Closes a Home Every Three Days! • Courtney Hatfield

Courtney Hatfield the owner & top producing agent of Your HomeCourt Team talks about how she got into the real estate business. Courtney discusses how she started her career by joining a team and how shortly after that she decided to start her own team. Next, Courtney and D.J. discuss the importance of making big decisions and seeing mistakes as only tools to learn. Courtney describes the role of social media in her success and shares strategies for posting for agents.

Please check out Courtney’s Social Media Guide here.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Courtney Hatfield can be reached at 330-704-2621 and courtneyhatfield@mcdhomes.com.

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
How does a small real estate team that closes one home every three days? How do they generate almost all of their business from social media? We’re going to find out today. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interests and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer and Team Lead Courtney Hatfield. But before we get to Courtney, just wanted to say thank you, because by the time you hear this, it’ll be probably about three weeks after I’ve recorded it. But we actually had our very biggest month ever as far as downloads and listens, which actually has been every month since we started, we’re super lucky to have always kind of gone up. But guys, we hit like a new plateau last month. So that would have been October of this year. So thank you does that November, December, you know, might not be as high because of the holidays. But we are so grateful which basically what I’m saying is thank you because we are not spending money on advertising. And the only way this is really getting out there as if people somehow stumbled across it on their own or that you’re telling them about it. My guess is you’re telling them about it. And so we want to say thanks. Really, it’s been a long wild ride five years now we’re going to keep going. But please keep telling every agent you know about our show. Our whole mission is to help every single agent you know learn from top producers like Courtney, so please tell a friend send over send them over to our website keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done can be streamed right there or of course you can find us wherever podcasts are served. So thanks. Hope everyone is having a great end of 2022 and on to our conversation with Courtney Hatfield.

All right, today on the show ruff Courtney Hatfield from McGough homes in Cleveland and the surrounding areas. By the way, they just opened up in Akron office. Let me tell you more about Courtney. Now Courtney is a wife, a mother of two and owner and top producing agent of your home core team. She’s also the co owner of your home court designs and social media and she’s a social media speaker. According to launched her career in real estate believing you 100% Get what you work for authenticity paired with hard work and determination is carried her team of six into the top 1% of Northeast Ohio. She’s closing and her and her team are closing a home every three days and again, only six team members. Now one day it just clicked said Courtney and the freedom to live life on our own terms was hers for the choosing. She held the power she chose how hard she worked her schedule her paycheck and her opportunities. And we’re excited to chat with her today and she is willing to share a lot of what she did to become successful with our audience. To learn more about Courtney wants you to visit her company website which is m c d M as in Mary C as in Charlie Diaz and David Holmes plural.com MCD homes.com And also follow Courtney on social media because she absolutely shines there. You can find her on Facebook just by searching for Courtney Hatfield, also on Instagram, Courtney Hatfield dot realtor. By the way, all of those links are in our show notes as well as a social media guide that Courtney is generously going to provide to all of our audience, which is also in the show notes. So Courtney, welcome to the show.

Courtney Hatfield 4:52
Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I am a time listener. I just an episode this morning on the way to work.

D.J. Paris 4:59
Wow. Well, I I am so honored to hear that and really grateful to have you on the podcast as well. Because you what you and your team have accomplished in a relatively short amount of time is just nothing more than incredible. But before we get to sort of the present day, I’d love to start at the beginning. So can you tell us a little bit about why you got into real estate and and how you got into real estate?

Courtney Hatfield 5:22
Absolutely. So I got into real estate truly, by happenstance in 2018. It was a family decision, my husband’s family owned a brokerage at the time. And you know, I was a stay at home mom and I was bored. I was actually spending more money as a stay at home mom out of boredom that my husband was like, You need to go do something. So I was like, Well, what if I go into the family business, and I did, and I, I loved it from the start. I had a slow start with it though. Because right after I got my license, my husband’s uncle who was the broker actually was diagnosed with cancer. And he ended up passing away a year later. So it wasn’t really until 2019 that I really hit the ground running with my career. And I chose McDowell homes. I interviewed a few different brokerages, but they were one of the smaller boutique independent brokerages in Cleveland, and I really loved their culture and what they stood for it was a good fit. And that’s just really where I’ve made myself home. And I decided to start our team here. And so over the last three years, I’ve just really poured myself into this, you know, this baby that I created your home court team, and here we are, well,

D.J. Paris 6:39
you are killing it. And I think we want to just maybe remind everyone that you’ve only been really been practicing for, you know, a handful of years. And you started right when COVID was happening. So the fact that you started and again, on the heels of a tragedy and my my condolences for that, but also disability to start at, you know, tragedy aside, just COVID its own tragedy, of course, and what it did to, you know, to agents and their production, and everyone was was obviously struggling as agents to produce. And, of course, last year was was a pretty good year for a lot of agents because there was a lot more activity as we were all getting back to some degree of normalcy, but to then, but But this, you know, just to be able to, to start at this pretty challenging time is incredible. And how did you? How did you notice to create it? Did you create a team right away? Or were you already sort of chugging along yourself and sort of needed help? Or what was that? How was the decision made for that?

