Black Goat to Master Re-Marketer — Syed Mohsin, MI

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:19:05
Matt M.
Welcome to the Neighborhood Realtor podcast. With me, your host, Matt Muscat. This is a podcast for real estate industry professionals who are doers. Each episode will feature an interview with a top producer or someone who is doing things differently in an exciting way. For those who already know me or have read my books or blogs, my brand of marketing is tangible and repeatable.

00:00:19:11 - 00:00:48:15
Matt M.
Because smart salespeople don't need to reinvent the wheel. My promise to you is that in each episode you'll leave with one tangible idea that you can take to the bank. Everybody, welcome to today's show. I am pumped to have my guest today because I was just on his podcast and one of the most fascinating things is, I think in a market right now where a lot of agents, a lot of lenders, a lot of salespeople are using low inventory to complain about why they're not busy.

00:00:49:08 - 00:01:08:19
Matt M.
This guy is busy. Not only is he busy, he doesn't have a gigantic sphere of influence from growing up in the area that he serves and knowing everything going to high school and church and being in 30 bowling leagues. That is not my guest today. I guess today is pure hustle and pure technology. So welcome to the show.

00:01:08:19 - 00:01:13:20
Matt M.
Say it. Amazon Echo Realty, Metro Detroit area. Hey man, welcome. Great chatting to you again twice in the same week.

00:01:14:10 - 00:01:16:22
Syed M.
Thanks, bro. Thanks. It's a pleasure being here, bro.

00:01:17:13 - 00:01:33:24
Matt M.
So you got to tell me. So you have to tell everyone else. You told me a little about your back story and how you came not only to be a realtor, but how you came to the United States like. Walk us through. Walk us through the backstory first, because I think, like any superhero, there's always a great back story that contributes to where you are today.

00:01:34:14 - 00:01:58:12
Syed M.
Yeah. So I came to this country, I think at 17 now. So 2006, in November, we came to this country. I immigrated with my parents and we moved right into Detroit. That's where my other family members were living. So I've been here since then and I have never traveled back home after that. So I was basically we started I came with my grades.

00:01:58:12 - 00:02:28:11
Syed M.
You know, I was in high school back home, and I came here. I got right into senior year of my high school, the in Detroit, Pershing High School, seven mile and Ryan. And if you know that area, it's it's pretty rough especially in all six market going down right so it was amazing for me because when I was growing up all I knew of America was Disney and Marvel movies and pretty much like, you know, you can get the picture, right?

00:02:28:11 - 00:02:48:22
Syed M.
So when I come through high school and it's not one white person in my school and I'm like, What is like, obviously we're not I'm I'm dark myself. It's not a matter of race. It was just like I didn't picture America that way. Another thing was I couldn't understand the language they're speaking. I mean, I don't speak bad English.

00:02:48:22 - 00:03:17:20
Syed M.
I mean, back then it was pretty bad, but I still could understand regular English versus the Detroit slang. So that's another shocker, culture shock that I went through initially. But anyway, we I graduated high school in like six months, so that was pretty good experience. And I went to Wayne State Engineering School. I did that for two and a half years and this was back in oh nine when the Big Three's filed bankruptcy.

00:03:17:20 - 00:03:52:24
Syed M.
And to me, I didn't understand economy back then, so I was like, Oh man, my dream job. I was thinking about, okay, I'm going to graduate. And I was working full time. I was serving in Birmingham in a restaurant to be able to afford school. And it didn't, you know, I was like, it doesn't make the math doesn't make sense, you know, spending 70, $80,000 and four or four and a half years and being unemployed because a lot of my professors in Wayne State were laid off, engineers from GM and Ford who were looking for a side hustle.

00:03:53:01 - 00:04:11:16
Syed M.
Right. I'm like, I don't want to be that. So I started an online business initially just this was back in college. I was just looking to make extra money to be able to afford parking. Wayne State Oh my God. Like the parking is one of our biggest thing. So I use the flip phones and like, iPads, iPhones, you know.

