Welcome to our quarterly feature, Social Bootcamp With Gogo Bethke!
In this episode, Gogo and DJ discuss what is attraction and how to participate in it. Gogo also goes back to the beginning of her career in real estate. Next, Gogo discusses the importance of understanding your hourly rate and how to calculate it. Gogo also shares tips on how to set up systems, control your income and the hires you should make in order to unload your burden and grow your business. Last, Gogo describes her bootcamp and what agents can benefit from it.
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!
This episode was brought to you by Real Geeks.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
As a realtor, do you know your hourly rate? We’re going to figure that out today and explain why it’s the most important number in your business. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our show.
Today on the show we have our monthly series called Social bootcamp with gogo Beth key. Now gogo Beth key 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. So that left her with nothing other than Facebook to help build her business which is where she started. She created gogos real estate and began her real estate career. Now with the power of social media Google has sold over I don’t need this is an old number. It’s got to be probably close to $200 million dollars in real estate transactions probably more. She shares the good the bad the ugly of real estate and her honest snippets into her daily life has earned her 10s of 1000s of social media followers in the real estate community and she has earned the nickname The Queen of social media as are being asked to present at various conferences and events with realtors. She built her own social media bootcamp, which is the greatest boot camp out there for realtors called gogos bootcamp. Today she has a team of over 800 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. Anyone can do it as well please follow gogo on Instagram at gogos real estate so at gogos real estate G O gos real estate and also please please please consider investing in her bootcamp visit Gogo podcast.com It’s the greatest platform we we were the only platform we recommend for agents to learn how to get Social Media Domination for real estate stuff. Real Estate Leads gogo we are old friends I am so glad to have you on the show.
Gogo Bethke 3:37
Thank you so much for having me again. I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while though.
D.J. Paris 3:41
I know we haven’t seen each other in a bit and gogo has exploded and we have to talk about this because I’m jealous of you at you have I have spent the last 12 years recruiting real estate agents and I only have 800 Real estate agents go go blown past me in about a three year two to three year period doing the same thing and the reason I’m bringing this up is because the way in which she attracts agents into her group is the exact same way you can attract buyers and sellers into your sphere of influence.
Gogo Bethke 4:16
Yeah, everything I do I like to do it with attraction right? I don’t cold call even in the real estate side of things. I cannot beg people for their business. Instead I do it in a way where they decide when they want to work with me right so they call me or text me or email me or whatever avenue they choose. But they entered themselves into my life. So it’s attraction on all sides.
D.J. Paris 4:35
Yeah, let’s talk about that. What is attraction and how do we participate in it?
Gogo Bethke 4:40
So I mean that’s a great question. I don’t think I ever stopped it really like dissect what is attraction but to me what that means is like we all have our energy we all have our character, right? We all have like the things that we stand for and our ethics and stuff and if you allow it to get out to the world, right so I use the avenues social media to allow people to get to know me, but by sharing Who I am in the world. This way I attract the people who are just like me, because the ones that can send my accent in never going to call me to sell a house, right? So by attracting meaning now I’m so sad pre selecting, unknowingly, people that want to do business with me, by allowing them to get to know me when they get to know me, they trust me. And as soon as I earn their trust, they’ll buy something from me right there by my services. So being a realtor, we don’t sell real estate, we sell ourselves and our services. And that’s what I need to convince them over time, I need to convince them so they choose to work with me versus working with the rest of the world where 4 million realtors in this country and same with Agent attraction, right, especially with the brokerage and I am better viewers, you want those agents to come and work with you. You don’t want them to go to doors down to another brokerage and sign up, right. So it’s attraction, I’m attracting the people that want to run business the way I want to run business, we have the same principles. And then they come to me.
D.J. Paris 5:55
If you didn’t start in a major metropolitan area, I mean, I know you’ve been on our show for years and years and most of our audience knows your your, your story, but I always like to go back to the beginning. You this you you started your real estate practice in a relatively rural area, right?
