A Small Town Success Strategy For Ambitious Agents

Amanda Galindo:
I get at least a call a week from somebody that I'm either friends with on Facebook that have seen my ads.

Tim Chermak:
So it would be fair to say that that's the majority of your business is people just calling you.

Amanda Galindo:
Right. Oh yeah. A hundred percent. Yep. Yeah, I tried to do that whole time block, let's pound the phones, follow up with all these people and that's just not my jam.

Tim Chermak:
This is the Platform Marketing Show, where we interview the most creative and ambitious real estate agents in the country, dissect their local marketing strategy, and get the behind the scenes scoop on how they're generating listing leads and warm referrals. We'll dive into the specifics of what marketing campaigns are working for them, how much they're spending on those campaigns and figure out how they have perfected what we call the Platform Market Strategy.

Tim Chermak:
This is your host, Tim Chermak, I'm the founder and CEO of Platform. I love marketing, and I talk too much. So let's dive in.

Tim Chermak:
All right, everyone. Welcome back to the Platform Marketing Show. This is Tim Chermak and today I'm going to be interviewing Amanda Galindo. Amanda is a realtor kind of near the twin cities in Minnesota, but not really in the twin cities. You're in like the Monticello area. It's about an hour away from Minneapolis.

Amanda Galindo:
Yeah. Like 45 minutes.

Tim Chermak:
Okay. Yeah. So it's kind of in between St Cloud and Minneapolis, for those who are familiar with Minnesota. It's a smaller community, but you're kind of surrounded by larger metropolitan areas on both sides. So Amanda, in the count you're in, how large is the county kind of overall that you work in?

Amanda Galindo:
Well, I'm kind of on the north side of Wright county in between Wright and Sherburne county. Monticello has around 15,000 people. As far as the county goes, I'm not a hundred percent sure on numbers, but it's not a super big county. More farming type community.

Tim Chermak:
Okay. And your average price point over the past year has been around where?

Amanda Galindo:
It's been around 275-280 would be the average price point.

Tim Chermak:
Okay. So that's a pretty typical kind of middle class American neighborhood, selling $250,000 homes, $300,000 homes.

Amanda Galindo:
Right. Yep.

Tim Chermak:
Amanda, I'm going to get straight into some substance and some numbers here because first I want to establish where you're at. And then I want everyone listening to this podcast to kind of learn how you got to that point. So what was approximately your GCI last year and how many homes did you have to sell to hit that?

Amanda Galindo:
So last year I had 49 transactions and I was just around 12 million GCI or actually, sorry, that was 2019. And then this past year was 53 transactions and just around 15 million GCI. So my transactions didn't go up that much, but the GCI went up about three million.

Tim Chermak:
Okay. And when we say 15 million, I'm assuming we're talking about sales volume, not GCI, because if you had 15 million in GCI, I think you should hosting this podcast.

Amanda Galindo:
I wish I had 15 million in GCI. Yeah. Volume 15 million in volume.

Tim Chermak:
That's awesome. And honestly, that's really impressive again, considering you're not selling 2 million homes, 5 million homes, you sold 15 million dollars of real estate via a lot of $300,000, $250,000 home. So there's a pretty decent amount of volume going. And you don't have a big team. You're not selling 15 million because you have five buyers agents or something. What does your team setup look like?

Amanda Galindo:
So I don't really have a team. I'm a single agent. I have an agent that works with me who speaks Spanish, because I get a lot of buyers that will reach out to me because of my last name. So we've been marketing that for the last couple years. So it's basically me running on those 50 plus transactions. And then about halfway through last year I hired a transaction coordinator just to handle some of the paperwork and stuff. So I'm basically doing everything.

Tim Chermak:
Okay. And what are you spending approximately right now every month on your ad spend?

Amanda Galindo:
I want to say it's anywhere between 700 to a thousand, depending on how many listings.

Tim Chermak:
So just to be clear, you've built a business where you're selling 50 plus homes a year and the marketing is more or less fueled by a thousand dollars a month or less in actual advertising spend, primarily going to Facebook and Instagram, I know.

Amanda Galindo:
Yep. Yeah, honestly-

Tim Chermak:
That's phenomenal.

Amanda Galindo:
... all I have to do is just shoot my videos and the business comes.

Tim Chermak:
That's phenomenal. So how long have you been a real estate agent, Amanda?

Amanda Galindo:
So I started in 2013. I worked with a builder, Progressive Builders. That's actually about the time about a year after I met you. Sold a new construction exclusively for two years. And then I branched out into existing market in 2015. Thought that I wanted to build a team, added on a full-time assistant. And then I added on a buyer's agent. So I switched into the existing market 2015, added on an assistant 2016. And then I added a buyer's agent 2017 and then kind of took a step back and reevaluated what I wanted my business to look like and what I wanted my life to look like.

Amanda Galindo:
And then I went back to being a single agent in 2018. So I've been doing it now for about eight years and I've gone through the ups and downs, new construction, having a team, wanting a big team, and then deciding that I don't really want that for my life. I wanted something a little more simple. I want to have more one on one time with my clients and I would rather have less clients and more relationships than have 150 transactions a year driving myself crazy, working 80 hours a week.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. I'm a picking up a little bit of sense of regret when you talk about building a team and hiring the people in the past, because you said that you kind of went back on that and you let them go. It sounds like now you're happier selling 50 homes a year, basically without a team because you're keeping all of that for yourself versus having to pay a huge payroll and feed and mentor and essentially babysit a bunch of agents because I know that's often what happens when people build the team.