00:04:12:09 - 00:04:37:12
Syed M.
So that got into where we figure it out. Okay, outlet malls have these semiannual sales where they give 85% off of, you know, fragrances and, you know, bed, bath and body, Victoria's Secret. But anyway, like long story short, I did I created an online business. Back then. E-commerce didn't exist and I did that for like four years. I did good enough profit.

00:04:37:23 - 00:05:01:18
Syed M.
And then, you know, Amazon started shutting us down because they wanted Victoria's Secret to come on the Amazon platform. Amazon was very small back then. Pretty much nobody sold on Amazon but people like us who were just like doing side hustle. So I started looking into real estate. So this is back in 2012. I buy my first real estate property in Detroit, so we are still living.

00:05:01:18 - 00:05:26:03
Syed M.
And actually 2011 we moved from Detroit to Warren City of Warren. We buy a foreclosure property and it was American dream, right? Coming true for us. For my family, I still haven't made that much money in a year. Like Max I made. Doing that online business was probably like $30,000 a year. It was still better than a lot of people in my family saw what I was thinking.

00:05:26:03 - 00:05:48:18
Syed M.
Oh man, I'm rich. So I started investing in real estate, start flipping from 2012 to 2014. I flipped like six houses, not even doing any rehab or anything and got into like figuring out, okay, there is a lot of money in real estate. And I started understanding reading, closing statements and how much the realtor is getting paid out of every deal.

00:05:48:18 - 00:06:01:23
Syed M.
I'm flipping so I'm like, You know what? I'm a smart guy. You know, I'm an engineering student. I had like 4.0. I only got out of school because the math didn't make sense. Right? And I read the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. You got me.

00:06:01:23 - 00:06:04:04
Matt M.
Like, anyways, leads to buy that book today.

00:06:04:18 - 00:06:25:21
Syed M.
Yeah. The week I gave up school was the week that I read the book, and it was kind of in my mind that year oh nine that this is not making sense. Like, I'm kind of like running myself into a wall here. Like with, like working full time, taking school full time. But when I read that book, it was clear to me like, you know what, this is not going to work out.

00:06:25:21 - 00:06:46:08
Syed M.
So that's kind of caused me to get into that business mode. But anyway, flipping houses, six houses, I started reading closing documents, you know, I wasn't even reading none of that. Right. Okay. The numbers flips make sense, you know, to sign the papers. So I get my license and I get married in 2015. So it's like it's getting serious.

00:06:46:08 - 00:06:46:16
Syed M.
I got how.

00:06:46:16 - 00:06:48:00
Matt M.
To make this work. You got to figure it up.

00:06:48:00 - 00:07:13:18
Syed M.
You got to figure something out. And so that's how I got into sales. So initially getting into sales, I started with KW their Ignite programs. Awesome. Like they teach you like all these lead generation techniques. None of it. I applied like I probably did like cold calling for like a week, you know, door knocking for like half a day, like our three doors before I gave up, you know, giving up my office.

00:07:13:18 - 00:07:16:02
Matt M.
I was like, you didn't you didn't convert those three?

00:07:16:09 - 00:07:22:24
Syed M.
No, no, not they don't. They teach you like, oh, door knocking is a way they don't teach you like best practice or.

00:07:22:24 - 00:07:28:02
Matt M.
What to say or how to or or where to go, houses to knock, what to bring with you.

00:07:28:15 - 00:07:52:10
Syed M.
Yeah, none of it. None of it. Yeah. So I was completely like, kind of like winging it, trying to figure it out and it didn't really go anywhere. So 2014 to 2016, I sold like ten houses maybe. And it's a lot of them were, you know, friends who had like a property they wanted to sell. And it was like because I was like literally begging people, right, trying to get their business.

00:07:52:10 - 00:08:13:02
Syed M.
I didn't know how to market myself. And I hated doing that too, Right? Like you know, telling my I didn't have a big sphere of influence back then. Like, even though 2016 has been ten years, I'm in this country, right? All of my jaw. And I was still young, 25 year old back then. There was I had friends.

