the progression of getting to a place where we go back to being seen, associating myself to success. I was on the stage at Inman. I was on the stage at Nar. I was on the stage at GaryVee's event. But let's pause for a second because what I think you're skipping over is you have a skill set though that the agents want. So when you're talking about solving problems, typically it's around business growth, growing leads, making more money, business structure, all that stuff. But so I get to showing up and all that kind of stuff. But what was happening during that same time, but from correct is you've also have developed this unique skill set of how to build a real estate business, right? Like what's your super power, if you will, regarding strategy. Strategy, okay. I can step in any company and within a very short time frame engineer strategy that can help you understand how to acquire customers or not can be understand how to acquire customers can actually help you acquire customers. I think you're right. I'd certainly skipped over the parts that I've helped sell billions of dollars of real estate over the course. Yeah, that'll find point why the top team in the United States or Canada says, yes, yes, coach my team. You know, years ago, I started a real estate brokerage and I was 21. I got kicked out of that brokerage and I was 23, my company. I was asked to leave like Steve Jobs. And I was so frustrated because that company had become my entire identity. I wanted to build a massive company and we wanted to be in 500 markets in five years. And my job was traveling around the country, opening up offices and recruiting people to it. And when I learned throughout that time frame was so interesting. I learned that because we were 100% based business, I could sit down with a realtor and be like, if you do no more business next year, we're going to pay you an extra $60,000 here. And they'd be like, no, I don't want that. What do you mean you don't want that? Are you stupid? And what I learned is that people don't want to make more money. People want to understand how to make more money in this industry. And it's a very key distinction because you could walk into a real estate office today. Say, if you come to my brokerage, I'm going to pay you an extra $100,000 next year. And you see it every single day people don't leave. And I was always fascinated by that. And so you go 21, 223 kicked out of the real estate brokerage. I still leave. And then week of panic. What in the world am I going to do? And so what I realized is, you know what? I'm going to do what I've been, I'm going to teach people to do what I've been trying to get these agents that I've recruited to do. Nobody's listening to me. Even though he said, you're young, you're dumb, you don't get this business. You know, thanks for the increase in paychecks, but like just sit over there. And so I'll never forget I'd virtually no money. It was bankrupt. Put out a Facebook ad. This woman named Tony Thompson called me. And she's like, I hear you can help me sell more estate. Yes. We put out a Facebook ad for this woman. And she sells 48 homes in a single year. Wow, really? And I'm like, okay. This works. Yeah. And so the stuff that I've been trying to teach with Legion and video. This 10 years ago, it's like, what are you talking about? But Tony had success. And then, you know, there's a client misty had success. And then this person got to six figures. And that person got six figures. I got to six figures. Finally, after some time. And started getting into masterminds and stuff like that. And they were like, you need to build a course around this stuff. So that's what we did. And it was designed to teach real estate agents how to use Facebook to generate leads. And we grew, you know, it's always a funny story. I wanted to be in 500 markets in five years. And everybody always says it's a pipe dream. Well, after we launched our course, we were in 500 markets in like five months. And it was wild, just a totally different distinction. But we were helping people actually make money. People were getting leads. People were closing deals. And there's this evolutionary process as you like we look back at it where Facebook ads worked so good for people. And then there was a period where they started working less and less and less. And then five or six years ago, people literally stopped answering the phone. People stopped responding to text messages. People stopped booking appointments. And our clients were freaking out. I was freaking out. I'm like, what am I going to do? I got to figure this out. And we realized that there was something that we did as a company to get realtors on the phone with us that we weren't teaching them how to do. It was called remarketing. We were creating video content and constantly remarketing it to agents, which is how I built a brand. So quickly. And so we started teaching our agents to do the same thing. So we would help them create video content and start remarketing the leads that they were generating. And then, boom, instantaneously, the phones started getting answered again. The text started being responded to again. And you go a couple more years and follow up. We're struggling with follow up. Now we've got to touch the lead 38 times before they'll even respond to us. How are we going to navigate this? And it was just working through those challenges. And so, going back a decade, it was solving one problem, helping agents get leads. Solving another problem, helping them build a brand. Solving another problem, helping them convert. And it was just learning through the lifecycle of each of those issues. And so you get to a point where