What To Expect After 6 Months Of The Platform Marketing Program

April Jarunas:  I would say expect nothing in the first six months. If you get something, great. But it's after that that you need to be, you just, you can't think only six months out. I started researching six months out. I wasn't thinking, “I need calls tomorrow.” I was thinking I know what I want my business to look like, what is the right vehicle to get it there. And that's what this is.  

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 here today with April Jerunas. April and her husband, Vic, are realtors in Pennsylvania in York County, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. And April actually is, I think we just calculated, you're almost exactly six months into Platform.

So this is not one of those episodes where it's like, “Hey, she has incredible earth shattering results after being a Platform for 18 months” or something. I thought this would be a really interesting episode to kind of do a check back with a client who signed up six months ago to kind of give a little context to, I know the question a lot of people are thinking, but they very rarely ask it is like, “What results can I reasonably expect in about six months of Platform?” Because I think most people are reasonable enough to know that, okay, it's not going to like rock my world in the first 30 days. I'm not going to get an avalanche of closings in the first 30 days with a new marketing program. But they also don't want to sign up for something that's going to take a year or two years or three years to work because that's a long time, right?

Tim Chermak: So a pretty reasonable time to evaluate any marketing program, whether it's Platform or something else is like, “Well, what can I reasonably expect in six months?” And I thought April and I could have a really interesting conversation around this because April did a lot of research before signing up for Platform. A lot of due diligence. I know April, you spoke with several Platform clients and were asking them kind of, “What can I expect? Is this for real?”  

April Jarunas: I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I had been stalking some of the Facebook groups that are out there for real estate and one of them came up in Lab Coat Agents, I think it was.

Tim Chermak: Yep. Yep. 

April Jarunas: And from my stalking, I realized there's some of these groups are meant to set up to sell a product. And, you know, over time I kind of weeded out what was legitimate, what wasn't. Well, somebody posted something about Platform Marketing and they weren't a client, they were asking about it. And three or four agents came on, now I recognize some of the names. I think Justin Liller. 

Tim Chermak:  Oh, yeah. 

April Jarunas: Yeah. Brittany and then Jill. So there was comments on there from them, which I didn't know. But then I went and kind of stalked them because what I'd found in some of these others is people would comment, but there was no actual business backing up. Like they didn't look like they were in real estate, they didn't look like they'd done transactions, but these three did. And then there was other people on there that were saying if you can get into a territory then you should take it and they weren't clients. They were upset that they weren't. And I'm like, okay, what's this?  

So yeah, I messaged Brittany, had a conversation. And then I think I spoke with you and I was still trying to get an understanding of what this was because it's not like a cut and dried answer, at least it wasn't for me.

Tim Chermak: It's not just a leads program. 

April Jarunas: Right!

Tim Chermak: It's not like you sign up and we send you leads the way that if you sign up for Zillow or realtor.com, it's just you're buying leads, that's what you're doing, right? You're buying leads as if leads are a product for sale the way that you go to the grocery store and buy apples. You're buying leads like it’s just a commodity, right?

April Jarunas: Right, right.

Tim Chermak: Platform is way deeper, kind of a multiple layer marketing system that's a lot more holistic than just buying leads. And so I think on our first call, April, I remember this. I can actually go look in my iPhone. I can probably go look. I think our first call was two hours long. 

April Jarunas: Was it really? 

Tim Chermak: Yeah, it was a long phone call.

April Jarunas: No wonder you were like, “Wow, she's a tough one.” So I guess, well, I was probably asking you a lot of questions that I had developed over at least six months of trying to decide what our next step was. We had started this database in 2020 and I felt the, I don't know, enjoyable factor of somebody, like give an example, Vic showed somebody a home, two homes, spent an hour with them in 2020. They came back to us in 2022, the early 2022, and they said, “You spent an hour with us. We really liked you.” You know, I felt the power of that. And I'm going, we want more of that. There's value in telling people who we are, showing people who we are, maintaining just a nice connection with them over time. So yeah, anyway, my conversation with you, I was still trying to figure out what the heck this was. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah. What is Platform, right? 

April Jarunas: Right. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't understand it. And then talking to Jill and everybody was so nice and I'm like, “Okay. Why is everybody so nice? Why is everybody so willing?”

Tim Chermak: How much is Tim paying you? 

April Jarunas: Right, right, right, right, right. And you said something like they'd already capped down and I'm like, “Well, they're not making any incentive on this.” Like they are just nice people with a system that really works, willing to share with other people how well it works. And that's all it was. And I could see it was very authentic and very genuine. And I think within like days I had signed up.

Tim Chermak: Yeah, I remember after that first phone call you were just very rationally skeptic. Like you were,”Okay, what is it you actually do? What are the results you actually get? How do you define a market? Is my market just my zip code? Or when you say that you have exclusivity, what does that mean?” And like I said, I think our first call was like a two hour phone call and like to compare and contrast that with realtor.com or Upcity or Zillow or something, it’s like no one talks with Zillow for two hours ‘cause it's either you're going to buy leads or you're not, it's pretty straightforward. Platform’s obviously a much more holistic marketing program and strategy than just buying leads. 

And so, you, I just remember thinking, I'm biased but I like to think I'm pretty good at sales so I can get on the phone with someone and I can really explain what Platform is and does. If that person's a fit, often I can get them to give us a try. Especially with the discount that we offer for new clients signing up. And I was like, “Man, I just had a two hour phone call with this April lady from Pennsylvania and I was shocked at the end of the call that she didn't sign up.” Because you're like, “Well, you know, I'm going to think about it. I'm going to contact some more agents.” And I actually love when people do that because I know that if you do talk to our clients, they're going to say really good things because our agents for the most part love working with us. So…

April Jarunas: Well, and you did something else that helped, you put me into the group before I had signed up. Which I don't know that you normally do that, but I'll tell you what happened. I got into the group and I saw Sarah and Aaron Rose.

Tim Chermak: The Facebook group. 

April Jarunas: Yeah. And I thought “This is just gonna be a lot of people that’s just kind of, this is gonna be the same as some of the other groups where they're just trying to sell.” It wasn't that at all. And I saw Sarah and Aaron Rose and I have a history with them. I had no idea. We've kind of lost touch, so I didn't know that they were down in Florida selling. But I know the kind of people they are and I know that they know marketing. So, it's funny. Probably I had a lot of questions because we've been in marketing for years. I sold yellow page advertising 20 years ago. We owned a Homes and Land magazine for 10 years. So I sold real estate advertising for years. And I saw Sarah and Aaron in there. And that was like, “Oh my goodness, I'm in the right spot. Now, let me really still try to understand and wrap my brain around what this is.”

Tim Chermak: Cool. So I know that when you first signed up, you were really doing your research, your due diligence. You looked up some of our clients profiles, you called them. I think you even called and talked to some people that I didn't give you as references because you wanted to make sure that, “Okay. Tim's going to give me the people that he knows are doing well. What if I research people that maybe he's not giving me.” And it kind of all checked out and you signed up. So I was actually really excited to see the results that you would have three, four or five, six months in as someone who did so much thoughtful research about signing up. 

You didn't sign up for Platform on a whim. It wasn't like, “Oh, I clicked an ad and decided to give it a shot.” You really put serious thought into it because you felt that this was kind of the missing link in your business of trying to develop a marketing plan and a marketing strategy to stay top of mind with all the people that have come in and out of your life, but do so in a tasteful, casual way, so they don't feel like you're harassing them with a ton of autoresponder drips. 

April Jarunas: Right, and I wanted to move away from Zillow because Zillow is on call. Like you have to answer the phone and it's usually something like you got to go out that day. Well, it's market, you got to go out that hour. Taking it to the next level for us is working with more sellers. We've worked with a lot of buyers and some sellers, and taking it to the next level for us is working with more sellers and being in more control of our time. I knew video had something to do with it. I didn't know how. I knew social media, better social media, had something to do with it, I didn't know how. I knew working the database better had something to do with it, I didn't know how. This started back last October where I'm really going, I did a Needs Assessment and I'm like, “These are the areas we could improve this business.”

Tim Chermak: And by the way, for those listening, she said, hey, you started researching potential marketing ideas of which company you might want to hire back in October. Well, we're recording this episode originally in August and April and her husband, Vic signed up in March. So basically they've been with Platform coming up on six months. They signed up in March, it's now August when we're recording this. So what you're hearing is April's context of how everything is going when she's about six months in to the Platform Marketing program. So, sorry I interrupted you. 

April Jarunas: No, no, that’s good. I like the context.

Tim Chermak: You were saying that in October of last year, you started doing research cause you realized, “Hey, I think if we want to take our business to the next level and get more listings versus just a bunch of buyers, here's some of the marketing things we need to be doing that maybe we're not doing.”

