Nurturing Your Real Estate Database for Maximum Profit With Luke Acree

Host1 00:00

81% when surveyed why they left their insurance agent said it was because they lacked regular and meaningful communication.

Host 00:05

Because a lot of people don't focus on that. They focus on new, new leads, new new relationships.

Host1 00:10

Why is there a trust recession? Because there's so much noise.

Host 00:14

They've just perfected doing the most unscalable thing possible.

Host1 00:18

One of the biggest mistakes new entrepreneurs make all the time is they're too prideful and they're not willing to ask for help.

Host 00:23

Heard about some insane AI deals that have taken place. Most people will never ask, and that's their problem, never turning it into business. What's up, everybody? Grant Wise here. Welcome back to the Partner Profit Podcast. Excited for my conversation today with a good longtime friend, Mr. Luke A. Cree. What's up, Luke? How's it going, man?

Host1 00:40

It's going great, Grant. Glad to be here. I feel like maybe this is a second podcast I've been on with you. So I'm excited for this one.

Host 00:47

For people that are listening, give us a bit of the backstory. How did you get to where you are today?

Host1 00:51

Yep. Uh so I run a company called Reminder Media. So Reminder Media is a marketing company. For those who don't know, mainly we have focused in the real estate space, but has expanded over the last few years into a bunch of different service-based industries. Got started in it about 15 years ago when I joined up with my uncle, who's the original founder of it. He founded it about 21 years ago. Now he was in the print space. I had started a uh website company in college with my brother Dan. It was called Nextmark Design. Steve was in the print space. He had this magazine idea, and Steve convinced us, hey, let's join forces. And that happened about, you know, I guess it's longer than 15 years now, but I guess 16 years ago. And um, God's blessed us, it's been an amazing ride. We've grown it to about 300 employees. We've helped over 160,000 small businesses at this point, mainly with the ability to generate referral and repeat business. How do you keep in touch with your database? Uh, we do that by doing both print and digital marketing, and we send it to your database as a way to keep you top of mind to hopefully get you the referral and the repeat transaction.

Host 01:48

So relationships are your business.

Host1 01:50

Yep. Relationships is the currency of all business, is what I like to tell people.

Host 01:54

Yeah. So why make that the focus? It might sound like a silly question, but like, why make nurturing the relationship with the database the core focus of your entire business? Because a lot of people don't focus on that. They focus on new, new leads, new new relationships, new, new everything. And so, what about that for you guys? Was like, no, we should focus on this part of the business.

Host1 02:15

Yeah, um, it's a great question because I I see the same pain point. It's so interesting when I ask people, you know, is where does the majority of your business come from? Everybody tells me it's their relationships, it's their sphere, it's their database, is what they'll say. But then when I get in and I audit where they're spending their time, energy, and money, they're going after the anonymous public, they're chasing new leads. And so we saw the massive pain point using real estate as the example because it was the first industry we got into. Everybody knows the statistics. It's, you know, 80 something percent will say they'll use their agent again. It's barely 13% actually do. Mainly that's not because the agent did a bad job. If you look at all the surveys after transactions, are you happy with your agent? Did they do a good job? Usually those are high-rated. It really came down to just the length of time that was happening between transactions. So the average real estate transaction happens every seven to eleven years. And so over that time, the relationship dissipates, the top of mind awareness is gone. And we saw huge amounts of money being lost by the real estate agent because they simply didn't keep in touch. And when we saw that, okay, that's the pain point, there's the majority of their business comes from relationships, comes from their sphere, but yet they're not keeping in touch. Why are they not keeping in touch? And we just saw it's because they don't know what to send, they don't know how often to send it, and they definitely don't have the time to be able to do it. And so that's really where we said, well, there's a pain point that we can solve where we can tell them what to send, we can tell them how often to send it, and most importantly, we can automate it for them on our platform. And then what's so interesting is now we've expanded right into insurance and financial advising. Like insurance agents, when they lose clients, 81% when surveyed, why they left their insurance agent, said it was because they lacked regular and meaningful communication from their agent. 44% of an insurance agent's database right now hasn't heard from their insurance agent in the last 18 months, is what they say. And so you go, there's so much pain. And everybody, every entrepreneur listening to this, every business owner knows, yep, I know I got to keep in touch and I know my uh touch points are spotty, and I know they might be lame, and I'm not probably doing enough of it, but I just don't have the time, and that's really why we chose to go in there.

