How To Attract More Listings

Tanya Gilmore (00:00):
...what Platform is doing for my business, where people are noticing me, agents are clicking on the links. Other agents in my business are trying to figure out what I'm doing online. My colleagues are also trying to figure out the magic, which I love, because it means I'm doing something right. The fact that you guys only work with one agent per market area is so amazing because I know no one can really copy this. They might try, but they cannot get the results that I'm getting. Then the other thing is not only am I being asked to list properties, but when I go to listing appointments, I have the best listing presentation out there.

Tim Chermak (00:38):
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. Hey, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the Platform Marketing Show. I'm here this morning with Tanya Gilmore, who's a realtor in Ukiah, California. Tanya, welcome to the show.

Tanya Gilmore (01:25):
Thank you so much.

Tim Chermak (01:27):
Tanya has a really cool story, and I think her journey in implementing the Platform Marketing Strategy really gets to the core of why a lot of agents end up signing up for Platform. Because there's plenty of lead sources out there, right? The joke I always make is that if you're a real estate agent and you can fog a mirror, you can buy leads from dozens and dozens of different companies, right? But more leads isn't necessarily what agents want when they sign up for a marketing service, or they implement a new marketing strategy. What they want is to increase the quality of their business, right?

Tim Chermak (02:08):
Sometimes that means increasing your volume. Sometimes that means more deals, but in Tanya's case, as you'll learn here, her business has grown a little bit, but more importantly, the quality of the business has increased. The full year before Tanya joined the Platform Marketing Program, she was doing about $10 million, I think, in a volume. The year she signed up for Platform, her business grew to $12 million. It did grow a couple million, which is cool. That was last year, when she signed up. Tanya, you signed up in ...

Tanya Gilmore (02:44):
July.

Tim Chermak (02:45):
Was it July? You signed up about halfway through the year. Your business ended up growing a little bit, which is cool. This year, you're on pace to do around the same thing, again, probably somewhere in that $10, $12 million range. Just looking at the surface numbers, you might be like, "Oh, well, I started this new marketing thing and it doesn't seem to be making a big difference," but when you dive into it, what Tanya has learned over the last year is that Platform is helping her get a lot more listing business versus being so buyer heavy. Any agent listening to this knows how incredibly important it's been in the last couple years, not to only be working with buyers because it's just excruciatingly hard if all of your current prospects, or all of your current clients you're working with are buyers.

Tim Chermak (03:39):
Tanya has definitely noticed that implementing this Platform strategy has helped her attract more sellers in a very noticeable way. In your words, Tanya, what would you say the difference has been in the last year? Because you actually haven't yet been with Platform for a full year yet, and you may be one of the very first podcast episodes that we've done where it's actually not an agent who's been working with Platform for two years, or three years, or four years. You've actually been in the Platform program less than a year. I think it's 10 months right now. In the last 10 months since you signed up for Platform, what difference has it made in your business?

Tanya Gilmore (04:24):
Platform, I came off of just getting leads from Zillow, to be totally candid and honest. I wasn't enjoying the way that the leads were coming to me and how that business was operating. I knew I had a marketing budget that I wanted to spend. I was looking for this unicorn, right? How can I make these dollars really work for me and not just get online leads? Magically, I found Platform. The big difference really has been being top of mind in my community. I'm at the point now, at 10 months in, where I would say at least two to three times a week, when I go out in my community, I am getting recognized by the waiter at the restaurant, by the person in the grocery line.

Tanya Gilmore (05:14):
People are actually talking to me. They're approaching me and saying, "Hey, I see you all over my Facebook. I love that video you did of this." In my mind, as a realtor, we're a dime a dozen in a lot of communities where there's so many of us. It's hard as a consumer, or a buyer, or seller to differentiate who is the best in the business? Right? How do you pick your agent? One of the hardest challenges I find is just being top of mind. There's people in my personal sphere who might not immediately think of me when they think real estate, just because there's so many of us and they put me in a different basket, right?

