When Long Term Marketing Creates Long Term Results

Sean McDonough:  When I left the Mastermind last year I said to myself, “I'm going to be up on that stage. Give me two years. I'm going to be up on that stage. I'm going to be in the Hall of Fame because I’m going to.” That's just me. I've always strived to be the best at what I do and if I'm going to be spending the money and taking the time and doing the advertising and doing this and doing that, then I'm going to be up on that stage.

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

This is your host, Tim Chermak. I'm the founder and CEO of Platform. I love marketing and I talk too much. So let's dive in. 

Tim Chermak: Hey guys, it's Tim Chermak, and welcome back to another episode of the Platform Marketing Show. I'm joined today by Sean McDonough who is in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Sean, welcome to the show!

Sean McDonough: Thank you! I'm glad to be here.  

Tim Chermak: So Sean signed up for the Platform Marketing Program about a year ago. I think it was May of 2023. And basically the whole year that you've been a client, the whole last year that you've been in the Plat Fam has been frankly, probably the toughest 12 months for real estate agents in the past 40 years.

Sean McDonough: Yeah.

Tim Chermak: I mean that was right when kind of rates were peaking. I don't think they actually rates, like the last Fed increase of rates wasn't until summer of last year. So in a sense, every month that you have been a client has been the new worst month in the real estate market because rates just kept going up, right?

And so you have some major wins that you were like paddling your canoes straight into, right? Like it basically from a macroeconomic perspective, you could not have signed up for Platform at a worse time. And yet your business is actually showing some really cool signs of things going in the right direction over the last year. Like your business hasn't gotten worse. It's not just stayed the same. It's actually gotten a lot better in the last year even though it's been such an incredibly tough economic year for realtors the last 12 to 18 months. 

Tim Chermak: So Sean, first off, give us a lay of the land, kind of tell us how long you've been a real estate agent, kind of what your story is, where your business was at before you ever tried any of this Platform stuff. And then we can kind of get into the results you've seen over the last year, but give us the backstory. Like where was your business at? How'd you get into real estate? And what ultimately led you to finding out about Platform? 

Sean McDonough: Yeah. So I started real estate back in 2020. So I came off my last deployment in 2019.

Tim Chermak: And you were in the army?

Sean McDonough: Yeah. So I was in the army special operations command. I came back from deployment 2019. I'd always talked about going into real estate, but the timing was never right. Cumulatively, I've got roughly about 10 deployments so I was always just gone. I could never commit to a class.

And so COVID hit. My wife is a traveling respiratory therapist so my command knew that. And when I walked in the building, they said “Timeout, you got to go. Your wife is in patients’ faces all day long, you can't be around us.” So the real estate course went online and I talked to a good friend of mine who I'd actually was talking about going to real estate before with. He's an agent down in the suburbs of Atlanta and he was like, “Hey man, you should just do it. At the end of the day, it's a very small investment for a very big return. Even if you only close one deal, you basically got all your money back.” So I made the jump. I started doing night classes actually online. It was live, in person, you got to sit in front of Zoom and whatnot, and so I did that. I was still on active duty. I was running a detachment of folks and so I was doing it part-time. 

So my first year, I think I closed like $1.3 million. So it wasn't too much, but you know, just enough to get my feet wet. Second year, I did a $3 million and then $5 million. And then last year I did roughly about $4.8 million from out of state. And so I kind of had that upswing and then, like you said, things just kind of started to die down. And so I kind of tapered back a little bit and that's when I knew that I had to do something different. You know, they say that the difference between longevity in agents is when you choose to double down, when you choose to really put back and invest in. And that's what I did. 

So, I ran across Platform on one of the real estate mastermind pages that I follow. Somebody talked about marketing. And a little bit about my background in special operations command was basically marketing in a nutshell, right? It's just getting people to do what we need them to do essentially, and figuring out how we're going to do that. 

So I set up a call with Diana and we talked and I said, “You know what? This sounds like it's something I want to do” and I signed up. Knowing the costs and everything else, obviously, I was a little hesitant because we're in a down market but I said, you know what? Something's got to change, I have to do something different. If I don't get out of my comfort zone, if I don't hustle to make this work then I'm going to just keep doing the same thing year after year. 

Tim Chermak: Well, you know, it's that old saying, “If nothing changes, nothing changes” 

Sean McDonough: Yeah, that's right. And what is the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again, expecting different results. You know, prior to Platform, my Facebook marketing was, you know, “Oh, I just closed the house,” or “I just got this client under contract” or this and this. I wasn't really following that rule of like 70% needs to be something other than real estate or something kind of real estate-related and then the other 30 is dedicated to… I hadn't really reached back into my own roots, if you will, of what I know needs to happen. I was just kind of following the trend of all the other agents in my area. So that's when I knew that this was for me. 

Tim Chermak: And so you signed up about a year ago. So again, we're having this interview around the time that Sean has been working with Platform for about 12 months. You attended your first Mastermind last year so that would have been at around the six-month mark with Platform. You were at our Naples, Florida Mastermind. And that was when I'm assuming you met Angie Cole, who's actually one of the speakers at our Mastermind last year. 