Courtney Hatfield 7:41
So I will say was the one thing that I really took away, besides the opportunity that I got from my husband’s uncle, when I came on to the family brokerage was I remember him, he had just missed a phone call. And I was sitting at the desk and I was just kind of like watching him because I was new. And I didn’t know what I was doing. And it in my mind, I was like, Oh, well, he has time to call that person back. But literally, he just missed it. And he was already dialing the person back. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that’s the type of hustle that I need. And I knew that I had it, like buried down in me. And so I was like, This is what I’ve got to do. So when after everything unfolded, and I started at McDowell, I was on a team. I came to McDowell and I joined a team. And I was only on that team for a short period of time before I realized I can do this. And I had everybody leads differently. And I had my own ideas brewing up inside. And I was like, I need to put this into action. And so I know I just went on a little side tangent. No, no,

D.J. Paris 8:47
no, this is all this is all. Absolutely. This is so incredibly unique. I want you to I want to stay with this. This is amazing.

Courtney Hatfield 8:54
It’s just interesting to me. It’s almost kind of how it all happened by happenstance. And but how it all fell together just so beautifully, to give me this career that I’ve built and to give these agents the career that they now have, and the people that we’ve met along the way, and it’s just I’m truly blessed for how it all unfolded. So, yeah, I know, I feel like I just gave him a really long winded answer there. But yeah, I joined a team. I realized very quickly, you know what, everybody leads differently. I do have leadership qualities. So what’s the worst that can happen? You know, I’m not successful at it. And so I kind of took that leap and I started and I started with one agent and I very slowly just grew to where we are now. I have six agents and we are all full time top producing, and just really incredible people all the way around.

D.J. Paris 9:54
Yeah, well I hear that I hear. It’s such a unique story. I’ve done I think 400 plus of these, and I’ve not ever heard anyone say I needed to develop a team, within a short period of time of not only being in the business, but also being part of someone else’s team where you’re like, I see what they’re doing, I could maybe do this in a different way or, you know, in my own way, and, and the fact that, in a time of really difficult time to be a realtor like all of this is, is blowing my mind, it’s leaving me a bit speechless. Because, because the results really do speak for themselves. I mean, here you are now with your six, or your five other agents are, you know, and your guys are closing, you know, 100 plus homes a year. And it’s not like, well, you’re 20 years in the business. And you’re like, it was time for me to build a team. And I was tired of working 80 hours a week. And so I started, it was like, right away, you’re like, I can do this. And that’s an incredible amount of confidence. And I mean that in the most sort of lovely way, because it’s just, it’s, you really did bet on yourself. And they’re really, you know, and I don’t mean this in any sort of pejorative sense or critical sense, but maybe you shouldn’t have even had that much confidence, right? And yet, and you made it. And that means I love those stories, you bet on yourself.

Courtney Hatfield 11:17
You know, I have that mentality. And sometimes it does bite me in the butt. And I’m just like, well, what’s the worst that could happen? You know, and so here we are, and the worst, there’s nothing bad about it. I went together,

D.J. Paris 11:31
I went, I love what you just said. And I really I know, I’m sort of stuck on this point. But I think it’s so important, this mindset that you have, I went and saw the filmmaker Kevin Smith speak once and we’re probably all familiar with him or or at least we know, we know the name and, and whether you like his movies or not, he’s he’s definitely had a impressive career as somebody that like worked in a video store, essentially, and then bet on himself and made his first movie clerks with like, a credit card that that was no studio would finance it. And then of course, went on to to a lot more fame, and he’s still making movies today. But anyway, when I saw him speak, he said very similar thing to you, to you. And this was his big message that when I saw him speak was, he’s like, betting on yourself. There’s really not much downside, right? He’s like, if you don’t make it, oh, well, you find something else to do. But what if you What if you’re wrong? What if you what have you would make it? And he’s like, What if you’re What if betting on yourself is actually right. And, and I, and the fact that you’re saying this now, is just I hope our audience is taking this in as like, betting on yourself might feel risky, but it’s maybe not as risky as as people think. And so I applaud you for taking that leap. And, and obviously, you’re having an amazing ride. So congrats. Yeah,

Courtney Hatfield 12:50
thank you. Go ahead.

I was just gonna say very similarly to betting on yourself, which I feel like people, people need to do that not just in real estate, but just life in general, just have the confidence in yourself. And in your gut feeling of what you’re supposed to be doing all my life. I had been told I was, you know, bossy, or at leadership skills. And it’s like, Yes, I know these things, but how can I get there and channel them? And when? What’s that, quote, when preparation meets opportunity? perspiration?

D.J. Paris 13:21
Yeah, yeah, thing like that? Yeah, yeah.

