The Client Appreciation Event That Attracted 400 People

Kymerlee Music: And then we just did a Summer Splash Client Appreciation Bash where we booked out all of Summer Waves waterpark for two hours in the evening. I expected between 50 and 100 clients to come. We had over 400 people show up. 

Tim Chermak: Wow. You had 400 people at a client appreciation event? 

Kymerlee Music: Yeah. It was my first big client appreciation. I said 50 to 100 because I have 200 past clients, but I opened it up to my agents to be able to invite their friends, family, clients, and vendors. We had over 400 show up, so it was a big event.

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. Today, I'm joined by Kymerlee Music from Brunswick, Georgia. Kim, welcome to the show. 

Kymerlee Music: Thank you for having me. 

Tim Chermak: Kymerlee has a pretty cool career arc, a story of how she got into real estate and also how quickly she built her business when she got into real estate. But let's just lay the foundation right away of where's your business at right now, Kim?

Kymerlee Music: Right now, I'm a broker. I've been a broker for a little under two years in the coastal Georgia area, so East Coast [in] Florida. I have built it in under two years to 25 agents with three admin staff and I'm still in production myself. I'm on track to do about $20 million in volume this year with an average price point about $350,000. 

Tim Chermak: So you're selling a lot of houses. 

Kymerlee Music: Anywhere between 46 to 75, give or take. 

Tim Chermak: So your personal production is at about on pace for $20 million and then your team is also going to sell, however many homes? 

Kymerlee Music: Roughly $60 million total. About 220 transaction’s what we project. 

Tim Chermak: With the whole team?

Kymerlee Music: Yeah.

Tim Chermak: But you haven't been in real estate for a long time. I mean, how many full years have you been a realtor now? 

Kymerlee Music: I just hit my fifth year about a month ago. 

Tim Chermak: A fifth year. Okay, and what were you doing before that? 

Kymerlee Music: Paramedic firefighter. I was an acting Officer Lieutenant with my County EMS job. I left the fire service and did just EMS with Ware County EMS. 

Tim Chermak: So really, that had absolutely nothing to do with being a real estate agent. 

Kymerlee Music: Well, it actually has everything to do with being a real estate agent, oddly enough. As a 911 paramedic, you are involved in the most traumatic aspect of somebody's life. It's in a very vulnerable state those patients are in. Rolling that over into my real estate career, there's never a hard conversation anymore. 

Kymerlee Music: The hardest conversation I've ever had is telling someone their loved one has passed away. When it comes to the real estate world, I'm able to have those hard critical conversations in a way that brings comfort to our buyers and sellers. So really, I think EMS has everything to do with real estate. 

Tim Chermak: Sure, okay. Yeah, I mean, obviously, if you've had to tell a parent or a family member that their child has died, that's not even in the same emotional stratosphere as telling a seller, “Hey, I think we need to reduce the price.” It's not even close to as high stakes or emotional. So, okay, that makes sense. 

Tim Chermak: But the point I was going for there was that you've built this incredible business in the last five years. I mean, you've reached a point in your personal production, we're actually inside of just five years that many agents don't get to in 20 years and that you're on pace to sell $20 million. You've built this team that's obviously selling a bunch of homes at your brokerage beyond your personal production. 

Tim Chermak: But your previous job, it wasn't like you came to real estate from lending, or you came to real estate from working at a new builder or some adjacent industry that gave you a bunch of those contacts. Or often, we see really actually successful agents are often former teachers. I've seen pastors become really successful agents. What that all has in common is that they had a pretty robust sphere of influence. 

Tim Chermak: If you used to be a teacher or a pastor or something like that, you know a lot of people and so you can carry those relationships with you into being a realtor. It gives you a foundation to build your business off of. You didn't really have that going from being a paramedic and a firefighter into being a real estate agent. You truly have, you really have built your business from scratch. 

Kymerlee Music: I took my class online, took me roughly four days, and within eight days. I was licensed and ready to rock and roll as a brand new baby real estate agent.

Tim Chermak: While we're on the intro, this episode here, and we're still establishing how cool and interesting you are, I also have to mention that you're also a barrel racer. You compete in rodeo, and you used to be a D1 swimmer, right? .

