In this episode, Greg McDaniel from The McDaniel Callahan Team with eXp in San Francisco discusses the beginning of his career in real estate. He emphasizes the importance of humanizing your relationship with your clients and not using scripts in your conversations. Greg also talks about how he stays attentive of his clients’ life events. Next, Greg shares how to blend high-tech and high-touch to reach people. Last, Greg talks about videos, how to get more comfortable in front of the camera and some content ideas for agents looking to do video in 2021.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Greg McDaniel can be reached at greg@gregmcdaniel.com.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer Greg McDaniel. Before we get to that want to ask everybody to continue to help support our show in two ways. First, tell a friend think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing these episodes with these top producers who share all of their secrets and send them a link to our show. If the person that you’re sending to is not a podcast person, no problem, they can go directly to our website and stream every episode right from a browser. And that is keeping it real pod.com. If they are a podcast listener, just have them pull up their podcast app search for keeping it real and we should pop right up. And the second thing you can do to help keep our show going is Find us on and follow us on Facebook, you can find us@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. Every single day we find an article that’s been written online specifically helping agents grow their business. And of course we post all of our episodes for the podcast there as well. We hope everyone is staying happy and healthy through this holiday season and into 2021. Thanks for being a listener and a supporter of our show. We love you and we will continue to make these episodes as long as you keep listening. So thanks so much. And onto our episode with Greg McDaniel.
Alright, today on the show we have Greg McDaniel from the McDaniel Callahan team of EXP in the San Francisco Bay area of California. Greg is also the host of the super popular real estate podcast called Real Estate uncensored. Let me tell you a little bit about Greg he grew up in in real estate real estate family learn the business firsthand from his father Terry was affectionately known as the grandmaster. Greg learned the old school fundamentals of salesmanship from door knocking cold calls script and dialogue. Combined with his passion for the latest technology and social media. Greg has created a blend of high tech and high touch that allows him to regularly sell million dollar plus homes in the East Bay with over 21 years in the business and over this is incredible. It’s even hard for me to say it because it just gives me anxiety to say this number. The number is 450,000 cold calls again. I’m gonna say 450,000 Actually more than 450,000 Cold Calls under his belt. Greg has truly earned the nickname The junior Grandmaster please everyone listening or watching subscribe to real estate uncensored, pull up a podcast app search for real estate uncensored and it will pop right up. It’s on every platform. So you’ll find it there. Greg, welcome to the show. Super excited to have you.
Greg McDaniel 3:41
DJ, thank you so much for the incredibly kind entry on that one. And yes, you know, it was crazy back when I was doing my cold calls on as an aggressive young agent. I was doing 500 to 750 phone calls per day. Dude, I did it in batches, every 250 phone calls, I had to go take a break my brain had to numb out and everything else. But you know, I grew up door knocking I was a screwball that I came out of college, which I flunked out of college actually. And this is the very widely known thing. I’m dyslexic and ADHD. And so my dad’s like, hey, dum, dum, come work with me. And I’m like, I don’t want to work with you. That’s what old people do. Your old people do real estate. And he’s like, Yeah, okay, anyways, enough. Come on, work with me. And so I was such a screwball that I, my first year in the real estate business, I didn’t work with a client, I was literally door knocking, I was doing 100 to 200 doors a day, coming back writing letters, and then doing calls to our database on a consistent basis. So, I mean, when you talk about bootstrapping it, oh, humbly, like, that is exactly where I came from. That’s why I can talk about this and laugh about it because everyone says, Oh, my God, this business is so hard. I’m like, No, the business isn’t hard. You just don’t work. Okay? You got to put the hustle on. You got to do the grind. You got to do the things that people don’t want to see don’t want to do get to things or do the things that are unsexy. And in that Nobody will ever take credit for. But guess what, that’s what makes success is being in the background when nobody wants to be back there and doing the things nobody wants to do. And then waking up on Monday, doing it on Monday, do it on Tuesday, do it on Wednesday, do it on Thursday, do it on Friday, do it on Saturday, take Sunday off because it’s the Lord’s Day. And you know, go out and have some fun and drink a couple of beers. That’s just real estate.
D.J. Paris 5:21
Yeah, you just said a whole lot. And I want to unpack some of that, because you just gave a lot of wisdom. And I want to give a couple of anecdotes myself, so I started a million years ago, I was a financial advisor. And I remember my this was I was at a white glove firm, one of the top firms or at least perceived as one of the top firms. But the reality was, I got there, they gave me a phonebook. And and this is a prestigious firm, they’re like start dialing and I used to, we would have to make a minimum of 200 dials a day, and imagine like real estate’s one thing, because everyone’s got to live somewhere. Of course, by the way, not an easy call, either, however, going, Hey, by the way, I’d like to manage 100% of your net worth over the phone, is if we weren’t selling stocks, we were like trying to become true, you know, get their entire net worth. And that was just I mean, every call. Nobody ever said yes. But then I’d leave voicemails and once in a while people would return the call. And it was in a way. It was kind of nice, because even though I today I wouldn’t do that approach. I don’t think that would work as a financial advisor. Today, I think it’s just too tricky, especially with can spam or sorry, especially with the the do not call. But I will tell you that it gave me a discipline of like, oh, all I have to do is just do this. And yeah, I’m gonna get failure all day long. But eventually, someone’s going to call me back. And I think that discipline is sort of lost today, especially for real estate agents that aren’t necessarily given a blueprint like that and door knocking Oh, my goodness, like that’s an that’s an even next level. You know, cold calling is one thing door knocking is, is incredibly scary, but I guess after you do it for a day or two, it’s probably not scary at all, it just becomes, well, I’m just gonna get the door slammed in my face once in a while. And that’s just how it goes.
