Don't Chase Leads, Get Them To Call YOU

Kim Mills: It's a different kind of client versus, let's take the other lead service that I have for example. Those, I have to chase them. They're usually just so rude. When you call like, “Why are you calling me?” I don't even think they know what they clicked on. The Platform clients, they contact me. It's just a different conversation. It's almost like they know you. It's like, “Hell. Hey, Kim.” From just that one client, I have several conversations going right now, but just that one that I closed yesterday, they've already referred the sister, and the husband has referred me his boss for a $500,000 listing.

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 Marketing Strategy. 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: Hey, guys. It's Tim Chermak. Welcome back to another episode of The Platform Marketing Show. I'm here today with Kim Mills, who is a realtor in Henry County, Georgia, near McDonough, Georgia. Kim has been an agent for 22 years. Prior to joining the Platform program, had never really invested in marketing. She had built up her business the old fashioned way, which is give really, really good service to your clients, get referrals, and just build your reputation the old fashioned way, which builds your business. 

Tim Chermak: She already had a successful business before Platform. This is not one of those stories where it's rags to riches. She was really struggling or something, and then she hired Platform. She already had a successful business. She was already doing about $180,000 in GCI in the year before hiring Platform. That makes her a top producer, really, anywhere. In your market, Kim, what is the average price point? 

Kim Mills: About $360,000. 

Tim Chermak: To do $180,000 in GCI, you're probably having to sell, how many homes is that? 

Kim Mills: Somewhere between 27 and 30, just depending. 

Tim Chermak: I was going to say about 30 homes. You're already a very successful real estate agent before Platform. This summer, you decided, “I think after 22 years, maybe I should try some actual intentional marketing versus just working my sphere and getting referrals.” What happened is your daughter joined your team and then you said your husband joined the business as well. Now, you basically have more agents who want some leads and you want to grow. You thought, “I can't really just divide my sphere into smaller pieces. That's not growing the business, that's just handing them what you already have.” You wanted to start generating new business to help them start building their own book of business. Kim, how did you first hear about Platform? 

Kim Mills: I had actually just signed up for another lead service, I think two weeks before I found you guys. Maybe that made the retargeting ads hit me. I had just signed up with a twelve-month contract and then your ad popped up on Facebook. I knew instantly I had to do it. I had to make it happen. Even though I had already committed to this twelve-month contract with the others, there's no comparison. 

Tim Chermak: That’s cool. It probably helps that we don't enforce any sort of contract either. It's not like you were locking yourself into twelve months with Platform when you signed up either. We don't have contracts. You signed up in June of 2022. Some people might be listening to this episode a year or two from now, but when it was recorded, you signed up in June of 2022. 

Tim Chermak: At the point of this recording, it's actually less than 90 days later. We're recording this about two months after your first ad started running. You’re actually not even 90 days in, you're only two months in. You're only 60 days in, really, to Platform. Kim, would you mind just sharing really quick, let's just get right into the specifics here, what has happened so far in your first 60 days with Platform? 

Kim Mills: I closed my first Platform client yesterday. They were fabulous. It's a different kind of client versus, let's take the other lead service that I have for example. Those, I have to chase them. They're usually just so rude. When you call like, “Why are you calling me?” I don't even think they know what they clicked on. The Platform clients, they contact me. It's just a different conversation. It's almost like they know you. It's like, “Hell. Hey, Kim.” From just that one client, I have several conversations going right now, but just that one that I closed yesterday, they've already referred the sister, and the husband has referred me his boss for a $500,000 listing. 

Tim Chermak: Wow. That all came from a Platform campaign? 

Kim Mills: Yes, a listing tour.

Tim Chermak: Again, in your first 60 days. It's not like all these results took six months or nine months or two years or something. You had all of that, all those leads come. Referrals, buyers, and listings, you can have someone under contract or closed, excuse me, not under contract, but closed in your first 60 days.

Kim Mills: Correct. 

Tim Chermak: That's really cool. 

Kim Mills: Look, I have to say this too. I haven't been perfect at it yet. I'm still trying to get my bearings with the video and whatnot. I think I've only done two listing tours and three retargeting ads. That had me hyped up. I need to get better. This needs to be on my calendar every week. 

