Tony Ray:
Okay. So, listing systems. So one of the things you’ll see on the side you’ve got orange. And I need one of those so I can go with you. Everybody needs a piece of paper. Who’s going to help me? Can you distribute?
This is Elizabeth. She is stager extraordinaire. If you’re not talking to her and you want to talk about staging, you should be talking to Elizabeth. Make sure, please, that everybody gets lined paper. Just take one, pass them back, maybe.
I brought pads. And you can pass them to tables. Who else needs them? Pass them that way back. And then you’ve got a pad. And so they’ll go back in rows of four.
Tony Ray:
And then what we’re going to do is… who has a presentation for when they go to their listing? Who has their presentation? Hands up high. How many people have a real presentation that you use every time? I have three of you?
Nobody has a listing presentation? Bravo. I have never had a listing presentation. I only bring tools in my toolbox. I do not want to shove down your throat a whole bunch of stuff you don’t want to know. You don’t care about. I’m not going to do it to you.
Tony Ray:
I’m going to talk about photography, staging, listing presentations and all the rest of these systems in orange, okay? I just went to a listing presentation… I’m sorry. I’m going to wait just a second.
Who does not have paper yet? Because I want you to be able to write this stuff down. Everybody good? Anybody missing a lined piece of paper? We’re all good.
Tony Ray:
On the top of this lined piece of paper, you are going to write Marketing Plan. Marketing Plan. Who in the room has a Marketing Plan that they can show to their sellers? Who has it out? Hands up. Be proud of yourselves.
Two people have a Marketing Plan. Three. Four people. You go into the listing presentation and you hand them a document that says here’s my Marketing Plan. Here is what I promise that will be done, right? Why is that important?
Speaker 2:
[inaudible 00:02:37]
Tony Ray:
You’re making a commitment? You’re showing them your value. What else?
Tony Ray:
How many people have had a realtor before? I just got one that that said… I just got a realtor, I mean a client, last week. His realtors put the sign in the front yard and the key safe on the front door and he hasn’t heard from them in 42 days on the market, and they won’t return his calls.
Shocking revelation that this is happening in our world, isn’t it? It is happening all the time. This is the level of quality our industry is providing right now.
Tony Ray:
So, we’re today going to leave here with a Marketing Plan. You’re going to tell your clients every single time what you promise to get done. And you’re going to use it. I’m going to tell you all the stuff I do and you’re going to write down the stuff you want to do, and you’re going to make that your Marketing Plan.
And then, if you want to add more things later, you just take the document on your computer, it’s really cool because you can edit, and then you add number 18 on there and you add it to your Marketing Plan.
And we’re going to get this done. Because if you don’t, people like me are going to keep taking your listings.
Tony Ray:
I just went to a listing appointment. I walked in the room. This is how I met Elizabeth. I go in the room. Did you see the books that they had in the room? [crosstalk 00:04:05] How many books they had?
Elizabeth:
Yeah.
Tony Ray:
They had five books. Big, really nice binder books in a row. And they were all lined up on the kitchen counter. The house was $479000 on Swan Road. The cherry of cherries for signage. Who doesn’t want your sign on Swan Road right next to Skyline? I’ll take it.
They call me. They were referred to me. The other ones they got from different sources.
Tony Ray:
I arrive with that little pad of paper that James was handing out. I arrived with one of those and a pen. And there’s five books on the counter and they looked at me, and the guy actually says to me, “Where’s your book?” And I said, “I don’t have a book.”
And he said, “You didn’t bring us the book? We told you this was a listing presentation. We wanted you to tell us what you’re going to do.” And I said, “David, I don’t push information on you that you don’t want or need.” I said, “I’m here just to see if we can work together.”
I said, “I’m here to take notes. Find out what happened. What didn’t go right. You’ve been on the market six months. How many showings have you had? I’m here to investigate and see if we’re a fit. I’m not here to take your listing.”
Tony Ray:
And I said, “At the end of this interview, we will either like each other and go forward, or we will shake hands and agree that we’re not a fit.” I said, “After that, I’ll promise you I’ll answer every question you could possibly have about me and I’ll give you all the documentation you want about how I market or what I’m going to do to sell this house. But let’s get to know you and figure out what’s going on.”
Tony Ray:
So I took out my pad of paper. You should have seen these two. It was two guys. You should have seen the two of them. They thought I looked like… I felt like there was some tenant or something.
So they were just staring at me, and they kept staring at those books. And I was like “Oh, my God with the books already!” So I took the five books, and I shoved them all in my hands together, and I stacked them up, and I put them on the counter, and I said, “If you really want the books, I’ll make one for you later.” I said, “But otherwise, let’s ignore these books.”
Tony Ray:
So we spent some time together. I went through the house. I looked at everything. I took a lot of notes. We talked a lot about staging. You were there right before me.
Elizabeth:
Right.
Tony Ray:
So I don’t know how they got you prior, but they got Elizabeth from the… Your company is called For-
Elizabeth:
All Stages.
Tony Ray:
For All Stages. They had got Elizabeth prior to me getting there. Somebody had put a bird in their ear that they needed to maybe talk about staging. So she is exiting and I’m coming in and they had had another stager. Did you know there was another one?
Elizabeth:
Yeah. I heard all about that.
