What To Do When You've Already Tried Every Coaching Program, Mastermind, And Marketing Company

Brittany:
You know what's something really cool, I don't think I've ever told you, that has an unexpected benefit that's happened to me because of Platform? [Mike 00:00:09] and I, consistently in the past, we had been probably 50/50 on 50% buyers, 50% listings. Since joining Platform, what my business has turned into is, and this is going to sound crazy, more listings than it is the buy side. We have a ton of buyers, but we get so many listings, and I know a lot of it has to do with the marketing that we're doing.

Tim:
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:
All right. Hey, guys. It is Tim Chermak. And welcome back to another episode of the Platform Marketing show. I am here today with Brittany Ovbey. Brittany is a top producing realtor in the Northern suburbs of Atlanta, near the Alpharetta area I believe. And Brittany has a really cool story that's going to be very different from a lot of these Platform podcast episodes, where we have profiled successful agents and how successful they've been with the Platform strategy and these radical before and after stories. Not that Brittany isn't successful. She's actually extremely successful, probably I'd say in the top 1% of agents nationwide. But, the cool thing about Brittany isn't that she had an incredible one year transformation. It's that she's been sticking with this Platform Marketing philosophy, I believe, for five years now, right, Brittany?

Brittany:
Right. I've been since 2016.

Tim:
Yeah. I mean, that's remarkable for an agent to stick with one marketing company, one marketing strategy, for over five years. I mean, so many agents I know get shiny object syndrome and this year they're going to try this and the next year they're going to try that, or they'll try this for three months and then that for two weeks. It takes a pretty strong sense of stick to it-ness like, "Hey, we're going to do this long term. I'm not going to give up if it doesn't work after one month or two months." And you've had success, so I want to be really clear that your business is doing extremely well and yet you've still stuck with it for five years. So, let's go way back in time. You've been an agent now for ... Did you say 19 years?

Brittany:
19 years. I started in 2002.

Tim:
So, that's awesome because that's some long-term perspective right there. I feel like a lot of people that are realtors right now that are having all the success on social media and everything, it's like they got into the game in 2010 or 2011 or 2012. I mean, it's weird saying, but an agent who got licensed in 2012 has now nearly been an agent for 10 years, but they still have really no memory of the housing market mortgage blow up in '07, '08, even though they've been an agent for 10 years.

Brittany:
Yeah. And I have seen it all. So, I mean, way back before 2002, when I was not a realtor, my career was I was in corporate America. I started off at Coca-Cola as a financial analyst and I never thought I was going to be a realtor, I mean, even though it was in my blood, because my mom's an agent, and my husband became licensed in 1996, and that was right before we got engaged. And then, I was at Coke for a really long time, eight years, and I saw a lot of things happening that I didn't. A lot of reorganization happened in an eight year period. People getting, let go. And I felt like, "Oh, my gosh! What if I'm 50 years old and I stayed here all this time and then I get let go?"

Brittany:
And I decided, at a very young age, that I wanted more control over my life, my career, and something more fulfilling than crunching numbers. So, I ended up joining Mike in 2002, got my license and just said goodbye to the corporate world. And I haven't looked back, because actually I don't even feel like I have a job. But, when I say I've seen it all, I've seen both prior to the great recession. I went through the great recession. And before the great recession, Mike and I, all we did for marketing was we had our sphere that we marketed to, and then we had farms. And I see a lot of agents just don't even do farms anymore.

Tim:
You had the housing boom. You rode that wave too, because if you got into real estate and you got licensed in '02, you basically had four to five solid years of what we now look back on as we call it the housing boom. But, back then, people just thought this market is so hot, it's going to be this way forever. We were recently, as a culture, coming off of the emotional high of the tech boom and people's mutual funds literally making 25% a year for about five years in a row. There was this sense of optimism like, "Things are always going to be this good." Home values and many markets were appreciating five to 10% a year, not just for a year or two, but for five years in a row. And so, your marketing, you said, back then was just riding the wave and focusing on a couple of farms, but you didn't necessarily have a robust strategy of lead generation or anything more intentional.

Brittany:
Not necessarily. Our bread and butter was our sphere, and then we had our farm. We had one big neighborhood that we would farm to. And then, we were dabbling in some coaching programs like Craig Proctor, Brian Buffini, Mike Ferry. So, we were trying to do something to grow and we tried a lot of things out, and nothing ever really felt right to me. I'm the person that, if I'm going to do something, I have to believe in it. And I've never bought something by somebody door knocking on my door. I've never bought something from somebody cold calling me. So, I can't do those strategies. I've got to do something that, in my opinion, brings value.

Tim:
Or, sending you a recipe for their chocolate chip cookies that you know that they didn't ...

Brittany:
Right.

Tim:
By the way, if anyone ever receives a recipe card for a chocolate chip cookie from Tim at Platform, just know that I've been hacked. It wasn't me. I don't even know if I know how to operate an oven. That's completely fake. So, sorry. Go on.

Brittany:
That's funny. So, I have to feel like, what I'm doing, I treat people the way I want to be treated. I don't want someone knocking on my door. I don't want people cold calling me. So, some of these programs just didn't fit my personality.

Tim:
Yeah. So, I mean, many agents, to be fair, have success or they love the coaching or the business building advice they get from someone like a Tom Ferry or Buffini or the Craig Proctor system. And there're dozens of others, so it's not like we're meaning to single anyone out. They more or less all teach variations on the same themes of staying top of mind with your sphere and doing pop-bys and all that good stuff. So, let me ask a pointed question. Actually, two questions. When you said you focused on your sphere way back when, it's like a chicken/egg problem, I feel, because when you're first starting out, the issue is it's like, "I don't really have a sphere. I don't have a bunch of past clients to focus on." So, when you say that you focused on your sphere, Brittany, way back when, what specifically do you mean by that? What specifically were you doing to stay top of mind for your sphere? I'll let you answer that, and then I also have one more follow up question based on that.

Brittany:
Okay. So, we weren't doing a lot of stuff, because like you said, the market was really so good back then. You didn't really have to do a lot, but the main things we focused on with our sphere was we'd send out a monthly newsletter just to stay top of mind. And this is all old school stuff. I mean, this happened in 2002.

Tim:
And is this an email newsletter? Is this like a print newsletter?

Brittany:
This is like mail that we're sending.

Tim:
So, this is like old school Pony Express, 1800s mail being delivered to people's mailboxes. For all the millennials listening to this, people actually used to send physical mail. It was delivered by a small Jeep looking government truck and they'd bring it to this box that's in people's front yards. This is the way business used to be done before computers. This is back when people still used typewriters. I'm just kidding. Actually, we could probably have a whole side conversation about this, because as tech and software and AI becomes more efficient, let's just say, I really believe that tactile physical marketing, like sending a print newsletter, is going to become a thing again because everyone sends emails now, and those emails are just going to people's spam folders.

Brittany:
Well, guess what? I actually do those newsletters all over again. I did the exact same company. I stopped doing it and we'll talk about that, why I stopped, but I'm doing it now. And I do it because nobody else is doing it.

Tim:
Yeah. Totally. So, with your sphere marketing, back in the early 2000s, you said you were doing print newsletters. What else were you doing to create or cultivate that sphere?

Brittany:
So, we did the print newsletters and we'd send out our yearly calendars. And back then, I was in my 30s back then, and we did a lot of social things. And so, we always had something going on socially. And we didn't have kids at the time. Well, our kids came around right after I got my license, but there were so many things that just naturally brought us business related to our just personal lives, all the friends that came here from Florida State when we graduated. And we did have a big network of family, because we're both native here, friends and our college friends, and then work people.

