Welcome to Meet the Moment, produced by the Real Estate Business Institute. This podcast is an exploration of what today's industry leaders and agents need to know to be profitable, productive and have fun. I'm Matthew Rathbun and I'm joined by co-host Kimberly Allard as we chat with thought leaders, brokers and agents who can help agents meet the moment of change in the real estate industry.
 

Matthew Rathbun [00:00:27] Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of the Meet the Moment podcast. I am here once again with my favoritest cohost in the world, Kimberly and then we have a treat today. We have Stefanie Lugo from the Marketing Authority Academy here to chat with us a little bit about marketing and what we're seeing in the future and some things that she's doing. So, Stefanie, how are you doing?

Stefanie Lugo [00:00:49] I'm good. Thanks for having me. So happy to see you guys.

Matthew Rathbun [00:00:52] Yeah, thanks for being here. Kimberly?

Kimberly Allard [00:00:54] I can't stand how excited I am. I hope you don't mind, I'd like this to be my personal coaching session for the next hour. You know, if it works for other people, great. No, I'm just joking, but really. I mean, our listeners are in for a special treat today.

Matthew Rathbun [00:01:15] Yeah, absolutely.

Stefanie Lugo [00:01:16] I'm happy to be here.

Kimberly Allard [00:01:20] Stefanie, so I will not do you justice. A description of you would not be worthwhile if I even attempted it. Please tell our listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do, so we can get into.

Stefanie Lugo [00:01:39] Yeah, for sure. Thank you. Well, I'm Stefanie Lugo. I am a real estate agent first. Still practicing here in Phoenix, AZ and I'm also a coach and founder of Market Authority Academy, where I help real estate agents build sustainable referral driven businesses through strategic marketing systems and a high touch client experience. My husband and I have been in the industry for over a decade now, which is kind of crazy, and we did the thing, left our 9 to fives. Started real estate full time, having absolutely no idea what we were doing. Pretty quickly I realized and still today there is a major gap in how agents are actually taught to market. And I know that you guys see this too, and that's really what led me to start coaching in addition to the real estate stuff that we do so that we can help agents stop chasing and start attracting their business in a way that's more authentic to them.

Kimberly Allard [00:02:33] So, you know, I'm sitting here kind a little starstruck because I have watched your YouTube and listened to quite a bit of your content. For the folks that don't know, they can go out and find you at Stefanie Lugo on YouTube and you got a lot of free content out there, which is fabulous. But let me ask you this, you said 10 years. Who? Who's coaching you? Or did you just somehow figure it out?

Stefanie Lugo [00:03:05] A lot of it was figuring out I had some really fantastic mentors along the way, but truthfully, when I got into real estate, I was coming from corporate finance and I didn't have a lot of time in corporate finance before I got into real estate. But one thing I learned really quickly in such a highly regulated environment is that there is a playbook. There are things that you need to do, and there's a step by step approach to everything, and I guess you know me being naive I was, I was just really blown away by what you lose when you become a business owner and you don't have that playbook. 

And so when you become a real estate agent, you really don't get the implications of being a business owner. You truly don't until you're like a year into it and you take a minute to come up for air. So after our first year in real estate, Bryce and I were really scrappy and we made it happen. And I think we closed like 11 or 12 deals that year and we were able to replace our corporate 9 to 5 income, which was great because we had a mortgage. We had car payments at the time. But we were looking at each other at the end of the year saying how are we gonna do that again? 

And so we started to find some really great mentors and people who are helping us along the way. And the way that my brain works is I need a system. I need a repeatable system to come back to and to be able to iterate and automate and execute. So, over time I just got really geeked out about how do I actually put this into a business plan like an operating system that we can continue to run. And I kept seeing so many other agents struggle. And it wasn't because they were not good at what they were doing, like a lot of them were really great real estate agents. But they just didn't understand how to communicate their value effectively, which is I know something that you guys think about quite a bit too.

Matthew Rathbun [00:04:45] Yeah. I mean, the whole past year has been agents for the first time, it seems, ever going 'Oh, how do we communicate our value proposition', especially a unique one. It is just amazing to me that it's just now becoming such a predominant conversation that we're having.

Stefanie Lugo [00:05:04] Yeah.

Matthew Rathbun [00:05:05] And I get it, 1.5 million competitors out there, it can be can be challenging. So you know we we've touched on your YouTube channel. You may not know this, but you actually have more followers on YouTube than the National Association of Realtors has. Yeah, I'm a big fan of your content as well. Actually fan is the wrong. I am jealous of how great your content is and how I'm sitting here plugging along on mine so.

Kimberly Allard [00:05:33] He's getting therapy for it. We've worked. We're trying to work through this. Embracing all this?

Matthew Rathbun [00:05:44] Yeah, being beat by a girl.

Kimberly Allard [00:05:46] There's a restraining order.

Matthew Rathbun [00:05:48] No, not that bad. Not that bad.

Stefanie Lugo [00:05:54] Well, thank you. First of all, high praise coming from Matthew Rathbun himself. When it comes to the content and kind of like the spirit behind what I'm trying to do... Trust me, first of all, I just wanna say if anyone's listening to this and you're pulling up my YouTube channel, what I want you to do is go back to the videos that I posted like in 2016. Watch those first, and then watch my videos today because it's been a work in progress and it's something where I put out a video every single week. 

So what you're going to see today is polished and looks really nice and like, yay, but it's literally almost like 10 years of posting on YouTube trying to figure this out. And my earlier videos are such trash. Oh, they're so cringy.