Host 04:20

Makes a lot of sense. And um, obviously I've been in the industry for a long time, so I agree with everything that you just said in relation to you know the people's inability to do that. But it's always definitely been fascinating because it's arguably one of the most important parts of the business is maintaining the relationship with the audience.

Host1 04:36

Yeah, the fortunes and the follow-up. Like I think also a pain point that I've seen, and I'm curious your take on this, is that we tend to market very transactionally because we're thinking I have a product and a service I want it to sell. And so we tend to market very transactionally, but relationships are not built transactionally, and so that's the disconnect for most businesses. So, case in point would be this is like, hey, when your insurance agent just sends you insurance information 24-7, what do you tend to do with it? What happens is you tune it out because you're not into insurance 24-7. You don't need it. Uh, you need it when you need it. That's the thing about insurance. Real estate is the same thing, is you tend to market to people purely on real estate transactional information, and you don't realize that, whoa, if I actually just step back a little bit and market a little bit more relationally, add in some more entertaining content. Like we send a customizable magazine on behalf of like a real estate agent or insurance agent to their database, and people are blown away every time. The recipe cards in this magazine, people freaking love these recipe cards, has nothing to do with insurance, nothing to do with real estate, but they love them. And I kid you not, man, the testimonials we get from agents and insurance clients of ours who said, My client made me the recipe in the magazine, invited me over. And it's like that's the stuff that you will create memorability. And it's like if you can become memorable, why does that matter? Well, in real estate, and I know I'm going to those because there's my main client basis, but 81% of sellers only interview one agent before they choose that agent to sell their home. So if you're not first in the mind of the client when they need a real estate agent to help them sell their home, you're not going to get the business. Because 81% go with the first agent they talk to. And so, yeah, recipe might seem simple, but it's not simple when it made you actually first in the mind of the client. And that's kind of the concept that we go with is like, hey, why not send entertaining content like local events that are happening in the area, recipes, and then tag in your market report and your gist list that you're just sold, and that combo effect will get you known, like, and trusted.

Host 06:42

It's without question the way to go. I've had people just on the show, like in the last couple of weeks. Yeah, I was creating a lot of business content, wasn't getting anywhere. So I just scrapped it and I started creating content about cars. Now I get 350,000 views a month, and my business has never been busier. And it's like, all right.

Host1 07:01

Well, you you think about like no like and trust. Like is not just personality. I'm sure I mean that has something to do with it, but it's more about common values, shared identity. So, how do you show? Yeah, I like to do business with people that I am like. If you like boats and I like boats, then there's a commonality there.

Host 07:17

It does feel like, because you know, disruptive advertising is I'm gonna put ads through your feed and then I'm gonna get you to click on it, or direct response marketing, I'm gonna get you to click on that and go take an action. So I'm taking you were not here to look at my thing, but you did. I got you off, and then I got you off to this other site, and then now I've sold you on taking whatever action I need you to take. The numbers through social advertising campaigns that I've seen have dramatically changed. The cost of acquisition has blown through the roof because it feels like today people don't there, it's almost like the customer behavior has changed a little bit, where I gotta build a relationship with somebody first, and then I can let them solve my problem. We're in a much more logical time period when it comes to marketing right now. It's not nearly as emotional as it was three to four years ago. It's super logical. And so people are just they're being way more picky about what they spend their money on. They're building relationships much more intentionally before they decide to pull out, you know, their card and buy something. I think it has been a fascinating thing to watch change in consumer behavior is the intent on building a relationship with somebody before they buy.

