Lead Generation Is Not Synonymous With Marketing

Heather Murray: Recently, I took my son to an oral surgeon to get his wisdom teeth looked at for removal. I'd walked in to check him in and the receptionist there said, “Hey, I know you. You're that realtor. I see you on Facebook. I follow you.” I said, “That's awesome. That's really great to know.” That really hit me because that doctor's office is about 35 minutes away from where I live. It's in San Antonio, it's not close to me. For Platform to be able to get that reach outside of my area, it's just awesome. It felt really good for somebody to say, “Hey, I follow you,” and I don't know that person from anywhere. 

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 here today with Heather Murray in Texas. Heather is in Wilson County, Texas, kind of in the suburbs outer region of the San Antonio area. Heather, welcome to The Platform Marketing Show. 

Heather Murray: Hi guys, I'm super happy to be here. 

Tim Chermak: We are super happy to have you because you have a pretty cool story to tell. Since joining the Platform Marketing program, Heather's sales have gone from about $7 million to over $13 million, so she's pretty much doubled her business in the last couple of years and she already had a successful business too. 

Tim Chermak: That's the cool thing is that when you're selling $7 million a year, you're already doing quite well. You're in the top tier of agents, but you've grown from doing well to doing phenomenal, and yet that's not even the coolest part. Your team has also grown. You've built a team in the last couple of years and now your total team volume is up to $33 million total, which is pretty awesome because you are in an area of the country, obviously Wilson County, Texas. It's not like you're regularly selling $2 million homes or something where it's easy to get $30 million plus in sales. You're doing it the hard way, the old fashioned way where it's selling lots of $300,000 properties, etc. That's awesome. 

Tim Chermak: When you first signed up, I know you joined towards the end of 2020. As we're recording this, you've now been with Platform for about two years total. How did you first hear about the Platform Marketing program? 

Heather Murray: Heather Mutz. She is a part of our brokerage, Homestead and Ranch Real Estate. Me and her were chatting about it, and that's how I got to know what Platform was and what y'all do. I was seeing her post and the content that was coming across her feed and I'm like, “Where is she getting this from? This is awesome.” We just talked some more in depth about it and I decided to go ahead and pull the trigger. It did take me a little while to make the decision to jump on, but it was a no brainer. Once I saw everything that she was doing within Platform, I said, “I have to do it.”

Tim Chermak: I saw that your email address, it's heather@homesteadandranch.com. You're the original Heather. 

Heather Murray: The OG, they call me the OG. I am the first Heather that started with Homestead and Ranch. Yes, I am dubbed the OG. 

Tim Chermak: I'm sure there's probably people who get you guys mixed up. They're looking at Platform case studies and it's like, “A Heather with Homestead and Ranch in the San Antonio area. What are the odds that there's two of them that actually have really awesome businesses going on?” yet you are the first, you are the OG. That's awesome. 

Tim Chermak: The first question I want to ask Heather is what were you doing to build your business to the point where you got to $7 million plus? That's already impressive just in and of itself. Most agents, the average agent in the United States of America will never get to the point that they're selling $7 million a year, and yet that's where you were actually before you ever even signed up for a Platform. What types of marketing were you doing, or what did you do to get your business to that point in the first place? 

Heather Murray: I will be 100% honest, I was not putting a whole lot of money towards marketing dollars. I feel like my business really did grow organically and that's really because of past clients and referrals from those past clients, family and friends really helped me grow my business. 

Heather Murray: It's funny because my broker had asked the same thing, how, because I didn't really have the advertising out there. I was doing my own stuff on social media and trying to post consistently. I knew that you needed to do that, but I just don't feel that it was really quality content that people were really engaging in. I thought, “Great. I'm doing a post, this is great,” but it wasn't really getting the engagement and people commenting and interacting with it. I just didn't really have a whole lot of marketing and advertising dollars behind me. I feel like it was more just organic. 

Tim Chermak: Honestly, I think that's really healthy because it's not as if a business that's investing a ton of money into marketing is somehow better than one that's not. You don't wanna get into a situation where the only reason you have leads coming in is because you're buying them. That's a symptom of a problem if your own organic sphere and past clients aren't referring people to you to where you could build a successful business without paid advertising. I think the proper role of doing paid ad campaigns is to pour fuel on a fire, but that means you have to have built a fire in the first place.

Heather Murray: For sure. I feel like Platform is the icing on the cake for my business. It has helped elevate my business. 

Tim Chermak: You got it to over $7 million, essentially just by yourself, getting referrals, making sure that your past clients were always referring people to you. Are you from Wilson County originally? Did you have roots going back to where you had a bunch of social ties, connections there? 

Heather Murray: I am not. I am from San Antonio, which is not far from where I live right now. I grew up in San Antonio in Bear County, and then I moved out to Wilson County about 12 years ago. My husband's family did grow up out here in the area in St. Hedwig, which is super close to Laverne, where we currently reside. He works for a family business, it's Murray Air Conditioning. We decided to move our family out here. It just made sense because the family business was out here. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, cool. What was it about seeing some of Heather Mutz's ads that made you think, “I wanna try out this Platform thing?” Was it any particular ad or was it just seeing the amount of engagement? What was it that made you wanna reach out? 

