The Specific Kind Of Marketing That Attracts Listing Leads

Molly Myers:  I'm 50/50 right now, sphere and Platform. It's pretty cool. Last year, Platform was my second highest lead source. This year, it's already neck and neck with the sphere. It works fantastically if you work at it. You have to be involved in the community and you also have to do your homework that your account manager gives you. 

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 today by Molly Myers. Molly, welcome to the show. 

Molly Myers: Hey, how are you? 

Tim Chermak: Good. Molly is in Mocksville, North Carolina in Davie County. She has a really interesting perspective on growing your business as a realtor. I think this is going to resonate with a lot of agents listening to this show. Usually, when you think about business growth, you think about scaling your GCI, making more money as a realtor, you think, “I have to sell more houses.” Molly is thinking more in terms of quality over quantity. 

Tim Chermak: As we were talking before the show about how her business has changed since she started the Platform Marketing program, she actually mentioned, “I'm basically on pace to sell the same amount of houses that I did last year.” On the surface, it looks like Platform isn't making any difference in your business at all. What's changed is that your price point is now noticeably higher than it was in previous years, and not just a little bit, considerably higher than it was in previous years. A lot of the clients that are coming in, a lot of the phone calls you're getting and messages, are buy-sell combos. You're getting a lot more listings, which obviously agents know that if you want to last, you have to list, and listing is the ultimate leverage. 

Tim Chermak: With all these Platform Marketing campaigns you've been putting out into the Mocksville area, you've really increased the amount of sellers that you're working with. Even though you may actually sell the same number of units this year, you're going to make a lot more money because your price point is higher, and you're probably working less because a larger percentage of those are listings and not buyers. I think that's a fantastic perspective and jumping off point for this conversation, that bigger isn't always necessarily better.

Molly Myers: That’s exactly right. I like to pick quality over quantity every time. I would rather work with a client who already owns a home and needs to sell that home and then is also buying a home. You get that with Platform, you get that high-hanging fruit, people who are searching the internet and making plans. People who are taking their time typically have more to lose, they have more going on, and so these are the people that we are connecting with because we're connecting with people who are further out on the sales cycle. 

Tim Chermak: One thing we talked about a lot on The Platform Marketing Show in previous podcast episodes is this idea that marketing, if you're being intentional about marketing, you're creating videos, you're utilizing social media, you're following the Platform Marketing strategy, just inherently, it's going to attract more listings than buyers. That's actually a very common thing that happens with agents when they join the Platform Marketing program, is that they don't even realize it, but slowly, what happens over a year or two is you wake up one day and you realize, “I'm working with double the amount of sellers I've ever had as a percentage of the business.”

Tim Chermak: When you do marketing, think about the type of person from a demographic or a psychographic perspective, the type of person who responds to marketing. It means they were doing research. It means they were open to learning information and doing some sense of due diligence, like they wanted to work with a good realtor, a specific realtor. They're not just taking the first phone call of the agent that calls them, or they're not just going on Zillow as a first time home buyer might and saying, “Hey, I want to go look at this house. The first agent who can meet me there gets the business.” That person doesn't care at all which agent they work with as long as they can go look at a house.

Molly Myers: That's replaceable, and that is what we're moving away from as agents who focus on service and who focus on relationships. We need to build that with clients. With the ads that we run through Platform, we are building that through retargeting and it's so easy. When I meet people out in the community, because I'm also heavily active physically in the community, not just virtually, which I think is a key factor as well, people recognize me. They're like, “Hey, we see your stuff on Facebook. Your videos make me want to buy a house.” I'm like, “That's great.”

Tim Chermak: If you're a buyer and let's say you're a first time buyer, you don't necessarily think in terms of researching which agent you want to work with because you're more interested in the house you're buying, not the agent you're working with. Obviously, a lot of that has to do with the fact that buyers don't pay the commission, the sellers pay the commission. 

Molly Myers: You don't know what you don't know if you're a first time home buyer.