Host1 08:22

I think it's because we ultimately buy from people we trust. Like as I think about like what we're truly doing, it's really maybe not a relationship-based business. It's really a trust-based business. But the relationship is one of the best mediums, the best ways to build true trust. Because you probably don't want to have a relationship with every single service provider that ever helps you, right? It's not that you want to be best friends with them, but you want to trust them. And when you have a relationship where they know your kids and I know, like it's why the referral is so powerful because uh there's this inherent trust built in. And so I think what you're getting at, which is so spot on, is that consumers are tired of being swindled and are they're tired of they just don't want the salesy used car salesman, fluff, all that stuff. They just want to get to the brass tax logically of what we're talking about here and how do I trust this? And that's why you're seeing like reviews are everything, where it's like, how many reviews can you get? Can you show volume of reviews? Can you show quality of reviews? And then obviously high star ratings within those reviews because that's one way to build trust. Another way to build trust is through accolades, and we help clients do this. It's like when you're doing your drip campaign, you want to be frequent. So you want to touch people a certain number of times a year to stay top of mind. You want to send impactful things. That would be you want to educate them, you want to entertain them, you want to endear them to your business. And then last but not least, you want to build trust. You want to put things of trust in there, and that would be your accolades, how many clients you've served, how long you've been in the business, that would be your testimonials, what your clients are saying about you on Google and on these different review sites. And then last but not least, you want to show them that you're, I call it the SME, the subject matter expert. So if you're a roofer in your area and you're trying to reach, you know, all the people in the community, you want them to see you as the SME, the subject matter expert of roofing. How do you do that? Well, if you put out educational content on roofing consistently, whether through a podcast, through some social media posts, through part of your email newsletter, through part of your magazine that's going out, slowly over time, your consistency in doing that is going to elevate you as the subject matter expert when it comes to roofing. Oh, you got to talk to Bob over here. This guy loves roofs. And I saw that practically come true for our podcast. I'm sitting in our podcast studio right now, and this whole take action came from our stay paid podcast. I wanted to be known for sales and marketing. So I put out consistently educational content on sales and marketing every single week, and I've done it for eight years. And slowly, not in the beginning, for three years, nobody listened, but slowly over time, I started to build trust and credibility when it came to sales and marketing because I put out educational content. And so if you if you think about your drip, I tend to think about it, I call it like a fit framework: frequency, impact, trust. I need to be frequent at least 26 plus times a year. I need to create impact. That's education, entertainment, endearment, and I need to build trust. I can do that by showcasing testimonials, accolades, and subject matter contact.

Host 11:17

I was just gonna let you keep going. You're doing a fantastic job without without me answering without me asking any questions.

Host1 11:23

I'm just over here. I'm just over here like a talking head. That's what it is. My my wife tells me I I I'm unplugging my headphone too. My wife says that I uh uh talk too much too.

Host 11:36

So no, no, this is perfect. This is really good. Well, I have heard a lot of people say this that they think we're heading into a trust recession and or that we're already in one, especially like you and I were talking a lot about AI before we even started. AI is changing the marketing game without question from a content standpoint, because there's so much content now that is just AI.

Host1 11:54

Yeah, are you following any AI influencers yet? I probably am and don't even know it.

Host 11:58

Not yet. Yeah, probably as I say, probably, I just don't realize it. I try I try to consume as little content as possible. I try to produce as much as I can, but I try to consume as little as I can. So I don't know. I've heard about some insane AI deals that have taken place in the last like six months. Somebody sold their likeness for almost a billion dollars. I thought that was crazy. No way, yeah, get out of here. I can't remember the name of the influencer, but he sold his likeness for 945 million dollars, and all they're doing is taking his persona and then using AI to do massive deals with companies, sold his social profiles, he sold everything, and just walked.