Tim:
We were in our 30s back then. We were cool back then.

Brittany:
Yes, exactly. I'm not anymore.

Tim:
Now I've really had to focus on marketing, because I'm not cool anymore.

Brittany:
Exactly.

Tim:
That's funny. So, that basically brings us up to the housing boom. And as all bubbles go, eventually there's a bust. What happened in your business then once the market blew up and you couldn't just rely on the rising tide of constantly increasing prices?

Brittany:
So, I learned a lot from that experience. And the biggest thing I can say that I learned was always look forward, because when the housing crash happened, Mike and I saw it coming thankfully. And what we did was we signed up as foreclosure listing agents with Wells Fargo, Fannie Mae, and Chase. And we did this before the housing market crashed, because we knew something big was getting ready to happen. And thankfully we were slammed with foreclosures. And that was a period of about ... It was 2008 all the way through about 2015, for seven years. And we were heavily foreclosure agents and that's pretty much all we did. But, that was a huge mistake too, because we ended up basically leaving our sphere behind. Foreclosure listings take up so much time. It's so different than just a regular listing.

Tim:
Right. You were basically chasing volume, like quantity over quality.

Brittany:
Yes.

Tim:
I mean, you see that right now. Probably the most direct analogy isn't necessarily the foreclosure listings, but in the last call at two or three years, interest rates have been so artificially low that I know lots of people on the mortgage side. I mean, if you read the industry publications, a lot of the top mortgage teams I've been seeing are 80 or 90% refi. That is not sustainable if you have built a fixed expense business model where you have a bunch of mortgage processors or people making phone calls all day. And you've basically built a business assuming that 80 or 90% of your loans as a mortgage professional are going to be refi's, because if rates go up at all, that completely evaporates. And it's the same thing you were dealing with like, "Hey, life is good." I mean, life is good. I say that with air quotes obviously. If you're handling a bunch of foreclosures, obviously that sucks for the people that are in that situation, but you have that volume of business. But, as soon as that dries up, what are you left with?

Brittany:
Exactly. And so, we were doing great. I mean, the foreclosure crisis, because we were thinking so far ahead and we got prepared for it, we did great during those years. But then, all of a sudden, I started realizing, "Oh, my gosh! This is going to dry up. And what are we going to do?" And I literally panicked. I mean, I told Mike, I said, "We basically have left our sphere behind. We've got to build this sphere back up. And we can't just do sphere, because we did that before." And we realized that, when the foreclosure crisis was coming, we had to do something else.

Brittany:
So, I had to figure out what were we going to do that was marketing that really wasn't going to be just all my eggs in one basket with our sphere. So, we started doing some online lead generation programs. We did Zillow, Realtor.com, Market Leader, a bunch of them. And Zillow was probably our most productive one where we were doing pretty well with it. But then, Zillow changed and they saturated the market with too many agents and I was really searching for something else. And actually, that's when I found Platform.

Tim:
You mentioned, Brittany, that you also, throughout this time, had signed up for various masterminds and coaching programs like Tom Ferry, Buffini, Craig Proctor. The follow up question I wanted to ask earlier on that was, being that a lot of agents rave about various coaching programs or marketing mastermind things that they join, what was it specifically about those coaching programs or mindsets that you didn't like? Because it sounds like if you were focusing on your sphere, that's what a lot of those guys teach anyway. So, what was it about what they were teaching you or the tactics they were telling you to do that just didn't resonate with you that you didn't like?

Brittany:
Some of the programs were actually teaching you lead generation. Craig Proctor was a lot of lead generation.

Tim:
Sure.

Brittany:
And like I said, I didn't like doing things that made me feel uncomfortable. And I feel like a lot of the programs that I was being taught, whether it was ... A lot of those are calling expired's or cold calling, calling FSBO's. I don't mind doing pop-bys with my sphere, but it felt a little uncomfortable sometimes, because I would knock on the door and leave a little gift. It just wasn't me. I can't describe it. It didn't feel right. And that's why I could not continue to do things that I just didn't believe in.

Tim:
And that's the interesting thing about a lot of these tactics is that if we're going to be intellectually honest and try to be consistent, a lot of those tactics work. So, you have to be able to say, "Yes. I acknowledge that if I spend three hours a day cold calling expired listings, or dropping by FSBO's or calling FSBO's, we can acknowledge that will work." It's not that you're saying it doesn't work, but it's like, "Is that how you want to spend the rest of your life spending hours a day cold calling strangers?" Because, personally, I wouldn't want to work with someone who did that. The closest maybe analogy you can make to a real estate agent, because it is such a large financial transaction for most people, is a financial advisor, right?

Brittany:
Mm-hmm.

Tim:
Would you be receptive to a financial advisor cold calling you with zero previous connection, you don't have any mutual friends? They're just cold calling and they're saying, "Hi. I bought some list or I bought some report that says you have some money to invest. Would you be free for a conversation about it?" It's like, "Well, technically, if that financial advisor calls enough people every day and time blocks two or three hours, then I'm sure they would probably drum up some business doing that." So, it's not that these techniques that these various masterminds and coaches have been teaching for decades. I mean, Craig Proctor's been selling his coaching system since the '80s and '90s, right?

Brittany:
A long time.

Tim:
Yeah. And it's not that they don't work. It's that it's like, "Hey. Do you feel comfortable doing that?"

Brittany:
Right. Absolutely. We saw so many people successful in those programs. It just wasn't what I wanted to do to grow my business. I wanted to feel like, when I'm doing something, it's very important to me that I'm doing something that I feel like I'm adding value to someone's life. And honestly, I mean, that's why I left Coca-Cola. I've had this deep internal belief that, when I'm doing something in my career, I want it to have meaning. And doing those types of programs just, to me, did not. It just didn't sit well with my internal beliefs. So, I was looking for something that I knew would be valuable to even somebody I don't know. Not necessarily my sphere, but just anybody.

Tim:
Yeah, because you had said you reached this point in your business where you acknowledge Mike, which Mike is your husband, right?

Brittany:
Right.

Tim:
Like, "Mike, we've got to stay top of mind with our sphere, but we also have to start adding people to the sphere."

Brittany:
Correct.

Tim:
Which is obviously lead generation, right?

Brittany:
Yeah.

Tim:
Like, "We've got to stay top of mind with all of these people. But, at the same time, we also need to bring in some fresh blood."

Brittany:
Exactly.

Tim:
And you and I maybe first talked ... Was it late 2015 or early 2016? Something like that?

Brittany:
It was early 2016 when I first had a ... It wasn't Zoom back then. We just had a conference. I don't know what we had.

Tim:
It was an old fashioned phone call the way they used to do back in the day.

Brittany:
Yeah, exactly. It was a phone call.

Tim:
Who would've thought?

Brittany:
Go ahead.

Tim:
I said it was an old fashioned phone call. Who would've thought?

Brittany:
Yeah. I know. We talked on the phone and I made sure Mike was in the room, because a lot of times I did stuff without him there and I would just go tell him about it and say, "Oh, we're going to try this." But, for this one, I already felt something was different, and I said, "You're going to be on this call and you're going to listen to this."

Tim:
And I remember on that phone call, because I remember it was me who had that phone call with you. And, I mean, it was back in early 2016. And I actually remember you talking about, "Okay. I'm jaded or cynical." You actually used those terms like "I've been burned. I've tried. I feel like every marketing strategy I've been in all the masterminds." You named some random coach. I've probably coached with them. And you were very clear like, "I feel like I've tried everything, so how in the heck is this actually different?" You were very clear that you didn't want me to give you a typical sales pitch. You specifically wanted to hear how is Platform different than all the other things that I've already tried.