Tim Chermak: Obviously, first time home buyers should care which agent they work with. If anything, it almost makes more of a difference to work with a quality experienced agent as a first time home buyer because that's where your ignorance is the greatest, the first time you're going through the process. It's just a fact. It is what it is, that most buyers don't care about which agent they work with as a first time home buyer. They're way more interested in spending hours and hours on Zillow. 

Molly Myers: I actually have a funny story about that really quick if you don't mind. My client, Linda, she's a Platform client. We sold her investment property last year. We are currently under contract for her primary residence, she's moving, and then we are listing her property. It went on the market today, the one she currently lives in. She got excited about a listing and called Zillow. The Zillow agent picked up and she knew me. My client was like, “Oh, my goodness. Well, in that case, then I'll call Molly back and we'll just keep moving forward with her.” We have this relationship, and Linda has been to the bank, she has been to an inspector, she has been to a roofer, and she actually called another agent to ask a question a couple of days ago, all of them knew who I was. 

Tim Chermak: She is working with the expert.

Molly Myers: High quality, right.

Tim Chermak: Every other person in her life, whether it's a roofer, inspector, people at the bank, they're all saying, “You're in good hands with Molly.” They see your marketing too, and that's important. Your marketing isn't just about appealing and grabbing the attention of buyers and sellers, it's also just about people of influence in the community knowing who you are so that if someone mentions Molly Myers, or someone mentions buying or selling a house, that their first instinct, even if they don't know you, is like, “Hey, have you heard of Molly Myers?” You've created that type of top line awareness in your community because of this constant blanket of marketing. 

Tim Chermak: I want to go back to this idea that marketing inherently attract sellers. I think a lot of agents never stop and think about this. Again, if you're buying a house, just because of the reality of commissions, the buyer doesn't pay commissions. Technically, it's probably factored into the price of the house, whatever, but at no point does a buyer have to pull out their checkbook, write a commission check to the buyer's agent. They just think, “Yeah, whatever, I'll work with whatever agent opens the door for me.” But a seller, even if you're not in a super high price point market, because I know in your area, Molly, a $300,000 house is a pretty good price point for you.

Molly Myers: That's like a medium around here.

Tim Chermak: There's obviously markets in the US where their average is $500,000 or $600,000. They can sell half the amount of homes as you and make even more money, but you're at $300,000. Even at $300,000, which is not a huge price point relative to the rest of the US, if you think about it, if someone's paying 6% on $300,000, that's $18,000 that the seller's paying. 

Tim Chermak: Sometimes as agents, I think we forget that when a homeowner who's probably very middle class, like you're just a hardworking American, you're living in a $300,000 house, maybe the husband is a cop and the wife is a teacher, we're not talking about wealthy households if you're living in a $300,000 house. You are solidly middle class living in a $300,000 house. $18,000 is a lot of money to write in a check to realtors. 

Molly Myers: To one person, it's a lot of money. 

Tim Chermak: Obviously, we know as agents that, of course, they're not writing the $18,000 check to one person. It's not like one agent is getting all that. It's split amongst the buyer and seller, but it doesn't matter from the perspective of the seller, they still have to cut an $18,000 check, 6% of $300,000. They don't really care who it's going to. The point is they have to write that check. 

Tim Chermak: When they are thinking ahead of time, whether it's four, five, six months ahead of time of, “Who am I going to list my house with?” they have way more skin in the game in that decision than a buyer does because they're writing a pretty big check. If you just logically think about it, of course, a seller is going to do more research and due diligence and therefore be more open to being influenced by marketing because they're actually actively researching agents. 

Tim Chermak: If you do marketing and you put lots of content out there and you're filming videos and running retargeting ads on social media about tips for selling your house and giving advice and updates and insights on the market, just disproportionately, that's actually going to attract more sellers than it is buyers because sellers are looking for information, buyers are looking for houses.

Molly Myers: Buyers are looking for quick information, easy access. Sellers are looking for quality information and in depth guidance.  

Tim Chermak: How has it came about, over the last year, Molly, that your price range has increased in such a noticeable way? What do you think contributed to that?

