The Riches Are In The Niches With Eli Jones- Elevate: A Podcast For Driven Real Estate Agents - Episode 13
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In this week's episode, we are joined by a very special guest, Eli Jones, who has built a thriving real estate photography business from the ground up, while also creating an educational course to teach others about the industry. Eli's real estate photography course has been a huge success, generating over 5 million dollars in revenue. His experience in the industry has led him to believe that "the riches are in the niches," and he shares his insights with us on how he built a successful business focused on a certain niche. Join us for an engaging and informative discussion about content creation with Eli Jones on Elevate: A Podcast For Driven Real Estate Agents!
In This Episode We Cover:
How to effectively manage your time with content creation.
Why it is a great idea to become specialized in your chosen industry.
Some tips for agents who are just starting out on social media.
Listen Along!
Read the Episode Here!
Eli Jones:
Let's talk about real estate media. We only work with real estate agents. We get really specialized at working with agents. We know what to do. We don't shoot weddings, we don't do corporate events, we don't do anything like that. And that allowed that business to grow. And I've not seen a lot of photography businesses that grew as much as ours. And it's not because I'm a great business person, right? It's because I picked a niche and I stuck with and I got really good. And then moving over to my course, there are a lot of general photography courses. My course is done over 5 million in sales. And all we do is teach real estate photographers how, or I'll teach people how to be real estate photographers, right? Super niche. At the start, I was like, dang, I wish I could just talk generally photography. It'd be so much bigger. I would not have the business I have on my education side of things if I did that.
Nathan Whitworth:
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Elevate. I am stoked that you are here with us today because my guest, somebody that I am really excited for you to meet, who has been working on something that I think is going to help a lot of people out there. And that's really going to provide really a lot of valuable information on something, a topic that I'll be honest with you everybody thinks about, which is lead generation, but that a lot of people are trying to figure out online content creation. So Eli we have today, Eli Jones. Eli, I'm glad that you're here. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you being here. Thanks for coming on and sharing everything that you've done with your online brand and with your business. I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Eli Jones:
Likewise. Thanks for having me, Nathan. It's going to be exciting stuff I love to talk about.
Nathan Whitworth:
Yeah, a hundred percent. Okay, so first off, first and foremost tell everybody who is Eli Jones and tell me a little bit about what your experience has been. Yeah, I'll
Eli Jones:
Give you the really quick story of the last 10 years. When I was 16 years old, I started a real estate photography company, wanted to be a doctor, had no idea that I would completely shift course. And over the next seven years after I started that company, I scaled it to, at its peak about 20 employees. We have more contractors now, but spent the first seven years of my career just learning how to help you guys as agents sell real estate and pushed a little bit to help you market yourself, but it wasn't quite the right time. And so I took my business a different route rather than scaling it to multiple markets, I decided to launch an online course called Real Estate Photographer Pro, where we basically taught other people what we did in Dallas Fort Worth at our business that allowed it to be successful.
And the last three years I've spent doing that and really learning what it means to market online and how to get leads and how to run ads and everything that a business owner who wants to sell something does, especially if they want to scale it. So that's what I spent the last three years doing. And really what we're I think here to talk about is the last year and a half I've really taken a deep dive into social media and worked on building my own personal brand. For the first eight and a half years or so that I've been in business, I thought of social media as a really long game, something that was like five plus years. And because of that, I didn't really want to spend a lot of time on it, right? Cause I'm like, I can't think five years out. I got to think today I got to get leads today.
And so about a year and a half ago, I finally got rid of that very faulty mindset and just invested my time and seeing what I could do, seeing what I could build personal brand-wise. And in the last three years, we went from literally zero followers to a little bit over 320,000 followers across all platforms today. And most of that growth happened in the last six months. So I think social media is such a big opportunity for people, and it doesn't have to be a long game. That's the thing that I was so wrong about. I wish I would've started sooner. So that's really what we're going to be talking about today. And that kind of sums up what I've done. My company now is called Jones Ventures, and we have about 35 employees across our different businesses, and that's where we're at today.
Nathan Whitworth:
That's awesome, man. So first off, first and foremost, before we even start the conversation, I want to say thank you. Yeah. Because everything that I know about real estate media has really come from you and has come from your education and your online classes. So I am glad that I found that Facebook advertisement. I got to tell you, I was smacked across the face for about a good six months with those advertisements before I clicked on one. But I'm glad I clicked on the advertisement and I'm glad that I'm in your community because of how much I've learned from you, man. And I want to thank you, your team, Aaron, everybody because you guys really do provide a lot of value. You've got a great heart and you help a lot of people. So thank you so much before we get started on that.
Eli Jones:
Yeah, appreciate it.
Nathan Whitworth:
All right. Yeah, you're welcome, ma'am. All right, so let's get started. Lead generation, the thing that every agent is thinking about right now, how do I get more listing appointments? How do I get more interviews? How do I get in front of more people to help them buy and sell more houses? Okay. Now there's a lot of strategies out there. There's a lot of things that they can do for lead generation. You have been, just, like you said earlier, you've been focused on online video creation and building an online brand and online following. That's been the method that you've chosen. Why mm-hmm.
Eli Jones:
Necessity, to be completely honest. And I think most business owners understand that we have to get leads and we have to do it in a way that is affordable for us, meaning we can't spend more to get a lead than a lead is worth to us. And so three years ago when I launched my online course I had to go from a referral driven business is something where I was constantly finding new leads. And a lot of real estate agents, you guys find yourself in the same position, which is you can either door knock or do something awful like that. You can pay for leads from a service, you could run ads. And all of that does two things, really. One, it costs a lot of money, and two, it's not super fun to do. So I went that route when I first started my business we launched the course in 2019, and by the time 2020 had ended, we'd spent almost a million dollars in Facebook ads.
That is a lot of money. And it would've been great if we could get those leads for free without paying for all those Facebook ads. So we were at that point, probably, I don't know, eight, $850,000 in Facebook ADSD spend. And then the next year, 2021 something called iOS 14 happened, I think it was late 2021. They updated a lot about how ads were able to be run and how retargeting was able to be done. And basically what it did is it changed our cost per acquisition so much that it was hard for us to run Facebook ads profitably. And so I was kind of forced to try the organic social media route. When I say organic, I just mean we're getting leads and we're getting views from content that we didn't pay to put out there. We didn't pay to boost it, it was just posted on the platform.
And because of the merit of the content, it was given views by Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, all of that. And so necessity is why I'm here. But it's so interesting because the last year and a half have showed me that while Facebook ads and running any kind of paid media is great, and it's an awesome tool as soon as you shut it off, the leads stop. So as soon as you're done paying for that ad, or you decide you don't want to pay another a hundred dollars a day, you stop getting leads. And with organic, it's very different. It compounds. And so the time that I've spent hosting, it started working immediately. And I'm sure we'll talk about how to get pretty quick results because that's what we all need to believe that it works. But it started working pretty quickly and every month as our social platforms has grown, the volume of leads, we get increases. And so I can stop posting right now and the leads keep coming. And that's what more people need in their business because it's changed my business completely. That million dollars we spent in Facebook ads doesn't happen anymore. We spend 150 grand a year now and get the same amount of leads and same amount of sales. And so you can see what that does for margin. And I think that's why more people need to do it just yeah,
Nathan Whitworth:
Man, so well, well, I mean what you just laid out there sounds amazing. So it's like, wait a minute, you're telling me that for no money, besides the cost of myself on, I can actually go out there and generate enough leads into my pipeline to be able to have a sustainable, successful real estate business. That's what that's telling people. So then man, tell me why are more agents doing it? Is there a living belief here? Is there something that a lot of agents think or something that they believe about social media and video content creation that holds them back from utilizing this tool that obviously people like you have done really well with?