00:08:13:11 - 00:08:21:17
Syed M.
They were all my age, right? And I had uncles and aunts who didn't trust me with business, right. Like, Oh, you are going to do it right?

00:08:21:18 - 00:08:24:04
Matt M.
Like, why would I use a new realtor? Is this is the new.

00:08:24:08 - 00:08:32:23
Syed M.
The drop out right? The dropout out of college. I was like the black girl in the family, right? Like the one that, like everyone points like, do not be him. Right? Right.

00:08:33:09 - 00:08:36:05
Matt M.
Like Steve Jobs, where he made his billion.

00:08:36:05 - 00:08:56:15
Syed M.
Yeah. I don't know where I'm like, Oh, yeah, You know, you want to make your biggest purchase of your whole, you know, of your life. You know, give trust me with that, right? So severe wasn't a thing for me. So anyway, I joined a brokerage, like, to kind of cut my story short. I joined a brokerage where they were doing online leads, specifically Zillow leads.

00:08:57:06 - 00:09:15:00
Syed M.
They were providing that. I'm like, okay, that I would like. I would beg strangers, you know, for money, right? Or to work with me. I would rather do that. So I started doing that. 2016, I sold and it was all Detroit business. So it's a lot of volume, not a lot of money.

00:09:15:08 - 00:09:43:08
Matt M.
I'll tell you what, though, and I'm going to just I have to make sure people out there understand this. When you're new in your career, you said two things that I think are super impactful that I don't want people to gloss over. When you are new in your career and your family doesn't trust you. If you try real estate for two years and you just don't have the leads, you don't have the sphere of influence, the trust you have, joining a team like people rag on teams all the time, but there's good teams and bad teams joining a team that has leads and they need a hard worker.

00:09:43:08 - 00:09:59:03
Matt M.
If you're the hard worker and you need leads, that is for sure the way to go because you get trial by fire, right? You get to you get to experience a lot of real estate, a lot of clients, a lot of personalities, a lot of houses, a lot of housing, variety. And that is what a lot of people need.

00:09:59:03 - 00:10:16:15
Matt M.
Like I met with an agent the other day and they're a hustler, but they just moved here. They're young. They don't know anyone. No, they're just buying a house. None of their circles are home buyers. And no, no one in their family trust them. I was like 20. I'm a two. You work your ass off for two years, you'll have you'll meet a lot of past clients.

00:10:16:15 - 00:10:38:22
Matt M.
You'll develop reputation and you'll see where it takes you. You might be with that team forever, or it might be a stepping stone to something else. And then I think that second thing, though, is you have to figure out as a realtor, like what your thing is like your brain already understood technology. You'd already found success in that like niche.

00:10:39:07 - 00:10:57:02
Matt M.
So when you found that team that was using what you already spoke about as their way of getting leads, like I could, I could see your eyes lit up when you said that. And that's what that's what most agency to do. They need to find a team that's passionate about their niche, where their interests are aligned right, like we call it being on the right seat on the bus.

00:10:57:05 - 00:10:58:19
Matt M.
Well, I love. Hear that. I'm glad you said that.

00:10:59:16 - 00:11:21:24
Syed M.
Yeah. So on both of those things and I'm glad you're listening. Right. And I hope people listening to is that see, like you, not every way of doing real estate is going to align with you, right? Like for me, until still to this day, even after I became successful, I never thought to myself, Oh, maybe I should go the traditional route and try a cold calling.

00:11:21:24 - 00:11:51:24
Syed M.
I, I tried it. It wasn't for me. I hate getting rejected. It's just my personality. Right High. I like people to like me. I don't know. You know. So it didn't, you know, that's just I kept I kept going that route. Okay. I'm passionate about helping people that comes to me. Right? So initially it was tough, right? You got to figure out conversion on Zillow leads itself, even though even with all that joining the team, the second being.

00:11:51:24 - 00:12:16:22
Syed M.
Right. I would if I were to go back and 2012, 2014 when I got licensed, I would blindfold myself and pick a team right. Anyone right is just because the team that I joined a brokerage that I joined, they didn't provide any training. All they gave was here is a CRM and here are leads that are coming to your is, you know, like four or five leads a day, you know, maybe 30, 35 leads a month.

