How to Stop Being an Annoying Agent and Start Building Social Capital with Matt Muscat
Key Takeaways
- Providing value through personalized, relevant outreach is more effective than generic follow-ups.
- Tracking the referrals you give can build long-term social capital and influence.
- Using AI and B-roll video strategies can streamline your content creation while keeping it personal.
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The REI Agent with Matt Muscat
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A Marketing Mindset Shift Agents Desperately Need
In this fire-filled episode of The REI Agent Podcast, host Mattias Clymer holds nothing back in an energetic solo session alongside powerhouse guest Matt Muscat, marketing genius, real estate author, and strategy coach.
Together, they light up the mic with a high-octane conversation on what truly drives results in the real estate business.
This isn’t just about pretty social posts or awkward closing table selfies. It’s about transforming into the agent everyone trusts, respects, and remembers.
“You get stronger at what you put your time and energy into.”
That’s not just a gym metaphor from Mattias’s CrossFit morning. That’s the entire theme of this episode.
Stop the Noise, Start the Strategy
Mattias wastes no time dismantling tired marketing habits. “Forced awkward photos at the closing table” might remind folks that you're still in the game, but do they really build connection or generate business?
Matt Muscat jumps in with his signature no-fluff take:
“If your strategy is hoping people remember you because you’re pretty or cool, that’s not a strategy. That’s blind luck.”
Their solution?
Value-based outreach. Instead of mass emails and generic follow-ups, agents must focus on meaningful connections.
Matt preaches becoming the go-to problem solver for your clients’ entire lives. From pet names to HVAC referrals, it’s all about relevance and relationships.
The Text That Changes Everything
One of the most powerful tools?
A simple, well-thought-out text.
“Hey, I know you’re not looking right now, but I had to send you this house. It’s two blocks from your office and priced to move.”
That kind of message isn’t salesy. It’s strategic.
And according to Matt, for every 100 messages like this, four to five transactions follow within three months.
That’s not theory.
That’s proven.
He even admits to buying two homes after receiving messages like that. The power is real.
Ditch Desperation, Build Social Capital
Perhaps the most inspiring shift Matt introduces is the concept of social capital.
Instead of just tracking referrals you get, start tracking the value you give.
“Your number one skill isn’t marketing. It’s building a huge list of people who owe you one and want to invest in your future.”
Send birthday cards to kids.
Remember the name of your client’s dog. Refer your plumber to your neighbor’s cousin.
These small gestures build a bank of goodwill that pays serious dividends when it counts.
This isn't about manipulation. It's about generosity. It's about becoming memorable.
Leveraging AI Without Losing the Human
In a surprising twist, Matt reveals his use of AI avatars for marketing videos.
Sounds scary?
He breaks it down.
From custom avatars with different moods to full video automation, the tech is powerful. But, as he explains,
“You can’t take the social out of social media.”
Engagement still matters. That means YOU still matter.
Posting With Purpose
If your social content isn’t getting engagement, it’s time to reframe your approach.
Matt’s advice?
“Controversial but not offensive. Crunchy vs. smooth peanut butter. That gets a comment war going without losing half your clients.”
It’s all about relatability.
Post fun, post personal, and then sneak in the business in a way that makes people care.
“Who cares? How could we phrase it differently?”
That’s the prompt to ask before posting anything.
Creating Opportunity vs. Waiting for Luck
Matt drops one of the most powerful mic-drop truths of the episode:
“We don’t want to rely on people remembering who we are. We want to be in control of how much business comes in.”
That’s the heart of a true real estate entrepreneur.
By using creative outreach strategies, from text follow-ups to Facebook DMs to referral tracking, you control the narrative. You create the momentum. You become the agent of influence.
Final Takeaways and a Call to Action
Matt leaves listeners with two book recommendations and a golden nugget that reframes the entire game: focus on being so useful, so helpful, and so proactive that people can’t forget you.
“Track the referrals you give. Call those people. Ask if it helped. That’s how you build real power.”
In a business flooded with noise, the real winners are the ones who bring value, connection, and intentionality every single day.
Build Your Influence, Build Your Freedom
This episode isn’t just tactical. It’s transformational.
From CrossFit metaphors to AI breakthroughs to birthday cards for client’s kids, Mattias and Matt deliver a full-scale blueprint for becoming an agent that people want to hear from.
You’ll walk away rethinking every call, every text, and every post. And more importantly, you’ll walk away ready to take control of your business like never before.
“Be a systematic, really good friend to your sphere.”
That’s the real secret to success.
Are you ready to stop being forgettable and start building a business rooted in value and influence?
Then this episode is for you.
Stay tuned for more inspiring stories on The REI Agent podcast, your go-to source for insights, inspiration, and strategies from top agents and investors who are living their best lives through real estate.
For more content and episodes, visit reiagent.com.
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- Achieving Holistic Wealth and Success Through Real Estate (Insights from The REI Agent)
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Transcript
Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I'm Mattias, an agent and investor.
And I'm Erica, a licensed therapist.
Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing.
Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors.
Ready to level up?
Let's do it.
Welcome back to the REI Agent. Mattias here. Erica is, again, unable to join us.
I think the summer recordings are just gonna be challenging. There's, Erica really is wanting to prioritize giving the kids a summer and not just keeping them in the day camps and the things that they're in. Even though they're great and they're enjoying them, she also wants to be able to take them to swimming lessons and take them to the pool in general and do fun summer things.
So, throughout the recording summer months, it may just be more heavily me will enjoy Erica when we can get her. Today, I had a new PR with my clean and jerk at CrossFit. I just wanted to take this opportunity to brag about it.
No, I really had this thought in my head after. It's a great thing. It feels good.