Tim Chermak (05:52):
They probably know multiple agents. I think that's the thing that a lot of agents forget, is that you probably have friends, or family friends, or whatever, that know you're an agent. It's like, "Cool, congratulations." That doesn't mean they're going to work with you, because they probably know two or three other agents too. Right?

Tanya Gilmore (06:09):
Not only that, but I find some people know me in a certain way. Right? They may know me as the, like I'm thinking today, like the mom at the gymnastics class, right, when I take my daughter to gymnastics. That's a whole buyer or seller pool right there, but they might not think of me in a real estate way. But if they're seeing me every week on their social media and they are seeing me in a real estate category there, then they're understanding that's my career, that's my business. Honestly, I would tell you, Tim, that I can feel the energetics brewing and I can feel how much is coming to me. I have already got listings. I think I've already pulled three or four listings off of Platform just directly that said they saw me on social media. That alone is a major success for me with Platform, but I can feel what it's doing for my business, where people are noticing me, agents are clicking on the links, other agents in my business. They're trying to figure out, what is she doing on online?

Tanya Gilmore (07:06):
My colleagues are also trying to figure out the magic, which I love, because it means I'm doing something right. The fact that you guys only work with one agent per market area is so amazing, because I know no one can really copy this. They might try, but they cannot get the results that I'm getting. Then the other thing is not only am I being asked to list properties, but when I go to listing appointments, I have the best listing presentation out there because I have this intangible selling point of these listing videos that nobody else can do in my community. I live in a small community, right? Our town is 15,000, but our greater area is about 30,000. We are the county seat though, so people come here to shop. Our population grows during the business day, so it's amazing that I can go to that listing appointment and sell that. I would say probably three out of four of my listing appointments have already seen my videos online. They already know I'm on social media.

Tim Chermak (08:06):
Right. Right, exactly. That puts you in an incredible psychological position on a listing appointment.

Tanya Gilmore (08:13):
I was just going to say that.

Tim Chermak (08:15):
If the homeowner says something like, "Oh, we see you all over social media," it's basically implying, hey, if you're that good at marketing yourself, clearly you're going to be really good at marketing our listing. Right?

Tanya Gilmore (08:29):
I go into that listing appointment with so much more confidence than I did. That's another thing that I think it's given me, is this inherent confidence, because I know I'm a great agent. I know I have moral integrity. I know I'm one of the best in my area. I don't mean that in an arrogant way. I just know that I provide good service. Right? Great service. I take care of my people, but when I-

Tim Chermak (08:50):
Honestly, as you say that, this just calls up so many conversations I've had with agents over the years where they're frustrated because they're like, "Damn it. There are agents in my market that I know for a fact are terrible agents. They give terrible service. They honestly don't care about their clients, but they have such big time marketing that they get all the business, they get all the listings, but I actually know that for a fact they're terrible agents. They really don't care about their clients at all. They just view every client as a dollar sign, like a commission check." Yet, a lot of agents are out there that do work really hard, that do care about their clients. Yet, they're struggling and it's only because-

Tanya Gilmore (09:38):
Marketing.

Tim Chermak (09:40):
... they don't have the marketing dialed in.

Tanya Gilmore (09:41):
Top of mind, right? They're just not thought of.

Tim Chermak (09:45):
It almost becomes this quasi moral issue where if you believe that you are a better agent than other agents out there that are spending a lot of money on marketing and they're getting the deals, you almost, in a weird sense, have some moral obligation in the Spider-Man way of with great power comes great responsibility, right? If you think you're a good agent, but bad agents are getting all the business, you should invest in marketing so that people get to work with you if you actually think you're better. Right? Because that's a very common narrative, a common story that I've just heard from so many agents is like, "I was so frustrated, because I knew I was better than these other agents. Yet, they were getting all the business. Some of these guys are just assholes and they're getting all the business because they have a huge advertising budget."

