Welcome to our monthly feature, Social Bootcamp With Gogo Bethke!
In this episode Gogo talks about the importance of building a preferred vendor list for your clients. Not only is it a great resource for your customers, but it also helps support local businesses! Next, Gogo discusses affiliate relationships and introduces Vivint for home security systems to our listeners. Gogo emphasizes how important it is for every agent to look out for additional ways they can generate income aside from sales transactions.
To have a look at the services Vivint provides, click here!
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Gogo Bethke can be reached at gogosrealestate@gmail.com and at her Instagram account.
Purchase Gogo’s Bootcamp by clicking here – Keeping It Real Podcast listeners get a discount!
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by gogos bootcamp Are you a real estate agent looking for the very best media training program on the planet? Gogo Beth key is considered the top Instagram Realtor in the country. And her step by step training program will take your social media game to the next level, keeping it real listeners receive a special discount. So please visit Gogo podcast.com That’s Gee Oh gee, oh podcast.com for your special discount and now on with the show.
Right, today on the show, we have our monthly series social bootcamp with gogo bath key. Gogo Beth he came to the United States in 2003. To build her American dream she was broke. She had no real estate experience no sphere of influence barely spoke English and only $6 to her name, and that left her with nothing else but Facebook to help start her real estate business which is how she began she created gogos real estate and began her real estate career now with the power of social media gogo has sold over 65 million in real estate transactions. She shares the good the bad, and the ugly of real estate and her honest snippets into her daily life earned her 10s of 1000s of social media followers and in the real estate community, she has earned the nickname The Queen of social media. After being asked to present at various conferences and events with realtors. She built her own social media Bootcamp for realtors called Go Go’s bootcamp. Now today she has a team of almost 250 agents nationwide. Her goal is to help as many agents as possible make a name for themselves in real estate utilizing social media. Now, if she can do it, this girl from Transylvania, Romania with no formal US education, no sphere of influence, no money, no experience and an accent, then anyone can do it as well. Please follow gogo on Instagram at gogos real estate. And also please consider investing in her bootcamp. We are big, big fans of gogos bootcamp, it’s about the only product that we recommend to our listeners and viewers. And there’s a special discount if you go to her pod to her bootcamp via the link Gogo podcast.com, a gogo podcast.com. This is an A to Z platform of how to utilize social media as a realtor to actually have success and generate leads and deepen the relationships you already have. Anyway, gogo Welcome once again to the show.
Gogo Bethke 2:38
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here. As always,
D.J. Paris 2:42
we are excited to have you and you just got back from a conference, I saw that you were even presenting I saw doing a speaking to your team or I saw you in front of a lot of group A lot of people presenting.
Gogo Bethke 2:54
Yes, yeah. So that one was about community and what it takes to run one. And you know, it’s all that. It’s all that to build a team and group and organization. And it’s a whole other thing to keep them and know about that. So return home. So my speaking was about community and what does it take? And what do we do here on Team gogo to keep our agents? Because I’m really good at agent attraction. And I’m, I would like to say that I’m really good at retention as well.
D.J. Paris 3:19
Yeah, I found that too. So when I started here, we had just a few agents. Now we have 700. And all I do all day is is attract agents. But you’re right, that’s actually not the hard part. The hard part is making sure every day that the agents are happy that are getting your needs met. And obviously, that’s, you know, your big focus as well.
Gogo Bethke 3:36
Yeah, make sure they’re staying and then also the more you get, the more you get firm believer in that. And you know, the code that you can have everything in life as long as you have more people to get what they want in life. So the more people you can happen, so that is my motto. And and so I just pretty much went into details of what is it takes to run a team and what do we do week to week, month to month?
D.J. Paris 3:59
Awesome. Well, what do we want to talk about today?
Gogo Bethke 4:02
So I was thinking today we would talk because the holiday season is coming up and I don’t know where your listeners are and where they are. But let me tell you in the state of Michigan, we are about to be shut down for another three weeks.
D.J. Paris 4:12
Yeah, we’re in Illinois. Here. We the in the city in Chicago. The mayor has suggested a stay at home, although it is not official as far as a mandate. But I suspect if our numbers keep climbing, we’ll be in the same boat pretty soon.