I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. When you hit something new, and that's why CrossFit can be very addicting is there's a lot of skills that you learn throughout it. Not only are you getting stronger, but you have to learn skills where a clean and jerk and a snatch, for example, there are just things that people work on forever to try to really perfect.
And there's so much technique involved that is more or equally as important as strength. And so, when you hit something bigger and it goes smoothly, then you feel really accomplished because you've learned a skill and you've gotten stronger. Well, that's exactly what it made me think of is just how we really have, I think they say it's about 35,000 choices that we make every single day.
And most of those are kind of either feeding a good habit or a bad habit as one way to look at it. I mean, not everyone, but you can start thinking through what choices you're making, how to spend your time, how to, what you're investing your time in, what you're investing your energy, your thoughts into, and if that is building yourself into a positive direction. So, what you choose to eat, what you choose to do with your spare time, are you scrolling TikTok?
I know I'm guilty about scrolling some TikTok, I'm not gonna lie and pretend that I'm perfect over here. But there's also choosing to wake up or choosing to sleep in. All of those things are habits that kind of build, they strengthen either the good or the bad.
So, if you are choosing to have that alcoholic drink or have that fourth one or whatever, that is increasing that habit that will make it more likely to happen again tomorrow or whenever. So, it's really just a good way to think about life is that it's easy to be like, ah, just today I'm going to sleep in and I know sleep is very important, so I'm not gonna say that that's not a good thing to do every once in a while, I need to sleep in right now. But, or like, you know, have that drink or just, I'm just gonna get something quick and easy to eat.
All those things are, you know, one-offs are not bad, but the thing is is that you are then feeding that habit. So, it becomes a lot harder to eat something unhealthy if you have been eating very healthfully for a long time. And also, it's not that it happens immediately.
If you try to do a New Year's resolution and you're just gonna stop eating junk food altogether, stop, no sugar, immediately, right after Christmas, it's gonna be really hard and you're gonna fail. So, you know, it's important to look at it, like, you know, building over time. And the clean and jerk is a really good example.
I found an old video of me doing a clean and jerk and I don't know what the weight was. I didn't add it up. It wasn't much.
And I was, my clean was just ugly. It was really bad. And, you know, I even said it in the video, like, oh, that was terrible.
But it's just one of the things that, you know, if you focus on it, if you keep working on it, eventually you'll get better and better and better. Like, it might've been 100 pounds or something that I was cleaning at that point. And today I did 275.
And that is, you know, something that I maybe would never have believed that I would get to when I first started. But it's just, you know, a matter of you get stronger what you put your time and energy into. I'm gonna stop rambling about CrossFit and lifting weights.
I'm gonna start talking about our guest today, Matt Muscat. Matt is, was a really, really good guest. If you're an agent, if you are needing to market your services at all, he's a great mind at marketing.
He is coming from the lending side of things, but he has a clear example of why he's a great marketer is that he has devoted a lot of time and energy to helping agents get better at marketing. And so when an agent that he helps get better at marketing has business that, you know, that they would need a referral to, they're likely gonna go to that company to him. And so it's just a great example about how marketing is, really needs to be focused on the person you're marketing to.
Like, what do they care about? Do they really care about your, you know, recent sale? Maybe not.
It might remind them that you're in the business, but does it really, something they really care about? Do you see Geico Insurance talking about how many quotes they filled that day? You don't care about that.
So they have converted to making funny jokes with a gecko. And that is something that people enjoy more than maybe hearing about the policy they just signed. So all that to say, it is a really good episode.
He's got a book you can read. He gives tons of good information in the actual podcast itself. So definitely check this one out.
And he has services and things that you can find. And he puts them in the show, the show notes, and he mentions them at the end. But yeah, without further ado, definitely pay attention, stay through this whole one.
It's a great, lots of tips. Here's Matt Muscat. Welcome back to the REI Agent.
I'm here with Matt Muscat. Matt, thanks so much for joining us. Hey, thanks for having me.
Hey, so you gave me a little bit of a rundown about all the things that you're into. You're a great fit for this show. But I think this is gonna be a really focused on a marketing kind of episode.
So everybody loves some good marketing tips when they're, I mean, you know, I guess I just should just start with my pet peeve. And I've said it a number of times in this episode or in this podcast is the only thing that comes out is like a forced awkward picture with your client at the closing table. You know, they don't really wanna be there.
And like, you know, you kind of pressure them into this picture. I know it does serve a purpose. It does, you know, remind people that you're active and in the business, but there is a lot more opportunity.
And I would also say that, you know, I don't think many of your followers and people on social media, et cetera, really care about that sale. You know, they might, again, be reminded that you do the business, but that doesn't really impact their lives. And I mean, all of us are kind of selfish.
Tell me a little bit about, maybe you wanna start with how you got into this marketing space and kind of tell me about some of your ideas behind marketing in general and some good practices. Yeah. Well, absolutely.
And I kind of wanna riff off what you just said. My number one pet peeve is when people don't have a strategy. And I think those people that are just repetitively posting the same thing, whether it's social media or whether it's the same mass email or canned email that your company gave you, that's not a strategy that you're gonna use to make money and build wealth in real estate.
That's marketing. You're hoping that because you're cool, you're awesome, you're pretty or whatever, that business will come to you when people are gonna buy and sell. And that's simply not a plan.
That's just blind luck. So everything that we're gonna talk about today is the opposite of that. But yeah, so I got started, it was in school back in 2010, studying internet marketing and business.
And dude, like the real estate industry, you people, you people literally had ruined the entire world economy. You were selling strippers home, like five homes for like 0% down on seven-year-old mortgages. And- I'm gonna point the finger back at the lenders.