Eli Jones:
Yeah, I mean, you hit the nail on the head when you said limiting beliefs. I think people believe things about social media to be true that just aren't true. So like I said earlier, they think it's a long game. They think that you have to be really well spoken or be really funny or have something that's really going to make you blow up, and it's just not the case. So what I always encourage people to do, and it doesn't matter if you're a real estate agent or anyone trying to start on social media, you don't need to get into all the nitty gritty stuff, posting times, hashtags, all that stuff that people tell you you think you need to do well on social media really doesn't make a difference. And so what I would challenge you to do is just start posting two videos a day.
And if you can consistently post two videos a day, that's going to take you through the learning curve that you need to go through. And it's going to do something second to that, which is very important, which is show you that you get results. When you get that first lead from social media, it changes your perspective on it. And so I think a lot of it is limiting limiting beliefs why people don't get started. But then the second thing is because they have those limiting beliefs, they never get to the point where they even get that first lead and that first lead is kind of the icebreaker. It makes you go, dang, that's real. I remember when we first started posting, for me it wasn't a single lead because leads in my business are not worth that much. We have to get a ton of them.
But it was the first time that I posted a video and I hadn't posted videos that went viral before. I mean, I was getting a couple hundred views, a couple thousand views, and I had one video that went to four or 500,000 views. It's way more than that now. And I was like, dang, that's crazy because I saw how much our leads increased, I saw how many more followers I got, and I was like, that was cool. I wonder if that will ever happen again. And then next week, same thing in the week after that, we got another one. And so it's crazy to me how fast it can happen. And the thing that makes all of this even possible is just starting in the first place. If you start in the first place and you start to get leads, you start to grow your following, you'll be a believer. And so the real challenges is just getting you to do that is to take the first step and start posting consistently.
Nathan Whitworth:
I think what's really interesting about what you just said is that you were surprised, right? I feel like for so many people, and you've done something that I haven't done yet, so I'm glad that you're here to talk about this, but there's so many people out there who think to themselves, well, I know that it works, but I don't think it'll work for me, right? Yes. And the fact that you went through that exact same process yourself and you were stunned and you were shocked and you were looking at the phone going 450,000, holy cow, and you were experiencing the same kind of shock and disbelief that I think a lot of other people would experience if they just got started.
Eli Jones:
What's so funny is I've spent more time networking with people who spend their time on social media like I do. They spend their time producing content, not consuming it, and it's the same story with everyone. They're like, dang, I'm like, I'm shocked that it was me. Or they all have a similar story to what I just shared, which I think is so funny because that's everybody, right? And so the thing that differentiates those that do and don't succeed on this I think is number one, consistency, but more importantly that it's just starting in the first place. It's not always, and I will say it wasn't my first video. I had to post a lot before then. And I think even with that amount I had to post to learn, I also had a lot of experience from the ad driven side of things coming into this.
So a year and a half of experience there and a million dollars in spend. And then for the years prior to that, I was making videos. So it wasn't that it happened instantly for me once I started posting, it was pretty fast, but I also had years of experience. So there is a learning curve and there are things you have to learn, but once you figure it out, it's so good. And I don't think there's anything more worthwhile to attempt to figure out because you're spending time in your business doing something. Maybe you're getting better at running ads or cold calling or door knocking we talked about earlier. And tho I'm not saying those are bad, but all of that's hard. And so why not prioritize your hard based upon what the biggest payoff would be? Door knockings? Great. Well, there's a limited payoff. You're never going to change your business with one door most likely, but with social media, if you grow a falling, it's going to completely change your business and ultimately change your income, which I think is the reason most of us are out here suffering to try to build our businesses.
Nathan Whitworth:
I've heard you talk several times about the concept of leveraging your time. What are you doing with your time to get the biggest results? Do you want to speak to that and how that relates into content creation on social media?
Eli Jones:
Yeah, that's a really good topic because I think a lot of people, one of their objections to spending time creating social media content is they think it's going to take 'em a lot of time. And the biggest hack that I can share with any of you guys is to batch your content. A lot of people, they try to sit down and film one video and then by the time they're in video mood, they're done. They film the video and then they try to do that again every day. And then when I say two videos a day, they're like, that's three hours. It is not, what you should do to be most effective is schedule a time where you're going to film your videos that's going to be maybe four hours max for a week's content. We try to tell people to think about it in a two hour block, two hours a week is what this should take police when it comes to the filming side.
And then all week you can be thinking of ideas. And as you know something you see on social media, you're like, I can replicate that. Write it down. Or you have an idea, write it down, or you see an interesting comment on your post or someone else's post. It's a good question. Write that down. And that way when you get to that two hour block, you can just knock out a bunch of content. And I think that's the biggest thing is just being efficient. And that makes it so it removes that excuse of like, oh, I don't have time. For a lot of people think of social media as another full-time job, which it can be if you do it wrong, but if you do it, it doesn't have to be. And so that excuse is just not valid, just you got to prioritize better.
Nathan Whitworth:
That's awesome. I want to talk about another limiting belief, which is the production quality of the video. So the a constant thing I hear often is that I don't want to publish content that doesn't have the highest, that is of the highest production value. They see stuff like this where we're using key lights and we're using some hiring cameras and some nice microphones, and they kind of I think oftentimes extrapolate that, well, we've got to do the same thing in order to have online. So talk to me about that and what have you found in your experience building your brand?
Eli Jones:
Yeah, so a hundred percent of my content in the last six months has been filmed on this. So 100%,
A hundred literally 100%. I used to mess around with nicer cameras when I was first starting because I ran a media company. I have all the gear you could possibly need. I'm like, well, that's got to be the secret. And my content, I said six months for a specific reason, which is the last six months is when my accounts have really blown up. We went from about 20,000 followers six months ago to over 320 across all platforms, and it was all on this. And so I think the over complication creates two big problems. So number one is they think, okay, I have to have all this gear. You're like, I don't, how do you use this? Right? And so that's issue number one is there's a learning curve there. And anytime there's a learning curve, it knocks people off so they don't even startle. But number two is the more produced the content is typically the worst it does or the worse it does.
And that's such an interesting thing that I think a lot of people after spending some time in social media, they realize that. And the more time you spend on social media, the more you realize that, especially when it comes to vertical video, which is the content that works today. So two years from now, I have no idea what works, but vertical video is popular right now, and the more polished it is on your news speed, the more likely someone's going to skip it because it doesn't fit the platform. It either looks like an ad or looks like they're trying to either sell you into watching something longer. And so my best performing videos are funny enough, sometimes worst looking videos from a designer aesthetic or quality standpoint. And so it just doesn't matter. And so what I would encourage you to do, I mean, sure, get the newest iPhone with this thing that looks like a, I don't know, a beehive on the back here, but that's all you need.