Greg McDaniel 7:05
You know, the funny thing is that most people 97% of the time you’re gonna have a failure rate when it comes to real estate because only 3% of the time people are gonna actually going to want to talk about real estate at that exact moment. So knowing that and being okay with that and going out there and doing that is one thing. You know, when I was when I used to do door knocking now that we’re in COVID, or whenever you’re gonna listen to this, you understand what I’m saying? You know what I used to bitch about going door knocking like, gosh, dang it like this effing sucks. And then I realized, like, hold on, pump the brakes, homeboy. Let’s let’s look at this real quick. What am I doing? I’m outside. I’m in fresh air. I have sun on my face, and I’m controlling my day. Why am I upset about this? Because someone’s gonna say no, when other people are having to do like two to three TPS reports with six managers breathing down their necks with a pipe in air and you know, for lesson lights on their on their on their faces all day long. And like, oh, that’s actually pretty good. Although I will tell you one story and we’ll get we’ll get back please. To the to the to the good stuff. Two stories. Actually, this happened in one day, by the way. I was door knocking in place I live in a city called Alamo, which is in the East Bay very ritzy area. Why don’t live I grew up there. But um, I was walking down this cul de sac and I was kind of in my own brain. I wasn’t really thinking about much. And all of a sudden I look up and I’m not kidding you, dude. There’s probably 150 to 170 pound Pitbull standing middle of the other cul de sac. And I’m like, Oh, shit. That’s the house I have to go to. And he just looks at me real slow. Like, like, Huh, you look like a good T bone. And I just said, okay, and almost can smell fear. Don’t freak out. Just walk past and say nice doggy. So I walked past him said nice Dougie, walk there. Like nobody answered. Dog didn’t move on. Like, buy doggy. Now, in a walk past, I was sweating bullets when I get out of the cul de sac. And I’m just like dying. And I’m like, okay, the day cannot get any worse than this. Right? So I do a couple more streets. And I come around to another cul de sac. And I remember this house so distinctly, and I get in there and I see. This old man comes to the front door and he’s in a wheelchair. And I’m like, Hello, sir. My name is Greg McDaniel. I’m with bla bla bla yackety smack Realty yatta yatta. And he had a towel over his lap, and he pulls a towel back. There’s a 44 Magnum revolver sitting on his lap and he’s like, so what do you want? I said absolutely nothing. Goodbye.
D.J. Paris 9:40
I thought you were gonna go a different direction with you when he pulled the towel back over his lap. But but either way both very scary. Both both equally scary.
Greg McDaniel 9:50
Things you want to see? No, I think
D.J. Paris 9:53
well, maybe not equally scary, but definitely scared. That boy that’s That’s hysterical. Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s funny like um, Back to the financial advisor role. I know oh, gosh, I can’t remember the name of the Raymond James. I think Raymond James is this financial advisory firm. And that was their whole thing. And I remember, I even interviewed with them before I went with the firm that I went with. And they were like, how do you feel about door knocking? And I was like, Yeah, I don’t want to do that. They were like, well, don’t come here. Because we that’s what we do. And and as I look back, I live in a big city. So it wouldn’t really work that well, anyway, here in Chicago would have been trickier. But, you know, I think it’s such a great just a great way to get some discipline under your belt and understand that failure is not that big of a deal. Like it just isn’t. And but you don’t know that until you just, you know, get that hang up, or that door slam enough times where you’re like, oh, this doesn’t really matter. Like, it’s just no big deal.
Greg McDaniel 10:45
Yeah, it’s no big deal at all. My father. He’s been in he’s an OG of the business has been in it for 49 years, like you said in the intro. He actually got started in Boulder, Colorado, he and my mom met in Boulder at a college. And after he married my mother, he literally I mean, literally had no money. And so what he did in the snow, he we call it his clown suit. He’d put on this like $50 suit, and which is all he could afford. He put on his galoshes, and he would go out door knocking in the snow every single day. And the way he went, he thought about it was this, he’s like, you know, everybody’s sick. And I’m a doctor, and I’m here to cure them. You know, I and his brother had polio. So he said, You know what, I had the cure for polio. And everybody likes me. They just don’t know me yet. And so if you wouldn’t do this every single stinking day, and he his business exploded. He’s one of the biggest, you know, agents in Boulder, Colorado for a long period of time, he got the biggest IBM account ever awarded to an agent. And it’s all because he went out there and he met people and he didn’t he wasn’t afraid of hearing the word. No, the word no only holds power when you let it hold power. And a lot of us allow it to hold power. Because Forgive me for saying this. We’re a bunch of snowflakes. You know, everybody’s got no, you know, their feelings get hurt so easily when in reality, do just man up my grandfather went to the Vietnam war in Vietnam, he went to the Korean War. And you know, he was out there at 18 years old with a gun on his on his back, you know, storming beaches. And a lot of folks get afraid of hearing the word no, we don’t want to sell and they get they want to cry and go into a corner. It’s like, I’m not faulting for anybody for having feelings. Don’t get me wrong. What I am saying is toughen up a little bit, this business will this is the meat grinding, bone crushing industry better have the freaking, you know, the huevos to walk through the fire because you are going to get burned. I guarantee you on that one.
D.J. Paris 12:40
Yeah, and there’s a lot of things that are just going to hurt, you’re going to be scared when you want to pick up the phone and call that client that you haven’t talked to in a few years. And you know, you sort of dropped the ball, but you want to reconnect, it’s gonna freak you out, you’re gonna get freaked out when your buddy who what goes with a different realtor instead of you, or a deal falls through or a million things that are going to go wrong. It’s all going to happen and you’re going to feel crappy about it. But the real the idea of feeling that that those awful feelings and still doing the work is really all that you need to do. You just need to keep going.
