How To Convince Your Husband To Invest More In Marketing

Jamie Crouch:
About $500,000 away from the gross production I had last year. So as far as total volume, I mean, we're in April and I'm one or two sales away from being at the production for all of 2021. So it's just snowballing really quickly and I wasn't even prepared for it. It's funny because January 1st, it just exploded and I've been crazy, crazy busy. Actually this year I've already hired three agents to work under me and my brokerage just to help share some of the load and get some leads out to them because I can't even begin to handle all of them. There's just so, so many.

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 Shermack, 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. Welcome back to another episode of The Platform Marketing Show. My name is Tim Shermack and today I am joined by Jamie Crouch in Northwest Arkansas. Jamie, welcome to the show.

Jamie Crouch:
Hey, thanks for having me.

Tim Chermak:
So this is going to be a really cool episode because Jamie has an awesome story of she's actually been licensed as an agent for nearly 20 years, but she has moved around multiple times. So she has gone through the experience, not just once or twice, but actually three times of moving to a new area and having to start over from scratch. I mean basically completely abandoning all of the advantages of having a sphere of influence and that local brand, local reputation. Jamie has a really cool before and after story with the Platform strategy. I know that when she moved to a new town the year before Platform, her GCI was $35,000. So barely doing just a couple of transactions that year.

Tim Chermak:
And now she's probably on pace to finish somewhere around 250,000 in GCI. And that was less than, I mean, basically a year and a half ago you signed up for Platform. So it's added, by the end of the year it'll probably be $200,000 to your GCI and again, in a brand new town that you don't really know anyone in. So it's not like you're harvesting a bunch of old friends and family or past clients or anything like that. It's really helped you build your business from scratch. So before we talk about that let's go back in time. You got licensed in 2005.

Jamie Crouch:
Yeah.

Tim Chermak:
So how did you get into real estate? I know you were telling me before that, "Oh no, I've been in real estate since high school." And I was like, "Wait, what?"

Jamie Crouch:
Yeah. Well, so my mom is a real estate broker, so I grew up around investing and she was in the industry. So she got licensed when I was in high school. I helped her as an assistant and when I went off to college, so I grew up in Colorado and then I moved to Springfield, Missouri for college, which is crazy, everybody wonders why I went there. Well, it was not living at home with my parents. So that's the easy answer.

Tim Chermak:
Okay. So where in Springfield did you go to school?

Jamie Crouch:
Missouri State.

Tim Chermak:
Missouri State. Okay, cool. My wife's family is all from the Springfield area, so cool.

Jamie Crouch:
Okay. Yeah. So you probably know it well.

Tim Chermak:
Yep.

Jamie Crouch:
Yeah. I went to Missouri, my parents had randomly bought some fourplexes down in Nixa, before I even moved and they had a terrible property manager. That was a big-

Tim Chermak:
I'm one of the very few people who know where Nixa, Missouri is. And it actually it's pronounced Nixa, Missouri, because that's in the part of the country where they call it Missouri.

Jamie Crouch:
Right. It is, yes. I haven't quite adopted the Southern twang there and it's in the Bourne movies actually, they mentioned Nixa, is where he's from. So just claim to fame there. But anyway, so my mom was like, "They're doing a terrible job managing these." And I was 19 and she goes, "Do you want to manage them? You can't do how any worse." So I'm a young, intelligent kid, I'm like, "Sure. Let's do it."

Tim Chermak:
A huge vote of confidence. "There's no way you could do any worse. Why don't you?"

Jamie Crouch:
No, it's that young teenager, the world is your oyster. I didn't even know how to balance a checkbook and I'm managing properties. So I got thrown into it. My sister had moved down there too. So we did it together. We got licensed together, but we were in the industry before helping them continue to acquire their portfolio and buy more properties as their boots on the ground. So then we got licensed, did my brokerage there for a few years. And then my husband got transferred to Tulsa in 2010. So I started all over in Tulsa, I did take a few years off with my kiddos, they were pretty young at that point and then reopened my brokerage a few years later and did okay there, worked the sphere of influence-

Tim Chermak:
How old are your kids now?

Jamie Crouch:
So my youngest is 8 and my oldest is 14.

Tim Chermak:
Okay. Okay.

Jamie Crouch:
And I have three of them, so they keep me pretty busy as well. But anyway, so when we moved to Tulsa, I opened back up, I did what you normally do when you know people and worked my sphere of influence, met people at church and they would hire me and just did the standard, what you do when you're a new agent, what all the big brokers tell you to do. But then my husband had an opportunity that was too good to pass up, moving to Northwest Arkansas. And so we moved in 2019 and I kept my brokerage in Tulsa for a little while. So it kept me pretty busy for 2019 and then January came, of 2020, right before everything happened and we still didn't really know anybody here. We hadn't gotten plugged in and I have a marketing degree, so I understand marketing and I tried to do it on my own.

Jamie Crouch:
I did Facebook and did some ads. And if you pay enough, it gets in front of people, but I didn't have time to run split tests and do all the things that you guys do so well. And so I had ran across a post in one of the realtor mastermind groups. Karen had posted on there about Platform, when people were talking about leads and I'd never paid for leads. I didn't want to pay for Zillow or Realtor or anything like that. So I called Platform up and said, "What is this platform? Explain to me what it is, because-"

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. It's like, "How is this-"

Jamie Crouch:
Really-

Tim Chermak:
"How is this different from Zillow? Or how is this different from realtor.com?"

Jamie Crouch:
What's it look like for lead gen? And I remember Mitch saying, "It's not lead gen, we're not selling leads. We're a boutique marketing agency." Which struck me to the core because nobody says that, they all sell leads and this is your ROI and this is what you can expect and he didn't present it that way. So it immediately made me start thinking.