Courtney Hatfield 13:25
It’s like, when everything comes to gather, so divinely just you have to trust it, that everything’s gonna work out in your behalf. And I think people should do that more often, not just in business, but in life. Well, I, I was just gonna say, I’m sorry, you don’t get what you don’t ask for, you know, I’m not going to ask you’re not going to get it.

D.J. Paris 13:47
And, and failure. Getting used to failure is a good thing, right? Because I’m sure as you run a team, there’s probably lots of things you’ve tried, you know, with your team that work and lots of things that don’t work. And I’ve found, and not in every case, but almost every really successful person I know, fails a lot. Like they’re just like, oh, failure is just part of the deal. But you just keep going you get back up, you try harder. And so it’s not even that failure is really the issue. It’s getting up from the failure, I think,

Courtney Hatfield 14:15
totally. And I wouldn’t even think I don’t even call it failure. Right? And it’s growing pains. We are gross. And I’m fortunate to be surrounded by agents that have a lot of grace as we grow to trust my vision, but they can say, Okay, well, this isn’t working out, you know, how can we correct this instead of just being all up in arms? You know, we have to we have to shift.

D.J. Paris 14:39
Yeah, yeah, pivoting and having having grace to for the imperfection of running a real estate business, whether it’s an individual practitioner and they just learned their best friend went with a different realtor as opposed to them or you know, somebody who’s running a team and maybe their top producer decides to leave and and it feels, you know, it feels Like, Oh, this is all failure. And it’s like, well, no, it’s just, it’s just an experience happens to be one that doesn’t feel very good and sort of sucks. But but it doesn’t have to be the end, right? It can keep keep moving you forward. And in fact, I learned, I read this, I didn’t learn it myself. But I learned it from reading it. But it’s like, we only actually learn from making mistakes. It’s only really the way that we do it. So I love the fact that you took it enormous chance on yourself. And here we are, I want to talk about social media and its role in how that’s helped really skyrocket your business. And you teach this as well. So this isn’t just something you do, you’re able to really tell agents. And I guess I want to start, before we get into it was something that I rarely, rarely ask people about social media. And I actually was telling this before we started, like, I gotta remember to ask this, because what is it maybe, first, maybe it’s a mindset thing. But how did what was the biggest mistakes that you see agents making in the way they approach social media?

Courtney Hatfield 16:01
Well, one of the biggest mistakes that I think agents make is not advertising themselves on social media. So I’m not saying don’t make a post, I’m saying when I go to your page, your Facebook page or Instagram page, how do I know that you sell real estate? If it’s a picture of the sunset as your cover photo? And you and your kids as your profile picture? That’s beautiful. But where does it tell me that you sell real estate? We are. We need to advocate for ourselves. And we need to advertise for ourselves. And so it’s free social media is free. So why aren’t we putting you know, you’ll see if you go to my Facebook page, on the very top, it my cover photo is my name, and my phone number. And you see multiple pictures of me in real estate, you see pictures of my kids, you say things like that, but there’s no question when you get on my page, what I do. And that mistake.

D.J. Paris 17:03
Boy, I agree. I think there’s certainly the going swinging all the way to the other direction. There’s too much too much advertising, of course. But I think what you’re saying is really important, because one of the stats that I might be a little off. So I apologize, you may or may not be able to correct me if I’m wrong. But one of the stats that that people forget or maybe don’t know is that especially with Facebook, and I don’t know Instagrams algorithm quite as well. But people who follow you on Facebook only see like three to 5% of your posts in general. So this idea of, of advertising is really important, because even though you put out a post saying, Hey, guys, I’m looking for clients, or whatever, or I just closed this home, only a handful of your followers are even going to see that. So you do need to make a conscious effort of doing some consistent marketing and not being afraid that people are gonna get so annoyed by this. If you’re doing 20 of those a day. Don’t do that. But or maybe do it I don’t know. But But certainly, don’t be worried about that, because Facebook is probably not going to share it with as many people as you want it to see it anyway.

Courtney Hatfield 18:10
Know, the algorithm on Facebook and Instagram, on any social media platform is only a very small sliver. See. And I can’t remember this statistic, honestly. But it’s a I want to say it’s like 30% or something like that. And I could be totally wrong. I could have just made that up that number sticking out to me for some reason. But yeah, like you said, only a small percentage of people see what you post. And so you need to be consistent in your social media posting, you’re not going to get water the same day that you dig the well. But if you keep digging, and you keep reminding people, you know, hey, I’m in real estate, look at this closing look at this review. Look at this cool kitchen, I got to show something like that, then you’re gonna stay top of mind. So you really have to be consistent and it goes first. When I go to your page. Can I see what you do? Do I know your face is your brand? Where’s your face? Where’s your phone number? I know I don’t scroll for phone numbers. You know if I want something? If it’s not right there I’m gonna find another phone number somewhere else.

