Knowing Your Circle of Influence and Newsletter Overview
Tony Ray Baker:
… Okay, so I’m going to zoom through. Everybody got a chance to kind of peer through the newsletter? And you got an idea. Do we have any more questions about new letters before I move on? I think that Tucson Association of Realtors is going to work with me on bringing you a newsletter class. Would that be something you would want to go to?
Audience:
[inaudible 00:00:35]. Yeah.
Tony Ray Baker:
So, if I brought you back in two months and we all just did a newsletter, and I taught you every single aspect of how I do that and why I’m programing, would that work?
Audience:
Yes.
Tony Ray Baker:
Okay. So I’ll talk to Randy, and Elisa, and we’ll see about getting this for you in two months. Because next month is the Trolley Tour that we put on for downtown. So Tom, Darren, and I will be doing the tour.
And when both tours on the Trolley, by the way, when we’ve put them up, they were sold out in … Not sold out. Well sold out. It cost you zero. They were sold out in two hours. So they close fast.
So if you see the tour come up, jump on and RSVP, because they do shut out fast due to limited … What do we have? 35, or 40 on a trolley?
Tom Heath:
[inaudible 00:01:20] say 35.
Tony Ray Baker:
35. So, 35 we get to take on the trolley in one month. Okay so, on your tables you should have some little things, post-it notes. Anybody see those post-it notes? This is going to seem really weird, but post-it notes, big deal for me.
Amazon.com, does anybody heard of it? Now you think that’s funny, but I have to tell you when I taught … So I’ve been teaching for … Everything I’ve ever learned in marketing and advertising, I’ve always been teaching it.
I learned right away, that if I didn’t know how to do something, I would force myself to teach a class at my office. And as soon as I taught it, I got it. So I’ve been teaching ever since, right?
Tony Ray Baker:
So, I’ve been teaching every month for, I don’t know, 20 years maybe now. But Amazon.com I bought a book when the internet went up, and they had a website, and a lot of people were, “Don’t put your credit card in the system.
Do not go … Don’t talk to these Amazon people.” And I bought my first book through Amazon.com. And I remember, it came in the mail, and I had a little post-it note that said, “Amazon.com.” And it was a little pack of post-its. And it was … I was like, “Oh, that’s kind of cool.
I bought a book, and I get a little pack of post-it notes. It’s going to save me like 25 cents at the Office Supply store.
Tony Ray Baker:
It was cool because I had it, right? So then I watched … It was interesting because my assistants snagged the post-it notes. Because she liked the smiley thingy. So next thing I know is my paper work or my files, I’m going into closings and there’s Amazon.com post-it notes stuck to things. And my client says, “Can I have that?”
I rip it off and hand it to the client. Then the Amazon.com post-it note goes off with my client. I had this epiphany moment. This wasn’t just a kind act. This was ingenious. You get 25 post-it notes for a quarter. That’s a penny an ad. A penny an ad.
Tony Ray Baker:
Anytime I send out something to a client, we drop in a post-it note. It’s a penny an ad. They’re putting them on stuff around their houses, their offices. If you make a cool post-it note … Does anybody have one that you can hold up? Did everybody get one? Or did I run out?
Tom Heath:
No, we got them.
Tony Ray Baker:
Okay. So everybody’s got one. There’s a picture of a Saguaro sunset faded on there. That is the Saguaro sunset I use on all my marketing. It’s on my stationary. I use that Saguaro sunset. It’s really beautiful colors, and it’s vibrant.
If you go to see tucsonhome.com, you’re going to find a Saguaro sunset somewhere. You’re going to see it on my business cards. You’re going to see it somewhere. So I put it on there, and I put the address to my new website that I built all by myself using HTML code, and a book called, HTML Code for Dummies.
And I built my first site, and I put that out there because I wanted my clients to go to the site. We had no analytics, by the way, so I had no idea if they were or not.
Tony Ray Baker:
And they went crazy over them. I started getting phone calls from offices where the ladies would be at the front desk, or guys would be at the office front desk, and they would say to me, “Can I get a couple more packs of post-it notes? We love them.”
Because they like the pretty picture. So, I would go to offices and drop off post-it notes. I had a bar call me and ask me for more post-it notes, and I don’t know how they got them in the first place.
Because people were using them for trick pads. Yeah. That’s what they were called back then, because people were picking up people, and they didn’t have dating apps. SO they wrote their phone numbers and, “Here, you’re hot. Take my post-it note.”
So my post-it notes were getting a lot of use.
Tony Ray Baker:
So still to this day, post-it notes. They’re very inexpensive. I work with a company, you can all call her. Her name is Dawn [Vandavier 00:05:29]. Her company is called, Prototypes. She is … By the way, we could do a whole class with Dawn Vandavier, she’s the queen on snail mail.
She knows every in and out of the post office. I swear to you, you could give her that thermos, and she should mail it for 18 cents into some neighborhood. The girl is amazing.
Audience:
What’s her business name? [inaudible 00:05:52].
Tony Ray Baker:
So her company is called, Prototypes. And I am going to give you her number, so on it right now. Are you ready? It’s a 520-409-3039. 409-3039. Her name is Dawn Vandavier. Any of the stuff you see that we make, Dawn does it for us. Okay?
