Content marketing can be a tough but rewarding exercise, and it’s something that you might want to consider as a real estate investor. How do you go on about it? Is there a formula you can follow? Where do you even start? Scott Carson takes on this topic as he interviews Lyndsay Phillips from Smooth Sailing Business Growth and Real Estate Investor Marketing. In an insightful conversation, they discuss some strategies real estate investors can use in marketing and creating content to expand their reach and client base. Lyndsay is the go-to content marketing expert who helps her clients attract and convert customers faster through a unique strategy that relies on a comprehensive vision of the ideal client and marketing yourself as the business owner. At the end of the day, people deal with people. Let Lyndsay show you how to build your marketing strategy from that fact to the benefit of your REI business.
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Smooth Sailing Content Marketing For Real Estate Investors With Lyndsay Phillips
We are honored to have my good friend Lyndsay Phillips join us. She is a marketing rock star and you’re going to love this episode. She’s the host of Smooth Sailing Business Growth. She works with a variety of real estate entrepreneurs to help outsource their social media. She shares with me some of the insights and the biggest mistakes that she sees entrepreneurs and real estate investors are making. She shares many ways that she can help you so you can put some systems in place and processes to make your marketing and content creation a whole lot easier. If you love this, you may want to check out her episode on the upcoming Note CAMP Podcast. She’s got a full session at Note CAMP 2020. We could not cover everything in this episode. You’ll definitely want to read that episode once it comes out. Without further ado, we’re honored to have Lyndsay Phillips joining us.
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I get excited about marketing. I love marketing. It is the lifeblood of any business. With everything going on these days, a lot of people are pulling back from their marketing. I’m like, “You need to be marketing more. You need to be doubling down more.” That’s what helped make us successful through the good and the bad times in the real estate market over the years. I’m honored. Our guest is a freaking rock star who is not only doing amazing things for her business but also doing it for other real estate investors. She is joining us a little bit north of the border. I’ve known her for a couple of years. We’ve been online back and forth and follow each other. We became friends at Podfest a couple of years back and it’s like family now. She is the Founder and Owner of Smooth Sailing Business Growth and Real Estate Investors Marketing. She is the go-to content marketing expert who helps clients attract and convert customers faster. I’m honored to have the one and only Lyndsay Phillips joining us. What’s going on, Lyndsay?
You are crushing it on marketing. You are everywhere, webinars, podcasts. You’ve got it going on. I was thankful to finally meet you at Podfest. That was so much fun.
It’s a small world. We’ve got a lot of mutual friends that are like, “You’ve got to meet Lyndsay.” I was like, “How is it going, old friend?” We finally know each other.
I keep seeing you in here. You’re in different places and mutual circles.
Let’s talk about you though. You’ve been doing this for how long now?
I suck at thinking about timeframes. It’s been many years in the content marketing world. I started off as a VA and grew the VA firm. I niched down to content marketing and then things blew up. I grew my team from me to 5 and 10. I think I’m at thirteen now. I seem to attract real estate investors and have been working with quite a few in the past couple of years. I niched down again. I opened up another pocket of the business focusing on helping real estate investors market their business. I love it.
I know you’re great at it and you love it. It’s a great and beautiful niche to be down into. We were talking before how I like to bang my head against the wall when I’m talking with students and we’re talking about marketing. They’re like, “I can’t think of anything to talk about. I can’t think of anything to market.” Do you hear that a lot from your clients initially or in the industry as well?
There are a lot of misconceptions too. People’s knee-jerk reaction is it will always be industry-specific, very professional, and businessy. Some industries are heavier with a lot of promos than others. It’s always pushing their services and that backfires. That turns people away. The other issue is if they are feeling stuck where they are on that one-track mind, they end up not putting anything out or they’re inconsistent. I always say this analogy. I’m looking for a yoga instructor and accountant, whatever that may be. I always go to their website and I always go to their Facebook page. If there’s a disconnect between the website and the Facebook page and I’m like, “Who are they? What do they do?” If there’s no content or there’s one today and two weeks ago, there was something else, I’m like, “Are they even for real? Are they in business? Are they going to help me if something goes wrong?” Those first impressions and that perception are huge.
I was looking at somebody’s website and they didn’t post anything for the year. I was like, “It’s almost June and you haven’t posted anything.” There were outdated things. We all have websites and there are things that we will miss on a consistent basis. That’s not a big deal, but when you’re not posting and the stuff that you have is outdated, it’s like, “Are you even in business anymore?” Let’s dive in a little bit on that aspect. Let’s do away maybe with the misconception that people always have to be business. You said something valuable. You’d go to the business page and you check them out on Facebook. Does it need to be the exact same thing? Does it all need to be business? Can it be a little bit of, “This is who Lyndsay or Scott or Johnny is,” and share the person behind the business or not?