Tony Ray:
There was another stager there who said, “You will do this, this and this and this. And you will remove this, you’ll paint this.” And she got very uppity with them and started making demands.
And then she said, “Or I won’t work with you.” [crosstalk 00:07:23] Have you been around two gay men with the ruffled feathers? I walked into that. They were pissed off.
Elizabeth:
They said your presentation was the best presentation they had ever seen.
Tony Ray:
They said what?
Elizabeth:
Your presentation was the best they’d ever seen, and they just loved it. [inaudible 00:07:42]
Tony Ray:
So my presentation, non-presentation, she says they told her was the best they had ever seen. So what was different? What did I do differently? [crosstalk 00:07:52] We did this, right?
And I went in with a pad of paper and I asked a lot of questions and I got to know them. And I got to figure out what was going on. They had had their house on the market. The realtor who had their house on the market used his cell phone to take all their professional photos.
Tony Ray:
Kept dropping their price from $550000 to $525000 TO $500000 TO $479000 to… you know, kept dropping the price. They had two showings in six months. And I finally referred to their house the entire time as the Clan of the Cave Bears because all the rooms looked like caves in the pictures.
Did you see the pictures? By the way the realtor, after losing the listing, it expired, and they did hire me, of course. That’s why we’re telling this story. But he removed all the photos. So I was really bummed because I wanted to show the before and afters for you, but he removed all the photos, which I would have done too, because that’s embarrassing.
Tony Ray:
So number one, on a listing, folks, pay the hundred bucks and get some freaking professional photos! Do not… yeah, right? Let’s all clap to that. Right? You’re getting paid $6000 or $60000 to sell their house.
Maybe you could afford to throw out a hundred bucks to get a professional photographer in there to do the work? Why are you spending your time anyways? The photographer is going to go… Look, all you have to do is set up a little box called a construction box and then you give them a code and the little photographer runs over there.
They shoot all the pictures. And then they send them to you. You just saved time. How much is your time worth? Mine’s worth more than a hundred bucks an hour. So absolutely get a photographer.
Tony Ray:
So the photographer pictures were from the cell phone. They had no flash. They looked like a cave. I get in there. Do my thing. And I said to the guys, I said, “I can do this property, I can take this listing.” I said, “Let’s meet at my office. Let’s set a date and I’ll go over what we’re going to do.
I’m going to create a plan just for you and we’re going to go through it.” The guys were like, “Okay.” They looked bewildered because I wasn’t trying to force them right then to sign my paperwork.
Tony Ray:
Look, here’s my theory. If I’m not a fit, they’re going to hire the next person anyways because I wasn’t the fit. Did I lose out because I didn’t pressure them into signing? No, I just probably avoided a lot of legal issues and a lot of problems because we weren’t a fit.
So if they’re willing to hold on and wait for me and they’re willing to listen to the fact that I may not actually take them as a client, I’m positioning myself differently. Right? Then I told them I’m going to make them a custom plan for marketing, which I did. And I met them at my office, which is maybe what they’re talking about when they said I had the best presentation. So I met them at the office. I went onto the screen in the room and I showed them how I build a website for every home. And how the website is super fast for cell phones because I make a cell-phone ready website as well.
Tony Ray:
Can you use the same language? Can you guys say that? Anybody here can’t say that? No, you can do exactly what I do, right? So I build you a website. I build you a mobile website, right? I make sure that the mobile website is amped. A-M-P is… amp is the word.
I make sure it’s amped, ready. Right? What does that mean? James? Where are you?
James:
Accelerated mobile pages.
Tony Ray:
Accelerated mobile pages. It means that they download in two seconds or less when the client is on cellular, they can click and them amped cell phone page is a duplicate of your real website, but it loads instantly.
Super fast, right? You all can do this, by the way, and you don’t have to know anything about it.
Tony Ray:
Who doesn’t believe me? Okay. So the way we build websites and the way we put these systems together is you can go to a company called Agent Marketing, right? AgentMarketing.com.
If you’re with some… I know our company, it’s free for all the agents, I think. Is that what I’m getting? So it’s free at Tierra. So it might be at other companies, if not, I think the price to do one is $10. Can you afford it for the seller?
Tony Ray:
So you’re going to build a website for the seller. How do you do it? You put in the MLS number into the system and you push start and the MLS populates and creates a website for you through Agent Marketing.
Isn’t that amazing? And it creates a little baby version for your mobile. Isn’t that neat? It sounded a lot bigger and badder when I described it, didn’t it? Right. So it’s all about how you give reverence to the things you do.
I give great reverence to the fact that I know how to do that because how many people in here are doing it? I should give reverence to it. I searched it out, I found it, I brought it to my company because I believe in it.
And so I can sell it like that because I know I have it and I know most agents are showing up without it.
Tony Ray:
Yes.
Speaker 6:
When you show them your presentation, you obviously don’t have the listing, so you don’t have the MLS number. So what are you using, just an old one?
Tony Ray:
I use another one that’s currently running. Perfect. Yes, and by the way, I select in my presentation other houses like theirs. So if they’re in the million-dollar range, I choose million-dollar houses to show them that I have made websites for it.
If they’re in the $500000 I’m going to choose $500000 homes. If it’s a $200000 house, I am not showing them a million-dollar house. That makes them feel bad. You do not want to make your client feel bad, right? So give them apples as best you can.