Audience:
[inaudible 00:06:18] don’t do more than mailing things?
Tony Ray Baker:
Yes. She does … So if you want to know how to mail anything into a neighborhood, you talk to Dawn. She’s going to help you create products you want, that are flat, that mail, or whatever. If you want products to give out to clients, you’re going to talk to Dawn.
She’s going to create the product for you. Pens, for example. You need pens. If you need the little post-it notes. If you want to … We did a product with a little wine stopper for our wine friends, that fits into a bottle, and you put the little thing in the bottle of red wine, and it will not let the wine drip on your white linen.
Darren and I were in Barcelona?
Speaker 4:
Yeah.
Tony Ray Baker:
Barcelona. We were in Barcelona, I believe, and they were putting them in all the wine bottles on the tables, and they all had white linens and there was no red wine anywhere. There was no drops. And it was this little cool thing.
So we flew back into the United States, called Dawn immediately and said, “Oh my god, you got to see this product. Can you find it?” Dawn searched all over Europe and found the product, and had our name put on it. And our clients went crazy over it.
And it was flat, and it cost nothing extra to put in our mail. Right?
Tony Ray Baker:
So, Dawn has catalogs like this big, and she can go over anything you want to create or do, but this is the stuff that makes little memories of you around their homes. Did everybody get a calendar? Okay.
Little calendars come from magnetsusa. Magnetsusa, they really do lots of little calendar stuff. I didn’t think these were a big deal until I didn’t do them one year after 109 tears of sending them out. I got a bunch of phone calls, and they asked me, “Why did you take me off your list?” Upset.
Audience:
[inaudible 00:08:00].
Tony Ray Baker:
Yeah, it made the phone ring. So there’s an idea. Everybody wanted to know why I took them off my list. It was painful, like they had been exiled, right? So then I thought, well I kept saying, “Well I didn’t think anybody liked them. I never heard from anybody.”
They love that little calendar because they stick on their filing cabinets, and on their fridge. I love that calendar because every time they eat, they see me. How many times do you eat a day? How many times do you go to the fridge a day?
Audience:
[inaudible 00:08:31].
Tony Ray Baker:
You’re going to see me. I have other realtors call me, and they walk into houses at parties and stuff, and they call me up and go, “I saw your calendar.” It’s all on the fridge. So, calendars are really super inexpensive.
If you mail them to your top 100, I think they’re about 40 cents piece. You’re going to pay for a stamp, one stamp. That’s all they take, so a buck a piece. For 100 bucks you’re going to get one to every client, right? And your COI.
For $100 you’re going to be on their refrigerator for how long?
Audience:
A year.
Tony Ray Baker:
A year. That’s marketing on a dime, right? Now the-
Audience:
I’ve got a couple people send in the little tag that’s in there. It says, “Send me a new one.”
Tony Ray Baker:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So she’s doing them as well. And there’s a little piece of paper inside the calendar. It says, “Please send me another calendar.” We get those. You’ll get those in the mail. Except for me now, because my clients expect it.
Like I would get threat notes if they don’t show up, right? So the next thing is that magnetsusa … And by the way, if you … Again, I’m going to give you a different email, by the way. I’m going to give you Toms email.
Send anything you need. Make a list of anything you need from us. I’ll get it to you.
Tony Ray Baker:
If you want Daniels information, Daniel will arrange to give you special pricing at magnetsusa. Because we send him so much business. And I don’t get any money from magnetsusa. I’ve just been using them since the day they opened business.
Daniel will give you a special discount code, and you can also get other people in your office, and help other people out, right? So, the other thing that I just discovered works really super well with magnetsusa, is called the football schedule.
So not only do they get this in November, in … Who’s a football fan? Woo hoo. Who knows when usually the football season starts?
Audience:
August.
Audience:
[inaudible 00:10:29]. September. But that’s the regular season.
Tony Ray Baker:
Right, and then so a little bit before that? So we mail out in the beginning of August, we mail out the football schedules on a magnet. And magnetsusa picks the … We pick three teams, they put it on the calendar on the little thing and they send them out.
First time Darren and I did this, it was the funniest thing. We don’t get calls about the calendar, but 45 dudes called us. Dudes. “Dude, cool, cool schedule.” Click. I never seen anything like it. We were laughing because it was just like, these calls kept coming in, “Dude, love that.
Love it.” I’m like, “What is he talking about?” And they would just … They don’t talk much, but they hang up on you, and you know … And then we figured out, they’re loving the football thing. So, they have these.
They’re again, for 100 people, probably cost you 100 bucks. You can get in front of them … How long’s football season? August you mail it out. And it ends in?
Audience:
February.
Tony Ray Baker:
That’s quite a good run, right? For 100 bucks. So there’s two great items to get in front of your COI. Pens, I have pens. I leave them at … Darren and I have our name on them, so you don’t steal them from my listings. I’m kidding. She does anyways.
Speaker 5:
I don’t steal pens.
Tony Ray Baker:
I know. I’m just kidding. Give it-
Speaker 5:
I always need pens because I hate going and I don’t have a pen.