Tim Chermak: You've really barely tapped the potential of the power of the Platform marketing program. You've only done a couple of ads so far, and yet you've already seen the results. You're pretty confident that as you keep doing it, the results are obviously going to snowball and get even better. That's just so cool. Again, you're only two months in and you already have those results. Do you know how much you're spending on the actual ads? What is your ads budget every month? 

Kim Mills: When I first started, it was $500 total. With my newest listing video, I think Josh put $200 extra. My goal is for every listing video from here forward, $500.

Tim Chermak: Awesome. That will blow you up faster than you can even imagine when you commit to investing $500 of ads budget on every listing you get. What that usually does is it means your listings get 50,000, 60,000, sometimes even 70,000 video views. When other homeowners in your community see that “Wow. Every time I see an ad from Kim Mills pop up, it's got 50,000 views on the video,” it just positions you as being such a marketing expert. Who wouldn't want to work with someone like that? If they're thinking about selling their house, they think, “She clearly is really good at marketing. I want to work with someone like her.” It just results in inbound phone calls.

Kim Mills: I'll tell you the other thing that I've seen a lot too, is the fuzzy ROI. For example, a lady that I sold a house to 10+ years ago, and I have not always been perfect about staying in touch, commented on my videos. I'm like, “Wow. I haven't talked to her in years.” This was actually my mom's best friend from high school. They don't really stay in touch, but they are on my Facebook. They have been interviewing other agents and seen one of my videos and called and said, “Hey, we've seen your video. We thought, ‘Why in the world have we not called her?’” That fuzzy ROI, I'm really seeing the results from that. 

Tim Chermak: When we talk about fuzzy ROI, because there's probably some people listening to this that are like, “Fuzzy ROI? What are you talking about? What is that?” It's this phrase we use around Platform that simply means it's business that comes in of people reaching out to you or getting connected with you, but it's not a lead that came in through a landing page or a lead form on the Internet. It's not someone who went to your website and clicked on a form and filled it out. It's not someone who even clicked on a Facebook ad and then filled out a form, and then it's a lead in your CRM. It's not a traditional lead in the sense of someone clicking on an ad, giving you their contact information. 

Tim Chermak: It's hard to track the effectiveness or the attribution of the fuzzy ROI. “Where did that lead come from? Which video or which ad did they see?” It's them reaching out to you. They're messaging you. They're calling you directly, so you don't necessarily know which specific ad influenced them. That's why we call it fuzzy ROI. When you're trying to figure out, “Where do I attribute this lead to?” It's kind of fuzzy. It's like the answer is, “I don't know. They probably saw a lot of my different marketing campaigns, and that's why they directly texted me or called me. I can't track it back to one specific Facebook ad.” 

Tim Chermak: The reason we call it fuzzy ROI is that it is a return on investment. You weren't necessarily getting these phone calls or messages before Platform. I think if you've been in real estate for 22 years, you know what to expect. You knew what your business was already doing, and so you've noticed a shift. You have 22 years of ample size of, “Okay, this is what I can expect.” Now, all of a sudden, in the very first 60 days, I start this Platform program, I'm all of a sudden getting random messages, phone calls from people. I really wasn't before. That's what we call fuzzy ROI. 

Tim Chermak: Honestly, I think it's actually better than normal return on investment, like normal leads. Almost precisely, because it's hard to measure and it's hard to attribute which ad did that come from or which video did they see, or how do we track that? It's hard to track, that's actually a competitive advantage for you. If you don't even know where all these leads are coming from, your competition will not be able to reverse engineer your marketing plan. If you don't even know exactly how it's working and which ads they're seeing, there's no way your competition will be able to look at what you're doing and then reverse engineer it and copy you. 

Tim Chermak: Honestly, this goes back philosophically to the way marketing should be. I think marketing should get people to reach out to you. They should call you. They should email you. They should message you, not the other way around. We don't want to just generate a bunch of leads and then you have to do all the follow up with them. I want them to reach out to you when they're ready to go, and they're already warmed up by the marketing, and they specifically want to work with you. They're not just looking for some random agent to open a door for them. “Hey, can I see this house?” They don't really want to work with you. They don't care about you specifically, Kim. They just want to meet any agent who knows how to work a lockbox and can open the door for them, like with a Zillow lead. This is very different because they're specifically reaching out to you. They want to work with you, not just any agent. I think that's the whole point of marketing. If your marketing isn't doing that, why are you wasting money on marketing? 

