E 41 | How To Market Your Way To 400 Sales Per Year | Tonya Harbin

[00:00:00] Brandi: we obviously are trying to lead ourselves too, and we have grace for ourselves, and we're really trying to like coach ourselves through this as well. But at the end of the day, like I was just telling someone else, "We're on the bus, we're full steam ahead. Get off or get on."

[00:00:14] Brandi: Like that. But I'm not slowing down,

[00:00:16] Suneet: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Reside Platform Podcast. I'm your host, Suneet Agarwal, and today I've got a mother and daughter duo who are absolutely killing it, Michelle Williamson and Brandie Long of the Williamson Group. Michelle has been building this business since 1999, and Brandie's brought her own energy and very creative edge into the mix.

[00:00:45] Suneet: I can't wait to talk about all that. Together, they've been the top absolute dominating agents in their county for over a decade, and now they're a year into leading a team together. All right. How was that intro, ladies? It was great.

[00:00:59] Brandi: It sounded great. It sounds really

[00:01:03] Suneet: good. Okay, good. How's it going out there?

[00:01:06] Brandi: It's going well. Yeah, good. Good. Staying busy.

[00:01:09] Suneet: Staying busy? I can't wait to talk about that. So let's just dive right in. So for people that don't know you, Michelle, why don't you go first. Tell us who you are.

[00:01:20] Michelle: I have a husband that I've been married to for 37 years, and I have three, three girls who are all married and five grandchildren.

[00:01:31] Michelle: all of the girls and my husband have their license. So we have been doing real estate together as a family since 1999. I was just gonna do it part-time because my husband had a job, and I didn't know anyone here in the county when we moved here, and I had to figure out how to, ac- Generate business

[00:01:54] Michelle: actually get my name out there and kinda generate the business from scratch. So I started doing what no one else was doing here in the county. And I started diving in deep and s- figuring out a area I wanted to farm, and then I started sending out letters and, just built my business from there. I started going to businesses for lunch and just leaving my card everywhere I went, and all of a sudden I pretty much had the business of the county.

[00:02:26] Suneet: So all of a sudden, I'm sure it wasn't just like that. I'm sure there was some like hard times during that early days.

[00:02:33] Michelle: I guess, but, you know, since I was only gonna do it part time, it seemed like all of a sudden. And then everyone just started calling me and, I was the first one in the county to actually start giving gifts to my customers for closing, and it just was crazy how it all came about.

[00:02:52] Michelle: But... And then I realized I really do love it. I fell in love with the people and serving people, and it just became, just something bigger than I actually knew what to do with, and I just started working all the time, and then actually I had some health issues. And Brit said all of her life that she was never gonna do real estate.

[00:03:16] Michelle: When . So when I had the health issues, my one daughter moved home from Louisiana so she could be here. My other daughter, Taylor, had, had her license, but she wasn't doing anything with it. And then Brandy, and they all pitched in and started running the business, and I went to be, out of the business for about six months.

[00:03:39] Michelle: I was in the hospital and, just from stress. And then, Brandy just got thrown in the fire, and then she fell in love with the business, and she took it from there.

[00:03:52] Brandi: Yeah. That's awesome.

[00:03:53] Suneet: So, like, what... Were you mostly like a stay-at-home mom and decided just to go earn some extra cash when you said part-time agent?

[00:04:02] Suneet: Or did you have another job?

[00:04:04] Michelle: I did not have another job. I, um, was actually homeschooling my children,

[00:04:09] Suneet: Okay, you're homeschooling. So that, that is another... It's a job, just not a paid one, right?

[00:04:14] Michelle: Yeah. So I was homeschooling them, and then when Daryl would get home on the, in the afternoon, he'd get home about 3:30, and then I would go out and start working.

[00:04:24] Suneet: Hustle. I l- I love that. I love that. So you started by farming a neighborhood Where'd you get the idea to, like, give, like, gifts in farm neighborhoods?

[00:04:35] Michelle: I had got my real estate license in, um, West Palm Beach, and, I saw other realtors there, and I could not get a break into the market there. It was , so many realtors.

[00:04:46] Michelle: And I was seeing what they were doing in that kind of county and with all those customers and that. So when I come to this small, rural town, agents were just putting a sign in the yard and waiting for the properties to sell, you know? And that was, Saneen, that was back then when we had... We didn't have MLS, we had the books that you would get once a month.

[00:05:10] Michelle: trying to go through those books And most people wanted to only sell their own listings And I turned into the mobile home queen because nobody wanted to do it here in our . And, um, from then it just got bigger and bigger. And I remember a customer walked in, Saneen, to, uh, I was at Century 21 then.

[00:05:31] Michelle: And a customer walked in, and he had a sock full of money, and he had just come off work. Pulled it out of his lunchbox. And everyone said, "Oh, we don't wanna work with him. we're not interested. He's not gonna be able to buy." And I brought him in to my office, and I got him qualified to buy, and they were just all floored that when he closed on his property.

[00:05:54] Michelle: So I was the one who kind of worked with everyone that no one else wanted to work with.

[00:05:59] Suneet: Yes. Yeah, I was that same guy. I was the guy that sat in the office, and everybody would give all the shitty leads that they didn't wanna work, they would give them to me. Awesome. I love that. Brandi, so we heard about your entry in- into the business.

[00:06:16] Suneet: What were you doing when you got your license? Did you have another job? Were you in school? I

[00:06:20] Brandi: was a stay-at-home mom. I had, I got married young. I got married young, and then I had kids young. My husband, we were a family of four living off $27,000 a year. My husband's in law enforcement, and I was teaching piano lessons to kids, on the side.