Tim Chermak:
This isn't always what happens. So of course I'm not saying all teams are bad, but often what happens is if you build a team for the wrong reasons, essentially just because someone told you should build a team and you think, oh, okay, that's the next step. I guess I'll build a team, you're going to end up just babysitting a lot of agents. And there's a difference between legitimate training and just babysitting agents who will probably never get it. So when you got to that point in your business, Amanda, what was the prompt, why did you decide I'm going to build a team? This is the next step for me. What led you down that path and maybe what changed your mind? This is interesting to me.

Amanda Galindo:
So I can talk about my brokerage, right? My previous broker. I was with Keller Williams, which I love, they have a really good community and I was drawn to the classes and everything that they had to offer. And I read the millionaire real estate agent and-

Tim Chermak:
Which is a great book by the way. It's a great book.

Amanda Galindo:
Oh yeah. Yep. And so they have this path to becoming the millionaire real estate agent and you do this many transactions and now here's the next step. Now here's the next step. And I was in an office with a lot of other who I thought were high achieving agents, they're pushing and pushing and pushing. And so I have this competitive side to me and I felt like, okay, I need to keep up. It's kind of keeping up with the Joneses. Okay, I'm here. I need to get here. And so there's a lot of pressure for that. And I had done all of the, I don't even know, the personality tests, I forgot what it was, what they called it, but it always said that I was never going to be a team lead or a mega agent.

Amanda Galindo:
And I was like, what? I'm going to show you. I'm going to be a mega agent and two years into it, and really just kind of driving myself into a hole, super stressed out. I was running around trying to get all of this business. And then I was passing it along to a buyer's agent. And I had basically to feed two families and I was the last one to eat.

Amanda Galindo:
The epiphany for me was in July of 2018 I had 11 closings, which was a lot for me. I think it was like the most that I ever had, but I didn't care because I knew in August and September, I only had two, three closings and it was like, okay, now I just got caught up from the slow months of January, February, March, we're getting caught up. And now I still don't have enough to... I had enough to pay the bills, but it was getting down to it wasn't a comfort zone for me with the money-

Tim Chermak:
There wasn't any sense of stability of knowing you have a normalized pipeline that's not just a roller coaster of one month I have eight closings in the next month I have two in the next month I have six, but the next month I have zero.

Amanda Galindo:
Right. Yeah. So it's a lot less stress for me. I have my own personal goals that I want to hit, but from a personal budget standpoint, I don't need that many houses to close. And once you get all those banked up in there, now you have this big cushion of money that you don't feel that pressure. And you can actually focus on doing the marketing, you can focus on working with your clients and not being stressed out, like, oh my God, I lost out on this buyer's fifth multiple offer deal. We can't find a many houses. What am I going to do? How am I going to pay my bills next month? You don't have that additional stress. And in addition to that, paying your own bills, but then trying to support another team member and a full-time assistant, so it just works better for me and my family. I don't have any desire to have build a big team ever again.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. The interesting thing about scaling and building a team, again, the rest of this podcast episode might sound like we're anti team and that you should never hire or never scale, but I think the correct answer, which requires some nuance is that it's different for every person. There are some people that have the mentality, you're just wired this way, that you might succeed building a brokerage, scaling a team.

Tim Chermak:
I actually, just before this podcast interview with Amanda, I actually met with a big national brokerage that's looking at scaling and selling more franchises. And they're looking at people who want to sell 500 homes here, like a brokerage that'll do 500 transactions or a thousand transactions. And so the business systems and the mentality that allow someone to do that, I guess, are completely different than the local agent that wants to provide an above average income for their family, make 200, 250, $300,000 a year in GCI, but not have any of the headache of building a massive business because it's going to be different for everyone based on where you live and cost of living and all that.

Tim Chermak:
But I've found a pretty interesting trend is that assuming you're in a somewhat average American city, like you're not living in Seattle or New York City or San Francisco or something where the cost of living is just sky high, assuming you're in somewhat of a normal priced area of the country, once you start making 150, 200,000 GCI and all of your family's bills are covered, if you're consistently doing 150-200 a year, you're not really worried about money. You're not worried, oh my God, I'm not going to have enough money to make the mortgage payment, or we don't have money for groceries. At that point, all of your expenses are covered and you're probably stocking away some money into savings and retirement and you're probably saving every year towards one or two cool vacations with your family.

Tim Chermak:
And when you go out to eat, you don't really look at the prices on the menu. You just order what you want. Once you hit that point, yeah, you can make more, of course. You can go from 200 to 300,000 in GCI, because obviously if you're selling 15 million a year in real estate and you don't have a big team and a bunch of expenses, because you're doing it by yourself, we can reverse engineer those numbers. We know that your GCI is over 300,000 a year, but what's, what's the difference between 500 and 300 to your actual standard of living?