Greg McDaniel 13:13
Yeah, you need to keep going. I’ll tell you a very funny story. And I will get back on tracks. I know I go sideways, a billion times the one I had a number of years ago, probably 787 or eight years ago, my buddy Nick calls me up and I’ve known him since high school in junior high and he goes, Hey, Greg, you know, my wife and I, we want to sell our house, would you come over and list it? I said not. Friday afternoon. I said not a problem. I’m with my current girlfriend. And you know, she and I are headed down to Monterey. I won an award and they’re gonna give us a hotel for the weekend. And I’ll come back on Monday. I’m gonna list the house. He’s like, cool. I call him on Monday. Hey, Nick, when you want me to come over, oh, well, you didn’t act fast enough. And so we listed with somebody else, and I’m like, wow, what the shit just happened. Comes come to find out his mom, who is a real estate agent referred one of her friends, I was gonna charge them 5% She charged 6% She then got a 25% referral fee. And I’m like, you understand I could have saved you a full percent plus the other referral fee and you would have made more money. He’s like, y’all. And you know, I’ll tell you one thing that was the first time I ever experienced that it hurt. But guess what, grow up? It happens. It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen. Yeah, and it’s just
D.J. Paris 14:25
one of those things where I think, you know, emotionally you know, we’re going to go through peaks and valleys and if you can just every day say here’s, you know, like, whether it’s cold calls door knocking, whether it’s getting on social media and commenting on people you know, so that they remember what it is you do and who you are or whatever it is. Your daily activities are getting to the gym, you know, whatever playing with your kids, whatever it is, if you just know that no matter what happens, weird stuffs gonna happen today. Some good some bad, but I still have to get this stuff done. And if you could just get that stuff done. It just helps smooth out the ride. It does
Greg McDaniel 14:59
you know Gary Vee When Matt and I, my podcast co host on my show, when he and I started our show almost five years, five, five and a half years ago, whatever it is, he and I looked around, we’re like, do you think anybody’s gonna listen to us? And we’re like, I don’t know, do you still want to do it? Right? Like, yeah, we do on that cool. And so we looked around, we said, Okay, who else is doing something like this? And we looked at Gary Vee, and we said, Okay, how long did it take for Gary Vee to get to where he is. And his first couple of years, it took them 18 months to get any kind of traction. And this is when he was filming downstairs, in a basement with a video recorder then having to upload it into YouTube. Sure. And so anything that’s good is going to take time is it gonna be your prospecting is gonna be your videos, it can be your your social media game is gonna be your door, knocking your calls, your you know, whatever it’s going to be, it’s going to take time, it just, you have to accept that and just go with it.
D.J. Paris 15:56
Yeah, I know, when I started the show, my boss, I talked about it for years, I said, somebody needs to start interviewing top producers. And there wasn’t a show that it was doing it at the time. Or I couldn’t find one. If there was one, I couldn’t find it. And so I said, I can do that. And he said, here’s the deal. And he’s my boss at my real estate at the real estate company. org. And he goes, You have to commit to doing it for at least a year. And and then and then he goes, Why don’t you think about it before you do it and really decide if you can do that, you know, with with like, probably not many listeners. And for the first year, we didn’t have many listeners at all. And so it’s taken years and years. Same Same as in Gary Vee and your case as well. It just takes time and but but the good news is all I have to do is just consistently do this. And thankfully people are responding to it. People respond to your show as well. Real Estate uncensored. And of course Gary Vee is a legend in the podcasting world as well. But But anyway, that’s all it is, is just daily consistent activity. But let’s let’s talk about some of the things that you that you are really specialized in. I would love to talk about blending sort of high tech and high touch and sort of how does that work to reach more people online?
Greg McDaniel 17:06
Sure. I mean, what would you like to know? Um, there’s a lot of things that I do I do a show, I call it viewers and calls. And it’s when I go drink a beer, not beers, just, it just sounded better word beers and calls. I drink a beer and I go Facebook Live. And I go to a YouTube Live as well. And I do live prospecting calls. You know, I go out and I go door knocking. And I just tried to bring people from online to offline as fast as humanly possible. Because that’s where the relationships are made, especially during this time that we’re living through it the pandemic, people are starving for human connection. And I found that doing calls people are not, you know, hanging up on you anymore. They’re like, Oh, my gosh, like, human, an adult? Yes. Let’s have a conversation. What do you want to talk about? And they’re willing to discuss different options, as long as you have a good demeanor, and you’re not sounding scripted. And one of the things about being scripted has been unscripted. I know a lot of people are gonna like they’re scratching the top of their heads right now going like, what in the blank blank is this guy talking about? And you know, one of the things that we do to take people offline and start building that relationship and go in high tech, high touch really quickly, is they try to humanize myself as much as possible by talking about, you know, different things that they’re interested in. So this is, you know, I view a script as a backbone, we have different vertebrae, and our backbone is a certain length, and there’s certain things we want to achieve, but to also attach to that backbone, our ribs. So the ribs are going to be the side subjects. So DJ, if you and I are talking. And you’re like, Oh, dude, I live in Chicago, like we talked about in the pre show. I’m like, Oh, I’ve never been to Chicago, tell me by like, what would you hotdogs is really as good as I was here. And I live in San Francisco. And you’re like, Well, I’ve been to San Francisco several times. And then you and I banter back and forth. And that’s the rib side, right? We’re building relationship, but I can we can still bring it back to the core conversation and then get interested in the other human being as soon as you interest in the human other human being. They become interested in you because you’re showing some you know, an admiration for them. It’s I know, it sounds simplistic, but it’s very easy to do guys as long as you get out of your own way. And then you know what you say, You know what, DJ, you know, you and I, you sound like a really cool, man. I’ve never met you before, but I mean, would it be? I mean, do you like beer or coffee? What’s your favorite one? Coffee? Okay, great, man. Ken, what’s your favorite coffee shop?
D.J. Paris 19:25
Starbucks? I’m pretty easy.
