If you're a leader in residential real estate, mortgage, title or proptech...
...and you're creating content for agents (or you plan to)...
...this interview series was designed for you.
Through industry interviews and analysis, you get an inside look at how leaders are tackling challenges like:
How to reach and engage agents
How to build a sense of community and shared mission among agents
How to deliver razor-sharp messaging and cut through the noise
How to deal with marketing platforms getting more expensive and less effective
You’ll hear from thought leaders who are in the trenches talking to agents and creating content for them every day.
You'll also hear from front line leaders at real estate, mortgage and title brands who are innovating, driving sales and dominating their market.
Brought to you by MicroFamous, a done-for-you content agency with 10 years experience launching B2B media platforms. Our story started with the launch of Real Estate Uncensored in 2015, which went on to get 3.5 million views across multiple platforms.
Visit GetMicroFamous.com to learn more.
The Real AI Opportunity in Real Estate with Brandon Doyle
jeudi 6 novembre 2025 • Durée 21:18
The Real AI Opportunity in Real Estate w/Brandon Doyle
For a tech-savvy agent, YouTuber and consultant to tech companies, you’d think Brandon would be “all in” on creating content with AI. Quite the opposite.
“AI is great for improving your workflow and saving some time, but if you’re using [AI] for the actual creation, you’re doing it wrong. You’re just creating garbage and noise and in the long run, it’s going to hurt you more than it helps.”
There’s some excitement around AI voice agents for calling leads. But some are saying they’d probably only use it for dead leads.
So if the big opportunity in AI isn’t in revolutionizing how we market and sell, what IS the big opportunity?
Let’s get to the…
Non-Obvious Insights from our Conversation:
Solve Boring Problems
I think the biggest problem in real estate is actually duplication of entry and…adoption... A lot of times with [tech] tools, people get frustrated because they…go in and do something and they’re just checking a box of something they already did.” - Brandon Doyle
Data entry. That’s a really boring problem. But if AI can solve it, it makes adoption easier and opens the door for new tools to emerge. And making adoption easier is critical because…
Agent Churn Can Break Your Entire Business Model.
“They [tech companies] don’t factor their churn rate…I’ve seen companies where the client acquisition cost is higher than the lifetime value of the client. And they don’t even understand what their lifetime value is because…it’s two different buckets for them. They’ve got marketing, sales and then client success all operating separately.”
Think this only applies to tech companies?
I’ve seen this same issue with coaching and memberships. When all the focus is on getting new agents in, it’s easy to forget about churn.
Whatever estimates you have of lifetime value per agent, it’s probably good to cut them in half. Maybe more.
This is why so many tech companies, and even some coaches, prefer to sell to big brands and indie brokers.
“I mean, selling [tech tools] direct to agent is just a terrible, terrible business model. They expect the world and they don’t want to pay you for it. And they’re just going to quit. The average agent won’t even go 90 days.”
So how do we deal with churn?
Price Out the Problem Agents.
“Price accordingly. Just price some of these people out of the market through exclusivity. Curaytor, when they first came on the scene, was a good example. It was like, ‘Well, we’re so exclusive, we only work with whatever number of people,’ and then [agents] kind of self- select.”
In other words, start by selling to agents who are ambitious, advanced and affluent.
Establish your market there, build something awesome, get profitable. Then you can move downmarket and offer a limited or mass-market version.
The side benefit is that working with the ambitious and already successful raises your game. You end up creating a better solution to the problem to meet their high expectations.
Want to go deeper? Click on the audio file for the full chat, or search Real Estate Thought Leaders on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Or Hit Reply and tell me what you’re seeing…especially when it comes to agent churn in areas like coaching or memberships.
Ask This:
What are the early WINS you can get agents after they take your offer?
What can you systematize?
What can you make easier and seamless?
The better answers you have to those questions, the less churn you’ll have in your offers.
Brandon was up for a free-range conversation, and we definitely had that! So make sure to listen to the full conversation, connect with Brandon on social, and keep him mind for speaking gigs or consulting for tech companies.
Talk soon,
-Matt
Agency Founder & Author of MicroFamous
PS When you’re ready, here’s one way we can help…
Done-for-You Content Service - From Michael Maher and Lars Hedenborg to Jeff Cohn and Marki Lemons-Ryhal, we’ve been the content team behind many of your fellow real estate coaches, speakers and authors.
