The Relentless Rise: Building Leadership, Legacy, and a Life That Matters with Zachary Foust

[0:00] welcome back to the rai agent i am here with zach faust zach so much for thanks so much for joining us great start we’re off to a roll matthias what’s going on man how how how see we both messed up now we’re even what’s going on brother uh not too much man i not gonna lie there the i’m on the second day of after not sleeping much so if i’m a little froggy you know i’m gonna let you carry carry the show because you are energetic and if you are not watching this right now zach has an amazing hat on right this is actually it’s it’s in disguise you can’t quite tell but this is my tinfoil hat this is my tinfoil hat of choice it’s made out of straw but it’s my there’s a tinfoil liner right tinfoil lining yes dude can i tell you sleep kills i last week was the first week in my adult life where i didn’t sleep well i’ve never had an issue with sleeping it’s like two rem cycles three hours and 15 each wake up in the middle to go to the bathroom and then i’m weird i love going to sleep so like that middle of the night go back to sleep so nice last week it was all jacked up and i was just the meanest version of myself it’s terrible it is i get it dude your your your your energy’s right there

[1:19] with me though so i’m excited for this conversation and anyone listening you got a great host oh thanks zach uh tell us a little bit uh give us a bird’s eye view of kind of what you do and who you are sure man i’ll start back from getting into the business so uh before getting in i was served in the u.s army national guard did about six years full-time with them went overseas to afghanistan came back joined the prison system not in the prison system joined as a correctional officer and that’s where i got approached about yeah the right side of the bars i got approached about real estate by a industry friend of mine who said you know you got a little bit more personality than to be a prison guard why don’t you think about being a realtor and just like any good opportunity i slammed the door in its face three times until she actually signed me up for the course didn’t pay for it she left that part out signed me up for it got involved oh man that was september january uh yeah september 2016 and then january 2017 officially got my license um i got rookie of the year at keller williams that year i sold 24 homes purely from door knocking and facebook lives uh from there

[2:27] next year opened into instagram and doubled into about 36 started a small team ballooned to about 18 agents until 2022 hit and i decided to switch gears uh went from wanting a mega team to creating uh the round table as we call it king arthur’s table everybody at our team is a killer uh no better system as far as i can find between mortgages lawyer team uh set up for the listing getting produced and ready to launch i mean we just have a great system uh to the point where i as the leader get to sit in my best position which is marketing i love marketing i love connecting i love psychology i love learning about it and i love executing on it and you know testing and tweaking to see what works so we have a five person media team that assists me with that from videographer and editors to a brand consultant and i’ve just been learning and learning and learning as much as i can because i feel if you know how to brand you know how to communicate whether it’s real estate or you know getting your kid to go to bed on time you’re probably gonna be a little better at it i love it oh man there’s so

[3:32] much to unpack there um yeah i mean so i definitely thank you for your service by the way and i you know i’ve definitely seen uh or had mild regrets for never joining like a organized sport um in high school or doing something like the military where i feel like uh yeah you would have that discipline kind of just kind of ingrained in you a little bit more and that’s a hard lesson to learn on your own so i mean how much of your success do you attribute to that you mentioned high school sports from 12 on that was all i did as well um so i i definitely point back to not necessarily even the sport itself i remember coaches moments they’d pull me to the side and say something or or something they do in practice whether it was getting all riled up or just those moments of of soft leadership and going back to it like you didn’t see it as leadership at the time you’re just like oh that’s cool where that worked but later on in life starting to connect those dots to real life situations i i agree organized sports is great military it was kind of a little bit of an opposite effect as far as leadership

[4:39] goes i got blessed with some awful leaders but at the same time i then got to see the other side of the coin and so then when i delved into real estate entrepreneurship and i started picking up you know the first uh creator i followed back in 2016 was gary vaynerchuk and tony robbins uh gary was a little bit smaller he’s still big at the time he’s just a god at this point in social media uh but uh leaders like him john maxwell napoleon hill simon cynic you know getting to form what a leader looks like and to get to the baseline understanding of the greatest leaders are also the best followers it usually is has just gotten me to the point where i feel that i can lead a team to a more successful life and that’s all i’m looking to do i want them to make more money be happier when they’re off be better people and i think we’ve accomplished that and i hope to grow that yeah it’s amazing when i think like with all that you’re talking about like organized sports leadership as you just described it you know the more practice you get the more um that you study that you exercise all that kind of stuff

[5:44] will then translate into you know being good at it and i think that that’s something that’s also not easily learned that i mean like you know you get out what you put in you know and i think that’s what you just described is that you had to go through the process of really learning how to be a leader yeah the only way you can eventually learn to lift 300 pounds is if you start by lifting 50 pounds or the only way you can run a marathon is if you know how to walk around your block you know you can only get out of debt one dollar at a time it’s it’s just the little steps at a time and it seems grueling but that the the j curve effect is so true of you start and you’re excited and you’re like yes and then you’re like oh this is really hard i hate this and then right here is when a lot of people quit but that plateau and then that hockey stick is right around the corner usually with consistency and it’s tough because you’re like is this gonna work you don’t know but it usually does yeah yeah and how does that translate i mean did you experience that with your with your social media uh attempts i mean i would imagine you weren’t naturally amazing in front of the camera the

