This is the same for pretty much any business, but mostly, this is really powerful for service based businesses, so real estate, mortgage lenders, insurance builders, etc.

And I’m speaking to mostly real estate agent, but if you are in the service business, you need to start doing this today.

And I’m going to walk you through this and I’m going to give you an insane list that I have gathered together of different ways and ideas to facilitate this for you and that’s what we are going to talk about today.

I’m really excited. Today, I’m going to talk about the number one thing you should be doing to bring in business but I’m not just going to tell you.

I’m going to give you a plethora of ideas so that you never run out, so you never sit there going “so I know I’m supposed to be doing this but what was it again?” etc, etc. So I’m actually going to give you a boatload of stuff around this today.

And I want to make sure that you actually have; I’m going to do this, this is my resource. I’m going to copy this is in for you in just a second, okay.

So here’s the thing. Here’s the number one thing you should be doing and if you want my notes, just comment in the Facebook Live video above and then respond to #RIBBIT in Messenger.

You can say whatever you want. I set up #RIBBIT to send it to you but you’ve got to go over to Messenger and respond to him in order to get it.

So what is the number one thing that you need to be doing starting today?

When I say “start today,” I mean you start and essentially you will never finish. You need to do this every single day, same time every day, well, every work day. You need to rest on some days.

What Do You Think It Is?

I mean, some of you may have already got the notes already so no cheating but what do you think is the number one thing you should be doing everyday?

It’s actually very, very simple, but at the same time, we don’t do it.

Do you know what it is?

The #1 Tool

It is to send “handwritten” notes. You need to send out cards.

Now, let me explain this, a couple of things. I need to tell you exactly what we did in our real estate business, how we used the tools and how we morphed and transitioned and how I’m using it in Leads And Leverage, etc.

To start this all out with, I currently use SendOutCards. I’ve been using SendOutCards for almost ten year and I started out doing handwritten notes.

I had a stack of cards, in fact, it’s right here behind me. I still have massive stacks of cards because my stationary addiction is real. And I still buy real cards so I still have to use real cards.

But, I would literally have a stack of cards on my desk. I would go in the morning and I would just randomly, I would make myself find ten people to send cards to.

I just keep a little list on a yellow pad, red pen, keep it on there so that I knew as I wrote down who I sent cards to, I didn’t like send them a card four days later for the same thing.  

Because after ten, twenty, thirty cards, you forget who’ve you sent cards to.

So here’s the thing with this- you need to send cards. And there are so many different ways.  I’m going to give you again a boatload of resources.

Now, I still send out handwritten cards. I also mostly now, because you all are not right here local to me. I really like the ability to use SendOutCards and I’m going to give you the link to do this so that you can do it because if you are not a SendOutCards member, and if you sign up under me, I’m giving free gifts to everybody who signs up under me.

Now here’s what I did. I started by just sending handwritten notes. We were also heavy, heavy expired prospectors, so we had a lot of our listings were expired listings. So what we would do is we would send mail. I never made a phone call and I never did an in-person delivery with expireds ever. I only ever did direct mail. They called us, period.

That’s what I did. I was leveraging time, I was doing so many I was like “I’m not going to, I don’t have time. We had a lot of listings and we were growing the business so I did all direct mail.

So initially we had our own direct mail process for expireds, but then, after I had been using SendOutCards for awhile I went “why don’t I just put this all inside of SendOutCards?” because I was actually did calculate the costs and I was like “you know it’s costing me a $1 something for this.

I’m just going to use this in here.” So I set it up for automatic and it was really amazing. It was actually gift…like cards so they actually got cards from us, which was better than what we were sending before. That was that.

Then we did for every flying the flag day, every holiday, every single thing and now again I have given you a boat ton of ideas and if you comment in this Facebook Live, they’re coming over to you and like they’re insane, like ten messages coming to you with a ton of ideas of what to send, when to send, etc.

A Couple Of Key Things

But here’s the thing, you do it consistently. And here’s a couple of key things to this.

Number one

Do not be that smarmy, show your chest hair, gold jewelry salesperson and everytime you send a card like a Labor Day or a Thanksgiving card you ask for business.

Don’t flipping do that. You are not, unless you are like one of those people, don’t do that.

If you actually want them to open your cards and open your notes you need to send to send them stuff, for them.

Absolutely, you can send sales pitches, but they need to be seperate from the holiday greetings, and they need to also be one out of every four or five things you send them so that they’re not turned off to opening what you are giving them.

This is key. This is absolutely key.

So you need to give people cards and letters. You need to send it and there are so many ideas and I don’t even know if all of these ideas got on there but here’s the thing right now this needs to be a top priority.

This should be the #1 thing, the very first thing, the absolute first thing you do you do the minute that you sit down at your desk, absolutely.

So we did it for our business. That’s what we did.

I sent it to past referrals. Now, that’s both people who have given us referrals as individuals, customers and agents. Always. I would send it. I would make sure that once a month, I would send those. That’s what I loved about SendOutCards.

I could automate that process. I could put my own message in and automate that process.

I would do it to agents- every time I went to a conference or an expo and I would get cards, their business cards, guess what they got from me? SendOutCards!

And not just once. Not just once. I would set them up to get something from me especially agents from out of town about every six weeks. I would set that up like that.

Why?

Because I wanted to stay in connection and I did not just say Hey, I’d like your referrals!” I actually had a reason for sending, and a reason to give them value in stuff. I would find things that I thought you know this is a good resource for agents. This is a this, this is a whatever.

This is the thing- whatever you are going to use,whether you use something like SendOutCards or you do your own note cards like I said I do a combination of both still.

I still do a combination of both because I again I am a stationery addict. I’m incapable of walking in a store and not coming out without something like a journal, post-its or note cards. There seriously needs to be a stationery anonymous group for people like me.

So I do both. I have both of those.  Here’s the thing- you need to be sending… Just do a yellow tablet, red pen, and keep it on your desk and keep a stack of cards there. Or set up SendOutCards. Or do both.

I want you to make sure that you send it to all your past referrals. You need to send it to agents that you’ve met over the last twelve months.

You need to do the back-to-school pictures that are on Facebook. People putting out their back-to-school pictures. Put those on cards like one on the front of a card and send it to the person because then they could put that on their fridge.

Who actually prints pictures anymore? Most of us don’t!

That’s really an amazing, valuable thing that you can do for them. You could do that in a regular card if you just want to print it and send that or with SendOutCards. You could put it on the front of a card. You could do that either way.

You need to do birthdays. And I’m not talking go say Happy Birthday on their page. I’m not talking say do a video. Yeah, sure, go ahead do a video.

You should but I would also send them a card for their birthday. If they went out and celebrated on their birthday like on Facebook I would send a picture of that using SendOutCards.  If you want to send it ahead of time, send a card wishing them a Happy Birthday.

So what I do right now because I did that for my clients and stuff, what I do right now for my members every single week, I check to and see everybody who has a birthday coming up so I’m usually about ten days ahead. So I check once a week for everybody who has a birthday coming up.

I send them a birthday card and a two-pack of the SendOutCards brownies. Now the SendOutCards brownies are freaking insane. I’m allergic to wheat so I cannot have them. I did have them before and they are so good, they are so good. I send those out to everybody who is a member for their birthday.

I like doing that. That’s what I have fun doing so you need to do this. People like getting this.

Also for people who used to be members or people who, some of you have maybe bought one of the courses but not the membership, etc. I still send out birthday cards to you all. Because why?

Because I like to. It’s that you don’t need to just do this for your clients, You need to do this for everybody. You need to just send it out for homeowner anniversaries.

You need to…this is a really great one, when people go on vacations or experiences and they share their insane amount of pictures on their albums, you can go into SendOutCards and you can create a tri-fold card, so it’s a decent sized tri-fold card and you can put a smattering of their pictures on the front, on the back, everywhere and just say “it looks like you had a good time! Thought you might like these as a remembrance.”

