On this episode of the Real Estate: Real Success podcast, Chiyoko Kakino has an in-depth conversation with Mike Seiler, CENTURY 21 In-Studio Realty Inc. Brokerage in Owen Sound, ON, who shares his top 10 marketing ideas that you can take and implement into your own market. Plus, learn how his business model helped him grow his 1 office to 6 offices in less than 5 years!
Interested in opening your own brokerage? Learn more here: http://www.century21franchise.ca/
On this episode of the Real Estate: Real Success podcast, Chiyoko Kakino has an in-depth conversation with Mike Seiler, CENTURY 21 In-Studio Realty Inc. Brokerage in Owen Sound, ON, who shares his top 10 marketing ideas that you can take and implement into your own market. Plus, learn how his business model helped him grow his 1 office to 6 offices in less than 5 years!
Interested in opening your own brokerage? Learn more here: http://www.century21franchise.ca/
if you Welcome to the Real Estate real success podcast where we talk about key business successes and Lessons Learned along the way in the hopes of inspiring brokerage owners and managers to find a new ways to grow their business. I'm chiocaquino. And in this episode we're going to talk about some marketing ideas that have helped Drive growth and brand awareness for a brokerage actually at the end of this podcast. You're gonna walk away with 10 Mark me ideas that you can take and Implement into your own Market. I am super excited to be joined by Mike Seether. He is the owner Century 21 in studio Realty and Owen Sound Ontario Mike. Thank you so much for being with us today. Hijoko. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having me. So let's start off Mike by giving everyone a little bit about your background and your journey into real estate. All right. So my Adult Career life can really be divided into two and a half segments. My first half I was a breadman and independent distributor for Western bakeries. That's when I met my wife Monica and I went to work with her father that lasted about 10 years and then we moved to the gray Bruce the Owen Sound area at which point I started a photography real estate virtual tour business and I realized as soon enough that I couldn't make a living off of the real estate agents in my area. And so, you know the saying if you can't meet them, yeah join them. So I got my real estate license back in October of 2013 and I started with another brand and about four years into it. I I decided to break off from that brand and from the the team that I was with and start Century 21, so Being with Century 21 in studio Realty for just about five years now. Great, and I know the great Bruce area Owens sound is kind of a big kind of spread out area. So maybe you want to tell our listeners where great Bruce and Owen Sound is a little bit about your brokerage and some of the markets that it serves. Yeah, so the gray and Bruce is a two counties Gray County and Bruce County and Owens sound is a city within Gray County. We're about two hours north of the GTA and an hour and a half or so west of Barry Barry Ontario. And yeah, so we are brokerage. There are I think there's one other or two other Century 21 franchise franchises within the grand Bruce, but we're yeah, we're just one of them there kind of prominent here. So I know that you mentioned that you've been with Century 21 for about five years so I have to ask. What made you decide to affiliate with a Century 21 brand when you decided to open your own brokerage? Yeah, it's a good question and I Like I looked around at the other brands that were available. I'm almost strong believer and a proponent just for partnering with a big brand even with new agents coming into the industry. I always recommend that they don't start with kind of a mom and pop or kind of a boutique brokerage. So is really important to me to partner with a larger brand what I loved about Century 21 at the time was just their ability to serve kind of the whole spectrum of our market. So we're not like a super high-end Market. We have a lot of you know Century homes and you know kind of middle class homes and stuff like that and I always felt that Century 21 the brand was able to serve from entry-level homes all the way up to kind of medium to high-end homes. Well, you know you joined right before we had some significant changes to the brand happen. And so you of course joined, I think October of 2017. So you've seen a whole bunch of changes happen, not only within our organization but also in the industry, so tell me what some of the biggest changes that you've seen, you know within organization and the industry overall. Yeah, so obviously the biggest one was the brand change and I was one of those brokerages like you said joker as October 2017. I it was probably late 2017 or early 2018 when that brand changed. I had my signage not only for sale signs, but the actual building signage for our brokerage inside of our renovated office ready to go out ready to have our grand opening and then Century 21 announced a new brand was coming. So it was kind of Bittersweet but I was kind of over the moon. I really really love the new brand and just going back to the previous question. Like, you know, I when I say that since you're 21, it was able to serve a wide spectrum of real estate. There's actually a a niche that I didn't think the old brand did particularly well with or I didn't think would and that was the High end so when we talk about million dollar homes, and you know real estate properties, I just thought that the old brand with the old yellow posts. I just didn't think people thought that was classy enough. And so when the new brand came, I I actually believe that it's able to serve the entire spectrum of a real estate from entry level all the way up to multi-million dollar real estate. Well, you know Mike you really have rolled with the punches because as you said, you know, you join Century 21 late 2017. I can tell you because I remember this clearly in March 2018. They announced the rollout of the new brand and then and in Canada. We launched it in May so you had been an existence for six months and then we completely flipped your world around but for the good as you said the new brand of course is contemporary looking at sophisticated. It's clean. So I know that you've taken it and really leveraged it in your Marketplace to gain around awareness. We're going to talk about some of those things. But just before we do talk about some of your marketing tactics and strategies. I do want to talk a little bit about your growth. So as we just mentioned you open your own brokerage and October 2017 you went from one office at that time, which I understand had one agent probably yourself and now you've grown to six offices and 6 agents in addition because you know, I've been doing some research. You've also provided me with some information, but you out of 54 