[6:49] first time you you jumped on a facebook live you said right yeah facebook live was where it was at and it’s funny it’s a funny story about that because in my first year in real estate i went to keller williams because they’re the training brokerage there were a lot of agents want to get started because they have so much like a boot camp type environment and the agents typically went to this office so i remember there’s two different instances i walked around the whole office finding everybody i could experienced and seasoned how can i get business and they all said the same thing leverage who you know leverage your sphere leverage your ecosystem past clients i’m like dick i don’t have any past clients all of my sphere barely got out of high school i i need to do something a little different and none of them were using facebook and it happened to be that facebook was free so i just started doing it i closed two or three deals from it and that was enough for me to say like hey i’ve been doing this for six months i got two or three deals from it and a lot of that had to do with nobody was there

[7:49] right very different environment from today but to answer your question cleanly yes putting in reps re-watching those reps to analyze and becoming more seasoned becoming less filler worded getting a better tonality a better pacing understanding the difference between talking on a stage versus talking to a camera and bridging those gaps because let’s be frank matt we’re we’re both sitting in a room alone talking to a piece of fluff and metal and staring at a piece of glass there’s no one here right now we’re crazy but people are listening to it and they’re here and we’re in this own little digital community and it’s a hard skill to gather because it’s not like we’re talking at target everybody if you saw your friend at target someone come up to you say oh mary you know how’s the real estate market you’re not gonna say pause and then rush to the bathroom and check your hair and check your makeup make sure your clothes aren’t wrinkly and you got your big smile on you’re not gonna do that you’re just gonna talk and you’re gonna be you and you’re gonna be normal and if we could just learn to do that in front of a camera i feel everybody listening to this could close a few

[8:55] more deals and bridge a few more relationships yeah and it comes from reps which is the hardest part because you’re putting yourself out there and nobody enjoys hearing themselves talk uh nobody and at dude anytime i’m nine years in on creating content consistently consistently and i do watch especially my longer clips at 2x speed and i’m i’m taking notes filler word count oh you said this again oh you keep saying so then maybe i should substitute that or or or baselining it against other things like i’m i’m currently finishing a a news journalism course so i want to get better at this communicating a story to a camera and taking that knowledge and backing it up against what i’m doing or taking the uh storyboarding element i’m getting from talk like ted a book that i’m reading right now and moving it in like how can i adjust how can i get a better outline this and you only dig deeper as you dig deeper everyone wants to get to the bottom of the hole immediately and and some people are blessed enough to do that i am not one of those people yeah yeah definitely not either um but yeah that continued pursuit the the consistency the just you know not getting lost in

[10:03] the day-to-day actions but seeing maybe the big picture and just kind of keep working towards it uh and the continuing education like you just talked about i mean that’s so key and refining you yourself as you go so um how did you take those principles into your real estate practice itself like i mean so you you started getting some momentum with the uh facebook live to close some deals uh how long until you started the team again started the team in 2019 so it’s about two and a half years in my career that started to have enough business to toss around and we had three people and and yeah so it was just a capacity thing that that made you do that or or what was yeah which to anybody listening that’s that’s a big question when do i start a team when you can’t do all the business when you can’t do it all um the only time we started to expand to a mega team and i dropped out of production was when we brought on a transaction coordinator and i closed 63 deals in one year and i was like i’m not doing this again uh let’s bring on two more agents let’s bring bring the splits together to make it make sense that i can do my highest and best use activity which isn’t

[11:10] showing homes i’m not really good as an agent to be honest with you sometimes people say things and like what like the outlets look a little funny like shut up like what are you talking about i i i lack um sometimes i lack logistical empathy sometimes uh so regardless i’m i’m a much better communicator to the soldiers than being a physical soldier myself i i’m too i’m too big picturey honestly and sometimes that’s good because a lot of my younger clients struggle to you know look big picture wise when it comes to investments and equity and long-term growth so it’s a balance but i i definitely like my position better sure okay so uh you didn’t start with like an admin or transaction coordinator you started with two agents to help with you the amount of deals you had coming in yeah the rhythm went uh agent came on and partnered as a buyer’s agent we brought on an admin we ended up cycling through admins four times before we landed on one that we kept and now still my admin today um so yeah we got up to having three without a real structured admin we had one but wasn’t our best then we got the tc and then we moved on to expanding the team agent wise as we did

