RV (00:06): Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden, and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. One of the things I become more and more enamored with as time goes on is people who are executing one tactic or a few, a small number of tactics really, really well in a way that actually grows their business. I’m less impressed by the hype of millions of followers and a lot of that stuff, which a lot of it is just not real. But I’m super excited about people who are doing something really well, serving a small audience, and turning that into a lot of impact and a lot of income. RV (01:06): And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. So I have a new friend her name is Sarah Maslowski, and she’s actually a real estate agent from Keller Williams. So I’ve spoke twice recently. I spoke at Keller Williams National event called Family Reunion, and then I spoke at another huge event that they do every year called Mega Agent Camp. And I’ve gotten to know them really well. Of course, I’ve known Jay Papasan, the co-author of the One Thing for years and years and years. And so I’ve got a lot of respect for their company and their organization, their culture. And Jason who’s one of the other senior executives, he was telling me about Sarah and how she’s generating leads for her business. And I was like, oh my gosh, we gotta hear the story because Sarah just, you know, shortly after a great recession, you know, she got laid off after, you know, she had a degree in marketing, got laid off was living in South Georgia, didn’t have really any job opportunities. RV (02:00): She found a job as a teacher and, you know, spent seven years as like a special ed teacher. And then was moving around with her husband. And then in 2018, she got into real estate and she got licensed. And here’s what’s super impressive. She became a millionaire real estate agent in just five years. Five years. And how she, how is she doing that? She’s doing it through YouTube. 80% of her business has up to 80% has been coming from YouTube, from her YouTube channel. And she doesn’t have millions and millions of subscribers. She’s got a dedicated audience serving a very specific niche. And so when I heard this, I was like, we’ve got to have Sarah on to talk about this. So Sarah, welcome to the show. SM (02:45): Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. RV (02:47): So it was all that accurate backstory? SM (02:50): A hundred percent accurate, yes. RV (02:52): Okay. And then so you got into real estate, and how did you get into YouTube for real estate? Like, what, what was it that made you go, oh, I think I’ll start using a YouTube channel to drive leads? Because, you know, it’s a professional service and I think there’s a lot of people, we have a lot of clientele who are doctors and lawyers and chiropractors and, and CPAs. And I don’t think a lot of ’em, they, their first thought is not, Hey, I’ll grab for YouTube as like a, a way of leads. And traditionally, I mean, that’s not really how real estate, I mean, that’s not how I think of real estate transactions being done, but somehow you got into this. SM (03:30): Yeah, so when I first got licensed as a real estate agent, you are here in the north metro Atlanta area, and we were somewhat new to the area. So I did not have a lot of people that I knew, or a big database that I could call upon saying, Hey, are you thinking about buying or selling? So my first year and a half in real estate was a lot of hustle and grind of getting leads and clients to work with any way I could. So it was a lot of cold calling and open houses and your traditional methods of, you know, pounding the pavement in real estate. And in 20 19, 20 20, I kept hearing from marketing professionals, video is the wave of the future. You gotta be incorporating video into your marketing. And having a marketing background. I bought into this and was trying various different methods of incorporating video making videos and putting them on Facebook. And, and you have to remember back in 2020, Instagram reels and TikTok wasn’t quite a thing. So really the two options was Facebook and YouTube. And so I was taking those same informational videos that I was making on Facebook and putting them on YouTube, and I was not having much success at all very little news. RV (04:43): That’s good that you share that because I think a lot of people hear YouTube and then they go on there and it’s like, it doesn’t take off right away. SM (04:51): Yes. Yeah. So I was still committed to trying to figure out what does work, and I came across a group of other real estate agents that were having success with YouTube. And so of course I hopped over to their page to kind of see what magic sauce were they doing, or what looked different from, from my videos. And it was very apparent that their content they were making was very drastically different than what I was making. Mm-Hmm . So when I went and looked at their videos, it was all about educational content around someone that was relocating to their area. So it was making videos on their town where you should live, why do people choose this neighborhood over this neighborhood? What’s gonna suck about living here? What are you gonna love? And the videos that I was posting on YouTube were information like how to sell your house and just very generic, kind of like broad open-ended type content. And so I learned from that process of seeing these other