firms in the Real Estate Association of great and Bruce you are currently ranked as six position with a 4.15% market share in the entire gray Bruce area, and that's an of course less than five years. So congratulations. You've done a wonderful job, and we're going to talk about some of the things that you have done in order to get you there, but you did you've done so good. We're so proud of you. Thank you. So tell me what you think some of the key ingredients to your growth has been. One of the key ingredients would be carrying a consistent brand. It's probably gonna be another question answer that comes up later. But one thing that I was passionate about doing when we started in studio was having a consistent brand like everyone in the industry knows now that even though you belong to Century 21 or another major brand everyone. Oh is always trying to set themselves apart and their own brand apart and differentiate and and I've always been a firm believer that once we latch on to a big beautiful brand like Century 21, if we can be uniformed as a company, we're gonna be perceived from the consumer as being much healthier and much stronger. And so that's that's something that we've done very well. I have a saying in the office that says where we're consistently seen I want to be seen as consistent. So when people go on to realtor.ca and they look at our office photos, they see all professional black and white photos where they where they see our real estate signs. All of our signs are the exact same signs that are provided by Century 21 same with our business cards. They're all the same business cards. So when I homeowner comes home and they see, you know, a bunch of cards on the table. They can count that the center 21 ones will all look the same. And so that's something that's been very important and the second thing was we wanted to make sure that our our marketing so our when the consumers look in at us and they see our photography and and the way we advertise and Market our listings every part of our our marketing is top-notch. Well, you know and I'd love how you said, you know that you know, making sure that you're consistent with how your brand is portrayed. No matter who's portraying the brand out there in your Marketplace and I love the words that you use healthy and strong because as you know coming from a marketing background, I believe that too, right, you know, you know follow the brand guidelines the you know, there's there's strength in numbers. And if everyone's consistent with how the brand looks out there, it just increases the equity of all of our businesses. So I really appreciate all the stuff that you've done specifically in the gray Bruce area. What are what are you doing to helping your Realtors succeed and be more productive because I know that you provide them with a lot of support. So tell us a little bit about what you're doing to make your agent successful. Yeah, so one thing that we've done differently and I think we're the only Brokers within our area that has this kind of model is we've became a full service brokerage to our Realtors. So I kind of when I first got into real estate. I had a relatively instant success. I've always kind of been driven toward marketing and kind of that photography and graphic design that sort of thing and I always recognize that there was other really good Realtors out there, but they they weren't really they weren't necessarily good at like marketing or some of the things that I I thrived at and and I always thought you know at the time always thought that they were actually, you know, better Realtors Realtors than I was in certain ways, right? Like I mean, I'm not sure late, you know, they're on time. They're like, they they've been in the business a long time. They know how to do offers and all that good stuff. So When when I start when I started in studio is my vision to really helped fill in all the gaps for our Realtors. And so if you know certain Realtors have weaknesses we want to kind of like be there and strengthen them in those areas. And and again, I think we'll get to some of those, you know points throughout the podcast here. But yeah, so to become a full service brokerage to our Realtors is the answer. Well, you know, and I know that Century 21 as a brand, you know provides a complete TurnKey solution to real estate agents providing them everything from websites to CRM to marketing Center to social media platforms you name that we have but you do so much more to provide additional support your agents and you're right. We are going to get to that but being a full service brokerage like you are really allows for your Realtors as you said not to worry about the things. They might not be great at or things that take a lot of time to do especially if you're not really knowledgeable how to do that and it really allows them to focus on generating leads and providing that extraordinary level service to their clients. So since you've provided the supporting maybe you just give us a little you know, a few things that you've done that that you do it addition to what the Century 21 brand offers that provides your agent support and then have you seen agents because you provide that level of support have you seen your agents be more successful and more productive, right? Yeah. So the easiest question a broker can ask themselves, especially if you're a selling broker is you know, what are the pain points of? Of being a realtor and and if the answer is like I don't like people or I don't like writing offers. I can't help you with that. Like, you know, like naturally as Realtors we have to be able to engage with people and and do our our business side of things but you know, no one really told us when we got into real estate that we had to, you know, figure out how to you know, design a website even though Century 21 provides a good website. A lot of Realtors are still frustrated with the process and and I love the website. So I think they're super intuitive they're easy to use but still there's a lot of Realtors who are just are not tech savvy at all, you know, no one ever said that you you'd had to go in and you know help clean a house or stage it or was it look like to hire a photographer or put up your own real estate sign. And so when when you ask yourself yourself, you know, what are your pain points? As a realtor you can start to understand what what our job is as a full-service brokerage. We want to provide relief from every in any pain point we're able to with the exception of writing offers. We we will not do our our offers or our paperwork for our agents. We provide them with a lot of ongoing training and support but in so to answer your second question there because we've taken all of this burden off of our agents. We put up the real estate signs for them. We have provided our own, you know, photography and videography staging Services all the