April Jarunas: Yes. At the same time, we used to go on our showings together as this team and Vic started doing all the showings himself, that allowed me time to really focus on the marketing. And what I knew is I was going to be putting a lot of time into whatever it was and money. And so I wanted to check all of these boxes. I didn't realize that, even when I started, even when I signed up with Platform, I didn't realize it checked all the boxes. I still didn't quite get it. But I was just kind of going, “All right, this feels like it checks all these things. We're trying this, better than anything else.”

Tim Chermak: This feels like what we were looking for. 

April Jarunas: It just feels like it. 

Tim Chermak: But you didn't really know what it was yet. 

April Jarunas: Right. Exactly. I knew it was social media. I knew there was video. I knew there would be listing tours. 

Tim Chermak: So what specifically, because this is really interesting to me now, what specifically does Platform do or did you find out is part of the Platform Marketing strategy, that maybe you didn't even realize when you first signed up? Like, what have you learned about it even after you signed up? 

April Jarunas: The general scope of it I understood, but how the retargeting worked was the key that I didn't really quite understand. I mean, I knew we do listing tours, I knew that there was ads. If I could explain, I knew the whole Facebook ad scope of it. But I didn't really understand, and I knew there would be a database, but I didn't quite understand how the retargeting would work. So that was a piece that, it became a little bit more clear as we kind of walked through this. And that's when I'm like, “Ooh, add in my database that I had from before, add in my sphere, throw that in there.” And if any of them match up, and I think like maybe 400 names went into that retargeting database from my previous database. 

And I saw some of our past clients come through, at least one, come through the lead generation. And I reached out to them I’m like, “Hey, how's it going? What are you doing?” She's like, “Oh, just fooling around.” Well, a couple of months later, it turns out sad situation, they were getting a divorce. But she was doing kind of her research and we ended up listing and selling her home. $515, 000. It was one that I threw $500 behind. 

So there's a post in the Facebook group and we're probably going on all around the barn on this, so take me back to whatever you need to take me back to, if you need to. But the Facebook, I think I posted July 13, 2022, which would have been about five months in. And I think I watched the Mastermind where, and it wasn't just the Mastermind, it was other people saying, “I wish I had thrown more money faster at the listing tours.” So the $500. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah. into the ads budget for when you promote a listing video. So for people listening that don't have maybe context for this, we usually recommend a monthly ads budget of like $800 to a $1,000 a month or more - I love when clients spend more, not because we get any money. So if you're not working in a Platform just to make it clear, we don't take any percentage of the ads budget. I know some marketing agencies do that where they'll charge their fee, but they'll also take 10 to 15 percent of your ads budget as a fee so that if you're spending a lot more on ads, they're actually making more. We don't do that. 

So if a client with Platform spends $2,000 a month on ads versus $800, we don't make any more. So when I encourage our clients to invest more in ads, it’s only because I know that you're going to get way more results. And so what we really started preaching over the last year, because we just noticed this time and time again, is that if clients stuck with their normal kind of baseline ads budget of, let's say $800, $1,000 a month, on top of that, anytime you get a listing, invest $500 into a listing video campaign specifically for that listing.

And that sounds like a lot of money, but what that allows us to do is pretty much guarantees your video is going to get 40, 50, 60,000 video views and that's a public metric. It's not something you can only see on the back end of the dashboard, like “Oh, cool, this video got 50,000 views.” It shows that on the video when it's popping up in people's newsfeeds. So people are seeing that, April and Vic, the Jarunas team, “Wow. Every video they do is getting all these video views. They're really, really good at marketing. If I'm going to sell my house, I want to work with someone who gets that many views on their listings because clearly they're better at marketing than other agents are.” right?

April Jarunas: So that leads to, I posted July 13th, about five months in, a couple of things that we have seen: one we definitely had that one sale closed for six grand in commissions. We've had a couple of other buyers we're putting on MLS drips. We've had a couple of people reach out that they're going to do something in the next year. But I wanted to see what $500 behind two really good listings that we had coming. So that was, if you read that post July 13th, that was like, “I'm going to try this.” Well, since then, we've tried it. We had two that were coming that I knew I wanted to promote. One was a $515,000. The average in this area is $300,000. So the $515,000 was a nice one. 

Tim Chermak: So that's a very normal American middle class market where homes are 250, 300,000 and if you get a $500,000 listing, that's a big deal in your area. Because I know a lot of parts of the country, if you're in California or something…

April Jarunas: That's not much.

Tim Chermak: Well, a $500,000 listing is like a teardown in California. 

April Jarunas: Right, right, right. Exactly. 

Tim Chermak: And for you guys, it's like, “Sweet. $500,000.” It’s a nice, nice listing in your area. 

April Jarunas: Yeah. This was a good one. And then I knew I had a log cabin on about 2.8 acres with a pool and three car garage and that was going to be closer to 615. So again, two nice ones. So I said, we're just throwing 500, we're doing some good videos for this, throw in 500 behind each.

Tim Chermak: All in. All the chips on the table. 

April Jarunas: Yeah, ‘cause I wanted to see ‘em. We're in the middle of summer, everything's going great, right? We got lots of, you know, let's take this and see. Because it wasn't just in the Mastermind, iwas agents saying, “I wish I had done this sooner”. And it just kept hitting me, “I wish I'd done this sooner.” I'm like, “Well, right now we can, we got two good ones. Let's see.” So from that…

Tim Chermak: And you work with Jackie as your account manager, right?

April Jarunas: Yes. Yeah. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, cool. 

April Jarunas: Yeah, Jackie's been great. So having sold real estate advertising before, I'm like, “When's the conversation coming that I have to spend more to get what I want?” But it didn't quite happen that way. It almost happened like agents were saying you need to spend more. So it wasn't you guys saying you need to spend more, although that was part of the conversation. 

Tim Chermak: You eventually went to Jackie and you're like, “I think I want to increase our ads budget.” And she's like, “Music to my ears!”

April Jarunas: I know. She's like, “There's something…” And I'm like, “I've been waiting for this and I have the two properties that I want to do it on.” So we did that and a couple of things that happened. Number one, that first home, I'm a little uncomfortable making this on a public podcast, but that first home didn't have a lot of activity. The market has shifted already. And if it's sold for 515, this was going to be the highest in this neighborhood and I was a little worried. But I was like, “Okay, anywhere between 490 and 515 we’re good.” So this one hasn't settled yet. So maybe wait 10 days until we put this podcast out. 

And someone came in, actually there was two offers that were being bandied about. One got theirs in and it was at asking and great terms and it was a great situation. But the activity that I we got from it, I really feel like it took the activity on that house to the next level because the market had shifted and that was a high-end property for that neighborhood. And we got action on it. And I was very happy to see.

Tim Chermak: Those are the exact type of houses that are most affected when the market shifts because there's always going to be demand in that middle class sweet spot which in your area is like the 275, the $320,000 houses. Those are always going to sell easily regardless of market ‘cause there's so much demand there. But it's a slightly above median price point homes that when the market shifts, all of a sudden it becomes a lot harder to get a really good price and a good offer. And I mean, honestly, even get showings on houses like that. 

April Jarunas: Yes, yeah, exactly. And we didn't have a ton, but we had enough that we were able to work the two offers against each other, really. 

Tim Chermak: And you got the full ask. 

April Jarunas: Mmm-hmm. And so that was one thing. But the one that really stands out is the second one, the log home. So that was our first one that got, I don't even know how many views but it was a good, it was more than any others. So I was happy to see that, and it got an under agreement. The second one that we did, and it was within like a week, we did a log home. It was on Milton Grove Road and that has gotten 60,000 views which was impressive. It's now on agreement. 

Tim Chermak: That you can directly track on that Facebook ad too. Where it says publicly for everyone who sees it, they also know it has 60,000 views. Which I think is the most important part because…

April Jarunas: It is, because on listing appointments, I love to go. And sometimes I have to say, the person doesn't have the perspective that 60,000 is a lot. But it is.

Tim Chermak: Most videos either on YouTube or Facebook have less than a thousand views. 

April Jarunas: Oh, is that right? I didn't know that. That's cool to know.

Tim Chermak: Especially for realtors. Most real estate agents videos that get uploaded to YouTube or Facebook will have less than a thousand views. 

April Jarunas: Yeah. Oh, that's good context. I didn't know that. So the thing that happened though with that Milton Grove is we got, it was about two weeks ago, so beginning of August. Vic got a text from a friend who he hasn't spoken to in like 30 years.

Tim Chermak: In how long?

April Jarunas: 30 years. Like knew him probably in his early 20’s, and reached out to him because he had been seeing him on Facebook. I don't even think that they're connected, like just friends on Facebook. Had been seeing him, saw the countryside or saw both of the ones that we threw $500 behind, was very much impressed. Took it from knowing what Vic was at 20  in this guy's mind to, “Oh, wow. He's a real estate agent and he's professional and he's doing something nobody else is doing.”  And so we're listing his, it’ll be 650, and in the next couple of months.  