D.J. Paris 19:18
Yeah, make it easy for people to reach out. Oh, and that can be done like you were saying that can all be done really in the profile or the the header image of of of a Facebook page or your own personal profile? Those your right you should make it easy. So that because and there’s nothing inherently cheap about that. I know some people struggle with like, well, I’m advertising and maybe that’s it’s like, you know what, it’s only it’s only cheap if you think it’s cheap. Like if you actually authentically I’m like I mean look, we advertise our business we I recruit Realtors as for our company, while the way I advertise is we have people who make cold calls to other realtors that’s advertising you If if that would have helped me on my Facebook page, I would put it on there. It’s not, it’s not. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that whatever your version of advertising is letting people know what you do is not bragging. It is simply telling people what you do.

Courtney Hatfield 20:15
Yeah. 100% You’re so right. It’s not like I said, your face is your brand, the brand of your real estate business, when somebody thinks real estate, I want them to think of my face, I want them to think Courtney Hatfield. And by doing that by posting and being consistent on social media, I recommend posting two to three times a week. Don’t Don’t post those filler posts, don’t post the post that, you know, just because you feel like you have to post something, post something that is going to post a survey be like, what what would you want in your dream house? You know, do you want a wine cellar? Do you want to library? Do you want to in ground pool posts, you know, get something that’s going to get the people involved? Yeah. I also recommend, why recommend posting two to three times a week, I have my notes right here. So that’s what I’m looking off at the side. So I can stay on track, but also posting on stories daily.

D.J. Paris 21:16
What do you recommend for stories, because agents have lots of different strategies, some agents are like, Hey, I met a showing or, you know, listing or whatever. And I found this really cool thing in the home that I want to show you or check out this beautiful, whatever. Or there’s people that are like in the car on the way to the gym, or you know, there’s lots of different approaches. And I’m not here to say which ones work better. But I’m curious what you found works the best for you.

Courtney Hatfield 21:43
So I keep my posts, my posts on my page are very strategic, I fake posts with faces get 30% more likes and interaction than post without faces. So I’ll post pictures of myself or my kids or whatnot. Clients, when they close in front of their house, I’ll post a picture and I’ll paint the story for them. When it comes to stories, those are a little bit more, they don’t have to be as thought out. If you’re out to eat and you’re like, look at this amazing milkshake I got and you tag the location in it. You can throw a song on there, you know, you’re out in a showing and look at this incredible bathroom. Oh my gosh, you know, it, you don’t really have to put much thought behind it. I know people go live in their stories. I think that that’s great. Show your face go live. As long as you’re consistent doing it. And it was funny because I had somebody I was I didn’t post on stories for maybe a day or so I kind of took just like a break from social media for a minute. And I had one of my agents reach out to me, she’s like, how am I supposed to know like, what you’re up to if you’re not posting on your stories? And I was like, You’re right, like people follow along. And you don’t realize that but people are like, Oh, Courtney didn’t go to Starbucks today. What’s going on, you know, and people get invested.

D.J. Paris 22:59
They do. I mean, it’s funny, like, you know, this, this I, for those for anyone listening who is into gaming, or maybe has children that are into gaming, they there’s a huge industry now people watching other people play games, or talk about playing games. And and this is something people do get invested in other people’s lives. And this is a great opportunity to get people hooked on you. And so you said something really interesting. I just want to this really particular granular thing you said that was so, so smart, which was look at this cool milkshake I’m enjoying at whatever place and you can tag of course the place and then it just in case they’re not on top of their social media. If you know if they you know that well, if they are on top their social media, they’ll see it and maybe even repost it or or sort of set it out to their audience. Or if you don’t see that you can always message them and say hey, FYI, I just put this put you in a real I wanted to support the business. Yeah, and yeah, and then that becomes an opportunity to chat with the owner or whoever’s in charge.

Courtney Hatfield 24:01
Absolutely. A few things. So you could do with that by being your market expert tagging your plate, the tagging places and social media. So then they’re going to share it. People are going to see Courtney Hatfield dot realtor shared that post. She’s a realtor in this area. And I’ve gained followers from that I’ve had people message me from that. You can also one thing that I think is really neat to do is do interviews with local owners and love that local businesses and just draw Hey, I’m your market expert. It has does not have to have anything to do with real estate. But you

D.J. Paris 24:40
can either. I’m going to take over the interview for two for 30 seconds because Courtney just in Courtney, I’m so sorry but I am such a big fan of what Courtney is saying so I apologize for jumping on top of this one but I love this so much. So Courtney just gave everybody a literally a a strategy you could do every single week, find a local business in your area that you love and support and that you want to see succeed. And you have to think about it. Now we’re going to switch to the business owners perspective. They’re getting phone calls constantly from people wanting them to spend money on marketing efforts, right? Whether it’s print ads, radio, you know, internet ads, whatever it might be, it’s all about, can we get more money out of the owner so that they can get more business? You’re basically saying, I want to give you a free shout out to everyone who follows me? And can I do a quick Can I come down to your thing and do a quick like, two minute interview or 10 minute interview about why you started this business? There is never going to be somebody that says no to that, like, oh, no, I don’t, of course, I don’t charge. It’s just something I do. And oh my god, it’s so incredibly brilliant.