[00:06:34] Brandi: That was miserable. and, she, mom started having health issues, and I was like, "You know, I can go clickety-clack on a keyboard. That should be fine, you know, or earn some extra dollars on the side." And so I came into the office and just working, like, you know, as an office assistant, and then the next thing I know, I have my license, and 11 years later, I'm sitting here talking to you.

[00:06:56] Brandi: I have no idea how it all happened.

[00:07:00] Suneet: That's so awesome. yes, right? just start to show up, and then things start happening. Wow. So let's talk about the mail, because you, you told me a little bit about this in the past, Michelle, on a group call. but I want our listeners to hear about it. , Tell me the mail strategy.

[00:07:21] Michelle: I didn't have a lot of money to start building my customer database. So I would print out these mailers, and just say, list all the homes that had sold in their neighborhood, even though I didn't sell it. And then I would take them home, and the girls would fold the letters, and we couldn't afford an envelope, so we'd put a little sticker on the back.

[00:07:46] Michelle: , Trifold the letter with a sticker on the back, and then we would have, um...

[00:07:54] Brandi: Yeah, and then we got to be where we were, like, making some decent money. You were making decent money, and we could afford envelopes. and but they weren't the self... Yeah, they weren't the self, like, sealing ones, so during summers and after school, my sister and I would be, like, licking envelopes sick off the glue.

[00:08:12] Brandi: We were getting sick off of the glue, but that is how, like we had to do that. Like, that was our duty as daughters. Like, we definitely did that to make sure everything was going, and then that was my earliest, you know, memory of real estate. And honestly, when I came in to the picture, I was like, you know, it is, it's whatever it was, 2025 or 2015.

[00:08:31] Brandi: Mm-hmm. I was like, "We need to get something." You know? It needs to be a little bit more current, and that was the one thing that I kept alive, is like those mailers are gold and they work, and we still mail out to this day. Like, between like 2,000 and 3,000 mailers go out each month.

[00:08:48] Suneet: Yeah. So who were you mailing to in the beginning?

[00:08:52] Suneet: Just a neighborhood that you chose?

[00:08:54] Michelle: Yep, just neighborhoods that I wanted to work in, you know, which was kind of like middle income, people could qualify middle income, for Arcadia, and that's where I started. And, then when just a couple years ago, and this is what really took the mailers to another level, is, we had an idea and it was, "Okay, we're gonna go take pictures of every property that sells."

[00:09:23] Brandi: Even if we don't have

[00:09:24] Michelle: anything. Even if we didn't have anything to do with it. So we would take the picture and then we would put it on the printout, and then we would put another property sold.

[00:09:36] Brandi: We would- In your ne- in your neighborhood ... in your neighborhood Another property has sold in your neighborhood.

[00:09:40] Michelle: And then we would put a card in there with it. And so perception is reality. Everyone thought we had sold all of those houses, and we hadn't. We had just went and took pictures and like, "Another property has sold in your neighborhood." And then the business just came in faster than we knew what to do with it.

[00:10:01] Suneet: what were you mailing at first though? market update or like a recipe card or

[00:10:08] Michelle: It was just a letter that said, "Hey, I'm a real estate agent in your neighborhood, and this is the homes that have sold in your neighborhood in the last six months, and I just wanted to give you an update." And then my card would be in there.

[00:10:21] Michelle: And then we would change it to, "Have you seen what the market's doing? have you checked into getting financing? There's all kinds of programs right now with 100% financing." I would just do different letters, and I would mail out one every month.

[00:10:36] Suneet: Okay. And then when you started seeing the houses getting sold and started getting listings, would you do like a just listed card to the same farm?

[00:10:47] Michelle: Nope, I wouldn't. I would only do it when it sold, because, once again, I was so busy and the gir- you know, I only had so much money to spend on, stamps.

[00:10:58] Suneet: Oh, no, I'm happy you didn't send the just listed. I'm just trying to, to understand what, what the campaign is. Absolutely. so then when you did get listings sold, would they be a part of the letter?

[00:11:11] Suneet: Say, "Look at all these houses that I've sold." Or would you send one every time anything sold?

[00:11:16] Michelle: No, I would send it once a month, 'cause that's all I could afford. And then I would put if five homes have sold, whether I sold them or not. and then probably five years into it, then I started sending out recipe cards.

[00:11:30] Michelle: And to this day we still send out recipe cards. Every month we send, um, recipe cards, a thousand. So I would order them every year, same time, 12,000 postcards with recipes for every month. You know, like December would have a Christmas recipe, Christmas cookie or something. And I had done that for... We still do it, so it's probably been about 22 years now.

[00:11:55] Michelle: Yeah.

[00:11:55] Brandi: We pau- we

[00:11:56] Suneet: paused it. Damn, 22 years.

[00:11:58] Brandi: Mm-hmm. We paused it for a year, and we were getting calls asking where their postcards were. So-

[00:12:02] Michelle: And even after things have sold and they'll move up north, they'll say, "Can you please still send me your recipes every month?"

[00:12:11] Suneet: Incredible. so now is it everybody gets a market update and a recipe card, or is it just a recipe card now?

[00:12:21] Michelle: They get both.

[00:12:22] Suneet: They get both. Is it one piece of mail or is it two?

[00:12:25] Michelle: Two.

[00:12:27] Suneet: So now everybody gets hit twice a month?

[00:12:29] Michelle: Mm-hmm. And then we've just gotten, um, send out, what it, Mailbox Power. And now, so all, all of our postcards are free now. You only have to pay for the, um, stamp- The monthly

[00:12:41] Brandi: fee ...

[00:12:42] Michelle: whatever the stamp is and the monthly fee, but they're the jumbo postcards.