Tim Chermak: That's awesome that you're already seeing that happen. You're already seeing that happen just in the first 60 days. Your ads budget started at just $500 a month, but already you're increasing it. It's probably going to be closer to about $1,000 a month, your advertising budget, in the future. What have been maybe your favorite one or two ads that you've done so far? Again, I know you're only 60 days into Platform. It's not like you've done dozens and dozens of different ads, but what has been maybe your one or two favorite that you've done so far? 

Kim Mills: My favorite is probably the newest listing video with the pool jump. That one has definitely had the most engagement. 

Tim Chermak: Walk us through what that video is and what you did to make it creative and interesting. 

Kim Mills: That actually was not even my listing. It's just a listing in our area that was so phenomenal, I had to shoot this house. Not only does it have a pool, it has a three-story treehouse. You just don't see that every day. 

Tim Chermak: Wow. Wait, you said three-story treehouse? 

Kim Mills: Yes, a three-story treehouse. 

Tim Chermak: That's awesome. I think I want to buy that from you. 

Kim Mills: You can imagine my messenger has blown up with that one. 

Tim Chermak: That was always my dream as a kid, is I wanted a legit treehouse you had to climb up into with walls and a roof and windows. I thought that would be the coolest thing. I'm already scheming if we ever buy land in the future to have a second home, like a vacation home, I want to buy land somewhere that has the type of solid trunk trees that you could build the treehouse in. Even as an adult, I still want that treehouse. That's one of my life bucket goals, is I want a cool treehouse. Okay, that's super cool. 

Kim Mills: You have to watch the video to see that one. It's like a treehouse off a Treehouse Masters. Incredible. 

Tim Chermak: That's awesome. 

Kim Mills: I've changed to this real quick and tell you this. Another reason why I decided to join Platform is because I have been in this business 22 years. We all hear, “The shift. Things are changing.” While it is, yes, a little bit, to me, it's just going back to normal. You can't just pop a sign in lockbox, throw it on MLS, and have 85 offers the next day. That's changing. 

Tim Chermak: For $50,000 over list price and no contingencies, no inspections.

Kim Mills: If you plunge in right now instead of taking a step back, so many, “Watch your money. Stop spending money.” Now is the time to spend money on the right things. If you do that, you're going to come out on the other end like a rock star. 

Tim Chermak: All that's really happening right now. Again, we're recording this in summer of 2022. Someone may be listening to this a year from now, but we're recording this in summer of 2022. We're going through this shift right now in the real estate market where, for the last couple of years, it's been an absolutely just crazy sellers market. Low inventory, like you said, 50 offers over list price, no contingencies, no inspections, leasebacks, just absolute nuts. 

Tim Chermak: Now, people go, “It's shifting.” It's like, “Sort of. It's just becoming a little bit more balanced.” It's honestly still a seller's market. Homes are typically still selling in less than a month. That, by any reasonable definition, is still a seller's market. It's just a slightly moderately less insane seller's market where buyers might be able to actually negotiate a little bit. It doesn't mean we're shifting into a down market or a buyer's market or something like that. It's still a really healthy market. 

Tim Chermak: I think, Kim, you're 100% correct. If people are freaking out about this and thinking, “I got to stop spending money on marketing. I need to pull back,” or “I need to start playing defense,” instead of playing offense, it's like, “No, this is actually the best time to invest. Finally, with a little bit more balance in the market, your marketing is actually much more effective.” 

Tim Chermak: Now, if you get some leads who want to buy a house, they're a lot more willing to go out and make a serious offer and look at homes. For the last year, it was almost depressing working with buyers. It's like, “We'll give it our best shot.” It was almost annoying to have anything but a listing lead because working with a buyer was just such a time suck. 