Courtney Hatfield 25:46
It’s just a great way for you to be in the media. So when people think of you, the goal is to get people to think of you as their source of information for your town, it doesn’t just have to be real estate related. And so you can go to the dance studio, and you can say, Oh, this dance studio has classes Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and they’re offering a special this month, this is the owner, Billy Bob, you know, and he has done this 37 years and just really expand on that. They will show the video, you can share the video to different you know, if you have a city Facebook page, I know I know those exist, you know, a county Facebook page, and you can just get your face everywhere.

D.J. Paris 26:36
I’m pausing, you know, because you just said another amazing thing. So because I live in a little neighborhood called Wicker Park, we have a Wicker Park community group and and we’re, you know what, you know, most of the posts are either there’s a lost cat or dog and somebody wants to find her other than that, it’s does anyone have a good recommendation for an Indian restaurant or whatever, a hairdresser, or doctor or whatever. So you pretty just said this amazing thing, you you go interview the business that you want to support, whatever it is, doesn’t matter what it is just something that you are really into. And then you absolutely have a community page somewhere online on Facebook, or there’s other places too, but and then post it there. And then oh, by the way, they’ve learned that Courtney, the realtor is putting this out and that’s amazing.

Courtney Hatfield 27:21
You’re their market expert. That’s how you want to brand yourself with your face. In on social media. With social media that I I like to drill, like drill in on is going live. So people are uncomfortable, they don’t like going live in front of the camera. It’s not for you. It’s for other people. So when you go live and you’re at a showing, or you’re at an open house, or you’re at you know, we have a theater downtown, where I live, going live there and saying I’m live here with this Beatles tribute band. And just those things won’t go into your won’t go into your feed, they won’t go on to your profile, but they’re going to go in your stories. And it looks like you’re everywhere all the time. And this has nothing to do with anything I just said. But when you’re posting in your stories, people don’t need to know that you’re actually you know, on your couch ordering a pizza, you know watching a movie, like out and about, it looks like you’re constantly going.

D.J. Paris 28:31
Yes. And perception is important. Is

Courtney Hatfield 28:35
it is so if you look like you’re everywhere, and you’re involved in everything, and you dabble in everything, people will say, Oh, Courtney has done this, she’s been here. And then they’ll come to me and it just builds that relationship. And you’re

D.J. Paris 28:48
also providing value because like oh, by the way, Beatles are my favorite band of all time. So I will always go see a Beatles tribute band. But but the but what you said is really important because whether you’re actually at the event, or you’re just promoting the event saying hey, Beatles fans, there’s this there’s the Beatles thing tonight like that’s that’s still incredible value to people that like wow, Courtney really knows what’s going on whether you’re there dancing, or not even able to attend this idea of providing value, even outside of real estate just saying like, I know what’s going on because this is my community. I work in this community. Oh, yeah. Brilliant. If we’re talking about branding now really, we’re talking about this idea. Yeah. Oh my gosh,

Courtney Hatfield 29:29
nobody needs to know you’re on your couch in your pajamas. Like you’re just providing value. That’s literally what our job is to do is to provide value via market resource be people be their go to person and that will eventually you don’t get water the same day. You take the while it will turn into clients it will turn into referrals. I’ve seen this time and time again in my own business, and we’ve only been in business, you know a few years.

D.J. Paris 29:56
Unbelievable what percentage of your business comes from social median I mean, just a general idea of I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast, do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. Of course, it is a follow up boss. And let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort, do not take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half a billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems, so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. Also, the best part they have seven day a week support so you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice as much time as they give everyone else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free. But only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode.

Courtney Hatfield 31:23
My my personal business is all social media. Everything that I do i We do get leads on the team. But I don’t take I don’t take leads I pass those out. Sure. So all of mine last year, I just social media referrals I had 30 I closed 30 transactions.

D.J. Paris 31:42
Amazing. That’s amazing. So this idea how long did it see you talked about? Yeah, look, you know, we’re this is a marathon, not a sprint, you post once, and then nothing happens? And you’re like, Well, that didn’t work. And it’s like, no, it probably did work. It’s just not how people make decisions about about their biggest what are their biggest assets, if not their biggest asset. They need to get comfortable, it’s going to take time if you’re the followers, the followership is going to grow. How long did it take before you started seeing results on social?

Courtney Hatfield 32:14
It was probably

maybe a year and a half or two years into consistently posting that I really started to get and you’ll see in the packet and the PDF that I’m going to share with everybody, you’ll see examples of people saying, Hey, do you have a business card or phone number I can share with my ex husband, he’s on the hunt for a house. Oh, Courtney Hatfield, 100%. She’s amazing. And local to the Canton area, one of the nicest ladies you’ll ever meet. And I share, I share a ton of screenshots. Just proof that this does work, if you keep putting in the time putting, you know, it takes time, it does take time. I’m very authentic in what I post. I’m not it’s not everything is curated. It’s right now you’ll look at my Instagram, and I just bought a house and I’m redoing it. And just little projects. And so you’ll see a bunch of reels of me, you know, attempting different projects. It’s what’s really happening in my life. And I get comments on there that people are like, I can’t wait to see how this turns out. And you know, it keeps people in the loop. So they may not need me for real estate right now. But if they want to redo their fireplace, they can call me, you know, yeah, still providing that value, even though it’s very authentic to who I am.