At the moment, yeah. So that was the industry that I was walking into. And unfortunately, since the world economy had crashed, I was finishing grad school and there were no jobs out there.
And I remember calling my mom and saying, I got one offer and it was from a mortgage company. And she's like, don't do that. You don't wanna be in real estate.
And I took it and the rest is history. So when I got started, my company was like, hey, can you get us leads? Can you get us business?
And I said, sure, I'll use, I'll build websites, I'll do social media. Twitter was new at that point, right? It wasn't X yet, it wasn't political.
And we just started doing marketing and getting leads. And then they said, I said, well, what else? Cause I'm not that busy.
They said, well, there are these people called realtors. And if you can get them to like us, they'll send us business cause we were a mortgage company. And so I said, cool, how do I, I'm like 22.
How do I get a realtor to wanna send us business? They said, well, why don't you like tell them the same stuff about marketing and like websites and social media that you did for us. If they get business, they'll like us and then they'll send us stuff.
And kind of the rest is history. So fast forward 15 years, I probably had 4,000 sit down meetings with different realtors and real estate professionals from every person like yourself today, I'm sure. I'm gonna learn all of your secrets of how you get business or how you at least get business in this market.
Then I'm gonna meet with someone else tomorrow and give them a variety of your ideas. And we're gonna come up with a strategy that's really specific to the agent. So since then, run a podcast, wrote a book on real estate marketing, had a lot of fun, traveled to some cool places, and then obviously started using that income to invest in real estate.
So that's kind of my whole story of my hobbies. Well, that's awesome. The first thing I wanna get into about what you just said is like that is good marketing.
You are providing a value to an agent that they really can use. That is like valuable to that agent. That will make them want to work with you for sure.
And I've had, obviously as an agent that's been in the business for a long time, I have a various agent or people that reach out to me in different ways to try to gain business really. I mean, they wanna maintain the relationship with me, et cetera. And sometimes, especially when I'm really busy, it's just a nuisance.
It's an annoying phone call. Yeah. It sucks.
Yeah, and so this is a great example of like, if there's any mortgage advisors listening, this is a great example of how you can really provide some value to somebody. Because I think most agents do not understand marketing well. And most agents, they're not in it.
They don't get their real estate license thinking they're gonna be like a marketer, right? I mean, other than the house, like that's something that they expect to be doing, but not themselves or not their business. And so that's incredibly valuable.
And I think that's probably a testament to how you would be good as a marketer for agents as well, because you'd be focused on what is providing value, what is something that people want. And that's what good marketing is. Well, turn that around.
I mean, you could turn that around really quickly for an agent. I know it's a lot of agents listening, but the bad joke that I make all the time is that like realtors in our industry are kind of like, whether they do business or not, by the way, realtors are like the pretty girl in school and lenders are like the annoying dudes that are just trying to get with them. Right?
So like, if I have a happy hour with my realtor friends, I mean, three calls will come in from local lenders to try to get lunch with them. And there's just very little value being offered most of the time. They all say we communicate, we close quick, we offer this one weird program, whatever.
It's all the same. But think about that. If you're a realtor, you calling one of like a random lead or a past client or someone is kind of the same thing.
And so I want realtors to hear this message too from the other side of it, because most realtors are told by their brokers that they need to call their database, that they need to call leads. But the problem is they're not being told what to say. So usually what do they say?
You say, hey, ring, ring, ring. It's John, the realtor. Hey, I just wanted to let you know, Matt, that if you're ever looking to buy, sell, or invest in real estate, I would love to make money off of you.
It's a BS call. It's a call that sucks. It's the same as not offering value, right?
So how could you flip that conversation and create an opportunity or present an opportunity for that client on the phone call? Because like, yes, you should be making those calls, but the topic should not be how you could make money off them. It should be something of value to them or something interesting.
Like, I want to find out on every conversation that I'm having how that person makes money, what their livelihood is, what their family values. I want to offer tips, advice, and connections on those topics. And that way when they see my name coming up on their phone, they know that I'm there to offer value.
And then hopefully at the end of the conversation, they offer some value to me. But that's kind of the whole goal there. Yeah, yeah.
I think, I've looked at it often as being a very systematic, like, really good friend to your sphere. So you want to have systems behind it so that you are maintaining those relationships because it's easy to forget. But you just want to be a good friend, not, and I see the things like referrals are the best compliment and email signatures, which that's not as bad, but directly asking or making the call all about that.
Yeah, it's definitely off-putting and they're not going to want to pick up the phone the next time you call. A couple of things that I do or I think I try to position myself in is, A, be the go-to person if they need anything house-related or any recommendation at all. I am a connector.
I am the person that knows all the service providers and could give great recommendations no matter what they need. If they have an HVAC that goes out or whatever, I get texts all the time asking for advice about things like that. And that's a welcomed connection.
I'm providing value there. Another great practice is obviously the Ford method where you just kind of- Rent, family, occupation, recreation, dreams. It's unbelievably powerful and it hasn't changed for 50 years.
It's such a simple thing, but yeah, that teases out a lot of information that could be valuable to you. But also, it's all about them and they're going to be excited to talk about those things and they'll probably ask you questions back and you can be a friend. Sure.
If you think about that, any agent listening who's looking for an activity to work on in the next couple weeks when they might be slow, the activity I like to give people is, look at your database, whether it's an Excel sheet or a fancy CRM system that your company provides and go through every client and until you can fill out the notes section with the Ford model, with their family, their occupation, their recreation, their dreams, you're not done. Because in a CRM system that just has content information is a very empty, lonely place versus if I know what you do for a living, if I know your livelihood and I understand your goals, your family situation, the number of kids you have, the size of your current place.