Tim Chermak:
Yep. Now when I'm doing like a sales call with the new agent, who's thinking about signing up for Platform. Usually one of the first things I say is that unlike all these other companies, whether it's BoomTown, Commissions Inc, Ylopo, Curaytor, they're all more or less the same. Those are all website companies really. They call themselves marketing companies, but really they're just IDX website companies that usually they have a super cool CRM too. But when you're paying them 1,000 bucks a month, 2,000 bucks a month, you're not really getting marketing, you're getting a cool website and a CRM. But if every other agent in your area has the same website and CRM, that's not really marketing because marketing is supposed to be what makes you different from other agents in your market, it's supposed to be what actually makes you stand out.

Tim Chermak:
So usually how I describe Platform is in one sentence, "we're a marketing agency that just happens to specialize in working with realtors." And it's a no duh, but I have to create that distinction between all those other companies I rattled off again, like Ylopo, Curaytor, all those. They call themselves marketing companies, but they're really software companies, they're website companies and there's a difference. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, the world needs website companies and CRM companies. There's nothing wrong with that. But when agents start to view that as marketing, it's like, "Well, that's not really marketing, if everyone has the same website as you." Marketing should actually be what builds a brand for you so consumers remember you versus other agents. So anyway, sorry I interrupted you. You were saying that you-

Jamie Crouch:
No, but it's an important distinction because a lot of, especially newer realtors, don't understand the difference. And there's that old saying to make money in real estate, sell things to real estate agents and it's so true. I mean, I get calls all day long from Zillow and Realtor and I can't even name all. I mean, I hang up before they even tell me what they are, because none of it works, it's expensive and everybody tries it, but Platform's not that way. And something else about Platform that stuck out is it wasn't you calling me, I had to call you. You're not out there just farming and calling a bunch of agents. It's more word of mouth, which means a lot more too. It's not just being another number on the roster to work on volume. So it's cool that your company is small and that you want to keep it that way and keep that intimate feel. So it is more of a one-on-one partnership, not just buying leads from somewhere.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. And so was it late 2020 when you had that-

Jamie Crouch:
October 2020.

Tim Chermak:
Yep. Okay. So October 2020, you had a phone call with Mitch. How did that phone call go?

Jamie Crouch:
Well, so he explained the program and he told me the price and my jaw dropped, because remember I've never paid for marketing before, I never paid for lead gen or anything. I was like, "Wow, that's that's a lot." But I didn't want to have to pound the pavement like I had every other time I started a brokerage. I didn't want to have to go out and meet all the people and join all the networking groups and have that ground game. I just wanted to hit the ground running. And I remember thinking, "I love real estate and I'm really good at it and I love marketing, but I can't do both well." Sometimes you have to stick to what you can do well and hire the rest out. And so that's what pushed me over the edge to say yes. And that night I talked to my husband because it's a big decision for our family, it's a lot of money coming out of our pocket.

Tim Chermak:
And he was totally supportive and is like, "Yes, let's do this. Let's spend a lot of money." He was all about it. He couldn't wait to sign up. Right, right?

Jamie Crouch:
No, no. He is very cautious and he is very risk adverse. And so he said, "I don't think it's a good idea. That's a lot of money coming out of our budget every month. So if you really feel like you have to, do what you think you have to do, but I don't know that I support this." And I said, "Well it's like a six month trial, so let's see how it goes, because it takes time to get rolling and either it works or doesn't and if it doesn't then it's not..." I mean it's a lot of money, but it's not really in the grand scheme of things, but if it does work, what if? So he gave me his limited approval, I guess, is what I should say. And so I signed up and I did have a lender partner pretty early on that was also new.

Jamie Crouch:
And she stuck it out for about a month and a half before she's like, "It's just too much. We can't afford it." So then I had to take on that whole burden myself of all of the ad spend and everything. But it was funny because my husband, Chad, he's also new here and so he was in a new position and one of his coworkers that I have never met, since we hadn't been here that long, came up to him about a month after I joined and she's like, "Hey, your wife's that real estate lady, right?" And he's like, "What?" She's like, "Yeah. I saw her video at the coffee shop. I loved it." And so he came home and told me, he's like, "Jamie, all these people at work are asking me about you." And so he became a believer in it pretty early on, within a few months. He's like, "Okay, it's working. Just keep doing it if that's what you feel like you need to do." And so he turned that frown upside down pretty quickly, I'd say.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. And you're in Northwest Arkansas, so basically Bentonville, I forget all the other cities, suburbs [inaudible 00:13:22]. Yep. So that's a growing area, but I guess the point I'm making is that it's not a small town. It's not like some tiny town where it's so small that it's not even a big deal that your husband's coworkers saw that video and recognized you and that they've been seeing you multiple times on social media. It's not some tiny town with 4,000 people where it's like, "Well, everybody knows everybody. So of course they saw her video." That's pretty cool that within a month or two, that you were getting real world feedback that people were telling you or your husband, "Yeah, your wife's that real estate agent."

Tim Chermak:
I mean, that probably felt pretty good even though you're only a couple months in and I mean people listening to this in the future may forget that you signed up, was it, you said October 2020? Okay. So October 2020 is in the middle of COVID craziness, when lockdowns are everywhere, the world is collectively going insane, no one knows what to do, the real estate market was starting to become really crazy. So you made that decision with a lot of courage to sign up then. And so what happened to your business in that next year? How did business go in 2021 versus 2020 when you first signed up for Platform toward the end of the year in 2020, in October?

Jamie Crouch:
Yeah. So I really only had a couple deals in 2020 here in Arkansas. And that was before I signed up with Platform, but really by the time we got going, it wasn't really October anymore, it was really more like November.

Tim Chermak:
Sure, sure.