Gogo Bethke 6:13
Yeah. So even when I you know how in the US you fill out official paperwork, and there is no thing of like village it’s everything’s a city. Right. And I was so mad when I moved here initially, because I googled the definition of a city, right? And I can’t remember it was long, long time ago, but it was like a large population maybe like 200,000 Plus, right? Don’t quote me on it. I don’t remember what the number was. I live. I live in a city guys that has the population of 9000. At the time when I moved here, we had one gas station and one grocery store. No restaurants still to the day. We don’t have a single coffee shop besides the Starbucks that’s inside of a grocery store. And that’s like the only one in like 50 mile radius, right. So it’s as I like to call it the boonies. the boonies of Michigan, it’s we live off of a dirt road, everybody pretty much has an acre, right that they live on, you can wave to your neighbor, right. It’s a it’s a totally different life of actually where I live compared to how I live. Yeah. That like metropolitan city, travel, foodie, all of that stuff, right? trips and Olympic in Michigan.
D.J. Paris 7:18
Yeah, I think that’s really important too. Because there probably aren’t a lot of people who sound like you in your in your lives. Probably not a lot of Romanians in Central Michigan.
Gogo Bethke 7:29
No, no diversity rate here is less than 1%. So I mean, I put it this way, if I don’t open my mouth, you can’t tell that I’m not from here, right. But as soon as I open my mouth, you can’t.
D.J. Paris 7:42
And yet here you are, despite not being your native, this being English being your native language, and you have just completely dominated in this space. And you did it all through social media. And I know our audience already already knows that watch agents be doing now these days in social media.
Gogo Bethke 8:04
So I actually well, it’s kind of social media, right? Like everything I do is social media is all like, as they say every road leads leads wrong, right? Like everything I do is powered with social media. But what I really wanted to talk about today is understanding your hourly rate, even though it does apply to social media too, right? Like, should I be doing this? Should I be spending three hours DMing people or should I hire somebody to DM people, right? So I wanted to talk about because I just had a presentation in Nashville. So I wanted to talk about calculating your hourly rate and knowing what you’re worth and understanding like, should I be doing this task anymore? grayed out,
D.J. Paris 8:43
because we to slow this down just for a moment we’re talking about. We’re in real estate. This is a transactional business in nature. And now we’re going to figure out what our hourly rate would be and where we should devote our time.
Gogo Bethke 8:59
Sounds good. Yep. And in a sense, it will all tie back to social media and everything else that you do. Can I share my screen? Yes.
Would you disable it then? So right next to share screen, there should be a little arrow up and hit that and allow everyone please. There you go. What’s awesome, there we go. Well, where did my There we go. And share screen. Can you see my screen?
D.J. Paris 9:42
We can.
Gogo Bethke 9:44
Awesome. Let’s do this. This is the first time we actually do a presentation. We’ve never done that before. It was always just kind of question based. But I figured since I have this, let’s fly through it because this way I can share more information. I’m going to skip who I am right So I’m all about systems, I like to break things down, I like to stop for a minute, take a 10,000 foot view of my life out of my business life, and then just kind of figure out how am I going to make millions? And what is it going to take to get there and what systems I have to have in places and you know what people that have to be in my life, and then I’ll break it down backwards, meaning I know my end goal, I know where I’m at. And I’m going to stop, take a 10,000 foot view, and I’m going to say, Okay, what do I need to do today? To get one step closer? What do I need to get done in a week? What do I need to get done in a month? And then what do I need to get the new year to get to that end result? Now in order? I am the main, the major word in there was what do I have to get done? Right? So because everything else, I want you to pay attention to that, because at the end of the presentation, I want you to stop and think, what are the tasks that you can hire out, so you no longer doing it? Because it’s not worth your time. But in order to figure out what’s what your time, we have to figure out what your time is worth. Right? So let’s get into that. It’s very simple. It’s just math. I love numbers, because I don’t have to translate it in my mind. So when I look at numbers, I can look at it in English, or I can look at it in Hungarian and Romanian is the same meaning, right? So number is just mad. Also, when it comes to math, guys, when you’re trying to make a business decision, I want you to make a business decision based on your bottom line, not based on a feeling right. So I don’t do feelings in business. I don’t do like to I feel like doing that for the rest of my life. Maybe you do. Maybe you want to continue doing that and rest of your life. But what if it’s not worth it? Right? So that’s how you want to remove feelings and make it based on Matt dollar. Money. That’s how we get paid. Right? Did you if you have any questions at any time, just stop me. I don’t want a monologue the whole time?