I as a salesperson should be able to then figure out what's my point of attack and not saying that we're attacking customers but I cannot help you better your life with the value that I bring without knowing those items. And so if you're an agent that wants to get business or any salesperson, just go into each contact and add the Ford model and if you don't know the items, reach out. Call, schedule a copy, get real.
That's amazing, that's great. I love that. And I think to expand on that even more, the more notes you can take, the better.
I mean, add in things like if you see on social media or whatever that their kid had a birthday and how old they turned, like you can add in their birthday and that could be something that you are, you could set up an automation to send a card or something to them for their kid's birthday and that's probably something that nobody else would be doing and it's a nice little touch, just the remembering of it.
And kids' names for sure. I mean, that's big. Like it's, I think a lot of people will remember their client's names but may not always remember their kid's names and for me, it doesn't come naturally.
Like I have to do things like write them down and then also sometimes when I'm in, I know a lot of people, sometimes if it's somebody I met like eight years ago and I have like a weird memory about them, can't remember their name, I can search my database and for what I remember about them and usually it pops up and that helps me save face when I go to say hi because I remember their name. I think I want everyone who's like older like me, who's listening to remember that like it's not about kids anymore, right? I have kids but having kids stopped being cool like four years ago, now it's just dogs and cats.
I think the National Association of Realtors put out a thing that said there are 70% of American homeowners have pets and only 40% have kids. So you got to remember the pet's names because that's like, that's where Gen Z, that's where Gen Z is going. Kids are too expensive apparently.
As you and I both know. Yeah, yeah, totally. That's why we have to invest.
That's why we have to invest, that's why we're here today. Okay, so we've covered some kind of like, I guess general maybe mindset or theory behind like kind of how you should approach marketing, right? I mean, do you have anything else kind of like high level marketing wise that agents should know or keep in mind when they're approaching the marketing that they're doing or their interactions with clients in general?
Yeah, do you want some examples of like some very tangible specific things they could do to get deals done? Okay. So, you know, at the end of the day, it all starts with a time block and I'm sure we've all heard time block, accountability, whatever.
But the problem is like most people, if I were to look at the calendar of an average agent, which I've done 4,000 times, I don't see enough lead producing activities in their calendar. So start out by choosing 12 to 15 hours a week of time in your calendar that you know you're not gonna overbook. So if it's a time that you're always out doing showings, don't choose that time.
If it's the time that overlaps with kids pick up at school, don't choose that time. It needs to be a time that works all year, summer, spring, fall, whatever. And then you want to then insert opportunity creating or lead generating activities in those times.
So then the next question is, well, what are examples of those activities? The first one I'm gonna give you is the simplest one possible. We're all on social media, but most of us just shout and post.
We don't actually like do any lead generation or things that are in our control. So this strategy has worked for every single agent I've ever done it with. It's super, super simple.
You're going to organize your friends list in some fashion. Now you can do it alphabetically. You could do it by who you've talked to most recently.
You pick, I don't care. What you're gonna do is you're gonna choose 25 people per day to DM. Facebook, this is Messenger.
It's on Insta, this is through direct message. And I don't think this really works well on any of the other social media sites at the moment. You're gonna DM them, but then you're gonna tell me, well, what am I gonna say?
Here's what to say. Click on their profile, look at what they've done recently, and message them about that topic. If you go to my profile, you would see that I just posted seeing if anyone had any Japanese yen I could buy off them because I'm taking my family on vacation.
So you might be like, hey man, dude, haven't talked to you in forever. Hope you're doing well. When are you going to Japan?
My wife and I just went. We'd love to share some tips that work for us. What do you think the percentage chance is that I'm gonna respond to that?
I mean, that's very high, yeah. You posted, like I posted about something I cared about that I wanted help on. You messaged me to offer me help.
Of course I'm gonna respond. Versus, what do most agents do? They like send a weird message like, hey, checking in, how are you?
What's new? We all know if a realtor is asking you what's new, they wanna sell you something. It's annoying.
Every single person who's active on social is posting about what they care about. You message them about that. And then what usually happens and why you will make money off of this is twofold.
Number one, every time you have a DM, that triggers the algorithm to say, hey, we're interested in each other again. Facebook meta is gonna start showing that other person your posts when they haven't seen it recently. So that listing you post yesterday, the listing you're posting tomorrow, they're now gonna see.
These people might not even realize that you're in real estate if you're new or if you just switched careers. So that's number one. Number two, all these people that you're asking questions to, usually a normal person at some point is gonna ask you an open-ended question like how are you, what's new, what's going on, how are the kids?
That is when you now need to take control of their open-ended question, take control of the conversation and guide it in the direction you want it to go. So, you talked about Japan, you talked about your vacation, and now they're gonna say, dude, how are you? I haven't talked to you in a while.
And you say, hey, doing really well. Growing my real estate business this year, just closed deal number nine, working with a lot more investors. They're, dude, I know you're in real estate.
Now, only one in 10 people is gonna really engage with you on the real estate topic. But again, you're doing this 25 times a day. Almost every day you will get one or two that ask you either for more information or that are interested.
But also, those people are going to work the next day, they're talking to people who then might say, oh, I'm looking for a realtor, but you've put that hook in there, they remember your name now. So, honestly, for every 100 messages you send out, you will usually get four to five transactions three months later. That is the number.
We've seen it time and time and time again. If you're way younger, if you're an 18 to 22-year-old agent, and none of your friends are home-buying age, the numbers can be different. And you have to adjust your approach on that.
And usually, if that's the case, you need to document how you're investing in real estate in your story to get your friends jealous so that they can basically try to do the same thing. So there's still ways to do it if you're younger, but you have to be a little bit more strategic. That's really good.
