How Platform Marketing Quadrupled My Sales From $5M To $20M

Tara Tice Fleming: I told myself from day one that I was going to commit to one year. And I think that's important maybe for someone who might be listening who’s new or who is thinking about joining Platform that you have to give it an opportunity to work. I did not see huge results in the first six months, but it was about between month seven and 12 that I started noticing, wow, this is way better than I ever imagined it could be. 

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 joined today by Max Rymer. 

Max Rymer: Hello. 

Tim Chermak: Welcome back to another episode of The Platform Marketing Show. Today, we have Tara Tice Fleming joining us from Harrison, Arkansas. Tara, welcome to the show. 

Tara Tice Fleming: Thank you, guys. 

Tim Chermak: We were just talking about this before we hit record and started the podcast, but your numbers are one of those before-and-after numbers where the growth you've had in the last couple of years is almost too good to be true. I'll just preface the podcast episode by saying Tara sold about $5 million the year before she started the Platform Marketing strategy. By the way, $5 million is already your an above average agent. The vast majority of realtors across the United States will actually never sell $5 million in a year. Already, you were doing pretty well. You joined Platform though, the next year you doubled from $5 million to about $10 million. This past year, you've doubled again from $10 million to on pace to close over $20 million. I have no idea when someone's listening to this episode in the future, but– Oh, someone's dog is barking. 

Max Rymer: Someone's listening. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah, someone's excited. Someone's excited because these numbers are bonkers. Tara went from $5 million to $10 million to $20 million she'll close this year and we're recording this episode in November. When we say that, hey, she'll hit over $20 million by the end of the year, we're very confident that she's going to do that. It's not like we're making a projection six months out or seven months out over where she thinks she's gonna close. What was the number you said, Tara, that you know you'll close by the end of the year? Again, it's November as we're recording this episode live. 

Tara Tice Fleming: Yes, so $20.675 million will close by the end of November and then we have all of December left.

Tim Chermak: Right, and that's business that's already under contract with closing dates scheduled so you know that that's gonna close. Again, $5 million a year before Platform. Now, she's gonna close over $20 million this year and it's only her second year with the Platform Marketing strategy. That's really, really impressive. 

Tim Chermak: What I'm gonna talk about in this episode is what other types of marketing you've been doing, how much you're spending on your ad spend, what ads have worked the best for you. We'll talk the specifics of what ads you think are getting the most engagement. I hope this episode is valuable either to someone who's listening if they're already in the PlatFam and they just need some encouragement to stick with it, or maybe you're listening to this on Spotify, Apple, YouTube and you have never heard of Platform but you're looking for some marketing ideas as we roll into next year. I hope this episode will be valuable for you. 

Tim Chermak: Tara, let's just begin in the beginning. Walk us through when you got into real estate, what those first few years were like, and probably at some point we'll discuss Platform. But let's start in the beginning. When did you get into real estate? What were you doing before that? How did that play out for you? 

Tara Tice Fleming: Sure, absolutely. It's kind of a crazy story. I became a real estate agent in September of 2021 alongside with my bonus mom, JoAnn, and we really didn't know much about the real estate world but we knew that we were excited and determined together to be successful in this business. Before real estate, I did spend 10 years at a little place called Big Cedar Lodge in the Ridgedale-Branson, Missouri area and sold timeshare for a fantastic company there out of the Big Cedar Lodge Resort, so I've always been in sales. 

Tim Chermak: I literally just stayed there a couple of weeks ago, by the way. I didn't realize you used to work there. I just stayed at Big Cedar two weeks ago. 

Tara Tice Fleming: It's magical, isn't it? 

Tim Chermak: It's really, really pretty, yeah. 

Tara Tice Fleming: Yes, it's still a hidden secret even though it's been ranked in the top 10 around the country for many years as a top 10 resort to visit. That was an incredible experience, learned a lot and really attribute the negotiation skills and sales skills and stuff like that to my time spent with Big Cedar and selling timeshare for them. But 2021, September, became a realtor and then, this is kind of crazy but two days ago, I just celebrated five years of borrowed time. I had a heart attack five years ago in 2019 at the age of 39. They said, “You need to do something less stressful,” so naturally, I chose to become a realtor. 

Tim Chermak: In 2021. 

Tara Tice Fleming: Yes. But you know what? It actually has been less stressful. I absolutely love what I'm doing, more so because of the people and the connection and the relationships. My bonus mom and I just hit the ground running and we did start off as a team, but then, see, she's retired so we quickly figured out that I'm on a different kind of pace than she was on so we did decide to be individual in 2022. 

