march 1st, 2019 transcript - page 1 - excelleum inner circle...it’s terrific, but i always have...

March 1st, 2019 Transcript -

www.ExcelleumInnerCircle.com Copyright © MMXIX by Debbie De Grote And Pete Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.



Pete: Okay, there we go. I had my line muted, so that explains why.

Debbie: Well, you know what? Stop muting yourself. What the heck?

Pete: I guess so.

Debbie: I am here. Hey guys, welcome. We have a nice size group today and we have some really good questions. So Pete, if you don’t mind, since I’ve got them here and I want to make sure I don’t forget them, maybe I’ll go through my questions first, then we’ll go through the ones that you had sent in, and then we’ll open up the line. Is that good?

Pete: Sounds like a plan.

Debbie: Okay. So I’m going to go to one that I thought was really a great question. Someone sent in a question about sponsoring a church project, and they said they’ve sponsored this Christian Prophecy Conference for $2,000 that included radio ads and Christian station and a table where the conference was held, and that it draws about 400 people that are over 60. So, she had been asked to do the conference again and would like to ask advice so that it’s effective and uplifting and keeps it focused on what she’s there to do, which is about the church. Doesn’t want to come across like a used car salesperson, but she also wants to figure out how does she up her presence but not look bad, if that makes sense. So Pete, if you can imagine, she does get asked to be up on stage, she is at a table and she wants to get business.

And I look at it this way – when you are a terrific agent and your heart is in the right place and you care about the people you’re helping, they would be fortunate to have the opportunity to work with you, but they have to know you’re in real estate. And how do 400 people know that? And then also, even if they did know, they may have forgotten. So Pete, I know you’re very involved in your church. Thinking of it from a marketing perspective, any advice on how she might approach this?

Pete: This is an interesting situation, because it is a religious event, so you always want to be careful that you aren’t looking like, for a lack of a better term, the ambulance chaser, which I know she’s not. That’s why she’s like, “I want to make sure that I’m not coming across that way. How do I take advantage of this?”

A couple of things that I would address in looking at that – one, she mentioned the email that they get quite a few radio ads on two different Christian stations. I think it was like 100 radio ads. I would look at that and go, “Maybe there’s some play here. Maybe there’s some stuff I can do”, because that could be a really good deal in and of itself. That means each radio spot, if that’s all she got, which obviously she gets more – that comes out to $20 a radio spot. And if I’m looking at it from that standpoint, I would want to know, how long are the radio spots and am I sharing these with anyone else? Is this like you’re going to mention my name as part of a sponsor for the conference, or do I actually get radio spots? I would be looking for a minute-long radio spot. And if they said these are 15-second spots – could you give me 30 minute-long spots instead of 100 15-second spots? That might still be worth it to me, because what I’m going to do with that is, again, we’ve got to address...

And Debbie, you’ve heard me say this over and over again, and it’s become second nature to us, but I



realize it’s not for agents – we have to address the conversation that’s going on in our prospect’s mind. And our prospect is not usually thinking, “I’ve got to find myself a real estate agent today”, because they probably know half a dozen right off the bat anyway. If we address on those radio spots the same way we do the postcards, the same way we do Google ads, the same way we do Facebook ads, where we’re offering people something of value...

I’m Pete Mitchell with Pete Mitchell Reality and I’ve just finished putting together this consumer guide, “How To Move From Renting To Owning”. If you’d like a copy of it, you can call this phone number.

Now, if you’re doing radio ads, don’t send them to a website. Tell them to call a number. And make sure it’s a very easy number. And you want to say that number three to four times in the ad. So what I would do is I would set all that stuff up with SMS Conversations, where they can call in and leave a voicemail with their information, and you’ll send them the consumer guide. So I’d be looking at that going, “They’re already offering me these radio ads. Can I take advantage of that to generate some leads?”

Debbie: I was thinking at the table. I can’t really think of a way, because we’re not there in that event. And I don’t want to take a lot of time on this, but I do have this question come up often. I don’t know that I would tell you to wear your name badge. You could wear your branded polo if you chose and it was a casual event. People do that all the time and you’re not doing anything aggressive. I have had clients that say there was an opportunity to donate a portion of the charity or sponsorship and people were recognized on stage. But beyond that, if you’re there at your table and you’re meeting and greeting, one of the things we have in our scripts, guys, for all of you – when you’re meeting people in social situations, what you want to do is you want to ask about them; really focus on them...