Host1 12:42

That is so crazy, dude. I think it is because you go, why is there a trust recession? Because there's so much noise and there's so much um it's almost become too easy to become an influencer, right? There have you seen the memes, it's like guys like us, they just get a microphone and they act like they're talking to somebody on a podcast as their clip, right? But they're really not talking to anybody. And it's like the point I'm trying to make is that it's just been too easy to claim you're a guru and you're a coach and you're a whatever influencer.

Host 13:13

No due diligence there. Like anybody can make a claim. And as long as you're standing in front of a Lambo, it must be true.

Host1 13:19

Like, yeah, and so we went through years of that with the rise of social media, and now people have caught on. And so I think that you know, there's a little bit of a response reactively.

Host 13:30

In your mind, and I know you talked about like how to build a and maintain a relationship through the touch points, but I want to go deeper on trust. Let's go a little bit further. Like, how do I really develop trust in the person that I'm trying to build a relationship with from a business standpoint so that I could grow what I'm doing?

Host1 13:47

Well, I mean, the way I think about it fundamentally is if you want to earn trust, you got to do what you say you're gonna do, and you've got to do it for long periods of time. And like you think fundamentally, where do businesses tend to fail, especially at the local level, the service-based level, is we tend to overpromise and underdeliver. And not to pick on contractors, I'm getting my kitchen remodeled right now. And Zach, you're great. But it's so common in the contracting industry. It's like I'm gonna show up this day, I'm gonna be done by this date, and what happens? They don't show up, they show up late, they don't get it done on time. It's like if you if you fundamentally want to have trust with people, you've got to do what you say you're gonna do, show up consistently for people, and that trust is built over, you know, basically delivering on the relationship. And that's fundamentally what you need to think of service-based. You want to create raving fans, though, you've got to go the next mile, right? You don't create a raving fan and create an advocate for you unless you do the unexpected. And I learned this. There's a guy named Jay Bear. He's a great um kind of he goes, yeah, he's awesome. Uh, he came on our podcast and he gave me the example of you never go into a room, turn on the light switch, and freak out because the lights came on. And he goes, why? Because you expected the lights to come on. You turn the light switch on, you expect them to come on. Nobody is going to freak out and trust you and rave about you because you did what you say you were going to do. So they hire you for their insurance, you serve them insurance. They're not going to become a raving fan. What do you need to do? You need to do the unexpected, right? This is what Chick-fil-A has mastered. It's why they make more money in six days a week than the average does in seven. It's because they do the unexpected. You drive up to the drive-thru line, they're out there with little iPads and they get you through quickly. You expect a cashier that's grumpy, this cashier is friendly and says, My pleasure. Like they do the little unexpected things that cause you to go, wow, this is this is a crazy good place. Disney was another one. I interviewed the um chief experience officer for Disney. And I thought it was so crazy the little things Disney does to try to create unexpected experiences. Like they have people, all their job is to go around and find kids who are dressed up as a Disney hero or, you know, princess or whatever, and they freak out and they ask the kid for the autograph just so they can make that an experience for the kid, where the kid, you know, and that makes the parent parent feel great, right? For the whole thing, because there's little things that Disney does that they try to go above and beyond to do the unexpected. So you should be asking yourself as a business owner, if I want to build trust, am I doing what I said I was gonna do? Am I doing it consistently for long periods of time? Because anybody can do it once. Can I do it consistently? Then if I want to create people who are advocates based upon that trust, am I doing the unexpected? Like, am I showing up? So the example I'll give for like a real estate agent is like, hey, if you're gonna go show me a house, are you gonna go above and beyond and not just tell me about that house, but tell me about that neighborhood? And are you gonna go above and beyond and know that my daughter, uh Evelyn, loves gymnastics? So you're gonna research the closest gymnastics school that's in that area? Or quite simply, does it even have to be that intense? You could go, have you looked at the HOA fee and have you studied what all the other HOA fees are on average in that area and share with you, hey, here's what your HOE fee would be, here's what they compare to the other HOA fee. Those are just little things that it's like, wow, I didn't expect you to go that extra mile. I've seen people where they'll go, hey Grant, you know, I'm looking forward to meeting you on Saturday. Hey, do you have a favorite cup of coffee? And they'll bring you your favorite cup of coffee from Starbucks when they meet you. And that little thing goes the extra mile that creates a raving fan because it triggers reciprocity.