00:12:17:05 - 00:12:34:03
Syed M.
And it was a big volume, but it was like mostly like, oh, you know, I wanted to know if you're renting this house or, oh, the tree fell off on the house next door. I wanted to like all these trash leads. Right? But still, I had to figure out the first year I did 30, 35 deals.

00:12:34:20 - 00:12:41:20
Matt M.
Your first year. So just cover your first year on the new team that provided you leads. Although many of the leads were trash leads, you did 35 deals.

00:12:41:21 - 00:12:42:07
Syed M.
Yeah.

00:12:42:12 - 00:13:13:00
Matt M.
And 90% of agents never do 35 deals in a year. So like that already. Like now I feel like we're getting to the like kind of getting towards the arc, the arc of the story. But I know there's a lot of good stuff to come, but I mean, that that should be a message to people to like, even if the the volume like sales price is low, having the ability to close 30 deals in a single year, that's 30 to 60 new people to add to your database, plus all the leads that like are in the process of converting or might convert in the future.

00:13:13:00 - 00:13:17:13
Matt M.
Right Like that is a huge number so keep, keep going. I just had to like expound on that really.

00:13:17:13 - 00:13:40:02
Syed M.
Quick for sure. And it was about $60,000 in GCI. So so now you can see the volume was low but there is a lot of deals, right? But to me it was like I have found success like this is they're like, I'm gonna like bang my hand on the wall until I die with real estate, right? So it's just like I'm so excited over it.

00:13:40:02 - 00:13:57:18
Syed M.
But I knew I wasn't doing things right. I knew that I needed training and coaching. Like, this is like PR me, like trying to figure things out so there is a better way of doing things. So I hired every organization they teach me, okay, this is how you have conversations with Zillow and this is how you convert them better.

00:13:57:18 - 00:14:24:24
Syed M.
And so I got better next year. I did 150 and JCI like 60 something deals following year, 175. And then my brokerage that I was where they became a Remax, he was a private broker like mom and pop broker to a Remax office. And I didn't want to be enfranchised because all this fees and still, even though he's providing the leads at this point, I already know I already know how to convert it.

00:14:24:24 - 00:14:48:15
Syed M.
I know where to buy it. I already know the numbers. I have the money to buy myself. I'm like, You know what? I'm going to do this myself. So I decide to join another brokerage and I start buying my own leads. So this was back in 2019, but like back going back a little bit, 2018, Zillow launched Flex.

00:14:48:15 - 00:15:13:11
Syed M.
Flex is a program with Zillow where they're providing leads to broker partners who are flex partners for free. And then they take a 30, 35% cut after closing. Right. What I started seeing in 2018, even though I did like hundred and 75,000 and GCI, is that a lot of my leads are being introduced to other agents while they are assigned to me.

00:15:13:14 - 00:15:35:21
Syed M.
So I'm like, okay, there is something wrong here because I have been doing this 20 1617 and my is my 18 is my third year. So I had never faced that before and I saw the flex announcement and all of that. So I'm like, okay, I'm connecting the dots together. Okay. So they assign them to me first. If I can convert them in a reasonable period of time, they give them to the flex partners to convert.

00:15:36:03 - 00:15:48:13
Syed M.
So I'm like, okay, there is a 90% on my business was Zillow in 2018. So I'm like, I got to figure something out. So I start buying like online lead generation courses.

00:15:48:13 - 00:16:06:03
Matt M.
It's positive because again, they're because what what you did is you pivoted, right? Like you spotted a problem and you you analyzed and then you pivoted. I think like that's a big message for everyone out there right now. I mean, like the market right now is changing fast. Like, yeah, November, October through December was pretty slow for a lot of people.

00:16:06:08 - 00:16:32:01
Matt M.
And then like weird January was super busy. Like January was like a hot, hot month and all of a sudden we get to February and it's like the lowest housing demand in 30 years. And some people are still doing great, but it's different. Things are changing quickly. Yeah. So if your lead sources that you've been using for years, if they start to dry up, if they start to change, if there's something different happening, you do need to pause, analyze and pivot and you also to track your results, right?