[12:23] that and we got a rock star admin in the middle of that nice so were you then focusing or shifting your focus to the listing side um at this point when you’re bringing the buyer agent uh in a buyer agents yeah at that point listings were my focus of the anywhere between like i said 36 to 65 deals that were closed by me personally it was a good half and half mixture in delaware we have a lot of internal buyers where people would or at least then not so much now in this market but a lot of people who would you know sell in middle of delaware and they want to get closer down to the beaches in southern delaware or you know they were working for the military at the air force base and now they’re out and they want to get to magnolia so a lot of internal transactions and that was my marketing strategy because my brain was like it’s a listing so i get to market it i get to do a cool listing tour and i get a buy doesn’t why wouldn’t i do this right yeah that makes sense um yeah no i think it’s interesting you talked about going to a mega team and then kind of scaling that back and i wonder if that’s a common progression for a lot of people i think um quality over quantity

[13:35] comes to mind is that is that kind of the reason for it um i know that having a lot of people under you can be a stress and and you know if it’s not necessarily fruitful if you get you know 80 of the the deals getting closed by 20 of the people that kind of math um is is that kind of what led you to make that transition well you know when you’re when you’re holding the hand of a child you can’t walk as fast you damn sure can’t run and we had a lot of young agents on the team uh both young and just their skill set and physical age but you’re right there was about 80 of our business it was being done by a fifth of our agents and for me it made no sense to continue again i lack that tiny empathy like oh i didn’t make my calls i’m like this is the third time we’ve talked about this do you want to make your calls or not i’m not your cheerleader i i want you to succeed i’m giving you the tools to succeed but then you grab the hammer you’re like i don’t want to swing it then don’t leave like i’ll hand it to someone who wants to swing three hammers and we have those people because once you swing the hammer you’re like oh this works like give me more hammers give me a

[14:39] drill let’s build something bigger i love those people i want to build with like-minded people and yeah a little selfishly i also wanted to have less stress going into every weekly team meeting setting up every class setting up every webinar bringing in guests to talk to them setting up lenders and lawyers like it’s a lot when the system is really simple we have a good one and it works and i don’t have to walk into a single home this year and we’re going to close 112 of them with five agents those are really good numbers and stress is lower happiness is up chemistry is up and most importantly for every single person listening deciding do i want a big team small team solopreneur just get a tc go in the path of the most profitability mixed with your life if you’re a single man single woman no kids no spouse like go all out do it but you may want to have your weekends and your family or at least your evenings like find the balance and figure out where’s that the where’s the best path to achieve that because i promise you a mega team isn’t it and i promise you solopreneur probably also isn’t it so it’s somewhere probably in that mixture of small team

[15:40] that is ready to go you’re a stronghold or and by the way women are so good at that the all women teams like five just so good love those teams they always kill it or you’re a surgeon and you get all the assistance and all the payroll around you so you can go in and do the surgery and then get out someone puts on your gloves someone sets up the person someone gets them knocked out someone gets the tape over them someone sets brings them back to the room there’s a nurse taking care of them right the surgeon walks in and does the surgery that might be you but you also might be the rn you got to know your role and then put yourself in it i like that metaphor um if you could go back and start the team journey over again what would you tell yourself like or what would you kind of uh focus on have you brought in any kind of uh analysis or uh personality assessments that kind of stuff into the mix and when you’re deciding and and are you still looking for like would you take out on anybody new at this point so i’ll answer the questions backwards yes we will take on someone new in 2026 probably two agents and that’s mainly just because of we’re getting more business and

[16:47] there’s only a certain amount of bodies the thing i would change or if i could go back and restructure um i probably would have taken one more year to grind it out myself and not gone mega but that’s only if i had hindsight of 2020 and the market shifting um 2020 to 2022 anybody we brought in brought in profit because it was easy to close a deal we had a lot to hand off so i i probably the only major change i would have made and this is good advice for anybody whether you’ve been in for a year or 20 years document the process like document i’m talking make a vlog but you could just start by and you can go on my tiktok or instagram at zacharyloft right now and you’ll see so many of these videos where it’s just i take the camera the phone i put it on my steering wheel i press record and i start and talk i don’t know what to say what would you say to a client what’s going through your head what’s your what’s your current beef with what’s going on right now what are you happy about what are you grateful for what’s a story of a client you just had last week what’s a closing you just had and you’re like my goodness all right so i got a story real quick so yesterday

[18:01] was nuts i’ll get to that but right now just get you up to speed i have six total clients three your buyers three your listeners but one of them actually closed yesterday and that’s a story and then lay it out people are interested in that and if you have no clients and you’re just getting started even better i wish i picked up a camera and said this is day zero of me starting my real estate career i don’t know where this is going to go but i’m going to learn i’m going to document it and i’m going to bring you along for the journey if you know somebody awesome but that’s not why i’m doing it i i want to just be very open and honest i’m not the smartest i’m not the most not or i’m not the most experienced and i for daggone sure don’t have all the know-how yet but i want you to watch with a clear view of how i’m going to develop that talk about the books you’re reading talk about the seminar you’re going to talk about your clients talk about the leads you got and slowly but surely you’re just going to get better at talking and communicating and that makes you better at listing appointments it makes you better at closing a lead over the phone it makes you better at the

