The Creative Billboard That Took Me From $6 To $18 Million In One Year (And The Social Media Marketing Plan Behind It All)

Shaina Goedtke: I'm catching a lot of flak from agents and I kind of have a target on me as far as, “What is she doing? Is she doing it legally?” I also feel like I'm walking on eggshells. I'm professional in my business. I do it right, but because I've made so much growth, a lot of people are trying to figure out what I'm doing. 

Tim Chermak: This is The Platform Marketing Show, where we interview the most creative and ambitious real estate agents in the country, dissect their local marketing strategy, and get the behind the scenes scoop on how they're generating listing leads and warm referrals. We'll dive into the specifics of what marketing campaigns are working for them, how much they're spending on those campaigns, and figure out how they have perfected what we call the Platform Marketing strategy. This is your host, Tim Chermak. I'm the founder and CEO of Platform. I love marketing and I talk too much, so let's dive in. 

Tim Chermak: Hey guys, it's Tim Chermak. Welcome back to another episode of The Platform Marketing Show. I'm joined this morning by Shaina Goedtke. Shaina, welcome to the show. 

Shaina Goedtke: Thanks, Tim. 

Tim Chermak: Shaina is a real estate agent in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and she has a pretty awesome story. She's been licensed for only a couple of years as a real estate agent. Prior to hiring Platform, she was at about $6 million in sales volume, which is already pretty impressive. The thing is, I don't want to take anything away from that accomplishment because the vast majority of real estate agents in the United States are not selling even $6 million a year, then you had already done $6 million in, I think, your second year in real estate. It was your first full year as a realtor, like the first 12 month calendar year, you did $6 million, then you hired Platform. This year, you're on pace to do $18 million, potentially $20 million if a couple things go your way. You're actually one of those agents where we can accurately say that since joining the Platform family, your business has actually tripled. 

Shaina Goedtke: Yeah, for sure. I attribute a lot of it, of the success and my closings, to Platform. 

Tim Chermak: That's incredible. It's always cool when we grow someone's business by 50% or 80% or even 100% if their business doubles, but it's really awesome when your business triples because at that point, it's just undeniable. It's like, okay, something's going on here. Shaina, let's go back in time a little bit. Tell me about when you got licensed, why did you decide to become a real estate agent? Because that was in 2021, right? 

Shaina Goedtke: Correct. I was a teacher, a fourth-grade teacher. I went straight into teaching right after college. I did six years of that and it ultimately came down to my husband had a job that didn't have any flexibility and we had two kids who were just always sick. I felt the guilt and the pressure of having two personal days, and then my sick leave was technically only supposed to be for me. You weren't supposed to use it for your kids. I was just always feeling that pressure and guilt of how do I go to work and take care of the kids and then appointments on top of that. At that time, we only had two kids. 

Shaina Goedtke: The other feeling I had was a lot of teachers would put in all this extra time and get nothing out of it. I started to resent it and go, I would say, “I'm leaving at 3:30. That's my contract and my kids are important to me," which family first, but it wasn't helping my class or it wasn't doing my job any service of having that mentality, so I knew something needed to change, and then I got in contact. This is kind of a crazy story too. 

Shaina Goedtke: We were making wood signs for closing gifts for a local realtor, but her husband did building, like big high-end builds, and I kept thinking, gee, I just wish they would ask me to join their team or become an agent. I had no idea what it would entail or look like, but I just threw it out there because nobody was asking me to quit teaching. I just said, “Hey, do you have a position for me?” 

Shaina Goedtke: At first, they said no. The husband came back a few months later and said, “Hey, we actually think we would like you to be a part of our team.” At that point, I had already decided I was leaving teaching and it was like a God thing. When you go into sales and commission-based, it’s scary and so it was like a leap for me to be like, “Okay, we'll be okay. I'll have something to stand on for a little bit.” I was just like, “Thank you, God, for making a little bit easier of a transition.” 

Tim Chermak: I think it's always important to point out that there's a major survivorship bias when you look at some top producing real estate agents where you hear about someone who made $200,000 last year or $300,000 last year, and it sounds like, “Oh, wow. I should be a real estate agent. They can make that much money.” It's like, yeah, but what you don't see is that the first year that they were in business or the first six months, they might not have made a single dollar. They might have walked away from a full time job where they had regular paychecks and then their family was in a situation where maybe they did not have a single closing the first six months. That’s scary.

Shaina Goedtke: And my broker said to have six months in savings, and I didn't have that. I was living on a wing and prayer, like this has got to work. I have to make it happen. I feel like that attributes to my success too, because there was nowhere else to go. But the crazy thing about that story is the day before I had my scheduled test to get my license, I got a text from the builder saying that they no longer needed me. That was during that 2021 where builds were stalled and they didn't know what was gonna happen. 

Shaina Goedtke: I mean, I think everything obviously happens for a reason, but it wrecked me. I'm like, “What am I going to do?” Hindsight, it’s 2020 and I'm so thankful it didn't work out because I could build myself, build my brand, not their brand and what they had going. It got me to where I needed to be to feel confident in making that transition. And then, everything works out. 

