Lab Coat Agents Podcast

On today's episode, Jeff talks with Sarah Knaver and Victoria Velazquez who did over $100 million worth of sales in 2021; They are in the top 1% of agents in the country.Victoria and Sarah talk about their journey and experience in real-estate and when they decided to scale and hire team members. Tune in. Episode Highlights: Real estate had always been in Victoria's sphere in different ways, and she always had kind of thought about doing it. She always felt like it was a career where you really got rewarded for the effort you put into it, which was very appealing to her. Victoria and Sarah talk about their career journey and how they got into real-estate.  Victoria Velazquez was an undergrad at USC where she earned a bachelor's in public policy, planning, and development with an emphasis in real estate finance. Sarah obtained her real estate license in her senior year of college while pursuing a liberal arts degree at Pepperdine University. If you are interviewing somebody that has a team, Sarah always recommends interviewing somebody that is new on the team and somebody who is more of a veteran on the team so that you can get a sense of how their growth has been. Sarah has heard from several different new members on teams or assistance to people that one of their biggest challenges with whoever they just started working for in real estate was that person was now no longer in the office and they had no sense of direction as to what to do. It is important for people to understand that if you want to be a successful real estate agent, you can be an introvert, but you can have a disadvantage to extroverts, says Jeff. Victoria didn't have a ton of clients, so she thought about anything and everything to execute for these clients. She would go above and beyond in the beginning. Sarah had always assumed that her clients were super busy. They don't have time, and they don't have  knowledge. She always thinks of ways to make the deal perfectly easy and clear for them so that they understand pros and cons and can make a decision along the way.  Mostly Victoria and Sarah have their own listings that they say are open, but they do work with other people also. If you got into the real estate business and you want your weekends off, you got into the wrong business, says Jeff. “When we are sitting with people at an open house, we try to have something to do that is productive, but also not so important that you are then not being in touch with people that you plan,” says Sarah. Finding someone good is the hardest thing, but when you find great people who are just such a good culture fan with great energy can really make a huge difference and can be net positive for the business, says Sarah. Speaking with clients and negotiating with other agents and visiting sites are probably the only three things that really, we should be doing and need to be focusing our efforts and time, says Sarah. People get into this business being like I have no schedule; I have nothing planned but we are the opposite of that. We want things to be structured, says Sarah.    3 Key Points: Victoria and Sarah talk about the differentiating factor that might be overarching them from their competition.  What about open houses? How successful are they? Sarah and Victoria describe how they are different now than they were in the beginning. Your career can look however you want it in real estate and that's what is also beautiful about this business. As per Victoria, anyone can do it. Resources Mentioned: Lab Coat Agents | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Follow Up Boss (Sponsor) Chime (Sponsor) Z buyer (sponsor) https://www.instagram.com/victoriavelazquez/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/sarahknauer/?hl=en https://thrivii.com/

Today on the Lab Coat Agents Pocast, you are going to find out why you should not hit the breaks when it comes to LinkedIn. You don’t have to be a completely different person on this platform. What should you post on LinkedIn for engagement and traction? What is the power of visibility in a hashtag? You have to give what you want to get and everyone can win. If you wish you had been on Facebook 10 years ago, it’s going to be the same opportunity now with LinkedIn.  “LinkedIn is here for your whole career.” Judi might surprise you on this one!   Episode Highlights: Real Estate Agents and Business Owners aren’t using LinkedIn as much as they should. What do you post? How often? How is it different from everything else you’re used to on other platforms? LinkedIn loves the personal journeys of career paths. Those types of stories should be shared! Judi explains how the energy on LinkedIn has more of a together feeling than an individual. What is the cadence to post on LinkedIn? Judi shares surprising advice on how to get more traction and engagement. There is some perception that we have to spend more time on LinkedIn. Be cautious of how you respond to the perception. Should you be posting more about your business? Should you still be posting personal content? You should build your LinkedIn profile to sell you. What kind of soft call to action can you use?  Do you have a personal hashtag? Why does it matter? You don’t need to constantly post for more conversation if you already have it. The profiles on LinkedIn have changed. If you haven’t been on in awhile, there are new features like creator mode and spotlight. Jeff talks about the importance of personal hashtag and his exposure to it. What does it look like to create a catalog, a news feed of your own content? Should you use your website as your hashtag? Judi shares your inspiration for starting her hashtag and her suggestions on finding your own. What is the power in commenting? Free account or pro?  What is the featured section? People will convert from there. Relationships and networking matter long term on LinkedIn. How do you start?  How do you use your content and find your pattern? Can you still benefit from Clubhouse from just a once a week pattern?   Resources Mentioned: Judi Fox https://www.judifox.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/judiwfox/ Lab Coat Agents Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/labcoatagents Lab Coat Agents Twitter: https://twitter.com/LabCoatAgents Lab Coat Agents Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/labcoatagents/  Follow Up Boss (Sponsor) Chime (Sponsor) Z buyer (sponsor)