[00:12:47] Michelle: So we now have, birthdays that automatically go out. We have, it's, after someone closes for 12 months, they get different ideas of what to do. Do you want a market, update of what your home's worth now? And then so we have that go out also, and you really don't have to do anything. You just set it on automatic and it just takes care of it for you.

[00:13:09] Suneet: Yeah. Mailbox Power is great. We have that. You guys have it plugged into Follow Up Boss yet? You already got it. Good. Pretty easy. Pretty easy to set up. Good. O- okay, so we learnedif I'm a past client of yours and I l- and I live in The Farm, how many pieces of mail am I gonna get a year?

[00:13:29] Michelle: Oh my. 24 at least. Yeah If not more, because now we send individual solds, postcards. So if a postcard is sold anywhere in your area- A home

[00:13:39] Brandi: has

[00:13:40] Michelle: sold ... a home has sold anywhere in your area, then a postcard goes out au- automatically to that area.

[00:13:45] Suneet: So should be upwards of 30, right? Like, if you think about birthday and anniversary.

[00:13:53] Michelle: Mm-hmm. And they'll tell me, "We hear from you more than we hear from our kids." but it helps the whole office. As we've started to build a team, you know, we get call-ins from the postcards and mailers. I have a runner that goes out and takes pictures of all the sold properties, you know, every month. So we automatically are scrubbing the list all the time because, you know, people move out, so there's different, um, addresses.

[00:14:22] Michelle: But yeah, we send them out every month without fail.

[00:14:27] Suneet: I love it It's so good. how big is the area that you regularly mail to?

[00:14:35] Brandi: 34,000 addresses, or 34,000 people. It comes down to 13,000 addresses.

[00:14:41] Suneet: Okay. So 13,000 addresses. It's not too crazy. But how many people live in your guys' town, in your guys' market?

[00:14:51] Brandi: 30- In our market, 34,000

[00:14:54] Suneet: So you mail to everybody?

[00:14:56] Brandi: Now we do.

[00:14:57] Suneet: Now we do. Yes. You guys, if you guys were watching this and not just listening to it, you should have seen how confident both the ladies said, Yes. okay. So just so people get some context, how many active listings do you have right now?

[00:15:13] Brandi: 30-something

[00:15:14] Michelle: for the whole office.

[00:15:15] Brandi: For the whole office, I think we're, like, 45.

[00:15:17] Suneet: 45. Yeah. In a, in a town of 34,000.

[00:15:21] Brandi: Yeah. I ha- I think I have 30 of the listings. Yeah.

[00:15:24] Suneet: And how much market share do you guys t- typically have in your, in your market?

[00:15:29] Michelle: For DeSoto County- 25 ... for just the DeSoto County Realtors, we're at 80%. But if you talk about other realtors all coming into our area too, because that has just started in the last couple years.

[00:15:41] Michelle: 30. Probably 30, 33% with every real-

[00:15:44] Suneet: Okay. 33% to 80% dep- depends on how you're counting.

[00:15:50] Brandi: Yep.

[00:15:50] Michelle: Yes. If it's just DeSoto County Realtors, we only have about...

[00:15:55] Brandi: Maybe 15 active realtors.

[00:15:57] Michelle: And we, we have 80% of that market.

[00:16:00] Suneet: Awesome. that's incredible. Now people who, who are listening, they're all, "Oh, shit."

[00:16:05] Suneet: They're all like, "That is a big market share."

[00:16:10] Michelle: Yeah, we had 187 closings last year.

[00:16:14] Suneet: Good. So now you guys are officially running a team.

[00:16:21] Michelle: Well, we're trying to. We're trying.

[00:16:24] Suneet: Brandi, what's the biggest surprise that you found one year into running a team?

[00:16:32] Brandi: Mm, I think the biggest lesson that I've learned so far is that I can't expect everyone to work like I do.

[00:16:40] Brandi: And that's, uh, that's the really tough part, but that is not the way it's supposed to be. Like, we, uh, the team leads are supposed to work 300 times harder than the people on the team. So that is just, you know, if I'm gonna expect them to work at a 100, I've gotta work at a 200. but that was a very big learning curve.

[00:16:58] Suneet: So how do you work at 200, though?

[00:17:01] Brandi: I just don't stop. I mean, I eat, sleep, and breathe this. Like, this is everything to me. This is like, you can't... It's like a flame that you cannot put out. Like, there is... I will talk about it all day long. My family gets tired of me talking about it. My kids, our time spent together is at appointments and in the car.

[00:17:18] Brandi: this is the- Date nights involve putting out signs. Like, that, that is the way it's going. Like, tonight, my husband's taking me out to dinner, and we have to go pick up real estate signs as our date night. that's the way, that's the second time this week. So that's it.

[00:17:35] Suneet: That is such a great answer.

[00:17:37] Suneet: that's our date night. Okay. So Michelle, now for you, you went from being, like, the agent with all the market share that everybody had been getting mailed from for all these years, for d- decades, right? Uh, and now be kind of like the operator, right? would you say that you're taking more of, like, a behind-the-scenes role now?

[00:18:01] Michelle: Definitely. and I didn't realize how much that would require of me. So basically, I get up about 3:30 in the morning, and I s-

[00:18:11] Suneet: What? So early?

[00:18:14] Michelle: I start from there, and then I'm usually at the office till 7 or 8 o'clock at night. So yeah, it's taken a lot. And thankful for Reside because they have kinda helped us to each find our roles and what we need to do.

[00:18:30] Michelle: And what I can put off on other people. And I don't mean put off, but that I could give to other people that they would actually be better at. and I'm okay. Now, years ago I wouldn't have been okay with that because I'm very much a control freak. And I was just listening to what Brandy told you about how she runs at that speed.