it's like, all right, well, we've got a strategy here for generating leads. Building a brand and converting more customers. And it seems to work because customers of ours, clients of ours, are acquiring clients very consistently, very predictably and very profitably. And that, I think, is obviously why people are like, yeah, we should let Grant come talk. Because he knows how to make money. Like he knows how to teach people real estate agents how to make money. Oh, you're not getting leads. No problem. You're not converting. But you've got a follow-up system. You're missing the remarketing components. We fix that. We fix your conversion problem. Oh, you don't follow up with your leads. That's fine. Let's fix that. And so it's just understanding the dynamics of the industry, the dynamics of client acquisition. Building strategy around that. Proving it. Time and time and time and again. And then you do that long enough and people like, hey, can you come. Yeah. Somebody get me grant wise. We need to talk. Yeah. Where's the backbone? Well, you build a reputation. You become known for something. We can't move. We're doing that. Yeah. So where is this remarketing happening today? Is this like Facebook remarketing ads and all that kind of stuff or? A lot of what we do is what I call relationship remarketing. So it's you creating branded pieces of content, pulling out the phone, creating videos. And then us taking that and remarketing those leads that you're getting socially, Facebook Instagram and the audience network. And what that does is instantly, as soon as a lead comes in and they go back to Facebook, which is where they're going. Or they go back to Instagram, which is where they're going. They start seeing you everywhere and you start showing up and you start educating and you start building your authority score and you start showing testimonial videos and you start creating credibility in their mind that you're somebody that can help them. That's what makes it so effective is we have a case state of a client. We helped them go from three to $33 million a year in annual production, significant growth over the course of a couple of years. And we looked at a frequency, which is the, they have a frequency score on ads, which is how many times one person has seen an ad? Well, when we analyzed it, we had helped them generate, it was like 3,500 leads. Those 3,500 leads, each, each lead had watched a piece of video content 66 times. Wow, really? Now, each video, it's like two or three times, right? So this is adding a short, short form, 60 to 90 seconds of this content. But one lead saw video content as many as 66 times over the course of weeks, months, years. And they've been able to build this incredibly profitable company and that remarketing element. And I always ask people, like, it wins the last time you fall it up with a lead 66 times. How many LOs do you know, but like get upset because agents won't follow up with leads. Right. Yeah. How many LOs do you know that don't follow up with leads? It's like, it's a, it's a big problem. And remarketing really solves it because we're spending a nickel to get somebody to watch a video for 15 seconds. And it, it's this, you create a video one time. Now you have this marketing asset that's out there working for you day in and day out. And it's keeping you in front of the leads that you're generating. You are the business is number one brand asset. But what agents are trying to do right now is leverage themselves out of the business. How so? Oh, you're not doing it right, right? So they'll start, I have this really silly pyramid of problems that agents go through. First it's leads. Once they solve the lead problem, I've got leads, but I can't convert them. They got to figure out a convert, right? So it's lead sales. Once they figure out how to convert, what happens to every agent we know? They start working 60 to 80 hours a week. I don't want to do this anymore. They get burnt out. They're right. They need help with systems and processes and technology. And that's typically where coaches come in, right? Somebody can coach them on. Oh, you need this. And then they need help understanding how to structure what it is that they're building. Do I want to be a solo agent? Do I want to have a team? Do I want to build a brokerage? And then how do I scale this thing? So when we look at the pyramid of problems and understand that the agent's first core issue is getting leads, what the LO can do is add an enormous amount of value. And you likely see it teaching agents how to acquire customers. This is why a lot of LO's get traction in classes. If you look at going after agents that maybe you're doing more volume, what are they struggling with? Well, they're struggling with systems and processes. You want to help a real estate agent that is doing a lot of business right now, have success, teach them how to build systems and processes. This is why doing classes on technology, CRMs, those different types of things can be really impactful and get agents that are selling four or five, six homes a month into a room because they want to understand how to be more efficient. They want more time with the family. They want more time to enjoy the fruits of their labor. And I kind of forget where I was going with some of that. No, that's okay. That was a lot of information. So thank you for that. There's a couple of things in there. One, you mentioned the, let me take this first question, which is the loan officer positioning themselves as a conduit for that for the real estate agent. Do you find or, or I don't know if you've got any actual real data on this, but the issue of a loan officer