Kymerlee Music: Yeah, I swam competitively for 14 years, made it to Olympic trials. I unfortunately blew out my shoulder. I was a butterflyer. That ended that career. I moved forward with EMS and barrel racing. 

Tim Chermak: Naturally, and then you're like, “Well, I'm getting bored with rodeo and being a paramedic. I guess I'll start a career in real estate.”

Kymerlee Music: Well, I still do EMS part time. I still work a shift twice a month because it's a passion of mine. My husband actually is the one that said, “You need to do real estate.” I called a friend of mine who sold me a house and I said, “What's that real estate all about?” She said, “The life changing career,” and that's all I needed to hear. 

Tim Chermak: That is something I wanted to discuss. I know you mentioned that to me before that, “Hey, I'm the top 1% of producers. I'm personally selling $20 million. I have this big team that's selling a shit ton of houses as well, but I think every month I'd still like to be a part-time paramedic just to give back to the community and not ever get to this point where I think I'm too good to do certain things like, ‘Oh, I'm making all this money now. Now I'm not going to serve the community in that way.’” I think that's really cool and honorable. It's probably kept you grounded because, frankly–

Kymerlee Music: Keeps me humble.

Tim Chermak: Yeah, you're working shifts with people who are making whatever paramedics make, $15 an hour. I mean, it's obviously–

Kymerlee Music: $17 to $23 an hour. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah, it's not a lot of money. You're doing this just because you're passionate about your community. You take off the uniform and go back to being a realtor and all of a sudden you're in this career where you're on pace to bring in half a million dollars a year in GCI. Not a lot of people in those positions where they're making half a million dollars a year, whether you're a hotshot corporate lawyer or you're a top realtor like you are, not a lot of those people are working shifts as paramedics. I think that really speaks to your character that you truly do care about your community. 

Tim Chermak: Obviously, a big part of the Platform strategy, and we'll be talking about marketing in Platform here eventually, is you need to care about your community. It's about creating marketing content that's not necessarily always about you, but it's about the community. You just happen to be the tour guide. You are the narrator of that content, but a lot of the content isn't about you, it's about the community. It's certainly helpful for people like you that you don't have to fake it. You obviously do care about Brunswick and the greater community that you serve there in Georgia so you're not having to fake being involved in the community because you actually are. That's really cool. You should get all the credit in the world for that. 

Kymerlee Music: Well, thank you. That's something I love to do.

Tim Chermak: How did you first discover Platform? Was it a referral or did you see one of our Facebook ads? How did you get connected with Platform?

Kymerlee Music: Kara and I are good friends. Everyone knows Kara Newton, the Pink Queen. We are friends and me and her kind of beat back off of each other. I was diving more into my marketing where she was diving more into systems and starting up a brokerage. I kind of mentored her on, “Girl, just do it. Just do the brokerage. Just do the thing. You can suffice on your own. You've got a good group and community of people.” I started asking her, “Well, how are you doing all of this?” She led me into you guys and sent me her account manager to see if my market share was available. Sure enough, it was. I just jumped in feet first. I find calm in the chaos. 

Tim Chermak: Okay. Actually, I didn't know that. You were a referral from Kara Newton. You signed up, as of this recording, you've been in Platform for about eight months, almost nine months now. 

Kymerlee Music: Yep. 

Tim Chermak: What have you noticed in terms of how your business or how your brand in your community has changed over the last year, like before and after starting this Platform strategy? 

Kymerlee Music: Now, I can run into stores, because we have a smaller community. We're about 80,000 in population just for Glynn County. I've been noticed in stores and church. Just today, a lender who came to speak to our brokerage who I've never met was like, “You are all over my Facebook. I see you every day, all day, I'm scrolling through my feed.” I've really just become, as we would all say, five-mile famous, which is the goal. Putting out the videos, it's really built credibility for my business and who I am as a listing agent. 

Kymerlee Music: When I go up to sellers, I can say, “Here's my feed. You're going to get the real authentic me no matter what time of day it is. If you tap into my personal Facebook page, you're going to see me for who I am.” If you like it, you like it. If you don't, you don't. Nine times out of 10, because of the community involvement and the marketing you guys do help me with and the brainstorming ideas, it's made me become a market leader. 

