How I Added 5 Deals In 6 Months With The "Platform" Marketing Strategy

Michelle Clemons: I would just tell them that Platform Marketing gets you in front of people in a way that's very engaging. I had done Facebook marketing before, but not like this as far as the ads that you post don't look like ads. The interaction and the engagement that I get is just amazing.  

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 joined today by Michelle Clemons in Joplin, Missouri. Michelle, welcome to the show. 

Michelle Clemons: Thank you. It's good to be here. 

Tim Chermak: Michelle joined the Platform Marketing family about five months ago. We're recording this right now in September of 2023. She signed up in April. In April is when she started the Platform Marketing program. Again, about five months in, and Michelle has some really cool success stories to share, but first a little bit of context. Michelle was a school teacher in the Joplin area actually for about 30 years. She retired from that career and went into real estate about about 10 years ago. She's not a brand new agent, she's actually a very experienced agent. 

Tim Chermak: One thing that's happened just this spring, summer, she started to notice that a lot more people are recognizing her, seeing her out in public. They know she's in real estate. They know she's a realtor now. Michelle, would you just mind sharing right away some of the earliest victories and wins that you've had so far with the Platform Marketing strategy?  

Michelle Clemons: I'd love to. My first closing that I had with Platform was one month after I started, which is pretty phenomenal, I know. What happened was I used to teach the classes that the state requires for people to get their real estate license. I did that for three and a half years. One of those students went ahead and got licensed, but then put their licenses inactive. They saw me on Facebook and then referred their son and daughter-in-law to me. 

Michelle Clemons: This was somebody that already had knowledge of me, but the funny thing is that their license is being held by the same company that I work for. My broker said, “Why didn't they just call me?” Because I was top of mind. She saw me. She said, “Oh, yeah. I know her,” and so she called me. We got that deal done just very quickly, which was quite remarkable, apparently, according to how Platform system was.  

Tim Chermak: That normally doesn't happen, where you sign up and a month later, you're already closing a deal from the marketing. That's definitely pretty exceptional in the literal sense of the exception to the rule.

Michelle Clemons: I've had that. Right now, I have seven under contract, five of them are Platform people. Another one, I just got a new listing yesterday and that's somebody who I knew outside of real estate. They see my ads and so I was top of mind. In fact, yesterday, whenever I asked her, “Why did you decide to choose me? I know you know a lot of real estate agents,” she said, “Oh, yeah. Everybody at work's been telling me, use this person, use that person. I told him, no, I already have my agent. She's  a Christian like I am, plus I know what she does and I know her.” This isn't somebody that I've had any kind of conversation with outside of where I regularly see her. It wasn't like we were friends or we texted or talked or anything like that. 

Michelle Clemons: I've had another where, very early on, a lady saw my ads on Facebook and told her daughter, who was moving from Washington, her daughter and her family, that, “You have to use Michelle when you move back here.” It's all calling people and calling those leads. I know I hear that all the time on the Platform Family Facebook group, but it's true. By calling that lady and talking to her and she said, “Oh yeah, my daughter's gonna use you. She should be reaching out to you soon.” About a month, a month and a half later, I got a message through messenger from her and we've got her under contract. I showed her and her husband multiple homes, got her under contract on a new construction over $500,000. In our market, $250,000, $280,000 is average. It's the most expensive property I've ever had under contracts. It's pretty exciting just what Platform has done for my business. I have $1.6 million in volume under contract right now that are Platform or directly related. You talk about the fuzzy ROI. At first I thought, I don't know if I like that or not, but I get it. I get it now. 

Tim Chermak: Now, it makes sense. 

Michelle Clemons: Exactly. It certainly does. 

Tim Chermak: I think the most impressive thing of what you just said there, and there were a lot of impressive things you just said, is that you currently have about seven deals under contract and five of them you can actually directly or indirectly trace back to Platform. In other words, you would actually only have two deals right now under contract were it not for Platform, and you'd be heading into the fall, winter here with a fairly pessimistic vibe, I would say, because it's obviously not an awesome year in the real estate market overall. 