Tanya Gilmore (10:39):
Yes, absolutely. We fall into that sales category where we're just sleazy sales people as a ... People go out there, that's the cliche that they think of agents. When I can provide a service that changes that whole perception of what an agent does, really that's the work that's gratifying to me, is that there are a lot of sleazy sales agents, realtors, out there, but I'm not one of them. My job is to find out what's the best, what my client needs. Right? Timing, motivation. Of course, money is always a player in that as well, but how can I take care of them? Then my goal is to always boil that down when we're going through the stress of a transaction and all of the things that come, and being like, "How can I take care of these people in their original motivation here? Why are they selling? Why are they buying?"

Tanya Gilmore (11:25):
Just being able to walk into the listing appointment with that much confidence that I'm bringing something in my listing presentation that no one else is bringing that I'm competing with, gives me the inherent confidence that I walk in there without my voice shaking. I walk in there without that energetic nervousness that people can pick up on. Right? I lose that fear that I'm not as good as other agents, because I know I'm one of the best, if not the best, that's interviewing there. I walk into that appointment with, in my mind, I've already got this listing, right? Because I'm going to take care of these people, I'm going to do a good job, I'm going to do a great job, and I have something to offer them with marketing that no one else can offer them. That has been the intangible game changer for me, and I love it. It's so nice to feel like you have everything that it takes to take care of your people. Right? That would be amazing for me.

Tim Chermak (12:18):
I often use that. I often use that same psychology on the phone if I'm having actually a sales call with an agent who's considering signing up for Platform, is I'll just simply ask the question like, "Hey, have you seen some of our retargeting ads? Have you seen us on Facebook?" They're like, "Oh, yeah. I'm constantly seeing posts about Platform Marketing." I'm like, "Cool. Did I cold call you?" They're like, "No, I reached out to you." I'm like, "Right, so that's what has us on the phone, is this marketing strategy working on you."

Tanya Gilmore (12:51):
I love that.

Tim Chermak (12:52):
"We are going to replicate that for you and your market, so that homeowners in your area reach out to you," because it just completely changes the dynamic of ... You said even when you're on a listing appointment, it changes the energy in the room.

Tanya Gilmore (13:05):
Yes.

Tim Chermak (13:06):
If the reason you're there is because they've already been seeing you, you're already positioned as a marketing expert the moment you walk in. You don't have to prove to them that you're good at marketing. They already know that. It completely changes the conversation. I know we spoke last week and you said that, "I think every day this last week someone has recognized me out in public." Could you walk us through what a couple of those situations were and what happened, where people are actually stopping you in public, strangers in some instances, and they're like, "Hey, I know you."

Tanya Gilmore (13:43):
Well, first and foremost, I had two listing appointments last week. When I got to my listing presentation slide where I talk about Platform, they were like, "You on the swing," because I have a listing video where I'm on a swing at the beginning, or, "You doing this." They're like, "We already saw it." I'm like, "Yes." In that environment, that's how that happened, but then out and about, I was in the grocery store line and the lady behind me said, "I've seen you, I've seen you everywhere. I love that video you did. I saw you on Facebook." I said, "Oh, that's so awesome. I love it. I'm glad that you're seeing me on there. That's great." Sometimes they want to pick up a conversation about real estate, but most of the time they just are connecting the dots and like, "I've seen you. That's so cool."

Tanya Gilmore (14:25):
The other place was just at a restaurant. I was sitting down with my family and my server came up to me, and he couldn't even say hello. He was like, "Tanya Gilmore. You're everywhere on my Facebook. You're just following me around." I was like, "Yes, this is great." I love it because the beauty of it is the hardest part about real estate is to bridge that gap where you're able to build trust and rapport with your people that aren't your people yet. Right? I know in my heart and in my mind that I'm going to take care of them and that they can trust me, but they don't know that yet, so how do we bridge that gap to build some trust and rapport with these people when they feel like-

Tim Chermak (14:59):
Right, because these people don't know you, to be clear. When you said that you were at the grocery store, or you were at the restaurant and the waiter is like, "Tanya Gilmore," these are not friends of friends, or family.

Tanya Gilmore (15:10):
Never seen them in my life.