How are you? I’m glad you came today. We haven’t met before. Do you live close by? Are you a member here? I’m surprised we haven’t had a chance to talk. I’m curious, what do you do for a living?

Now, whenever you ask someone what they do for a living, about 90% of the people will turn around and ask you what you do for a living. And when they ask you, you say, “I sell real estate here locally.” Now what is the next question that’s going to come out of their mouth: “How’s the market?”

Pete: “How’s business?”

Debbie: “How’s business? How’s the market?” So, if they say, “How’s the market?”, you guys know what I want you to say. I don’t want you to say “It’s great.” That doesn’t open the conversation. I don’t want you to say “It’s unbelievable.” I know that could mean good or bad, but it takes it nowhere. Instead say...

Thank you for asking. Actually it’s a very opportunistic market. We are seeing some strong opportunities still for sellers, and good opportunities out there for buyers. I’m curious, why do you ask? Is there an opportunity you have a question about?

See, I’m not saying “Do you want to buy or sell?” I’m not saying that. Now, that is in my mind. It is in my mind, but I know I can’t do that. I think of it like a little deer in the forest – I don’t want them to leap away. So instead I say...



I’m curious, why do you ask? Is there an opportunity that you had a question about?

Well, actually, yeah, we’ve been thinking about selling our house, but we heard prices are going down.

Don’t go into it deep. Whenever you’re in a social situation like that, guys – remember, your goal is to take that conversation to the appropriate place, because if you stand there at your table or you stand there at a cocktail party, which would be the opposite of church, I guess – if you’re telling them...

Where do you live? Oh yeah, this is what homes are selling for. This is how many days on market. And this is what I do to sell homes.

You’re giving your, quote, “pitch” at the wrong time. And this happens to me all the time – I’m at booth; many of you guys I met at conventions and you came up to me at the table and we’re chatting and we’re like…

Let’s get your information and we’ll reach out. We’ll get you a gift. We’ll set up a conversation.

I didn’t sit you down there and hard close you, because it’s not appropriate. So if you ask about them, no matter where you are, whatever social situation, they’ll ask what you do for a living, they’ll ask you how is business, you say...

It’s terrific, but I always have time to help another great family. And I’m actually really passionate about helping people in this group.

Now, whether that group is a charity, a women’s network, or the church, doesn’t matter whatever group you’re passionate about. Now, remember guys, our goal – ask their permission...

Would you be open to having me include you in my information loop? You see, I have terrific bulletins and market updates I send to my friends and family. I would love to include you in that. No cost, of course, at all. Can I get your address? Can I get your email? Great. What’s your cell phone, in case I feel there’s something super valuable?

Now you bring them back, you opt them into your marketing group. So let’s see. I have another question...

I’ve been paying quite a bit for Zillow leads for the last six months. It’s time to renew. I’m not sure it’s worth it. I’ve received leads but not all convert. You end up being busy but not necessarily making money. Do you recommend Zillow leads? How do you utilize Zillow leads? Anyhow? Anyone?

Okay. So, frustration, frustration. So I’ll throw out a few things and then I’m going to encourage the group – you’re more than welcome, because many of you guys are using them. So you are more than welcome to hit *6 if you would like, and give Andrea some advice. Here’s what I know. What I know is Zillow leads are a lot of work. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do them; I know some of you have got a great system. I personally don’t like them. I don’t like Zillow, period. But I don’t like Zillow leads because the conversion is 1.5% to 3% on average. Now, some of you out there may have better conversion – if so,



please jump in and share your tips.

And on average it takes anywhere from 4 to 18 months often for those leads to convert. So, the leads that you have purchased probably just haven’t matured yet. And you may not be following up often enough, because you kind of have to beat the heck out of them. Just think of it this way: If there’s only 1.5% to 3% in there that’s likely to convert, go after them with all guns blazing. You call them, you email them every single week or more than every week. You can use SMS Conversations to text them every month, to sly voicemail them every month. And if they opt out, who cares? Then they weren’t serious. So, consistent, aggressive follow-up, multipronged drip campaign.

By the way, guys, we just put the finishing touches on the next edition, the March edition of the Inner Circle magazine, and we did put a piece in there for you. One of the articles is tips to effectively work online leads. So we do have that. And just remember, I write a weekly email. Even if you’re sending them other things, you could throw it into the mix and send it. You could text them, you can sly voicemail them easily and quickly through the platform. That helps with some extra touches.

