Mortgage | How To & Education
Patrick Ferry is a longtime Realtor and real estate coach with Tom Ferry International. He's a student of sales, influence marketing, and technology as it applies to the real estate industry. He's a data-driven pro that helps coaching clients become a Modern Realtor by incorporating concepts of hyperlocal expertise, target marketing, and appropriate technology stack so the professional and focus on what they do best.
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Show Topics
00:00 The Data Driven Real Estate Podcast welcomes Patrick Ferry
00:46 Patrick's journey into real estate and the world of coaching
04:38 Zillow, PPC, social media - it's noisy. How does a modern Realtor prove value in the marketplace?
5:47 How agents can use data to help clients strategically win in hot markets
14:59 Why Patrick is strategically going after the buyers as an agent (the hardest market)
29:07 Understanding real estate trends and backing it with actionable data
32:09 Marketing lists and messaging. Is one more important?
34:04 Using outbound marketing combined with inbound content marketing and paid remarketing ads
36:21 The importance of targeting while not offending the consumer
39:22 Working demographics, psychographic, and technographics to make marketing more effective. Is social media relevant or dead?
45:15 Is YouTube and social media a waste of time for Realtors?
53:13 What is the definition of the modern agent and why the solo agent is almost dead?
52:54 The artisan agent (solo agent), the Realtor team, and the mega team
Show Transcript
Aaron Norris 00:02
Welcome back to the Data Driven Real EstatePodcast. I'm Aaron and this is episode 19. This week we've got Patrick Ferry. He is a longtime real estate trainer and coach. He's worked in the family business Tom Ferry international for a number of years and also with his brother, but he's also an agent active in the San Diego market. We cover a ton of ground this week, including what a modern agent looks like in 2020. How to survive the next ten years when there's many disruptors in the market, and wha tit means to be a data-driven realtor that and much more on this week's episode. Welcome to the Data Driven Real Estate podcast, the podcast for real estate professionals dedicated to driving business using data. I'm Aaron Norris with co-host Sean O'Toole with PropertyRadar, and today we have Patrick Ferry. Welcome, Patrick.
Patrick Ferry 00:43
Thanks, guys. Yeah, super excited to be here.
Aaron Norris 00:46
I guess we better start with your entry into the real estate business and everything you've been working on.
Patrick Ferry 00:52
Awesome. Yeah, so the fast version is, you know, obviously, my father, Tom Ferry started real estate coaching, you know,40 years ago, and I worked for his company, you know, I've been all across the country helping real estate agents pretty much for the last 17 years. And then about seven years ago, I shifted over to my brother, Tom Ferry's coaching company, because I was kind of excited about all of the new stuff, you know, online, social, you know, the direct mail, and I wanted to explore everything online, all marketing. And so that's I made that shift over to his company. And last seven years, you know, it's been a lot of fun, really looking at, you know, how to grow teams, but then also all of the new lead generation and marketing platforms and systems. So that's kind of where, you know, I've been geeking out having a ton of fun with, you know, kind of what is the modern model for lead conversion and lead generation, kind of coming from the foundational stuff. And you know, and I know, you guys both spent a lot of time on that stuff, too. So it's super fun. And, and I'm very excited about, you know, PropertyRadar, you know, moving into the residential real estate space. And because that's been very exciting. And as I told Aaron or Sean, I didn't tell you, but it was like, one o'clock in the morning, I woke up, and I was like, PropertyRadar. And this is like two weeks ago, and I went, and I looked on your guy's website, I clicked on the, you know, residential real estate, and I read through, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, there are so many things that I need right now for my coaching clients, with what you guys did. And then as I've talked to Aaron and Frank, I started looking deeply into, Okay, well, you know, Aaron said, this cheesy thing to me, which forced me to think he said, He's all I just want you to dream in all these get data. I was like, I was like, that's so cheesy, right? And then all of a sudden, like, my brain starts going and all these different direction silliness. What and then if I had a list like this? What if I can get that? Well, what if I could do this? What if I could do that? What if I did, and then all of a sudden, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm drowning in data. This is so silly.
Aaron Norris 03:11
I know, it sounds cheesy. But I think that one of the hurdles that I run into the most because people don't know what the data sets are available and how you can stack them and play. And until and you show them in there, like what I mean, I was a PropertyRadar user for six years, and I didn't know the demographic data was there of like, oh my God, it's so cheesy, but it works.
Patrick Ferry 03:32
It did; it got me going? And, and, you think know, I think and, you know, one of the things that I'm super appreciative is what because I like bright, you know, the motivation for me looking back to create PropertyRadar was because I was looking, I was talking to a couple be able other of the kind of industry data's companies as in, hey, here's what we need, I need to be able to, you know, do a couple of these very specific functions, so that I can create these lead generation campaigns for myself and for my clients. And I was kind of pushing on them to get it done. But man, that's an uphill battle. And that's when I was like, wait a minute; maybe I should think that's check in with these guys to see what they're up to. So that's, that's where I kind of lead. Right, so I'm excited. You know, as you guys are rolling across nationally, I think that's interesting to me. So, you know, I'll be connecting with you guys much more deeply. You know, but I think for you know, general right now, I think the number o ne thing that is very exciting is this idea of what we can do with a buyer. Right? So now I've been, you know, I've been looking at the buyer online conversion difference between process very deeply looking at, you know, what's going on between Zillow, Pay Per Click, Facebook, all the CRM, you know, what's the difference between SEO, YouTube, you know. I've been looking at all of them, and I'm going, wow, this is a complete train wreck. For a real estate agent, that's enough. Yeah. And then I go, Okay, well, what is the actual, the value of the service and the service proposition to a buyer to give me loyalty? What's happening is, you know, most people can go on to Zillow, or go to Redfin, and they can kind of say, hey, show me the property. Right. And so
Sean O'Toole 05:25
Even schedule a time. Yeah.