Angie runs a really successful team in North Carolina and she kind of shared the numbers of her brokerage, her team, kind of how she thinks about marketing all the staff they have to follow up with leads and just, she has a well-oiled machine. 

Sean McDonough: Oh, yeah. 

Tim Chermak: And at that point, I know you were kind of thinking about a new brokerage, a new team. You kind of needed a change of scenery. So we've actually never talked about it, but I know that you actually moved to joining ACR, A. Cole Realty, her team, which I think she's now with LPT, right? 

Sean McDonough: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Chermak: And I'm assuming that's probably where you met her. What was that connection? What made you want to join Angie, join her team? 

Sean McDonough: Yeah. So just going back to the Mastermind, right? Like, I'm not gonna lie, it was kind of a whim decision. I hadn't really had any closings in about two months or so. That was also about the time that I was transitioning, retiring from the military. And so for those listening that have been in the military, they know that when you get out, whether, and I did a retirement, but when you get out, there's like a solid two, sometimes three months where you get no paycheck at all. The army is like settling your debts, if you have any, they're auditing your accounts, they're making sure that everything's good to go. And then they'll pay you. 

So that was about the time where I was like month one and a half with no paycheck. And I was talking to Amanda and she was like, “Look, if you can afford it, you need to go.” And so we're actually sitting in Boston, we're up in the Salem area for their Halloween celebration and I told my wife, I was like, “Man, I gotta go.” And she was like, “Yeah. Go.” She's been fully supportive of everything I've done. So she was like “Yeah, absolutely. Go.” She was going to come with me but she had to work. 

And again, that's where I met Angie. And so just hearing her talk and her transparency on everything, right? Like opening her books and telling us where all her money goes and how her company operates. I was like, I was amazed. And so I caught her after she was done speaking, it was like right after lunch. And I said, “Hey I'd love to sit down with you and chat and see how your brokerages ran, talk about the monetary side of things and what we have to offer each other.” Because at the end of the day, that's how she looks at business. She looks at it as like, “Yeah, they're at my firm, but we work with each other. “

Sean McDonough: Every time I talk to Angie it's, “How can I help you with your business today? What can I do for you?” and she's just phenomenal. And so doing kind of almost the same numbers year after year, not really pushing, not really challenging myself and being around people where I was the top producer on my firm. So I needed to level up. I needed to get past that threshold. And Angie's team just has really done it. I mean, she's got some people in there where I joke around with her and I'm like, “Oh, I can't be on Alex's level yet, but I'll get there soon.” And she just laughs. And I'm like, “No man, that's for real. I want to be at that level eventually, you know?”  And that's what made me do the jump.

She said, “Hey, when you come over in conjunction with Platform and some of the other things that you're doing, I have no doubt that you're going to have a ton of business.” My first month I was like, “Oh this sucks. I'm starting over.’ But then it was like, bam, bam, bam, bam, client after client after client. And I'm the only agent down here that lives in the Fayetteville region for her. So I'm kind of like a solo agent down here. So most of the stuff that comes down here, if she feels it's going to be a good fit, she sends it right to me. And it's just like, I'm just popping a pop. My wife has said that this is the busiest she's seen me in years. And she feels like I'm working more now than I did when I was in the military. And I tell her all the time I am, but I thoroughly enjoy what I do so I don't really see it as work that's why I'm doing it so much. 

Sean McDonough: But you know, the Mastermind is what really kind of opened my eyes to everything. Sitting there, I forget who I was sitting next to, but I was sitting there and they introduce you out and like this whole big spectacle and I looked around, I'm like, “Did I join a cult? What's going on here?” But then seeing everybody's energy and seeing your genuineness and talking to Amanda in person and talking to Andrew and everybody else, I was like, “Oh yeah, this is where I need to be.”

I'm going to tell a little story here that nobody has heard before. But this was like my Aha moment, right? This is what also led me in conjunction to moving over to ACR was, I was checking into the hotel and I had my business card with me. And I swiped it and she was like, “It didn't go through.” And I was like, “Wait, what? That's impossible.” And at first I thought it was a fraud alert and it wasn't. Like I had just reached that point and I'd kind of lost track of all my spending and I had the money there. I just had to, you move it over and whatnot.

And I was like, okay, this is that moment where I know I haven't hit rock bottom, but I kind of feel like it ‘cause I've never had that happen to me before. So I was like, all right, I'm here, it's time to double down, it's time to get to business. And when I left the Mastermind, I kept that thought in the back of my mind.

And I kept everything that you guys said in mind and I did the “God created a small business owner” video and I did a bunch of other things and I hired my buddy who's a videographer to follow me around so that I could be in the videos instead of just doing the man behind the camera. I took a lot of the tips, ordered some of the books, and I just really hit the ground running and it's been great ever since.  

Tim Chermak: Yeah, and for those listening who aren't familiar with the Platform Masterminds, it’s kind of like a private mastermind event that we put on every year for our clients. We actually don't charge anything to attend. So it's not like you have to buy a ticket for a thousand dollars or $2,000 like I see some of these other conferences are charging. It's genuinely free. You just need to get there and get a hotel room. But it's our kind of annual family reunion for all of our clients in Platform Marketing. We have a couple hundred people attend every year. This year is actually probably going to be closer to like 300 people in attendance.

