How To Convince Stubborn Sellers To Reduce The Price

Kate Garza: Within the first week, I got my first listing. Our median sales price here in Rockdale and Milam County is about $200,000. This one, actually, the listing is at $825,000, so it was very substantial for me. It's actually the biggest listing that I've had thus far. I've got three buyers that I'm working with pre-approved. We've already been showing and looking at some of the properties that we have here. I also got a renter. I typically don't work renters, so I was able to refer that one out to an agent on our team that does really well with those. So, yeah, $2.62 million to my pipeline just in two weeks. 

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 this morning by Kate Garza, who's in Rockdale, Texas. Kate, welcome to the show. 

Kate Garza: Good morning, how are you? 

Tim Chermak: We're pretty excited. I wanna start right with this win. It's one of those situations where it almost sounds too good to be true. I'm glad we're having you on podcast to talk about this because if I was just bragging about the results and talking about the results that you've seen with the Platform Marketing strategy, I think honestly, a lot of agents wouldn't believe me. They would think that I'm like making it up. 

Kate Garza: Yeah.

Tim Chermak: Just as a full disclaimer, we always tell people, when you sign up at Platform, give it six months to work. This is a long-term marketing strategy. It takes time to work. We're upfront about that. We don't wanna promise people unrealistic results in the first month or two or anything because most people who join Platform usually takes them six to, sometimes, even 12 months, like six to 12 months to see the full scope of the community brand building and how long it takes that to kick in. But every once in a while, we have someone who just kicks ass right out of the gate and gets results right away. Kate, you are one of those people. 

Tim Chermak: At the time of recording this, this actually sounds crazy coming out of my mouth, but you've only been a client for two weeks. You've only been running ads at Platform for two weeks. Kate, would you mind sharing the results you've had just in the first two weeks of joining the Platform Marketing program? 

Kate Garza: I was really pleasantly surprised. I've added over– the exact amount actually is $2.62 million to my pipeline and that does not include the leads that have been coming in from the lead forms on Facebook. I have been following up with them, but these are individuals that have called me directly. 

Kate Garza: Within the first week, I got my first listing. Our median sales price here in Rockdale and Milam County is about $200,000. This one, actually, the listing is at $825,000, so it was very substantial for me. It's actually the biggest listing that I've had thus far. I've got three buyers that I'm working with pre-approved. We've already been showing and looking at some of the properties that we have here. I also got a renter. I typically don't work renters, so I was able to refer that one out to an agent on our team that does really well with those. So, yeah, $2.62 million to my pipeline just in two weeks.

Tim Chermak: That's not even counting all the other leads that have come in that you're still following up with and seeing where they're at. That's just what you've confirmed so far is basically business actively in the pipeline. That's amazing. Okay, so Rockdale is a small town. You said it's about an hour from Austin, an hour from College Station. You're kind of in central Texas. I know it's a very small town. Had you done real estate marketing before? Were you running any paid advertisements or billboards or Facebook ads or Google? What was the business plan or what was the marketing plan before Platform? 

Kate Garza: I did everything by myself. I had some experience in social media marketing prior to becoming a real estate agent and I think that really helped me a lot. I had a schedule where, once a week, I would do a property video. These were vertical videos that I was doing reels of, less than a minute long, just a property tour. I was trying to showcase different businesses and I would try to do that one to two times a month at least. I did try actually doing some pay leads for just a couple of months and I heard that I was going to be the only one in that territory. I actually had a friend that was in my neighboring territory and when she joined doing the same thing, magically, all those leads went away. I only did that for a couple of months. 

Kate Garza: I really didn't pay for any marketing though. I had maybe tried once or twice to do some Facebook ads, but I had no idea what the heck I was doing. I also didn't have the time to really go over those analytics and see what was going on with that. That was very short-lived, but I never paid for any marketing before, aside from paying for my For Sale signs and things. That was it. I tried to get out into the community as much as possible and go from there.

