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[00:00:00.39] Well, hey, this is Beatty Carmichael here in the I guess you call us the office studio or something like that. Anyway, I want to introduce this podcast to you real quickly, because this is an interview that I’m doing with a friend named Isaiah Colton, and he runs a really amazing marketing company for real estate agents. And he’s interviewing me. We’re about to do a marketing summit. And I wanted to share the interview with you because it really gives a lot of insight into the foundations of what happens in marketing. And you’ll pick up a lot of great stuff from it. It was originally produced as a promotion for the marketing summit. So if you like the marketing summit, please, you’ll see an email at some point, probably from us on that. But more than anything else, I’d like you to understand just in this dialog, he’s covering a lot of topics that I think you’ll get a lot of benefit from and a lot of foundational things that you start to apply in your business. You’ll see it grow. I do want to apologize for one thing, my microphone wasn’t working. Well, I didn’t realize it until after the interview. So my audio is really kind of muffled and is not quite as clear as I would like it to be. When you go through that, just ignore that doubt. Any further ado, let me bring on the video and you have a blessed day, buddy.

[00:01:18.42] Isaiah Colton here. And this is another interview that we’re doing for the Sales and Marketing Summit we have coming up February 2nd. And I’m really excited to be interviewing Mr. Beatty Carmichael here today. And he’s going to share some awesome insights with us related to marketing in postcards. And we have a series about seven to ten questions we’re going to go through here with Beatty and gain gain some insights of his many, many years of experience in business and in marketing. And we think we’ll get you’ll get a lot out of this, not just from a real estate perspective, but also, you know, any time somebody’s been in business for a long time, there’s just a lot you can learn in general. And so, Beatty, thank you for joining us for today’s interview. Oh, thank you. Just want to give you an opportunity, Beatty talk a little bit about your your background before we go ahead. And you started to be great.

[00:02:16.06] Share background. Pretty simple is then in business doing. First off, I got caught in marketing many years back to sort of getting out of college and the idea of being able to create a marketing approach and just repeat it and it constantly driving revenues. And so I started to do that in a couple of businesses I was doing with a buddy of mine. And we got some things going and and then we split partnerships. And I started a business in nineteen ninety seven, which is the same one that I’m still here. So it’s one of the few that survived. Right. That’s awesome. Yeah. And just doing what I love to do and that’s creating marketing that repetitively works kind of. Fast forward eight years ago we shifted our corporate focus into real estate with that same mindset of how do you generate listings and how do you repeat that and constantly generate listings. And and so that’s kind of a very short synopsis of main business.

[00:03:19.61] And it’s, you know, let’s be real about it. You know, everyone says, you know, you’ve got to list the last listing leads and leverage, but there’s not a lot of great systems out there that help agents do it. And that’s what I love about what you’ve done, is you’ve come up with a really strong system using some methods that I think maybe some people have tried before in the past, had some success with maybe not have had success with. But at the end of the day, it’s not necessarily just the tactic. It’s a strategy that goes along with the tactic that you’re you’re trying to use to execute. And that’s what I like about working with you. Beatty you bring the two together, which is great.

[00:03:56.13] And, you know, let’s talk a little bit about what you’re going to talk about, you know, at the summit, at the sales marketing summit. And, you know and what you hope the viewers take away from if we can start there.

[00:04:11.04] So one of the things that’s most important is if you understand marketing, all we’re doing is we’re marketing to consumers. And I remember applying this with my first client. If I can go back to my first client, they were a telecom company. We were marketing business to consumer. And so we’re marketing helping the market to the consumers. And one, the regional directors called me up out of California and said, Beatty, this is the closest thing to resurrection of the dead that I’ve ever seen. I said, What do you mean? His name is Tom. And he said, I’ve got sales agents that haven’t made a sale in a long time, that now they’re using this marketing and it’s just driving in sales to them. And we became their fastest growing system that they put in place. And so what we’re going to be talking about at this sales and marketing summit is what are the ingredients that go into how do you market to a consumer? In other words, most agencies, you know, they they don’t know what they’re doing. They just kind of follow the crowd. But if you leave the crowd behind and you start to take the approach and understand that there’s a formula, there’s a formula, you got to interrupt him, engage them, educate and then you offer. And that whether you’re doing that to identify sellers before they go on the market or you’re doing that to get them to believe that you’re the best person out there. I mean, once you understand what the objectives are of what you’re trying to shift their mindset, positioning to then accomplishing it is easy. Once you understand the principles and everything I do, I say that I’ve been doing for years is is based on a few fundamental marketing principles that once you understand the foundation, you can build any structure on top of it and produce results. That’s what we’re going to be talking about that strong.