Tony Ray:
I also show them that I do it for every client. If Chris refers me a client, he’s going to get the exact same care that any other person refers to me. I don’t care if I agreed to take your listing for $75000 and I agreed to take yours for $750000, you both get the same care because I work by referral.
And you talk to all your friends and they will somehow know her friends. And when one of them finds out that I did not treat everybody with the same respect and courtesy in my marketing and the way I took care of them, it will not bode well for me, right? And why would we treat people any differently?
Tony Ray:
So every single person, I don’t care what price range they’re in, they’re treated the same by me and my team and it’s all about us. It’s not about the house, ever. It’s only about whether we can work with the person. Okay? And I tell every client that.
And that’s why I’m interviewing my client to see if they’re going to be a fit. Because on my systems, with my sellers, is every single person gets invited to my parties. I just had 250 people a couple of weeks ago at my house. Right?
And everybody in the room were like-minded because they were all clients of ours and they all got along. And they all made connections. And they all did business together and some of them hooked up with baby-mommy stuff and it was cool watching it happen.
I know, it happens. They’re out there. And so that stuff is happening because of that connection and that energy and not taking crappy clients. Okay?
Tony Ray:
So all of that is because we have these systems. Okay. So on my… What did I do with it? So I also do flyers. Guess how I do it? On the Agent Marketing system as soon as you hit the MLS button, it creates a full-color flyer set for you and all you have to do is hit print.
That amazing? I don’t, by the way, get any money to sell Agent Marketing. I get no affiliate… I get nothing from them to tell you about this program.
Tony Ray:
I do, from Agent Marketing, I actually get a sign rider. I hang it on the sign and it says, 1234 North Main Street.com. It has a QR code and when people drive by they can click on the QR code, especially if they’re iPhone 10 or higher users or they have scanners on their Samsungs.
As soon as they click the QR code what happens? The instant mobile website pops up on their screen and tells them everything and it has a chat button and they can hit chat and talk to me. Oh, by the way, it has call capture, too, and I know their phone number instantly and I can call them if I want.
Tony Ray:
“Hey, saw you’re sitting out in front of the house.” It actually has call capture on it, right? I can be spooky. “I’m watching you.” So this system puts all of that in front of you for your seller. But you’re going to tell your seller.
You’re going to sell this to your seller. You’re doing all this for them? Who doesn’t want call capture? It also has a tech service on it. You get that with the system for 10 bucks as well. Okay? The system also has instant craigslist posts.
I tell my clients we post on craigslist. We get 10 to 20 leads a week on craigslist, okay? The system, Agent Marketing, actually has a button. It’s created an ad. And you copy-paste it over to craigslist and it’s done.
Tony Ray:
How many of you are doing all these things for your client? No. Good job. That’s hot.
Speaker 6:
[inaudible 00:17:24]
Tony Ray:
That’s hot. I like it. So-
Speaker 6:
[inaudible 00:17:30]
Tony Ray:
It is. But imagine now how many of these things you can do on your marketing plan. How many did I just go over that you can write down that you can do? Everything I just told you, you can do on your marketing plan because all you have to do is pay $10 for an Agent Marketing website.
Is there growing pains? Yes. You’re all going to have to spend a couple of hours and learn how to do it. Do you use Agent Marketing? No, but something like it.
Speaker 7:
[inaudible 00:17:56]
Tony Ray:
Yeah, I know. I’m seeing all you guys. No, so are you using Agent Marketing? Yes. We’re still on you.
Speaker 7:
No, my office uses [inaudible 00:18:18] website, commercial.
Tony Ray:
Nice. So they’re doing something for you. So almost the same thing. She’s got a guy, or a girl… somebody. But you have somebody too, now. You have Agent Marketing. So all you have to do now is go on there.
Tony Ray:
So what does that look now for me? So, when I go to a client and we’re sitting there and they say, “Well what are you going to do about selling my house?” I’m going to take my briefcase and I’m going to pull one of the tools out of the toolbox.
And this is one of my tools. And I say, “Here’s my commitment to you. I’m going to build a full-color website for you with virtual tour.” Oh by the way, the site does the virtual tour for you automatically.
Speaker 8:
With the pictures?
Tony Ray:
Yeah. That you loaded from MLS. Oh, I’m going to also create a little mobile mini-site that’s super fast. Oh, and it did it for me. And I’m going to give you a sign rider with the custom URL. By the way I buy a custom URL.
I do pay $14.99 for that with this company, Agent Marketing. I pay the bucks because I want the custom URL because the consumer driving by will know the address: 123 North Main Street.com. Now they know the address is the URL. It also shows better in search engines. Right?
Because my address is matching my SEO as my URL. I tell them that I am also going to give them call lead capture with text messaging service and I tell them that I’m going to put them on over 1000 websites syndicated and paid.
Why? Because the system did all that. Do I sound like a rock star, or what?
Tony Ray:
All of this comes from that Agent Marketing. You can all do this. It’s going to take you-
Speaker 9:
Do we have to build the site?
Tony Ray:
No, it’s all automatic.
Speaker 9:
You can take it either way.
Tony Ray:
You can customize it all you want. If you’re a geek like me and you want to get nerdy and go in there and play with it, go ahead. But the reality is all these toys are a click of a button once you have your MLS number, it will load into the system and create it all for you. AgentMarketing.com. Okay?
