Thinking Differently About Community "Sponsorships" As A Marketing Strategy

Brandon Smith: Let me ask you. What do you feel is the most important? Is it content? Is it context? Is it timing? Or is it the number of times that message is seen? What do you believe? Where does the shift need to happen?

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 and welcome back to another episode of The Platform Marketing Show. I’m joined this morning by Brandon Smith from Missoula, Montana. Brandon, welcome to the show.

Brandon Smith: Tim, thanks so much man. So good to be here. Excited for this.

Tim Chermak: Yeah. So to give you guys some quick context, some quick intro here, I’m actually gonna let Brandon do probably 99% of the talking on this particular episode. Because what we’re doing with this one is a little bit different than the normal Platform Marketing Podcast Episodes. Where, rather than me interviewing Brandon about his real estate journey or his marketing strategies, we’re actually going to do a callback to a Platform Mastermind Keynote that Bradon gave two years ago at the annual Platform Marketing Mastermind Conference. And it was one of the highest rated Keynotes from our attendees I think that we’ve ever had. Even actually years later. The reason that I scheduled this interview with Brandon is that a bunch of our clients actually posted in our Facebook Group requesting, “Hey is there a recording I can watch of that Keynote from two years ago? I’m still having ideas and inspiration from that Keynote two years ago.” 

And they were asking for a recording and I was like, “Well, we don’t actually have a recording of that talk. But what I could do is interview Brandon on The Platform Marketing Show and kind of reshare that Keynote for those who were not at the actual Platform Mastermind.” 

Tim Chermak: So that’s what we’re gonna be doing this morning. Brandon is gonna share what I think is one of the best, most tactical, practical presentations in the history of The Platform Masterminds. One fo the things I think is so cool, without stealing Brandon’s thunder here, is that he found a creative way as a local business owner - So he runs an independent insurance agency in Montana and throughout The West. I know he’s licensed in a bunch of States, not just Montana - But he found a really creative, thoughtful, personalized way to sponsor youth sports teams and actually use that to drive business. So it’s not an act of charity. Like, “Oh I gave $500, and they slapped our logo on their jerseys. And we called it a day.”

He actually got to know the kids and the parents and did all of these little things that cumulatively added up to where the parents and people remembered his insurance agency. And it actually drove business. He tracked everything about how much business came in as a result of sponsorship. So I hope people listening to this - it kind of starts to turn the gears of “How can I take what looks like a boring, old-school, ineffective local marketing strategy like sponsoring a baseball team or sponsoring a softball team or whatever a soccer team? How can I take something like that and do it differently? So that it actually makes an impact both on the sports team and in your business.

So Brandon, without further ado, welcome again The Platform Marketing Show. Take it away.

Brandon Smith: Awesome Tim, thank you. Before I dive and share these couple stories with you, I want to create some framework or guidelines which we’re operating in, and where I’m coming from, what the train of thought was in these, I guess, marketing strategies that turned into the wide, life-changing, innovative forums where we have the opportunity to travel and share these stories. Share this Keynote over and over and in fact, in the last two years it has evolved. We’ve pivoted. We’ve changed some things. We’ve learned some things. We’ve gotten better at some things.

And if I were gonna put a title on this, if this was a book with different chapters I was about to share with you, I would title this book “Different: A Different Approach to Business Relationships.” And I think a lot of times in life, when we hear the word “different” we hear one of two responses. Some of us hear “different” and we think “ew”, “scary’, “change”, “uncertainty”, “unpredictability”, “I don’t like that.”

I like to know exactly what today is gonna look like. And this is how I live life. And these are the guidelines I am going to move forward inside.

And then we have the other half of the room where we hear the word “different”, and we’re like, yes! Change! Opportunity! Unpredictability! A journey! We like to go back to our homes or offices and rearrange the furniture. Because it feels good. There’s something exciting and fresh about it. We don’t like being in the same place twice.

But the one thing we can all agree on, regardless of what side of the aisle we’re on, is we can come together and agree different means no longer the same. Something has changed. And you, as part of The Platform Marketing network, are listening to this podcast because you want something different. You want to grow. You want to change. You don’t want tomorrow to look like yesterday. You want to be different.

And I believe different in business starts with creating “wow moments”. If you want to get someone’s attention, if you want to get repeat customers, you want to wow them. You want to do something that literally blows their mind. They have such a great experience that they are going and telling the story to others. 

Brandon Smith: For instance, for me, I remember one time at Disney World … I love the quote from Walt Disney that says, “Do what you do so well that you can’t help but go home and tell your friends and family. I was at Disney World a couple years ago on a big family trip. We were getting ready to watch the show at The Castle and the fireworks. It was hot. The kids were tired and hungry. So I decided I’m gonna run to Casey’s Corner. I’m gonna grab some food, some drinks, and bring them back to the family. Just gonna have a last night here in The Park and chill on Main Street.

I walk into Casey’s Corner, and I know that you all know exactly where that is. Picture this. Go there with me. You walk into the double doors at Casey’s Corner, you look up on that reader board, and you see “burgers, fries, Diet Coke, Coke, Sprite” and on the very bottom I saw “baseball brownies.” 

I didn’t really know what that was, but with my eye I caught on the back counter this tray of brownies. With white frosting and two red stripes on them in the shape of a baseball.

So I order some drinks and food for the family, and I order one baseball brownie. Well, on my way back to the family, my hands were full. And I realized I have this one brownie. I have five people in my immediate family, and it’s about 20 of us with aunts, uncles, and cousins. So I quickly eat that brownie. I want to get rid of all evidence that I had a treat while I was away. 

Tim Chermak: Smart. Smart!

Brandon Smith: And I’m not joking, that brownie was the most incredible thing I have ever tasted. The density of the cake and the frosting was the perfect sweetness. The ratio of frosting to cake, amazing. I don’t know what kind of sorcery or magic Mickey was doing back in the kitchen. But the brownie was phenomenal. 

