Think Bigger Real Estate

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Creators and Guests

Host
Justin Stoddart

What is Think Bigger Real Estate?

The road to success for real estate agents is well-marked. The road to significance is not. Here, we help you to Think Bigger than just your business. We inspire you to seek success AND significance, income AND impact. We do that by interviewing the biggest thinkers and highest achievers in the real estate industry, extracting the secrets to having it all.

Justin Stoddart 0:01
So the big question is this. How do we those of us in the real estate industry with crazy amounts of ambition? How do we think bigger than the building of our own empires? How do we simultaneously see success and significance, income and impact? My name is Justin Stoddart. And this is the Think bigger real estate show.

Michael Carr 0:28
Hey, guys, hey, we were muted.

Tonya Eberhart 0:32
Michael saved us at the last second by pointing at the muted microphone is like, oh, no,

Michael Carr 0:37
I guess I could have said this muted since we were muted.

Tonya Eberhart 0:41
Sorry. You do the best you can, you know, hey, we want to give a shout out to a really good friend and consummate professional this morning. And actually, he is giving us the opportunity to stream live into his Facebook group called successful real estate agents. So hey, all you guys and successful real estate agents group. It's Justin Stoddart.

Michael Carr 1:02
Our man Justin Stoddart, we love Him, we love

Tonya Eberhart 1:05
he owns a company called Think bigger real estate. And he really does think

Michael Carr 1:10
he does absolutely does got a really good program.

Tonya Eberhart 1:14
Yeah, he actually spoke for Michael's Real Estate Group last year in his annual think conference and did a really, really great job. So anyway, hello to successful real estate agents all over the world. On behalf of Justin Stoddart, and think bigger real estate. All right, so today, we are going to talk to you guys about the insanity of spray and pray market. You have not heard that term yet. Anybody who's been around us for the last 10 years hears it. Yeah, haven't heard it yet. You're gonna learn what it is today. And I imagine I don't have to do much explanation on that. Are you anxious about your marketing? Like a lot of us are the, you know, I really never, I was never really anxious about my marketing, because these are the things I figured out before I had a business right. I was figuring it out for other people who are anxious and thunder marketing like Michael here. Yeah, I was one of those. Yeah. So do you wake up in a cold sweat at night, wondering if that new lead gen system or marketing platform that you just signed up for will actually bring you living breathing real clients? Or will it just become a dead end? Like all the others,

Michael Carr 2:28
you know, you know, what's ironic, I guess, got to be transparent right now. I'm actually in my company doing some analysis right now for more advertising. And so this really hits at home, and I was a spray and pray marketer. Before I met Tanya and Tonya taught me about branding. And we're going to talk to you about it here today. The failure in marketing is among top three biggest nightmares for most entrepreneurs. And sadly, it seems many of you right back to a nine to five grind that you really wanted to be out of, which is the reason you became an entrepreneur, right? It's kryptonite to us because you can get into a contract that will sink your company and never do anything for you like it's crazy. And you know, of course, we got some rules for that. And maybe we'll do a podcast on my rules for whether or not to invest in stuff like that. At some point,

Tonya Eberhart 3:21
Michael and I have not talked about this yet this morning at all went in different directions this morning. First thing first time we come back together as two minutes before we go. And so I was literally about to drop this on you guys. If you guys would like to have a masterclass on how to choose your marketing platforms and vehicles, marketing channels, like which marketing channels do you choose? How do you decide which ones that you use to promote your business? We're thinking about doing that. So drop us a line in the comments. If you want a masterclass on that and we're talking about digging into the details of it tells you everything you need to consider before you do it. Okay. All right. Anyway, yeah, so yep, yep. So back to spray and pray guys, you all felt it right? You remember when you were a kid and you just tossed spaghetti noodles on the ceiling? I did that once or twice before my mom caught me and I wasn't allowed to do it anymore. So what is this all over the ceilings? Like I just wanted to see if it would stick it's a you know, an urban legend right? It's a great game as a kid but a terrible strategy for marketing your business. Yeah,

Michael Carr 4:27
for sure. Let's talk about five must have some Turner's spray and pray marketing into Elena mean marketing machine.