Something super easy, and nice and friendly that you can do.

And you send it to them, because they probably haven’t gotten their vacation pictures printed yet. Do that. People like that.

And here’s the thing- if you sign up for SendOutCards and you join under the $97/month…I think it’s the Premium membership.

All of these cards that I’m telling you, all of these random, not scheduled cards they are all free. The card is free, the postage is free because you are sending stuff as it happens. It’s a really a huge benefit of SendOutCards.

Now, everyone you meet up with- if you meet somebody at a coffee shop, if you run in somebody somewhere or wherever, take a picture, take a selfie with them, and send them a card, saying “Hey it was nice to see you! Nice to connect with you!” Do that!

Number two

Use Punchbowl.com. I forgot to post this link, so I will be sure to send this to you, but use Punchbowl.com for random “day ideas.”

And what I mean by that is like National Dog Day. Did anybody hear about that this last couple days?  All those people posting pictures of their dogs…

Dude, dude, I’ve got boys in the house if you can’t tell, but dude, you need to take their picture of their pet, of their dog, turn it into a card and send it to them! Yeah totally free, takes no time and is super easy to do!

Time Block

You need to set up your calendar to time block sending cards. You can do it daily first thing or you can do it send a certain amount of cards. You can do it every single week. You can team up with local businesses, coffee shops, frozen yogurt places, food trucks and send out cards with special coupons in them to your database. So many things.

Outsource It

So here’s the thing- once you start getting busy, you’re probably going to toss aside this ritual and you can’t do that. Once you have set up a ritual or a system you need to outsource it and so this is what I do.

For the birthdays I picked the cards that I like. I picked what I wanted to say so I gave our team several different things that I wanted to say in the birthday cards and told them what I wanted sent.

So now, I actually have a team member that checks the birthdays so they check all the birthdays that are coming up and then they send them, based on what I said and the cards I picked, etc. They send them for me, right?

That’s outsourcing but it’s still my voice. I still wrote it and it’s still me doing that.

When we have wins in our membership, people who are opening brokerages or getting a certain number of leads or heck, doing their first Facebook Live, we’re sending those.

And we have it set up so that my team keeps track of them and then they say once a week “Okay what do you want to say on each of these cards?”

They already know the cards that I want to send. I just quickly type what I want to say to them and they send it out for me. So, that’s outsourcing. It’s still my voice. I still know it’s coming to the people. I still want it done but I set up the process for them so that it’s outsourced.

Build Relationships

So as you grow, you need to make sure that you have a way to continue to do these touches with people and really this is building relationships. This is making friends, this is growing your business.

And it is so important and it’s really important that you do this with your fellow real estate agents – watch your colleagues and congratulate them and help them, etc, etc.

Every single thing. You want to make sure that you do that.

People Like Note Cards and Gift Cards

You also need to make sure that you are sending out cards. You have to send out cards. You can’t just start this and then stop. This needs to be important to you.

People like note cards and gift cards.

Now I just started the birthday stuff out to members in May, yeah, I started in May, because I was like “Why am I not doing this? I mean like “I have no idea!” I had just been doing birthday cards but I was like I need to do more so I decided to up my game and started doing more.

We also do random appreciation things so when people do random stuff like something big, they achieved something big we send them gifts.

All this kind of stuff so you know you can watch on Facebook milestones in people’s lives. Just do that.

Don’t get lost in the tunnel that is Facebook but make sure that you have something set up. Use what I gave you as trigger points.

Get a yellow pad and a red pen and keep a stack of cards next to there. Put a time block on your daily schedule or on your weekly schedule to check.

So I have my team doing the set stuff and I have still have my weekly schedule set. It’s Wednesday mornings that I go in and I look and see what else I can send cards to.

My goal, my goal, I want to be at where I’m sending five hundred cards a month. That’s where I want to be at. And I think we’re at like right around 150-200. I want to send that many individual cards. This is not my group stuff. This is not my campaign stuff.   

You can do so many different things! But you want to give people a real card, real, in their hands, tangible. People like that. At Christmas, send Christmas cards, etc.

Words To The Rescue

So, there are so many things you can do. If you are not a member of SendOutCards, if you use this link that I just put in there for you in the comments, if you use that link, I will be sending you a free gift!

Yeah, a free gift! Because a lot of times, we have a hard time knowing what to say, right? If you join the $97 a month Premium membership, you can send me an email but I’ll know that you joined.

And so one of the things that I use is this amazing little book. It’s called “Words to the Rescue.” Now yes, you can go buy this book. I think it’s available on Amazon. It’s like $10 or $12 on Amazon but I give this as a gift to anybody who signs up under my SendOutCards under the $97 a month and they just switched to that.

And with the $97 a month you can send unlimited amounts of free cards. These are for the random ones where you have to do it every single day. You can’t schedule it. They can’t be like all your Christmas cards that you’re going to say the same thing to everybody. So this is all different.

Reconnect With People

I’m working on upping my card game so I am actually going back to looking at my Facebook, the people that I’m connected with that are not my clients or prospects but maybe that they’re people that I know because I’ve met them in the industry and not real estate industry but in the online business industry.

Those people are going to start getting cards from me too because I need to send more.

I need to develop more relationships.

This is how important this is like it is key and I think so many of these businesses, vendors that are selling you stuff that you pay for every single month you’re not getting any human touch from it.

None and so that’s why I think it’s one of the reasons why we are all into the shiny objects syndrome because we bounce around all the time.   

But, just think about this- if you, as a real estate agent, if you are not giving your people, the people that you want to stay in touch with, the people you want to use  your business services, if you are not giving them any human connection with you, is it any wonder why they might actually even it it’s a family member or a friend, is it any wonder they might actually use someone else for their real estate business? Like seriously.

It’s so mind numbingly obvious to me why because we are not actually trying to have a relationship with them. We are banking on the fact that “oh, they are my sister-in-law or my cousin or my pastor or whatever. They know I’m in real estate.”

If you are not working on a relationship, you don’t have a relationship. You have a “I know them but if you’re not actually working on that relationship you don’t have one.

You need to be sending cards. You need to be giving people a reason to want to stay in a relationship with you. Seriously, you do.

Send cards. Use SendOutCards if you’ve got it. Use my link if you want it but send cards.

This truly is the number one thing every single person should be doing, starting from before they get into real estate and never stopping.

This is like the number one key.

Leveraging Facebook

And you can leverage Facebook for this. That is what’s so great about Facebook.

Facebook’s got this great little announcement thing that every single person that you’re a friend with, it tells you that their birthdays are coming up, In fact you can see upcoming birthdays for the next several weeks or months.

You can’t see mine though because mine is actually turned off. Some people do turn off their birthdays. I turned mine off on Facebook because I don’t like five hundred “Happy Birthday” things on my feed. I just don’t. But that is me personally. That is me alone. I don’t know that there is anybody else that is like that, about that like me.  

So just assume pretty much everyone else has got their birthday put into Facebook and it’s available for you to see so definitely use it.  

Let’s Crowdsource

I want to do something really fast-I would love to crowdsource with you guys, right now. Could you do me a favor?

Don’t look at the notes that I’ve sent you. If you’ve already got the notes don’t look at them but do me a favor and write out different reasons or why’s that you have sent cards in the past even if it’s the mind-blaringly obvious happy birthday or happy anniversary or whatever.

Please, please, please, put those in the comments of this Facebook Live. I will add them to the resource list but I would love to see your ideas and I would love you to see ideas from other people so just share it.  

If it’s a birthday, if it’s an anniversary, if it’s a home closing, if it’s a seven day after thing, etc., all along those lines.

Questions and Discussion

Jimmy says: 

On the back of the card absolutely you should brand the card.

Absolutely, absolutely.  

When I send cards that are meant for birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, fun stuff, not sales stuff right? When I send cards like that, my information is always on the back, absolutely.