Tim Chermak: That's actually how we met. I think we had a mutual friend who owns a bookstore, actually, in your community. He had just mentioned that, “Hey, there's this real estate agent that comes in here.” I had said, “Oh, cool, you should connect me,” because obviously, at Platform, what we do is we work with real estate agents. He told me, “Yeah, she's really active in the community. She's highlighted our bookstore.” I was like, “Oh, awesome. It sounds like she's already doing the Platform Marketing strategy unofficially, but she's trying to do it on her own,” and then we got connected. It was probably several months ago. 

Tim Chermak: I remember when we spoke on the phone and you were thinking, “Do I want to join this Platform thing or not?” Your biggest concern was, “Well, I've done it myself up until now and it seems to be working well. Do I really want to spend money on this when I've been doing it on my own?” I'm really glad that, in the first month, you've seen such a quick return on investment that you now know, okay, 100%, this is working.

Kate Garza: I want to tell you a funny story about that. Richard, I met him. They had just put a bookstore in town. Our small town is growing. There's a lot of economic development and their bookstore is kind of a gem in our town. I'm a big reader. My family, we love reading. Our kids love reading. I go into this store, it's a weekend, I wasn't planning on taking a video or anything. I walk in immediately and I'm like, “Oh my gosh, I have to share this with people.” 

Kate Garza: I just got to chatting with them. They were super sweet. Over time, we've developed a relationship. I know, you know, as well as other agents know, this is a business of relationships and networking, and so it was very natural for me. That is something that I do try to just do, are things that are natural. But Richard had reached out to me and he said, “Hey, I know this marketing company. It's a good friend of mine.” Their daughter had worked for you guys. He was wanting to know if he could put me in touch with you. He said that and I was like, well, I wasn't really excited about it, I'll be very honest with you. I'm a very honest person. When he said that, I was like, “Gosh, man, I really don't want to talk to another marketing company,” because as you well know, our phones are blowing up, our email inbox is full of people that have the best marketing tactics in the whole entire world. 

Kate Garza: Honestly, I spoke on the phone with you out of what I felt was kind of an obligation because they had been so kind. We had developed such a great relationship. I knew they were telling people about me. Even in the text that he sent introducing us, I was like, “My gosh, he speaks so eloquently about me and he really says all the things that I try to be in our community.” I was like, “Well, they do really nice things for me, so I'm just gonna kind of entertain you.”

Tim Chermak: “I'll just hop on this call as a favor to Richard, but I don't wanna be on this call.” 

Kate Garza: Exactly. I was very hesitant, though, because when I had spoken with you, I was already doing things in the community. I already had people recognizing me. When I went to the grocery store, so those things were already happening for me. In my mind, it was like, “Well, what are you gonna offer me that I'm not already doing?” 

Kate Garza: Every objection that I gave you, you were able to come back with– I also had concerns that I wasn't going to be able to maintain the level of authenticity that is super important to me. My values are important to me, integrity, and I did not want to get away from that with what I was doing. Every time I had something to say, you addressed that very, very well. 

Kate Garza: I got to a point, truthfully, where the timing was right with all of this because the last couple of years– I've only been licensed for two years. I'm on my third brokerage and that was within the first two years. I immediately had some things that I had to change up. I found my way pretty quickly in what was working for me and what wasn't. I had a son, premature, last year, so I took some time off. I really was at a point at the beginning of this year where I needed to buckle down. I needed to get a plan in place. 

Kate Garza: We have a ton of growth come into our area. It's kind of a slow burn, but we're seeing it happen. I was like, “I've got to do something that is going to boost me.” All the agents that are in our area have been selling real estate for a very, very long time. They're very, very well known. They work solely on referral business. I'm also not from here, side note. I needed to do something that would elevate me. 

Kate Garza: I already was. Like I said, I was doing that social media. I was doing those community videos. People knew about me, but I was getting to a point where organically, I felt like I had just reached that place where I wasn't gonna get any farther with it. I was hustling and working so hard. It was a turning point for me and the timing of Richard letting me know about you and everything, it really fell into place perfectly. I just had to jump in and try it and I'm so glad that I did.