graphic design all the ordering of marketing material. We provide all that then really they just have to go out and acquire their clients once they acquire their client, let it be a listing then they basically that, you know, it becomes a brokerage. Possibility to execute much of that marketing piece and then you know and then it's back on them to you know, actually sell it and you know the whole negotiation process but again answer your question the amount of success our Realtors have had out of 35 Realtors. Well, well over 50% of our Realtors are new agents. That was we didn't start our brokerage with a team. We didn't start, you know, by, you know taking half of another brokerage we started with one brokerage one office and one agent and I had to grow from there. So a lot of new agents started with us and just within you know, two and three and four years we've had new agents that two of our new Realtors have hit double Centurion in the past year. Another one was we've had another couple centurions and then all along the spectrum of Award winners we've had several of our new Realtors become more Award winners and we just continue to go upward and upward. We're definitely a major kind of threat in our in our local Marketplace because of our aggressive full service approach. Well, you know you should you should have a Century 21 in studio career path that you can provide Realtors. It's like from zero to Centurion in two years. That's pretty amazing. And I'm sure they're super super happy that they've seen so much success early on in their career when you when you talk about pain points, you know, and I love I love this pain points because it's of course, it's the marketing right? It's kind of figure out what the pain point is come up with the solution or the message when you just because you've had just under 10 years in real estate. Did you just list all what you felt based on your experience what the pain points would be and then obviously these are the types of services that that you could all that you could provide to offset those pain points or how did you go through that process? Yeah, I guess I I guess I just kind of made it up. I there's obviously more we always like we're always learning as as individuals and and as Realtors, but I mean, I mean overall we can kind of take an objective look we can kind of look and at successful Realtors successful teams and kind of say, you know, what makes them successful. I mean you always get their marketing pieces in the mail. They're you know, they're they're listings may always look good online. And so you I I feel like I'm able to at least and being being a top producing an award-winning realtor myself before I got into it. I kind of understood, you know, some basics of what it looked like to be successful realtor, and and so I guess yeah, just trying to divide what's required for me to do and what's not and you know, I never like maybe I've talked to some brokers in the past and I never liked that kind of answer where Brokers are like, you know, it's not my job to do their job. Right and it's not, you know, that's their responsibility and in my opinion. If if it's not being done, then I'm losing money right like as as a broker owner. And so if it's not being done I can you know, sit back here and just kind of point fingers and oh, you know, or or I can just say hey, how can I help get it done and so I want to you know, do my best to make sure that every realtor in the office is is being made whole when it comes to those areas that they they laugh they lack it, right. So you're actually like working almost like your brokerage is working almost like an assistant to that real estate agent, right? So if they don't have a team, you're kind of their team right to support them. We are very much a team to our agents. Yeah, great. So now let's get into the fun stuff. Let's talk about marketing and let's talk about some of your marketing strategies and tactics because of course, that's what everyone's listening to this podcast. That's what they're waiting for. So, can you tell me what some of your key marketing strategies are um, like kind of separate from like the tips which we're gonna get to I guess. I I guess like part of our our tactic again is just to be a full service brokerage to our agents. I I I'm sorry. It's kind of a question that I am not. I don't know exactly how to answer without kind of going into some strategies. But yeah, I don't know. Well, yeah, you know what and it's it's okay I've done I've done a ton of research on all the stuff that you do because of course, that's my specialty marketing. And you know, I know that with all the stuff that you you've done, you know, you're you look first of all, you want to grow your brokerage right? You want to become more successful you want your Realtors to become more successful successful. You want to be a leader of in the great and Bruce area, you know, and I think that, you know increasing brand awareness has been kind of your key focus is all as well as making your agents more productive, but I did want to talk a little Bit about you know, increasing brand awareness because you've done again you've gone from one office One agent. So your brand awareness probably has gone from very minimal to quite a lot in the five years that you've been with the brand. So when I was doing my research on your brokerage, the one thing that I noticed and you said this a little bit earlier is that your brokerage produces a ton of consistent video content. So can you tell me why video is important and helping you build brand awareness and generate leads for your agents? Yeah, it's it's certainly it's built into our name. That's that's kind of the inspiration behind in studio. I don't exist ask me exactly what in studio mean. It just means that you know, we we produce things in-house and yeah video is just always being something that I've been passionate about. I used to make my own video tours and do my own video marketing before starting Century 21, and then yeah, so it's it's something that It's relatively inexpensive, you know, when compared to print and radio advertising that sort of thing and it's it's way more effective if anyone you know familiar with the book ninja selling they talk about the three things that are required to become a successful Realty people have to know you they have to like you and they have to trust you and with video you almost get like two and a half of those things like people like you because they they see you and they get to see your personality. They get to hear your voice. They know you because they see you and I mean depending on the content that you're putting out whether that's listings or you know information videos sort of things then they might be true. They might trust you as well. So with video we're really able to reach into the hearts and minds of people from where they are which is usually