Kimberly Allard [00:06:38] Come on, you're discouraging the rest of us that start with trash.

Stefanie Lugo [00:06:42] I'm empowering you to start with trash. Trash is where it needs to begin. I am empowering you. So if you ever had it in you where you want to start doing video and then you see someone like me or us like out there doing video that looks really polished, always go back and look for the earliest ones so that you can see where we came from to truly get a sense of what it actually looks like. 

So I'm just gonna put that out there, but I guess at the end of the day, like my marketing message, is that the real estate industry teaches agents how to write contracts and you know like make sure we don't get sued or hopefully they do.

Matthew Rathbun [00:07:14] Yeah, sometimes.

Stefanie Lugo [00:07:16] Hopefully. Not doing that so well, but like trying right. But what I saw was no one was really teaching agents how to create demand and how to build a strong personal brand that is going to attract clients. And for years I had built my business through referrals and database marketing and organic contents. I'm not out there, I didn't have a budget to spend money on ads or do cold calling for 100 people a day or something. I just knew that the approach to marketing would work and I wanted to help other agents market smarter too so that they can build a business that actually gives them freedom instead of burnout. 

So that's a lot of the content that I'm looking to create and a lot of it is reflective of what we're testing in our real estate business now. I have the benefit of still being in the trenches. I think a lot of people who want to talk about real estate marketing are no longer selling. And that kind of removes a little bit of like the reality of what you have to actually overcome, especially in 2025 and beyond. Because, as you say, like the last year is we've really gone through it. If you not experiencing it. It can be harder to teach it to an agent because it's not as simple as just following the steps sometimes. Sometimes there's like a lot of things that we actually have to understand how to overcome. That's happening in the real world, in our market for us to be able to implement effectively. And so I try to do that. Hopefully I'm doing it for those who are watching.

Kimberly Allard [00:08:38] So I just want to go back a little bit for our listeners. I mean, there's more content out there than we can shake a stick at, but there's not a lot of good content. What you just said was you are still in this trenches. You are out listing and selling and and and actively involved in real estate and creating an income that way. And you're sharing your success stories and very well I might add. There's a lot of people that do very well and share their hot messes on social media, and it's just not fun to watch. You do a great job. You're articulate, you know your videos are top notch, as I sit here and I have the most horrible video environment, you guys. Which is why we're not doing video. You don't even want to see what my video looks like right now, but anyways. You know, you do a great job, but you're in the trenches, so you're relatable. You're respectful. 

But you know, I really kind of want to hear a little bit more about you got into the business. You kind of made it happen in one year by accident, realize systems needed to be in place. When we're talking success... you barely put macaroni and cheese on the table? I mean, so many people, it's five years before they're even able to even think about leaving a a job or making this a full time gig. Tell me what that looked like for you because so many people can't relate to what it looks like when you treat your business like a business. I think you use the word CEO versus...

Stefanie Lugo [00:10:23] Sales person. So that first year we just broke 100K and you have to understand we were early to mid 20s, my husband's a little bit older than me and it was 2014, 2015, 2016. The job market was not good at the time, especially for young professionals getting into the business or getting into their first careers. And so our income at our 9 to fives was stable, but it wasn't large. We had our 401K. All that. But you were capped at like a pretty low dollar amount in my opinion, just what our salary was. And it was really hard to grow. So when we got into real estate and we made 100K that year we were like, 'Oh, like there's something here."

Kimberly Allard [00:11:19] By accident. Yeah, like the rest of it.

Stefanie Lugo [00:11:23] It was by accident, but it was working, you know, 80 hour weeks or something like it was just insane. Like we were scrapping. We were making a lot of mistakes and. Also we made 100K, but we spent a lot of stupid money too. The other thing is you spend so much stupid money in those early years.

Kimberly Allard [00:11:40] Can you give us an idea, because our listeners are relating to this. Like, yep, this is my first, second, third year. What is a good investment and what is some of the stuff that didn't work for you.

Stefanie Lugo [00:11:54] We spent money on buying like 500 branded folders before we even had our brand approved by our brokerage for compliance. We bought 12 huge heavy open house signs. Like steel open house signs before we realized that we hated doing open houses and we didn't want to do that anyway. We made three different websites that first year cause the first one sucked and the second one sucked and then we figured out how to actually create a website and we're not even web developers. 

It was a lot of that stupid stuff where you're taking advice from Google and you're trying to piece it together rather than speaking to somebody who's actually been there and who's gonna walk you through exactly what's actually needed. And so looking back, I feel like 90% of what we spent in those early years was just wasted money. Today, all I would need is Google Sheets. I would need Google Docs. So like Google Business has a subscription that you can pay to have everything in all of your storage in one place rather than paying something like heavy for like Microsoft Office. And I would have Instagram, which is free. I'd have my phone, which I'm already paying for.

I probably wouldn't even need business cards if I was getting. Today I would have a little Canva template that I would just text people if they asked me for my business card. I mean, today if I were doing it over again, it would be so bare bones and I would be so much more successful so much faster I think.

Kimberly Allard [00:13:22] Give us your $0.05 and again, I'm gonna drive people back to your YouTube page because you do a lot of talking about leads. You have a little bit of a dialogue about leads and I'll let you talk about that. New agents are always like, 'I need leads. I need leads!' and some of them are even paying quite a bit of money.

Stefanie Lugo [00:13:44] So stupid. So stupid.