Tim Chermak: Honestly, over the next six months to a year, Kate, you're probably going to become one of Platform’s biggest success stories of all time. Seeing that you've already had the results you've had in literally just the first two weeks– not just the first two months, but the first two weeks– you already have nearly $3 million in volume that you can attribute directly to these ads when rates are at 7%. Mortgage rates at the time we're recording this are at 7%. Imagine how much business is going to boom for you and how much more ROI you'll get from those marketing campaigns when rates go down to 6.5% and eventually 6% and then the upper 5%. 

Tim Chermak: Right now, what's happening is your ads are essentially reaching the whole community, but there's still a pretty significant percentage that loves your ads, wants to work with you, wants to buy or sell a house, but they just mathematically can't because rates are too high. When rates come down even a little bit, your business is gonna boom even more. 

Tim Chermak: If you brought in almost $3 million of volume from the first two weeks of these Platform Marketing campaigns, imagine what your business will look like six months from now when you've had six months of time to roll that snowball and interest rates are probably lower six months in the future. I mean, you're going to have an incredible rest of the year in 2024 going into 2025. What have been the early ads that you've done? Okay, obviously, whatever you're doing is working. What have been those first couple ads that you've launched just in these last couple weeks? 

Kate Garza: The one that I can tell you– because I'm a numbers geek, I want to know where things are coming from. One thing I can tell you is I did the Stop Sign ad where I was saying that I had buyers looking for certain properties and that one was really big. I actually got, the listing that I was mentioning before, that listing came from that ad. That individual told me that they had seen my videos and things like that before. In that listing appointment, they came in, they were already sold on me and everything and said, “I'm hiring you because of your online presence.” That one was huge. I got the other upcoming listings, two of those I can trace back to that one directly.

Kate Garza: I've done the one with the Spending Your Dollar Locally and that one was a big success too. The one I'm really excited about that I haven't done yet is Ducks in a Row. I had a creative idea with it of getting my baby involved in a little duck costume. It took me a little bit longer to get that one going, but I've put out one listing video as of today. Those are the two, I think, bigger ads that really had a huge impact, but I will also say I'm really excited to see how the listing video goes and how the Ducks in a Row and some of those other things come out. 

Kate Garza: I did a community post where it was– or ad, I'm sorry– where it was my family. We went to go get snow cones at this place that I've been taking the kids forever. My daughter's 17. When she was a little bitty baby, she was getting snow cones there. We were already out there doing a family weekend and we just took the picture. That one had some good success as well. Those are the main ones. I still actually have a few that I need to send over to Emily. 

Tim Chermak: I actually saw that ad, the one with the snow cones. It's ads like that that work so well when you consistently create content like that over time because those ads don't look like ads. When that pops up in the newsfeed and it's a picture of Kate and her family grabbing a dessert on a hot Texas day, nothing about that has anything to do with real estate. You're not mentioning new listings or what the market's doing or mortgage interest rates. None of it has anything to do with real estate. 

Tim Chermak: Immediately, what that does psychologically is it lowers people's guard. It's like, “Oh, okay, she's not just trying to sell me something,” or “It's not a sales-y pitch or something. It's just a picture of her and her family.” If they keep seeing photos like that over time of getting to know you, like what are your favorite restaurants, what's your favorite bookstore in the community, all these things, eventually, even if they've never met you, they sort of feel like they know you. They feel like, “Hey, when I sell a house, I'm gonna give Kate a call.” They're even using your first name the way that a friend would use it. “I'm gonna call Kate when it's time to sell a house.” 

Tim Chermak: Through this social media sequencing of these ads you’re putting out, they feel like they already know you. That's the ultimate win. That should be the purpose of any real estate agent's marketing plan is it's not necessarily about getting the most leads. It's about does your marketing help people emotionally feel like they're getting to know you. 

Tim Chermak: I would rather do that 10 times out of 10 than some other plan where I get 100 leads but no one knows who I am. If you have leads but no one knows who you are then those leads are no different than cold calling names out of the phone book if they don't actually emotionally, psychologically feel like they know who you are. 