Gogo Bethke 4:26
Yeah, yeah. So I figured this is a perfect time to talk about the preferred vendors list that we use and abuse all the time. Again, it’s all about giving back and not asking for things before you give. And so that’s what I wanted to talk about because it would be a perfect opportunity. This is something that you can easily do from home and it’s the time where you like if your home doing nothing might as well to start reaching out to people so the only kind of go into what it’s like, how are you? Sure. So I actually can’t take credit for this one. It’s my husband’s idea. Hopefully honey, you don’t mind. And so what he wanted to do is is you know we of course you want everybody Be to support us, I want all of our friends to use us. Are they going to use us? No, but do I want them to use us all? and recommend us all the time? Absolutely. But then I started thinking what am I called on him, and then we have to make sure if we expecting that, then we have to make sure to give in return. So we all of our friends have, I mean, not all but many of our friends I should say, have some sort of a business, they have a dog walking business or home security business, they paint houses, they power wash houses, they have a, you know, wheel shop to replace your wheels and tires. Like whatever their business is, I figured why not create a less what’s called a preferred vendors list. So when we have clients, how many times you have a client that moves in from out of state and says, Can you recommend out a dog walker, can you recommend what trash company do I use? Where do you get cable from? How about you know, of course as daycare, like, can you help me with that, like anything that you think your client could potentially need when they move into a home or they move out of a home for movers to Pinterest, you name it, have it on that prefers vendors list. So now what happens is we check in some taken some time, we have built it to over probably 30 to 50 different local businesses that are on there, many of them actually give a discount to our clients. So they say, Hey, if you refer back to us that you get 10% off or whatever their discount is. And then also, as soon as a client starts working with any of our team members here on Google’s real estate team, the first email that goes out is it’s an introductory email, introductory email. And then they also get the attached before vendors list. So that’s huge, because you know, when you’re going through the process, and they’re like, oh, yeah, it’s time for the home inspection, do you recommend a home inspector, you remember that preferred vendors, let’s see, we sent you on day one, there was at least four of them on there, pick one, saying that appraisers submit anybody we can pop up possibly need title companies, you’re all on there. And of course, so here’s what’s going to happen. You can sit on your couch, you can literally create a selfie style video if you want to, and send it out ABC order to all of your local friends and say, hey, you know, I’m a realtor, you know, I don’t go because real estate, I would love to be able to send you business, I know, this is what you do for a living. Would you be interested in hopping on to our preferred vendors where this is what you need to do, I’m going to attach a Google Doc, I need you to go in there fill it out, if there’s a discount that you can give to your clients, please mention that in the special notes. And we would love to send you future business in the same time. As soon as they fill it out, you’re going to call them back again. And then you’re going to say, hey, thank you so much, Jessica, for filling it out. I’m so excited to support your local candle shop, whatever it is, and you say and in return, we would we would love if you could do the same. If you hear any conversations in your store, anybody needing a realtor or any real estate need, would you please mention our name? And of course, what’s going to happen is the first one or two times you send them somebody they now they do what now they owe you. Right? So now just out of the pure? What is that called business sense of like, now I have to send somebody back to you. I can’t
D.J. Paris 7:50
Yeah, they law of reciprocity, right, they feel the need to to reciprocate. And I have a question too. So this is just tying this into social media, the moment you know, you, you could build this vendor list over it, you know, indefinitely, always and then the moment you do get somebody who says okay, here’s the coupon I want to give to your to your, to your clients, you could then put it on social media and send that out as as its own post, like oh, by the way, you know, we really highly recommend so and so by the way mentioned gogo and get, you know, X percent off.
Gogo Bethke 8:24
Absolutely. And I’m using messenger FaceTime, when I’m when I’m reaching out to these people. Using social media, you can also after you create your link, and now, ours is an Excel sheet through like Google Docs, Google Sheets, I guess. So after your sheet is created, it’s going to have a live link, all you need to do is send it to them, they’re gonna plug in all of their information, their phone number, their business in their address, blah, blah, blah, their storefront when they open the discount and all that. So they literally fill it out for you. And then from there, you build a document that they can touch, because if it’s live, then they can choose which holiday you said. So you don’t want them to do that. So you do have to transfer the incoming information over to a document that they can touch. So it’s a little bit of more work. But you’re only going to do that once and then your document is built and it’s good for life. And then you’re supporting the local community and in return, they’re going to support you we got to at least be listings out of that as soon as my husband started doing this is because top of mind, you know, you just call somebody and you offer that you didn’t even ask them for business, you ask them if you can support their business. But then in return, they’re like, oh my gosh, my Auntie’s moving into town and you have to find a condo.