[00:05:57.75] And I already already picked up your formula there, too, if people are paying attention.

[00:06:02.28] No, no, no, no, no. That’s a plan with a formula. You can’t repeat it. Don’t worry. But seminar.

[00:06:08.31] Check it out. Or if you’re if you weren’t able to attend the seminar, purchased the recordings to get that, because there was a key formula there that I hope people are paying attention to. So I want to get in my first question, Beatty, if that’s OK with you.

[00:06:22.97] Absolutely. What books are books?

[00:06:27.22] Given have you given out as gifts and why and the reason why I asked this question, folks, is because there’s a lot of information out there, right? And so any time you get a chance to talk to somebody successful, I want to know what the reading I want to know what they’re recommending. So that’s why I asked that question. Beatty, if you can if you don’t mind answering, I don’t mind answering.

[00:06:47.38] I’m not sure you want my answer. But let me define, OK? My life is is following Christ in this sense together. So books I read and things I do. There’s not a separation of the books I give and have been Christian books. The books have influenced me. Most in business have been books I don’t give, but I can recommend sell the book I’ve given the most with that kind of as a background. There’s a book called Sacred to Divine by Bruce Wilkinson. And in a period of time, many years back in business, we were just having a real tough time. Business had grown and then it started to collapse and I was trying to figure out what’s going on. And I read this book and it so simply illustrated. No, especially as a Christian, if things are going bad, it’s either God disciplining or God praying in broad strokes. And I couldn’t figure out which one it was until I read the book and I started saying, oh, that makes sense. And I realized that it was kind of a combination of both, but it so turned my business around that I started giving that to all of our key clients, our VIP clients, and I’d buy them by the cases and we would send it out with the special note. So that’s the book I’m most given out.

[00:08:04.54] That’s awesome. Do you have three, maybe three books? And you mentioned you mentioned a couple there, but you have three books maybe that you could recommend.

[00:08:15.82] Absolutely. Business wise. Yeah. So the number one business marking book I’ve ever read, I’ve read a bunch. I’ve gone to the seminars and it’s called Monopolize Your Marketplace by Rick Harshaw and I think it’s still in print. It may not be, but that’s where I got the formula. Interrupt, educate, educate, interrupt, engage, educate, offer. OK, it takes every bit of marketing. No, how how do you understand what is your key differentiators that set you apart from everyone else has a simple process that you can take it down and actually start to implement and execute on their own. It’s the most amazing marketing book outside of that of another book I’d recommend is called Rhinoceros Success. It’s a great little probably two hour read. And Scott Alexander, I think is the name. But for any agent because I wanted the other. I got a cheat sheet of the questions you’re going to ask me, you know, what do you do that’s different? Well, you suggest and this guy puts in real simple terms, how do you distance yourself from the crown and actually go the way that works better than what everyone else is doing? Yeah. And then a third book that is really influenced me. This will probably be more for teams and top producers, but it’s called Good to Great and it’s a business book. And what they did is they took large corporations and they took a comparison where one went up and one went down and they analyzed it and they came down with, I think, seven different key differentiators on what what works in business that causes you to really get traction and grow and consistently grow those probably the Beatty, the three books that comes to mind.

[00:10:04.18] Yeah, that’s really that’s really strong. I’ve actually read that book a little bit later in my business career. And I’ll tell you, one of one of the things is getting the right people on the bus talked about and some of the things some of the biggest mistakes I’ve made around my entrepreneurship career is surrounding myself with the right people and getting the right people on the bus. And then if they’re giving people an opportunity to work towards their strengths, it talks a lot about that, along with many other things. But it’s a really awesome read. I haven’t read the other ones, but I can I can say that that is a it’s a really awesome read and it’s something that I’ve worked through throughout my career to. So that’s great. Beatty that’s some awesome insight into some different books that have impacted your business. It’s really great.

[00:10:56.11] And let’s this is a very different this is a different question, but I’m trying to I try to it with questions that were just not these the same old like canned questions. Right. So. Right. I know. I know this one’s a little bit different, but hopefully we get some very interesting responses.