You could maybe get a little plugin mic, but again, why would you do that? I mean, I use a plugin mic on maybe 5% of my videos if I'm far away from the camera for some reason. But most of my content's just this and that doesn't mean, I will just say a quick tangent to go on here that I think is really important. If you watch my videos or a lot of other creator videos, it's not just me holding the phone static. I'll do a sentence and then I'll stop and I'll turn and I'll do another sentence and then I'll turn. So the background's different. So it doesn't give you the ability to be lazy when you use your phone. I actually think it gives you the ability to be more creative because you have to worry about less stuff. I'm not like, well, is the lighting set up properly with the mic in the right place? I can go sit in my car, I can stand next to my car, I can have the trunk of my car open. So people are like, the heck is behind it. And it's about creating a little bit of curiosity. I think that's an important thing to learn. And so this allows you more flexibility, more creativity, not less of it.
Nathan Whitworth:
Okay man. So let's get into the nitty gritty. Okay, so you were just talking. So let's say that somebody's listening and saying, okay, Nathan, okay, Eli, you've convinced me. I want to start creating content to actually generate real leads and to drive traffic, which is the first part of the process. So let's talk about creating good social videos. W what are the best tips that you have when it comes to somebody who's like, okay, I'm going to start doing this for the first time. What are the best tips that you might have for somebody? They flip out their phone, they open up, let's say Instagram, and they start recording. What are the things that they should be thinking about? Maybe two or three things they should be thinking about? Because you just mentioned one, which is like, yeah, use your phone, do a short segment of the video here and then just switch positions here. Yeah, that's a great tip just to give varying backgrounds maybe what's one of or two other tips that they need to be thinking about.
Eli Jones:
So you probably heard the term hook, which is the thing you say or the stuff you show on your screen that catches the viewer's attention. The most important part of any video is the first three to five seconds, and we call that the hook. So maybe it's what you say, a good example of a hook for if you're just doing a standard real estate house video, the most boring type of video out there, it wouldn't be like, Hey, I'm Sarah and welcome to, nobody cares about that. Instantly skipped. But if you do something like you will not believe what is in the primary closet of this house now I'm like, what is it? And so curiosity is the biggest one and you can generate curiosity through what you say or something they're seeing. And so if you look at my videos or really anybody who gets a lot of views the videos, especially on my channel, they get the most views.
It's like what is, you don't know what's going on for the first couple seconds and you're interested to learn more. So you have to get them through that first few seconds. And then after that you have to think about it in three to five second blocks. And it's not so strategized where I'm sitting down going each three to five seconds, I'm just saying people are going to skip if it's five seconds of the same thing. So I need to either change the background or do something or say something that will recreate that curiosity or desire for them to keep listening. And so when you're making a video, going back to that house example the concept is to show maybe it's a safe hidden in the floor. You're not going to start with introducing yourself because you lost them immediately. And you're also not going to spend too long on the intro when you say you'll never believe what's in there. You don't want to go from that right into this house is listed for 2 million, no one cares. You lost them. So you got to keep curiosity the whole time and get to the stuff they want to see and keep 'em wanting to see more.
Nathan Whitworth:
That's killer advice. So when you say when you're talking about hooks I think so that's a great example for let's say that's a great example for a listing. So they're creating a listing video and that I could totally see how that would work to create a more engaging video. What about in the more talking head educational videos where maybe there's not something that they can show and it really is just them sharing maybe a piece of knowledge or something that they think that their intended audience would like to know. What does a good hook look like there?
Eli Jones:
Yeah, controversy is the best hook. So you obviously have to be careful with this. And there's different types of controversy. I'm not talking about anything that's more deep. I'm talking about saying one hook that I'll use a lot is I'll hold my camera that we use to shoot real estate photos and I'll be like, here's how we make $95 in five minutes with this camera. And right there they're like, you have the people that are like, no one should make $95 in five minutes. And you have the other people, it takes way longer than five minutes. And so I'm saying something that is true. And so I'm not lying on social media. Maybe there's times it takes longer, but I have to create enough controversy to get them to stay. And one thing that you'll get you'll grow to love the longer you're on social media and the larger your audience grows, you need people that think you're full of bs.
The more people you have that the more your audience grows. And it's so everybody says that, right? But it's so true. Some of my most viral videos, half the comments are that takes longer than 15 minutes. Yes, sometimes, but most of the time it takes eight minutes. And so thinking in a way where you can get people to for a second have controversy and then you're going to educate them. Now there's one thing I would say that's important. When I think about my videos, there's two primary objectives that I have that determine how I make the video. So the first objective and the one that we've talked about a lot on this show already is we want to get more views for the video. And so that video is not so much about educating them or giving them a real piece of value, it's about getting their attention.
And then that video, I expect to get a lot of views, but I have a second type of video that's more of a sales video or a deeper video that gives them real value. I don't expect those to get a lot of views. Those are for my followers who I got their attention with the flashy video and now they actually want to learn something. And so that's how I think about my content. There's two different types. I'm not trying to have every video go viral because the ones that go viral are the stupidest ones that'll drive you crazy, the ones that go viral, the ones where you didn't say anything good. And so you have to think about it that way is there's two different types. And so for me, I designed some videos. I don't care how many views this one gets, I know some of my audience is going to see it, my most dedicated audience, and those are the ones that are going to buy from me anyway. So you think about it, anything in marketing, it's kind of a funnel. We use these videos that are going to get views but don't really educate or help anybody. And then we move it down into some more targeted, helpful content. And then that bottom niche content is really what helps the audience who are ultimately going to get the ability to serve through them becoming a lead or paying us or whatever it is in your business.
Nathan Whitworth:
That's so interesting. Do you have any kind of formula that you tend to follow? How many of those kind of videos should you be posting? Or what's the percentage of the viral videos that are a little bit more entertaining versus the things that you're just trying to provide more value to your intended audience? Do you follow any kind of script there or do you follow any kind of formula on how many videos each month should all those videos be?
Eli Jones:
So I'm going to say a tactic that I learned recently, but I don't want you to think you need to perfectly go along those lines. If you're watching this and you're taking notes or whatever. So generally, no, for the last six months, and I talk about the last six months cause that's where most of the growth happened. I've just kind of 50 50 day I think of an idea and I'm like, should this one be more viral or is this one more educational? If it's more educational, I'll make it longer, more boring, but try to get my point across. And the other one, that being said, I was at a conference recently and this is what we've started teaching and I've started doing which is a structure called 60 30 10. So the idea here is that 60% of your content is stuff that's fairly I don't use the word vanilla in terms of boring, but I mean it's just stuff that's not super related to what you do.
So for me personally, I'm a car guy, I love cars. So I talk about the Ferrari that I bought, stupid purchase. I always talk about that, that how stupid it was. But that gets a ton of views. And so I get car people that are interested and I love watches. And so I'll occasionally talk about watches or I'll show something about my house, something like that, something that's what I do. Maybe it's flying. I am a helicopter pilot and I love that. So that's my 60% of my content or what it will start to be is content about that. And what it does is it pulls people from each of those niches. I get some people that are interested in aviation, I get some people that are interested in watches and cars and all that stuff. And whatever it is for you could be golf, could be whatever.