On today's episode, Jeff is going to talk to Ryan Rodenbeck. This has become a common topic in the real estate world- thriving in a shifting market. How in the hell are you going to not only thrive, but how are you going to be able to keep your head above water? How are you going to be able to survive as we continue to head into recessionary times as we head into the unknown. They are also going to talk about independent brokers.  Episode Highlights: Ryan came into the real-estate business because he was an investor when he was 26-27 years old and tried to sell a property investment property.  Ryan considered himself as a good salesperson. So, he used the techniques that he had used in two properties and trained other agents to follow his approach with the leads.  Life happens and you are going to lose people. So, you always have to have a recruitment method and you have to stay focused on that or you will not grow, says Ryan. Ryan takes a lot of agents that come from teams that want to do their own thing. Then a lot of teams are universal, but a lot of the teams don't really have a pay system or a guided system for Asians to do their own thing, but Ryan does.   If you have a team with 20 to 40 agents that are almost exclusively working on your leads that are very profitable. Personally, Jeff hates leads and as a leader, he has just stayed away from that. Jeff looks for independent people who want to grow their own business. Jeff has built systems to help those people thrive.  Ryan doesn't have any ISA; they use Zillow flex.  The biggest thing with Ryan and his company is their leadership infrastructure. Ryan suggests that you don't have to invent your own technology when you can get the best in class from everyone else. The key is how you marry these technologies together. When you are working with independent tech companies who service real estate, that is all that they do and they are really freaking good at it, says Jeff. In his company Ryan has a culture committee that meets once every two months, that decides what kind of parties they are going to throw, what kind of charities they are going to represent that month. If you are a top producing agent and you are trying to lead in, grow a company, it really doesn't work. You have to put a priority, says Ryan. Post starting his business Ryan did a strategic planning, about four or five years ago, and his goal was in three years to grow to 100 agents at a time.  Jeff asks agents to hire good mentors because not only are they going to lift you up in the bad times, but they are also going to be that inspiration. They are going to guide you. They are going to use their experience to help you not make the same mistakes that they did. That's the key.  If you have a listing, you have to work for it, says Ryan. Ryan says that as a real estate agent it is important how you are marketing your home. How were you talking to buyers? How are you setting expectations? Number of things can happen at any point in Austin. It's going to drive demand like just two days ago Apple announced they are going to build 600,000 square feet of office, says Ryan. If you want to time the market, we have to have these talking points, this information in this data to be able to teach our agents how to handle unreasonable objections. Ryan says as a real-estate agent make sure that you are watching and listening to other podcasts.  If you are incapable of generating your own leads to your spirit influence or through the raw force of nature's open house, then you need to join a brokerage or team that will provide it to you into those skills until those skills are earned or adapted, says Ryan. 3 Key Points: Ryan talks about his journey and how in 2015, he became a top producing agent and decided to hire a team and become a real brokerage Ryan and Jeff talk about culture, and they say that as a real estate agent that is something that you can have it whether you are in a big box, you ran into your small shop, it doesn't matter it's all kind of dependent upon the leadership and it's somewhat cliche. Jeff explains why as a real estate agent you need to be working on dialing in your sales skills.     Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Follow Up Boss (Sponsor) Chime (Sponsor) Z buyer (sponsor) Street Text (sponsor) Ryan Rodenbeck: https://www.realtyhack.com/ https://www.spyglassrealty.com/ https://www.youtube.com/realtyhack