Tony Ray:
Everybody good? Do you feel like you just went, “What!” If you don’t look like a rock star at your next listing appointment, this is on you. I just gave you rock star status right here. This is big stuff. And it’s all done for you.
Tony Ray:
Okay. My next page is 20… no, so it’s 17 items. Seventeen things that I promise to do. I promise to do these 17 things for my clients. Ready? I’m going to list your home in the Tucson Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.
Are all of you doing that? Are you telling them you’re doing it? Put it on that paper. I cannot tell you how many times right now I have run into clients who were never told they would be listed and they weren’t. Weird stuff going on. Trust me, it’s happening.
Speaker 10:
Is there a number-
Tony Ray:
So, what did you ask?
Speaker 10:
The number for… it was how many, you said?
Tony Ray:
We do paid syndication sites, over 1000 of them. And that will be part of that system. It actually syndicates for you. You also have that through MLS. It’s syndicating as well. And if you want to stop syndication to Zillow you can.
There is a button in the distribution tab, and you can click do not syndicate to Zillow. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 10:
Why?
Tony Ray:
Hold on. I’ll do that during wine. I’ve got to get you through this, or you’re going to be mad at me because I didn’t keep my promise. And I always keep my promise. Okay, so number one, list your home in TAR MLS.
I’m going to put a yard sign in your yard. Have you shown up to a listing before and there’s no yard sign? Yeah. I showed up to one, knocked on the door and the guy said that his agent completely forgot him and didn’t even tell him he was listed. [crosstalk 00:22:30] He was in his underwear, and I had a female client, and it was a little nerve-wracking to get her out of there.
Yeah. He had said, “I’m going to call my agent now” and I said, “Yeah, according to my Days on Market you’ve been listed for 32 days.” He’s like, “I didn’t even know he listed my house.” I said, “Did you want to sell the house?” He said, “Yeah, but he never came back.”
Tony Ray:
So my point with all this is you have to tell them because other things that you don’t know you don’t know are happening right now in the world of real estate and it makes you want to throw up. But the reality is it’s happening.
So we have to tell them, “We promise to do our best, to serve our country.” Remember that? We have to tell them.
Tony Ray:
All right. Ready? Flyer box. I’m going to put flyers on your sign. I’m going to put full-color flyers. I’m going to make the word full-color flyers on your sign. They’re going to look like this, with really pretty glossy paper.
You know what I do, I go down to the store and I buy a box of this from Office Max or Amazon and it’s just photo paper. Just put the color paper print from Agent Marketing and you’ve got a full color.
Tony Ray:
I’m only going to do that if you have an occupied house. I am going to have… Every time you see that we are down to five flyers in the box, I am going to have you call me and you’re going to tell me, “We’re down to five flyers.”
And I’m going to mail you a new package, because if I have 28 listings right now, I can’t get to you. I can’t get to all of them, right? So I’m going to have them mailed out. And I tell the client, “Only load five at a time, because you’ll then be paying attention to how many are going.” You know what’s really cool about that-
Audience:
[inaudible 00:24:14]
Tony Ray:
Oh, they get so excited. They call me. “Oh my God, they’re taking the flyers like crazy.” “Awesome! I’ll send you more!” My name is on them. That’s awesome.
Tony Ray:
Okay, I’m going to put a key safe on your house with MLS key safe. A real estate agent key safe is going on your house, not just a contractor’s box. And I would tell them, “Not just a contractor’s box. An actual MLS key safe is going on your house” and tell them the difference between the two.
Tony Ray:
I’m going to design a custom information book. Who’s still doing the books for the house? So if you’re doing it, put a custom information book with the sign-in sheet in the house. It’s not required any longer, as long as you tell MLS that you’re not requiring a sign-in.
I don’t know that we need to do that anymore, either. I’m in limbo on it. Some people like the book. Some people don’t. I don’t care. It’s easy to make. Who makes my books? Fidelity. They’re awesome.
They send me the book information. I fill in the what we want. We’ve got a book.
Tony Ray:
Okay. Professional photo shoot of the home. What did I say?
Audience:
Professional.
Tony Ray:
Who is using professional photographers? Who are you using?
Speaker 16:
[inaudible 00:25:32] Realty.
Tony Ray:
Okay, so you’re using another agent. There’s Greg McCown and Ron.
Speaker 16:
Drawn Video.
Tony Ray:
And Drawn Video. Who else is using somebody different?
Speaker 17:
Joey Ambrose.
Tony Ray:
Joey Ambrose. Tyler?
Tyler:
Alison Riddell.
Tony Ray:
Okay. Everybody’s got a name.
Tyler:
I use [inaudible 00:25:52] and Lister Assisters as well.
Tony Ray:
Lister Assisters.
Speaker 13:
Lister Pros.
Tony Ray:
I use Lister Pros. Lister Pros. So I don’t know the… I know that there’s very specific, great photographers. You use them for different reasons. Greg McCown, the lightning guy. That guy’s amazing.
But I use Lister Pros because for a hundred bucks I can pop in the thing and those kids shoot back amazing photos. Just like that. It’s such a quick, easy system for me. So I use Lister Pros.
Speaker 13:
How much?