Tim Chermak: Now, again, it's still a seller's market, but it's starting to become a little bit more balanced. Now, all of your leads can be good leads as long as they're qualified, obviously, whether they're a buyer or a seller. I think that's absolutely a good thing for agents. It's not a bad thing. You should be excited about this. I'm excited. As the CEO of Platform, I think it's going to be a really, really good thing for all of our clients. I couldn't agree more. 

Kim Mills: With the sellers as well, they've heard, “My friends sold their house. They sold it in two days with 80 offers.” When they're listed and that doesn't happen, they're ready to jump ship. They start looking for other agents. Guess what they're doing? They're shopping like, “Who is actually marketing?” Even though it's not even really their agent, it's just we're back to normal where it may take 30+ days depending on price range. They're getting a little more savvy with who is marketing.

Tim Chermak: They want to know that the agent they're working with is actually doing something to market the house beyond just uploading it to the MLS with some pictures. You can actually prove now, “Hey, here's something that's meaningfully different that I'm actually doing that other agents aren't doing.” That is one of the most powerful hidden benefits of Platform that I think a lot of agents don't realize until they actually join the Platform program. 

Tim Chermak: Typically, when they first sign up, they're thinking, “Cool, it's a lead generation program. You help me run my Facebook ads.” That's how they think of it. When they join, they realize that like, “Hey, if Platform is going to also edit all your videos for you and give you advice on even what videos to film and how to make your listing videos more creative, if that means that you start developing a reputation in your community as being the expert listing marketer, that ‘Hey. If you list your home with Kim, she does way more creative marketing to promote your house than any other agent is going to do,’” that's actually a huge hidden benefit of Platform. That's something that's on top of all the other leads and ads that we're running for you, is this focus on creative listing videos. 

Tim Chermak: Again, it doesn't take any more than a couple of videos where you have 40,000, 50,000, 60,000 video views for you to really start developing that reputation in your town or in your county. That “Wow, this realtor is clearly doing something different.” When you go on a listing appointment, it's the ultimate psychological advantage. Now, you're no longer just fumbling over your words like, “Here's everything I do. I'm better than other agents or this or that reason and my brokerage does this or that.” 

Tim Chermak: Every agent has a pretty generic and predictable listing presentation. They all more or less say the same thing, “We're going to take professional photos. We'll have it syndicated across all these hundreds of websites and the MLS. We'll do open houses if you want and blah, blah, blah.” They all say the same thing. 

Tim Chermak: Now, with Platform, you actually have that secret weapon on listing appointments. You can actually see something that you're doing that's tangible and different from all the other agents like, “Hey, here's one thing I do that I can promise you no other agent you talk to is going to do this.” You can actually look someone in the eye and guarantee them, not just say, “Hey, it's highly likely,” but no, “I guarantee you, I will get your home more exposure than any other agent you will talk to because of my social media marketing.” 

Tim Chermak: You pull out your laptop and you show them recent examples of the promotions you've done for the previous Platform ad campaigns. They're like, “Wow, okay,” and then they want to work with you because, again, you're actually giving them something specific. You're not just talking about, in theory, what I'll do. You're showing them, “This is specifically what I do differently that no other agents do.” 

Tim Chermak: I think that's actually just one of the most hidden benefits of Platform, that once people realize they have this secret weapon on listing appointments, you just become a lot more confident overall on listing appointments. Now, you actually have something different to say that you know other agents aren't saying. 

Kim Mills: The other thing I love, too, is even though, yes, you're advertising yourself, it's so, what is the word I'm looking for? Not discreet, but you know what I'm saying. You're mixed in there, but the focus is all on them in that home that they don't even realize that it's an ad for you. 

Tim Chermak: This is really important. This is something that we try to make it very clear when you're filming listing videos. Don't just get a bunch of drone footage or just different panning shots of the house, we want you in the video. You as the agent should be walking through the house, giving the tour. Your body is actually in the frame, you're in the video. You're not just narrating it, but you're actually in the video. That's so important. 

