Transcript:

Hello, it’s Christina with Leads and Leverage and debuting our new zany, kooky, crazy name the Ribbit show. So if you’ve been around for very long you know I love the tree frog and so I am now calling this the Ribbit show cuz I’m talking to you, helping you out advance into your real estate business and bring in leads. If you are watching this in replay please let me know I like to know that you’re here. I like to be able to talk to you guys. I like to be able get to know you guys which is why I do these shows. So definitely comment below let me know that you’re watching this in a replay and let me know where you’re watching from that would be awesome. Even if you commented on other shows before if you’re watching this in replay please comment where you’re watching from.

And today actually we’re going to talk about how much time you should be dedicating to your blogs and your facebook ads and your online stuff and things like that. (Hold on one second, could you guys get off the internet, getting a weak signal on there so we’re trying to get that fixed sorry about that) So if you’re watching this live please let me know that you’re here I see Donna’s here it doesn’t always tell me….

(Sorry guys, we're having a little bit of a weak connection. We’re back up again so I don’t know it wasn’t even working yesterday. So earlier in the day, live stream was a little wonky just being a little ornery and then later in the day it was like off and on and off and off and off and so obviously it was a toddler yesterday needed a little nap. I'm hoping that it behaves a lot better today.)

So we’re gonna talk about how much time you should be putting into blogs and ads into all that kind of stuff. Donna is watching from New Haven Connecticut, awesome Donna! Yes how’s the weather out there? Day is a crazy thing but how is the weather? I love seasonals season stuff and I just absolutely love that today is sunny and beautiful and yesterday was crazy stormy. I love the different attitudes of weather. If you guys are watching this in replay. (Get back to my little script here or not my script, my step-by-step) If you’re watching this live, please let me know comment below and let me know. “Hey I’m here and I am checking in from..” where are you checking in from and I need to have a question of the day for today kind of something kooky.

What is your favorite vehicle? Whether you drive it or not or anything vehicle, any motorized transportation device. What is your favorite one? Like the one you like the best whether you have it or not. What is your favorite? (Yeah, I like low humidity, it's nice). So guys today we’re going to talk about how much time do you spend writing your blogs and actually what happened was I actually was asked a question and the question was to me “How much time do you spend writing your blogs?” And then they went on to say, “I’m nervous that I’m going to be spending all my time on Facebook content and posts and no time to do everything else”. So we’re going to dive into this. I’ve got some good stuff for you guys today into that whole concept.

But I kind of titled today’s session at the Ribbit show, I titled it “How much time should I be spending on blogging in ads and online stuff?” because that’s all kind of in there. You know, we have this idea of where we should be and what we should be doing so let’s talk about that.

Corvette convertible, nice.. nice.. Yeah, let’s see if a motorized transportation device, my oldest son, really easy. Airplane. Don’t know about the other ones and my husband’s trying to decide what he would want and I’m like you know, I really I love RVs and I know it sounds funny and crazy but they can take you anywhere. But then I also love boats but you’re stuck to the lake and nita anyway. I love anything that gets me anywhere. That’s what I love.

So popping in, kind of waiting for people to join. It takes a little bit of people a little bit of time. I have a feeling there’s still some residual toddler temper tantrum going on with Facebook live stream this morning. So we’re kind of just waiting for people to pop in on there. I’m curious Donna, when you look at all the stuff that we talked about as far as online things and how much time do you think agents spend on things that are busy work but aren’t actually important for their business? Just out of a guess and this is not just for Donna this is for anybody.

How much time do you spend or do you think that agents spend? Do you observe other agents spending on things that are more busy work than actually growing their business. Actually doing things that are of bigger importance for their business. So that’s my question for you guys today “How much time do you think that you spend or do you observe other agents spending on things that are busy and maybe even think we need to be spending on it, but they’re spending time on but they aren’t actually important to our business?” I’m curious about that. So today give me your input on that. 