There are bigger companies like Paper Source. They’re a bigger company. They’re not necessarily a person, whereas the Note Closer, you’re Scott Carson. They know you and like you. It’s the same with investors. They know the person. You might have a business name but they’re coming to you, not the business name. That’s what you want to focus on. You have to strip down to the basics. People connect with people, especially when you’re dealing with the exchange of money. Especially with real estate and investing, there are money, legalities and stuff involved. Those relationships and that element of trust are paramount. Think of building your authority so that they look at you as an expert and also building those relationships and fostering that trust. You have to be front and center. I know it’s scary. When I first started my podcast, I’m like peeing in my pants. You have to get over that and be the face of the business.
What are some things that you sit down with clients? Is there an outline or a brainstorming thing that you’d like to sit down with clients that pull out content or ideas for investors?
When I do my two-hour strategy sessions, the first thing that we go through is thinking about, who’s your avatar? Some people will be like, “What the heck is an avatar?” That’s okay, but you have to think about your ideal “client” or whether you think of it as a contact, an investor, a buyer, a seller, whatever term you’re using. You have to think about the top three people you’re doing business with that are the perfect client. Think about them and always picture them. Think about what makes them tick. Are they 40-year-old males? Are they twenty-year-old internet yuppies? Do they have boats? Are they well-off? Do they have families? Do they hang out on Instagram or are they more LinkedIn-type corporate people?
You have to get into their mindset and think about how they live, what they’re doing on a daily basis, and what they’re struggling with. If you’re a wholesaler and you’re looking for sellers, let’s say you want to target people that are retiring and letting their homes go or whatever, then that is your target market. You’re going to make content and posts. You’re going to talk in a way that’s going to relate to them and not a 30-year-old female with a young child. You have to do the exercise. I know it’s painful but write it all out. Think and map out who your ideal client is because that will drive what content you do, where you’re going to disseminate it, and your topics. It’s also going to help you attract your ideal client faster.
The more you can identify specific traits of who your avatar, your listener or your ideal client is, the better off you’re going to be. It’s a beautiful thing when you can identify with your listeners down to the specific details. A lot of people think like, “I don’t know.” We talked beforehand about how you were working with a client who was a pilot and closed on a deal. What are some of the things or some of the contents you’re working with right now? What are some of the bread and butter marketing techniques, marketing tools or content tools? What would you recommend to our audience?
Content Marketing: Think about your ideal clients. Who are they? What makes them tick?
I don’t know if you find this Scott, but I find that a lot of people in real estate investing often already have a job or they have a corporate job. In this case, the guy is a pilot and he’s doing real estate investing on the side to build more passive income, which is amazing. I’m sure the goal is to let the other job go or whatever. Having a plan-B is huge and kudos to those that are doing it. He wanted to market his real estate investing and have people invest with them, but he felt he had to keep the piloting stuff secret and off to the side. I was like, “No, that makes you cool.” That is an it factor and the people that he’s attracting are exactly like him. They’re engineers and pilots. They’ve got high-end jobs. They want to create a legacy for their family and invest in what have you. I’m like, “I don’t know if you can do it, but while you’re in the airport and you’ve got your fancy pilot outfit on, do a quick video to touch base with people. Talk about a deal that you’ve got going on, an email that you’ve got, a win or whatever it may be. Share your daily life and who you are.”
I told him, “On the website that you’re building, tell your story and your journey, like you’ve had your pilot’s license forever, etc. You then dabbled in real estate investing and found out the ups and downs, and the mistakes.” It’s okay to admit your mistakes because you learned from them. This is why people will relate to you. They’re like, “He made mistakes too, but he fixed it. Now he’s got it dialed in. I got a job going. I can learn from him and he can help me invest.” You need to create and craft that story. Share your journey and don’t be afraid to be yourself and share that because you’re going to build stronger relationships and attract your avatar faster. It is much easier to create content when you can be yourself.
There’s only one of us so be yourself. That’s what attracts people to you. It’s like what you said beforehand. People have a business, but they get attracted to the individual. This is the thing I see with realtors and mortgage brokers. They like to market the company like, “The love is going to be there.” Market yourself and put yourself because it’s what people identify with. Put your face on the damn business card so people can identify if they meet with you. How often do you think people should be marketing? We were talking about some websites not sharing things on a regular basis. How often is too much or maybe how often is too little?