Tim Chermak (15:13):
These people, complete strangers, are recognizing you.

Tanya Gilmore (15:14):
Yes, total strangers and feeling comfortable enough, this is what I'm talking about, the rapport, they've seen me so much that they feel comfortable enough to come up to me in a totally public setting and say, "Hey, Tanya," and knew my name, recognized my face, even though maybe I wasn't in business clothes, recognized me, and felt comfortable enough to come and talk to me. That's the gap right there. That's that trust that I've already built with these people, because they feel like they know me. That's very hard to replicate in real estate, because people are inherently not going to trust you because they feel like you're trying to sell them. Right? To be able to build that before I even meet these people is invaluable. It's gold.

Tim Chermak (15:55):
What are some of your favorite ads, Tanya, that you've run in the last 10 months since you signed up with Platform? If you could narrow it down to maybe two or three specifics, what are your favorite ads that you've run?

Tanya Gilmore (16:07):
It's funny, because my account manager, Carly, it took me forever to get her this ad. It was so easy. It was the shopping cart ad, which I love, love it. It was so hard for me to get to the grocery store and get a picture of it. I don't know why, it just took me way too long. I love that one though. I just love the message. I think that I love that it has nothing to do with real estate. I found what I love about Platform is that you give us so much content that we can pick from that I really can curtail it to what feels right to me. In the beginning, I was like, "Oh, that one doesn't feel like my brand." Right? Carly's like, "Great, don't worry about it. Pick ones that resonate with you." That's what I love about it, is there's so much to go pick from that I can actually pick what feels right. When I post it, people feel like it's coming right from me because I actually also feel that way about what I'm posting.

Tim Chermak (16:57):
You're always able to customize it, so that it is relevant to you, whether it's including a picture of you and your family. I know that you've recently added to your family in the last year. Why don't you tell us about that and how that's impacted the business?

Tanya Gilmore (17:15):
I welcomed my son. He's six weeks old this week.

Tim Chermak (17:19):
Congratulations.

Tanya Gilmore (17:20):
We also have a daughter, who will be four next month. How does it impact my business? Well, it's just this constant balancing act of being a very present mother and not losing traction in my business. I've worked eight years to have my phone ring and to be a successful business person. I don't want to sacrifice that, but I also don't want to sacrifice this beautiful time with my family. Right? What I realized is that when your business is this busy, you find ways to get support in your business so that you can continue to grow without losing momentum and still be present with the things that matter, like being there for my son and my whole family. Right now, we are actually ... We, I say, because I have a supporting team going on.

Tanya Gilmore (18:07):
I have a colleague I'm working with, we co-list things at times. We just have each other's back, as far as being a foot soldier out there for me helping me out in the field, so I can work from home for this beginning period while he's a newborn. Then we've just hired on an admin person to start just filling those cracks in the business, so we don't lose leads. One of the main things she's going to do is follow up on Platform with our leads coming in, because that's something that so easily falls through their cracks and it's just so many deals that could be happening for us. Those are things that are changing right now, is just building a support system for me so I can continue to grow with my business.

Tim Chermak (18:47):
I think it's really cool that in this season of your life that you're in, where you just welcomed a newborn, and your business isn't shrinking. Right? Because, I mean, let's just be honest, it would be totally natural for you to be a mom again, you have a newborn at home. Then it's like, "Well, I can't really work as hard in real estate," obviously, because you're staying at home a lot. Your business might shrink from $12 million down to $9, or $8, or $7, or $6, or something like that. That would be totally understandable. No one would judge you for that because that would just be completely understandable. Right?

Tim Chermak (19:32):
Yet, because you have these marketing systems firing, and it's not just the campaigns that are going, because that's the point I'm trying to make, is just getting a bunch of clicks and leads doesn't necessarily solve that time problem, because if you're just getting a bunch of first time home buyer leads, that actually makes things worse. Right? Because it's really hard to work with first time home buyers right now. What's so cool about your story is that the marketing has really shifted your business more towards listings and getting to work with sellers. Obviously, for all the agents listening to this, when they hear that your business has shifted to working with sellers, what that means is you can leverage your time a lot more.