That's really smart, the whole algorithm connecting more after the fact is a plus, because immediately I was thinking, I'm just gonna text. But, that makes sense why that's a... You know, at the end of the day, like, a face-to-face meeting is the best, a phone call is second best, text is probably third best, and then DMs are fourth.
But, with the DMs, you do get that added value of the algorithm. Now, are you a texting guy? Yeah, yeah.
All right, well, I can give you a texting one that's completely different if you want. Sure. This is gold stuff.
Here's the easiest thing. I've probably talked about this on the internet a thousand times, and if anyone wants a full PDF on this, they can DM me and I'll send it to them. But, this is my second best strategy, and this actually might be better if you're in a good real estate market.
So, what I want you to do is, every day, find three listings in your area that are cool, that are exciting, that are cheap, that are terrible, that are amazing. Find three interesting properties. Choose properties that have been in the market for seven days or more, not brand new ones.
And then, for each property, choose three people in your database. These could be active buyers, these could be random friends, fear of influence, family, friends, neighbors, whatever, coworkers, doesn't matter. And, for each property, you're gonna text three people and say, hey Matt, hope you're doing well.
I know you're not interested in buying a house right now, but I had to send you this property. This is five doors down from where you live, but it's $300,000 more than your house. Thought you'd like to know.
Or, hey Matt, I know you're not looking to buy a house right now, but this property just listed five blocks from your work. You know anyone at your office that needs to move closer to work, let them know. Or, hey Matt, I know you're not looking for a house right now, but two years ago, when we helped you buy, you wanted something modern and you couldn't find it, this just popped up.
Dude, I had to send it to you. I'm basically just sending a message, letting you know that I was thinking about you, letting you know I have my thumb on the pulse of the real estate market, and see, I'm trying to create an opportunity. And I know that I'm gonna convert five to 10% of all my opportunities.
And the reason I know this is because I am a sucker and I purchased two homes because realtors made these calls to me. Like literally bought my first investment property. Because a realtor called me out of the blue and was like, hey Matt, I know you're not gonna buy a house right now, but I know you're in mortgages and you could probably close the deal quick if you had to.
I just had to buy her back out of this investment property. Only $150,000, I think you would rent for $2,000 a month. Your mortgage would probably be a lot less than that.
If you wanted it, let me know, because I know you could close quick. And I was like, sure, I'll take it. Of course I want to make free money.
And a couple months later, she did it to me again on my primary house. She was like, hey, I saw online that you and your wife really like modern stuff, modern architecture. This home just listed, you should see it.
I'm like, no, I'm good. She's like, no, just come see it, you don't need to buy it. Just come look at it, you'll love it.
It'll be a fun time. And then we offered up. Like, that deal would have never happened had she not put the opportunity in my head.
Now, unfortunately, I found out years later that I was one of 30 calls she made that day about that house. But it only took one bite. Like, it only took 30 phone calls for her to make a $15,000 commission off of me.
Yeah. Right? She called 30 people, I bit, she made 15K.
I don't know what other industry you can get that kind of ROI that aren't adult industry websites. Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's a great point that, you know, I think one, the thing that really sticks out to me is that there's the connection there. Like, there's a reason they're reaching out to you about it.
And there's a memory of you, you know, it's not just a, you know, if the property, it would probably be really annoying if the property had no appeal to you at all, right? Like, if it was a totally off planet Earth as to what you actually would be interested in. That would just be easy.
Right, like half of my database are investors. So for them, that's easy. Like, I come up with a list of 10 investment properties in our market every week, and I send it out to all of our people that are interested in investment properties.
And every week, we sell one. Do we sell 10? No, one time we sold three.
It's just one of the 25 things we do every single week to ensure that we're creating business. Because we do not want to rely on having people remember who we are and hoping that they come back to us. Like, we're not just doing client appreciation events and, you know, thank you calls.
Like, we're doing all those things. We're doing the basics. We want to be in control of ensuring how much business comes in.
Yeah, I love it. I have a tip. I'm wondering if you've heard this one before.
If you need something to talk to people about, that blanket works for especially your older sales. We all went through, you know, a period of rapid growth valuation. So if anybody bought before like 2020, for example, you could re-engage your database with this one.
And that's that you give them a call and you just say, hey, look, I was remembering that we, you know, bought this house eight years ago. The market has drastically gone up since then. And I was just thinking about how you may not be properly insured.
And I'm just wondering if you talked with your insurance agent recently about, you know, making sure that you have enough coverage given the amount of gain and valuation that we've had. And that can open the door to, you know, giving them a CMA. You know, you could do that with an automated system maybe, or actually go to the house and give them one.
But it's a great touch point where the times I've done it, people were like, I would never have thought of that. Thank you. And I don't know how I have.
Like you're creating value for your clients and it's a reason to pick up the phone. We've done a similar one with, because like everyone's doing, we started doing the like, here's your home value. And then everyone else did it.
So what we've been doing recently is like return on down payment. Does that sound, it seems like a much higher number. So we, you know, most agents know in general, like what their clients put down, you know, how long they lived in the home, what it was worth, what it is now.
So they put $5,000 down and now the home's worth 90 grand more five years later. That's a ridiculous ROI when you put it as a percent that like you can't get in any other investment on the market. I mean, Bitcoin didn't do that well.
So I like to like take numbers and just present them in a way that other people are not doing. And almost it becomes like a self-congratulation call because you were the one to help them buy the house in the first place. And in many cases inspired them to buy a home.
Yeah, that's a really good one. I love it. Those kinds of things are, yeah, like where you can really, yeah, stand out and provide value as opposed to just, yeah, annoying, annoying people.
We could just maybe the title of the episode is Stop Being Annoying. Stop Annoying Your Customer. Yeah, it's almost better to not reach out.