On today's episode, Jeff is talking to Michael LaFido, a luxury specialist who has a platform where he teaches. He flies all over the country and speaks. What does it mean to think like a marketer? What limiting beliefs do you have that you need to let go of to move to the next level? Tune in now.   Episode Highlights: Michael LaFido talks about his podcast, luxurylisting. Jeff asks Michael to tell his story and how he got into the business and to where he is now.  He used to be a highschool P.E. teacher and football coach. He shares the unlikely way he got into part-time real estate and launched his speaking career. He started creating products to educate.  In 2016, Michael launched his luxury designation.  Jeff asks Michael to share about his career as a P.E. teacher. How do you leverage a brand to help get you out of the gates? How do you become a top producing agent while working another job? Michael shares his experience. Micheal shares the lightbulb moment when he started to shift to luxury. Mailers with obnoxious funny letters? Jeff and Michael discuss the ins and outs of his strategy and how others told him they were cheesy and wouldn't work.  When you grow your knowledge, you will grow your confidence.  Who are you hanging out with? Why does it matter and how does it influence you? Jeff talks about how Michael’s journey debunks a lot of things agents think and say. How does an agent who feels boring or like they don’t have a good story?  How do you continue to work on yourself? Michael goes through some role-play scenarios and how he processes them. Jeff asks how to reply to a listing agent who objects to someone else sharing their listing? Michael shares a story about his intern and re-posting listings. A few months ago, Tyler Hassman was on this podcast. He is a TikTok guide and hoes to listings and creates content; He has created a bigger business in one year than many have in 20; Check it out on Episode  #165. What is your story? How do you leverage it and how does it work within a team? Michael talks about how they use Social Media platforms to attract more luxury. How will people in the luxury market analyze you? A lot of people think you have to look a certain away and play a certain part in luxury. Is it true? How do you crack into luxury? It can be an uphill battle unless you’re going to think outside the box and be up front. Michael gives great advice.   3 Key Points: How can agents think more like a marketer than a real estate agent? Michael explains the importance and how it led him to success. There are many limiting beliefs that many agents or brokers think- you have to be with a certain brand, have to be license a certain amount of years , live a certain place, drive a nice car, etc. etc. How do you break the mindset? Lean into your authenticity and grow your knowledge to grow your confidence. Michael advises this is much more important than the superficial things that agents get caught in. Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Follow Up Boss (Sponsor) Chime (Sponsor) Z buyer (sponsor)   Michael LaFido https://marketingluxurygroup.com/ https://luxurylistingspecialist.com/ https://luxurylisting.podbean.com/ michael@marketingluxurygroup.com https://www.youtube.com/c/Marketingluxurygroup

DRock, the original videographer, content creator, and Executive Creative Director for Gary Vaynerchuk. He is highlighting the importance of personal stories and spotlighting others to build your personal brand. Don’t miss this valuable insight! Episode Highlights: Jeff talks about Gary Vaynerchuk, his impact on social media, and how DRock has been successful with him. In regards to any platform, what should you be focusing on when it comes to video? Do you understand the consumers? DRock always asks what his audience wants to see more of and what value he can provide them. Jeff shares what stands out the most to him of what he has learned from DRock.  Strategy, not getting overwhelmed, and understanding where you are in your social media and branding journey has been key for him. If you want something big, you have to put in the work. Have you done 1,000 episodes on a podcast? What does it actually look like to put in the work before thinking it isn’t "going anywhere"? DRock and Gary put out a lot of content. He explains why and how. How do you not overthink it?  If you were to stand in front of a room of 9,000 people, you would be blown away.  DRock says people need to tune their perspective to that so that you can build relationships with those people and truly build value. What is the cadence of how often to post?  How do you bring value that will actually engage or entertain your audience in real estate? DRock talks about how he personally got into the habit of posting. Social media is conversation. What kind of conversations do you want to have? Put out content that helps back that up. DRock shares where he thinks the most opportunity is being missed by those attempting to do social media well. Have you ever imagined Instagram as your journal? What kind of behind the scenes can you share? Should you treat TikTok like another Instagram or Facebook? Does it only work for people who go viral? Are there any safety issues with using TikTok for business? Billion dollar companies are shifting marketing strategy to TikTok. What does that mean?  DRock explains why he thinks that text messaging will eventually fade out if it doesn’t step up and what will take its place. Is Linkedin a sleeping giant? DRock weighs in with his opinion.   Resources Mentioned: Lab Coat Agents | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Follow Up Boss (Sponsor) Chime (Sponsor) Z buyer (sponsor) Street Text (sponsor) Drunk on Social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/136264191062786/ Drunk on Social Instagram: https://www.facebook.com/groups/136264191062786/ Jeff Pfitzer Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeffpfitzer/ Jeff Pfizer TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jeffpfitzer?lang=en Tristan Ahumada Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/labcoatagents Tristan Ahumada YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ6o6B5JPEBP57hu9VdzT4Q DRock  Instagram | LinkedIn