Matthew Rathbun [00:13:47] You know, it's funny. Before you get into that, I was just listening to your story, and there's another speaker, a friend of mine who we'll have on the show sometime. This instructor said, yeah, I got rookie of the year my first year but I was $15,000 in debt in and I'm like that's such a common story amongst folks here. 

So, lead generation is a big deal. Yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about that.

Stefanie Lugo [00:14:13] Yeah, it's. So when we got into the business, we knew like 30 people. We did not have a huge database, but more than half of our business that first year was from our database. It was referral business and business with people who we knew directly. And we thought it was just by accident, but looking back, there was a lot of specific things that we did that helped that come about. It was not just the one post on Facebook saying, hey, we're in real estate. Let me know if you need help with real estate needs. It was specifically being really social. And reaching out to our people and having real estate conversations that were not asking for a handout, but rather just telling them who we were looking to work with and how they could connect us with those people. 

Now, of course, it's even more polished and how we approach that and how we do that database marketing, but that's where we got most of our best clientele and over time we did try other lead sources. We were partner agents with another brokerage that distributes leads, right? And that was really helpful as a lead source for a little while. But we took every single lead and we looked at it in that, how can we take this one lead and turn it into 5 referrals. And that's really how we started growing our database. 

And then of course, Instagram was the biggest part of that. We were earning multiple 6 figures in GCI from Instagram by our third or fourth year in the business, just by posting organically. And getting conversations off of the app, so using it as a networking tool, meeting people on Instagram, putting that conversation in our CRM, meeting them in real places. Moving them down the sales pipeline.

Matthew Rathbun [00:15:49] So let's talk about what kind of content do you think you found the most engagement with? Maybe it's changed, the algorithms changed a little bit, but what kind of content would a real estate agent get really good engagement from on Instagram. Talk a little bit about that strategy if you could.

Kimberly Allard [00:16:02] Well, I think it's politics.

Matthew Rathbun [00:16:04] It's politics. Yeah, 100%.

Stefanie Lugo [00:16:07] Take take your most inflammatory thoughts and post post them online. You will find your tribe.

Matthew Rathbun [00:16:10] You don't want that tribe, but you'll find them.

Kimberly Allard [00:16:15] And then add a few personal insults. Maybe you want to disparage a few protected classes while you're at it, and then add some a good visual that really just sends everybody off the edge, right?

Matthew Rathbun [00:16:30] Yeah, that's that's the path of success.

Kimberly Allard [00:16:35] Sarcasm. That was sarcasm.

Stefanie Lugo [00:16:42] Oh my gosh, people, people listening. Note the sarcasm, everyone. Pull open your platforms right now. Whatever you put out, you will receive, OK?

Because you ask, I'll share my my unfiltered opinion. You should be really careful with what you are putting out there. You should be really careful what you're sharing online, even on your personal profiles, because that is your professional brand. Even though it's your personal profile, it is your professional brand and reputation. And you have to be thinking about how that is going to be received from clientele. 

So the next question is, is knowing what we're putting out there or knowing that whatever we put out there is going to attract someone? Who do we want to attract? That's where the conversation needs to start. We need to stop thinking about what should I pose or I don't know what to say. That's the wrong question. Who are you looking to work with? Because once you understand who you want to work with, the content creates itself. 

So for me, when we got into the business, we were working with first time homebuyers because that was the largest client pool in Phoenix at the time, and it was akin to us. We were young professionals, you know, we we had already purchased or owned our starter home. But a lot of our friends and family were looking to do that kind of thing, too. Start their home ownership journey. And so what we were creating content about was that documenting that story. So answering the questions that we were hearing. So hey, did you know that you don't need 20% down to buy your first home? Just silly stuff like that. Really simple straight to the point. And that was really well received.

It was also about showing area competency. So like posting about the areas that we knew our ideal clients wanted to live in. So like showing like the hottest new restaurants coming out or those up and coming areas where you could still get a deal on a home, but know that you'd have some really good upside five years from then. Our ideal clients really cared about that. So again, like notice I'm I'm sharing content ideas, but it's all centered around the ecosystem of who are you looking to work with. You have to be thinking about that first, and that was one thing that really I kind of like, dug my heels in because every other industry does that. Every other industry has to determine who their target audience is or who their ideal clients are, but for some reason real estate agents show up and they're saying, like, who can I open doors for? Whose yard can I put a sign in? You have to take us a few steps back and figure out who that is.

Matthew Rathbun [00:19:10] Yeah, well said.

Kimberly Allard [00:19:11] And I think it's hard for a new agent or even some more experienced because everybody, with the exception of a population of homeless obviously, everybody lives in a house or rents one or owns one, right? So your market is so broad, but yet how could you possibly appeal to everyone without a strategy or even, I mean reasonable costs in a business where you are the CEO... And I'm gonna try to not draw a comparison because somehow I'll offend somebody in another industry. But like you said you've got to know who your target audience is and who you're going after. Otherwise, you as an individual and even with the power of your brokerage behind you couldn't possibly appeal to everybody. 

I've I've had people say to me I'm spending $3000 for leads and I'm doing this, you know, $1000 here for this. You would be far better off taking on that all off the table and refocusing. You're directing your resources, whether it's a thousand or $100 a month, and focusing it somewhere where it's going to bring you a return. And if you don't know who your audience is, then how the hell do you do that?

Stefanie Lugo [00:20:39] I have a really good analogy that I think can illustrate this if I could, because some people are hearing this and that and target audience. These can sound really vague for an agent who's never had to do this work before. Or who's decided that it doesn't apply to them. 