Tim Chermak: It's not 2018, 2019 anymore. We're dealing with these really high interest rates. Not a lot of people want to move. People don't want to move off of a 3% mortgage and have to buy a new house and have a 7% mortgage. It's been a tough year for real estate agents, and yet you're rolling into the slower month of the year, I know, obviously, you guys have four seasons in Missouri, so you're heading into the colder weather, the winter, with seven deals under contract right now, five of them that you can track back to Platform. You know that it's working. 

Michelle Clemons: I do.

Tim Chermak: With that benefit of hindsight, Michelle, how would you describe what the Platform Marketing strategy is maybe to a realtor who's listening to this podcast, but hasn't yet done their research, they haven't signed up for Platform, they're just seeing what is this Platform Marketing thing? Now that you've been in the Platform Marketing program for about five months, how would you describe what Platform Marketing is to another agent who was asking about it? 

Michelle Clemons: I would just tell them that Platform Marketing gets you in front of people in a way that's very engaging. I had done Facebook marketing before, but not like this as far as the ads that you post don't look like ads. The interaction and the engagement that I get is just amazing. I did have one of my posts go viral. It had over a million people who saw it in 143,000. 

Tim Chermak: I actually saw that. That was pretty crazy. 

Michelle Clemons: It was. That was because a local business person didn't share it and that's what really caught on. It's just like I said, it just helps you engage with people in a way that I just wouldn’t have done before. I'm always the person behind the camera, not in front of the camera. It was just a little intimidating to me to have my picture on Facebook. In fact, one of my kids sent me a text yesterday and said, “I'm so proud of you. I know how private you are and I know how you don't want to be in front of the camera and yet you're killing it.” That was really cool.

Tim Chermak: Obviously you are if you have that many deals under contract or you're closing homes that they're basically double the median price point in your area. I'm really excited about that one, Michelle. The cool thing is when you pick up clients that are in those higher price ranges, the thing is if they like you, they're going to refer their friends and colleagues and their sphere to you. 

Tim Chermak: Typically, all things being equal, people's friends are usually in their same socioeconomic class, I guess. People that live in $500,000 homes, typically, their friends live in $400,000, $500,000, $600,000 homes. The type of referrals you're going to get from that client in the future are going to be higher priced referrals as well. That's super awesome that you're bringing those people into your marketing sphere as well. 

Michelle Clemons: It's been pretty exciting.

Tim Chermak: What ad do you think that you've done so far, whether it was a photo or a video, has had the biggest response in engagement in your community in Joplin, Missouri? What ad have you done so far that has had the most people actually tell you in real life, “Hey, Michelle. I saw that ad. That was so cool?”

Michelle Clemons: I have people tell me, “I see you on Facebook all the time.” I had a lady at church say, “You're all over my Facebook.” As far as a specific ad, probably the So God Made a Small Business Owner. That's probably the one that really resonates with people, that they really feel a connection to because they see businesses in that video that they patronize it, that they go to. 

Michelle Clemons: There was another one where I just did a small business highlight of a pizza place in town, locally-owned pizza place. That received a lot of engagement. The pizza business really did see an uptick in their business after that post, which I thought was great because that's the goal, is to help each other.

Tim Chermak: That's a win-win. As a real estate agent, if you create content and promote local businesses, local restaurants, you're actually accomplishing a couple of really cool things from a marketing perspective. First, your ads don't look like ads. If you're just talking about a local pizzeria and why you love this local pizza place and you're not talking about Michelle Clemons, the realtor, people drop their guard. They don't psychologically or emotionally realize that they're being advertised to. They're a lot more open. They're a lot more likely to watch that video because it just doesn't feel like an ad. 

Tim Chermak: As a result of that, if you're the one constantly out and about promoting your community, promoting the local small business scene, helping to bring extra attention to restaurants and hopefully increase their business, as you mentioned, you cultivate this reputation as being the local expert. You're not just a real estate agent, you're an expert on the overall community who just happens to be a real estate agent. I think that's the ultimate long term positioning if you're a realtor, is that people actually look up to you as being an advocate and a champion of the community and oh, by the way, I sell real estate. 