Tim Chermak: It's worth saying too that the last couple of years for real estate agents have been one of the most difficult times to be an agent, frankly, in the last 50 years, just with homes being so unaffordable, interest rates being elevated, just the crazy amount of competition we saw for the scarce amount of homes that were for sale in 2021, 2022, 2023. There wasn't a lot of inventory.

Tim Chermak: It's just been a really difficult time to be a realtor the last couple years and that was trial by fire for you because those were your first couple years in real estate, was the last couple years. What did you do early on, because you joined Platform after you had been a realtor for about a year? Is that right? 

Shaina Goedtke: Correct, yeah. 

Tim Chermak: What did you do the first year to get business?

Shaina Goedtke: I utilized social media. I was watching agents who were utilizing social media and just gaining that audience and the relationship and just forming those relationships here in town where I always knew– Everybody says you know at least three agents. It's probably more as the years have gone. I just knew I needed to be top of mind. I actually started really working on my social media when I was still teaching because I was listening to podcasts and listening to things that would make me successful. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah, you wanted to create some momentum before you technically went into real estate so that you would have some sphere of influence of people to reach out to. Where did your very first deal come from on asset? Like your very first ever transaction? How'd you get that lead or where did that come from? 

Shaina Goedtke: My first few, I attribute to– I was at a different brokerage that just helped me get started because they were giving us ISA leads. I was receiving pennies, basically, from those closings, but it was just a great propeller of getting to where I was going. I stayed at that brokerage for about a year and then knew that I also wanted to create my own brand and not theirs. I knew I didn't need those leads anymore. I hated just being by my phone. If I couldn't accept that lead, like letting that person down that was on our team, I did not like that feeling. I wanted it to be more natural. 

Shaina Goedtke: The biggest thing, especially that aligns with Platform and I is I want people to know me, like me and trust me, and want to use me. I don't want to just take somebody off the street and show them what I can do. It just didn't align with my business plan, I guess, I should say. 

Tim Chermak: I've used the metaphor a lot of– and people laugh because it sounds like I'm making a joke, but I'm very serious. Getting leads from Zillow or Realtor.com or all the various places where you can get pay-per-click leads, it's like Tinder for real estate. There's just like, “Well, swipe, swipe. Yes, I want that one,” and then it matches you up with the realtor that they sell that lead to. There's nothing personal about it. It's like a one night stand real estate transaction where they didn't work with you because they wanted to work with you. They weren't necessarily referred by a mutual friend or whatever. There's no pre-existing trust. It's just like, “Oh, I guess I'll work with that person.” Usually, there's not a lot of follow up or relationship built after that transaction because it just came from a lead that you got from Zillow or whatever. 

Tim Chermak: Obviously, the way we do things at Platform, we're trying to take a much more holistic relational approach to marketing where people would call you or message you or text you or whatever, because they actually specifically want to work with you. They're not just like, “Hey, I want to look at this house. I don't care which realtor opens the door for me. I just want someone to show me this house at 2:00 today.” It's like, “No, I want to specifically work with Shaina. If there's a house I want to see over the weekend, and for whatever reason, Shaina is out of town, at a Timberwolves game, or whatever, I will wait for Shaina to be available on Monday or whatever, because I don't want to work with anyone else. I specifically want to work with you.” That should be the point of marketing. But before we get into Platform, let's actually go back in time. I wanted to ask you too, how did you find out about Platform? Cause there's a funny story there, too.

Shaina Goedtke: There is and it actually goes two ways. Before I even knew what Platform was and before I was a realtor, I went to dinner with an agent here in town. I was just picking his brain about if I wanted to become an agent, like what I should do, and I said, “I always see your videos online,” and his wife had said, ”Oh, tell her about–” I couldn't remember what the wife had said, but now looking back, I know it was Platform because then he was like, “Oh, it doesn't really matter,” type of thing. 

Shaina Goedtke: It's just interesting. I always kept that in the back of my mind. I had dinner with this agent, I wasn't his retargeting audience, and I was seeing all of his videos before I was an agent. I didn't know what it was, but now I do. March, I think it was around March of 2020– would it be 2023? Yeah, a year ago, a little over a year ago, Diana called me. I was taking my mom to the airport and I just put her on the speaker. She said she had found me on social media and I immediately thought she was wanting to use me as an agent and so I got excited. 

Shaina Goedtke: She's like, “I'm actually not calling because–” and I got immediately let down. I rolled my eyes at my mom and I was like, “Oh gosh, somebody tried to sell me on something.” But I listened because I was in the car with my mom and it was fun for her to just listen to what was happening too. She just said, “We found you on social media and we like to work with agents who utilize social media for their business.” I said, “Well, I like doing that.” 

Shaina Goedtke: I believe that you should be in control of your social media. You see agents who hire it off to somebody else and you can tell it's not them. At first, I thought that's what Platform was and I was like, “I want to keep my hand and pulse on my account. I like doing it.” She's like, “Actually, that's what we want is people who do like doing it and will just utilize our tools, basically.” She's like, “I'm going to just send you a couple of Platform podcasts to listen to,” and so I did. 