helping solve problems for real estate agents? Any, any resistance from agents around that? I think if you're a real estate agent that has a problem, you need somebody to solve it. So you don't care what color the life observer is. I don't know that it matters. You need somebody that you're in rapport with to give you an idea that you're like, I can try that. Yeah. I think that when you look at story frameworks, storytelling frameworks, there's the heroes to journey selling that from Russell Bronson. And we both set out, we set out, we go on two different journeys. There's the journey of achievement and then there's the journey of transformation. Typically when we set out to achieve a goal, we hit a challenge. We come across a challenge and typically at that point in a story, a guide appears to help us overcome the challenge we're transformed. And then we move on to achieve whatever it was that we set out to achieve. All right. Real estate agents, loan officers, contractors, painters, cleaning companies, like these people don't necessarily care who the guide is, they just need help. When you have a problem and you've got to understand the pain that it's causing. It's not just that you're having to work a lot. It's fear, anxiety, stress, relationship damage. Like there's all types of internal struggles that people go through. I don't care who you are, what you look like. If you have a good solution to a problem that I'm having, and you can help me understand how to actually apply it in my life, I'm going to be eternally grateful for what it is that you were able to help me overcome. Because if you take an agent that's doing five deals a month, they're typically working a lot. So helping them create more efficient ways to do that work so that they can have more balance in their life. That's an incredible, incredible thing to do for somebody. And if you're a loan officer that did that, right? You know, the reciprocity on that type of information. I mean, it's just so impactful. What do you say? So I'm going to throw it. We're going to go and Glenn Gary Glenn Ross here for a moment. Remember that movie? Yeah. Remember one of the lines, the leads aren't weak your week. Yeah. Well, how do you feel about real estate leads, you know, and that that's obviously a common go to kind of issue, right? That people are like, oh, the real, the leads suck, right? Well, how do you respond to that having generated thousands of leads? Yeah. The average lead is shared with nine other realtors, meaning the company selling the leads. Yeah. Or they opted on Zelo and then realtor and Facebook and then your website. So that restarts it multiple times 100% and what you see today is that it's really not about speed to lead. It's about speed to relationship and not so many people have great systems that are designed to help them build a relationship. So really cool thing that we did recently was a study on the team that we're working with that is doing 2000 transactions a year. And I was really interested to know what's the average time to close from the time that a lead enters your database to the time that you actually close on a deal. What's the timeline? So we broke it out into Sphere of Influence, PPC SEO, social media advertising. Here's what's fascinating. Sphere of Influence, 345 days. From the time the contact entered the database to the time they close the deal, it took 345 days. Really? SEO, PPC, 353 days. Eight more days. Facebook, 368 days. Only three weeks longer than a Sphere of Influence contact. That's average. Now that means a lot closer than that and a lot closer than that. But this is the average. And the reason I bring this up is something that's so fascinating to go back and look in your own database. Because most real estate agents don't get that Sphere of Influence contacts even take a long time to convert. The sales cycle in this industry is long. If you don't like that, you should consider a new profession. Invest, if you were to take your media buying budget, like your lead generation budget, I'll say it's $2,000 a month. And invest $1,500 of that into sales processes, CRM technology, structure, actual lead management practices, people that can truly convert and have proven mechanisms for doing those things like relationship development stuff and buy literally 25% of the leads that you buy today. You're going to increase your conversion rate astronomically over what it was. Now there's all these little tools and trips, you know, tricks and stuff like that that you can use that can help increase conversion if you are buying. And that's what I'm helping, you know, a lot of people do. What my point is is it's not the leads. That lead that is shared with nine other people, they're going to buy. They may not buy for a year. And they may buy from somebody else, but they are going to buy or they're going to sell. It is your ability to build and maintain a relationship with those people long term through the entire sales cycle. That is what it's going to set you up for success. And so if we as an industry and you're seeing this in real estate now, a lot of people, especially because of the market, budgets got cussed, right? So a lot of people are like, how do I make more with what I have? How do I take my existing database of these hundreds if not thousands of leads I've purchased? And how do I convert those? Great mindset to have. As long as we don't forget that as we come back out and go on another bull run in the industry. Right. But to your point, leads do not suck. It is the systems or the lack thereof systems and processes that everybody. And this isn't a realtor problem. I know this is a loan officer lead gen