[00:18:52] Michelle: She not only runs at that speed, but my Type A personality, when she comes in, I'm like, "Okay, this is what you need to do today. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da." And I hold her accountable like she holds the team accountable. Her and I are our own accountability partners. And we have a meeting every morning at 8:00 between just her and I to see where, we need to be, what needs to be done, and how we need to proceed with the team, or is there any, places we need to pivot and change things

[00:19:25] Suneet: Michelle, uh, you have two other daughters that work in the business, too?

[00:19:31] Michelle: - My daughter Holly, she's the middle daughter, she does not work in the business. She has her real estate license. She works for KPMG in Houston, Texas, on the partner track. And then my other daughter does work in the business. She works for agents all over the United States. She's a transaction coordinator, and she does upwards of 100, 120 files a month.

[00:19:53] Suneet: Nice. So what's it like working with your mom, Brandi?

[00:20:00] Michelle: Well, you know, I'm gonna

[00:20:01] Brandi: be honest. the- ... the, in the morning or in the, um, in the beginning, it was rough. Like we, we would go to, oh, we would go to battle. it was rough. And then I think there was obviously like, I mean, when I got started in the business, I was like 24, 25.

[00:20:21] Brandi: Like that, this is... I was young, I was a baby. So there was some growing up that I had to do. There was some releasing control that she had to do. And, um, you know, if I'm, I was telling her, I'm like, "If you're gonna go away and focus on your health, you're gonna have to just give it to me, and if I fail, I fail."

[00:20:36] Brandi: You know, like, but you have to release the control. And so I think we finally... How many years ago you think we were, we got to like our, rhythm? Probably three, four years ago?

[00:20:47] Michelle: Yeah.

[00:20:47] Brandi: We got, like we finally found a rhythm. So it took a long time to get there, like six, seven years.

[00:20:53] Suneet: I mean, yeah, but doesn't that almost like make sense?

[00:20:56] Suneet: Just between like any kind of relationship?

[00:20:59] Brandi: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I mean, and we still have our moments, like when we're like, we can just feel, like I will go over to her house, 'cause we live on the same property, so I will walk over and we'll-

[00:21:10] Suneet: Oh, so you guys are together. You guys, hey.

[00:21:13] Brandi: Yeah, we're set up to always be operational.

[00:21:16] Brandi: Um, but like I'll walk over and she's like, "I feel like we're not on the same, you know, wavelength." And I'm like, "No, me either." And we literally just sit down and hash it out, and we're like, "Okay, this is..." Because it's never about what her and I usually agree, it's just the difference- Communication ... of opinions and communication and trying to fi- We're working on different things and it's not clicking, so it's just a hash out, 10-minute hash out, and then we're both firing on all cylinders again.

[00:21:39] Brandi: So it's just like open communication really. That's the, that's the magic.

[00:21:46] Suneet: Always

[00:21:47] Brandi: Yes. Like marriage.

[00:21:48] Suneet: Like marriage. You said it, not me, but I was thinking it. Yes. Yeah. I'm super curious now. How much land is this compound on?

[00:21:58] Brandi: Well, we have 10 acres of land, so it's not, it's not too big, but we do lease, like, almost 1,000 acres- Yeah

[00:22:06] Brandi: of land, 'cause we all- We

[00:22:07] Michelle: have cattle and chickens and turkeys and all those kind of things. So-

[00:22:12] Brandi: It's, it's terrible.

[00:22:14] Michelle: It's not, it's not terrible because that's extra income, but- I

[00:22:18] Brandi: don't like it.

[00:22:18] Michelle: But we sell freezer beef and, um, yeah, so our-

[00:22:23] Suneet: No shit, really?

[00:22:25] Michelle: So our husbands are both in the cattle business, and it helps us with the real estate business because we never pay any taxes.

[00:22:33] Michelle: Well, it's just loss.

[00:22:35] Suneet: Awesome. Yeah. How many head of cattle do you have?

[00:22:40] Brandi: 500.

[00:22:41] Michelle: no, probably about, right now, we sold ca- calves, so probably around 350.

[00:22:47] Suneet: Still a lot. Damn. And so you guys' husbands are cowboys.

[00:22:52] Brandi: We stay inside.

[00:22:53] Michelle: Yes.

[00:22:54] Brandi: It's definitely, like, our husbands' thing. Yeah. Like, this is not involving us.

[00:22:58] Suneet: that's what I said. You guys' husbands are cowboys, and you guys are badass realtors.

[00:23:02] Michelle: Yeah. We all work really hard. The whole family does, and not only that, we have a hay business also. So we sell hay to other cattle farmers.

[00:23:13] Suneet: I love it. Hell yeah, r- you guys live on a real working farm.

[00:23:18] Michelle: The most exciting thing about it is now we do gifts for our customers.

[00:23:23] Michelle: Tell him about

[00:23:23] Brandi: that. Yeah, and we get to, like, take the egg... Like, 'cause everything's so expensive. So, like, we get, like, eggs from our own chickens and, like, put them in the baskets for our customers. And everyone, like, loves it 'cause it's, like, small town feel, and we have, like, a little sticker. The egg cartons are pink 'cause that's our brand.

[00:23:39] Brandi: Like- Yeah ... they're just so nice. And then we get someone to make sourdough, and then we have honey from our farm that is in the basket, and it's just, like, really cool. It's very special.

[00:23:48] Suneet: Oh, so you guys got bees out there. How many chickens do you guys have? Oh my

[00:23:53] Michelle: God,

[00:23:54] Brandi: it just keeps growing. Hundreds. Every- There's all the time, they're just coming.