agents that were actually getting clients and views from this type of content was that they were talking to a very specific type of client. They were nicheing down really small of people that were relocating to their area. And so basically I looked at that and I was like, okay, well they’re having success doing that, so can I. And so in the fall of 2020, we started making that type of content and haven’t looked back. RV (06:20): So I, I love this. How big of an area, so like the is it based on like population? Is it just a geographic radius? Is it just like, roughly, how did you just go about that conversation of like, you know, you could go, you know, I live in, I, I live in Nashville, so it’s like, okay, so it’s a Nashville greater metro area. Is it just like, you know, Brentwood or is it like a neighborhood, like Green Hills or like that, that kind of a thing? How do you think through that? SM (06:48): So in the beginning when we started making content, it was more so about the town that I lived in, which is Gainesville, Georgia. And then it was like, okay, well we can’t just make, you know, 52 videos a year about Gainesville, Georgia. So we need to compare and contrast the other towns that are nearby that someone may also have the option of living in. So we started branching out and covering other towns, and then within those towns, you have certain neighborhoods that people like to be in. So some content videos are niched down a little bit more to, you know, master planned communities or golf course communities so that you’re kind of appealing to a broader audience although still staying within a niche. And another way that we started making content as well was that as people were watching our videos and then reaching out to us we started getting more retirees asking about retirement communities. SM (07:48): And so then it’s like, okay, well that’s another topic that we can make content on is around the retirement communities in our area. And so we started making content to serve that type of audience. And I think you said something really great at the beginning of this, which is as business owners trying to do social media, we can get really caught up in these vanity metrics of how many views are we getting, how many people are following us? But at the end of the day, if those views and those people following us aren’t translating into actual sales, it’s just for our own ego. And at the beginning when we were making content, those subscriber accounts and view counts were really low, but we were getting phone calls from people saying, Hey, I just watched your video and we’re thinking about making a move to area. We want you to help us. And so that was the big light bulb moment for me is, is that it doesn’t necessarily matter if you’re reaching a ton of people, you just have to reach the right people. RV (08:48): Totally. And I, and I would say that like, you know, we, we we’re behind the scenes as several of our clients are the biggest podcasters in the world, and top YouTubers. And many times the, the secret to growing a wide audience is to talk about general topics that are relevant to everybody, right? It’s like money, relationships, spirituality, health, and they’re very broad. But if you did that, you would probably not have a whole lot of people caring to show up who go, I’m looking to move to a town in gain around Gainesville, Georgia. Like, you would not target that group. So, so the way that you’re reaching that, and, and so I wanna talk about how other, other professional service providers could also apply this, because I go for sure, anyone who’s in real estate anywhere in the country could, could do this. And you go, you know, there’s lots of stuff to talk about, and I do want to dive deeper on, like, how do you select the topics in your team and all that kind of stuff. RV (09:49): But if someone’s listening who’s not in real estate, I would love to, to hear, I want to hear, I want to hear how you’re selecting your topics, I guess is it just kind of like top of mind? Because I think if I’m a financial planner, you know, or if I’m a doctor, I also could probably do some geographic related content or maybe it would just be to specific types of, you know, surgeries or questions. But anyways, walk me through how you select your topics. Do you do any sort of scientific process? Do you just come up off the top of your head? Or like, where do the ideas come from and, and where did they come from when you started and where do they come from now? SM (10:35): So a lot of it was looking at what other agents were doing across the country and having success with, and, and using that as a jumping off point to kind of mimic and copy. And over time, on, on the backend kind of learning who are we making content for? We’re making content for families, for couples that have the freedom to work remotely, who are looking for, you know, more affordability or a better house for their money compared to the state that they currently living in. And what type of questions or information with that specific avatar of a client need to know moving to our area and, and providing and being that resource and information for them over time. A lot of content has also come from just working with those actual clients. As you start to help them, you realize and learn that there’s other needs that you didn’t quite understand that you were gonna have to educate someone on. SM (11:34): So for example, you know, we