Tim Chermak: How would you describe the Platform strategy in your own words? If some agent was asking, “Hey, I heard about this Platform thing, but I don't really know what it is. What is this Platform Marketing strategy?” In your own words, Kim, how would you describe it?

Kymerlee Music: For me, it's really a tool in my tool bag, but it's more or less a family. When we have that community and we beep up ideas off of each other, so I have a very creative mind, but some days I struggle. I can easily call Allie and be like, “Allie, look, I need help. Help me brainstorm this,” and she's there. It's like having a mentorship program, a coaching program, a marketing company, and a family all in one. You always have somebody there to help you whether it's one o'clock in the morning or two o'clock in the evening. I can post on that Facebook group and somebody's gonna respond.

Tim Chermak: For those listening, Allie is Kymerlee’s account manager at Platform. All of our clients have a dedicated account manager. It's not a call support rep where it's someone in India with a headset or something. It's an actual American. Usually, most of our account managers have about 20 to 25 clients they work with so they'll get to know you. It's not like you're just one of 120 people they work with. They'll really get to know you, your market, your personality, what you're passionate about because they'll help you write custom ads for your market that actually exhibit your personality or what you're into. Anyways, I just wanted to explain for those listening who aren't familiar, she mentioned Allie. Allie is her Platform account manager. 

Kymerlee Music: That's right, yeah. She handles all of my crazy ideas and she's all for them most of the time. 

Tim Chermak: What is the coolest ad that you've done so far with Platform? If you could just pick one or two of what you think are the most successful ads that you've put out there that just got a lot of engagement or got people buzzing in the community talking about you, what one or two ads immediately come to mind? 

Kymerlee Music: My favorite ad was the small business, the God Made A Small Business Owner. I am big with supporting our small businesses anyways, whether it be sponsorship or just shopping local and things like that. My husband could probably shoot me for how many times I'm like, “Oh, let's just go look,” and I end up buying stuff because I love our small businesses. We are very small business centric. We have First Friday, which supports all small businesses every month. That one really resonated with me. I hopped from eight different small businesses just in our downtown area. It made it really easy and a lot of people appreciated that video. I think I got the most engagement from that video. My other favorite one was your Ducks in a Row. That was just fun. I went to St. Augustine. We had a drink at this duck place and they had all these ducks that you could buy. Thousands of them. I went and bought 15 of them just for this video.

Tim Chermak: Again, for those listening who have no idea what we're talking about right now, there's this Platform video script that we just call Ducks in a Row. It's kind of just a dumb, funny, it's cute, really. That's probably the right word. It's a video that you use, ideally, yellow rubber ducks and we have this script about, “Hey, I'm a real estate agent. If you're thinking about buying or selling, I'll help you get your ducks in a row,” and then we list out all these things that the realtor helps you do. 

Tim Chermak: Usually, what most agents do in this video script is someone off camera is throwing you ducks. As you list them off, you're catching these ducks that are thrown at you. Something to that effect. It's just a cheesy, cute video that grabs people's attention on social media because it's not the typical thing you'd expect from a realtor. It doesn't look like an ad because it's just so ridiculous, but it grabs people's attention and it makes it fun. 

Kymerlee Music: It was a lot of fun. 

Tim Chermak: You said you had a sales meeting this morning or yesterday or something where–

Kymerlee Music: It was this morning. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, where a lender was at your brokerage and actually said, “Oh, I see you every day on Facebook.” 

Kymerlee Music: Every month, we have a sales meeting and we typically will invite a lender or a photographer or some type of vendor to come to our sales meeting because we've got 25 agents and who I use may not work for the next agent. It's not like you work for me, you have to use my same vendor. We bring in different people. Whether I jive with them or not, someone else may and that helps the business. 

Kymerlee Music: They come in, local lender, and he goes to talk about Facebook and getting to know people. He says, “Yeah, every time I open Facebook, all I see is Kymerlee Music everywhere,” so it's working. I've never met him. I really didn't even know we were friends on Facebook. I hate to say that, but I didn't.

