Lessons of Overcoming Obstacles and Embracing Change with Ali Garced

Transcript

[Mattias]
Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I’m Matias, an agent and investor.

[Erica]
And I’m Erica, a licensed therapist.

[Mattias]
Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing.

[Erica]
Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors.

[Mattias]
Ready to level up?

[Erica]
Let’s do it.

[Mattias]
Welcome back to the REI Agent. It is just a Matias episode today. Super excited about our guest, but before I get into it, I want you to know why I’m so smiley and chipper today.

I have pushed through a pretty big problem in a real estate transaction. It’s a flip that, you know, we’ve had problems with for a long time. In December, we would have owned this house for two years.

And there’s just been nonstop dead ends, headaches, problems in this process that evicting a tenant, just the list goes on. There’s been so many problems with this. And it has been one of those things that, you know, I was like, I don’t care if I make a profit on this thing anymore.

I just want it to be out. I just want to be done with this. We’re going to still make a part.

I have a partner in this, but we’re still going to make a little bit of a profit on it. And so it’s in hindsight, totally not worth it, but feels so good to get past. And it’s a big learning experience.

Like there’s things that you learn when you take on projects like this. Also, I think there’s just the reward feeling you get for getting, for persevering to get through hard things. I think that is, again, something that’s so important to our, you know, our well-being.

I think that putting hardship in your way and getting past it is one of the best ways to feel happy. Like, and the hardship doesn’t have to be a huge headache problem. And hopefully I’m not going to get another one like that.

But, you know, solving problems, going, overcoming obstacles, that could be a workout. That could be doing a puzzle. That could be doing Sudoku.

I mean, that stuff is why those things are kind of addicting because they feel good when you complete it. They feel good when you solve it, when you get through it, when you push through it. You have that focus, that flow state that you get into that is something that gives you positive feelings.

So I think that to anyone who is struggling to, you know, with depression, anxiety, those kinds of things, and Erica’s going to, I hope she doesn’t hear this. She’s going to be like rolling her eyes like he’s not qualified to talk about this. I just feel like that often the default is to make things easier on yourself.

And I think there is a lesson or there is truth to lowering the standard, lowering the bar so that you can accomplish something. So like we talked about this in the past, but like, you know, if you were struggling to, you know, get through to clean your house, to provide food for your kids, to provide food for yourself, you know, using plastic plates and silverware so that you don’t have to worry about the dishes for a period of time to get you to function. I think that stuff is okay.

But also I think it’s important that like you do put some challenges in front of yourself to accomplish things that you can accomplish, that you can feel good about. And that’s probably the key right there is like if you fed yourself and you cleaned up, throwing away the plastic plates, that’s going to feel a lot better than having the dishes in the dishwasher or in the sink or on the table or whatever. And you don’t have the energy to clean them up.

So I think getting through that hard stuff is just, again, so vital. So I, today I wrote 3000 words. I solved a big problem.

I worked out, I had a podcast and now I feel like a million dollars. I want to go, you know, run through the golf course naked. Watch out HOA.

Here comes Matias. I’m not actually going to do that. Maybe, maybe I will.

No. But anyway, I wanted to talk a little bit about our guest today. We have Ali Garced.

Garced. I think I said that right. I apologize, Ali, if I got that wrong.

I said it right when we were coming on live. It always makes me think graced, which is definitely not right. But I think it’s Garced.

Anyway, Ali is a really interesting guest. She is a former military. She is selling houses in Tucson and in St. Paul. So think about that for a second, right? She’s licensed in two different states. Those places are not close to another and she’s selling houses in both places.

So she’ll get into that a little bit as well. But she’s also huge into getting lead generation off of YouTube. And she has free content that you can get to figure that world out if you’re interested.

It has a lot of great information about it on this podcast. And she’s got a lot of information that you can look her up and find as well. So without any further ado, we got Ali.

Welcome back to the REI Agent. We are here with Ali Garced out of St. Paul and Tucson, Arizona.

[Ali Garced]
And Tucson. Yep.

[Mattias]
Thanks so much for joining us in this in-between space that you are in. And we’ll start there. How is that?

How are you licensed in both places? Is it pretty far apart? Do you snowbird in Tucson?

Or what’s the deal there?

[Ali Garced]
Right, right. Yeah, I do. I do somewhat split my time between the two.

But overall, I just got used to just moving around. And which, by the way, thank you so much for having me. I should start it off with that.

Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, thank you for having me. I spent a decade as an active duty officer in the Air Force.

So from there, I moved around. Yeah, I moved like 10, 11 times. So I got used to, you know, uprooting my life every single 8 to 13 months-ish.