So, the big question: Is it for you or not? That’s a personal decision. When my daughters were working with my husband Don, they bought some Zillow leads because the girls wanted to, and they worked them really hard and really effectively. And they didn’t get much out of it either. They shut it down. But every market’s a little different. I think they must be more saturated in some than others. My husband actually told me, “If you make me work those leads, I’m going to quit. Shut it off.” So, he didn’t enjoy them either, but it really is a personal decision. So, if anybody for the group would like to share any ideas, you can *6 and jump in now. And then we’ll have that coming for you in the next edition of the Inner Circle magazine. Someone opened their line?

Carol: Hi Debbie. This is Carol from Big Bear.

Debbie: Hi Carol. Go right ahead, Carol.

Carol: 25% of my business has come from Zillow. I have had a very different experience than what you described, obviously.

Debbie: By the way, Carol, it could be your market too. I find that online leads sometimes are more effective in a resort market, because how do quality people find you? They’re going to do their shopping ahead. So that’s why I said it’s not bad to test it because you just never know in your market how it’s going to be.

Carol: My market has a very different nuancy situation. A lot of the things that are working in a full time home market don’t work here. I think the reason I’ve had the success that I’ve had is because the people are coming in from out of the area. I had the opportunity to work Commissions Inc. leads in conjunction with Zillow leads. And I found that the Commissions Inc. leads were very much the way you describe the Zillow experience for a lot of people, probably in a primary market.

But my number one requirement is that I am getting phone calls. So when they push that button that they want more information about a property, it rings through to my phone, and then I have an opportunity to talk to them when they are ripe and want information. If they push that button but they are not answering their phone, I found that texting them immediately matters. And that the ones who



aren’t going to respond to a voicemail or answer a phone call from some number that they don’t recognize, they will respond to a text.

Now, I’m sort of re-evaluating my relationship with Zillow because they changed their model and now they’re doing this concierge service. I’m not sure if they’re going to keep it or if they’re going to bag it, but the concierge service is, now when people push a button saying they want more information on the property, they end up talking to someone in the Zillow telemarketing center, who then looks at the agents who have premier status and who’s next on the round robin to get a call. And if you answer the phone, then they will ask you if you have time to talk to a lead. If you don’t answer the phone, they now move that lead on to the next person on the list. And so, answering the phone becomes really important.

And it’s also a little bit disturbing, because I think they have a model now in which they believe that connecting you to a person is worth $100 to $200 worth of your monthly ad spend, which I think is kind of outrageous. But it’s important to reach those people immediately, and it’s also important to take a look at your market. Are the people that are hitting that button looky-loos, are they really early in their process? In my experience they have moved from thinking about it to, they’re pretty sure they want to do something.

And it’s not unusual for me when I connect with the lead to meet with them within probably a week to two weeks’ worth of time. If it’s more than that, then it becomes dicey. And I oftentimes have people who come up within a week, go out, look for property. I believe that in my market it’s important to show as many appropriate properties as possible. They’ve looked at enough properties that they can be comfortable making a decision. And so, it’s not unusual for me to have something in escrow within two weeks, assuming that they’re willing to make an appropriate offer.

Debbie: Carol, let’s do this, only because I know we’ve got a short time, a lot of questions. Those are really terrific thoughts, and I know we do have some resort market people here in the group and on the line today. Let’s make sure they know how to connect with you, because you guys might want to even get connected on a mastermind group and share some ideas.

Carol: That would be fabulous.

Debbie: Yeah, I think that would be great for you. Give them your phone number, if you will.

Carol: My cell is 909-567-6517, and my email address is very simple – it’s [email protected].

Debbie: Perfect. So guys, if you want to reach out and get connected for ideas, feel free. Or just to talk about your resort markets. Go right ahead, I heard a voice in the background.

Randy: It was me, Randy. I’m calling from the Greater Seattle area. And Zillow had what they’re calling their “concierge service”; you just paid more for it last year, and not one lead panned out. Not one. If I was paying the money for Zillow, because I wasn’t the team lead, I would be extremely angry. Needless to say, Zillow’s rate... And they are headquarters here. Their rate of keeping brokers is very slim. They don’t have a broker that’s been with them five years or more out of the Seattle area. That doesn’t say much when we’re their headquartered area.



Debbie: Interesting.

Randy: So, my experience and most of Keller Williams’ experience matches Debbie’s: “Get me off of this” and, “How did I sign up for so much money and get nothing?”

Debbie: You’re right. I think I heard Joe. Did I hear Joe’s voice back there in the background? Joe Capone? I thought I heard him.