Tony Ray Baker:
We put pens with our names on them at the listings. Whenever they’re in our pocket, they go out to somebody who wants to borrow one in the car. Our clients always need a pen when we’re showing listings. The clients take them. Pens. They got … Huh?
Audience:
[inaudible 00:12:00].
Tony Ray Baker:
Yeah. They have your name on them.
Speaker 6:
[inaudible 00:12:03]. Because I do most of the showing for buyers. So one of the first things I do is, I give them pens so they can make notes of all the houses that we go to.
Tony Ray Baker:
I’m going to put a couple on each table. Pens. Okay. So you call who for pens? Dawn. Dawn Vandavier will get you pens. Okay? Post-it notes we went over. Birthdays and anniversaries. Two very important dates.
What do you have … How do you have the birthdays and anniversaries? Where are they stored?
Audience:
CRMs.
Tony Ray Baker:
CRMs. Everybody has a CRM. We now have their birthdays and their anniversaries. If we don’t have birthdays and anniversaries, we do what?
Audience:
[crosstalk 00:12:46].
Tony Ray Baker:
We call and ask them. And what does that start? A conversation with what?
Audience:
F.O.R.D.
Tony Ray Baker:
F.O.R.D. So we’re going to get the birthdays and anniversaries. And what happens when you call your clients and ask them for information about them?
Audience:
They light up.
Tony Ray Baker:
They light up. Yes. And they probably start thinking about referring you business. And what’s the goal? COI referrals. Okay? So, birthdays and anniversaries. It’s as easy as going to a dollar store and buying 20 cards, and having them at your office so you don’t get hung up on something.
Create a system. Get the cards. Happy birthday. And then when it’s their birthday, what do you [inaudible 00:13:25]? You’re going to actually fill it out, and mail the card. Three days ahead, actually maybe four. I don’t know. Everything goes to Phoenix now. How long does it take to get mail back to Tucson?
Audience:
[crosstalk 00:13:35].
Audience:
Two days.
Audience:
Take two days.
Audience:
Three days.
Tony Ray Baker:
Such an efficiency, right? So we mail out the card a little ahead of time. On the birthday, it pops up on your cell phone, and what do you do?
Audience:
[inaudible 00:13:46].
Audience:
Happy-
Tony Ray Baker:
You call them. I recommend singing.
Audience:
[crosstalk 00:13:49] singing.
Tony Ray Baker:
I called somebody one time, and they were in a room of people, like this. And I did not know that. So I call up, and I said, “Hey (singing).” And I started making all these weird voices, and I just sang my little heart out.
And all of a sudden I hear a big round of applause. I could hear tons of … And they had went live with me on the speaker phone, as I’m singing happy birthday. So I hung up really quickly.
Tony Ray Baker:
These are impactful moments, though … This is a big thing for everybody is a birthday. And the friends and family. And you see it on social media, you get that validated every time you look at social media because of all the people posting on each other’s pages and stuff like that.
People recognize birthdays. So you should too. You really should take the time to go get 20 birthday cards, or however many people you need to get in a row, and commit to getting these out.
Tony Ray Baker:
Buy the stamps. Go to Costco, and get the stamps. Go get them ready. Get everything ready, and just do it. Every morning, on your schedule, whose birthday is coming up? Get it ready. Once a week. I don’t know. Make a system, but get them ready. Okay?
I want to talk a little bit about voicemail. Who has voicemail?
Audience:
[crosstalk 00:15:12].
Tony Ray Baker:
Anybody not have a voicemail? Okay. So, voicemail is a really great place to do a couple things. To program your clients on how you do business. And it is your personal assistant, who takes your calls while you should be doing what?
Audience:
Working.
Audience:
Selling houses.
Tony Ray Baker:
Marketing, advertising, selling houses. Whatever it is you should be doing, the voicemail takes your little call there, right? Is there anything such as an emergency? If … That sounded like an emergency.
There’s no emergencies. I have been selling houses for 25 years. There’s no such thing. You can get back to them, and you don’t have to be tethered to that phone. Let the voicemail pick it up.
And let me tell you how much more efficient you are when you let voicemail do its job. When they call you, and you answer the phone, and you’re with a client not now being in the moment where you should be with the client looking at houses, and you take the call.
Tony Ray Baker:
The minute you take the call, you’ve interrupted the moment with this client, and then they say? “Can you tell me blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?” And you, “Nope. I don’t know that information.”
I now have to do what? Wait until I get back to the office to pull the file or get on a computer, or spend time to research this information for you. And then I’ll call you back, now I have to hang up from you.
And remember to do that. So what do you do? You go to you phone, you make a note, “Make sure you call Mary as soon as I get back to the office.” Well what did you do just now? Did you solve their problem?
Audience:
No.
Tony Ray Baker:
Did you waste a lot of time?
Audience:
Yes.
Tony Ray Baker:
Did you leave the client in the moment?
Audience:
Yes.
Tony Ray Baker:
Yeah, not good. Let the phone pick up. Let the voicemail work. When you get back to the office, think about how efficient this is. “Hi, Darren. This is Tony Ray. Can you do me a favor? Can you please look at the client file for the Jones?
And can you tell me what they said about blah, blah, blah in the notes because that’s what I need to call them back?” Now, when I get to the office, I know exactly what he needs. I look it up, and I call him, and we have a very short conversation, versus a wasted one. I can call back everybody in 15 minutes, versus wasting an hour.