And that also helped me on my investing journey. But my last duty station was in Tucson, Arizona. And that’s where I knew that I wanted to separate after 10 years.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Eventually figured it out. I want to be a full-time real estate agent.

I did it side by side while I was still active duty. So I was a special agent working for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, investigating criminal felony level cases, as well as being a real estate agent. And that’s where I saw that I can make a lot more money.

And I liked being a real estate agent a lot more than being a special agent. So that’s where I started. I first got licensed in Tucson, Arizona.

And since then, I moved.

[Mattias]
Okay, got it. That’s awesome. I mean, that’s a whole topic to talk about as well.

How do you move your license? How do you restart your business? Was that difficult, that transition?

[Ali Garced]
No, it wasn’t, actually. So that’s the reason. Knowing that I wasn’t going to stay in Tucson, Arizona forever, you know, like I had no family there.

I have a couple of friends now, but I didn’t at the time, you know, when I first moved there. I knew Arizona was never a forever play. So that’s actually one of the biggest reasons why I joined the brokerage that I did.

So I didn’t have to restart at a new, you know, a local team and hope that the vibe was the same, hope that the culture was the same, because it’s not going to be the same. So with the brokerage that I joined, it was going to be the same crew, no matter where in the world that I want to live in. So that was like one of the predominant factors of me choosing that.

[Mattias]
Okay, okay. And then like for business, are you out there getting leads from a certain source? Or like, how do you actively find these?

I mean, because of that would require me to restart kind of new business as well.

[Ali Garced]
Definitely, yeah. My lead gen strategy completely changed, you know, when I was in the military, going in on base every single day, in-person meetings. It was a lot of face-to-face interactions, and you develop that level of trust typically faster than you can otherwise, especially, I mean, so I moved to Minnesota, which is where I’m at now.

The only people that I know are my wife’s parents. That’s it. So I’m also still, like, I’m not from here, don’t have friends, like also still brand new starting over.

But because of that, because I no longer have the in-person active duty military job, my lead generation strategy starting out was a lot of in-person, but mainly outbound DMs on social media. And now I’m switching over to predominantly YouTube videos, long form, not short. If I were to start over and, you know, just completely start over, I would not have spent so much time focused on short form content and posting every single day like I did for the last three years.

Instead, I would have focused on more concentrated efforts on bigger, longer form, beefier videos to showcase my personality, have a strong call to action of, hey, book a call with me if you want to work with me, because that’s, it’s been working so far in Tucson. And that’s how I’m still able to sell homes from afar and not even live there in the state anymore.

[Mattias]
Wow. Okay. So what’s beefier?

[Ali Garced]
Beefier, just like more, like more value, you know, like the more value, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mattias]
I misunderstood you. So what’s long form is like 20 minutes plus or how, like what kind of content are you putting out?

[Ali Garced]
Yeah, yeah. And you’ll be surprised, you know, 20 minutes scares a lot of agents, but I promise you, if you have lived in a city for more than five days, you can talk about it for 20 minutes. I promise.

Like, I’m not the type of person that just babbles and talks and just likes to hear my own voice. I only want to say enough to like showcase the value and not have to reiterate it because that tends to be annoying on the listener side. I know, because we all know that person that just talks the same sentence, but somehow says it 14 times.

So it’s figuring out what do the buyers or the sellers in your city want to know? How can you present it with your personality? So like, I still feel like now YouTube is still such an untapped market.

Even if you go on your YouTube and you search real estate homes for sale, even if there are two, 20 agents doing it, compare that to the number of people that are selling, sending mailers and door knocking and cold calling and cold texting. Like you can stand out. So that’s why I’m such a huge proponent of YouTube.

[Mattias]
That’s fascinating. I actually was just at a conference where somebody was talking about the different ways that they do YouTube. They weren’t real estate specific though.

They actually bought YouTube channels and turned them into like, they might buy a channel for $250,000 and then like be able to generate $100,000 to $200,000 a year then from it, which was not even something I even considered as a possibility before. So that’s really fascinating. I mean, they say that YouTube is the second biggest search engine, right?

[Ali Garced]
So it is. Yeah. The number two biggest website in the world.

And number one, of course, is Google and Google owns YouTube. So that’s great to have like a business profile on Google, but even better is showcasing you, your face, your hair, your personality, your booger on your nose. Like, dude, anything like showcase you.

[Mattias]
Yeah, actually, I think I saw a reel of yours that you had maybe like a, I don’t know if they were earbuds or some sort of cord around your ear. Like, you know what I’m talking about?

[Ali Garced]
Was it around my forehead creating a unibrow?

[Mattias]
Yes, yes, yes.

[Ali Garced]
Yeah.

[Mattias]
So that was a visual look. Is that the idea there?