Imagine going into a restaurant and you sit down at a restaurant and you're starving and the waitress comes over and she says, OK, Are you ready to order? What are you gonna have? I don't know. I'm just so hungry. Just give me anything. She says OK. Yeah, I'll get your order in right now. Are we gonna have today? I don't know, just food. Just give me food. I need to eat. I just need to eat. OK, OK. The waitress is like panicking. How? How? What can I put in the kitchen for you? What do you want? If you're not being clear, they don't know how to help you. They don't know what to bring to you. They don't know what to get you. There's just there's a fundamental disconnect. 

But so many agents just sit there screaming about how hungry they are rather than looking at the menu and just placing their order. That's that's really what we have to do. And to your point, there's a hundred or there's 1.5 million competitors in the US. There is as broad of a market as you can possibly make because again, Kimberly, it's your point. Everyone either owns their home or rents. How are you going to narrow it down so that people can understand that they need to sit at your table? Or the waitress knows what food to bring to your table. That's that's what we're actually talking about here, just in case that was unclear for anyone.

Matthew Rathbun [00:22:12] Yeah, that's really great. I love that and will 100% be stealing that. No, no, I won't

Kimberly Allard He will.

Matthew Rathbun If I do, I'll give you credit. There'll be a picture of you on the slide.

Kimberly Allard Watch his website. Matthew's next class, how to order in a restaurant and how to pick your clients in real estate.

Matthew Rathbun [00:22:35] I'm not a person to ask the waitress what they like because you know, they like the most expensive thing on the menu. But. No, that's not true. Actually, Kimberly and I were talking about this earlier. I taught a class yesterday on marketing the listing, and I spent entirely too much time saying,  begging our agents to focus on who the consumer is because there's no silver bullet. You're not going to reach the first time home buyer and the 55 and older move up client with the same marketing and messaging. Just not going to happen. 

A lot of agents start with, you look at their bio. Most agents in the country. If you cover up their name, the bio reads the exact same. Sometimes they'll throw in military. But other than that, it's 'I just love helping people, and if you're looking for an ethical agent who's knowledgeable about the market, reach out to me.' Well, being knowledgeable and ethical was kind of the bare minimum the consumer was looking for. It wasn't a distinguishing factor in who you are. 

For me, what I'm doing right now is taking RPR, doing a neighborhood market report that tells you a lot about your local consumer. The NAR Profile home buyer and seller. I throw them into ChatGPT and say ChatGPT, my prompt, show me who this client is and how they behave and what marketing campaign I can go. Go with based on this ZIP code and the average consumer, but I know that's probably not the best. Stefanie, what's the best way for me to define who my consumer is?

Stefanie Lugo [00:24:03] Actually, Matthew, I think that's a really good. I think a data-driven approach makes a lot of sense, but if that's not your vibe then you need to go do ideal client interviews. You need to go talk to your people. 

So this is some of the best advice that I could even give to new agents, but especially agents who maybe are just ready for a new chapter in their journey and they're ready for something different. You've been in the business for five or ten years and you just want to be a little bit more intentional and a little bit less accidental in your business, what you're going to do is think of if you have past clients who've been in the business for a while, you're going to find a list of your past clients who you just like meshed the best with. 

These are people who became friends over time. You probably helped them purchase their home, or they've purchased a home and then sold it and purchased with you again, and you're going to get a list of as many of those people as you can, and they might not even be your clients. And especially for newer agents, this might be reaching out to people in your network who you just really enjoy hanging out with and they see you as a valuable person just for who you are. They know your strengths because they know you. 

And you speak to them say, hey, I'm trying to get a little bit of market research for business. I'm looking to change things up in the next year and I wanna start from the source. I need to speak to people who I wanna be working with and you're the kind of person who I would just pinch myself if I had as a client. Can I meet you over coffee. Or can we hop onto Zoom and I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions and I just want your your off the cuff responses like no pressure here. This is just me trying to do this for my business and of course if someone cares about you, they're gonna say yes. And they're gonna be kind of intrigued. This is kind of weird, but sure. I'll hop on with them. 

You're gonna ask all the questions that you feel that are going to answer or give you a profile on your ideal client. So walk me through what your dream home situation is. Are you happy where you're at, or is there another step down the line in your home ownership journey that's going to get you closer to where you ultimately want to end up? When you purchase your first home, what challenges held you back from ultimately making the decision or kept you in that stuck space longer. What ultimately made you decide to take action to getting there right? So like, like really understanding what those emotions were in. 

The process is going to help you start to create a profile, not just data, but of the human condition that is going to help you understand how to actively pursue homebuyers and sellers in your market. And that's what takes an agent from saying I work with first time homebuyers to I work with people who are looking for a home even more beautiful than the house they are looking to start their family in Phoenix, AZ. Like whatever that might look like. And while they're at it, avoid a really complex, overwhelming financial situation to instead starting on their first step to building wealth with home ownership. And that was really off the cuff and kind of rough. But do you see the difference?

Kimberly Allard [00:27:26] Yeah. I think it also opens the door, pun intended, to agents who are in a position where they're almost embarrassed to follow up with clients because it's been so long. And the conversation typically starts with, oh, hi. I just thought I'd check in or follow up. And, you know, that's just awkward and people are. I'm not returning that call. You know that just doesn't work. And people aren't doing it. You've got nothing as an agent.