Tony Ray Baker:
The more business you do, and the more you revere the business you’re working to do, the more you’ll let that voicemail pick up the phone, okay? In my voicemail, and in my newsletters, we program people to understand that way we do business.
I do business by referral. Last year we did 10 million in referred business, okay? $10 million dollars came in referred. It is the best business you’re going to ever do. It’s easier. It comes with trust and respect. You work less, have more fun.
You do a lot less tap dancing. It’s amazing, right?
Tony Ray Baker:
So, as referrals are coming in, I’m programing them constantly to refer more. So on my voicemail it says, “Hi, this is Tony Ray Baker. Your friend in real estate. I’m sorry I can’t take your call right now. Please leave a detailed message on how I can help you.
And please leave the name of the person who referred you to me.” What did I just do? Told them to refer. I talked about referral. So if you strategically make sure that your voicemail speaks about referring, and referrals, and you can get the word in a couple times, your voicemail will start training your clients that you are a referred agent, okay?
That’s called, planting seeds. And what happens when you plant seeds?
Audience:
They grow.
Tony Ray Baker:
Not me. They die. Like I cannot … Darren can plant something and it grows. Me, I’m like, “Oh, I forgot. Again.” So planting … Just kidding. Planting seeds is about putting little pieces of information out there. On our newsletter, if any of you looked inside it says, “These are the people that were referred to our family this month.” And, “Thank you for the referral.”
And we acknowledge the people who referred them to me. So, we’re saying, in the newsletter, “Thank you.” And we’re talking about referrals. We do it on our voicemails. We do it in our emails. My email, says, “Referral.” Okay? If any of you …
Did anybody get my email? Did I send out emails? Yeah. Sorry. When I say, “Me.” I mean my assistant. Did you all get an email reminder yesterday with my face on it?
Audience:
[crosstalk 00:19:51].
Tony Ray Baker:
Okay. So you have the email. So you’ll see my signature on there. And I think it says, “Your friend you refer in real estate.” Okay? It should. But I’m programing referrals. So use these systems. You have them, paid for them, have email.
You have text messaging. Text messaging allows signatures, right? You can have a signature go out every single time. By the way, who’s not using signature on your text messaging? Do you know, technically, that you’re in violation?
Audience:
[inaudible 00:20:21].
Tony Ray Baker:
Yes you are. Everybody’s supposed to have every communication with what on it?
Audience:
[inaudible 00:20:27].
Audience:
Your broker.
Tony Ray Baker:
Broker, your name, phone number should be one everything. Why wouldn’t you? Go into your phones on the next break and put a signature in there that says your name, your broker, and says, “Please refer my right now.”
I don’t care what you write, but you can put that signature in and then every time someone you text them, a signature goes out with it. My signature’s on every single text. You’re supposed to do that, by the way. On voicemails, and on your text messages, okay?
Tony Ray Baker:
So do you see how all this stuff for your COI in the yellow is real easy to … Not expensive. Easy to do, okay? So, anybody have a bubble that looks like … Well maybe you don’t have that bubble. Top six marketing campaigns?
So I want you to look at the email 12 times a year. In the top left. And then snail mail’s down at the bottom, newsletter. So snail mail, I want you to, right here on your paper, underneath newsletter, I want you to write something you’re going to do to get in their mailbox 12 times this year.
Well I lied. February. [inaudible 00:21:49] go 11.
Tony Ray Baker:
If you get it ready you can do 10. Write down here at the bottom, underneath, somewhere beside that thing where it says, newsletter. Are you going to do a newsletter, or what are you going to mail out? Write it down. Everybody got it? Okay.
Here’s the thing, this is six marketing campaigns, right? Here’s where I want to be. My clients check their mail, I need to be in their mailbox, check email, I need to be in their email, take phone calls, so I call them.
They are on social media, so I want to be in their circle. They are text messaging, so I text message.
Tony Ray Baker:
I make a plan to make sure they see me in all six of these arenas every single month they are going to see me somewhere. Okay? So this is your formula, right now. All you have to do is pick six items off of the big bubble list that I gave you, and you’re going to pick six items and you’re going to put those in practice this year. Right?
So take the one you can do the quickest, that you think’ll be the most effective and get it implemented, and then go on to the next system. Don’t get overwhelmed by trying to do too many things at once. Just pick a system, just pick one. And then write it down, and commit to it. Commit to yourself. And get it done.
Tony Ray Baker:
So, if you’re going to take my newsletter class, we get that in two months, then that’s not the thing to do today. Maybe today you change your voicemails to talk about referrals. How many people in this room can do that easily today? Everybody, right?
So, maybe we commit to ourselves today to have the voicemail system done, okay? All right. I’m going to bring up … We’re going to talk a little bit … Well let me just ask you real quick. That COI, anybody have any questions about anything fun to do with COI?
Are we good on all this? You have any questions, of course, you’ll be able to use this address. It’s tom.heath, right?
Tom Heath:
Yeah [inaudible 00:23:59].