Greg McDaniel 19:27
Okay, great, man. Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we get together all by a Starbucks gonna go face to face and see all I can help you grow your business. Would that be okay with you? Sounds good. There it is. That is exactly. That’s all you have to do. Take it from online to offline high tech to high touch. And here’s the simple simple, simple question that nobody get asked and DJ. DJ, I want to get your opinion on it. When’s the last time you got to ask this question? DJ you know I do a lot of calls and do a lot of proactive marketing like that being see right now because we’re having a conversation You know, how can I help you grow your business? What would your perfect client look like? And then shut up? Right? You let them die?
D.J. Paris 20:09
I, you know, it’s so funny. So I have heard many years ago, the when I was a financial advisor 20 plus years ago, they they brought in these consultants to help us with a very similar thing to what you’re talking about. And I don’t want to piggyback on it, because what you just said was really, really powerful. And what they what they recommended, was a very similar approach, which was to say, hey, like, for example, you’re working with, let’s say, well, your wife’s a physician, so we’ll just use doctors as an example. So I worked with your wife, she was she was my client, I helped her find, you know, you know, a doctor thing, Doctor thing. Oh, and I said, you know, hey, hey, Mike’s bikes and bikes. Let’s, let’s assume you weren’t, you weren’t in the picture. You weren’t a real estate agent. And I would say, hey, you know, boy, I really loved working. First of all, I would after the transaction, I would say, can I take you for coffee, I was wondering if you could help me, I wanted to run an idea by you. And I just wanted to 10 minutes of your time to get get your opinion on something, which is also a super flattering thing to say, right? So you’re like, Hey, can I get your opinion on something? Now, obviously, your your, your wife might not have time for this, because of how hard she works. But anyway, you know, if you could grab a few minutes, you know, in the in the hospital cafeteria, or wherever, I might say, Hey, I was thinking, I would really love to work, I had such a great time working with you, I would love to work with more doctors just like you. However, I don’t really know doctors, and I don’t really even know how to get in front of doctors. It’s just you know, it’s not my thing. I’m real estate agent. If you were me, what advice would you have for me about how to get in touch with more doctors. And I thought that was such a brilliant little script. And it’s so it’s, it’s you what you said was super brilliant as well, which is, you know, you build rapport. And then you find out what the person is into. And then you take it offline, which I love. So I just wanted to throw that one on top of it too, because it just sparked my memory from 20 years ago. And I’m like, Man, that is so good. And you never hear that either. Is it? Can you help me? I was wondering if you could you know, I want to work with more doctors, you know, that kind of thing?
Greg McDaniel 22:09
No, it’s genius, because it’s playing to people’s ego. And I’m not saying this in an egotistical way, what I’m saying is that everybody has their own favorite character in every story, right? So why not play into that character and build them up? You know, let them let them know that they’re important that they’re appreciated. You know, my girl just bought a new house in San Francisco and her agent, and I didn’t know the San Francisco market. So I didn’t even try to get involved in the sale of that property. I’ll buy one but not sell. And the agent that she’d known forever, you know, really did not appreciate her because this agent did not do anything to say thank you. And then she’s known as a woman for years. Wow. And like not even like a closing gift. Nothing. Right. Wow. And I it just blew me away. I’m like, does this how everybody acts like this? Is this normal? I mean, imagine I don’t have kids, right? But my sister has three. My brother has four. And I didn’t know this thing. You probably know this. Because you are you are your father.
D.J. Paris 23:13
No, no, I’m not my sister. I have a nephew. That’s it. Okay, good. Cool.
Greg McDaniel 23:17
So maybe you and I both might be blind about this whole this whole concept. I didn’t know there’s a thing called a push, present. And this is part of that. It’s a it’s a thing. And it’s like right before a woman is going to give birth to a baby. The father boyfriend, significant other whatever else, they will give the the lady a push present. And I’m like, if you’re going to give a push present to a to a lady, it’s going to give birth, but you can’t give a closing gift to a client who just paid you money. Right. Got it. We got a problem here, homie. Yeah, right. Yeah. priorities and people people really value the small things in life. I mean, always. I mean, her lender, my girlfriend’s lender. He gave her a $25 gift certificate, and like Bevmo, or Home Depot or whatever, right? Yeah, she talked about that shit for like, three fucking weeks. And she’s been bitching about her past her past agent for the last like four months. I mean, hasn’t.
D.J. Paris 24:17
It’s it is it is so funny. And it’s really it’s really two things I think is so you’re so right. I mean, you know, one of the things that Brian Buffini just absolutely got, right. And so I mean, obviously, he’s gotten a lot of things right. But but the one thing that if, you know, if you just start writing personal notes, like you were saying, you’d go door knocking and then you’d come home and like nobody does that. Even now, nobody did it. 20 years ago, nobody was doing it been doing it forever. And it is just one of those things that whenever you get whenever you get an actual handwritten note, which I get maybe two or three a year outside of the holidays, I mean from actual just, hey, I’m thinking about you, or thanks for this or whatever, maybe two maybe so There’s that, you know, it’s like the little things but but it’s not really a little thing, like, it’s a little thing to do. But it means so much like your girlfriend like a $25 gift certificate, no big deal. But to her is like, Hey, that was really thoughtful. And and then you know, selling, you know, expensive home and not getting any sort of recognition. That’s also a small thing to do. And she, she didn’t receive that. And so she’s going to be talking about it. And then And then yeah, it’s the other thing too. And back to just like getting interested in people is, that’s the like, if you just if everyone listening can just start to build this practice of finding out what other people are really into, like, what’s their passion? Like you were asking me a similar thing earlier, but like, what are you into? What are your hobbies, and I don’t like the word hobbies because nobody really thinks that their stuff is hobbies. But like, what are you into? What do you do when you get home at night? Like what do you get into? If you could, if you can get excited to find that out? Then you will you can then you can customize any sort of gift or just appreciation or hey, you were telling me you were about you’re into this and I saw this thing online. And I thought of you and check it out. And you know, there’s all sorts of ways but you have to get into people I think,
Greg McDaniel 26:09
yeah, I mean, you really do. And in, there’s a the name of the site. I’m trying to Google as fast as I can when you’re talking. It’s something extreme clubs, or exclusive clubs are all run before the end of the show. But we can go on there when you’re talking to people casting it, this is like driving me nuts. I can’t remember the stupid name of the stupid website. We will put
D.J. Paris 26:31
it in the notes of the show. So if you’re listening to this on the podcast app, it should be in the notes.