[Ali Garced]
Yes. So I took a quick course of Adley’s. I don’t know if you’ve heard of her.

She’s a YouTuber and creates like, she’s not on the business side, but she creates just like short form content just to hook people. And her audience, her clients are those that are trying to make money just from Facebook and Instagram. So it’s, I took that to kind of diversify and not just continue to take real estate agent courses.

You know, I want like to expand and like take in more knowledge from other industries. So not saying that that cord is like the perfect way to do it, but when you’re starting a video, especially for short form, which is a completely different ball game than long form, short form, it’s meant to stop the scroll. So if you can combine two things that don’t go with each other, you know, like you, you’re starting the video while, first of all, always doing an action, never just straight talking head, unlike long form YouTube, where you can do that because people are there to learn and stick around for a long time.

But for short form, if you start off saying, hey, sellers are losing actually a lot of money right now as you’re like sticking your spoon in a thing of mayo and eating it, people are like, what the hell? And they stick around, you know, like, so just combining two things that like don’t go together to stop the scroll. I’m going to try that.

And of course, like you could put ice cream before that, but like, you know, it’s that way. You’re not actually eating mayo, but to everyone else, like what, what is he doing? I need to stick around.

[Mattias]
Thank you for that tip. There was, there was, I’ve noticed this more and more on short form content that they’ll purposely say a word wrong. And you know that it’s just like, if you go to the comments, everybody’s pointing it out and it’s like they’re getting engagement.

[Ali Garced]
Yes, exactly. Or, or like purposely having your zipper down. I mean, so there are some things that like, again, it’s like you want, you’d maybe not want to do that if you’re trying to get business and clients.

Exactly. Yeah. But there is a way to like put your own spin on it too.

[Mattias]
Oh, that’s awesome. That’s really fascinating. So yeah, let’s, let’s get into the YouTube a little bit more.

Like, so if, if, if I were, so first of all, I, I’m in a smaller town. So we are a college town. And so we don’t have maybe quite as much to cover as somebody like from St. Paul, Minneapolis, Tucson. Those are all much bigger areas. So what, what are some content ideas that I could go out and create a video off of that’s, it was a target time for long form. Is it 20 minutes plus or what’s the time?

[Ali Garced]
It’s around 12. So yeah, yeah. Short answer is around 12.

Long answer is the longer you can make a video without, like with still keeping those viewers. So again, it’s like value packed as much as you can, all the way to the end, give them a reason to stick around to the end. So, and with YouTube specifically, they massively reward the creator that doesn’t just make a video where people watch to the end, but then also where that the viewer clicks one of their other videos on their channel.

So a couple of ways to do it is like, right now I’m doing the number two best ROI to, to sell your house for the most and net the most. So at the end of my number two, my call to action is going to be, and if you want the number one best ROI that you can do before you list your house in the market, watch this video over here, I’ll see you there. So yeah, it’s a lot of just like, I mean, just the most tactical information that you can bring.

And I think a lot of agents get scared to you where like they think maybe the more that they give away, the less people are going to need them. But I really have found the opposite. Like the more you give away, yes, people are going to use your information and not use you as an agent.

That’s fine. They weren’t going to use you anyway. So at least it saves you the time of going down the rabbit hole of trying to chase a lead.

But overall, YouTube like attracts people to you. They’re booking calls on my Calendly, in my sleep. And it’s amazing.

Like they’re not going to choose any other agent because they liked me. Vice versa, like if someone books a call with someone else because they like a more analytical or they like a more, you know, I don’t know, anything. You know, personality is what’s going to attract the people that end up becoming friends.

So not only is it like you get calls, you know, leads, people booking on your calendar, but it’s a better, more fun transaction overall. So it’s like, it’s a win-win-win.

[Mattias]
Yeah, because you’re attracting people that would be vibing with your personality before you talk to them. So like you’re not forcing. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

And that’s something my main goal is to work with people who want to work with me that I don’t want to work with. Like it’s more fun that way, right?

[Ali Garced]
Yes, 80-20 rule.

[Mattias]
Yeah, yeah, totally. Okay, so that’s a really interesting idea. There’s definitely, I can think of a few different resources.

I know that NAR puts out like a, so the buyer profile and that kind of stuff, we could probably pull some ideas from. I’ve seen lists of like, you know, the best ROI on, you know, what improvement is a new room for, is a new painting or whatever, new countertops. So my mind’s already kind of started.

And do you make it specific then to your area? Like what’s the best ROI in St. Paul? Is that kind of like the lead or?

[Ali Garced]
Yeah, super good question. Okay, I’m glad that you brought it back to this because I didn’t answer that first part of the question. So yes, I do.