[00:11:11.62] So whenever I ask this question, so what purchase of one hundred dollars or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months or so, give or take or so?

[00:11:25.15] I’ll tell you the. The one that comes out is sitting in the corner, it’s a lap desk from Costco and I think it’s five fifteen or twenty dollars, but it’s allowed me to take whatever I do. I had this beautiful deck on the backyard overlooking a gorgeous valley, and we have a swing. And so I can actually now take my work in rather than just working in my lap. I’ve got a little desk there and I’m so much more functional, so much more productive. So that’s probably the biggest thing.

[00:11:56.08] Yeah, that’s awesome. And little things like that make a big difference, especially when you’re growing a business, you know, the little tiny comforts or or I think things that make our life a little bit easier are so important because, you know, for me as an example, I’ve been doing a lot of video shooting lately and I’ve been doing shooting on my phone.

[00:12:16.18] And I found this and I was having problems with like getting certain angles. And I was wasting so much time redoing videos.

[00:12:22.69] And I did that for months, months. And then I came across this this gadget that follows me around.

[00:12:31.03] I love it. Yeah, I’ve seen those.

[00:12:32.44] Yeah, it follows me around and it also helps me get different angles and does a lot of really cool stuff. But no joke. I probably save two hours a week because of this gadget.

[00:12:42.16] So and when you look at your earnings per hour, how many hours you spend and how much money you make, I mean it’s amazing what it saves you.

[00:12:52.18] It’s amazing. So, you know, as you’re as you’re building your business, when things are going right or wrong, it comes down to people process and tools and sometimes little tools like that.

[00:13:02.89] I’ve got to show you one other tool, less than one hundred dollars, the number one most productivity driven driving tool that I’ve ever had.

[00:13:14.00] Yeah, you’re right. Yep. It’s a.

[00:13:19.11] Tunks, 23, Palm Pilot. I still operate out of them all. I’ve got three in the closet in case it breaks.

[00:13:28.95] I’ve got backups on all the software, but I have never found anything just from the task management side of test and stuff that keeps me better organized, more simply. So I actually still carry around a tungsten T3 in here. Here’s kind of the message. They still make those things. No, no. Everything you buy is used and refurbished. And but here’s kind of the message this and this gets a little bit into what else there also is. Newar is not necessarily better.

[00:13:59.85] Ok, better is what is most productive, that constantly drives results, sometimes something newer will produce more results and you shift, but you don’t shift simply because it’s new. You shift when the results tank and you need something, separate the results back up.

[00:14:16.98] That’s some good advice right there, because, you know, we can probably relate that to postcards, too, right?

[00:14:23.58] In some ways. And I know for me, I’m huge on prospecting as being a cornerstone of your business. And sometimes these influencers that are out there right now, they’re almost almost indicating that you don’t necessarily have to follow up or prospect to build a successful business. And there’s some magic pill that does that does it all for you, and that drives me nuts. But that’s a whole different topic. But that’s really that’s really good. I like that. I like you like my Konstanty three. Oh, man, I’m jealous. I’m jealous. Next question would be, is how is failure or I guess a failure? Set you up for later success and do you have any examples that you don’t mind sharing with?

[00:15:10.22] I’ve got a really great example. So when we came out of the shoot, when we retooled our business in 2012 to work with real estate agents, our focus was geographic farming to generate listings. And I thought, oh, this is going to be simple. No one knows how to get a listing. You know, you get all kinds of teaching on how to get buyers. But I couldn’t find anything on how to generate sellers. I said all it is, is direct response. You identify. So we use our formula. We came out with a product and we launched it in the Southeast because that’s where I live. And it just started generating listings all the time. So what’s interesting is as we move from eastern U.S. to western us, the results started to plummet into literally no results. And, you know, now business was predicated. You got to generate listings for our clients and it wasn’t working. So that was a failure that led us into some really deep dives in understanding the psychology behind that homeowner and the psychology behind, you know, here in the south versus out west.

[00:16:20.58] And there’s the difference. And when you boil it down, you and what we pinpointed is there’s there there’s this thing that we’ve labeled a trusting community has to do with that person’s level of willing to trust someone they don’t know versus they do know it. And that then led us into developing some really Nalco. We have this really, well, well-developed content that really helps turn an agent sells around. So we took that that failure. In fact, I had a friend that was working with me back then and he said, Beatty, you know, this thing just a failure. You just need to sell and get out. And I got to know, you know, I know it can work. And and Lauren brought me here just to to bail. And I had taken his advice. We wouldn’t be where we are today and had I because I rejected it, we pushed through it. We figured out what happened. We started to develop content that started to build trust within people and drive even more this and so failure to turn it around.