Joe: Hi Debbie. It’s Joe Capone from New Jersey.

Debbie: I recognized you. You’ve had some good situations, right? With your leads.

Joe: Yes. Since we went through some meetings with Zillow, in the beginning everybody was like, “Crazy!” They didn’t like it. But they adjusted to the new situation with them right away. The way I find it easier to deal with Zillow is when a phone call comes, I make sure that I’m in front of a computer, know exactly what the potential buyer is calling about, open my computer, open the house, know everything about the house before it ended up in Zillow. The rep is going to wait for me to do that, and then I will pick up the phone and talk to them. Most of the time, they are very nice. Some of them want to meet right away. I have good success with Zillow in general. It’s just a matter of keep on top of it. You have to have the feel of if they’re serious enough, they’re not serious enough, if they want to go after buying a house now, in a year, six months. And you have to keep them in your database. You have to nurture them.

Debbie: And I think being realistic about the percentage of conversion, and then being realistic, as you just said, about how long you need to market to them for. And then also the fact that everyone today is beginning their searches earlier than ever before, because they can go online to search values of their home or to search a purchase. And that’s why, guys, it’s so important to have a network, that web of connection that we always talk about, which we’re trying to help you with that as much as we can. Go ahead, Joe.

Joe: I’m sorry. I think that the way to capture them in my personal experience is, you don’t talk to them too much about the house. You tell them why and you show them why they need to be in touch. You create the first touch of relationship with them. You open the door to yourself. You start talking to them a lot more about other things but the house. It’s all about relationship after all, right? That’s what you have to have your state of mind on – creating the first relationship with them.

Debbie: And that’s why, Pete, I think we talked about on the last call that they can actually email people a lot more than they think if they’re not hard selling them. And that’s why a lot of our emails, guys, when I write the weekly eblast for you – they’re lifted from some of what I feel are the more interesting articles in the Lifestyle Advisor newsletter. So they kind of tie to real estate in some way, but it’s not all about buying or selling. I used to use for online leads the subject, “Would you like a cup of coffee?” or, “Do you have time for coffee?” And then I’d just say...

Hey, how’s it going? Hope you’re progressing on your quest to buy a home. We’re probably not far from each other. Would you like to meet for coffee?

Or...



Hi there. I see you’ve been online. What have you been looking at that’s interesting?

So it’s just very conversational, but very relentless. I will say before we move on to a new topic, I was invited as an industry influencer, not this December but a year ago, to a Commissions Inc. internal meeting with some of their other influencers. And they actually said – and then the guy that said it got a really dirty look from the CEO – he actually said, “We’ve oversaturated the Arizona market.” And I went, “What was that?” That’s when I realized that can be a thing.

And then you look at super hyper aggressive markets. Some of you have been there when we went to the Inner Circle conference in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and you came over to my house and we had great fun together. And you could see that in that market, while there are some really strong, good agents there, it’s not as hyper aggressive as it would be in Newport Beach, California. So it makes sense that you can suck more leads out of certain markets and sometimes the only way you know is to try it. We’ve all been sucked in at some time to something, so don’t feel bad about that.

I would also add to this conversation, what works for one isn’t necessarily right for all. For those of you who are in private coaching with us, you know that is my passionate belief, that when you look at your personality style and your strengths, and you cater to those areas of opportunity in your business that you love most, you’re going to do well. Like Joe does a great job. He probably wouldn’t say technology is his best and favorite thing to do. Pete, you know he’s done awesome things between you and he collaborating on his Facebook ads; had great results. So he’s got that tech savvy edge. Or if I look at my husband Don – he’s perfectly tech savvy, but he wants to only work people he knows, past clients. He does an amazing job with them, amazing job with his geographic farm. What’s that old saying: “Pick your poison.” So, it’s not the same for everyone.

Alright, so who else has a question? I’ve got one more on the list here, and then I will see what they have, Pete, and then we’ll go to you. Actually one of the coaches reached out on behalf of one of their clients and said...

Do you have sly dial voicemail scripts written for past clients?

And he was reaching out because this particular client had a large database of 12,000, which is super cool. And my answer back to him was...

Yes. Go to SMS Conversations on the Inner Circle and you should see the texting and the scripts for the sly voicemail.

Pete: So the scripts, guys, just so you know – Debbie, let me tell them where the scripts are added. You go to “Your Recordings”, and then there’s a button on there. That’s where all of your recordings that you record, your sly broadcasts are going to be. There’s a button on the right that says “Add a Message”. You click on that, that’s where you add it and you’ll see all the scripts right there on the right hand side.