But you can also not. So to make it more clear, you can have a channel before you start your channel, you want to make sure you know exactly who you’re talking to. And of course you’ve heard this before, but it’s more specific.

Like, do you want to talk about college, station, Texas, or like, you know, what it’s like to move there? Or do you want to focus on listing your home to net the most? So focus on sellers.

It’s kind of hard to have a channel that fits both because you’re attracting two different types of people. So what I do, I have three different channels. One for home buyers in Tucson, one for home sellers in St. Paul, and my Allie the Agent channel, which is more of like a brand about me, like helping real estate agents for free. So actually, by the way, I have a YouTube video on how to create a YouTube channel. I took, I paid for like a bunch of courses too. And I put everything of what I learned for free in that video.

So if you want to hit me up, if you want to hit me up, just, yeah, DM me the word video on Instagram. I’m Allie the Agent and I’ll send it for free. Like I’ve spent over $1,000 on just that one video.

But going back to the smaller city versus bigger city, if you are completely in like a podunk area, like over an hour away, maybe even like two hours away from the nearest big city, at that point, it may not be worth using the keywords of that big city because it’s just too different. But if you are like in a far away neighborhood or suburb, where people tend to move there, then it is a really, really good idea to start creating those videos with the keywords of Tucson or San Antonio. So in that way, not everyone that looks in San Antonio ends up purchasing in proper San Antonio.

So a lot of them, you know, purchase in the neighborhoods outside with Denver, especially. So you’ll wanna make a couple of videos like Denver or the suburbs, and then suburb A versus suburb B, suburb C versus D and like go all the way down. But that’s overall the way that I’m thinking about content after paying for a bunch of courses is like three different buckets, like top of funnel.

So just overall, you know, like what is it like living in Arizona? You know, what is it like moving to Arizona? And then Phoenix versus Tucson.

And then I’m going into the top five Tucson suburbs and stuff like that, then narrowing it down. So top of funnel, some middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel. Bottom of the funnel would be like trying to, your call to action there would be book a call with my link below, if you’re looking to sell within the next six months.

So that’s kind of how I’m thinking about it.

[Mattias]
And then I guess if you were to get somebody attracted to, you know, top of funnel there or reaching out to you, you could always refer to that person if they’re not going to be buying an area that you’re actually servicing. So that’s, yeah, that’s really interesting. Now that also seems like a lot of work.

I’m not going to be honest. Are you out there filming yourself? Do you have all the gear?

Do you hire somebody to film, to make these for you or how do you do that?

[Ali Garced]
Equipment, my favorite, one of my favorite topics. You can do this on your iPhone. Like I just got a camera and it’s not even like an actual camera.

I still personally think my iPhone records at a higher quality than the DJI content creator combo three. The word pocket is in there too. Like that’s like, yeah, it’s so small.

You can just carry it anywhere. You can buy like, you know, one mic or two mics with it. But I do a lot of talking head.

So you can have channels and channels perform super well if you do like neighborhood tours or even house tours sometimes. But mine, I’m a big believer of if you can’t do it forever, don’t even start. So back to my Tucson channel, I wasn’t going to be doing neighborhood tours too much.

I wasn’t going to be doing, definitely wasn’t going to be doing house tours because things were flying there. So there was no point of, by the time I was done editing, I couldn’t even, there was no point of posting it. So yeah, so I do a lot of talking head videos.

So that way you get me, you get like my personality. And so it’s still working for attracting buyers to Tucson and sellers for St. Paul.

[Mattias]
So I am the 60 year old agent that has no idea what YouTube is. And I have no idea what a talking head YouTube is. What is that?

[Ali Garced]
Good question, good question. In my opinion, it is the easiest way to make a video which is sit down in your office. Or sit down somewhere that has good lighting.

Maybe if you want to sit down outside on a park bench, totally fine too. But just sit down and share what you know. Yeah, so there is an art and a science to this.

But I do a lot of, that’s what talking head video is. Like if people were to watch this right now on YouTube, like it’s literally, we’re not, there’s no B roll. You know, there’s no extra like video overlap of the Tucson landscape and aerial footage.

And you know, zoom in, zoom out. It’s just me talking. And I think it’s easy.

I can get to the point. I can make a lot of videos. I can batch better.

So again, anything that I think I can do like sustainably, that’s what I’m even, that’s what I’m going to start.

[Mattias]
Okay, no, that’s 100% right. I mean like if you’re not going to see a success from the first one that you spent, you know, three months working on, you really need to have a lot of content, right? And you have to keep doing it to be able to see the progress.

[Ali Garced]
Yeah, 100%. YouTube, I think may be one of the most strict, by the way, I’m like, I do not consider myself like a genius on YouTube at all. So if I say anything like slightly incorrect, plus the algorithms change all the time, I apologize in advance.