[00:17:26.81] And now you got great success. Yeah, that’s awesome. And there’s so many there’s so many different directions you can go with that conversation. Like, be careful who you listen to. Yeah, right.

[00:17:37.10] Sometimes people don’t know. You can’t see the full picture, but also sometimes we have to listen. Right. So there’s that fine balance and and there’s a decision making process that I think we know that I think every entrepreneur needs to have hammered out. They need to have a specific.

[00:17:58.46] You know, a specific strategy to make wise decisions, right, because if you made a different decision. You know, you would have never been able to experience the results that you’ve experienced, right? Yeah. And and there’s you know, also with that is I knew. Whatever was the obstacle could be overcome, right?

[00:18:20.52] My mom was living in La La Land and fully I wasn’t living in la la land. I knew the value of it takes so hard to get here. You don’t just throw the baby out with the bathwater. You know, sometimes I remember one of our clients, our name is Fran, 15, 20 years in real estate. Her business is just tight. And she was so depressed she was about to quit. And and this isn’t tooting my horn, but she started using us in this thing that we did to generate listing leads. And in six, six months, she made one hundred thousand in commission. Next six months, one hundred thousand. And it just tore it up and it rejuvenated her business and and she was about to throw it all away. Right. I mean, you’ve worked so hard, you don’t give up quickly or you’ll always give up quickly. So stick with it.

[00:19:09.19] Yeah, it’s really good because again, usually whatever goal you’re trying to go after of other people, if others have done it and been successful at it.

[00:19:17.44] And it’s not something crazy like you’re trying to invent a different way to get to the moon, right, than than usually. Usually it can be fixed.

[00:19:25.30] It can be it can you know, if you’re willing to go through the season of learning. And that’s when it goes back to it’s either the people, the process of the tools. And if you can just figure out and be willing to hold on to you, figure out which one it is, then that’s when you’ll see the results, just like that story that you told. So it’s really good.

[00:19:44.95] Well, you know, on that same note, so the business I started in 97 was attempt number 11. There you go. So it’s you know, I knew I could, you know, and you just keep working until you till you make it. That’s right. That’s exactly that’s really, really good. It’s really good.

[00:20:07.02] I could go another direction there. But I’m going to go on to the next question, because there’s a lot of wisdom there, too. Yes.

[00:20:12.93] Next question is, what if you had a gigantic billboard? What would you say on.

[00:20:22.48] The world see the billboard, what would you say on, honestly, the scriptural base, if I can go that direction or I just want to be sensitive to who is out there? I love the Lord Jesus and it would say Jesus loves you.

[00:20:40.63] Ok, awesome. That’s good.

[00:20:42.97] So any anything anything else. Because obviously, you know, whether whether your faith, faith based or not and this is what these interviews are about. It’s raw and real and you’re you’re getting to know a person. And so I want to encourage people to state what they believe. And other people don’t have to believe that. But when I do these interviews, it’s all about this person and what’s got them to where they are. And so I don’t mind you, Sharon, at all, Beatty OK for any country. People either can choose to like the message or not. They don’t. That’s their choice, too. Just like it’s your choice to talk about what you what what made an impact on your life.

[00:21:17.77] So, you know, the other question, the other one you about to lead into, if I’ll take the second message and they just never quit. Yeah. You know, things seem darkest just before the dawn.

[00:21:31.72] And there’s been twice now that I’ve almost gone. I felt I was going into bankruptcy. And one time they’re actually interviewing bankruptcy attorneys. And what’s interesting is it’s, you know, giving up is the easiest thing you can do. That’s the hardest thing you can do, because once you give up, then you have to live with that decision the rest of your life and the repercussions. And had I given up then everything I had built and invest in my life and would have been gone and had to I’d have to start at zero is easier to take what you have, even if it’s just a little bit and hang on to it in the hope and the expectation that you can make it turn around. And then once it starts to turn around, you’ve learned so much. And so that be my next my second one, which, you know, just never quit and never give up.