Patrick Ferry 05:27
Yeah, schedule a time. And I've got that on my website right now. And so what's happened is kind of this movement towards kind of the real estate agent no longer is an actual consultant. And they no longer offering anything that has a unique value. Right? And so.
Sean O'Toole 05:45
Just unlock the door.
Patrick Ferry 05:47
Yep, exactly. Get that door open for me. And ifI like it, all right, I'll write up the offer with you. And that is a very, very dangerous proposition for real estate agents. Now, so. So when I thought about this, you know, the super low inventory environment I already constructed and an offer to a buyer that said, Hey, let me go find off-market properties for you. And it'll be coming from my background, it was like, hey, let's, I could pull up all of the expired from the last five years any for sale by owners, I could pull up you know, withdrawn, I can maybe do a little bit of for rent research. And you know, and I can find you opportunities, you know, to kind of provide you more opportunities today, if you know exactly what you want. Come meet with me, and I'll show you what I can do that had a good value proposition to the buyer. But now, I'm like, Okay, if I could take this to the next level. So hey, come in, meet with me, instead of me, just being someone who only opens doors, meets with me, let me show you what I can find off-market that previously was on, see if there's anything there. And then now, tell me exactly what you want. And I'll go find it kind of in the PropertyRadar. And this is what I'm excited about is can I create a list that says, hey, you wanted, right, four bedrooms, three baths, you wanted it on this part of the golf course with this with that, and you want these factors, now you can create that list. And now, you know, hire me to become your real estate, you know, your real estate agent. And then now I will find you properties that are currently not available to you on the MLS or Zillow, or anything else. Now I'm tracking all of those. So the reason you're going to hire me is that I'm going to do all of that. Plus, if anything else shows up, you know, I'll write up the offer for you. So I think that's going to be hugely valuable, you know, offer, right to get a better relationship with the buyer coming in and offer something that doesn't exist currently in the marketplace. So that is something just like, right off the top of my head. I'm super excited about it.
Aaron Norris 08:07
I have to admit, I don't know anybody else who's talking like that. I don't know, Realtors that are deploying the strategy?
Sean O'Toole 08:13
Not at all.
Patrick Ferry 08:15
Yeah, it's, it's not, and go ahead, Sean.
Sean O'Toole 08:19
I would say I'm shopping for a second home right now. Right? And I have some very particular things that I want in the area that I'm looking for. And of course, I buy everything off-market, because that's what I do. And one, there's one little piece I would add right is, you know, we had this kind of wish list in our head of what we wanted. And we went off-market, and we looked for all the properties that had that. And there aren't any. And so, you know, it's pretty easy to as a buyer to have expectations that just don't exist in that market. And when you can show somebody through data that doesn't exist. Now, I've either got to change my expectations, right? Or we're thinking, Okay, we're gonna tear something down and build. So but now it's just you know, but how do you know that without going and looking and, you know, I can't tell you how many realtors like, yeah, I wish we had something like that. Just nothing on the market right now. What's not that there's nothing on the market? There's nothing?
Patrick Ferry 09:25
I say, Yeah. Exactly.
Aaron Norris 09:27
What's your wish list? What is that?
Patrick Ferry 09:29
Yeah, that's pretty intense wish list. I like that.
Sean O'Toole 09:32
It's not that intense. But yeah.
Patrick Ferry 09:34
But one of the and I'll kind of give one of the hacks that I just recently kind of figured out too, with exactly what you said, Sean, is I had a buyer kind of reach out to me for San Diego. And they're like: Hey, we're gonna buy in the spring of this next year. And so it was like, this is what I want. And he was like, Can you show you know, he kind of was in town visiting family. And I'm like, okay, I could go show him a bunch of property. But that's going to be; I'm going to spend a bunch of time it's going to be a waste of time. So I was like, What else can I do to make it a valuable experience for them? And for me, so I brought them into the office, pulled up the MLS, and I just basically said, Okay, what do you guys want? Oh, you want update 50, you want a three-bedroom, two baths detached? And ideally, you want it in Carlsbad? And so I was like, well, there are four zip codes in Carlsbad. So let's just take a look. And I just pulled it up on the MLS. I showed it to them right there on the big screen. And I'm like, Oh, do you see that there's nothing active for sale with that category. There's six pending under contract. And in the last 12 months, this is how many sold, and I kind of sorted it by the highest price sold. And then we looked at it. And they were able to go, Oh, that's all I get for 850. And I was like, Uh-huh.
Sean O'Toole 10:55
Uh-huh.
Patrick Ferry 10:57
And so that I could swap that out, let me show you this other area, other zip code, look what you can get, there's more active, more pending. So there was a little bit of, you know, kind of me helping them to calibrate their expectations through a bit of that process, which again, you know, the type of the, you know, the thread that I'm seeing is as, as real estate agents, working with buyers, we're doing a pretty terrible job, educating the buyer, you know, leveraging data, leveraging tools, leveraging resources, putting them into a professional consultation environment, and educate them through, you know, kind of what, what this whole thing is about, and what the market is all about. So, now, what's funny.
Sean O'Toole 11:44
I know. Yeah, what I'll say one funny thing is, on the sell side, you know, if you were to if I was to you were to invite me to list your property. That's what I do every time. Right, I'll come I'll do this huge market research. I'll come in and I'll explain the market. I'll show you comps. I'll show you what I do the how I do it, this whole elaborate, you know, and big presentation on the buy side, what do we do? Oh, you want to see the property? Let's go? Well, in what's interesting to hear is that you know, Zillow, and Redfin and whatever have made it pretty easy for consumers to self-search for listed properties, right? None of those platforms have made it easy to sell search for off-market properties. And that is still where you as a Realtor can provide differentiation, right? Because if you can show them the kinds of things the past sales that happen, how many sales in your market are happening outside of the MLS, it's surprisingly high in many areas. Yeah. And you know, when you can tap all of that and show that now you become a valuable resource, again, versus just showing the listed and sold stuff that's on Zillow that they can go look at for themselves.