Jamie Crouch:
And so I just hit the ground running with videos and making sure I was getting out there and doing ad content and trying to film as much as I could. 2021 was one of my best years ever, so last year I grossed 135 ish, 130, 135. So that's a pretty big increase for not really knowing anybody in the area, being again a new name in town. And I'm an independent broker, I have a small boutique agency. So I didn't come in with Caldwell Banker or Keller Williams behind me with this brand recognition. It was just me for this company nobody had ever heard of and a new person in town that nobody had really ever heard of.

Tim Chermak:
So really in your first year with Platform, your business grew by $100,000.

Jamie Crouch:
Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Chermak:
Again, in a brand new town that you didn't have a sphere of influence and that's to me the most important thing, because if you were in a town that, I don't know, that you had lived in your whole life or something and you sign up for Platform and the next year your income grows by $100,000, there's going to be some doubters out there, that are like, "Well, you don't know how much her business would've grown even had she never tried the Platform strategy because maybe that was just the year that she had a bunch of referrals from her sphere or that she maybe had some past clients ready to sell their house or move up or whatever." But you had moved to a town where you didn't know anyone. So no one moved to a new town and just spontaneously, arbitrarily makes $100,000 more the next year. That means whatever marketing you're doing is working.

Jamie Crouch:
Yeah. Yeah. It's working and it's hard to track back. That's what's frustrating is you never really know where those leads are coming. I knew a couple people were referrals from a coworker that my husband had, but I mean, still you're getting in front of those people. So when they're thinking about an agent to refer, who are they seeing come up all the time, they might know other agents, but if you're at their feet all the time and they're just seeing your name over and over, of course you're going to be the one that is top of mind that way.

Jamie Crouch:
And that's what sold me on Platform, that's so different because I am terrible at follow up. I've been an agent for many, many years, and I am not the agent that sends home anniversary cards. And I love my clients, I feel like they're friends, but I'm busy and I am not great about just calling to check in on people.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah.

Jamie Crouch:
And that's one of the huge benefits of Platform because it does it for you, you're staying in front of them, so they feel like you're staying in contact, but in reality I don't have time to call all my past clients and see how they're doing and see how their kids are and what sports and I wish-

Tim Chermak:
Or send them a chocolate chip cookie recipe postcard, like most agents, it's like, "Oh, we're coming up to October. I'm going to send out my pumpkin pie postcard recipe." And yeah. Okay, so business grew a lot. Business grew a lot in 2021. What were some of the specific ads that you felt worked well for you? What are some of your favorite retargeting ads that you used as part of this Platform strategy, whether they were photos or videos, which ones do you think have made the most impact where you actually 100& know that people were watching those and that it made them think of you, because they actually told you?

Jamie Crouch:
Well, we have a lake here called Beaver Lake and everybody loves the lake, it's really close to town. So I ended up running one of my lead gen ads was a lake homes list and so along with that I was trying to find listing tours because I don't do as many listings, I have a lot of buyers. And so I borrowed some listings that were lake homes because who doesn't want to see a lake house. And so I ended up doing it as an open house tour, going along with that COVID theme and filmed four or five houses in a day, it took all day long, lots of driving around the lake. And then we strung it together as a series of listing tours and I had a lot of feedback from that.

Tim Chermak:
Oh cool.

Jamie Crouch:
But from that I also ended up getting a listing in town and they wanted to move to the country, and so she ended up calling me and they happened to have a pool. So of course I had to do the pool jump because how can you not? So I did the pool jump on that when, it was super fun. I actually had my, at the time, 11 year old filming me because he was out of school and I was like, "Okay, you got to come film me. Hopefully you don't screw it up." Because you can only jump once and then you're wet and it ruins all thing. So that one got a lot of traction and a lot of views and a lot of other people, other industry professionals, even one of the big lenders in town told me I have the best marketing around and she referenced the pool jump and so that one was definitely a lot of fun.

Tim Chermak:
And so when you say that-

Jamie Crouch:
So many ads-

Tim Chermak:
When you say the pool jump, just so people know what you're talking about, because maybe someone's listening to this podcast and they're like, "You keep saying pool jump. What does that mean?" So one thing that we encourage our clients to do when they start this Platform strategy is like, you always look to in whatever way that you can, inject some creativity into your listing videos that catches people's attention. That's not just a generic listing video with some B roll and photos, maybe drone footage, whatever, that's what every other agent is doing now. So any way that you can put some creativity and a personality into the videos, makes people remember you, they'll probably forget about the house, but they'll remember you as the agent, which is the whole point. So if you ever get a listing with a pool, we tell people, "One of the easiest things you can do is do a cannonball into the pool wearing your normal clothes."

Tim Chermak:
Don't wear a swimsuit or whatever, but wear your normal clothes and just have it be totally surprising that you jump into the pool where it's just not expected in the video and people will talk about that and they'll remember that because they'll think, "Hey, that agent seems like he, or she would be fun to hang out with. I guess if I have to work with a real estate agent, I might as well work with someone who doesn't take themselves too seriously and has a sense of humor and they're willing to actually have fun on the job." So a lot of our agents do that and it sounds like it worked for you to get some attention too.

Jamie Crouch:
It definitely did it. It got a lot of attention. So that one was a great one. I really loved the pancake ad. Do you remember that one where it's a big picture of a big stack of pancakes, so I went and ordered like 10 of them and the waitress was like, "What is this for?" And I did it as a market update too. So [inaudible 00:21:44].

Tim Chermak:
Was that the selling like hot cakes one?

Jamie Crouch:
Yeah, that one was fun.And then one of my recent listing tours, they had a playground in the back. So I went down their slide, but when I did that, my gimbal on my camera went totally wacky and so we left it in there as the hook in the beginning. And one of the comments was someone saying, "I thought you parachuted into the backyard." Because it was like all wild and out of control. So that one was super fun too. Got a lot of comments.