Tim Chermak:
To most people, it's probably not going to change it all that much. You're probably just going to save a bunch more for the future for retirement, but your actual average day is not going to change all that much. And if you try to just kill yourself to get to that next level of, I'm going to build a team of 20 people in this massive complex business, you can probably actually enjoy your life more selling 15 million of homes by yourself than if you tried to build a team that would sell 50 million or a hundred million because it's a totally different type of business at that point.

Amanda Galindo:
Right. Exactly. Yep. Yeah. My goal this year was to go on a vacation every month. So I got all my vacations booked through May. And I don't think that I would've been able to do that when I had the team. There's a lot of pressure to be that leader too. So if I'm leaving every single month and just letting my assistant and a buyer's agent to fend for themselves, I'm not leading by example or that's the pressure that I felt, but I have somebody that can help me show houses if I'm gone and fill in for me. So I don't feel that pressure anymore and spending the time with my family and my friends at this point in my life is way more important than driving myself crazy to do, like you said, another, 5, 10, 15 deals.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. Your bases are covered. Your expenses are paid for. You have enough money to responsibly save and invest for retirement as well as take those vacations. At a certain point in your career, I feel like you start to value time more than money because if you don't, you're basically just working more to buy back your time anyways, trying to hire people to do things, whether it's hiring some help doing the laundry at home or taking care of your yard or shoveling or doing your taxes and all the things that we can hire professional help for when often the solution could just be, oh, maybe my business doesn't need to be that complex. And I might make a little bit less money, but actually from a per hour perspective, you're making far more money, far much more because you're not working 80 hours a week or 90 hours a week.

Tim Chermak:
So what built your business to this point, Amanda? Because I could probably talk about this all day of the new kinds of problems that agents hit when they start selling 10 million a year, 15 million a year, a 20 million year by themselves. But a lot of agents listening to this are probably selling one or two or three million a year and they're thinking, man, I wish I had those problems. I wish I was selling 12 million a year and my problem was not having enough time because right now I don't have enough money and that's more stressful.

Tim Chermak:
So what built your business? Was it just sitting lots of open houses, networking, did you pass out a lot of business cards on bulletin boards and in local restaurants? Did you do Facebook ads, billboards, direct mail, what built your business to the point that it's at today? What does the marketing game plan look like?

Amanda Galindo:
So I've been pretty heavy in Facebook and videos since the beginning, since around 2013, 2014. Networking and community. Those are my three pillars of business that really haven't changed. And I can go back prior to real estate when it comes to networking because I've been in different networking groups when I sold insurance. And then there's people that I worked with 20 years ago that will come to me and ask me to help them with real estate stuff. And it's because when I was building the relationship with them, I was just a nice person. I didn't treat them like crap.

Amanda Galindo:
So they end up coming back to you. And that's really my philosophy right now is yeah, everybody can be a potential prospect. They might use me. They might not. But at the end of the day, the relationship is more important than the paycheck. And if they don't work with me, they might refer somebody to me. But I would say that Facebook and video are probably the number one thing that I have to do on a regular basis for me to continue on the level that I have been. And then just being involved. Networking and community stuff, that's kind of a long term game. It takes awhile for that to build up.

Tim Chermak:
When you say networking and being active in the community, can you give us some specific examples of what you do?

Amanda Galindo:
Yeah, so, well I'm involved in the Lions Club, which is an organization that gives back a hundred percent of what they get and as a club goes back into the local community. So that's always been important to me. I've been a part of that club since 2015. I'm part of the local chamber of commerce. I was a part of other BNI biz to biz type groups, but that was prior to real estate. I never joined another group. I just will meet business owners and stuff for coffee or I'll meet them through the chamber and just connect with them on that level. And then now we'll do business highlight videos and market updates, podcasts, stuff like that.

Tim Chermak:
So Amanda, when did you discover this Platform Marketing Strategy? What has your relationship been with, with Platform? When did that start? How does that factor into your marketing game plan?

Amanda Galindo:
Well, it's everything, really? So I've known Tim since 2014. Like I said, I started using the Platform strategy. We did some different ads on Facebook video stuff. And then I thought like, okay, I don't need this anymore. I wasn't really following up with the leads. Felt like it was a waste on my end because I was just kind of letting the leads go silent.

Tim Chermak:
Oh man.

Amanda Galindo:
And I think that was about 2016, I want to say end of 2016 maybe. And then-

Tim Chermak:
Those were the good old days, way back in 2014 2015, where you'd set up a Facebook ad and leads would come in for like 80 cents a piece. And the problem was I have too many leads coming in because I just spent a hundred bucks and got 120 leads.

Amanda Galindo:
Yeah. So then I was trying to finagle it on my own for a little while. And then it was summer of 2018, which I had already planned on contacting you back, but you just called me out of the blue. So it was kind of meant to be, I feel like, Tim to come back to Platform. I feel like the whole strategy on what we do with Platform has ultimately built my business to where it needs to be. It's the branding. Even just with the videos and stuff that we do with the business owners and different things, highlighting the small business community, it really sets yourself apart from pretty much every other agent out there because you care more about your community than you care about just bragging about selling houses or I sold another one. It's a totally different approach. And I don't think that my business would be where it's at if I wouldn't have met you back in 2014, to be honest.