Debbie: Yep. On that thought though, of course you’re welcome to write all of your own scripts, guys. Totally welcome to do that, but I just wanted to make sure that you had things to use. Now, I did go back to Victor, the coach, and I said 12,000 is a big group. Please make sure that these are opted-in people, like he didn’t just buy a list of 12,000. But he did specifically say that most of them were past clients and sphere. You’ll see it when you register for SMS, you see it multiple times and places, that we



can’t just spam people. We have to have responsible practices that match the practices in your state. Okay, anyone have a question? And then we’ll go over to anything Pete’s got in his inbox.

Orlando: Hi Debbie. This is Orlando here in Arizona. Can you hear me?

Debbie: I can, just perfectly.

Orlando: Alright. I was actually the client that Victor was talking about with the database. I heard where the scripts are at for the sly dial, and I’m trying to come up with a strategy on how to reconnect with that database of people that for the most part have probably forgotten how they came in. I’m going to have to try to say something for them to jog their memory. But what would you say would be an effective strategy to just reconnect with them? I think I’d done the “Pink Elephant” letter or message in a way, where I sent them an email. I’m just trying to figure out something that’s effective for me to reconnect with them.

Debbie: Pete, do you want to answer that one?

Pete: A couple of things that I would do on that. First of all, I would go through that list, because 12,000 is really too many to reach out to at one time. You are going to get people to respond to you and then it’s going to look like poor service. If you were to send out a message to 12,000 people and let’s assume that only half of them got it – 6,000, and then out of that, 1,000 of them respond to you. You can’t possibly respond to that many. So first of all, I would say go through the list and just go, “Who are the people that I’ve worked with in the last year?” And maybe make that into one list, and then you can start making several different lists.

But a couple of different things that we’ve done. If you can’t remember exactly how you connected with them, you can address that in the message...

Hey, this is Pete from Pete Mitchell Realty. I’m reaching out to you today because I’ve got you on my list. To be frank with you, it’s been such a long time since we’ve connected, you may or may not even remember me, but here’s my situation. Right now, I’m working with a family and they’re looking for a home in your neighborhood. Would you or someone you know be thinking about selling right now? Because I’ve got this family, they’re already qualified. We’ve looked at all the inventory that’s available and we’re looking for something different. If you’ve got a lead for me, I would really appreciate it. You can call or text me at this number.

So, you could do something as simple as that of just addressing the fact that it’s been such a long time since you’ve connected, they may or may not remember you. But again, you want to make sure that before you send that out, these are people who may or may not remember you. If you just talked to them last week and you send them that message, that’s going to look really awkward to start doing that.

And the good thing is, at least with SMS Conversations, you can create as many lists as you want. I get really descriptive when I’m creating the list name in SMS Conversations, because I want to know who are these people that I’m about ready to be sending a message out to. And right now we’ve even got – I’m looking at the scripts right here – we’ve got, I don’t know, 20 or so different scripts that you can look at, and you can use those as a starting point too.



And here’s the key thing, guys, to remember when you’re doing sly broadcast, sly voicemail, sly dial. Obviously you want to use an opt-in list – we’ve already covered that. But another thing that you want to do to make sure you’re compliant is you need to make sure you tell them your name, tell them the company you’re with, and then tell them how they can get in touch with you, how they can reply back to you. So the way that we do it, when you look at any of the messages we’ve got in the system, they’ll all say it somewhere in the email. I’m looking at one right here...

Yes, hello! It’s Pete Mitchell. I’ve been doing some research and I have some properties I know you’ll want to see. Do you have some time to see a few properties this week before they sell? If so, please give me a call back or feel free to text me. I can be reached at this number. And I promise to get back to you right away if I’m not able to answer.

So everything has that, “By the way, here’s my number.” And that is actually to keep us in compliance with some of the federal laws when it comes to using this type of technology. So again, as Debbie and I are fond of saying – we’re not lawyers, we’re not giving you legal advice, but I’m telling you, have a way for people to reach out to you.

Orlando: Okay. I do have everyone segmented. So I know the ones that I’ve talked to, I have a source in there. I know which ones are non-responsive. The particular list that is the biggest segment of my database is the non-responsive leads. Those are about 11,637 that I show that have good phone numbers, at least as far as I can tell. I know those are the ones that we have not been able to get in touch with, so I can send a specific message to them. How many would you recommend sending any kind of mass communication, whether it be a mass text message, sly dial, even email, at a time?