Michelle Clemons: I agree with that 100%. There's so many marketing opportunities that are out there for real estate agents to do exactly what you said, to be the local expert, yet they don't have a multi layer way of doing that that Platform does with the retargeting audience, with the CRM and being able to have that contact information with the people who do engage with the posts. 

Michelle Clemons: In five months, I have over 500 contacts in my database from Platform and I have called every one of them. I think that that's really key, is to call people, talk to them, text them, follow up. It makes people think you care about them, which I do, and not care about business. I think that's a huge difference in what people like to see versus what they do see.

Tim Chermak: There's two polar opposites of strategies that a real estate agent can pursue if they're trying to get leads, trying to build their brand in an area. I think people often do one of these two polar opposites, but they both really are limited. They don't really work because they're missing the other part, kind of this yin and yang. 

Tim Chermak: The first thing agents might do is they might just buy leads from Realtor.com or buy leads from Zillow. You're not really building any local brand there, you're just getting leads. That might get some short term leads, I guess, but at the expense of you're not really building a brand. You're not really working your sphere. People aren't gonna remember you long term. As soon as you stop paying Zillow, the leads stop. It's a very temporary, right-now focused strategy at the expense of your long term brand if all you're doing is buying leads. 

Tim Chermak: On the other side, the complete opposite strategy of that is someone might get excited about local content marketing and maybe they start filming videos and they upload them to YouTube, or they post some social media posts on Facebook, but it's not really linked to any sort of actual lead generation strategy, anything that's actually getting homeowners and homebuyers to click your ads, request more information, give you their contact information, so you end up uploading random videos to YouTube or posting on Facebook and then it's just crickets. You're not getting any engagement, you're not getting leads. You're spending all this time on marketing, but it's not really bringing in any business. There's not a return on investment of your time. 

Tim Chermak: I think what Platform does so well is that it combines both of those two things, both the lead generation and the branding combined into one and this one plus one equals three where you're getting the best of both worlds. That's why we have success stories like you, Michelle, where you follow the recipe, you follow the plan, you listen to what Diana, your Platform account manager, told you to do. 

Tim Chermak: By the way, I should mention that Diana brags about you all the time to our team. That's why you're on the podcast. Every week, Diana is bragging about how awesome Michelle is, how awesome Michelle is doing. She tells our team. I think that's a huge part of your success as well is that you actually listen to what Diana tells you to do. 

Tim Chermak: Some people might sign up and they don't want to do this, they're too nervous to do this. We give them some marketing homework, some assignments, but they only do half of it. I think to your credit, part of the reason you've succeeded so much so far, even in your first five months with Platform, is that every single marketing homework assignment that we've given you, you've done it. That probably is because you used to be a teacher apparently for 30 years. You're used to doing homework. That's to your credit that you've done everything that we've asked you to do. That's why you're seeing the results that you're seeing. 

Michelle Clemons: That also gives me encouragement to continue. There's one thing that Diana wants me to do that I have not done yet because the opportunity hadn't presented itself, the jumping in the pool for the opening of a listing video. I was like, “You know, it's been a long time since I've jumped in a pool, but I'll do it.” I just have to find the right opportunity. 

Michelle Clemons: Some of the things, I've been very hesitant to do. My thought is, in teaching, whenever we would adopt certain programs and that kind of thing, I would tell other teachers, “We can't say that we're going to use this program and only use part of it and then say it doesn't work.” That's not fair. The same strategy applies to this. We can't say we're going to do this, but only cherry pick the parts we like and not do the parts that are a little outside of our comfort zone and then say, “It just doesn't work well.” It does. If you work it, it works.

Tim Chermak: We always say, Platform works if you do. As you put it really well there, some people get uncomfortable with calling the leads. They're like, “I'll film all the videos, I'll do all the marketing content, but I don't want to call leads. That's too awkward.” Or sometimes people are willing to follow up with leads, but they're so nervous or so shy about getting on camera. They never create content, they never film videos. You have to do both of them. If you want to get in better shape, you have to diet, watch what you eat, and you have to exercise. If you exercise a bunch, but you continue eating a lot, you're probably not going to lose weight. You have to do both of them. 