Tim Chermak: If we're going to spend hundreds of dollars on an ad campaign promoting this video to the community, I don't want to waste it just promoting the house. Let's be honest, the house is going to sell if it's priced correctly. The video isn't necessarily what sells the house. If it's priced correctly and you have nice photos, it'll sell. The real reason you do these videos is that if you're hosting the video and you're on camera doing the showing, people, if they watch, let's say, 30 seconds of the video, they're getting 30 seconds of Kim,. They don't realize it because it doesn't look like an advertisement for you because, really, they're watching because of the house, but they remember you. 

Tim Chermak: If you filmed other types of videos, they probably wouldn't watch 30 seconds of Kim. They’re like, “Why would I watch 30 seconds of an ad for a realtor?” Almost subliminally, subconsciously, if they're watching the video, they're getting a healthy dosage of kim, and they remember that. That's why your business is growing. That's why you're getting this fuzzy ROI of people reaching out to you and even referring their friends to you and you're getting listings because of these ads, because you're actually in the videos. They're not just pretty slideshow pictures of the home set to music. You are actually in the video, so people see you. They hear your voice. They know what you look like. They feel at somewhat gut level that they're getting to know you by watching this video in a way that you just can't if you're not in the video. That's a super important part of the Platform strategy, is that you have to be in the videos. 

Tim Chermak: Subtle, there you go. Subtle is actually one of those weird words, I'll just go on a random rant here. Why is there a B in the word subtle? Who decided that? It just makes no sense for you to have a silent B. Is there any other word in the English language that has a silent B? Just imagine being someone trying to learn English as a second language and you're describing “There's this word subtle, and the B is subtly silent.” It doesn't make any sense, whatever. That's a huge part of the Platform strategy, is filming these videos. 

Tim Chermak: Kim, do you know how many total leads you've generated with Platform in your first couple of months? Do you know that how many leads are in your Platform CRM? Really? Jeez. In your first two months, 800? By the way, I'm not faking sounding excited here. I actually asked you and I had no idea. I was hoping it was a good, healthy number because we're recording this podcast live. Most of our clients probably average more like 200 leads a month. I was expecting you to say, “I don't know, 300, 400 leads.” Again, you've only been in Platform for two months. That means you've been averaging 100 leads a week. 

Kim Mills: Most days, it's about 20 leads a day. During weekdays, it's insane. 

Tim Chermak: Obviously, that's enough to keep your daughter and your husband busy with following up with all these leads. You're helping build a pipeline for them. 

Kim Mills: Actually, your emails, the ones that you guys generate, we let those go out and we only start conversating if they start conversating. At least for now, it's such a different concept than we've ever heard or been taught, but we just leave them alone. Something you said was, “If you go into a bar, you're looking for a spouse and you start walking up to folks, ‘Hey, I'm Kim. Do you want to get married?’ You're crazy.” I had never looked at it that way before. These folks are so used to getting pounded by people. We really just leave them alone and then eventually, they start talking back. 

Tim Chermak: That becomes even more important the more money a person has. Maybe it's politically incorrect to say this, but the type of people who eagerly respond to a lot of these auto messages are very often the people that have $100,000 budget. It's more likely that, let's say if someone has a $450,000 or $550,000 or a $700,000 budget to buy a house, that person's doing pretty well in life if you can afford a $500,000 house or $700,000 house. That's usually just demographically not the type of person who clicks on a random Facebook ad and immediately starts hand out their name and email without even thinking about it. “Sure, here's my contact information,” and then you auto email them and they just happily respond. Usually, those people are way too busy to respond to marketing emails like that. There's almost an inverse correlation between how eager many of the leads respond and how good of a lead are they from a price point perspective. 

Tim Chermak: If you think about it, it's just more likely that if you eventually get a $700,000 or $800,000 listing, it's going to come from fuzzy ROI. It's not going to come from one of these lead follow ups. Usually, that person clicks on your ad, they're very casual about it. They're just very informally doing their due diligence. They're maybe thinking about selling their home at some point in the next year. They click on your ad, they're not going to start emailing you immediately and schedule an appointment with you if they're still 6, 7, 8, 9 months out. 