Today we’re going to talk about how much time do you spend writing your blogs, spending on ads, and spending on online stuff. This is the actual guiding question I got, “I’m nervous that I’m going to be spending all my time on Facebook content and posts with no time to do everything else” and I really want to tackle this one today because I’m going to just be straight with you guys, this whole thing “how much time do you spend, I’m nervous that I’m going to be spending all my time on Facebook content and posts and no time to do everything else” that whole concept is a mindset issue. Now bear with me on this, okay. There’s a couple of things that are battling in. 

First we need to analyze why we’re asking the question and I think on the surface that question sounds kind of okay, good! Like, well is this gonna overtake me? Is this going to prevent me from doing what I think I need to do? So the first piece of this is we near reason to not do something. I’ll just be blunt with this and believe me I have experienced all of this. We need a reason to not do something, to justify not doing something. So we want to go, okay and we love when people tell us “Oh don’t spend your time doing online stuff or don’t do this you need to be belly-to-belly or you need to be face-to-face”. We actually kind of like it when people tell us that because then it gives us a reason, a legitimate justifiable reason or so we believe to not do those things.

It’s a mindset shift, we’re going to go into that. Here’s the deal, the part that comes out is “I am worried or nervous that I’m going to be spending all my time doing this and no time to do everything else.” So here’s what I want to know, you need to analyze. You need to analyze why you’re asking the question. What is everything else? If you’re putting in there all of these other things and we put too many expectations on what we should be doing, what is everything else? Yes, you’re going to have to trade off on some things but what does everything else mean?

When you’re saying “I’m nervous I’m spending all my time there, I’m not going to have time to do everything else”, what do you mean by everything else? Okay, so some people will come along and say well showing properties or writing contracts or whatever and I’m like okay, well do you have listings right now? Do you have showings right now? How many buyers you are actively working with. By actively, I mean you are showing them property and they’re ready to write an offer. How many listings are you carrying as an agent? 

So there’s this, so we get this idea that we’ve created all this work we don’t have time to do this piece of it. So that’s what I mean by analyze. What do you mean by everything else? If you’re busy enough, if you’re consistently creating your content which is your blogs and your ads and yourself and it’s resulting in leads and those leads are converting to listing appointments and showing appointments, then guess what, within just a few weeks you’re gonna need help. YOU’RE GONNA NEED HELP. Because you can’t do everything and you shouldn’t be doing everything. 

But in the meantime as you’re building up. If you’re only carrying 15 or 20 listings or less and you’re only working with one or two active looking right now buyers at a time. Then you have time, you do. And I don’t mean you have time because you have to work 12 hours a day. I mean you have time if you just set your day up in an eight-hour day you have time to be consistently lead generating and working those listings and those buyers. The issue is that we put a whole bunch of other stuff into that time and let me just share with you what we put into that time.

We decide that we’re not going to pay for a program that costs fifty dollars a month that will actually coordinate all of our stuff that we want to put on Facebook. We decide we’re not gonna do that because that’s too expensive and our time at this point, if you’re carrying 20 listings and you have two active buyers, your time is probably worth more than fifty dollars an hour. So why would you not? You can’t do it in an hour. Why would you not outsource that?
So we’re not outsourcing some things that we should be doing and quite honestly we’re spending time in office meetings on broker tours, hanging around the water cooler on five billion trainings when we should actually be implementing. This is a little bit of a harsh one today but really what are we afraid of we want an excuse our justification to not do what we need to do and then when we are busy we don’t want to do that and what we do is we we set up ourselves for our own demise. 

When we’re not consistent in our lead generation we set ourselves up for our own failure. It's really easy. We get busy doing things that aren’t actually at the closing table or aren’t actually writing a contract. We get busy doing those things and those aren’t important things. I know there’s all kinds of things we have to deal with emergencies. I know this I know real estate, I’ve been in it for too long you guys to not know it. I know it. However, I also know that when we set boundaries and set things up we can make it work.