Patrick Ferry 13:09
Exactly, exactly. So that brings up an excellent point. It's part of the offering, and part of the offering is to let them know that something is happening that they don't know about, which is the off-market sales. And so I and I'm sure you guys have an ability almost to say, hey, in this zip code, and I'm asking in this zip code in the last 12 months, this many properties sold off the MLS, could I almost pull that report, by the way?
Sean O'Toole 13:42
One of our criteria is was listed, right? So.
Patrick Ferry 13:46
Got it.
Sean O'Toole 13:47
And you say was listed equals, no on your sales and show recent sales were was listed equals, no. And it does a pretty good job. But I will say our listing data is a little bit incomplete. It's a fact set. So it's not perfect, but it will do a pretty good job of showing you what those were.
Patrick Ferry 14:06
Yeah, yeah, list. List. Once I became a realtor, right, you know, 17 years in the training and coaching world, then I became a realtor that I was like, Oh, now I know why that this data is such a train wreck is because they're kind of relying on us to, you know, fill out all these fields. And you know, and it's such a pain in the bud. And it's really labor as and we just kind of cut a lot of corners naturally just because it'sl ike, it's such a disaster. And so that I was like, Oh, that's why the datasets so screwed up. Right? And it was an interesting observation for me once I was deep in it, you know?
Sean O'Toole 14:49
And that doesn't even get into like gaming days on market and all the other things.
Patrick Ferry 14:52
Oh, totally. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Which trust me I've done. I'll give you on.
Aaron Norris 14:59
Patrick it's interesting that you started with the buy side. Really difficult in this market, it's always the most difficult. You didn't even mention the listing side of this business until way further on, is it? Is it that just happens automatically? Why did you decide to focus on something that's the most difficult part of the business?
Sean O'Toole 15:19
Yeah, so, great question. Here's what's interesting, you know, because, you know, with my dad's company, we were born and raised, get listings, and build a scalable listing business. That's, that's what I was born and raised with, right? And so, you know, fast forward, here, we've got so much interesting opportunity to attract the buyer, online in all these unique channels, right? So I've been just kind of trying to master that workflow, which is a disaster in our industry. So A, if I can master the workflow and provide an amazing solution, you know, to the real estate community, you know, that would be awesome. And it made me a lot of money, ofcourse, right? So there's a little bit of that. But then, as I got deeper into it, I realized, man, this is important for the industry. We create a significantly valuable experience as a real estate consultant to the buyer on the way in, right? And so I think a lot of problems in real estate occur because there was a lack of quality education to the buyer, about real estate, as an asset class, property types, how this thing operates, and how to positively or negatively influence your life, financially or lifestyle. And so I kind of saw from a big picture looking down going, Oh, man, this is kind of a disaster. Right, and all of the top agents are just obsessed with getting more listings. And so there's this obsession in the industry, that's get listing gets the listings, and it's like a cultural thing. To the degree which I found fascinating. I'd be at a big event, whether it be my brother's event or my dad's event, and if you were a top buyer's agent, you actually were looked down upon in the environment, you're like, oh, you're a buyer. Right, like that's, so it's a cultural thing. Yeah, in the industry. So it's, so it's slightly fascinating to me to see that. But I also see, like, and this is my, you know, my nerdy prediction, if anything gets commoditized and automated, in my opinion, it's the listing side. Because, as a guru and a consultant, you know, in my family, we've built our, we have built our business and our world around offering service, that's just consultative service. That's how we make money. Right? So there's no nothing tangible, I'm doing anything. So when I look at the two, I go, Wow, the buy-side actually has a lot of great consultation opportunity. It also has a really great education ability. And when you put someone into a marketplace, there's also the opportunity for a lot more referrals, longevity, right, and then if you end up getting their listing on the way out, so your actual your income, the lifetime value of the income of a client is significantly better when you work with the buyer on the way in, so you can make significantly more money there. So that's where I was like, wait a minute, all of the cultural thought process. Yes, that makes sense list to live all the stupid stuff that we stay. But at the same time, man, as I look over here, I'm like, No, no, I think the future is really do a better job with these buyers, and really help people make better decisions, and help them navigate a lot of this process. So I think there's just a good opportunity there. The buy-side so much more. I mean, I think that the challenges, right is so much more difficult, right? People have they're all over the board, they're trying to make really tough decisions, giving them good advice is hard. And all the rest on the listing side, it's a pretty simple deal, right? Get that contract sign, put it on the MLS, you know, maybe do a flyer or whatever, but it's pretty simple. As a realtor, right? It's a much easier job, you know, hard to get that signature, but once you do, you're golden. And on the buy side, it's it's it's challenging to educate folks where where to live school districts, it's just so much more, which goes back to the data driven side, right? A lot of that is is data driven. So that's a really fascinating, fascinating point. A lot, a lot a lot more difficult, but you're adding a lot more value.