Heather Murray: I wouldn't say that it was any particular ad. It was the engagement for sure. I felt like they were super catchy ads and really drew you in like, “Wait, what is this? What is she doing?” A lot of them were funny, make you laugh. I just kept seeing those come across and I’m like, “Is she doing this by herself? There's no way.” I just started asking questions and, of course, she gave me the rundown of Platform. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, cool. What, looking back, have been your most successful ads that you've run? I always wanna preface this by saying, when I say the most successful or your favorite ads, I'm not really asking what got the most clicks or what was technically the best ad if you look at the analytics. I'm really more asking if you could look back over the last couple of years, which ads have you run that got the most real life engagement where someone stopped you in real life, whether it's at church, at the grocery store, a football game for your son or something that said, “Hey, I loved this ad that you did,” or “I love this video,” where you actually got that real life in-person feedback that people are following you on social media. Are there any ads that stick out where like, “Wow, this one just did really well?” 

Heather Murray: Absolutely. There is one early on when I started Platform and that's Ducks in a Row. That one, it was fun, number one. I jumped into a pool and it was super cold. I want to say it was January. In Texas, in January, it can get pretty cold here. Our pools are still super cold in that month. The engagement I got on that just with people out in public seeing them like, “That was super funny. How did you jump in the pool when your pool is probably 50 degrees, 40 degrees?” I feel like that one was super fun and one of my favorites for sure, hands down. That was early on when I started Platform. 

Tim Chermak: How would you describe the Ducks in a Row video script or what the topic of that video is to someone who's listening to this podcast that has no idea what you're talking about? Ducks in a Row, what is the purpose or what is the script of that video? 

Heather Murray: The purpose of that video is to let people know, of course, especially first time home buyers, you don't know what you're doing when you're buying a house, you don't know what you need to do to get your ducks in a row to purchase a home and what's important and what are those first steps. That's really what that video is trying to tell the audience. It's super catchy just because we're throwing ducks. I have a team and so we're throwing ducks to each other and jumping in the pool and then some other things that the girls did too. It was just fun and interactive and kept people's attention. 

Tim Chermak: By the way, how long have you been selling real estate, Heather? 

Heather Murray: It'll be 10 years this year. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, so you have a pretty good sample size. It's not like you just started selling three or four years ago. If you got started 10 years ago, what did the ratio look like of how many buyers you worked with every year versus how many sellers? Has that changed since you signed up with Platform? 

Heather Murray: I feel like I have consistently, and even with Platform, I primarily list over representing buyers. I would probably give it an 80%-20% ratio. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, so usually it's about 80% listings. 

Heather Murray:  Yes. 

Tim Chermak: Have you ever had sellers tell you in a listing appointment that, “I've seen your videos,” or “I've seen your marketing?” Are they noticing on social media? Is that sometimes the reason they're maybe choosing you to list their house? 

Heather Murray: It's initially getting me in the door to get a listing interview. Maybe I might be going against two or three other agents, they will bring that up when they're asking me the questions and I'll ask, “Did somebody refer you?” or “How did you find out about me?” They'll say, “We saw your videos on Facebook,” or “We saw these photos.” I know that it absolutely 100% works. People are seeing it all over. 

Tim Chermak: We were talking before we hit record and you had a couple of recent stories that are worth sharing of just seeing Platform work in real life where people have stopped you and told you, “I think I know you from Facebook.” Would you mind sharing a couple of those stories? 

Heather Murray: Recently I took my son to an oral surgeon to get his wisdom teeth looked at for removal. I'd walked in to check him in and the receptionist there said, “Hey, I know you. You're that realtor, right? I see you on Facebook. I follow you.” I said, “That's awesome. That's really great to know.” That really hit me because that doctor's office is about 35 minutes away from where I live. It's in San Antonio, it's not close to me. For Platform to be able to get that reach outside of my area, it's just awesome. It felt really good for somebody to say, “Hey, I follow you,” and I don't know that person from anywhere. 

Tim Chermak: These are people that you didn't have a preexisting relationship with. They had absolutely no idea who you were. You walk in, they actually just recognized you. 

Heather Murray: Yes. That was pretty cool. 

Tim Chermak: Again, because you've been with Platform now for about two years, so it's a pretty good sample size of time. What would you say now, looking back at the last two years, is the most valuable part of Platform and how it's helped you grow your business? Again, your personal sales volume has increased, almost doubled from about $7 million to $13 million, but your team's total has also scaled up to over $30 million. Is it the branding that you think helps? Is it the lead gen, the actual leads coming in? What would you say is the number one thing specifically that Platform has done to help you grow your business so much in the last couple of years? 

Heather Murray: I would say the retargeting ads, 100%. Those are constantly going through everybody's feed and that's all they're seeing, is I'm constantly hitting them with new content, listing videos. I just feel like I'm always staying in front of their face, so definitely the retargeting. Absolutely. 

Tim Chermak: You've started in the last couple of years to build out a team. It's not a huge team. I know you don't have 20, 30 people like some of these mega teams, but you have, is it four? Is that right? Three or four? 

Heather Murray: I do have four now. We did just have another agent join last week. Now, with me, it's a total of five. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, awesome. Has Platform helped you build that team, whether it's feeding with leads, or have you attracted any agents because they saw your marketing? My question is how has Platform influenced your decision to build a team? Not everyone wants to build a team, but it seems whatever you're doing is working. 