Tim Chermak: Yeah, because what happens when you start this Platform Marketing strategy and you're filming listing videos and then all of the retargeting ads start kicking in. What happens is that people are constantly seeing you every day because of the way we set up the sequence of retargeting ads. And if they're constantly seeing April and Vic, and they're seeing these videos and they see, “Wow, they just did a listing video that got 60,000 views” on top of all the other retargeting ads that you're doing, right? 

Eventually, usually they don't verbalize this. They don't say this out loud but eventually they have this thought of like, “Wow, April and Vic are really good at marketing themselves. Like I see them every day popping up, they're really good at marketing themselves. If they're that good at marketing their own brand, I bet they're really good at selling houses, right?” ‘Cause they can make that logical leap of they're really good at marketing themselves, they must be good at selling houses. And then they're like, “I want to work with an agent like that who's that good at marketing themselves ‘cause they're probably really great at marketing and selling homes too.” And that's why they went with you.

April Jarunas: I feel like that was his thinking 100%. Yeah, and he verbalized a lot of it. And I knew it was happening right at the time we were throwing basically $1,000 towards listing tours and definitely he felt that.

Tim Chermak: And it just gives you so much confidence too when you go on a listing appointment and now you actually have something to say to the seller of “Hey, here's what we do different from all the other agents around here.” And like most agents try to fake an answer. Whether or not a seller actually asks this question is irrelevant because it's what they're thinking, this is the ultimate question you have to answer is, what are you going to do to sell their house that other agents aren't going to do?

April Jarunas: Right. And the seller's the one that's paying. Both sides is into the price or whatever, but it's real easy to work with a buyer who doesn't expect because they're not handing over a chunk of money to work with you.

Tim Chermak: They're not paying your commission.

April Jarunas: Yeah. It's a lot harder to work with a seller. I feel like, okay, not only do I need to say I'm doing something different, I really need to do something different, you know? I really need to earn this. So that's how I feel, and I feel like this does. But it also tells them. So it's far easier to do it and have the ads tell them, and have the retargeting tell them, and have the marketing tell them than me going, “Yeah, we do this, this, this, and this to sell your home.” We make sure we hit that on the appointment. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah, because you can actually show them.

April Jarunas: Show them. Yeah. So it's not just saying we do this, this and this. They see it, they feel it.  

Tim Chermak: So you're about six months in right now. Where would you say your business is at now, kind of a before and after of, now that you've been with Platform six months versus where things were at before? I know that I think you said last year at this time, like year to date, you were at about $5 million and now you're at about $7 million year to date. So technically, I guess it's gone up from 5 to 7, which is cool. But I think for you, and we chatted before the answer was, “Yeah, that's great, a couple million dollars growth is cool. But it's more of a qualitative answer than it is just the quantitative side.” 

April Jarunas: Yeah well, it feels like we finally have the piece of the puzzle that makes the business feel stable and solid, and not like, “Well, are we going to have it next month? Are we going to have it next month? What's coming next month?” It feels like we're growing something that, I mean, it just feels so much more stable, right? I mean we're in commission sales, you never know what's going to come down the pipe, right?

Tim Chermak: Yup, totally.

April Jarunas: And a lot of people don't do this business because they can't live with that. And it's kind of like you just have to do it. 

Tim Chermak: Well, you just never know where that next commission check is going to come from, right?

April Jarunas: And it's crazy because there's people that we know that have come back to us. But there's a lot of people that a month ago they weren't on our radar, and they're on our radar. And yeah, so don't know where the next commission is coming from, but now I actually feel like I do. It's going to come out of the database. It's going to come out of what we're doing. I feel like we're building and growing something that's not just, “Well, let's see what happens if someone comes out of the woodwork next month,” or “Let's be on call and transition the Zillow buyer into something,” and they disappear because maybe they're not actually as ready as they thought they were. Or maybe, ready, willing, and able - they're not able. 

Tim Chermak: Now with Platform, you actually have a sense of we are building a brand that's going to result in a pipeline that always kicks off a deal or two every month.

April Jarunas: I have control of it because it takes my work, right? I have to do the ads, I have to do the listing tours, I have to do the work. But that work results in not just one sale and “bye!”, it results in growth of a business.

Tim Chermak: Yeah, there's finally like a causal connection in the marketing between cause and effect of “if I do X, I'll get Y result. If I do X, I'll get Y result.”

April Jarunas: Yes, and it's something I can live with. It's not like “Okay, I'm going to bang the phones and call 50 people every day and I'm going to shake something loose.” I can't live with that, that's not me, I hate that. This I can live with. I can, not even just live with, I can actively work, I enjoy the pieces of it that create that.

Tim Chermak: That's awesome. And you've experienced all of that and you're only six months in. 

April Jarunas: Yes. That's why when you said something about like 9 to 18, which I understand it's like compounding interest, right? Like I feel like I have a bank account that's compounding interest. And I'm just putting a little bit in every time I do an ad, every time I do this, and it's growing into something that I'm going to go, I'm going to look at that bank account 9 to 18 months and go, “Ooh, yeah, it works.” Because I'm already feeling it. 

Tim Chermak: I read this stat in a book about money investing a couple of months ago, and it just really made me think of the Platform Marketing plan, what we see with agents. So what we always tell agents is that honestly, the goal in the first six months of Platforms is you just break even. Because we're planting a bunch of seeds the first six months, and hopefully at some point you get a closing or two in your first six months that pays for the entire thing. That's gonna be different for every client because price points are different in every area. 

But our goal is that you break even on the marketing the first six months because typically the real big time results kick in, at some point depending on your market and the time of year and all that, at some point between months 6 and 18 is where like the “real” results kick in where that’s where we often see people's business double or their business tripled or something like that, right? That doesn't happen in the first six months and anyone who thinks it's going to is a moron, right? 

April Jarunas: Yeah, no. It doesn't work that way.

Tim Chermak: I mean frankly anyone who tells you, “I can triple your business in six months or less” they're lying, right? It's too good to be true.

April Jarunas: Well, in this type of business I don't think it works that way. There's not enough of me to do that.

Tim Chermak: You could call a bunch of expired listings or FSBOs or something, and if that's how you want to build your business, I guess, you could maybe create quicker results. But for the other 99 percent of the population that doesn't want to hate themselves every day because they're making two hours of phone calls to people that don't want to talk to them, the marketing needs to take a longer term approach.

And so what I tell people is that the goal is that we'll get you results, you'll feel a sense of momentum like, “Hey, I think this is working” in the first six months. And it sounds like that's where you're at right now. It’s like “Hey, I feel momentum. I feel like it's working. We're already tracking a $2 million year-to-date ahead of where we were last year. And this year is a way worse market.” Interest rates are double, transaction volume is down. So actually, if anything, your business should be down 20%, all things being equal, and yet you're actually up 40%. So you feel this sense that it's working, but trust me when I say the real results kick in in months six to 18 because it's not linear. 

Tim Chermak: This is something I think the human brain just isn't quite wired to understand things that aren't just strictly linear. But in month one of Platform, you get a bunch of clicks and a bunch of leads and you start to retarget them because obviously, right away you're not retargeting a ton of people because you haven't had a ton of clicks and leads yet. And you have a good chunk of conversations but almost everyone's telling you. “Hey, I'll be ready to go in three, four, five, six months” like they're not ready to go right now. And that's what we tell people, right? And then month two, the same thing happens, you get a bunch of clicks and leads, most of them tell you, “Oh, we're not ready to go right now, but thanks.” But you're also retargeting. 

This is the interesting that's happening, the interesting thing: you're also retargeting all the people who clicked in month one. And now all those people who clicked in month one that told you, “Uh, we're four or five months until we're ready to go,” they're one month closer to that 4 or 5 months. And then month 3 comes around, still nothing has absolutely blown up. You're having conversations, you're doing the routine, but what's happened is all those people in month one and two that have now been retargeted and they've been seeing you every day for the last 60 days, they're now one to two months closer to being ready to go. 

Tim Chermak: So typically things reach kind of like a breaking point at some point around the six-month mark where all those people in months one, two, and three who told you “Uh, we're four or five six months ready to wait,” that's the point where a lot of those people kind of “all of a sudden,” I'm saying that with air quotes, all of a sudden they're ready to go. And someone in like that 6 to 7 month with Platform typically is way happier with the results than someone who's in their 3rd or 4th month, and it has nothing to do with the fact that their marketing changed. It’s just that all those leads they were cultivating from months 1, 2, and 3, finally are ready to go in months 5, 6, 7, 8. And so every month builds on the previous month. 

