The Real Estate Rundown

Greg Hague CEO of 72 SOLD; Business Model Exposed

If you’re in one of the 38 markets where 72SOLD is active Greg Hague will need little introduction, for those of you who haven’t heard of him he is the founder and CEO of 72SOLD, a real estate broker, and an attorney. His 72SOLD sells about a house every hour in AZ and generates 100 or so qualified seller leads a day for his 200+ agents, and that is just the Arizonan business.

 

His ubiquitous commercials (sometimes it seems you just can’t get away form him) are high energy and amazingly effective. And he’d love to share how he does them step by step with you, just for the asking. His vision is one where entrepreneurs remain the norm in the real estate industry and feels that replacing them with salaried sales staff is a step in the wrong directions. Love him or hate on him, hi and his team are very successful in generating listings and ending up with happy clients.

 

There is a lot of shade thrown his was and there is a lot of confusion about 72SOLD and Hague partners. Some agents even believe he isn’t licensed and that 72SOLD is not a brokerage, or real estate company at all. So for the record Greg pointed out that 72SOLD is in fact a brokerage in Arizona and that he has had a brokers license since 1981. 

 

72SOLD was founded to develop and refine a program he envisioned years ago. First to provide REALTORS (not just his agents) a program to give sellers a better experience and second to compete with the iBuyers. 72SOLD is now in 38 other states for example Kevin Holmes in Burlington Vermont is with KW and has been with them for a couple years now and is killing it. 

 

Hague’s passion for real estate runs deep, he tells the story of his father finding a job after WWII in real estate and building a successful company in Cincinnati. “My dads hard work and the real estate industry provided me the opportunity to have a private education, to attend Law School, and have so many doors open to me in life. All because of two things - My dad and this profession. So I am deeply passionate about keeping it as an entrepreneurial profession.”

 

The idea for the 72SOLD model came to Hague when thinking about how Apple handles the release of new phones and iPads, they use social proof and scarcity (whether real, imagined or built-in) to drive demand. They spend weeks prior to the release marketing and building buzz so when people show up they aren’t thinking “can I get a discount?” They are thinking “can I get one?” The best way to be brilliant is the look at all of the brilliant people and take their advice and do what they do.

 

Hague is very open with how he does things and freely shares with anyone for the asking. He said to email him and he will send you not just how they do it, but also copies of their brochures, what they use to present to sellers, everything they use to compete with all of the agents out there, so that they can try it and decide for themselves if it works for them or not. “The reason I do this is my #1 goal, why I’ll share exactly what we do, is to save entrepreneurship in real estate.

 

We better come together, the iBuyer’s ultimate goal is to displace us as entrepreneurs, to use their “we will buy your home” as a massive lead generator where they will get their salaried agents deals. They have a lot of money and can afford to take a loss buying homes. If we are doing things that will help everyone compete with this, I feel we should share that, there is enough business for all, unless it gets taken away by forces that would like to displace REALTORS.

 

Hague talks about how 72SOLD became ubiquitous in the Phoenix media market. It started with a couple or three thousand dollars for a budget to buy ads in community newspapers. We wanted to “look big in a small market” so we bought a couple of full page ads to test the message, and at the very beginning I committed to spend 40% of every commission back into marketing. Now they generate nearly 100 leads a day that get sent out to their 268 agents. 

Another unique part of their model is that 72SOLD doesn’t use the AAR listing agreement! They use what they call an authorization to market. It’s a lot easer for the sellers and agents. I wanted sellers to be able to read it, what seller reads 9 pages of fine print? It comes down to the user experience. Broker cringing out there, the world of consumer preference and taste is changing, if people sign up with you and then change their minds, you better just say fine … Be a Nordstrom, “we’re here to serve, we’re here to help.”

 

Kala Laos, CEO of Real Estate Software company Zoodealio, interviews Greg Hague CEO of 72 SOLD

Generating Leads through YouTube, Making Money in your Sleep

This week we have a special guest. Levi Lascsak of YouTube fame with his Living in Dallas Texas Channel is joining us to talk about how you too can use social media to generate leads while you sleep!

 

Levi and his team doubled down on YouTube about a year ago and already have more than 4,300 subscribers and can directly attribute some $12,000,000 in production to the leads from the YouTube Channel.