Tim Chermak:
So when we say the Platform strategy, Amanda, for those who aren't familiar with Platform marketing, let's say that you were talking to a realtor, what would you tell them the Platform Marketing Program is? When you say that, hey, I signed up with Platform Marketing, what does that actually mean? If someone had never, never heard a Platform, when you say I follow the Platform marketing strategy on a monthly basis, what does that mean you're doing differently from other agents?

Amanda Galindo:
Well, you're shooting listing videos on every listing, market updates, so that's at a local business, highlighting the business more than you're highlighting a market updates.

Tim Chermak:
So what would that video look like? When you say a market update video, walk us through specifically what you're doing when you go out to "film a market update video" what does that look like?

Amanda Galindo:
So I would just pick a local restaurant and I would have maybe a 15 second blurb on what's going on in the market, listings, days on market, all that kind of stuff. And then be like, okay, hey, check out this really good burger at such and such restaurant. Just kind of highlighting the menu items. And the video is not more than a minute and a half, no more than two minutes. And then you're highlighting that restaurant and you're able to get that out to your database and then you can retarget it and do a giveaway. We used to be able to do giveaways where we can't do giveaways anymore. Can't do anything with Facebook. Just kidding.

Tim Chermak:
I feel your pain. Yeah. It's kind of just a creative way to stay top of mind with your sphere and with your leads filming these, these quick videos. So Amanda, what are some examples of some local businesses that you filmed these market updates at? Are you filming them at auto mechanic shops? Are you filming them at the dentist? Are you filming them at a coffee shop? What are some examples of like recent ones that you've done?

Amanda Galindo:
So this last month I did... It's girl scout cookie time, so I highlighted one of my neighbors. She's a girl scout and she was selling cookies. So we just did a fun little video about her to try and help her sell some more cookies. I've done one at a local craft store place. It's like a really big deal in Buffalo. They have occasional shops and stuff. So we highlighted that. We did a fun walkthrough of all the Christmas stuff that they had to offer for the holidays. I've done them at restaurants, like local Mexican restaurants. I feel like you can kind of do them anywhere that has interesting stuff but more food places.

Tim Chermak:
So really it's any sort of local business that you're just trying to spread the word-

Amanda Galindo:
Yep.

Tim Chermak:
About this local business.

Amanda Galindo:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tim Chermak:
And long term that seems to be increasing the amount of referrals you're getting in the sphere business or what is kind of the larger strategy going on there? Why should an agent listening to this want to go out and start filming these small business highlight or market update videos? Because I'm sure if I'm listening to this, I'm like, okay, what does that have to do with real estate? How is that helping you get listings or get more buyer leads? How does that actually fit into your realtor marketing plan?

Amanda Galindo:
From my perspective, when you're highlighting another business owner, you're putting the spotlight more on them, but you're always in that spotlight. So if you're doing 12 market update videos every single year, your sphere is getting that, you're staying top of mind, your leads are getting that. You're also running the retargeting ads on Facebook. So your community is seeing that because you're putting in engaging content and it's not just like, hey, look at me. I sold the house, hey, look at this new... The new listing videos can be fun, but I feel like you get way more engagement when you're doing a market update or a business highlight type video, because you're taking the camera off of you and you're putting on them, but you're just standing there on the sidelines and you're always in front of people.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. I think the proof is that you're selling over 50 homes a year and you're only spending a thousand dollars or less every month on your Facebook ads. So I think that's the proof right there that what you're doing is working. Because if you just average that, I know that obviously real estate is a very seasonal business, especially in a place like Minnesota, so you're probably selling more in the spring and summer than you are in January, but if you were to average it out over 12 months and get a nice even number it's like, hey, 50 homes a year is four to five homes a month for 12 months in a row.

Tim Chermak:
And so if you think about it, well, if all I'm spending on the actual ads is let's say a thousand bucks a month on Facebook and from an annual perspective, that's creating a minimum of four sales a month, that's an incredible ROI. So clearly what you're doing is working. Have other agents in your area seen that working, have you had other agents try to copy you or replicate what you're doing?

Amanda Galindo:
Not so much in my direct community. I've definitely seen more agents doing listing video tours, but I feel like you have to do that as an agent anyways to kind of stay top of mind for your sellers and do them the best you can.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. We're probably several years past the point where doing listing video tours is innovative and cutting edge. It's kind of wait, wait, you didn't film a video of a listing? That would be the reaction I would have if I was a homeowner.

Amanda Galindo:
Yeah. But we don't have a lot of agents that film listing video tours. I think the biggest thing about video and I had to do it myself was just getting over yourself. It doesn't matter what you look like in the video. That's what you look like in person. So just get over yourself. That's how you sound. That's how you look.

Amanda Galindo:
And so there's actually not a lot of agents that do that, but there are some other agents kind of outside of my community that are doing some cool stuff, highlighting local restaurants, but not really to the level that I feel like we do with Platform, because I feel like being with Platform too, there's a sense of accountability. If my account manager tells me, hey, I need you to do this, this and this, I usually get it to her, but I don't have somebody telling me what to do. Sometimes I'm like, oh, okay, I'll do that next week or I don't feel like doing my hair today. I don't want to take a picture.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. And she's a hard ass too.