D.J. Paris 33:36
And they might, they might be doing their fireplace and going, you know, we don’t know the right masonry guy or or the architect or the contractor. Like, we should ask Courtney because I know I’ve been following her. And this is what she’s up to. Oh, I love that. I love that that is really, really smart. And I don’t know that anyone’s ever really talked about that in that way on the show. So I appreciate you going into that detail. And I’m a marketer. So I just absolutely love this conversation. And it’s so funny because what we’re not talking about necessarily is how to hone your actual skills as a realtor, which you absolutely should be doing on top of that. But I think agents focus on that quite a lot, which they should and they often neglect this this marathon like you were saying one and a half to two years before you saw results on social that is not a fun ride, right? Like that is a that is a it’s a grind that you just have to trust is eventually going to pay off. And it’s just look this podcast. No, nobody listen to this podcast for the first year and a half. Nobody cared about it and took that long before anyone even noticed it. So I am right with you.

Courtney Hatfield 34:41
Right you have you have to put in the time. I I’m weary about instant success. So every day that I’m like, Are we still like a top producing team? You know what I mean? I still question how I just question it because I feel like instant success. There’s something to be said about it. So we really have, you have to put in the work. And we really have to get where we are social media, I do recommend. So what I, my method on social media is I pick five topics to post about. And they are real estate related. And I can fly through those real quick, just my guess. So the first thing I posted are pictures of myself, because like I said, photos of faces get more, they get more engagement than photos of like, I don’t know, a certain set. Then I post work new listings, sold listings, reviews, market news and team news. And anytime I post team news, I am a big fan of giving credit where it’s due. So I am tagging the entire team. It’s not about me, it’s about them. This is their businesses that we are trying to grow. And so I will tag every single person. So now what I just posted about your home court team ends up on six different Facebook pages or Instagram pages or Instagram stories. And our brand grows from there. I’m a big, big advocate of posting reviews, you should absolutely don’t post a one star review. But if you’ve got a five star review, you should absolutely post it. If you sold a million dollar house, it doesn’t matter if you sold that house. Last July, you still sold that million dollar house. So post it keep posting it posts, you know, different posts like different photos of it. Because you are a million dollar agent now. You sold

D.J. Paris 36:36
Yeah. And you can even every year on the home anniversary, say congratulations to so and so who purchased or sold this home a year ago. So much fun working with you, you know could be something like that. And tagged.

Courtney Hatfield 36:49
Lee? Absolutely. Yes. i The third thing I post, I post my kids and I always try to make it business related. So my daughter had career day at school. She’s six, she wanted to dress up like me for career day. Oh, she put on her earrings. She put on her sweatshirt that says your home court team. She carried her purse, and she carried a little coffee mug. And that’s what she went to school and I posted the picture. And everybody loved it.

D.J. Paris 37:16
Where I’m supposed to do this thing I’ve ever heard. It was,

Courtney Hatfield 37:19
it was like, wow, she had my business cards in her little she had a little fake Louis Vuitton purse, and she put her business cards in there. And she took them and that was like passed those babies out, like get them everywhere.

So I’ll post

pictures of that or her in front of a listing sign. You know, pretending like she sold it. Just, that’s great. I love that. Just different ideas to kind of bring it it’s still business related, but it’s still personal to me.

D.J. Paris 37:47
Sure.

Courtney Hatfield 37:48
I’ll post quotes. I do like sales quotes. And funny. The quotes that I see get the most interaction or saves on Instagram are quotes about money. And I used to yeah, I’ve never I’ve never even spoken about this with anybody because that’s just like one of those you look at your insights and you’re like, oh, okay, but I’ve noticed quotes about money, financial freedom, things like that those get the most saves and shares on Instagram, which I thought was. So I’ve ramped up sharing those.

D.J. Paris 38:22
Well, everybody wants more money. Right. So I think that’s makes sense. Yeah,

Courtney Hatfield 38:26
absolutely. It. Yeah, it does. And then I post I, I like doing DIYs. So I that is my fifth thing that I post our DIY videos of the house, or a big thrift or something that I found a Goodwill or I’ll post things like that very authentic to me brings in a different type of audience gets the engagement and they know that I’m a realtor. In the meantime,

D.J. Paris 38:53
well and I want to point out something about the DIY crowd because DIY crowd is online. This is where they’re learning oftentimes how to do some of their DIY projects. So this this is also like going where your audience is yes, it may be it’s a different audience than then who was more attracted to other posts of yours. But that’s the whole point is you have different different sort of categories for different types of clients. And this idea of DIY, people are always looking for inspiration ideas instruction. So that is I’ve never heard anyone talk about that. That’s really smart.