So I get to my family. We eat our food. We watch the show. Life goes on. Two nights later, we’re back home in Montana. We get ready for bed, and I say to my wife, “Hey, I need to come clean with something. I’ve been carrying some guilt for the last couple of days. 

Tim Chemak: For shame.

Brandon Smith: She’s like, “Oh no. What happened?’ And I said, “Remember the night with the fireworks, Main Street and Casey’s Corner food, the hungry kids, that whole event?” She goes, “Yeah?” I said, ‘Well, at Casey’s Corner I got a brownie. And I ate it. And it’s the best thing i ever tasted. It’s far superior to any dessert I ever had. And just the fact that I haven’t shared that with you - I’ve been carrying some guilt. Because it was so good”

We fast forward a year and a half later, I happen to be in Florida again with my daughter and my wife. She’s planned the perfect day for us. We’re going to Magic Kingdom. And this day is all about my daughter. She gets to pick where we eat, what rides we go on, where we shop, what we do. It’s one on one time with parents and Avery. 

Brandon Smith: We walk in the main gate with Avery. I say, ‘Avery, where are we going? What are we doing today? She goes, “Well, first off, we have to go to Casey’s Corner and get you that brownie. Otherwise, I’m gonna hear about it all day.”

So sure enough, we go straight to Casey’s Corner. Everyone else is rushing to The Mine Train-

Tim Chermak: You’re not going to the mine train. You;re not going to Space Mountain. You’re going to Casey’s Corner. 

Brandon Smith: The very first people in that morning. I go in, and I see that reader board. And I see “hamburgers, hot dogs, Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite … and Boston Cream  Pie”. And everything inside of me … I look at my wife and say, “We took out a second mortgage for this?” We came to Disney World and there is no ‘baseball brownie.”

So one of the ladies behind the counter she goes, “Hey good morning, can I help you?” And I said, “Oh, no. I was here a year ago and you had these brownies that … They were baseball brownies and were so good. We loved them, wanted to come and get those again.”

She said, “Oh I apologize. Those are seasonal. We do have really good Boston Cream Pie right now. Can I interest you in that?”

And I said, “No, we’re alright. Thank you. We walk out of Casey’s Corner. We’re on Main Street. We’re almost to the Walt Mickey Statue. The conversation with Avery is where are we going now? What do you want to do? Space Mountain? Where’re we going Avery? 

And I get this tap on my shoulder. I turn around, and it’s the lady from Casey’s Corner. And she goes, ‘Excuse me, sir. The chef wanted me to give you this.” And she hands me, on a plate, a baseball brownie. In that moment I pulled out my phone to get a picture of it.

Tim Chermak: Brandon, Brandon, did you cry? 

Brandon Smith: I did not cry. But the emotion inside of me was “This is a wow moment.” I took the picture, and I sent it to my wife and daughter. I said, “This is a story that I will tell forever.” There’s so much great business, educational wow moments in this that we can take and learn. I do not know how Disney did that. 

Tim Chermak: So, I can actually interject here as a - I actually should have brought my name tag, because I kept my name tag. I used to work at Walt Disney World. I went through the Traditions Training as a cast member and everything. I worked there. And what happened there is actually a very orchestrated - They call it a Magic Moment. Maybe they’ve changed the terminology since I worked there. But back when I was there it was called a Magic Moment. And even as a minimum wage employee, as a cast member making $10 an hour or whatever, you are empowered to do little things like that. If you think it will create a so-called Magic Moment with a guest. 

Because even down to the show keepers at Disney World - The show keepers are what the call the janitors. Even as a janitor, you’re not a custodian, you’re a janitor. You’re called show keeper because you’re keeping the show looking clean. They are empowered, and they go through the guest service training where they actually teach the economics of how the business model at Disney World works. And we were taught as minimum wage employees that the average family who is coming here will spend over $5,000 on this vacation. And the average family has been saving for this vacation for somewhere between 3 and 4 years. And the average family over their lifetime with Disney has a lifetime value of well over $20,000. And so they teach this to minimum wage employees. So that they understand that we don’t really care if you have to give away (in this case, a brownie) or the classic example they always use is if someone buys an ice cream cone. And they hand it to their 5 year old. And he dumps it all over his shirt. You are empowered, even as a minimum wage employee, to go over to that kid. Walk him over to the nearest merchandise stand. Get him a brand new shirt for free and just tell the employee there, “Hey, we’re comping this. I’ll handle the details later.” 

Get the kid a brand new Disney shirt and also replace the ice cream cone for free. Because yeah, that might cost the company $20 or whatever. But those parents will tell that story for the rest of their lives. And obviously Disney makes a lot of money off that.

Brandon Smith: Exactly, that’s what Walt meant when he said, do what you do so well they want to see it again and their family.

Tim Chermak: Yep.

Brandon Smith: Because here we are in 2024, and I am telling you the story about a brownie. The truth is, that brownie is probably not the best brownie. It’s not the healthiest brownie. But the was an experience. And I promise you this Platform, next time you are at Walt Disney World, walk down Main Street and see Casey’s Corner - Because of this podcast you will think “brownie.” Casey’s Corner, amazing, I need to have one. 

Tim Chermak: And it wasn’t even -

Brandon Smith: This capitalizes off of the wow moment.

Tim Chermak: Yep, it wasn’t even a Colorado brownie. It was just a normal pedestrian Florida brownie. No psychoactive effect whatsoever. Just a normal brownie.

Brandon Smith: It was amazing. And I realized at that moment, this is how we need to operate business. This is how we need to treat our clients, our prospects (those people we want to remember us). This is how you do it. And I realized that day that the difference between a contact and a contract, the difference between a shopper and a buyer, the difference between somebody who thinks they want to do business with you and someone who actually does business with you is one simple letter. It’s the letter R. And that R, I believe, is relationship. Because when you have a vested relationship in somebody, their heart follows. And when you have their heart, their wallet follows and the referrals and the retention and the loyalty and the repeat service. 