On today's episode, Jeff is talking to Blair Ballin. They are going to talk about some of the things Blair is doing with Social Media using a Facebook group and how he has overcome the crashes in 2007 and 2008 and the COVID year of 2020. He shares how his mindset is what allowed him to have some of the best years of his career. Tune in, you’ll be glad that you did.    Episode Highlights: Blair Ballin is a realtor in Phoenix, AZ. At the beginning it was a slow start for Blair then 2007 came and the market began to crash. He talks about his personal joruney. Blair started doing BPO's that transformed into a very good time of selling homes. Then came short sales he didn't know how to do at all at first and he went through a very difficult time. It was probably the roughest patch of his life, both personal and business.  Blair was fortunate to come across a couple different mentors and coaches which at that time transformed things for him. Now his book is doing fairly well, he has a Facebook group, and uploads Tik Tok videos and Instagram posts.  Blair shares that in the real estate space, the reality is realtors are the only ones that control what they do; the market is irrelevant because people always buy and sell.  Blair has tried to grow a team with different structures and it has never worked out. He explains the reasons he believes that is. As Blair continued to grow as a business owner, he realized the needed change. He really wanted to help other agents grow their business and help more people. He just needed to know the right things to do to have those right people on the team and not just hire someone because he felt bad for them. Blair talks about his ordeal with covid, how realtors were afraid to visit houses, how customers refused to go to anybody's houses and how amidst all this he had to figure out the salary part.  During the pandemic, Blair realized that there were probably going to be very few realtors who were actually transacting. There was still a ton of business to be had and just like when foreclosures happen not taking advantage of the marketplace but knowing what is in the marketplace to take advantage of.  Due to his early strategies, business boomed during the pandemic and he was able to purchase his dream home.  Blair talks about the benefits of Facebook Groups and what motivated him to create one. After 2 years of creating the group it has now close to 15,000 members. Blair is very selective of who he lets in.  Blair decided instead of being very specific to a city which will probably segregate who is going to join and not join based upon that, he kind of kept it broad based and kind of neutral so that he could control the narrative of what areas to cover.  Many other Facebook group owners will create their own duties and descriptions;  Blair didn't want to put that on anyone else and he wanted it to all be in his control. Blair discusses how his Facebook Group is expanding and how he is getting business for the group.  Facebook groups are the best CRM that exist. Most people sign up for a CRM because it comes with their  brokerage but Blair share the importance of having your own that you always keep no matter what changes may happen in your future. From his Facebook Group Blair has closed a dozen or so deals from it with another half dozen like pending.  3 Key Points: Every time Blair had a setback in the business, he used to blame himself. He taught himself to try his best, speak more positively to himself and fix his mindset.  Blair talks about the Covid 19 and how it disrupted the market. He shares what he did to overcome it. Usually what you spend time on, if you continue to do it, will pay off, whether it's open houses, running ads or whatever that continued effort is, that will deliver results, says Blair.   Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Follow Up Boss (Sponsor) Chime (Sponsor) Z buyer (sponsor) Street Text (sponsor)   Blair Ballin: https://www.blairballin.com/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/559301274502463 https://www.facebook.com/Living-North-Phoenix-2297390503813850 https://www.facebook.com/BlairBallinRealtor https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082584225597

On today's episode, Jeff is talking with Jess Lenouvel; She is helping real estate professionals go from 6 figures to 7 figures. Jess has recently launched a book called "More Money, Less Hustle." She wanted to emphasize the fact that, you can have all the things that you got into real estate for- the unlimited income, the freedom of schedule, being able to help lots of people without having it be a tradeoff of life or business. Tune in!   Episode Highlights: When Jess starts coaching, she does an initial exercise with her clients. She asks them to envision where they want to be ultimately and then she brainstorms and guides how to make every decision and essentially reverse engineer all of the steps of the client's business back from that point.  Jess talks about her journey and what made her shift to the Bahamas.  Jess is currently staying at Eleuthera, and she says one of the really cool things about this island is that if you go inland a little bit, there is a lot of red soil.  Jess talks about the real-estate market in Eleuthera and how much it costs to own a house there as compared to Miami. Many people say that that regret working too much and as per Jess in real estate specifically that is exacerbated or exponentially more.  