Molly Myers: It was definitely Platform. I've got clients right now who are offering on properties at $450,000, $500,000 and they have a house to sell. Their offer on their new home is not contingent upon their other sale. It's just the quality of the client is just outstanding. While they're not particularly motivated up front, but you find out their motivation and their timeline over time after you gain their trust, and then when they're ready, they’re ready.

Tim Chermak: Would you say that the quality of the leads that you've cultivated with the Platform Marketing strategy is higher than other lead sources you may have had in the past?

Molly Myers: Certainly. I tried a lead service one time, it was a nightmare. I was very unhappy. My phone would ring and you have to get it within five seconds or it goes to the next agent. That's just not how I want to live my life. If you miss it, your points go down and then you receive less leads, and then the percentage split was 35%. That's just really high. I really like this system because I'm getting quality leads. I do get the fuzzy ROI where people just call me out of the blue and they're like, “Hey, I saw your stuff on Facebook. Wanted to talk to you about listing my house, but also wanted to buy a house,” that's my favorite thing ever, but also get a lot of fuzzy ROI through the messages and the comments. They're not registered in the Platform CRM, but I know they saw an ad.  

Tim Chermak: It's not a traditional lead coming in, filling out a contact form on your website, but they messaged you on Facebook or they reached out and specifically mentioned, “I loved the ad you did about such-and-such,” so you know that, “Okay, this person came because of these Platform Marketing campaigns on social media.” 

Molly Myers: I always ask too like, “How did you find my information? How did you feel comfortable reaching out to me?” People usually say they like that I talk about the education things that I do, they like the interactive videos that we post at the listings, and they like that they feel like they already know me through the stuff that we put online. 

Tim Chermak: One thing you mentioned that I really want to dive into is how involved you are in your local community because you're not just relying on the Platform strategy to build a fake brand in your community online. I say fake brand in the sense of it's possible, I guess, to become famous in a community just with a blitz of Facebook ads and social media content and videos, but it's all virtual. It's all online. 

Tim Chermak: Actually, this is the 10th year Platform has been in existence, so maybe at the Mastermind this year, we need to have a birthday cake or something because it's the 10th anniversary. Over the last decade that we've been doing this, what we found is the agents who are most successful and making the most money over the long term are the ones who are actually in real life involved in their community. They're not just relying on Platform to build a fake brand where you get a bunch of Facebook likes, but you're not actually involved in your kid's school or a local church, or you're not volunteering in the community, or you're not out regularly supporting local small businesses. Whatever that community involvement looks like, it's going to be different for everyone. 

Tim Chermak: If you combine actually being involved in your community with digital marketing and all the retargeting strategies we do at Platform, that's where the magic happens. It's that one-plus-one-equals-three effect. You have probably mastered this Molly, maybe to a greater extent than anyone I've talked to on The Platform Marketing Show in terms of very intentionally getting involved in real life in your community. Would you mind sharing just a couple of the things that you've done to just really make sure that you're getting your name out there and that people in your community know who you are? 

Molly Myers: I think it's really important too that we talk about this because, actually, I went to a place in Davie County yesterday and I met a local influencer that I see on Facebook. Her personality didn't match what I see on Facebook and so there was a disconnect. It was just so strange, so you don't want to be like that. You want to present how you actually are on Facebook as you are in real life. They talk about keyboard warriors. You don't want to be a Facebook realtor, you need to be a in-real-life realtor supported by Facebook and that's what we're doing. 

Molly Myers: One of the major things that we've been focusing on this year is community events. We have been setting up a table, and I have this really great prop that my dad built for me. It's a front door. It's a full size, life size front door that we painted hot pink, which is my brand color. Of course, you got to stay on brand. It has the white trim around it and we put a door hanger on it and we put a wreath on it. It has a metal stand, so it stands up on its own. It's our front door photo booth. People come by our booth, excited about the pink front door because it's unique, and then we offer to take their picture. In that interaction, I then mention that I'm a real estate agent and, “By the way, we have this local item here for giveaway. Would you like to enter your information for this giveaway?” From that, on our first event, we met 47 people.