Brandon Smith: And I thought, it is so much easier to do business with your friends. Because those hard conversations are never fun, but they’re easier. For me to call up Tim and say, “Tim, hey. I just talked to the appraiser. Bad news : a, b, and c. Or, looking at the survey, the flood zone, the bad news. We can provide solutions. We can talk this through with Tim. 

But if I don’t know Tim and have no relationship, there’s a high probability of anger, frustration, hanging up the phone, bad review on Yelp or Google because they had a negative experience. The difference between a contact and a contract is that letter R. It’s relationship.

And I can spend all day telling you about all the big Fortune 500 companies that have figured that out. One, for example, is Netflix. Netflix did not kill Blockbuster. Blockbuster killed itself by having ridiculous late fees and no access to the newest title or movie you wanted to watch on Friday night. 

Yes, Netflix used technology, but Netflix figured out that the greatest disruptor to their business was not being customer centric. They just happened to use technology to enhance the relationship Uber didn’t kill the taxi industry. Ridiculous fees and not having access to a vehicle is what killed the taxi industry. Apple didn’t kill the music industry. I-tunes came out and said, “Hey, you no longer have to buy the full Nickelback album; you can just buy the one song.” It was about the customer. It was about the relationship. The difference between a contact and a contract is the letter R. It’s a relationship.

And so I took the wow moments. I took the relationship piece. I put those together and had an opportunity to coach a Little League baseball team. I was driving to my office one morning, Tim. I got a text message from the president of the local Little League Association. It said, “Good morning, Brandon. I am pumped to see your son, Boston, is registered for Little League this Season. Quick question for you: Would you have any interest in coaching the team this year? Like most parents, my immediate response was “absolutely not.” Not at all. But in that moment I realized, “Wait, if I coach the team, I have a little bit of control. I can control the practice schedule, the length of practice, whether practice gets canceled due to bad weather. That’s my call.

So I text him back and said (He’s Nick Davis) “Nick, absolutely I’d be honored to coach. I can make that happen.” Moments later he responded with, “Second question: Now that you’re coaching, would you have any interest in your business sponsoring a team?” And I thought, you sucker. This is a set up. 

Tim Chermak: So now obviously you can’t say no. 

Brandon Smith: Right. I texted back and I said, “Uh, can you email me the details? I’ll get back to you later today.”

Tim Chermak: Yeah. 

Brandon Smith: I get to my office, and I get an email from Nick that says, “Team sponsorship is $500. It gets your name printed on the hats and your logo in our Opening Day media guide.” And I realize. It’s not so much a sponsorship. It’s a generous donation to community service. That’s really what it is. Just helping to underwrite some of the costs. of Little League. 

So when I’m traveling and speaking, Tim, I love to ask this question right here. I don’t know how many times I’ve done this, but the response is 100% the same. I ask the audience, “Quick show of hands: How many of you have ever sponsored a youth sports program, whether YMCA soccer to Little League? Nearly every hand in the audience goes up. 

My follow up question is: How many of you have ever called the number on the back of a YMCA soccer jersey to do business with them? Not one hand has ever gone up. So, as I sat there in my office that day, I’m a sports fan. I coach a little league team. I’m also a competitive business man, an entrepreneur. I wanted to figure out how to make this $500 not just a donation but an investment. How can we actually get a positive ROI on a $500 youth sponsorship?

So here’s what we did. Here’s the story. I call it “Field of Dreams.” I’m stealing from one of the greatest baseball movies of all time. Because I had this dream with this team we are fielding. So Little League baseball, 9 to 12 year old kids, they have their first tryout. I go to the tryout. 

And I’m standing there watching kids. Trying to judge their ability to run, throw, swing a bat, catch a ball. And as I’m standing there watching them, I say to the guy who’s my assistant coach. “You know, the truth is not one of these kids is going to play for the Yankees, Red Sox or Dodgers tomorrow. Statistically, never. They’re just young boys. What if we draft the kids? Remember I’m in the insurance business. What if we draft the kids who get out of the nicest vehicles? What if we draft the kids who have the name of a business on the side of their vehicles where there’s opportunity to build a relationship?”

I remember a truck with the name of a restoration company on the side. And I thought, ‘We’ve got to draft that kid. It’s an opportunity for an amazing business relationship.” So a couple nights later we go to the draft. We draft our team. We take some good baseball players. We take some weak baseball players. It’s kind of the essence of youth sports with 9-12 year old boys. But Tim, I know your daughter. I know Rosie isn’t quite there yet. 

Brandon Smith: What happens in youth sports is you sign your kid up for a team. And this happens over and over. You’ll get a random text message on a Thursday night at 8:26 PM that says, “Good evening, Tim. This is Brandon Smith. I have the opportunity to coach your daughter in soccer this year. Our first practice will be Monday at 6:00. See you there.” And it’s this message that goes out and gets a couple questions that the parents need to know. The exact time and details. And you’ll get some thumbs up and exclamation points from parents and notifications. It doesn’t make for a great experience. It’s predictable. It’s what all the coaches do. So I had the idea of let’s send the kids a draft letter. 

Brandon Smith: And I wanted to send them a letter where the kids felt important to create some anticipation for the coming season. I wanted the kids to feel valued. And truthfully, I wanted to do something different. I wanted an experience that was different from any experience they had before. So what we did was send a draft letter to the kids in the mail on our business letterhead.

We did not hide who we are, what we are doing, what products we sell, what we could help them with. But we sent a letter that I think we are going to share some of these here in a minute. If you are watching on Youtube, you’ll see some of these. And I can get you this draft letter. Essentially the draft letter, to paraphrase, said “Congratulations Blake, you’ve been drafted to play baseball this season by Glidewell Insurance. We’re excited to have you on the team. You do us a favor. Let your parents know about our parents’ meeting at this place this time. Love to have one of them there. Looking forward to seeing you next Monday night, Field 2, 6:00. 

Sent that out. Waited 72 hours. Then I sent out the mass email to all the parents. My opening line in the email was: Good afternoon, hopefully by now your son has received the first draft letter of his baseball career. Then essentially just recapped the original letter, reminding them of the parent meeting. Looking forward to seeing them. 