Patrick Ferry 19:56
Right. Exactly. Yeah, I've been training, my dad kind of trained me to think through this whole, like, you know, the value of your service is in direct correlation to your income. And so I started to kind of like, Okay, well, what's the real value of the service that I can offer here? And then can I increase the perceived value of that service is really the game that I played today is right, specially, you know, that's what we did on the listing side for gazillions years. Let me show you how amazing I list homes for and how incredible it's going to be to try and you know, elevate the perceived value of it. But in today's super-low inventory, high, high buyer demand environment, it really is like, just don't screw it up. Right? Now, don't get me wrong. You know, like what my wife just, my wife just listed a property it was actually very interesting story. There's a very, very smart guy, he's bought seven investment properties with her. And they were going to sell off a couple of these, these townhomes. And they completely underestimated her advice on a finishing off and getting new appliances and staging. Totally underestimated, they're like, no, it's not necessary. So she lists the property. And we get a 50,000 below list price offer. This is like a month ago, right in San Diego in the in the high moving price point. And then they got an85,000 below list price offer. So then took the home off the market, got the appliances in staged did within three days, got to over $10,000 list price offer, just like that. So there is in the list-side, there is some consultation moves that are really valuable, because that's a $90,000 swing, you know, just on the advice that the agent was giving, that the seller was kind of just dismissing, you know ,like.
Aaron Norris 21:53
I would like to point out too, Purple Bricks, I was really surprised that they folded when they did but that was the idea that you don't need skill to list. It's just here's a prop tech company that can do it for you cheap one price. And I was shocked that they folded when they went out when they did.
Sean O'Toole 22:07
Yeah. I see the opposite too, though, right? Like where people will go spend all this money to fix something up. And this is true, mostly at the lower end, where people tend to undervalue how much it really costs to fix something up and make it nice. And so that do it yourselfer comes in and says, Oh, you know, Okay, I'm gonna buy this house for 450, it would list for 470. Right? You know, it actually needs $50,000 worth of work, but they think they're saving 20 grand, and they can make it up in sweat equity, right? So like, it's both sides can happen. But you have to know that specific buyer, you know, in a townhome and an upscale project, that person isn't looking for sweat equity, right? Whereas a single family home in a lower middle class there, they want sweat equity. And so you kind of have to, you know, and that's where an agent can still add a ton of value.
Patrick Ferry 23:02
Yeah, exactly.
Aaron Norris 23:04
Before we get more into the marketing, Patrick, I would love to hear your story a little bit because you moved into San Diego. So you started from scratch not too long ago, and how you approached a brand new market as a newbie.
Sean O'Toole 23:16
Yeah, actually, it was very humbling, right, the because it really caused me to understand what really good value was forreal estate agent. And one of the big things was is hyper-local expertise, as we've, as we've kind of been discussing now. And a lot of the big surveys, NAR and Zillow. That actually was the thing that buyers were looking for in the agent was the hyper local that always has been one of the things that consumers said that they were looking for. But I didn't quite understand that until I was standing in an open house in San Diego, which I'm not from here. I know pretty much nothing about it. I'm from Orange County and spent a lot of time in LA and I spent a lot of time in the Bay Area. And so like I knew nothing. And when it when a buyer is asking me questions about this neighborhood, that property type, you know, schools, all these things, and I am tripping up all over the place. I knew as a professional instantly, that I was at a disadvantage. And so that was a really, I would say the biggest slap in the face. Because I was very proficient with all the strategies, I kind of knew everything like I can literally like do a listing presentation in my sleep. But where I got all trimmed down, was there was like, you know, I didn't really have that, that knowledge base. And then when in the training that I offered, you know, one of the things I say is, if you can demonstrate to somehow demonstrate some of your unique perspective and knowledge and if the consumer sees that there is some advantage in the knowledge that you have versus what everybody else they'll be attracted to it. And so that's been kind of one of my big, you know, bits of advice is how do you demonstrate your unique knowledge? Right? And so that's been, you know, so it was really a challenge, until I started figuring out, okay, you know, A, it was helpful to be on it, my wife and father in law were very successful. So I got to go on a lot of appointments, work with, you know, kind of get my hands in a lot of transactions. And then that's when it was, like, became easy. So I was like, Oh, you're interested in, you know, whatever, Forest Ranch. And then I'm like, Oh, my God, that I tell a funny story. Oh, you know, the FBI cyber investigator that we sold, there was, you know, this was the craziest story ever. And I let them know that I have experience in there. And that's usually in the consumers mind. It's like, A, there's a checkbox of, Yeah, you've done it, you understand it. And then B, if I can kind of level up that I know something that most don't. That's usually when I get the client. But, man, it was it was a struggle. I love that you touched on storytelling, too, because right, like, we're people are story processors, right at the end of the day, and so that you did it through, you demonstrated that local knowledge through story?
Patrick Ferry 26:19
Yes.
Aaron Norris 26:20
Can you give me maybe the top three that you decided to focus on, is it local history? Is it the property type, school district, economic development locally? Is it? Is there a theme based on demographic?
Patrick Ferry 26:32
Um, yeah, that's a great question. And, you know, kudos to both you, you know, both you guys, you know, because I've been, you know, a studier of The Norris Group, and, you know, listen to pretty much, you know, 90, you know, 90% of the podcasts that you guys done since you started. So I really, you know, have you know, I've, you know, and I geeked out on economics in the downturn. You know, I think the need I went to the so funny, I was thinking about this the other night, Aaron as I, as I paid like$3,000 to go to your guys's event in Anaheim, I think it was 2006?
Aaron Norris 27:08
California Crash.
Patrick Ferry 27:09
Something like that, right? And I was like, this is crazy, right?
Sean O'Toole 27:14
That was mine.