But, on the inside, I don’t say “Christina Ethridge LeadsAndLeverage.com.” I don’t do that. I just sign it  “Christina.” They can see on the return address and on the back who I am and what it is. I want them to realize that my focus is them not everything else. That is huge!

Graduation for their kids! Yes absolutely. You know what? Also, this is a big one. Oh I need to do this. I need to send this off but people who are sending off their kids to college.

So we have a few friends that their kids are like we’re in we’re in by Washington State. So we’re in North Idaho.

We have a few friends whose kids are going to college in Manhattan. That’s a big distance! And they’re showing pictures and I’m going to take some of those pictures and put them on cards. That’s a big one. We have some, it doesn’t matter what the distance is. You should be sending it.

Home closings- yes!  People who do nice things, yes! The nice thing could be as simple as just mentioning something. I mean like really take advantage of this kind of stuff and it could be just be saying “Thanks for being cheerful. It could be whatever and send it.

So if you set yourself up with the requirements that you must send ten cards before you can do everything else like literally, you set that boundary for you, you are going to come up with some really creative ideas and ways to send cards which is where the book “Words to the Rescue” is really nice to have on hand because you’re going to go “Oh my gosh I don’t know what to say.”

Somebody is going to be on Facebook and you’re going to be looking on Facebook going okay they said they were sick. I’m going to send them a get well card. Okay they said they were stressed so I’m going to send them a I don’t know a “I’m voting for you” or “I’m with you” card. Okay they said someone died, I’m going to send them a sympathy card.

Jimmy says: 

Yes  you can do that and actually what I would do for an open house attendee; let’s take it a notch on this. Another idea  for an open house attendee. Give them, don’t sell them, give them a resource.

Like in the card itself, give them a resource and say “You came to the open house, but I wanted to actually give you a resource.” With SendOutCards you could use an entire letter sized card. You could actually send open house attendees a checklist template or something like that so when they go to other open houses, they can compare houses like their favorite things that they liked, didn’t like, etc.

You can totally do that and just say “Hey you were at the open house today and I just thought if you like going to open houses and you’re looking this might come in handy for you.” That’s contextual. That would work.

One year purchase anniversary, absolutely, vendors, yes! So you could send it to….I would send it to vendors especially if you have relationships with lender or inspectors.

I would even send cards, treats and stuff to your county assessor or to wherever you go to get your driver’s license.

I mean dude, those people at the DMV, you might want to actually take something into them but you know they don’t get a lot of love over there.

They just don’t. Take some treats into them. You know do that.

Do DMV, do the vehicle licensing, do driver licensing.  Ours are in two different offices. Take it to escrow companies. All kinds of things. You know anything.

You can do so many different things to just build relationships in places where people do not even think about it and when you do something like the DMV you can go ahead and mail it if you want to but if you get individual people’s  information, mail them cards.Thank them.

If you go to the DMV; I’m going to use that example, and say you get your license renewed, go ahead and send a card to the DMV to attention to that person, and just say “Thanks for making something that takes so long just so much more pleasant or if they were happy, if they were pleasant or if they were just really nice and helpful, whatever, say that.

Do that.

Just know that you don’t like standing in line at the DMV…well look at them. Their butts and their feet are planted to one place all day dealing with you all grumps that  have had to wait in line to an hour to an hour and a half or two hours or three hours, whatever it is.

Just think about it from their end. Send them cards, send them cards, send them treats, send them all kinds of stuff! Banks,stores, everything.

Find out individual people and do it. .Do it to the whole group of them. It doesn’t matter.

Home repair, lawn mowing places, all of those kind of places.  HVAC, everything; send cards.

So I sent you a billion and one ideas and reasons, etc. If you commented in the Facebook Live above it will be sent over to you via #RIBBIT. You’ve got to respond to #RIBBIT in #RIBBIT’s Messenger,to get it.

If you signed up for SendOutCards so if you sign up like I was saying and you use my link, I’m going to be sending out copies of “Words to the Rescue,” as a free gift and it’s actually going to come from my home here, because I bought a whole bunch of these to give out.

Thank you so much for joining me today, as always and again, if you are wanting all kinds of ideas, I will be answering your questions in future Facebook Lives.

Join Me Inside The Vault

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Did you know or do you know that there is essentially ONE reason and ONE reason only that you’re not capturing, converting, and closing Facebook leads?

I am serious.

It’s pretty much one reason and one reason only and we’re going to dive into this today because here’s why:

Because I see a lot of members struggling with this reason. A lot of the agents I work with struggling with this reason, my coaching clients, and myself.

I see this in all industries. I see this in all businesses. I see this in a whole lot of areas. I see a lot of people struggling with the same thing.

Today, I am doing something a bit different because Facebook, this is a sneaky little training in here. Facebook is liking vertical videos. They’re liking it because we mostly watch this on our phone, all of that kind of stuff so I’m “Okay, I will go ahead and do a vertical video today!” Which means I can’t actually schedule it ahead of time and notify you ahead of time so there are some downfalls, but we’re here. It’s on vertical video.

I have a freebie I am sending out to you tomorrow because I am doing this differently. I couldn’t actually send it out today. So if you comment right in the video above, go over to Messenger and let #RIBBIT know, yeah I want it and I am going to send it to you.

So here’s the thing. There is actually one reason and one reason only that you’re not capturing, converting and closing Facebook leads.

Guess what you think the #1 reason is

And I am going to talk about this with you because it’s a discussion going on in my membership group amongst agents. And it’s not just agents that are dealing with this and I have to let you know it’s not just agents, it’s everybody, everywhere.

But I am struggling with it too.

I am struggling with it too. I always struggle with it.  What is it? Can you guess? I actually want to know if you can guess? Guess what you think the #1 reason is that you’re not capturing, converting real estate leads from Facebook.

Now, I know I keep looking over my notes on my computer throughout the actual thread or the post that’s happening inside of our membership group and I know some of you already know and you’re like “How is this a reason Christina? How is this working?”

Here’s the truth:

We like to use the idea,  we like to declare that we’re multi-passionate. We’re interested in a lot of different things, right? So we say, we’re multi-passionate so I want to do multiple business at once or I want to do multiple things at once so why is this like, why do we hold this up, like I am different. I am unique. I am multi-passionate.

But what you’re really doing is allowing yourself to be distracted. You’re justifying your desires to do only the “fun” stuff which is thinking of new ideas, starting something new, the stuff that gives you the dopamine rush and you’re not actually doing the stuff that is boring and droll and boring and droll.

Do you really think based on his history that Elon Musk is multi-passionate? Do you? Like seriously, Elon Musk. I mean PayPal, Tesla, whatever else he’s doing, he is multi-passionate but do you know why he is successful?

Because when he picks something, when he says something, when he is focused on it, guess what happens? He doesn’t focus on anything else.

So some of you are like “Well I was. .” I am going to use this as an example. “I was waiting for this step to happen and it was outside of my control so I went over and I’ve started another business, and now I am back over here.”

Don’t allow yourself to get distracted

That is just distraction because there are things you need to do. When you’re trying to build a business you cannot allow yourself to get distracted by other fun businesses if you actually want to succeed.

If you try to make this so you’re not always stressed…if you actually build multiple businesses, guess what you need to do? You need to stay focused on that ONE business and guess what else you need to do?

You need to do the “boring” stuff over and over and over and over again. The stuff that you’re like “that’s beneath me, I’m tired of that, I hate that, I don’t want to do that!”

I completely relate to you completely, completely relate. Why?

Well because we have another couple of businesses that we’re starting. I tried to do it last year and I realized last year about 12-14 months ago, and I realized you know what I am doing?

I actually, was a jack of all trades and a master of none and I’m not actually going to succeed because I am distracted.  Meaning I had multiple businesses going on so what did I do?