My question for you is when you need to analyze yourself when you’re asking that question “I’m nervous that I’m going to be spending all my time doing this and I’m not gonna have time to do everything else” well truly analyze the source of that question. What’s the reality? How much time do you have? How long have you been in real estate? Are you only closing ten transactions or less a year? You have time, YOU HAVE TIME. You’re just not putting the right time into your business.

Now we need to change that mindset, okay? If we know that creating content for example this live stream right here, right now, this is part of my content creation. This is part of my lead generation, even though you guys don’t have to sign up to watch any of this. I don’t even know who half of you are not letting me know who you are. You’re not giving me an email. You can come in whenever you want. It’s open to the public whatever you want. Even though all of that and I don’t have real tangible people in my list to justify this. Here’s the deal you guys, even though that’s the case, this piece is really a powerful lead generation tool for me.

(I’m back, we’ve got some low connection, weak stuff I’ve just paused and you guys didn’t even notice or maybe you did) But my point is is that I utilize this for trainings. I utilize this to help me understand what I’m teaching you better. So the exact same thing for you when you’re creating content, when you’re creating content for your blog or for your facebook posts, you are understanding who you’re going to be working with better, which means you can help them better, which means you can serve them better, which means they become and understand to know like and trust you. That’s the goal! 

The goal is to convert people before they get into their pipeline. You want them sold, you want them sold on you in an industry where we’re all competing for the same people at that same moment of decision. You want to get them before they’re at that moment of decision and you want to have them so secure and so loyal to you that it doesn’t matter what anybody else does. What an email says, what anybody else offers, because they’re not going to respond to it because they’re already connected deeply to you. They resonate with you, they know you, they like you, they trust you. 

That’s what you want to do. So when you’re creating content it’s pivotal, its foundation. It’s a big piece of your business. No matter what we were doing in our business, no matter what was going on whether we were at 650 transactions in one year or 100 in one year. Content was always our priority, was always my priority. I was the lead generator for the team. That was my priority, that is my priority, it’s still my priority in Leads and Leverage, content. And by content, I mean providing value. Answering questions, exactly the same thing that you guys should be doing. Providing value, answering questions, helping people in their journey. 

If someone is going to buy a home and they’ve never owned a home before then you can help them in that journey to home ownership. If someone owns a home and maybe they’re gonna sell in 10 years, you can still help them in that journey of homeownership. See, it’s all about helping them because people don’t know, like and trust us as agents because all we ever want to do, all they believe that we ever want to do is just get the deal closed. There are too many of us Heidi’s out there that are so focused on the task and so focused on the numbers and so focused on get it closed, get it done, get it done! That the consumers like “what am I just a commodity?”

So when we come at it from a different perspective and we come to them and they’re like “Oh wow! I like them, I trust them, I might now be able to use them now but I’m going to refer people to them”. That’s what you want to do and here’s the deal, when we have a mindset shift on how our time is being spent, how our time is being utilized and what we’re doing. When we have a mindset shift on the consumer, about the consumer, about the potential client, when we have that mindset shift. Guess what happens guys, we kind of kick some butt when it comes to the number of transactions we do. 

Seriously! It becomes about relationships and building those and building trust and we have more closings, we’re more successful. It’s a mind-boggling oxymoron I guess. Do sell less, sell more. When you sell less, you’ll actually sell more. When you push less, you’re actually going to bring in more. When you give more and take less, guess what’s going to happen, your business is going to explode.

Back to this whole how much time do you spend, for me exactly I spent 50 minutes every single day writing, okay? Whether that is writing a training article to go on Inman, writing a class writing, writing the module of a class that I’m currently teaching, writing a pow-wow which is what what I do twice a month inside Facebook domination secret. Writing the outline for the pow-wow so I can help agents progress in their journey for building their real estate business. Whether that is writing my notes for my livestreams, whether that is writing my emails that go out to you guys, that go out to my members. I do all of my own writing because I want to have a relationship with you. 