Tim Chermak: Again, I think you put it really, really well there that you can't cherry pick which parts you most like doing and then ignore the other parts. You have to follow up with the leads, you have to do your marketing homework, you have to film the videos, create the content that we asked you to do. 

Tim Chermak: Obviously, for those listening, Platform edits your videos. All you have to do is film the raw footage and take some photos. We handle all of it from there. We are editing Michelle's videos. We launch the ads. It's not like Michelle has to be an expert on Facebook ads or video editing. We are handling that on the back end as part of the Platform Marketing program. Michelle still has to go out and film the video content. We don't have Platform employees in Joplin that are out there filming videos with you. You have to go film the videos and create the content so that we have some footage to work with for these ad campaigns. Again, you are proof that if you just do that marketing homework, the strategy works. 

Michelle Clemons: Absolutely. Another thing I find very helpful was to have the scripts that Platform provides for calling people. I don't really have problem calling people or talking to people, but the Platform way was very different than what I usually would do. Diana said, “Call. If they don't answer, call back in five seconds. If they don't answer, send a text. Of course, there's scripts that tell you what to do. Don't leave a message.” “What? I always leave a message. What do you mean don't leave a message?” She said, “No, don't leave a message. If they don't answer the second time, then send a text.” I trusted her. 

Michelle Clemons: As you can see, my demographic is probably not the normal home buying demographic. She knows and Platform knows through research what works with the demographic that's buying houses, and that's the younger people, younger than me. I did that, very uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable for me to call and hang up and not leave a message because in my generation, that would be considered rude. That's not the case now. I did that and text people and I've got my scripts on clipboard right in front of me so when I make my calls, it's just right there. 

Michelle Clemons: By now, I don't have to refer to it anymore. At the beginning, it was so different than what I was used to doing. I definitely relied heavily on those scripts, which again, just to have that support and that scaffolding to say, “Okay, this is the way that our research shows is the most effective,” and then trusting that. That was probably the first thing that was the most uncomfortable for me to do, which seems so silly now, but just to call and leave a message.

Tim Chermak: That's why we've structured Platform that way, that it's an ad agency and it's kind of a marketing coaching program. If all we did was run your ads and then we got you a bunch of leads every month and we're just like, “Michelle, have fun following up with these people,” and we don't give you any coaching or context on that, I think you'd get a lot different results than if we take a more proactive approach and coaching you and giving you scripts and training you how to follow up with these leads. 

Tim Chermak: I'll just share some context here for those listening to this podcast or watching us on YouTube. When we say, “Hey, call twice and don't leave a message if they don't answer,” the reason is that most people today, if they get a phone call from a number they don't recognize, just instinctively, they don't answer. Now, maybe you're a realtor, so realtors are used to answering the phone if a stranger calls because you never know if it's a warm lead or someone inquiring about a listing or a potential listing opportunity, so you are trained to answer your phone, but the average person does not. Most people, if they get a phone call from a number they don't recognize will not answer the phone. 

Tim Chermak: What we do is we say, “Hey, if they don't answer, that's fine. Do not leave a voicemail.” The voicemail gives away that you're a realtor calling to follow up. We want to use the element of surprise where we get them on the phone and they don't maybe realize that it was a real estate agent calling to follow up. You wait five seconds, call the same number again, because what happens is if they see a second call coming in from that number, they stop and think, “Wait, am I expecting a call from anyone? Is this important?” Usually, people don't call you twice in a matter of 10 seconds. We're just sparking enough doubt of, “I wonder if this is important. I wonder if someone's trying to get a hold of me and I just don't recognize the number,” that often they don't answer the first time, but they will answer the phone the second time. 

Tim Chermak: When Michelle talks about scripts too, I want to be very, very clear that these aren't super sales-y scripts where we're handling objections and we're trying to get people to agree to meet. We're not using any high pressure sales tactics in these phone scripts. Actually, when Michelle talks about having to relearn these scripts and how to do phone call follow up the Platform way, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think what you're referencing is that we were trying to retrain you to actually be much more casual and not ask any qualifying questions right away. 