According to Jeff everybody wants more money, and they don't want to have to work for it, and that doesn't exist.  As per Jess the most painful place in a real estate business to be in the 250 to 500 range because you are successful and but a lot of the time you are wearing all the hats. With new agents there is a lot of shiny object syndrome because they don't know what's going to be a game changer and what's not, says Jess. Jess explains when we have ultimate vision and we have reversed engineered it, we know what the ultimate thing looks like and it makes it a lot easier to say yes or no. One of Jess's coaches has always used this analogy that you have two accounts. You have your ego account, and you have your bank account, and you can't fill both at the same time. For the newer agent who is in the infancy stage, like trying to get to the 6-figure, even though there is going to be an element of working harder there's also still ways to be efficient, says Jess.  Jess explains how it is just a matter of making sure that you are prioritizing the things that are going to be the highest leverage activities in your business first. Outsourcing allows a person to be more efficient from a time standpoint and from a financial standpoint. Everything requires some minds that work right, because we are where we are, because in most cases those are the limitations of what we can see, says Jess. There are so many people out there who are true entrepreneurs and visionaries and are so good at the real estate human side of things that they are spending so many hours doing paperwork. That really at the end of the day that's draining them and it's taking away from the energy and the time that they have towards actually working on the business. As you get on the business and you get to that point of more money, less hassle, the whole point is you're spending more time, which is less time in the grand scheme of things, but focusing on money making activity, says Jeff.  At the end of the day every single message has to be curated towards you in your market and the demographic that you want to attract and no marketing, says Jess. There are a lot of things in your business that you can outsource, but you cannot outsource the voice and the actual content. If you don't have relevance online you are basically going to make yourself irrelevant in this business in the next 10 years, says Jeff. Really good marketing is just being able to articulate what's in the back of your ideal client's head better than they can and you couldn't do that. They will automatically credit you with the solution and you will have that business immediately.  It doesn't matter whether or not you are the biggest, you know, most outgoing visionary in the world. You can in your business still be the face in the Brand and the voice and be the operations manager, says Jess. The idea of rest is you work hard and then you rest, says Jess.   3 Key Points: Jess says as per her teachings the goal is to get to multiple seven figures because then you have the ability to leverage and stay in your zone of genius.  There are people who have quit their 9 to 5 career and got into real estate to make a six figure income. Jess suggests how she helps. Your brand is not just the visual side of your brand. You can have a terrible visual brand and still be super, super successful. The brand is what people say about you and what the stories that they remember about you when you are not in the room.    Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Follow Up Boss (Sponsor) Chime (Sponsor) Z buyer (sponsor) Street Text (sponsor) Jess Lenouvel: https://www.amazon.com/More-Money-Less-Hustle-Becoming-ebook/dp/B09PZLBPJW https://www.instagram.com/jesslenouvel/?hl=en https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheListingsLab

On today's episode, Jeff is talking to Scott Harris. He has done over a billion dollars in volume in his career of 20 years. He also has a  podcast called Finding Homes. They discuss the  difference between investing in a city like New York versus anywhere else and about how brokers can help investors with sizing up apartments and working in high-rise buildings. Don’t miss out! Episode Highlights: Scott played high school Football, which is a fun thing to always talk about with folks and that really informed the way he thinks about teamwork and what all you can do. Scott spent the first six years out of college touring with a vocal group as a singer and writing music and touring the USA and when there was a natural stopping point. He moved to New York in 2002 and for the last 20 years he has been doing real estate. Scott never made more than 40 grand a year before he got into real estate; He was just paying his rent and getting by running his own life. As per Scott, a lot of agents will tell you that it's about five years when you get your feet under you for real and start to get a lot more listing side business. What is the biggest difference between New York City and another market? Scott shares his journey with how real estate grew for him. Scott has always been a marketer and he loves writing and music. In 2009, he launched his newsletter and started putting on his own content thinking about the market and sharing it. The companies that are succeeding at the highest levels- their CEOs are the ones putting themselves out there and giving you a backstage pass to their life, and that's imperfect, says Jeff. Everybody Scott ever met gets marketed to in a thoughtful way or in a way that adds value. It's been very surprising how much value he has been able to add to the brokerage community.  