So when we think about this I don’t care how many members, I do the same amount of writing. I do the same amount of that kind of stuff that I did when I had one person on my email list as I do now when I have thousands upon thousands of people on my email list. I did it when I had one person in my membership as I do now where I have a couple of hundred people in my membership. 

My point is that my priority is the same. Everything else shapes around it. So my priority is to always be creating value, creating content and then I’ll run ads to it or I’ll just put out on (inaudible) and things like that but that’s my priority and no matter how busy I could conceivably be, that’s my priority. I also never ever compromise my time. So my priority that’s always my number one priority and then I know what my second priority is and if I get those done in the allotted time that I gave myself to work that day and guess what happens I’ll add a little bit more. I’ll do a little bit more but if I don’t get them done, I really go back and analyze well what was I spending my time on? Was I inside my groups on Facebook answering questions? Okay well that’s legitimate if I had it scheduled. But was I on something that was unrelated to what I’m supposed to be doing? Or was I out surfing the web or whatever I was doing. 

Guess what, not an acceptable way for me to spend that time. Not if I want to help people, not if I want to grow. It’s just that way, so don’t think in terms of “I’m nervous I won’t have time for everything else”,  you will always have time for the number one thing you should be doing and this gets back to reading the one thing again, I harp on that book and I preach about that book. “The One Thing“ by Gary Keller is a very, very, very, very good book. Very, very helpful in gaining crystal clarity on why you’re even doing it. 

The first time in my life, a couple years ago now that I’ve read the book, but for the first time in my life I have no, NO vision of retirement because I absolutely love what I do. I love what I do and I can totally see myself adjusting everything. I’m adjusting things around so that I have time with my family, always. I built this position I would have time and that’s what I want you guys to do. I want you to build your real estate businesses so that you have the priority time that you want. 

(I’m back guys sorry keeps going on) The idea of retirement with Mai Tai on the beach sounds a little boring. Now, it’s not boring for a short amount of time but the idea of doing nothing every day, all day for indefinitely is just.. that actually sounds really depressing to me because there’s no purpose in it and I want to enjoy every moment. 

So my point with all of this was you need to understand what your priority is and stop making in advance excuses for not doing something that will actually change your business. Then often when we ask that question I’m nervous that I’m going to do this and not be able to do this. Do you really need to do that? Is this what you should be doing? So we kind of make excuses to not do and believe me, I have been there. I did it there were times that I that I did it and I wasn’t consistent but now every day 50 minutes, I write. I WRITE, that’s what I do.

The other thing and I talked about it,  so analyze, analyze, analyze yourself when you’re asking that question. Am I making an excuse because I don’t want to do it? Or what am I really thinking I’m gonna miss if I do this? What am I thinking I’m not gonna have time to do? What are the results going to be? 

Two, mindset, what's my mindset? Am I making excuses? Am I making excuses to not do something that I need to do? And priority, number three for priority. What’s my priority? My priority is outside of my real estate business really, so what is my priority? And then within my real estate this is what is my priority? 

So those are kind of the three things you need to do to really analyze the time that you’re spending and what time you should be spending. I know that the internet it’s been a little wonky for a week. I think it’s the live stream issue because the Internet’s working fine for everything else. So it’s just having a little toddler issue again. So my question for you guys, let me know what you think. 

I’m going to go back on the page and kind of see if there’s questions that I missed because oftentimes it looks likeI I missed questions on my phone but there on the computer. So I’m watching that. Hit me with your questions. Hit me with your thoughts and then if you have ideas for future shows, let me know in the comments, whether you’re watching this in replay or live comments and let me know what you have. If you notice, if you look at events today. I have like two weeks of shows, show topics schedule and I'll probably put more and more up as you guys give me these topics and ideas. I’ll be putting more and more out there. More and more up. 

So we’re gonna rock it, we're gonna do this, we’re gonna get the Ribbit show going. It’s kind of my livestream podcast if you will, but it’s not really a podcast. So questions, comments, thoughts, all that, what do you think? Y’all are quiet. Did you tell me you were here? I saw Charis joined, I saw Debra K joined. I know Donna’s here. 