Tim Chermak: What happens is that person clicks on your ads and then they keep seeing all of your other retargeting ads, because, obviously, Platform sets retargeting to last for 180 days, so six months. If you look at a calendar, six months from now is the end of February. If someone were to click on one of your ads today, Kim, they would keep seeing your posts pop up on social media from now until the end of February. It becomes impossible to forget about you. They're not just seeing you once a month or something, they're seeing you constantly and all sorts of different posts too. We're not just showing the same banner ad over and over and over again. It’s all sorts of different retargeting ads and videos sprinkled in as well, so they're constantly seeing you. 

Tim Chermak: Eventually, at some point in those six months, they're going to be like, “Wow. This Kim lady is really good at marketing. I see her constantly pop up all the time. If she's this good at marketing herself, because I'm seeing her all the time, she's probably also really good at marketing and selling homes.” They can make that logical connection that if you're that talented at promoting yourself and marketing yourself, you're probably a really good real estate agent to work with as well because clearly, you deeply understand sales and marketing. That's what gets those people to eventually reach out to you. 

Tim Chermak: They call you. They text you. They email you. They initiate the conversation. That's what we call fuzzy ROI. At that point, if it's three or four months later, we honestly have no idea what was the initial ad they clicked on or what was the ad that was most persuasive to them. Who knows? They probably have seen dozens of different ads from you in that time. 

Tim Chermak: The real answer is, it doesn't matter. Who cares what was the first ad they clicked on? We know that the marketing at a holistic level is working because it's getting people to reach out to you. That's what I think is so cool about the way we have the Platform strategy set up, is that you're capturing, hopefully, some low hanging fruit in the short term, but what we're really optimizing for is that long term brand in your community where you're getting people to reach out to you, not the other way around. They're calling you. Again, it's crazy, you're eight weeks in. What are some of the ads, maybe, that you've seen other Platformers do that you're excited to do but you haven't done yet? 

Kim Mills: So God Made a Small Business Owner. 

Tim Chermak: Cool, yeah. That's one of my all time favorite Platform ad campaigns that we've ever written. Yes, everyone who does that, that video basically goes viral for them. You should definitely do that one. That ad kicks butt.

Kim Mills: Especially the closer we get to Christmas, supporting that small business.

Tim Chermak: What that video is, for those listening, it's essentially a tribute video to local small business owners. We wrote this script called So God Made a Small Business Owner. It's a riff off of an old Paul Harvey speech, I think, from the 1980s. We rewrote it to be about small business owners. It's like, “On the fourth day, God made. On the fifth day, God made.” We changed it, so it's like, “On the eighth day, God made a small business owner because God needed someone to stock the shelves. God needed someone to show up early, stay late, and make sure that customers got what they needed when they needed it at a fair price.” We wrote this. 

Tim Chermak: Honestly, it's a really emotionally moving script, and we pair it with some cool music. It's a really emotionally powerful video, and it's just a tribute video to small business owners in your community. In no way is it an ad for Kim Mills. It's not bragging about you at all. It's all about just you honoring the small business owners in your community. We tag them in the video and what often happens is they end up sharing it because they think it's so cool that they were featured in your small business tribute video, and the whole community rallies around it. 

Tim Chermak: Like I said, it's a tribute video for all the locally owned small businesses in your area and we feature them in the video. The video is almost like a video edit collage of photos and video clips of local small business owners in your area. Again, it's not about Kim at all. You just happen to be the one off camera. You're the one narrating the video script. They're hearing your voice, but they're not even seeing you in the video because it's all about small business owners in your community. 

Tim Chermak: Again, over time, if you develop and you cultivate that reputation as, “Hey, I'm more than just a real estate agent. I'm a champion of this community. I'm an advocate of the community, and I just happen to sell houses here.” People want to work with an agent like that. They want to work with someone that “Yeah, she's way more than just a random real estate agent who knows how to operate a lockbox. She's really deeply rooted in this community. She's an advocate of the community. Yeah, Kim just happens to be a real estate agent.” You would totally want to work with someone like that if you were thinking about selling your house or buying a house. 

Tim Chermak: I think that's one of the ultimate examples of this long term marketing strategy, is just reinvesting into your community and honoring small businesses in your area. That'll find its way back to you in the form of gratitude of people wanting to work with you. It's just a cool way to do business. How much more cool is that than spending a bunch of money on Zillow leads and sending your money to some billion-dollar company thousands of miles away that has no interest in your local community? That's a way cooler thing to do than blowing a bunch of money buying leads from Realtor.com or Zillow. 