00:16:32:01 - 00:16:48:15
Matt M.
Like I have a lot of agents here, your me that I work with, they're using Zillow leads. And they looked at their ROI and it was like this like first year 2010, they were spending, you know, ten grand and making a million bucks, you know, And then all of a sudden it was like spending 30 grand and making 500,000 still pretty great money.

00:16:49:00 - 00:17:09:04
Matt M.
Then all of a sudden you're spending 100 grand and making 200 grand. And again, in other industries, that's great. When the numbers are on that trajectory, you need to set a point of like, this is what I stop in the directions. I don't know that you want to take that all the way to the bottom because you have one year where you lose $100,000 and that's not going to be a great year.

00:17:09:10 - 00:17:11:18
Matt M.
Yeah, So okay, keep going. I just had to like how that one.

00:17:11:19 - 00:17:32:13
Syed M.
Yeah, it is great, great input. Is that like you have to, you know, now that I'm also into coaching, I see that in agencies just like they believe in that their belief in their referral source or their belief in, you know, the way they have been doing business. When the market shifts, you have to kind of change that belief a little bit.

00:17:32:13 - 00:17:53:17
Syed M.
You have to reanalyze and you have to see like go back to drawing board. I still can't believe like they are not agents that are doing Google, PPC, Facebook, Instagram ads. Like you have to have that automated source. You have to invest some of your money back into the business, right. And get like some like trickle down some business into your database, right?

00:17:53:17 - 00:18:18:16
Syed M.
Building your database. So when I leave to the new brokerage, start by my own Zillow leads. So now at this point, I'm like, okay, I got to really track my conversions. I hire a coach again, right? And to figure out like profit and loss in the business and trying to really figure out my business. The 2019, we have our son 2020 was my best year in real estate, well covered as an individual agent.

00:18:19:13 - 00:18:47:10
Syed M.
Yeah, I did. I did 300,000 and GCI Awesome I only bad Zillow up until March of actually April of 2020. I stopped doing Zillow since April of 2020 and I so 2018 and back then I started with the Facebook Instagram ads. Right. Start learning the lead form thing and okay, all this trash phone number and email and most real estate agents give up, right?

00:18:47:10 - 00:19:10:24
Syed M.
Like, oh, bad leads, blah. Right. But no, I did. And I'm like, there is a better way. So then landing page leads, right? So conversions lower, but little bit better, a little bit better data, but then chat bot conversions and I learn all of this stuff that like a regular real estate agent doesn't learn. But I love technology, so I had a passion for it.

00:19:10:24 - 00:19:33:14
Syed M.
So anyway, by 2020 I had a system set up where I could get out of Zillow because I did my math. In 2019, my math was 35% of my money went to Zillow. So it was a big cut. I almost felt like there was a broker sitting on top of my broker taking my money. Right? I'm like, That doesn't make sense.

00:19:33:14 - 00:19:51:12
Syed M.
I need to write somehow, get out of it. But by then, by 2020, I have a database off like I was. I was as much as money I was spending on Zillow. I was also like half of that money I was spending on Facebook, Instagram ads and Google PPC. So I was building a database as I was going.

00:19:51:12 - 00:20:15:22
Syed M.
So by 2020 I had a database of like close to 100,000, 100,000 people. It's huge. So it's not like ideal for a lot of people, even like a lot of the brokers in our, you know, Mark Z has a database of 60,000. So it's like and anyway, like I felt like, you know what, I could take on Zillow and I could get rid of that cause.

00:20:15:22 - 00:20:23:07
Syed M.
So I got rid of it, came out, you know, pretty profitable 2020 because of my, you know. AD Because you.

00:20:23:07 - 00:20:24:05
Matt M.
Spent less money.

00:20:24:18 - 00:20:25:14
Syed M.
Yeah, definitely.