Almost. Yeah, well it is. And you know, it's really interesting because I've purchased probably 10 homes in my lifetime, in my short lifetime, and maybe sold two, purchased 10.
And of the realtors I've worked with, I can tell you the number who stay in touch with me, and that is two, two out of like 12. I don't hear from the other 10. Now, they know that I'm still buying because I'm posting about that all the time, but they don't try.
Now, other side of the stone, my wife shops at like a high-end shop for her jeans because they sell the best jeans in our town. When she buys a pair of jeans for like, I don't know, 150 bucks, they give her champagne when she walks in. They send her thank you notes.
They offer to babysit our kids while we're shopping. I mean, the level of service and above and beyond that they provide to make, what's commissioned on jeans these days? Like 15%?
They're gonna make $15 on this pair of jeans? It's like the realtor that made $20 again? It's bizarre.
And so, make phone calls that are positive, skip the annoying ones, but then do make the right follow-ups. Please do something. Yeah, definitely.
These are really, really, really good tips. You mentioned having a strategy. So this is all strategy.
Do you have any other suggestions for social media strategy or just marketing strategy in general that would be good for people to put in place? Yeah, so the three by three and the social media deep strategy, those are probably the two biggest ones. I think a third one that I continually hear from agents about is really making sure that you have a strategy to get business from other realtors.
So there's a huge migration happening right now in the country because prices and climate start changing drastically, right? Like half of our country is unaffordable to live in, half of our country is too hot, too cold, bad weather, weather's too good, prices go up too high, I don't know. The grass is always greener somewhere else.
And so with that, we're seeing just a lot more moves, I think, from one city to a new city or state than we've ever seen before. So agents right now who are actually prospecting other realtors to get their referral business and then making that process easy are getting great business off of it. I had a woman on my podcast today who said she did $3 million, which in her market was eight sales off of referrals last year.
And I know multiple agents who are doing that level of business off of other agent referrals and I think it's huge. The piece no one's talking about is that you can actually get referrals from agents at your own office or get business from them. What I mean by this is if you're a brand new young agent with nothing going on, find the 30 agents at your office, every agent, every office has one, find the 30 agents who do no business because they're bordering on retirement, but they do two or three deals a year.
And just let them know, hey, you don't wanna show these homes, I'll do it for X price, or you can refer the person to me and I'll pay you 25% for doing nothing while you're in Florida all winter. I have an agent who markets to other agents in his office every year in November to let them know that he can cover for them while they're on vacation for the winter. So many agents go to Florida for the winter.
So every year, he picks up 12 or so deals in the winter off these other people and he refers them 25 to 30%. It's a great deal all around. So there's business to be had, but you just have to get creative with it.
Yeah, I love that. I don't think I remember the three by three, you mentioned that for social media or the other one. Yes, three by three for social media was just the one where you choose three properties a day and you choose three people from the debaters to call about each property.
Got it, got it, got it. Okay, nevermind. Kind of the idea of creating opportunities and hooks versus waiting for people to call you.
Sure. And is there content strategies that you would recommend as well? Like what's actually put out if you're trying to post once a day or what would be the strategy there?
So if you're posting, make sure to go 80% fun, personal, community, and maybe 20% business. Because I think unless you're Ryan Serhant selling Beverly Hills on Netflix, I don't think people truly care that much, right? So I would go 80% personal fun and I'd put out things that are mildly controversial but not political, religious, offensive.
So controversial but not offensive. So I'll give you my best example. The simplest example, my marketing teacher taught me this in college.
Peanut butter. Matt, do you prefer crunchy or smooth? I typically just have smooth.
Well, you're wrong, because smooth is disgusting. Anyone that chooses smooth is obviously wrong. We could argue, we could probably argue about this all day.
Right.
Because it's a polarizing controversial topic but it's not offensive. Right. So Pepsi versus Coke, best burger spot in town, things that are gonna get the comment war going but that aren't gonna like piss off half of your clients.
Now, I might be pissed off about the peanut butter thing because I really believe crunchy is the best. But I think in your strategy for social, you need to post things that are guaranteed to get some sort of reaction. Some engagement, yeah.
Yeah, and they all can't just be talking head videos of you saying, hey, if you're a first time home buyer thinking about buying a house, give me a call. Where's the meat, where's the hook, why should I talk to you? Versus I might put one out today that says, hey, click here to join our, tag a friend below who's buying in the next 12 months so that we can add them to our waiting list for a $25,000 down payment assistance.
Now, there is really down payment assistance. There isn't really a waiting list but we're gonna say there's a waiting list because we want people to give up their names so that we can get them on the list. So we gotta come up with an interesting hook for everything you do.
But if you're thinking about posting anything on social, think, who cares? Who cares, how could we phrase it differently? And the easiest way right now is to go into ChatGPT, type in what you were thinking about posting and say, give me a hook that's guaranteed to get engagement about this topic.
It'll give you five ideas. Yeah, that's really good. That's really smart.
What about if you have a team that has a social media profile? If it's, is it just, you know, everybody's encouraged to post things personally about themselves as well from the team or? Yeah, so if you're a team and you guys have a team profile, usually one person needs to own and manage it.
So whether that's an admin and then that person's in charge of making sure that you get content from everyone on the team, I think that's hugely, hugely important. I think teams do a poor job of being engaging on their social media. Most of them just post but they don't engage and talk versus individual realtors with social media profiles do a much better job of engaging.
So I think that's the key thing to kind of watch out for there. One tip I heard once that I thought was really good was to get kind of get this in the back of your head at all times is look for B-roll. Like just try to film B-roll.