Tonya Eberhart 4:34
Yeah. Okay, the first thing you need to do to make your marketing strategy sizzle is you need a different and compelling brand story. There's only one you and you have a story that no doubt plays into why you are in your profession. And when you share that story, I'm telling you now doors open up that you never thought possible.

Michael Carr 4:58
Yeah, as a matter of fact, I gotta say the story again, I'm just going to keep ad libbing in here. I've got a little problem with my, with my pool. And so I'm calling around. And if you've ever dealt with pools, you know that sort of like builders, you almost have to hate them when when it's all over with. And so I'm calling around several different pool companies are just trying to figure this out. And this, I call this guy and I tell him, I'm like, Hey, this is Michael Carr, I need some help in my pool. And he goes the real estate guy. Exactly what he said to me. And I went, Yeah, yeah, as a matter of fact. And so you know, when you get a brand out there, people will notice it. And you're gonna we're gonna teach you about that a little bit today. I just had to throw that in. Okay. So for instance, what back to the story of why this is important. We had a special guest on Bebo branding yesterday, our podcast, and his name was Jefferson Rogers, superb dude, like super cool guy. He owns JK, our window company. And but that's, that's, that's, that's good. It's a $40 million company, right? He's grown it in four years. It's, he's clearly on the right track. He's a great motivator, great leader and stuff. But listen, that's not his story. Okay. You just approached his brand as J. K, our real window company, a $40 million company, I don't know that he would sell any more windows like I don't, that's not going to work. Right. He is unique story is what he's been through what motivated him to be such a powerful force in his business. And he even takes it so far that he's writing a book, and a podcast, and the name of it is all in. And so as that little teaser, because it's gonna be released next year, first quarter next year, we're gonna help him promote that, because he's just a fascinating guy. But what you need to take away here is that the driver that makes his company so powerful, and growth continue to grow day over day over day, is his unique story. And that story about being all in, and his commitment to that. So it's pretty, it's pretty awesome. Yep. And we'll leave the rest of it as a teaser, which is also part of your story. Yeah,

Tonya Eberhart 7:10
exactly. And remember, your story doesn't have to be extravagant or extreme, right? Everybody's story is entirely different. But in your story, you've got to answer these five questions, sing along. Okay. Who do you serve? How do you serve them? What qualifies you to serve them? How does it make their life better? And what makes you different from everyone else? Also trying to serve that same customer?

Michael Carr 7:37
You got to answer those questions. The second thing is, you need a really good brand hook. Okay. There's a 75 mile an hour brief message that captures attention. Suddenly, we call it a slogan or tagline. It's a brand hook, right? We call it a brand identifier, because that's exactly what it really is. And it expresses what you want to be known for. And literally just 123 words, four words. But that's it. Most people call it like I said, a tagline slogan, you might know, but it was really a brand identifier. And you really need a good one, you need to put a lot of thought into that there's actually a formula for that, that we can teach you.

Tonya Eberhart 8:13
There sure is. And here's the reason we do it brand identifier. I like this analogy. If you think of your brand, like a book, your brand really is like a book because it is your story, right? So however, you cannot fit the entire story on the cover of the book, and people will decide most of the time whether to order a book based on the title and the cover, right? And so you've your title and your cover a lot of times is the imagery, not like maybe on a on a billboard on a Facebook cover on your website, etc. That title is that brand identifier. It says to them, This is what I stand for.

Michael Carr 8:54
Yep, there's just a few problems with that. Usually, they're boring. They're too long. They're not compelling. They're same as 1000 others, so there's no differentiation to it. They don't make sense, right? So there's a lot of those. Think about it. Like Surely all of y'all been watching TV. I know we don't watch a lot of commercials anymore. But you know, if you've got a cheap version of Hulu, you might have to put up a one every now and then. Just really honestly pay attention to the how horrific The commercials are. And if you find yourself walking away from a commercial going, what would they what? Then that's what bad brand identifiers are?