Greg McDaniel 26:35
Yeah, we’ll figure it out when my brain turns on later. But what it is, it’s where you can go in there’s like cigar clubs, coffee clubs, clubs, dog, food, clubs, wine, clubs, beer clubs, you figure it out. But I mean, you when you’re talking to folks, and you just hone in on some of the stuff that they’re talking about. Like I have a client right now. He loves cigars, right. And so one of the extreme was extreme clubs. No, that’s not it. But I mean, it’s it’s one of those things I heard I’m talking about it cuz you can buy it either like three months, six months, 12 months, sure. Of these clubs, and you could have delivered either to them or to yourself, I’d have it delivered to yourself, and you can call them up and they’re like, hey, DJ, guess what up, homie? It’s cigar time. When did when can I come over and drop off your next back to 1010 cigars? But it’s just hearing people. It’s not Yeah, people move so fast. I mean, look at Instagram and Facebook, when they’re just scrolling. It’s infinite scroll, infinite scroll, and you don’t remember 99.9% of the shit that you see. But you know what? It like? I have my friend Nikki. I love this woman to death. She knew I was having a rough day. Right? And so what she did is she made me it. All of you guys are listening. These are custom coasters with my reel. That’s awesome. So insert on them. Not to mention Not to mention, then she sent me this in the same package. She sent me a pack of Cohiba cigars. Oh, nice. And I haven’t smoked them because I like them so much. I like I’m sitting here in the box. But you know, I think about her every single time but I see these. Now. what’s this gonna do to someone’s mind if you do this on a consistent basis, and you just are genuinely good human being you because you’re going from online to all of a sudden offline and what these have been here for over a year, the cigars? Why have I not smoked these? Because they make me feel good dad. I had my emotions go back to that that day. And then I called her up and I’m like, Why did you send me Cohiba cigar. She’s like, you’re a guy. You’re supposed to smoke cigars. I’d like him. And I’m like, frickin love you. Yeah. But it makes me think of her every single time that I see you know, she and I’ve never met in person. That’s the other great part about it. Like there’s no actual interaction, like we’ve never seen each other in human form. But imagine the power that you would have if, like I recently, we’re recording this on December 15. i On December 9, I had to put my my cat down on fall sorry, out of the blue. And the outpouring of people going oh my god, you know, Virtual hugs, you know, sending you stuff, yada, yada. And it was just that interaction of people calling me up sending me videos, you know, Facebook messages and everything else. You couldn’t pay me more to feel the feeling that I felt with the love that I got from people. So if you want to make an impact in somebody’s life, just send them love. Listen to them, hear where they’re coming from, you know, be empathetic to them and be consistent and persistent on shirt and shedding as much love as you can around the world. Because you know what, one day you’re going to need it and once you get it and once you feel it, you’re never going to forget it and these people that you touch on a daily basis through your calls, your emails, your Facebook videos, your Instagrams, whatever it’s going to be as long as you feed into their, into their life, they will pay it back to you. In dividends you cannot imagine, and there’s no amount of marketing that could ever. You could ever match this. But it’s just taking the first step and going, You know what, DJ, I’m super sorry, brother, I saw that you lost your cat. And I want to tell you, I love you. I’m thinking about you and your My hearts and prayers. And if I can ever do anything to bring value to you just let me know. But my hearts with you. Come on, man. I mean, how does that get any better?
D.J. Paris 30:36
It’s cute. And I will tell you funny and funny enough, not funny, but I actually did lose a cat a couple of months ago myself. So so we are in the same club of cat laws. Yep, my girlfriend got me this. This, I guess it’s an urn. It’s like a it’s like a box. And yeah, you know, it’s a little box. It’s a wooden box. And it’s got she was able to find a picture of her cat of my cat. And she got it etched into the top. So I have her ashes on there. So but but I will tell you, I got this. And I was we were on vacation. We actually were in California when the cat passed away. And so we came back and then a few weeks later, she got me this, you know that this box? And and yes, it when I look at it. And this is really to your point earlier, when I look at it. Yes, I think about my cat. But you know, what I think more about is I am dating a woman who was thoughtful enough to think about giving getting this for me, which she absolutely did not have to do. And quite frankly, if the roles were reversed, she has a cat as well. Her cat is alive. I don’t know that it would have occurred to me to do that. And so every time I look at this box, I’m like, wow, my girlfriend is amazing. And so I Yes, I think about my cat too. But more even more than that, I think about why I’m so glad I’m with somebody who’s that thoughtful. And so the point is, is any one of us can do this. And social media is so helpful for us to know these things when they happen to our you know, sphere of influence or context. But you know, a lot of people think well, what should I be posting on social media? And yes, that’s something to figure out. But the other thing is, you should be reading a lot and you should be checking out to see what’s going on in your in your clients lives so that you can reach out when a cat someone’s cat passes and say, Hey, man, I just saw that you your cat passed. I am so sorry. Just like you said, Boy, that’s gonna go so far.