Tim:
And you did mention back then too, like, "By the way, I'm doing Zillow. It technically has a positive ROI for me, but I'd like to diversify away from it. But, all that being said, it does have a positive ROI." So, it wasn't like your business was nose diving or you didn't have anything working. You were just looking for that missing ingredient to take things to the next level and really just stabilize your business.

Brittany:
Well, actually, what was getting ready to happen was, in 2015, I saw that our foreclosures were probably going to be nonexistent the next year. And I thought, "Oh, my gosh! I'm going to have a huge dip or fall in my income if I don't find something and do something different." And so, that's when we found Platform and I said exactly what you just said. I said on that call, "Yes. I was looking for something." I told you basically, I didn't want to get scammed and I wanted it to be real. I needed it to be something I believed in. And that was back in 2016. And then, you came out. You came to Atlanta and came to my house and you started training me.

Tim:
Yes. That's right. I remember I was super stoked because I came to Atlanta and I stayed at a DoubleTree hotel I believe, and they have the fresh chocolate chip cookies, which I always think are fantastic. But, you were one of the first five clients really, that Platform had, because you hired me for basically a consulting day in person. And so, I met up with you for a full day and we filmed a couple of videos. We set up a bunch of ads together and got things rolling in person. So, as you're saying all of this, by the way, it's just occurring to me, your story is almost identical to Shane Saunders. So, I don't know if you've ever talked with Shane at previous Platform masterminds or anything.

Brittany:
Of course.

Tim:
I mean, Shane's story of how he came to Platform and his career arc in his business is identical to yours. He was very deep in the foreclosure business way back in the day. And he was doing a pretty good volume of it, making good money, but realized this is eventually going to dry up. And if all of my business is coming from that side of the industry, I need to build a firmer foundation than having all my business come from foreclosure. So, that's exactly how he first started at Platform as well.

Brittany:
I didn't realize that. That's cool.

Tim:
I mean, that is completely 100% his story as well. So, as you get to this point, my question is ... Because this is five years ago, so I'm not asking you this just to make conversation. I'm actually curious now because I don't remember the conversation all that well. What was it about this Platform strategy that made you think this is different?

Brittany:
It's a couple of things. So, when you came in town and you trained me, the original plan was you were going to do the consulting day and train me on doing this on my own. And you actually created some ads, and then I saw the leads starting to come in and you trained me on how to respond to the leads. So, immediately, what caught my attention was it was immediate that the leads were coming in. They were real leads and I was talking to people immediately. And it wasn't because I reached out to them. It was because they raised their hand from my ad that you placed and said, basically, they were looking for something, whether it was, I don't even remember the ads that we placed, maybe a list of homes in Alpharetta or something.

Brittany:
But, they were raising their hand. I'm not going after them. They're coming to me first. And that was big for me. So, that was one of the things that I felt really differentiated your company from everybody else. And also, when we talked about doing all the videos, that was big, because I knew video was something I needed to get into of doing videos and putting them on Facebook. I didn't even know how to start that. I knew that was something that was growing and a trend that would still continue and I needed to get involved in it. So, that differentiated me from everybody else in my market, because I wasn't seeing anybody doing it in my market. So, that was big. So, differentiating me from everybody else, just the value that I felt the videos would bring versus me trying to just throw some ad out there saying I'm great. it was just different.

Tim:
Yeah. It was just having a holistic system that addressed all of those check marks, like, "Hey. We're not only doing lead gen or we're not only doing video." Because there's a lot of companies out there, for example, like a Vyral Marketing. I don't even know if they're still a company. I haven't heard a whole lot from Vyral in the last year, but what is it? V-Y-R-A-L? And they only do videos for agents. But, Platform has always been comprehensive, holistic, like "We're going to try to become your marketing department." So, it's videos and lead generation and coaching and follow up, and retargeting scripts and everything, where it's not like, "Oh, you have to hire us for this, but you'll need to hire someone else to edit your videos or someone else to manage the ads, or someone else for your CRM or this or that."

Tim:
So, you signed up in early 2016. What was your GCI Brittany, in the years leading up to that, or what do you think it would have been in 2016 had you not signed up for Platform? Because this is a loaded question because I know that you had a successful foreclosure business going. But, you also anticipated that was probably going to start slowing down. So, what do you think would've happened in those years if you had not signed up for a Platform versus what actually happened in your business?

Brittany:
So, prior to 2016, we were still, like you said, heavily in that foreclosure business where we were averaging probably just shy of 300,000 on our income. Probably somewhere in that 275 to 285 range on our GCI.

Tim:
So, you were already doing very well. I mean, obviously any agent who's doing more than 200,000 is GCI is doing well. Not even very well, but you're doing extremely well if that's your GCI. But, you were anticipating that was probably going to start dropping.

Brittany:
Well, when I look back and I see that most of the income during those seven years were foreclosures, it was very few coming from the sphere, I knew that once that dried up ... And I saw the writing on the wall. I knew it was going to happen in 2016. We had two listings that were foreclosures in 2016. That's it. So, to go from 275 or 285,000 in gross commission to nothing basically, let's guess and say maybe it would've been 20,000 from those two listings, I had a huge gap to fill. And had I not found Platform, I honestly don't know what would've happened, Tim. I mean, I literally tell people that Platform saved my business, because you can't start from the ground up in 12 months.

Brittany:
Well, maybe you can, but building my sphere back up, it takes time. You don't just start it tomorrow, and all of a sudden you're back at 250 to 300,000 in income. So, when I found Platform, I will say that my income in 2016, it went down 100,000 from the year before because of the foreclosures. That's it. I mean, I lost all my foreclosure business. But, to me, I could deal with that, because I was still right at probably about 175,000 in GCI in 2016.

Tim:
And then, where have things gone from there? And that leads me into the big question I wanted to talk about in this interview is what made you stick with Platform for five years? Because so many realtors have this shiny object syndrome where I said not even necessarily sarcastically, because this is almost just the truth. Many agents will try something for two weeks, and if it doesn't work, they've quit and they've moved on to the next thing. Or, they think if they try something earnestly for three months and said, "Well, I gave it my best shot and I tried it for 90 days and it didn't work." And yet, you have stuck with Platform for five years. I mean, that is practically unheard of in the real estate industry for an agent to stick with a marketing company for five years.

Tim:
I mean, there's really not a lot of people that have stuck with Boomtown or Sync, or I can rattle off a bunch of other companies, for five years. And those companies offer a website as part of their marketing package. So, when you're paying for, whether it's Curate or BoomTown, Sync, whatever, you're really paying for a website. So, your website is linked to that. So, if you quit paying them, you lose your website. And yet, people still don't stick with companies like that for five years. What has made you stick with the Platform strategy? And by the way, I use the word strategy here very intentionally, because it's almost self-evident that if you have stuck with it for five years, it's about more than just Platform as a company.

Tim:
It's something about the strategy itself that keeps you hooked in for five years plus. So, what was it that happened in your business in 2016 that you thought, "Hey. This is worth really sticking with long term"? Because, as you said, your business lost $100,000 of GCI. Not necessarily Platform's fault, but your business went down and yet you still stuck with it. So, this is really interesting to me.

Brittany:
Well, I mean, like I said, had I not found Platform, good Lord knows where that GCI would've been. So, it helped me grow from basically nothing to my business now is I actually I'm right about where I was with my foreclosures in 2015. My GCI is getting right back there to almost that 300,000 mark. And this year, it just depends on what's going to end up happening for the next 45 days. But, we'll probably fall somewhere between that 250 to possibly 275 just, like I said, depending on what closes. But, what made me stick through it for five years is I saw something that I didn't see in anything else. I almost want to say, the other companies are almost like ... I was almost like dating. You're trying things out. Like you said, most people don't stick with something for a very long time.