Tim Chermak: When you call them, you're not asking about their budget right away, you're not asking if there's a particular home they want to look at, you're not asking if they're already pre-approved for a mortgage or anything like that. You're just trying to build rapport, asking very indirect questions early on. “Hey, how long have you lived here in Joplin?” or “Have you seen me on Facebook?” You're just asking questions that build rapport, that show that you care. Later on, you can get into business and details. For sure, if you're on the phone, the first 30 seconds to minute of the call should never be discussing stuff like their timeline or budget or the house. That just proves that you're a salesperson.

Michelle Clemons: I agree. The script that I use the most is whenever people, I get them in the CRM because they have requested a homeslist that's been on there.That gives it just a natural conversation of, “Hey, I see that you asked for a list of homes on land in the Joplin area. Just wanted to check, did you get my email with the link to that list?” That usually opens up a conversation. That's the script. It's not anything like what we've been trained before in the traditional real estate script training, as you say.

Tim Chermak: All you're trying to do is call and follow up and say, “Hey, I just sent you a link of some homes. I'm just calling to confirm. Did you get the link? Did the link work for you? I just want to make sure it didn't go to your spam.” That's all you say. Usually, people are happy to tell you, “Oh yeah, I got the link. Thanks.”

Michelle Clemons: Sometimes they say no. I say, “Let's see what email address that went to. It went to this email address.” They say, “Oh yeah, I don't use that one anymore.” “Do you have a better one I can use?” They'll give it to me every time because I'm approaching them in a situation or a frame of mind or attitude of, I want to help you. It's like you said, very different than what we, real estate agents, are trained. 

Tim Chermak: It's very casual. You're not trying to trick them. You're not trying to set an appointment using really sneaky language or high pressure psychology. You're honestly just calling to follow up and say, “Hey, I wanted to make sure that you got that link that you signed up for from this Facebook post. I just want to call and make sure that you got the link.” The conversation usually just goes from there. It takes on a life of its own. 

Tim Chermak: Some people will end up talking to you for five minutes and they'll tell you everything. Other people might hang up and you only talk to them for 30 seconds. The point is they will remember that you called because, keep in mind, that person will start seeing all of your retargeting ads over the next six months. Now, they actually know you're a real human being because you called and talked to them, even if it was only for 30 seconds. It's the cumulative effect of having you call, hearing your voice, knowing that you're a real human being, and then they start seeing all these retargeting ads pop up on Instagram and Facebook, photos and videos where they feel like they're getting to know Michelle over the next six months. That's when the magic really starts happening. 

Tim Chermak: Honestly, Michelle, that's why I'm so excited for you. If you've already seen that happen and you're only five months into Platform, imagine where your business is going to be in another six months once you've been at this for almost a full year and you've let that snowball keep rolling and compound and compound. I think you'll be in a really awesome spot in your business next spring. 

Michelle Clemons: I'm really excited for that. It's been great so far. I really expect it to just continue to grow, just following up with people and just sending the custom list. Of course, part of the script again is asking people, to send the list specifically that focuses on what they're looking for. 

Michelle Clemons: Just going into that conversation, I probably have, I don't know, I haven't looked lately, but probably 80 people getting custom searches from me as well that I've set up on that. That gives me more touch points with people who are opening those emails and to just touch base with them and say, “Hey, this is the criteria we set up a few months ago. Does that still work for you?” The weekly meetings with Diana are also just so powerful and so helpful. That's another component of Platform that I find very, very helpful. 

Tim Chermak: When you sign up with Realtor.com or Zillow, frankly, even other companies like Curaytor, Ylopo, etc., you're just turning on some PPC campaigns and then you basically never hear from them again. We are taking time to actually assign a dedicated marketing account manager to all of our realtors at Platform where you're talking to that person, probably on the phone, every week. We actually get to know you and we strategize together and there's coaching that happens and we give you marketing homework. I think having that human account manager, it's not software, it's not AI, it's actually a human that talks to you every week, that's a huge part of what makes this marketing recipe successful. At the end of the day, humans are humans. You can't automate everything. 