00:20:25:18 - 00:20:46:15
Matt M.
Part of that. I think we all need to look at that like look at what you spent in 2022. You were in early 2023. Look, we've spent in 2022 like did you run a profitable business in how many times do you see an agent who made a million GCI? You spent $850,000. I mean, it's easy to do in our industry where leads are expensive.

00:20:46:15 - 00:20:57:09
Matt M.
You have to drive clients around. I mean, there's the cost of your time. There's all kinds of expenses, brokerage fees, whatnot. You need to know what money is going out rather than just tracking and bragging about the money coming in.

00:21:16:06 - 00:21:34:08
Syed M.
At the end of 2020. I'm like, okay, I have a system in place. The CRM that conversions the follow ups and all this retargeting ads and everything and in place and it's working like I got like so even tells this today we got 6000 people coming back to our site through our retargeting ads.

00:21:34:21 - 00:21:37:17
Matt M.
Everywhere you read those return answers, Facebook or Google.

00:21:38:01 - 00:21:48:03
Syed M.
Facebook, Facebook, Google, I want to start on YouTube. Did this this quarter and teched out too. So we're going to take all of our database. Yeah.

00:21:48:15 - 00:21:57:12
Matt M.
Why don't you walk us through it? Because I do. Well, I love retargeting. We've been doing it for years. Why do you walk the audience through how what retargeting is and how you do it?

00:21:57:23 - 00:22:22:21
Syed M.
Yeah, so retargeting pretty much is what you want to do is multilevel follow ups, right? So obviously as real estate agents, you want to be in front of your database. That's the goal, right? And usually a lot of people do it through emails is the easiest one, right? They all put like weekly email out and you know, 20% of people probably look at it or open it.

00:22:23:23 - 00:22:47:04
Syed M.
Yeah. And if you're lucky, real estate agents will call their database, right? So that's another level of marketing retargeting. What you want to do is you want to stay in front of your database. 24 seven Right? That's the idea. So what you do is you take your database downloaded as a CSV file and you can create custom audience.

00:22:47:12 - 00:23:13:20
Syed M.
So there is a kicker to it. Your database has to be bigger than a thousand people. Write for Facebook, Instagram and you can create in business dot facebook.com. You can create a custom audience and you can upload that CSV file into your business manager in Facebook, in your Google account, in your tik-tok ad account, in your, you know, a YouTube based Google.

00:23:14:02 - 00:23:44:16
Syed M.
And you can create ads to retarget that database. So there are different that. So you could do just one ad right like oh houses under 500,000 and you can direct people direct that traffic to your website right there is multi level of retargeting. We do we do a buyer ad, we do a seller ad like Oh, what's my home value ad we do a client testimonial ad and we do like buyer tips type of like retargeting.

00:23:44:16 - 00:24:09:12
Syed M.
So we are always showing up in front of our people, especially our sphere of influence. So over the last, I would say toward 20 have a year and a half, I got big on like, okay, now it's time to capture my sphere of influence. Like I've been doing business with strangers all this time and I'm finding out it's actually the hard way of doing business, doing business with strangers.

00:24:10:15 - 00:24:13:22
Syed M.
It's actually easier to actually work with people that we.

00:24:13:22 - 00:24:17:18
Matt M.
Know already like you and trust you. Yeah, You're not the black goat anymore.

00:24:18:07 - 00:24:38:01
Syed M.
Yeah. And for me, it's kind of like I found it the hard way, right? Going through, like, thinking that, Oh, it's harder to work with spheres of influence or let's go after strangers. And actually, a lot of I find out now coaching agents, they all new ones, they all have that same mindset. Like, I did back then, right?

00:24:38:01 - 00:24:57:08
Syed M.
Like, Oh, it's so hard for my sphere to trust me. It's actually better to get strangers to trust me. I was actually having that conversation with an agent yesterday at an event, but last year and a half told me that it's actually easier to do business with a sphere of influence. So we got big on retargeting our whole team.

00:24:57:15 - 00:25:08:24
Syed M.
We have a retargeting ad with like a team you can call it. It's like a team intro type of video, right?