D.J. Paris 11:45
No, no, no, no, this is really great. And what I want our audience to understand is gogo is giving you her exact strategies that she uses and her her values or thoughts, her philosophies about social media, and you can take bits and pieces of it. And then you know really start to accelerate your your reach.
Gogo Bethke 12:07
Yeah, because even though everything started for me with social media, right, if you want to build an empire, it requires systems and it requires people you cannot do it alone, right. So even though all of this ties back and everything is gets fed into all of my businesses from social media, you still have to have the backend under control as well. So you can scale it. And this is where we’re going to start with your hourly rate to see who should be your first hire. Right? So I’m going to talk about the story, the very expensive load of laundry. So I had a coach, a real estate coach in my fifth year of real estate, and I was paying $1,000 an hour. And she was amazing. And I was doing a load of laundry where I was talking to her. And she says What are you doing? And I’m like, I’m a woman, like I can multitask. Like I can run a load of laundry and talk to you on the phone like how like, that’s not hard, right? But the truth is, was I truly paying attention to her? Was I taking notes? Was I understanding what she was talking about? And most importantly, if I didn’t take notes, did I even know what to implement after the call? No, I wasn’t right. So if you’re paying for something, or if you’re doing something that’s costing you a certain or money, a certain amount of money in that hour, you have to give it all your full attention. So you should not be running a load of laundry while you’re on a coaching call, right? Because it’s not your time best friend. And also there are certain things on your calendar that you do every single day that you are going to stop doing after this conversation that we are having here today. So one question, though, do you feel like your income is in your control? So as an agent, do you feel like your commission income by the end of the year is in your control? If you said no. Go ahead.
D.J. Paris 13:40
Yeah, it’s a good question. Because agents typically think of the first of the month is starting over.
Gogo Bethke 13:47
Yeah. Right. You’re employed because you got a new listing, you saw the listing, unemployed, you got a new buyer employed, you got him a house unemployed, right? Is that employed unemployed roller coaster, but But I remember when I never knew where my next one is going to come from. Right. Like I was so excited. I’m getting a commission on this one. But I never knew where the next one is going to come from. Right. And this is what I’m talking about is controlling not only where it’s going to come from, but what is going to come to you, right, because if you don’t have a plan, you could be getting a $40,000 weekend plan or a $2.4 million listing, right, you have no idea and everything in between. So I want you to understand that what you post on social media, it has a direct correlation to the commission that you’re going to collect. So in this case, if you can see my screen and if you’re listening then let me tell you what you see on my screen. Let me ask you this question. If you posted on your social media, a $200,000 home, right, what type of buyers do you think are going to look at that post?
D.J. Paris 14:47
Want to buy $200,000 homes?
Gogo Bethke 14:49
Exactly. So you’re going to make approximately a $6,000 commission if you charge 3% Right. How about if you posted a $500,000 home what kind of buyers are going to find
D.J. Paris 14:59
well People who can afford $500,000 homes
Gogo Bethke 15:03
you’re collecting now a $15,000 commission is the word or is it a tool?
D.J. Paris 15:08
It’s exactly the same work.