It's almost like a log scale, you know, where like a CAT 5 hurricane is exponentially stronger than a CAT 3. It's not just linear where 3 or 4 is one more than 3, and 3 is one more than 2. It's like exponentially stronger, same thing with tornadoes that operates on a log scale. And so the same thing is true of kind of the months where you're exponentially more likely to convert a bunch of business in months 8 and 9 than you are in months 4 and 5, because in months 8 and 9 it's not just those two months worth of leads, you're following up with all of the leads who have been retargeted from months 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and now you're at months 7 or 8 or 9. And so the further you get into it…

April Jarunas: Right, right. And so it requires you to understand that. It requires understanding that and just doing the work. And I think in our fast paced society, we're just like, “Well, why can't I just plunk some money down, get some leaps. Plunk some money down, get some leaps,” right? But I think your analogy of the planting the seed, there's a quote and I'll probably just paraphrase it but, “When's the best time to plant a tree? Like 20 years ago,” right? Or you plant a tree for your son or your daughter. You plant a tree for the future. It requires wanting the type of business to come to you. 

It requires intentionally deciding what kind of business you want and then working towards that and having the patience to know that that's what you want. Versus the person that goes, “I got to go see a house right now.” Because you can't change the timeline for someone. If you meet someone now and they're not really ready, that's okay. You just want to be there when they're ready. You don't want to make them buy now, you just want to be there when they're ready. That's it. 

Tim Chermak: Your job is just to stay top of mind long enough so that when they are ready to go, it's a simple decision. “Oh, obviously I'm going to call April, I'm not even going to interview other agents. I'm just going to call April because I've been seeing her everyday.” 

April Jarunas: Yeah. 

Tim Chermak: And that's why it's so important that the ads don't look like ads. So let me prompt you with this question because what I'm going to do, not so secretly is while you're answering this question, I'm going to look up something on my phone here because I want to find the exact quote from this book that I mentioned that just talks about the concept of compound interest in a business context. And so let me ask you this question and while you answer this, I'm going to quick look this up. But what does the phrase, again now that you've been with Platform for six months, you have a little bit of experience. Because I constantly preach “make ads that don't look like ads, make ads that don't look like ads, make ads that don't look like ads,” right? It's just a refrain I keep going back to. 

What does that mean to you now that you've actually been with Platform six months? So you've seen a lot of the retargeting ads that we run. And does that seem to align with the way that you've always wanted to do business but maybe you hadn't seen it pulled off before?

April Jarunas: Yeah. Well, so we didn't want to… we don't like salesy. Going back to yellow pages, consultative sales, right? You're not trying to sell somebody, something. You're trying to find out, “Well, what do they want?” and then help them get it, right? So the ads that don't look like ads are a little bit of us showing our personality saying, “Hey, maybe you want to work with somebody that's like this.” and them going, “Hey, I kind of like that person.” And so it's more of that consultative approach. It's just kind of going, “Hey, we're here when you're ready. What do you think about this? This is what we do. This is who we are. This is how we're, you know, this is what's going on in the market.”

And by the way, you alluded to something in the mastermind earlier today that we did it on a real baby level with the database. We did timely specifics. We don't just send out like newsletter, like every month, just generic click through to this and read an article on what kind of paint. We would say, this is what we're seeing right now. And because the market was changing so much, we were just very specific as to, “Hey, I don't know what's happening in the future, but I know what's happening right now. We would share that.” I feel like this, the retargeting with these ads that don't look like ads, real estate-related, personal-related, that's what that accomplishes. 

So it takes a load off of me to sit down and just kind of go, “Okay, how do we tell people what's happening?” You guys have your pulse on the market and so do we, and it aligns. And then we can kind of tweak for our market, but we're giving people that market-specific information that they find interesting, right? So the ads that don't look like ads are in my mind, bringing people to us in a non salesy, consultative approach way that makes us, sets us up as the professional that knows what we're doing and just kind of leaves the door open for them to come through. 

Tim Chermak: But it’s exactly, it's not annoying. People don't feel like they're quote unquote being marketed to or being advertised to. They don't feel like, “Oh, April and Vic are so annoying with how proactive they are about following up.” It's kind of just, it's always there, you'll keep seeing these posts and videos from April and Vic, but a lot of them don't even mention real estate. It's just one of your favorite spots to grab pizza in town, or a fun fact about you, or some of your favorite books. Or and by the way, if you haven't done that ad, that's one of my favorites where it's like, “Here's my three favorite books.” 

April Jarunas: Oh, we should do that.

Tim Chermak: It's just a photo of you holding three of your favorite books in your hand and then we write a couple sentences about each of those books, about why you like that particular book. And it doesn't matter whether it's… It can be a business book, it can be one of your favorite novels, poems, short stories, Harry Potter, the Bible, whatever, right? 

April Jarunas: I like that.

Tim Chermak: Whatever your three favorite books are. Because again, it's giving people some fun, interesting personal facts about you to help them get to know you. Because we don't have to convince them that you're an amazing agent, we just need to convince them that you're cool and you have some things in common. And then they'll see all these other retargeting ads eventually with your videos getting 60,000 views, and they'll be like, “Okay, clearly she's a really good agent or Vic is a really good agent. And now that I know they're a really good agent, and I feel like I know some personal facts about them,” that's what makes someone be like, “Alright, well when I'm ready to sell my house, I'm just gonna call them ‘cause I clearly trust them.” 

I don't need to interview other agents and play this game where I'll have three agents over to my house and they'll all tell me why they should list with them. It's like, “No, I'm just gonna call April and Vic because I feel like I know them” in the same way that if your cousin was a realtor. And you knew they were a pretty good realtor so it wasn't like you had any questions about their competence, like you already knew they were a pretty well-respected realtor. Just because they're your cousin, nine times out of 10 you're going to work with them. Why? Because you feel like you know them, right? It's pretty binary. It's either yes or no, whether or not someone's competent. So competence, I feel like, is binary. Either people think you're competent or you're not. 

They don't really care how many homes you sold last year, or what your volume was, or how many years you've been in the business. They're going to make a snap judgment on, are you competent or are you not? And then once they deem that you are competent, you know what you're doing, then honestly 90 percent of this, do I just feel at some intuitive level that I can trust them.

April Jarunas: Right, you have to be reasonably likable to be competent.

Tim Chermak: Yeah, and that's why all these retargeting ads work. And that's why the strategy of ads that don't look like ads work so well ‘cause it's helping people to feel like they're getting to know you. 

So, I was able to look up that stat quick. And it's about Warren Buffett and he's, I think he has a net worth right now like 80 billion dollars, something like that. He's 90 years old. His annual investing career has compounded at about 22 percent a year. Every year he's been investing if you average it out to reach the net worth of 80 billion dollars. But this is just a really cool example that I stumbled across in a book a couple of years ago about the human brain just doesn't quite understand the way that compound interest works. And I've seen this with Platform because how we get results for people, it very much is on an exponential curve. 

It's not linear like “Oh, someone in month 4 is just going to get slightly better results in month 3 and slightly better results in month 5 than month 4.” Usually the curve goes like parabolic in somewhere between months six to 12. It’s all of a sudden, it's like slow and steady, and then all of a sudden it goes up like a hockey stick. Because they start converting all those leads and all those people who clicked on their ads in months 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, they're all of a sudden ready to go and they start calling you. So if you're already kind of sensing that there's this real sense of momentum in your six months in, I am really excited to see what happens in months 6 to 12 for you. 

April Jarunas: I'm planning on bringing on a transaction coordinator in months 6 to 12. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah. I'm excited ‘cause your business is going to grow. I mean like, If you think about it, your business has actually grown 40% already, like year to date. 

April Jarunas: Right, ‘cause it's gone down to 20. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah. Well, I mean even if it weren't going from 5 to 7, that's 40% growth.

April Jarunas: Is that 40%? 

Tim Chermak: Yeah. Which it just doesn't feel like it 'cause it's not a big number going from 5 to 7, but technically that's 40%. So I’ll bet you'll be one of those clients… By the way, what was your sales volume last year? Do you remember? Like for the whole year, last year?

April Jarunas: For the whole year we were only about like a little over 7 for the year. So we're already…

Tim Chermak: You are absolutely going to be someone who's probably selling like $15 million within a year. 

April Jarunas: My goal is 10 this year, but I'll take 15. My goal is 10 this year.

Tim Chermak: There's not a doubt in my mind that if you stick with this and just keep, frankly, not even do anything more, but just keep doing what you're doing, you guys are going to get it. You guys are going to hit $15 million. 

So back to Warren Buffett. He has $80 billion net worth but people do not realize the pace at which he acquired that net worth. People assume that it was fairly linear because over time he actually specifically has a reputation of being an even keel, rational investor. He doesn't make massive moves or big risks, just slowly compounds it over time. So you would think that, “Oh, you know, he's probably slowly grown his wealth over time and the curve has got to be somewhat linear.” But he's 90 years old. Do you know what percentage of his wealth came after he was 60? So by the time he was 60 ‘cause he was actually like a deca millionaire in his thirties. 

April Jarunas: Okay. 