Amanda Galindo:
I know she is.

Tim Chermak:
So what has been some of your favorite retargeting videos, Amanda, that you've put out to your sphere to stay top of mind, whether they have anything to do with real estate or not? Because I think sometimes the most effective video ads are the ones that just get personal. They're not even necessarily about what homes are for sale or real estate buying and selling tips. They're just creative ways to stay top of mind so that people think of you and not some other agent. What have been some of your favorite videos that you've put out there in the last couple years?

Amanda Galindo:
I'd have to say my favorite one was the T-Rex listing video when I dressed up in one of those blow up T-Rex things. And that's because Mitch put out a challenge and I was like, ooh, I'm going to get that. I'm going to go do that. That was the funnest video that I've shot. But I actually really like the personal moment ads. They're not the videos. It's just the photos that we're sharing with other people just to have them get to know us on a more personal level. Those are my favorite. And then I have a new karaoke one that I'm going to be putting together this week. So that might be my favorite one.

Tim Chermak:
So when you say Amanda, a personal moment ad, can you explain what that is? What would be an example of a personal moment ad?

Amanda Galindo:
Yeah, so, I'll share things about my dogs, my pugs, because I love pugs and that's something that people will tell me when they meet me for the first time or that they can connect with me on that level if they like pugs I'll share things-

Tim Chermak:
You didn't choose the pug life, but pug life chose you.

Amanda Galindo:
... I've done with my family, like a family vacation photo, things that I've done with my girls. Just things that you'd probably share on your personal Facebook page that I can share more and open up my life more to my business page where they wouldn't necessarily get to know you on that level because I feel like a lot of agents feel like they need to separate personal and business. And from my experience, people want to know you on a little bit deeper level.

Amanda Galindo:
I've had people that I've never met before talk about things that I forgot I shared. One client this past summer, she's like, oh, you have a pool. I want a pool. I'm like, how does she know I have a pool? And then I remembered I shared a picture of my girls in the swimming pool when it was May because it had been so warm. So it's kind of fun to share those types of things. And then they feel like they know you when they first meet you.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. A good litmus test for a successful ad, especially when it's a retargeting ad, is is this the type of thing that I would actually post on my personal Facebook page or my personal Instagram page where it almost doesn't have anything to do with business it's about you or your friends or your family or a recent awesome meal you had at some restaurant or a concert you went to or whatever. If you took your family to see Avengers on opening night at the local movie theater taking a picture of all of you seated or standing in line for popcorn or whatever, and saying, I love seeing movies on opening night, are you an Avengers fan or who's your favorite Avenger? Something like that. There's no cheesy tie in to real estate.

Tim Chermak:
You're not making an attempt to make this look like it has anything to do with the fact that you're a realtor because it doesn't. You're just trying to show people that, hey, these are the things I'm into. And those often can work really, really well, especially in a retargeting context. So Amanda, of your business, you're selling 50 plus homes a year. What percentage of that is typically coming from cold traffic lead generation marketing versus what is coming from past sphere? Or can you even measure that with how much marketing and retargeting you're putting out? What does that ratio look like?

Amanda Galindo:
Oh gosh, I had that number figured out a couple years ago, but I would say just going off a memory from last year and the clients that I worked with, I would say about 80 to 85% is past client sphere, referral based type stuff. And then the other 15% would be cold leads.

Tim Chermak:
Okay. So this is actually really interesting to me because when most agents think about marketing and you're in the Platform Marketing Program right now, we manage all of your digital marketing for you, we edit all your videos and all that. Most people think that lead generation is synonymous with marketing. When they say that, oh, I hired Platform to do my marketing, they kind of think, oh, Platform must handle her brand new lead generation or all the cold leads, but Amanda's doing stuff with her sphere on the side and client depreciation events and pop buys and all this stuff.

Tim Chermak:
But that's something we do very differently at Platform that I think has helped our agents like you become so much more successful is that we think that marketing is a much broader, more holistic endeavor than just lead generation. They're not the same thing. Lead generation is part of marketing for sure. But marketing isn't lead generation. And what you just said there, that stat, I think proves this point that you're spending a thousand dollars a month on your Facebook ads and you're filming, what Amanda, typically two to three to four videos a month?

Amanda Galindo:
Yeah. Yep. Two to three I'd say.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. And yet you said over 80% of my business is sphere referral business every year. So you're leveraging videos and you're leveraging social media ads to get more referrals and to get more sphere business, not even necessarily because you're trying to generate a bunch of cold leads. Most think that if I'm spending a thousand dollars a month on let's say Facebook ads that they think 85% of the business I get from it is going to be complete strangers, cold leads coming in on my website that I follow up with them and I set an appointment and eventually I list their house or I help them buy a house.

Tim Chermak:
And then maybe 10 or 15% is the icing on the cake. And that's just I get maybe some more referrals from my sphere who see my ads. You're saying that it's actually the opposite of that, that the cake itself is getting more referrals from your sphere, and the icing on the cake is, and you might convert some new leads.