Patrick Ferry 27:16
Well, it was interesting, you know, knows, it's just fascinating, because it, and actually my dad did say on stage in front of3,000 real estate agents. In 2006. He was like, I think this thing's turning now. And he kind of warned everybody. And so I was like, What is that? Now I got the California Crash from 2005. And I listened to the CDs. Right? So my friend like there's this event you do look at this. I like what is that? This is crazy, right? We're on like a big seminar. And like, all of the agents were just making hand-over-fist money. And every, I mean, it was just like a is like a raging party in real estate. Right? Especially in the training world. In the coaching world everybody's just making money and it's wild. And then so the guy shows me the binder, the California Crash, and I'm like, What the heck. So I listened to all six of the CDs multiple times over and that's when I was like, Oh, no, I'm gonna go to that event. Right? Check this out. This is interesting. Right? So anyways, long story short, that motivated me to pay close attention to, you know, how does the economics influence real estate influence thehomeowner, and this whole cycle. Right, that's where I got really fascinated bythat. And so, you know, fast forward now, whatever, how many ever years whenI'm, you know, Aaron, what I'm like sitting standing next to a buyer or aseller, you know, my ability to talk about, you know, kind of the trends ofwhat I'm seeing, right of kind of where people are moving from, you know, howthat capital is moving? And then kind of what are the demographic trends thatI'm seeing, right, that stuff, you know, because I've been trained by you guys.Right? Right? And Sean, listen to every one of your interviews and all yourtalks, too. It's like, I can do that really easily now. And I really would loveit. If real estate agents could kind of bridge that gap. Right? Of, you know,it, it just, it's a no brainer to me that, like, who's moving in to San Diegoright now. It's very, like, pretty straightforward, is like, I've gotgrandparents following, you know, their grandkids that's happening, because whyin the world, would anyone move into a very expensive California in retirement?Because you're following your grandkids, right? So that's number one. And then numbertwo, a second trend that I see is I see, you know, anyone that kind of, youknow, the upsizers, right, so they, you know, 30 to 39, who are going to moveup they bought, and they did really well, you know, within the last 10 years,gained a ton of equity, and now they get to play, right? So they've got allthis money to play with. They've got cheaper financing to get and the trend isvery straightforward here in San Diego, South County closer to the downtown,you know, young, hip, fun, but the moment that you have kids and you and youwant to settle down, you move to North County, and you come up to my area,because it's all you know, you know, cool, nice, you know, track homecommunities and beautiful and it's more mellow and great schools and so on andso forth. So, like, I just follow these trends nonstop, and then I could speakto them whether to buy or sell, and I, you know, okay, you know, you're doingthat, of course, right? So I've been paying attention that you know,psychographic versus demographic versus geographic and looking at those threethings and going okay, right? How does this thing play? Right? So, yeah, I'mone of my coaches. Yes, my one of my top my Tom Ferry coach, yesterday, we weretalking about a strategy of exactly what I'm going to use your guys data for,is because I want to pull that group that demographic, with that property type,with those conditions in South County, who have this big equity position, whoalso probably are this phase of their life. Yeah. And they're gonna want tomove up here. But they, but they're stuck, they've got a problem. And that is aproblem is they've got all this equity, you've now got great a greatopportunity to make this transition. But selling and buying, that's theproblem. Right? They know that they can sell in 15 seconds or less. But canthey get the property up here that they want? When they're competing, it's 15other offers?
SeanO'Toole 31:46
End up homeless.
PatrickFerry 31:47
Yes. So that's where, you know, I've been reallythinking through: Okay, how, what are all my what are the options to serve thatperson? And then I'm going to use your guy's data, to go market to them andsay, Hey, here's your, here's your options, let's book an appointment, let'sdiscuss those options and figure out, which is the best path for you. And I'llhelp you get it done, right?
SeanO'Toole 32:09
What I love about what you just said, is one ofthe the biggest problems we have is people come, you know, and they go, they gosee a list, right? And they're like, Oh, I'm gonna send to this list. And theythink it's all about the list. And a lot of gurus say, Oh, you got to market tothis list or that list?
PatrickFerry 32:26
Right.
SeanO'Toole 32:26
They don't talk about the message, right? Youjust said is, I see an opportunity, right? I can, I can identify who thosepeople are. And now what I have to do is I have to put together the solution,that unique value proposition, the message to those folks, and then I've gotthat winning package, because it does take that last bit. Right? You have tohave, you have to solve that problem for them.
PatrickFerry 32:53
Yes, yes.
SeanO'Toole 32:55
And I think so many, so many marketersgenerally miss that piece. Right? They either go out with a message, and it'snot targeted to the right people, right. Or they target the right people, butthey don't have a message. It does take both.
PatrickFerry 33:12
It does. I think that notoriously, and Aaron,y'all I want your opinion about this, I'll say this real fast. Notoriously inthe real estate industry, when I started studying direct response marketing andstarted studying all of the aspects of marketing, I realized real estateagents, we do a terrible job of a content marketing and be an offer, likeconstructing an offer that makes sense for that target audience. Right? That,that your ideal customer when they saw your offer, they'd be like, I want that.Right? And some content marketing that says, hey, I know what I'm doing. If you'rethinking this, or you're asking these questions, or if you're in this position,here's, here's five awesome things you should know. Right? So in our industry,we're really not good at those two things. Right?
AaronNorris 34:04
I was just responding to a journalist who wasasking for input on marketing campaigns. And early on with PropertyRadar, oneof the things that I was doing as a private lender, I was getting frustratedbecause Wall Street was coming into my space. And I'm sure you're dealing with thisbecause iBuyers are down in San Diego, they're driving up digital ad costs, alot. So they doubled in price. We had hired a company are spending severalthousand dollars a month and at the end of the month. I'm like, I can't justifywhat you're doing. You can show me zero ROI. The content strategy is killingit. And when I combine it with direct mail, very strategically, I can doremarketing campaigns for a fraction of the cost and I can, Yes, so Icompletely switch gears fire the PPC guy focused on the content strategies,funnel pages, murdered SEO because the Wall Street, I had Wall Street lenderadmit to me they always tried to be The Norris Group. We couldn't figure outhow to do it. It's that hyperlocal angle. And what do you say to Realtors rightnow? It's like, well, Gen Z and Gen X. They don't want Gen Y and Z. They don'twant outbound marketing. You're talking about mailers in a digital natives.That doesn't make sense. What do you say to that?