Tony Ray Baker:
You can go there. It’s novahomeloans.com, tom.heath novahomeloans.com. You can send in and say, “Can you please send me a copy of the newsletter. Can I please get this information? We talked about what?” Ask me questions. Tom will get them for me.
Okay? So use only that email to talk to me. And we’ll get you the information, okay? So I’m going to change over now to the middle section, which is, social media, websites, and emails, and all that internet stuff, right? Everybody on the same page?
We’re going down the middle.
Tony Ray Baker:
So, one of the things that we do is video. Video’s super easy. I can go live on video at an open house, and I can do what? I can say, “Hey, this is Tony Ray Baker with Tierra Antigua Realty.
And I am going to have this house open today, and I’m going to give you a sneak peek really quick.” And I’m going to take the phone and I’m going to walk into the room. And I’m going to really slowly move my camera around.
Let them see the house. Something cool that I think is in the house that would get their attention. And then I’m going to flip the camera and go, “Come and see me.” Or whatever I want to do, and then I’m going to turn it off.
And I’ve gone live. I did video, okay? And what happens when you do live video?
Audience:
People can [crosstalk 00:25:16].
Tony Ray Baker:
What does Facebook do with live video?
Audience:
[crosstalk 00:25:20].
Tony Ray Baker:
Yeah, what’s the algorithm for Facebook doing to your live video?
Audience:
Notifying [crosstalk 00:25:25]-
Tony Ray Baker:
Notifying. It’s absolutely going into people’s threads and saying, “Tony Ray is live. Tony Ray is live. Tony Ray is live.” And what do people do? “Oh.” And they click. And on their cell phones they’re watching me be a dork in front of a house.
But that’s what it does. That’s how we … That’s why live is so important. Live video is crazy. But the cool thing about live is, I could go live, and I could actually do what? I could interview Christy Frank, or Tom, or Tina Banks, and I can interview them and I could ask them questions, and I could be live.
And I could take that and I can do something else with that video.
Audience:
Share it to your timeline.
Tony Ray Baker:
I could do-
Audience:
Share it to your friends.
Tony Ray Baker:
… Share it to timeline and friends. So Tom Heath is going to come up here right now, and I’m sorry [Flabio 00:26:10]. And he’s going to talk to you right now, about taking your video and, your marketing and your advertising, and repurposing it with a purpose.
So you’re not wasting it. Woo hoo. Who has not seen that video? Anybody not seen Flabio, the video? Okay, would you please make sure they know how to see that video?
Tom Heath:
Absolutely.
Tony Ray Baker:
Okay. Here’s Mr. Tom Heath. Woo hoo.
Audience:
Woo hoo.
Tom Heath:
I have every [inaudible 00:26:42] working. So I’m not going to worry about changing up the microphones. Can you hear me okay?
Audience:
Yeah.
Tom Heath:
Okay. And for the record, I know it’s silly, but it’s Flabio, not Flabio. So we’re going to talk about a few things here. As you can see, Tony Ray is extremely comfortable with spontaneous presentations.
I like to plan mine out a little bit, and you’ll actually see that reflected in the marketing that I discuss with you today. We’re going to cover things very quickly, but we’re going to talk about the consistency in your message, plan your message, but also be prepared to adapt.
And then we’re going to give you some examples of starting with what you already have, right now. And I’ll give you some examples of what’s worked for me.
Tom Heath:
So, branding. This is your image that you’re presenting to the public. This is your professional image that you want people to think of. Tony Ray mentioned on his calendars he has that [inaudible 00:27:41], that symbolizes south west.
That carry through a theme throughout his marketing. If you’ve seen any of his listings, he has something on his head. It’s an iguana. That’s kind of comical. Makes you stand out, right? But you’ll see that in a lot of his listings.
I’ve had people … We were in the downtown office of Tierra Antigua, probably three or four months ago. Someone walked in, and they just said, “Hey, I just need to see the guy. Is this where the guy with the iguana on his head works?”
Tom Heath:
They didn’t even know his name. He was the guy with the iguana on his head. And it’s an opportunity for him then to engage with that individual. So, what your specialized image? And [inaudible 00:28:18], I’m not expecting you to give you a whole lot of notes here, but if you have questions on this, I’d be happy to sit down with you and go into more detail on any of this.
Right now my role is really just to Tony Rays’ voice a little bit of a break. So one thing that’s really important, I think, is to define your niche, or your niche depending on how you’d like to say it. And you could have a niche and a niche. That’s up to you.
Tom Heath:
But what is it that you do that you are known for? And I know everyone in this room is going to say, “We want to do business with everyone.” So do I. But I can’t market to everyone. So who am I going to market my materials to?
The people that I most relate with, right? That’s my goal. You could go with your clients. So you work with first time home buyers? Do you work with veterans, work with investors, work on people that are buying second homes, vacation homes?
What is that client profile? That could be a niche for you.
Tom Heath:
Is it a location? I love Sabino Canyon, so I like to talk about everything Sabino Canyon that’s up there. How it’s square. How it’s corner. Downtown. The [Ricattos 00:29:24]. Is there an area of town that you really like?
Your neighborhood. Is that your niche? Or is it the type or property? In gated communities. There’s someone in that only specializes … Her marketing says she specializes in gated communities. She has a lot of knowledge about how those work. A lot of push right now for mid-century moderns. Is that something you’re into?