We turn conversations into newsletters, videos and podcasts, all with zero hassle. With our system, that content creates real authority, influence and impact for our clients.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rethoughtleaders.substack.com
3 Uncommon Ways to Win Agents’ Loyalty w/Marki Lemons Ryhal
jeudi 30 octobre 2025 • Durée 30:26
Do what other leaders won’t do. That’s where the big opportunities live.
That’s what I took away from the chat with Marki. Well, that and my cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing.
You might know Marki from…
* her years of pro speaking on AI and social selling
If so, you also know she’s going to be 100% herself, in any situation.
So she didn’t hold back on where the industry is missing it, and how that creates niche opportunities to build a loyal audience of agents.
Non-Obvious Insights from our Conversation:
Most leaders are missing agents’ REAL problems.
“You need to be where they are…And you have to talk about the pain. Probably where people are missing the mark is they’re storytelling and the true pain is off. I understand our pain. I’ve lived this pain…” - Marki Lemons Ryhal
From menopause and dental work to the 2x strength lenses in her glasses, Marki is not shy about sharing. Which creates a completely different level of connection and loyalty with her audience.
“We are an industry of people who lack medical insurance, but we’re also an industry….of over 60% women with the #1 age bracket being 50-55 years of age…You want to know why the women love me? Because I’m talking ‘all day’ problems.” -
When big-name leaders and brands don’t speak to the everyday problems agents face, it creates a huge opportunity for independent coaches, authors and speakers.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
Here’s Why Lars Hedenborg Shut Down his Profitable High Ticket Funnel
jeudi 4 septembre 2025 • Durée 38:06
Lars had a massive ad budget, a “closer” team, all the tech tools to max out ROAS.Still couldn’t get the conversion numbers he wanted.
So he started taking sales calls with agents again.Over 150 this year.
And what is he hearing from agents? Exhaustion.Not because agents are doing the fundamentals and it’s not working.
They don’t even want to hear that fundamentals are the answer.
So I asked Lars if there’s a sweet spot between what agents want to hear…and what they need to hear from industry leaders?
Lars’ hilarious response was, “Oh my Lord…Oh my Lord…”
There’s a lot to share from this conversation. Buckle up accordingly.
Non-Obvious Insights from the Conversation:
2X return on ad spend can be profitable….and still be unsustainable.
“There’s no easy way to pivot that model…when you’re spending all this money, it’s creating leads, my setters are setting appointments... Within 48, maybe even 24 hours [of shutting off ads], it’s crickets. So it’s not even really a business.
I went HARD into the ads, but then you’re all in the ads…We were at $3200 spend for a $10k offer with $6500 cash collected. So only a 2X return on initial spend... But then you turn it off, and there’s nothing going on.”
And when he showed up to the sales calls for the high ticket offer, he found that agents couldn’t afford it.
So he partnered with a company that offers financing.
HALF the clients used financing on the $10k offer.
What’s driving this shift?
The number of solid, producing agents may have dropped by HALF from 2023-2024.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
Verl Workman's High-Risk Bet on AI
jeudi 28 août 2025 • Durée 11:34
Reminder: The content is not for agents, this is a mastermind-style newsletter for real estate leaders, insiders and content creators. A place where we can openly discuss the challenges of reaching and engaging agents, building brands and dominating niches. You won’t find this content all over social media, so if it’s valuable, forward it to a friend.
This week is a little detour into the world of real estate coaching and AI.
But the insights apply to anyone scaling a business around expertise
(which is many of my friends and clients).
In coaching, there’s a huge bottleneck to scaling.
You can’t clone yourself as a coach.
Yes, you can hire staff coaches.
But the good ones are unicorns because they…
* come up from the ranks of clients
* spend years steeped in your beliefs and opinions
* speak your language naturally
You can’t scale with unicorns.
So Verl made a big bet.
He acquired Coach Simple, a coaching business management platform.
They’re incorporating AI from the inside out, starting with how they run their sales calls, manage their 75 coaches and ramp up new coaches.
Here are Non-Obvious Insights from our Conversation…
In-house AI Beats ChatGPT (even Custom GPTs)
Verl and the newly acquired team built an in-house ‘coach AI’ trained on their massive library of content. Their AI pulls only from resources in that library, returning better results including links to specific resources.
"I want a shorter path to develop my coaches to be better, right?... And so we took all of our coaches training for 10 years and we put it into “coach AI”... and so it allows us to have a much faster access to content and information that
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
Tristan Ahumada on Organic Content that Builds Agent Communities & Brands
jeudi 21 août 2025 • Durée 29:05
For Tristan, community isn’t a tactic you bolt onto your marketing strategy.