[19:01] closing table when things get a little irate it helps everywhere and and and i’ll double down with one more thing if i did that sooner it would have forced me to do more of what i’m doing now then which is when you’re in the position of teacher you have to learn more than the student you oftentimes have to learn not just what you’re talking about but the rebuttals to maybe what you’re talking about and seeing if there’s any legitimacy to the rebuttals and how you would answer that and you need to look into have other people already tackled these things what’s going on in this market is this a micro market issue or is this a macro market issue and i’m an economy nerd okay so i love looking at graphs and documents maybe the person listening to this isn’t but taking something and communicating about it and documenting your lifestyle and journey in real estate and separating um this thought process of oh i need to be a professional no be you as a professional it’s not this oh 80 i’ve heard the 80 20 rule just bs like 80 of your content professional 20 relational or whatever no 100 of your content is you doing your thing did you doing your thing

[20:11] openly honestly and and which was some reality because so many people do not find reality in realty realty is just about commission breath to the consumer you’re just trying to get a sale if you break that wall and make them realize oh wait this person actually cares about me they care so much they’re doing research into the market they looked into the minutes of the local town hall meeting about that 212 unit development that’s coming up and they’re telling me the three things i could look out for they’re telling me the seasonality in my specific market and how me as an investor can know oh this is the time to shoot like i’m making a video tomorrow for delawareians to understand people that relocate to delaware and we can talk on the youtube funnel i think it’s very important having a youtube funnel we’re making a video telling people the prime time to buy statistically is coming up november 17th to december 30th is the best time to potentially buy a home you have a surplus in market you have a decrease in buyer demand and you have an opportunity but if you bring that to them with no hey you gotta work with me i always say work with your

[21:11] professional of trust but guess what if you keep doing it i’m gonna be the real estate agent of trust yeah people are getting to know you through this content um which is a good segue let’s just go ahead and get into your youtube niche and and and kind of yeah any suggestions you have for people listening about how they could uh model what you’re doing okay i want to start this with everybody listening to this is going to be excited about the opportunity at the end of the rainbow but i promise about two percent are actually going to do it sure and that’s just i’ve talked to a lot of people about these exact strategies i have forms i have i have uh webinars i’ve done and it’s just a simple fact of there is a little bit of work there is a little bit of time but there’s nothing that will set you in with a more concrete legitimate lead generating source long term than youtube reason being is youtube is owned by google youtube is the second most used search platform on the planet next to google and youtube from short videos to long videos are the storefront of advertising so let me explain why it’s important i’m explaining to you exactly what we do and matt cut me off at

[22:22] any moment if i breeze over something that i should go deeper into okay so youtube is like a storefront and facebook instagram tiktok pinterest reddit whatever you want to use uh twitter x are billboards when you’re scrolling you you are seeing whatever you see in in a pattern algorithm is going to try to favor one thing over another but it’s almost like salvation army or goodwill you don’t know what you’re going to walk into right you don’t know what you’re going to see you’ll see it you’ll be like okay and then next youtube and google are a little different they’re like a storefront because somebody’s only going to make it to your content not via some random scroll but by typing and they’re going to say i want to know more about x delaware housing market summer when’s the market going to crash when to get a good rate how to get a good more like they’re seeking out knowledge and you’re going to be at the end of the knowledge funnel so with youtube we are very strategic and you can look up our youtube channel it’s called living in southern delaware it’s not my name my name this is our national channel we have two different youtubes i have a national funnel which we are not

[23:31] going to talk about today i want to talk about the relocation funnel the relocation funnel the youtube funnel is built on three main components and if you want to take a note down take this down as a note facebook google and youtube presence that is our triangle of business if you have a google business profile and a google local service ad profile those are the two that need to be set up a google business profile that is your public source that holds your reviews shows your name will pop you up with the phone next to it so they can call you or get directions so important if you don’t have that that’s step number one step number two especially if you already have that’s google local service ads these are the ads that pop up a lot of people don’t know this if you type in best realtor in my area the first thing that pops up is a local service ad if you look up sell my home if you look up realtor to list my home probably a local service ad is going to call uh come up and matt when people are looking to buy homes tom ferry told me this once i was like oh yeah when people are looking to buy

[24:32] homes they search for homes when people are looking to sell homes they search for realtors so these local service ads a lot of times end up in listings a lot of times and they’re cheap so that’s google facebook the reason i say facebook is also because this is one of the main seos that’s going to show up your facebook business page so when someone’s typing your name in to see what’s this guy all about is he active is this girl’s team active they’re going to find these main core three especially the youtube if you make it properly which we’ll talk about so having your facebook business profile updated regular posts and when i say regular at least weekly you don’t have to go daily and remember this is just proof of business you don’t have to do anything exciting or amazing it’s just proof of business that’s all they’re looking for a couple reviews and proof that you’re doing what you what they want you to do with them now youtube so google is just getting it set up getting local service ads running facebook just getting it set up having a business page that’s what i’m talking about not a physical profile you can have a profile and that’s where you can make