I got 3 or 4 email responses that night that had nothing to do with baseball. I got email responses that said, “Brandon, the draft letter was genius. I can’t begin to tell you the impact it had on my son. He has it hanging on the cork board in his bedroom. I had a parent say, “Your letter is sitting on the mantel in our living room. My son called his grandparents and told them he got drafted.” And it was in that moment I realized, Tim, that if we wow the kids, we wow the parents. That is really deep. If we wow the kids, we wow the parents. 

So I realized, again, in that moment, I need to continue wowing the kids. As the season progresses this isn’t about baseball. It’s about creating wow moments for 9-12 year old boys. Because the difference between contact and a contract is relationship. And it starts with those boys. So rather than taking the hats that were provided, I went and I got some custom hats made. I didn’t want just the cheap, cheesy, foam hats. We went out and we got some wool hats made. High quality, granted they still said Glidewell Insurance on the front. Not the most fun or attractive baseball hat, but it was different. It was different than all the other teams. It made the kids feel valued. They were special. They were chosen. They were selected to be on this team. And we’re having a better experience.

Tim Chermak: You know, I actually …

Brandon Smith: The players and the coaches. Oh, go ahead.

Tim Chermak: I said, I actually think back to when I was playing traveling baseball as a kid. And a lot of the best regional teams had a sponsor. My dad owned an RV Dealership when we were growing up. And he sponsored our baseball team I think the year I was in 4th Grade. And so he called it The Coachmen. Because that was the brand of RV he sold at his dealership. He sold Coachman travel trailers and motorhomes. And so the name of our team was The Coachmen. The logo for our team was just the corporate Coachman logo. But the point I’m making is that as 10 year olds we thought that it was cool that we had a sponsor. We could care less what the sponsor was. But having a sponsor inherently to a kid is cool. Because it signals that this is a legitimate team with a sponsor. 

There was a team in our area that was sponsored by the local Taco Johns. And if you’re not from The MIdWest or the Western part of the Country, I think that Taco Johns originated in Wyoming actually. But, I live in Florida now.Yeah, we don’t have Taco Johns in Florida. And it’s devastating to me because I grew up with Taco Johns. I love it. It’s vastly superior to Taco Bell in every way.

Anyways, there was a local baseball team sponsored by the local Taco Johns restaurant, and they were called The Taco Bravos. That was the name of their team. And it was in the font of Taco Johns. So it’s hilarious in hindsight that businesses were so forward and so brazen in how they sponsored. But as a kid you thought that was cool. Like, wow our team is sponsored. They think that’s cool. So don’t shy away from putting your logo on stuff. Whether it’s the jersey, the hat, or you mentioned the draft letter had your letterhead. You don’t have to hide it. Because I think the more kids feel like they’re a part of a legitimate team that actually has a sponsor, they think that’s actually cool. 

Brandon Smith: Right, and you know, we went and we spent $125 to put logos on hats. It wasn’t a huge investment. So I’m $625 in with the sponsorship and the hats. And where I’ve seen this presentation change from when I shared it to Platform a couple years ago, is I’ve had people share with me how they’ve taken it. And improved it. I know a guy in the MidWest who sponsored a team, and his draft letter came in a box. And inside the box was the team hat, a brand new baseball, three packages of baseball cards, a package of sunflower seeds, and a bunch of bubblegum. It created these moments for kids that were like, they go to school and they talk about this. They tell their friends “Look where I’m at. Look what team chose me.”I think that’s brilliant.

Because again, you wow the kids, you wow the parents. And so I kind of set the bar high early on. I had to figure out for the season, how do we continue to create wow moments for the kids throughout the season? So for me one of the areas was practice. I wanted practice each day to really become the highlight of the day for the kids. As I got to know the boys, there was a boy on our team at one point where his dad had stage 4 pancreatic cancer. And just had days to live. 

Brandon Smith: Baseball and being on the field was an outlet for him. It was a safe place. It was a place where he could be real. And get his emotions out. We had kids whose parents were walking through divorce. We had kids who had learning disabilities and dyslexia at school. These kids don’t all just have this easy life. They have challenges that they are facing.

So I recall one practice where we sat out right center field. For an hour and a half we did not touch a baseball, swing a bat, pick up our gloves. We just had conversations. I asked the boys questions like, What was the best part of your day? What didn’t you like about school today? What do you like the most about your parents? What don’t you like about your little sister? What’s your favorite Fortnight dance? Stand up and show me your dance. Let’s have a dance competition.

And I just invested in the boys on a deeper relational level. Now remember, I’m no hero here coaching the team. Or an expert in raising youth or young men. I’m trying to control the schedule. That’s why I signed up as a coach. And I’m ahead of it  because I have a $500 dollar investment. But as this happened I started realizing the wow moments. And that the difference between a contact and contract is a relationship. That night I got a text message from one of the dads on the team that said, “Hey, my son came home tonight and said it was the best practice ever. Don’t know what you did. He wasn’t a huge fan of baseball, but he’s actually loving being part of the team.”

I don’t know if his son told him we didn’t play baseball. We didn’t run. We didn’t work out. We just hung out as a group of boys. At practice I would change up drills. I put all the boys in a line at second yard base with a 5 gallon bucket at home plate and give them a baseball. And tell them if you make the baseball in the bucket I will give you a $20 bill. The kids never made it in the bucket all season. But they were getting closer and closer, and they were focused on where they were throwing the ball. Which made an impact and made a difference in the games, just making practice fun. I wanted to value the boys, build their self esteem. 

I would put cards in the mail to the boys, again with our agency logo on it and my name. The return address on the envelope was from our business. But I put cards in the mail that said something along the lines of “Hey Carter, great practice last night. I was so impressed with your hussle. Thank you for being a leader. Keep it up.” With a $5 gift card to Dairy Queen. The cool thing was the next day at practice, Carter at practice would do two things. He would continue to hussle, and he was a leader. 