Everything starts with community.
When you spend more than a decade immersed in building communities, can you blame him?
He’s definitely had a lot of time to break down what works.
Going from Lab Coat Agents to…
* Masterminding community strategy for Follow Up Boss (pre-acquisition)
* Consulting with bigger brands on community strategy
Communities can be inspirational…aspirational…plus you have the lure of getting a free boost from social platforms. Years ago, friends in 2 different niches were each getting 1,000s of new members a month to their Facebook Groups.
And yet…community is far easier said than done (more on that below).
Here are the Non-Obvious Insights from my conversation with Tristan:
Every Marketing Channel is a Separate Community.
“People have to count on you showing up the same way routinely so you can build that community. That’s how you build the following. When you start being scattered and you’re like, ‘Well, I can do this… I can do that….’ That’s not the way people start understanding who you are and how you show up.”
Communities respond to those who show up consistently…in a way that’s tailored for their preferred channel or platform.
There are two components to putting this insight into action.
1) Choose a niche and stay ruthlessly focused.
Without niching down, you’ll be too scattered in your messaging to build community around your content. Tristan mentioned the early days of Lab Coat Agents, where the group took off specifically because it was niched down to “converting online leads.” Only later did the group evolve to cover more topics.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
Reaching Agents with Your Content - 5 Creators Share What’s Working in 2025
jeudi 14 août 2025 • Durée 17:33
Welcome to Real Estate Thought Leaders!
This started with my obsession with one question (more on that below).
That obsession led to this platform of newsletter + podcast.
Most of the newsletters will be short. 3 non-obvious insights, some analysis from me, and an action step.
But every month I’ll write a longer “deep dive” into a specific topic.
Today’s newsletter is a deep dive.
The question I’ve been obsessed with is “How do we reach and engage agents…What’s making them lean forward and pay attention?”
So I talked to a mix of veteran and newer creators. Some were podcasters, YouTubers and often both.
Here’s what they had to say, along with my analysis…
“So I just started getting on a mic, speaking into Zoom or StreamYard or whatever and realized that nobody cared. There was no difference in analytics...In this space, nobody cares if it’s a fancy in-office, three camera set up podcast interview or if it’s via Zoom. They just cared about great content.”
So then from there to that discovery, what it allowed me for is speed, right? So now I can create content at such a faster pace, get so much more out there, be much more consistent…”—Joshua Smith, host of GSD Mode
Leaders and brands are going to struggle with the shift toward raw, authentic, even “messy” marketing. The hidden advantage of authenticity is that you can be really FAST. That makes tactics like newsjacking and trendjacking a lot more realistic.
If we can get over the internal challenges to being messy, raw and authentic in our content, we have a first mover advantage when new trends and topics catch fire.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
Turn Overlooked Skills into Killer Content for Agents w/Meredith Moody Fogle
mardi 12 août 2025 • Durée 23:26
Here’s an odd benefit of the shifting market…
It may have handed you killer topics to engage agents.
Using basic real estate skills that come so naturally, you don’t even think about them.
That’s what hit me when talking to Meredith Fogle, team leader, author and host of “So You Want to be a Real Estate Agent.”
Non-Obvious Insights from our Conversation:
The shifting market exposed a huge skills gap
“Agents coming into the business who started recently or started in the COVID era, they don’t know anything about how to navigate this new market. So that’s what I see coming up.”
The gap is around skills for a more balanced market
“Even things like a home inspection…keeping sellers’ confidence in you for more than a week…They’ve never had to navigate that before…That’s how I built my original real estate muscle. So this feels natural to me.”
Where there’s confusion, there is opportunity for thought leaders
“The way I think about it is kind of three things. One, we are creating soft skills that maybe they didn’t have before. Scripts, objection handlers, reading personality styles, etc. Then there’s the hard technical skills, knowing the contract, knowing the paperwork, how to explain it, how to negotiate. The final piece is mindset. That’s the other thing I work on a lot with people is getting through self-limiting beliefs or feelings of imposter syndrome. I think that’s happening with a lot of agents, especially who started recently in real estate.”
Ok, now for some (very) biased commentary from your humble editor:)
Before you go creating content on basic skills for agents, here are two things to keep in mind.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
Inside the Podcast Blowing Up in AZ
mercredi 30 juillet 2025 • Durée 42:50
25,000 agents in Phoenix alone. Dominate that market and your podcast is automatically among the top in the country. Same for newsletter or YouTube channel.