00:25:09:00 - 00:25:26:22
Matt M.
It's like it's a it's a brand. I mean, you're selling the brand, you're staying in front of them on fun stuff. So on the retargeting said, I know a lot of agents that listen to this show stopped doing a lot of Facebook and Instagram and meta ads when you know the government changed the rules and when Facebook capitulated to them.

00:25:28:01 - 00:25:43:08
Matt M.
How so? When you're when you load up your list, what is it? Just targeting everyone? Do you have to say like, hey, we're a special category, Try to get around? Like because I know targeting realistic content can be tough. So how do you how do you get transparency to talk about that?

00:25:43:23 - 00:26:14:07
Syed M.
Yeah, so it's a special category. So that's another reason why you we are trying to get on multiple platform. So since 20 I think iPhone 14 update right. They they had this like block on like being able to track but that's more for me I saw the difference and off like our so you can see in the retargeting how many you can also even put like okay I want each person to see me every five days.

00:26:14:07 - 00:26:37:16
Syed M.
You can even put that like in there. But anyway, so that's one of the reasons why we are getting around by getting on multiple platforms and retargeting them on multiple platforms and not just relying on meter. So far up until last year we were just doing better and then we added Google. We're going to add YouTube and Tik Tok this year, this quarter, so that we kind of get around it.

00:26:38:06 - 00:27:00:03
Syed M.
But majority of the restrictions on the iPhone update is tracking pixel, right? It's pretty much a lot of most of the restrictions come from that. I don't think we have had a lot of major if you're targeting specific email list specific phone list right on matter. I don't think there is a whole lot of restriction. But you want to be like omnipresent.

00:27:00:03 - 00:27:23:19
Syed M.
You want to be everywhere, right? So you want to take that list and retarget every single platform and the cost is cheap. It's like for a dollar you can have thousand impressions. You know, you probably don't even have that many people. So some of those people see you multiple times. And messaging on the ads matters, right? I see a lot of ads from real estate agents is just like their business card, right?

00:27:23:19 - 00:27:28:06
Syed M.
As an ad like no, like you're selling to a hard right. You got to.

00:27:28:18 - 00:27:49:11
Matt M.
Make it about you, right? Like, I think, yeah. Unless you're like, unbelievably attractive or unless you're like, the funniest person ever saw ads about you. Like, you need a customer to click it because it's about them and offering value to them. Yeah, and I think I get this a lot when an agent comes to me who isn't techie and they say like, Hey, I want to run on Google ads or Facebook ads, I say, Well, number there's two things, right?

00:27:49:11 - 00:27:54:24
Matt M.
There's number one, what are you advertising? What are you what are you giving away or giving them? Yeah, you, them. What's in it for.

00:27:54:24 - 00:27:55:20
Syed M.
Them providing them.

00:27:55:23 - 00:28:11:17
Matt M.
And then number two, where are you going to send them. Are they going to message you and then you're going to answer and they're like, No, I don't have time for that or that. I'm like, okay, what are you to tell them to or anything? If so, how are they going to be converted? Because most agents don't have a website with a specific page that will convert traffic.

00:28:11:23 - 00:28:33:01
Matt M.
Now, if you're an agent and you already have a website that converts random leads off the Internet into messages all the time, you should definitely do ads, but you should jump on ads ASAP and just find some keywords by phone. Google finds one Facebook target area, but if you don't have a page that converts, you have to get that first and then go and actually building the ads and things.

00:28:33:01 - 00:28:42:15
Matt M.
But to do it, most people that hired ad agency to build an ad agency just wants to take your money, but they're not helping you with the conversion site and it doesn't work without it.

00:28:42:15 - 00:29:06:02
Syed M.
So yeah, they just give you what they care about it. Just giving you that list of people, just give it like creating that they look at, okay, we create this opportunity for you, right? And it's up to you to convert, right? And it doesn't work that way. And there's a lot of things I didn't talk about, the experience I went through and the conversion inside learning how to convert online leads right up to this point.