I was like,”I need to set that aside, this is my focus.” This is my focus. This is what I am doing. Well now is the time. Now we are starting another business. Guess what? I am not the face of those businesses. I am just advising those businesses, doing some advising. They’re doing all the implementing.

So in other words, I can be multi passionate but I am still focused on this one. I am still building this one. And so that’s why you have to be very careful. If you’re out there like I’m building a website for this or building this for that, I’m doing this and doing that, that’s just an excuse to not actually do the stuff you really don’t want to do in real estate.

It really is! You cannot successfully build, focus on multiple businesses at the same time unless you have someone else who do the focus for you.

And so that is what we have. We meet once, well we actually meet once a week and the face of one of the other businesses she’s doing the work, I am just setting the schedule, saying we need to do this, this and this at these times. So right now that is what’s happening.

And then the other business…Again I am just setting the schedule, kind of the consulting piece of it, the stuff we need to get going.

The number one reason you’re not doing this is because you are distracted! You’re allowing yourself to lose focus!

In other words, you’re not being consistent. You’re not doing everything you have to do  every single day you have to do it. Flat out. It’s that simple. It’s just is.

We don’t want to hear this. We don’t want to hear this. We like the idea that we’re multi passionate or that I am creative or I’m this or I’m that – Literally, I don’t care if you’re “Mr. I do spreadsheets” or  “Miss.I decorate the world.”

Master Your Focus

I don’t care. If you’re bouncing around between things that has nothing to do with your artistic abilities or inclinations that has everything to do with your ability to master your focus, with your ability to build a self-disciplined  muscle. That’s it.

Why on earth, why on earth are there creatives out there who build amazing businesses? Because they focused on that business.

 And some of us are sitting around doing nothing. Well we’re doing stuff but we can’t figure out why we’re not getting to the next step. It’s because we’re allowing ourselves to be distracted. Period. 

Now here’s the thing. There might be some underlying issues. There might be self sabotage going on, on your part. There might be some other things. You think it’s because you’re multi-passionate. You think it’s because you want to start multiple businesses or something like that. You gotta dig to the underneath.

You need to do what you need to do as far as building your business but you gotta dig under and figure out what’s going on and why.

Every single one of us are going to “self-sabotage” at some point along the line. Period.

We’re either going to hit an income barrier and deal with our money issues because every single person has money issues even Bill Gates. Money issues that they had to work through. Period.

Every single person has it. It may be different issues for different people. Guilt for earning it, giving it away, not being able to keep it. All of these things. We all have these issues because there is so much drama surrounding money so we have to deal with those. We have to deal with what we’re doing to “self-sabotage” etc.

The 5 Second Rule

Yesterday when I talked about all the different books, I talked about “The 5 Second Rule.” The reason I love this book, if you cannot afford the book or cannot get the book, do me a favor and Google Mel Robbins’ Ted Talk “ The 5 Second Rule” Go Google or go YouTube it.

Go listen to it. It’s really a great talk. It’s what really blew this whole thing up but the “5 Second Rule” is just an amazing, fast, little cerebral change in our brain.  

So the minute we think that “Oh I need to, I’m here, I’m doing real estate, I need to go over and do the soccer business, 5,4,3,2,1 GO BACK and do you’re supposed to be doing.”

 Get your stuff done. If you don’t have it time blocked, if you haven’t time blocked yourself for success, you’re not going to succeed. You’re literally going to be a jack of all trades and master of none. You will be. 

Your distraction, your lack of focus….don’t claim ADD OR ADHD. That is an excuse. An absolute excuse. Absolutely an excuse. Yes, it might be an issue for some of you but for most of you who claim you have it if you would just give up the sugars, grains and starches and like give your brain some mental clarity you’ll get over that.

Don’t Use Excuses

Yeah, I am kind of preaching on this because it drives me nuts we use excuses. You might have clinical depression,not like “I’m depressed” but like real depression on some medication. You can still develop the muscle of self discipline and pushing through.

It might need to be really small things. It might need to be tiny, tiny, tiny little steps everyday. I do mean tiny. I mean it might simply need to be “I need to go take my shower” That’s where I was 5 years ago, not from depression, but I actually had, have a disease that I am managing now.

So here’s the thing. You start small. Every single one of us stop using excuses to not do what you need to do. Stop using excuses to not be who you want to be. Stop looking so far in the future that you’re like “I can’t do that!”

Stop looking 5 steps ahead, look at the next step, like look at where you are right now.

Think about people who are alcoholics who stay sober for 5, 10 or 15 years. They didn’t do it by thinking I need to be sober for the rest of my life. They did by going this next 10 minutes, I’m not going to drink.  I have a problem. I cannot be around it.

They acknowledge the problem. They go okay and set their environments up.They don’t get themselves around people who influence them, trigger them or encourage them and they set they set their homes up. They get through each hour, they teach themselves, they develop self-discipline to do something different every time they deal with it.

You might not be an alcoholic. You may not be a drug user but if you don’t have the self discipline to stay focused: you’ve got a problem and you have to, have to, have to develop this.

You have to or you’ll never get anywhere. You’ll never achieve what you hope to achieve if you don’t do this every moment, every day. You need to bring, first of all you need to acknowledge you have an issue and then you need to set up your environment for success.

You need to make yourself get up and not hit the snooze button and honestly, that is the first thing Mel Robbins teaches everybody, because you’re hitting that snooze button. Why?

You’re not actually getting real sleep anyway,. Set your alarm and get your butt out of bed. That’s what she is saying. That’s what she’s saying to do. Do that. You have to do it even when you don’t want to. You have to do it.

Today I didn’t actually want to come on and do a video. Not because I don’t like you, not because I don’t need to, but because I was kinda like “ughh I just want a break, I just want a day where I’m not doing that.” Why??

This is like 30 minutes of my time to help you and it’s helping me because when I talk to you about this things I’m like “Oh, yeah, I am empowered.” I am inspired myself from you, from the things you’re doing, the achievements I am seeing you make from the tiny steps you’re making.

They empower me, they inspire me and I love it.

So this morning when that happened I was like ‘wait a minute I need to go do this.” It’s going to look a little bit different because I am going to try a new thing on the phone this way because this is what Facebook wants.

I am going to try that and that is okay. There are probably going to be fewer people on and that’s okay because I am not sending out a notification letting you know that I’m on, that’s okay. There is probably going to be fewer people commenting.

You have to push through no matter what

That’s okay. You have to push through no matter what. You can’t anticipate… you can’t just throw out how you think things are going t be like, You can’t be bouncing around from thing to thing.

You’ve got to focus.

This is why most of you, if you want to lose weight, this is why you’re not losing weight. It’s why you Yo-Yo because you bounce around from diet to diet to diet and not only that you do a diet and then you don’t do a diet and I mean you eat a certain way, then you go back to what you were doing before. Then you eat another certain way then you go back to doing what you were doing before.

That is why you do this because you aren’t staying focused. It’s too hard. You allow your brain to talk you out of the productive good stuff that you should be doing. It’s all up here, it is all up here even those with ADD and ADHD. It’s all up here in your brain.

Do you know why?

Because there are people, we know this, there are people with ADD, ADHD, everything that have pushed through. That have learned how to work in their environment, with their physical limitations.

I have a disease. I’m not sharing it but I have a disease that it exhausts me at times. There are times when I have to take naps. It’s very rare now but if I know I’m not going to make myself push through if I can physically tell that my body needs a nap, that I’m not getting what it needs to heal.

I know this. I have made sure for the last 15-17 years that is how my schedule…I always have flexibility in my schedule. I know that I can’t have a back-to-back schedule. I don’t think anyone should have it because it’s horrid for everybody but I know that about me so I don’t do it.  

I have to say no to so many social things. I am okay with that. I don’t feel compelled. My health is more important than anything else. Without my health I can’t serve you. Without my health I can’t be a good wife. Without my health I can’t be a great Mom especially when I know the the solution.