So that’s what Lance Billingsley is doing. As VP of Agent Development at Navi Title (AZ’s fastest growing title co), he’s out talking to agents every day.
“Agents do nothing but keep their heads down. They work with their heads down, they work in their market, they’re stressed about rates, inventory, rules. The good ones pick their heads up every once in a while, look around and go, ‘Oh, that’s what I need to pivot to!”
Create content about the 30,000 foot view, throw in the right guest and fast pacing, and you have a winning formula to get agents to pick up their heads.
Your best podcast guest might not be the big name
“Arizona is such a niche unicorn market that people just want to hear from local people in their market…that they see their signs or they see their names.”
Bonus if you can find that local agent who cranks out big numbers without big talk. Tap into the natural mystery and intrigue they’ve built up in your market.
Email + Partnerships Move the Needle…Not Social Media Alone
Lance partnered with WeSERV, the Phoenix-area REALTOR association, to sponsor and promote the podcast, as well as the Arizona School of Real Estate & Business.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
Your Content Isn’t Fast Enough for Today’s Agents...w/Matt Bonelli and Garrett Frey
mercredi 30 juillet 2025 • Durée 45:37
Agents want you to get to the hook immediately.
No fluff, no preamble and no promotion before value is given.
Not just in Shorts and Reels, I’m seeing that extend to every form of content.
This came up in a chat with Matt Bonelli and Garrett Frey, podcasters and founders of Life at Ten Tenths.
If you don’t know their names, they’re the guys who walked away from hosting the Ninja Selling podcast…and TONS of downloads…to start their own community (more on that in a future edition).
Non-Obvious Insights from our Conversation:
You can speed up with editing tools…but not too much
“I had to speed up one of our clips… it actually worked..But if you go too far, it feels inauthentic and people disengage. Authenticity is non-negotiable, especially with younger audiences who have zero tolerance for AI-generated or fake-feeling content.” - Garrett
And where is the point where you’ve sped up too much? Hard to pin down. So if using editing tools to speed up your content isn’t an easy answer, what is?
Try Re-Creating rather than Repurposing
“You can take a long-form conversation, pull out the top themes, and then re-create that as a new, tighter piece of content. This lets you restate the hook and deliver value quickly, rather than relying on editing to force a good short out of a long conversation.” - Matt B
This also works for taking insights from long videos or podcasts and doing shorter videos or podcasts. I call these “piggyback” episodes, because you’d record the long-form content with a guest, then piggyback by recording a shorter, solo episode. Share the main takeaways from the guest along with your commentary and insights.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
Talking Head Videos are Dead for Reaching Agents w/Dustin Brohm
mercredi 30 juillet 2025 • Durée 24:37
Of course, every tactic is dead depending on who you’re listening to.
But when it’s coming from Dustin Brohm, who’s in the trenches every day creating content on the Massive Agent Podcast, it carries more weight.
Non-Obvious Insights from our Conversation:
Agents aren’t engaging with talking head videos like they used to
“Talking head videos just suck. I posted one this morning, 20 minutes later, I'm like, ‘I shouldn't have even posted this.’ I didn't feel good about it because I don't think the format works.
The attention of not just real estate agents, but the attention of people in general, changes over time. Once a certain format or a certain trend is just overdone, people just start to glaze over and they just swipe to the next video.”
Talking head videos are about as basic, raw and authentic as it gets. Just you and a camera. So if that doesn’t catch attention, what does?
Test using visual gimmicks as the hook, not words and ideas
“I think it's much more visual than we give it credit for. The other day, my wife and I saw some other video where people did these pieces of bread with peanut butter on them and then you bounce ping pong balls to play tic-tac-toe.”
As a test, Dustin did something similar in his next 10 short videos, almost as a joke.
“And it did fairly well, I think, because visually people are like, ‘What is going on there? Why are they bouncing? What are the pieces of bread doing? Why do they have ping pong balls?’”
Clearly this is a sign of the apocalypse.
But in all seriousness. You CAN get away with this tactic, but it better be authentic to you.
Can you imagine Simon Sinek doing gimmicky hook videos?
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
If you can be radically authentic without oversight, push that advantage to the limit.
Most leaders are ignoring differences in abilities and learning styles.