I found that I am reinforcing the positive behavior elements of a baseball team. And again, none of these kids are going to the pros. But they had a coach that believed in them. They had assistant coaches that believed in them. We were building their self esteem. And these boys who started off struggling began winning games. Began getting some momentum going on the field. I put cards in the mail, the same card, from my office to the parents on the team. 

Brandon Smith: I’d say things like, “Joe and Stephanie, thank you for allowing me to coach your son, Will. It’s been an honor getting to know you and your family this week. See you at the game Thursday night. Just another touch point for relationship. Because I know no other youth sports coach is doing that with their team. As the team began to grow and blossom, we took it to social media. I wanted on social media to have a platform to highlight the kids. I wanted to be able to tag parents. So they could be able to see and engage and share the content with aunts, uncles, grandparents, I found that it’s very important to make your posts shareable.

Brandon Smith: But I wanted to create a fan base. So, I started off by posting a picture of my son on my personal platforms. And just said something along the lines of, “my favorite team will forever be wherever Boston Smith plays.” And used some hashtags, emojis and wanted to show that I was cool, “hip”, trendy. I tagged my son on that. My next post, I believe, was a picture of me with all the boys. Kind of a team huddle where I just said,”Love these boys.”

And I used some hashtags of some of the funny sayings or nicknames we have for the boys. And on that particular post my business came in and liked that post. My business commented on that post, shared that post, engaged with that post. And slowly transitioned all the social content away from me to the business platform. 

I don’t know what it’s like in the real estate industry, but in the insurance industry people don’t like, don’t care and don’t engage with the insurance jargon. They don’t care about rates or how to mitigate claims. They want authentic relationships with the people they trust the most. And so we got away from all insurance social media. And spent three months just highlighting a baseball team. 

I remember going online after our game and going on ESPN and looking at the paragraph Buster would write after a game that said, “Despite the weather delay the starting pitcher struck out and so and so.” Just the three or four sentences. I would copy and paste that, go in and edit out the names, details, and numbers. And create a post. I would do that consistently after every game. And what I saw was parents begin to like our Business Facebook page.

They would share our posts to their followers. Because it was similar last names that liked and shared and began following our business page. 

Tim Chermak: Because it was worded in such a way where it sounded like they were reading actual ESPN sports journalism when you post these stories. It would say, “Boston Smith lead the team with a 3 for 4…”

Brandon Smith: Well, I have one right here. I can read it to you. “Colton Riley at 4 strikeouts and 2 innings of relief. Boston Smith had a hashtag Sports Center Top 10 barehanded grab for a timely time out. In the end, defeated a solid Boote team, 14 to 1.

That post there I showed the boys at practice the next day, and because of the hashtag Sports Center liked out post. Sports Center knows who they are. Sports Center likes them. The next post was, “The streak continues. Won 7 in a row. Won 13 to 0 thanks to a phenomenal pitching performance by Taco (nickname for Brock on our team) and Brooks Earhart going 4 for 4 with 6 RBIs. 

And these sorts of things began to gain traction. All the sudden we had a fan base. People whose kids weren’t even on the team but were following our Facebook page were liking, commenting and cheering us on. “Go, good luck, go get them.” It was like we had a professional sports team. And then this cool thing happened in 2021-2022. ChatGPT hits the interwebs. And I was able to take the stats that were in an app, copy and paste into ChatGPT, and say “write an article about last week’s game.”

And my one paragraph turned into 4 or 5 paragraphs. We were highlighting more kids, more stats, more details, more pictures.

Tim Chermak: Yeah, yeah.

Brandon Smith: That expanded engagement because rather than just one or two kids getting mentioned in our paragraph, we’re getting 4 or 5 kids mentioned. What does that do for the kids? It wows the kids and wows the parents and creates more engagement.

It was amazing, Tim. I started seeing pictures on Facebook. Parents posting a picture of their kid and talking about how much they love the baseball season. Where the kid is sitting at home doing his homework and wearing a hat that says “Glidewell Insurance.”

Tim Chermak: Yeah.

Brandon Smith: I guarantee you, that kid has cooler hats at home. But he began taking pride in that hat and that team.

Tim Chermak: Yeah, because that actually means something. It actually means something.

Brandon Smith: It actually has worth. It has value to them. They wouldn’t sell that hat for $100. They were a part of something bigger than themselves, and they mattered. Tim, you and I were from the generation where not every kid gets a trophy. I however, at the end of the season, had this awards ceremony where I gave every kid a trophy. With my name and logo on it.

Tim Chermak: *laugh*

Brandon Smith: I am a fan of that. So we made up awards for each kid. We had the Barry Bonds award that went to the kid that did the most drugs on our team. Just kidding. It went to the kid that had the most walks on our team. We had the Shohei Ohtani award, the Cy Young award, the Ricky Henderson award. We had one kid on our team, not good at baseball, but he got an award.

And I remember, during the season, he was away for a week and a half because he went on this mission trip with his family. So he got the Roberto Clemente award. 

Tim Chermak: Alright.

Brandon Smith: At the awards dinner, instead of giving each kid a handwritten note, I gave a note written on a baseball.

Tim Chermak: Yeah.

Brandon Smith: I wrote the note on the baseball and gave it to them, hoping that this trophy, this baseball they’re going to sit this baseball on the mantle next to the draft letter. They’re gonna hold on to this. And these 12 year old boys in the next 3 to 4 years are getting their driver's licenses. Their parents are going to be shocked by their rate increase. They’re going to need to call somebody. I knew that the  difference between a contact and a contract is a relationship. And we started that relationship on the baseball field. 

Tim Chermak: What I think is so interesting about how you structured that experience is that, from the outside looking in, none of these kids, if they’re 10 years old, none of these kids are potential customers. Because they’re not buying insurance when they’re in Middle School. Their parents are. Frankly, if you asked every kid on the team “What does Glidewell Insurance do?” They probably couldn’t even give an answer. “I don’t even know what an insurance company does.” 