So when you know the solution, get your head down and send those notes to 10 people today or get you head down and do a Live stream on Facebook today or get your head down and do the emails you need to do convert those leads.

If you’re not doing that stuff when you don’t want to and you’d rather go do the fun stuff, you’re not going to succeed. It’s real simple.

I struggle with this too

You know why I know this for a fact? Hi, my name is Christina Ethridge and this has been me. I struggle with this too. I know this. I watch people struggle with this all the time. You struggled with it, absolutely at some degree, at some level.

All stuff that sets you on an unproductive path, all of it. We allow it because I don’t know, are we afraid of what we have to do? Are we lazy? Would we rather be brain numbed entertained by things than do the hard work? Because our actions show that’s what we’d rather do. Our actions show that.

So if you’re like, “No, I wouldn’t rather do that” then what are your actions showing? Like seriously what are your actions showing?

I really want to make sure you hear this and I want to make sure I hear this over and over again.

We have to train our brains!

If you want to be successful, if you want to lose weight, if you want to successfully pay off debt, if you want successfully build a business whatever that looks like, if you want to successfully run a marathon, if you want to whatever : if you want to achieve something….

 YOU HAVE TO OVERCOME YOUR BRAIN! That means you have to not allow yourself, you have to build up that muscle, your brain muscles to do this. 

Do me a favor if you want the stuff. I am going to send out a free gift,  a freebie I have not done in any of the other videos. If you want that comment below and if you feel my videos with you, my time with you is helping you, you can “pay me back” by sharing this with your colleagues.

Share any of my videos with your colleagues. That is a huge blessing to me and I appreciate when you do that. Press like, click share and let me know “Yes, you like this! Yes, you want me to keep doing this!”

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Do you feel like Facebook is too expensive for beginners? Too expensive for brand new real estate agents?

Well guess what?

It’s not, but you do need to know what to do and how to do it?

Today, I am going to walk you through exactly what to do to bootstrap your Facebook lead generation for your real estate business so you don’t starve to death. That’s a bit dramatic, but it’s true. So basically I am going to show you how to do Facebook on the cheap.

Thank you for being here whether you’re watching this in replay or you are live right here with me now. And as always I always have something for you.

Today  I am actually giving away the entire steps, the steps I used. I am going to tell and show you in just a minute but I am giving it away. Just type any comment in the video above.Then go over and check your Messenger. #RIBBIT will send you the information.

So basically this will be the outline of everything I am talking about with you today.

When you get it, you’ll see a replay link. Come back and watch it with your notes in hand.

If you’re watching this on YouTube or IGTv or Twitch just click the link below in the description and it will bring you back to this original video.

So do you feel like Facebook is too expensive for beginners? For brand new real estate agents?

Well guess what? . . It’s not.

But you do need to know what to do and how to do it.

Is Facebook Too Expensive For Beginners?

Recently, a member of my Facebook Real Estate Agents Group said Facebook is too expensive for beginners. I thought “No, it’s not! Why does she feel that way?”  

Well I am guessing for a number of reasons:

Number one, probably because “gurus” from the stage are telling you that you need to have a complete ad budget of $500 a month to even make any headway. Or maybe she is throwing money at it $30, $100, a couple of $100, maybe even a couple of thousand dollars over the course of a year and hasn’t seen the results she wants to see. No closings, maybe that’s why. There are a lot of reason why it may be that way or not be that way, etc.

Here’s the thing.  Why they would think that? Here’s the thing.

I am going to walk you through the steps and the truth is even if you have a $1,000 a month to invest in ads on Facebook, they’re not going to work.  They’re not going to give you the return you want if you don’t actually do the things I am going to teach you today.

This actually involves understanding a little bit of Facebook’s algorithm, understanding a little bit about your prospects, etc. In away that’s easy to implement, so I am going to start with strategery. We’re go into tactics and walk into tools.

If you’re having problems with #RIBBIT you need to send a manual message. Usually, most of the time, here’s the problem you may be having with  #RIBBIT. #RIBBIT is our Messenger bot.

You’re requesting; you’re commenting on this, whatever and RIBBIT is sending you a message saying type a certain word a specific way.

What’s happening is you’re typing the wrong word because you’re looking farther up on your message or your missing a letter etc. because #RIBBIT knows what to send you based on if you type the exact word or not or some of you are actually not typing the word. You’re just commenting and we’re sending you the messages but because you’re not responding – you’re not getting the stuff.

Every single time. If want something from #RIBBIT, type right in the comments of the video above.  Then you have to immediately go over and say what  #RIBBIT tells you to say without any wrong spellings or missing letter or anything. He is particular.  

There are 1 or 2 of you, out of a 100, so 1% of you where #RIBBIT will not send you anything. I don’t know why. It’s like he is a little toddler. It’s usually a little glitch we’re trying to figure out. There’s just not a lot we can do on that so send in a manual request and we will see what we can do so on that.

Strategies

First off strategies.Your strategy on Facebook is cannot cannot be selling S-H-I-T to people. I was going to say the word but I won’t so hopefully no kids are listening!

You can’t have this I need to sell crap so I need to be pushing sells, doing this, doing that.

You cannot do that.

Well you can do that but it’s not going to work. It is literally not going to work because people are not going to listen to you. They’re going to respond at all.

You Have To Help!

Number two you have to help!

In your strategy always be helping. The stuff you’re putting on Facebook, the posts you’re putting on Facebook, the ads you’re putting on Facebook all have to be focused on helping. Not helping them buy your crap or use your services but helping them, giving them answers to the questions that they have.

Educating

The third one is educating. It goes along with helping.

To educate people you need to give them real answers about real things. You have to do that. You have to educate people.

Build Relationships

You have to be building relationships.  

Somehow, someway this is about real, well not real face to face but you’re getting to know me and I’m getting to know you through comments, through everything.

That’s how you have to build relationships this way. This is how you build a relationship.

You have to do this and the additional piece to this is; here is a good example.  

Be Consistent

I just heard this one this morning: You must be consistent. Absolutely. You have to be consistent. That means that it’s like going to a party. You go to the party and sit on the couch in the corner. Nobody is going to be interested in you.  They’re not going to come to you. You have to go out and mingle to meet people, right?

Side note….all of you are typing “Bootstrap” in the comments here. This is not the place you type it. You have to respond to RIBBIT over in Messenger. You’re getting mixed up there.

Type your comment right here in the comments of the video. #RIBBIT will send you the message and then you have to go back over to Messenger. You have to type that over there. You have check exactly what he says to say because when you type that, when you type that word, that tells what him what you want him to send you.

So each word is like a card/catalog thing. It’s a title of something so he knows “Oh send this!” So go over to Messenger and type that.. it  happens all the time so I am not calling anyone out! This happens all the time.

Alright so strategy; serving, helping, educating, relationships, consistent. If you are not being consistent and here’s what I mean; if you’re not consistently every single day putting up content on your Facebook business page we’re going to talk about; if you’re not consistent it’s not going to work for you.

What About Direct Mail?

For a lot of you it’s the same thing with direct mail. You put out a mail piece here and there or based on your budget. You look at your budget and go I need do this but you don’t look at your budget and go I need to do this over the next 12-18 months and that’s what your budget needs to spread out over so you’re inconsistent.

This is why Facebook doesn’t work for you.  This is why your website doesn’t work for you. This is why snail mail, direct mail, doesn’t work for you.

Consistent. You must be consistent!

Don’t Start Where You Leave Off

It is really true. You just don’t start where you leave off. You literally have to dig out of the hole because you were going up like this…. website, direct mail, whatever…because you were going up like this when you stop you actually drop below the line. It’s actually harder to get going again.

So serving, helping, educating, relationship and consistent. That is the strategy!

It’s All About The Customer

Okay? It’s all about the customer.

It is not about YOU!  

Your strategy is about the person, the prospect. It is not about you.