PatrickFerry 35:17
No. Yeah, they just say that stupid. Yeah. Imean, that's just, you know, yeah. And I and Aaron, I pay attention, probablysaying kind of us like the big research in the marketing world where they'retalking about, you know, the power of text message versus email versus directmail versus, you know, all the different social channels and kind of what'swhat's performing. And so direct mail all, you know, still always performs,right? And it's just, we just need to make sure we have a good message and goodcontent and a good offer, right? And it's not too messy. So it works. And Iand, but I like it. And I like what you guys are going to give me which is morepower to give a specific relevant message to a demographic or psychographic anda geographic and, and having that power in that tool makes the message a loteasier, because I speak right to what I know, my ideal customer, my avatar would be interested in. So I'll get a better response. Right? Very easy.
Sean O'Toole 36:21
One of the core things that people reallystruggle with, right is nobody wants to feel targeted, right? So, you know,just doesn't sound good. It doesn't feel good. The rest, right? And as abusiness person that we know, targeting works. And so what's, what's the what'sthe issue there? And I think the issue is, is that people don't want to feeltargeted, but they do want to see things that are of value to them, right? And,and so that's the key if you're, if you're targeting somebody with things thataren't valuable to them, you're gonna make them angry, right? If you targetingif you're targeting them, and being very careful when you're messaging and notsaying I targeted you because right and he said saying, Hey, I think you'd beinterested in this, you know, and why this is important to you. And it's thisis why it's about you, then I think they're very receptive to targetedadvertising. But it there's a is a fine line there.
Aaron Norris 37:24
So, somebody's getting divorced, I don't haveto write a postcard like: Hey, sorry about the divorce. Tough times, hey, youwant to sell your house?
SeanO'Toole 37:32
What's worse, is what we get is we get folksthat are like, you're getting divorced so you should list your house with mebecause I'm the divorce expert, right? And yeah, what you have to do for me,because of your situation, you're going to really piss that person off likethis, no. And same thing with foreclosure. We get unfortunately, we getcustomers that still, you're in foreclosure, you must sell your house to mebecause you will lose it otherwise, and like, you're never gonna sell anybodywith that pitch.
PatrickFerry 38:03
Yeah, the classic. Yeah, I studied all theclassic marketing gurus, you know, the original ones, and I forget which one ofthem said, said it, but he said, you know, meet your prospect in theconversation that they're having right now, right? So it's kind of entering atthat point. So that I've tried to stretch I always think through like, what isthe conversation that my ideal customer is having right now with their spouse,in their head, with their friends? What are the question? What are theunanswered questions that they have in their mind? What are they concernedabout? What you know, what are the options they're considering? And drive intothat, and then my, make my headline or my subject line, something that speaksinto that, because that's many people are having that conversation. Thatperfect target group is all talking about that, thinking about that. And so ifI can get that message in front of them, I'm gonna have a great response.Right?
SeanO'Toole 39:04
That, you're just constantly, everything I'mhearing from you is you're constantly looking at how do I add value, right? Howdo I improve? Everything's customer-centric, rather than you-centric? Exactly.Yeah.
AaronNorris 39:18
Did you ever read um, Groundswell?
PatrickFerry 39:21
No, no.
AaronNorris 39:22
It was written '05. Gartner Research, I thinkwas behind it. Charlene Li, and Josh, I can't remember his name. One of my favoritethings that came out of that book was the concept of technographics. Sodepending on your demographic, what channels were going to be the mostappropriate. And this was in the heyday in '05 when, you know, I postedsomething on Facebook and everybody saw. And I think, you know, as we'rerecording this, I believe there's going to be some social media, executives onthe hill, getting grilled about some recent things that happened, and it makesme nervous as a marketer. I don't mind participating in social channels, but Iam in the back of my mind, I'm realizing I have zero control. And at any timethere's plenty of history that shows these can go out of business. Quibi beingthe latest. Are you seeing any trends in the social space? Do you believe in it?From sort of things that you're working on?
PatrickFerry 40:16
Yeah, great question. So the backstory, I thinkis interesting, because I, you know, coming from my dad's company, we were anti-socialmedia for a long time. So I worked with his company until 2012. So in 2012, Ihad a Facebook account with like, 300 of my actual friends, right? And that'sit, right? So that I jumped over into my brother's company, who is like, allsocial, all online, you know, the whole thing. And so I got an opportunity tokind of come in objectively and just look at it, study it, kind of figure itout, and then make some decisions about how I was going to operate. So I'm alittle bit you know, I'm a nerd. So it's a little bit different for me. But Iwould say one of the things that I'm very keenly aware of today, Aaron is, is Ihave you know, with face like let's I basically exactly what you saidtechnographic I, when I'm doing what I'm intentionally doing on Facebook is fortwo reasons. Number one is agent referrals is a big play, and the Facebookagent communities that the groups are amazing. So I love participating in myindustry groups on Facebook, and it's really fun. Then I organized my feed. SoI so you can, you can go to pages that I want to follow. Solana Beach Chamberof Commerce, Encinitas Chamber of Commerce, San Diego Magazine. So I went tothose pages. And I was like, in the following setting, which is C first. Sofirst, I... A, the commute, the groups are amazing. I organized my feed to showme more of specifically what I wanted to see. And then the last thing is, ofcourse, I just entertain and educate all of my mom's family. Because Facebook,right? It's a lot of the baby boomers. Right? So baby boomers are lovingFacebook, I'm 45. My wife is 36, right? So the 30-39, which is the prime buyersright now and sellers, they're all on Instagram, right? So now so I've kind oforiented my very strategically, here's what I do on social, and here's why, andwho I who I'm trying to connect with and speak to, and try and do everything Ican to control what I see to make sure that I'm not getting too distracted.LinkedIn, of course, is now I think, the most exciting platform, right?Because, you know, I'm a business dork ,anyway, so I'd rather be hanging andsocializing with if, I'm gonna be on social media, I'd rather be connectingwith great people in the, in the business world who are talking aboutinteresting things, right. And so hopefully, it'll get there, right, it's kindof hard to navigate right now. But, you know, it'd be amazing if it actuallygot there to where it's like a cool resource for, for the business world andfor entrepreneurs and executives.