Tim Chermak: Part of it's accountability too. If you know that Diana has assigned you some marketing homework and you have a call next week, you want to feel like you're living up to the expectations that, “Hey, I'm going to get my homework done. I'm not going to show up to the next call without having done the things that you asked me to do.” Without those calls and that structure of accountability, I think most of us would not be creating the amount of content and the sheer volume of marketing campaigns that we put out. At least part of it is you want to make sure that you're keeping your honor and keeping your word with Diana. “Hey, if I said I'm going to do this, I'm going to go do it.” 

Michelle Clemons: That's very true. 

Tim Chermak: She's great too. I love Diana. You're really lucky to be working with her. 

Michelle Clemons: I feel the same way. I really do love her. She's amazing. 

Tim Chermak: I'm going to dive into some specifics here, Michelle, if that's okay. I wanted to ask you, do you know what your monthly ads budget is? How much are you actually spending on the social media ads? 

Michelle Clemons: Yes. $700 a month. 

Tim Chermak: $700 a month. Okay, cool. You've been going for about five months now, and you said that you follow up with your leads pretty religiously. When leads come in, you are calling them, you are following up with them. 

Michelle Clemons: Yes. Sometimes it takes a few days before I can get to them because I'm one person with no assistant. When I'm out showing and doing paperwork and that kind of thing, of course, that takes precedence over calling. I have to take care of what I have under contract first. The days run out, time goes fast, but yes, I do call everybody. Like I said, it may be a few days back, but I do everybody. 

Tim Chermak: I think that's really important because there's some people who spend even more on the ads every month. They might be spending $1,000 or $1,200, but if I were to ask them, “Are you actually following up with your leads? Are you actually calling every person and making an attempt to follow up?” They're like, “No.” 

Tim Chermak: What's happening at a macro level is I think they're trying to buy their way out of doing uncomfortable things. They think, “Rather than maybe spending a little bit less but making sure that I'm diligent and following up with all the leads, I'm just going to spend more on ads and bring in more total leads but not follow up with them. I'm trying to spend more on ads and buy my way out of doing the unpleasant things, like actually taking time to follow up with all the leads.” It's actually really cool to hear you say that. 

Michelle Clemons: I can understand that. I would probably lean the other way, personally, just on what I know about myself. I would rather call people and talk to them on the phone than film videos. But like I said, I've learned to be much more comfortable in front of the camera. I arrived at the idea that the way I look and sound is not a surprise to anyone but me. This is what everybody sees. 

Tim Chermak: Yep, exactly. It was the same thing when I started this podcast, is once I heard the recording, the first thing I said to my wife was like, “Oh my God, is that actually how I sound?” She's like, “Yeah, that's exactly how you sound.” I'm like, “Oh man.” When we started recording the podcast on video earlier this year, I'm watching clips of it that our video editors would splice up and was like, “Is that actually what I look like when I'm talking?” It's like, “Yeah, that's what you look like. It's video.” It's like, “Oh, okay. I guess I'll just have to get used to it then because that's what everyone else is seeing apparently.” 

Tim Chermak: I want to double click on what you said there, Michelle, that you do both. I follow up with leads and I film the videos. I'm not cherry picking one or the other. I think that's so important. The factors of what have made you successful is that you're not just creating a ton of content, nor are you just following up with leads hardcore and then not creating any content, you're doing both at the same time and that's what creates the success. You're spending $700 a month on ads. You're in Joplin, Missouri. How many people live in Joplin just approximately?

Michelle Clemons: 50,000. We have a market area that's wider than that. My counties that I serve is Jasper, Newton, and McDowell counties. Probably, I don't know, I'm trying to think of a number of people, 150,000, maybe more, maybe 200,000 in all three counties, but it's not a big market at all.

Tim Chermak: It's a rural area. It's probably on the bubble of, it's a big, small town or a small, big town. I've actually been to Joplin several times. It feels like a small town when you're there. You're not in a big city when you're in Joplin, but there's enough people there, obviously, where there's enough real estate transaction volume to make a good living as a realtor. Obviously, the stats that you've put up are proof of that. What was your best year ever in real estate, Michelle? What was your GCI or what was your volume in your best year ever? I know you said you've been an agent for about 10 years now?