[00:22:24.28] Yeah, that’s so strong. Usually when it’s the worst, you’re on the edge of a breakthrough. That’s what gives me comfort personally, is if I’m if I’m if I’m feeling that what you’re talking about, that feeling like should I keep going right now? I don’t know what it is, but usually usually I take a look. I take I’ve learned to take a little bit of comfort in that because I’ve learned that if I don’t give up and I keep pushing and I look at things from a different angle, I keep asking questions, I keep seeking the advice, whatever it may be, the breakthrough. I mean, that’s so close, right? So so just keep that in mind, especially if you’re ramping your real estate business up or you’re going you’re going to run into different challenges at different phases of your business. For me, when we were building our brokerage, it was a lot different when we had three agents compared to twenty. And then now that we are have a branch in Florida, it’s different than when we had 20 to two hundred. Same thing with employees, right? When I had five employees, my challenges were different than when I had one hundred employees. Right. So life has different phases and you got to try to learn and adapt to what’s in front of you. Right. And so that’s I think that’s really important. And Beatty next question here would be more along the lines of investing, not necessarily financially, but, you know, what do you think the most worthwhile investment you’ve ever made? And it doesn’t have to be a financial investment like in a stock, but just any investment overall.

[00:24:00.01] Yeah, well, when I think a financial investment or when I think of investment, really the simple answer when I was looking at that is investing in me and my business. Now, whether it’s the the schooling, not not not formal schooling like this is the school of hard knocks.

[00:24:20.89] Ok, you know, one of the greatest investments as a business owner, there’s a group called Vistage and it’s a group of CEOs that meet in small groups. I would have been out of business and thousand and two roughly had I not joined that and actually learned what running a business was all about. But that’s all investing in myself and investing in the work that I do as a business owner. I can look at taking my cash and investing it in stocks or taking that cash and investing it back in my business and the things that will grow it. And I’ll get infinitely higher return investing in my business where not only I have control and passion, but where I have more leverage than anything over in the stock world. And that investment in the business is not only investing in tools and technology, but most importantly, investing in me because my business is me. You know, it’s a manifestation of me at.

[00:25:20.80] Orange, that reminds me of something of a book I read that Warren Buffett wrote. He said The number one investment that I’ve ever made, and this is a billionaire, right? Was the investor investing in myself. That’s something that he went out of his way to do consistently. And, you know, Warren Buffett says it and Beatty Carmichael says that we might better we might better listen.

[00:25:41.77] Yeah, I’ve got to tell you, I got to tell you this one story that resonates because this is where I learned it. This very wealthy businessman was sharing a convention and he said he was in New York City. He was riding in the taxicab and in the front seat of the taxi cab where all these financial books. And so he’s talking cab driver said, what? All those years I’m learning to get my securities license. I want to start investing and and they start talking in this cab driver had five or seven other cabs that he had other people driving for, and he was asking this wealthy businessman, where should I invest my money? And he made this comment has never left me. He said, you keep reinvesting in yourself until you hit the point of diminishing returns and only then the invest somewhere else.

[00:26:28.54] So powerful. That’s so powerful. That’s a really good like that a lot. All right, next question is what beliefs, behaviors, habits related to business have improved your life overall?

[00:26:49.34] I know. Yeah, I have a pattern you will never catch, you won’t set an appointment before ten, thirty or eleven o’clock in the morning when I tell you I didn’t start my workday until about 12 or 12, 30 that day, which is not atypical either.

[00:27:09.08] So the most important thing in terms of the pattern that I do is the first part of my day. I, I have a quiet time, but it’s also it’s when I plan my day and I plan the strategy. So I’ve got to list going. I’ve got my long term strategic critical path of where what what needs to be accomplished. And then I have my daily task items. And every day I’m constantly matching them up and making sure that the stuff I’m working on a day is the most important thing for my number one critical strategic task.

[00:27:45.38] And these interviews that I’ve been doing, it’s it’s interesting. It’s a common trend of people saying, you know, the planning part is such a huge part in their overall quality of their own life and also the success of their business and priority priority is so huge. You want to talk about time and opportunity costs, right. And, you know, it’s so easy to get caught up, not focused on the most important thing. Yeah.

[00:28:15.59] I want to share one of the things because it ties into that. So I’ll go in my calendar and block out days that no interruptions, no appointments, because my personality, you and I are different personalities. You’re the 90 miles a minute to 20 different things and juggle them all. I juggle one thing at a time, you know, so I have to get a lot of space and it’s all block out the time and not allow interruptions because those interruptions just destroy everything. So I guard my time really, really diligent.