Heather Murray: I feel like, again, it's the retargeting ads that have helped in all the marketing that have helped other agents see what we're doing and see, “Wow, she is super consistent. She's doing different things, fun things, constantly shooting videos.” I think when other agents see that and maybe they're not getting that with their current team or brokerage, they think, “ I'm gonna reach out. I'm gonna reach out, I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna see what this is about, see if maybe there's a possibility or option for me to join the team.”

Tim Chermak: You would say that some of the people that are currently on your team were actually influenced by seeing your social media marketing campaigns. 

Heather Murray: I think so, for sure. Yes. 

Tim Chermak: How many ads are you typically doing a month? Whether it's photos or videos, how many new ads in an average month do you have going out? 

Heather Murray: I would say four to six. It really just depends on the month with everything going on with kids, family work, and all of that, but I try to shoot for four to six. 

Tim Chermak: Let's just pick a number in the middle, let's say five. In the course of a year, five times 12 is 60. That means in an average year, you probably have 60 new ads going out. What that means is if someone is on your retargeting list, they've clicked on an ad, now they keep seeing posts from you, they'll see 60 different posts from you pop up in their social media newsfeed across Facebook, Instagram, 60 different posts throughout the year. 

Tim Chermak: I think that's why your business has grown so much because a lot of people don't zoom out and they don't see the big picture. You might have a couple cool posts go out at any given month, but when you actually put it in annual terms, you realize, “Wow, someone's following me. They didn't just see the same one or two ads over and over and over again. They saw 60 different ads from me in the last year.” That's what makes you stand out from other agents. 

Heather Murray: It's crazy when you put those numbers together and think of that big number 60. It's like, “Well, that is a lot.” We really are hitting them hard with the retargeting and the ads and marketing. It's no wonder that it works. 

Tim Chermak: What are you typically spending, Heather, in a given month on the actual ads budget? Are you spending $700 or $1,500? What is the normal actual Facebook ads budget? 

Heather Murray: Average is between $800 and $1,000. I am a smaller market. Our area is smaller. I feel like we're small town USA for sure. That is the average that I'm spending. 

Tim Chermak: What is the general population of Wilson County? Do you know? Is it 50,000 or 500,000? 

Heather Murray: The numbers are off because if you drive through in Cr, Lavernia marker population, I think it says 1,300 or 1,400. It's way off, like way, way off. They need to get that sign redone. I would say 28,000 to 30,000. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, so it very much is still a small area. It's not really part of San Antonio. 

Heather Murray: No. 

Tim Chermak: Do you think that's helped your marketing being in a small town where people feel like they can get to know you a little bit more than they might an agent in a bigger city where you just feel more part of the local community, if that makes sense? 

Heather Murray: I do. I think it does help being in a small town. It helps with my kids being in the school district as well. I'm out at Friday night football games, baseball games. My daughter does tumbling, so I see moms and families there as well. It is a real small town feel and Platform marketing completely helps too. They feel like they know me just by ads and the videos that I put out. I feel like a lot of people, they can come up to me. It makes them feel like I'm approachable, which I am, but it just helps for them to be able and come up and talk to me and feel like they can. 

Tim Chermak: Heather, how long did it take for you to actually feel like Platform is working? Obviously, Platform is not cheap. At the time of recording this, the normal price of Platform if an agent wants to sign up is $1,800 a month. It's not the cheapest marketing program out there. If you're gonna start something like this, you obviously have expectations of, “Here's what the return on investment needs to be. I'm not just gonna spend money and not get a return.” 

Tim Chermak: Be honest, how long did it take you to where you could actually look at the numbers or look your husband in the eye and say, “Hey, this was money well spent. Don't get mad at me that we're doing this. This is money well spent?” Was it a year? Was it six months in? Was it 90 days in? How long did it take for you to actually feel deep down, “This was a good decision to hire Platform?” 

Heather Murray: I feel like a year, a full year. With real estate leads and doing that, it's a long game. It's not something that's going to be instant, where leads coming in and you're going to go close the house in 45 days. As soon as that lead comes in, it's the follow-up, which is super important. Leads are a long game. You have to have that expectation. I feel like once I started to get into a groove of, “This is what I need to do. This is the content that has to go out every month,” and felt like I was getting into a routine and people were really starting to notice, it was a full year. 

Tim Chermak: Obviously, that's been worth it. If you've grown your sales volume from around $7 million to over $13 million, some basic math here, I'm not sure what all the details are of your commission splits and fees and all that, but I would imagine your GCI just from your own personal production is somewhere between $300,000 and $400,000, plus obviously, the fact that your team is producing another $20 million in sales on top of your personal production, so clearly there's been a pretty good ROI for you in the last couple of years, even if it took a full year to feel like, “Okay, this is really working.” 

Tim Chermak: I wanna double click on that because that's a perspective that I think doesn't get talked about enough when you invest in a marketing program, whether it's frankly Platform or anything else, is that it's easy to dream about or think about, “If I sign up for this or that,” or you get shiny object syndrome, and “My business will be so much better in 90 days,” and that's how we think about evaluating a new marketing program or a new marketing strategy. 

Tim Chermak: The reality is that almost anything is going to take six-plus months to work. If it works faster than that, I would almost be skeptical that it's not very repeatable. If you get a massive return in one month on something, it's probably not gonna stay that way. If it's that easy, every other agent is gonna do it too, and then it loses its effect. 