Tony Ray:
A hundred bucks. Yeah. Unless it’s a bigger house, its $125. Yeah. They offer all the stuff, too, a drone and all that magic. They have magic cameras with all kinds of cool stuff. So Lister Pros. But the big key here is I’m going to give reverence.
In that listing conversation, I’m going to say, “I’m going to hire a professional photographer and you’re going to get a professional photo shoot.” Because they have seen so many crappy photos that that’s going to make them breathe real easy, right?
I’m going to submit all those photos into multiple, into the MLS. Right? I’m going to put as many as I can, up to 50. Why? Why is it so important to know how many photos you’re putting out there? Somebody know the numbers?
Speaker 14:
The more photos the higher up it comes up on the list on MLS.
Tony Ray:
Bravo. Not on MLS, in the mind of the buyer. Did you know that if you have under 22 photos you are likely to be a swipe? You’re like a bad dating site. They just swiped you. You didn’t even get looked at. If you have 18 photos on your MLS listing, they probably swipe you. You probably don’t even know it’s happening.
Speaker 15:
What about no photos?
Tony Ray:
No photos is awesome. Yeah. You don’t want to get swiped. You want the buyer to stop. Buyer has to stop and want to get into that house and look at it on those photos. You need a minimum of 25 to keep that buyer. MLS has how many photos available on it?
Speaker 15:
Fifty.
Tony Ray:
Fifty. Why do you get to put 50? Do you think that’s just because? It’s not. It’s because the consumer is requesting it. So get 50 photos. Get as close as you can. Take pictures close-up if you have to. I don’t care, but get 50 photos. [crosstalk 00:28:15]
Remember, I treat every house the same, so I don’t care what it is. If it’s only a thousand square feet, my photographer has been told to take pictures of every little thing they can find.
You can pay these Lister Pro guys and your photographers, you can pay them to do community stuff that is attached to the community that is paid for. That’s allowed, right? So I always have community stuff that’s in the HOA payment, I always have that on there, as well. Okay?
Tony Ray:
What are we selling right now more than anything in real estate? When you sell a house, what are you really selling more right now than anything?
Audience:
Lifestyle.
Tony Ray:
That’s it. Lifestyle. How many of you are talking about the lifestyle in your text? Close to the downtown area, close to the freeway, close to the U of A, close to restaurants, shopping, dining. What are we talking about in lifestyle? Easy care, low maintenance.
The house on Swan that we were talking about, that house, I got the listing. They met with me in the office. We went through all of this. I got the listing. Elizabeth showed up and staged it beautifully.
I might even have a picture in here. Let’s see if I have. Let’s see what we got. How do we do that? Pictures there. There we go. Can I make that go like that? Everybody can see this?
Audience:
Yeah.
Tony Ray:
Let’s see if we can see some of her fabulous staging. Maybe not. It does not want to respond. You think? No. I think I died. That’s really sad. I’m going to go off in manual. Nope, we might have died. Elizabeth, I cannot show these.
Oh yeah, it’s like the whole thing is dead. There we go. Can you see that little? Okay. This house was a very interesting house. It’s a two-story and it was very unique. Let’s see if this goes now. There you go.
Tony Ray:
So this is Elizabeth’s staging. She gave it… look at the difference in the pictures. So imagine a dark cave. This was a dark cave. That’s a wall of windows looking at the Catalina Mountains. Look how beautiful that is, right? But the house… you have to agree.
The house was unique and when I walked in, I had a little “oh” because the kitchen was kind of cubbied in there and we’re in the half-million dollar range. So Elizabeth came in and did all this great stuff. Look how beautiful this looks.
Does this not just make this house look super rich?
Tony Ray:
So you know what I did? This house was listed for $470-something. This is a little tiny kitchen in a big, fabulous how, by the way. It should have been a problem. By the way, it’s on Swan Road. We were excited about the sign. But what else are we now not excited about?
Audience:
Traffic.
Tony Ray:
So you know what I did in my marketing? I wrote about the traffic. I attacked the beast. So Elizabeth comes in and stages. The Lister Pros kids came in and did the photography. We put it up online and I write, “You’ll never believe how tranquil and quiet and peaceful it is when you get inside that house and pool area and how convenient all life is right outside your door.”
So I wrote about the benefits of being located on Swan and I wrote about the fact that it’s super quiet and peaceful, because when… The city built a giant berm up there. You’ll know the road. You’ll know the area. It’s got that big, fake wall. For that house.
So when you went inside and you were standing in the pool area, it was a big, giant rock wall built by the city and the traffic is going beside you below, but you couldn’t really hear it. What you heard was standing in the pool area, you heard the whispers of sounds coming through the canyon below you as down to the city with the city lights. And I wrote about it.
Tony Ray:
We were going to Rocky Point in a retro camper. Our new retro camper. We were taking off for one of our six vacations, and we listed the house on Thursday. I put this full-color flyer from Agent Marketing in the window of Tierra Antigua Realty downtown.
I stuck it in the window. And we were leaving on Friday morning to drive up to Rocky Point, and a very nice lady called me and said, “I would love to see the house on Swan.” And I said, “Not a problem.
Actually, I’m ready to go on my vacation and we’re leaving at 1:00 and I actually already got my stuff done for the day. I’ll run over and show it to you.”