Michelle Clemons: I have been. My best year was last year and I sold $5 million in volume in 30 transactions. Like I said, our average price is not high compared to the rest of the country. 

Tim Chermak: What are you hoping to do this year in terms of volume or transactions?

Michelle Clemons: I don't know. When I first started, my goal was one a month. Of course, I surpassed that pretty fast. I thought with this year being a downturn year, my goal this year was 30 again because I didn't start until April. When I set my goals for this year, everyone was saying, “Expect a 20% drop in your business.” I thought, “I'm going to try to still do 30 for this year, 30 transactions.” I'm well on pace to surpass that, which this would make this my best year ever. 

Tim Chermak: What are you on track to do right now? 

Michelle Clemons: I don't know because I just got several under contract over the weekend. I would say I probably have close to 30 that are under contract or listings that I know will be under contract right now. Here we still are in the third quarter.  

Tim Chermak: You might end up closer to 40 this year.

Michelle Clemons: I don't know. We'll see. I was thinking 35 would be amazing, but 40 may be very doable.

Tim Chermak: Especially in a year like this. If you're surpassing what you did in previous years, that's really impressive. I also want to draw some attention to that ratio between how many transactions you're doing and the actual volume. Sometimes, I think people listen to real estate marketing podcasts or they attend a coaching mastermind conference, whatever, and they hear about these agents that are doing insane volume. “I sold, whatever, $20 million or $30 million or $40 million last year,” but then you find out that the person's in a market where every single home they sell is $1 million or $1.2 million.

Tim Chermak:  It's not that it's easy to be a real estate agent in those markets because, obviously, there's a very high standard in those markets too of the level of professionalism that people expect on an agent selling a million-dollar house. By no means am I saying it's easy to be a real estate agent in those markets, but I think it gives people perspective that a person like Michelle in Joplin, she has to hustle and sell 30 homes a year to clear $5 million in volume where some other people might be able to hit $5 million in 10 deals. 

Tim Chermak: To be able to put up this year in 2023 in such a, frankly, frustrating market for realtors, this year has just been frustrating, if you're on pace to do 35, maybe even 40 deals this year, that's really, really impressive. Like really, really impressive, Michelle. Congrats to you. Obviously, I'm the CEO of Platform. I always want to hear that it's working for people, but it's always really cool to talk to someone and have a conversation like this, where you're only five months in, you only signed up in April, and you're already seeing the results that you're seeing. That's really encouraging to me and I'm humbled to play a small part in that. Probably 99% of the credit needs to go to you and Diana, but that's really cool hearing that it's working for you already that quickly.

Michelle Clemons: I definitely would not be where I am without Platform. Diana and I just had our meeting Tuesday, and I have $1.6 million in volume under contract directly or indirectly related to Platform. You think about the percentage of that as a $5 million a year. Without Platform, there's no way I would be any more close.

Tim Chermak: You actually know the exact numbers of were it not for Platform this year, your business would have shrunk probably 20% to 30% to maybe even 40%. 

Michelle Clemons: Quite possibly, yes, because I have other Platform people I'm working with now, so they're not under contract. It's very satisfying to have a way to scale my business, to grow it, and to still maintain my philosophy of helping people. I've never been about the numbers because if you take care of people, the business will come. Platform has given me a platform in which to do that and to reach more people. That's what is just been so phenomenal with my experience so far. I'm looking forward to a long relationship with Platform.  

Tim Chermak: Michelle, I hope I get to meet you at the Mastermind this year. It's going to be in Naples, Florida, November 30th and December 1st, the annual Platform Marketing Mastermind. I hope I get to meet you there and I'm excited to hear where you end up this year. Whether it's 36 transactions, 39, 42, wherever you end up, that's incredible that you're able to achieve that even in the circumstances of this year. Thank you for your time and coming on the show. Guys, we'll see you on the next episode of The Platform Marketing Show. 

Michelle Clemons: Thank you for having me.