Tara Tice Fleming: It was weird. I actually sold my personal home in October of ‘22 and Jamie Crouch in Northwest Arkansas, who was the Platform agent over there, she actually represented the buyer in the sale of my home. I know that Facebook is always listening to us, right? I was scrolling on Facebook one day and stumbled across a Platform podcast that was Jamie Crouch. I was like, “Wait a minute. That's the agent that has the buyer for my house,” and listened. Without even hesitating, I called Jamie. Picked up the phone, I said, “Hey, I know we're working on our deal, but what is Platform?” She told me all about it, immediately gave me Diana's phone number, called Diana, set up a call with you, Tim, and I did not hesitate. 

Tara Tice Fleming: This was one of the easiest decisions that I've ever made. It made perfect sense. The thing that was easy for me in the decision-making process is that you truly stand behind what you say, which is you work with one agent per market and you mean it. Loyalty is everything to me and I have great respect for that. 

Tara Tice Fleming: So, December of ‘22, I was full-time Platform agent in North Central Arkansas, had a goal to do $10 million in ‘23 and just hit right under that goal of $10 million. The goal this year was $20 million and I owe a huge thank you to everyone at Platform, you, Tim, Max, Diana, and especially my account manager, Taylor Hall. She's just a freaking rockstar. It's been a great ride so far. 

Max Rymer: Tara, I have a question, two-part question for you. Obviously coming into Platform with the short amount of time but a decent amount of success that a lot of agents don't hit, the first part of the question is you reference the timeshare career that you had prior to becoming a real estate agent. How did that actually teach you and impact the way that you do real estate? And then the second part of the question is what other kind of marketing did you do before you joined Platform? 

Tara Tice Fleming: Wow. Those are great questions, Max. I learned so much in timeshare. I learned a thing called the pregnant pause, which means that when you ask a question, don't be so quick to give an answer. When the person across the table is trying to find their answer, give them the time to answer. I learned about negotiation skills, how to handle different personality types, how to read personalities, how to mirror and match, if you will. I learned that I could be right or I could, and I don't like this word so forgive me, it sounds tacky, but the saying was, “You can be right or you can be rich.” I don't have to be right. I learned that I don't have to always prove to someone else that they're wrong, if that makes sense. There's a hundred ways to skin a cat. All of those skills that I learned under the leadership of the Big Cedar team are priceless to me and I still have all those connections today. 

Tara Tice Fleming: But before that, my degree is actually in marketing sales management. I went to Missouri State University in Springfield in Missouri and got a degree in marketing sales management. I started at the age of 16 in retail for a company called [Marisa's] and quickly advanced, became a district trainer, all those things, store manager, etc. All of that path, I feel, has been super beneficial to today, from staging homes, I mean, I did visual merchandising in retail for over a decade, to managing people and building teams in the hundreds in those retail stores. All of that has been super beneficial and I'm so grateful to some people that will maybe never hear this show but that have made huge impacts in my life like [Anne Lorenz] and [Tammy Misner] and [Kelly McCoskey-Corey], for example. 

Max Rymer: And then, prior to joining Platform, were you doing any marketing? Was it just mainly sphere-related and calling the leads or did you pay for anything prior to joining Platform from a marketing standpoint?

Tara Tice Fleming: Great question. Not really, no. We had done some postcards. We did write out our list of all of our sphere of influence and mailed them a postcard and let them know what we were doing. We did some just typical Facebook posts on our personal pages that, “Hey, we have an announcement.” It was funny because it was, “Hey, we have an announcement. No, we are not pregnant.” We had started real estate. 

Max Rymer: That'll get you attention. 

Tara Tice Fleming: Yeah, so we didn't. I have to this day never paid for a lead or bought leads or whatever that is that you can do. No, I'm lucky. I am so blessed to have found Platform first and I will never let it go. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah, it's funny because often when we ask that question, agents will say, “Oh, I've used Zillow or Realtor.com leads or Ylopo or Curaytor or BoomTown,” or they rattle off half a dozen different companies that they have used, and there's pros and cons to all of them. We don't wanna hop on here and just bash other companies, but often what people will say is like, “Platform is what I've been searching for my entire career, but I didn't know a company like you guys existed that does things the way that you do them.” You just lucked out and you found us early in your career before you had any bad experiences with other companies. 

Tim Chermak: One thing that you said that I wanna just circle back on is you had this sales experience from timeshares. I can completely see how that would make you a better real estate agent because, obviously, selling a timeshare requires a little bit of salesmanship. You have to have sales skill because you're trying to pressure someone in a good way. Pressure's not necessarily a bad thing, right? You have to pressure someone to make a decision that they don't wake up randomly someday thinking, “Hmm, I'm gonna buy a timeshare.” You put a lot of thought and research into it, but it requires a salesperson to get you to actually buy it. 