Tim Chermak: So he was plenty wealthy even by his mid-thirties, where he could have retired in his mid-thirties and played golf every day, and gone to the beach, and had people rub cocoa butter on his belly while he sipped margaritas. Like he could have done that honestly in his thirties. 

April Jarunas: He would have been bored. 

Tim Chermak: Right. Right. But certainly by his sixties, he could have retired. 

April Jarunas: But he could have. Yeah. So deca millionaire in his thirties?

Tim Chermak: Yeah. I mean, if you adjust for inflation I guess something around there. But if you…

April Jarunas: And then so 60, well, how much of his business or how much of his wealth was acquired after 60? Well, if you're telling me it's compounding interest, it must be a really large portion of it. I don't know though. What is it?

Tim Chermak: 99%. 

April Jarunas: What? Oh my gosh.

Tim Chermak: So, 99% of Warren Buffett's wealth was acquired after retirement age, after age 60. And by the way, before he was 60 he was already on like the cover of Forbes as a famous investor. He was famous even in the 1960s and 70s. So it wasn't like he became famous in the 1990s or 2000s. He was already being profiled in magazines and stuff in the 60s and 70s. He was already wealthy back then. But 99% of his net worth came after his 60th birthday. So had he retired at age 60, he would have had about $12 million, is how wealthy he would be. Which is very impressive, even $12 million back then. Like not that I'm sneezing at having $12 million at age 60, but there are a lot of people…

April Jarunas: Well, it’s just to give an idea of how compounding interest works. That’s just to think from 12 to, you said, $80 million current net worth?

Tim Chermak: $80 billion.

April Jarunas: $80 billion. Oh, I just, I forgot a couple of zeros. Wow. Yeah. It’s taking a real long view. 

Tim Chermak: There are plenty of people that have $12 million retire to Florida every year, and just play golf every day, and you’d have no idea who they are. Because like, there's honestly a lot of people that have, whatever, 5, 10, 15, 20 million and good for them, that's a lot of money.

April Jarunas: Yeah. And they tap out and they go “I don't want this anymore. I'm doing something else.”

Tim Chermak: Yeah. “I just want to retire.” They're not household names, right? You would have never heard of Warren Buffett if he retired at age 60 ‘cause he'd just be one of those people playing golf who kind of like just wants to relax. Almost his entire business empire is because of that long term compound interest of things just multiplied rapidly in his 6th decade, 7th decade, 8th decade. And now he turned that $5 million to $10 million to $12 million to $80 billion. So he would actually, if he had quit and just retired, he would have 99 point something percent less capital than he has. I find that fascinating that it's that steep of a curve.

April Jarunas: That's wild. Yeah. 

Tim Chermak: And so when we look back at marketing now, I see a similar thing. Where again, in the first three months, it's almost nothing, like you're not getting a ton of closings. I know that you guys, I think had a couple of closings or things that closed in your first six months that you could directly or indirectly attribute to Platform?

April Jarunas: We definitely had one that was absolutely direct from lead generation and that was around $200,000. And we've had, I would say, two others that I felt like were influenced by people going… One flat out going, it was a friend listing but she's like, “can Vic do one of his tours?”

Tim Chermak: Oh, so you know that they’ve been seeing the retargeting. 

April Jarunas: Know that they've been seeing, know that the conversation isn't about “Are you going to list with me?” It’s just, “Yeah we want you to do it. We want this and we want Vic to do one of his tours.” So one, definitely. And then the other one was the 74 Countryside Lane that we put $500 behind. And I know she was caught up in the lead generation because I saw her name come through early on. And then it was no question. We helped them buy four years ago but that's not always a given that you'll help them sell.

Tim Chermak: Absolutely, absolutely. 

April Jarunas: Yeah, I don't have anything in place like I'm not a hold-a-party-once-a-year, drop-by, Buffini-type of thing. I don't want to bother people but I'm here when they need me. So this fits my personality with that. The other thing that was interesting, so the two homes that we put the $500 behind, 515 and 615, and we got his friend who does have about a $650,000. Again in this market or in this area where $300,000 is pretty average.

Tim Chermak: That's twice the median price. Yeah. 

April Jarunas: Yeah. So him seeing those two at that price range was one of the factors that I believe made him go, “Oh, I see what they're doing.” So we don't have any, we have his kind of in the horizon and we don't have any other listings on the radar, so we did what we did in the very beginning. We borrowed two listings to do tours in the very beginning. We didn't have any listings in March. And so I was a little bit more judicious about which ones I borrowed. And I borrowed a $750,000 one that is actually being renovated into an $850,000. It needs cosmetics and everything. We did, it's a video that's okay right now but after they're done renovating it we're going to go back in and do an 850.

And I love the idea, and I think you mentioned it in the Mastermind today, earlier of borrowing that listing that you want more of those people in your database when you're retargeting. We unknowingly did that.

Tim Chermak: Yeah. Like if you want more $800,000 buyers and sellers, film more listing videos and ads about $800,000 houses, whether or not they're your listings. It doesn't matter because if people see you on it, they'll just assume it's your listing even if you put all the necessary disclaimers on there. “Hey, this listing is courtesy of Bob Smith at REMAX,” or whatever. So it's not like we're trying to unfairly take credit and imply that it's your listing. We'll make it very clear it's not your listing. But what we also know, wink, wink, nod, nod, is that anyone who sees that video, if April's in the video or Vic's in the video, their brain processes it as if oh, that’s Vic’s listing.

Even if we actually are verbally saying this listing is whatever, that just goes one ear and out the other ‘cause if they see Vic in the video, they just assume it's Vic's listing. So the more listing ads that you can do to promote whatever houses you want in that particular price point, it's going to bring more buyers and sellers in that particular price point. So if you want more, whether in your market it might be 500, or 800, or a million, or whatever, if you want more million dollar buyers, create more ads promoting million dollar houses. Because that's the people that are clicking on those ads. 

April Jarunas: And so that's what we want. So the $7 million that we have, that we're to this year is about 23 transactions. Last year, we had $7 million for the entire year and it was close to 50 transactions. 

Tim Chemak: Oh, wow. 

April Jarunas: So we have a much higher price point right now. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah. So that's another benefit then of working with Platform this year is that your price point, it sounds like, has increased a lot from last year.  

April Jarunas: Yup, yup.

Tim Chermak: So if someone were to ask you, let's say I had a sales call with a realtor last week, and let's say they listened to this podcast and they look you up and they find April Jarunas’ cell phone number and they call you. What would you tell them about hey here's what you can expect in the first six months? Because obviously that's where you're at right now. What would you tell them this is what we're seeing six months in? 

April Jarunas:  I would say expect nothing in the first six months. If you get something, great. But it's after that that you need to be, you just, you can't think only six months out. I started researching six months out. I wasn't thinking, “I need calls tomorrow.” I was thinking I know what I want my business to look like, what is the right vehicle to get it there And that's what this is, so. But hopefully you're pleasantly surprised that you can feel some of the retargeting. Because if somebody comes in in a lead gen and responds back, they're a little bit more friendly, you know? Maybe they were in the retargeting and hit a lead gen in March, but now it's August and they're like, “Oh no, I'm just looking.” Whereas maybe in March it was like, “No, thanks,” right? So there’s little friendlier conversations for the lead gen. There's more of an assumption that you are going to work with the people in your sphere. 

Tim Chermak: Sure, sure.

April Jarunas: And then hopefully there's some flat out sales and people that you get on the multi list, so yeah. We're you just snapping a picture of the screen?

Tim Chermak: Absolutely. I was taking a picture of this podcast episode. Yep, yep. We'll fix it in post, that's my favorite phrase, fix it in post. So you would tell someone, “Hey, don't really expect anything the first six months because you're laying that foundation. The real results are everything that's going to happen there and after.” And yet you said, hey you have this qualitative sense that it's working because of all the retargeting posts. So let's get into some of the specifics of what those retargeting posts look like.

Because when we talk about ads that don't look like ads, I think a lot of people are okay, but what is that? What does that mean? What are the ads actually look like? This is a very common question I answer on a phone call with an agent. Like what do the actual ads look like? So let me ask you a really direct question, April. What have been your two or three favorite ads that you've run with Platform so far? Whether they were videos or photo ads, but specifically the retargeting ads. Which ones have been your favorite that seemed to get the most engagement or you think that they were just well received and that did a good job of keeping you top of mind with the retargeting list and your sphere?

April Jarunas: I liked the This Is Us - there was a whole bunch of different pictures of us and it was just kind of humanizing and personalizing who we are. And I think maybe it had “the 25 things about us,” or something?

Tim Chermak: Oh, yeah. We call that the Fun Facts ad. 

April Jarunas: Okay, Fun Facts ad. I really liked that. I felt like that went towards my goal of personal or humanizing us to the people that are seeing it. I liked the ice cream one.

Tim Chermak: Oh, yeah. The Vanilla Ice Cream one. 