Brittany:
And I would. I would try things out for several months and nothing felt right. And then, once I found Platform, it just felt right. And there's more that I've gained from Platform than just "I'm a listing agent that does videos," or just being the agent that does her videos. Platform is more to me than a marketing company. You have created something so unique, Tim, that I've never seen in my career, honestly. First of all, I'm sitting here talking to the CEO of a marketing company that does my marketing for me. I've never been friends with a marketing company's CEO or had access to that person. I mean, I know I can call you anytime and you're going to answer. Or, I could text you and I have access to you.

Brittany:
So, to me, that's huge. I mean, I don't know of any other company I could do that with. And on top of that, the network of agents that we have in this group is unbelievable. That has been an unexpected benefit that I have gotten from Platform. We have topnotch agents. I go to these agents first for a referral before I go to Re/Max, and that says a lot. I'm trying to find my Platform agent, number one priority when I have a referral. So, I've got this huge network of agents that we have access to. Your masterminds, Tim, what you put together for us, the masterminds that we go to, that you don't charge for, the content that you provide, I have learned so much when I go to those masterminds. And it's not just also from your content.

Brittany:
It's the people that are there. For example, Karen Hall. I love her. She is so awesome. Back in the 2019 mastermind, I found out that she did a program called The Renovated Home and her market. And I was wanting to duplicate something like that in my market, because Mike and I, my husband, we actually renovate homes too. And so, I collaborated with her and she gave me so much advice. So, this is not just a marketing company I'm working with. It's so much bigger and so much more than that. There's so much value outside of just saying "My GCI is this." There're so many other benefits involved.

Tim:
And Karen's actually speaking at this year's mastermind as well, which will be awesome. I'm really looking forward to it. Karen's speaking, Shane Saunders is going to be giving a talk as well. We've got some amazing guest speakers lined up and it's coming up actually in less than a week from the day that we're recording this actually. So, by the time people are actually listening to this podcast episode, the mastermind will probably already have concluded. And then, people can see for themselves, of those who attended, what Brittney was talking about here of how cool the Platform masterminds are. And so, you stuck with it for five years, and using this Platform strategy, you have basically built up your business back to where it was before.

Tim:
But, the key difference is you built it up the old fashioned way. So, it's actually resilient. It's anti fragile where you can weather these ups and downs in market storms because not all your business is coming from foreclosures anymore. You actually have more of a rounded business that, in any type of market, in any type of economy, you're going to be making a quarter of a million dollars a year in GCI.

Brittany:
You hit the nail on the head. And that's exactly what I was trying to accomplish when I was looking for something like Platform when I found Platform. I needed to know that regardless of the market. Because, with all this experience I had with the boom, the bust, and now it's coming back with a boom, I needed to know that, like you said, I could weather any storm. And I know Platform, that is my foundation to knowing that I can weather that storm. And you know what's something really cool that I don't think I've ever told you that has an unexpected benefit that's happened to me because of Platform? Mike and I, consistently in the past, we had been probably 50/50 on 50% buyers, 50% listings. Since joining Platform, what my business has turned into is, and this is going to sound crazy, more listings than it is the buy side.

Brittany:
We have a ton of buyers, but we get so many listings that, and I know a lot of it has to do with the marketing that we're doing, because we don't skip on our listing videos. Every listing we get, we do a video for. And our videos consistently get well over 30,000 views per house.

Tim:
Wow!

Brittany:
And so, I feel like it has turned us into a stronger listing agent, which is weird because when I first started thinking about Platform, it's really like more leads for buyers that are coming in. It's the buyers, but I've turned into a strong listing agent as a result of the marketing that I have done with Platform that y'all have taught me to do.

Tim:
Yeah. And that's not a coincidence, because if you really step back and think about it from a neutral, third party perspective, most people buying a house, if you just put yourself in their shoes, in their mindset, if you're going to go buy a house ... And you have to think way back maybe, for some of us. Think back to when you moved to a new city, because you got a job somewhere, your husband or wife got a job somewhere, and you didn't know anyone, but you knew you were going to buy a house. So, you didn't know any realtors there necessarily, but you were buying a house in a new city that you didn't already have a network or a sphere there. Or, think back to when you were a first time home buyer and you were buying that first house. You didn't really know anyone.

Tim:
I promise you, you did 99% more research on the houses you wanted to buy than the realtor you wanted to work with. Most people buying a house, I mean, let's just be totally honest, they don't give a what realtor they work with. The realtor is like a door opener to a person buying a house. And it shouldn't be that way. To be clear, I'm not saying that it should be that way, but that's how home buyers think of it. They're not really honestly concerned about who their buyer's agent representing them is. They should be, because there's a world of difference between some agents market knowledge and wisdom of how to navigate the process and how much time some agents devote to their clients versus others. They should be concerned with that. I'm more saying they aren't.

Tim:
So, all the marketing in the world doesn't necessarily generate the best buyer leads per se, because buyers don't really care about what agent they work with. They just want someone to show up and open the door for them. That's not true of sellers though. Listings, the type of homeowner who has a $400,000 house they want to list, or an $800,000 house they want to list, they absolutely do research on which agent they're going to work with because they're the one paying your commission. If they're going to be cutting you a check for $10,000 to sell their house or $20,000 to sell their house, whatever the price point is, they absolutely are going to do research on which agent they're going to work with. So, you will see a correlation over time of how much you invest in marketing and how much videos and branding you're putting out into your community, and how much you're positioning yourself as the local real estate authority that usually ...

Tim:
Again, over time. You're not going to see this effect in the first 90 days or something, but over time that will disproportionately create usually more listings than it will buyers, because what we typically see is buyers become future listings. So, you just have to stick with it long enough for a lot of those buyer leads you might get early on to eventually become a move up buyer, and then they come back to you to list their house. So, that's not at all surprising that you've stuck with Platform for five years. And now, looking back in hindsight, you're saying, "Do you know what? One thing that's happened over time is I now do way more listings than I do buyers," because I can't speak for everyone, but I would say probably the majority of agents, and this would include you, would say that it's a massive success if my GCI stays the same, but I do a higher percentage of listings than buyers because you make the same amount of money with probably way less time, which is a different way of actually making more money.

Brittany:
Exactly. And in this market, where there is no inventory, think about how many agents are going after each listing and how super competitive it is to be able to just get the listings. And we have been extremely successful over the last several years, but even moreso this year, when it's been the hardest to get listings. I mean, when we go into the listing appointment, and I can show somebody, "Okay. Listen. Tell me if any other agent has told you your house is going to get this much exposure." And they can't. And I know they can't. And I walk in there confident.

Tim:
And you can't fake confidence. That's what's so important about having a strategy like Platform working for you behind the scenes is that you can have the coolest script in the world or the most brilliant listing presentation in the world. And if you're having to fake your confidence because deep down, you know that I'm not really any different than any other agent, I'm going to more or less do the same things. Of course, I'm going to hire a professional photographer. Of course, it'll be listed on the MLS and syndicated across hundreds of websites. Of course, I'm going to do all these things. People can sense that.

Tim:
You can't really fake confidence, but if you go in and you can say, "Hey. By the way, here's the last couple of listings I've had. They each got 25,000 video views on social media and hundreds of engagements of people commenting and liking and sharing them," you can actually look a seller in the eye and promise them, while making eye contact, that I promise you, I will get your home more exposure than any other agent will. You can't fake that. So, it's not surprising to me that you're listing business has really exploded in the last couple of years.