have a lot of basement houses here in north Georgia. Well, basements here in North Georgia are very different than basements in the north or in the Midwest. And we have daylight basements. That was something that I had no clue of, but it becomes a great informational talking piece. And so that as you are serving clients and you’re providing this information, you’re answering their questions before they even have an opportunity to ask them to you. And you just seem like such a wealth of knowledge to your clients. So you’re building that relationship and trust with them before you even have an opportunity to talk with them in a two-way conversation. And I think to translate this type of content into other professions, I think people are missing out if you’re not providing and being that resource to answer the questions that you’re most common type of client or the people that you wanna serve have. And YouTube is a great way to do that and a long form content. But there are so many great professionals providing this type of information on TikTok that is just a world of information and, and nobody else is doing it. And so I think if you can provide, you can be the provider of that information, you know, you’re going to attract your business clientele that are going to use you. RV (12:56): Yeah. And I, I, when I hear that, you know, I essentially calculate that as answer questions that your prospects have. And like, that’s the content you’re making is just going, whatever, whatever industry you’re in, you make you figure out what are the most what, and, and you know what questions they have. Because if you’re doing this every day, you’re answering the same questions over and over and over for people. And it’s like if you have to answer the question more than once, make a video about it. Or even once, like if they ask you a question, it’s like every time you get asked a question, make a video about it and then put it up on YouTube. How I’d love to know about some of the logistics in terms of like, how long are these videos? How long does it take you to plan them? How many of them do you shoot at once? How long does it take you to edit them? How frequently do you post them? How long were you doing that before you really started to see actual, like legitimate business leads coming in? So SM (14:02): What I learned if you’re going to be successful on YouTube, you have to post on a consistent schedule and commit to that schedule every single week. Ideally one video a week is a good starting point. Long form takes a little bit more time and effort into, you know, creating engaging content. So one video a week post at the same time every single week, you can schedule that on the back end so you don’t have to be like at your computer on a Sunday at five o’clock kit and publish. But just find whatever day you can commit to. We have found that the ideal sweet spot for our videos are between eight to 10 minutes in length. You at least want them to make eight minutes long because YouTube rewards the number of minutes watched, not necessarily the percentage watched. SM (14:50): And so that’s also a sweet spot of where YouTube’s algorithm gets ad revenue and stuff like that on the backend to satisfy , you know, their goal of, of selling ads. So so that’s important. For me. I’ve also learned it’s, it’s incredibly hard for me to make a super engaging video that people are gonna watch for longer than 10 minutes. So between eight and 10 minutes and length is what I have found to be really good. The process of filming if you go back and look at the first videos that I posted, they’re terrible. And you know, the lighting is not good. The sound is not good, the editing is not good. Moving RV (15:31): Is the moving to Georgia is the YouTube like right, youtube.com/moving to Georgia. Mm-Hmm . SM (15:36): Yes. and so, you know, those first videos were just a process of failing forward and trying to figure this out. You’re always gonna hate how you sound and look on video, just get over it. Uhhuh don’t stand in the way of your own success in that sense because you’ll, you’ll never like it. And so what those first videos taught me is that even if they’re really bad, they worked. And so those first bad videos were the videos that six, seven weeks later, someone called and said, Hey, we’re thinking about making a move to the area. Can you help us? And I was like, oh, wow, okay. This is actually working. So that gave us the inspiration to keep going. And so it, and RV (16:18): You were just doing like one a week to start SM (16:20): One a week and, you know, watching those videos like a hawk to see how many people were watching. And it was very disappointing and, and discouraging because at the time, you know, some of those videos only had like 18 views. And, but you have to keep putting out content and you have to keep going in order to teach the algorithm that you’re a channel that they can trust to push out the content. Because ultimately with YouTube, you’re going to have people that search for your content, but then you’re also going to show up to people who are acting in a similar way that the algorithm is learning that might be a good viewer for your content. And so by putting out regular content, it, you know, serves the algorithm of what they wanna do. So , over time, I learned that I’m a real estate agent. I’m not an editor, and my time is not best spent trying to figure out how to edit a video. Yeah. RV (17:13): So tell me, tell me about this. ’cause This is a place where people get hung up, like, yeah, and do, and, and also I’d wanted know like, how did you shoot it? Were you shooting it on your phone? Were you using something else? And then like, what’s a little bit of that process for where it goes from the recording and then how it actually, the steps to get it on YouTube? SM (17:32): So I found out that a lot of YouTube creators use their, their iPhone, and I had one of those that didn’t require me to go out and buy anything new other than like a tripod, a good external microphone and some lighting. And so that were, was the three pieces of equipment that I needed in order to get started. And so I, you know, filmed in that terrible background that you can see in the first videos on my channel. Over time I learned like, oh, we should probably try to make a little bit better lighting in the background. But those things came with time after learning, you know failing your way forward, right? So after learning that, I’m not an editor, I found an editor that is essentially virtual. We upload the video into a Google Drive link and send it off to him along with some supporting clips that we want to go along with it. SM (18:25): You can use third party websites to get video stock footage or you can provide your own. Again, it’s like one of those things, you can’t really overthink it a whole lot, even though you’re going to want to overthink it a ton. But it’s just more important to get a finished product out there and get going. So we send it off to our editor, he edits it gets it back to us. And my rule of thumb is, is that once it’s like 90% good, we go with it. Because I don’t wanna spend hours going back and forth, back and forth perfecting something when you know, you I need to be doing other things. So the expectation is, is that our editor’s going to learn from, from that feedback and make the next video even better. So you how you RV (19:10): Find editor SM (19:13): Through word of mouth, but also through websites that offer virtual video editing services and you know, you’re not gonna get it right the first time, usually with the editor that you pick. And again, it’s like one of those things where you have to fail forward and say, okay, well, you know, we use this person for a couple of months. I now know what I’m looking for and let’s go try to find, you know, somebody else to do that. And RV (19:40): Are these websites that are like, like Upwork or Fiverr or LinkedIn, just like that kind of thing? Yeah. Like you just post in a, you know, or a top toll is another one that you just post a job description and people start submitting Yeah. And then you’re reviewing their portfolio. SM (19:55): Yep. That, that’s one way. There’s also using virtual assistants in the Philippines online jobs.ph is a great website where there’s tons of talented editors overseas that can do a lot of great work. There are video editing companies that you could pay a flat fee to per month and they’ll, you know, edit however many videos you can give them during that time period. So there’s lots of different great websites and you just have to keep trying one, you might have a great local person that you can hire or a teenager or college student that’s really well skilled in this. It just needs to not be you doing the editing uhhuh RV (20:31): . For sure. And then once you post the video, is there anything other that you really focus on in terms of like optimizing like the captions or the thumbnails or the titles? Is there like a lot that you do with that, or just a little bit of thought into it? Or like, how important is the, you know, ’cause it’s like you finally get around to like, okay, I recorded this video and now I gotta have somewhere to edit it. And then you’re like scheduling it, but then you’re like, now I gotta think through the title and the thumbnail and the captions. Is that stuff pretty important or like, not really that big a deal? SM (21:04): So the title and thumbnail are way more important than what you think. And there’s just a, a few basic things to know about that. You, your, your thumbnail is like the book cover of your video. And so oftentimes that’s the first thing that someone’s seeing. And so if you’re thumbnail and your title aren’t catchy enough, then you could have the greatest content in the world. But if someone’s not clicking on it to even get to your content, they’re never watching you. So you do wanna spend some time and effort on the thumbnail and title. A good thumbnail usually has no more than three to four elements. The words, if you’re gonna have words on your thumbnail, it needs to compliment the title, but not repeat the title. That’s oftentimes a mistake I see a lot of people make, is that they just take whatever the title and put it on the thumbnail. SM (21:53): So you wanna have kinda like complimentary goods there. And the title, you, at least for me, I, I don’t feel like on a very clickbaity or salesy type personality, and on YouTube you do kind of wanna lean into that clickbaity title. So negative titles work really, really well. Pay attention to headlines or things that you may see like on Buzzfeed articles, stuff like that. Those types of headlines translate really well into those to deliver what you want the message that you wanna deliver. And that thumbnail and title just kinda gets them in the door. RV (22:30): Yeah, so basically you’re just like paying