You Don’t Need to Be Good on Camera to Get Leads From YouTube

Transcript

[00:00:00] She's closed over 140 million in real estate from YouTube with no paid ads and she says the

[00:00:06] thing stopping most agents from starting isn't the camera. It's fear. We're going to talk about

[00:00:11] that today. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping It Real is brought to you by Real Geeks.

[00:00:16] How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website

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[00:01:06] Visit realgeeks.com forward slash Keeping It Real Pod and find out why REALTORS come to realgeeks

[00:01:12] to generate more business. Again, visit realgeeks.com forward slash Keeping It Real Pod.

[00:01:18] And now on to our show. Today's episode is brought to you by corded.io.

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[00:02:36] Visit corded.io to schedule a demo again. That's corded.io and now onto the show.

[00:02:58] Welcome back to Keep In It Real. This is the YouTube Lab. I'm Sarah Maslowski and I have closed

[00:03:03] over $140 million in real estate directly from YouTube with no paid ads and no cold calling.

[00:03:10] Today's episode is a little bit different. We're not talking about titles or thumbnails or how to

[00:03:15] about film your content. Today I want to talk to you about the theme that comes before all of that.

[00:03:21] The thing that stops most agents before they ever press record. I want to talk about fear

[00:03:26] and I want to talk about it honestly because I had it to and I think pretending otherwise

[00:03:31] would be doing you a disservice. If you were someone who has been thinking about starting

[00:03:35] a YouTube channel for months, maybe longer, and you keep finding reasons why now is not quite

[00:03:41] the right time. Well, this episode is for you. I want you to stay with me all the way through

[00:03:46] because I have something coming up later in the episode that I think is going to be the thing

[00:03:50] that actually gets you started. When I first discovered YouTube as a lead generation strategy,

[00:03:55] I had no idea what I was doing. None. I only had a few examples to follow and I had to pretty much

[00:04:02] figure out everything else on my own. And it was scary. I mean genuinely scary. What do I say

[00:04:10] is what I'm saying good enough? Will this actually resonate with someone enough to return into an

[00:04:15] actual real lead? I hated the way I sounded on camera. Did not like the way I looked. Had no clue what

[00:04:21] I was doing with editing. I had all of those questions and very few answers. But here's the thing

[00:04:27] that changed everything for me. When I started watching agents who were actually having success on YouTube,

[00:04:34] agents who were getting real leads, real clients, real closings from their channel, I noticed

[00:04:39] something surprising. There the videos were honestly a little bit boring and I mean that in the best

[00:04:47] possible way. These agents weren't HTTV host. They were not news anchors. They weren't super

[00:04:53] charismatic performers with the perfect lighting and a production crew. They were just regular

[00:04:59] real estate agents showing up on camera talking about what it was like living in their area and

[00:05:04] giving genuinely hopeful information. Some filmed on location, some filmed in a simple office

[00:05:10] set up, none of them were anything special on camera. They were getting leads and more importantly,

[00:05:17] they were getting closings. That was the moment that I realized I don't have to be something that I'm

[00:05:23] not. I just have to show up as myself and give people the information they're actually looking for.

[00:05:29] That's it. That is the whole thing. I want to be real with you about what the beginning actually

[00:05:35] felt like because I think sugarcoating it, well that's not doing any of us any favors.

[00:05:40] The first several videos that I filmed, well, and I'm not mean several. I mean not just for the first

[00:05:47] time, they were really awkward and I felt like I was pretending to be something that I wasn't.

[00:05:54] Like I was playing a character called Real Estate YouTube Person and I had no idea if I was doing

[00:05:59] it right. Here's what I've since learned. Editing is magical. What you see at any finish,

[00:06:06] YouTube video is not what filming actually looks like. When you're recording, you can stop and start,

[00:06:12] you can fumble a sentence and try again. You can take a breath, reset, keep going. When a good

[00:06:18] editor gets a hold of that footage, all of those stops and starts and ums and fumbles, they disappear.

[00:06:24] What is left is one clean coherent, confident thought. You don't have to be perfect when you're filming.

[00:06:31] You just have to give your editor good enough material to work with and that bar is so much lower

[00:06:37] than what a lot of agents think. Now let me address the most common thing I hear from agents who

[00:06:43] haven't started yet because I want to take these apart one by one. The first one and I hear this

[00:06:49] all the time is I'm not comfortable on camera and here's my honest response to that. Nobody

[00:06:56] is comfortable on camera at first. Nobody. Comfort comes from doing it, not from waiting until you

[00:07:04] feel ready. The agent who seems natural on camera today all went through an awkward phase. They

[00:07:10] didn't just let that awkward phase stop them from publishing. Y'all go back on my channel and watch

[00:07:15] some of my early videos. You will see my awkward phase and here's something that has genuinely helped

[00:07:21] agents that I coached teleprompter apps. There are so many great ones available now that make

[00:07:27] recording so much more manageable. Yes, using a teleprompter requires more time investment on the

[00:07:33] front end. You need to script your video before you film, but it pays off enormously on the back end.