at home on their devices. So it's yeah, it's it's very cheap when you consider the amount of Impressions you get how many views you get for? For the amount of work, it is quite a bit of work. But I mean, yeah, so as you as you said because I'm a big believer in video too. But you know video helps to start that relationship when you haven't even met that person in my opinion, you know, so if you're out there doing video and all of a sudden then you get a lead for some way that person might have already seen your videos and already has a good like they always they already feel like they know you right and they have relationship with you. So don't actually to me starts the relationship prior to actually meaning that person and you know, I think that the key to video and what you have done so well is that element of consistency, right? You're always putting out videos because I think some of us we do videos, you know, maybe one video gets a lot of likes or comments or engages and then the next one doesn't and you're like, you know, I wasted my time but it's you know, it's that consistent and you know, you know approach to producing video and putting video out there and You know looking through of course all your social media channels and YouTube. I've never seen so many agents in a brokerage participate in so many videos like typically agents people just people general, you know, he doing videos. So how are you getting the majority of your agents to participate and be on video? Yeah, it's you're absolutely right and it's one of our secret weapons secret sauces, yeah because we provide our our video services in house a really gives us the flexibility to work with our agents not only on their timeline but according to their comfort levels and because we're so passionate about it and because we have so much invested in it we are we become our our agents coaches we become their voice coaches their their drama coaches or they're drama teachers and and it means a lot to us it means a lot to me I can't tell me how to tell you how many agents have said to me no, I'm never doing video again delete that video and and I push them and we persevere and and then they continue on so the like I always think about you know when I interview Realtors from other Companies. I always ask them how many how many times have you hired a photographer or videographer outside of a listing appointment? And the answer is always I never and so, you know our agents have that flexibility to come into the office and say hey, I just want to do a little video for my website or you know, a little and tutorial video or something like that and it's free for them. It's something that we can turn on the camera. They can see the footage we can you know redo it again. And yeah, we can just perfect it. Right and yeah to answer your question like most of our agents do hate video. And so there's a whole spectrum of Agents, you know from and I think it's something we'll go to next but you know, we have agents who get really involved in video and and they you know, they don't need a lot of coaching where you know, all the other agents. We just really need to coach them to just get their intross right? Like hey, my name is Mike Taylor. I'm with Century 21, welcome to my news listing and then that's it. Like it's just enough to get them in front of people because if they're gonna spend, you know, a couple hundred dollars on promoting their video to our out there. They're really missing thousands of views of people seeing them right like people are seeing the tours. Why not just see them saying hello, right? And yeah, A little kind of side tidbit with that. We we usually encourage our agents to do intros and outros. So and even sometimes a little video segment in the middle so to say hey, my name is Mike sailor with Century 21 what welcome to my, you know latest listing but then at the end of the tour provided that people have stated to the end they get to come back on camera and say hey for more information on this beautiful property reach out to me. My name is Mike seeler with Century 21 in studio Realty. And so you're really, you know, plugging yourself twice in there. Right your bookending the video, you know, as you said you have those agents that just, you know, basically want to introduce themselves and it goes into listing and maybe they do a finale at the very end but going through your YouTube channel and going through all of your videos. There's a lot of your agents that really bring out their personalities on video and you know, I was watching a few them. They're almost like commercials like it's quite interesting and they're very creative. You've done a really good job of being creative and instilling a sense of humor and true videos. So, you know, for example, I think I watched one one of the videos that you know, it's started off with the realtor playing the drum right showing her passion to to what she does. You know, there's another one that I saw that talking Lama and then one that I thought was super funny was, you know realtor, you know pretends that he's sleeping at his new listing to get a better feel for the place. I know it was just to pretend but you know, it was really cute and so you got all these creative. Is does your team or you come up with the creative ideas or does the realtor come up with those ideas? Yeah, it's a little bit of a mix once we get agents past that. You know comfort point and and they look forward to being on camera and they they're getting good feedback from their their peers and and and and the consumers out there. Then people naturally want to start to get a little bit creative but there are a few realtors in our office who we don't need to tell them, you know, they come with their ideas and and we support that we just like we do have some limitations time limitations, but for the most part, yeah, the idea is that you know it if it's gonna take us an hour to shoot a video and it takes an extra 15 minutes to shoot a fun intro then it just adds to that likeability factor right where consumers I mean our Realtors are getting hired all the time and they're being noticed because of their videos and clients are saying hey, you know, I see any videos I love them and you know, I've really feel felt connected with you and just kind of Saying right like they know you before they've ever met you and yeah, so the creativity I mean it like I'm a creative person. I do love the creative element of it. I'm even finding though with a lot of my realtors who have started to become creative. They don't want to hear my ideas anymore. They're just like and then other Realtors like come on bring give me an idea or something and I've used my my kids as actors in in, you know some agent video tours and you know, so whatever it is it just kind of changes things up a little bit. We like to say that our video tours are more to promote the agent rather