It does depend, but the key is you have to be consistent. We all have our personal limitations. We all have families. We all have other jobs, businesses, whatever. I don’t want you to be stressed out and have an anxiety attack but also bear in mind that there are other people like content marketing firms or myself that can help and support you in those endeavors. As long as you’re consistent, at least a post a day and then a blog, a video or a podcast once a week so that you can share that. Show that you know what you’re talking about. Show that you’re an expert and you’re serving people. You’re giving them content and advice. They then look to you more often.
Think about it as educating people. You’re going to draw them in. To me, that’s how you grew your business. You’re educating many people constantly. They are drawn to you and they see you everywhere and you’re not afraid to be yourself. That’s how you’re going to draw all those people in. If you’re going to be all marketing through your sales funnel, it doesn’t even have to be hard. I’ve got one of my real estate clients. This might help get the wheels turning for people. He’ll do a live video. We use a tool called Repurpose.io that automates the process and it pushes it automatically to YouTube. He’s getting subscribers and so forth.
My team will get snippets, little tidbits and quotes that he says in there and then do social media posts, IG stories, and we’ll post that video on IGTV. He did the one live video and he’s done, we do the rest. We can take little bits and then make tons of content and tips. You don’t have to go crazy. You just have to plan and schedule and be consistent. There are ways and different strategies to leverage content even further and recycle them. Don’t feel like you’ve got to reinvent the wheel every day because you don’t.
That’s such a great counsel there, sharing something once a week at least across your platforms. They’re taking something and cutting it up into little bits and pieces here and getting the word out across different platforms. What do you see kicking ass and taking names as far as marketing? Are you seeing video? Are you seeing blog, podcast guesting or people starting a podcast? What are you high on right now as a technique or a tool for people to market their real estate businesses?
I’m definitely guesting on podcast shows. Especially with COVID and everyone now knows how to use Zoom, it’s podcasting and being a guest expert. There are a whole school and strategy behind being a guest. You can’t just willy-nilly hop on a podcast. You do have to be intentional about it and be prepared. Being a host, whether it’s you talking or you’re co-hosting or interviewing. Think about the connections that it makes and the relationships that it builds, especially when you are interviewing. It’s a way to reach more people exponentially in a quick way. When you’re guesting or even when you’re hosting, I used to get this all the time like, “You’re everywhere. You’ve got your own show. You’re podcasting and you’re guesting on other people’s shows.” They have that awe factor but to me, it’s no big deal. That perception of, “You must be an expert. You’re on podcasts,” you’re building your authority, building relationships, and exponentially increasing your visibility like that.
I’m a huge fan of podcasting because that’s a way of not only bringing people on my show but also guesting on other shows. The way I look at it is if I’m guesting, I don’t care if they’re brand new or they’ve been around for a while. It’s the audience that I’m reaching without having to leave my house. We’re social distancing here. If they got ten listeners in that episode, that’s ten more people to connect with. If they got 1,000 over the next six months, that’s 1,000 people to connect with. We see it coming back exponentially in such greater things. People are watching the videos on YouTube subscribing, opting-in or following on our website. I’m seeing people say, “I’ve binged or I’ve listened to your show.”
People look at marketers like you and me and they’re like, “They’ve got their stuff together. I can never beat them.” I’m like, “We’re not in competition with each other. You’re in competition with yourself.” I’ve got 1,000 videos on YouTube because that’s over a ten-year period. You have to plant a little bit and it grows a little bit more and a little bit more. It’s not done overnight. What’s your thought and feedback that you’d like to give to those that struggle with that comparanoia and give up before they start taking action?
That’s a great point because I even felt that way and everyone feels that way. Years ago, when I started with video and I was scared out of my mind and my first few videos suck hard, I remember seeing some videos from Marie Forleo. She’s the video queen like everything is perfection. She showed a video from way back when. She was in her kitchen with her laptop. There might have even been rug rats running around and it’s like, “She started somewhere. I can do that too.” Content marketing, what’s available and what the strategies are can feel overwhelming. You go back to who your avatar is and where your natural strengths are. Start with one thing. If you do a video every couple of days and then do some posts and stuff like that, that’s doable for you. You’ll get used to it and you’ll get better. Once you get your voice and your confidence, you’re like, “I could probably do a podcast now,” then you move into that. Tackle one thing, do it consistently, and then you can branch out.
Knowing what your avatar is, what their features are, where they’re looking, where they’re spending their time are key. Putting their eyeballs on your balls is definitely important. I had somebody ask me, “Scott, why are you not on TikTok?” I’m like, “Because my peeps aren’t there. I’m not dancing on TikTok every day.”