And that brings them into your brand. And then 30% of your content is more on your area of expertise. So for me, I would say expertise is not mastery, 10% is mastery. That's the smallest bit. So when we talk about expertise, I could say business in general, I talk about stuff that applies to more than just real estate photographers, maybe if photography is my expertise. And so it's a little broader. And then we go in 10%, which is mastery, which is the really specific real estate media stuff. And that's the stuff that I don't expect to get a lot of views, but it's really helpful to people who are wanting to do what it is that I do, which is do real estate media. And so that's how I think about my content now and what I'm trying to build towards. And the person I've learned that from has a lot more followers than me.
So I tend to shut up and listen when that's the case. And I think that's a good strategy to start with. But the really important thing here that's more important than the percentages and all of that is to understand that you don't just have to talk about let's say you're a real estate agent who serves investors primarily. You can talk about more than that. You're probably an investor yourself if you're that type of agent. So share what investing does for you, show what it does or talk about your hobbies because you're going to find somebody who's interested in golf that's like, dang, I found this guy because I saw a golf video. But it's interesting to see what he does now. That's how he affords the golf so much is the conversation they have in their head. And so you have to think about it that way as people aren't interested in investment real estate, for the most part, they're interested in something else and then they realize that investment real estate might be the outlet that allows them to do more of what they like.
I buy real estate, I think you do as well. And the thing with that is we don't buy that necessarily just because we love real estate. I mean it's a fun game, but it allows us to do something. It creates cash flow, we get appreciation sometimes. And so why are we doing it? And so almost reverse engineering it. People don't necessarily care about real estate at the start. They care about other stuff and then you show them real estate is the answer to their problem. Maybe that's their board and their city and you are a real estate agent that's more of a socialite agent. So you talk about the awesome things that there are to do on the south side of Austin and that catches them. And then you're, by the way, I'm a real estate agent here. I know everything about this city. Do you want me to help you find a house? And they're like, yeah, of course you showed me what to so backwards from what most people think.
Nathan Whitworth:
That's so interesting, man, because as I sit here, I think about all the agents. Let's just say let's Instagram, but this can apply to anything. It could apply to Facebook, it could apply to YouTube, it could apply to anything. But as I think about most agents Instagram accounts, typically it's just kind of one market update after the other. It's the premium
Eli Jones:
Open, how much commission they made in the last quarter, what top 500 list they're on, who their sweet buyer and seller was. Nobody cares about that mean. So it's so funny because it checks the box for a lot of agents, but if you think about it from your audience's perspective, which most people don't, they think about social media from their perspective. What am I putting out? What do I want to share? It's more about what does your audience need from you? There's no value with that. That doesn't do anything. I mean, maybe seeing you on a top 500 list makes you seem like more of a top agent. But here's the funny part, and this Nathan for sure is if you look at the average social or average real estate agent, social media, like 80% of the followers are other agents because nobody cares about the content they're producing.
And so think about it that way. Let's talk about the things that are interesting that people would be interested in. Let's forget about building an audience for us and for other agents. Let's build an audience for people that we can actually work with. And just that switch will make a big difference. And it's not a hard switch. It's easier to talk about the things you like. It is much easier for me. I hate shooting real estate twilights. I haven't shot one in five years. And when I shot real estate full-time before I grew my business, that was my least favorite thing was going out at twilight and shooting real estate photos. I don't want to talk about that. I'd much rather talk about a cool watch that I found. And the thing is that works better for most people cause they also like that. And so then they're like, okay, how do we build a business? Well, it involves going out and shooting twilight photos of real estate because you can make $175 in 15 minutes. And so those videos eventually make sense to them. But there's a lot of other ways you can start creating content that's not just specific to what you think
Nathan Whitworth:
Is. Yeah, and what I think is so interesting about this, and I want to go back to your earlier point, it's that most people are sitting there thinking to themselves, well, I post on social media, I don't get any leads from it. And then we go and take check out their account and it's like, it's what you said, it's the market updates and things. Okay. It's like, yeah, you're not that you are posting on social media. Yes, but that is not a lead generation, no strategy. That's not a lead generation strategy. You might be lead nurturing to some extent. And those are two different things though. Maybe they you generated that lead in a different way. They go to your social media account and they're like, okay, they're still in business, they're doing stuff cool there. They're present
Eli Jones:
Prediction more than a source of traffic
Nathan Whitworth:
A hundred percent. But most people are posting those kind of things to social media thinking to themselves, Hey man, I'm hoping to get that next lead off this post. And I'm, if there's one thing I want people to take away from this conversation today that does not generate new leads, yeah, it it's okay. You just haven't been doing it the way that req the strategy requires. So let's go back to the actual video content just for a second because I think that another big issue that a lot of agents have is, I don't know what to say. They pull up their phone, they hold it up in front of them, they click record and then honestly they just blank and they just don't know what to talk about, right? Yeah. So I love what you were talking about earlier, which was talk about the stuff you love, right?
That's a lot easier to think about. And I'm sure that you probably feel this way too. It doesn't have to be your family, which a lot of people I know, I'm a family guy, I've got three kids and a lot of my life is family. But there's other stuff that I love too. I love music. I could talk about music. I used to be a music teacher and there's a lot of relation there. And I can talk about what I'm doing during the day and the places that I'm going and the things I like. That's one of the things I love about the fact that you're saying that 60% of your content can be and should be just the other things in your life that you're into that helps with that issue a lot. But let's kind of dive down just a little bit deeper into that smaller 10 percentage you're talking about. Whereas the mastery, how do you present yourself in as an agent? How do you know what to talk about as an agent that's going to help people understand that you are one of the best at helping them solve their problem? You're one of the best at helping them solve their pain point. Can you talk to me for a second about that 10% mastery and what should they talk about there or how this should they approach what they should talk about?
Eli Jones:
It's a good question. One side note or maybe a little zoomed out before we dive into that 10%, a lot of agents are scared to commit to a niche on social media because they're like, well, I normally work with investors, but if a luxury home buyer comes around, I don't want to turn them down. And that attitude of going too general, it removes the potential for anything to happen from the start. So just erase that from your mind. Now, let's imagine that you have committed to more of a niche. We'll use an investment focused real estate agents as the core of that in the process of doing business, are going to be doing a lot of the same thing every day. So every time you work with a new investor, they're going to have the same questions. Every time you work with an experienced investor, you are going to notice things about them.
And so really what you're doing when you share your expertise is you're either reporting and there's different characters of what people do on their social media, but you can be a reporter. So you can make a video. For example, I worked with this investor who has a hundred units and he gathered, he got all these units in the last two years and here are a couple things he did differently that really stood out to me. That's an awesome video and an awesome hook right there. So you can report what you learned from other people or can a new investor works with you and they ask you questions. You can answer those questions to your audience in general because if one investor has 'em, a lot of investors have 'em. And so the main thing you need to do here that will make it so you don't struggle for content ideas is once you admit to yourself and you commit that you are now going to be someone who is creating content about real estate investing, every time you do something, you got to have that 10% of your brain that's like, is this a good content idea?