Tim Chermak:
Well, I'll just clarify quick when she says the pancake ad, again for people listening, they're like, "What are you talking about?" We wrote this ad, I think it was last year, just talking about how tight, how low inventory the seller's market is and how sellers have such an advantage right now. And so we wrote this ad and the theme of the ad was homes are selling like hot cakes. And then we did some research into what is the origin of that phrase selling like hot cakes? What does that mean? So we explain the history of that phrase and then we tie it all together by using a picture of you at some local place with a huge stack of pancakes in front of you, because that grabs people's attention.

Tim Chermak:
And most importantly, it doesn't look like an ad. You wouldn't see a realtor with a billboard of them just sitting in front of a table with a big plate of pancakes in front of them. It doesn't look like an ad, you're not wearing a fancy business suit and you're not posing next to one of your listing signs with your brokers logo or whatever. It's a picture of you at a local restaurant with a mammoth stack of pancakes in front of you. So when someone's scrolling on Insta, or they're scrolling through their Facebook news feed and they see that pop up, it grabs their attention because they're like, "Whoa, that's a lot of pancakes. What is this about?" And they will [inaudible 00:23:34].

Jamie Crouch:
Face the better, right? Yu can't just be there smiling, you have to have a crazy excited face, but then you look even more insane and people like that, I guess.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. Because I mean it just grabs people's attention. "Oh, what is this?" And they click and read more and they're like, "Oh interesting. This is a realtor." Because the ad isn't necessarily all about, "Hey, I have homes for sale or whatever." It's just giving them a quick little interesting insight under what's going on in the market, but you do it in a fun, casual way using this phrase, selling like hot cakes as the expression. We explain the expression and again, we tie it all in with a picture of you with a big stack of pancakes. And again, it works, I'll say this 100 times and on future podcasts I'll say it hundreds of times more. It works because it doesn't look like an ad. So yeah, we've had a lot of people have success with that post as well.

Jamie Crouch:
Yeah. That's a great one. And one of my listings, the one with the pool jump, she actually told me, "I know lots of realtors. I know four or five realtors." And she didn't want to pick one of her friends and then make the rest mad. But she said, "I called you because you seem like you're fun. You just seem like you enjoy what you do and that you'd be fun to work with." So it's funny that you mentioned that earlier because that's literally, I could have copied and pasted that.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah.

Jamie Crouch:
She said that over to you, but...

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. And she's like, "All right, I'm going to make all my friends mad by working with Jamie instead."

Jamie Crouch:
Yeah. Pretty much. And she still comments on my posts all the time about best realtor ever, which is even greater because you know that, but actually one of my best clients that I got from the Platform ads was for an Acreage Homes list because everybody wants land and I'm terrible at the follow up. I do not go into the CRM and follow up with people. I'm really bad at it. It's something I know I need to work on. And this client actually chased me down. So she was texting me and Facebook messaging and emailing me, and finally I was like, "Yes, yes, I'll help you. That's fine. Thanks for messaging me." And I showed her three or four houses and they said, "We had been looking on our own and couldn't find what we wanted. So we decided to."

Jamie Crouch:
She's like, "I just clicked the ad because maybe it would help us." And so she ended up buying a house, it was $820,000 that she bought. And then she listed her $400,000 house. So all of a sudden we're talking 1.2 million in sales off of this one client who was actually chasing me down saying, "Please work with us and help us." And she's my best advocate now too, out on Facebook, she's always throwing my name out there, she's always replying and commenting on my posts. And even she named me in her phone Rockstar Realtor. And so whenever I would call she'd answer and say, "Hey, Rockstar." I'm like, "Why do you keep calling me that?" And she's like, "Well you are. And so I just put you on my phone that way." And it's like, "Okay, great." So it's amazing how just that one client paid for Platform for at least a year, if not two.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah.

Jamie Crouch:
Just takes one.

Tim Chermak:
So what are some of your favorite videos that you've done?

Jamie Crouch:
Oh gosh. There's so many, it's really hard to pick. I really love the listing tours and I've been doing a lot of walkthroughs from what I've been closing clients too, and just telling a little bit about their story and how in a market like this, as competitive as it is, what set us apart to win the house. So those are super fun. I really love doing the market updates too. It's really fun to go into a business and get a behind the scenes. We did one of the local restaurants. So I got to go in the kitchen and film them making plates up, so that has been super fun too, but ducks in a row is on my list, I need to do it, I just have to find a good day with my kids home, to be my videographer, because they're better than my husband, ironically. So that one I'm really excited about doing sometime in the near future as well.

Tim Chermak:
Cool. So on any given month, Jamie, what do you typically average in terms of how much you actually spend on ads? What is your ads budget in any given month?

Jamie Crouch:
That's a really good question. My account manager would probably know better than me because I think we're at around $1,000 a month for our ad spend, but then on listings we decided this year to bump it up. So I've been paying the 500 for a listing to get it out there and we're talking thousands of views. I mean it's not just 5,000, it's 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 people that you're getting in front of. So it's definitely worth it to get that saturation.

Tim Chermak:
I've found with listing videos in particular, when you set it up the right way and assuming you're actually filming an interesting listing video, you're injecting that creativity into the listing video to make some interesting creative hook to it. So it's not just a boring video where it's just a bunch of photos spliced together with some drone footage, with some B roll, put some sort of personality into it. If you do that per every $500 you spend to blast that video campaign out into your community, you'll probably get 20 to even sometimes 25,000 video views per every $500. So I challenge agents all the time, imagine if every listing you picked up, you spent at least 500 bucks blasting that video out into the community because if you did that and each video gets 20,000 views minimum if not sometimes 25,000, people are going to notice that every time Jamie has a listing, it gets tons of views on social media because that's a public metric.