[00:28:47.69] Yeah, I think that’s an important point because you have to know yourself first, right. And how you function. Everyone functions a little bit differently and and build a system and a process around how you function best and work towards your strengths and have a plan that helps you work toward your strengths. I think it’s really, really important because.

[00:29:04.88] No to no, no to to people functio think the same way. Right. So that’s really good. What advice would you give? Maybe there’s a lot of you know, there’s a lot of real estate professionals that are ramping up.

[00:29:19.55] And I know you work with a broad, diverse client base, but for somebody who is really driven, driven real estate professional, they want to succeed. What’s what’s the real world advice that you could give that that type of person?

[00:29:37.34] Yeah. Number one, stay close to your personal contacts. You know, everywhere you look at all the studies and you talk to all the top agents and the majority of their business comes from past clients and sphere of influence.

[00:29:53.93] And so you really have to nurture that. And nurturing it is strategic. It is deliberate. It’s deigning it’s not just sending stuff like an email or a postcard, though.

[00:30:06.86] I vote for postcards a lot, but it goes along much farther than that. It’s being willing to call them up, be a friend, say hi. The second thing is, is once you you know, you can grow your business organically that way. But if you want to shoot it up, you’ve got to go outside to the cold market and most agents don’t. OK, and so do I. Remember one of my early clients. In fact, he’s how you and I met. His name is Josh Josh. And when we started working with him after he was a three year agent doing 100 transactions a year. And and I finally interviewed him on my podcast and I started to learn the background and he just took all this money, everything, and he would put it into marketing and advertising and he just drove business. He’s not the the and I will say this in front. He’s not the sharpest real estate agent that I don’t mean he’s not sharp. It’s not that he grew because of some magnet’s magnetic personality. You know, he ran it as a business. Yeah.

[00:31:16.89] And that’s so important, too. And that’s what the sales and marketing saw. And what we teach is all about is if you look at our flywheel methodology that we teach and when you look at your business as a whole, our responsibility is to get attention and keep attention in our businesses and keep attention long enough to give them a great clinical experience and earn their business so that they want to help us do the same thing. And it’s like that’s what Josh did, is he just had a really good sales and marketing plan. He executed on it. He drove and he drove business.

[00:31:51.24] And it helped make him successful and he wasn’t afraid to experiment. So he came to us and then I’m not sure how great he was, OK, how he came to us in the first year of our marketing in his particular area, our postcards produced no results for him for an entire year. And so he called me up and he said, Beatty, I believe this can work, but I need some help. Can you help make it work? Is there anything else you can do? So here’s a guy. He just spent thousands of dollars, got zero results, but he wasn’t going to give up quite so quickly and said, well, this is just after we identified that there’s this TRUSTe thing so well, we’re working on this thing to build trust. Let’s experiment with it. We started to put it in place with his in his farm and within four months of editing it, fully engaged. He was getting two listings every single week. Wow. Totally turned around and then he started business with you. And so one of the things that was really interesting, this is the key, I think, was him and others that I’ve seen, he’s not afraid to risk an investment to see if it works. And so he he he doesn’t you know, most agents, they’re afraid they look at their money as their own pocketbook, you know, you know, I’m paying I’m giving you a car payment. And I could have had that card for myself. He doesn’t look at it that way. He’s building a business and he’s going to test he’s going to see what works. And if it’s not working before he throws it out, he’s going to say, I think something can work. Let’s work on a little bit more.

[00:33:35.05] Yeah, I think it’s really powerful as a as a person who is building themself in building a business for somebody that sees money as a finite resource. It’s really hard to build a business with that mindset, even though you’ve got to be you’ve got to be careful and strong with your resources, but money needs to be a tool. It needs. It’s a it’s a huge part of growth. And sometimes that comes with having to take educated risks. And sometimes you have to be prepared. Things are going to work out. Some things aren’t. But money can also replenish itself, right? It’s not like time where you can’t get it back. And that’s, I think, a really powerful principle. Being a professional in any business is to remember remember that about money. Right. And so and also when you are investing it, that’s why it’s so important to invest in yourself, because you get reoccurring consistent returns as long as you do the right things with what you’ve invested. So good stuff. Next question. What advice do you think people should be ignoring right now?

[00:34:49.80] Well, everyone else does it that way.

[00:34:52.83] It begins with that.