If it is, maybe that’s a niche for you that you can get added to your marketing.
Tom Heath:
And I’ll tell you, I don’t know any real estate agents in Tucson that have this niche, but I think it would be a very eye-catching. If you specialize in water front property in Tucson Arizona.
Think about how many properties are along near somebody of water like in [inaudible 00:30:05]. Something like that. So you could put a niche on that [inaudible 00:30:08] more creative. I do water front property in Tucson.
That’s going to make someone stop and look at you. One way or the other.
Tom Heath:
So in branding, how do you get your message out? [inaudible 00:30:20] one of the easiest and quickest ways, is with your slogan, or your mission and vision statement. And I do hope you take time to craft what your personal vision is, and your mission for your clients. And it’s critical piece of information.
It’s [inaudible 00:30:36], but if you do it properly it might take you some time. And when we focused our marketing on the Heath team, when we sit down and figure out what kind of marketing we’re going to do, we look at the time and cost of the investment, and then what’s our return?
Tom Heath:
And it’s not just customers, or clients. It’s also exposure and branding. And we typically won’t do offensive marketing if it doesn’t get us at least three different ways for us to get that information out, or serve three different purposes.
Especially if it’s going to cost you more money. This is marketing on a dime, and sometimes it costs a quarter or a dollar. And as it gets more expensive, you do have to figure out, how are you going to get your most bang for your buck?
Tom Heath:
So, your mission and vision statement is a great way to get the habit. On our team, we created it. It’s at each one of my team members desks to remind them of what we do as a team. It’s in our office for our clients to see.
And it’s actually on my business card. When I meet people and they say, “What do you do?” I don’t give them the face upside, I give them the backside of my mission. And this tells you who I am. This tells you what our team does.
This tells you what we focus on. When I came up earlier, what did I say was important to our team? Do you remember? Obviously.
Audience:
Community involvement.
Tom Heath:
Community involvement. You’ll get that reading through here. If you’re a customer that understands the value of reinvesting in your market, and your neighborhoods, this is going to resonate with you.
If it doesn’t, we might not be the best fit. I’ll still work with you, I’d love to work with you. But you might not have the best fit with me. If you read that and go, “Yes, this is my guy.” I will [inaudible 00:32:15] any objection you could come up with at that point because they know who I am, because that’s my vision statement right there.
So we get multiple uses out of those things. We also try to get some consistency in our advertising, or imagery. This look right here, what does that look like to you?
Audience:
[inaudible 00:32:33].
Tom Heath:
Downtown Tucson. There’s U or A, that’s my current building, you have the mission there. This took a little bit of time for our designers to put together, but you’ll see this on a lot of the stuff that we do. We have reviews. That’s the same thing.
We do a lot of marketing that way. And we try to create that brand that ties in with our value statement, right? There’s consistency in the message, we’re taking time to create graphics. So we’re going to use that as often as we can.
Tom Heath:
But we also like to have fun. So I’m not good at anything. I’m really not. I’m good at lending, everything else, not so much. That’s who I am. And I was willing to share that. So we actually created a website. Well not so much. [inaudible 00:33:19] videos of things that
I’m not good at doing. Like rock climbing, fishing, parachuting, stand-up comedy, karate, archery …
Audience:
Modeling.
Tom Heath:
Magic. Actually, I nailed that one. I’m not good at a lot of things. So we [inaudible 00:33:35] these little videos. They’re 30 seconds long. Now granted, this took a little bit more editing. So there was some cost involved, but it’s become a brand for us.
So you’ll see a lot of things happening where we have some consistency. But when we created this video, I knew we were spending time and money on this, so I wanted to get as much as I could out of it. I had the photographer, the camera person, do some still shots with the green screen so that we could repurpose that.
And then you end up with things like this …
Tom Heath:
I don’t know what it says about men, but it at least gets people to talk to me, right? And then if I can get them my business card, and they can see I’m a serious individual, that’s the way we could attract business. The same thing with our website.
If you go through our website, which we’ll talk about very briefly, you’ll see there’s a very professional side to this. And our goal is to get everyone to that side, one way or another. But this logo it shows up on Facebook.
It’s now, we also have a testimonial thing that’s set up where this is the image of it. So we have two different things that we’re promoting, depending on the circumstances.
Tom Heath:
And then we talked about where we spend our money. Well we’re downtown people. So [inaudible 00:34:43] realtors is having a downtown chow, Chow Down Downtown. Guess what? This is the image we’re using and this is how we’re marketing it.
You’re only going to see one of two things with me. Either funny, or community. You spend time on these things, we’re going to get our money’s worth out of these time and time again.
Tom Heath:
When we sponsor events, we do things. Silver Spike, this is like the southern [inaudible 00:35:04] transportation museum downtown. It has a small following. It doesn’t have a great reach, but our dollars do a lot for them.
So there are members, and there are a lot of families that go there. Our dollars do a lot to help them, and they share that with us. When we do events, this is a party we did for clientele, kind of an appreciation party. We did it at a downtown location.
Instead of doing it at a bar, which is fine if that’s what you want to do for us. We wanted to do something that [inaudible 00:35:34]. So we did a glass blowing exhibit down at the downtown place. So we’re repeating the theme, consistent.