Host 17:14

Man, that's good. I've not heard that articulated the way that you described it yet. I would agree. We I've talked about Chick-fil-A on this podcast a few times, and I always use the example of me ordering something to go where somebody brings it to my house or to my office, and I'm like, you know, Chick-fil-A can service roughly six to seven cars a minute, which when you look at the revenue, it's like, why on earth would they let somebody get in a car, drive 10 minutes to my office, give me my seven dollar order, and then drive 10 minutes back? I'm like, what's the pain of this 20 to 25 minute exercise? Why on earth would they do this? But it's like they've just perfected doing the most unscalable thing possible to a point where you're just blown away by the experience and the service that you get. I could not possibly agree more. I've not heard the Jay Bear story about, you know, when you walk into a room and turn the lights on, you expect the lights to come on. Nobody's shocked by that. It's so good. I know we're running out of time, and I want to ask you this one more question. So you you do a good job of building a relationship. You know, you get a new friend, you start to build a relationship, you're doing what you guys teach people to do, you're developing trust. How do you turn that relationship into revenue?

Host1 18:24

Yeah. Well, I think like here's how we do it practically with clients is you know, I always tell people there's six frequencies of marketing at a high level. You got the direct mail box, email in box, you have social media, but then you have social media and really the web can be classified as one. But then you have uh what I call as face-to-face. So that's like a pop-by, a client event. Then you have voice-to-voice, which is like a phone call, and then screen to screen, which is like a text message. Your job is I get Grant as a relationship, right? I've done a great job. I delivered what I said I was going to deliver. I'm keeping in touch with him now with these six frequencies of marketing. The key really is of those six is the two face-to-face and voice-to-voice. Do you have a human-to-human strategy to where you can give the ask for business if you're a service-based professional? So, like our real estate team, once a month, we do a call night with A-Group Brothers Realty where we call our database. We call behind, I don't know if you guys can see if this is an audio podcast or video, but I have a magazine behind me of our magazine that goes out to our database. I'll call Grant up. Hey, Grant, what's thinking about you today, man? I just got my latest issue of Good Be Home magazine. It reminded me I'm sending it to you as a gift. It's something I send to all my best relationships. I couldn't believe it. We haven't talked, man, in like three months. I wanted to call and catch up. How's life been? And it's my non-salesy way to ask for the business. But here's how you do it, okay? Then after I non-salesy check in on you and just call behind an item of value, now I reference something about business that I'm giving within my item of value. Hey, by the way, one of the things that I put in the magazine that um so many of my friends right now are asking me what their home's worth. And I just want to point out if you ever wanted to know what your home's worth, I put a QR code right there on the front of the magazine. You can scan it anytime. It'll tell you an instant value of your home. I can always follow up with you and give you kind of a professional value. But I've been shocked, man, how many people are interested in knowing their equity. And I have a lot of people right now also that are interested in like investing. I guess it's gotten really popular on HD TV. I didn't know, Grant, have you any interest in like buying, selling, investing this year? So now I'm very strategically being able to ask Grant, my client, through an item of value that I'm giving, right? Is Gary V. Give, give, give before you take. Hey, I want to give to you. If you ever want to know what your home is worth, I got a free tool for you. You can, I just wanted to give that to you. Then I make that ask. And then here's the last thing, which is the referral. I always teach people, you know, I learned this, I think it was from the Daily Wires. Ben Shapiro was talking about building the Daily Wire, and I thought this was so powerful. He talked about one of the biggest mistakes new entrepreneurs make all the time is they're too prideful and they're not willing to ask for help. And one of the greatest things you can do is ask for help and give people the joy of giving. And so I apply that to referrals is don't rob your community and your database from the chance to help you. So I will call up my clients, say, Hey, you know, Grant, I want to reach out to you because I have a lofty goal for my business this year. And I was wondering if you could help me. I'm trying to meet new people. My business of relationships, like, man, I freaking love my relationship with you. If I could have a hundred grants, it would be amazing. You might think I'm crazy, but it would be amazing. And I just wanted to ask, do you know anybody that you could introduce me to? I'd love to send them my magazine. Maybe they're not interested in buying, selling, investing right today, but I just want to build more relationships. I want to help a hundred families this year. Anyone you know that you could introduce me to? And that ask through the lens of help is so freaking powerful, powerful. I interviewed a lady, Taylor Hunt, in North Carolina. She's a beast of a real estate agent, and she takes it to the next level. She posts her goal on social and she updates all year long to her database and to her clients. All right, I'm I'm at 40 to my goal to 100. She says it never fails in her closings that she's having clients who be like, what number are we for you? They want to help. I'm telling you, if you ask people, hey, I have a lofty goal, I want to help 50 families this year, I want to do 50 bathroom remodels this year and help people. If you know anybody and people love to feel like they're helping you out. And the reason why you don't want to ask for help is because you don't want to feel like you owe anybody. And it's like, get rid of that. Get rid of that pride. So those are just some tactics we use. Like our real estate team, we're the number one mid-sized team in Virginia right now. You know, we'll 54% of our deals will come from referrals. We'll do about 400 transactions this year. And I say that not to impress people, it's just to impress upon people. I'm I promise you, like we're living this out in the day-to-day of a service-based business. Most people will never ask, and that's their problem of never turning it into business. So they do all the work to build the trust and the relationship and they never ask. If you don't ask, you don't receive. And the reason they don't ask is because they don't have a way to do it that feels natural. Asking for help feels natural. And then more importantly, if you send a touch point that has an item of value offering that you can reference, that will feel natural to you as well. And both of those, you know, that's what we do for people.