Tim Chermak: I feel like actually part of the advantage of something like Platform is precisely that it takes a year to work. Because it takes that long, that's actually a built-in advantage of the Platform system because you don't have to worry as much about other agents jumping in and copying what you're doing, frankly, because they don't have the courage and the patience to stick it out for 6 to 12 months and actually see it start working. 

Heather Murray: Yes. I will say too, it also took me getting uncomfortable. I feel like you're not going to reach your full potential and be successful unless you get out of your comfort zone and get uncomfortable. It took me getting into a routine and getting uncomfortable and doing some stuff that maybe I wouldn't have done before. 

Tim Chermak: You didn't like filming videos, for example? 

Heather Murray: No, I didn't like doing videos. I had to get over that really quick. Now, I honestly just do it and then it's done. I don't really wanna go back and look at it because I am a perfectionist and I will redo. I just shoot it and send it on. 

Tim Chermak: What have been your most successful ads in terms of actual lead generation? 

Heather Murray: I would say when we put together and compile our acreage homes list, or during the summer, our homes with pools homes list. Those are a huge hit because we're in South Texas. Come on, everybody wants a pool. It's so hot. 

Tim Chermak: Those are what you're leaning on to actually fill the database with leads. Obviously, leads themselves are not enough. You have to have a bunch of retargeting ads going out. I actually remember, I think you were the first agent that we ran the Valentine's Day ad with the roses last year, where it was like, “How many roses should you buy?” It was three different photos of you with different facial expressions implying if your wife is this mad, you need to buy this many roses. If she's that mad, buy that many. If she's this mad, you better buy the full bouquet. It's a joke about how many flowers to buy on Valentine's Day. 

Tim Chermak: That's an example of, I think, an effective retargeting ad. It gets people thinking about you, makes them laugh for a split second, but it just reminds them that you exist. Almost precisely because it doesn't have anything to do with real estate, it doesn't have anything to do with new listings or homes for sale, people don't even realize consciously that they're being advertised to because it's not you talking about how great of a realtor you are or some awesome new listing you have coming up. It's just Heather Murray popping up in my newsfeed with something funny and you're like, “Cool, cool. Yeah, right.” They feel like over time they're getting to know you. I think that's what results in the referrals, too. 

Tim Chermak: That actually leads me to my next question is you've grown your business a lot. Your team has grown their business a lot. Again, the numbers are, you've basically doubled from $7 million to over $13 million, and a couple of years ago, you didn't even have a team, and now your team is selling $20 million a year of real estate. Again, you can just give an approximation here, but what general percentage of your business is referrals and fuzzy ROI versus actual leads in the CRM that you're converting and setting an appointment with? 

Heather Murray: I would say 85%. 

Tim Chermak: The 85% is what? 

Heather Murray: The retargeting ads and people just coming through organically, referrals from family, friends, people seeing my ads and videos through Facebook. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, so only maybe 15% is actual leads. 

Heather Murray: Yes, 100%. 

Tim Chermak: I think that's really, really important to stop for a second and just analyze that. Most agents, if they haven't done paid marketing before, whether you're buying leads from Zillow, Curaytor, Ylopo, BoomTown, Platform, there's tons of companies out there, I think there's just this assumption a lot of real estate agents have that the reason I'm doing a marketing program is to get leads. If I'm not getting leads from it, why am I spending this money on marketing? 

Tim Chermak: One thing I like saying is that lead generation is not synonymous with marketing. Way too many agents think those are just two synonyms. It's two ways of saying the same thing. I would argue lead generation is maybe a part of marketing, but holistically, you have to think bigger picture about what is marketing. It's not just lead generation.

Tim Chermak: What you just said there should stop anyone in their tracks if they're about to throw a bunch of money at buying leads, is that looking at the last couple of years, you've more than doubled your business. Your team has sold an extra $20 million that they weren't selling several years ago because you didn't even have a team five years ago, and yet you will look back at all this growth and say, “Hey, only about 15% of it came from so-called leads that came in. The other 85% is this fuzzy ROI, hard to track. We're just getting way more referrals than we were before Platform, or more random phone calls coming in that we're not even quite sure where that person found us, whether they saw us on Facebook or YouTube or what ad they saw.” 

Tim Chermak: It's obviously undeniable if your business is growing that much, that increased inbound phone calls or messages, that's coming from somewhere. They're probably being indirectly or directly influenced by all the ads you're doing, but it's hard to track. That's 85% of it. I think agents really need to just sit with that and realize you're probably not going to be able to track marketing at a certain point. It's not as easy as Bill signed up, he clicked this ad, then he opted in, then I set an appointment, and then I listed and sold this house. It's almost never that straightforward. 

Heather Murray: It never works like that. I will say this too, I feel like it's really important. Before Platform, in my real estate career, I never paid for leads ever. I'd never put a dollar towards any lead generation system. I just didn't do that. Now, of course, with Platform, yes, we have that capability to run leads and have that CRM and it's an added bonus for sure. I've never been a proponent for having to pay for leads. 

Tim Chermak: At the end of the day, again, people forget that, we keep using this noun, leads, a lead is a person. It's a real human being that is maybe represented on the screen by just their name and email address. It's like another statistic in my CRM. That's a real person, and real people typically have a much more complex, a messier buying cycle. It's not as straightforward as I clicked an ad, I got an email from Heather, I replied, and then I agreed to meet her for coffee, and then she listed my house. 