Tim Chermak: What are the types of events that you have this booth at? Can you give a couple of examples of events?

Molly Myers: A fall festival type situation, like different local vendors come. We don't have anything to sell because we sell houses, but we're there to connect with people and we have the giveaway so that we can interact with people and collect information and then follow up with these people. Last one we did, we asked people to go to Facebook and like our Facebook page. That way we can get them on the social side as well.

Tim Chermak: And obviously, if they go to your page, now, they're on your retargeting list instantly. Now, they'll start seeing all of your posts. 

Molly Myers: That's exactly right. That's what we've been focusing on, is bringing virtual life and real life together for extreme social proof that I am the realtor of choice in this area.

Tim Chermak: Really, it's any type of local community event that'll have some sort of trade show or booth. Whether it's, you said, a spring fling, fall festival, even farmer's market type events, or maybe there's a bunch of people who are selling cinnamon rolls or fresh produce or whatever, you're going to have a booth there like, “Hey, I'm a realtor.” 

Tim Chermak: I think the important takeaway here, don't misinterpret what Molly's saying. It's not that, “Hey, do a booth at community events and your business will blow up.” No, it's the combination. It's that cumulative effect of doing this, being involved in your local community, and doing all the marketing on social media. 

Molly Myers: We use Platform to talk about these events. That's where it connects, is that we go to these events and we are physically with the people, we're having a good time, we're taking pictures with the people, and then we post it on Facebook, and we post the winners of the giveaways. We post them on Facebook as well, holding their basket. It's just social proof on top of social proof that we exist and we're real people. I think sometimes we forget that there's somebody that's real on the other side of the screen. This is a great way to be there and to be welcoming because you want people to feel like they can message. You want people to feel like they can call you.  

Tim Chermak: I've used this analogy a lot in talks, like the Platform Mastermind, but marketing is like gasoline. If you're building a bonfire and you're trying to create a roaring blaze, marketing is the gasoline. To build a fire though, you need dry logs and you need the smallest of flame. If you apply gasoline to even the smallest of a flame, it can go boom. You can make a very large fire. You don't need a big fire if you have gasoline. You can have the smallest little flame going, and if you put some gas on it, you're gonna have a roaring fire soon enough. 

Tim Chermak: What a lot of agents are trying to do though with their marketing is they're walking over to a dry stack of logs and they're pouring gasoline on it, but there's no flame. There's no actual spark of local involvement in the community, and so they're trying to market a brand or a personality that doesn't exist. You can't purely be virtual. You can't purely live your life on social media and actually expect to be respected in the community.

Molly Myers: Especially when we sell something that is so real life. You cannot buy a house online. You can't live in a virtual house. I don't care what happens in Facebook land or whatever with the virtual real estate. Real estate is in real life, so you have to be in real life. 

Tim Chermak: People want to know that the person that they're working with is a real flesh-and-blood human being and that they can meet you and talk to you and get to know who you are. Facebook ads, Instagram ads, putting videos on YouTube, all that, that helps but that should be like a supplement. That's not the whole ballgame. Your marketing campaign should not consist only of social media ads. Instead, the social media ads should reflect and amplify what you're doing in real life. If you're doing interesting things in real life then using the Platform strategy with all the social media ads to amplify that and talk about it, that's where it's like walking over to a small little fire and dumping a can of gasoline on it and it goes boom. 

Tim Chermak: If you're thinking that not being involved in your community at all is strategy and “I'm just going to sit at home and hire Platform and watch the likes roll in and watch the leads rolling, but I'm going to basically rely on Platform to build a brand for me because I'm too scared or too shy or too chicken to go out in the community and actually get involved. I'm gonna make Platform do that for me,” it's not going to work. It's just like walking over to dry logs and pouring gas on it and saying, “Why is there no fire happening?”

Molly Myers: It's not going to work. You have to be involved in your community and, like you said, using Platform to talk about those things. We did a barbecue at the fire department and I'm involved with the auxiliary at the fire department. That's a great way to get involved. You can volunteer. There's all kinds of communities and areas that you can insert yourself into so that you can meet the right people.  