Tim Chermak: Now, by the way, full circle, you are being interviewed on the Platform podcast.

Shaina Goedtke: Tim, after I signed up and I'm like, “I will be on the podcast someday,” because I listened to them. I was like, “I will totally say my testimony and how it came about.” She sent me Heather Mutz because I think she was a teacher in a small town in Texas, and then Ashley Goodrich?

Tim Chermak: Yep, she's in South Dakota.

Shaina Goedtke: She was a small town agent. She said these markets are similar to yours. They have similar stories. 

Tim Chermak: By the way, I want to preface all this by saying that this was not a scheduled phone call with Shaina. This was a cold call where Diana cold called Shana. Just for context for people listening, Platform doesn't do that. We haven't cold called anyone since. I remember in spring of 2023, we just like, “Hey, let's run an experiment. Maybe we can cold call agents and maybe we can make some sales doing that.” We just wanted to test out would it work if we called people in markets that are available. We didn't have a realtor working with us in your town, obviously. I think Diana probably made hundreds of phone calls in that time. 

Tim Chermak: Platform has been a company for 10 years at this point. By the way, we're gonna have a birthday celebration for Platform at the Mastermind this year, because it's our 10th birthday, but you were the only realtor out of all the Platform clients we have today who has ever signed up from one of Diana's cold calls. 

Shaina Goedtke: Yeah, it's kind of funny. I listened to those podcasts and then I was like, “Oh, I can see the value in it.” Platform, I didn't even realize after I signed up that you guys had– Obviously, I should have known you had a Facebook page, but I was never a part of your retargeted Platform thing. That's just crazy to me. 

Shaina Goedtke: Then we had scheduled a second call and I asked if they were talking to anybody else in the market, in my market. She told me two or three other agents had some interest. As soon as I heard that, I'm like, “No, this market is mine.” It hadn't been available the entire time. She knew that this market worked really well because there was an agent who was here. They let go of it and I said, “Well, this is my chance and I'm taking it.” Now, I'm never letting it go. 

Tim Chermak: Again, I think as of this recording right now, we have 300 realtors that are actively working with Platform. You are the only one out of 300 who came to us from a cold call. Everyone else are people who saw our ads, clicked on Platform’s Facebook ads, and then scheduled a call. Diana just cold called you out of the blue and it ended up being a perfect fit because you have been perfect for Platform. You were already using social media. For you, Platform is just like pouring gas on a fire because you already had some momentum from that. I just wanted to share that with everyone listening that you are listening to the only person who has ever signed up for Platform from a straight up cold call, which is funny. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, you sign up for Platform. It’s 2023. I don't know when someone's gonna be listening to this podcast episode. We're currently recording it in summer 2024. Maybe someone's listening to it a year or two in the future. If we go back in time to 2023, it was actually the toughest real estate year for realtors, frankly, in 40 years. If you look at transaction volume, interest rates, mortgage originations, I mean, any metric of how you wanna evaluate the real estate market, 2023 was the toughest year for realtors in any of our lifetimes, even actually worse than 2007, 2008. 

Tim Chermak: At least in 2007, 2008, interest rates were still very reasonable. Home prices obviously came down a lot. But if someone wanted to buy a house and they had a job, it was a great time to buy a house. There were still transactions going on. The market really froze up in 2023 because so many people just couldn't afford to buy houses as interest rates kept going up and they stayed high and home prices stayed high because of the limited inventory. It's an extremely difficult year for real estate agents. I just want to paint that picture for everyone. You signed up for Platform in what I can confidently say was the statistically worst year ever to sign up for Platform and yet you've had success. What was it like the first couple months? What ads did you do? What was that first year like with Platform?

Shaina Goedtke: Emily is my account manager and she would just send me a list of to-do's. On her weekly call, she would give me ideas of other things I can do to make them personal, like those personal moments. Even just, I don't know what you'd call them, like painting those stories of closings. One of those are one of my favorites that I do that my clients look forward to. If it's not posted right away, they're like, “Where is my recognition of closing with you?” 

Shaina Goedtke: I started right away with those lists. I would say that in the beginning, I wasn't as great as getting them all complete. I did start videos right away. I've always been comfortable in doing videos. I can say, I probably would cringe at my first listing video. I didn't know what I was doing. I have my assistant, Sarah, filming and I was like, “Here, do this.” We tried it. If I look back now, I'd be like, “Oh my gosh, I made so many mistakes,” but if you don't start, you don't ever get better. I can say that those have gradually gotten better. My goal is to do at least four listing videos a month. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, so that's key. I want to stop you right there and double click on that because four listing videos a month means that in the course of a year, you're basically doing 50 listing videos. I'm assuming you didn't have 50 listings last year. Where did a lot of those videos come from? Are you borrowing them from other agents?

Shaina Goedtke: Yes, I’m borrowing them within my KW. There’s about 300 agents in my office. It didn’t take them very long for them to see my videos and be okay with it. I actually have agents who often are saying, “Hey, this one’s sitting. Can you do a video for me?” It’s really nice. I like when they come to me.

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