Tim Chermak (20:13):
You can actually work a little bit less in the business and less hours per week, but still create the same volume because you're not spending hours and hours and hours driving buyers around to showings only to get into a situation where there's 25 offers and you're crossing your fingers, hoping that yours comes out on top. Right? That's really cool to me, that the marketing has generated those listings and started to shift your business more towards working with sellers. I mean, it's a way more sustainable use of your time. Frankly, that's exactly what Platform is designed to do, right, is to give you that level brand.

Tanya Gilmore (20:51):
We all know as agents that the creme de la creme is being an exclusive listing agent. You know the agents that have been in the business for 30 years who have that pedigree and that reputation, they just get listing appointments by being known, right, being top of mind, being a known agent. Those people are not working with buyers. From eight years in to finally ... Before this, it was probably half and half. I would do half buyers, half sellers. I had this intention I set for myself that I want to transition into being a listing agent. That means getting more listing appointments and interviewing for more listings, and then being the best at interviews.

Tanya Gilmore (21:31):
I think one of the hardest parts is just getting in for that interview because you might be the best, but you might not get in front of that seller because there's so many people to choose from. This has changed that for me. Now I'm getting called and I don't even have to ... It's so beautiful. Any agent knows, that's worked really hard to get their phone to ring, that when someone messages you at 8:00 at night on Facebook like, "Hey, I want to sell my house and I have to move in a month." You worked so hard to get that call, or that message, and to have it happening now on a regular basis, it makes you love your job again. You know what I mean? You don't have to work so hard for the business to come.

Tim Chermak (22:08):
Being good at something is not the same thing as being known for being good at something.

Tanya Gilmore (22:17):
That's a great point.

Tim Chermak (22:17):
That's the important truth that agents need to realize, is you might actually be a great agent, but if you're not known in your community as being a great agent, it does not matter at all. Marketing is every bit as important as the reality itself that you're marketing, because you might actually be the greatest listing agent in the world, and you're a genius at marketing your listings and negotiating and pricing and all of this, but if your marketing isn't as good as you are, it doesn't matter. It's cool seeing you hit that stride, where you obviously have been a great agent all these years, you've been working to build your brand for eight years, and now you're pouring fuel on that fire of your local brand, and you're getting more inbound messages, phone calls, et cetera. That's really cool.

Tanya Gilmore (23:02):
Tim, you say marketing because that's your whole world, right? Marketing, for you, it's like a realtor has to have good marketing to be known as a good agent, like you just said, to summarize that. You're absolutely right, but in the real estate world, we have no clue how to do proper marketing. We don't. That's not our forte, how to properly ... All of the ways that people market is antiquated. They're sending out postcards. They're posting videos on social media that get a hundred views, maybe, and one like. Our community of agents, this is not our area of expertise. Bringing in the experts, it's like hiring a professional photographer to take pictures of the listing.

Tanya Gilmore (23:46):
Why would I go in there with my cell phone and take pictures when I want the home to be shown in its best light, right? Why would I go out there and try and market myself on social media when I don't know how to do it properly? It's going to use way too much of my time that I consider very valuable when I could be working with someone or people, like Platform, who can take care of that for me and do it correct as experts. That's where I'm like, "Outsource when you need to," and that's what I've done. I'm so grateful and I'm happy. I'm happy I found you guys.

Tim Chermak (24:20):
Well, I want to change the topic just a little bit and talk about some of your real estate investments, because I know that you've been investing in buying some commercial properties, yourself, some investment properties, in the last couple years to build that long term equity for your future, so you don't have to work as a real estate agent selling homes until you're 85 years old. Right?

Tanya Gilmore (24:43):
Right.

Tim Chermak (24:43):
What does that look like? What inspired you to get into that, and what does your real estate portfolio look like right now?