[25:29] reels and do whatever you want to do but the business page is what’s important here youtube now this is the most important part because this is what’s going to bring people to google you if you’re the person that informs them and they start digging deeper into you they can’t find nothing they cannot find nothing they have to find a zillow profile with reviews they have to find google they have to find something that proves to them you are the person they want you to be not just some random guy or girl on the internet so on youtube here’s what we do we post three times a month that’s it three times a month a piece of content that focuses on one of three categories relocating how to’s and best ofs moving to uh moving to how to and best of so best of is the five best restaurants in southern delaware the five best places to go on vacation in southern delaware the five best beaches tourists will disagree like you know those type of titles okay those are like top of funnel type they get you involved the next are the how to’s how to get a great deal in delaware how to invest in felton delaware how to uh retire to the beaches how to pick the right home in delaware

[26:49] how to choose these are the type of topics how to’s do so well all the time and these are the videos where honestly you have permission to talk and talk and talk because if someone’s looking to get information information about for us relocation and retirement how many pieces of information do they want from the hospitals to the golf courses to the things to do to the restaurants to what’s it going to be like in 10 years what’s going to be the value of my home then is it going to be better is it going to be worse am i picking the right town am i picking the right area is this even the right state and breaking down the tax benefits the updates the minutes the literal information you’ve dug up for them and the deeper you go the more they’ll be like wow this person isn’t just saying buy with me because i’m the best they’re approving it and you have this opportunity again at the end of a learning funnel they want to learn now you’re teaching them and you’re teaching them at a much higher level i’ve said this before that it’s a simple formula of you need to have your highest and best client your ideal

[27:48] avatar and if you plus in a solid usp for them a unique selling proposition for them some call a uvp a unique value proposition it’s going to equal your ideal business just take the person know them backwards and forwards create content that solves their problem 17 different ways and you’re going to get their business for example my avatars tina and tom tina and tom are between the ages of 53 and 57 they live in northeast america they’ve owned a home for more than 10 years and they want to retire to delaware i know their problems i know what they’re worried about i know what their pillow talk is about i want to answer their questions before they even think they have them and when we accomplish that they look into our assets like our moving guide we have a full pdf of every neighborhood that’s actively being built with the builder rating them reviewing them what’s good what’s bad we have further videos five part courses on exactly how to move to delaware we have funnel set up so that they can receive updates on homes that are hitting the market in a few months that we already know are

[28:51] about to be listed we’re giving real value to these people and so when we’re giving that real value the law of reciprocity jumps in they start researching us then they find us on all the other platforms like wow these guys are legit and then we get the business and that is our triangle google facebook and youtube three posts a month on youtube i think you could do two the beauty of youtube is the video is going to be there for years so my only knock on people that use youtube is they use it for daily updates and listings those things die the day after your daily update not a valuable update anymore week after your weekly update not valuable anymore so create perma content or at least things that are going to last for six plus months is my best advice and anybody listening to this that hears this and like wow i have a lot of questions just dm me on instagram uh at zachary loft i’m happy to answer any questions and give you the full book on what we’re doing wow and we’ll close what last year we closed 58 deals from youtube alone and as a team leader when you can provide the lead you make a better split

[29:52] a for the team and b these people come in ready to go they’re not dancing around they’re sending us three paragraph emails having hour-long phone calls because they trust us they trust our recommendations they trust what we’re saying and what we’re saying is accurate but it’s hard to get that trust in a sales position and that comes from un uh un sale contingent value they don’t feel like they have to use you but they’re getting mass value they’re going to trust you i love it when you’re deciding about what to uh film about are you using any kind of seo type tools uh what are people searching for that kind of thing to determine what the best next video would be i know you mentioned earlier that you have like a team that helps kind of with the production overall right yeah and it’s a growing process um the seo research i think is good i think also you can get lost in the sauce like i’m a real tacky guy there’s only about 10 000 people a month that search for moving to delaware a month so it there’s not like this sub niche that i could really attack like if there were a hundred thousand like maybe you’re in

[31:00] manhattan probably a sub niche you could attack you’re in miami probably a sub niche you could attack but for delaware as a whole we attack southern delaware so the seo isn’t large enough that i’m worried about it i’m also in an area where like if you’re in austin texas and you’re against my boy jeremy knight or you’re in orlando florida and you’re against my boy ken pozack that’s gonna be tough but the beauty of it is there’s still room because people get so big right people get turned off sometimes by that people get turned off by the giant team sometimes people like to know that they’re gonna call you who only has 300 views 300 storefront views by the way 300 storefront visits people walking through and exploring your products and services not just 300 views of a billboard very different very different i will take a 300 view video on my relocation youtube over a 300 000 view on my tiktok every day and sunday not even close i would sacrifice all 1.8 million of my followers on tiktok for 50 000 people that just wanted to move to to delaware it’s not about the number it’s about the value you’re giving to that specific sect