Stefanie Lugo [00:28:00] It's as awkward as we want to make it. So my script for that, and not that I'm a big script person, but it helps to know how to speak like a like a human in this instance and not the realtor, because sometimes we get into a realtor head, right? I've been there. I spent the first like six years of my business stuck in realtor mind speak where it's like, I am a professional realtor.

 Instead of learning like wait, I'm a human. I'm a human 1st and I can connect with people on a human level. So all you say in that instance. Hey. Oh my gosh, I just saw your name come across my desk and I realized it's been forever since we've connected. What's new? How are? You still at the same place? The family. What are you working on this year? That's it.

Matthew Rathbun [00:28:48] Yeah. When you were talking earlier about sitting out with a client, one of the questions you said, one of the questions you asked them was what's your dream home and I've been kind of on this rant here recently. My own agents, I was just Friday talking to the group of them. And I said, you know, everybody, this is the question we ask, what's your dream home? It is quickly followed by the realization that they can't afford their dream home. Most people cannot achieve what they want. About a home that's safe and I feel like sometimes we don't focus on that's just as important of a message as this is the home that's going to keep you financially safe. To keep your family, you feeling still like this is a good home to have. Of and I love these again, not scripts, the dialogues the listening, the ask and listen model for the consumers and sitting down with them one-on-one and chatting with them. It also makes them feel heard. It's going to remind them that you actually care. 

To follow up with them, and even if they're not thinking about buying, selling now, they're likely to refer friend the family because you honored them by asking their opinion and taking some notes and and paying attention and I just think those things are important. You get it in your coaching I'm sure. I'm not going to put words in your ear's mouth, but Kimberly and I get it. When we're teaching, there's always an agent who listens to all the things you're saying and that's cool, but that's not how my clients do business and and my response is that's fine if you want to keep doing business with people like you. But you know, getting up there, you're 55-60 years old, 38 is the average buyer in the US you're going to run out of friends and family if you keep only working with people who do business the way you do. Plaza. They don't. Even our mature group is still going to the Internet. Still have an 18 to 24 month journey. 

How are you coaching agents to overcome their own mental blocks about who their consumer is and how their consumer behaves. Even if that one client does say I go to Instagram to find my agent or not agent content.

Stefanie Lugo [00:30:48] I think you said something really important which is understanding the average journey. So when those agents who may have been in the business for a long time, especially my more seasoned agents because I work with agents who have been in the business for 30 years and one day they look up and I'm not sure this is exactly your question, but I think it's a good illustration. They look up one day and they realize that the world is completely different from when they started. 

And the journey in like 2004 for an average home buyer was, they reach out to the agents for access to the listings and information on the listings, like what's on the market. But we have that unfiltered and unmitigated on the Internet. Now consumers have more information than anything.

And so they do truly have that 18 to 24 month process where 80% of it is  wrestling with questions like is this even a smart thing to consider? Should I even be thinking of buying right now if the economy's gonna collapse because they see some crazy headline that has them feeling all kinds of feels. And so what agents need to be doing is creating more dialogue, asking more questions and actively listening so that we can understand where in that cycle our clients are and meet them where they're at. 

So often, we're trying to just get clients to meet us in front of the door. But they're miles behind. They're not even ready to consider looking at listings because they don't know when the time is gonna be right or if they're going to be ready when the timing does align for them. And so you have to move that goal post way back and as real estate agents, we have to get comfortable speaking to clients through the whole cycle of homeownership and you'll hear a lot, it's a cycle of home ownership. We want to make sure that we're speaking to our clients, not just when we need a sale, but when they need us. 

Again, just like Kimberly said, everyone either owns a home or is renting, and they're always going to have real estate on their mind because it's the bottom of the pyramid. The hierarchy of needs. It's going to be something that they always have to be thinking of, whether it's in terms of wealth building or whether it's just in terms of making sure they have that safe place to live. And so we need to make sure that we are creating a client journey that is relevant to them before, during and after the sale. And if we have that mindset. We're not trying to think of clever ways to start up the conversation. We're just communicating with people. It suddenly makes you think that you don't need templates. You don't need conversation starters. You just need to pick up the phone.

Kimberly Allard [00:33:38]

It sounds like a plan. And when you run a business, you have a plan. Itj ust reminds me that there there are real estate agents making a living and they define what making a living means to each one individually, obviously. But there are real estate agents making a plan, just waiting, throwing stuff against the wall and waiting to see what sticks. But to build a career or a successful business? This is what you're talking about, and this may sound so foreign to so many because they have not witnessed this in the general real estate population, because this isn't really how a lot of people conduct their business, but it is how those that are successful do. And the successful ones are the minority. How can we not? How can the successful ones not be a minority when there's what 3,000,000 real estate agents in the country estimated. So not a lot of them make a living. Of course, there's a whole lot of Facebook posts out there about what percentage do and that doesn't matter. 

I think what's important is the ones that do, the ones that are successful with their business are running them like businesses, but I'm a real simple mind here. But everything I hear you saying is talking about who you wanna be and where are they in their process and who you serving? And are you giving them what they want when they need it? Are you being that knowledge worker? As Matthew says, you know, it just occurred to me. You know what McDonald's makes? A great product serving people who want something quick and cheap on the fly through a drive through. And you have a high end restaurant and I'll let somebody figure out what your local high end restaurant is. And you sit down for $200 a piece. And if you're drinking, then it's $250 or $300 but your experience was a lot longer and a lot richer and maybe more fulfilling in a different way. 