Tanya Gilmore (24:52):
First and foremost, I would say that obviously we know the cliche or the quotes out there that money doesn't bring happiness, but what I know for money is that when you have a certain amount of money and a vision of what you want your life to be like, money creates freedom and opportunity. For me, freedom is being able to live my life the way I want to live it. What I'm working on doing, like you said, is acquiring enough investments where I have enough passive income to be able to not work in my business as much in real estate, but work on my business, which means I have buyers, agents under me. I have admin support. I'm still taking listings, but I have a lot of support going on. Then eventually, if I have enough income passively, that I could step out and be less busy transactionally if I wanted to.

Tanya Gilmore (25:42):
My inspiration came from, honestly, my manager. He's our managing broker, his name's Todd. He has a lot of commercial investments, and so I always pick his brain. That's what I want to tell people, is go find someone that's a lot smarter at you at things you want to be smart at, or do well at, and go pick their brain. Don't be scared to ask them questions and be the rookie, or the novice, and learn. Go learn from people who you want to be like, or who is more successful than you. That's what I've been doing. I go, and it started with Todd, and I would just annoy him at all hours, asking him probably stupid questions to him. It's been going on like this for six years. I call him all the time still and it grew from there. Now I outsource on social media. I look on TikTok, I look on Instagram, I read books and learned what I wanted to do.

Tanya Gilmore (26:34):
It started out with the basic getting into an investment. I bought a duplex, held one side of it for the year that it requires you to hold it, rented the other side, and then eventually rented both sides. Now, so when I bought that people thought I was crazy, because it didn't make any money. What people don't understand is this is not a short term game. This is not an instant gratification, get rich quick thing. This is the long term game, right? If I'm buying a duplex that is paying for itself with the rents, it's paying its own mortgage, that is an amazing investment in my mind. Now, I'm in California, right? It's hard to make money right out the gate with investments, but if I'm buying an asset, as long as I take care of this asset, it's going to pay for itself and eventually be paid off. Not only at that point will I have rental income, but I also have this equity asset sitting there.

Tanya Gilmore (27:24):
What was cool about it though is after I bought it, COVID happen and I was able to refinance it. Now it makes about $1,000 a month. Basically, it still just pays for itself. That extra money just goes towards ... When someone moves out, I'll remodel that side, right? I'll have money sitting there sure that it's made to do that. I don't ever pay out of pocket for that place. It's amazing. It just sits there and takes care of itself. The next one that I found was a client of mine. This is another beautiful thing about being in real estate is you find, if you have an ear for it, opportunities to buy off-market properties. This amazing client of mine, had done a few deals with her, she had this apartment house. It's on the west side of Ukiah, which is the nicest neighborhood in town. It's a lot of the older homes. We'll see craftsmen and styles like that. It's where people want to be if they're in town.

Tanya Gilmore (28:16):
I said, "If you ever sell that building, please come talk to me. I'm in love with this building." It's seven units and it was built in the 1940s. It's just a beautiful property. She's like, "I will never sell that. I'm going to give that to my kids. I'm not selling it." I was like, "Okay." Eventually, something happened in her life that created motivation to sell, and she did come to me, which was amazing. I had the opportunity to buy it. The beautiful thing about this investment is that it was severely under-rented, meaning that the rents were extremely low. Now inherently, someone might say, "That's not a good investment because the rents are so low. Why would I buy that? It's not going to make money." Well, what I saw it as is when you calculate value on a commercial building, right, more than four units, you calculate the value by how much money the property makes.

Tanya Gilmore (29:09):
I was able to buy it much cheaper than the market value because the rents were so low, so that was really cool. I also got into that with it not making any money, it broke even, which was fine. This was a couple years ago. Since then, we put a bunch of money into it. The cool part about it is as tenants have left, I have remodeled each unit and furnished it. Now I've transitioned over into short term housing. It's in between vacation rentals and long term. It's people who are contracted here to work, like traveling nurses, or PG&E workers, things like that. They pay a premium to have a furnished, utilities paid apartment. I'm making twice the amount of money on these units than I would in long term housing.