[32:01] so know your specific audience and then create value for them and to better answer your question are we using seo now not a ton we’re using a lot of client conversations questions we get on the phone questions we get in the email and you start building up that database when you’re serving tina and tom for so long and you’re like you know i’m worried about this area because there’s only two hospitals and one only has senior care oh yeah that’s a hole we need to address this and that that brings value and it builds on itself but if you start from a foundation of really wanting to help people and you’re not just like how can i make the most money possible like slow down how can you bring the most value possible the other side of the rainbow is money but we need to start with value and if you start there it’ll build it’ll build you’ll learn and learn and learn you’ll get comments you’ll get client conversations and you’ll slowly learn oh this is what my people want yeah that makes sense and i think when you you mentioned kind of getting lost in the sauce uh i think that can also be difficult for

[32:57] people when they think about the logistics of actually filming and editing so i mean i imagine you wouldn’t say that somebody needs to start off with you know a very fancy camera you know uh huge editing production team etc like what how can somebody just kind of start taking action on on this idea so i would pick your place and i would make that your place for a month and what i mean by pick your place um i have a place that is the planet fitness and aldi parking lot where i put my phone up on my steering wheel and that’s where i’m shooting a lot of my longer form vertical content and that does go out on the tiktoks and instagrams we do post it on the national youtube but they don’t do nearly as well because it’s not the right format for the horizontal all you got to do is do the same exact thing horizontal video turn your camera sideways use the back facing you so the screen is facing away so you’re using your best camera and you can do something as simple as being in a condensed well insulated of sound room or just getting one of those little lapel mics easy you don’t have one of these you don’t have to have a dslr camera you don’t

[34:01] have to have studio lighting you don’t have the camera switch this is nine years of slowly building nine years of slowly building you can get just as much business rolling your way by shooting a video horizontally with your phone decent lighting could be in front of a window and posting it now when it comes to editing right that’s always a big hump it depends on what you’re shooting and i can tell you we are moving toward a world where less editing wins why do i say that i think people are over inundated with dopamine led content meaning it’s cut cut sound sound don’t go go go people are getting a little overwhelmed with it and are appreciating raw eloquency when i can see that you’re actually just speaking to your tune and speaking professionally about your thing and you don’t have to have a huge amount of edits or pictures or video or anything like that like we do have some videos that go out maybe about once a month that are a lot of clips or graphs but it’s usually only showing headlines that we’re referencing or a graph that we’re talking about it’s not in depth and i do have an editor i highly suggest a va editor if you need a va editor dm me i’ll get you my source on who

[35:10] i go through the i’m even i’m helping a brokerage right now build out their suite of 50 editors i’ve helped a few different teams and companies do that because there are specific instructions you can give that editor but if you’re a point where you can’t edit let me tell you right now even better even better because it’s going to force you to think with your brain as to how to talk to this camera efficiently and it’s also going to teach you the basics of editing basics like the video shouldn’t start silent cut it to the very first moment your lips start moving you can cut out your pauses you can cut out your ums ah so thens what’s and also it’s teaching you that you’re doing it and you can get better at taking them out so the more that you’re editing your own mistakes and you’re in the seat with cap cut or in shot or one of those internal editors you’re going to see for yourself and you may be like i stink no you don’t post it edit it what you need and then take what you’ve learned and go into the next one i can’t for the life of me believe that steph curry made his first nba3 i can’t i for the life of me when he was 8 10 12 14 whenever he took his first one

[36:17] i’d like to believe he missed probably the first few right the man has taken someone did the math on this over 1.8 million three-point shots because it is 300 a day over his career 300 a day in practice he’s practiced three-point shooting 1.8 million times all to make 3 400 in the game wow so we have to get used to grinding out the imperfections we have to get used to that and every single person listening to this especially if you’ve been an agent for three five eight ten plus years you know you’ve only gotten better with reps every listing appointment you’ve gotten better every showing you’ve gotten better heck you probably had a showing where you said something you’ve never said before and you’re like oh that was quippy i’m gonna use that every time now like or a doc you present the documents and you know ci a cis says you know this is a fiduciary relationship that doesn’t mean i’m a douche what here’s what it means like you could have your cute little lines or whatever but you’re only going to discover those through repetition right bringing it to you go ahead i said that’s a good one right bringing it into the gym you’re only getting it

[37:21] better at bench pressing from doing it so often and then you get to the point of doing it so often your brain is is calculating things differently and now you’re like okay should my elbows be here or here to generate the most power should i put my thumbs like this or like this should should i bring it down to my chest or do i need to get my elbows parallel to the ground you start researching you start looking you’re like okay what’s the optimal amount of reps eight okay i need to do this for hypertrophy what’s hypertrophy and what’s caloric deficit what is that surplus and you’re gonna start learning and learning and learning and learning because you’re doing the thing in the gym and you want to learn it and then you’re gonna be like well how do i eat better to be able to maximize my results and what days should i be going how many days should i be going and you’re gonna learn but everyone wants to know everything walking into it and steph curry just didn’t make his first three so i don’t understand it you gotta do the thing to learn the thing that’s that’s great another thing that i i see a lot of and i often wonder uh and i want to get your opinion on this