Tony Ray:
What? Because I don’t show property. That’s what you’re thinking. I don’t usually go out, right? So I said, “I’ll show it to you.” She was really cute on the phone. Really sweet. So I said, “Let me go… I’ll run over.”
Open the door. I’m in there and I said, “How the heck did you find me?” And she said, “Oh, we were walking downtown. Saw a flyer somewhere.” Agent Marketing. Flyer in a window.
Tony Ray:
So I sat there with her and her name’s Christine and her and Bob sat there in the living room on this furniture right there. They sat there. They used your furniture. Just wanted to let you know, I’m full disclosure. We all sat here and I just let them take it in.
And I said, “I am here to let you be here as long as you want. I’m not going to make you leave or… all good. Enjoy the outside, whatever. You want to ask questions, I’m here to answer.” They sat there for an hour with me.
I had taken the listing price to $500000. I moved it back up to where it should have been. They bought it, cash, from me. I had four other offers right behind them. On the very first weekend we listed it, they had 18 showings.
They went six months with only two showings and no offers. We had it done in one weekend. I did a million-dollar sale. And I love these people that bought this house. They’re just adorable.
Tony Ray:
The boys that sold the house are so raving… They’re so much my raving fan now, they’ve been writing stuff online about us and they’ve already sent us, in the last two months, three more referral clients because they’re so thrilled with what happened here.
And that was because of beautiful staging. Because of great photography. And doing what was right by the client, and that comes from here. Did I do anything magical, Tony Ray, better than anybody else could do? No. No. So you can all do this.
Tony Ray:
So let’s keep going. I purchase a personal domain name. That’s the URL: 123NorthMainStreet. So I wrote that. Purchased a personal domain name. I’m going to create a custom 14-page website. Do I create it? Kind of. I push the button. Right? If I need to slow down, tell me. I’m sorry I did not make copies of them.
Audience:
[inaudible 00:35:39]
Tony Ray:
Purchase a personal domain name. Create a custom 14-page website. Underneath create a custom 14-page website, I list all the pages that are going to be on their website: school information, aerial photos, street walking view from Google.
Oh, by the way, did I tell you that when Agent Marketing builds a site for you, you get school info? Aerial photos from Google Earth. And they can click on the website and move the little dude around and walk around. You ever seen that? It’s all on that site.
Tony Ray:
They get property maps, get what’s nearby, get all kinds of information that this website puts up for you for $10. Now if it went up to $16.99, don’t be holding… I don’t know. It was $10 last time I checked.
I have it free now, so I don’t even know what it costs. I’m going to create a custom mobile site. That’s number 10. Right? We talked about that. I’m going to create a mobile site. Client says, “What’s the difference?” I’m going to tell him.
It downloads quickly, same thing, but it works on a mobile device and it works differently because they’re cellular a lot of times and we want them to be able to get quick information. Oh and by the way, they can chat with me instantly.
Tony Ray:
I’m going to also connect you to text messaging service with call capture. You can text.
Speaker 15:
What’s that last one again?
Tony Ray:
Text messaging service with call capture. So all of my stuff says text Tony Ray to 87599 and the minute they do that, instantly the site pops up. Or, I also have that they’re going to have a QR code. By the way, once you get the QR code, what could you do with it?
Speaker 15:
[inaudible 00:37:22]
Tony Ray:
You can put it on anything. All you have to do is copy-paste. It’s pretty cool. Right? You send out a listing postcard to the neighborhood… just list it. Put the QR code on it. Click. Whoa! You’re pretty sophisticated.
What if I’m looking to sell my house and I get your postcard? What if all this stuff is kind of somehow conveniently in a just-listed postcard? Check out their website. Check out this, check out that.
On the postcard. If I’m thinking about hiring a realtor right now, you might be in the running with all that technology listed on a postcard, right?
Tony Ray:
Submit advertising to over 1000 paid websites. That’s syndication. Use big words sometimes. They really like it. “I like to use paid syndication.” Sounds like we’re a TV show. Hey, we’re going to be a TV show, right? I’m on there.
Tony Ray:
Next, everybody got that one?
Speaker 14:
Say that last one again.
Tony Ray:
We’re going to submit their advertising to 1000-plus paid syndicated sites. Who does that? Your MLS is doing it for you and so does this system. So you don’t have to do it yourself. Really, right now, have I asked you to do anything? No. I’ve asked you to hire a photographer, hire a stager if you need staging.
I’ve asked you to pay $10 and put this stuff into MLS. Can you do it? And I’ve asked you to write it all down so you can tell them what you did. This is going to be a world of difference.
Tony Ray:
Why did I get the listing with five other people? By the way, they called the top, they called five top 100 agents, that’s who I was up against. They called those five and I happened to be one of the top 100 agents at the time, but they didn’t know it.
So they didn’t hire me based on being a top 100 agent. They had no idea. Isn’t that cool? They hired me because I had a better marketing plan and I listened.
Tony Ray:
I’m going to post the house. I’m going to create a custom video. By the way, Agent Marketing does that for you as well. If you want to play with creating your own videos, who’s been doing any of their own videos? Yeah. I know you have. If you want to do your own video really cool, go to Animoto.com.
Speaker 15:
How do you spell it?
Tony Ray:
A-N-I-M-O-T-O. Animoto.com. If you go to Animoto.com, you can put in 10 pictures and then write this down, use The Original. It’s so fun. They give you a thousand themes. Just use the one called The Original.