You can't say to the person in the drive through at McDonald's your meal's gonna be 800 bucks and you're gonna sit here for three hours. They'd go through the roof. So both businesses might be really successful, but they're they know who their target audience is. And I think to your point and what you've just said is many real estate agents have no idea who their target audience is, how they're going to make money serving that need. And then they certainly don't communicate it because they're just out there saying I do it all. And that's that's that's got to be a recipe for failure.

Matthew Rathbun [00:36:20] Not to mention the fast food, quick and easy through the window's gonna kill you and the other one is.

Kimberly Allard [00:36:30] It's not a good idea as a long term approach.

Stefanie Lugo [00:36:31] Yeah, just to the marketing conversation, there's the problem with this conversation is we can talk about this for hours, which I would love to, but obviously being mindful of time and for the recording, let's  just look at one area. If we could look at marketing, if I could change anything in this industry, it would be to ban all just listed/just sold posts. Honestly, I would just love to see agents stop treating marketing like a one way announcement and just start taking it to a two way conversation. Yeah, clients don't care about your just sold home unless you're telling them how it helps them.

You're just sold home can absolutely help other clients who happen to be following you if you create a story and illustrate where those clients were who just purchased their home. There might be a two year story leading up to that. They were thinking about purchasing and they were getting ready and then they, surprise, had a baby and they needed to put their plans on hold. And then they got a different job and their finances changed. I'm just like illustrating what could happen in that 12 month period of time and then they have to go back to the beginning of their home search journey and decide, OK, now that the rates have changed and the market has shifted, what can we actually afford now a year later? 

And if you were there every step of the way, you were helping them navigate that and you were that friendly guide that was walking them through helping to dispel misinformation that was throwing them off track, or at least sift through all of the information that they were fire hosing themselves with on YouTube and on Tiktok and on Instagram.

Kimberly Allard [00:38:17] Isn't that what they're hiring you for? They're hiring you to help them through the process. The sale of the house isn't the remarkable part. It's the journey. How they got there? It's how you help them fulfill a need or maybe solve a problem.

Stefanie Lugo [00:38:32] Yeah, it is. And like how much more simple is it to establish value when we can illustrate that? Why are we talking about commissions? Why are we talking about employment? That's a part of the process when you're not just being transactional.

Kimberly Allard [00:38:47] Let me ask you this. A brand new agent says this is a lot. Isn't it easier to adapt... you almost spit out your coffee, right? A brand new agent says, wow, this is a lot. You know, my friends aren't doing this in real estate. Isn't it easier to start out with the right practices and build your business by using systems that then you can duplicate, so you may have 10 clients one year that if you build a referral base that maybe turns into 50. I'm not going to quote numbers 'cause everybody is different. But you're building that base that then is sustainable. 

It's better to do it now than have to undo bad practices in five years from now, where you still may be making an income, but now you don't have the time to stop those really unproductive habits because you won't make income while you're trying to correct it. Why are people waiting?

Stefanie Lugo [00:39:45] Well, think about if you're one of those agents. I want you to think about why you got into real estate. Money. Yeah, maybe you just got your license because you were purchasing your own home and you didn't have to pay another commission. Maybe you had a family member who was purchasing a home. So you hurried up, got your license really quickly to help them. 

And now you're looking at this new thing. What if this was the career? If this was the job. What if this was my thing? You instantly start to make the decision whether or not to go forward based on whether it can give you more freedom and flexibility in your life. If you want freedom and flexibility in your life, the only thing that is going to allow you to achieve that is systems. Real estate is no different. That's why I'm such a nerd about systems. You want marketing to work for you? You need a system for that. You want time and task management that allows you to shut your laptop at 8:00 PM and ignore any calls after that? You need a system for that. It's where everything begins and ends.

Matthew Rathbun [00:40:54] The one thing I would add, maybe not add, but interject, Kimberly, is I don't think it's just new agents who are struggling with anything. Our experienced agents are very much struggling with this and what they're not paying attention to is for the first time in the history of industry. I've been combing through. I have 3 MLS. Actually 5 MLS. I have to join three that I use regularly. One of them has 100,000 members, the other one has 6,000.  I looked at both of those and new to the business agents are outpacing agents who are new to the business in the same first two years than ever before, like they're just killing it because they've come in with they're watching influencers, they've got time, they're OK with the technology and they have nothing better to do than have conversations. 

I just did like a three-year trend report in our region and I'm watching our most experienced agents losing ground and it's almost a one to one. The lack of production they have consummate with the market, changes to new agents, new to agents base and I'm using their license number and their MLS ID's being new to the business. And I think it's because they can do the things that we're talking about. I think they've got not only time, but they are more comfortable on social media. They're more comfortable with connecting from digital to in person. 

To illustrate Stefanie's point, last month my wife and I welcomed our newest grandchild. We have two of them, our granddaughter. She's beautiful. And I posted social media a picture of me and the baby at the hospital and I'm just looking at it here. There was 678 likes. Because that's something human that people can connect with. Two weeks later, I got this national recognition and my assistant put together a graphic and then we posted it. Same Facebook thread a couple weeks apart and it had 90 likes. 678 likes because of a life thing, right? Life we can understand. Having babies, grandkids or whatever. 90 likes of somebody saying, hey, you did a good job this year. I think that's a powerful year just to see those two posts in the engagement from the exact same audience. That, and most of my audience are real estate agents and in the business. 

It's about connection. Stefanie and I have talked about this a prior meet up to me. To me there's just not a big connection with your trophy, my award that I just got or I did $8 million this year in business and the average consumer is going, 'cool, I can't afford eggs and whatever, but I'm glad that you made 8 million.' They don't know that that they do, but they don't think about. They assume you get the whole piece of the pie that they saw in that Ulta or had one. 