Tim Chermak:
People can see that. It's not something that's buried in the backend analytics. It says right on the video, how many video views the video has. So people see that and then you slowly over time start to get that reputation in your town that, "Wow, this realtor gets a ton of exposure for all of her listings." And then obviously it makes people want to list their house with you and you get more sellers in the future.

Jamie Crouch:
Absolutely, it's definitely worth it. So I'm glad that you had pointed that out at the mastermind earlier. Well, I guess it was last year, in December, about doing that and the juice is definitely worth the squeeze on that one.

Tim Chermak:
So speaking of it being worth it, what are you on pace to do this year in 2022 compared to previous years? Because I know that things are really taking off this year for you.

Jamie Crouch:
Yeah, they are. So I'm about $500,000 away from the gross production I had last year. So as far as total volume, I mean we're in April and I'm one or two sales away from being at the production for all of 2021. So it's just snowballing really quickly and I wasn't even prepared for it. It's funny because January 1st, it just exploded and I've been crazy, crazy busy, actually this year I've already hired three agents to work under me and my brokerage just to help share some of the load and get some leads out to them because I can't even begin to handle all of them. There's just so, so many. And again, this is doing no follow up because I'm terrible at that. So if I actually followed up it would be easily two or three times what it is. So this is the people that are just that desperate that they come to me and want me to help them and actually reach out and make that phone call beyond just replying to the auto responders in the CRM, they actually pick up their phone and call.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah, they're actually calling you saying, "Hey Jamie, we want to work with you." So you have leads calling you, not the other way around.

Jamie Crouch:
Yeah. So there's no cold calling. There's no door knocking. Not that I ever really did those anyway, but there's no way I'd ever even think about doing that now because I can't even hardly keep up as it is.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. So I mean you're on pace this year to do a quarter million dollars in GCI and just two years ago your GCI was $35,000.

Jamie Crouch:
Yep. Just like being a brand new agent two years ago, except I knew the business. So it helped because I didn't have to learn how to do real estate like a new agent would, that part was done. It was just how do you get out there and get exposure because nobody's going to hire you if you're a secret. So marketing is so, so important, but it's always the last budget item on the list. Nobody wants to spend the money on it and then they do things like sending postcards. Well the rate of return on that is terrible because everybody throws them away, you're not staying in front of them, it doesn't have that lasting effect.

Tim Chermak:
Jamie, when you look back at the last couple years, are there any particular ads or videos that you know that people saw, that they've told you about in real life? Like, "Oh, I loved that video or I loved such and such photo." Which ads have gotten you the most feedback from people in real life, where they actually told you about, "I saw such and such. That was great."

Jamie Crouch:
So a lot of the market updates too, because then they'll say, "Yeah, I saw your video about the coffee shop. I love that one too. You should do a video here next time." And then they're giving me suggestions. So those tend to get a lot of traction. And then the listing tours do too, because everybody likes looking at houses. And so this is their way of getting into houses and having that like realtor feel of being able to see houses without actually having to go see houses and have a realtor. So I get a lot of feedback on those as well. And then of course all the other videos that we do, I'm trying to think off the top of my head, if there's any that specifically stuck out, but we've been doing a lot of picture posts lately.

Jamie Crouch:
So I know the gas tank or whatever, gas prices ad has actually gained a lot of traction. And I've had some interesting comments on that ad. So there's been several like that, that have just really rose to the top. But lately a lot of the ads we've been running, I keep getting posting, "It's so refreshing to have a realtor that's honest because we ran one that had to save money by not hiring a realtor." And then it talked about lots of things that realtors do basically. So it was a reverse psychology ad in a way.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. I love using that tactic of reverse psychology in ads because it gets so many people to click. And if you think about it, the type of person who's going to click on an ad or watch a video where the headline is how to sell your house without a realtor, if you think about it, the only person who would click on that is someone who's actually thinking about selling their house. So it acts as this perfect magnet to attract seller leads, because no one's going to click on that and inquire about more information unless they're actually thinking about selling their house. So even if it's-

Jamie Crouch:
Or if they're another realtor, I have so many other realtors following, just saying, "I love your marketing and it's funny." So yeah, those are the-

Tim Chermak:
It means people are seeing it. Yeah. So I love using reverse psychology as a tactic because what inevitably happens is someone reads the ad or watches the video about, let's just say, how to sell your house without hiring a realtor. And then they watch your content and they keep seeing all the stuff you're putting out and the value you're adding and the expertise and the actual insights that you're sharing with the market. Like, "Hey, I'm much more than just a door opener. I don't just help people get into houses on showings. I'm actually adding strategic value in the negotiations and the strategy and I know the market and all these things." People often, they may have clicked on an ad like that, thinking that, "Oh, I'm going to read as much and learn as much as I can. So I don't have to hire a realtor. I'll do it on my own." And then they realize like, "Oh, Jamie clearly knows way more about real estate than I ever will. I'm just going to hire her."

Jamie Crouch:
Yeah. Well there's been some really great ones lately. So that was one, the interest rate one that we just launched not too long ago was also the one, with the slices. I actually had a tart that I did, a big one and a little one and that got the same response, that it's honestly refreshing and a realtor that's not just like all the other terrible lying realtors out there. Apparently we have a bad rap out in the public, they don't think realtors are worth what we get paid because they don't understand what we do. They don't ever see the behind the scenes. So I love ads like that, that can give them a glimpse into what it really is like, what they're really paying for, that if we're doing our job well, they think that it's easy because they don't have to deal with all the fires we put out, but that one's gotten a lot of good traction as well.

Tim Chermak:
So what are you looking forward to doing in the future in terms of some ads that maybe you have not done yet, but that you're looking forward to launching?