What I have learned from my own personal experience is YouTube is one of the most strict algorithms where if you do not post consistently, you’re going to stunt your growth a lot. And one of the biggest things that I learned before I even started, luckily I learned it before I started, is if you share your channel to other platforms or even via text, if you share it in any way, especially when you’re first starting out, it’s going to stunt your growth tremendously because chances are you’re sending it to your mom, your friend, your friends that don’t plan on purchasing in your city and therefore they don’t watch to the end, they click off and that’s the worst thing. That tells YouTube that you’re a shit creator and not to push your videos in front of anyone else.

[Mattias]
And I get it. So I mean it’s one of those organic growth things like you really want that organic growth and if you’re relating that to Instagram where they say if you buy leads, you’re just going to get the kiss of death. Like if you’re trying to get some bots to make your follower count impressive, that’s really the kiss of death because then they’re not going to interact with your content.

So it’s not going to get out to anybody new that you actually want. So then there’s a lot of stunts. So when you’re going back, you might have already said this and I might have missed it because I was thinking about a floating head talking somewhere.

But when you are doing those talking head video pieces, do you have that scripted out at all? Do you write it or can you just kind of free flow and speak clearly enough that it makes sense?

[Ali Garced]
Some people can do that. I’m not there yet. I think there is a progression.

So I used to start out with having to have the full script. I used to have to read. I think the more videos you post with the less time in between each video.

So if it’s a higher frequency, higher volume, you’re going to get better and you’re going to go from needing a full script to bullet points. So now I’m still in the bullet point phase. Eventually, maybe I will go into just turning on the camera and going, but I like having a good outline as far as like the topic, repeating the title in the first 10 seconds of me opening the video to therefore reward the viewer saying, yes, you clicked on the right video and then going into it with a call to action in the middle, a call to action at the end, knowing what video I want to tie it into for the viewer to click on next. So it is a lot of work.

Like you mentioned before, it’s a lot of work, but I would much rather do this than cold call any day. I cold call for four days and my feelings got hurt. I was like, I can’t, I’m not strong enough for this.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s fascinating. So yeah, I mean, it’s like you’re planning, you’re planning what you’re talking about. That makes sense that you do that.

I know that they also make apps that are teleprompters, basically. So you look at your phone and it’s a front facing camera. So you’re just kind of reading down.

Did you use those at all?

[Ali Garced]
I did, yeah. And I wish I could remember the name of, oh, prompt screen pro. Yep, it was one of those.

I mean, there are a lot of them. That’s just the one that I first came across. So prompt screen pro, I use it on my phone.

You could also use it on your iPad. You just have to make sure that when you’re, you’re at least somewhat memorizing a little bit because otherwise if you’re, it’s so obvious when your eyes are darting, you’re watching a YouTube video where the person is just reading, like going left and right. And like, you just lose that connection.

And it’s monotone, dude. Yeah, like, so, but one good thing about YouTube is like there is an agent for everyone. So even if you are boring, you’re gonna have the client for you, you know, like, and you’re gonna like it.

But I at least try to do like a little bit, like 10% more effort when you’re recording. And then back away, like physically back away from the camera enough to where your eyes don’t dart. That’s my biggest takeaway.

[Mattias]
Okay, now that makes a lot of sense. And I was gonna say too, with that line of thought, with AI being out here, if you really know, like your bullet point idea, for example, if you really know the direction that you want this video to go and kind of order the sequence, all that kind of stuff, you could probably get AI to fill in some content in between, you know what I mean? Like if you have the outline, you know, solid, get AI to write the in-between script, and then you could have, you know, more content, that could save a little bit of time, potentially, right?

[Ali Garced]
Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely. And once you get into like a good rhythm of talking to your editor, which is a whole nother topic of its own, I, as I’m recording, I talk to my editor. So, especially if I’m gonna be showing B-roll, like for example, I did a video on the Tucson homelessness.

The city of Tucson was sued for its homelessness. And I wanted to read a specific part of the paragraph of this news article. So instead of the video focusing on me as I’m reading on the screen, I told the editor, I’m like, hey, at this point, please use this blurb, and like over my face, so that way it’s not obvious that I’m just reading.

So it’s, I do a lot of the editing up front, or rather, I instruct the editor what to do up front. Like, hey, at this point, can you add some like swoosh noises or a cha-ching noise? Just like anything to keep the viewer a little bit more engaged.

[Mattias]
So you actually say that in the middle of recording, like, you know, give enough of a break, they can edit that part out or whatever. And you’re like, yeah, do this.

[Ali Garced]
Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely.