D.J. Paris 9:29
This could also be like your dry cleaner. I mean, there’s it could be your accountant. It could be it could be your pediatrician. I mean, it could be anything and everything that anyone moving into a home, whether it’s an individual or a family might utilize any service attorneys, all sorts of things, real estate or even non real estate related.
Gogo Bethke 9:48
I just think about what do people need when they move into a community that they don’t know anyone? I mean, yes, most of your clients or clients, I guess you’d call them they’re going to move usually an average of seven miles. So whether you So they it’s not like necessarily they’re moving out of area, but they are, periodically, those clients that are totally moving into an area they never spent a day in. So those are the ones that truly are going to need you.
D.J. Paris 10:11
Yeah, it’s a great idea. So everyone listening or watching, you know, this is a great time as the year is winding down. And obviously, with the current state of the health of this country, we might be moving a lot less around with with some of the restrictions in place around travel and congregating with family and friends, this is a good time to start putting these things together. And, and also, once you have it done, if you really want to, you could bind it, you could put it in a nice looking document. And, and also then ship it out to everyone as well or laminate it and send it out and have it maybe even make it something people can stick on there. You know, if it’s small enough, you could do it, you know, with a magnet.
Gogo Bethke 10:52
Or you could send it off with your Christmas card. And he say, you know, send your business gifts Christmas card, and then include your preferred vendors or essence say, Hey, if you need anyone that you wanted to have a business relationship with, these are the guys that we recommend here locally. And that could be your handyman, your painter, you name it, anything on there?
D.J. Paris 11:08
And then do you recommend having more than one vendor per category? Or? Okay,
Gogo Bethke 11:13
remember that thing? University? That’s called theory? Yes. Yeah, you don’t want to do that doing? No, you have at least three in every category. Got it? Yeah, so the minimum of three. So if you put a hairdresser, you’re gonna put three, if you put a painter, you’re gonna put three, if you were gonna put a trash company, you’re gonna put three, because God forbid, something happens with that one trash company that you put on there. And then they get sued, and then you get sued, because you were the one who recommended them. So you want to make sure that they always had a choice on there. So you can say, I’m so sorry that you had a bad experience, we had a great experience, but at the same time you had multiples to choose from, you just happen to chose that one, that’s not my doing.
D.J. Paris 11:51
Right. And to if if everyone who is listening, as you create this vendor list, if you have your own personal website, make sure you put it on your website, because then you can also send the live link to that, you know, company and say, Oh, by the way, I put you on our website here, it makes sure your contact information is accurate. And they might even share that as well, you know, with your information. So,
Gogo Bethke 12:15
exactly. So there’s so many different ways you can do this, but just come from contribution truly come from the idea of like, oh, my gosh, I’m helping another local business especially they’re your friend that happened to own that company. So when you having them in return, they’re going to be happy and you and you have more referral business that you know what to do what to do with it.
D.J. Paris 12:31
I love it. That is That is such a great idea. And you tell us about you just recently built a new relationship with a vendor. And I know you wanted to talk about that as well.