than the property. I mean we do photography and we do 360 tours and floor plans. All those are really for that intuitive or like, you know, people who are really investigating a property the video tour is meant to be more of a commercial it's meant to you know, lighten people up a little bit. Well, and I like that, you know and be specifically, you know, the ones that are really creative at the beginning, you know, whether it's a talking limo or whether it's someone playing a drums or I think I saw someone you know in a canoe, you know, if I'm going through my Facebook Instagram and I'm seeing that happen like I'm gonna stop much more than you know, maybe just a general, you know introduction, right? So I I really think that you've done a great job and your Realtors out there to all of them that might be listing they've done a really really great job. So I just want to switch a little bit and talk about your online presence because you're really good at this area, too. So how important is it for brokerages and Realtors to have a strong online presence and what are you doing to achieve this? Yeah, well, first of all, I'm very thankful for the the new web platform that was provided by a Century 21 through Moxie Works, which is we utilize the WordPress platform which gives us an enormous amount of flexibility the ability to be creative and really customize our websites but also to build in a SEO and a lot of data into our websites to help us rank on on Google. So yeah, just you know, we spent a tremendous amount of time effort and end money when it comes to Staffing in that sort of thing into building out our website and like building content in our website because at the end of the day, you know, you like the websites look good by themselves, but if we want to be found And start to rank above our competitors. We need to start to you know, build content that people are intentionally searching for and so yeah, that's one area just like really investing in my in our website and then the other area which is part of one of my tips is your Google presence when it comes to like Google Maps and stuff like that. So we're really big on reviews and that's something that again it's one of my tips, but I do not forget about getting your Google reviews. I see so many brokerages out there not just Century 21 all across the board. I I find them on Google and they have one review and usually it's a bad review. So if you I always say that the only bad reviews and unsolicited review. You know, if you really made it a customer upset. They're gonna go out of their way to leave you a bad review. If you really did good buy a customer or client chances are they don't think about going on and giving you a review but they'd be more than happy to give you a review if you go and ask for it. So we ask for reviews and you know combined between our different offices and especially with our different agents. We have hundreds of online Google reviews, and we get we get business because of it we get business for our reviews. Well, you know and and I do this all the time when I'm looking for let's just say a service provider or something that I know nothing about. You know, I Google them and the first thing I do is look at how many reviews they have and I actually will choose someone with a lower star rating that has more reviews than a high-star rating with less reviews. You know, I do that recipes all the time. I go and Google recipe and then I'm like, oh no, I'll take the 4.51 at you know, 362 reviews because more people have done it not the five star with one review, right? Exactly. So I think that that as you say it's important to get those reviews let's now switch again because I know we want to get to those top 10 tips. I know that you're always finding ways to promote the brand your probably one of the biggest brand ambassadors that we have within this network. Can you tell us some of the things that you are doing or have done to get the brand out there in the marketplace? Yeah, I mean I look at your computer in the background and and the c21 seal wouldn't that we first came out with the c21 seal. I I went to a local printer and I got you know, a couple hundred vinyl stickers and and I held the promotion in the community where people would stop by The Brokerage and get a sticker and put it on their gas cap. And and I forget what the prize we we gave away. But yeah, I think Community involvement is always being something that we've been strong in. I I held a basketball free throw competition for a couple of years. But yeah in terms of you know brand awareness, we just I think I think yeah just being in the community is being something big for us, you know, and I know you're always looking at those those little things like, you know, branded merchandise and stuff like that that you can use to get the brand out there. But I really really like the sticker idea, you know, even if you know people didn't want to place it onto their car, you could even do almost a static sticker because you can buy those now online and you know doing some sort of contest around that I really love that idea. So, you know, I'm not quite sure if it's one of your top 10 tips, but I like that idea so people should write that down. So let's you've got so many great ideas probably so many successes if you had to narrow it down what has been your biggest marketing success. I'm going back honestly to when I say about being consistent in the brand that that is the biggest for me. If if and it's very hard if you don't start off like that, I I like I look at my competitors. Unfortunately, I have to look at my other co-owners out there with Century 21, and I know that it's an uphill battle to try to get back to a consistent brand but then I look at my my local competitors the other brands and I say I'm so excited that when people drive down the road and they see our signs. They see a consistent brand where all of the other brands all of the major Brokerage in our area all of our competitors. They all all of their signs are all different like no one has the same sign out there and it like and they can't go back. It's it's next to Impossible. Right? Like how do you say to hi producers or top producers? Like well we need You to go back and you know be uniform with what the rest of the office and like they would they would leave in a heartbeat. Right? And so it's that that is being our our biggest success. I'm very proud of it. So just continue to talk about your biggest success, you know, as you said it's it's hard for brokerages because Realtors do want to express their you know, their personal brand and so many different ways. So how do you get all of your Realtors to Rally around the brand and be consistent out there in the marketplace? Yeah part of it. It starts off as like as when you're a new realtor and you're coming into it. You don't really like know much better. It's really