Brandon Smith: Zero clue. I remember back when I was playing baseball, when you had a big hit or a home run, the coach would grab the ball and give it to you. You got the home run ball.

Tim Chermak: Right.

Brandon Smith: We had a kid on our team, Brooks Earhart, he hit his first home run. I had somebody go out to left field and grab the ball, give it to me. After the game, I wrote on it. First home run and the date. And I think a lot of coaches would’ve done that. A lot of coaches would have given it to Brooks and called it a night. I said, the day and age we live in I had my cell phone in my back pocket, I said, “Brooks, let me get a picture of you with that baseball.” I took a picture of him.

And I think, again, it ends right there for a lot of people. What I did was, I went and got that picture printed in a 5x7. I framed it. And at the awards banquet I gave that framed picture to Brooks, and I wrote on the actual picture with a sharpie “Brooks, congrats on a great season. I’m honored to be your coach. Have a great Summer, Brandon.” AndI gave it to him.

Brandon Smith: For me, that’s where it ended.But what happened was, Saturday morning I woke up. And Brooks’ mom posted a picture on Facebook of her and Brooks. With Brooks holding the  framed picture. Tagging me, Glidewell, the other coaches. Thanking us for a great season and what an amazing experience it was. She did not talk about the wins, the losses, or the score. She talked about the experience. I saw pictures of kids on our team on vacation on Lake Louise, standing in the water. Wearing a hat that says “Glidewell Insurance.” It blew my mind. That’s not what the goal was.

The goal was I wanted to control the calendar and earn $500 back. So here’s the end of the story, Tim. I was about $1100 invested between the sponsorship, the hats, the Dairy Queen gift cards, the trophies, the baseballs, the gatorades, the sunflower seeds, But within 60 days of the season being completed, I had generated $11,863 in first year revenue commission from the baseball team.

Now, very different from the real estate world. I know you’ve got people listening right now like, “Ooh, $11,000. That’s like a shanty that you sell in the Midwest, no?” Let me help you understand. In our industry, that is an annual residual income. Every year those call seasons renew, we get that. And we all know our insurance rates increase. So the longer we retain it, the more revenue we make year over year over year. So in the insurance space, to generate $12,000 in first year revenue, without ever having to ask anybody to quote their insurance or having to have a conversation, is mind blowing. It is huge.

If we were at an insurance event, and I was sharing this, there would probably be applause or a standing ovation because that is shocking. I did not ask anybody. I did not ask one person to review their insurance. I simply invested in kids, created wow moments, and built relationships. I think it was a Tuesday night. I got a text message from one of the dads on our team that said, “Hey Brandon, great game tonight. Not sure what your schedule looks like tomorrow. Any chance you could meet up for lunch?” 

I panicked. I thought what did I do? What did I say? How did I? Everybody is being canceled right now. Society is going woke. What did I do? I wrestled with going to sleep that night. The next morning I got in to meet him at 11:00 for lunch. I walk in, and I sit down in this deli with him. And he just starts with this, “How is the baseball season going? It was quite the game last night.” A lot of small talk, “How are you? How are the kids?” And internally I’m like, why are we here? What’s about to happen? So I finally just stop it. And I say, “Hey, question for you. Why are we here? What’s your goal? What are you trying to get out of this?”

Then he goes, “Oh. Well, honestly, between Monday and Tuesday at my office we had a falling out with our insurance company. And found out what we thought was going to be a covered claim isn’t covered. And we’re not real happy with our rates on our group health insurance for our employees. So last night I was kind of venting to my wife, and she says, “You should talk to coach Brandon. He can help you with that.” So I got on your website in the stands last night. And I saw some things that I want to talk to you about.  And so after the game that’s why I texted you about getting together. 

Brandon Smith: And we began this conversation. And Tim, this guy was an operator of a John Deer dealership. Where we had the opportunity to insure their business owner’s policy, their liability, their property, their group health insurance, their retirement plan for their employees. Of the $12,000 almost $8,000 came from him. Everyone else was just home and auto policies. 

All of that happened purely because of a vested interest in people. And I think so many times people, especially in our industry, they make their priority policies, premiums, procedures, profits. All those p words. And the truth is, people should be the priority. When you focus on people, build a relationship, you know. From The Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.”

People listening to this podcast right now, you may feel, “Cool story, Brandon. I’m inspired, but I don’t have kids in little league.” Well, you may have a daughter in choir. You may have a son in orchestra or drama or the swim team. There is opportunity every day to take the things we’ve always done and do them a little bit different. We have to make that shift.

I’ve heard stories from realtors being at their kid’s school play. And on the way out they see a 12 year old boy hold the door for an elderly couple as they walk out. That realtor put a note card in the mail to that kid saying, “Johnny, that night at your play, phenomenal performance. On the way out I happened to observe you holding the door for Mr and Mrs. Robinson as they were going out. We need more chivalry in today’s society. Keep loving the older generation. I’m proud of you.”

He sent that card. 48 hours later he got a phone call from Johnny’s dad saying, “ Did you really see Johnny do that? Thank you for the card. We’ve been struggling with him honoring others. I’m really proud of him if he did that. I want to recognize that.”

It started a brand new relationship. And nine months later, guess who got the listing for the sale of Johnny’s house? The realtor who sent the card. You can sponsor lunches for the youth sports team before they get on or the swim team before they get on the bus and head to a swim meet. 

Tim Chermak: Yep.

Brandon Smith: There are so many opportunities of things we do all the time just to pivot. Just do it different. The coolest part was, it wasn’t the $12,000 in revenue. The coolest part was we built a community that believed in little boys. 9-12 year old boys. If those boys had one just one more baseball game, those boys would have been off to the Little League World Series. These kids grew. They thrived. They created a culture of community. These kids are now, some of them, are stepping into high school in the next couple years playing baseball at a very elite level. And I do not believe it’s because Brandon Smith is a phenomenal baseball coach. Yes we had success.