 

He explains his process for us. I wanted to attract business with social media, I knew going into it that I needed to change strategies. I wanted people calling me, I didn’t want to door knock or cold call. I looked at FaceBook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

 

Once I decided YouTube was it, I took 2 months and learned all I could about it, I read several books, searched the internet and watched YouTube videos - then I put together a business plan. Because basically if you treat youTube like a hobby, it’ll pay you like a hobby, but if you treat it like a business it will pay you like a business. So put together a plan, don’t just dabble.

 

I planned out content and filmed the first 10-15 videos before the first one was released. People get stuck, they put out a video or two, life happens, they get stuck in the grind - it happens to all of us. I had a month of content ready to go before we even published the first video, from there I have always been ahead on content creation.

 

There are two main things that drove to the YouTube decision. 

 

#1 Warren Buffets says you will never be rich till you make money in your sleep. Well that also goes for lead generation. You’ll always be stuck in their lead gen unless you generate leads in your sleep, real estate becomes a business if you have a constant lead generation platform going.  

 

#2 It compounds your time … the time you spend creating content is compounded, so if it takes you 2 hours to create your video as soon as it is watched for 2 hours and 1 minute you have a net profit on your time. 

 

Coming up with content is simply looking for what people are searching for. Research the topics people are earthing for, see what is being searched for the most. If you make videos on things you want to do then it will take people a very long time to find you, people aren’t searching for agents by name unless they already know you. If you make videos on topics people are searching for you will be found.

 

Now I know what kinds of videos will resonate with my audience and can make some videos I want, but in the beginning I didn’t make a single video that I wanted to make. I made them all based on search results. This is an evergreen strategy, there is always going to be someone new searching.

 

We built an SEO loop where everything points back to YouTube. Pinterest links to the blog site, that links back to YouTube, Google my business links back to YouTube, everything does it’s the ultimate goal.

 

We are happy to let others know how we have done this. If you go to TheReelAgents.com we’ll walk you through our 20 minute video where we’ll explain out origin story. When we filmed this the call to action was $100,000 in 100 days because that is what we did! We’ll reshoot this at the year mark. There is an option to schedule a call if anyone is interested in partnering.

iBuyer Earnings Calls and a new investigation for the 800-pound Gorilla

This week the discussion centered around a new FTC investigation of Zillow and recent quarterly earnings calls for the big iBuyers.

 

A pair of republican lawmakers have asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate Zillow’s business practices. This stems from their acquit ion of ShowingTime and the potential harm to consumers it presents. 

 

How can Zillow buy a home one day and list it the next for $100,000 more? Does that seem fair to the consumer? This begs the question then has there been manipulation, or has Zillow just made good bets? They do have access to big data and surely use that in their decision making. They also have most of the internet traffic. Zillow commoditized real estate data and made it make sense to the consumer, kudos to them for that. This acquisition will give them access to some of the most accurate forward looking data there is.

 

We are living through the institutionalization of real estate. For agents to survive it boils down to advocating for our clients, that is how the agent fits - the agents who adapt to this market and to the iBuyers are the ones who are going to crush it and the others will slowly wither away.

 

Let’s talk earnings calls

 

At Recreate in Atlanta last week they talked about the Open Door quarterly earnings call. They put out that they bought some 8,500 homes last quarter and have nearly as many under contract. 

 

The question is do you think 8,500 people don’t know a REALTOR? Of course they did, and they decided not to work with them. It is the “done for you” solution the consumer is demanding. Open Door is taking down 185 home a day across 39 markets (and growing!). Their CEO attributes it to the “seismic shift in consumer behavior” … And guess what they created that. 

 

We can be the agent iBuyer, we can be the Open door for agents. With the power of the agent we as a collective 1.4 million REALTORS, if we band together, we can be more powerful than these huge companies.

 

What should agents be doing, what is the messaging you should be putting out there? If you are in a market where the iBuyers aren’t as prevalent, this is an amazing opportunity. You can be the Open Door of your market, and you’ll crush it. Start with this message, we’ll buy your home for full market value and even let you lease it back for 6 months. 

200 engaged agents + 5 world-class speakers = an amazing inaugural Disruption Day

Let me start by saying DISRUPTION DAY was amazing!