[00:34:55.20] Yeah, if everyone if you hear that, run the other way. Right. Miles is doing it right. You definitely do not want to make your decisions off of off of that. Usually we all go there.

[00:35:07.53] But that’s really good. That’s really good. What what do you think some harmful recommendations that you’re are you hearing from from real estate professionals in the community in your area of expertize?

[00:35:24.15] You know, that’s a good one. And I don’t have a good answer because I’ll be honest, I’m not listening to many people. No, no. I don’t know how to say this. And I hope it comes out well. I don’t know many people in my niche of of marketing that’s really pushing the envelope that I’m out there less because I don’t know I don’t know that they really exist. I know there are some great people in social media that know how to get the message out. There are some great people elsewhere. But in my niche, I haven’t found anything. So I’m not. I really don’t have a good answer to that one, I apologize.

[00:36:07.90] Yeah, one of the things that I one of the things that I think I see a lot of companies in your field pushes graphics over messaging, right? Yes, for sure. You know, I think it’s I think it’s a big one, which I think you’re going to train on that. So we won’t give that away today.

[00:36:20.65] But OK, can I can I share what we’re going to say? I did. I won’t feel. I’ll tell you the sizzle. Not this day. OK, so we mailed over two million postcards testing twenty one different split marketing tests and over thirty seven different message variations to understand what really works.

[00:36:38.35] At the beginning of my session, we’re going to go through the most important split marketing test that I did that, you know. So split marketing test, as you probably know I say, is where you take you’re doing the same marketing except the only change, one variable, the headline, the color, the font. And we start we found things that would change the impact of results. Two hundred three hundred, eight hundred, eight hundred fifty percent. And when I look at agents today, they’re totally ruining their opportunity for driving results because they just don’t understand this. In fact, we’re about to pick up an account just here locally. The guys are going to be spending three thousand dollars a month with us. He’s a he’s a team leader. And I’m driving past his sign. He has a for sale sign at a house. And it was so beautifully designed graphics, I couldn’t even read his name. And I’m driving by and that’s the most important thing. So I call him up and say, you know, can I get you some marketing advice?

[00:37:45.34] And actually showing this split marketing to us and say this is no one’s ever will even read your name on your sign. And people go to graphics and they just forget that is all about it’s in fact, this is something really interesting. Let me just tell you. So they did a test. You know, there’s two types of fonts. I get excited when the stuff I found, but this is where people mess up. So there are two types of fonts. You have Serif and Sanseverino. The difference between those. Yes. OK, so sad for those who don’t know. Got a little curlicues, OK. And censorship is real straight up and down. So in my age group, I don’t know about you. You’re a little bit younger than me, but I’m in mid 50s, so most of the real estate agents out there, most of the people who are selling a home that other than a starter home, they’re going to be in this age group that they’ve grown up reading, newspapers, magazines, print, things of that sort. And it’s always a Sarah font. And so they did a study, they found out how the readership of Sarah versus sans serif tariff therapies, about 100 percent readership sans serif is 80 percent. But the comprehension of what was read is a more on serif and sans serif. And so just little things like that that when we’re communicating to our clients is are we communicating a way that they see it, they read it, they comprehend it, that they choose to act on it.

[00:39:11.77] And sounds like a really interesting training. So it’s going to be great. I can’t wait to hear the material. If you’re watching this on recording after the summit, you definitely purchased the training and the recordings because I mean, these are the type of thing, this type of stuff you’re probably not going to hear anywhere else in depth sales and marketing strategies. And that’s just one example of what Beatty is going to be talking about.

[00:39:36.40] So awesome. Next question. What?

[00:39:44.34] How do I ask this, how do you every entrepreneur has to say no, right? So. How how do you become better at saying no and what approaches do you recommend to you that you that you could share that have helped you over the past five years so you don’t get too distracted towards your goals?