problem period. This is a running rampant in the L.O. space too. Sure. Other industries do. Every industry. Insurance cars, cars contracting. Yeah, this is everywhere. Because everybody wants the immediate gratification. Right. And I think that's typically how I would respond to that. Tell me about your sales processes. Yeah, so it reminds me of somebody I saw as they said this once is paraphrasing. But basically show me an agent who's complaining about the leads and I'll show you an agent who doesn't have their system and processes set up effectively. So to your point, it's not that you need more leads. You need a better system and process. Most agents need dramatically less. Somebody came in and said, I'll sell you 100 leads for $300 and you're like, here's my credit card. Right, right. Thinking that that's going to. Easy money, baby. It's not the way it works. And especially not the way that works anymore. Just as a society, we are doing more of our own research by ourselves. Oh, yeah. Because we don't want to talk to anybody. We don't want to be harassed. One leads shares with nine people. What, nine all the nine of those people have sales animations. Now all of a sudden, I got nine useless emails coming into my inbox every single day for filters that I don't want to talk to yet. It's the relationship component. And that's why I built an entire company around remarketing because your ability to build a relationship with that contact instantaneously and maintain a long-term is crucial. All right, that's good stuff. So you have a quote here on your homepage of your website. We'll put a link in the show notes to your website, Instagram, all that. It says, this is the one thing you can change that can change everything in your business right now. What would that be? So the last few months, I've had this phrase that I've said religiously and it's when you connect more, you convert more. And I developed this really like simple formula over the last decade. This is what helps me walk into companies and say you need to fix that problem. And it's really simple, it's attention plus connection equals appointments. So attention is not like likes, comment shares on social media, that's really powerful but names email addresses phone numbers. People actually coming into your database. That's leads. The connection piece is what I see missing in all of these organizations. Some of the largest teams in the world are missing it. And it's that instantaneous relationship that you start to create with a contact as soon as it comes into your database. It's not the hey, how are you doing? So you're ready to buy and sell a property, right? It's not the hey, are you ready to get pre-approved for a mortgage? So everybody does. It is the content you create that is really just designed to help you build a relationship with a person that you're actually marketing to. It's the educational content. It's the community content. It's the past client testimonials, people sharing their stories of the experience that they've had with you. This is the one thing that I walk into organizations are lead conversions low. Our ROI per lead source is down. What do we do? The agents will follow up with the leads. The agents won't put the frickin' notes in the CRM. Like, what do we do? If you can connect more, you can convert more. It's really hard to connect with people if they want to answer your phone call. Yeah. If they won't respond to your text. I see some of these teams have robot dollars in place. They're making 86 dials on a single contact before that answer the phone. That is nuts. Really? Nuts. But when somebody opts in to become a lead in your real estate business, and you now start showing up every social platform that they visit with valuable video content that helps them understand that you're the authority on this topic, and they have testimonials, past clients, social proof that validate the experience that they get to expect to have with you. You're building a relationship in real time with somebody. Now, they don't know, you don't know them, right? We get into the science of this. It's a parasocial relationship you start to develop. It's a one-sided relationship. But they are studying you. Have you ever met somebody from social media that you've known for a long time? Yeah. You know, like, hey, like, there's no relationship development work happening here. But you feel like there's one? We've already developed a relationship, right? I'm not meeting you for the first time, right? But this is what's happening. So parasocial relationships are what psychologists refer to as one-sided relationships. They're most common in celebrities. This is what's happening to influencers now. This is why influencers were recategorized in early 2020 as the newest form of celebrity. Because of the relationships they were developing with people that were following them. Well, now this is happening to realtors. Because they're putting on a lot of video content. And what will happen is they'll be walking down the street. Hey, I know you there. Aren't you that real estate agent? Yeah. And what's so awesome about that is you know that people are watching our content. They're developing a relationship with you. They already feel like they know you. They like you. They trust you. And that's where a lot of our clients end up converting 150% more of the leads that they generate than the average realtor. The average realtor today converts 0.8% of the leads that they generate. It's that connection. Would you say 50% more? 100 and 50%. 