Again, it's totally free. And we tell people, if you're working with Platform, you owe it to yourself to be in that room. I can't figure why you would ever not be there especially when the ticket is free. It's like for you to be able to be physically be in a room with other agents that are using the Platform Marketing strategy. Everyone's in a different market, obviously, so no one is in competition with each other in that room. 

People are just so giving and sharing and they have like an abundance mindset. I know that's a super cliché phrase and people overuse that all the time, “Oh look an abundance mentality, abundance mindset.” But it really is in the Platform room because everyone knows they have nothing to fear from other agents in the room because no one is competition. Obviously we only work with one agent per market. 

So the vibe in that room is just different than other conferences or seminars or masterminds that you might attend. So I'm glad that you had that experience. 

Sean McDonough: Yeah. I mean, it's phenomenal. Like you said, the event was free and that was like the biggest thing. I was like, okay, well, I don't have to pay for anything. I just got to pay for my room, my flight. If I choose to fly or I can drive. And then I looked up how far Naples was from where I live. And I was like, “Uh, I'm going to fly. It's pretty cheap.” And so I just made the jump and I'll tell you, like you said, nobody is scared to share their trade secrets. Nobody is. Because we're the only ones in our market. 

And so I found a lot of collaboration out of that. I was talking to one of the agents down in Florida where I have guys moving to all the time with the military. And I was like, “Hey, let's do a collaboration one day. I'll start up at Fort Liberty now, but at the time it was Fort Bragg where the school house is for your guys. We'll do like a crazy little intro and then I'll throw up a set of keys and on the back end, you catch them because they're PCSing down to where you live.”

Sean McDonough: So then you know, that can be used for vice versa. So you just don't get that at other places. You get a lot of like, “It's mine. I'm going to hold onto it. It's my idea.” And I didn't feel that at all. I mean, everybody was very very welcoming and like you said, it was like a huge family reunion. Everybody's walking around, hugging, saying hey. And to be in the room with people that are hundreds of millions of dollars in business, and you're just like in awe like, “Okay. I need to learn everything I can and soak this up because these folks are getting after it.” 

I mean, Kara Newton's a great example of that. She's an hour and a half up the road from me. We kind of overlap a little bit in some areas. And it's great though because I'm always watching her. I follow her Facebook page and before I post something I'm like, “Would Kara post this? Yes, she would. I'm going to go ahead and do that.” Right? Because I listened to her podcast and I was like, “Okay, well, three posts a day, it can be kind of hard.” 

Even if I'm not doing anything with real estate that day, I'll still post something. Like this morning I posted I made some konjac protein pancakes for breakfast and I was like, “Got to get my protein in before the day starts. Big day today blah, blah, blah…” So it's just little things, right? Learning little things so that you can kind of cheat the algorithm and stay on top. And had I not gone to the Mastermind, I wouldn't know who Kara is. I wouldn't follow her. But I do. You know Michael Foran, Jae VonBank, like all those people that I've listened to on the podcast, I'm just like, “Man, I gotta get there. I gotta stop being a small fish.” So…

Tim Chermak: Yeah, you know there's just something about when you get in a room and you're physically proximate with other agents. It's different than being on a Zoom call or a webinar. You know, it's like when you're in physically a room or you're going to lunch with them or having dinner drinks with them and you get to know these people because they're probably, at least in Platform, we have a private Facebook group for our clients, a lot of people have interacted with some agents in there for six months or for a year and they feel like they kind of know them. But then when you meet up in person, it's like, “Oh, that's right.” Like you already feel like your friends but you've never actually met before ‘cause it was all in the Facebook group and everyone obviously goes out to dinner every night together. And it's just nice meeting people in person. I think when our culture is so Zoom-centric and remote now that getting together in person is actually really special. 

The other thing that I think is very valuable about the mastermind from the realtor perspective is that you get to actually hang out and connect with your account manager. So the person you're having your weekly phone calls with is not just some random tech support employee in India or something. It's an actual American here. They understand marketing, they know Facebook ads, they understand strategy and everything. At the Platform mastermind, that person that you're doing your weekly phone calls with, you'll actually get to meet them and talk with them.

Sean McDonough: Yeah, I get to see the person that yells at me every week to get my content in. 

Tim Chermak: Yes! And they can yell at you in person. You can grab lunch together again, like dinner drinks. You get to know them and you realize, “Hey, they're a person too.” And now when you feel like you have that in person relationship to where you got to know them a little bit, now all those phone calls in the future are even more powerful ‘cause it feels like more of a friendship. 

And I've just yet to see any, I mean, I'm biased obviously, I'm the founder and CEO or Platform, but I've yet to see any other company really have that dynamic where the account managers really get to know the clients ‘cause I think that serves you at a higher level when they really deeply get to know you. It's not just warm fuzzies of, oh it feels good. It's like, it actually affects the marketing because the deeper they get to know you on an emotional level and they really know your story and who you are, the better ads that we can write for you.

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