This could be a short show because of the internet or the livestream issues. This could be a it’s kind of got my rants on. I thought it was a really, really, really good question. I listen and watch myself do that to myself. Well I’m nervous and most of the time we just need to implement. We just need to take action and so we kind of come up with reasons not to, which is a little bit, it’s kind of funny.

Donna says I’m working very hard to designate two to three hours just for lead generation, ads, blogging, marketing, listings etc. Awesome! Does that seem like a lot of hours for you or would you like to break it up? So for this amount of time, I’m going to do this and I’m going to focus on this. And if it takes you less time, fine! It takes you less time, but if it takes you more, you stop, you’re done and you go on to the next thing. 

Charis said “I’m here but couldn’t hear much because of the internet. Yeah, so you already have not very good in it right now. I know where you are and the live stream has been a little bit wonky so there’s that. And what’s interesting is it’s not showing me the questions you guys are you telling me or statement you’re sharing right now. It’s not actually showing me those on the computer! Isn’t that crazy? Just crazy, crazy. That’s why I have both open.

Just remember, analyze yourself. Just really look at you know is this really where’s this coming from? What’s my intent? What kind of answer do I want? Or am I really seeking an answer? Second, what’s my mindset in this? What is really my mindset, why? And then priority. Priorities help, priority help. So let me singular that. Priority, which is your number one priority? 

Donna says “I try to keep it within the two to three hour time frame. Whatever I don’t get done I continue on the next day”, Yeah, there's also something to be said for like big push times. Like if I’m gonna get something really big out and I’ll dedicate a day to it. But for the most part, we’re talking, this question was focusing on daily consistency and this question was focusing on you know I’m gonna be spending all my time on XYZ so I’m not even times you were everything else. So that’s kind of where we were going with that. 

Hey Mary! I see that you joined. Looking at everybody not seeing all the comments. So this is gonna be a pretty quick one. It’s actually a pretty quick one. I kind of went on a little bit of a soapbox there and I also introduced the new name. The name, we have a name now. It’s called the Ribbit show. Ribbit, you know like a frog. I know that’s crazy and zany and kooky and fun and I love tree frogs so it was kind of an out-there thing and then I realized I was like well does that sound like me. I’m like yeah, I’m talking, I’m helping, I love frogs because frogs are awesome little lead generators. 

Frogs see the lead they want, they click their tongue and grab it and so frogs are awesome little lead generators. I also like the frogs eat what bugs them. That’s why I loved the Frog. So the Ribbit show totally off the wall, off kilter, I checked it everywhere. I own the domains now, I checked everything, we got it! We got it! We are the ribbit show and that’s what we’re gonna do. I have to think of some sort of like online, like a theme song or something which I am not going to be singing but um something to go with it.

So anyway, ask me your questions let me know in the comments below. I want to help you guys with more of all of this from mindset to implementation. Oh my gosh! That’s great Tammy! So if I kissed a frog who would it turn into? Well, probably nothing. It would say a frog. That’s funny, you know. Okay, this is a sideline thing. When our boys were little and we took them fishing and the very first, my dad did this to them, their grandpa. My dad told them that the very first fish that they catch the requirement is to be a real fisherman, the very first fish you ever catch, you have to kiss and we have pictures of all of them kissing their first fish. 

And it just reminded me how kooky you are saying that if I kiss a frog but yeah. So we have a pretty kooky family, pre-honoree family and we all had fun but what was more fun especially for the older boys, as the younger boys came along and started doing it. They were in on it, they loved being in on that and and doing that in helping with that so it’s kind of funny.

We have pictures Charis, we have pictures. I am betting (we’ve got a little bit of a like weak connection) but I am betting that that is probably one of those fishermen, you know hazing things, I guess you could call it. There has to be a celebrity crush for the Frog to turn into. Okay, you have that frog in your mind whatever that celebrity crush. 

