I recently heard a great story about a real estate agent who moved to a new market and didn't know many people. She knew it would be challenging to succeed without a sphere of influence, so she came up with a brilliant strategy:

She researched the top 10 things people want to do in the area and created a video about each of them. She then posted the videos on YouTube and TikTok, and connected them to her website and blog.

By doing this, she was able to reach a wider audience and get her name out there.

She also used Facebook and Google pixels to remarket to people who visited her website, and started putting ads in front of them.

This strategy paid off, and it paid off big:

She went from zero to 10 million in business in just one year!

If you're interested in trying this strategy, don't worry - it's not technical or difficult. Everything you need to know can be found on YouTube, and most of it is free. The only cost is for ads, but even those can be done for a few dol...

Do you have a hospitality mindset?

I heard two stories that really brought this home.

The first story is about a restaurateur in New York City who overheard a group of four customers talking about how they had never had a hotdog in New York City, despite just having a $500 lunch at his high-end restaurant. The owner of the restaurant went to a hotdog vendor across the street, bought four hotdogs, had the chef cut them up and arrange them elegantly on a plate with all the condiments the customers wanted, and had the maitre d' bring it out to the customers. They were amazed, even though they had just eaten a five-star meal.

The second story is about Steve Wynn, who owns the Wynn Casinos in Las Vegas and all over the world. He implemented a process where all managers have a daily brainstorming session before every shift, and one of the things they discuss is positive experiences they've had with guests.

One of the stories that came out of this process was about a bellman ...

I have a quick question for you:

Are you marketing your marketing?

You might be wondering what I mean by that, right? Well, let me explain: As real estate agents, we do an amazing job for our clients. We use drone photography, staging, postcards, social media marketing, and more to showcase their properties. We go all out to sell their homes in record time and get them top dollar.

But who actually experiences all of this marketing? Sure, the buyers who purchase the property may see it, as well as a small group of people in our closest network. However, not everyone is seeing all of our marketing efforts. In fact, on social media, only about 4-6% of our audience is actually seeing our posts.

So, how do we market our marketing?

One approach is to create a success portfolio. Whenever you have a beautiful, photogenic listing, go all out and create a home book, do exclusive videography, Matterport, and everything else. Treat it like an interview for your next listing. Th...

Did you know that more people in America have pets than children? It's true!

20 years ago, 48% of American families had kids at home. Today, that number is down to 40%.

On the other hand, the number of Americans with pets has increased dramatically, from 56% in 1988 to 70% today.

As REALTORS, this information is valuable to us because it affects our conversations with buyers. When talking to potential buyers, we should ask if they have pets and if their pet will impact their home buying decision. Many people will engage in conversation about their pet's needs and how important they are to the family.

But what if we took it a step further and specialized in working with families that have pets or selling homes with pet-friendly features?

This could be a complete differentiator in the market, as it's not a common focus for REALTORS. Sometimes we need to think outside the box to stand out.

If you want more ideas like this that help you differentiate yourself in the marke...

I have a challenge for you today:

I want you to imagine that you're a buyer who just landed in your area and has no knowledge about any REALTORS in the marketplace. So, go ahead and search for homes for sale in your market and see what happens. You'll likely be directed to realtor.com or Zillow. Now, pretend you're a buyer and go through the process of searching for a home on these websites.

As you go through the process, you'll notice that the algorithms push you through a funnel. The first thing they'll ask you is what price point you're looking for. They'll give you a list of price points to choose from, and very rarely will buyers type in a specific price. Instead, they'll be guided to choose a range from a dropdown menu.

Then, the algorithms will ask about bedrooms, bathrooms, and square footage before pushing the buyer further into the system. It's important for us as REALTORS to understand how the algorithms work and how they move people through the process, as...

Do you want to be a better recruiter?

As a seasoned recruiter with over 30 years of experience, I can tell you the secret to successful recruiting is this:

Recruiting is like owning an NFL or NBA team.

You need to understand that recruiting is all about building relationships with people. People join people, not companies or brands. If they don't like you, they won't come to work for you.

So, first and foremost, you need to establish a career-long relationship with people in the marketplace.

To build these relationships, you need to have conversations with potential recruits. Top recruiters in the NBA, NFL, and NHL are cold-calling and creating connections with people. They're showing them the organization's value, passion, and vision of how they can help them win. Ultimately, people want to be with a winning team and need to see how you can help them make more money and make their life easier.

It's not all about commission splits. We need to show recruits how our pl...

People ask me all the time, Jim, how do you retain amazing agents? You've recruited and retained some of the best agents in America. They've stayed with you for years. You took a company from a hundred million to 1.4 billion over 10 years, created a company from 39 agents to one of the top companies in America. How'd you do it?

Well, the answer is, I want you to think about the people that work for you. Just think about the landscape of people that work for you today. And I want you to ask yourself, how many of those people consider you to be their personal friend? And if the answer is, I don't think any of them do, you have a problem because you're looking at them transactionally. And that's the first mistake.

It's the same mistake agents make when they look at their clients and customers transactionally too.

I look at the top agents in America. The top agents in America don't look at their buyers and sellers as buyers and sellers. They look at them as friends. And when ...

Hey guys, what's the best way to make your real estate marketing really pop, to come to life and generate more buyers and seller calls and emails and texts?

Well, the secret is using the AIDA approach, which stands for:

Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

I want you to go back and measure all your marketing against this standard. It's simple and easy to understand.

It starts with Attention.

Is the marketing you're doing grabbing people's attention, shaking them and saying, Hey, you gotta look at me?When you look at marketing in magazines, on television, or on the internet, it has to break through the other 5,000 advertising messages the average American sees every day. So how do we break through? A lot of times, it's by asking a question, using photography, or creating visuals that are funny, ironic, or shocking. If it's the same old boring photos and headshots that you see with most realtors, it won't do that. We have to get outside the box.

The second thing is Interest.

We...

I want you to think about how many homes you sold last year that were your listings. So let's assume you sold 10 listings or five listings. What if I told you that you could take that 10 in times by five and have 50 transactions as a result of those 10 listings? Or if you took five listings, you times out by five and you could have 25 transactions. Does it sound impossible? It's not impossible. It's totally doable. You just gotta rethink how you're approaching your listings.

What smart, wise, savvy agents do, superstars do is they say, "Hey, I've got one listing and I can turn this into five transactional sides. Now how can we do that?"

I'm gonna walk you through it right now.

What are the five transactional sides that we create?

1. 1. Sell the listing that we take
2. Obtain a triggered listing
3. Convert a buyer who calls or attends an open house for the listing
4. Find sellers at your open house
5. Turn your seller into a buyer and sell them something else

Number one is obv...

As a coach, I tell my students that if they want to be highly visible on social media, they need to meet a minimum standard of five posts a week, two videos, and two stories.

Visibility is more important than ability because if you're invisible, no one knows to do business with you, no matter how good you are.

But many students struggle with knowing what to post. That's why I recommend two game-changing ideas:

1. Educational marketing: When was the last time you posted something educational on social media? Try to educate your audience about the real estate market. You could talk about interest rates, inspections, appraisals, down payment programs, and much more. People love learning new things, and an educational post will establish you as an expert in your field.

2. Opinion posts: People want to hear your professional opinion, and they trust experts who deliver them. Think about highly paid professionals like doctors and attorneys—they earn their salaries by giving opi...