And if so, let me write it down. And one of the worst ways to create content is to turn on your phone and be like, okay, I need to film for two hours and have no ideas. You'll have the most unproductive two hours of your life staring at this camera and you'll go blank. So what I always say, and like I said earlier, you want to batch film it, but you don't want to batch come up with the ideas as you're going through your daily life. There's stuff that you do. You need to write down everything. And here's the thing, what you think is basic is advanced for your audience most of the time. And so don't be afraid to do topics on what you'd consider to be kind of a silly thing or really, really basic because that's what people want to see. Anytime someone asks you a question, anything that happens in your business, anybody you work with, think about those. Write 'em down because there's content there. And it doesn't have to be wildly advanced or profound, it's just normal videos that you're putting out that to you is normal to them is very interesting, especially if you make it interesting. And so that's the biggest key is separating the idea time and the filming time. Cause those should not go together. You'll go blank as a canvas and not be able to do anything.
Nathan Whitworth:
Well said, well said. Okay. So this is all under the assumption that you have committed to an audience, that you are talking to a specific person, that you have an avatar, which is what everybody says. You have an avatar in mind of the kind of person that you're talking to. And when I'm talking with the agents, one of the things that always comes up is like, well, who are you trying to serve? Who are you trying to help? Who's the person that you're, and I mean so many times, man, I mean it's like most of the time, yeah, they're like, well, anybody I, yeah, I want to e everybody. That's typically what they say. And I think this, I really want to dive into this just a little bit and really put a pin in this because I think that this isn't just a real estate agent thing, man.
This is any small business owner thing. This is any entrepreneur thing. This is an issue because you're always looking for, to get the most revenue that you possibly can. You're always looking to get as many sales under your ability as you possibly can. The thing that most people assume is that, well, I need that net to be as wide as possible to be able to catch as many people as I possibly can. Can you talk to me about what have you found in your experience that contradicts that statement? The idea that don't go wide. Go narrow. Now that's not to say that you can't help that luxury buyer when they come your way. I'm not saying don't take that client <laugh>, take that client, make that money, go do that thing, get that experience. But I'm just saying in your marketing strategy, in your content strategy, narrowing down who you're talking to, why is that so important and what have you found in your experience?
Eli Jones:
Yeah, I mean there's a thousand quotes that we all say, right? You've heard people say the riches are in the niches and 50 other variants of that. And the same people that spout those quotes, especially when it comes to real estate, because as a real estate agent that there are different niches that investors go in and different things. And you probably give the advice, which is specialize, but you don't take that advice yourself. And I think it's just be, like you said, people are scared to commit to something because they think that they're making that net smaller and they're going to catch less fish. But the truth is, the wider you go, the less money you make in almost every phase. And it's funny because every business that I've owned or run, the more niche we are, the more money we make. So let's talk about real estate media.
We only work with real estate agents. We get really specialized at working with agents. We know what to do. We don't shoot weddings, we don't do corporate events, we don't do anything like that. And that allowed that business to grow. And I've not seen a lot of photography businesses that grew as much as ours. And it's not because I'm a great business person, it's because I picked a niche and I stuck with and I got really good. And then moving over to my course, there are a lot of general photography courses. My course is done over 5 million in sales. And all we do is teach real estate photographers how, or teach people how to be real estate photographers. Super niche. At the start, I was like, dang, I wish I could just talk generally photography. It'd be so much bigger. I would not have the business I have on my education side of things if I did that.
And so I think that's really important. The biggest thing you can do is commit to a niche because it just gives you a couple things, right? Number one is you can study the exact person you want to work with. And I'll talk about avatar in a second cause I think that's really important. But then as a result of knowing who that person is, you build all of your processes to better serve them. And so in a world where generalization doesn't work, the more general you are, the less you'll be good at anything. And our economy is very specialized today. And so you have to be specialized because there are millions of people you can serve. And so you can only serve one type really well, especially at the start. So the more capable and the more focused you are on picking that avatar, the better your business will be.
And I did not agree with that at the start. And that's why I said I felt kind of like, ah dang, I wish I could teach more than just real estate photography cause I make more money. It's not true. There's an exercise that I'd recommend you do to find the avatar and it's really easy as a real estate agent. So what I want you to do is think about all the transactions you've done and there's probably two or three that really stuck out to you who they were people you liked working with and it was just great. Pick one of them printed out, that's who you're making content for. Print out a picture of who they are. This is not coming from me. Tons of marketers teach this work Super. Well print out a picture of that person, write everything about them if they're married, if they have kids, their hobbies, everything.
And when you're making content, I want you to think about them at the start. You can expand the multiple avatars in the but at the start, just think about that one person, Sarah, maybe, and make videos for Sarah. And a funny thing happens when you do that is you'll start attracting people who are your dream customer that are all Sarah's. And not only will you get a ton of them, more customers than you had if you didn't do this, but they're also going to be the people you like working with, which is such a joy in business. We all have those clients we don't like working with. Well, why not build everything to attract more of those? We do. And so starting with who that is, you're making content for, I think is really important. Now it'll expand because there'll be multiple archetypes that you want to serve and especially as your business grows, but you don't need to do that at the start. I mean, you can build a huge social media audience with a very, very niche focus. And I think people like you said, they just worry that it's limiting them and really what's limiting them is going too broad.
Nathan Whitworth:
That's really interesting. Let me ask you this, because one thing that often here is I know the person that I want to serve, but I like that person's not me, right? Yeah. I think there's a lot of people who think that you have to be your client, you know, have to be your avatar to understand that person. I'm curious what you think, cause I don't know that I've ever heard you talk about this before. What do you think about that? Do you agree, disagree?
Eli Jones:
So I think it's easier to make videos that help your avatar if you were once in their shoes. And so a lot of my videos are videos that I would've been really helped by. And that's helpful because I can be like, okay, I know what the pain they were feeling is, and if you can talk to what they're feeling, you'll be more effective. Now you don't have to do that. That's just something, a skill you can learn is how to get in other people's shoes and understand their perspective. But I think if you were once your avatar, that's amazing but you don't have to be, right? You served that client, Sarah, that we talked about. Well, you were never Sarah. And so you doesn't mean they have to be that way. I just think it's easier. And I do think going back to the bigger principle here, the more niche you go, especially when it comes to that 10%, that mastery that we talked about, the better your results are going to be. And so I would say to whatever you decide to do, whether you were once your archetype or not, dive into a really specific niche and stick with that. Cause it's just so much easier. It's hard to make content for multiple people.
Nathan Whitworth:
And always, it's hard to know what to talk about if you don't have a person that you're talking to. It's like you walk into a party, there's a dinner party and I'm walking up to a stranger that I've never met before. If I don't know who that person is, I have to search for our common interests. I have to ask lots of questions and I have to figure out what can we talk about? Because I don't know anything about what he does and he doesn't know anything about what I do. So what can we figure out in common interest? Yeah, and I think that one of the biggest challenges when agents, so I the 60%, that's, that's a new concept for me. I'm definitely taking that. So you're talking about other things in your life, but when we get to that bottom where you're talking more mastering, you're talking more about what it is that or how you can help people and giving them real value and trying to solve their pain points and trying to help them through those challenges that they're facing it, it's really hard to know what to talk about in my opinion, if you don't know who you're talking to because there's a real estate transactions.