Courtney Hatfield 39:26
It’s it’s home. It’s you know, we sell homes for a living so people what do they want to do they want to renovate their home or they want to update it in some way. And so I just post my personal DIY projects and products that I got things like that. And I mean, like I said, it’s a different following, but it’s it’s very in line with what I do.

D.J. Paris 39:49
You you’ve given us so many great I’m sorry, did we hit all five of your topics because I Okay, good. Because I know you You were you were wonderful, I lose track of things because I get so excited with with a lot of these ideas. And I’m realizing as a quiz, so funny. So this is This is Courtney, is was kind enough not to scold me, but she, she, she probably should have because she said to me, before we started, do you guys have Instagram? And I’m like, really for the podcast? And I was like, How stupid are we that we don’t have Instagram yet. And I’ve heard about lots of people talking about social media in the past. So this is my challenge to myself to take my own advice or Courtney’s advice, rather. And I’m going to commit to starting to post more regularly about the podcast, as well as our own business for recruiting realtors. But you are absolutely right. And you’re getting all of your business through social That is insane.

Courtney Hatfield 40:47
Yes, that one thing and I know, we talked about something mistakes, agents make

social media Polit politics COVID You know, religion, issues

that yeah, religion, things that we are, we’re not in the market to debate, we’re in the market to sell houses. So let’s, if somebody, you know, if I vote for somebody, and somebody else votes for somebody, I’m not going to not sell them house because they didn’t vote for the person I wanted, you know, I don’t care who they voted for. I care that they, you know, use me to buy their house. So I just keep all of that separate, you’ll never find a single thing on my page about anything political. And, well, it’s just

D.J. Paris 41:32
gonna polarize, it’ll polarize and alienate a certain group. And you’re as a business owner, I guess there’s, I guess, a strategy of like, if I polarized one side, maybe the other side comes? I don’t know, it seems like a very risky strategy. I would rather let everybody wanted to work with

Courtney Hatfield 41:50
100%. And I am shocked by how many agents I see that are just so like, rude about it on Facebook or Instagram, more. So Facebook, but I’m just like, oh, my gosh, don’t stop talking.

D.J. Paris 42:03
i Yeah, I’m a big fan of the the realtor community labcoat agents, which is, I think, the largest realtor community online. And it’s wonderful. And there’s so much value there. And I love Tristan, and those guys, they’re lovely. They’ve been on my show. But you’re right, like in this is just a realtor thing that other people wouldn’t necessarily see. But there’s a lot of like, you know, a brokerage has, you know, layoffs or something bad happens to a brokerage. And there is a lot of brokers out there who are like, Thank God, so and so’s going down and, and I’m just, it’s just, it’s an incredible amount. And I wonder what they’re posting on their own public stuff, if you know, they’re willing to serve. It’s very strange. So don’t really hate people. Exactly.

Courtney Hatfield 42:44
There’s enough sun to shine for every single person. And you know what, I kind of feel like if you were not, if you used your time better, maybe, maybe you should be selling a house instead of complaining on Facebook, you know?

D.J. Paris 43:01
Yeah, you’re right. And people who, you know, just being really conscious about the about your image. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s called branding. It’s really important. It’s funny, like we’re starting, I’m starting another podcast, unreal estate related for non real estate related for an organization. And as a result, I’m just interviewing people for this particular nonprofit. And it has nothing to do with me, but someone has to be the podcast host. And so I had to really think that even though I don’t speak for the organization, I’m not on their board of directors, I’m part of the community of this organization, but I’m not their main person. But it’s going to come across that I’m the main person because I’m going to be doing this podcast. And I had to realize, okay, it’s important for me not to insert myself into this new podcast, because I don’t I don’t speak for this brand, but you speak for your own brand. And on this show, I can be as you know, obnoxious says I want because it’s my own brand. But, um, but you’re absolutely right is, is really being aware that, you know, every time you post, it’s permanent, it’s forever. And, you know, maybe people should be more conscious of what their brand is because their clients are going to look them up.

Courtney Hatfield 44:10
They they really are. Yeah, just be very careful what you put on and what you’re willing, some people that’s the hill they’re willing to die on. So all right, I’ll take the clients you don’t want.

D.J. Paris 44:21
I love that. And, and also, I said this at the beginning, but I sort of said it quickly, Courtney is been generous enough to provide a guide for our audience to really help them understand best practices around social media marketing, we’re going to make that available. It’s in the show notes. It’s a PDF super easy to to get and really will help you start your journey there. What do you tell agents, people that that you speak to about doing more on social, if they’re afraid to sort of turn the camera on themselves? If there is a fear of I don’t know. I don’t really, you know, it’s hard for me to expose maybe, you know, they’re just a lot of people aren’t calm. have trouble in front of a camera. I know I’m not.