Tim Chermak: You're active at a fire department fundraiser. Again, doing one thing in a one-off way isn't going to create a bunch of business pipeline. It's not like, “I sponsored this fire department pancake fundraiser once and all of a sudden my business blew up.” No, but having an ongoing regular commitment to doing things like that constantly and consistently–

Molly Myers: Showing up.

Tim Chermak: Exactly, just showing up in the community, and then on top of that, you're using your social media ad strategy to promote that, that's what gives it a multiplier effect. I'll just use the very basic math of this. Just approximately Molly, how many people showed up to that fire department fundraiser? 

Molly Myers: Oh my God, a ton. We were busy from eight o'clock till three o'clock when we sold out of barbecue as a drive thru. It was just slammed. Maybe 700. 

Tim Chermak: The amount of people that you personally saw was maybe 700? 

Molly Myers: Because I was the one delivering the food to the cars. 

Tim Chermak: That's really good. That's a way higher number than I thought you were going to say. I figured you'd say 50 or 60 or something, so that's amazing. Still, my point stands. If you took a photo or a video of the event, and then you ran a social media retargeting ad talking about the fact that, “Hey, guys. I was really proud to be involved in this fundraiser for our local fire department here in Mocksville. These people are the real heroes of the community, so anything we can do to support them is the right thing to do,” some sort of ad that just talks about it, and the focus isn't on you. The focus of the ad is on the fire department. The point is, even if you do a mediocre ad, because I would consider this to be a failure if we did a Platform ad and only 10,000 people saw it, that's still over 10 times–

Molly Myers: What a normal person should get. 

Tim Chermak: It's over 10 times the exposure of only going there in person. 

Molly Myers: That's very true. 

Tim Chermak: It's the combination of those two things though that really gives you the magical results of going there in person, hundreds and hundreds of people seeing you shaking hands, they see that you're involved in the community, and then 10,000 people see the post you make about it and we run it as an ad in the community. That's where the real magic happens. 

Tim Chermak: Again, you can't only do one or the other. If you were only going to do the social media side of this, then what are you promoting if you're not actually involved in the community, that you have nothing to talk about? You have to do both. You've been involved with fire department fundraisers, events. Are there anything else that you've done just to get your face out physically into the community? 

Molly Myers: We have one more event coming up at the end of this month, it's a girl's day out, and it is put on by one of the small business owners of the area. That's another thing that a goal that I've had for Platform is, to niche down my clientele and also to niche down my area. I am so over driving an hour-plus to listings to show property and to list property. I do it because I have a relationship based business and I love my people. However, if I could do showings that were five or 20 minutes from my house, that would be great. We are focusing heavily on honing in on this one geographical location, which is Mocksville and Davie County. From that, of course, we'll continue to grow. I'm sorry, I forgot what you asked me. What's coming up? Girl’s Day. 

Tim Chermak: I was going to say is there anything else that you've been doing to be involved in your community? That's what I think has created this pipeline. I was just inspired by seeing this photo, I think, that you shared in our private Facebook group for all the Platform agents where, I think it was a whiteboard, and you had all of your upcoming business coming up. I don't know if you had ten deals active or in the pipeline or something like that, or twelve, whatever it was. I don't know, six or seven of them were leads that basically came from Platform. 

Molly Myers:  I'm 50/50 right now, sphere and Platform. It's pretty cool. Last year, Platform was my second highest lead source. This year, it's already neck and neck with the sphere. It works fantastically if you work at it. You have to be involved in the community and you also have to do your homework that your account manager gives you. 

Tim Chermak: I think what's going to happen is give it a couple more months, six months, nine months, I don't know, but what's going to happen is it's going to start to become impossible for you to actually distinguish between, “Is this a sphere lead or a Platform lead? I don't know. They're kind of the same thing.”

Molly Myers: That's what I want, that connection and that relationship with so many people that I'm not even sure where they came from, but I'm happy that they're here. 