Until you get that into your head and heart and it comes out in your hands and how you’re acting, nothing will change for you, in anything you do!

When you start panicking about sales, nothing will change. It will not change until you have this that the more people you help…. I’m not talking about closings. The more people you physically help, the more people you give service to and value to, the bigger your business will be.

It’s that simple but we think that means the more people transactions we close or the more people we help just in that space….no it’s much bigger.

Number two, our tactics. Here are the tactics that you will need. Now because you are going to bootstrap this you will have to invest time. And you will have to invest it for 2, a couple of years,12, 18, 24, 36 months.

Flat out plain and simple, you have to do this. You can’t go on a, what’s it called, a roller coaster. You can’t do it. You cannot do it. You can’t stop doing it because you don’t think it’s not working. You can’t go back etc.

YOU MUST BE CONSISTENT! Period.

Tactics

Your tactics, number one: A lot of you are going to love this.

You have to have a website. And no, not a broker website and no, not a vendor website and no, not a freebie Wix or Squarespace website.

No way, not at all.

You need to have a website that has a blog attached to a the website. I will give you the tools, I will tell you who to use. You need to start building up your organic SEO. And here’s the thing with that website.

You must absolutely blog weekly

Now I am giving you the exact roadmap I used to start Leads and Leverage.

This is how we did it in real estate although there wasn’t a website when I started so I’ve been in real estate….well I am old so I have been in real estate a long time.

So here’s the thing. This is how I started an organizing firm that I sold. This is how I started Leads and Leverage. I am giving you exactly what I did. I bootstrapped Leads and Leverage. I started a website and I blogged a couple times a week. I was like I need to answer questions for agents.

You Need To Answer Questions For Clients

You need to answer their questions. That’s what blogging is. You have to answer them. You have to give them real answers, not write crap because “blah, blah, blah” like the Associated Press. You have to actually serve people.

You have to actually serve people and answer them.  If they were standing right in front of you would you just go, “Um yeah use a Realtor because you’re FSBO, use a Realtor” and just move on?  Or would you actually answer their questions, their burning needs. Do you have the kahunas? Do you have the courage to tell them how to do it without you?  

That’s where you’re going to win the game. That is where you’re going to win the game. If you can tell people how to do stuff without needing to use your services, you’re gonna win!

Period. You’re gonna win.

These Tactics Work

I know you don’t understand this. Stop thinking like “Oh my gosh, I am going to lose their business.” No you’re not, you’re not. Most people are not going to do it on their own or take the time. This is why most of you won’t actually do these tactics that I am telling you but they work.

I am going to reveal something. I started Leads and Leverage and I started blogging in September of 2013.  I actually opened the business in February 2014. February 2014 was when I actually had products available, a membership services available.

From February, 2014 – December, 2014 we hit six-figures. Why? Because I invested months of time before answering questions, helping you guys and I continued doing that even we had the membership.

This business was fast. Our real estate business was fast. Why? Because I am serving.

You’re going to say websites aren’t worth it or I don’t have the time to invest in a blog. You’re throwing away a hundred thousand dollars a year minimum by having that type of attitude.

You need to answer questions. You need to blog weekly.

Barry says,

No, that’s not blogging. That’s curating and that’s not the same thing.  You need to get your butt behind a keyboard or behind a video and you need to answer questions. You need to serve people, not get other resources.

Yes, you can leverage that but that’s not what I am talking about. You must blog  weekly. You are literally throwing away, $100,000 a year by not having a website where you’re actually answering questions and then leveraging it.

I am going to show you how to leverage it along the way.  You are literally throwing it away. How many transactions is that for you? 10, 20? I don’t know what your commissions are. I’m sorry I don’t know what your average sale prices are in your area but that is 10-20 closings you are throwing away because you’re not actually helping people through your website.

You must blog weekly. You must. At the beginning, twice a week would be better.

Answer Questions That Provide Help

You have to answer questions. Don’t know where questions are?

Go to Trulia Answers or Trulia Questions or whatever and read the questions and answer them! If they are for San Jose and you live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, change it to Tulsa, Oklahoma and answer it like it’s from someone in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Here’s the thing. You have to blog at least weekly. You have to answer questions, you have to provide help. You have to be valuable. Just sharing others people’s crap is not going to make you valuable and it doesn’t actually give them a reason to connect with you.

You Have To Talk To People

You can do that in type, in video like I am doing. It does not matter but you have to do this.

This is a tactic. This is true. We were at six-figures in the middle of February, in 10 and a half months by doing exactly what I am saying.  It took from September to February.

You Have To Have A Blog Site

So number one – you have to have a blog site that you are actually answering questions on. You must do that. You must, must, must. This is how you build you build relationships with people who do not know you.

You Must Have A Facebook Business Page

Number two – you must have a Facebook business page. You have to start building up your Facebook presence. Period. It needs to ooze the lifestyle. You need to share about your community.

You need to be a resource. You need to be valuable.

It needs to not be your name because no one gives a flying fig about “Jane Doe Realtor.” They do NOT. They don’t care. They care about what’s in it for them.

Well, what’s in it for them? They live in your local market?

What’s that lifestyle?

They’re going for a lifestyle. That is contextual. You need to be focused on the consumers. Okay? Ooze the lifestyle, share the community, be a resource, be valuable.

Run Page Like Ads

As soon as you start that page –  as soon as you start sharing value and local stuff on your page, you need to start running page “Like” ads at $1 per day, okay?

I typically teach that you need to whatever your audience size is you need do it for $10 a day for 10 days but if you’re bootstrapping it and you have $30 a month we can do this.

Now, remember this is going to take you time. It absolutely is going to take time if you’re running page “Like” ads and your page name is all about you, your page “Like” ads will fail.  

If you’re running page “Like” ads and your content is all about selling crap, your page “Like” ads will fail.

If you’re running page “Like” ads and your pictures or header or profile picture is all about selling stuff, your ads will fail.

Period. They will fail.

So you must absolutely put your page in a position where it’s for the lifestyles, for the consumers.

The Facebook Page Setup Checklist

I am just realizing you will need the Facebook Page Setup Checklist so if you would please comment in the video above, then go over to opt-in with RIBBIT, go over and respond to RIBBIT for the notes, I will then later send you the link to the download so you can go through these so your page will actually produce results for you.

Run IDX Focused Posts

The next step after you’re running page “Like” ads, you never stop. You never ever stop running page “Like” ads. What did I say? You never stop running page like ads. You always have page “Like: ads running. Alright?

Your page is oozing the lifestyle, you’re sharing the community, you’re a resource, you’re valuable, you’re page “Like” ads are running, they never stop.

Once a week run a “Home for sale in _______ (specific area)” It’s an IDX focused post.

Here’s how you do it. This is where the specifics are.

Number one: You must have an IDX that allows you…I am going to give you the link for the best IDX to use. It’s in the resources so here’s the thing:

Number one, first step on this ad. It must be using IDX. I have the link for you.  If you comment in the video above I will send you the link. RIBBIT will send you the IDX to use. It must require immediate registration.

You’ve got to get over the whole “They can get the stuff on Zillow” attitude or whatever mindset. You must require registration.

That is number 1.

Your Posts Should Not Be Salesy

Number 2: your post you’re putting up needs to not be salesy. It needs to say “Check out the latest homes that have come on the market for sale!” “Can you believe blah, blah, blah is there?” “Can you believe what it is?”…It doesn’t matter.

You need to put this post up every single week. If the link is dynamic, it will change and it will update. You must require registration. Basically, this post is called your lead magnet. Okay, so what you’re going to do is to bring people who are targeted to your page.

You’re going to be giving out free stuff that is valuable and interesting and engaging about your local market, local photos, community stuff, funny stuff, whatever it is and once a week your going to run “Check out  these home in blah blah blah”, whatever it is, whatever little town you’re doing! Okay?