Tonya Eberhart 9:34
Yeah, exactly. There's a parallel there. There's some really bad ones out there. Here's the lesson to be learned. Don't let that be you. Yeah, don't let it okay. All right. The third thing you need to stop the spray and pray approach is a purposeful and professional brand photo shoot. Okay, both of these are critical. They're not one in the same okay, because you can't have one without the other. You can have Have one that expresses your fun side and your personality. But maybe it wasn't done by professional photographer. So something is missing.

Michael Carr 10:08
Yeah. And you can have all the photos you want. And that can be really killer. Like can be professional, they can be awesome. They can, you know, but they might not represent the image you're trying to represent. Because that's so important. We know that a picture's worth 1000 words. It has to be the right 1000 words. And it has to there has to be a congruence see when you're building a brand. When we prepare our clients for a photo shoot, we actually have to meet with a stylist that we have on staff here. Fantastic guy. He's, uh, he's designed clothes. He's been professional clothes salesman, Armand Honeycutt. He's awesome. He is a clothing genius, male, female, it does not matter. He's closed, NBA, NFL draft members, pop stars. And you know, he's just fantastic. And what he does, is he already knows your brand identifier, if you go through our program, he already knows that. And so when he meets with you, he finds out all he's got to do then is figure out the colors that you shine most in at you feel the best in and and then we teach them how the photographers how to capture what we're trying to say in the 1000 words that a picture's worth. So you really gotta put some thought into that. It's not what going into headshot base. That's true.

Tonya Eberhart 11:23
And he really, you know, he looks at several things while he's doing this, of course, but as Michael said, there's a reason for the order in which we do things when we build somebody's personal brand. Because most people do a photo shoot without planning. Yeah, that's

Michael Carr 11:37
true. They think that, hey, I'm smiling for your hair, your

Tonya Eberhart 11:40
makeup in your clothing, right? But that's not enough. Guys. It's not enough. You need to be purposeful in that approach. Right? Exactly. Because if you just show up and do a photo shoot without a real purpose and understanding of why and what image you're trying to portray, you could have a serious disconnect and how people view you and how you want them to view you, which is like really the most important thing. Yeah.

Michael Carr 12:03
Fourth Way to avoid spray and pray marketing is my favorite brand consistency. And when we talk about consistency, we talk about two different types of this. Okay, first, a consistent look and feel everywhere. So do you have different images, different messages across different marketing platforms? Or is there consistency among all of them? My favorite example of this is real estate agents, contemporary real estate agents that I do business with, were in when we moved into Greenville, South Carolina with my company, they do have these that already been there, one came from Atlanta, the other was already in Greenville, the one in Greenville has just as many billboards as the rest of us. But they have a different message, every billboard, and the one that moved in from Atlanta, and then me that moved in from Atlanta into that, that market place have one consistent message, it's very important, because you only have an opportunity to reach people in a nanosecond. And if you've got a different message on your different platforms, you're not building that consistency in their mind. And it's a no, this is a huge marketing failure. Because we were in a 22 Immutable Laws of marketing, which is a very incredible book. It talks about the 711. You know, phenomenon, we've got to show up to people seven times before they even begin to think about who we are. And if you get a different message on every platform. You're not You're not getting that consistency, this permeating, you know, their psyche.

Tonya Eberhart 13:36
Exactly. Okay. So that's one way of consistency. Remember, we said there are two parts of consistency, one is a consistent look and feel across everything that you do. Second is, are you consistently putting your brand out there? Yeah, that's me. I mean, repetition equals recognition, right? So if not, if you're not consistently putting that consistent look and feel out there, right? It's no wonder you're feeling the results of a spray and pray strategy is the consistency of a consistent message that makes people consistently remember you and what you're known for. That's right. I won't even try to repeat that just caught the word consistent. That's good enough.