Tim Chermak: The more fuzzy ROI you have in your business as a percentage of your business, and when I say fuzzy ROI, I mean the harder it is to actually define, “Okay, where did this lead come from? Is this just a generic sphere lead? Or was this influenced by a Platform campaign? Or is it because they saw me volunteering with the fire department? Or is it a combination of these things?” the more that the answer to that question is, “I don't know. I think it's all of the above.” 

Molly Myers: It's interesting because it's so widespread that you don't even know where it's coming from. We're hitting you from all angles. 

Tim Chermak: The more the answer to that question is, “All of the above. I think all of it is helping,” the chances are you have a very strong business that's going to be growing because that means that Platform isn't just bringing in cold leads into your database, it's also inspiring and sparking more referrals from your sphere. At that point, it's hard to measure. “I don't know. Is that a Platform lead or is that a sphere lead?” The answer is, “Who cares? You're doing more deals.” Don't worry about measuring it as long as you know that business is growing. 

Tim Chermak: What have been some of your most successful ads, Molly? When you look back at the last year, are there any ads that really stand out? Whether it was a photo or a video, are there any specifics that really just went over really well with your community? 

Molly Myers: There was one that we featured a local business and it was [Artists Market on Main]. They had an art class, so I went and participated in art class and took pictures. The community absolutely loved that. It's one of the main businesses downtown. They have since shut down and I actually just learned yesterday that one of the owners has passed. It struck a chord with the community and we'll probably rerun that ad. 

Molly Myers: Another one that I loved was a picture of me and one of my sellers. After closing, we had went to dinner at Cracker Barrel and we just had a great time. The ad talked about how important it is to pick up your phone and how the client had said, “I never answer my phone, but something told me to just pick up this phone call and I did and it was you.” She was a Platform lead that had registered through the CRM and I was just doing my follow up to see if I could help her. That's how we met. She tells me all the time it was a God thing. It has to be because everything just worked out so perfectly. She was happy with her transaction. We are now under contract on another house and then we're listing her property today for sale. It's just good stuff.

Tim Chermak: Have you done the God Made a Small Business Owner?

Molly Myers: I have not done that one yet. I have been working on finding a photographer that I can get to drive around. 

Tim Chermak: Man, you've got to do that ad, that one, in a community like yours. How many people live in Mocksville approximately?

Molly Myers: It's only 6,000 people in Mocksville, but Davie County is about 40,000 people. It's mostly farmland out there, so the town is extremely small. 

Tim Chermak: The town is small, but the overall area is about 40,000 people-ish? 

Molly Myers: Yeah, and the community is so heavily focused on small business owners that I fit in perfectly with that being my niche, that client that I'm going for. Everybody there is already on board with supporting small business owners, and we understand how we have to help each other. That's another thing that I'm working on with these community events. We have been invited by other influential business owners to join their events because they see what we're doing and because we've met them in person. It's just perfect because I'm trying to localize, because I want more sellers, because I want a higher price point. Platform is providing all of these things. 

Tim Chermak: I think the more networking you do and the more connections you make with small business owners, the more your price point increases. All things being equal, small business owners compared to the average person in a community aren't poor, so they're not living in low priced homes at least all things being equal. I don't want to imply that all small business owners are rich because that's definitely not true. 

Tim Chermak: All things being equal, the average small business owner in a community is probably more financially well off than the average person in the community. If you're doing a lot of networking and you're promoting these small businesses, you're getting to know them, you're not just filming a video or making a post about their small business, but you're actually stopping in, having a genuine conversation with them, like really getting to know them.

Molly Myers: Asking them interesting questions, not just about their business, but about themselves, where they grew up and how they grew up. Also, I think it's really important that we support them. Buy something and do not ask for a discount. I always buy something when I'm in these local stores even if it's something small. 

Molly Myers: Yesterday, at the boutique, I did a small business highlight at, which will be posted next week so everybody keep your eyes peeled, I actually bought a whole outfit and left the store. We had a great time. We're supporting small businesses, we've got the business highlight that'll come from it. That's exactly what we should be doing, supporting each other.