it's just an non-negotiable when you come in through the door. These are the non-negotiables. Are you allowed to express yourself through your own marketing materials and your website hundred percent, right, but it's just a few things from the signs business cards that we want to make sure that we're very unified same with like to take one flyers on the on the real estate signs. They're all consistent as well. But it just I think it comes back to just being like are the pep talks of that. We give as owners right to really Try to instill that belief in that knowledge end of the team. And if you do that, well, then they're gonna they'll buy into it. And and so that's something that I've just been passionate about from day one telling them. You know, like if you yeah, you get to a point where you're successful and you want to set yourself apart, but you just yeah, like all of our agents really have to just Count Their Blessings, right if they're making you know, like into those Centurion and double Centurion. It's like hey like you're doing really well. They obviously you did really well not having a different sized sign that had different colors on it right like that. Nothing to do with it everything else, you know from your your presence in your marketing techniques and stuff like that. That's what it was. Not not your sign. All right well and you know as you say that you're showing success right success is coming to those people, you know, you know, once they follow the kind the guidelines that you set in place, so I think that's great. You know, I know we're gonna get to the 10 tips. I have one more question before 10 tips and that I know you're always trying new things. I've seen it all on your on your social media, you know followed you for many years. I want to know about some of the marketing ideas that you had that you might have failed at have you failed? Yeah. Well I say, well you hear those motivational speeches like Colonel Sanders, if you know if you didn't knock on that 50th door, then we wouldn't have Kentucky Fried Chicken kind of thing. I wish she didn't knock on that door. I think if she's a bad thing for the world, but anyways is Yeah, I failed a lot. I'm a I'm a huge failure in so many things and and I and I'm I'm actually proud of that. Of course. I am I love to I love I love getting up and because every with every failure you you'll you'll learn stuff. And so next time you try something you're taking the the things you've learned and now specifically we tried to host a kid preneurs show or kid preneur event that failed. We didn't get to this the finished line in terms of launching the event just became overwhelming I right now. I'm in the middle of a trade 21 program where I started with a do I have a handy one of our Century 21 keychains and I've traded it up so far to T-Zone vibration machine, which is like behind me off to the right. It's valued at like three thousand dollars. So if you ever seen like the Ted Talk where the guy traded up a paperclip to a house I want to do the same thing trade up. I see 21 keychain up to whatever I could get after 21 trades again. I think I'm on like trade five or six isn't a failure kind of I just I'm too busy right now and no one will trade me. Yeah, but and again that like the whole idea there was to trade and then eventually take that final item and sell it off and donate all the proceeds to local charities and it's just really hard. Sometimes hard to get like the radio like every time you do something Free or good like that you try to get free publicity with it. So, you know, I'm I'm calling the radio. I'm like give me some free advertising like give me your money and you know, and I'm contacting local charities. I'm like, I'm gonna give you all this money. Would you help me get the word out and they're like, yeah sure right and it's until you get up to and you have to persevere right? Because like I'm at that T-Zone machine, but as soon as I get up to like, you know a hundred thousand dollar Corvette, then I'm gonna get the call from the the radio right? They're like, oh we've been following you and now we're interested in you'll giving you some air time, right? So it's just really important to like, you know persevere and push through one of my favorite quotes is Napoleon Hill that says, One of the greatest causes of failure is one's habit of giving up when they're temporarily overcome by defeat right? And so if I just stop right now, I that that next win might be that win that pushes me, you know over the edge. So that's something that I'm kind of passionate about just trying to persevere and if you can't do it yourself get someone to help you. Well, you know that's that's a great message and I think it's a great lesson learned, you know persevere through everything. So let's some you know, we're coming up to time. So on I want to spend some time on these top 10 tips because these are the top 10 marketing ideas that people can walk away from this podcast and they can actually take an Implement into their own market. So give us your top 10 ideas. I know you've put some effort into summarizing this for us. So we really appreciate it in advance. Yeah, so when I give kind of these tips there they're really gonna summarize what we are as a brokerage as well. So I mean we could have just almost started this backward because and you would understand a lot about our Brokers like the first tip is to become a team for your real estate agents. And so I if you listen to any kind of real estate coach, they'll say after you make a certain amount of money. You should be getting an assistant or something like that. If you look at any successful real estate team, you'll know that they they might brag about having an in-house Stager or their own photographer videographer on staff. They might have their own assistant and so my recommendation and what we do in the office is we we staff those people. I have two full-time photographers. I have a full-time graphic designer. I myself am a full-time broker but also a photographer and videographer and we provide a whole slew of services for our agents and and you know, For us that's part of our split, but for a brokerage who doesn't have a strong split you might employ those people and charge back for those services but having those those Services in-house provides you with an exceptional Advantage. So going, you know back to the photographer and videographer. That's our our strong suit, you know, if you do go that route, make sure you invest in really good gear really good training and make sure that you're able to provide all of your agents, you know quality video tours intros, you know interviews in the community that sort of thing. So that's my first one so and we also have an in-house Stager who's one of our Realtors, but she provides services for all of our agents and I compensate her for her time. The the second one is to