April Jarunas: Yes, ‘cause I liked the store. I liked how the ad was written because it was interesting and of course, you know, a picture of the ice cream was eye-catching. And I also liked the fact that I had to go get ice cream. 

Tim Chermak: And it's tax deductible now because it's for an ad.

April Jarunas: Exactly. Although I have to say, big fail on the Oreos. We got the Oreos and we ate them all before we got a picture. We might have to do something with Photoshop, I'm not sure. 

Tim Chermak: That's funny, 

April Jarunas: But I like that. And really, I just like the quality of the listing tours. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if a lot of the… I think the first couple of tours I did, I almost storyboarded it, right? Like I really need to think how about how we're doing this, how are we going to come across professionally? And I've gotten more and more away from that so that it's not so time-consuming and it's not so restricting to go do a listing tour because I just need to go do them. And I've come to rely more and more on the ads team and Jackie, Jackie's been amazing, to edit into something that makes us look good. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah, where you just know that hey if we film the footage, we send it to Platform that they'll make it look cool. 

April Jarunas: And there's some times that there's a lot more thought I put into it ‘cause I'm like I know what to do, I know where, and it's more structured where I send it to them. I'm like, “Hey, I'm kind of thinking this,” and they make it better. And then there's other times I'm like, “I don't know. I don't know if we have anything here. Can you make something?” and they do. And I think great because that's not my main job, I don't want it to be my main job. I need to give you guys, the experts, the stuff that I can give you, and you turn it into something better than what I did. So yeah, I would say listing tours is the third. 

Tim Chermak: So a lot of the retargeting ads you mentioned, the Vanilla Ice Cream ad, the Fun Facts, they’re photo ads. 

April Jarunas: Yeah. 

Tim Chermak: So it's not even like you have to go out and film a video unnecessarily. It's just get us a photo and we can put something interesting to go along with it. 

April Jarunas: Yep. 

Tim Chermak: Did you guys do the Air Conditioning ad?  

April Jarunas: Oh, we did. Oh, that was great! Yes, loved the Air Conditioning ad. We got a lot of engagement on that, I forgot about that, that was fun. That was one of my top ones too. Yeah. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah, ‘cause I remember I saw that one that I think, it was Vic who did it, right?

April Jarunas: Vic was out there. We have three dogs. I think one of them wanted to be in the picture, so we had Vic in.

Tim Chermak: I was going to say, I saw one of your dogs actually walking behind you in the window behind you outside, and I was about to be like, “Uh, April if you don't have dogs, I think there's a mountain lion in your backyard.”

April Jarunas: Yes, we have three big dogs. Yeah, so one of them was in the AC picture where Vic was praying to the AC gods on a 90 degree day, please don't fail us now. I thought that was great.  

Tim Chermak: Have you had any other realtors or people in your area tell you they've seen your ads or try to opt into your funnels? ‘Cause we see that a lot where other agents try to like click on your ads or register for more information to basically try to like reverse engineer, find out what you're doing.

April Jarunas: I actually haven't, I actually haven't. I have been surprised but I think people… I don't know, maybe Northeast is different than others, where it's kind of like, “Oh, I see what they're doing but I'm not going to say anything,” right? I know they see it though. It's everywhere. Yeah. 

Tim Chermak: Cool. So you're six months in. Now we talked about what some of the ads look like. We talked about your listing strategy commitment to invest $500 per listing video. Where's your ads budget at right now on a monthly basis? What are you typically spending a month on the actual ads?

April Jarunas: I don't really know. Is that bad? We are… I don't know ‘cause I'll tell you what I do. We just run everything through a credit card that has miles on it. And I pay the credit card twice a month ‘cause I don't want to see a big bill. But I know what I'm spending approximately. I just don't know that. So I pay a little bit and then a little bit, so I never go, “Oh man, that's bad.” I just kind of… 

Tim Chermak: Have you, okay, this is a total aside, but this is hilarious. Have you seen the clip from I think it's a TNT basketball where if you just go on YouTube and search for “Shaq Gas”, “Shaq filling up gas.” And it was during a basketball game when you know, Shaquille O'Neal was part of the TNT broadcast crew or whatever. And somehow they started talking about with like Charles Barkley and Shaq, they were talking about like gas prices and Shaq's like, “Well, here's my…” and he's like dead serious, he's completely serious. He's like, “Here's my strategy: you always fill up when you're at a half tank. You don't wait until it gets down to the very bottom. Because when it's at a half tank, then you only have to spend half the money when you, than filling up the full tank.” And all the other hosts, because this is on like national TV, right? All the other hosts are staring at him like, “Right, but you still spend the same amount of money every month on gas. You're just filling up more often.” And he's like, “No! No! Because you only fill it up when you're at half a tank!”

April Jarunas: Oh, he thought he was actually paying less.

Tim Chermak: He is doubling down and saying that like, “No, I only fill up. You're only spending $40, not $80.” 

April Jarunas: I love it.

Tim Chermak: And all the other hosts are desperately trying to change the topic because they realize he's just making himself look like an idiot to tens of millions of people. And he kept going back. So he'll like interrupt the conversation and bring it back to the gas thing.

April Jarunas: Oh, no. He’s like, “No, there's real magic here.”

Tim Chermak: Yeah. He's so convinced that he's right and the other hosts are just like losing it, laughing. It's so funny. So after we wrap up this podcast conversation, April, you have to go on YouTube and search for that 'cause it’s so so funny.

April Jarunas: I will. Well, it's basically what I do.

Tim Chermak: Yeah, right!

April Jarunas: I pay, I have two reminders set. I pay twice a month because I never wanna see the big, you know, just 'cause that feels… I know between Zillow and this, we're over, let me do some rough math. We're over five grand. So I just never really want to see that number and I just pay it routinely. And it's been working great that way. I just keep filling up half the tank. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah. Exactly, exactly.  Now one thing that's again, kind of obvious, but I think a lot of people don't think of this, is once you know the marketing is working, ‘cause I would never tell someone to go invest a ton of money to marketing unless you feel it's working, right? But if you know that it's working, one cool thing about investing in marketing is that it's completely tax deductible the year you make that investment and yet it's something that you're building an asset. It's not an expense the way that normally in the way tax accounting works is you're only allowed to expense something and take the full write off if it's a temporary expense that has no lasting value. That’s the kind of definition is, it can't have lasting asset value. So if you…

April Jarunas: Well, this is a hidden asset value ‘cause they can't see it.

Tim Chermak: Well yeah. If you buy a, I don't know, if you go buy a car or if you're a big manufacturing company and you build a huge new venue, a manufacturing plant. If it costs you 2 million dollars to build that plant, you can't write off the whole 2 million dollars the year that you build it. You have to like amortize that over a depreciation schedule of many, many years. 

Investing in marketing as a real estate agent is this curious example of kind of having your cake and eating it too. Because if you set it up the right way with retargeting, you're building an asset which is that retargeting database and also obviously the leads that come in. And that asset lives beyond that month that you paid for the marketing in a way that doesn't if you go out, if you take a client out for an important meal and you write off that meal, there's no lasting benefit necessarily to that meal after you ate it. Or frankly, if you bought Zillow leads, like as soon as you stop paying Zillow, the leads stop. There's nothing lasting there, right?

April Jarunas: Yeah, right. Unless you put the data, unless you did more work beyond, unless you're marketing beyond it so. Yeah, so lead generation if you're not thinking long term, there is no hidden asset value to extend over years.

Tim Chermak: Yeah, there's no long term benefit. 

April Jarunas: There's no long term benefit. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah, but if you do it right it's actually this cool example where there's long term benefit to it because you're building this brand. 

April Jarunas: You get the full tax write off now. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah and you get the full tax write off now. You can get miles on your credit card. I mean, I just finished going with my wife to Las Vegas, and we stayed at five nights at The Cosmopolitan in a terrace suite and it was 100% free just paid for by all the miles we rack up. Because when we're running ads for platform, it's on a credit card, right?

April Jarunas: Yep. Yeah. 

Tim Chermak: And so obviously, as long as your business, I'm not telling people to go into credit card debt, but as long as your business is at a point that you can make that payment. 

April Jarunas: Well, no, you have to pay it off. Just pay it off every month. 

Tim Chermak: As long as the marketing is working, so that you're incurring this expense and you can pay it off every month, that's a huge benefit of investing more in marketing. I've just never understood these people who are like, “Oh, I'd only want to spend $500 a month or a $1000 a month on marketing.” It's like, well if every dollar you spend brings in five, why would you not want to spend more, you know?

April Jarunas: I think there's a lot of people that don't know if their marketing is working. And I feel like they don't know how to make it work more efficiently. 