Brittany:
Yeah. So, it's cool because, in the past, I would go into a listing appointment. And I'd have the listing paperwork with me, but just not with the expectation that I'm going to walk away with the agreement signed. But, I have had that happen now. I mean, I am doing exactly what you just said. I'm pulling up my Facebook, I'm showing them. I have one video that had 65,000 views or one that had 40 something thousand. And I'm showing them the results. And I've had people say, "Okay. Where's your contract?" And they're ready to sign. So, it's been a game changer for sure.

Tim:
Yeah. I've had agents tell me before that once you hit a certain level of success, it's going to be different for everyone, because obviously the standard of living or the cost of living is different in different cities. So, someone who lives in San Francisco making 200,000 a year is obviously very different than someone living in Georgia making $200,000 a year. But, once you hit that GCI point for sure, let's just call it, I don't know, 150, 200, 250, something like that, all of your lifestyle expenses are taken care of. You're not worried about having money to buy groceries if you're making $175,000 a year, right?

Brittany:
Exactly.

Tim:
No one's worried about paying the bills at that point. So, something interesting happens in your business, especially once you get to 175, 200, 2 50, is that you start caring about quality of life more, and you want to own a business that works for you versus working in your business and being a slave to your business. So, I've had many agents basically tell me variations over the years. Once I got to 200, 250 in GCI, I would honestly rather make 200, 250 in GCI and have a solid percentage of that be from listings, than make 300 or 350 in GCI, but have it all be buyers.

Tim:
Because, even having that extra money, they don't even care about the extra money, because if that means they have to work with a bunch more buyers, it takes so much time doing that, like you said, especially in this market with such low inventory that it's honestly just not worth it. It's like, "Well, no. I don't really want to make an extra 50 grand a year or whatever, if that means I have to work 80 hours a week." Because, as a realtor, you're already working 40, 50 or 60 hours a week, depending on the week. It's not like it's a part-time job.

Brittany:
Right. And any newer agent or brand new agent or somewhat newer agent needs to think of this in the long term game. You need to be a listing agent. You've got to start off with buyers. I mean, that's just the way it just naturally happens. You start, you work your sphere, you get your buyers. But, the end result, what your ultimate goal is, is to be a listing agent.

Tim:
And you'll probably always work with some buyers, because if you've had past clients that are selling but they're going to go buy an $800,000 house or a million dollar house, many agents be like, "Yes. I'll work with that person even if I'm telling the public I only do listings." Of course, you'll take some of your more VIP past clients and you'll still work with them on the buy side. But, you hit the nail on the head is that eventually, if your business isn't shifting to doing more listings after you've been in the game for five years, 10 years, something is wrong. You shouldn't only be working with buyers all the time, because that should send you a signal that apparently some people don't trust you to list their home. Because, if you do a bunch of buyers, eventually all those people will become listings.

Brittany:
Sellers.

Tim:
Yeah, exactly.

Brittany:
Yeah. And it's not that we wouldn't work with buyers. We do. We work with so many buyers, but you want your percentage to be so heavily on that listing side, and then you can always hire a buyer agent, which I haven't yet to do. That's really what I need to be focusing on for next year is getting more help, because honestly, I'm doing a lot of this myself, a lot of the paperwork and showing houses and the listings. So, I have a lot of changes I need to make for 2022 that I'll be working on, but still focusing heavily on listings. And like we talked in the beginning, I do a lot of old school marketing again to get those listings. And that has worked, because so many people don't do the snail mail stuff, the paper newsletters. And I'm sending out about a thousand a month, and that's a farm. I've got seven different neighborhoods that I'm farming in doing the old school way, and it's working.

Tim:
That's something that you'll probably see Platform actually doing a lot more of in the future is getting into physical marketing, old school marketing, whether it's direct mail, sending physical things. Obviously we do live events. I consider that physical marketing, basically any marketing or advertising strategy that's not purely digital. So, not Instagram ads or Facebook ads or YouTube, because all of that is great, but you never want to have your business solely be on one media channel that's outside of your control, because next week Facebook could get shut down by the federal government for violating some law or whatever. And if 99% of your business was Facebook ads, you're in a world of hurt. You have to build a wider base than just one channel.

Brittany:
Yes. And that goes with that same mindset of you always have to be thinking ahead of what could happen. And I've learned that so early on, and that's why I started this newsletter. I started it about two years ago. I started doing the newsletters, because I did say to myself, "Wow! Oh, my gosh! All of my marketing really is on Facebook. I probably should be doing something different just for "What if?" And to grow at the same time."

Tim:
What do you write about in your newsletters, Brittany? What is the actual content of a typical newsletter? Are you using a service to do it, or do you literally sit down and Microsoft Word and crank out an essay and then stuff envelopes? I mean, what does it look like?

Brittany:
Okay. So, we do have a service that actually writes the newsletter and it's all black and white. There's no color. It's not even real estate related to be honest with you. There's really hardly anything in there that talks about real estate. But then, I put a cover letter together every month and it starts off with just the neighborhood statistics of what's going on in the market with real estate for that community. It'll talk about "Here's the highest sales so far this year," and it'll say the sale price and the address. It'll tell the median sales price and just all the real estate stats that people want to know. But then, I will write my own article that's very hyper local, that talks about so many different things I talk about. So, sometimes it's just talking about the local market and what's happening. Sometimes I talk about how to prepare your home for selling, or how to win a bidding war as a buyer. So, I come up with all this content.

Tim:
The Atlanta Braves winning the World Series.

Brittany:
Yeah. Awesome.

Tim:
So, you're actually just sending that out. Is it every quarter, every month? What does the frequency look like?

Brittany:
Every month.

Tim:
Okay.

Brittany:
And it's a lot of work.

Tim:
Yeah. What else are you doing with sphere marketing, Brittany? I know this time of year, a lot of people are sending out pies for Thanksgiving, or you do various Christmas pop-by gifts. How much do you get into that stuff, or do you do any of that at all?

Brittany:
This is one thing that I love about Platform is hearing from Shane Saunders and Karen Hall about the things that they do to take care of their sphere. I learned first from Shane, because he would always post things on Facebook with his little pop-by gifts. And then, Karen Hall talking about her VIP client program. So, my business has completely changed in the last few years getting to know both of them and what I have learned. Sorry. I've got a service that I use that's called Client Giant, and they send out quarterly gifts to my sphere. And then, because I always like to support my local business, I've got another local business that she does quarterly gifts. So, I send eight gifts out a year to my sphere.

Tim:
That's a lot. Most people send to maybe one every couple of years. And you're sending eight a year.

Brittany:
Yes. Eight a year. And the client giant gifts, they're not real expensive, but they're nice and they're quality gifts. But then, the other four that I send that I use with my local girl, they're definitely a little bit more expensive, higher quality, just something a little bit more like, "Ooh! Oh, my gosh! Brittany just sent me this."

Tim:
What would be a specific example of one of those like nicer premium gifts that you sent to some of your clients, past clients, in the last year? What would be a specific example just so people can wrap their mind around what you're talking about here?

Brittany:
Okay. So, one of the gifts that was sent out a couple of months ago, it was this beautiful vase that you could put your flowers in or have as a showpiece on your kitchen table or on your kitchen counter. It was gorgeous. And you could tell it was high quality. Another one, the next one that's going to go out, is a really nice hot cocoa set. It has the whole mixers and it's just put together really nice. And I don't know what all is in it, because my girl's doing it, but it's a wow gift. It's not just something that you open up and go, "Oh, this is nice." You'll open it up and say, "Oh, my gosh!"