Jamie Crouch:
Yeah. So the ducks of the row that's top on my list, I just have to find the right time to get it all together. So it's pretty high up there. So that's one. And then there's one about why certain homes have sold. So that insider knowledge of why did this house sell or this much over and breaking down, instead of just showing graphs of statistics that nobody wants to look at, other than realtors, really are the ones that'll look at that. So that's a great way to just get it in front of the public and say, "See, this is what our market's really doing." And have that edge so they understand that yeah you know the market better than if I just go on Zillow and pull up some houses, I don't get a good idea of what's happening.

Tim Chermak:
That's one of my favorite retargeting ads that we teach. And it often gets a 30% click rate, which is an insanely high click rate for a social media ad, most ads give 5% or less. So this one often gets 30. And the reason is you just share a couple homes, actual homes, so they're not stock photos. These are actual listings that recently sold in your market and then you write a paragraph about why they sold for the price they sold for, what was the original listing price and you in your expert opinion, just type a quick paragraph about why this house sold for the price it did. Why did it go either $1,000 above ask or $25,000 above list price, whatever. And you share your professional opinion of, here's why these homes are selling for what they're selling for. And again, you're not talking about the market overall.

Tim Chermak:
You're actually highlighting a couple specific listings that recently sold because most homeowners, I think agents forget we're in such a bubble sometimes that we forget that no one knows what months of inventory means, when you're like, "Oh, there's three months of inventory or there's two weeks of inventory or there's six months of inventory." No one knows what that means besides real estate. It's like, "Is that a seller's market? A buyer's market? I don't know."

Jamie Crouch:
So realtors don't know what that means either. So it's not like...

Tim Chermak:
Even when you hear people use metrics like, "Oh, homes are selling for 98% of list price, or the average home is selling for 104% of list price." Whatever. People don't know what that means, even if they can deduce what it technically means. They're like, "Oh, okay. If homes are selling for a 105% of list price, I guess that means the average house is selling for 5% more than it's listed for." But they actually don't know what that means, because they don't know what it would be in a normal market. It's like, well, what am I comparing it to as normal, is normal 100, is normal 80? So I think so often agents think that they're sharing valuable insights in their marketing. And in reality, it's just jargon. No one knows what you're talking about. Because you're just using agent metrics that the average homeowner has no idea what that means.

Tim Chermak:
And so when you can actually apply it to specific listings and saying rather than just saying, "Hey guys, we're in a seller's market. Here's some interesting here's some interesting statistics." Say, "Hey guys, we're in a seller's market, here are two specific homes that recently sold. Here's what they sold for. And here's why, in my professional opinion, these two homes sold for what they did." Maybe it's the neighborhood, maybe one of them had a super updated kitchen, maybe one of them has an oversized lot for the area. Maybe in a really, really sought after valuable school district, whatever. You share your opinion about why they sold for what they did and then someone clicks on that and reads it, and they're like, "Huh, interesting." They will forget the specific details of the house because the house is already sold by definition.

Tim Chermak:
That's the whole point of the ad, is that house already sold. They'll forget the house, what they're going to remember is you and how much of an expert you are. Like, "Oh wow. Like she really seems to have a handle on this market. She really knows what's going on. When I'm ready to go, whether I'm ready to sell or when I'm ready to buy, I definitely want to work with her because she clearly seems to have a pulse on the market. She's not just some random agent who opens doors for people, she clearly is an expert on this real estate market. I want to work with her."

Jamie Crouch:
Right. And our market has 4,000 plus agents, so how do you differentiate yourself from the other 4,000 out there? And it's almost an embarrassing stat, really quick I'm going to throw out there, but you were talking about how my business has grown. So considering that I haven't been here all that long. Last year, I was number 327 for production. So I mean, yay. I was 300, but out of 4,000 agents, that's pretty impressive really to come into a market that you don't really have a grounding in.

Jamie Crouch:
So it definitely sets you apart from everybody else, who's just sharing the same things that they get on some of these other social media company sites for realtors, that just regurgitate the same things over and over and then all the agents in the brokerage do the same thing and they can't copy Platform, it's not something that you can take and just remake on your own, there's so much that goes into it behind the scenes. Just the way you put videos together and the way you put these ads together that most realtors don't think about, there's not a good way to just rinse and repeat it.

Tim Chermak:
What would you say, in your opinion, because I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here, this is really just your opinion. What would you say in your opinion is the most valuable part of the Platform program, at least for you?

Jamie Crouch:
Well, it's not the CRM since I never use it, but it's definitely probably the retargeting ads just because it keeps you in front of anybody that's... I mean, if they've stopped and watched any of your videos, they're going to be on your list and so they saw it for a reason, real estate's interesting to them in some dynamic or they wouldn't have ever stopped and paused. So I think that's probably where the magic truly comes from is... I mean, the leads are great, don't get me wrong and I'm going to end up having to work those one of these days. I think, if I ever slow down. I can go in there and have literally hundreds of conversations that are waiting for me to reply to them. I have a really, really high rate of click, I guess my account manager keeps talking about how our stats are really good, but just staying in front of them and having that top of mind.

Jamie Crouch:
And I'll send a list to Jordan once in a while and say, "Hey, here are my clients. Can you just make sure that they stay on my retargeting list and add them back in?" So I don't have to follow up with them every month and try to have that quick conversation with them to stay in front of them and make them feel like I'm keeping up with them, Platform does that for me and it's just nice to know that's taken care of. But also just the ideas I love that you guys every week there's fresh ideas for here's an ad that's been having great traction.

Jamie Crouch:
So when I was doing it on my own, I had to figure out if it was working or not, and then waste all that money running ads that nobody wanted to click on, because it would be the realtor stats that nobody talks about, that to me seem really interesting, but the public doesn't care. Well, you guys have figured that out, so you can say, "This one's not working very well, but this one is. Let's do this one this week." And then shift around how I'm spending my ad budget. I don't have to think about it. I don't even know how much I spend on ads. I just pay the bill every month. You guys take care of all of it.