AaronNorris 43:30
I see a lot of people in our industry, not givesocial media a job, and they get overwhelmed thinking that they need to be onYouTube, and they need to be on Twitter and you're like, Well, why? What, whyare you there? What are you doing? And they don't know, they're just like, Ihave to have it. Lock up your brand names but that's about it.
PatrickFerry 43:47
Yeah, YouTube is very interesting right now,I'm doing a ton of YouTube videos, just like and understand YouTube, SEO. Like,I want to understand that algorithm. And I could see the power of it. It'sunbelievable, right? So I like you know, some of my some of the videos that I'mdoing right now are I can't believe how many views I'm getting, really. And youknow, as a, as a marketer or an influencer like that, that that is amazing. Andso I'll say this one thing, I think is kind of interesting. You guys mightappreciate this. I realized if I give the platform, what they want, in the waythat they want it, then I'll get everything that I want. Yep. And so I think,you know, I think there's a little bit of, hey, what is the deal with thisplatform? What do they want? How do they want it delivered, created,positioned, organized, do it that way. And as a marketer and influence all Iwant is a lot of free exposure to my ideal community, and my ideal customer.
SeanO'Toole 44:53
So I think there's a ....
PatrickFerry 44:54
SEO all day long. You just tell you tell Googleand YouTube here is exactly The key words in my target audience, and youdeliver it pretty effectively, they'll go get, they'll go put your content infront of your ideal customer, for free.
SeanO'Toole 45:15
So I'm gonna delve into this a little bit,though, because like, I think A, everything you said is 100%. True, right? Idon't disagree at all. But for your average individual agent, right? Unless youare a force of personality, there's what an hours of new video being posted toYouTube every second. The chances are, you know, you see most of these YouTubevideos by individual agents, by most small businesses by most of our customers,right? You go and you see their video, and it's got 23 views. Okay, so you're,you're immediately family members and your buddies from college watched yourvideo, right? That's it? And, you know, so, um, you know, it's one of thereasons like, we're so big on the outbound thing, right? Because you just, inthe last year, that force of personality, unless you're a major brand, right,unless you have your last name, you know, etc, right? Like, it's, it's hard tobreak through. It's hard to break through there. Let's talk about at what pointdoes like social become a strategy? Like, is it really more of a thing forlike, teams, and you have somebody dedicated to it, or for that really force apersonality individual, like, who does it work for? And who doesn't it?
PatrickFerry 46:36
Yeah, that's a really good question. And what'swhat's wild is, I've kind of seen, let's just say, in the last five years, I'veseen very few people make social media create a lot of income for them. Veryfew, right? Now, as an influencer speaker, coach, trainer, it is absolutely,like an amazing source of opportunity for me, right? Because it's the nature ofwhat I offer, and the way that I do it. So the, but the problem that I see is,is Sean, as I see that, that agents actually they don't, they don't think likea guru trainer coach things, I the way that I present content is, me share themost amazing, best, incredible, unique inside thought strategy, and share thatas much as I offen, as often as I can. And that creates really good reach andinteraction. Whereas the agent is kind of like, well, should I post anotherpicture of a listing, you know, like, you know what I mean, here's my openhouses that, you know, four o'clock today, you don't mean, they actually don'tunderstand kind of what the consumer is interested in and they don't know howto like map a story around it. They don't understand SEO and keywords. Sothere's a lot and this is kind of where like, it took me a long time to do aton of research to get to this point where I have a reasonable understanding ofthis. So as you're like.
SeanO'Toole 48:16
Is there's a good investment of time. Nope. Imean, not really. I mean, and now I might, as a coach, I'll pick and choose.Okay, I'll do a little consultative analysis on someone, right? So I have a newclient yesterday, you know, 20 year veteran in Lawrence, Kansas City betweenTopeka and Kansas City. And has he's done a lot of YouTube videos, I'm going toreorg that SEO optimize it, so he starts getting amazing results. But he'slike, I don't do any social media. I'm like, that's fine. Now, I do believe heshould be getting more agent referrals. And so I'm going to work on his socialmedia to just specifically try to get him more agent referrals, which I've donethat numerous times, because I understand the strategy to the tactic that theplatform, right and I and i sit and I jokingly say this all the time to my, tothe, to my clients and friends is like look, I think it's the Sun Tzu quote,you know, the tactic without strategy is just noise before defeat. And we just,you know, we in the industry, we are just sold tactic after tactic for tacticafter tactic and you know, has varying degrees of success and that's whyeverybody you know, kind of lose a lot of money and has a lot of failure. It'sbecause the tactic is you know, not in the right context of what you're whatwe're trying to accomplish right.
AaronNorris 49:45
And I want to say too, it really depends on theperson that you know, PropertyRadar talks a lot about chocolate versus peanutbutter. Peanut butter is the data and chocolate is this concept of who youbring to the table. Tony Alvarez just needs to get on the phone because hegives good phone. I have other investors that all they use PropertyRadar for isjust phone conversations. They don't do direct mail because they kill it on thephone. So if you've got somebody with a radio face, they don't need to be onYouTube. They're awkward, and they'll actually hurt themselves by being onYouTube. So I so it sounds like you actually go and you look at the personthat's at the table and be like, maybe this strategy isn't right for you.