I remember one of my clients was like, “We’ve got to get on Snapchat.” I’m like, “Your peeps don’t even know what Snapchat is.” You can even do this too. You can survey your email list and what have you and find out, where are you hanging out? Are you on YouTube 50% of the time? Are you loving Twitter? We did some research and it came back and they were predominantly on YouTube. We’re like, “We’re going to invest more time and effort into videos than we would anything else because it would make sense.”
That’s a good point there of reaching out and asking, where are you at? That simple one question, where do you hang out? Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube. Asking a lot of times and it doesn’t take much to find out what’s going on and surveying your audience. Let’s talk a little bit about how important email still is. Video and social is great but I think email has still its place as a marketing tool.
Think of social media, your videos, your podcasts, your lead magnets and what have you. They are your top of the funnel. You are attracting and pulling them in. You want them on your email list so that you can build a relationship and nurture. Are you going to build relationships and nurture social as well as another layer? Yes, absolutely. If you have a lead magnet, you want an engagement sequence to make sure that they absorb that piece of material. You want an indoctrination sequence because these people don’t even possibly know who you are. You need to inform them. You need to stay in touch. You need to serve them and give them more information.
Content Marketing: Don’t be afraid to be yourself and share that because you’re going to build stronger relationships and attract your avatar faster.
They want to lean on you as an expert so that when you do have an offer or say, “Take this course,” or “I’ve got this property,” or “I have a consultation or a strategy call,” you will get yeses. Don’t be afraid to have a promo sequence that goes out periodically versus one email here and there. Here’s another good tip. Don’t be afraid to ask questions in an email. You can even do a short two-sentence email, “What are you struggling with? What’s going on? Hit reply, let me know.” You then get conversations going back and forth. You’d be surprised how many people hit reply and start answering. You get a conversation and then you can hop on the phone. That’s awesome.
It’s building those conversations. We’re living in a world where the old way of doing business is going and meeting one person at a time, one phone call at a time, that’s not effective these days. If you use the tools correctly, you can have that one conversation out to many. Your hot clients, hot investors, and hot leads will respond. That leads to those one-on-one conversations that now you know something a little bit better about that individual. Don’t give up after the first email. This is the thing that always frustrates me. Eighty percent of sales are made on the fifth contact. I should have that tattooed on my ass because I say that all the time to people. You have to realize when you send one email out, not a million, people are going to respond to and say, “I want to sign up with you. I want to buy. I want to connect with you.” You’ve got to build some rapport doing some stuff like that. Let’s talk a little bit about the frustration that people give up for the first time.
That’s like when people start podcasting. After five episodes, they’re like, “I don’t have 1,000 downloads per episode.” It doesn’t happen overnight and you have to be consistent to get that effect and to get the traction going. It honestly builds. For me with the podcast, it took probably a year and that’s okay. Once things caught up and then I started to be on more podcasts because I had a podcast, it stacks. It layers on top of each other and it creates more of an impact. You can’t expect to send an email out and expect 100% opens for starters. You’ve got to know those numbers. If you get 16%, 20% opens, that’s awesome. You’ve got how many people are clicking on links and stuff like that?
There are things that you can do to optimize. You have to think that it’s going to take a while and you think about yourself. I’ve been on some email lists like Amy Porterfield or whoever for a long time. I don’t unsubscribe. Every now and then, I’m like, “That piques my interest.” I open it and I’m like, “She knows her stuff. She’s got it going on.” She’ll have a Facebook Ad webinar and I’ll watch it. I have bought a couple of things along the way. You have to be consistent. Even if they’re not opening it, the fact that you’re in their inbox and they see you three times a week or whatever, they’re like, “She’s got it going on, she’s successful, she’s reaching out, she’s got a launch, she’s doing this.” It’s all that perception and building of the authority status.
It is hard work, but people don’t like that four-letter word, work. That’s what we do on our Monday night webinars, Note Night in America that we branded. We’re pretty consistent about it most of the time. We may not do it every Monday night, but we do it 3 to 4 times a month for the most part. I look back and I always track how many people opt into it. I look at, “We’re now up to 550 people that have RSVPed for that webinar in 2020 alone. Do your best consistently. It’s five new people a week towards ten new people a week or it’s two new people a week.
It’s showing up maybe 30%, 40%, 50% because you’re never going to have 100% attendees on a webinar. That’s touching base and having those conversations with that 20%, 30%, 40% or the 60% that click on the link to watch the replay afterward. You have to realize, people don’t think about that long-term. We’re all such in a low-patience society, instant gratification. Social media has done that where we post a picture and like, “Let’s see how many likes I get. I don’t have 1,000 likes on my photo. What is wrong with people these days?”