Tim Chermak: Very often, what it looks like is they may be clicked on an ad, but they didn't opt in. They never at any point actually gave you their name and email, but because they clicked on an ad, then they're obviously added to your retargeting list. What that means is they will keep seeing all of your posts every day for the next 180 days. 

Tim Chermak: The way we have it set up with retargeting is it lasts six months or 180 days and they'll keep seeing all of your posts and they're not just seeing the same ad. As you mentioned, let's say you're doing about five new ads a month, so in a given month, they see the five ads that you did that last month plus the five ads that you did this month. It's constantly new ads are being added to that retargeting mix. Over the course of those six months, at a minimum, six months times five is they're probably seeing 30 different ads from you over that time. 

Tim Chermak: Here's the kicker. If at any point in those six months, they click on any of those ads, the timer restarts for another six months. You get another 180 days. Really, if at any point your ads are interesting enough to where they click on them, you could essentially keep someone on your retargeting list forever. They'll just keep seeing all of your posts. 

Tim Chermak: That I think is actually much more of a realistic way of thinking about what is the buyer's journey or the seller's journey, if it's a listing lead, that someone's going on? It's not as easy as saying, “They came from this lead and they scheduled an appointment.” It's, “Hey, I don't know. Maybe they clicked on one of my ads 14 months ago and they were just doing research because maybe interest rates were higher last year. They're like, ‘You know what? I do think we want to move to Lavernia, but I'm not sure that now's the time,’” but they keep seeing Heather Murray's posts pop up constantly. A year later, they finally decide to reach out to you. At that point, even if you asked them, “Hey, what was the first ad that you clicked on?” They will have no idea.

Heather Murray: No, they just know they see me. They know they see me and I'm coming through their feed all the time. That's all they know. 

Tim Chermak: Again, that's actually a strength. It's an advantage of the Platform Marketing strategy, that it's hard to track. You're the one who has access to all the analytics and the data. If it's hard for you to track and you can't even really reverse engineer where did this lead come from, it will be impossible for your competition to ever reverse engineer what you're doing and try to copy it. Obviously, they don't have access to all the analytics. They don't know what the click rates are on the various ads or where we're targeting them or how the retargeting is set up. If another agent looks at your success and they're, “I'm just gonna do what Heather's doing,” they really can't. They have no idea what's going on under the hood. 

Heather Murray: Correct, they don't know the behind the scenes that's going on. I will say again, most of the time when I go on a listing interview, it is just a, “Hey, we saw you on Facebook.” That's my cue. I know that came from Platform. I know that this is Platform working anytime that someone tells me that. 

Tim Chermak: Even for Platform's own business right now, on sales and marketing every month, we're now spending between $20,000 and $30,000 a month. I think the same thing is true of our business. If a realtor signs up, I can maybe go back in the CRM and see which campaign they opted in for, or they requested information about the special trial on the Platform website, but that may have been eight months ago or 14 months ago. Who knows how many ads they saw in between now and then and what video or what ad is what convinced them or persuaded them? “Hey, maybe I should schedule a call and find out more about this.” 

Tim Chermak: It's hard to track which specific ads you want to attribute to that success, but I think that's the beauty of it. As long as it's working, I don't care which particular ad gets the credit. As long as I know that I'm spending money on marketing and I'm getting way more back in ROI from that, that's fine with me because I know that no one can reverse engineer or copy what we're doing. 

Heather Murray: Or duplicate it, which I have had an agent try to do that and copy an ad and the caption and all of that. I've gone back to look and they don't get any engagement, comments, likes, clicks, things like that. It just doesn't work for them because, obviously, they don't know the behind the scenes. They don't know that the ad spend has to go behind it and all of that, and the analytics, like you said, behind it.

Heather Murray: I also do want to say it's funny because that is the same way that I came into Platform, was because of everything that I saw that Heather Mutz was doing. I can't tell you a specific ad that she did or video that she shot that brought me in. I just knew I was constantly seeing her content and thought, “I need to know what she's doing.” 

Tim Chermak: Exactly, right. Let me pivot here and ask you a change of topic question. When you look at your personal life, obviously you're making a lot more money now than you were in your business two or three years ago. Again, even though I will say two or three years ago, you were already successful by any standard of real estate agent, you're even more successful now. What are some things in your personal life that maybe you or your family have been able to do or experience or buy because of where your family's financial situation is now? 

Heather Murray: We were able to purchase an RV to take down to the coast. We live in South Texas and we live near the coast. We were able to purchase an RV and take it there during the summers, which is awesome for my family because it's just quality family time down at the coast with family and then a bunch of friends go down there. We've thoroughly enjoyed that. We were also able to buy a third vehicle to take back and forth to the coast because of that. Just to create those memories and bonds with my family is irreplaceable. 

Tim Chermak: I'm gonna guess so it'll be embarrassing if I'm wrong, but is your son's name, is it Cade?

Heather Murray: It's Caden. 

Tim Chermak: Caden, okay, I was close. 

Heather Murray: Yeah, we'll call him Cade for short. 

Tim Chermak: All right, I was close. He's in high school now. He's a sophomore, senior, what is he? 

Heather Murray: He's a sophomore. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, because I've seen you post all the time about, “Hey, here's him playing football.” I think he's a pitcher in baseball?