Tim Chermak: That's probably my all time favorite ad campaign Platform has ever done. Every time one of our clients produces this video, keep in mind we do all the video editing for them, we launch the ad, wvery time someone does it, it just gets tens of thousands of views. We've had some people get over 100,000 views on that video, and they're in towns that only have 30,000 people. That means the average person in their town literally watched it multiple times. That's how much reach this video gets. It's just one of my all time favorite campaigns because of the brand it helps you build in your area. 

Kim Mills: Now, we've done this one already, too, and this is a great one to get started, Ducks in a Row. That one was really good for us.

Tim Chermak: What is that video, for those who have no idea what you're talking about? Like, “Ducks in a Row? What's that?” 

Kim Mills: The listing video, so far, it's been just me. With Ducks in a Row, we featured myself, my husband, and my daughter. With that one, we're just telling folks, “Hey, everybody thinks you have to have all your ducks in a row before calling us, but that's not true. We help that,” and then we just spell out like, “Wondering what your house is worth?” and then you throw the duck. I love the sound effect when you catch the duck. 

Tim Chermak: That's something that we edit in afterward. When Platform's editing the video is you'll hear ducks quacking in the video, but it's us obviously editing in that because you're using rubber ducks in the video. It's just a stupid cute video about you saying, “Hey, I will help you get your ducks in a row,” and you're juggling throwing these rubber ducks back and forth to symbolize, “I'll help you with this duck, and I'll help you with this duck.” Platform is editing the quacks into the video. 

Tim Chermak: It's kind of stupid, but it's a really fun, cute way to illustrate this point that “I will help you get your ducks in a row.” We're running this as a retargeting ad. What it does at a psychological level is it shows people that “Hey, I'm genuinely interested in helping you, and I know how to have fun. I don't take myself too seriously. I'm willing to do a fun video like this. I'm not always so serious all the time as a real estate agent, and I'm the one wearing a suit 24/7.” You're willing to laugh at yourself, have fun, and just be a cool person. I think that draws people to you. They want to work with someone like that. 

Kim Mills: I will say, being new, especially that first video, you're so nervous and you're overthinking. I've learned it pretty quick so far, just have fun. Be yourself and have fun. I was so worried about, “What equipment do I need? Do I need a videographer?” Absolutely not. 

Tim Chermak: “Do I have to hire a professional video?” 

Kim Mills: No. Everything we've done so far has been with our phone. I do not use a mic. I put my air pods in if we're outside. Now, we do have a gimbal. That helps with stabilizing, but that's it. 

Tim Chermak: You're filming all this on, literally, your cell phone is what you're using to film the footage. I actually just looked this up right now as we're talking, and your Ducks in a Row video was launched only a month ago and already has 10,000 video views. You have 100 people, Kim, who have liked the post. You have almost 20 comments on the post. I think what's most interesting is you actually have 57 people who have shared the post. 57 people shared it with all their friends because they just thought it was interesting. That's resulted in 10,000 video views on this video that you launched only a month ago. 

Tim Chermak: It's just a silly video. That's probably the right word, it's silly. The point is it proves that you're willing to have fun. You don't take yourself too seriously, and you earnestly want to just help people and help them get their ducks in a row. 10,000 video views on that, again, in your first month, that's pretty cool. 

Kim Mills: The Treehouse video, something I found interesting with that, before Platform, I had a business Facebook page. It was probably even a year before I would even update on it. I've always operated just off my personal. I think, only 500, 600 followers, so nothing huge. We do the Treehouse video, and I'm on the phone with my account rep, Josh, and we were at 6,800 views. Josh looks online and he said, “This can't be right.” 

Kim Mills: I had trouble with my bank. I have a crazy little local community bank, and they will put fraud alerts constantly and cut me down. They had a fraud alert on my card. He's like, “This cannot be right.” He's calling Andrew. That video hit 6,800 views without even running an ad. It's because of the traffic from Platform that has been drawing to my page that it just hit that organically. 