[Mattias]
And speaking of editors, I mean, that’s another thing that people probably is very adventurous about, they have no idea how to use any software. I have before, but it’s such a, it bogs me down so much. So Upwork, Fiverr, what are you doing?

How do you, what would you recommend people do to take that off their plate?

[Ali Garced]
Yeah, well, first, I would say you have to take it off your plate. You don’t like the, you’re not going to get your photography license or cert to take photos of your listings, so don’t do the same thing with your editing. Um, there are a couple of companies like that you can hire, and they have already found their own editors, which I think is an easier, you’re, you’re paying for the convenience at that point.

But you can let go of the middleman task of starting the job description, posting it, interviewing, looking at their work, hoping that it’s their, actually their work, and then testing it. It’s just so, so much. So there are a couple of different companies.

I use VidChops. I do have an affiliate, but like I will say they, they don’t, the timeliness isn’t always there. So nothing is perfect, you know, but also you have to make sure that you as the content creator, you have an idea of what you’re looking for at the end.

Because if you don’t even have an idea of where you want the video to go, your editor will definitely not have an idea. So don’t blame them. You know, it comes from you.

So have an idea of like what kind of, the pacing that you want, the B-rolls that you want, how often you want it, the tone. So that comes from the creator because the editors are in the Philippines or somewhere else and like they don’t sell real estate. So like that’s where I think a lot of the agents go wrong is they just think that someone else will magically solve their problems because they’re paying for it and that is not the case.

[Mattias]
Right. Yeah, I mean real quick, I’ve been trying to get a couple editors and I found a decent one and I have seen something maybe similar to what you’re talking about where you can get like a monthly subscription that basically almost unlimited editing which I was like, you know, later on that could be really handy. But anyway, I was doing something about mobile home parks and I, you know, I wanted some people in there and they use like RVs or something like looking at for like a park setting and I was like, they don’t quite know what a mobile home park is.

But you know, that’s something you can guess you learn as you go and that’s probably a big point here too is that you’re not going to start off perfect. Like you’re, what you have, I’m sure is going to give a really good help to like get, you know, people started and understand kind of how they should structure, how they should plan, how they should create these videos but there’s no substitute for just doing reps. Like you gotta get out there and do it and you’re not gonna be great at it, right?

[Ali Garced]
Oh yeah. Yeah, 100%. And I don’t remember if I offered this website but another one too, aside from Fiverr is onlinejobs.ph. Oh yeah. It’s also one too. It’s like 69 bucks a month that you can just cancel anytime once you found one. But that’s going directly and like interviewing, posting, making sure that what you post is actually gonna help you, you know, so.

[Mattias]
I just used that website too for a different purpose. So that’s, yeah, it’s a whole new world and I think that’s one thing that agents struggle in in general is I think they often wanna be the, do everything themselves, solopreneur, have a hard time starting to get past that and so I think exercising that muscle is just really important. This could be a good way to start that process.

There’s a lot of things you can do or you can delegate in this business and I think maybe that’s a more small town kind of thing but I feel like often people are just kind of trapped and like they can only grow so much because they’re just at capacity with doing everything themselves.

[Ali Garced]
Yes. Oh my gosh. I hear this all the time too with agents that get stuck on being too scared to delegate even for a transaction coordinator.

Yeah. I’m like and it’s, to them, I realized that to them it’s like a chicken or the egg. Well, I can’t hire one until I make a certain amount but I’m like you won’t make that amount until you hire it out.

So especially with a TC that doesn’t even get paid until the end when you close. So to me, I think that’s a no brainer but also like and once you start exercising that, like you said, it gets easier. Yeah.

So buy back your time.

[Mattias]
Yeah, yes, yes. That’s on the list. One of the many books I’ve started.

I haven’t finished it yet. But no, but 100% and so actually with that online jobs PhD thing that we just talked about, it’s like I went through the process of hiring a virtual assistant and I watched a video on that website. I was planning on doing this anyway but one of the points they made was if you hire somebody for an hourly rate, like and it’s part-time, you know, pay as you go, you’re not going to give them more tasks.

You’re going to give them a task when they’re done. You’re going to pay them and that’s it. But if you pay them full-time salary, you’re going to have to think about how to fill up their time.

And so you can start thinking about how are you going to delegate more and how are you going to enhance your business by having this extra, you know, person, this extra set of hands. And I think when you start thinking that way, you just really can expand. You’re going to make your service to your clients way better.

Like an example would be what if you like, this is probably a little bit extra, but like what if you have an in-depth analysis of every house you ever show? Like, you know, before you even go, here’s an analysis. I think the property is overpriced to whatever.

I think it’s $20,000 on your market. Like I do not have the energy, desire to do that, but I could potentially do that with a VA. So that’s the power of thinking, you know, bigger than yourself.