They get discouraged and they’re like, “It doesn’t work. It’s not bringing me an ROI.” Someone that purchased something didn’t say they came from Facebook. It’s all those pieces working in conjunction together. You can’t be like, “I did two sponsored ads and they didn’t bring me hundreds of dollars. I didn’t get an ROI. I’m never going to do it again.” You can’t have that mentality. When you brought up webinars, I bring an interesting point. I’ve had clients where they’ve done the webinar and they had a decent number of registrants. The show-up rate was nay, so they were disappointed. No one booked a strategy call that night or the next morning. We’re like, “Hot damn,” but we always do a fourteen-day drip afterward. We also share the replay to the people that didn’t opt-in initially. That consistency and keep moving forward, and then over those fourteen days, sales. You can’t just do the webinar and then your work is over. There’s still stuff to do to follow up that is going to bring results.
I’ll give you a great example. We did a webinar talking about how’s the market and what we saw will be taking place in 2020. We didn’t predict exactly this, but there are new ways of doing business. We offered up a special short-term training program. We had six people opt-in there. I was like, “I would have liked 60, but I’ll start with six.” The market has changed since the point we got back when we went back and said, “We’ve got to take this training down because that’s not accurate to where the market is at.” What’s funny is in a few weeks, I’ve had five people reach out from the video back a few months ago, “Is this training available?” I’m like, “No, we’ve incorporated something else for that.” They’re like, “I’ll sign up for that.” It’s planting a seed. You don’t know who’s searching for what on YouTube. You don’t know who’s doing what and it’s like planting a tomato plant. It’s not going to have tomatoes in a week. It’s going to take 90 to 120 days for that to take root and the fruit to show up.
Much testing goes involved in marketing, with one of my clients having Infusionsoft, doing webinars, having lead magnets and all that good stuff. After about a year and a half, we started to look into the data of, who went to this event, who joined the mastermind, and what was all the data about all those people? We went through and analyze. We realized that everyone that went to the event and then became a mastermind member, they all watched a webinar at least 1 or 2 and they all had an opt-in. We’re like, “That is the secret sauce.” Bring them in on a lead magnet, show them a webinar or vice versa. They then become a hot target, and then reach out, and make the offer. It’s seeing those data, but also knowing that it takes time to tweak, test and figure those things out along the way. If you don’t get answers when you first go to it, that’s okay. It’s still important down the road and you will see its impact.
That’s true, whether it’s a book you’re giving away, checklists, contract forms or stuff like that. Lead magnets work in different ways and they change over time. For the most part, it’s checklists. People are tired of the eBook because they don’t read the downloaded eBook for the most part. That’s fine or we’ll send them a physical book, which works well too a lot of times. It doesn’t have to be in a gamble. A one-page checklist is valuable. That’s a great lead magnet for a lot of people.
Even a video on how you close the deal or the three steps that you have to close the deal or your five favorite sources to get notes. It can be a ten-minute video with a little PDF download or a checklist. It doesn’t have to be like, “This is a big production.”
Would you agree that people like mistakes versus successes? Let’s talk about that because many people are scared of sharing their mistakes.
We all make mistakes. We all have our ups and downs in businesses. I’ll admit I’ve done some Facebook ads and they bombed. I’ve done a lead magnet and I thought it was the bee’s knees, and then no one liked it. I’m like, “All right then,” whatever. It’s okay to admit that because from your journey, you’re going to learn. People want to know that you’re relatable and that it’s okay because it’s hard for people. They even come to me and they’re like, “I have no clue who my avatar is. I don’t know what lead magnet to create. I don’t know what social to post.” It’s hard to admit that you don’t know anything. If I admit it first, “When I started out, I knew nothing,” they’re like, “Now they know where I came from. They have the expertise. They understand me and they can help me.” You have to think in those lines.
We’ve all made mistakes. It’s the reason we’re good at what we do because we make more mistakes and tried. Keep plowing one more time into the fray. I love that you said something like you’ve got to be consistent. You’ve got to know where your avatar is at. You’ve got to share stuff. You’ve got to give it time for it to soak in. It’s not going to be a one-trick pony. That’s the thing I tell people all the time. I don’t care if you’re on notes, wholesaling, fix and flipping, short-term rentals or commercial. Most of us are in this for decades. That’s why it’s important to start now. Start putting those assets in place and start sharing it because it will help you build your portfolio of marketing, resources, videos and stuff over time. People will appreciate that when they go back and binge-watch years ago or months ago.
When I see people fumble in a video and it’s not perfection behind them, I feel more comfortable. I am more apt to watch them. When I see some posts on Facebook and they’ve been modeled, gorgeous and it’s like a photoshoot like, “I’m super successful. Look how gorgeous I am,” I’m not built that way. I want a normal person that is modest but successful. That’s just me.