But whether you're an investor or a first time home or a person who's moving up and growing to a larger house, or you're luxury or maybe you're a renter, there's a lot of stuff about the transaction that's the exact same, right? Yeah. That's what people go to real estate school to learn. It's the laws and how not to get sued and those are the things that every agent's learning. But to take that a step further, even though there's a lot of similarities between all the transactions among those different audiences, the pain points and the challenges that those people are all facing and the things that they're thinking about at that point in their life or with that particular transaction is different, right? Yeah. So I've seen it where I'll go to a kind of an agent's profile and it does seem like they're struggling a little bit because there's constantly different people that they're talking to all the time. And it seems like it would be would be hard for me to be able to follow that person and really press into that person. There's an
Eli Jones:
Interesting without s on that topic that I want to cover while we're here, which is, do you know how when everybody I think can relate to this, when you see a commercial on tv, you feel like they're talking to somebody else, you don't feel like they're speaking to you. And the reason for that, and everybody feels that way. Nobody's like, dang, this commercial was made for me. The reason they have to do that is because they're going so broad, it appeals to no one, because they're putting it on a platform where they have no specifics. They can't target. As someone who likes real estate, Nathan, they can't target me as someone who likes whatever. And so they have to go super broad. And that's why notoriously TV advertising is very expensive and ineffective compared to a lot of what we do on social media now.
And so if you think about it in contrast to Facebook ads, for example I could never profitably run my ads on TV because there's not enough people interested. But on Facebook, it's targeting my specific audience so I can target people who are interested in photography in general. And my wife, for example, she, she's the person who buys stuff from Facebook ads. We get these weird things from Facebook adss that their marketing was so targeted to her. She was like, dang, that's exactly what I need in my life. Let me buy that. She's never bought one thing off a TV commercial. And so that just shows the effectivity of getting more niche. You're able to speak to someone and have it feel like they're speaking to them. And one tip with social media is a lot of times, especially at the start, people, they get their phone out and they're ready to record and they act like they're speaking to an auditorium, which I understand it feels that way, especially as you grow, it feels like you're speaking to a bunch of people.
And so a tip you can use is to act like you're talking to your avatar. That one person make a video to them because they're not consuming it. 50 people looking at a screen. It's just me looking at my phone when I'm consuming. And so if you make content thinking you're shouting to this huge auditorium, it's going to reach nobody. And so it's kind of a small psychological trick. There's no crazy thing that it's going to do differently. It's just going to give you a little bit more focused content because you're going to be talking to Sarah, your avatar, your archetype, and that just makes it a little bit easier. So just a quick tip there so you don't end up a vanilla TV advertiser. That speaks to nobody,
Nathan Whitworth:
Man. That's well said. And that's a great point. All right, so I want to take it back out 30,000 feet. So we've got defining your audience, right? We've got creating good social videos that actually drive traffic. Now the last thing I want to talk to you about is the last component, <laugh>, right? The last component that in the entirety of internet marketing has figured out. And yet most real estate agents don't know how to do it typically, and I just want you to speak to this. So typically what I see often is that they're creating content and then generally speaking, they're kind of throwing up their business card At the end of the video, just give me a call, give me a shout. I'd love to help you if you ever have moving or selling or whatever. And talk to me about the last
Eli Jones:
Perspective pitch of all time and no wonder people.
Nathan Whitworth:
So this is one of the things that I think is a challenge for most agents because they're like, okay, I get it, I get it. I have an audience. I'm going to create videos, I'm going to develop an audience. Everybody understands that you can monetize off that audience, but nobody knows how to actually convert that view into a lead, right? Or at least what I've experienced in the real estate world. There are a few that have there are have done it and they are killing it. Yeah, killing it because they're able to leverage the tools that we're talking about here to be able to talk to so many people and magnetize so many great high quality leads to them. Yeah. So talk to me about the last part of the puzzle. Yeah, we got defining your audience creating content that drives traffic. Where are you sending that traffic to actually be able to convert that lead into an actual sale? So
Eli Jones:
The secret that's not a secret to most people except those that are in real estate, is you have to have a lead magnet. And so I'll kind of talk about what a lead magnet is and how it facilitates that process of going from traffic. You've seen you on social media to someone who's sending money to your bank account. Ultimately there are a lot of different ways you can do lead magnets. So going back to the concept of niches, we'll kind of go through a couple different ones. Let's talk about investors and then we'll go to a socialite real estate agent and then we'll go to one for first time home buyers. So if you go to there's a good example of a real estate agent that I think does this pretty well. Her social media is at realtor landlords. So look at her, her name's Allie, and you'll notice that she has a link in her bio.
That's where most people put their lead magnet. And if you go to that, you can get access to some free investor tools. So she's made calculators and stuff like that where people who have gotten value from her and are interested in what she has to do can get a little bit more value and take the next step. And so if you go to her bio, and this is the same framework everybody uses, there's nothing special about what she's doing there. It's a very common thing, like you said in internet marketing. If you click on that, you click investor tools or calculator or whatever it is, it's going to ask you for your email and you're going to put in your email and it's going to send you that tool or give you access to it right there. And then Ali, in her case, has a ability to remarket to you in the future to add you to her database.
I know a lot of real estate agents call it and continue marketing to you. And in that tool, she could potentially say, if you'd love to buy a house in the Portland area, which is where I think she's located, or Seattle, maybe you could contact her. So we're not just going straight from social to contact. The bridge of that gap is called the lead magnet. And so that's what it could look like for an investor agent. Now let's talk about a socialite agent, which is kind of the hardest one and that's why I picked it. You're an agent that just likes to talk about coffee shops, bars, events, whatever it is in your area, neighborhoods, doesn't matter. What do you do for a lead magnet there? Well, you could have a free course on getting to know blank city if you're in Austin getting to know Austin.
Or you could have an email list where you send out events happening every week in Austin. And that's a way to trade them, something of value for their email so you can continue to market to them. And then first time home buyers, you could have a free course. That's like 10 things to do if you want to buy a house in the next year and your first time home buyer. And the last lesson is, hey, if you're interested in buying a house, did you know that I'm free for buyers? As a buyer's agent, I don't charge you anything. And so if you'd like to work with me what I taught you is exactly what I'm going to help you do. Contact me. So it's not just going from here's some content to hey, let's do business, some content. Let me give you some more value so I can follow up with you and market to you in the future.
And then after they've gotten the value from that lead magnet, you can ask them for the sale. That's a much more effective way to do it. And it allows you to get data. You're getting their email from them, you're seeing how many leads a day you're getting because ultimately sales are more sporadic. But leads you should get every day. With my social media, I get hundreds of email addresses a day. And so imagine if you were a real estate agent that did the same thing, how valuable that would be, how big your database would be of people you could market to. So the lead magnet is the not so secret secret and it's really easy to make one, right? If you go to my social media, I have a link up in my bio and it's for each platform, it's different. So I can track where it came from and they can go get a free workshop we call it, which is effectively a webinar.