 

And we just started working on Disruption Day Denver. Details to follow.

 

Agent response was great and the energy was super high - it was nice to be back in that environment again after so long!

 

Agents embraced everything being said. Seeing people who have adapted to the market time and again, and listening to them teach what they are doing in their business, agents will continue to adapt if they keep themselves in this environment.

 

Agents who are getting clear on the mission of disruption and realize what is happening, and that they must adapt, see us at the head of this change, they know that together we are stronger.

 

Disruption Day speakers were awesome. The agents there really responded to them and to the Zoodealio products. The whole team wanted to thank the speakers. 

 

Thank you so much to James Rembert #ZillowKiller for coming out and bringing down the house! He dropped a ton of invaluable knowledge on the group, and he came out here on his own - no travel fees, no speaking fees, nothing - just to add value and good will.

 

Big thank you to Blake Clark for pulling back the veil on his operation and sharing with us how he is scaling and growing his business using social media.

 

A special thank you to Sarah Richardson. We were blown away just knowing she sold the first property using crypto currency. She’s out there talking about things that matter, they may not be sexy, but $200 million was lost to wire fraud, if we don’t do something about it we are doing a disservice to our future clients.

 

Joshua Smith always brings it! He’s been in real estate a long time, and producing at a high level. He has had to adapt time and time again to stay on top. There is something about the high producing agents who came into the industry at about the time he did, they are the ones that seem to understand the need to adapt and are willing to take a hard look at their business and make the moves needed. 

 

And finally a shout out to our very own Kala Laos! Its not easy to get up in front of all of those people and opening up, sharing your story. It was absolutely extraordinary, thank you!

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Own Your Weird, Niche Down and Grow Your Business to Seven-figures

This week’s special guest is Jess Lenouvel of The Listings Lab.

 

She coaches agents and makes a very bold statement … She and her team will help agents go from six-figures to seven-figures! And she means every word of it.

 

She takes aN “own you weird” attitude to branding and uses it to help agents “niche down” to help stay relevant and bring their business to the next level while freeing up their time by knowing what to work on, what to automate and what to outsource.

 

One of the more jolting exchanges came when Jess said that relying on repeat business and referrals isn’t really running a business. After the initial shock of hearing that it makes sense. “you have no control over if somebody has that conversation, you are essentially relying on others to market for you … The stuff that comes from your sphere is the icing.” Using a predictable system to bring people into your world and convert them form stranger to client is the cake!

 

“People don’t like to hear this idea, they are so attached to this ego thing that 100% of my business is referral, I say to people if 100% is from referral then you are not running a business, and I see it as a sign of laziness.”

 

Talking about tactics to support that bold statement earlier Jess said there are basically 6 pillars to go from six-figures to seven-figures.

 

1. Mindset
2. Sales Skills
3. Operations and systems
4. Lead Gen
   1. Organic
   2. Paid

5.  Clients and signature precess (How clients are handled and your signature process)

6.  Team and Hiring

 

She talked about building small, nimble, lean teams “we don’t teach building large expansion teams.” This keeps things scalable and allows agents to not live in a situation where they can’t not answer the phone at dinner. “You are fully supported in your business.”

 

You need to rewire your brain for high performance. “For a lot of people once you get to a certain point in your business you don’t have business problems anymore, you have personal problems the appear in your business.”

 

Agents also need to know the psychology of sales, not just spew the same scripts everyone else has. The disruptors are there because we have let them be there, “if everyone says the same things and keep everything transactional then we are opening the door to automation taking over.” 

 

You’ll recognize this theme from several of our talks and guest speakers. 

 

She continued to say that 50% of agents should quit. “Not that I don’t think agents are valuable, but 50-80% aren’t.” What they are doing is talking business from the agents that are valuable to clients and they actually make the rest of the industry look bad. Agents complain that they are not treated with more respect, and that the industry is not seen in the light they would like. They say “I would never do that to my lawyer” … Well your lawyer performs in a very different way, first I don’t know very many part-time lawyers. Lawyers are “niched down” that is they specialize. You want to be seen as an elite professional then the whole industry needs to shift.

 

Old school niching down was geo-location based, think of the farming you learned early on in your career, new school niching down is human demographics based. It is applied in terms of life transition, are they sizing up, down sizing, first time buyers, first time investor or what? What is it they are looking to do and all are different.