Tim Chermak:
And clearly what you're doing is working because I think that's something that's always been fascinating to me, when you look at like other marketing companies or other marketing agencies or programs, whatever is that there's so much of an emphasis put on how much engagement are you getting on social media? Or how many likes or followers do you have or whatever? Or they'll say, "Hey, how many video views did you get on your videos?" For example. And all those metrics are interesting, but they're completely meaningless outside the context of, is your business growing? Because as a realtor, if your GCI isn't increasing and you're not making more money every year, who cares how many views your videos get or how many likes you have on your posts if it's not actually translating into more closings. Because last time I checked, you have to pay your bills with us dollars, not with Facebook likes.

Tim Chermak:
So unless the marketing you're doing is translating into more business, it's like who cares? And so the ultimate proof is looking at your business where, where is it at before you started the Platform strategy versus where is it at now? And it quite literally has gone from 35,000 to very probably you'll hit $250,000 this year, maybe more because it's totally possible that this summer you get another surge of business that puts you even over the quarter million dollar mark in GCI. And one really cool thing I've noticed is that usually when an agent hits that level of production, they never go back.

Tim Chermak:
So it's not like someone hits 250 and then the next year they do 150. Usually once you hit that level of production, you now have a database of past clients that have worked with you, where they start referring people to you and people who have people who have been referred to you start referring people to you. And there's a third layer of a sphere that that comes into play and you just start doing 250 a year from here on out. It's not like you ever have to worry about backsliding. Like, "Oh crap, what if I only do 100 next year?"

Jamie Crouch:
And once you get established, you weather all markets. That's what been [inaudible 00:47:15] about my story is as soon as we got established, we'd move and I'd start all over again. But it's true, even if the market does pull back and slow down, which it does run in cycles, so that's coming. It's great now, but it's not always going to be like this. So once you get that ground under you and get that base, it's pretty hard not to continue moving up.

Tim Chermak:
I've heard from lots of agents that have just seen this over and over again, where someone might have a good year where they go from 60 to 100 or they go from, I don't know, 70 to 75 to 110, but then the year after they did 110 GCI, they maybe do 80 the next year. When you're in that zone of production, your income can absolutely fluctuate because you haven't hit yet a critical mass in your sphere and your client database where it's kicking off enough referrals every year to where you have any security or a baseline level of business that's always in your pipeline, but once you get to that 200, 250 range of GCI, you almost never hear about an agent who does 220 or 250 in GCI who does 150 the next year.

Tim Chermak:
That pretty much never happens, once you get there your business is going to continue to stay there or grow to eventually 300, 350. So that's awesome. That's pretty cool that in less than two years, you've essentially hit that point that for many agents takes 5 to 10 years to get to that level of production. And you did it in a new town without a sphere of influence inside of two years. So here's the million dollar question. How long did it take your husband to come around after he was initially really skeptical? How long did it take for him to be like, "Oh, okay. Well I think this was a good idea. Nice work, Jamie."

Jamie Crouch:
Well, I really expected, he's a numbers guy, so I expected him to ask me every month, "Is it working? Is this worth it? Are we going to keep doing this?" And he really never did. So I think just having that early on recognition helped him to see that, "Okay. Yeah, this is definitely helping her get her name out here." But we haven't talked about Platform in a, can I continue manner at all, which is really surprising to me because normally if I had pitched an idea like this, he would be hounding me every month, "How's it looking?" And I remember a couple months after I had joined, he had a work function and the superintendent of one of the biggest school districts in the state happened to be at our table. They were hosting him through his work and his wife recognized me and was like, "Oh you're a realtor, right?"

Jamie Crouch:
And we weren't even talking about real estate, but she recognized me and he just looked at me and we laughed. And she's like, "How do I know you again?" And I was like, "I don't know, I just have one of those faces." But we're just laughing because we know she knows me because of the Facebook ads, but she didn't even know how she knew me. She didn't realize that was why. So I thought that was really interesting, but he's a total believer. He keeps telling me I'm going to retire him one of these days. So we'll see what happens.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. I mean you know when strangers are seeing you in public and recognizing you that the cumulative effect of that over just a couple years, that means your business becomes huge. Because if one person has that experience with you, you know that there's dozens and dozens and dozens of other people out there that have that same level of name recognition with you, where they know who you are now, even if you don't know them, they know who you are, which obviously that's the exact dynamic you want as a realtor, when people in your community think of buying or selling a house, they think of real estate, they just immediately think of you.

Jamie Crouch:
And I've had that experience at Lowe's or the bank. I don't ever go into the bank and I walked in and they're like, "Hey Jamie, how's it going?" And I'm like, "You know who I am? I never come in here. I mobile deposit everything." So definitely I've noticed it more and more when you start paying attention, people act like they know you more, but then you also have that pressure of having to fix your hair in the morning before you leave, because people might actually recognize you when you're out. So that's, I guess, the only negative to Platform that I've ran into, is having to make sure I actually look halfway decent before I leave the house.

Tim Chermak:
So what would you say if someone's new to the platform family, or maybe an agent is listening to this and they haven't yet signed up, they're doing their research and maybe they're listening to this podcast episode as a way of doing that due diligence. And they're just trying to see is this legit, is Platform for real, is it worth the risk to get started? What would you say to an agent who's either considering signing up or someone who maybe just signed up in the last month or two and they're starting to get scared because they don't have a closing yet, because obviously it takes a couple months to really get steam and for you to get that momentum. You're not going to get a closing in your first month of Platform.

Jamie Crouch:
Right. Well generally not. Yeah.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. We make that very clear.