Tim Chermak: You had almost 7,000 views using the Platform strategy without having to spend a single dollar on that. 

Kim Mills: Not a single dollar. I think now we're almost 27,000, something like that. 

Tim Chermak: That's a concept that we actually just discussed the other day. I just recorded another podcast with Bill Catlett, who's a Platform realtor in Lincoln, Nebraska, and we talked about this concept of if you inject a little bit of creativity into your videos, what he often sees is it improves the ad performance by ten times. If his video is just exceptionally creative, he'll get ten times the video views, ten times the clicks than an ad or a video that's not super creative. It's the equivalent of increasing your ads budget by ten times. 

Tim Chermak: In other words, you'll get the same results spending $1,000 on boring Facebook ads than you would spending $100 on a video or an ad that's just really interesting and creative. The creativity will actually give it a ten times boost in the performance, and you'll get the same amount of reach and engagement as you would if you spent $1,000 on something boring. There's a force multiplier leverage effect there when you have something interesting to talk about and you do it in a creative way. It's like pouring gasoline on that fire. ‘

Tim Chermak: Kim, this has been an awesome conversation. I want to thank you for your time. Are there any final thoughts that you might share with maybe someone who just joined the Platform marketing program? Let's say they're in their first week and they just signed up, their ads are just starting to go out. If you could go back in time, because this is still in recent memory, you only signed up two months ago, so you still remember what that felt like, what would you tell someone to do in their first week or two? What would your advice be to them as someone who recently was there? 

Kim Mills: I'll just say don't overthink it. Don't be nervous about getting out there doing the videos. What I did a lot was, Kim Ross is local to me. I went and have lunch with her. Surely, there's somebody local near them and just get pointers. 

Tim Chermak: Kim's amazing. I'm glad you guys met up. That’s super cool.

Kim Mills: I love her. She's been a great help to me. Even if they're not local, “Hey, call me.” The PlatFam, I love that you all call it that, and it really is like that. Everybody's willing to help everybody. Just don't overthink it. Don't watch your videos 800 times critiquing, you'll just keep changing. Just do it and get it out there. 

Tim Chermak: Cool. Kim, will I see you at this year's Mastermind? 

Kim Mills: Maybe. December 1st is my birthday, I'm still thinking. We'll see. 

Tim Chermak: You totally should go. I promise you, if you go, you'll feel like it was the best decision you ever made. Here's what, I will say this publicly on the podcast because thousands of people are probably going to hear this. If you go to the Platform Mastermind, Kim, and you don't think it was an amazing decision to go and be there, I will personally refund any money that you spent on airfare and hotels. I will publicly say that on this podcast. That's how confident I am that anyone in the PlatFam should attend the Mastermind. We don't charge anything for it. There's no ticket you have to buy. All you have to do is get here. 

Tim Chermak: You should totally join us because all these people in the PlatFam, I think it's about 215 people now that we have in the group, you're starting to get to know some of them because of the Facebook group. In that case, you met Kim Ross in person because she lived somewhat nearby. Imagine getting to meet all these people in real life. They're all there at the same time. You go out to dinner together, have breakfast together, have lunch together, do drinks at night, go to the beach. We usually watch the sunset in the evenings because the hotel that we're all staying at this year is literally right on the beach. You should totally go. We'll even throw you a birthday party on December 1st. 

Kim Mills: All right, you convinced me. I'll be there. 

Tim Chermak: Awesome. I will see you there. Thank you for your time, Kim. I think this has been a really interesting and, hopefully, inspiring episode for people listening. This is what is possible if you take action right away when you sign up for Platform. Again, Kim is only in her first two months. We're not recording this two years or a year into Platform. She's only been in the platform program for 60 days. 

Tim Chermak: Kim, keep kicking butt. I can't wait to see what the next year holds for you because you're just starting to build your retargeting list. You've basically just started rolling that snowball, and you're already seeing results just two months in. Imagine where you'll be six months from now with all those leads.

Kim Mills: Super excited.

Tim Chermak: I'm really excited for you. I will see you at the Platform Mastermind. Thanks for your time. Guys, we'll see you on the next episode of The Platform Marketing Show.