[00:40:08.19] So I read a book, actually listened to it on Audible on Steve Jobs. This was shortly about the time he died, I think, and what was written prior to that. And it was talking in the part that stood out the most to me was his ability to say no to good things. So you wouldn’t have the time and the focus on great things. And when he took over Apple, after they brought him back, the first thing he did is he killed all of the extraneous product lines that were profitable, making money. But they were they were sapping the corporate energy from being great. Wow. And then he had a vision of where this could go. And as people would bring good ideas to them, they were always good, but they weren’t the greatest. And so he would say no to those to stay focused on the great with me. I’d try to apply that same thing. You know, people come to me with these good ideas how we can improve our stuff. And I’ve learned that you can’t do them all. In fact, one of the things that took me almost out of business and this also all this Steve Jobs and me almost going bankrupt, all kind of were about a similar time frame in my so first 15 years of our business, we were serving a different professional professional in the consumer marketing groups. And we we try to become a jack of all trades as opposed to master of one. And so within our system, you could get all kinds of tools and services. We were great at one set. All these others. There were competitors that were much better than we were. And this goes back to good to great to find out where your your hedgehog concept is. And so when we retool and launch back into the real estate industry. You know, the easy thing was no to everything except one thing driving listings that doesn’t find listings, the answer is no. And if it doesn’t drive listings within the confines that we’re wired to do, we want to let someone else play in that in that sandbox.

[00:42:14.84] But for us, it’s one thing where we do well, and that’s really it’s really good Beatty. And that’s for you to bring that back into real estate. You’re going to get you’ve got to make sure that whatever you’re signing up to or whatever you’re listening to or whatever seminar you’re going to, it matches your business plan. And if your business plan is to get more listings and you want to dominate the listing side of the business, you can’t get too distracted doing too many other things because you have to be able to master the system and master the process. And to be great, it requires focus. Right. And it’s not to say that you can’t move on. And this is the biggest misconception about entrepreneurship is that it’s not to say that you can’t move on. And if you can find somebody else, maybe then maybe hire a listing agent to do that. And it’s your take over that niche for you want to go do something else or set up another niche. It just means for a period of time until you have the right people, other people in place, you have to stay focused on it. And I’ve made that mistake in a big way where in business is very big and doing a lot of different things at one time and not having the right people in place to do it, thinking I could do it all. And then it gets to a certain point. Right. You can’t. And next thing you know, you want to talk about diminishing returns. Your time and opportunity costs are insane. Your your operational costs are insane. Your generation isn’t getting that. There’s so many things that are going wrong, because if you really want to scale a business and run and run an effective sales and marketing plan, you know, it requires focus. Right. And so I love such great advice.

[00:43:50.96] Beatty is to stay focused until until one. Well, you’ll know until it’s generating a certain amount of profits, number one. Number two, until you have somebody else in place that can focus on it for you. Somebody’s got to focus on it, right, and until you have something that’s going to bring you to greatness, that’s even better than what you’re doing. So keep focusing until you no longer need a focus. That’s right. That’s right. So. Next question. This is the last one when you’re feeling overwhelmed and maybe unfocussed. Do you have anything that’s practical that people can do apply to get themselves back on track?

[00:44:45.75] You know, I get that a lot because for me, when I had too many things coming at me, I just kind of implode. Or if I if I’m trying to juggle a couple of critical things all at one time, what I find is the best thing for me when I feel I get in, that I call it a mental funk. I just put up and I go take a 15, 20 minute walk through the neighborhood, just clear out my brain, come back. And what’s interesting is I’m doing that. My brain’s working in this processing kind of behind the scenes. I always carry my Thompson through with this recorder because I’m making all these verbal notes. Or I can actually say I do have a current technology, I got an android and I’m using that stuff and I’m jotting notes down as they come. But I just go clear my brain and come back and focus right back at work again.

[00:45:40.87] Yeah, that’s really that’s really powerful, but everyone needs some. Everyone needs some sort of mechanism that is healthy that they can they can use to refocus. And I think that’s a really a really great one. It’s something that I started doing recently after covid when I was sort of working. Coolmore is doing the same thing. Beatty is just purposely and intentionally getting outside. There’s something about the outdoors that will that will refocus somebody and bring perspective.

[00:46:09.34] And I think that’s really, really strong advice. That’s awesome. Beatty, would you like to leave us off with anything before we end the interview?

[00:46:18.94] If you have any interest at all in driving, listing’s consistently. If you’re willing to do any investment at all to do something more than just pick up the phone and call someone you know, you really need to come to what I want to teach because and you also need to buy the book on the monopolizing marketplace, because once you understand the foundations of what works, then you can just run with it and drive this. And some I encourage you, you need to show out Beatty.

[00:46:50.89] Thanks a lot for taking the time to do this interview. I know you have a lot going on and I look forward to interacting and talking with you soon down the road.

[00:46:59.59] Very good. You have a blessed day, too. Thanks.

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