Amanda Galindo:
Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. I'm staying in front of them so much. And even with the community, you're staying in front of the community so much too, highlighting all the businesses and stuff. You see them out when you're at your kids' whatever game, volleyball game or softball game or whatever, and you just solidify that relationship a little bit more. And so by continuing to stay out in front of them, that's where you get that referral business and repeat clients. I feel like referrals, that's what everybody wants. You don't want to keep chasing after the same thing every single year. You want to build that foundation so then it continues to grow every single year.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. And I know that for you individually, travel and family vacations and memories are really important to you. I know that you guys had an RV, you did some camping, you love going to the Caribbean and anywhere warm in the winter. Karaoke in Naples. And you can't really do that if your entire business is 80, 90% cold lead generation, because this is an important truth I think a lot of agents miss is that not every transaction is created equal. Not every lead is created equal. You will spend far less time in your business if the majority of the business is coming from that sphere and that database, because you don't have to spend two or three hours every day time blocked to "following up with leads." The people that are just spending three hours every day buried in their CRM, sending follow up emails, text messages, making phone calls, that works to be clear.

Tim Chermak:
It absolutely works. You will make a lot of money doing that, but it's not really scalable, versus if your marketing is geared towards generating more referrals from your sphere and getting more warm business, you can actually scale that because you don't have to spend three hours every morning following up with those leads. Because typically they just call you. They're like, hey, I've been seeing your videos, I'm ready to go. I think I need to list my house. Amanda, what's the next step? So how often does that happen for you every month where people just message you or they call you and they say, more or less, I'm ready to go?

Amanda Galindo:
At least three to four times a month. I get at least a call a week from somebody that I'm either friends with on Facebook that have seen my ads.

Tim Chermak:
So it would be fair to say that's the majority of your business is people just calling you.

Amanda Galindo:
Oh yeah. A hundred percent. Yep. Yeah, I tried to do that whole time block, let's pound the phones, follow up with all these people and that's just not my jam. It's so much easier when they call you because you've done all that upfront work and-

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. Your marketing has warmed them up versus you having to do a bunch of manual follow up by emailing and texting and then hoping they reply and using all these old school sales scripts of handling objections and trying to get them to set an appointment and-

Amanda Galindo:

I don't want to do that. I never wanted do that. I had to undo my mindset from being like that because I felt like I needed to be put into this box of this is what a real estate agent does. This is what you should be doing. And you felt all this pressure of I don't want to do this. This sucks. And now two years after I kind of just went back to the basics of being just me, I almost feel like it's not fair because you do that amount of business and I feel like sometimes they really don't work that much.

Amanda Galindo:
I am working for my clients. I'm always looking for houses. I don't want to sound like I'm just a slug, but I'm not like that agent on the Facebook real estate groups complaining or actually boasting about working 80 hours a week and this is the first day I've had off in six months because-

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. You're like, hey everyone, I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving with family. I'm pounding the phones today calling expireds.

Amanda Galindo:
Yeah. I never want to be that agent. And I feel like, I don't know. I don't know if there's this image to keep up with, but I feel like agents really overcomplicate it because they feel like they need to like do all of these different things. And if you just simplify the process, you can create this very well oiled machine and uncomplicate your life and you can actually enjoy it and it doesn't have to be, oh my God, I hate real estate. I can't wait to get out of it or whatever because real estate is fun.

Amanda Galindo:
There's no other business that I can think of where you can make the amount of money that you do with a high school diploma. You go and you take your classes and you can build this amazing business and create this amazing life for your family. And I can't imagine my life not doing real estate, but I don't feel like it needs to be as complicated as other agents make it.

Tim Chermak:
And I just want to emphasize this point again that you made where you're selling over 50 homes a year and yet over 80% of that is in one way or another sphere business or referrals, but you're using your paid marketing to generate more referrals. You're not measuring the success of your paid ads, like your Facebook ads, your Instagram ads, et cetera, your YouTube videos. You're not measuring the success of those ads by how many new leads came in, cold leads that I've never talked to before that now I have to follow up with.

Tim Chermak:
You are more so measuring the success of those paid Facebook ads with how many more referrals did I get this year that I probably otherwise wouldn't have received because I wouldn't be as top of mind with my database and my sphere. And because you did that, because 80 plus percent of your business is warm referrals and is coming from your sphere, you have way more time in your life to hang out with friends and family doing the same amount of deals than someone who's doing 50 deals, but all those deals are coming from cold lead generation.

Tim Chermak:
They're buying Zillow leads or buying realtor.com leads. Because the same amount of transactions, one of them takes a lot more time if you're exclusively working with strangers because it's a lead that you got from an online portal. So you're both making the same amount of money doing the same amount of transactions, but one person is going to have a way better lifestyle if those leads are coming from referrals from your sphere.

Amanda Galindo:
Right.

Tim Chermak:
What have been some of your, Amanda, in the last couple years, some favorite family vacations that you guys have taken or favorite experiences that maybe you wouldn't have been able to enjoy if you were just locked in your office doing two or three hours of calling expired listings every day? Because I know that is the model that a lot of people teach because it works.

Amanda Galindo:
Yeah. Well, yeah, it does work, you're right. Well, we went to Puerto Rico back in June, 2019. That was super fun. That was in June, which is a super busy month.

Tim Chermak:
That photo was on the calendar that you-

Amanda Galindo:
Yeah.

Tim Chermak:
... printed, right?