Content Marketing: It’s okay to admit your mistakes because people want to know that you’re relatable.
What are some of the big mistakes that you’ve seen people make in marketing? We’ve covered a few things, but what’s anything that stands out to you that you’re like, “That was a bomb,” when somebody did or didn’t do that?
One of the big mistakes and that’s easy to do when you start off is not having a brand. I say that it’s hard to wrap like you could have a whole podcast on branding, but if you have a certain look and feel on your website like you do. You’ve got your green, it’s a specific font, it’s consistent and it’s streamlined. When I go to your Facebook or another social media platform, it matches and it’s the same. I know I’m in the right place. Make sure that your profile, your About page, your services are geared towards the person that you’re attracting. It’s the same with your posts. If they’re all over the place and they’re not partially branded like the same messaging, colors, fonts, there’s going to be a disconnect. If people are confused, they’re going to go elsewhere.
What do you get to say to people that are trying to do multiple things and buy multiple things? We all see them and I have nothing against the hustle, but when somebody hands you a business card and it’s got six different things that they do on the back, you’re like, “What do you do? What are you focused on?” It’s watered down across the board like, “I do a cleaning company. I’m also a real estate investor. I also have an insurance company.” Those things drive you bonkers a little bit because there’s no consistency to the brand.
That’s understanding your avatar too. It weaves in. If you are a cleaning service and a painter, how are you going to attract 50 people in your messaging? Everyone that goes there is going to be like, “Who are you? What are you doing?” They’ll be confused. I went through that same journey. When I was a virtual assistant firm, I felt like I couldn’t turn any prospect down. I didn’t want to turn work away. It freaked me out. I accepted everything and that made me scattered. My team was scattered. I didn’t have proper processes. I ended up doing work that I didn’t even like. I was on the miserable side. When I niched down to content marketing, I grew crazy so I had to build processes.
It was much easier to market my business and people are like, “I know what you do.” The flood of leads that came in from doing that alone was huge. I’m glad you brought that up because that is a huge lesson. A lot of people are scared to niche down. They feel like they’re going to turn work away or they’re losing money. That is not the case. When you niche down, you become an expert in that thing. You are the go-to person and it is much easier to scale your business when you’re niched. It’s easier to train people if you have a team. It’s easier to market your business and it’s easier to attract them. If you’re doing Facebook ads, it’s way easier to target them as well. You will find that when you’re closing all those other ones that probably caused you to stress anyway. When you niche down like that, all of a sudden, you will get a flood of leads and new people. It shocked me. It was a good lesson.
I’m going to come back to something you said because I see that happening in real estate. Many real estate investors are going out to a different expo or conference. They’re going into their local REIA to learn a new tool in the tool belt. That works against people being successful especially each type of deal that we do has a different way to market, a different way to find those types of deals. You’re not going to find an apartment complex by sending out a yellow letter or door knocking a lot of times. You’ve got to figure out your market.
Identifying a niche that is working in the market, works with what you’re doing, and falls in line with the way you want to do. You’ll be a lot more successful being niched down. You said something and I want to come back to it. What are the things that you hated doing? I want to pique your brain. What does Lyndsay hate when you talked about doing stuff? We all fall in that. We want to try to bring clients on. We’ve got to make money. We end up selling our soul trying to make money and realized, “I probably should have not done that at the beginning.” What are some of the things that you hate doing in marketing?
Back then, it was doing some of the sales, outreach, quotes, managing people’s emails, managing their calendars. It was more like admin stuff. It caused me much stress and I hated it. What do I hate doing now? I love creating graphics in Canva. It’s so much fun.
That’s my artistic nature. Stephanie loves to go painting and she was, “Would you come painting with me?” I’m like, “Okay, I’ll go once.” It’s like watching the paint dry to me. This is not creative to me, but Canva is my creative outlet.
It’s fun and creating social posts. I like to write as well. I don’t tell anyone but sometimes I write promo emails for my clients on the fly. I don’t like Google Analytics and dealing with the stats. I enjoy getting the stats and reviewing them, but my team goes in and gets the nitty-gritty. I’m like, “I don’t want to know.”
There are many tools these days that are easy to work with or to hire a team like your team to help them out with it. Let’s dive a little bit into talking about your Smooth Sailing and how you’re taking your clients to a whole different level by helping them outsource the duties that maybe they’re not so good at, that you and your team take advantage of and run it for them.