Tim:
It's not something that you're just going to casually throw away. It'll be something that you're like, "Oh, wow!" Because, I mean, really at the end of the day, what all these strategies have in common, the common marketing objective here, is simply staying top of mind.

Brittany:
That's it.

Tim:
That's what it is. It's like, "Hey, if I can capture your attention and your imagination for just 30 seconds here while you're opening the gift and you're consciously thinking, "Oh, wow! Brittany sent this to me," that if Brittany's on my mind, even if it's just five or 10 seconds, that's a huge win." Because, most agents, when they work with someone to help them buy a house, they completely fall off the radar. And that's why we've all seen the stats from the NAR that a pretty tiny minority of people work with the same agent to buy a house when they're a move up buyer as they worked with to buy the house, or when they list their house, they don't work with the same agent that helped them buy that house because that agent just doesn't stay in touch with them for no other reason than that.

Tim:
And so, simply doing that makes a big difference. So, let me ask you a granular question here. What are you typically spending every month on your actual advertising budget for ads as well as what do you spend on the other random sphere gift strategies, the newsletter? What does the total marketing budget look like so people can wrap their minds around everything that you're doing from a holistic perspective? What are you investing every month?

Brittany:
Okay. So, with Facebook, we average anywhere from 750 to probably 1000 a month on the ads themselves. Sometimes it might be a little more because we do a blast with every listing that we have. We spend more for that one listing versus just the retargeting ads and some of the ads that are trying to capture leads like a homes list ad.

Tim:
So, how much do you spend on a typical listing ad? When you say you do a big blast, do you mean 50 bucks? Do you mean 500 bucks?

Brittany:
I would say on average, it's probably 500 a listing.

Tim:
Okay. So, that's awesome and that's actually really interesting, because most agents are probably spending, when they do a listing ad and they do a video, they're probably spending more like 50 bucks to 100 bucks. And then, people act surprised when they're like, "Well, my listing videos just really aren't taking off," or "I've seen some other agents get so much engagement on their videos. Why aren't mine?" And it's often just simple math, because if CPMs are 20 bucks ... And I've gone through this example on other podcast episodes, but it bears repeating, so I'm going to repeat it again. If CPMs are 20 bucks, CPM is just the phrase "Cost per mille." It means the cost to reach 1000 people with your ads. Mille is Latin for thousand mille, like millennium. So, CPM is 20 bucks. Every 20 bucks you spend, you reach 1000 people.

Tim:
If you're only spending $100 per listing, and I say only because that's not a lot of money, guys. Agents sometimes need to wake up and realize like, "Dude, with a lot of houses in the United States, I know every market's different, but you could probably use an average that a commission check is like $10,000." And I understand some people listening to this are in a lower price market and theirs are not 10,000. Theirs might be five or 6000, but there's way more markets in the US where the average is 10,000 than where it's not. So, I'm just going to use 10,000 as an example because it's a nice round number. Spending a hundred bucks on an ad when you might get $10,000 for selling that house, that is really insignificant, right?

Brittany:
Yeah.

Tim:
It's still insignificant to spend 200 bucks on that. And again, I know you have other expenses. I know you hired a photographer and probably had to pay them 250 bucks. I know you might have hired a videographer and paid them whatever. So, I understand that's not the only expense, but when it comes to growing your business, how much you pay the photographer does not translate to how much your business is going to grow long term from that. How much you plow into promoting your listing does impact how much your business grows. So, that leaps out to me, when you say that, "Hey, I spend $500 or more." There was a listing a year ago or two that I remember you saying you spent $1000 on this listing. With a $20 CPM, that means 50,000 people saw that ad, right?

Brittany:
Yeah.

Tim:
And a lot of agents might gasp and be like, "Oh, my God! I could never afford to spend $1000 a listing." And I would challenge you on that because it's like, "Well, what if every listing that you took on, you spent $1000 blasting out a Facebook ad to promote that video, and that just becomes your secret weapon?" Where other agents are always just scratching their heads like "How do Brittany's videos always get 50,000 views or 100,000 views? I don't know how she does it." And because you have that, you're constantly getting referrals for other listings because people around town start talking like, "Wow! Brittany's listings always go viral. She's always getting her sellers more exposure."

Tim:
People are going to talk in real world conversations, not just on social media. People actually around town will talk about it and you'll always have listings. And if investing $1000 into every listing video is the price to have an endless chain of future listing referrals, to me, that's a pretty good trade. So, a major part of your success is that you have the courage to invest a lot of money into those listing videos. It's not just like, "Hey. Every time I get a listing, I'll spend 50 bucks," right?

Brittany:
And this was a strategy that I really put in place probably over the last 12 months that I wasn't really truly doing before. And thanks to your advice and [Jordan 00:59:54], my awesome account manager, I said, "I really want to focus on my listings. I will always do a video. I'll never skip the videos for my listings. And I'm going to really invest in blasting them when we get them and putting them out on Facebook." And let me tell you, I have open houses for every listing. And I know the markets. The inventory's low and there's a lot of buyers out there, but I've been to other open houses that agents have where there's just trickling of buyers coming through. I'm not kidding when I say when I hold my open houses, I have lines at the door, literally people standing in line trying to get in. And I know a lot of it, because I will ask people, "How did you find this listing?" And I can't tell you how many times ... I saw it on Facebook. I didn't even know what was listed. I saw your ad on Facebook.

Tim:
And it's because of how this fits in with your Platform Marketing strategy. It's not a coincidence that your open houses are getting more people. It's not a coincidence that, when you do a listing video ad campaign on social media, it's getting 50,000 video views. It's not a coincidence, right?

Brittany:
Right.

Tim:
Your strategy is absolutely repeatable if someone just follows the steps that you do. So, you're spending about, let's just call it, $1000 a month on ads. What are the other expenses in your marketing budget?

Brittany:
So, the newsletters that I send out, those are about $1000 a month between just the cost of printing and mailing and all that good stuff, the envelopes. So, that average is about 1000. The gifts that we send out, I would say ... Gosh, Tim. I hadn't really thought about this. I would say it averages probably $25, maybe 10 to $15 a gift eight times a year times. It's several thousand that I'm spending on gifts. And then, at the end of the year, every agent sends a calendar out, and that's about $1000. And I would say, that's about what my marketing budget is. It's a lot because I just did my taxes in October and it was into the tens and tens and tens of thousands.

Tim:
Yeah. I mean, with all things being added in, you're probably spending, I'm guessing, $40,000 a year on marketing.

Brittany:
If my memory serves me right, I want to say it was 36,000.

Tim:
Okay. That sounds about right. And so, agents can either choose to be scared by that or intimidated by it like, "Oh, I don't have the money to spend $3,000 a month times 12 months a year on marketing." And yet those are the same agents that are wondering why they can never get past 100 or 150 in GCI. It's a chicken/egg problem. It's because you're not investing, that's why your business isn't growing. So, as we look back at the five years you've been in Platform, Brittany, what are some of your most successful ads? What is Brittany Ovbey's greatest hits when you look back at the most successful videos or ads that you've done?

Tim:
Again, whether it's lead gen or the more retargeting ads, what are maybe two or three that you can look back and think, "Wow! That ad really did well. I got a lot of referrals from it," or people were just mentioning to me in real life, "I saw that ad"? So, you know that people saw the video or the ad because they were actually telling you in real life. What are maybe two or three examples that immediately come to mind?

Brittany:
Well, let's start because there's lead gen and there's also just the other ads.

Tim:
Sure.