Tim Chermak: And that's exactly it. They don't even know if it's working. So obviously if you don't know, you're not going to want to spend a ton of money on something if you don't know. And that's why I think this conversation with you in particular, April, is so interesting because right now, as we record this, you're at that six month mark where most people are seriously evaluating “is what I'm doing working?” and I think the answer for you is pretty crystal clear that you're pretty confident that it's working or else you wouldn't have agreed to come on the Platform podcast and kind of share your story and you're six months in. Again, you're not two years in, or 18 months in, or a year. You're six months in. All that has already happened. 

April Jarunas: I’m not going, “Oh, I'm in this for six months ‘cause I told them I would,” and month seven, I'm out. Absolutely not, no. And I'm putting an extra thousand just to even, in the last month I put an extra thousand into the listing tours to see what that would do.

Tim Chermak: And it looks like it's already created some future pipeline that, I mean, that listing you mentioned that's probably a 17, $18,000 commission. 

April Jarunas: Yep. 

Tim Chermak: And so you mentioned, by the way, this is kind of a change of topic, but you mentioned that you knew Sarah and Aaron Rose. 

April Jarunas: Yeah.

Tim Chermak: I actually have them lined up to be a future guest on the podcast as well because when they first signed up with Patform, they were doing, I'm going to get this wrong, but I think they've literally added something like 30 or 40 transactions a year to their, maybe even 50 transactions a year to their business since joining Platform. It's something that's absolutely nuts. Like if I didn't have them on the podcast, but I was just telling people about their story, they wouldn't believe me. 

April Jarunas: Right, right.

Tim Chermak: The actual before and after is so incredible that it sounds too good to be true. But as you know, as in the case of this Warren Buffett investing model that I kind of referenced, they almost got no results the first six months. And when they were about a year in they're like, “Okay, we kind of see it working but it also hasn't like massively produced in a major way yet.” And then just the floodgates of heaven opened up in year two and that's when things really blew up. So they're another example of this is absolutely, this marketing model operates on a logarithmic scale where it's not linear. Like month two is not just one more than month one, and month three is not just one more month than month two. Like three is exponentially more powerful than two because you're tapping into the power of months one, two, and three in month three, right? And so on and so forth.

April Jarunas: So I would say this too, like when I said don't expect anything this six months, I don't really work the lead gen responses. I haven't really worked them. I know there's some people that work them very, very well and there may be a point when I get to, you know?

Tim Chermak: Shame, shame. 

April Jarunas: I know, I know. But I don't know how I want to work them yet. I've watched some of the podcasts, but I also don't need to work them right now and I'm kind of feeling I want to see just what pure retargeting does to them. If there's somebody that has responded, I'll respond to them, right? But, I'm not...

Tim Chermak: Right, right.

April Jarunas: I'm not like thoroughly working that. I don't know, that'll be like another level when I go, okay, we've got a transaction coordinator, maybe we've got another buyer's agent. Now, let me try to mine that and figure out how I want to do that a little bit better.

Tim Chermak: And by the way, that's what I tell people to do. So just for anyone listening to this, “Who's like, what? You're not even following up with your leads?” That's what we tell people to do. Like you should only reply to the warm people that replied to you, let the retargeting keep you top of mind with everyone else ‘cause if they didn't email you back, usually it's just because they're not ready to talk with you yet. But if the retargeting keeps you top of mind, eventually those people will give you a call when they're ready to go, right? You don't need to feel like you have to follow up hardcore. 

April Jarunas: Right, but certainly if there's somebody that's not in the position that we are, that we can give it six months, we could give it a year because the businesses it's operating, we're already up at a level that we don't have to, I'm kind of thinking like if I was just starting out, that I would probably be working those leads. 

Tim Chermak: Sure, sure.

April Jarunas: I know I worked leads much more intensely than I do now. So that's probably a gold mine for people that are just starting out. Now, I don't know, there's probably tips on how to work that but for me it's the, well let me see what the retargeting, just pure retargeting is going to do for that.  

Tim Chermak: And I think it's pretty remarkable because you probably haven't even consciously thought about this until this conversation we're having right now, but you haven't even really made a huge effort to follow up with those leads as you just said.

April Jarunas: Correct.

Tim Chermak: And yet just with the Platform Marketing overall, the strategy and all the retargeting, your business is up 40 percent year to date from the same time last year. Which I think is well beyond the realm of coincidence.

April Jarunas: And we're looking out and going, “I know what to do.  We’re building this. It's even getting better.” It's not like, “Will we have more?” Right? It’s not like that.

Tim Chermak: Yeah, like you're very confident looking. Let's say you've been with Platform for six months, you're very confident that six months from now things will be even better. So, I mean April, think to spring of next year, so spring of 2023.

April Jarunas: I know, yeah.

Tim Chermak: You guys are going to have such a massive pipeline going into spring of 2023 because at that point you'll have had a full year's worth of retargeting to your database and seeing all these listing videos. Because every time you do a listing video too, we're also creating an ad campaign internally that shows it specifically to your retargeting. 

April Jarunas: Yeah. 

Tim Chermak: And so all of those people will be seeing you and hopefully the market just overall is a little bit more balanced a year from now than it's been the last couple of years with, you know, being such a low inventory, crazy seller's market. I mean, you guys are going to have a monster spring summer in ‘23. I mean because at that point you'll be at that year mark. 

April Jarunas: I mean, I never like to say that because it feels like it could jinx it in some way, but…  

Tim Chermak: Knock on wood, there's plenty of those windows around you.

April Jarunas: But I have never felt so confident in everything that we have in place so yes, yeah that's how I feel.

Tim Chermak: Yeah, I mean, you are one of the very few guests that has been on the Platform show who hasn't been a client for like a year, or 18 months, or two years because usually that's what creates the best results. We talk about time is an ingredient not a metric, so it's not a coincidence. It would be the “most insane coincidence”, I'm saying that with air quotes, the most insane coincidence ever if 28 of the 30 Platform podcast episodes were with clients who would stay with Platform for more than 18 months. Because they're a very relatively small number of the total people in Platform at any given time, if you've been with Platform for two years or more, or whatever. And yet there are 28 out of 30 episodes are people that have been with Platform for longer than 18 months. What does that tell you? It's that people experience the best results the longer they stick with it because we know that this marketing strategy works over the long term. The question is: will the agent do the work, right? Platform works if you do, right? We always say that phrase. And yet you're already at this point and you're only six months in where you already see it working. It's like man, I'm just really excited to see what happens in your business when you're at that 12 month mark. 

April Jarunas: Me too, me too.

Tim Chermak: Because even Aaron and Sarah they would have loved to have been in your position where you already saw momentum and things were really popping about six months in. So seeing how their business has grown, you're already experiencing. I mean, like I said, you probably hadn't even thought about it but you're technically up 40 percent from last year.  

April Jarunas: I hadn’t thought about it. We're just kind of doing the work and yeah, we're just kind of, just live in it, I guess. I only stopped to look at the, I didn't even know like where we were compared this year to last year, I don't usually do that until like end of year or something.

Tim Chermak: Sure, sure.

April Jarunas: But I did that specifically for this podcast and I was happy to see, obviously happy to see that. But we're just kind of like nose down and just do the work 

Tim Chermak: Doing the work, yup.

April Jarunas: But it feels different. It's nice to do the work ‘cause we've always just done the work. We've always worked hard but it's nice to go, we know we have something in place that we don't have to go, I don't know what will happen next week, next month, you know? I don't know when everything's going to pick up. I don't know when it's going to not. Are we seasonal? Are we not? It's like there's a stability that this has added that I can feel, and that's a relief. It's a relief. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah. You can actually feel the pipeline of like oh, we're never going to have to worry now about where our next commission check is going to come from because…

April Jarunas: As long as we keep doing the work, yeah. Which we're fine doing the work, yeah.

Tim Chermak: So are you guys coming to the Mastermind this year?

April Jarunas: I will be. Vic is very uncomfortable flying, so he won't be. I'm actually bringing my mom down, we're going to come for like a week before and then do the Mastermind. 

Tim Chermak: That's awesome. Yeah, that'd be a pretty long drive from Pennsylvania, but.

April Jarunas: Flying for two hours. 

Tim Chermak: That'll be awesome. I'm always really excited when I hear that a client who's in their first 12 months of Platform comes to the Mastermind because all these people that you've probably started to feel like you're getting to know some of the people in our group, right? Even though you've never met them, you feel like you kind of know them where once you meet them at a restaurant or something at the Mastermind you're like, “Oh hey, Jill! Hey, Brittany!” And you're almost like old friends even though you've technically never met before. And it's just always cool when clients like you come their first Mastermind because all these people that you've seen them online, you'll get to meet with them, and learn with them, and network in person, so.