Tim Chermak: Building a brand, I think, has gotten a bad rap over the last several years. When an advertising sales rep from the local newspaper or the local radio station or whatever pitches you on, “Hey, you gotta build a brand. It's the importance of getting your name out there and repetition,” they kind of have an ulterior motive. They have an agenda. 

Tim Chermak: Of course, they're gonna say that. If you become convinced that getting your name out there is important, well, then you should buy more and more radio ads or more and more newspaper ads. There's always that agenda of why they say that, but then, people understandably are hesitant to do that because it doesn't work. Putting a bunch of newspaper ads or radio ads or whatever, all these old school marketing channels, they really don't work relative to how much money you have to put into them. 

Tim Chermak: The principle, though, of building a brand has never stopped being true. That's always been true. It's just that I think the best way of doing that now in 2024 and beyond, maybe someone's listening to this podcast episode in 2025 or even 2026, the principle of getting your name out there and building a local brand is still true. I just think the best way of doing that is with social media ads, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. If you embrace that, your business is gonna grow. You mentioned Rockdale. Let's talk about your market a little bit. I mean, it's small. It's, what, 5,000 people in the town? What's the population of the whole county? Do you know? 

Kate Garza: Our population is around 25,000 for the entire county. It's just your typical small town Texas. We've got a lot of hard workers here, lots of small businesses. The market's been in a really interesting place the last couple of years. We recently, just over the last few months, transitioned from being in a seller's market to a buyer's market literally overnight. We currently have over 100 listings on the market, so there are definitely some challenges in the market. 

Kate Garza: With the relationship building, even though it's on social media for some of these people, I think that has definitely helped me get past some of those hard times that we're having with the market. I'm really excited about it just because it gives me an opportunity to meet more people and engage with them. Like you said, they already feel like they know me, so when we're having conversations, we're just chatting as friends. 

Tim Chermak: Especially when you have to have a difficult conversation, where maybe someone's home isn't worth what they thought it was worth, or if you're representing a buyer and you have to tell them, “Hey, you have a budget of $200,000, but what you're telling me you want all of your list of must haves. It's gonna cost you closer to $250,000,” and they're not prepared for that. They need to save more down payment. They need to be comfortable with a higher monthly payment because they thought what they could, whatever, buy with $200,000 is actually gonna take more. Obviously, if you're listening to this podcast episode and you're in a market where homes are $500,000, then the same dynamic is true if someone thought the $500,000 would get them X, but actually they need to invest $600,000 or $650,000 into a home. 

Tim Chermak: Lots of those conversations over the last year have been happening between clients and realtors where realtors have to be the bearer of bad news and give their client a dose of reality that, “Here's what you would need to pay to get what you think you want. Are you sure you want that? And are you willing to pay that?” That's not a fun conversation to have. To your point, Kate, that's where marketing helps. 

Tim Chermak: I think way too many people, and not just real estate agents, this is small business owners in general, they underestimate the impact that having great marketing has on the whole of the business. It's not just about lead generation. It's not just about bringing in new leads and new business. It's also about for all the leads you currently have and the people you're actively working with right now, if they respect you more because your ads position you as being a local expert, then those difficult conversations are less difficult because they're really viewing you with authority the way that someone might view their doctor if their doctor gives them bad news on an appointment or tells them something that they don't want to hear like, “You're overweight. You have high blood pressure. You need to eat less and exercise more.” That's an awkward conversation to have with someone, but if they really view you as an authority figure, the way that most people look up to a doctor, that conversation is less awkward. 

Tim Chermak: Most agents don't have any of that psychological advantage in their meetings with their clients because they don't really have any marketing that positions them as being the market expert like you do, so those conversations are gonna be easier in the future. I mean, even something like if you have a seller who is just unrealistic and they think it's still 2021 and they think their house is worth, whatever, $500,000 and actually now it's worth $425,000 and you have to talk them down. It's like, “Hey, we need to drop the price. This property is just simply not going to sell for $500,000. It needs to be closer to $400,000.” That's not a fun conversation to have. No one likes being told that you're worth $100,000 less than you thought you were yesterday. But if you have great marketing, that conversation is a little bit easier to have because they respect you more. 

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