Greg McDaniel 32:19
Oh, so far. I mean, I use Send Out Cards. And I mean, this is obviously not has to do with death or anything, but I’m holding up a card they’re going to show you guys, I posted this on social media a couple of years ago, my friend Gales zentech, who is my BFF. And it’s a picture of a cockpit of a ski boat that I really wanted. And then then I took the inside. And she really got the whole picture of the boat on the inside of the of the, of the card. And it touched me so much. Because just like someone took the time to do that we’ve lost touch with it. With the inter part of our relationships, we, we, we want to make it so fast and so easy and so simple. But in reality, we’re passing over all the great things about a relationship. And it doesn’t have to be a big a dating or marriage relationship. It could be a friendship, it could be as a father to a daughter, a mother to a son, a brother to a sister, whatever variation you want to put in there. It’s just saying, You know what? DJ, you are good. Frickin human being, and you’re on my heart. And I just wanted to say hello, how are you? Can I bring any value to your life today? My connections, your connections, and I just want to make sure that you live the best version of your life would that be okay? Can we can we get together and get a cup of coffee all by? When the fuck have you ever heard that had been said? Never.
D.J. Paris 33:41
Very rarely. Very, very rarely, I would love to talk about video because this is this is something that you spend a lot of time with. And also, you know, with the pandemic, all of us now have webcams if we didn’t before, we certainly have one now. And we are now stuck at home a lot more than we were and maybe that will unfortunately that may happen again in the next few months while we’re rolling out the vaccine, but but it anyway, the point is, is people are at home you were mentioning there a lot easier to have phone calls with but it’s also a great time for agents to start thinking about getting comfortable in front of a camera and creating content. And I’d love to get any thoughts and advice you have for agents that are like you know, I don’t I’m not really a in front of the camera person, you know, what could they do to start creating content that would be interesting to their audience.
Greg McDaniel 34:29
Fantastic question. A couple of things. I’m not going to rant here. So you know if you want to reel me back in, that’s okay. So one of the things that I’ve been doing a lot is that I use a program called Ghost poster, my friend Monica weekly. She She created this thing and what it does is that she’ll email you every morning at 4am a funny or different kind of post you can post up on your Instagram and Facebook stories. And so what her whole theory and idea is that you do one personal post One professional posts a day. So people get to know your personality. And they also reminded, that reminded that you’re in the real estate business. And so I’ve been posting those and they are getting phenomenal results. And that’s about $200 a year. So if you don’t want to pay for that, that’s totally cool. Another idea is going to Pinterest. Type in a real estate memes are funny real estate, video and photos or whatever else grabbing one of those and posting it up. I mean, I’m getting I did a funny, silly photo of a big pool that I live right above over here. And the other day, about a month or two ago when it was actually warm out. I was I was just kind of being a goofball. And I was had my laptop and my phone and I just took a photo of me and my my swimsuit and my pool. Just hashtag working from the pool today got almost 1400 views and some of you that’s that’s a very small amount, some of you that’s a large amount. But yeah, what I’m saying is, is that start being you and start posting stories stories have an exceptionally larger view rate than actual posts, right? Because people are curious, only 15 to 30 seconds long. So it’s a very easy conceptual amount of time that people can go through. Just be you doesn’t matter what you are forgot, I took a run a couple of months ago, on a Saturday morning, my girlfriend’s working and I was just like, Shit, I gotta go for a run. I feel like a fat ass. So I go out there and halfway through the run, I’m sitting there going, like, what am I doing? And I went live. And I did a quick post about how much this sucks. And people say, Oh, my God, you’re such an inspiration. Thank you so much. It’s incredible. Yeah, I chunky but just running down the road is that that’s inspirational. Okay, cool.
But to get really down to the nitty gritty, if we want to talk real stuff, guys get a pen and paper out, I’m going to tell you exactly where to go get content, for shooting videos on a consistent basis. The first one is going to be reality times.com You go to reality times.com Go to the consumer advice. Part, it will be a big drop down, there’ll be all kinds of different venues or things you can look at and open up and look at articles. I would personally this is me You do you. But I would go focus on the buyer and the seller advice tabs, there are hundreds, if not 1000s of articles in there that have a sexy, proven title. And they have short little poppy articles, maybe a page and a half to two pages long. Read it, barf it back out on camera, don’t actually read it. But you know, barf it back out with your opinion on it. And then you can do that consistently. And it’s gonna do two things. One, it’s going to get you more educated. If you’re a new agent, or just getting restarted again, and kind of some of the new stuff that’s happening. Also, you’re going to be able to put this into YouTube and YouTube. And then you can create playlists, and the playlist then when you meet a buyer or seller in different situations, you can say, Oh my God, what’s your best email, let me send you over my YouTube link. Here’s my real on buying or selling. The other site that I would go to would be neighborhood scout. And neighborhood scout is a fant hash stick site. Now, here’s the thing, when you’re on neighborhood Scout, you can, I would only type in a zip code. And when you type in a zip code, it’s gonna pop up all this information about it. And then you’re gonna scroll down, you’re gonna see a map of it. Now there’s gonna be different colors of the micro markets within the master market of that zip code. Now there’s going to be real estate information, there’s going to be notable and unique people and places there’s going to be ethnicity and ancestry, there’s gonna be languages gonna be jobs, there’s gonna be no transportation, there’s gonna be a bunch of different variations, you can make at least three videos per micromarket for that one zip code, that my friends, is someone something that nobody is doing, and you can really crush it. Next thing I would do is I would, I would go to the Chamber of Commerce in your city, right now with the pandemic or in any time of life. Businesses are always looking to get visibility, say, hey, look, my name is Greg McDaniel. I’m with exp Realty, I’m looking to help build build up the local businesses that are you know, having a rough time right now or just build up local businesses in the community and get the contact information, contact these local businesses and say, hey, look, this is who I am. I’m going to do a puff piece on you I just want to ask you some very simple questions. I just want to make you the best you can possibly be and then I’m going to post it on my Instagram my Facebook and my YouTube and then I’m going to take it I’m