Amanda Galindo:
Yep. Yeah. That one was on there. And then we've gone on some couples trips with my husband and I, and we went with some neighbors and now this I've gone on a girl's trip to Mexico a couple weeks ago, and then we're leaving for the Dominican in March for another family trip. So those are the favorite ones. Tropical.

Tim Chermak:
Lest anyone think this sounds excessive. Amanda lives in Minnesota where it's necessary to escape to the Southern hemisphere at least a couple times a year so you don't go crazy.

Amanda Galindo:
It's non-negotiable. That-

Tim Chermak:
Non-negotiable.

Amanda Galindo:
... is built into my business plan for the year and I have to go somewhere at least twice during the winter. This year is a little excessive, but it is what it is. But yeah, the winter here is horrible. I keep telling my husband, I need to get out of here. I'm going to sell the house. We're going to buy a camper. We're going to drive around the country. I will move to a shack by the beach and sell coconuts and homemade bracelets. I really don't care. I'll figure something out. I always do.

Tim Chermak:
That's funny. What are some of the ads that have worked best for you? I want to dive into some quick specifics of when you look at the ad campaigns that you think have created the best results, whether that's measured in leads or clicks or engagement or maybe just general awareness in the community, if you had a video go viral or something, looking back over the last couple years, what do you think are the marketing campaigns that have made the biggest difference in helping you build your brand?

Amanda Galindo:
I would say the top, top one would be god made a small business owner. That was huge when we had highlighted 12 different local businesses during the middle of COVID. It was really impactful and everybody appreciated highlighting them and trying to support them during everything that was going on. I can't think of other ones that... There's always fun ones that we do for different holidays. There was a 4th of July one that we did. I think a Veteran's Day ad, those ones that highlight that kind of stuff.

Tim Chermak:
Amanda, if you were starting over and you were a brand new real estate agent this year, like you had never been a realtor before, let's imagine, what would you do to build your business from day one? Because I'm assuming it might be a slightly different answer than what you actually did when you first got going eight years ago. If you had to start over today from scratch because you had zero database, no leads, didn't have a sphere. What would you do to rapidly build your business, knowing what you know now about how marketing works?

Amanda Galindo:
Can I say just hire Platform, right away out of the gate, invest that money. Okay. If I didn't have Platform, I would definitely be shooting listing videos, neighborhood, community type videos, highlighting different communities. If you're in an area where there's lots of lakes, I would highlight the different lakes and fun things to do around the lakes. Probably do a lot of open houses. I don't know. I think that's it. Then higher Platform.

Tim Chermak:
You said if you didn't have Platform, so what does on a monthly basis, we already mentioned that you filmed some videos for example, but what does Platform actually do for you? Why do you think Platform is an important part of that mix for you?

Amanda Galindo:
Well, the creative ideas. The thing I love about Platform is that there's only one agent per community, per certain amount of areas. So you're not competing with a bunch of other agents. I don't have any other agents around me, but you have this community of agents from across the country that are also creative and they come up with some fun ideas in addition to what you guys put out as a company and as Platform. So I feel like the creativity and the different ideas and suggestions helps a lot, just being able to come up with some new content that you can offer and put out there on Facebook, but then the targeted ads, building up your retargeting list. And I feel like that's huge in building up that presence and your brand as an agent, because I could figure it out, but I don't want to figure it out.

Amanda Galindo:
I don't want to figure out how to run Facebook ads. I don't want to figure out Facebook guidelines. I don't want to figure anything of that out because it would take me forever and my brain would hurt. Honestly. Like I said, I tried to do that for probably a year and a half or so, and things change so much that it's a full-time job keeping up with everything.

Amanda Galindo:
And then also, you do get leads from Platform. So from a cold lead perspective, you're getting people that are opting in for different homes list and stuff that you can nurture. And I have a showing today with a Platform lead that I met in 2016. They're finally ready. Well, they've kind of been ready, but now last fall, they're ready. Now we need to find them a house and then we're going to sell their house. So it's a buy sell. And I got a Platform lead the beginning of the year and I connected them with a seller and they're closing next week. That was in January. So you get the cold leads too, that you can nurture and turn into business with all the follow up and stuff.

Tim Chermak:
So if, Amanda, an agent joined Platform, what would your advice be? Let's say they signed up today. What would your advice be to them to make sure they're actually taking full advantage of the Platform Marketing Program and they're going to get the most results possible out of it?

Amanda Galindo:
I would say listen to your account manager and shoot as many videos as possible that they tell you to shoot and then do your follow up. Make sure that you follow up with all your leads and nurture those into buyer leads or seller leads or whatever. And don't just leave them hanging because I've done that before and it really sucks. I do that all the time sometimes.

Tim Chermak:
I do that all the time sometimes.

Amanda Galindo:
Okay, I'm trying to get better, but I keep so busy with all the referral stuff that they just keep coming in from the listing videos.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. And I think that's actually a trend we see with a lot of agents who join the Platform Marketing Program is that if we can help them get more referrals and increase their business using their sphere, the agent doesn't care if the leads that are coming in are coming from lead generation ads or if we're just helping them get more leads from their sphere. It's like, well, does Platform get credit for that or not? Because it's like, well, who cares if your business is growing? If you grow from 5 million to 10 million or you grow from 8 million to 15 million, at the end of the day, closings are closings. It's actually preferable if they're coming from your sphere because there's less time typically invested in converting those leads.