It's a one hour training where I teach them a lot of what they need to know to get started and then they leave excited, let's do this. And I'm like, if you want some help, just my course is super cheap, it's going to make it way easier for you. And that's how I get a ton of sales. And so it's the same thing for real estate agents. You have to think about what's a little bit deeper value you can provide them that's off platform in exchange for their email, a course workshop, email list, tons of stuff like that. But that's the secret
Nathan Whitworth:
Sick man. Well said. That's a well, very well explained. I think one of the things that I love about this, and you kind of mentioned it just a second ago where you were talking about, and I have a different link to track where it's coming from. You have a way to measure, you have a way to look at the numbers, figure out where's your traffic coming from. That's kind of the example you gave. But you can actually track conversion. You can actually say, this is how many views my profile has gotten this month. This is how many people from those views have actually seen my lead magnet or downloaded my lead magnet of those people who's downloaded the lead magnet and given me their email addresses. This is how many people over the last six months is actually, you can track, you can measure and you can improve. That's the thing about, and
Eli Jones:
What's so important about that besides any of that stuff, I mean that's all great cause it helps you get better results. But the biggest thing that I think it did for me and does for a lot of people, it shows you that it's working. If you're getting sales from social media, I was talking to, I was a group of people, I don't think it was agents, but I was like, it was a month ago, it may have been in, which is part of my course. I was like, if every time you post it on social media, you got a $10,000 check in the mail house, then would you post <laugh> like 400 times a day as much as I can? And it's like, well, it's not that direct, but it's almost that direct, right? And so that's why I'm such a big believer in we need you get that lead magnet set up, start posting and let's get you getting leads.
Because when you get leads, you're like a believer, you're instantly converted. And so that's why I think it's so important to have a lead magnet because otherwise you're just doing stuff and you're like, Hey, I got a lead. I don't know where it came from. But you don't, if you know that it's from your social media efforts, you're all of a sudden really invested. And that investment is what creates the commitment and the consistency that pays dividends over the long term. I think that's so important. I think as all of you guys know, business is really not a numbers game. It's not really a skill game, it's a game of managing your own emotions and learning how I think about it is if you can manage your emotions and you can see the world more accurately, you'll be really successful. So we have to get rid of false beliefs and the things we believe that are true, that are not true in order to see the world more accurately.
And then we have to consistently be doing something, taking action in the right direction. And so I just think business is really simple. Keep your emotions under control and see things accurately. And that's why I'm a numbers guy. I always talk about that. I love numbers. In order to run a million dollars worth of Facebook ads in a year, you have to be dead on your numbers, otherwise you spend yourself out of business. And so I'm not saying that as someone who thinks numbers are unimportant, they're critical for running a business. I just think what's more important is keeping yourself motivated. Because if you're motivated, you're going to do the consistent thing and you're going to look at those numbers and see what they matter to you. It all starts with that internal motivation. And one thing I heard that I think is really true, a lot of times people when they get into business, they think, oh, I just need to put in the work now and really look for that long-term goal.
And it's a long game. We tell ourselves all these things about what business is and what I think a more effective strategy is to stack quick wins. The more you can every day be like, dang, I got a hundred leads. That's going to keep you motivated. One thing Gary V talks about that I think is really interesting is there's this concept he uses called clouds and dirt. And so the clouds are looking down your business and being excited and coming up with ideas. And that's super important. But you also have to have the dirt where you're in there digging, getting work done. And if you don't have those in the right balance, it doesn't matter. You can only dig for so long before you get tired of it. And the clouds is where you get that excitement and that you bring that emotion into your business and you get excited about a new idea and you do it.
And so you have to have the balance of those. And I think a lot of people they throw the balance off just by their beliefs by saying, this is a long game. I just need to put in time for the long haul. You're a human, you're not going to do that. We don't do that. We don't do things that suck unless we see results. And there's a book many of you guys have read called Atomic Habits, but that's one of the things in that book. And all of these people teach the same thing. All these people that are really successful basically share the same thing, which is you've got to start with doing a little bit of what you want to do, followed by a little reward. That's what they teach in atomic habit. So if you're trying to work out maybe one minute in the gym today, followed by 10 minutes in a sauna because you enjoy the sauna and bringing that enjoyment piece is what Bri builds the consistency of that new habit. And it's no different with social media. The enjoyment is going to come from seeing leads because those are money. And that keeps you really motivated,
Nathan Whitworth:
Man, that is so sick. So talking about the leads, talking about the lead magnet, I would just want to encourage people, cause we could talk about what makes a good lead magnet. Just go Google it. There's tons of resources out there and you know can find that it's
Eli Jones:
Not a secret. That's the good news, right? Perfect. For sure.
Nathan Whitworth:
<laugh> it. It's real. Yeah, it's really not. One thing I do want to address though really quickly, cause I think I can hear a lot of people in their head thinking when they're listening to our conversation about developing a lead magnet, tracking analytics, all that kind of stuff, they're sitting there thinking, this is going to cost a lot of money. Does it have to?
Eli Jones:
Now it can be free mean people, there's people who do a Google form, which is free if you have a Gmail and then it goes to a free something where they can download a PDF in that form or email list software is 30 bucks a month, or course hosting software is 50 bucks. I mean, this is so cheap compared to the results and anything, you may have to invest a little bit of money, but come on, 50 bucks is not even real money a hundred percent how much other stuff you spent time on. So that that's just get that out of your mind.
Nathan Whitworth:
A hundred percent's
Eli Jones:
Costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by not doing that not the other way around.
Nathan Whitworth:
I love that. Yeah, I, and maybe I'm curious to see what you say about this because one of the big challenges always here is the objection of it's going to cost us this amount of money, or is this going to cost me this amount of time? They don't think about the other side of it, which is what are you losing because you're not, and can you just speak to that for a second? What have you experienced in that?
Eli Jones:
Yeah, I mean for me, social media has done nothing but made me a thousand times the money I've put into it. And so that's obvious. I think there's something it's a quote that Ryan Pineda says I thought was really interesting. He's newer to social media himself, a couple million followers across platforms starting in 2019. He is a real estate guy house flipper. And he says something to the effect of, it's like if you're not posing on social media, that's okay, but know that your competition is and they're taking your business. And so there's the fear side of it, which is people are doing this. You can't not be on social media and be in business. It's not an option anymore. It wasn't even an option five years ago, but it really isn't now. So there's the fear side of it, but then there's the more important thing, which is the upside of doing it which is so incredible.
I mean, my business has literally made millions of dollars in profit from social media and it wouldn't have happened if I had to run ads. The cost keeps going up for ads, and if I had to pay for more traditional lead sources, it just doesn't happen in the same way. And it's all one snap away from not existing anymore. So it changes price and it's ineffective or that company shuts down. And with social media, we're not talking about one platform, we're talking about getting attention on multiple platforms that if one shuts down it's fine. Instagram can shut down tomorrow. I got TikTok with a hundred something thousand followers. I got YouTube, I have all these lead sources, but it's all starting from one or two pieces of content a day. I post 'em across all the platforms. And so it insulates you and gives you the ability to really do a lot more. Our business would not be where it is without social media. I mean this year, just on the course side, I bet we'll do two and a half million dollars in sales and 90% of that's, or maybe 80% of that's going to be directly social media driven from my little channels in the scheme of things. And that's crazy. That's a lot. And that's just one business. And so I think what people misunderstand is just the upside that they have.