Tom Heath:
When we get out, we have season tickets to the Roadrunners in the Rialto. So we give out prizes. We’re attaching our name to the Rialto, and the Tucson Roadrunners, which are downtown. And this isn’t an actual ticket.
They’ve got to call me to get that information. So it’s a way for us to use our marketing and stretch it a lot farther [inaudible 00:36:04], “Hey, we sponsor the Rialto theater. But we also get tickets, and here’s how you [inaudible 00:36:08].” Put your name out there.
Tom Heath:
And sometimes everything comes together. This appeared before every film for the Arizona film festival that was held at the screening room downtown. So we had the comedy image connected with our downtown.
So conveying confidence, we do that in a lot of ways. That was branding. Conveying confidence. You do something right now, I guarantee you that you do something right now … Does anybody have a standard buyers’ presentation?
Audience:
[inaudible 00:36:37].
Tom Heath:
You might tailor it to the particular person. You have a listing presentation?
Audience:
[inaudible 00:36:42].
Tom Heath:
Have you ever recorded that? You’ve said that thing how many times? Who here said earlier they did video? Why were the reasons you don’t do video?
Audience:
Bashful.
Tom Heath:
Bashful.
Audience:
Don’t know what to say.
Tom Heath:
Don’t know what to say. Content. You have the best content anybody could possibly want, you know how to buy or sell a home. You had that conversation probably every day of your life. Video tape that. This is me.
We sat down some home buyers, they were not actually buyers. They were people that I know. Had two cameras set up. One on me, one on them. And I did have Mr. Gonzales edit it in. So there’s a little cost to that.
But we [inaudible 00:37:25] for an hour. One hour, we talked. Probably about two, three hours in post-production. And now I’ve got this broken down into two to three minute segments of information.
Because we went through, what is an FHA loan? There’s two or three minutes of me talking to a buyer about what an FHA loan is. I know this. I’m doing it for 20 years.
Tom Heath:
The information that we use to create the videos, each one of those is its own blog. So I have 20 segments of video, and I have 20 blogs I can write simply by printing the script of what I say every day to my clients. [inaudible 00:37:59] creating you can do.
You’re not going to learn anything earth shattering about FHA loans. But I have a resource for people to go back to. So we’re using the same language in our blogs, that we use in our videos, and then from the blogs we create a home buyers [inaudible 00:38:14].
This is just a collection of blogs, packaged a little bit differently. And now we’ve made it interactive so that the links … Well assuming [inaudible 00:38:23] to the links. And that’s why I should go back to the website, so they get it in a PDF.
Tom Heath:
But this was like three or four hours worth of work, and I’ve done years’ worth of marketing content, easily, if I’m putting out something every month. We do the same thing with [inaudible 00:38:37]. There’s questions about condominiums.
So I wrote a quick little blog about condominiums, put it on the website. Basically read the blog and the video. And I send that out, and then that video now will get posted on Facebook, and on our web page.
So, for really what was probably about 30 minutes’ worth of work, I’ve got five or six marketing pieces right then and there.
Tom Heath:
And then what are you passionate about? We talked about dog parks earlier. I’m passionate about downtown. That started this conversation, I wanted to learn everything about downtown.
And I started to talk to people, and I realized there’s so much about this place I didn’t know. They shoot off a cannon on second Saturdays at the museum down there. I didn’t know that. I think it’s pretty cool.
They dress up in 1770s garb, and they do living history [inaudible 00:39:23] right in the middle of our downtown. I had no idea. I’ve lived here for 25 years.
Tom Heath:
So I started to do a Facebook page about that, and I happened to run into a gentleman that runs Downtown Radio, and we created a show now on Downtown Radio called, Life Along the Streetcar. This isn’t about mortgages. This is about my hobby, my passion.
When I get to talk to some really cool people. I get the chance to find out really cool things. But what do I do with that information besides the show? I repurpose it. So Tucson Sugar Skulls. Have you heard we have a football team now?
Audience:
[inaudible 00:39:58].
Tom Heath:
They just started practice this weekend. The team was announced sometime last year. Soon after it was announced, because I have a radio show, I was able to get a media credential, and meet with the executive director, the CO.
So now that it’s becoming popular news again, guess what? We just take this, put it on Facebook, and save the content. We record it. I did it once six months ago. It’s relevant. Now it’s on Facebook, and now it’s on our web page.
So keep track of everything that you’re doing in repurposing it. You’re not necessarily going to get a radio show. But if you love dogs, you’re probably talking to people about dogs. You probably have a lot of knowledge.
Tom Heath:
It’s fairly simple to share that information with you, with your Facebook friends. At the same time as you’re sharing that, you can create a little video about that. The content is already there. Use it as much as you can. And on our web page we [inaudible 00:40:49] there.
So [inaudible 00:40:50]. We have our blog, and it has our videos in it as well as the blog. But now I’ve added this Life Along the Streetcar. This is the radio show. So now people that want to find out about Life Along the Streetcar, they go to … I got the domain, lifealongthestreetcar.org.
But it’s a page on my website.