“We’re not addressing in real estate, What percentage [of agents] are neurodivergent learners? ADHD, dyslexia, different learning styles? They might have been labeled as being difficult or people don’t want to work with them because how they learn is totally different.”
It makes sense that real estate might be over-represented with neurodivergent learners, ADHD and dyslexia, compared to the general workforce. Real estate is flexible and anyone can learn at their own pace. There’s no boss looking over our shoulder.
But as of now, very few leaders are speaking to these agents directly, or repurposing content for their needs. Another niche opportunity waiting for the right leader to step in and serve.
Leaders aren’t teaching agents how to “Pull Back the Bow”
That’s the grind work of building new skills, new systems or learning new tools. (credit my friend Hank Avink for that term).
Marki faced it this past fall, grinding through the scholarship application process for her college-bound son. She even built a whole AI system to get through it faster and submit more applications. The result? Over $1 MILLION in merit-based scholarships.
Ok, so that’s the grind…the pulling back the bow. But who wants to hear about that?
The opportunity is in being honest about the grind. Honesty gets you loyalty.
What do agents need to DO to really benefit from your offer?
Where do they need to “pull back the bow?”
Because if you’re not honest about that, even when agents buy, most of them won’t implement. So they get no benefit, and you get no testimonials, case studies, word of mouth or loyalty.
So how do you sell agents on the grind of new tools, skills and systems?
Help them see the backend payoff…clearly enough…that they’ll sacrifice short-term revenue to get it.
Want to go deeper? Click on the audio file for the full chat, or search Real Estate Thought Leaders on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Ask This:
What pain are you talking about….that other leaders or brands won’t touch? Not business pain...life pain.
I love talking to Marki, she’s been in my life as a client and friend for many years now, and she never fails to bring incredible energy wherever she goes.
Watch out for her on the speaking circuit, and send her a referral to any local or state association who’s looking for a speaker!
-Matt
Agency Founder & Author of MicroFamous
PS If you’re winning the game in business and life, and now you want to make an IMPACT on agents, check out our agency, MicroFamous.
We’re the content strategy and production team behind many of your fellow real estate leaders, coaches, speakers and authors. And if you’re driven to make an impact, we want to help.
“You'll ask them, How's business? And they'll just go to those years [2023 and earlier] ‘Well, I went from 25 to 12.’ And how many homes have you closed this year? It's like one or two. And [it was] four months into the year…
Last year, 1% of agents sold 25 homes or more, but two years before that it was 2%.”
In other words, agents got away with a lack of fundamentals in 2023.Lost momentum in 2024.Hit a wall in 2025.
But what’s driving the exhaustion and lack of motivation Lars is hearing from agents?
Agents have been burned by 100 “easy button” offers.
“We’re just in a trust recession. What someone needs to hear, and what’s going to motivate them to want to follow you or [buy], are two totally different things. And I’m not going to be the guy to master [saying] what they want to hear.
I'm not going to pick on the person or even say their name, but there's someone who's a very popular YouTuber in the real estate space that hasn't sold 50 homes in their entire career. I watch their stuff and it's very good, but to me that's inauthentic.”
But what about going down the Alex Hormozi path… engineering the living $#*% out of all your content?
“I went down that path….and all of a sudden I have two editors, one for short form, one for long form. I did a $24k, 90 day program on how to learn short form. And what am I doing? I blew all that up.
Some of my better content is created when I’m in a natural conversation with someone… So I’m recording here on my cell phone and then [we] cut that into stuff. My focus is on what I’m saying when I’m not thinking about what I’m saying.”
Can you go down the Alex Hormozi path?
Absolutely. And if it’s authentic to you, it may work, BUT…
It takes a massive amount of energy to be someone you’re not. Most will start with excitement, then eventually burn out.And neglect the fundamentals that would have worked along the way.
Lars is pivoting hard…back to the fundamentals.
The organic approach that originally built the business. In his case that’s his Facebook Group and email list.
Want to go deeper? Click on the audio file above to listen to the full chat, also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. There’s SO much I couldn’t cover in this newsletter!
Or Hit Reply and tell me what you’re seeing
Are you hearing something different from agents?Are energy levels and motivation picking up coming into the fall?
Ask This:
Lars is focusing on this question,“How big can I build this business with the bare minimum?”
we don’t want ChatGPT infusing its opinion on. I want it to be pure proven workman principles and content."
AI Creates Better Profit Margins in Multiple Ways
Ramping up newer coaches used to take 2+ years. Not anymore.