Not Los Angeles….nobody wants to see homes throughout all of Los Angeles. If you’re in one area, narrow it down. If you’re in a big area, just narrow it down to a small, specific area for this IDX. Your IDX search must absolutely have this small layout or be focused this way.

So you’re going to put that post up every single week. This is your lead magnet so basically you’re building your audience on Facebook. You now have a lead magnet that you’re getting people to opt into your list. Alright, so that means your email list.

You Need To Send A Weekly, Valuable Email

So now what they’re doing is, they’re in your email list. Again I will send you my links to a free email service to use.

You need to send a weekly, valuable email to everyone on your email list.

What do you send?

This is to people who have specifically opted in through your lead magnet.

This is not to everyone in your contacts. This is what you do…the very first person who opts into your email list, you better be committed to sending every week same day, same time, sending them an email.

This is exactly what I did with Leads and Leverage, What did I send them? Well, the first part of that email is sentence or two about me or a thought that I had, how I am doing this week, whatever it is, it’s personable.

Second piece of it is, “Hey I just got the question, blah, blah, blah, blah and I answered it right here.” You don’t have to say on my blog but it was on my blog and I would drive these people to a valuable, real answer resource on my blog.

So I gathered them on Facebook and got them to opt into my email list and I am starting relationships with them on my email list. I am driving them back to my blog so I am getting this traffic going and of course as you grow you start re-targeting all of them in there.

Always Be Posting On Facebook

You have to always be posting on Facebook. You have to always be writing blog content for your website every week.

In the beginning write two a week.

You must be doing that. You must be sending a weekly email.

These Are The 3 Key Things To Building Your Business

These are the 3 key things, the 3 keys things that I did that when we launched. Five months later from the time I started doing this, 5 months later when we launched….from that date until December 21, we were at six-figures in a brand new business.

Now that means that if you do this it is easy to get 10 transactions a year from doing this. Really easy, meaning it’s simple, simple to do it, but here is why it’s not easy to do because you won’t actually sit your butt down and do it.  You will go, “Ughh I don’t know what to say.” or “The blogging is not working, I’ve been doing it 3 times or 20 times or even 30 times” That’s like 15 weeks…you didn’t do it long enough. Period.

You’re building a business. It takes time. It takes time to build a business.

How To Bootstrap All Of This

If you’re going to bootstrap it, this is what you’re going to do. The minute you have another dollar a day to spend on for ads, page “Like” ads at $1 a day, the minute you have another dollar a day to spend on ads for Facebook ads, then you need to be running an engagement ad. Probably around the homes for sale in IDX so you need to be pumping out your lead magnet.

So your first step is page “Like” ads, your second is pumping out your lead magnet and keep adjusting your budget with those as you have more revenue to do so.  

This takes time. You are going to wash, rinse repeat. You are going to never stop doing this.

You’re going to become more valuable. More and more content will be out there for you. You’re going to focus on getting people to engage with your page because the people who engage with your page are more interested and more willing to hear what you have to say.

Then you are going to focus on people who engaged with your page to opt-in into your list because you’re giving them something that they want. Then you’re going to focus on being valuable to your list, email list so that they convert.

The Process Is Really Simple

It’s really simple. The process is really simple.

The hard part comes is we’re just not plain willing to do it. We say we don’t have time because we’re busy, well really?? Has Netflix ever been turned on in your house? Is the TV ever turned on in your house?

I am going to get into some mindset stuff. Are you able to have time to go to bowling league? Are you able to have time to go out to eat? Are you?…..

You have time. Every single one of you has time. It’s how you’re choosing to use your time. It really is how you’re literally choosing to spend your time.  So if you’re not committed to actually growing your business over the long haul you won’t actually do this.

You may think you are but maybe . .you are not persisting in being consistent then you’re not actually committed. Then that gets into the whole why are you doing this blah, blah, blah etc.

The key is….the key is this takes time and so many of you I’ve heard say, “well yeah I know you said it would take time, I’ve been doing it for 3 months!” That’s not time, that’s not time. You expect a sale after 3 months? You expect a sale after 6 months?

Like it takes time. It takes time to do this, to get people because most people you’re bringing into this have to get to know you. Then they’re about 7, well more like 9-18 months out from actually closing a transaction. So you can’t just stop. This is why you must keep doing this, all 3 of these.

You must, must, must have your website where you’re creating valuable content, giving valuable answers.

You must, must, must have your Facebook page where you’re gathering an audience who doesn’t know you and getting them to opt-in into your list.

You must, must, must be sending an email every single week without fail to your list to drive them to your website.

You must be circulating this whole thing. You have to be.

Build Your Business And Scale It

If you want to build your business and then scale it this is how it works or you could go spend $2,000 a month and run Facebook ads that you in six months have to spend $3,000 a month for the same thing because you’re only going for low hanging fruit.

Then you’re going to have to spend $4,000 six months later because it’s going to get more expensive and people aren’t going to have a relationship with you and you’re always going to have to be doing that because you’re not actually building any relationships with any of those leads that are coming in.

So basically, if they’re not ready, willing and able right that second, you’re not interested. So 1 out of 500 are available, ready, willing and able right then. 1 out of 500. What are you going to do with the other 499?

Hello, it is much cheaper to keep communicating with them in your email list and in your community and giving them value than it is to keep spending 2, 4 or 6 thousand dollars a month on ads. Like it’s absurd to do that or buying Zillow or Realtor.com and spending like $40,000 a month.

If you’ve got a team, you need to be doing this as a team leader, as the lead generator for your business. This is what you’re supposed to be doing.

All the “gurus” are going to tell you other things. Get on the phone, do this, da de da da, bullcrap. Bullcrap.

Relationships With People Are Where It’s At

If any of you know who Brenda Bouchard is, any of you? I don’t know if you know who Brenda Bouchard is? However, he started a business about 10 years ago and up until now he still, he is still the one doing his videos.

He has an 8-figure per year business. It’s still him in the videos. It’s still him writing the emails, still him writing the content. He has other people who are putting the pieces together for him but he knows that the business is based on his relationship with you or me or whoever. That is what he knows. That’s where the power is.

The biggest businesses that are now growing, right now in the world, know that relationships with people are where it’s at and if you as a real estate agent think you can outsource this stuff, good luck to you. It’s not going to work anymore.

Don’t Get Distracted

I guess I am kinda, I started out with yes, you can absolutely bootstrap this, however the caveat with bootstrapping it is you have to put in the time and you have to stop kidding yourself that you don’t have the time and you have to stop letting yourself get distracted because “Oh I’ve been doing this for three months so I am going to go buy Zillow leads” or “I am going to do this.” Fine. Go buy Zillow leads but don’t stop doing this.

If you are starting out brand new absolutely you should be doing everything you possibly can. If you forsake what I am teaching you here, you will never ever grow. You will be scattered and having to panic until your next deal. You will always be that way.

This is key. If you can start this process before you actually get you license there are a lot of things you can do before you get your license. You can start a lot of this process before that and as you’re moving in, go ahead and do door knocking, go to open houses, go do those things but make sure your leads fit into this process.

You Can Have A Self Sustaining Business

You’re going to have a self sustaining business in 3 years, in 4 years. Myra Hall did it, absolutely. She went from 0 to over a 150 transactions and she is now working 1 day a week. One day a week guiding her team after 4 years.

And, and, and she started this in her 60’s. This is what she’s doing, I taught her exactly what I did with Leads and Leverage. This is what she’s doing.  

So if you want to not work in 4 years and you want income coming in so now she works one day a week, you might still have to do that, but geez one day a week to have a six-figure income coming in….hmm….not too shabby.

But you have to invest the time and you have to keep doing it and you have to be consistent.