And when you plug in 10 photos, and then it will give you little blocks. You can say something about each photo. And then you hit spin and it spins this video. Oh, wait. You have to pick a song.
You pick a song and you hit spin, and all of a sudden, this super-dynamic, professional video comes out with your house and it moves to the music.
Tony Ray:
It’s crazy! Beautiful, and it does its own thing. What are those things called when you… transitions. It does all the trans… all I have to do, James, is look at you and I get words. So the transitions that you have to stress over, it does all the automatic transitions for you in all different ways so the video spins and it does all this cool stuff.
So it’s Animoto.com. If you want to make videos quick and learn, that’s a super-easy system to learn and you can dazzle anybody. What do you do with the video?
Speaker 15:
Is Animoto free?
Tony Ray:
Animoto is not free. It’s cheap, but not free. I know the joke that was coming out. Let’s not even go there. So Animoto is a good one for… So I think I paid $249 for a year of unlimited. I want to say it was like that. And we used it for everything, really.
We were pumping out a lot of video on that. So by the way, when we get all this done, we’re doing custom videos and we’re doing virtual tours and I’m going to… My number 17 is I’m going to post your videos on social media.
Tony Ray:
Now, if you have a custom URL, right, 123orthMainStreet.com, all you have to do is go to Facebook, type that in, put some text above it, it will pull up the website for you. And then now you have a post. Now you tag your client in the post. The seller.
And do they not think you’re the cat’s meow or what?
Speaker 17:
And share it.
Tony Ray:
And tell them to share it. Exactly. But don’t say it in your text because why?
Speaker 17:
What are you saying to them?
Tony Ray:
So you tag them. You tag your client.
Speaker 17:
On Facebook?
Tony Ray:
Yeah. Tag your client. But do not say like or share because why? It’s a Facebook algorithm no-no and it will sandbox your post. So do not write Like or Share or Comment in any of your text, okay? The lighting went out and it’s scary in here.
Tony Ray:
So don’t write any of those things. Just call the client. Good reason to call and say, “I just tagged you. I want you to make sure you share it with everybody you know because a friend of a friend could be our buyer.” Now what did you just do, you just got in front of…
Audience:
[inaudible 00:42:50]
Tony Ray:
That’s the power of 100 that goes on on Facebook and social media. That’s magical, what happens there.
Speaker 18:
And they can share it and it not be [inaudible 00:43:00].
Tony Ray:
Anybody can share it. You just can’t say share. Don’t write it in the text. So you’ll see a lot of kids writing, “Like, Comment and Share. This is the best house ever.” Don’t do it. Write about the house. “Beautiful Sam Hughes property with three bedrooms, two baths in the heart of downtown Tucson.
Close to downtown, I-10 and all the greatest shopping and chefs you could possibly imagine. Home of UNESCO. You’ve got to see this place.” Talk about that in your text, but do not say Like, Comment or Share.
Tony Ray:
Okay.
Speaker 19:
Did you go from 14 to 17? Did we miss 15 and 16?
Speaker 20:
Yeah, he did.
Tony Ray:
Yeah, because I took a couple out, because these are the things you may not be doing. I’m going to put you on television because I’m on the Open House show, right? So I have two spots every Saturday night. My houses are on the Open House show.
Why do I do the Open House show? [crosstalk 00:44:00] Exposure, name, what else?
Speaker 20:
Buyers?
Tony Ray:
No, but good try. So I don’t get exposure and leads from buyers on the Open House show. It is a television show, so if you’re using it for that, that’s not what it’s for. When you’re going on television like that, you’re going on branding and familiarity, and I want to be seen. [crosstalk 00:44:22] Right.
And I don’t want to be the secret agent anymore. So I made a conscious decision last year to not be secret agent anymore and to actually be visual. I’m letting people see me.
Tony Ray:
So on the Open House show, they get to see the picture of Tony Ray with the iguana on my head and that’s a talking trigger. And in marketing, talking triggers are the best thing you can get.
I got that by accident or the divine intervention of this universe, but somehow I got an iguana who crawled up on my head and became my talking trigger. And people all go, “That guy with the iguana on his head.” They don’t know my name, but they know that guy with the iguana on his head.
So it became popular very quickly, and it’s helped me sell a lot of houses, believe it or not, through Facebook. As soon as I posted it.
Tony Ray:
So now it’s a talking trigger because it’s everywhere and people know this guy with the iguana, right? It got me on JohnJay and Rich. Did anybody hear that? JohnJay was driving by and saw the sign and did a whole thing about me on KRQ, about me and the iguana.
No matter where I went that week, people said, “You’re that guy that JohnJay was talking about on the radio.” It was crazy. So that’s why I do it. That’s why I’m doing the Open House shows. So I put them on TV-
Speaker 21:
Forgive me, but I don’t know about that show.
Tony Ray:
Yeah. It’s called the Open House show, and they do… anybody else in here on the show? So there’s another one in the show. Basically, you upload any house you want by Tuesday and it goes onto the show in two weeks.
And it does a virtual tour with a guy that does a complete voiceover and then they also have little home components on the show. It’s a half-hour show.
Speaker 21:
What time?