[38:14] is uh you see a lot of what’s popular on the you know like you said like the the the scrolling feed that you get fed a real estate feed and you see a lot of uh funny trendy kind of uh content where you know i don’t know the guy’s name but he like speed runs through that the house yeah the guy out in dc area yeah i love him uh and there’s a lot of fun stuff there’s some hilarious people um and you had talked earlier about like 80 20 like not buying into that like you know being professional you know etc but what do you think it how do you think that stuff translates here like should people be looking for uh their angle of a trendy thing or just focus on like you were talking about earlier too like the just answering kind of questions and and trying to uh help help people with common things that they might be looking for well i think there’s a there’s a multitude of ways to approach this there’s no one answer all right um my my advice for anybody who hasn’t gotten started in anything social media is to focus on that triangle first google facebook youtube um and anybody who is doing social media that isn’t seeing the success from it especially

[39:24] those scrolling platforms to to possibly refocus on that triangle if someone is having marginal success on social media i’m not saying to stop i have closed deals plenty of deals over my career probably over 100 now that have based from tiktok instagram facebook something to do with short form but but it is becoming a denser field of people it is becoming a more talented field of creators day by day and i gotta say i do see ai as being something that’s going to make it harder and harder for new faces to make it because i honestly i think within a year you’ll see a new face hit uh that you’ve never seen before and you’re gonna wonder is this ai you’re gonna wonder yeah so i think right now is is the time to attack especially if you have a social platform already to grow to have a face within your niche because i think that could be an issue in the future regardless of that um i think reps are important yeah i think there’s no better place than an instagram story to practice communication 60 second hits 30 second hits it’s gone in 24 hours what’s the worry i think those places are great for

[40:32] learning without any biased how good you are at your content because if you’re like i only get 300 views every single time do you know how many people 300 people is that’s a lot a and b no you’re not shadow banned your content just isn’t worth 30,000 300,000 yet and i gotta be real i’ve had videos i’ve posted uh you know 10,000 views that’s a lot and i’ll post that same video with a little tweak a month later 1.2 1.2 million so sometimes it’s just the algorithm at the time it’s not you always one point of your question was should i focus on a niche trend um that guy that you brought up i don’t necessarily love that as a long-term branding play being the quick tour guy yeah ultimately there’s no unique value to that because you’re not going to speed through the home with me when they’re there you’re you’re comically presenting the listing and i think it could result in some some gen z relational listings but let’s be honest how many gen z’s are listing homes they’ve bought very few even own a home so i think you also have to focus on the market you know our relocation market tom and tina i i don’t necessarily love tom and tina tom and tina are just opportune we have a lot of people

[41:45] moving into delaware out of state that have money and they have a home and they have liquid assets that can move around if your focus is first-time home buyers if your focus is young military if your focus is gen z that’s a decision for you to make but i’d advise against it personally yeah the niche side’s tough the niche side is tough my opinion um would be that aloft and those that are so out there that they’re getting a lot of eyeballs on their content because it’s really funny or or whatever like like that speed tour person uh yeah probably wouldn’t be getting a ton of people wanting to actually work with them like they might be able to sell their you know i’ll i’ll promo your your listing for you with this it’s going to get a lot of eyeballs that kind of thing but i’m not sure about getting actual clients i feel like it might be uh you know i think there is a level of professionalism too that people would actually want to make this you know big decision and if if the content isn’t necessarily professional uh i feel like there’s a bit i don’t know it seems like a strategy that’s not really going to be best for getting clients i’ll break this down simpler

[42:53] for someone that’s looking to to do this all right i think there’s three routes you can go on on the short form platforms and this does apply to youtube a little bit now i’ll connect what applies to youtube on the short form platforms i believe there’s three routes you can go two are localized and one is national now the national side i think there’s a lot of value to be very in-depth in the knowledge of what’s going on in our national economy this is something that i lean into pretty heavily federal reserve what’s going on with rates what’s going on with housing supply political promises versus results i think it’s really important so i i think there’s a lot of value in being able to bring somebody information that maybe they’re trying to form an opinion on don’t quite understand maybe the gen z doesn’t quite understand why housing is affordable unaffordable and maybe boomers don’t quite understand how this isn’t just uh you know a cycle that affordability is not just coming back you know maybe there’s a lot of people that feel like wow since covet things seem to be really expensive maybe it’s valuable for me to break down year by year how that