 

You’ll also hear one of our team role play with Jess on finding his niche and beginning the process to apply these pillars to grow to seven-figures.

 

Be sure to check out The Listings Lab website https://www.thelistingslab.com

Speaking With Joshua Smith - Founder & Host of GSD Mode

This week we’re glad to have Joshua Smith the creator of the GSD Mode YouTube cannel/Podcast.

 

Eliot began with a question and some background. What many listeners may not know is that you still run a high powered real estate team here in the valley. “What are you seeing in the real estate space? And what are you doing to remain relevant in this ultra competitive market?”

 

Josh said, more has changed in the last few years than has in my previous 16 years in real estate. “Tech is growing exponentially, so the growth is going to continue to be more rapid.”

 

Josh continued, “It really boils down to two things.” 

 

First we as real estate pros need to embrace change. “Many people have an issue with change and those that do and aren’t willing to adapt and shift are going to be left behind.” Agents shouldn’t fear or resist change, they should embrace it, “Run to it, you are going to have to be willing to continue to have that rug pulled out from under you on a consistent basis because change is happening.

 

Second, it used to be if you just worked you ass off and did good by your clients you could become a top producer. “those things are now the ante to be in the game, the given things just to survive.” Now you have to be a brilliant operator and possess the mindset of an entrepreneur - a business person - you’ve gotta understand business.”

 

Eliot asked, “We all know more money, more disruption , more high tech are coming … What do you see coming down the pike? How do you position you team to handle all of this?”

 

So everyone gets this question ‘is the market going to crash?’ “Who knows. We do know that there will have to be a correction, but we don’t know what that may look like.” All I know is that we are going to be prepared, “I mean just pay attention, markets never shift on a dime,” Josh answered.

 

Looking here in Phoenix, anything under 3 months supply is a sellers market, 4 to 5 months is a balanced market and the price increases are basically 3% or 4% inflation, or appreciation, however you want to frame it, with 6 months supply we have a buyers market, at 7 months we see short sales increase, at 8 REO properties begin to hit the market. “You’ll see these upticks, I don’t need to see the short sales and REOs hit the market, if I’m seeing an increase in supply I can start timing it out. If you just pay attention to what the market is doing there is plenty of time to get out there and shift and pivot.” 

 

All the tech that is changing the game and the multi-billion dollar hedge funds disguised as real estate companies create a new and different angle, the thought that the agent is becoming obsolete. “I don’t think that will happen, at least not few do our job as an industry.” 

 

If we allow this business to become transactional rather than relationship based, the danger is that REALTORS become a commodity, real estate is so complex that this is unlikely “but I’m not saying it can’t happen, I don’t have a crystal ball, but I’m all in on real estate. My whole life, everything, is used to give agents the tools they need.

 

Even while having a high level of confidence that agents are going to be around for a long time, “if you look at all the other industries for the most  part things are moving to a superior product at less cost.” With real estate commissions, we really haven’t seen that compression in our space. I am mapping out how to react to this when it comes. I’m not acting on it, but have mapped it out, it eventually becomes a volume game. “I don’t know what the future holds, but I am always preparing to be prepared,” Josh added.

 

Kala pointed out “ when you said we as REALTORS can’t allow the business to become transactional, that really caught my attention." You are known as an amazing content creator, “in my opinion that is one of the was we can scale relationships through technology,” If you could give our listeners just the highlight reel of some of your content milestones.”

 

People can see a lot of what they want and need, but not everything on these sites. “I want to know what they can’t find and that is what I create my content around.” With IDX, Zillow, and everything else people can see a lot but they don’t know what the lifestyle is like, what the schools are like or the parks, in short “they don’t know what it is like to live in the area.” So that really becomes my content creation strategy, delivering content the consumer wants that’s important to them but ins’t readily available.”

 

Josh concluded “This is the name of the real estate game, to get people to know you, like you, trust you, be aware of what you do and then for you to follow up frequently, then you business continues to grow.” Agents want to own that mindshare when they are thinking of making a buying decision. “To build that you have to give them valuable content that matters to them. When they push that play button has that persons life improved in some way, the cool thing is it’s easier to do today than ever before, you can do it alone your iPhone”  

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