Tim Chermak: That’s what powerful is that yes, using the Platform strategy can help you stay top of mind with people who already know you. That's, frankly, where I think a lot of our clients get the strongest, most obvious ROI, is that they're just constantly top of mind with their sphere in a way that they weren't before. 

Tim Chermak: Maybe they thought they were staying top of mind with their sphere, but once they've been in Platform and working the Platform system for six, 12 months, they realize, “Oh, this is a whole new level of staying top of mind.” You get way more referrals too, the more you stay top of mind. But that's pretty cool that you've been able to track, “Hey, even people who don't know me are saying that they see me all the time on social media.” 

Tim Chermak: You're on pace, you said, to do, Kim, about $20 million this year. I wanna just draw attention to that, how impressive that is that you're selling that much while you're building a team and, really, a brokerage. Your team is on pace to sell how many homes again? 

Kymerlee Music: We just met our halfway goal, a little over it, but 220 homes as a brokerage and about $60 million in volume.

Tim Chermak: Total. So really, your team is selling about $40 million and then you're selling about $20 million? Okay. 

Kymerlee Music: Yes. 

Tim Chermak: That's, obviously very, very impressive that you even have time to manage all that and still sell $20 million. 

Kymerlee Music: I've got good support staff. I've got my sister, [Hannah], who's been my assistant for three years. She handles everything contracts, which allows me just to be the face with my clients. She handles the lenders and attorneys and everything. I've got a couple other assistants, I know just the broker, social media, and just be there for the agents for questions and stuff like that. 

Tim Chermak: At the corporate level, what are your income and expenses look like? Obviously, I'm assuming when you're running that large of a brokerage, Platform is not the only marketing you're doing. Is there other marketing that you guys are doing to help drive business, drive leads? 

Kymerlee Music: Yeah, so we do pay for a lot of leads. I pay for Realtor.com leads. I'm looking at making the switch over to easy home leads. But I really, really coach and mentor all of my agents on how to convert those leads ‘cause every lead has a different DNA. They'll have realtor homes, sphere of influence, Platform marketing leads, each one has a different DNA. I've dissected the DNA to be able to convert at a higher level. 

Kymerlee Music: We do have one billboard. Honestly, the billboard does nothing. Platform really has taken place of that billboard, so that's going as soon as I can. But as far as just the business expenses for marketing, the biggest thing is Facebook and paid leads and getting out there in the community and hosting those client appreciation events. Those have really helped as well. 

Tim Chermak: What are you doing in terms of the client appreciation events? 

Kymerlee Music: Last year, we did photos for Mother's Day. We did Mother's Day photos where I booked a photographer and they just did a Google signup form and my photographer took all the photos. It was 15 minute slots for the mothers and we just shows out for Mother's Day. And then we just did a Summer Splash Client Appreciation Bash where we booked out all of Summer Waves waterpark for two hours in the evening. I expected between 50 and 100 clients to come. We had over 400 people show up. 

Tim Chermak: Wow. You had 400 people at a client appreciation event? 

Kymerlee Music: Yeah. It was my first big client appreciation. I said 50 to 100 because I have 200 past clients, but I opened it up to my agents to be able to invite their friends, family, clients, and vendors. We had over 400 show up, so it was a big event. Matter of fact, I'm getting all that video footage over to you guys to help me dish out a marketing video for that. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah, definitely. That'd be an amazing retargeting ad. How much did you spend on putting on an event like that? I think that's what a lot of people listening are probably wondering. “Wow. That's incredible. But how much did you spend on that event?” 

Kymerlee Music: I'm not a gatekeeper by any means. I will share anything and everything, but it was $5,000 to book the whole park. It's after hours, so it's 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM, which made it so nice. There was no lines. The bugs weren't bad. You didn't worry about sunscreen and the heat was non-existent. It was super relaxed. It was about $5,000. Larry’s Giant Subs stayed open. As long as the clients ate $300 worth of food, we didn't have to recoup that expense. So, $5,000 flat. I do expect that event alone to bring us a return on our investment by at least seven to ten times more.

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