Tom Heath:
And on the right is says, “Hey, this page is sponsored by the [inaudible 00:41:10]. If you’d like to find out more, click here. If you’d like our home buyers guide, click here.” So all this content is coming together. We’re just [inaudible 00:41:18].
So if you got any [inaudible 00:41:18] about [inaudible 00:41:18]. Certainly you could put that on Facebook and say, “Come over, we’re having [inaudible 00:41:26].” Ilovedogs.com. Have that as a page on your website.
Have that page dedicated to that topic, but sponsor it as the agent. Sponsor it as the [inaudible 00:41:36]. Sponsor it as the small business. You’re not tricking anyone. You are giving them what they want. You’re just creating an outlet for them.
Tom Heath:
[inaudible 00:41:45] downtown. When [inaudible 00:41:47] started talking about, “How come old people don’t know that there’s a cannon gets shot off on second Saturdays?” So we put together this tour. And as he said, these things are filling up so fast.
Well this took a lot of time to create this content. Because when you go on the tour, you actually get a 30 page book of what’s happening downtown. This took some time. One of the real costs with all that [inaudible 00:42:07] printing, because all the stuff is [inaudible 00:42:11] on the internet.
And I’ve already done most of the research for the radio show.
Tom Heath:
But we created this. It took a lot of time. So now done is we’ve turned it into a one hour lunch and learn with the trolley. So we just did this at our office. We had 15 people show up [inaudible 00:42:26] over capacity.
And we did the presentation, and then asked to go to a couple of offices and use this presentation. This content is just a PowerPoint of this. It’s no more time or energy. We’re finding different ways to repurpose everything that we do.
So that’s the high level overview. What I would suggest, if you think about the things where you’re spending time … How much time are you spending today in this class?
Audience:
[crosstalk 00:42:52].
Tom Heath:
Three hours. Some of your three and a half. Besides what you’re getting out of today’s class, what are you going to do with it?
Audience:
Implement it.
Tom Heath:
Besides implement it. That’s a given. You’re going to do what Tony Ray says. I guarantee you, you’ll have success with them. Right now, if I’m in your shoes, I’d do a really quick video about the fact that I’m spending three hours of my time in a class to learn better ways to help market sellers properties.
That’s what you’re doing. You’re helping figure out ways that you can help your sellers sell their homes. You’re spending three hours of your time, use that investment. Talk about something that you learned that, “Hey, this is [inaudible 00:43:28] this great technique on open houses, that’s going to help me drive more traffic to listings.
Let me know if you’d like to talk about buying or selling real estate.” But you can certainly use this in multiple ways.
Tom Heath:
You can leave here today, and write down what you learned, and put that out there as your knowledge. This is what I picked up today as my real estate agent. If you’re doing open houses, do you have traffic constantly or sporadically?
Audience:
[inaudible 00:43:54].
Tom Heath:
Sporadically. So maybe have a little tripod, if you’re by yourself do a little video. But you can have two or three topics set up that you want to discuss about your clientele at the open house.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be about that open house, but it could be, “[inaudible 00:44:07] houses, beautiful community. And let me tell you there’re seven other homes just like this.
So if you want to come up here and live where we have this great water feature, or have this great homeowners’ association, you should give me a call.” You’ve got time while you’re there. Use that for other reasons.
And then once you’ve done the video, you’ve created your script for your blog. SO you can send that out.
Tom Heath:
Some of these things we’ve talked about [inaudible 00:44:32] value. But the more you spend of time or money, think through all of the different ways that you could repurpose that content.
And I’ll tell you right now, you probably have at least 12 videos, or 12 blogs with what you have in your knowledge just talking buyers and sellers just simply by recording. [inaudible 00:44:50].
Anyway, I’ll get you back to the expert here, and I appreciate your time. [inaudible 00:44:59].
Tony Ray Baker:
Thank you, Tom … Thank you. Thanks for … So repurposing actually brings your pricing down. So if you make a video live on Facebook, and then you take that video and you download it, and then you take …
Let’s say we interviewed Kristy, right, we interview … I’m sorry that I pick on you Kristy so much. But let’s say we interview Kristy, and we put her live and we ask her some questions about insurance and what every homeowner needs to know.
We could then take the video and send it out on a BombBomb email to all of our clients. We could send it to every client when they’re buying a house, right? What you need to know about insurance. “And by the way, here’s Kristy Frank, you need to call her because you’re buying a house.
You need to get that checked now. You need to get your portfolio checked.”
Tony Ray Baker:
We could put it on our website, create a page called, What You Need to Know about Homeowners Insurance Before You Buy a House. So I now put this video on my website, and it’s there.
And then I go to Facebook and Instagram, and I put up a post that says, “What you need to know about buying a house getting home insurance.” Right? We put that up, and I get people to go the website to read the information.
How many times have I reused a video? It may have cost me a little bit of time and money on the upfront, but the more I repurpose it, the more traction I get with it, and the less it really costs to get out there.
And becoming the expert in your field is intentional. It’s not accidental. You have to let people know you are out there, right?
Tony Ray Baker:
And we have all these beautiful ways. Everybody have six bubbles that says, The Top Six Marketing, right? That’s the six best ways to get a plan going to get out …
Tony Ray Baker:
(silence)