My favorite is podcasting because we have such a process that’s dialed in. Our clients, all they do is book a podcast, record it, and then they’re done so they get to do the fun part. We publish it, produce it, put it on the website, social media, emails, LinkedIn polls, the little WAV files and what have you. That is going crazy now. I can’t keep up but it’s all good. I have some VIP clients where we do the full spectrum in regards to sales funnels, lead magnets, webinars, nurture emails, campaigns, launches and stuff like that. I’m not taking VIP clients anymore, but with the real estate investors, I find they’re stuck with content, not knowing what to put out and not having the time or the wherewithal to do it.
Thankfully, we do have a done-for-you service where it’s the blogs, the content, the video script, the email. It’s all done, just take it and go with it, and then the podcasting. They’re the two main ones that I’m going with, but I love doing strategy sessions to help create a marketing plan and understand your priority. There are a lot of options. What’s going to work well for you and your business, your time, your budget, and mapping that out to build their authority.
What clients are you looking for to be working with? Obviously, real estate investors, the right things, and those that have a podcast. It’s helpful but what’s your avatar for your ideal client?
Real estate is a little bit different because I have the done-for-you services in the podcasting. It can be anyone or anything. In regards to VIP or more high-level marketing, someone that is already starting to have a team. They might have a Facebook ad expert, a VA, a project manager. They’re getting traction already on their social media platforms. They don’t necessarily have the time, they want to focus on revenue. They don’t have time to put out the podcast or putting out launches for audits or books or a new webinar. They want to put on the webinar and not do the rest of it. It’s more like that and I love to partner.
If someone has a Facebook Ad expert, an SEO expert, a copywriter, I do have copywriters on my team, but it’s fun to collaborate with different members of the team. When you are at that high level and you’re working with a video expert or an SEO expert, you want to make sure that all your campaigns, your branding, and your goals are all moving in the right direction. We’re all working together in sync versus separate pods.
Content Marketing: It is so much easier to scale your business when you’re niched.
It’s always nice to put experts in a room. You’ll learn so much from each other, connecting together, and be like, “You’re the expert on this. Do what you’re good at.” Real estate investors have a hard time doing that because we’re such control freaks, especially we come from the real estate side, “I’m going to check the values. I’m going to do the drive-by. I can do that.”
I’m a control freak too and I’m a type-A. That’s why my brain is for project management and I like to harp on people, “What happened to this? You said you were going to return this to me. This podcast is supposed to be released next week. Where’s that episode?” I tend to crack the whip on some of my clients. I’m like, “Where are my stuff?”
That’s necessary. We all need accountability partners to get some stuff done. We’ve all drifted. We get side-tracked with things, especially with this going on. Everything’s being stuck in the house. There are ups and downs. Everybody’s having good days and bad days to get stuff done. There are days where you’re like, “It’s another day. It’s Groundhog Day all over again.” I’ve struggled with that. I have good days like, “I’m not doing anything today. I don’t have the motivation. I didn’t have a cup of coffee when I woke up in the morning.” That’s a normal thing. A lot of people have to realize that. Don’t get down on yourself. Every day’s a new start. You can always start today. If you’ve got to stop for a reason or something like that, that’s okay. Don’t give up on your dreams of what you want to accomplish.
You’ve got to think about your mental health too. I did the same on Monday. I was not in the right state of mind. I took the afternoon off. I’m like, “I can’t even.” I took the time, and then the next day I was banging things out. I was productive. It’s okay. You’ve got to give yourself a break.
Rewind, refresh the brain cells and go from there. One of the tools that I like, and you’ll probably agree with this, it is putting together a calendar of what you want to accomplish. We both love Canva. I’m a big fan of going in and saying, “What’s the calendar? What day of the year is today?” It’s a way to help prime the pump. Is it National Margarita Day? Is it National Memorial Day? We’ve got Father’s Day or whatever comes up. Using some of those things to prime the pump. You lit up talking about the marketing calendar as well.
You’ve got to get the juices flowing too in regards to what kind of content you want to share. Don’t feel that you have to share your own stuff all the time. I’ll find a great article from you or Sharon Vornholt and I’m like, “That’s good.” Share that. I use HubSpot and Social Media Examiner to read their stuff. If it’s valuable to me, it’s going to be valuable to my avatar. It’s okay to share it. The easiest thing to do is find those fun holidays like National Hamburger Day and ask people what they like on their hamburger. It’s not businessy but it’s fun.
It’s the same with what’s going on in your day, a lesson that you learned, and something that your client told you. Now I’m going to talk about the podcast and how awesome it was. You can even share a testimonial or a quote that you love. Ask people questions. What are they doing? If I was talking about one-sheets and stuff like that, I’m like, “Who has got their one-sheet done? Share it. People want to share their stuff. If you ask them to share it, they will share it. If you ask for an opinion and do a poll, they will give you their opinion. When in doubt, ask out loud. There are always dancing cats. I love the minions.