[00:23:59] Suneet: Who's in there taking care of the chickens? I do not like raising chickens. You?

[00:24:04] Brandi: My, yeah, my son, my husband, and my dad,

[00:24:07] Michelle: um, definitely. Yeah, and we, we give away, we do not sell any of the eggs. We, every Thursday for our team meeting, everyone takes eggs. I bring eggs for them, and then we give them away as gifts.

[00:24:18] Michelle: Also, we're known for our oranges here. So we have a, um, Joshua Citrus, and they have fresh o- squeezed orange juice, so that's what we put in our baskets for closings, the orange juice, the honey, the eggs, and fresh sourdough.

[00:24:32] Suneet: That is so cool. I came from a rural area. Everyone thinks I'm some city slicker, but I came from, like, a real rural area.

[00:24:41] Suneet: I might not have, like, worked out there, but I grew up in the middle of it, so I can really appreciate it. Love that. So let's talk about other forms of marketing, um, because Brandi is, I think, just crushing social media. and I just wanna get your thoughts about that for the audience. So, like, what's your- When did you start posting hard on social?

[00:25:12] Brandi: probably two years ago. I decided to just, like, see if I could create leads from social media. and so I just, I was like, "You know, I'm just gonna give it 30 days. I'm gonna post all my stories. I'm gonna tell everyone what I do." Because I feel like there's two types of social media marketing. So there's, like, attraction marketing where you just say, tell everyone about you and they just are drawn to you and attracted to you like a magnet and they just work with you.

[00:25:36] Brandi: And there's also the type of, um, social media marketing where you're just educating and y- it's like almost like you're chasing instead of attracting. And I feel like the best form is to use both. and so, but at first, I was just say, telling my day and figuring, telling people what I believe and, like, all of the hot takes and all of that.

[00:25:55] Brandi: And in 30 days, like I had, like already had three listings from, come from social media. It's "Oh, okay, well we ki- this kind of works." This works. Like I, we're gonna have to- Were

[00:26:04] Suneet: you talking about real estate?

[00:26:05] Brandi: Yeah, just like, "Okay, I had another listing agreement signed. I'm out showing property." Like, it's just showing my,

[00:26:11] Suneet: my- Oh, day in the lifetime

[00:26:12] Brandi: my catchphrase is, "No one... Work works," just like John says, "but no one works at you, no one knows that you work unless you tell them that you work." And so that was me proving. Like, I would get calls and people would be like, "You're like the only realtor in town that actually works." And I know that's not true, but I'm the only one showing that I'm working.

[00:26:32] Brandi: And so, that is what started it and I just, we haven't stopped ever since because-

[00:26:38] Suneet: So what platform was it on back then?

[00:26:41] Brandi: Facebook.

[00:26:44] Suneet: Facebook posts.

[00:26:45] Brandi: Facebook posts and stories. Yep, that's it. I wasn't doing listing videos yet. I was just about to start doing listing videos. so and it really wasn't videos, it was just posts and stories.

[00:26:55] Brandi: and I mean, even now, it's all Facebook. Facebook cross-posts to Instagram, but like, I'm at like 5.8 thousand followers on Facebook and like 800 on Instagram. Like, it's like really heavy on Facebook. but that's the main platform.

[00:27:11] Suneet: Well, Facebook, people on Facebook have money, so you're on the right platform.

[00:27:16] Suneet: Or have money to buy a house. They're the, that's the right avatar. So it started out as posts and stories on Facebook, and then cross posts to Insta, but you saw, you see most of your business from Facebook?

[00:27:28] Brandi: To this day, yes.

[00:27:29] Suneet: To this day. Okay. So back then it was kinda day in the life. What is it now?

[00:27:37] Brandi: Same. Yep. Yep, it still works.

[00:27:40] Suneet: What have you added?

[00:27:41] Brandi: I started doing listing videos. Um, I started being a little bit more bold and opinionated because that, I'm a people pleaser, like in recovery. So, like, I'm trying to-

[00:27:50] Suneet: Bold and opinionated about what?

[00:27:52] Brandi: About hot takes and what is right and what is wrong.

[00:27:55] Brandi: Not like politically. I don't, I don't-

[00:27:57] Suneet: Okay. I was all like, "Where is she going with this?"

[00:28:00] Brandi: I'm not gonna do that. but just about things that are true for real estate and like this, I lost a listing that, you know, and this is why I lost the listing because we didn't align, and I'm not gonna take an overpriced listing.

[00:28:13] Brandi: Like being very vocal about our business, and it created a lot of respect. Because also I had something that I had to, that was a challenge for me was that people were like, "It's just Michelle's daughter. Like, she doesn't know anything, like she got handed the business." And, um, that was a very hard hurdle to jump through.

[00:28:31] Brandi: But I think through social media, because it had my name on it and I was the one typing it, that did earn me some more respect. Do you agree?

[00:28:38] Michelle: Absolutely. 'Cause I,

[00:28:38] Brandi: we haven't talked about that.

[00:28:39] Michelle: Absolutely. I would definitely tell people it's gonna be my daughter coming out, and even to this day, I get a lot of the older people only wanna work with me.

[00:28:49] Michelle: After they meet Brandi, they're like, "She is just like you. We love her." Yeah. So we have a lot of the same, just that Southern accent, the Southern flair, how you take care of people. And, she just has ran with that times a million, with the social media and all. And we're trying to get our agents to get on board, too.

[00:29:13] Michelle: Actually, in our meeting yesterday, we put them all on the spot and made them do a 30 to 45 second post. we made them look at their, their, Facebook and look at it from a seller's point of view and say, "Would you hire you?" And of course, all of them said no except Brandi. And then, um, we said, "Okay, so what do you have to do different to make someone...