Scott sends newsletters twice a month to the same people. He thinks at the very least in New York, you can put yourself out there once a month. Everything is pushing people in opposite directions but the one universal thing that everybody goes through is to buy a home and that's a ri of passage that everybody can agree on, says Scott. The real estate agent doing his work will never say that you are kind of a therapist first and an agent second, says Scott. You have to know which people need data to make decisions. You not only have to hit on the data, but you also have to hit on the emotion, says Scott. 3 Key Points: By 2014, Scott was ranked in the top 250 list in the entire United States and that's not easy to do where there are many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of real estate agents. He shares how he navigated that. As per Scott it's very competitive in New York, but everybody can do the business. There is so much business to do and make billions of dollars in business there. When we coach on social media all the time, we talk about creating content around what you're already doing with your life. If you're a tomato gardener, share it. There's going to be people out there that can resonate with that and enjoy that content far more than you talk about, says Jeff.   Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Follow Up Boss (Sponsor) Chime (Sponsor) Z buyer (sponsor) Street Text (sponsor)   Scott Harris: https://harrisresidential.com/ https://scottharris.net/wiser https://scottharris.net/podcast https://www.tiktok.com/@scottharrisfindinghome

On today's episode of the Lab Coat Agents Podcast, Jeff talks to Mickie Kennedy, Founder & President of eReleases. He is currently based on the East Coast. Mickie created eReleases 22 years ago to give small businesses access to the media and to a national newswire. Mickie talks about his journey, how he got into press releases, and how they started emailing press releases. Tune in. Episode Highlights: Mickie is a trained poet, and he pursued Master of Fine Arts and Creative Writing with the emphasis of poetry.  Mickie narrates how PR Newswire approached them and started doing business with them. Mickie works with a lot of different entrepreneurs and startups. They work with about a third of the people who appear in Shark Tank; the producers of the show recommend that they do a press release before their episode airs.  Mickie has been pleasantly surprised that they have had some real estate people come through and use press releases and give them favorable feedback. Some of the ones that have worked, have been people selling famous properties, whether they have been promoted in film or TV or whether they were owned by a celebrity. Those generally do get some media pickup but also people are getting picked up for local developments.  If you read your newspaper, if you are lucky enough to live in an area with a business magazine or business newspaper as well, just to sort of get a feel for who writes about real estate projects or the types of articles that you feel your view would stand a chance of getting picked up, get their e-mail address. You can just call and ask for it. Sometimes it's just online. Sometimes you'll also find that with the media they might have a Twitter presence, so contacting them through Twitter could work really well, says Mickie. In most cases for local media, there are probably less than ten people that you would ever contact and if you just build your Rolodex locally and you send them story ideas as they naturally occur, says Jeff. If you can figure out a way to tap into, find the people, the resources and reach out to them, offer them something of value. If you do that consistently overtime, eventually they are going to grab and they are probably looking for content.  Mickie suggests making an introduction and what it is that you are pitching. You don't need a press release for local media. You really just have to have the idea synthesized in the cup. Two or three sentences and they may ask you to expand on it.  Mickie knows some real estate professionals that reach out to their local media, and they end up getting mentioned in a lot of remodeling articles, and it is not really the context of selling a home or a development or something like that, but they talk about trends like colors on walls, types of finishes, what a kitchen looks like and what a bathroom looks like.  As per Jeff when a lot of us think of PR, especially in real estate, they get targeted by PR agencies and firms and salespeople who are selling be featured in Forbes or top magazines. And the reality is you are not actually being featured, you are basically paying for advertising.  For finding journalists, it's just a matter of doing the research. Familiarize yourself with what are the local media opportunities around you. They can include TV and radio as well because they are perhaps programs that will spotlight local real estate and if they are, just ask around, do research, see if you can find any places for TV and radio.  If you don't have a USP, you're not doing something that really stands out unique for you, says Mickie. Find what you are passionate about or build something that you can be passionate about and be authentic to it and then lead with that.  The development of a UVP or in USP, is trying to find what you feel you would be good at and what you are passionate about and that you feel there's growth and opportunity.  