Gogo Bethke 15:10
So now we are talking a $9,000 difference for doing exactly the same thing. Right? So your commission is exactly it’s a 100% in your control. So keep that in mind. You’re not You’re not posting to post you are posting because you’re searching for a certain style of buyer or persons that for certain style of seller, right? Keep that in mind. Okay, now that you know that it’s in your control, let’s calculate your hourly rate. This is one of my favorite things to do. So let’s assume that on the buy side, you have a $15,000 commission, I did the math with a 15,000. Commission, because where I was going, the price ranges in that state were a little higher than Michigan, right? But let’s for the sake of the math $15,000 commission on the buy side, how many hours do you feel like you spent with the buyer. And here’s what I’m asking you, from the moment that you took that initial phone call to the Chitty chat with them, right? To meet them at a property to explain them how you work, Kevin signed a contract showing some properties, go back or get them under contract by the contract, right? Get them under contract, then go back and do the inspection, maybe go meet the appraisal, do a final walkthrough and go to the closing and negotiate in the middle and some phone calls, right. So I calculated the math with 12 hours work. So with every buyer driving here, and there are new contracts, and yada yada calculated, you’re going to work in average about 12 hours with each buyer. If that’s the case, your hourly rate on the buy side is 1250 bucks. Now let’s calculate it on the listing side. So on the listing side, let’s assume same thing $15,000 Commission, but the truth is, and the listing side, you don’t need to spend as much time with them, right? Because that whole shopping for houses driving from here to there and drive to there. And back to the inspection and final walkthrough. You don’t have to do any of that on the listing side, right. So that four hours working with that seller down to seven. My research shows in average work about seven hours to the seller. And I
D.J. Paris 17:01
want to pause for a moment. So we’re talking about buy side versus listing side. And listing side being almost almost half as resistant. To listing side being half as almost half as much work.
Gogo Bethke 17:20
Yeah. And making twice the amount of money. Yeah, amazing. Yeah, right. Yeah. Right. So you working seven hours instead of 12. And making $2,143 per hour versus making 1002 50. So same and commission, last hour worked higher hourly rate. So in this case scenario, right, which side? Should you spend more time on? Why should you concentrate with your buyers and with your sellers?
D.J. Paris 17:50
Yeah, it’s pretty clear that sellers are where it is at. And now now that we know our hourly rate, sort of where do we go from here?
Gogo Bethke 18:02
Yeah. So now then, you know, you already read let’s figure out where should you be spending your time? Should you be responding to emails? Should you be working on your calendar? How about DMS and posts and scheduling trips and scheduling events and podcasts and creating presentation and your offers and treating them names and sending it over to Title Company and back to the lender and answering phone calls and doing the negotiation and showing up for listing appointment and going to you know, I mean, like walking your dog running a load of laundry? Like all of these things, right? Like all of your trackers and calls and affiliates and gifts and everything that you do right? Closing? Yes. Should you be buying your own closing gifts? Right? That’s what we need to figure out. What’s what your time from now on. So let’s work smarter, not harder. My goal is when when agents say when I asked them what their goal is, and they say, I want to double my transactions. And I’m thinking to myself, why? Because you want to work twice as hard next year, right? You don’t want to double your transactions, you want to double your income, you want to work less and make more money. And that’s why it’s working smarter, not harder, right. So one of the first hires you should have is a transaction coordinator. That was my dear.
D.J. Paris 19:11
I’m a big fan of transaction coordinators. And this is something that oftentimes real estate agents are just it’s just not in their particular skill set or wheelhouse. This is something you can offload to somebody who maybe they’re virtual, maybe they’re in person. And for a pretty reasonable fee, they will take care of all of the paperwork for you.
Gogo Bethke 19:36
Yeah, and transaction coordination coordinators usually don’t get paid if unless you get paid. Right. You could be working on the deal for four weeks. if the deal falls apart. You don’t get paid, they don’t get paid. So I love that because they have a reason to get you to the closing table. A transaction coordinator should charge somewhere in the average of 300 to $500 per deal, right? So when you close you collect your 15,000 commission that’s up and 350 right to do do paperwork for you. But now stop for a second and think I know transactions. So let’s say you’re working with a seller, right? How many hours you push paper from the moment that they decide to list with you, right? You write all of your contracts and the initials and the signatures and the yada, yada, then then they sign it. Now you’re going to have to get the app the listing active, you’re gonna have to put it into the MLS and get it active. After it’s active, you’re going to have to do like ordering your photos and all of that stuff, right? Then you have to communicate back and forth and print the attendance while you negotiate. Right, have to make sure all parties have all of your agenda items, and everybody had a copy of everything. Then the closing docs come in, you have to review the closing docs, and you have to go to the closing. Right. So with the paperwork portion of your job, what do you think DJ? Is the average that agents work on people? We’re going to file?