[00:29:38] Michelle: You have to be the solution." for them, for any question they may have for real estate. Other than that, you look just like every realtor in town. And so we're, we're getting heavy on that because we know that's where a lot of business comes from.

[00:29:52] Brandi: And it's free. And I don't know how much longer that's gonna be, but that's, like, it's free marketing.

[00:29:57] Brandi: I don't, like, I don't understand how I can get through that through anyone else's head is that it's, like, so free that it's, like, it's just m- Yes ... it's so profitable. Like, it's just, I don't wanna say it's easy money, 'cause you actually do have to fulfill and actually close out the deal. But, like, it's a good form of marketing that I think agents think is just, like, you have to be this influencer or you have to do, but it's, like, it's really not.

[00:30:19] Brandi: Like, you will attract the people that are like you.

[00:30:22] Yes, you have to promote yourself, right? Arnold Schwarzenegger has a, has a quote, "Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise."

[00:30:35] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes.

[00:30:35] Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. That is one of my favorites. Um, and now, what, you, do you have a social media person that, that, that helps you now?

[00:30:44] Brandi: Um, I have Candace. She wears many hats. We don't even know her job d- title. Yeah. Um, but most of the time she is around, follows me around, always taking content, taking B-roll, taking photos. She'll send them to me at the end of the day, and I'll trash what I don't want, and then I'll keep what I don't want.

[00:31:01] Brandi: And anything I post, I usually just attach a photo to it because my algorithm really likes photos. So I just attach a photo to it, that way it performs better

[00:31:10] Suneet: so she's like your EA or like your admin that also just takes photos and just hangs out

[00:31:16] Brandi: She's very creative, so like she writes all my video scripts.

[00:31:19] Brandi: Um, like she gets all of that stuff out. She knows my personality. She knows me inside and out, so she can really capture my voice, and then I usually just tweak it at the end. But she will give me the content idea, and then I get on my notepad and my phone and I'm just typing it out. so and I keep a running list of content on my phone.

[00:31:35] Brandi: There's 600 notes in my phone, and it's just all content ideas. And she plans

[00:31:39] Michelle: all of our community events once a month.

[00:31:42] Brandi: Yeah. So we have community events once a month here.

[00:31:45] Suneet: Oh, awesome. Yeah. I'm sure that helps. still interested more about the social media, though. so what she writes scripts on?

[00:31:53] Brandi: Um, our listing videos. So we kinda started doing listing videos almost two years ago. almost two years ago.

[00:31:59] Suneet: Not even that long ago, 'cause I've been doing them for like 10 years.

[00:32:04] Brandi: no. Like that, that's what I'm tell- I tell everyone. Like, our market is like 15, 20 years behind everyone. Like, I always say, like, we-

[00:32:10] Suneet: But that doesn't matter.

[00:32:12] Suneet: You've been consistent as hell for decades, right? So doesn't matter if it's super high tech or not, the consistency is what wins. Yeah,

[00:32:20] Brandi: exactly. But like we get a fax every now and then. w- it's so old school here. We were not introduced even to like listing videos until like a couple years ago, and I'm, I'm always like, "I wanna be the first one to do it.

[00:32:33] Brandi: I wanna get m- I wanna make it messy. Do it really quick so I can get to the good part." Like, so I, we just hired a videographer, and we went to do it, and that first one was terrible. It was awful, but we ran social media ads with it, and now we get a lot of business also because we do listing videos. Like that, people want to see their video or their home on video.

[00:32:54] Brandi: And so we get a lot of listings from that, too.

[00:32:57] Suneet: And where do you promote those listing videos at?

[00:33:00] Brandi: Facebook, Meta.

[00:33:02] Suneet: Paid?

[00:33:03] Brandi: Yep, paid. So I usually put like e- between 500 and $750 per video. And it usually gets like 100,000, 150,000 views.

[00:33:13] Suneet: So you boost it?

[00:33:14] Brandi: it's like an actual ad.

[00:33:16] Suneet: Or do you run a ad? Okay, good. Who's the audience?

[00:33:20] Brandi: Um, I don't know the specifics. That's something that we hired out when we saw that it was working. So we have Platform Marketing handle social media for us on that.

[00:33:29] Suneet: But you spend, you said, what, 150, 200 bucks per listing video?

[00:33:33] Brandi: No. No. 500 to $750 per video.

[00:33:36] Suneet: Oh, okay. So it gets some frigging eyeballs. Good. and is it coming from the business page for the team?

[00:33:43] Brandi: Yeah, that, that... the ads get ran through the business page for the team. Um, and then everything on my page is organic, like on my personal page.

[00:33:53] Suneet: and, do you schedule out your posts on your personal page? You're shooting from the hip all day long, lady?

[00:34:02] Brandi: Every, every day. Like, I have just, I've, like, made it a habit.

[00:34:05] Brandi: I'm always thinking of content,

[00:34:07] Suneet: You think in posts. you think in posts.

[00:34:11] Brandi: So, like, I had someone call me and, just two hours ago. He said, "Hey, Brandie, I wanna make you rich. I have three homes for you to sell." And it's, like, a past client, so I immediately got on my phone, typed out the post. I took the picture, and it'll, I, as soon as I can get done with this, um, I will post it right away

[00:34:29] Suneet: Do you run it through any LLM?

[00:34:31] Suneet: Uh,

[00:34:33] Brandi: through who? Through what?

[00:34:34] Suneet: Through any AI? Uh-uh.