There are real estate brokers that have passionate projects that they do with the community, and they often get in the media when they are doing those types of things and getting their name out there because they are volunteering. At the end of the day, a journalist is really just looking for a story that would be of interest to their audience, and if you can sort of put the pieces together for a story, they will do the writing and building of it and making it a really compelling story and you can help them do that and create that win situation.  Mickie offers a free master class that he puts together for his customers that he will make available to anyone. It's less than an hour long video master class and it basically just goes through lots of strategic ideas for types of press releases. They generally get media attention almost every time when they are sent out. Everybody generally has the leads list, and they have a client list that they e-mail too.  3 Key Points: Mickie suggests when sending PR releases, just send an introduction to who you are and what it is that you're promoting and why they should care, why their audience should care. Mickie teaches and coaches social media in the real estate space and they always talk about coming from contribution and as per him the biggest mistake that agents make in marketing strategies is they immediately go in and they just sell, sell, sell, sell, sell.  Mickie shares tips on how to approach journalists and how to get their e-mail address and what to mention in an e-mail.    Resources Mentioned:  Lab Coat Agents | Website | Facebook | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram  Jeff Pfitzer   | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Follow Up Boss (Sponsor) Chime (Sponsor) Z buyer (sponsor) Street Text (sponsor) Mickie Kennedy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/publicity/ https://www.ereleases.com/plan/ https://www.ereleases.com/contact/ https://twitter.com/ereleases

On today's episode, Jeff is back with Brian Grimes - Founder of 24/7 Cash Flow University. If you missed the episode last week with Brian, go back and listen! Brian believes in creating systems that are extremely simple because they are the ones that you can scale to 100 or 1000 deals as compared to extremely complex systems that break so much. Tune in.     Episode Highlights: Investing out-of-state is always kind of perks up investors ears because when we think about investing, we all tend to think about our backyard, says Brian. Brian did his first out-of-town deal in FHA and he ended up not even moving in because he ended up getting a job out of town. Brian was doing the FHA house hack on a multi-family, and he was going to move into one of the units because he was going to get paid like $400 a month to live in his own property. Brian is now an out-of-town investor not necessarily by choice or intent, but just by the nature of how things unfolded.  Rochester, NY or in some other places there are deals out there that are turnkey cash flow that you could just put down some money, negotiate a seller and control a large multifamily property and live for free. The way people use the office today, like a startup or tech company is way different than people used offices 80 years ago. But most of the developers and architects are still designing these office spaces the same way, says Brian.  There are people or investors out there that say, there is no opportunity in my market and there probably are many markets and they want to start out of town business. Brian explains the strategy for them. Most people don't have the system or the guy who is your eyes and ears and is probably working for beer money. Brian talks about the most important component of out-of-town business. Organic growth is the best and getting people through referrals is the best way to start now. If you can't, there is nothing wrong with posting a job ad on job portal and doing remote zoom interviews with people. If you are going to be doing 30 deals at once, you are never going to get there at a time so better to have two or three property inspector who can get there. If you are dealing with massive amounts of job and really tough turnaround times like we got to hit the hard money inspection, but we are going to run out of money, in that case we can start running inspectors every day. You are creating and controlling the environment in business, and you keep everybody on their toes, so it doesn't have to be a hectic environment. It has to be a tight ship, says Brian. There is money out there in the form of efficiency that you need to be able to see, because once you can get your hands on it, you can scale up. You need to view a realtor as somebody who adds leverage to you. They can deal with some of the paperwork. They can go back and forth with the seller, says Brian. If you know how to do the analysis and go out and inspect properties and find good deals, you need to increase your leverage. 24/7 cash flow university is for somebody who is like an absolute beginner. It's if you are advanced and you have already done 15 or 20 deals, you are going to get a ton of value out of this. 3 Key Points: Multifamily investments depend on where you are at and where you are willing to live because they are not everywhere. Contractors are great at what they do. But just because you are great at one thing doesn't make you like multifaceted and great at several things like a lot of contractors aren't good with technology. Brian talks about the best way to find the best market and find the properties at that point without having to rely on somebody who is got a biased interest on their commission.