And we could be telling a much different story. Dear consumer, maybe it's not now is not the time to buy your dream home, but I can help you find a home that you'll be comfortable in at this point in your life. And you know, Stefanie, you use you said the hierarchy of needs, assuming the model hierarchy of needs. Self actuation is the top of that pinnacle and is generally not reached, if you reach it at all, until you're in your 60s or 70s. For most people, and they've gained some wealth over their lifespan. The rest of the time when you're trying to figure out how to handle three kids, when housing and child care is now equal to about 60% of people's income. That's the answers or problems they're looking for. 

You're not solving a problem by saying you're super successful in your business. You're helping them solve a problem when they're going. Is there a home I can afford right now that will keep my family safe. I just think messaging is so important and so as we talk about when, Kimberly, your thing with plans, Stefanie, I agree with you like I'm a huge Notion nerd. Absolutely. I mean, I could spend my life in there if I if people would pay me to do that. 

But the plan has to start with your why, to rip of Simon Sinek here. See Stefanie, you won't be the only person who I rip off, but at least I give credit. And my why is to use my knowledge to help my consumers to their benefit. I mean, that's been my mission statement since my second year in the business and I have my ethos as well. Enough of my mindset. 

We are running a little short on time here. We've talked about you've had success on Instagram. You've mentioned YouTube, Kimberly and I kind of joke about Facebook because honestly, I've gotten so disinterested in it. And some of the other nonsense going on. But we do have to have a multimodal approach. We have different systems and models there talk to us a little bit if you could kind of in the wake of Tiktok thinking here now and how much that clearly illustrated that we are on borrowed. Not even rented. Because if you're renting something, you have rights. If you're borrowed, you don't have rights. You know, we're borrowing with some of these. 

So where would you suggest an agent actually focused on building and what kind of what kind of mechanism would you put in place? To keep a sustainable business, if one of those things, you know blacklists you or just shuts down the pro.

Stefanie Lugo [00:46:08] Yeah, I'll be quick with this one. I heard an agent once who was really successful on Instagram years ago, flippantly say I don't have a CRM. Instagram is my CRM. My clients find me in my DMs, so I can just reach them there. And I remember at the time trying to keep my face straight because in my mind I was like, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. That's terrible business. And this was in a public speaking forum. And I can only imagine the 100 or so agents who were there at the time, taking that as actual business advice and then fast forward to January 2025 and we see literally on a whim the lights go out of the largest one of the largest social media platforms on the planet, and certainly here in the US, literally they turn off the lights in the Us and then decide to turn them back on 12 hours later. And if that doesn't illustrate the borrowed land that you're saying, I don't know what does? 

So it doesn't matter what platform you're on. I do think that you should diversify, but what we really should be thinking is where are your ideal clients. My ideal clients are not on Facebook. None of us can stand it. We're on Instagram and Tiktok, so that's where I'm at right now. Post there consistently. Wherever you're posting, get them off the app. Get them off the app. You have to understand how to generate the lead. You have to understand how to generate the lead and get them into a CRM or space that you do control. And I've been saying this for five years. 

What you have to understand how to do is how to generate the lead by having a conversation. So if we look at how this looks on Instagram, we post something on the stories and we're sharing a beautiful new build construction and we're sharing about like the concessions that the new construction community is offering to make home ownership easier for their home. OK, cool. So you're sharing that on the stories and you get a direct message. Oh my gosh, I was just thinking about checking that place out. I love the model. So nice. You respond back to them. Oh my gosh, it was even nicer in person. You strike up a conversation. And you get their phone number, you get their e-mail, or better yet, send them a link to Calendly where they can book a conversation with you right there and then. 

Have that contact information uploaded into your CRM and you start actioning on them from there. That's what the funnel needs to look like, and the term funnel means you take the lead from one place and you walk them through a series of planned steps so that you can then predictably bring them to the closing table. It's a funnel and you have to have funnels in any business, certainly in real estate. But wherever you're hanging out on social media, whatever that looks like for you now, that's not the point. The point is having a method to get them off the app into a space that you control.

Matthew Rathbun [00:49:00] Well said. Great. All right. So can we wrap up? I I if you were queen of the industry for a day specific to marketing, not the rest of the world, but sure, Queen, what would you do? What would you change about marketing or change about agent behavior and marketing.

Stefanie Lugo [00:49:17] Oh man, that's a really good thing. I mean, I think I would go back to looking at the way that you were marketing and turning it into a two way conversation. A lot of agents are just posting the same templates and they're trying to do the exact same thing, or putting the exact same stuff out there. Instead, anytime you go to post, say it first out loud, like a conversation, and then just whatever you just said, have that go out and rather than a polished forward presenting piece of content. Does that answer the question? Is that fair?

Matthew Rathbun That's good.

Stefanie Lugo If I could wave my magic wand.

Matthew Rathbun Well, embarrassing marketing embarrasses all of us. And so a conversational marketing solid, good, non cringy marketing benefits the industry and the reflection of professionalism.

Stefanie Lugo Yeah.

Kimberly Allard And know the difference between marketing self promotion and the humble brag. I have learned a lot by watching your videos. You obviously have a lot of followers more than Matthew. I've switched my YouTube interest to you instead of him.