April Jarunas: Yeah, I'm excited about that. I'm excited. I'm kicking myself that I missed the rodeo. I would have totally done that. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah. Yeah. Well, hopefully we're going to sponsor that rodeo again next summer. So it'll be basically, we're just thinking of it as it’s Platform’s midsummer client appreciation party where it has, there's no Mastermind component. We're not giving marketing talks or like breakout sessions or anything like that. It's just hey, we're going to sponsor a rodeo in the absolute middle of nowhere. And it's kind of like Burning Man for cowboys where it's in the middle of nowhere. So bring a tent or an RV or something and just hang out for a weekend. 

That was fun. So cool. Well, I will definitely see you at the Mastermind in December in Naples. And then the last question I want to ask is what would you tell someone who's maybe in their first month or two with Platform? Because this is going to be in recent memory for you, right? You're not someone who's been with Platform for two years, you're still only six months in so you should have somewhat recent memories of what it felt like when you were in your first month or your second month. What would you tell someone listening to this who just signed up and they're in their first or second month? Is there anything you wish you could go back and have done differently in your first or second month? Or what advice would you give them knowing that you're only four or five months ahead of them? What advice would you give them?  

April Jarunas: I mean, it's advice that I've seen in the group before but maybe I would say it in a little different way. I think because I brought some of my own experience I probably could have let go of control a little bit more quickly and just listened to Jackie very quickly or Andrew, I think started us off, and just do what you guys say. Basically do the work when you're suggesting things. Okay, we'll do it. Even if it's uncomfortable like, I don't like my picture taken. Vic doesn't. Alright, Vic's a pure actor so he doesn't mind being on camera but he was extremely nervous, extremely nervous. 

Tim Chermak: Vic pretends like he's good on camera.

April Jarunas: The camera turns on he's like, alright. But both of us we’re like so uncomfortable doing with the idea of videos. I was like a little bit more comfortable 'cause pictures, you know? Okay we can, I can hide behind a sign, I don't know. But just get over that. Like, people are people, you're normal out there. Everybody's looking at you and I don't know, maybe they're judging, maybe they're not. But this has a visual component where you're putting yourself out there and you have to get past any kind of discomfort of some people just don't naturally like to do that. And you're in good hands. Platform is not trying to make you, us look bad. You guys are making us look good, making us look better than we did. 

So I think that level of control that I felt like, oh, I don't know if I want to do that, I think I still have a little bit of that with some ads here and there, but kind of giving that up and just kind of running with it, just running with it. And get out there and do the tours, borrow the listings, take the pictures and even when you get busy,  set time aside to make sure you go and do that. It's only going to benefit you. The more that you attempt to do that and work it into your routine and not go, “Well, let's just see if this works,” but not really give it your all. Yeah, I think jumping in. 

Tim Chermak: So if Platform tells you to do an ad, don't second guess it. Just do it.

April Jarunas: Yes, but then there's some part of me that still goes, “Oh, that's uncomfortable.”  But sometimes it's okay. I had an old manager say “date the idea, don't marry it.” Don't shut the idea down right away. Just kind of go, okay, let's see if we can do this.

Tim Chermak: So what would a specific example of an ad be that maybe at first you guys were a little bit hesitant you’re like, I don't know if we want to do that one or that's weird, and then you did it and then the ad actually got a ton of really positive results?

April Jarunas: So I wasn't sure about the AC one because if you know my background, I grew up and I went to a Baptist School, and I went to an Assemblies of God Church and just kind of went away from all of that. 

Tim Chermak: Oh no way, I was raised hardcore AG, actually. Went to an Assemblies of God Bible college in college, so.

April Jarunas: Oh my gosh. So yeah, went away from all that and now, I don't even know. I got a lot of different feelings on religion or spirituality and stuff like that. And Vic, he would call, his mom said the same thing like reformed Catholic. He was in school with nuns, smacking them with rulers and stuff like that. So I don't know that we're religious in the sense that we would actually be praying for our AC unit. 

Tim Chermak: Right, right, right.

April Jarunas: But it was enough tongue in cheek that I was cool with it. That was the one that I was like, there's a lot of religious, you know, we have the Amish which is based about or based around a religious belief. And I would call like some part of this area very much a Bible belt and so I didn't know if people would take offense if it was used in that way.

Tim Chermak: So what ad she's talking about, by the way, for those people that are listening and they're like, what the hell are you talking about? It's an ad that we call it the ‘AC ad’, where it works really well in the summer during those like peak hot weeks of the summer, where it might be 90, 95 degrees, 100 degrees in some areas of the country. And we have you take this photo where you're kneeling next to your AC unit outside, like putting your hands on the AC unit as if you're praying for it. And we wrote this ad talking about, basically you're praying to the AC unit like please don't let me down in the hardest months of this year. And we sprinkle in this like religious language from the Bible. And by the way, I based this -

April Jarunas: Yeah, I have actual verses. There was an actual verse in the comments that I was like, “Oh.”  

Tim Chermak: Yeah, for those that are listening to this that are already in Platform, I actually got the idea from this from a standup bit I saw from Tim Hawkins, who's actually a Christian comedian. And he has this bit where he's like making fun of how people pray. Because if you grew up in a church there's all these catchphrases and things that people say when they pray that if you didn't grow up in a church, you'd just be like, what? Like it's a weird way of saying things like the phrase “hedge of protection,” and he's like, “Hedge of protection? What, does Satan not have scissors he can use?” And he’s like, how did that phrase become popular?

There's all these phrases that we sprinkled into this ad about like we pray for a hedge of protection around the Freon, and we pray for a double portion of Freon, ‘cause that's another phrase that people often say when they pray, a double portion of this or that. And so it's just a very tongue in cheek kind of sarcastic - it's a joke. I mean, I think anyone who reads it, it's very clear it's a joke. We're not actually trying to like make fun of church or Christianity or faith or anything like that. We actually had a client in Alabama who's a preacher's wife run the ad and they got a ton of great engagement on it.

April Jarunas: Oh, that’s funny.

Tim Chermak: It's like, if there's ever a case study where a preacher's wife in Alabama runs the ad and gets a ton of positive engagement, I think it's going to work anywhere else. 

April Jarunas: Right, right, right.

Tim Chermak: But what's interesting about that ad in particular is we've had a couple of clients who felt uncomfortable running it. And it's like, we're never going to make you run something if you actually feel uncomfortable running something. It's like, cool, you don't have to run it. But some clients are very religious and then some clients that are very atheist and they’re like, “We don't want to run the ad.” It’s like everyone in between was totally fine doing it and they got great results with that ad because I think it's just a funny way to poke fun of, I guess, how hot it gets in the summer and that we're dependent on our AC units in more ways than we realize. We just take it for granted that it always works, right?

April Jarunas: It was enough tongue-in-cheek that I was like okay, let's do it. Because I was laughing at it myself that it was enough tongue-in-cheek to do it, but yeah. That and just like the  uncomfortable, nobody likes doing listing tours. I don't think anybody likes doing listing tours, but just doing them. Just doing them and get it done.

Tim Chermak: Yup, just do it. Cool. Well, I think this has been a really interesting conversation again from someone who's about six months in. You know, you're not yet at that point where it's like, “Oh, Platform has tripled my business,” or something. But you're also not in the first month where you have no idea what's happening yet, you're just kind of dipping your toes in. You're at that point that I think most people at somewhere around the six month mark, again, whether or not they actually tell this to Platform, I know that the six month mark is when they're actually evaluating am I going to do this long term? Or am I going to move on and quit Platform and try something else? It usually happens around the six month mark where they like emotionally make that decision of, is this worth continuing or should we stop this? And I think the answer for you is pretty clear that the results you've seen so far is that you want to keep doing this.

April Jarunas: Yeah, and I would say months one to three, I don't think that I really, I didn't feel that. I was just kind of, I'm still evaluating, right? And I would say months three to six I'm going, yeah. And month six I'm going oh yeah, there's something here and if it's here now, I can't wait to see what it is down the road, so yeah.

Tim Chermak: Awesome. Would you mind sharing your cell phone for anyone listening to this who's in the Platform that just wants to connect with you? Because maybe they're in their first or second month and they're feeling like, “Oh man, I don't see this working the way I thought it was going to yet.” 

April Jarunas: Yeah. 8675309. 717-475-8438.  

Tim Chermak: That is like, oh okay. So what was your cell phone number again? 

April Jarunas: Mine was 717-475-8438.  

Tim Chermak: Okay, cool. The Jenny song, 8675309, who even sang that song? That has got to be the definition of a one hit wonder, right? 

April Jarunas: Oh, right? I don't know. 

Tim Chermak: Because everyone knows.

April Jarunas: Vic would know. I don't know. 

Tim Chermak: I mean, everyone remembers.

April Jarunas: I just know the number. 

Tim Chermak: Right, everyone knows the literal phone number from the lyrics, but no one can name the actual artist who sang it. Anyways, we will end with that. Great spot to end the episode. So, thank you guys for joining us. I think it was a really fun conversation. And April, I will see you in December at the Naples Mastermind. 

April Jarunas: Sounds good. Thanks, Tim.