Gogo Bethke 12:39
Yeah, so I just wanted to mention that. So we just started a vendor’s because I’m also all about of course, making money, multiple different ways to do that, and help our team to do the same. So we have now over 300 agents on what we call team gogo, and everything that I do I always feed it out to everybody, if they want to do it good. If not, you know the opportunity was served up to everybody. So I wanted to mention this one. So Vivint is a home security system. You might be familiar with ADT, I have Vivint in my home. In my opinion, I love technology. And I love the newest gadgets in everything. So Vivint is just a little bit more technologically savvy. And again, this is my opinion than the other ones. And when I researched them, so what happened is my oldest who’s type one diabetic he got he got a low blood sugar while I was in San Diego not long ago. And I was trying to literally like wake up my husband and he was sleeping like a rock. And I called and called and called and called the neighbors and nobody’s answering and I could not think of in San Diego how to dial 911 from there because I figured it’s going to rain in San Diego, right? In that moment. I was like, I don’t know what to do. So I thought about home security system. Like I wonder if I can make the alarm go off. I’ve never tried that. I didn’t even know if there was a button or not. I did and that’s the thing that walked away not. So the next day, of course to to myself, I’ve created a story. And I tell you the event. And I thanked him for saying my child’s life. And then the next thing you know, they reach back out to me and they said, Hey, we would love to be in business with you. We want to create an affiliate business and all of your agents get paid every time you refer us and your client ends up giving Vivint getting Vivint in their home is their home security system. So pretty much what happens is all of the agents that will live with this opportunity if you want to, I will put the link in here and then maybe you can put it into the post I will
D.J. Paris 14:23
say the link will be in the show notes, everyone. So if you’re listening on the podcast on an app, just look at the notes for the episode, you’ll see the link.
Gogo Bethke 14:30
Awesome. And I’ll give you that. So then what happens is that you need to you’ll just download an app, it’s a link that I’m going to give you It’s on google.com links, you can do that or go on to the site. You click that link, you’re going to download an app. Through that app, you there becomes what’s called your affiliate app with the company called Vivint. The app itself it’s called Miami golf, and so on through there you are going to be able to of course just send it directly to a client. So let’s say you’re showing your house to a client and they are Like, he gonna go? Who do you use for home security? Because we really want to install it and what company do you recommend? So this is when I would say, Hey, I recommend whether and I will literally grab my phone and ask my clients, is it okay with you if I give you an even phone number to event? And they’re going to call you, if you like their services? Good? If not, you know, choose anybody else. And they’re going to say, Yep, absolutely. So you’re going to plug in their name, phone number, email address, and within minutes event is going to call them and they totally take it from there. If your clients decide to get the event, after installation, you get $200, your clients will get a free installation, and also free doorbell camera, which is like the best thing since sliced bread rolls a 360 literally does one ad up and one ad wide, sees your packages on the porch. And it whistles if somebody’s trying to steal the package, or it says camera recording. So get off the porch, pirate, I think, yeah. And just like all their technology is just so awesome. So that’s the one I use. Now we have the affiliate link. And any agent, actually, really anybody can use this, they don’t even need to be an agent, you can refer your mom. As long as you download the app and you become an affiliate you make $200 Every time somebody that you refer ends up getting their home secured.
D.J. Paris 16:09
And there’s other excuse me, and there’s other affiliate relationships. My apologies. Are you good? That? My well my goodness, that that you can set up as well. So Vivint is one you should be looking to do one by Diane me.
Yeah, no kidding, right? I’m about to i It’s funny, I’m getting a COVID test tomorrow. But this is just, I just came back from the gym, and I was eating this is the problem. This is how dumb I am. I was eating pumpkin seeds, also known as pitas. If you want to be fancy, I was eating pumpkin seeds before I went to the workout just like a little snack. Yeah, they are stuck in my throat. And now they’re, you know, coming up. So yes, I am fine. But I am getting a COVID test tomorrow so that I can go have Thanksgiving with my family. We’re all getting tested to do the responsible thing. But sorry about that for all of our listeners having to listen to me hack through that. But what I was saying about affiliate relationship, in addition to Vivint, you know, you can do this also with other types of services energy sometimes. So look into local energy, you know, providers, also, you can do it with, you know, internet telephone, cable, you know, if you’re going to be referring this anyway, you might as well find these affiliate relationships and build them into your vendor list.
Gogo Bethke 17:28
Absolutely, I have probably 17 different affiliate things that are worth mentioning, that are making really good money through them. And we it’s all about I mean, we all work and we all make these connections, our life is built off of sales, which is built off of connections might as well what’s the difference, selling a house or selling a home security system,
D.J. Paris 17:46
right? If you want to see, you want to see gogos links, you can visit her website, which is gogo, Beth key GOGOETHK e dot work. So not.com But dot work forward slash links. And you can see some of these affiliate links that she has. And also, obviously, you can see a lot of different other things that that gogo is involved with.