going to take photos if you give me permission to use your photos I’m going to tag you them tag you in the in my stories about a local business doing locally good things. And guys, I’m seriously fucking serious about this. Once you start doing this, right, huge, huge they have they have relationships with people you would never know. And they need these people give them money for their product. What do you think their friends and family and co workers and everyone else is going to do when you give give to them and you know Boat boat boosted for maybe 50 to $100 for the next week or two, kit add to here, man. I mean, your content ability is infinite. I mean, there’s so much stuff talk about if you’d like ducks, go talk about ducks. But I mean, what I’m saying is build up your local businesses find something that you have a passion for, you know, concentrate, you know, the 8020 rule 80% on kind of who you are 20% on actual real estate, and just go out there and start creating video content and let people get to know you. They’re dying to know somebody who cares about them. Everybody cares about themselves, but hardly anybody cares about anybody else in this day and age. So be that change, be that difference be that human being that’s gonna go you know what, Sally’s bakery? My mom’s name Sally. So I always use that name. Stephanie’s bakery, you know, is struggling, how can we help get the the news out about that? Or Fred’s, you know, you know, suit shop, or fill in the gap or, you know, Mike’s restaurant, you know, you know, that, you know, that serves, you know, fill in the blank food. Just let people know who you are, you’re there to give. And I mean, if you want, we can talk about equipment, but I’m not sure. I mean, I just dumped a ton of stuff on you. Right? Yeah,
D.J. Paris 41:14
you did. And I wanted to tag on to that, because you talked about working with local businesses. Obviously, everyone listening and watching knows that real estate is hyperlocal. And of course, so hard, small businesses. And so, you know, Greg, just that was so powerful, because you can go to all of your favorite local establishments, and you have to think about it from the owners perspective. They’re getting calls all day long, asking them to pay for advertising, newspapers, television, billboards, social media, a Yelp is calling them saying, hey, advertise with us. They’re getting so many calls to spend money to promote their business. And yet now you’re gonna call and say, Hey, you’re one of my favorite, you’re my favorite clothing shop, you know, Fred’s clothing. And I am a realtor. And I have you know, I was following on on Instagram, I would love just to come out to your store, do you know if you can do that with you know, right now, the pandemic, or maybe we could do a zoom thing or whatever. But I would love just to introduce my audience to your close, would that be okay? And the guy is going to be falling over himself, whoever the owner is to Fred to get you in that store, because you’re doing it for free. And then maybe you can say, hey, Fred, if you want to do like a giveaway, or if you want to do a coupon or something, we can even do that. But that’s up to them. But just the idea that you’re giving them value for free is, is oh my god, that it’s going to, it’s not only going to, you know, hopefully, like you said, Fred, and whoever, you know, whoever owns that store is hopefully going to keep you in mind for if they ever need a realtor. And maybe they’re going to share it on social media, cuz they’re going to tag them say, hey, Fred, would you do me a favor and share this with your group as well. But also all the people that follow? You’re gonna be like, Wow, Greg is a really good dude, look at he went over to this guy just to help his business. And you were just, you know, it’s all about caring. You just said what you said was so powerful. There. It
Greg McDaniel 42:55
is about caring. And here’s another tip for you guys. This is something I didn’t even know, last summer that this was a thing. But I started doing this. I went to Groupon. And what I would do is I go to Groupon now look for discounts. And now it called it being a store owners up and say, hey, look, I see that you’re offering now to 50% off on your ice cream, whatever, right? Fill in the blank. And did you know seriously? Did you know that Groupon, what they do is they build people up the businesses up front, then they take up to 50% of the proceeds on the back end on any sales. I’m like, that’s super fucked up. And so I said, You know what, hey, DJ, I know you own DJs bikes here in town. I see your your your discount on Groupon. I’m a real estate agent with XYZ company, could I offer that talk to my database, and I don’t want any of your back end money. I just want to take the same offer. Would you be okay with that, and I would love to come in and do an interview with you and kind of get you seen to my people? That is a 100% success rate. Yeah, hands down. And it’s, it’s just thinking about the small things right, like you and I, our brains move very, very quickly. And I know a lot of the people that are listening to your show, they are also very intelligent human beings. And you know, it’s just thinking outside the box, my grandfather, and a long time ago when I used to be a deer hunter. I used to ask my grandfather this one thing I said, Grandpa, how can you see the deer? And and he’s like, Greg, look for what doesn’t belong. And I put this into business going the same way like okay, what doesn’t belong or what could be here? How can I fill this gap or this hole? How can I you know, do something that’s out of the box that nobody else is doing? So is it staying on my head in quicksand? Is it going and doing live videos, is it you know, you know, helping local businesses is it you know, you know, running a charity event for for, you know, abandoned animals? I mean, what what is it that you have a passion for? How can you make a difference and where Can you just bring joy and light because on the national average, they’re 14% of the time. Every time you do something philanthropic people want to work with you more just because you did something that is close to near and dear to their heart. So it’s very simple. Just go be you. It’s like, it’s the same thing we keep saying, right?
D.J. Paris 45:18
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it’s just it’s so funny we’ve been talking for we’re coming up on an hour here and really talked about real estate at all, because you and I are marketing guys really at heart, right? And so we’re always thinking about and marketing from an authentic and genuine place not in a how do I sort of convinced this other person to work with me? You don’t really have to worry about objections. If you’re just in Yes, you should have answers to all questions that are asked by clients, you should have them locked and loaded, you should practice them in the mirror, you should know exactly what you’re going to say when someone says Why do you charge 6%? When I could do it for two 3%, on on, you know, on Redfin, or wherever you should have those answers ready to go, no question about it. What if you also demonstrate that you are a caring, good human being, and you do all of the right things, which is give a shit about people. If you just do that, and you demonstrate it, then you’re going to be successful. Even if you’re not a great real estate agent, if all you do is care. You should be a good real estate agent too. But but I’ve seen some bad agents who still get a lot of business because they care.