And again, I don’t think I’m actually going to implement that idea, but that’s kind of an example of what it could be.

[Ali Garced]
Yeah, that’s a great example. Overall, it’s like, how can I provide even more of a service? And that’s something that you can hire out.

Yeah.

[Mattias]
I think people are often afraid too of that if they take themselves out of it, they’re not going to have the same quality. They’re not going to have the same service to their clients. But in reality, you can focus on the things that are your strength.

And then, you know, helps with the buyback in time. Some people are going to do things better. Like for me, like I can analyze, I have a beautiful spreadsheet that takes me maybe 20 minutes to really, you know, dig into all the various small minutiae of the house and do a really good analysis, almost like an appraisal.

But I’m not going to be energized enough to do that for everybody else. That Shell, for example, again, using that example, but that is something that I could train somebody to do if I provide them the comps, maybe eventually they’ll learn how to find good comps. You know, it’s a townhouse, it’s going to be pretty easy.

But anyway, so there’s a lot of exercise in that muscle. It’s just, I think, a really important thing if you are trying to grow bigger than, you know, what your own capacity is.

[Ali Garced]
And one thing that I think where agents get stuck is they end up jumping to the annual salary. How much am I going to be paying them by the end of the year? And it’s not that.

It’s as long as you tell the VA upfront, we’re going to do a 60 day trial, you know, like for you, it’s only two months. Test it, you know, and then you can switch to another one or switch the job role or at that point, you know how much or rather how little you put into the job description. They don’t really know what they’re doing.

So it’s a matter of like taking ownership, but then also like don’t think that it’s a forever commitment. It’s not, you’re dating.

[Mattias]
Yeah, no, totally. You’re absolutely right. And also understand that you’re going to have to train them.

[Ali Garced]
That is a job in itself.

[Mattias]
And to that point, you know, it’s also possibly you should ask yourself, do you want that growth? Do you want to do more? Like, and do you want to have that different responsibility?

And for me with, you know, doing this podcast, doing all, you know, investing in real estate itself and everything I’m doing, writing a book, all that stuff. I’m like, I need to learn this. I need to get better at this to do everything I’m trying to do.

So it’s, hands down, makes sense to me. But I have another friend, you know, you have that story about the guy that goes to Mexico and sees a fisherman that goes out and, you know, casts his net and comes back as soon as he has enough for the day to get some food and play guitar. And then he’s like, you know, if you just stay out there a little bit longer and you caught more fish, you can buy another boat.

You can build your company up and then you would have people working for you. And he’s like, yeah, OK, so then what? He’s like, well, so that you could, you know, eat your food and drink some wine, play guitar.

And I have people that they do kind of what they want every year. They take long vacations and they’re super happy with it. And I don’t think that’s necessarily that I’m necessarily wrong with that either.

So I think it’s also just kind of determining what you want out of this. And if it is to grow bigger, that is a huge thing.

[Ali Garced]
Definitely, definitely. And and having like over time, the more what’s interesting is finding a good editor or finding a good partner or finding like really anything I think comes from you doing the work up front. You know, like the more in the beginning, I couldn’t find an editor or save my life.

But the more videos that I posted, the more I had people reaching out to me. And yeah, so it’s like overall, the more that you put into it, the more you’ll realize what you’re looking for and like building your life by design as a real estate agent. Like, for example, how I’m selling homes from across the country without even being in Tucson.

I know that like I fell in love with the act of prospecting. I love it. I love prospecting.

I don’t like driving around. So I have partnered with a bunch of agents. And so they’re the ones who help me either sometimes we do, you know, like a split or I’ll pay them per door to open the doors and to sit sit in during the home inspections because an agent has to be there in the state of Arizona.

Got the whole home inspection, stuff like that. But overall, it’s like it’s it really is. The more you do, the more you will realize what you like doing and what you don’t.

And the faster you can partner with someone that likes doing what you don’t, like your world begins and you can fish and you’ll be with your family every day playing guitar.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s that’s really that’s so cool. I actually just interviewed somebody who who sells in San Francisco and lives mostly here in Panama. And it’s just it’s just crazy.

The world that there could be out there for agents, you know, that I think that they have to do everything themselves. So that’s really fascinating that you the way you’ve worked that out. I kind of assume you’re just mostly doing referrals once you get that prospect.

That sounds like you can definitely have full, you know, walking clients through the whole deal. You would not be.

[Ali Garced]
Yeah, yeah. So I tend to do a mixture. I I work with the clients directly if I’m requested by name and or I will work with them directly if I have not yet capped.