Maybe film like something every day. Maybe that should be the goal. I just put a folder in your photos for B-roll and then you can just have that, you know, you can give that to if you have any virtual assistant or whoever that's creating content and then they can use a B-roll of you showing a house or whatever and then they can, you know, make content off of that that they could, that you can share then that, you know, so you're not having to think what you're actually gonna share when you're filming.
You're just like, I, you know, this is great. It's a pretty house. You know, I'm gonna film a little bit there or, you know, I'm driving to a showing.
We probably shouldn't be filming while you're doing that but you get the point. I've seen plenty of agency videos in the car. It's kind of like scary but it's also like, yeah, they're a hard worker.
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I thought that that was a good tip and I've tried to increase that a little bit as well but yeah, it's a whole job.
I mean, it really is and I think a lot of people are not good at it and, you know, if you feel like you need to put that social media out there, it may be, do you think virtual assistants or hiring people, like, I mean, you have a company for this, right? Yeah, so I think it's hard to hire out social media because it takes the social out of social media. You can hire a virtual assistant to help you.
Yeah, you can hire a virtual assistant to help you edit videos, for instance. So hiring a company to help you with your social media strategy is great. Like, a company that can help you come up with the topics that you're gonna do, reels that you could attempt to clone or copy, that's a great use of a VA.
Second would be you record the video of you talking and then they splice it up, they do the cover image, they get it posted, they do all those things but you need to have time scheduled to go in and engage with people that are talking to you after your video. I mean, that's the critical part that I think most people when they hire it out miss out on. That makes sense.
Yeah, that makes sense. It's just kind of noise, almost, even if you're trying to give good tips or whatever. That makes, yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
Shoot, I had a follow-up question too. You had mentioned something. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You had mentioned some AI videos that maybe before we got on the call. What are you seeing with that? It's mind-blowing, dude.
I mean, I can make a video, I have an AI avatar of me. So I loaded my likeness into AI. I have three different outfits and I can make more.
It's my voice, it's my likeness. When I do a video, I type in whatever I want myself to say and they just kind of edit out my lips here. I have better teeth with AI.
I don't know. But I can make videos way faster now than I could before because I don't necessarily have to have my video guy, I don't need to worry about microphones or any of that stuff, lighting, how I look that day, do I have a zit or not. It's, I type and the words come out of my mouth and my voice and that's not an expense of AI.
I'm literally paying, I think, like 60 bucks a month for an unlimited package. I can also do educational videos from someone else's likeness. So there's like 10,000 people out there who've licensed themselves to software for AI so that you can make videos of them talking.
So I can do customer review videos, I can do explainer videos. I always, buried in the description, I'll usually say this content was enhanced with AI. You don't wanna be totally foolish, but I'll always put a little disclaimer there.
Is it, so is it realistic or a cartoon kinda? I mean, I don't know if we have screen share capabilities here, but like it is literally me. Okay.
We should be able to. Yeah, there's a present, but. Yeah, it is an outfit that I own in a room in my office.
Like. That's awesome. With my actual voice.
So now, it took me some time. I had to record a 10 minute long HD quality video, and I had to do a couple takes of it. I had to read a script where every possible syllable that could come out of my mouth came out in this video so that AI could build a model of what I sound like and what different syllables sound like coming out of my tongue.
I did one excited, I did one monotone, I've done professional. And so like, I can then tell it, make it sound excited or speed it up or slow it down or make it sound funny or make it sound empathetic. And every day it gets better.
So the big thing with AI for Realtors to remember is that like yesterday was the worst that AI will ever be, and today is the best that it's ever been at the same time. So it's changing daily. You really just need to kind of play around with it and see how you could use it.
Video is just one that I've been using a lot more for recently. My biggest kind of funny ones have just been starting a video by telling people that it's not me. And then that usually gets laughs.
And then I roll into like my AI version of myself saying whatever I want to say. Yeah, I think that's kind of important that people don't feel like it's deceptive. Because I've talked about or I've explored and wanted to use some like services like AI chatbots and that kind of thing.
I think there's great ways that can be implemented, but I also don't want it to be pretending that it's a real person. You know what I mean? I want it to be kind of like making a joke about, you know, hey, I'm a AI bot or AI assistant for the team or whatever.
And I think that if you can make a clever, funny name, I think it's an enjoyable experience versus like, yeah, they're trying to make it sound like they're, you know, I got somebody 24-7 with them that is answering texts. What's the service you are using for the video? It's called Heygen, H-E-Y-G-E-N.
There's 10,000 things the site does, but AI video is the biggest thing. Okay, cool. Yeah, no, it's a, AI is a wild world and I am definitely relying heavily on that.
Do you find that there's a model better for social media research, social media content development than others? If you're, you know, ChatGPT, Claude, I mean, if you're trying to find out. It's all about the prompts that you use, right?
So like, you know, ChatGPT is fantastic if you know what to type in to get good results. So like the tip I would give you, if you're using it for Facebook or for Instagram content, it's not great at creating images yet. It just, it's okay.
Like, I can't create a video with ChatGPT, but I can create a script for a video and then put it into another AI video software and then use that. Sometimes you do have to jump around a little bit, but if you give it a good prompt for Facebook and say like, hey, I'm a 37-year-old realtor living in Manhattan, and my goal is to do a post that converts my friends into potential investors. Please write me five posts, options for posts that allay excitement and fear of loss and use statistics and 90s pop culture references.
Like that's a very specific prompt, right? But if I were to write that prompt, it would give me five very specific answers. Then I might say, before each response, explain to me your logic on why your idea is a good idea.
And then it'll actually show its work and explain to you the reasoning behind it, which literally like it's better than what your intern can do on day one. So that's how I would use it. I think it's less about the software that you use and, because it's all drawing from the same stuff, it's more about the prompts that you give it.
Yeah, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. That's really helpful, good tips.