Michael Carr 14:15
I know it well. We're being consistent about using the word consistent. And you probably remember consistent when you get done with this thing, because we just did one of the immutable laws of marketing. So but it is so important, guys, I can't tell you how important it really is. I didn't learn this. I've been an entrepreneur, serial entrepreneur for 31 years. I really didn't learn this principle. But until about 10 years ago, when I met her and it transforms everything, I promise you. Here's another one of our quotes. You know, success is the consistency that you practice when you can instantly see the benefits of the results. And that's so important real estate agents, and so many other entrepreneurs out there, where you have these big wheel turns before you and put out you put a lot of effort in And before you actually get a paycheck, but then the paychecks are huge when you get them. And so that consistency that you practice and putting it out there is everything. You know, I like it when, when a when a good coach says, Hey, if you're not making money today, the first thing you need to ask yourself is what were you doing 90 days from ago? What were you doing then? Right? Because if you weren't putting your brand out, well, you probably are going hungry today. And it's literally works that way. So we don't say that to be negative. I say that really to be encouraging. Don't give up. When you're putting your message out there. Don't give up don't don't just do it for a minute and then think, oh, this ain't working. Nobody's calling? I'm not going to do it anymore. No, you have to continue to do that consistently. Just because you do one thing and it doesn't immediately happen. Don't give up. It doesn't mean that it's not working. It's a timing issue.

Tonya Eberhart 15:51
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. Finally, Thing Number five, to keep you away from the spray and pray strategy and put you in that land of focus. Okay, your brand needs an outside educated opinion, I got one since for you, you can't see the label when you're inside the jar. I can't either Michael can't, nobody can. For almost 30 years, I've been working with people who consistently tell me that they never could have branded themselves. But that's not your fault. Don't feel bad about it. We've had people in our program who have master's degrees in marketing. And they say, Well, I'm just I can't believe I'm in this program now. Or I can't believe I'm signing up with you guys today. Because I should be doing this myself. I was like, Well, great. Yeah. But you weren't trained in personal branding, you were trying to marketing, those are two different things. And you're gonna get a huge head start on everybody, because you're gonna market the heck out of it once we get that brand built. So but I know that feeling the feeling is a feeling of failure. Sometimes I should have been able to do it myself. I know that's not true. That's absolutely not

Michael Carr 16:58
true. No, it isn't. Hey, man, listen, we've got all kinds of examples of that. Like, like, we don't teach crypto investing. In seminars, we don't teach plumbing in seminars, you know what I mean? Honestly, if you really want to bold that example, down a little bit tighter, think about doctors, you know, you think about a doctor that might be a heart surgeon, and all he does is work on hearts all the time. He's not gonna know a whole lot about shoulders, hey, he's just not I mean, his expertise is in the heart. They're both medical doctors, they both have an expertise. But if you go to him with a shoulder dislocated, he's probably going to send you to somebody who works on dislocated shoulders, they're both doctors, they both been educated, highly, probably could name you, being a heart surgeon, every muscle and tendon inside of your shoulder, but it doesn't mean that they know that's what they want to do. So think about it that way. And then of course, if you're not in marketing at all, and you and you definitely haven't written four books on branding, then, you know, don't beat yourself up that you might think you know, about branding, you probably don't, right, and, and here's another thing that's interesting, like, we are coaches and speakers and podcasters and authors and, and we have this program, and we help people entrepreneurs all over the world, you know, elevate their business. And, and we have coaches too. And every coach that we have has a coach, every coach we have as a coach, because they you when you're running a business, you need these expertises and different segments of your business to really maximize it. And instead of just spending the money and wasting the time trying to figure it out, you go pay the person that knows. And then it's fixed. It's doing.