[00:34:36] Brandi: No. I try not to, I do not put AI on my p- personal page. I do not type... I don't... Don't get me started. I do not like it.

[00:34:44] Suneet: No. Yeah. Well, we're on a podcast, I wanna get you started. Go ahead.

[00:34:49] Brandi: Okay. So I do not... If you are writing content for your personal page, I truly believe it needs to come from your own brain, and have your tone, and use the word y'all, because I use the word y'all.

[00:35:00] Brandi: Like, it has to sound like me and be from me so that it's fully authentic. Now, AI, we use AI a lot to, tell us how to do things, how to run, in the background, but I will never put AI in my... Now, that- that's a hot take that just, I started to believe like six months ago. If you go back- Give me a

[00:35:18] Suneet: hot take

[00:35:19] Brandi: It is. I, but I h- I can't stand it. I will preach. I will die on that hill.

[00:35:24] Suneet: I love it. It's so good. It's so good. That's so good.

[00:35:31] Brandi: Yeah. Yeah, because I see it. It's like marketing is, you want to do what everyone else is not doing. That's the thing. You always have to stand out. That's good marketing, and whenever I'm just scrolling and I'm like, "I have to get off social media, it's so boring."

[00:35:45] Brandi: Like, every post sounds the exact same. That is a, that's an issue. So I have to just... Yeah, I would love to just copy and paste from ChatGPT, but I am not going to do that.

[00:35:56] Suneet: Good job. Good job. All right. What's next for the Williamson team?

[00:36:02] Michelle: Oh, I

[00:36:03] Brandi: have no idea. I don't know. I'm just trying to survive at this point.

[00:36:07] Michelle: Yes. We are building out our office. We're adding an, an additional 1,200 square feet when we got back from Reside, and we decided we were going all in. we met with a builder, and they're actually drawing our plans now to add on to our building. And then, we are going head on with Mark with, recruiting.

[00:36:28] Michelle: She's gonna be the one that attracts for recruiting, and I'm gonna be the one that- Chases ... chases. So, um, we have got everything hooked up with Humanize now. the other program with Reside, we've done that. joined the team. And, now we're gonna start doing the social media marketing for it. I did do that for 30 days straight, and I offended a lot of realtors here in our town

[00:36:59] Brandi: Oh, it was bad, Sunny.

[00:37:00] Brandi: Oh, it was bad.

[00:37:03] Michelle: I was doing it for 30 days. That's how we got our past three last realtors was by my posting for 30 days. And so, um, but yeah.

[00:37:12] Suneet: I gotta go and look. I didn't see anything that was too offensive. I got a different meter, I'm sure, than people in your market, but, uh-

[00:37:20] Michelle: Yeah, I deleted it.

[00:37:22] Suneet: Oh, okay.

[00:37:23] Michelle: Yeah.

[00:37:24] Michelle: I actually, the only one who really loved the post was Carlton. He loved the post. And then I got just... I mean, people were texting me and saying, "Have you seen this? Have you seen this?" And people were just, it was like a dog fight. They just all jumped on at the same time and yeah. So then I kind of just slowed down with it because all of y'all saying that you talk to realtors and you have a great relationship with them, and then they come to your office and I'm like, "Yeah, Brandy and I don't have that here

[00:37:59] Brandi: in town."

[00:37:59] Brandi: I think it's because we do... Like, our market, the agents in our market, there's not many. and when you have this much of a market share, it is hard to be the li- to like the person that has the market share. That's hard. yeah. Mm-hmm. So it's understandable.

[00:38:12] Suneet: Well, when I had, when I had the most in Sacramento, it wasn't no frigging 80%, I'll tell you that, but I had, like, the most of any team, I think it was, like, 6% right?

[00:38:21] Suneet: And, um, I was the enemy for everybody. But I loved it. I freaking loved it.

[00:38:30] Brandi: Yeah. They're

[00:38:31] Michelle: all- See, it goes back to me being a people pleaser.

[00:38:34] Brandi: Yeah.

[00:38:34] Michelle: We even talked about this yesterday on our, what do you call it? Enneagram?

[00:38:39] Brandi: Enneagram, yeah.

[00:38:40] Michelle: Yeah. And that I am br- everything's black and white. Doesn't matter if you agree with it, don't agree with it.

[00:38:46] Michelle: To me, it's black and white. And, um, this is how we're gonna make money. You either go with us or get off the train.

[00:38:52] Suneet: Yes. Well, I think you guys should have every agent working in the town for you guys.

[00:38:58] Michelle: We would love that, but they wouldn't love that.

[00:39:01] Suneet: They just don't know yet, Michelle. They just don't know that, they would love it.

[00:39:06] Suneet: All right. uh, last two questions. If somebody wants to send you a referral What should they... How do they do that?

[00:39:20] Brandi: the easiest way is to send a message on Facebook to me. Um, or, they can find... We're everywhere online as well. but yeah, they can type in The Williamson Group, and that's where- Yeah

[00:39:30] Brandi: I have all of our contact information's online.

[00:39:32] Suneet: and what are the names of the markets that you guys serve?

[00:39:35] Brandi: basically Southwest Florida, but, uh, DeSoto County and all the surrounding counties around us.

[00:39:42] Suneet: Awesome. There you guy- there you go- there you go, guys. And send them all the business for DeSoto County.

[00:39:49] Suneet: and now Brandi, what advice do you have for real estate agents listening?

[00:39:57] Brandi: Fix your mindset. That- Yes ... you know, fix your life, you gotta fix your mindset. You gotta watch what you're speaking out of your mouth, and you've gotta really, like, if anything, you gotta remove your- And believe it ... you gotta remove your friends, you gotta remove your family that's speaking negative.