100% sir. Sir. Love it. 100 and 50%. Seriously. More. And the biggest difference is that connection piece. So we work with Kyle Whistle, the sorority group out of San Diego, love Kyle, love Brian, his marketing guy. 65% increase in lead to appointment conversion rate in 45 days. All right. And maybe get specific because what you're saying is going back to the remarketing. Right. So from the opt-in standpoint, we're talking about a large flow of leads. If they're buying Zilla or realtor.com or something like that. Right. So they're opting in somewhere. Right. And then instead of or in addition to because the normal process you mentioned is the robot eyes, the text, the calls, the automated platforms, CRMs that are doing all of that. Are you removing that? Are you doing that in addition to the in addition to that? And that's where the appointments part of that formula come. So tension plus connection equals appointments. Appointments come from follow up 100%. Right. It's just that you're. But that's about a timing thing, right? Yeah. You're a connection piece with those leads is what's setting you up to set more appointments. And so lead comes into the database. Now they're getting calls, text emails from the organization. Right. But we add the video piece where they're now getting video pieces that are shipped on to them through social media. Right. So they're seeing these really specific pieces of content that we've created that are designed to convert them. And that's what leads to an increase in email open rates, call connection rates, text response rates, and then ultimately appointment rates. So you absolutely keep following up. Keep following up. Sure. Relentlessly. Yeah. What you should see though is an increase in the effectiveness of your follow up because now you're creating that connection with people. Because what they don't have prior to that is whatever they opted into, you know, a CMA or whatever the thing is that they opted into. There's usually lack of connection to your point, lack of trust. And there may be a tire kick during the just fishing, right? Yeah. And they don't want to talk to anybody. So what you're doing is you're layering on top of that. I'm building up this trust in this parasocial relationship over time that lowers the resistance, increases the trust and engagement of connection to now. I feel like I know Grant because I've been is pop it up on my Instagram all the time. Yes. So in that 6th, 8th, 32nd dial or call or whatever, DM happens. Or that 6th, 9th, 12th month in the real estate search. Yeah. Right. Because people are searching longer today too. Everything is going on, you know, with like the market timing interest rates all that kind of let me hold. I know this from shopping for second homes. Let's see. Yeah. So we're taking longer to do that. And you know what? This is popped up in my head relevant to me doing my second home search right now. Do you think it's still easy to win today by simply showing up in the way you described? Like most are still half-assing it. You agree? Is it getting harder? Is it competition wise? The big fish eating smaller fish, you know, that whole. You know, I don't know. I think what's interesting and that I've noticed in a lot of our data when you look at at least social advertising metrics is the average cost per results has gotten better. Okay. And what that means typically is that there's not as many people competing in Facebook's auction system. Oh, sure. And that situation. For attention. And so from months ago interest, like things are going good. The best they've ever been in the real estate industry. Interest rates happen, right? The market flips. 180. Yeah. Overnight, a lot changed. Done. Right? So then we go down this two to three, four month period was very unprofitable for a lot of people to be in business. Ghost town. And then, you know, things start to correct themselves. Now we have this kind of like, you know, if you look at the United States as an example, there's this market here has really low inventory. They're back to multiple offers on every house. This market over here has plenty of inventory and they're not experiencing some of the constraints. And there's been so much pent up demand in that market that they're not really experiencing a lot of irregularities like some people might might be. So you see this huge pullback in ad spend across a ton of companies. And what that typically ends up happening as a result of that is you get better ad performance. Right. But how long does it take for people to close? This is why we did this time study on time to close. What's the average time it's going to take for you to close this deal? Because a lot of people are not reaping the words of business efforts that they put in last month. It's last year the same time. And that's something that should really trigger in your mind. It's like, oh, wait, I probably bought 50 leads April last year. Yeah. You go send out a mass text, mass email, how many, how many responses you're going to get back? We already bought. Sorry. We already sold. Sorry. Because you didn't do your job building your relationship with those people. And so I don't know that it matters. Transactions are going to happen every day. Meaning you need to be in front of these people every day. Right now, media buying costs are down as far as budgets go. Not as many people are spending money. It's opened up a door where ad performance is better than it's going to. It's been in a very long time because we're seeing ad stats. We haven't seen in years, like seven, eight years. Which means ad performance is better. Does not mean people are going to transact. It does not in any way shape or form mean that people are going to transact like this right now. But the people that are expanding into markets