attention to headlines and you have, you have to play a little bit of that headline game. That’s a good, that’s a good tip too about the, like, not repeating the title. I see people do a lot of that, which is interesting ’cause you go, I have these two pieces of digital real estate to use. Like, I might as well use both of them to communicate a different message. And then, and then in terms of the leads, okay, so let’s say you do all this stuff. How do, like where do you point people to come back to you? Do you put it in the video itself? Do you do it at the end of the video? Do you like, stop the video and interrupt and tell people to go to your website? Do you like put it in the, the video notes or the caption or whatever? Like, where do you actually make that call to action? And then like, what is the call to action that you make? SM (23:21): So the call to action is, is very simple. It’s, you know, if you’re thinking about making a move and you know, I would love to be a real estate agent, you can find that information below this video, click the link. And so that link takes them to scheduling simply like a discovery phone call with our team. And you wanna get very, very easy and simple and not, you know, overcomplicate with a bunch of offers or lead magnets. One thing that I’ve learned is you don’t want to put any phone numbers or anything like hard copy edited into your video. And the reason is, is that, you know, these videos are gonna live out there forever. So your branding may change, your phone number may change. So you can always go back and edit the description of videos, but you can never go back and actually edit the video itself on YouTube. So you always wanna make sure that you’re doing that call to action and pointing them to the description of the video. Another unique thing about YouTube is that you can put a pinned comment underneath all of your videos as well, so that it’s always the first comment that people see. So we often kind of repeat our call to action or how someone can get in contact with us there as well. RV (24:29): Mm-Hmm . Yeah, that’s, and that’s a great tip. ’cause And we do that on Instagram as well, like, just the first comment, make the first comment and make it a call to action, then pin it ’cause Yeah. You know, so that people, people always see that. I, I love that. Sarah, this has been so powerful. This is so cool to hear this. I mean, I think it, it really is in, in, in some ways it’s very simple. I mean, you’re just, you know, make a question, answer a question, post a video, have someone edit it. I think a lot of it is people have this fear of, you know, how I look on camera and will this ever work? And I don’t wanna be like, you know, I don’t wanna feel silly or I don’t want to not like the way I look, et cetera. But this is so powerful just to have your story of like, look, you do this, you do it consistently, and then, you know, if you’re doing it right, it starts to work what, you know, how many months do you think you start to usually see some results from this? SM (25:23): So I’ve had other agents and, and other practitioners do this, and they have success in as little as a few weeks. And then, you know, for some it also takes months. The one great thing though is that you’re creating this evergreen content that is, that is there and people are watching during all hours of the day, all hours of the night. And it’s free. It’s not something that you’re, you know, essentially paying for or running ad behind, and there’s no greater marketing tool that can do that for you and, and help provide information to potential clients while you are out doing other things. And just to touch on not liking yourself on camera and that sort of thing, one of the things that was very inspiring to me whenever I started this was seeing the other types of people that were having success with this. They were from all walks of life, all different types of personalities, all different looks and ages and camera personas and how they showed up. And some were very boring. And that was really though encouraging. ’cause I was like, oh, well if it’s working for that person, I can, I, I know I can at least match that energy on camera and I can be that. So that was super encouraging for me. And I I, I see all kinds of people having success with this. RV (26:35): Yeah. Yeah. It’s really cool. You just, you’re being, you’re being useful to people and automating trust as we, we like to say is just, you know, they’re sitting there learning from you going, well, who, who are they gonna call? I mean, they’re gonna call the person. They’ve been like watching your videos and you’ve been adding value to their life. I love it. So where do you want people to go if they wanna like link up with you or learn more about what you’re doing? I know that we, we will, we will link to the actual YouTube channel itself, just so people can get a sense of what you’re doing. Moving to Georgia is the, again, the handle for YouTube, but anywhere else you’d point people. SM (27:06): Yeah. If you wanna connect on Instagram, my name is Sarah Maslowski. That’s my handle over there. And I look forward to connecting and sharing more. RV (27:13): Awesome. Well thanks for this, Sarah. This was super generous and tactical and practical, practical and actionable . So we’re so grateful for you and keep helping people and we hope that keeps driving your business. So thank you so much. SM (27:28): Thank you.