[00:40:10] Brandi: You gotta eye on the prize, head down, post. don't overthink it, but you gotta get your, your mindset correct.

[00:40:18] Suneet: What's one good thing I could do besides getting rid of my friends and family? Which is a joke. what's one good way that I could dial in my mindset?

[00:40:27] Brandi: I hired a mindset coach for six months, and she made me believe I could do anything I wanted, and that has not stopped.

[00:40:33] Suneet: That sounds like the best damn way that I ever heard of, so there you go. Great. That's a great answer. Michelle, what advice do you have for team leaders listening?

[00:40:47] Michelle: just because people say that they want to be like Brandi when we hired them, "Oh, yes, I wanna come on here," doesn't actually mean they want to be like Brandi.

[00:40:57] Michelle: Because when they realize the work that it takes to be like Brandi- I don't think they realize that. And that's so, that's where we've decided to get clarity and to actually... 'Cause we just hired them based on what they said, and we did not implement, Standards ... standards- Right away ... for them right away.

[00:41:19] Michelle: And so that is beco- becoming, um, something that we know we need to do in the future.

[00:41:26] Brandi: So get clear on

[00:41:28] Suneet: standards. Standards. So what would the standards be for? ' Cause standards

[00:41:36] Brandi: is kind of a buzzword sometimes. Yeah. I mean, like, if it's a new agent, if it's brand new agent, that real estate school doesn't teach you anything. So being in the office at least a certain amount of hours per week, um, not co- not counting calls, but counting conversations over two minutes. Um, all of those things that we're just, like in the past 60 days, this is what we're learning.

[00:41:53] Brandi: So we are just now literally trying. We have an agent onboarding at the end of the month, and I'm about to send her an email today that says, "Just so you know, we've changed standards. This is what it's gonna be like when you get hired. You're gonna have this standard." And people will just self-select out.

[00:42:07] Brandi: So, and that's fine with us.

[00:42:09] Suneet: Totally. I like having the standards in the agreement And I don't give a damn if the agreement's an extra 10 pages long 'cause it's just nine pages of standards, right? that's good. And then when you look at standards also, like for you guys,it's interesting because of the market share.

[00:42:30] Suneet: Like you guys have something, maybe a perceived challenge that many won't. Because your brand means so much in that market that you can't let somebody come in and fuck that up, right? So the standards... did this just become a coaching call? I hope not. I'm gonna try and course, and course correct here.

[00:42:54] Suneet: But, but the, uh, so the standards for, you know, that's a different challenge, so I think they just need to be enforced, consistently.

[00:43:05] Michelle: When you start holding people to standards, they automatically think you're like a parent trying to tell them what to do. But,

[00:43:11] Brandi: but that's, I don't care anymore. Yeah.

[00:43:13] Brandi: You

[00:43:13] Michelle: know?

[00:43:13] Brandi: you know. And we, we obviously are trying to lead ourselves too, and we have grace for ourselves, and we're really trying to like coach ourselves through this as well. But at the end of the day, like I was just telling someone else, "We're on the bus, we're full steam ahead. Get off or get on."

[00:43:29] Brandi: Like that. But I'm not slowing down, And that's what I-

[00:43:31] Suneet: Totally. don't. Yeah, I mean, so like most- many teams have standards for getting leads, right? S- very few have standards for remaining on the team. not very few, that's unfair, but less than do have standards for having the leads, right? So having the leads for you guys, whether that's online meads- leads or just someone saying, "Hey, can you show me this?"

[00:44:02] Suneet: And you say, "Hey, take this lead," right? Like those gotta be super high for you guys. Then the standards of being in the organization, look around. Look at any legacy... let me rephrase that. Look at any real estate company. Look at eXp, look at RE/MAX, look at Coldwell, look at Compass, LPT, is there's no standard To hang your license there, except to have your license, right?

[00:44:35] Suneet: And then different people hang their licenses at, for different reasons, right? Like many people can be to hang out with Brandy, right? To, uh, learn from her. Learn from her, right? Mentorship, that was, um, air quotes for people who are just listening, right? right? And some people will come for your guys' brand and local market, which I think is great.

[00:45:04] Suneet: That's a great reason that they should come if they do it right. And then some people will come for opportunities, right? And some people will come for eXp, which is where you guys have your license at. So it's a real thing about getting into like who gets to stay I, okay. We, that just did become a coaching call.

[00:45:26] Suneet: So before I give it away to everybody listening, 'cause this is about you guys, you guys killed it. This was such a good episode. I learned so much. I didn't know you guys were ranchers too.

[00:45:40] Brandi: Well, we are not. We, we really claim that as our part of our branding, but- Mm-hmm ... us, we do not go outside in the heat, no.

[00:45:47] Suneet: Do you walk down the frigging driveway to the car and see a cow or no?

[00:45:52] Brandi: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[00:45:53] Suneet: Yeah. You're a rancher. Yeah.

[00:45:57] Brandi: They're right

[00:45:57] Michelle: outside our door. We give them the, Scraps ... bread- And bread ... whatever- Yeah ... whatever's out of the refrigerator that needs to go.

[00:46:06] Suneet: Okay. Awesome. I have so many more questions about that, but we can talk about it next time I, uh, see you guys.

[00:46:12] Suneet: Good. All right. thank you so much for being on. Everybody, send your referrals to, um, Brandy and Michelle out there in, DeSoto County. Okay. And, um, follow them on social. get a bunch of listings like these two powerhouses do. All right? I really hope you guys got something out of the episode, since I know you did.

[00:46:36] Suneet: Click like, share, subscribe, and send to a friend, and we'll see you on the next episode of the Reside Platform podcast