Pete: The maximum I will typically send is going to be 100 in a day, and that’s if I know I’ve got the time to deal with the 30% to 40% that are going to respond back. Some of our agents limit it to 50, because they’re too busy with everything else and for them the 20 people that respond back is plenty. I can’t even imagine a circumstance where I could handle the responses I’m going to get from more than 100. And if you get too many in one day where you’re still dealing with stuff, then don’t send any out the next day. Just keep finishing and follow up with the previous stuff, because stuff will trickle over. Most of the time people respond right away, but some still trickle over.

Orlando: Right, okay. And you’re saying 100 a day for a mass text, mass sly dial, even emails.

Pete: Depends what I’m emailing. If I’m doing the 9-word email, where it’s, “Hey, are you still interested in selling your home?”, you’ve got to keep in mind, most people are going to respond. You have to go out of your way to not respond when someone asks you a question, because it looks very personal and you feel obligated to respond to it. So, I’m not even going to do that on email. If I send it out to 1,000 people, I’m going to get 500 responses back. How am I going to answer all of those? I can’t. I can’t answer them all. So I’m going to break it up into smaller batches, much smaller batches.

Orlando: Do you think that would hold true to an unresponsive list that already at some point has gone through my whole spiel of the text messages and emails and phone calls?

Pete: I’d test it.

Debbie: I don’t think he’d get a huge response from that list.



Pete: I’d still test it though. I’d just take 100 off the top, send it out, see what the responses are, do it again. And if it’s low enough, then you can decide to bump it up. You’ve got 11,000 people, right? So, start it small and you could still bump it up quite a bit if you’re only getting like a 5% response.

Orlando: Okay, gotcha. Alright, I am going to do that. I want to make sure that I knew where those scripts were. I think I heard it earlier, but I’m in here now. And you said they were in the Inner Circle, right?

Pete: You go into SMS Conversations. If you haven’t already set that up, you’re going to set all that up. Once you open up SMS Conversations, which is app.SMSConversations.com, you’re going to see on the left hand side “Your Recordings”, it’s one of the buttons. You’re going to click that and then you’re going to click on “Add a Message” and you’ll see all the scripts.

Orlando: Okay. Alright, gotcha. Alright, very good. Thank you so much for your help.

Debbie: Okay. So Pete, I know we had a big question from Mike, and I had answered his question about his website and some of my thoughts. But as I looked at his question, one of the things that I thought would be really appropriate for you – he had said...

Should we require mandatory information from the 150 people a month who do the views, or do we let them look at it anonymously?

So we’re talking not about a landing page, guys. Of course, we’re talking about the main authority website. That was his question: Do we require them to register? So, what’s your thought on that, Pete? And I think you looked at Mike’s site too.

Pete: Yeah. Yes, I would have them register, because the purpose of your website is twofold when we’re talking about what I refer to as your “authority website”. So again, like Debbie said, not a landing page; this is your main website. This is where you send everyone. There are two main things that I want to have happen when someone lands on that website. Number one, when they land on it, I want them to go, “Okay, this is the right person for me to be working with.” Because most of the time, how they find that authority website is they’ve somehow already connected with you. Maybe you gave them a business card, you met them at an open house, you door-knocked them, you called them, whatever. But somehow they’ve already connected with you and they just want to make sure you’re legit and you’re the right person that they should be working with. And that’s why they’re checking out that website.

Second thing that I want to have happen on my authority website is I still want to generate leads. So to me, if they won’t give me their information, odds are they were never going to use me to begin with, and I’m not going to worry about them. So, I’m going to require people to give up their information to pretty much get anything on my website. I’m in the business of generating leads and if they won’t give me their information, I’m not going to worry about it. I’m just going to go on to the next person and just know that the ones who are most interested are going to give me their info.

Debbie: So, let me ask you a question because I’m actually on the site right now. How important – I get asked this often – is your selection of color? Because I’ve read a lot of things about color. Blue is my favorite because with IBM it’s like if they wanted to sell something, they’d put on a blue suit. They did their research.



Pete: You and I always make sure we wear blue when we go out and speak at places.

Debbie: You’re better about it than I am, I have to admit. I just get bored with a closet of blue, but lots of it is blue. But then if you look at that red is supposed to mean danger, but yet Keller Williams does quite well with their red. So, how important is that really? Because as I was looking at the site, it’s got that brown background and the letters, the scripting is the same brown and a little bit muted. What were your thoughts of that?