Host 22:58

So good. Man, it's so good. I hope everybody was listening because you just gave them a free, you gave them some free advice.

Host1 23:05

I don't not necessarily free, but yeah, so that's that's how much it's worth, ladies and gentlemen.

Host 23:10

You gave some free advice that's worth millions. I mean, obviously, you guys are proof in the pudding, you've got one of the the largest or most productive mid-sized teams in Virginia. But it's it's true. I mean, it's been a central theme in a lot of the conversations I've had is just give to people, just just offer value, help them, do something with little to no expectations in return. But if people have come in on the backside of that and said, you know, you have to know when to ask. So I think what you just kind of gave everybody was, you know, a really good playbook for building relationships, adding value to those relationships, and then monetizing those relationships. And uh I really, really, really appreciate you taking the time because that was that was really awesome. I always like to ask this at the end is you know, what's the number one way that the listeners of the podcast can partner with you? How can we support you guys right now?

Host1 23:52

Yeah, I love that. Thank you. Thank you for having me on. Go to remindermedia.com. Would love for you guys to request a sample of our magazine because I think not only can you use it to touch with your sphere, you can actually feature your other partners on this. So if you have a, you know, uh real estate agent listening to this that wants to partner with a lender, a cleaning company, a contractor, you can have your own magazine go into your database and all of you can be featured in it. And not only can you share cost and stuff like that, but you can actually reach each other's database, which is, you know, you're not only helping me, but hopefully we're helping each other uh by doing that.

Host 24:26

Love it. We'll make sure that we link up the ways people can connect with you in the show notes. I really appreciate you spending some time with me today, man. This was an awesome conversation. Awesome. Thanks, Grant. Of course, of course. And thank you all for continuing to listen to the Partner in Profit podcast. This has been another epic conversation. I'll see you on the next one. Peace.