I have to give you some props because we’ve probably have had 150-plus guests on the show, you’re the first guest who posted something beforehand that they were excited to come on Twitter. I love it. We’ve posted like, “We’re having such and such on the show,” but you’re the first guest to post something beforehand that you’re coming on the show. It is a great thing to do. A lot of us get so caught up on, “What’s next on my calendar.” That’s why we’re having a team that can look at what you’ve got going on. They can share that and outsource it as well for you to get the word out on what you’re doing.
I have some clients where they’re going to be on a talk. I find out about it the day before. I’m like, “What do you mean you’re speaking this weekend? Why didn’t you tell me? You’ve got to milk that baby. Let people know, “I’m speaking at this.” Everyone’s like, “Look at her.” It’s the same with being on a podcast, “She’s being interviewed again? Nice.” You may take it for granted but it builds authority. It’s nice to give a shout-out to other people and people like that.
I’m excited to have you on Note CAMP 2020. Do you want to give a little bit of a sneak peek for those? Do you want to give a little teaser of what you’ll be talking about?
I was working on my presentation playing with PowerPoint. I will be touching on the avatar because it’s such an important part. Also, about how to recycle, reuse and leverage content to make your life easier, how to create a schedule and how to take it to the next level with a few extra little fun things. I will also share my tools because tools are important.
You mentioned a couple like Canva and Repurpose.io. Hani does such a great job with that. She always adds new connections to software to make it easier. We get many real estate investors who are not only listening to the podcast but listen to our Note Nation Radio Network across the country. You work with people all across the United States and Canada because Canada is home for you. What’s the best way for them to reach out to you and schedule an appointment or talk with you, see if they might be a fit or you might be a fit to help them take their content marketing to a different level?
I recommend joining the Real Estate Investors Marketing Group on Facebook. They can go to REIMarketingGroup.com and join. I do live Facebooks, training, tips and all that good stuff. You can connect with me there. They can go to REIMarketingExperts.com/services so you can check out our done-for-you services. If you go to REIMarketingExperts.com/swipe, I will give you two weeks’ worth of done-for-you content to help you get noticed. I’ll even share 30 days of social media post ideas.
You’re bringing out the big guns there for people. That’s freaking phenomenal, 30 days of content, two weeks to help people get started. Now there’s no excuse for them not to do that. Lyndsay, thank you for being here. We’ve got to have you back on here again. It’s been way too long. You and I have been back and forth but it’s all good. Once again, guys and gals, take some action. Lyndsay drops some freaking bombs on some contents and her two giveaways, the group and the calendar and stuff like that. Most of you are sitting like, “What the heck do I do?” There you go. If you want to take your business to the next level and I don’t care what level you’re at, if you’re a flat line with no heartbeat, we can resuscitate that heartbeat going on.
If you’re at a level and want to move up a little bit, maybe you’re finding that you can’t do it all by yourself, take advantage of those tools. There’s a way to exponentially grow your marketing to get the word out on what you’re doing. Let’s face it, people need to hear from you. People need to hear and see others that are doing something. That’s what separates the five percenters. Those are the people that show up on a consistent basis, doing and get rock and rolling. That’s what made Lyndsay so successful and she continues to help make her client successful as well. Showing up on a consistent basis, delivering above and beyond, and not being afraid to ask questions and communicate. Guys and gals, take advantage of these two different tools. Join us at Note CAMP 2020 whether it’s live or catching the replay. We look forward to seeing you all at the top.
Important Links:
- Smooth Sailing Business Growth
- Real Estate Investors Marketing
- Repurpose.io
- Canva
- Note CAMP 2020
- REIMarketingGroup.com
- REIMarketingExperts.com/services
- REIMarketingExperts.com/swipe
- REIMarketing.com
About Lyndsay Phillips
Founder and owner of Smooth Sailing Business Growth and Real Estate Investor’s Marketing, Lyndsay Phillips is the go-to Content Marketing Expert who helps clients attract and convert customers faster! Lyndsay is featured on MSN, NBC, Fox and has guested on a TON of podcasts including John Lee Dumas’s Entrepreneurs On Fire and Joe Fairless’ Best Podcast Ever. She’s a serial podcaster with shows like Smooth Sailing Podcast, Smooth Business Growth Podcast and now Co-Hosts the REI Marketing Show. Speaking at events such as Dream Business Academy, Podfest, and Service Business Edge she has shared the stage with Mike Michalowicz and Jay Abraham. Working with successful Real Estate Investors, she’s increased their podcast audience, extended their reach and built their authority status through content marketing.
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