Pete: Here’s the key thing. I would say, again, it’s going to be a little bit different if you’re talking about a landing page from your authority website.

Debbie: I’m talking about a main authority website.

Pete: Again, a main authority website – I’m not going to worry about it as much, the whole color scheme. What I really want, and this is what I try and stress with agents all the time – you have to feel very proud of your website. I’ve talked to agents who say it was done 10 years ago and it’s not mobile responsive. They’re almost apologizing to me before I’ve even had a chance to see it. That’s someone who’s not proud of their website, and that’s going to hinder their business more than anything else, because that tells me they’re not out there telling people about it; they’re probably even apologizing to other people, they may not even be putting it on their business cards.

So number one thing is you’ve got to be proud of your website. Now, what I like to do is from the top down. So we’re going to have our menu bar across the top, and then right underneath that, usually it’s what’s called the “slider area”; from the old newspapers, it’s what’s called “above the fold”. It’s what people are going to see when they open up their browser. I generally like to have the agent’s picture right there. Usually it’s on the left hand side, but it can be on the right. That’s not as important to me. But the main reason why I’ve got that is when people land on this website, I want them to immediately connect and go, “Okay, yeah, that’s Pete. That’s the guy I met. I’m at the right place.” If we don’t have that, if we just have an IBX or an MLS lookup right there, one of the problems that happens is, this looks like everyone else’s website. So, is there anything unique? I’ve got to scroll down before I start making sure I’m at the right place. And I don’t want that to happen. I want it to be right there. There’s a connection.

Now usually next to the photo, I’m either going to have my slogan or I’m going to have an offer. So I’m either going to be offering the consumer guide, because I’m trying to generate leads, or I’m going to have a slogan. Great example of this is if you go to the Excelleum.com website, you’ll see we’ve got a navigation bar across the top, then we’ve got Debbie’s picture, and then we’ve got Debbie’s slogan right next to it. And then right underneath that we’ve got our first call to action, and for me that’s always education-based marketing. I’m going to offer them something that I think is going to get their attention, get them to raise their hand and say, “I want this information.” I’m in the business of generating leads, so I want to offer them something that they’re going to have to opt in, they’re going to have to give me their information in order to get that piece. So that’s immediately what I’m going to have on the top part of the website.

Then as we work our way down the website, what we call “below the fold” – so as someone is scrolling down – usually the next thing I’ll have will be testimonials or it’s going to be again, a different offer. Perhaps it’s going to be a different consumer guide, multiple consumer guides. You can have the IDX,



the MLS lookup, though that’s not nearly as important to me. If I’m doing an agent website and they really want an IDX, I usually try to not put it on the main page. The main page is about me, it’s about my authority, it’s about getting them into my funnel.

Realistically, if they’re looking for a property, they’re using Zillow, they’re using Realtor.com, they’re using Trulia. They’re not going to go back to my website, because I can’t do search like Zillow. Zillow is spending $10-$20 million a year on search alone. So, theirs is going to be better. I’m not going to try and compete with that one. I’m going to try and compete by showing people I’m the expert. I’m offering that education-based marketing.

So again, as we’re moving down the page, we’ve got usually testimonials, more calls to action. Then if I’m going to have “Who’s Pete Mitchell”, that’s going to be near the bottom. Again, it’s going to have pictures and I’m going to tell a story. So it’s not just, “Pete Mitchell’s been in real estate for this long and he’s sold this much in real estate”, because that’s not going to excite people. I’m going to tell a story, much like how we talk about Debbie.

We talked about it on our last call – when we did the indoctrination campaign for you, we tell the great story of how you got involved in real estate. We want to engage with people. We want them to be like, “Wow, okay. This is kind of interesting. This is different, this is unique.” So, those are the primary elements that I’m going to have on that very first page of the website. Does that help at all?

Debbie: Yeah, and I was just thinking as you were talking about education resources or valuable content. So guys, if you’re using the postcard to mail out to a geographic farm or your client base, offering one of the consumer guides – if you’re doing that, you’re going to want to send them to a landing page. Because if you send them to your main authority website, they’re going to get confused and maybe never request the guide. And you can’t track what they requested.

And just keep in mind that if you’re using one of the consumer guides and you’re mailing out postcards and you need a landing page – get your domain name, go into the Inner Circle into that particular guide. If you look down below, you’re going to see an opportunity to request our team to create the landing page for you. So we’ll create the landing page that corresponds to the guide, and we’ll do that for free. You just have to supply your domain name or give Travis $10-$20, whatever, and he’ll buy it for you. He’ll even probably make one up for you. But we’ll help you with that.