"It’s been game-changing. Our [newer] coaches are coaching at a level of a master coach that’s been with us for eight or nine years because they have access to content and ideas and thoughts that you could only get through experience in the past. Now, we’re getting it through really great prompts."
They also use their in-house AI it to increase retention:
"So now when a client says, ‘Oh, I think I might want to get out of my contract’... you type that in… it [AI] answers in how we train to it, here’s how you figure out what the real issue is and solve it…the Workman Way”
Faster ramp up time for staff coaches + higher average client value = better profit margins.
That could have been ripped straight from Jay Abraham or Dan Kennedy’s playbooks. Love it!
AI Can Help Replicate Your Best Salespeople
"We use AI on our sales calls. We’ll practice something and the sales guys would be setting appointments or doing coaching consultations. The AI listens to it. And if we’re practicing a certain thing and the sales person [doesn’t] do it..we talk about it…at the 10 o’clock huddle…So we’re using AI to monitor what we’re saying and how we’re saying it and then improving our conversion ratios hourly.”
Imagine taking the tactics of your best salesperson, training ALL your salespeople to use those tactics, and monitoring them for improvement in real time.
AI is taking a process that used to be very messy, time consuming and riddled with human biases, and making it cleaner, faster and data driven.
Verl is also doubling down on his AI bet. He’s opening his in-house AI building system to other big experts. This might grow into a separate, sellable venture.
Alan Weiss, the famed consulting expert, is working with Verl’s team to create an in-house AI trained on decades of Weiss’s best-selling books, articles and audio/video content. “Alan Intelligence" is up and working and opens up un-GPT’d brilliance to his subscribers.
Is all this high risk? Considering Verl went from running a profitable coaching business to acquiring a company for a large chunk of change…essentially becoming a tech founder…I’d call that a high risk bet.
But it’s definitely high-reward.
If profit margins get bigger, and that allows Workman to outspend the competition for coaching leads, they might have an unassailable moat for the next 5-10 years.
I’ll have more to share on how Verl is building his “revenue octopus” in a future edition.
Want to go deeper? Click on the audio file above to listen to the AI part of the conversation, also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Or Hit Reply and tell me what you’re seeing or doing with AI.
Ask This:
If AI made it possible to hire and quickly ramp up a “clone” of yourself, what would you have them do that would 10x your business?
A big thank you to Verl for being super open and generous with his time and insights! Make sure to connect with him (if you’re not already).
And keep an eye out for an upcoming deep dive on AI, pulled from insights across all the conversations I’ve had this year with leaders, CEOs and insiders in real estate.
Talk soon!
-Matt
CEO - MicroFamous
Author - MicroFamous
PS Want your own mastermind-style platform like this? Check out our Done-for-You service.
The more channels you’re on, the more likely you are to lump them together and bandaid over the problem with content repurposing. On most of those channels, your content feels out of place. So you’ve sabotaged your chance to build real community right out of the gate.
Don’t waste money boosting content that isn’t proven organically.
“Organic content in different platforms is how you build communities and how you build brands. That’s organic because you put no money behind it. Now, the only time you put money behind it is if it blew up and now you’re like, ‘That’s a good one. Let’s put some money behind it!’ “
The larger the organization you lead, the bigger the temptation to roll out marketing campaigns from the top down. Communities reward the opposite. They want to see brands and leaders support the content that gets real engagement. Often that content starts from the bottom and bubbles up. Either from community members, emerging leaders or influencers.
That’s a big shift for many of us.
Coaches want to coach.Experts want to share expertise.Thought leaders want to teach, train and lead.
And then we have brands, who want to talk features and benefits.(head smack)
For many, building content around community stretches our brain.
Community means:
* Facilitating conversations…less teaching or sharing expertise
* Giving people freedom…even when say things you don’t agree with
* Allowing the messy and imperfect
That helps explain how many communities grow around leaders who don’t have it all figured out yet.
They’re moving fast, breaking things, and people come along for the ride.
Some leaders even take it a higher level.
They give a neglected group of people permission to be who they are, without judgment.
They create people an identity they can take pride in…even when everyone else around them disagrees or looks down on them.
I’ve seen permission-based content create powerful attraction to the group…and passionate loyalty to the leaders.
Communities demand personal growth from the leader.
“I’ve realized that the better I get internally as a human and as a leader, the better I can show up for those people that I’m trying to lead. And I didn’t know that. As I’ve gotten better and I work on myself, people actually gravitate more to me.”