Gogo Bethke 18:09
We just added this one on there. And it’s a quite hefty one. I we just had one of our agents on our team refer six of them, she made $1,200 that she would have had anyway, she had those closings anyway, she just happened to mention you guys need home security. They said yes, she made $1,200 I was like, Go go You paid for my mortgage, I was like you walk home, I’m all about figuring out multiple ways of being able to pay the bills and live the live life by design. You don’t mean if you’re going to put into work, I want you to take out as much money as you possibly can.
D.J. Paris 18:42
Yeah, and it’s also just nice, you know, real estate is really so transactional in nature and to any to add any additional revenue sources really just helps smooth out sometimes the ups and downs of in between closings, especially when we might not be able to move around as much, you know, in the next few months. So that’s a really, really good idea. So as you know, as the now there’s just a little bit of downtime at the end of the year and you’re sitting around thinking about how to grow your business, build that vendor list, think about some affiliate relationships that you can build, like Vivint look into energy, you know, cable internet, see if some of these services and just call them and say do you have an affiliate relations agreement? Can we work out something where you know, or the very least you know, can you at least send some clients my way if I’m sending them to you. And you can do this too with accountants, attorneys, anyone and everyone. There’s lots of opportunities here financial advisors, another great ones
Gogo Bethke 19:34
cleaners painters, name it cement companies like how many times they’re like do you know someone who can build a deck? Do you mean do you know somebody who can finish a bathroom? Do you know somebody who can I mean, just put everybody on there that can possibly be related to your house or household really unhappy? You know up your clients never need another preferred vendor list. Just always go to yours.
D.J. Paris 19:56
Yeah, and the best sources to if you don’t know ask your clients ask them say, Hey, can you help me? Do you have a really good auto mechanic? Or, you know, and I have got so many vendors just in my own personal life by asking my friends, I mean, that’s what we all do anyway, right? We’re like, Who do we know who’s good, so you might as well curate that list from your existing sphere of influence, and then send it out. And I know, you know, right now I need somebody to fix something with one of my floors. I don’t know a good flooring person, I really don’t. So I’m gonna have to ask a bunch of people who do you know who’s good. And again, you know, this would be for everyone listening as a realtor, you know, I’m a perfect example, I need a flooring person, I don’t know who to call. There’s a million flooring people in Chicago, I don’t know who the best one is. So I’m gonna have to ask somebody anyway. But if I was a practicing realtor, I would have had that list already made. So yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I think that’s a great place to wrap up. And I for everyone listening, you’re probably going to hear this right around Thanksgiving. So hopefully, everyone’s able to enjoy Thanksgiving in whichever whatever that looks like, for some people are unable to get together, some people are able to get together. So let’s think about everyone who’s you know, who’s maybe not having the best possible Thanksgiving and think about them, maybe even reach out to people that are isolated, or, you know, not able to be with family and friends. And if you’re lucky enough to be with family and friends, I hope you everyone’s enjoying that. And I know gogo feels the same way. So go go. I think on behalf of all of our listeners, and viewers, thank you so much, once again for being on the show. We love having you. And we will see you next time. And also before we go, I want to remind everyone to help us two ways, two ways you can help our show continue to grow. And by the way, thank you so much for all of the feedback that we receive about these episodes. With gogo, and just our podcast in general, you guys are so generous to reach out to us and let us know what you like about the show. And the best way you can continue to support us as Yes, keep sending us messages, but also tell a friend, think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing this this interview that we just did with gogo about building your vendor list and send them a link to the show, you can do that by visiting our website, keeping it real pod.com. And in fact, all the way at the bottom of the page on that homepage is every episode, every category of episodes that we do. So if you just want to listen to all the gogo episodes in a row, you can literally do that right at keeping it real pod.com Or if the person’s a podcast person, just tell them to pull up their podcast app search for keeping it real and will pop right up. And go go. Thanks again for being on the show. Once again. You’re awesome. And we will see you. We’ll see you next time.
Gogo Bethke 22:28
Thank you so much. I guess what I’m gonna do now? Is that how to send the direct link to all of my episodes with a swipe up to all my followers.
D.J. Paris 22:36
Awesome. We love it. I’ll show I’ll send that to you so you can do it. Alright guys, thanks so much. We’ll see you next time.
Gogo Bethke 22:41
Next time.
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