Brittany:
Lead gen, this is funny. Right before this podcast, I got a call that somebody said, "Oh, I saw your ad on Facebook and I'm looking for an agent to help me find blah, blah, blah." So, she went through her whole spiel what she's looking for. Well, that was an acreage homes list. And by far, that has probably been the best lead gen ad that we have run.

Tim:
We call that ad behind the scenes old faithful, because it just always works over time.

Brittany:
Yeah. So, that's my favorite lead gen. I love two types of ads that I've done. I love anything that I've done that's been patriotic, because all my friends know that's me. I'm very patriotic. And so, when I do anything that has something to do with a patriotic theme, everybody comments because they know that's just me internally and who I am. The one that most of my friends in sphere commented the most about, and my favorite one to film, to be honest with you, was "So, God made a small business owner." That was awesome.

Brittany:
That got a lot of views, a lot of comments, a lot of people talking. And it made me feel good because I love supporting the local small businesses. I mean, that's part of this whole Platform strategy is that we're not just real estate agents. We are actually members of a community that we're supporting. And it's not just about us. It's about other people too and helping others. So, anything that I do that's related to small businesses, but that was my favorite, "So, God made a small business owner."

Tim:
If you were to be starting your business in 2021, 2022, if you were a brand new agent, what would you do now knowing what you've learned over the last 19 years that you've been an agent? If you were 21 years old this year, you just graduated college and you're like, "I'm going to be a realtor," what would be the things that you would start doing just to save yourself all the years of learning and the ups and downs and the roller coaster?

Brittany:
Probably the best advice I would give is just always invest back into your business. And that's what I have learned that I didn't do in the beginning. I was just riding the wave, like you said. Don't just ride these waves, because there's always going to be a cycle of up and down. So, really find what matters to you most and makes you feel the most comfortable when it comes to marketing. Find your personality. Be genuine to yourself and to your audience and to your sphere and people who don't know you. And naturally, the business is going to come, but invest in it. Don't just let it happen and then go spend all that money. And that is one thing that changed for us after this recession. I made sure that we're always investing back and growing our business, because we're spending money growing it.

Tim:
So, basically, don't just take it for granted that business will be there. Take whatever, 10%, or frankly, even 20% or 25% of every paycheck and throw that back into marketing.

Brittany:
Absolutely.

Tim:
I've actually challenged some agents over the years. If your business ever starts to plateau where you think, "Oh, man! I just can't break through whatever, 150,000 GCI or 250,000 in GCI, or maybe someone's already at 300,000, but they're stuck there and they can't seem to get to 400, whatever it is," it's like, "Are you tithing back into your marketing budget?" That's the first thing I'd start doing is look at what you made last year in GCI. And if you're not spending at least 10% of that in marketing, that's the obvious thing that you need to be doing, right?

Brittany:
Sure.

Tim:
Because, a lot of people, if they actually look at what they're spending on marketing versus what their GCI is, it's often closer to two to 5%. And when you're in a high margin professional services business, like being a realtor, you don't have a ton of expenses. Even though it might not feel like it at times, you don't have a ton of expenses relative to most industries, right?

Brittany:
Yeah. True.

Tim:
Most industries have a cost of goods that leaves them with a net profit at the end of the year of 5% to maybe 10%. So, that's basically a different way of saying 90% of their revenue immediately goes out the door just to pay for expenses. For realtors, it's the opposite. Typically you keep 90%, and maybe you have 10% expenses. So, if agents just adopted the mentality that other businesses have of "Cool, I've just got ..." Let's just say it's an $8,000 commission check. I'm going to immediately take 1600 of that. I'm going to take 20% of that and I'm going to plow that into more marketing. Every time, that's what I'll put back into marketing. Of course your business would grow faster. By the way, I want to ask you about ... This is something that I made a note that I had to ask you on this interview.

Brittany:
What is it?

Tim:
We were supposed to talk a couple of weeks ago and you called me. I forget if it was the day before or the day of, or something like that. You're like, "Hey. So sorry. I have to go show this house to this person. I have to cancel the interview today." And you said it was like a million dollar buyer that came from a Platform campaign. And I was obviously like, "Okay. If you have to go sell a million dollar house, I suppose we can postpone the podcast interview. That's a good reason." How long did it take you to start seeing results like that, where randomly you'd just get phone calls or people would be like, "Hey. I need to sell my house"? I mean, was that a process that took, I mean, hopefully not five years? Because you've been a client now for five years. But, how long did it take for results to start kicking in?

Brittany:
I would say the first time I got just the phone call, they found me on Facebook and it was just that out of the blue. I want to say that was probably ... Let's see. I started in 2016. It was probably late 2017. So, it could have been a year into it that I started to see, you guys call it, the fuzzy ROI, where you really didn't put an ad out there that somebody contacted you on, but they just know you because you're out there on Facebook. So, I would say a year into that. But, I want to go back to that lead, because that lead that I had to cancel the podcast on, she was on the acreage homes list. I just had to bring that up.

Brittany:
She was a lead that came in from that, that I had been talking to back and forth. And then, I told her I wouldn't bother her. My strategy, when I get leads or clients, potential clients, I let them know I'm not going to bother you, but I'm going to send you things of value and you can contact me anytime. But, of course, I will still call and follow up. I'm just not calling every day. And people appreciate that, especially the higher end. And so, they are my client. That house didn't work out, but they are 100% working with me right now looking for a house.

Tim:
And they're looking for a million dollar house. And you mentioned that they also have a couple of listings to sell as well, right? They have a couple of homes they need to sell?

Brittany:
Yeah. They're looking up to 1.2 on the buy, and then they have two homes to sell. That will be probably, between the two, about 1.4 in total gross sales.

Tim:
So, that's a pretty lucrative lead to have come in.

Brittany:
Yeah. So, sorry I had to cancel the podcast for that, but it was pretty important.

Tim:
Yeah. That would've been an expensive podcast interview for you to do if you're like, "Hey. No, sorry. I have to do this interview with Tim." And then, you lose that lead. That's awesome. So, it took you about a year to start getting that fuzzy ROI. But, now it's obviously at the point where your business has accelerated so far beyond what it was before, that it's silly to even think about what is my return on investment, because of course, it's a super positive return on investment. Let me ask you the inverse of the ROI question, because this is a way I don't often phrase it. But, sometimes it helps crystallize a little bit what the actual impact is of sticking with a marketing strategy long enough to not just get the immediate effects, but the secondary effects of people who come in referring people who then refer people and you just roll the snowball.

Brittany:
Yeah.

Tim:
Looking back over the last five years, here's how I want to word this question, where would your business be right now if you had never signed up for Platform? If you weren't doing any of the things that you're doing with the Platform strategy, none of the ads, none of the lead gen, where do you think your business would be right now in terms of GCI?

Brittany:
It would at least be in half, because I contribute my overall sales every year. It's a minimum of 50% Platform, minimum. I mean, it fluctuates each year, but I would say it goes anywhere from 65%. 50 to a 65% of my business is directly from Platform. So, it's scary to think where it would be without Platform.

Tim:
Wow! And that's the result that you can get just sticking with it for the long term. I mean, I continually am fascinated when I think about that, because again, it's not just 18 months, it's not just 24 months or 36 months. You have stuck with this for five years. And you're seeing those long term effects of a lead you may have generated back in 2016. Maybe they became a move up buyer in 2020, and then they referred someone in 2021 because they've now worked with you multiple times. And at a certain point, you're like, "Well, I'm not even sure how to attribute this to Platform because it became a "Platform" lead four years ago. And now, it's just part of my sphere." So, it's like, "How do you even account for that?"