In other words, all business development IS personal development. That’s one reason I love the entrepreneur space. Our businesses are a direct reflection of us as leaders.
We’ve been ingrained so much in “personal brand” marketing, that community often breaks our brains because it’s fundamentally not about us.
Building a community, especially to get the growth we envision, we have to set aside our ego and create a space for others to bond with each other.
Steal This:
Before you dive into community-building, ask yourself a few questions.
* Is there a neglected group of people I’m uniquely equipped to speak to, support and serve?
* What specific factors make them feel neglected, undervalued and underserved?
* Are they seeking outcommunity based on those factors?
We don’t get to decide what factors drive people to form communities.
Even Apple can only encourage community, they can’t directly cause it to form.
So start by asking questions and listening deeply.
Big thanks to Tristan, and there’s more in the audio than I could cover here. So go listen to his conversation, it was raw, laid-back and packed with insights.
You’ll see some of those insights pop up in future newsletters, too.
Short-Form Hooks and Visuals Are Now Essential. Even for Podcasts.
The expectation for immediacy and visual engagement has bled into long form content like podcasting. Here’s what Dustin Brohm had to say about his mentality while recording his podcast, Massive Agent.
“I'm actually incorporating more of those short form attention grabbing tactics into my pod. Better hooks up front, getting right into it and start delivering the stuff.
I've been podcasting for seven and a half years now. When I started, I wasn't even recording video. It was just the audio. Now it's slowly progressed to where now I'm almost recording the pod, thinking about what the clips will look like.
Try Re-Creation vs Repurposing.
“You can take a long-form conversation, pull out the top themes, and then re-create that as a new, tighter piece of content. This lets you restate the hook and deliver value quickly, rather than relying on editing to force a good short [clip] out of a long conversation.”—Matt Bonelli & Garrett Frey, co-founders of LifeAtTenTenths
Algorithms will always favor content created 100% custom for their platform. That doesn’t mean you have to create everything from scratch. Take some AI shortcuts with instant, searchable transcripts and script-writing. Then create custom short-form content for social platforms that point people back to your long-form content.
When We’re Isolated, Our Content Feels Out of Touch
It’s easy to assume we know what agents are thinking and feeling.
But there are always new tweaks and nuances. New bits of language they’re using. New skills they’re scrambling to learn. Maybe even skills we assume they had.
The more we’re talking to agents, the more we can tailor our hooks in the exact language and emotion needed to get their attention and engagement.
“Agents coming into the business who started recently or in the COVID era, they don’t know anything about how to navigate this new market. So that’s what I see coming up…Even things like a home inspection…keeping sellers’ confidence in you for more than a week…They’ve never had to navigate that before…That’s how I built my original real estate muscle. So this feels natural to me.”” —Meredith Fogle, Host of So You Want to be a Real Estate Agent
“I live in that world, man. So I'm having conversations with them every single day, always asking, What's your biggest current obstacle?... I don't guess…I go out there because I spend that time with my ideal client.”—Joshua Smith
Content Builds Your Brand…Even With Agents Who Don’t Watch or Listen.
“Everybody's listening even if they're not listening. What I mean by that is I go into a room [of agents]... and half of them will say ‘I've never heard your show but I've seen all the signs and I've seen the posts.’ And the other half will say ‘I've never been on it live but I listen to it every week.’”—Lance Billingsley, host of The 13% Podcast
Lance is the VP of Agent Development for Arizona’s fastest growing title company. So he’s talking to agents every day. He’s seeing what big brands have known for years: Likes and comments on social media don’t correlate to sales.
This is partly due to “lurkers” … the folks who see posts but don’t engage, then pop up out of nowhere and buy.
And there are way more lurkers than those who engage, comment and share.
So while you’re working to make better and better content, take heart.
There are agents who see you, know you, and respect what you’re doing, without showing up in your analytics. And there’s probably more of them than you think.
* Do you sell to beginners and strugglers? If so, make the content they’re looking for first, which is often a silver bullet solution. Then sneak the basics in. I’ve found that in almost every successful edutainment YouTube channel, and Joshua Smith said the same in our conversation.
* What if you DON’T sell to beginners and strugglers? Then don’t speak to struggling. Speak to success. Speak to the agents who are creating problems because of their success, not in spite of it. The ones looking for negotiation tips because they just put 3 listings under contract. If I was actively recruiting, that’s who I’d want.