provide support to your agents that's you know, kind of part and parcel to you know, having an in-house admin but one thing we do for our Realtors is we do mailings for them. So every realtor in the room, every broker knows the value of farming or they know at least what the term means we we consistently like if Joko were to check right now. We even just being a brokerage that's 35 strong. We probably do more or probably in the top 10 mailings of all the brokerages across Canada the amount of mailings we do through Canada Post is off the chart. We send out thousands and thousands of male pieces every single week. And the reason why like the reason why we do that, I guess or let me just go back like as a realtor you might know the value of setting out male pieces when you get a new listing when you Want to farm an area but as soon as you get busy everyone knows that you stop doing those things and so with our Realtors, we we have them commit up front like several of our Realtors. They say every time I get a listing I want to send a thousand mail bases to the the area around the the house for sale we do that for them. So they they never have to say that again. We just do it as soon as they're listing hits the board we all we design the the flyer we order it. We mail it out and then we charge them back for the cost of the mail pieces. So do mailings for your team. It is huge. I am so proud to say that, you know, our brand hates people's mailboxes every single week in the thousands and you know hundreds of thousands every year the next one, you know kind of similar is to run lead gen campaigns through social media so you can you know, like fill up this on Facebook sort of lead gen campaign or create a forum on your website and sponsor that on on Google and when those leads start coming in you can disperse them to your team or you can charge them back. So running Legion campaigns. We we actually when we first started doing this on Facebook, we'd run ads like receive daily or weekly notifications of new homes for sale in this area price between this price in this price. And usually you pick a price. You don't want to pick it too low, but you want to pick this price where people are where that act of Market is because especially in a seller's market that we've experience over the past couple of years. There's not a lot of inventory in our first week of starting this lead gen campaign. We were receiving hundreds of buy or leads that we like it was we actually burned all of them. Like we couldn't we give them to our agents and like they didn't know what to do with them sort of thing. But you know and with buyer lead gen campaigns like that like you guys will all be wishing that you would be Running them and attracting those buyers yesterday because tomorrow when the market starts to cool off and we start to get more listings out there. You're gonna wish you had all those buyers in your in your quiver. So same same idea about completely different is to run ads for your team. And so most agents know how to hit the Boost button on Facebook most agents have no idea how to run their ads on YouTube and YouTube is far better in my opinion then Facebook right now because everyone knows how do Facebook everyone's in India with ads on Facebook. It's every fourth ad everyone has to watch that five second or 10 second intro before they watch their YouTube video and when they see a local realtor show up there and kind of like what Yoko was saying when they see that local realtor go buy on a canoe or on a horse or something. They they may just sit there and like how many people just kind of Click can't wait to click next right? But when they That horoscope by they might just pause and watch it. And in fact they do so run as for your team. Like I like guys I say to my office manager here. It's like we want to make sure that every single video that gets produced in. Our office is being sponsored out there. Like it drives me nuts to to see one of our videos being made only have 50 or 100 views. I wanted to have at least a couple thousand views on YouTube. Right? And so we have to all it takes is for us to call our agency and say hey, can we run that for you? We'll charge you back on your statement. They're like, you'll do that for me. Sure, right if you call the agent say hey run your own ad they're gonna be like, I don't know how to do. I don't have the time and it's wasted the house sells in a few days and all of a sudden they can't sponsor it anymore anyway, and it's a wasted lead then the next one. One thing I'm passionate about as well is to make it easy for your agent. So I I love the idea of purchasing merch whether that's jackets t-shirts hats, you know tooks keychains. Like I dangled up before, you know, like purchase this merch and just charge it back to your agents. Like how many of your agents in your office are walking around branded and and if they're not they're really missing those organic conversations in the in the you know, grocery store and that sort of thing and they just again you can say well it's not my job or you can just go up to the local embroider and say Hey, you know by 50 of these Black Keys throw Century 21 on them bringing the office. It's a little bit of investment but it's your company right? It's your company that's gonna grow in your local area and you want it to be advertised out there. The next one is kind of like make it easy but also incentivize so you might say to your agents that you'll cover the cost of embroidery or you might even cover the cost of like a simple sticker branding that they can put on their vehicle. So, you know have have like a Well, like for our first year we the c21 how we had the gas caps. We also made a larger version about you know, a foot and a half and we had half of our office stick those stickers right on the door of their car and it was kind of cool. They look like race cars all the sudden right like the c21 and and that was just something like it. They literally cost us like, you know ten bucks a piece and and I stuck them on myself. They were super easy to put on you spray some water. Stick it on let it dry peel it off is done. Right? The next one is Google reviews. I I don't consistently do this but I run competitions in the office right? I'll just say, you know for every review you guys get over the next two days. I'll give you $10 off of your statement. Like it's that important to me like a review to give someone$10 off of their statement. If I got a hundred reviews that cost me a thousand bucks a hundred reviews is gold right and so to And and on the note of reviews, this is just kind of a side tidbit. We got five minutes right Joker. Yeah as a side tidbit, like even our new realtors get reviews and they've never sold anything in real estate and that might come with a little controversy for some of you but I'd say to people like when you apply for a job with your