[00:07:40] Your videos are cleaner, your thoughts are more organized, your editing is faster,

[00:07:44] and if going off the cuff feels terrifying, a teleprompter removes that pressure entirely.

[00:07:51] Now the second excuse I hear is I don't like the way I look or sound on camera and I say this with

[00:07:58] complete love in zero judgment. You are already a successful real estate agent. You are already

[00:08:05] getting clients with that same voice, that same face, and that same energy. Those clients hired

[00:08:11] they trusted you, they chose you, so why would a viewer who finds you on YouTube feel any

[00:08:16] differently? And the answer is they won't. The people who are meant to connect with you will

[00:08:22] connect with you. On camera, the same way they do in person. The third excuse I hear is I don't

[00:08:28] know what to talk about. And this one I actually understand more than the others because content

[00:08:33] planning is a real skill and it does take some time to develop. But here's what I want you to know.

[00:08:38] If you live in your market, you already know more than enough to make a ton of videos.

[00:08:45] What is it like to live there? What are the best neighborhoods? What do people need to know about

[00:08:49] the commute? What surprises people the most when they move there? You have been answering these

[00:08:55] questions for your clients or years. That is your content. Now let me address one more thing that

[00:09:02] comes up a lot, especially from agents in larger markets. What if someone is already doing YouTube in

[00:09:08] my area? Is there still room for me? Yes, absolutely. Yes. When I first started in the metro at

[00:09:15] Lena Market, I was one of the first agents making YouTube content here. If you look at the landscape

[00:09:20] today, there are a dozen of us consistently making videos about this market. And you know what? We

[00:09:26] are all getting business. My business has not suffered because other agents are making YouTube content,

[00:09:32] not even a little. This is just like any other form of lead generation in real estate.

[00:09:37] Some clients are going to neck with you and want to work with you and some are going to connect

[00:09:41] with someone else and want to work with them. That is not failure. That's just how this business works.

[00:09:47] There is enough business out there for everyone. And YouTube is big enough for more than one agent

[00:09:54] per market. Here's what I really want you to hear, though, because this is the part that I think

[00:10:00] matters most. There is a real cost waiting. More and more agents are figuring this out every single

[00:10:06] month. The landscape is shifting. We've all heard that video content is the future of marketing

[00:10:12] for years. And agents are finally starting to pay attention. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube.

[00:10:18] Agents are experimenting with all of it. Here's what I know from experience and from watching the data.

[00:10:24] If your goal is real leads that actually lead to closings, YouTube is by far the best return on

[00:10:32] investment you will make in terms of both time and money. It is not even close. I have talked to

[00:10:39] agents who are making content on multiple platforms. Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube, all of it.

[00:10:46] And every single one of them will tell you the exact same thing. YouTube produces the most leads

[00:10:52] by a significant margin. So if you are going to invest your time in one form of video content,

[00:11:00] and you want the best possible return, YouTube is the answer. And if every month you spend waiting

[00:11:07] as a month, someone else in your market is building their library, building their trust,

[00:11:12] building their pipeline, well, that brings me to something I want to share with you because I

[00:11:16] genuinely think the timing here could not be better. My five week YouTube course opens on October

[00:11:23] 22nd. That is this week. And this is the course where I walk agents through everything, how to

[00:11:28] set up your channel, how to play in your content using the four bucket systems, how to film,

[00:11:33] how to work with an editor, how to convert leads that come in, everything we've talked about

[00:11:37] across this entire podcast series and more, any structured five week program with my direct support.

[00:11:44] So if you've been listening to this podcast and thinking, I want to do this, this is your honor.

[00:11:48] You do not have to figure all this out alone the way that I did. To find out more, come find me

[00:11:53] over on Instagram. My handle is YouTube with Sarah and that is Sarah with an H. All the details

[00:12:00] about the course and how to join are right there. Now, I want to close with this. The reason you

[00:12:06] haven't started your YouTube channel is not because you don't have the right camera. It's not because

[00:12:11] your market is too competitive and it's not because you don't know what to say. It's not because

[00:12:23] who has built something real on YouTube has had it. The difference between the agents who have a

[00:12:28] YouTube channel that generates leads and the agents who are still thinking about starting one

[00:12:32] is not talent, it's not charisma, it's not the right equipment or the perfect plant. It's the

[00:12:38] decision to stop waiting and press record. Now, if any of this resonated with you, make sure that

[00:12:46] you come follow me and make sure you follow along this podcast series because every single month,

[00:12:52] I'm getting on here and sharing with you exactly what it looks like to build a YouTube channel.

[00:12:58] I'm Sarah Maslowski, thank you for being here on Keeping It Real. Now, go make your first video.

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