00:29:06:02 - 00:29:33:06
Syed M.
We use like the top CRM system that's available for real estate agents. Follow up boss The top website, while Paul, which has a AI that watches the behavior of the people that come to our site and reports it back to us, there is triggers set up for group campaigns. There is a I text nurture. So based on that behavior, there is an AI that text them and have conversation with them, convert them and report it back to us like, Oh, this person, this the conversation they had.

00:29:33:12 - 00:29:55:14
Syed M.
So the call when we make the call, it becomes much more easier if you're also going online and, you know, going the online route, online lead generation. Another thing you want to consider is having an assistant or a virtual assistant. We have two virtual assistant that's calling our database 8 hours a day, like without us even thinking about it.

00:29:55:14 - 00:30:22:02
Syed M.
Right. And just taking out people that are have motivation, ability and willingness and setting appointments for us. So that's another thing, right? So you can start small, but you got to know that there is more to it, right? There is so many things you can do on retargeting side of business regardless. If you don't go like generating leads, you can retarget your existing database, right?

00:30:22:02 - 00:30:42:04
Syed M.
Using technology, staying in front of them. But messaging matters. You have to give them something, right? You have to give them a list of houses, you have to give them, you know, I don't know, a home free home buyer guide free of reseller guide, right? What's my home value and have that technology available. Otherwise you cannot compete with Zillow.

00:30:42:04 - 00:31:04:22
Syed M.
Zillow beat you. It doesn't matter if you have the best sphere of influence less than they love you. They're on Zillow. They're on Zillow. And if you don't have the technology to kind of compete with that, you can send them to a website that's similar to Zillow or at least meeting the needs of your Sphere database. They're going to get connected with one of those Zillow agents, right?

00:31:04:22 - 00:31:19:10
Matt M.
So, all right. Like, I mean, what I see happen all the time is there's all these agents of by leads on various websites and the clients, when they search for something, they just want an immediate results. They find you go to your website that you're paying for. You paid them to get there. There's a house they see that they like.

00:31:19:10 - 00:31:36:23
Matt M.
But instead of going through the process on your site and signing up with you, they just take that address into Zillow and then you've basically paid to generate is all you have to have your own systems, you have to have it be very user friendly and you have to really figure it out, but say, I don't want to I don't want to end this podcast without going into something else.

00:31:37:05 - 00:31:50:22
Matt M.
So you have grown an awesome library of resources and content when it comes to technology, real estate. If an agent out there wants to connect with you to learn more, how would they do that?

00:31:51:20 - 00:32:09:10
Syed M.
Social media is the best way. The success broker on any platform. You can look me up, send me a deal. I'm on it. I'm a social media junkie. I should call myself not a real estate junky anymore. So you can reach out to me on social media. The success broker.

00:32:09:21 - 00:32:28:20
Matt M.
Awesome will connect with the success broker online. He is awesome. He will give you some tips if you have any questions about social media, you can DM me also. But guys, listen. I cannot keep getting great guests like this unless we get some reviews on the podcast. So please, please, please take a minute. Go on. Your favorite podcast or Apple, Spotify or what have you.

00:32:29:01 - 00:32:49:07
Matt M.
Leave us a review. I will appreciate it. I will literally buy you. I will buy you lunch. Some are expensive. If you're near me, I'll buy you lunch somewhere. Okay. And cheap. Like maybe if you leave a really good review, a great lunch somewhere else. So eat me up. I would love to love to hear feedback on the show us that we can continue to get awesome guests like this said.

00:32:49:11 - 00:33:11:01
Matt M.
Thank you so much for joining us today. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Thanks for listening and a huge thank you to our sponsors neighborhood Loans and TREADSTONE Mortgage. With offices around the U.S., their loan officers offer a realtor centric focus personal communication from real humans. Plus on time closings that frankly are faster than most of the mortgage companies want to be connected to a great Ello message.

00:33:11:01 - 00:33:28:11
Matt M.
Meet your host for more information and I will connect you with a loan officer in your neighborhood. One more marketing tips. Check out my book on Amazon Tag The Tangible Action Guide for Real Estate Marketing. And finally, if you want to support the show and hear even better guests, leave this review on the podcast platform. The US and I'm.