Heather Murray: Yeah, he is in baseball. Right now we're in baseball season, so it's all baseball mode right now. 

Tim Chermak: By the way, me seeing all this is because, obviously, we're friends on Facebook. This is just proof that if you regularly are creating content, you can feel like you know someone, even though you and I have never had an in-person conversation before. I think we've had maybe a couple really brief phone calls, but we don't know each other at all, and yet I feel like I know, “She has a son who plays football. He's a pitcher on the baseball team.” 

Tim Chermak: You have kids that are obviously still at home. Being able to take vacations with them and spend more time with them, it's like there's this imminent sense of urgency of a deadline. If he's a sophomore, there's really only two full years left, and then eventually, he's out on his own and he's an adult. That's super important to create memories while your kids are still kids. By the way, I'm a nerd on this because my dad owned an RV dealership growing up. What type of RV did you buy? 

Heather Murray: I would have to ask my husband. I don't know all the technical terms. It's not a fifth wheel, so we have to pull it behind the truck. It's not a fifth wheel that you can connect. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, so it's a travel trailer. Cool. You go down to the coast in the summer. Is it long weekends type thing? How long are you typically down there? 

Heather Murray: We had been leaving our RV there the entire summer and then going when we're able to go. If we are able to get away on a weekend, then we could just drive down there because it's already there at the RV park that we stay at. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, cool. You just rented a spot there for the whole summer. Very cool.

Heather Murray: Yeah, it's fun. We've got a lot of friends that do the same and they go down when they can. It's a lot of fun. 

Tim Chermak: Awesome. Those are the stories I always like to uncover. You hear someone's business grew from $5 million to $10 million or from $10 million to $20 million, or in your story, your team's now selling $33 million a year, so that sounds like this big number and you're just thinking mentally of what the profits would be on that, but profits are ultimately just numbers on a piece of paper. How has it actually changed your life? What are the actual things you get to do now that maybe you weren't doing before? It's always cool hearing those stories about how you get to spend some of that money. 

Heather Murray: It's definitely my family for sure and my kids to create those memories because time just flies so fast. My daughter's six. I really see it and I really feel it. With my son being 16, I just see that time really, really flew by. 

Tim Chermak: Sure. A couple quick questions about your market. What is the typical price point in your market? Are you selling $800,000 homes, $300,000 homes? What would you say is the average for you and your team? 

Heather Murray: The average right now is $500,000. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, cool. Is that for a single family home? Is that for something with some acreage? What is a typical transaction for you guys? 

Heather Murray: Single family home on an acre or more. That is our market and our area for sure. 

Tim Chermak: That's what people are looking for. Okay. Are you often picking up first time home buyers or is it move-up buyers who also have a home to sell? What do you typically see coming in from the social media marketing that you're doing? 

Heather Murray: I would say move-up buyers for sure for our market, just the price point of course. I feel like more that, but we are also getting some first time home buyers as well. The majority I would say would be move-up. 

Tim Chermak: Okay. What are the typical hours that you find yourself working on a given week? I know that different months of the year, you're probably working a lot more than maybe some other months, but to sustain a level of production where you're selling $13 million plus, again, your team is selling $30 million plus, are you working 80 hours a week to do that? Are you working 20 hours a week? What would you realistically say, on any given day, how many hours are you working a day? 

Heather Murray: I would say it's really hard because I honestly feel like It's always 24/7. I'm doing something that's real estate related 24/7. It is all day. If I'm not doing something for social media, Platform posts, ads, I'm working with clients, listings, inputting listings into MLS, so I just feel like it's always real estate 24/7. 

Tim Chermak: Constantly?

Heather Murray: Yes, I do. 

Tim Chermak: Again, as you look back at scaling your business, building the team, was it a conscious decision of, “I want to build a team?” You wrote out a business plan and you started recruiting agents, or did it just happen where they approached you? How did the Heather Murray Team come about? 

Heather Murray: I always knew that I wanted to grow within real estate and I knew, eventually, I want to get my broker's license. I want to have my own team. These were my goals. The way that my team came about was when I joined Homestead and Ranch Real Estate, I would say I was maybe with them for a few months, and my broker approached me about starting a team. “Is it something that you wanna do?” I said, “Absolutely. Let's do this.” It was really in a conversation that took off and then here we are now with my team, total of five with me. I also got my broker's license, which that was a huge goal of mine as well. I did that last year. 

Tim Chermak: Is there a long-term goal of how many people you want on your team or what your sales volume goals are, let's say, for the next two or three years? 

Heather Murray: If I'm being honest, I really don't have a set number for that. I just feel if I continue to grow exponentially every single year, and I do more than I did the year before, that's a success for me. 

Tim Chermak: It's funny, I have that exact same mentality for Platform. People ask, “What are your goals? What are your financial goals? What's your revenue goal?” I'm like, “I don't know. I just want to keep creating awesome marketing campaigns and keep our clients really happy.” I think if you focus more on the process of just keeping your clients happy and doing good work, then you'll probably grow. Frankly, if you don't, you won't. 

Tim Chermak: I honestly don't have a goal. When someone asked us that, my honest answer is, “I don't know. We just want to do really good work and stay creative and make sure our clients are happy and that they're growing. If their businesses are growing and they're happy with us, then we will probably get referrals and we will grow too.” 