So every year until I hit my cap, I will work with them directly. So I’ll sell like around seven homes ish and then I cap and then the rest for the rest of the year will just be outbound referrals. So that’s how I figured it out as far as the math goes with EXP so I can get so I can make icon and get that entire cap back.

So that’s just like my tempo as of now.

[Mattias]
Sure. Yeah, sure. I feel like we have so much we can talk about.

You mentioned the book already, but I want to hear what if you have a favorite book that’s been either foundational for you in your business or one that you just currently really like.

[Ali Garced]
Yeah, it’s it’s so hard to pick one because I have two right now. If I were to pick one, I think it would be Traction by Gino Wickman, which is, you know, tried and true. It’s crazy that I haven’t even read Rocket Fuel yet.

It’s one of those books that I’ve started time and time again. Then I’m like, wait, I want to dedicate even more time to this book. So therefore I can’t I can’t open it yet.

So but Traction is so, so good. I started it in the beginning, like when I first got licensed. So I thought at the time it didn’t, not everything applied to me because I didn’t have employees.

You know, I didn’t have even a virtual assistant at the time, but it’s really good to start learning and reading about what you’re going to grow into and the future problem problems that you will have. So the biggest, my biggest takeaway from that book was how every employee and everybody in your community of like your staff should have a number because numbers run the business. You know what gets measured gets improved.

So from that, my biggest takeaway was my number is six. I needed to have six conversations about real estate every single day in order to make the income that I wanted to make. So that is how I have sold a hundred homes in three years.

I just hit my three-year mark and just hit a hundred homes. But like, yeah, thank you. And then so that’s what I tell like all the agents that end up well, I’ll fast forward a little bit I ended up realizing that yes, I love helping buyers and sellers.

But because I have my background with the military where I actually was not happy. I was pretty depressed. I had a lot of anxiety.

I needed to get out of the military. I found that my biggest passion is helping other people get into real estate sales as a full-time job. Like that is because I was there, you know, like I was in their shoes.

Oh man, that like fills my soul. Um, so I have a number that’s like the number that I tell other agents to like, Hey, if you don’t even know, if you don’t want to run the numbers, start with the number six, not six hellos, not six dials, six conversations about real estate. Whether that takes you six initiations to start or 106, like end every single day with six conversations about real estate, finding value, not being that person’s like, Hey, you know, I’ve been looking by yourself.

So that’s how I’ve been able to help. So far five agents make 120 their first year with us. I’m like, I’m pumped.

Like that’s because that was exactly my goal. My first year was to replace my major income.

[Mattias]
Yeah. Yeah. What that’s great growth.

I mean, that’s, that’s awesome for the first couple of years. That’s, that’s huge. I mean, that’s, that’s so hard.

And I think that really, you know, that’s, that’s why a lot of agents fail is that they don’t really have, they think it’s going to be easy. They say what 87% of agents fail in the first five years. I think it’s going to be easy.

And I think that, you know, it’s just going to be glamorous. It’s not, it’s not always, if you don’t have, you know, daily actions that you take, it’s hard to really, you know, guarantee you’re going to be getting somewhere in your sales. So that’s a really good tip.

[Ali Garced]
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. I love it. That’s where I was like, I, I love this.

I love helping other agents, like give their middle finger to their employer. So they could be, you know, work for themselves, like just the way that I did. I’m like, this feels good.

[Mattias]
That’s awesome. Yeah. Well, and now people want to reach out to you or do you have any resources that you already mentioned the YouTube video?

So remind us what that is. And if there’s anywhere else, people can reach out to you.

[Ali Garced]
Yeah. Yeah. I love helping agents.

So I’m on Instagram primarily. So Allie the agent, Allie spelled A-L-I. So if you, if you DM me the word video, I’ll send you the list of 20 titles to get started with.

Cause a lot of people think, okay, I’m going to make a channel. I’m a little bit scared, but what do I say? What videos do I post?

That’s where I’ll, I’ll, you know, you can start the 20 and those primarily will help you get listings. So YouTube isn’t just for buyers. But yeah.

Otherwise just hit me up on Allie the agent. I’m happy to help it any way that I can.

[Mattias]
I’m going to be sending that video message to you. Do it.

[Ali Garced]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[Mattias]
Happy to help. Well, thank you so much, Allie. It’s been a really fun conversation for me.

I hope I’m sure everybody else got a ton of value. I know that I’ve been kind of zeroing in a little bit more about the content creation. So it’s been right up my alley and I know that a lot of people are intrigued by it as well.

So it’s been a great conversation. Thanks so much.

[Erica]
Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to the REI Agent.

[Mattias]
If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week.

[Erica]
Visit reiagent.com for more content.

[Mattias]
Until next time, keep building the life you want.

[Erica]
All content in this show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.