Amanda Galindo:
Yeah. I actually had a funny story and she had never opted in on any homes list or anything, but she had a friend that had just been watching my video. She wasn't in my lead list at all that told her to call me one of my past clients. So this random lady in Monticello had been seeing all my videos, told this lady to call me and I ended up finding a house for her and closing the deal.

Amanda Galindo:
So there's a lot of that too. That's why I feel like the most important thing that you need to do is shoot the videos and just be yourself, whatever it is that is fun about you or cool about you or unique about you. Don't be afraid to highlight that and just be yourself. And if there's people that don't want to work with you because of who you are, then you dodged a bullet, in my opinion. You probably didn't want to work with that person anyways, because they were going to be a pain in the butt. And so just shoot the video, be yourself and have fun. It would be my main advice.

Tim Chermak:
You didn't choose the pug life, the pug life chose you.

Amanda Galindo:
It did.

Tim Chermak:
So Amanda, with your videos, one last question here, are you hiring a film producer to go out and film these videos? How much are you spending on video production? Are you using a cell phone to film the videos? What level of commitment is necessary to be filming these videos every month? Because I know that many realtors hear this and they're like, oh my God, you're filming two to three to four videos a month. That must be so expensive to have to hire someone to edit all those videos or someone to film all those videos. What does your process look like for these videos?

Amanda Galindo:
It's just my cell phone. I just use my cell phone and I send it to you guys so you can edit it. So it's not super fancy produced, but it's well edited and it's got the captions and stuff that it needs. And you guys do a great job editing it. I don't think I would pay for a full production company to do it because I feel like then it doesn't seem as authentic and real.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. And I think that's an important thing to point out that you can build a very profitable real estate business. Amanda's selling here 15 million dollars of homes a year by herself. She doesn't have a big team. It's by herself is selling 15 million of homes and 99% of her videos are filmed on a cell phone. You're not going out paying top dollar, hiring a video producer to get gorgeous drone footage and fancy HD video of everything. It's 99% is filmed on a cell phone and that is driving a business that allowed you to sell over 50 homes last year by yourself. And so anyone who thinks that video is not achievable or this isn't a good strategy, unless you have a bunch of money to spend on video production, that's BS.

Tim Chermak:
You've kept it simple and that's working because people trust that this is an authentic video from Amanda. She's not this distant realtor who has this huge budget to spend thousands of dollars producing every video. And then you see that you think, well, if she has that much money, how much time would I actually get from her if I used her as my realtor if she's that busy and has that much money coming in? So I actually think often having a more simple video that you film on a cell phone actually gets you better results.

Amanda Galindo:
Yeah. And then I feel like if you overcomplicate it with the production and the video and the equipment, then it just gives you more reasons not to do it.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah, exactly.

Amanda Galindo:
Everybody has a cell phone, quick shoot a video, quick do this, you can literally shoot a listing video in like 10 minutes, send it to you guys to edit it all together and it's a nice video that puts that listing out on a silver platter so thousands of people can see it and that house can stand above the crowd. That's how I present it to my seller. So don't overcomplicate it.

Tim Chermak:
What's what's the next video that you're planning to film Amanda or what is the next like personal moment ad that you think you're doing? Just so people can get a view inside your creative brain of what's coming up? What are some videos you plan to film in the next week or two for your business?

Amanda Galindo:
So I'm going to do a market update video. I haven't figured out where I was going to have it, but I think it's going to be some restaurant around here. And then I am doing five tips for beginner karaoke singers. So I'm going to be doing that because I like to do karaoke even though I don't sound really good. And I have a couple listing videos that are going to be coming up, so I'll shoot those listing videos.

Tim Chermak:
So it's a solid mix of actual listing videos that are obviously relevant to the fact that you're a realtor and you're selling homes and then a video highlighting a local small business, with that a market update video. And that's something you do every month. So there's about 12 of those a year. And then just a stupid video that has nothing to do with anything and it's probably going to be really embarrassing for your kids.

Tim Chermak:
And it's five tips for karaoke beginners that again has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she's a realtor, but if someone watches this and they realize that you have a sense of humor and you seem like you would be a cool person to hang out with on weekends, whether it's going to look at homes or working with you to sell, sell their home, that's the kind of video that builds that personal connection where it's like, cool, I just want to work with Amanda. I know there's a bunch of other agents here too, but Amanda seems cool to hang out with and if I have to pick a realtor, I might as well pick the most interesting one who looks like she'd be fun to hang out with.

Amanda Galindo:
Yeah. Well, that's what I try to be. The fun one. The fun realtor.

Tim Chermak:
Right on. Well, thank you for your time today, Amanda. I know that obviously if you're selling 15 million a year over 50 homes a year and you're doing that by yourself without a huge team, time is probably your most valuable asset right now. It's probably the most scarce thing that you have. And so thank you for investing your time with me today. And I think this is going to be a really interesting, valuable podcast episode for anyone who's joined us. So thank you for your time today and hopefully I'll see you soon.

Amanda Galindo:
Thanks, Tim.