Now, if you still want to take those consumer guides and also put them on your main authority website as a bonus, additional educational resource. Because remember, like Pete said, those people – who knows how they found you or connected with you, or maybe you prospected them and now they are looking you up. So, you could take those 10 consumer guides and have them as additional content and resources. You could take the monthly Lifestyle Advisor newsletter and you could post each issue there if you wanted to do so. You could take the weekly email, and slice and dice and turn it into blog content if you want to. And what some clients have even done is they take the content inside the consumer guide, extract part of it, and they use that as their script to make a little video: “The Five Things You Need To Know About Downsizing”. Why write your own stuff? It’s already in the consumer guide.

I say this often to you guys; I know I do because it’s always in my head as I say this – Barbara Cochran wrote a book, If You Don’t Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons On Your Pigtails. The subtitle was Use What You’ve Got. So, use what you’ve got and multipurpose it, because it just makes it a lot easier and gives



you a lot more valuable content. So, I think that’s pretty good for that one, Pete. I know we only have about 10 minutes left, so do you have anything on your list that you needed to answer?

Pete: I just have a couple of things here. One thing I just want to reiterate because this has come up twice in the last couple of weeks. If you’re running Facebook ads and you do a lead ad – and again, we cover this in the Facebook ad training – you do need to hook that lead ad up to something, because Facebook isn’t going to notify you and go, “By the way, you got a lead.” You’re just going to see it’s telling you you got these leads. Where are they?

And we do cover in the training. I think it’s in Module 3. In fact, I know it’s in Module 3. The very last video on that page is called “Getting Your Leads”, and we walk you through hooking up a program called Zapier. And Zapier will automatically email you if you tell it to, every time you get a lead. It will hook your leads up from Facebook directly to SMS Conversations if you want to have a text go out to them immediately.

By the way, for everybody who’s doing Zillow leads, Zillow is also integrated with Zapier. So what that means is, you could hook up SMS Conversations to Zillow and have those leads that you’re getting automatically send out a text via SMS Conversations, or a sly broadcast, or even just have them added to a list in SMS Conversation. So you know that later on you don’t have to do that and you can just send out a text message. But that’s Module 3 of the Facebook training, very last video on there. It’s called “Getting Your Leads”, and we walk you through how to set up Zapier to do that.

Another question came up. Basically they’re asking...

I’ve seen people running the same ads on Instagram and Facebook. How do I do that?

Without getting into all the nitty gritty, as soon as you log into Business.Facebook.com, on the right hand side, there’s a blue button that says “Business Settings”. You click on that and then you’re going to see an option called “Account” and you’re going to see Instagram on there. You’ve got to hook up your Instagram account through your Facebook ad account. And then in your ad set, that’s just an option – you literally tell it to run your ad on Instagram as well. Just know not all ads will Facebook allow you to run on Instagram. I don’t think you can do lead generation ads on Instagram yet. Conversion ads, open house ads, stuff like that they’re fine with. That’s just a little info for you guys there.

And then, I think that might be it. Yeah, the only other one that I had, I don’t know if we really want to cover it too much, was on the postcard that we had sent to us, Debbie. But I’ll leave that up to you if you wanted to cover that or not.

Debbie: I did that for Dan. I took care of that, because I thought that was a little more specific to him.

Pete: Yeah, it’s harder when you can’t see it.

Debbie: I think if there was a takeaway from that that I could share was, he sent a postcard, it was his own branded postcard, and he sent it to a designer. And they came back and it was just so busy. There was so much crammed on it and it had his name like five or six times on one side in five or six different ways, and three or four or five colors and different styles of font. It just was kind of a mess. And he noticed that; he was just reaching out for some help. I didn’t understand his question when I first



forwarded it to you, Pete. So I think I got him handled.

Pete: Okay, good. That’s all that I’ve got then.

Debbie: Okay, guys, thank you so much for joining us on your busy Friday. Hope you have a good weekend. Make some money! And just remember, if you have a question, you can email Pete or I anytime. We will get back to you in the business day. My business day starts a little earlier than Pete’s, but hey, whatever. He can’t keep up with me. (Laughing.) Alright, guys. Have a great weekend!

Pete: Thank you everyone. Take care!

Debbie: Bye bye!

march 1st, 2019 transcript - page 1 - excelleum inner circle...it’s terrific, but i always have...

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