(Okay, it looks like I’m sort of maybe back) Mark says ”I’m big into checklist to help me stay on track. I need to make a checklist of all these things and time spent on these things. Sounds dumb but checklist work for me”. That’s awesome, so Mark, since you’re an FTS member why do you pop in the group and name a couple things that you’d like to see a checklist on because I’m going to add that to the things that we want to add to FTS. So names and things that you think would be a great to have a checklist on and we’ll get those created. 

Sorry celebrity crush, I so don’t watch TV, I hardly watch movies anymore. What I do in my free time has completely changed over the last few years. So it’s kind of funny, I’m like thinking celebrity crush, I don’t even know half the people that are out anymore. Talk about culturally not connected to Hollywood anymore but what would be your celebrity crush Tammy? So that’s my big thing. What’s your celebrity crush? 

And if you guys are experiencing interrupted video, refresh. Hit refresh, so go out to it and then just click refresh on your browser and then come back into it and this should be better. Hopefully they’ll help. Looks like we’re still having a little bit of an issue but ok. Mark definitely let me know the questions that you have, the checklist you made.

And anyone else? Tammy let me know your celebrity crush, definitely even if we end a video and I haven’t seen it yet let me know it. Whoever your frog is going to turn into and you know for anyone else for that case, anyone else, if you want to imagine a frog turning into someone when you kiss it who would that someone be? That’s a really good question of the day. So I’m going to use that one today, totally off-the-wall goofy, crazy question. Thank You Tammy for saying that to guide that. 

Hey Kim! Guess what Kim, we are actually just wrapping up. I’m just out actually wrapping up. Today I talked about time a little bit of time. How much time you should be spending? Deborah K said “I’ve been commenting but are not getting them” now I got that one but you’re right, I haven’t gotten the others and I looked, I don’t see any of them Deborah K. It’s just weird and I do see the comments like after it’s already done and they’ve processed it. Facebook’s processed it I can go back and look at comments and often time I’ll respond to those. It’s part of their process they’re really fixing livestream to work.

If you guys didn’t see the news, if you didn’t see the news what they’re doing is they’ve actually created contracts worth millions of dollars with people with like media sources, people like Russell Wilson and a few other people to really beef up live stream. Facebook serious about this. That’s their goal. They are paying people a whole lot of money to live stream. They aren’t paying me a penny however, I love live stream and I love you guys. So I’m going to be using it and that’s why I now have the Ribbit show. I actually wonder if I have the first official livestream show like a podcast on Facebook. I don’t know, maybe we’ll claim that. What do you think you guys? Should we claim that? Tammy’s thinking, let me know if we should claim that.

I think we should. So that talk about a what’s it called an early adapter. Yes we should claim it. Let’s do it! The first Facebook live stream show. There we go, the Ribbit show! Awesome! I’m going to claim it until somebody tells me differently. Yeah, Debra K says “I need help implementing. Taking too much time to figure out an organization”, Ok so Debra K, one of the things that will help is if you can get someone, you’ll have to pay them, but get someone to help you with parts of the implementation pieces and right now I recommend Charis for that.

She has her own business, she’s our project manager in FTS. She has her own business and she will help you get through some all of my trainings. So she can help you with all aspects and then she’ll tell you what she needs from you. And she’s on this thing, but you can go ahead contact her. You can actually tag her inside the FTS group. So go for it. That should help with some of that implementation. 

The key here Deborah K is that you understand the strategy and you understand what’s being done so that you know what will work, you want to know what’s being done. You can have somebody else put the pieces together for you but as long as the pieces are…

(Connection is weak again, sorry about this guys) So as long as the pieces are done the right way, you just want to know, that’s what you want to know the strategy. You want to understand that and Charis can help you. So go ahead and message her inside the group Deborah K ok. 

So I'm going to actually wrap this up alright and we are going to claim it, put our stake on the moon and we’re going to say that the Ribbit show is the first live stream show on Facebook. Alright guys you got more questions for me? Put them in the comments below and I will see you tomorrow on the next episode of the Ribbit show. 

Talk to you later.