Heather Murray: Yes, and you'll just continue to grow. I agree. I don't like to live by a strict goal number. I just know for myself, I did better than last year, I'm doing great. 

Tim Chermak: How many potential deals, Heather, do you think that you or your team maybe missed out on last year because of the crazy interest rates going so high and just scaring buyers? Would you say that you missed out on one or two or 10? How many potential transactions or leads do you think you guys missed out on last year because of interest rates? 

Heather Murray: As a whole for the team, I would say between 10 and 15 probably. 

Tim Chermak: That's crazy. I don't mean to say that to inject a bunch of pessimism into the conversation. I think it's actually a reason to be optimistic because it will be the opposite of that here in 2023. All those people that were scared and they didn't wanna pull the trigger last year on moving, this year, they're like, “All right, I'm back in. Interest rates seem to have stabilized.” There's not this sense of volatility of just who knows what the market's gonna do the way that it was all last year. 

Tim Chermak: Again, if you grew your business that much last year, imagine what your numbers would have looked like if you had another 10 transactions from all those people that just postponed. It's not like all those people go, “I guess I'll just never buy a house or never move.” It's that they're simply just postponing into the future to when they feel a little bit more comfortable. 

Heather Murray: They're already starting to come back. That’s a really good sign for sure. 

Tim Chermak: We're recording this podcast episode originally in February of 2023. Again, maybe someone's listening to this a year from now or six months from now, whatever, but it was recorded in February 2023. What is your gut feeling right now about what the market is going to look like in 2023 versus what it felt like in 2022? 

Heather Murray: Oh my gosh, I think that this year is gonna be a really good year. I honestly feel like that. January still felt a little bit slow, but here in the last three weeks, it has really taken off in our market. I don't know what it's doing in other markets, but in our market specifically, we were seeing people come back out. 

Heather Murray: I feel like too, with the interest rates, it's all about educating them and educating them on, “Hey, you can do a 2-1 buydown program. There are other options out there to get around this, to make you feel better, to get you into a home if that's what you truly want.” I already feel that and it's early on in the year. I feel like it's just gonna continue throughout the year. Once we really hit spring-summer selling season, it's just gonna take off. 

Tim Chermak: All right, Heather, I have a couple more questions here and then we'll wrap up the conversation. I wanted to ask you about when you pick up listing leads and you're trying to secure that seller business, how do you work Platform into that conversation and your Platform strategy? 

Tim Chermak: If you're talking to a homeowner, and whether or not they ever ask the question how are you different from other realtors, you know that that's what they're thinking, even if they don't verbalize that out loud. I'm assuming you're probably not mentioning Platform by name, but how do you mention this marketing strategy that you're using when you're talking to sellers to communicate to them that, “Hey, I actually do a lot more marketing than other agents do. I'm not just going to put a sign in the yard, take some pictures, and then wait?” How do you talk to your sellers about all of the marketing that you're doing? 

Heather Murray: It's funny because that's exactly what we say to them is, “We're not that agent that's just going to put the sign in the yard and let it ride and just let's see what happens. I do have a marketing company.” I don't think I specifically say Platform, but I say, “Yes, we do use a marketing company. We shoot these listing videos. There's ad spend behind it. We have a retargeting audience and it could hit up to 50,000 people that are specifically looking for something like your property. We really do put the additional marketing and social media behind your property to get it sold. It's not just a sign in the yard and let's see what happens.”

Tim Chermak: Your sellers definitely know that you're doing a lot more to promote your properties than any other agent. You're making that very clear to them. 

Heather Murray: Very clear, and then they'll go back and they'll look at the Facebook video and then I'll get a text message from them and they're like, “Hey, that was really cool. We really like that video. Great job,” something like that. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, awesome. It sounds like you're definitely leveraging that to help not just get the leads in the first place, but actually convert the leads and make sure that they list with you and not some other agent. 

Heather Murray: Absolutely. 

Tim Chermak: What has been the longest term, like the point of a lead coming in and then them finally deciding to work with you, whether it was to buy or sell? What's the highest hanging fruit you've seen? “I got a lead a year and a half ago and they finally just bought with me or sold with me.” Is it a year? Is it two years? What would you say is the longest that the retargeting had to take to finally work on someone? 

Heather Murray: I would say a year. Again, like I said earlier, it's a long game. Those leads are, and it's really important to nurture and follow up with those leads so they don't forget about you. Obviously, it's great with the retargeting ads and they'll see that on Facebook, but like you said, they're a person. It's actually a real person with a heartbeat. You wanna make that connection with them, but I would say a year. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, so because you said it's taken a year and you also said that it was about a year in to where I really felt like Platform was a good decision, what that means, let's be clear, is that essentially, the first 11, 12 months you were with Platform, you kept doing it even though you were like, “I don't really know if this is working. I hope it's working. I want it to work.” In your case, you're probably thinking, “I see it working for Heather Mutz and some other agents,” but you honestly weren't sure even 11 months in, “Did I make a good decision here? Is Platform actually worth the money that I'm spending on this?” 

Tim Chermak: The question I'm asking is, what would you say to encourage or to give perspective to all the agents that might be listening to this podcast right now that are in that spot? They've maybe been with Platform for six months or nine months or 10 months or 11 months and they're in that exact spot where they're like, “I really hope this works. I want this to work, but honestly, I'm not sure if I can actually say I'm happy with the results so far,” because you said it took you about a year to really see.