Tim Chermak (29:57):
That's awesome.

Tanya Gilmore (29:59):
It's been a game changer, and now I'm on track for that unit or that building itself in the next couple years has the potential, if I follow my plan, to make over $100,000 passively just on that one building. That was a huge opportunity I'm super grateful for. The next part about it though, is that once you have assets, you can leverage them to buy more assets, like buy more investments. Right? Once this building is making a ton of money, I'm going to pull money out of it for my next down payment to buy my next property. That's how I'm going to continue to build my portfolio.

Tim Chermak (30:34):
Just keep rolling the snowball.

Tanya Gilmore (30:35):
That's the story so far, and I'm in the thick of it. I actually am going to be hanging curtain rods there later today and getting that one finished up, but I already have a tenant lined up for the next one. I'm super happy. It's fun for me too. I like it. I enjoy it.

Tim Chermak (30:48):
That's awesome. That's awesome. Basically, you're making money as an agent reinvesting that profit in actually buying real estate and building equity for your future. You're winning on both sides of the game. That's awesome. As you look back, again, you've only been in Platform for 10 months, but you attended a Mastermind in December. That would've been when you had really only worked with Platform for four or five months at that point. What were your big takeaways, or what was your experience like at the Platform Mastermind?

Tanya Gilmore (31:24):
Mastermind, to me, it's really, really important that you make time to go to that. If you're going to be fully involved, you need to go. If you're going to invest the amount of money into marketing, into Platform, you need to take the opportunity to go and be in that energy 100% with like-minded people who are doing the same thing that you're doing with the powers that be, with Tim, with everyone. Immerse yourself in that, because that's what gives you that energy and motivation to continue to produce content, to get excited about it. But beyond that, I was amazed by how many amazing speakers you guys had there. It was totally free to me, which I was very grateful for.

Tanya Gilmore (32:08):
There were things that were not directly real estate related, but things that as an agent I would find valuable or interesting. I felt like every single speaker was valuable to me in its own way. My whole notebook was full of notes. Also, just to be around the same energy with other agents across the country who are doing the same thing, maybe have the same pain points as me, have similar successes than me. Then there's the people that have been wildly successful with Platform who inspire you. I think it's super important. There wasn't anything I didn't like about it. I think that if you're going to spend the money, you need to turn up the volume and go full bore with it. Otherwise, what's the point?

Tim Chermak (32:49):
I'm going to end this episode, Tanya, by asking you a question and I'll give you a second to think about it. You don't have to give an answer right away, but in one sentence, what is the most valuable part of the Platform Marketing Strategy to you, and if you could distill it down to just one sentence?

Tanya Gilmore (33:18):
I think it's the combination of being able to be top of mind, or present, with buyers and sellers, as well as building that rapport with them before I ever met them. Those were the two pain points that were so hard for me to master before that are now just a breeze.

Tim Chermak (33:40):
Really, it's turned people that were cold leads into somewhat more of warm leads, or even cold leads feel like a sphere?

Tanya Gilmore (33:48):
100%, and the confidence that gives me behind that. Because really that's what matters, is people can feel when you're not confident in yourself, right, energetically? If you're insecure or you're not sure, you walk in the room and you just ooze that. That has changed the game for me. It wasn't that I wasn't a great agent, but I might have not communicated that in every environment. Everywhere I walk now, I know that I'm ... It just has given me a boost of confidence that's helped me sell more and take care of more people, which is what I want to do.

Tim Chermak (34:18):
Well, I think this is a really encouraging, inspiring story, both hearing you building your real estate empire personally with these investments, but also how Platform has qualitatively shifted the structure of your business, where now you're working with more listings versus as many buyers and how that's freed up your time as well. Tanya, it's super cool to see how your business is growing. Thank you for taking some time to be interviewed on the Platform show. I'm sure this episode will be really encouraging and inspiring for everyone. Guys, we'll see you next time on the Platform Marketing Show.

Tanya Gilmore (34:54):
Thanks, Tim.