What a great opportunity. Your thoughts that you're putting out there for an industry that needs some guidance. Thank you for what you do. It is really uplifting. It's motivating. You are just seem to be happy all the time, which is, you know, you just it's kind of one of those experiences where you're listening to what you're saying and then I'm driving down the road smiling. I don't know at what. So thank you for what you do and thank you for your impact. Your coaching program, people can schedule a one-on-one with you, right?

Stefanie Lugo Yeah, yeah. If you find my name anywhere, YouTube, Instagram, or my website at Stefanielugo.com. And it's Stefanie with an F. Do not come at me people with a ph. Stefanie with an F. Anywhere you find me, you'll have the link to book a time with. And what we do is we start with the conversation and it's the exact same thing that I do with our clients. If you wanna work with me, we'll start with the conversation and I wanna hear about your goals. And then together, we'll map out a plan for you. Move forward in your business to where you wanna be, and if you want my help with that plan at that point, then we'll talk about what I can offer.

Matthew Rathbun All right. Well, Stefanie, with an F from the Market Authority Academy, thank you for being with us. We always end our show with a recommendation of an app/tool/resource that you think our listeners could benefit from. What's yours?

Stefanie Lugo Most of the OG listeners of my stuff won't be surprised when I say Asana for task. Matt, I know that you're a you're a Notion guy, which is really interesting to me. And I like Notion a lot. Asana is the tried and true task management system that we've just been using for years, and it's kind of like if it's not broke, don't change it. And that's been really helpful for me and it's been fun to. It's like we continue to evolve that process for our business, but you need a really good test. Need a second brain for your business? Really. And so whatever that looks like, having something to keep all of you to do's in one place rather than a million sticky notes and notepads all over the place. Is such a relief for business owners.

Matthew Rathbun And if you're not familiar with the second brain concept, the book is called second brain by Thiago Forte. He actually put words to this concept in his series. You should go read or listen to that book. And I, you know, we do actually use our Asana in our company. We can embed videos for them and we have checklists. It keeps my staff on and and the agent accountable for their first 90 days to get on success plan. It's a fantastic tool. I'm going to stick with my Notion for personal use, but Asana is a rock solid tool. As well. Kimberly, what you got?

Kimberly Allard All right, so...

Matthew Rathbun There's a wind up here.

Kimberly Allard Bear with me here because you know you guys are so clever and smart. You said helpful tool, right? And this might be helpful for your clients if you will but family members have a whole house generator and the struggle has been the generator needs to have fuel to work, which means we've got some propane tanks out there. And there's a panic if the propane tanks aren't full. And especially if you've got somebody who has, you know, maybe some life saving medical devices, etcetera. Really any homeowner that has a backup generator wants it to work well. The struggle has always been how much fuel do we have which causes family members to trudge through 4 feet? Get to the propane. Check. Well, we put an end to that this week. 

Generac came out with a essentially it is a cell phone on a string, but it's really a cellular device that works off of maybe it's a Verizon network? I'm not quite sure which one. It's got a little thing. It clips right on to the gauge on your propane tanks, whether they're 120 gallon tanks or 500 gallon tanks doesn't matter. You clip it right on. And now you have a cellular device, not even Wi-Fi. Power goes. You don't have Wi-Fi. You don't know what's in. So this works off of the cellular signal and it works with your Generac app. And I'm thinking maybe it could work. 

Even if you don't have a Generac, uh generator, but you'd still know what the volume of the propane is in your tank. Have multiple tanks and we've got this on there and it has provided tremendous peace of mind. So that's my tip for the week.

Matthew Rathbun Yeah. Stefanie has no idea about four feet of snow being in Phoenix, AZ.

Stefanie Lugo So I don't, but I am very mindful of being prepared because we live in the desert and it's we're one bad monsoon away from this whole grid being shambles. And so a lot of homes out here don't have generators, but we've been doing a lot of research on Generac and like what options they have that would be good for us because we have really extreme weather here in the desert. I want to look at at more of those things, but that's literally been on our list for a while. Our next big investment for our home here in the desert.

Matthew Rathbun This is not a commercial for Generac. We we have no sponsors other than the Real Estate Business Institute.

Stefanie Lugo But we're nosey home people. We wanna know all the gadgets.

Matthew Rathbun I'm going to say I have an all house Generac as well and it is a rock solid system like it has been fantastic. You know, for the big snow a year, we get our electricity being knocked out for a couple days. We're the heroes of the neighborhood, and people can come their stuff in our freezer because we have the Generac or they all house generator. Can't recommend it highly enough. It's really not as expensive as people think it is, and it is fantastic, especially as Kimberly said, if you do have family members. Who have you know, illnesses where you have to keep it up and running? 

My app and I know I'm late to this, I started playing with it a couple weeks ago called Minichats, which kind of helps with the conversation when you're not at your keyboard. I think I've got it tweaked enough to sound a human, but it's an AI system that helps with auto responses and social media getting into your DMS. Only downside with it if you're listening Minichat is I wish you worked on my Facebook personal page because I just refuse to maintain it and mine is marked as professional anyway. I refuse to maintain a Facebook business and personal page. I, but it's fantastic for Instagram and other tools and stuff out there. I think it's pretty affordable. As we talk about system and tools, I need some help sometimes answering stuff that I can't get to. So that's mine.

Well, once again, Stefanie, thank you so much. We appreciate your time and volunteering to do this and we will have a link to all of your stuff. Instagram, your YouTube and your marketing. Market Authority Academy in the show notes. Thank you again for being here.

Stefanie Lugo Thanks so much for having me guys, and thanks for being so generous with the conversation. This was super fun.