Tonya Eberhart 18:39
Exactly, actually, we have four coaches

Michael Carr 18:40
right now, waiting for

Tonya Eberhart 18:42
four and we pay them all, they don't do it for free. Okay. All right. So think about this, you know, there are a lot of people who are just upset, it's like, I should be able to do this by myself. Okay, you've gotten over that fear already. We talked you out of that one, right. So now you may be saying to yourself, oh, goodness, I can do my own logo, no problem. I have Canva or I can hire a professional photographer to take my, you know, photos, you know, I mean, it's all good. I can do my own brand. Okay, but then you got to ask yourself,

Michael Carr 19:12
what kind of logo? What kind of photos Okay, so yes, again, I liked the doctor analogy. You know, we could Google your symptoms, but if I know everyone you out done it. I've done it. She's done it. Quit doing it. It does.

Tonya Eberhart 19:32
Finally give up like I know I'm just headed straight for

Michael Carr 19:35
every time I looked up, I put my symptoms in there. I'm dead. I have every one of them. So you're like this? Finally you say hey, this is crazy. And branding can be the same way yeah, you can come up with a logo Fiverr help you with it. I think they need to call it 35 or 50 Fiverr now because I don't think you can get anything done for five bucks anymore. But the but you know you could go do that yet might be All right, and yeah, you might have the perfect logo, but you still don't have the rest of the branding elements. You don't have all the other 77 criteria that the professionals ie us look at when we try to build a brand out. Okay, so again, you know, don't get what did our good buddy Brad say? Don't Don't be the Don't be the Heil. Find the who?

Tonya Eberhart 20:24
Don't be the hell find the who all right. Yeah, I mean, because personal branding is a lot more than that. It's an entire ecosystem. It really is. So don't skimp on yourself. Because the result is if you do that, it's spray and pray marketing. Who wants that? Yeah, it's not authentic. It's not compelling and has no clear purpose. And that's why you're not getting results. Yeah, we're being hard hitting today.

Michael Carr 20:45
It's hard hitting. It's all it's all. Yeah, it's it's loving Tuesday for you. Here. No, no, listen, we've love talking about it. That's literally what it boils down to. It's why we do our podcast, it's why we do what we do. You know, I'll be I want to be vulnerable for a second, I never really thought about it. I didn't become a broker of agents. I didn't try to grow an agency till about nine years ago. And cuz I never thought that that's exactly who I was. And now, all I want to do is help people, Tanya just just really caught me on fire to it. She's done it for decades now helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses. She helped me grow mine. Now, we get to work together grueling hours, it's really cool. And we do love it. And we want to give you more and more great content like this. So hit the subscribe button, hit the notification button. And we're gonna keep bringing this to you. So and we're always a phone call away and email away to help you if you stumble on something. Or if you need a little bit more information, you can go to discuss your brand.com at any time, and work with us. Just if you want to talk about it. Like I said, we love it. We absolutely love the concept it works. Go do it.

Tonya Eberhart 22:04
Okay, and just one last reminder. If you guys would like to see us do a masterclass on how to know where to market and what marketing channels to choose. Make sure you drop us a line in the comments and let us know that that's something you want. And also you know, if you if you want to DM me if you want to connect with me on Facebook or YouTube or wherever you want, you want to DM me privately your email address, you can do that or you can just go ahead and drop it in the comments. And we'll make sure we include you when we send out a notice for that masterclass

Michael Carr 22:36
for sure. For sure. Hey, guys, we do this for prosperity. That's what that's our message prosperity, right. And when we talk about that we're not just talking about money. That's just a portion of it. We truly wish that were a 360 degree abundant life for every one of you, right? We know that it rampage that prosperity favors the bold. So we say Be bold vote, especially with your brand, especially in what's left of 2022 We got plenty of time to make a lot of money and 2022 is plenty of time and to be kicked off for 2023 Folks, and that's what you ought to be thinking. All right. Thank you so much. And thank you, Miss Tanya,

Tonya Eberhart 23:10
thank you. Thank you for your time, guys. We'll see you next time.

Justin Stoddart 23:15
If you enjoyed this episode that have a very special invitation for you, I have created a private Facebook community called successful real estate agents where the focus is going beyond success having both a successful business and a significant life. If you're not yet a member. Go sign up now.