Brandon Smith: But I believe that success came because we understood from day 1 the power of wow moments. And that the difference between a contact and contract is a relationship. It’s that letter R. It’s relationships. And so I truly, truly believe, “If you build it, they will come.” If you build the relationships, the sales opportunities will come. If you invest in people, the revenues and profits will come. I think there are some things I would love to give you. 

Find me on Instagram: Brandon Smith, pretty easy to find. Shoot me a message on there. I will send you the draft letter. I will send you some of the verbage and things we did. So that you can take that, copy and paste it, make it your own. And make an impact in your communities. So Tim, that’s story one of how wow moments changed how I view youth sports, youth sponsorships. And really finding it as work, I didn’t view my time away from the office on the baseball field as “Work is over. Now I have to go coach baseball.” It was one and the same. I was investing in people. And choosing to love them, value them and speak into their lives. And business took care of itself. 

Tim Chermak: You know, from a social media marketing perspective, that’s obviously what we do at Platform. I’m kind of perceiving this story from a marketing perspective. And I think the thing that just jumps out to me so much is that you are really proving what we’ve said all along. That you can’t substitute budget for creativity. If you want your social media posts and your social media presence as a local business, whether you’re a restaurant, an insurance agency, or obviously a real estate agent. If you want your social media game to get a lot of engagement, you have to actually post interesting things. 

Just throwing more money at sponsored ads and retargeting ads, if you’re promoting stuff that just isn’t that interesting and is boring but you’re putting a lot of money behind it, that’s not really a winning recipe. It’s actually so much easier to do interesting things in real life. Do remarkable things. The definition of the word remarkable is: worth remarking about. Something that is so creative. As you say, something that is so different, so interesting that people would actually talk about it. 

Brandon Smith: Well Tim, Let me ask you, what do you feel is the most important? Is it content? Is it context? Is it timing, or is it the number of times a message is seen? What do you believe? Where does the shift need to happen?

Tim Chermak: I think all of those things are a part of the mix. But, what makes a great ad a great ad or a great social media post versus just one that’s good is.

Brandon Smith: Are you asking me or is that rhetorical?

Tim Chermak: Well, I think what makes a great ad a great ad is that it is so interesting and surprising that you would actually share it. I actually just had this conversation yesterday with someone. I was coaching them on how to write better ads for social media. And to me that’s the ultimate litmus test. Is someone just gonna like it? Is someone just gonna click on it, read it, and be like “Oh, interesting” Or is it so compelling, so unexpected that someone actually feels compelled to share it?

Brandon Smith: Yeah.

Tim Chermak: Like if I saw a local Little League team that had a sports journalism writeup about their most recent game. Or it’s a photo of a kid holding the home run ball, or whatever. I would almost want to share that as “Here’s a really cool example of a Little League team and coach that is taking that experience for those boys to another level.” That’s actually so noteworthy that you would want to share it. 

So in the calculation or in the equation of what’s more important, the creativity of the content itself, or the budget - It’s the creativity of the content every single time. 

Brandon Smith: I think that would have been my answer too. The creativity of - You know, we’ve been sponsoring youth sports teams since at least the early 80s. I remember I was on teams with title companies and restaurants on my soccer jersey.

Tim Chermak: Right, right.

Brandon Smith: And still today not one person raises their hand when I ask them that question. We still have people running yellow page ads today. Those traditional marketing methods are still there. And they’re not bad. We’re just not capitalizing on them or being creative or innovating the way we are doing them. To get in front of people to generate a return on that investment. And so I really believe - I feel like we cracked something. Now any time we get the opportunity to sponsor a youth event, I’m all over it. Because we have figured out how to actually make it a sponsorship, how to make it an investment, how to make it tangible rather than just a tax write-off. 

Tim Chermak: And the thing is, you can put that same amount of money into other advertising channels. Whether it’s buying leads from somewhere or sending direct mail postcards, whatever. You could spend that same amount of money elsewhere, and frankly, it’s just not as much fun. You were probably going to spend some marketing dollars anyway. You might as well do it in a way that’s enjoyable and fun for you. Because if it’s fun for you, it’s probably also going to be a lot more interesting to the public, and the community, and obviously your eventual customers. 

Brandon Smith: Another question I like to ask audiences is: How many of you have tried to do a Facebook giveaway? And again, all the hands go up. The next question is: How many of you have failed at giveaways? You just don’t get the engagement. The only likes are your mom or your daughter. It doesn’t go anywhere. You sheepishly have to go right-click and delete the post, because it got zero traction. 

Brandon Smith: Several years ago, I wanted to do a Facebook giveaway with the goal of engaging new followers on our Facebook page that we could run retargeting ads at, for the purpose of open enrollment health insurance. But we had failed, just like many of the people listening to this podcast at our Facebook giveaways. And so what we did was I called up the local pizza parlor -locally owned- and said, “I want to giveaway some of your pizzas. I want to promote your Facebook Page. Can I have permission to drive as much traffic as I can to you? Of course they said yes. 

So I drove a couple blocks to the pizza parlor, and I took a picture of - they have a taxidermied bear that everybody knows.

Tim Chermak: Yeah. 

Brandon Smith: Howard’s Pizza and the bear. I took the picture, got back to my office, and right on my phone I created a graphic that said “Howard’s Pizza giveaway” I edited the photo and I posted the picture. Now here’s what you have to do. If you’re gonna do this, you have to follow directions and pay attention. Because Facebook algorithm doesn’t like your business posts, pushes them down, wants you to pay to play. Pay to be seen.

So we posted, I posted personally inside a group. Most communities have something like a Missoula online yard sale. Where people are just cleaning out their garage and looking at their old golf clubs. I went to a group and I posted. “Hey, we’re doing a Facebook giveaway. Here’s how it works. You like our Page. You like Howard’s Pizza Page.” I tag both Howard’s Pizza and Glidewell. “And you comment below Howard’s”

And over the next 24 hours, it was just hundreds of “Howard’s” and what I realized there, Tim. In a group, when there are comments and engagement, it moves that post. It keeps it up at the forefront. People going to Missoula Online Yard Sales are seeing this. Hundreds of comments, hundreds of Howard’s. Excuse me. So I had to pick our random winner.