Tony Ray:
It’s on 11 on Saturday at 10:00. [inaudible 00:46:12] Saturday at 10:00, right after the news. So it lets people flow over before Sunday morning open houses. So, if we have open houses, we market them on that show.
Tony Ray:
So, my number 16 would be going on the Open House show. My number 17 is streaming. So who knows what cord-cutting is? Someone want to explain cord-cutting? I’m not talking birth.
Speaker 22:
Not using cable.
Tony Ray:
Not using cable. Anybody know the numbers of cord-cutters last quarter? How many? How many do you think cut cords last quarter? One million people are cutting the cord every quarter right now and it’s expected to continue rising very rapidly.
What does it mean if they’re canceling cable? Where are they going? Give me some names.
Audience:
Hulu. Netflix. Roku.
Tony Ray:
Roku. Apple TV box. So my number 17 is, I have you streaming on Roku. Kindle Fire. Amazon. I have you on Apple TV. I am streaming your house everywhere on 65-inch HGQLD-whatever TVs.
I’m streaming you. How am I doing that? I’m doing that with a product called Listing Booster you get through a guy named Tom Heath.
Tom:
That’s okay.
Tony Ray:
When you pair up with… So here’s the thing with Listing Booster. Listing Booster does all the same stuff as Agent Marketing does, and more. So I moved from Agent Marketing. I now do Listing Booster. Listing Booster is streaming my houses on people’s devices.
So as they’re cutting the cord, I’m moving with them. And, I can put it in my presentation. Do I sound more sophisticated than anybody else walking into the next presentation after me? Because I’m going to talk a lot about the cord cutting.
I’m going to tell them the story and tell them where their clients moved because we had to have a conversation a long time ago about people moving from Homes and Land Magazine up to Internet.
And people were like what? People don’t shop on the Internet for houses. Yes they do. And they’re not using newspapers anymore.
Tony Ray:
So now the new conversation, and if you want to sound super rock star savvy, you tell them they’re now cutting cords and they’re moving to streaming on these devices.
Speaker 22:
So when you’re streaming on those devices, where [inaudible 00:48:54]?
Tony Ray:
So what’s really cool is I just bought a new… okay, I’ve got to get this right. I just bought a brand-new QLED 4K HD Samsung TV. Whew! Thank you. That took me a while. And I’ll tell you why I bought it. The guy said… so the little guy at Costco.
I love Costco guys for the fact that those kids know technology. And I go in there and I said to the kid, I said, “Why would I buy this 65-inch Samsung vs. this 75-inch Samsung, because bigger is better, right? They’re both the same price.”
And he said, “Tony Ray.” He said, “Here’s the thing. You can have the bigger screen for the room or this Samsung”… He says, “This one has 50 crayons in the box and a bigger screen. This one has a smaller screen and 250 crayons in the box.”
Tony Ray:
And as soon as he said it, he gave me this picture in my mind. I went, “Oh, my God, I’m a total geek for this stuff” because I like to see texture and color and the way things are supposed to be because I’m a creative person on photography and stuff.
And I said, “I want the 250.” So I bought the 65-inch Samsung QLED. It’s amazing quality. I turned it on, and I pop up with a million-dollar house on a 65-inch screen. There’s my house.
Down at the bottom it says Keyboom! I click on it and I click on Tucson, Arizona, and it shows Tony Ray and a house up in the foothills, in Sin Vacas. It’s an industrial modern, and it shows the house on the screen.
And it’s my listing. I’m number one on the screen. You know why? Because there wasn’t anybody else doing it.
Tony Ray:
This is an open place right now. What it does though, is you pair up with a lender. I don’t know of any lenders in the room maybe that could be doing that. But Tom. But he’s got the product as well.
And you have to pair with the lender because there’s a RESPA thing and you both pay 10 bucks.
Tom:
$11.82.
Tony Ray:
$11.82 for a year? If you decide the $10, since I lied to you and said it was $10, I’ll give you the $1.82 if you want to do it. But go to Tom. He can talk to you about it. But it does all of this for you now, which is why I switched.
But it also lets me go to streaming live on Roku, Kindle Fire and all those products. I am there now on a product called Keyboom! And this new product with Listing Booster that he’s got… It’s not his, by the way. He buys into it as I buy into it, but the cool stuff is they’re creating all kinds of cool stuff.
They’ve got text coding on their photos and stuff. So it’s got a bunch of really cool toys.
Speaker 24:
And that’s called Keyboom!?
Tony Ray:
You want to talk to Tom about Listing Booster. And it does everything we’ve discussed. Okay?
Tony Ray:
And the last half of my page is all the main websites that I promise to put their house on. Can you do that? Are you doing it already? Everybody say yes. You’re all doing this already. What’s different about me? I told them!
Now you have it all written down, right? So all you have to do is go home and type it up and make it yours. You can put cute graphics or pictures. Or go very sophisticated and fancy for million-dollar listings if you think.
Here’s what I discovered, as long as it’s authentic and it looks like me, that I did it, they don’t care. They want it to be me. And I feel better about it because I don’t want a million-dollar presentation vs a $200000 presentation.
Okay? I want a me presentation. Because that’s what it’s about. Me and them. Okay?
Tony Ray:
Any questions about listings? No? Everybody hears that wine and that stuff going on? So let’s do that.
Audience:
Yay! (Applause).
Tony Ray:
Thank you.