And I love the 90s references, because that is what would hit for my crew as well. Yeah, man, I feel like we have a million, I have a million questions I could ask you, but we can probably just go right into that golden nugget thing. I mean, you've given us a million already.
Do you have any other golden nuggets to share? Yeah, so you kind of mentioned, you touched on this at the beginning, so I feel like I'm kind of piggybacking off you, but my golden nugget is something that like a title professional taught me 12 years ago. And she said, Matt, your number one skill is not marketing.
Your number one skill is building social capital and a huge list of people that owe you one and want to invest in your future. And I didn't really know what it meant at the time, but basically, it's a tip that every realtor can use, because like you said before, every realtor is in the position to refer so many other people, right? Like, just in a transaction alone, you have a lender, an insurance agent, a title company, an inspector.
You then, after they move in, you have a contractor. You refer them to local businesses. Maybe they need a place to get their hair cut.
Maybe they need a new church. Maybe they need a bowling league. I don't know, a daycare facility.
So you're connecting them, but most realtors, what they're not doing is writing down and tracking the referrals they give. They only track the referrals they get if they're good at their job. So what I'm suggesting is what you measure, you will be successful with.
So measure the referrals you give out and then simply call all those people and businesses at the end of every year, maybe more, and say, hey, were those good referrals? Like, I sent you three clients that wanted to move out of their homes. Did you close them?
Did you make money off that? Was that good for your family? Like, do you want more like that?
Awesome, and then the likelihood is they're gonna then remember what you did for them and hopefully send some back to you. We're constantly just like talking to people so that they like me more, so that then when I need something, they think of me. So like half the time, like if I'm trying to get with a realtor and get them to send us business, but I don't like have business to send them yet, I'll find out what they need.
I'd be like, hey, like, oh, you're really busy. Oh, you don't even have time to work the buyers you do have. Well, do you want me to refer you a new agent that could join your team?
Because I meet with 20 new agents a month and I can connect you with a new agent. They'd be like, dude, if you connect me with a new agent, I'll definitely send you a deal. So I do, and then I guarantee that I'll get business in the future from the person I refer to them and them.
So it's always like just building that social capital in a creative way. And every one of your clients needs something, whether they're a teacher and they need school supplies once a year, or whether they're a nurse and they just want some comfy compression socks delivered to them and their fellow nurses a couple of times a quarter. Everyone needs something.
Maybe if they're rich, they need a donation to their favorite charity, or maybe they need you to show up and volunteer, or maybe they need you to babysit their kids when they're growing up. I don't know. Everyone needs something, but track it so that you can call and follow up.
That's my nugget. I love it. That's really good advice.
And yeah, you have to have that time blocking dedicated to get these things done. I mean, you have to be working on your business, not just in your business, and be intentional about building that social capital. And yeah, being a systematic, really good friend to your sphere.
So that's perfect. What about a favorite book, a fundamental book that you think everybody should read or just one you're kind of currently enjoying? Yeah, so I'll give you two.
I'll give you an amusing one, and then I'll give you a super business one. So the super business one that I like right now, I've read it a couple times. I'm making my kids read it.
It's called The Richest Man in Babylon. It's like 60 pages, if that. And it's almost like what I would describe as a parable about a guy, 5,000, 10,000 years ago, that learns the value of hard work and what happens if you don't work hard.
It kind of talks about starting a business, investing a little bit. Just an awesome read, and the message is so simple for anyone to understand. So that's like the business one.
The fun one is about the story of Ernest Shackleton, who was the first, I guess, first boat captain to go to the Antarctic, or the Arctic. And it's a story of leadership, courage, endurance. It's one of the craziest true stories ever told.
It gives me goosebumps every time I read it. And it is a story. It's Moby Dick meets inspiration.
Just an awesome book. I love that kind of stuff. I got really inspired by Teddy Roosevelt there for a little bit, and once he lost a presidential race, he tried to chart a new section of the Amazon River.
It's something I'd never heard of before, but that kind of exploration stuff is, yeah, it's awesome. I love it. I'll have to check that out.
Yeah. Yeah. Teddy was a crazy, crazy guy.
A great president. Anyway, so. You don't want to be president, but that's a whole nother story.
Well, yeah, I mean, he got shot, and he just kept talking. He's like, it takes more than that to kill a bull moose, and he just kept doing his speech. What a man.
Anyway, so I am not running for president. I agree with you. I would rather live a quiet life and sell some real estate and invest, and yeah, kind of live free of complications and headaches, and that sounds like a big headache to me.
What about, if anybody's interested in, I mean, you have services as well. So, I mean, you said, is it like web development? I mean, how can they reach out to you and follow you online too?
If you're a realtor and you, if you're a lender, if you're a realtor and you're listening and you have questions, I am an open book. I can send you some guides on some of the marketing that we offer. You can check out my book on Amazon.
It's called Tag, The Tangible Action Guide for Real Estate Marketing, but if you're a realtor in the United States and you have a question, DM me on Instagram. I'm an open book. You'll get to see marketing videos and tips that I post, as well as pictures of me traveling with my family and our travel tips.
So, on there, I'm @mattmuscat88, super simple, but if you're looking for, do some of the marketing for you and you want to do some lead generation on Google Ads, building a new website, I'm your guy. My wife and I own a web development firm. We do search engine optimization, Google Ads, Google Business, and a whole host of other services to help them make their own AR.
So, if you're interested, hit me up on Instagram. You can email me mattatmultismarketing.com. Well, Matt, it was a very fun conversation.
I think a lot of people will gain lots of beneficial information, lots of golden nuggets throughout the whole episode. So, thanks so much for being on the show. Thanks, it was a blast.
Thanks for listening to the REI Agent.
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All content in this show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.
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