like this, they're the business people. Like they understand that I may take a hit or I may break even for the next four or five, six, seven months. But as we start to come out of the other side of, you know, some of the irregularities in the market, they're going to win big. It's just how really big teams take over market share. It is a lot of people stop buying. People pick up as many contracts they can. And it leads to greater opportunity. So I don't know. I don't know that we're going to see. You have to look at the data in your markets is transaction volume down in your local market compared to what it was. If the answer is yes, then the answer to your question is yes. If the answer is no, it's kind of neutral. Well, you know what? The business is still happening every day. You've got to get out in front of people. So speaking of getting out in front of people, I think, you know, to put a cherry on top of that. What you're saying is the smart business people, you know, kind of invest when people are scared, right? The old of Warren Buffett thing, right? When there's blood in the streets. Yes. All that stuff. And so smart business people realize that most people are retracting. That's your time to swoop in. This is when I can come in and I can take a bunch of market share. Right. 1000%. This is not just like a real estate philosophy. This is market philosophy. It has been for years. Look at the stock market. You bring up Warren Buffett. Like this is how people get mega rich. Is there able to come in and scoop up a ton of market share when everybody else is running away? Yeah. And I know companies like I work with some that are literally year over year up 100% from where they were last year. Like there's growth out there if you have this. So you go back to your original question. What's different than team leaders that are doing thousands versus the ones that aren't. It's this thing. It's the mind. People have really prepared themselves for times like this. Any tips you would have. We got like two minutes left. Any tips you would have. Two minutes, man. We've been crushing them. I know, right? Just bang. That was crazy. For the mortgage originator listening where so they've heard there's an opportunity to help agents to get in front of them and help solve problems. Right. What would you suggest to recommend for them to grab market share right now? I think it's a great question. What I would say is that you go back to that kind of silly pyramid of problems. Just understand what type of agent you're going after and then what types of problems that they're going to have. Whether that's lead sales conversion systems and processes. And really do what you recommend, which is host trainings, which is one of the most effective strategies I've legitimately ever seen. It's a strategy that we teach in on the recruiting side for agents to help grow their team. Just training classes. Hosting those types of training experiences where people can get a sense of what it's like to work with you to connect with you. And make your trainings about solving problems that these people have. Because that's what's going to fill the rooms. And so I would say that your greatest opportunity is to understand your client now more than you ever have. And then host training experiences to solve those problems. Do one of ones that can solve those problems. And do it at a level that you've never done before. You're going to have to work, I think, two to three times harder than you ever have. Yeah. To get the same type of result that you were accustomed to getting. And so I think it's just prepare yourself to work. And those that do, we're going to read the rewards. All right. Well, that's probably a good note to go out on, man. You're going to work harder than you ever had to. But the rewards are there too, you know what I mean? 100% for those that want to go out and scoop up that market share. All right. So for people who want to connect with grant wise, how do they do it? Yes. Number one thing that you could do is, you know, go learn more about our company and what it is we're doing. Whitley.net, W-I-T-L-Y.net. And obviously we can share that. Yep. But we'd love to connect with anybody that has questions. And we'd love to add value to anybody that we can get the opportunity to. All right, man. Hey, thanks for flying here today to be here. I flew here just for this, just to see you. I can't believe it's already been as long as it's been. All right. It was a good. It was a good one. But, but the meters running out. So, you know, all right. No, listen, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Lots of value. Listeners, you know what to do if you like this episode. Hey, leave us a review. And we'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. Hey, guys. What's up real quick? You've heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before. And I just want to quickly remind you if that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchased loans. You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it, agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you. Well, good news. Our mortgage marketing pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling. Done for you, agent classes, expert training videos, a marketing automation platform that automates the entire process for you. Everything you need to build your personal brand in your local market. Attract and convert agents into referral partners. Plus done for you proven marketing materials and plug and play content to make promoting your class, getting agents, butts and seeds, partnering with affiliates. 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