D.J. Paris 20:46
How many hours? Yeah, I would say, Gosh, a lot of hours, couple of 10 hours, 1012 hours?
Gogo Bethke 20:55
You think so I calculated with two to three hours? Wow. Maybe I work faster than before, right? Yeah, what I calculated because eventually, if you do many transactions, you should know your contracts in and out like I can, I can write a purchase agreement and present an offer in five minutes, right? I just like I know where I need to go on the purchase agreement, price EMD terms that are a red arrow sign here, right? So I calculate it three hours. Now let’s say you’re on the listing side, you remember our hourly rate on the listing side was 2143. Out $43. So if we take that. So 2143 times three hours, let’s say at $6,429. So that’s what it’s costing you to do your own paperwork. $1,429, if you hired it out, it would be anywhere from three to $500. So if I said, I need you in the middle, if I said give me 400 bucks, and I give you 6400 back, would you do it? Yes. Right. But it only works. If now you remove those three hours from your plate, give it to TC, but in these three hours, you’re going to lead generate or do whatever it takes you to get that new lead rider to replace that next $15,000 Commission. Because if you’re going to be sipping mimosas, poolside in those three hours, then the math doesn’t work. Because at that point, the TC becomes an expense, right? So while somebody is working for you, in those three hours that you just freed up for yourself, now you’re going to take those three hours and turn it into lead generation activity, so you can make sure you can get that nice listing or that next buyer. Right,
D.J. Paris 22:33
yeah, I think we’re really what we’re talking about is determining that expanding somebody’s awareness to be able to have people help you from all over the globe, all over this planet, that are going to bid for your business that can do this, you know, at at the times that you need it be done at a rate that is reasonable. And getting it off your plate so that you can of course, can focus on business building activities.
Gogo Bethke 23:07
Yeah, we have our own TC company and our T C’s are licensed in every state in the US. And and they can work with what is it called attorney, Attorney states and title states too. So you make sure whoever you’re working with, they can do all that for you. But here’s another thing, though, this doesn’t apply in every single state. But in some states, if you’re allowed to charge a transaction fee. So in Michigan, we charge a 495 transaction fee to our sellers and our buyers, out of the 495. I can also justify my TC, right, so I get full commission plus transaction fee from which I pay my own TC so I no longer push paper.
D.J. Paris 23:44
It’s really, really, really brilliant. You said it’s so quickly and and impressively that you know, you can build the price of the T the transaction coordinator into the commission.