The Tools I Recommend

So again, the tools I recommend…oh I didn’t go over the tools. Sorry about that! The tools I absolutely recommend – these are important: Your website I strongly, strongly, strongly, strongly, strongly, strongly, do you get the point recommend using Mike Muller with AreWeConnected.com

Why? Because every other vendor ties you to their system, straps you into their stuff which does not work as well as the pieces I am going to have you do to put together and not only that but for most of them you can’t take it with you.

If it’s your brokerage site, if you change brokerage or they change franchises you cannot take it with you and you’re screwed. He will help you own your own site. Own your hub, Mike Muller with AreWeConnected.com

If you comment in the video above, I will send you the link to his site and how to contact him in the resources I am sending you.

Number two, you need to have a Facebook business page. That your focus is on the client, meaning your page name is about them, your header is about them, everything else is about them and you need to have a page “Like” ad running for  $30 a month, $1 a day.

Again, if you comment in the video above, you’ll get the Facebook Page Setup Checklist in these resources.  Everyone who comments and actually opts-in and goes to RIBBIT and says, whatever RIBBIT says to get this, I will send you that checklist later this afternoon. I forgot to do that, so if you want that comment in this video and make sure you go respond to RIBBIT.

Number three tool you need is IDX. I strongly recommend a specific IDX.  I am not going to say the name on here. I strongly recommend a specific IDX and I put that information in the resources.

And email. You need to use MailChimp. It is free. I put a link to it in the resources, I believe if you that if you end up paying for it there is a discount for MailChimp in that link.

So here’s the thing: You need a website. A Facebook business page with a page “Like” ad running. You need a specific IDX and you need the email program.

Not Top Producer, Not Contactually. Not Liondesk, Not Wise Agent, or not whatever. Those are CRMS. You want an email service that is focused on getting emails into the email inbox. That is a whole other topic and I will do a video on that.

Let’s Recap

So that’s what you need. Let’s recap this okay?

You need a website. You have to have a website. I’m not talking a brochure. I mean you need to be putting content that you’re writing, that you’re creating on that website. It could be written, it could be video, it could be audio.

It doesn’t matter at this point. You need to get content on that website. If it is video or audio you need to have it transcribed so that Google can read it.

Alright, that’s blogging. You need to be blogging once a week at minimum.

The second thing you need a Facebook business page that oozes the lifestyle and you’re running page “like” ads for $1 a day at a minimum to be building your audience.

And you need email. That is number 3. You need email specific so you need to be sending  out a valuable weekly email the minute you get one person on that list without fail.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat

Again wash, rinse, repeat.

You never stop doing this.You become more and more valuable. Literally this is exactly what I did to launch Leads and Leverage. This is exactly what I did to launch an organizing firm before Facebook existed.

I didn’t have a Facebook business page but what I did instead was get a snail mail list of people and did all this in the snail mail realm. That’s what we did for our real estate business. The process works.

Put In The Time And Be Committed

You just have to put in the time and be committed and I mean be COMMITTED.

You have to.

If you want a real estate business, you’ll be committed. If you’re a part of the 87% you’re going to fail. Sorry to be so blunt here but it’s true only 13% of people make it past 5 years and of that 13% less than 20% of them are actually making a living at it. Like actually making a living so if you want to be different, if you want to be that person that succeeds, you have to put your head down and do this.

You’ve got to ignore everything else. You have to, have to, have to and it is, I’m telling you right now that it is way easier now with advent of Facebook and the ability to create this audience and drive this audience to these resources on your website then it was 5 years ago, 7 years ago. Way easier now….you have to put the time into it. You have to put the time into it.

Always See Things As Content

And you’re constantly looking to see what people are interested in and wanting, always seeing things as content.

Every time someone ask me a question, I’m like “Oh yeah, that was a great one, I’ll do a video on that.”  The same way I did in real estate, which is really funny, I think it was like nine years ago, I had a memory come up a couple days ago from nine years ago and I was called out as one of the big people in the area, in our area, using video.

I’ve been using video for almost a decade. Video is huge so you should probably get on video but I still started with blog content with Leads and Leverage. I didn’t actually start doing video until I really started for Leads and Leverage until my Facebook page started moving.  

It will move faster if you use video. That’s just the changes that are happening.

What Was Most Useful For You?

So I talked about the tools you need etc. I really need this from you. I want to keep giving you content. If you want me to dive deeper on any these things I talked about whether it’s strategy, whether it’s pieces of the tactic, or any of the tools, if you want me to dive deeper on there I need you to tell me what I should be doing in the comments below.

Additionally, I would love it if you told me “What was most useful for you?” What was most useful for you today? What did you need to hear? Or what did you hear that made you go, “Oh I hadn’t thought of that?” Or “I haven’t implemented that.”

Every time, I mean I know a lot about Facebook. I know a lot about lead generation, I’ve had a lot of success using both and in multiple businesses, but every single time that I get a chance to listen to someone who is having a different form of success than me, in a different industry, I always learn something new.

Just this morning, I was like “Oh I need to test that to see if it will work in my industry, in real estate.” It’s not that it won’t work, it’s will that work? Let me try it to see if will work.

You Don’t Have To Be Perfect

The reason you are getting these videos every single day at 10:00 am weekday…..you want to know why?  Because I am in a coaching group. I am being coached for Live streaming and it’s because the main person said, “I want you to do a live everyday in August.”

Now, I heard that and I went “Live everyday in August?” Can I go live everyday? No, but I can go every weekday because that’s when you’re online so I’ll go live every single week day. I cleared my calendar so I could go live for 10:00 am, every single weekday in August, right?

Well I started do that. You are showing up asking me questions. I am helping you with these answers. I am loving it… it is fueling me,…it’s helping me be more creative. It’s fueling my membership. I am able to answer more questions because I am talking it out. I’ve created more classes, more resources etc. for my members so it has been an amazing, creative outlet for me.

But here’s the thing, it’s also growing my page. Here’s the kicker. I am doing it wrong. Yeah, I am doing it wrong. I’m not doing the live everyday in August the way I am supposed to.

What was it supposed to be? Actually, it was meant for people to answer a specific question that they ask each day inside the group on video. I didn’t know that. I had no idea. Am I doing that now? No because I heard Live everyday in August and I went I am going to help my community, my members, etc so that’s what I’m going to do. That’s what I turned it into.

Stop Worrying About Getting It Right

My point is that even if you’re doing it wrong, it’s still probably going to be right because this has been amazing for me not doing this right. I’m not at all. But it’s working because I am enjoying it. I am answering your questions. You are getting value out of it and so do you get it? Stop worrying about being perfect. Stop worrying about getting it right. Just get started.

Literally just get started. That’s what you want to do. I want to encourage you. I want you to stick to it. This has been a challenge. I only go live during the weekdays but you know what’s interesting? I thought for sure I was going to have a day or two where I  just didn’t want to go live but because I made the commitment to all of you, I haven’t felt that way.

In fact, I have cleared out my calendar as much as possible to go live everyday, every weekday at 10:00 am for the rest of the year because I have about 500 questions you guys are asking me. I want to make sure that the people I am helping are the people who are coming live. If you’re here and you hear this and you’re commenting, tell me what I need to help you with? What do you want me to go deeper on?

Again, make sure you get that so what was most useful for you? What do you want me to go deeper on in any of these steps?

This Is The Plan

So today I walked you through how to bootstrap. This bootstrap worked for this business, Leads and Leverage. I bootstrapped it, absolutely.

It has worked for several members who are actually…this is the plan, this is it. This is what I am teaching, this is it.  This is literally the plan. There is a whole bunch of nuances into it but you could take this and run with it, like literally take it and run with it.

So I would really like to see you guys take this and run with it so let me know how it’s working, how I could help you, what other questions you have, if you have anything else let me know.

Make sure you comment below if you want the bootstrap steps and then make sure that you go ahead and go over to Messenger and respond to RIBBIT in Messenger to get it right.  

Okay you guys are awesome! Thank you so much for being here today. You inspire me, you energize me so I thank you for that!

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