Jamie Crouch:
There's probably two things I would say. Sorry. I think there's a little delay on here if I'm talking over you. So it took me about 11 months before I had a closing I could actually track to Platform. So when I signed up in October, I know for sure in August-ish, it was probably August, that I had a client that was directly from Platform that was chasing me down. So I knew it was there. So it's hard to ascertain exactly where your business is coming from, that fuzzy ROI. So you have to give it time. I mean it takes time. You have to get out there, you have to let it seep into people's consciousness to a certain degree, they talk about eight touches to have somebody feel like they know you. Well, it takes time to get to there. So don't give up.

Jamie Crouch:
I mean, if I had quit after six months, I wouldn't have gotten anything. And it's not that the thought ever crossed my mind because I knew it was working because I had that feedback from the community and I saw the number of views. So even though I didn't have a direct paycheck from it that I was aware of, I knew it was working. So just stick it out, give it at least a year, if not longer, because once it takes hold, it's not going to stop. You just have to give it that chance to really sink in. So that would be my first thing.

Jamie Crouch:
The second thing is call other agents and platforms. So I actually did that. I was a pretty easy yes from the get go, but you have to do your own due diligence. So I called a bunch of realtors and the thing that they kept saying, and I agree with them is, "It doesn't matter what it costs, just sign up. It's my secret sauce." And it's a yes, it doesn't matter, pay whatever they want, just do it because it's going to turn around and you're going to make so much more money that you're not even going to think about how much it costs every month. And I can honestly say, I don't even pay attention because I know it's working and I know that it's already paid for, for the next two years, just from closings I've had this year.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. I mean maybe you haven't even thought about it in these terms yet, but this year, I mean specifically in 2022 at the pace you're going, Platform will have added not just 100,000, but $200,000 to your annual income going from like 35,000 to probably 250 or more this year, that's an increase of 200,000 and it'll probably be 200,000 every year from here on this, because again, it's not like you're going to shrink and go back to a 100,000 or something, so that's that's pretty dang and cool. That's worth-

Jamie Crouch:
It's life changing.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. Yeah. That's worth sticking with it for a year if it takes a while to work. If it means that if you stick with it's adding 200 grand to your family's income.

Jamie Crouch:
Yeah, definitely. And it also helps you when if you're going on a listing appointment, you can say, "I have all these views. So if you don't trust me, trust these numbers." So it also gives you that way of giving yourself some street cred too. So as an agent, we're always trying to find a way to differentiate, but Platform makes it so easy. So it's an easy yes. I wouldn't even think twice about signing up anymore. In fact, when I signed up with Mitch, I called him back the next day after I talked to my husband, even though he wasn't totally on board, but I had already called probably four or five different Platform agents. Platform didn't give me their number, I went into the Facebook groups and search Platform and any agent that had mentioned it, I Googled them and called them.

Jamie Crouch:
And so it was out of the blue and they're like, "Wait, what are you calling me about?" But I'd tell them and they're like, "Yeah, just sign up." "Okay. That's great." So I called Mitch back and I'm like, "Sign me up." And he goes, "You don't want to think about it more. You don't have to make a decision today." I'm like, "Sign me up. This is just an easy yes." So don't hesitate, just take a chance and do it, it's worth it, it's worth giving your business a chance to succeed. So we don't have that 80% failure rate within the first two years that the real estate industry has. And it's so sad because it's an amazing career. You just have to find a way to get over the hump. And sometimes you spend money to make money and you just need to find a way to do it and give it a shot.

Tim Chermak:
Well, I think this has been super encouraging, super inspiring for anyone listening, whether they're already in the Platform Marketing Program or not. I think your story shows what is possible, if you stick with a marketing strategy long enough for it to work and you're consistent in implementing it and you don't expect life changing results in a month or two, but you're truly thinking long term about your business. Because again, you moved to a town that you didn't know anyone, you didn't have a sphere to rely on. And in less than two years, you've built a business where you'll probably make a quarter million dollars this year in a new town. I mean, that's incredible. And the best is yet to come. I'm excited for you, hearing your story on this podcast because I know that in the future, as you continue to roll that snowball and your retargeting database continues to grow, in the coming years, you're not going to make 250.

Tim Chermak:
You'll probably be at 350 and eventually 400,000 in personal production. And it's only going to grow, because now you're just adding more and more layers to that sphere, where you'll get more and more referrals and your business is only going to grow from here. I mean, I bet if I interview you a year from now on the Platform Podcast again, you'll have grown your business even more than it has just here in the last couple years. So that's super exciting. I'm happy for you.

Jamie Crouch:
Oh, I'm happy for me too and my husband's happy too, because he wants me to retire him, remember, he wants to be a fishing guy to not make any money.

Tim Chermak:
That's the dream. That's the dream.

Jamie Crouch:
But it really has changed even the dynamics for our family and the opportunities we have and you just have to do something to get out there, why not do Platform? And the accountability too, to have a weekly phone call with your account manager and have them say, "Okay, Jamie, we talked about this two weeks ago, why isn't it done?" It's just so helpful, BoomTown's not going to do that. They're not going to call you and follow up with you every week to see if you're doing things that are productive to grow your business. So just the community that Platform has too and the Facebook group and just the ideas that flow and the helpfulness that everybody has, they don't care if you steal their stuff because they're not in your market. So that is one thing I didn't touch on, the exclusivity of it is so important. So you don't have the same thing that just floats around everywhere. I love that you guys have that one agent per market mentality.

Tim Chermak:
Awesome. Well thank you for your time today, Jamie. Like I said, I think this was a super encouraging episode and I can't wait for this podcast episode to go live. And for anyone thinking about researching Platform, wants to find out more, just check out platformmarketingideas.com, that's platformmarketingideas.com. And we'll see you on the next episode. Thanks, Jamie.

Jamie Crouch:
Bye.