Tim Chermak: This is a big part of the Platform strategy, these regular small business highlights, which is you basically just running a promotion of a local small business on social media with your own money. There's no agenda, you're not asking for anything in return, it's just you trying to help out a local small business by getting them as much exposure on social media as possible. If it's a restaurant, you're hoping you drive more business to the restaurant. If it's a retail store, a boutique or something, you're hoping that you drive more customers into that boutique who buy things. There's nothing in it for you other than you're trying to help out small business owners in your community. 

Tim Chermak: The real reason that we include this in the Platform marketing strategy, because if you think about it, it's a weird marketing strategy, promote other businesses, not your own. The reason we do it is we know that if the only thing that you get out of it is that you spend a couple hundred dollars and some time promoting the business with a social media ad via Platform, if the only thing you get out of it is that you got your foot in the door and established a relationship with that small business owner, so maybe 90 days from now, six months from now, if their friend they hear is selling their house, it's a lot more likely that small business owner immediately refers them to you because now they feel like they know a realtor in the community. 

Molly Myers: And they like you because you patronize their business, because you stopped by to see how they're doing, because you asked how things are going at home. “Can I send you a contractor? Do you need any help? Is there anything I can do for you?”

Tim Chermak: Just being involved in your community pays dividends because relationships have compound interest just like investments do. 

Molly Myers: Everything boils down to relationships, and I learned this late in life. I thought that I could get everywhere based on merit and hard work, and found out very quickly after college that is not how life works. For the past couple of years, I have been heavily focused on relationships. That's the only way to build a successful real estate business, in my opinion, going forward, because we are competing with these machines. We are competing with quick information. We have to decide, are we going to provide quality or are we going to provide information for quantity?

Tim Chermak: Again, if your marketing isn't actually creating relationships for you, if you're just hoping to get a bunch of clicks or a bunch of likes or something on social media, but you're not actually meeting real people and it's not resulting in actual relationships, it's just like that example of walking over to a pile of logs and pouring gasoline on it and then getting frustrated at why isn't fire happening. You need that spark and the spark is relationships. 

Tim Chermak: You can have the smallest spark in the world and then when you apply marketing to it, it can go boom. You can't just throw money at online advertising if you're not actually putting boots on the ground, getting out into your community and meeting people, especially this year. 

Tim Chermak: We're recording this in spring of 2023, it's actually almost summer now in 2023, and obviously, interest rates are higher now than they've been at any point in the last, I don't know, 15, 20 years, something like that. The Fed might raise rates again. Who knows what they're gonna do? It's a tough market right now in real estate. You absolutely cannot sit back and relax and just think, “You know what? I'm going to run some passive social media campaigns and just watch the business roll in.” No, you have to get out in the community, meet people in person. If you do that and you combine that with social media marketing and everything that we preach at Platform, the combination of those things can make really cool things happen in your business.

Molly Myers: That's exactly right.  

Tim Chermak: Molly, the last question I want to ask you quick as we wind this interview up is what advice would you tell someone who's maybe in the Platform Mrketing program right now? Maybe they signed up two months ago, maybe they signed up six months ago, and they're just feeling stuck. Maybe they're frustrated, they're not getting results as quickly as they thought they were going to. What advice or what perspective would you share with them as someone who's now been in the program for over a year? 

Molly Myers: I would say don't give up because it does take time. We need to understand that real estate is a long game, it's not a quick game. We don't get paid on a quick timeline, so you shouldn't expect things to happen on a quick timeline. If you are struggling, you should absolutely get out into your community and just be present. Join a fitness group, join a mom's club or anything that you'd like. If you have a dog, take it to the dog park. Are you physically leaving your house other than to show a house or go to an appointment? If the answer is no, you need to start.  

Tim Chermak: That's a mic drop moment. I think we're going to end the podcast episode right there. Molly, thank you. Guys, we'll see you on the next episode of The Platform Marketing Show.

Molly Myers: Awesome, thanks. ​