Brittany:
You're right, because a lot of closings this year have been a result of originally a Platform client that turned into a client again, because they were selling and buying. So, the longer you stick with this, the more that's going to happen and the more you're going to grow because of that. And that's been a definite benefit of sticking with it for the long term.

Tim:
You just keep rolling that snowball. So, one final question, Brittany, when you look back at all the Platform masterminds that you've attended over the years, because you were with us way back in 2016 at the first really small mastermind at Tampa ... I remember you're in a picture at the Denver mastermind as well. We did one in Denver in late 2016. In 2017, were you in Scottsdale?

Brittany:
Yes

Tim:
You were? So, you were in Scottsdale. 2018, you were ... Were you at Disney in 2018?

Brittany:
I was not at Disney. I missed 2018. I would have gone, but something bad happened.

Tim:
And then, 2019 we were in San Antonio.

Brittany:
San Antonio, I was there.

Tim:
And 2020, where were we?

Brittany:
I was not there 2020. That was another personal thing.

Tim:
That was in Minnesota. That was in 2020 Minnesota. So, you've been to most of the Platform masterminds is the point I'm getting at, over the last five years here. Is there a particular talk or particular speaker or just a specific takeaway that you remember from any of these masterminds that really is like, "Hey, if I had to pick one takeaway that maybe changed my business more than others," or one speaker we brought in or one particular talk? Is there one that really stands out that made a huge impact on you?

Brittany:
I mean, I said this in our group. We have a Platform, I mean, a Facebook group with all the Platform agents. We call ourselves the Platfam, because we are like a family. I can remember early on. It was the Denver one when Shane Saunders talked about how he ran his business. He talked about his history, how he got into Platform. And he talked about how he ran his business. And there was something that changed in my brain after hearing him talk that I realized that even then ... So, what year was that Tim? 2017 that we were in Denver?

Tim:
We were in Denver actually in late 2016. Scottsdale was 2017.

Brittany:
Okay. So, it was the Denver one. And I just remember thinking to myself that I had been doing things wrong. And I changed the way I looked at my business and it's just different, because it's not just about lead generation. It's not just about sphere. It's the bigger picture. And there was something that changed in my brain when I heard Shane talk that really made me shift in the way that I look forward. And I feel like I've got more than multiple businesses under real estate that's just all wrapped up into one. And I changed the way that I market because of that speech that he gave.

Tim:
And you know what's fascinating about that? Is that when we look back to Denver Platform mastermind 2016, Shane wasn't even an official speaker per se, because I remember who the speaker lineup was that year. And Shane was not one of the formal official speakers who came and gave a talk with a bunch of slides or anything like that. So, you're probably referencing some just random tangent he went on that was that powerful for you that you remember it. And that's totally the type of thing that happens at Platform masterminds. It's like, "Yes, of course we'll have some formal speakers who go up and will give a presentation where they planned out some slides and they have a half hour talk that they've prepared and some ideas they wanted to share."

Tim:
But, a lot of the best gold nuggets are just randomly someone says something, and then a more experienced agent will stand up and be like, "Hey, I have something quick to share about that." And then, they'll share five minutes of advice or two minutes of advice. And it sounds like Shane must have said something so powerful at that Denver mastermind that you look back at it and you're like, "That changed the course of my business." And by the way, Denver 2016 was in the context of Platform, this is just interesting to me, so long ago that [Aaron Alvarez 01:19:20] was at that mastermind as a guest of Shane's, but Aaron hadn't yet joined Platform then.

Brittany:
Oh, my gosh! Are you serious?

Tim:
Yeah. Now people in the Platfam think of Shane and Aaron as this forever duo that they've been business partners forever, and Aaron Alvarez has been in Platform for 30 years or something like that. It's like, "No." I remember he joined 2016 or he joined maybe the next year because Shane invited him to the Platform mastermind in Denver. He came as Shane's guest that year to see what all this was about. So, Aaron Alvarez wasn't even in Platform at that master, which is crazy. I mean, I actually remember thinking way back when to Denver, Platform was still a startup business at that point. So, we weren't yet super duper profitable or anything like that. And I remember taking off and I was taking off my flight from Denver and it was a super successful mastermind. People enjoyed it. It was powerful for the people who attended. So, it was a success as far as the business objective of it. But, behind the scenes, I had my credit card maxed out to pay for the event and pay for the Westin rental.

Tim:
And I remember they charged us $2,000 for wifi in the room and all the hotel rooms and everything. And my card was literally maxed out. And as I was taking off, I got a text message from the front desk saying, "Hey, you need to come up and settle $2,000 or something worth of hotel rooms that apparently weren't paid for." And literally, I get this text as we're taking off from Denver, so I'm like, "Well, I guess I can't pay that until I land." And so, I'm scrambling to see what other credit card can I put the balance on for these rooms, because this current American Express they have on file is literally maxed out." I actually remember just that sinking feeling of like, "Oh, crap! We have to pay for all this." And now, fortunately the business is a lot more stable where, when we put on masterminds, I'm not worried about how are we going to pay for it, but that's awesome that you think of that from five years ago.

Brittany:
And I'll just say, the masterminds, that is one of my favorite. I would not miss, unless there was something major that would make me miss. I mean, I have gotten so much value out of those masterminds and it's not just from the speakers. You build so many relationships meeting all the agents that we ... You see all the agents on Facebook, but then when you get to meet them in person and you form stronger bonds and you share and you collaborate and there's no competition amongst each other, it's a unique environment to be in, and I've never experienced anything like it.

Tim:
Yeah. I mean, it all goes back to the fact that everyone is unique to their market. So, your competition isn't there because you have an exclusive territory with Platform obviously. So, everyone is much more transparent and open in terms of what they're willing to share. And I know a lot of companies say that they are. You might go to the big Re/Max conference or the big Century 21 or EXP or KW or whatever. Every brokerage has their own mastermind events and conferences and stuff, but people usually aren't totally sharing 100% of what they're doing, because they know that there're other agents in that room that are literally in their market and they don't want them to steal their best ads or their best ideas. That's what is so different about Platform masterminds is that people really are 100% opening up on here's what I'm doing, here's what's working for me.

Tim:
And there's no fear of someone stealing that idea because it's like, "Yeah. I don't care if you steal my idea. You're an agent in Phoenix and I'm an agent in Alpharetta, Georgia," or "You're an agent in Nashville and I'm an agent in Bozeman, Montana or whatever." No one is threatened or intimidated by anyone else because we all know that we are in our own separate market for Platform. So, that's really what makes it all work. So, Brittany, we're a little bit over time here. This podcast episode ran a little bit long just because I was really interested in this conversation, so I apologize for that. I hope it's been really valuable for everyone listening. Brittany really is just a model of how to build a resilient real estate business over time. Stick with the strategy.

Tim:
You didn't get shiny object syndrome. You stuck with Platform. And you just said, now when you do the math and you look back at your numbers, Platform in any given year probably represents 50 to 60% of your GCI, which is nearing $300,000 a year now. And so, that's pretty remarkable that you've stuck with it, and now you have those results to show for all it. So, thank you for joining us. I'm sure I'll see you next week actually, at the Platform mastermind.

Brittany:
I'll be there.

Tim:
Most people will probably be listening to this after the mastermind is when we'll probably launch this episode, but I will see you next week here in sunny Naples, Florida. I just checked the forecast actually. It's supposed to be like 72 to 74 degrees.

Brittany:
Oh, my gosh! Awesome. Can't wait!

Tim:
Yeah, during the mastermind. So, it'll be great. So, thanks guys. And we'll see you on the next episode of the Platform Marketing show.