[43:51] actually is the case maybe it’s been even under reported i think that’s important um and by doing that you are going to grow in a national following that opens up the door for a larger funnel into your local you can also use this as a leverage to gain referrals across the nation which i do often yeah so there is value to that but a lot of people want to focus on the local now here’s the thing on the local i think there’s only two ways you can do this a you have to be super niche super niche niche and that nicheness either needs to be about um location or education location is i’ll point out a guy who’s one of the first to like kyle whistle out in california where it was the restaurants it was the opportunities for fun it was the events it was the farmers markets it was the beach marathon it was the big music festival he’s always bringing up and being at the locations he’s reviewing the food he’s talking about the areas which street versus that street he’s giving you that in-depth local knowledge that only a local can give you only a local professional can give you really there’s a lot of value to that sure two and by the way option two and three are just

[45:01] going to have less views but they’re going to be the views that you want because if someone’s sticking around for that more interested yeah the other is educational um i’ll shout out rachel pearson she’s up in massachusetts she does this really really well she’s even connected now with the the governor of massachusetts the mayor of boston because she creates content about the local market her local you know 15 000 person town and she’s reading through the minutes that are being uh released from the committee meeting around the new stop sign and she’s walking through the the debate that happened at the latest legislation meeting at the local town hall with with uh some concerned neighbor uh neighbors with the congresswoman right she’s digging into the logistics of the area and i say either one of these work but her option is going to lead toward more listings and here’s wise because she is giving information that locals really want to hear while the locational stuff is usually what out of staters and out uh people relocating in want to hear so you can kind of pick your poison there um again both those are going to lead to less views but they’re more pungent views and that’s where

[46:06] again on the youtube side you can do either one of those two education location you could be doing the tours you could be doing like we did a walking tour we literally just i got a camera pinned it to my chest and did a walk on the six mile trail the whole time like i’m working right now it’s just crazy and it’s just a walking tour with some music and people moving in like watching those like seeing what the walk is like like interviews with the builders like interviews with the deans of the schools and the principals and the firefighters and people love that so those would be really the three pools i think you can most optimally operate i love it i i need to ask you about a golden nugget i feel like everything you’ve said so far has been a golden nugget oh dude thank you you have do you have anything specific in mind uh when i for that question is it okay to get out of just the the commission finance side of it and something that people lead to it yeah sure i think most all of us would benefit more from understanding ourselves i would challenge every single individual here to journal and meditate

[47:09] and that might sound very altruistic and woo woo it’s a lonely world constantly peddling for sales and commissions every three to four month cycle you know you got to keep the the lead funnel moving you got to keep the clients happy you got to keep things moving oftentimes we leave ourselves behind in that effort meditation which by the way i’m a devout christian is not satanistic or weird if you’re a christian like meditation is prayer it’s the same thing um meditating in silence allowing your body to reset eating well intermittent fasting working out waking up early having a type of routine that you can lean on is so huge and i think in a world especially where every 24 hours can be different every week could be filled or empty depending on what’s going on especially by the way for the team leaders listening right now the stress levels of management you need to be able to put your mask on first on the airplane whenever the plane’s going down they say you got to put your mask on first stop throwing masks on everybody else because you’re gonna run out of oxygen and that hurts long term everything especially if you’re a team leader

[48:16] it can be poisonous take care of yourself breathing exercises look up the people like the wim hoffs of the world look up the people like uh like the sash patels look up these books and these uh like i know you wanted me to suggest a book get the compound effect get the badass and the buddha get uh think and grow rich get the seven phase meditation process get uh uh profit first get miracle morning get some of these books start tuning you because you and the and the hot the level of your personal growth will seldom ever be exceeded by your level of financial success i love it got it you gotta focus on you we can always go to another seminar we can always go to another pump up sales event we can always listen to another guru but you’re the guru of your life and if you don’t know why you operate with the trauma you operate with you don’t know you don’t heal that inner child or you don’t get past what your dad said to you when you’re 20 or whatever it is you’re not going to be your optimal self for everyone else around you so it’s probably not the answer you’re you’re hoping no that would be my golden that’s fantastic thank you

[49:22] and you just covered a bunch of books uh so that’s perfect as well um i i’m curious if people are wanting to follow you for more uh where where can they find you i would point you in the direction of our show uh it’s called the zach faust show we’re growing and we just had our 30th episode and for those listening i would point you to episode 29 uh we interviewed tom ferry uh he’s been a friend of mine for a bit and we have very opposing views on the current status of this housing market and i think uh it’s a thick conversation for those that are in the profession because we talk about a lot of apparent issues oh i love it well hey zach this has been amazing uh such a great episode i i thank you to anybody that’s listened to the whole thing i’m sure once you started talking people weren’t ready to turn it off because this has been uh gold nuggets throughout so zach so thanks so much again for being on the show matt and thank you for being your great host you got a great setup uh anybody that’s listening to you is only gonna be better off for it thanks for listening to the rei agent if you enjoyed this episode hit subscribe to catch new shows every week visit rei agent.com

[50:25] for more content until next time keep building the life you want all content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy it is intended for entertainment purposes only you