Tim Chermak: It's actually a lot easier as a real estate agent from that perspective because you're not trying to convince random people to buy or sell a house. You're just filling that demand of people already know, “Okay, I need to sell my house,” or they've already kind of emotionally decided, “I wanna buy a house this year. I want to buy a new house this year.” You're not necessarily convincing people that are happy where they're at that they should move, but when they do decide to move, whether it's listing or buying, all you have to do is convince them to work with you rather than working with some other agent. In a sense, the timeshare job is probably almost more difficult than your current job because you're not, again, convincing anyone who's perfectly happy in their home, “Hey, you should move.” Where with timeshare sales, you do have to kind of go on the offensive from a sales perspective. So, that makes sense. 

Tim Chermak: Again, you went from $5 million to $10 million then to $20 million. I wanna just underscore that by reminding people because, again, I don't know when you're listening to this episode. We're recording this at the end of 2024, but maybe someone's listening in 2025 or 2026. I have no idea at what moment in time someone might find this episode. Just a reminder, the real estate market has really sucked the last couple of years. 

Tim Chermak: From a real estate perspective, the years like 2022, for sure 2023, and definitely 2024 have been very, very difficult for realtors because transaction volume is down so much. Obviously, interest rates. At the moment we're recording this, interest rates are actually in the mid-7%. Home prices are still really high. Homes are more unaffordable than they've been in 40 years at this point relative to median American income, so it's a very difficult time to be a realtor. It's not only impressive that you've actually doubled your business two years in a row going from $5 million to $10 million and then from $10 million to $20 million in sales volume, it's that you did that in one of the most difficult markets for realtors in, literally Tara, in decades. That makes it even more impressive. 

Tim Chermak: Did you have any haters in your life early on or people that were just skeptical when you said, “Hey, I'm investing in this marketing program. Here's what it looks like or here's what it costs,” or whatever? Did you have any friends or family or maybe your broker or whatever, people telling you, “I don't think you should do that. Maybe you should take it slow for a while, maybe not get too overextended?” Were there people that doubted that this was gonna work for you or was it all just confidence and sunshine and rainbows from day one? 

Tara Tice Fleming: Definitely received pushback. My broker was one. He didn't push back hard, but he said, “That's a big, lofty investment when I really feel you should just focus on your sphere of influence.” I told myself from day one that I was going to commit to one year. And I think that's important maybe for someone who might be listening who’s new or who is thinking about joining Platform that you have to give it an opportunity to work. I did not see huge results in the first six months, but it was about between month seven and 12 that I started noticing, wow, this is way better than I ever imagined it could be. Now, today, it's so awesome and I try really hard to stay humble, you guys. I mean, you say all those nice things. I mean, thank you, but I just wanna go to work, keep my blinders on, and do a great job for my clients because they're the ones who really matter. If I've had any success, it's because of them, not because of me. 

Tara Tice Fleming: It's awesome because I'll go to Home Depot or to Walmart or even at the gas station the other day and somebody said, “You're that girl on Facebook,” or “I love your videos.” I went to the doctor's office last week to have some blood drawn and she said, “I love your videos so much. I watch every one of them that you put out.” I don't even know who she is. It's just incredible to see what has happened by staying focused and committed and consistent, and it took time. 

Tara Tice Fleming: So, I just wanna encourage someone who's maybe not there yet, you will be if you stay focused, committed, and consistent. But I will tell on myself because I think there's a lot of value and vulnerability and being real with people and Taylor has been by my side. My account manager, Taylor, has been by my side through all of this. August, I kind of just stopped doing what I've been doing and there was a lot of big changes in my life in August, personal changes. Tim, I hope it's okay that I'm just being real right now. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah, totally. 

Tara Tice Fleming: It was time to say goodbye to the man that I'd been with for 30 years at that point, and then five days later, my daughter moved off to college, my one and only child. In a five-day period, some major life changes happened. I remember hearing about a book at the Mastermind last year and it was called The ONE Thing by Gary Keller. I went and read that book and I don't know why it took me a second to figure out the one thing is, guess what? Doing my content and staying consistent and doing my listing videos. And so I told Taylor, “Bear with me. I just need about 30 days to get through this time and I will. I will get back to doing what I know is the one thing that I need to be doing.” I wanna encourage somebody who's maybe going through a tough time or having a crappy year or feeling down that all it takes is just being consistent. You asked earlier on how many ads are you doing and things like that. Is it okay to shift into that real quick? 

Tim Chermak: Absolutely. That was actually gonna be my next question, is on a weekly or monthly level, how many new ads are you putting out in the average month? 

Tara Tice Fleming: Absolutely. Let's forget August and September. Other than that, Taylor did share with me that I submit to her on average between eight and 10 pieces of content a month plus four to seven listing videos. I've been spending between $1,200 and $1,600 a month consistently on ads. That's it. And I'm gonna keep the main thing the main thing, and the main thing is to do my eight to 10 pieces per month that I want to do because I know it works in my listing videos. So speaking of this, I've got nine listings going in this week so I told Taylor, “You will have nine new videos for me this week.” 

For more of this episode, listen on Apple or Spotify Podcasts.