SeanO'Toole 50:19
What skills do you have? What makes you? Yeah,where are you good? And and, yes.
PatrickFerry 50:25
Hundred percent and your market. So it's kindof there's two things. It's like, what are your skills, your personality, yourstrengths, your weaknesses, you know, if you don't want to ever if if making aphone call gives you the hives or not door-knocking gives you the hives, that'sokay. Let's go figure out the other strategies. And there's too much right nowtoo much general advice, like, Oh, this is the way you should do it, right? Andyou guys experienced this on in the investment side. They're like, I was sosuccessful with this one thing, and it's amazing, and everybody should do it.And of course, you should buy my training to you know, learn how to do that.And, you know...
SeanO'Toole 51:02
He's the only guy in the world that can do it.
PatrickFerry 51:04
Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, that stuff isit's kind of annoying, right? It drives me crazy.
SeanO'Toole 51:11
That's awesome.
AaronNorris 51:13
Modern agent, you brought up that term, maybeyou can define that a little bit more and some mistakes that you think agentsare making that's going to see them sort of maybe out the door in the nextdecade?
Patrick Ferry 51:24
Yeah, it's a really great question. And I willI will lean on what my brother Tom just said at our big annual summit. And becauseit was a very interesting insight, and he shared it to me before he presentedit. And he was like: What do you think I'm like, yep. And he basically saidthat, that the solo agent, their days are numbered in the industry. And thatwas fascinating. The reason why he's saying that is not because there's notamazing, beautiful, incredible solo agents, it's because they're the stack oftwo of things that we need to do today is just getting to great. And so if youdon't, you could be a solo agent, but you probably need two staff members,right? You can, and you know, you can be a solo agent, and that's fine. Butlike you by yourself? That is that is a real big problem moving forward, right?
SeanO'Toole 52:19
Let's walk through those models a little bit,right, everybody's talking teams these days, but it does. You know, it doesn'thave to be a team of other agents, right, you could staff up folks behind youthat help with marketing, and all of these things. You can go to third partyconsultants, coaches, to help with some of those things and put those programstogether, you can pull together a team of folks that hopefully have slightlyyou know, somebody is really good with Brooklyn buyers, somebody is really goodat listing somebody really, you know, pull that together. So.
PatrickFerry 52:50
We call that, we call that.
SeanO'Toole 52:52
You seewhen you like.
PatrickFerry 52:53
Yeah.
SeanO'Toole 52:53
What's that?
PatrickFerry 52:54
There's, so there's the three things, and youhit two of them. So there's the work, we're referring to it as the ArtisanAgent, right. Sean you love you know that, you know, Tahoe and you are the guyin Tahoe. And you know, everybody, you know, everything and your brand isreally strong. So we need to make sure that we get you two or three staffmembers, one that manages your marketing, one that is you know, just your full-timeexecutive assistant, one that manages all your transactions, and make sureeverybody has an amazing experience. So you can just go do what you love to doright?
SeanO'Toole 53:30
Now that's the Olympic skier in Tahoe.
PatrickFerry 53:33
That's exactly right. Yeah. So then there's theSEAL Team, which is kind of what you alluded to second, right? We have peoplewho are expertise, that stuff, and we crush it as a group, and everybody isreally on point, I got a listing agent, a buyer's agent, you know, maybe a leadagent, so on and so forth, right? Then we're seeing, now we're also beenconstructing these Mega Teams, which is really a business builder. So, youknow, this is not, you're no longer like I, you know, like, I don't really wantto go on another buyer appointment or seller point, if I didn't have to, I justdo it. But like, I would love to build a business in which I can construct allof my marketing and lead generation systems, go bring on a bunch of great, youknow, sales people and just have a business in real estate, right? See, I mean,so there's people who are really looking at it that way. And that's in the teammodel, not in the brokerage model, right? Because you're shielding yourselffrom some of that liability by being a sales agent, not not a broker, right,which I don't want to be there, right? I want to kind of shield myself from that. So there's, there's the three models that really are very, very exciting to play with today. And that's kind of part of my goal, you know, with coaching clients like okay, well, first of all, which model are we going after? And then what does that look like and what how would that serve you and your family and your life amazing? How can we make sure that you provide great extort that'syou know align with your personality, type your resources, your market? Cool,let's make a decision and let's kind of figure that out and let's get you onthe path right? And, but guys, I do need to get going so I gotta go jump on acoaching call, by the way.
Sean O'Toole 55:14
Oh my gosh it is we the whole hours gone by it's been so much fun, yeah.
Patrick Ferry 55:18
Yeah, thanks guys so I and thank you guys for setting it up and doing what you do right because I you know Sean I did have ForeclosureRadar, you know, you know.
Sean O'Toole 55:26
Back in the day.
Patrick Ferry 55:27
And a lot of the marketing reports and the information that you're sharing right so it was very valuable and I'm super excited to see PropertyRadar go across the country that's going to be really exciting. And a lot of my other data service provider friends, right are going to be a little bummed.
Sean O'Toole 55:50
Alright, much for joining us today, really appreciate it. And sorry, we went over on time. I think both Aaron and I were so wrapped, we just weren't paying attention.
Aaron Norris 56:00
All right. Have a good one.
Patrick Ferry 56:02
Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Aaron Norris 56:04
All right. Bye. Thank you for listening to the Data Driven Real Estate Podcast, you can find show notes and links to some of the resources mentioned in the show at datadrivenrealestate.com. Click that joint he community, and you'll be forwarded to the PropertyRadar community where youcan ask questions about the current show and even see upcoming guests and ask questions there. We'd love to engage with you in the community. So check it out. Please don't forget to like, favorite, subscribe and share on your favorite platform where you're listening to the show. It helps us out a great deal. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.