Gogo Bethke 23:57
Yeah, but even if you did it even if you can charge a transaction fee right in your state, because not most but quite a few states don’t allow it or transaction fee or a broker fee as we call it in Michigan. So even if you can’t charge it, in my opinion, if you promise yourself and in those three hours, you’re going to get yourself another seller, you’re still making $6,400 versus new or you will be making 6400 but you pay 400 of that to the TC but you still are 6000 positive even after you pay the TC even if you have to pay it out of your commission
D.J. Paris 24:29
Yeah, I think this is really a great example of business entrepreneurship and really thinking about beyond the the immediate transaction right trying to figure out where can I spend the most amount of my time to get the the highest ROI return on investment. This you know, go go teaches this to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of agents all over the country. 1000s Actually, and we really encourage everyone When listening to go visit Go, go, go goes bootcamp.com, which is Go Go’s bootcamp Gog O. S boot camp.com. And check out her. Her echo system is absolutely incredible. She’s got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of agents who are in sheet goes on there. Actually, let’s tell the audience about your boot camp. Okay,
Gogo Bethke 25:24
well, let’s start with the original. As we started talking, right, everything that I do I in and grounds and grows from, I should say social media. And so the very first boot camp was Google’s boot camp Social Media course. In there, I teach everything about branding, how I built my brand, how I lead generate with my brand, right, I teach it to other agents, so they can do the same. I never bought a lead in my life. So my goal is to be able to teach agents how to fish for themselves, right not to get a fish from the Zelos and whatever, third party companies, but to actually learn to fish for yourself and put leads on the table for yourself. And then also, my main goal is affiliate income, I don’t even know I have 3040 different affiliate incomes. Now, most of my income, about 95% of my income is passive. So it’s not just about generating yourself that next lead but also generating yourself passive income, because Warren Buffett says, if you can figure out a way how to make money while you’re asleep, you will never be wealthy. And I had to figure out because commission is active, right, which means I have to actually turn time into money. Which means no matter how good you are, at some point, you’re going to hit a ceiling. Right? There’s only one of you, there’s only 24 hours. So the only way you could potentially sell more homes, right? Everybody has a ceiling mine was 52 deals in a year. And I was like that’s it, not one more I can sell without losing my mind. So the only other way I could have made more money in that scenario, if I upped my price range or created more enemies, right. So eventually you’re going to have to grow and in order if you’re not ready necessarily to grow that team, then you have to create your your yourself more time. And by hiring certain things off of your plate. Now you can create yourself more time. There’s a second half of this presentation. These are just TCS, which will remove the transaction coordination off of your plate, the paper pushing, but the next step is really to remove everything off of your plate that doesn’t serve you which will be virtual assistants so or in person assistance. So I have an exercise for that. That’s called the red light green light exercise. I don’t know how much time you assigned for this today, but maybe we can do that on the next call. It is your
D.J. Paris 27:22
Yeah, well, I’d love the red light green light idea. Yeah. So what we’re really talking about is running this like a business and gogo is a perfect example of somebody who went from personal production to now managing a huge, huge network of agents. And please, everybody who is listening to the show, go check out Gogo podcast.com Subscribe to her bootcamp get into her echo system. She has an amazing coaching and mentoring program. Gogo podcast.com. On behalf of all of our listeners, we really appreciate gogo she is one of the top producers at her company exp. We’re so thrilled to have her on the show and see her continue to just sell. Gosh, you must have had a record year last year I’m assuming your question for you.
Gogo Bethke 28:18
I got voted top 125 Most Influential People on the globe alongside Tony Robbins, Grant Cardone Wilson, all of these people by Success Magazine this year.
D.J. Paris 28:31
Congratulations. Go go first Success Magazine accolade there that is really, really amazing. Congratulations.
Gogo Bethke 28:41
That’s the only reason I exist, right? Because I put myself out there like what and shut up. And now they know I exist.
D.J. Paris 28:48
And you do exist and so everyone listening, please check out go go learn about learn from her Gogo podcast.com. But on behalf of gogo and myself, we say thank you, we appreciate you listening to our show, please tell a friend I think of one other real estate agent that could benefit from hearing this great conversation we had about expanding your business and hiring a virtual assistant transaction coordinator and also reach send them a link to this episode. So you can send them right over to keeping it real pod.com all of our episodes can be streamed right there or they can any podcast app that they are using. They can search for keeping it real and hit the subscribe button. So thank you, gogo once again. You’ve been with us for years. And we are so thrilled to have you once again. And for everyone else who is listening we have on behalf of Google and myself we say thank you.
Gogo Bethke 29:44
Thank you so much for having me next time I walk you through the red light green light exercise to learn what to remove from your plate and who to hire an in person assistant or a virtual assistant first so you can remove more stuff off your plate. Create yourself even more time to make more money.
D.J. Paris 30:00
Great teaser for next time. All right, thank you go go and we’ll see everybody on the next episode.
Gogo Bethke 30:06
Thank you guys
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