Courtney Hatfield 45:03
I’m not either. But a lot of people are in, some agents on my team aren’t comfortable with it. And a lot of the time, it really just takes practice. It just takes practice. Honestly, they’re nobody’s thinking about what you look like when you send them that video, they’re listening to what you have to say. And when people look too far into it, they really do. Yeah. So you know, I, it just takes practice, stand in front of a mirror, record yourself a few times, one thing that I have told my team is instead, so let’s say they make connection with a new lead, send that person a video and say, it was so nice to talk to you, I can’t wait to work with you, I’m going to, you know, send you properties, whatever you guys spoke about. But do it, make a video of your face and send it to them? It’s so much better than, hey, this is Courtney Hatfield, you know, it was such a pleasure and being, you know, sending them a text message that’s so much more generic, anybody can send a text message, what makes us different? Let’s send a video message.

D.J. Paris 46:09
So So I want to, I want to drill down on this for a moment because I want to make sure I understand the process because this is brilliant. So let’s say you’re at an open house, you get a list of people that have come in. And now at the end of the open house, you now have names and phone numbers and email addresses of people to follow up with who maybe they’re not going to buy the home. But but maybe they’re you know, you could show them other properties. So So you saying make a video for those people as well? Yes. Every How do you send that? I’m sorry? How do you distribute that to them?

Courtney Hatfield 46:40
Just through a text platform. We use, though I send my stuff through follow up boss.

D.J. Paris 46:46
But follow up boss. They’re there. They’re a sponsor of ours. So we love

Courtney Hatfield 46:51
shameless plug. There you go. I know.

D.J. Paris 46:54
But you’re right, you’re right. We all have phones that can easily do this turn around, hey, it was so good meeting you at the open house. I love it.

Courtney Hatfield 47:01
That’s all it is. And I just flip my camera around, I take a video, it was so nice to meet you guys at the open house. I know this home wasn’t for you. But I’m gonna go into go home and send you some options that might be looking forward to working with you. Then they see your face again. They’re more apt to respond, like we said, faces get more interaction than just a generic text message that anybody can type up a text message. sure anybody can send a video, but not everybody will.

D.J. Paris 47:27
In fact, almost nobody will. Exactly.

Courtney Hatfield 47:31
And it’s really, just really,

it makes you stand out against your competition.

D.J. Paris 47:38
It does. And it shows that you are willing to go a little bit further maybe than other realtors to sort of earn the business I guess not even when the business earn it. I think you do have to earn it. I think earning it is through showing people that you’re willing to work, work for them and making a video shows. I mean, again, it’s just a great, great idea. Now I’m gonna we’re gonna put a cap on this episode, because Courtney has given so much of herself in this episode, that I think our audience is like madly scribbling notes about what they can do, because this is incredible. And Courtney has got to go because they’re probably closing a home later today. So I’m going to, I’m going to I’m going to do this and I want to have you back in the future to even give more more and more tips. But you’ve given us a solid hour of unbelievable tips and advice for social media, I am so so grateful to have had you on our show. And I want to make make a point that if there are any realtors out there, who are maybe in the Cleveland or surrounding areas, Akron area as well, you know, and you’re looking to maybe join a team, you know, you never know reach out to Courtney and see if she might be a good fit. Or you might be a good fit for her team. And by the way, maybe you’re just somebody who’s looking for a realtor to either your realtor in another area and you have somebody moving to that area or that you know you’re not a realtor and you found our podcast and you want to work with somebody like Courtney and by the way if you live in those areas you absolutely should you know what’s the best way that someone should reach out to you.

Courtney Hatfield 49:07
You can find me on Facebook, Courtney Hatfield, or you can find me on Instagram Courtney Hatfield dot realtor all one word. I’m on all the social medias, you can find me anywhere, Courtney happy.

D.J. Paris 49:20
And all of those links will be in the show notes if you’re listening to this through a podcast app. And also remember to download her pdf of some best social media practices that she was so kind to, to provide to our audience. And Courtney on behalf of our audience, we really drink from the fire hose today. And so I am my head is spinning a bit and I am about to start to put some some things into action for our own podcast here and my own real estate business or the real estate business I work for so that I can get better results on social so I want to check back in with you shortly and and get you back on the show. So on behalf of the audience, you provided incredible value. So thank you And I know how busy you are. So thank you on top of that. And also, well, we appreciate it so much. And also, on behalf of Courtney and myself, we want to thank everyone who’s watching and listening to the end. We really appreciate your your participation in our show. And the best way you can help us grow is by telling a friend just think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing maybe somebody who needs to have a better social media presence and send them a link to this episode. The best way you can have introduced someone to us just send it to our website, keeping it real pod.com Or just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real, hit the subscribe button. And then the other only thing we ask is that you leave us a review, let us know what you think of the show. It helps us grow helps us get better. So help us get better by telling other people and letting us know what you like and what you don’t like about our show so we can keep getting better for you, Courtney, thank you so much. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Thank you