Greg McDaniel 46:26
Oh, it is literally comes down to carrying my contact whose last story extended, we’re gonna wrap it up here. A couple of years ago, my dad’s been alcohol free for almost two years now actually just passed two years in ground. Yeah, I’m very happy for him. Because even though it’s kind of becoming an issue for him, but you know, the Grandmaster, my mom looked at my dad, one day goes, Hey, you’re getting fat. What are you going to do about this? My dad that you replaced knees. And so we couldn’t go run anymore. I used to be a big runner. So he wandered to the country club and where they’ve been members for like 3540 years and stupid. And what he did, he just got in the pool and he swam. Now, why is the story important? Because he just did something that he had a passion for. Because his wife, my mom goes, Hey, chunky, but get your pitch asked in the pool or do something. My dad’s like, Roger that. And so he got in there. And he started making friends. Now, why is this important? Because when he started making friends with people, he started creating bonds over swimming. Now, how does this relate back to real estate? Well, one of the guys that he was swimming with, wanted to sell his house. And so he said, Hey, Terry, since we’ve been filming together, would you come up? And I know you’re gonna real estate, would you come up and, you know, give me an evaluation. So we went up there, we listened to the house for about two, seven to $3 million. Oh, my goodness, somewhere on there. Now, here’s the funny part. As soon as we listed that house, the neighbor had a $4.4 million home that we listed. And she, I actually asked her one day, she’s one of the largest collectors she’s is actually the largest Dutch art collector in the world. So outside of like, you know, museums and stuff. I said, you know, can I ask you a question? And she’s sweet woman. And she’s like, What? Why did you? Why did you listen with us? And she’s like, because my neighbor said You are great. Yeah. And that’s online. To offline. Yeah. It’s very simple. You said DJ, just give a shit. Yeah.
D.J. Paris 48:38
Yeah, I mean, I wish I wish we had more exciting, sexy things to talk about. But really, at the end of the day, that’s it. And that, that the cool part about it is now with social media, we have the ability to it’s just so much easier to find out what people are into, and, and just, you know, go out there but go out in the real world and participate Right? Like whether whatever you’re passionate about don’t stay online exclusively. Go out you know, obviously right now it’s, it’s a little challenging to to get out and do things but yeah, find find whatever you’re passionate about get involved give back find out what your clients are into, you should have that in every your your CRM, you should know what every one of your clients, hobbies and interests are so that you can look out for stuff for them and then send it to them or deliver it to them like your friend did with the coasters or the cigars and and the card. I mean, those are all just wonderful for it. And here you are talking about it today, you know, and at the same point, you know, your girlfriend had this home that I’m sure was lovely. And she’s can’t stop complaining about her agent who didn’t really demonstrate a whole lot of care after the sale. But the $25 You know, gift card from the lender was like, oh my god, isn’t that great? They gave me you know, and it’s always You’re right. It’s always the little things and the little things are almost always really inexpensive. If not free, as well, that’s sort of the other best part is, you know, it’s not necessarily an expensive thing to do is to care about people. But it’s going to pay you back in such high dividends. Oh, it
Greg McDaniel 50:12
totally will. You know, she sold a $1.75 million property, she bought a 1.9. And I’ll tell you one thing like, for her to get excited about a $25 gifts gift certificate at that price point. I mean, imagine what any claim any human being would would get excited about. I mean, I mean, what have you, what have you heard that your clients loved? Nutter Butters, right, right. And he went and went to Costco and you bought them a whole huge thing and Nutter Butters. And you dropped it in their library like hey, homie, this is for you. And they would go banana cakes, right? Yeah, just because you heard them. I mean, you and I have to do another show. You’re gonna come on my show. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
D.J. Paris 50:53
I’d love to have you on as a more frequent guest, because we could do this all day long. But I want everyone right now to if you’re driving, don’t maybe pull over before you do this. But if you’re not driving, I want everyone to do go under there. Go onto Google type in real estate uncensored, you’ll find their podcast or just pull up your podcast app. It’s on iTunes. It’s on Google Play. It’s at Stitcher, it’s everywhere. Real Estate uncensored and subscribe. It’s absolutely worth listening to. We’re big fans. And and yeah, and we got to have Greg on on a more regular basis. But Greg, this is good. This might be actually if we can get this out before the end of the year, this probably will be our last episode of 2020 20. If not, if you’re listening to this in 2021. Maybe it’s the first episode of the year. But either way, we wanted to thank all of our listeners. And for interviewers for continuing to support our show for all these years, we’re going to keep pushing forward. So is real estate uncensored, they’ve been doing it even longer than we have. And I want everyone all of our listeners to support both shows. And the easiest way to do that. Number one, subscribe, which we just suggested that you do. But also tell a friend think of one other agent that could benefit from listening to people like Greg or any of the other wonderful guests that we have and send them a link to our show. Easiest way to do that. Find us online at keeping it real pod.com. Again, keeping it real pod.com. And please also follow us on Facebook. Also, by the way, we’ll have all of real estate uncensored information on our Facebook page too. But find us on facebook@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. Greg, thank you so much. This was great. We are definitely doing this again.
Greg McDaniel 52:25
I do it I cannot. This hour flew by so stinking fast. We definitely could do it more. I can’t wait to have you on my show, guys. So if you guys, I’ll be on his show as well. Yeah. Oh, yeah, we’re gonna we’re going to talk about that off air. But we’re gonna get a couple of times, either sooner or later. depends on kind of what show you want to do. But yeah, you’re definitely gonna come on and I want to go down this rabbit hole deeper. We can talk about tech, we can talk about, you know, equipment, we can talk about video topics, we can talk about responses we can talk about, you know how to get out and reach people on a deeper basis. But I am humbled. I’m honored. I’m so privileged to be a part of your show. You guys are a class act. And I am just so excited to hopefully come back on and get you on mine. And we’ll just gonna rock the house and have some more fun.
D.J. Paris 53:07
All right, Greg McDaniel, everyone. Thank you, Greg. On behalf of the audience, we say thank you and on behalf of Greg and myself to our audience, we say thank you for continuing to listen and support our show. We will see you next time. Thanks, Greg.
Greg McDaniel 53:19
Later
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