resume, you you don't just put your work history there. You also put your your volunteer history, you put your your hobbies and your interests that sort of thing on a resume and I say to my new Realtors you can go out and get you can get character reviews go out and get like friends and family who know you and trust you and like you to say they don't say like always sold me a house, but get some reviews just based on your character Popeyes and CMAs. If you guys I can't remember the coach's name, but you know Popeye is the idea of you know, getting a little gifts together and stopping by, you know, regularly at our office meetings. I'm forecasting the next you know, last one was Mother A now we have Canada's day coming up. Like what are you doing to get little gifts put together and stopping by and visiting your sphere of influence and as an office, we can create little parties within our brokerage we can start to like, you know, organize the material list and and and build out these little Popeye gifts or we can just create them and again sell them back to our agents right you can say. Hey guys. I have a hundred pop by gifts here. They cost me three bucks each. I'll sell them to you guys that cost and that gives you something to go and and do that. I think we're on number seven. Yeah, we're gonna get through this Joker we got three of the best ones say for last so the number eight is start another Moxie Works website, so, I started back in December of 2021. I bought a team website through Century 21 and I started a website called Ontario farms inland.com and we become I if you were to search anyone in the room right now could search Ontario farms for sale. And we organically ranked round number eight in all of Ontario for Ontario farms for sale. And so it's an opportunity that we can do with the platform that's provided by Century 21. Another one is providing staging items for your office. You can have canvases all decorated throughout your office. You can have fake plants that you purchase from Ikea Ikea delivers you can have and small decor items and just have them in your office and encourage your agents that when they get a new listing that they should come in the office and they should pick up a couple of decoratives. They can sign them out. You know, it's gonna cost you a couple thousand dollars as an owner of your pocket to have this stuff from And some of it's gonna get damaged. Someone's gonna go missing. But if you can raise the bar and have your agents raise the bar when it comes to listing that's going to reflect well on them and it's going to dry the business up. And then the last thing that we do is we use our space at our brokerage as an Outreach to our community. So it's space permitted. We have the provis club we've had Dental associations come in and have catering because of our office is being kind of a modern and a nice office and it's private that that's our ability to reach out to the community and and allow our space to be used by others in the community and that's it. Well, thank you so much Mike. Those are great top 10 marketing ideas that people can take and you know, I think the theme as I'm listening to you. I think the theme is make it easy for your Realtors right because not I think a lot of times people like, oh, we don't want to spend the money. We don't want to spend the money, but it's not really that it's as you just proved it's if you make it easy for me, I'll spend the money. I'll invest into my business. I'll invest into more successful, but it's just, you know, it takes time. Sometimes I don't know how to do it. Especially when it comes to YouTube ads, you know and and some of the stuff on Facebook and so anyways, I just think that's great and thank you so much for sharing those top 10 ideas with us, you know, just before we wrap up just want to ask you a quick question what has been your biggest challenge that you've ever faced and how and that ended up being a blessing in disguise. I I think we talked about this early we're talking about real estate, right? Okay, you you tell us what you want. Okay. Yeah, I I don't know. Yeah first in my personal life. I'm not sure I want to go there right now. But as a realtor, I have a really good answer for you coming from being a producing agent to starting such a 21 in studio. I made the conscience decision to become a non-selling broker and not because I didn't like selling real estate. I was good at it. I sold a lot of it in my last year. I I with my partner I did over a hundred transactions. You can equate what that would look like in dollar bills today and becoming a non-selling broker was a competitive Advantage for me against the other brokerages the other brokerages in the area who have a lot of competing Brokers and so my first two years was extremely difficult like as we grew the agent base, but being a non-selling broker enabled me to earn Loyalty of agents and also enabled me to provide a lot of support to the team. So if I was out selling properties and enlisting appointments, I certainly couldn't answer the phone the amount that I do now and so that it was an extreme Challenge that is obviously turned into a blessing now that we have 35 Realtors and we're we're really very much winning as a brokerage and we're almost getting to the point where I can step back even as a broker of record and put somebody else in that place for me and who knows maybe I'll go and sell real estate again. Well, you're doing a tremendous job. So we really appreciate you being the best brand ambassador out there specifically in the Owen Sound great boost area Mike. How can people get a hold of you if they have some more questions, or maybe they want to brainstorm with you. Who knows? How can they get a hold of you? You know my email I use it as all of you ought to use it as well. It's Mike that's one not CA or you can call me at 519-375 sold. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time. And again, thank you for sharing your top marketing a secrets. So other people can help to to grow their brokerage. You're either listing to this podcast live or you're listening to it this recording on Apple podcast Spotify or Google podcasts, or you went to the Century 21 franchise.ca website Century. 21 is one of the world's largest real estate brand in the world with presence in 86 countries and in Canada. We are 11,000 plus strong and we're looking to align ourselves with like-minded individuals who share the same vision to what the future of brokerages looks like. So if you're interested in growth opportunities, please feel free to reach out to me or my colleague Gary zillepa. You can reach us both through the Century 21 franchise.ca website, or you can of course connect with me on LinkedIn or Facebook, and I'd love to set up a chat with you. So again Mike. Thank you so much, and thank all of you for being with us today. Thanks guys. Have a great day.