Tim Chermak: Obviously, in hindsight, your business has doubled and it's absolutely been financially worth it. What would you say to encourage someone who's in that valley right now where it's like, “Oh man, I've spent some money, but I haven't yet got the return.” What would you say to just give them perspective based on your experience? 

Heather Murray: I would say the risk is definitely worth the reward in this, and you really have to just listen to your account manager and what they're telling you to do and doing those ads and doing the content and shooting those listing videos. Let's just say you're a new agent starting out and you don't have a book of business coming through. If you make yourself look busy, you will become busy. That's really how that works. If you just stay at it, and I promise if you grind it out, it will pay off and it will work for you. You just have to keep doing the content and doing what they're telling you to do. 

Tim Chermak: I think what you just shared there is an incredible insight that even if you're a newer agent, you don't have a lot of business going on, you might not have any leads in the pipeline, maybe you're looking forward at your next quarter and you're like, “Oh my God, I literally don't have a single client I'm working with. There's not even one,” make yourself look busy even if you're not because people are attracted to agents who look like they're busy. 

Tim Chermak: Obviously, you want to work with a realtor that you assume is successful. If it looks like they're out there regularly selling homes or going on showings, you wanna work with someone who's successful because it's just social proof that other people trust that person. Even if you're not busy, create a lot of retargeting ads and make it look like you're busy. That's how business comes in. 

Tim Chermak: As you said, you built your business to over $7 million a year in sales volume without spending a single dollar on advertising. Just because you made yourself look busy and you got the referrals and over time, people started noticing, “Hey, Heather's a good agent,” you were posting on your own social media organically, but you got to $7 million without ever spending money on ads. I think that's just proof of that. 

Heather Murray: Yes, and you just have to get uncomfortable. Like I said earlier, too, I did not like shooting the videos, but you will get used to it if you start doing it on a regular basis. You'll get over it really quick. 

Tim Chermak: Heather, any last minute tips or advice or anything you'd want to share with realtors listening to this podcast? 

Heather Murray: I would say the market, obviously for realtors and especially in my area, it is supersaturated, but you can't use that to hinder you or say, “You know what? I'm not gonna give it a shot. I'm not gonna try this ad. I'm not gonna do this or that.” You just have to go for it. You have to go for it and just do every day. Just wake up and, “Hey, what is on my list? What is on my to-do list?” and knock it out. 

Tim Chermak: It's that consistency over time. In any given month, it's not that doing five ads this month, let's say, is gonna radically change your life, change your business because you had five ads go out. If you do five ads every month for 12 months, then yeah. If people on your retargeting list have seen you 60 different times in the last year with a wide variety of listing videos, photos, Ducks in a Row video, all these crazy retargeting ads, if they've seen you 60 times in the last year, then yeah, absolutely, your business is gonna grow, you're going to get more referrals, your past sphere is going to refer people to you at a greater rate than they were before. Your business is gonna grow, but it doesn't happen in a month or two months or even three months. It's gonna take probably six to 12 months to see the return on investment there. When you do see it, it's pretty cool. 

Tim Chermak: Just super quick napkin math in my head, your personal income has probably grown by, what, a hundred, two hundred-some thousand since you signed up with Platform? When you put that into perspective, if it's $200,000, when you look at the cost of the Platform program and the ad spend, so all in, it's probably about $30,000 a year, something like that. That sounds like a lot, but is $30,000 a lot compared to making an extra $200,000? No, not really. That's the return on investment of why it's worth it sticking it out for that year or however long it takes. When you look at the numbers, in the short term, it probably felt really scary. Now that you have the proper perspective of having been doing this for two years, it's like, “Wow. The math makes sense.” 

Heather Murray: I think it's just having the expectation too, because so many people are instant gratification and they need to have that instant gratification. If they have that expectation upfront that this is a long game and you are going to have to work at it, it'll go by much easier and smoother for them. 

Tim Chermak: Heather, again, congratulations on your business growth that just a couple of years ago, you were in the early process of building a team. Now, you have five team members, sold $33 million last year total before you ever signed up for Platform, your personal production was $7million, and you'll probably hit $40 million this year because I fully expect that the market is gonna be even stronger than it was last year and you're growing. 

Tim Chermak: It's really cool to see that growth, even though you're in a smaller town. It's not like you're in LA or Houston or Chicago or some massive market where there's millions and millions of people. You're putting up those numbers in an area where your greater area has fewer than 50,000 people. Congratulations on that success because you've definitely earned it. 

Heather Murray: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Platform has definitely helped me with that too. 

Tim Chermak: All right. I will see you this summer at the Platform Rodeo. You should totally bring your RV because a bunch of people did last year. I know Heather and Veronica, they actually drove up all the way from Texas to the Rodeo last year. I know the Remy's, who are up in McKinney, they actually took an RV and came all the way up with their family. I'll have to hopefully see you guys at the Rodeo this summer. 

Heather Murray: I'll get with Heather on that too. I'll see what her plans are and maybe we can figure something out. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah, you totally should. I'll see you at the Mastermind. 

Heather Murray: Yes, gotta be there too. I need to find out from my husband what kind of RV we have, because I feel really dumb not knowing that. 

Tim Chermak: Again, thank you for your time. I know you're busy. Guys, we'll see you on the next episode of The Platform Marketing Show.