So what I did was, I just started clicking on profiles. And looking at profile pictures and cover photos. I’m looking for the house. The nice white picket fence. The family with potential teenage drivers.

Tim Chermak: Yep. 

Brandon Smith: Someone that we want to build a relationship with. I got to one that looked promising, saw their name. So I hopped over to Google. And I typed their name in Missoula. And the very first page that came up was a Youtube video from a news anchor, a story about this family that was on the local news. 

And this family puts on this huge Christmas display with all the lights, serving hot chocolate, the husband dresses up as The Grinch. He’s got a big sled that he sits in and takes photos of kids. A really, really cool story. They talked about in that story how they accept donations to go to the local food bank. Really, really cool. 

A couple of things that I thought of while I watched that. One was that they gave the address. They gave the address of the home for this family. So I copied that, wrote that down. And then the food bank, I thought, “Wow, what if we were to partner with these people at some point and we match the donations of every donation given to the food bank we will match.

Tim Chermak: Yeah. 

Brandon Smith: So all we need to do is create a form there where people can write down : Here’s my name, the matching donation, here’s my email for the receipt, and here’s the amount I gave. 

Well, we can match that. But we can also take their name and email. And put them into our CRM campaign, highlight it around Christmas and The Grinch. Great idea! I took the address and I popped it into Zillow. And when I saw that the home’s estimate was $926,000, I thought “There we go! We have our “random” winner of the giveaway.” So I went  back to our Facebook Page, and I posted on our Facebook Page. Congratulations! (tagged the winner). You won 2 large pizzas from Howard’s. Share us a private message with your address, your phone number, your order for delivery time. We’ll make it happen. Little did they know, I had all that information from the news story. Then I screenshot that post. I went and posted that at the bottom of all the Howard’s comments in the group. Letting everybody know that we follow through. We actually did what we said we were going to do.

Tim Chermak: Right. Sure.

Brandon Smith: With our winner. I could have easily, in that moment, let Howard’s Pizza deliver the pizza that night. I chose to go to Howard’s Pizza, pick up the pizza, take a selfie of me in front of Howard’s Pizza with the pizza. Almost doing the domino effect, letting people see the process.

Tim Chermak: Yeah. 

Brandon Smith: When I got the house of the winner, I knocked on the door, met them face to face, shook their hands, thanked them for participating, and on the top of the pizza box on a Glidewell Notecard wrote : One, enjoy your Howard’s Pizza. Two, take a picture of Howard’s pizza. Three, post the picture on Facebook and tag Glidewell’s. Four, if you complete steps 1-3 I will mail you a giftcard to Starbucks next week. 

Because who doesn’t like overpriced burnt coffee? 

Brandon Smith: That night I sent a text to the winner that said, “Good evening, I hope that you enjoyed your pizza. Please let me know if there’s anything more I can ever do to serve you. Have an awesome weekend. 

I woke up that morning to a picture of me and Glidewell and Howard’s Pizza tagged. This family sitting around the dinner table eating pizza. So I put a notecard in the mail and said, “Hey, thank you so much for the picture of the family. Looks like you enjoyed the pizza. Enjoy your favorite cup of coffee on me.

Guess who now insures the winner of that contest. Guess who insures Howard’s Pizza. Guess who insures the general manager’s of Howard’s Pizza home and auto and rental properties. We generated $4600 in revenue from a $20 pizza giveaway. And that was not the goal.

The goal of this was to increase the followers of our Facebook Page.

Tim Chermak: Right.

Brandon Smith: For retargeting ads.

Tim Chermak: Right.

Brandon Smith: In that 24 hours, Tim, we had 354 new organic followers in our community. Where we were able to then run those retargeting ads for open enrollment. And from those 354 followers and a $20 pizza, we generated $58,000 revenue on health insurance. Putting our total at just shy of $63,000 in revenue. Because we did a Facebook pizza giveaway in an online yard sale group.

Tim Chermak: Now again, I want to highlight that you brought in that much revenue for your local insurance agency. Without spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on Facebook ads. It’s that rather than throwing money at it, what you did instead was something really interesting and creative in real life. And then you allowed how creative it was to go organic, go viral organically on Facebook in your immediate community. And that was a substitute for just throwing money at it.

Actually do something interesting in real life. You know?

Brandon Smith: We’ve gone full circle here, Tim. That’s is a different approach to building business relationships. The different piece is the creativity. We hear all the time, you’ve got to think outside the box. No. I truly believe we need to get back to thinking inside the box. These basic marketing principles have worked for decades. What we need to start doing is marketing outside the box. The ideas and strategies, the foundation is built. We’ve got to use our creativity and our relationships and our quarks, the things that make us unique. 

Brandon Smith: My biggest advice to business people is don’t compare your beginning to somebody else’s middle. Be you. Grow. Learn. Develop. I shared with you two successful stories. We could do a whole day of podcasts on the unsuccessful stories.

Tim Chermak: Yeah, yeah. 

Brandon Smith: The difference in how you build business relationships starts with being creative. Keep doing what you’re doing. But keep looking for those pivot moments where you can make a slight change that changes the trajectory of your life, your business, your family, your career.

Tim Chermak: It’s better to do fewer marketing campaigns and have the ones that you do be exceptionally creative and interesting. Where you are doing interesting things in real life. Than just constantly putting mediocre, template, copy and paste crap out there. And then throwing money at it by sponsoring a bunch of Facebook ads. Do interesting things in real life, and your social media engagement will take care of itself. 

Brandon Smith: “Do what you do so well, that people will want to bring their friends and family.” They’ll want to see it again.

Tim Chermak: Brandon, this was awesome. I would love to have you on again. I know there’s a lot more that we could talk about. But guys, thanks to tuning in to this episode of The Platform Marketing Show. We’ll see you on the next one. Thanks, Brandon.