Want to go deeper? Click on the audio file above to listen to the full chat, also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Or Hit Reply and tell me what you’re seeing
I’m trying to soak up everything I can in marketing and AI and content creation.
If I’m missing something, have a bias, or blind spot, call me on it! :)
Ask This:
What kind of agent does my content speak deeply to…
beginners and strugglers, or driven and successful?
In a hyper-competitive space like real estate, it can’t be both.
HUGE thanks to Meredith for pulling back the curtain on her podcast.
One interesting tidbit I didn’t mention above is that she added video to her podcast and got great feedback. Yet most of the audience continues to listen in audio form.
So yes, adding video to a podcast can be powerful, but we’ve found it can also be done sparingly and get most of the same effect.
These kinds of partnerships - title or mortgage company paired with local association - are potential golds mine for all brands involved.
The association gets content that’s way more engaging than they could produce on their own. The title/mortgage company gets credibility and reach to every agent in that association. Win win.
Want to go deeper? Click on the audio file above to listen to the full chat, also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Or Hit Reply and tell me what you’re seeing in your marketing
Are big name guests or partners failing to move the needle for you?
There are hidden reasons for that.
Steal This:
Get hyper-targeted. Create a limited series of content that ONLY appeals to your best prospect.
AI enables mass personalization. So agents are about to expect more personalization in the ways brands and leaders market to them. Get ahead of that trend with small experiments to find what grabs attention.
“ You almost need to deliver value or prompt a question that will then get people to want to explore the value so that they can actually watch past those first 3 seconds.” - Matt B
This is where almost everyone struggles and where new opportunity lies.
* Brands struggle because they want to put their brand front and center.
* Tech companies struggle because they want to put their tech front and center.
* Many thought leaders struggle because they want to put themselves front and center.
So who’s creating zero-fluff content for the next generation of agents?
The next generation of thought leaders.
The ones with no brand to protect. No tech to sell. No big offer to push.
So they can get to the hook faster than you.
The question is…what are you going to do about it?
___________________________________________
Want to go deeper? Click on the audio file above to listen to the full chat, also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Or Hit Reply and tell me what you’re seeing
Have you noticed your own content consumption habits change?
Has your tolerance dropped for slow-developing content?
I know mine has. And I can lose myself in books for hours, so it’s not an attention span issue. It’s one way we’re all responding to a world of abundant content.
Steal This:
Take one tactic or key “ah moment” from your long form content, and re-create in short form content. Video, written post, whatever you’re comfortable with.
But the key is this: Challenge yourself to get to the hook IMMEDIATELY.
No fluff, no preamble and no promotion before value is given.
We’ll feature more of Matt and Garrett in an upcoming deep dive on community building. I’ve got some incredible insights from Tristan Ahumada and a couple others to share. It will be a beast to write but I’m excited so keep an eye out!
Gary Vee is genuinely obsessed with the question of “where is attention flowing right now?”
He monetized that obsession by selling social media packages to big, boring companies who hope he can make teenagers care about their big, boring company.
And if that’s your obsession, too, awesome!
Then visual gimmicks will probably work great for you.
For everyone else, it’s a trap.
It will be inauthentic, and the very people you’re trying to reach will be turned off by it.
Now for Dustin’s final insight on short-form video…
Create Your Long-Form Content with Short-Form in Mind
“I'm actually incorporating more of those short form attention grabbing tactics into my pod. Better hooks up front, getting right into it and start delivering the stuff.
I've been podcasting for seven and a half years now. When I started, I wasn't even recording video. It was just the audio. Now it's slowly progressed to where now I'm almost recording the pod, thinking about what the clips will look like.”
Even if you don’t dive into the world of YouTube Shorts and IG Reels, you can always have better hooks and less fluff.
That’s why there’s no big intro to the audio version of these conversations, no music. Just get into it. We’re entering a brave new world of UN-branding, and it’s going to make a lot of people uncomfortable. More on that in future newsletters.
Want to go deeper? Click on the audio file above to listen to the full chat, also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Or Hit Reply and tell me why I’m wrong about Gary Vee:)
I had a whole chapter in the MicroFamous book where I broke down Gary Vee versus Simon Sinek. So I love the stark contrast in their styles.
Steal This:
Set up your phone next to your monitor to record you while you’re guesting on podcasts or recording long-form content.
Shorts and Reels recorded from an off angle are performing better right now.
Loved the conversation with Dustin, super open and transparent about what’s working and not. Connect with him, subscribe to Massive Agent, do all the things.
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