Nathan Whitworth:
So well said. So I want to be respectful of your time. We're coming to the end. The last thing, and by the way, that was such a beautiful <laugh>, just an overarching strategy that again, I know that is elusive to so many agents. They get the idea of generating content, they get the idea of building a following, they understand the general concept of building an online brand and that it can help your business. But I think that the mincing component that that's there for everybody who's pretty much in the real estate industry is where do you drive the traffic to? How do you actually capture the lead? So I'm really glad that we talked about that. Yeah. The last thing I want to follow up with that I think is going to help this outside of this realm that I, I'd love for you to speak on for just a second. Last week in our round table call, I heard you talking about just the value of time. And I think that this is something that we all struggle with. I mean, I struggle with it. My wife and I have daily conversations about this, daily conversations about this real estate. Most agents who are in the industry struggle with this. What are you experiencing right now when it comes to time, valuing your time, planning your time? I'm just curious to see what you have to say.
Eli Jones:
Yeah, so I was talking with somebody and they gave me this analogy that I think was really interesting, which is imagine you went to somebody's house and you opened the front door and there was just money everywhere. Crinkled up under the couch, on the counter, everywhere. Look at them. And you'd be like, you wouldn't think that person was really responsible. You'd be like, great, I mean they have money everywhere, but what is this? That it gives you an idea of who they are and it's not a good one. And they compare that to what most people do with our time. We just leave it everywhere. We don't care for it, but it, it's more valuable than money if you think about it. I mean, I know a lot of people don't feel that way because they're like, I just need money right now. And there's a hierarchy of needs, but generally your time is more valuable, finite, and you can't get more of it.
And so having that conversation made me look at my time and I think of myself as a pretty efficient guy and I'm like, geez, my time is scattered all over the house. And I think that's one of the most effective things you can do to grow your business is be more mindful of your time and what you're doing with it. And this goes back to the number one objection people have with social media, which is I don't have the time. And I would say that you don't not have the time, but more tactically than that, you have the time. You're just wasting on stuff that doesn't matter. And so that's why we talked about things like batching the content and not trying to sit down and crank out content when you're not in the mood for it. And that makes a huge difference. And so I would encourage you, as I'm doing in my own business right now, to look at and audit your time, maybe write down everything you do for a week and you'll be shocked what you're doing and what you're wasting time on. And so then the excuse if I don't have enough time completely evaporates because you do. You're just not caring for it. You're leaving it scattered around your house. And that's the biggest thing that I think I'm working on in my business lately in my life.
Nathan Whitworth:
Awesome man. All right, so to wrap up you, you're working on something right now. I want you to tell everybody what you're working on, just give everybody a little sneak preview and where people can get to find out more information about it.
Eli Jones:
Yeah, I'll give you the two minute kind of summary of it. So I own a real estate media company and we see branding as a massive opportunity for agents and therefore a massive opportunity for us. But we've always struggled figuring out how to make it work for agents because just selling you a package of 10 social media reels with no strategy doesn't do anything right because it takes consistency and you don't need it produced perfectly. So what are we trying to serve? And so we have come to the conclusion that if an agent wants to do social media, anybody wants to do social media, they have to be in the driver's seat of it. They have to know what the strategy is, know why they're doing it, because it's going to give them the wins that they need to put the effort in. So I've created a new company called Real Estate Content Club that is a social media education company for real estate agents, and there's two primary parts to it and it's launching this week.
So I'm pretty excited about it. The first part is we have to train you everything that I just told you here. You need to learn the tactics of and learn how to do effectively. So what content you should post, what platforms you should be on, what your lead magnet should look like, how you send traffic to that lead magnet. There's the education piece of this. And then the other piece of it, which I think is the really awesome part, is the ideas. So every week we give our members, as soon as we launch this coming week, we're going to give our members content ideas and scripts that are ready to film. So it eliminates a lot of that. I don't know what to film. And we'll give you a ton of ideas that will probably spark your brain to create more ideas. And then that that's really when we were thinking about this, we're like, we need this to be effective for real estate agents, not just do what they've been doing, which is check the box of it. And so we came to the conclusion, like I said, you need to be in the driver's seat to do this. So how do we put you in the driver's seat education and then accountability through the weekly video ideas and through our private community in that company. So it's called Real Estate Content Club. You can check it out at real estate content club.com and it's really cheap, so there's no idea.
Nathan Whitworth:
Yeah, that's sick. And I love what you say about being in the driver's seat actually provides you the wins to understand that it is a thing that is working and it's beneficial and it's as worth spending your time on. I think that there's also something to be said that the best, in my opinion, the best social profiles feel like a digital fingerprint of the real life person. And you just can't do that. If you have an intern or <laugh>, whatever posting your social content or even if you're paying a big agency, it's still not going to feel like you. And I just think that's a big part of the building trust process in your online profile. I'm curious what you say.
Eli Jones:
Yeah, I mean I think it is the most important job of the business owner is obviously to market the business. And so as my business has grown, I've realized more and more, and I would say if your business is smaller, it's even more important. So my company right now, like I said, we have somewhere around 35 employees. My main job, my title that's most important to me is that I market our business by creating content that is the most effective thing I can do for my business. I have an awesome team that can run the daily operations, but I'm the only one that can do that. And so that's why I think it's the same for real estate agent, like you said, you can't outsource it to an intern or even an agency and expect it to be great. And I don't think if you understand how big of a role it will play in your business, especially in the future, you wouldn't want to, you never outsource the thing that is the highest impact for you.
That's what you do. And so no matter how big my business gets, my main focus going to be on, let's get more people to know about who I am and who my business is because then we can serve more people. My team can run the operations, they're awesome, they can do that, but only I can post content as me. And so I would encourage you guys listening to reframe your perspective on what actually matters. I think being the face of your brand is the most important thing that you could possibly be spending your time on, and that's why we built real estate content club the way we did.
Nathan Whitworth:
So good. This is the last thing I want to say, and now I want to give you a response to this, but I think one of the things that I've really appreciated about you, Eli, and about the education that you guys have built is that you're constantly evolving. And I think this is one of the last things I want to talk about because I think that another limiting belief, going back to that kind of high production value thing, that belief that it has to be high production value is that so many agents feel like it's got to be perfect. They don't want to start post the first one unless it's perfect. And one thing that from an outside perspective who's gained so much value from everything that you've worked on and Aaron have created and what you guys have done is I'm constantly amazed at how well you guys will step back and say, is this working? Is this not working? How can this be better? And I'm just curious how you process that as a business owner yourself and how you would encourage agents to think about this about the evolution and the idea of perfection and those kind of things. And we'll make this the last thing.
Eli Jones:
So there's a lot of talk about how luck plays into a business and I think it plays a bigger part than a lot of people think, but it doesn't discount the hard work of it. And the reason I say that is because I think one of the things and traits that I was born with is I was told growing up and they was told this in a loving way, but I'm very hasty and I would always hear the quote, haste makes waste. And I think that is the biggest asset to my business now, is that I don't care for it to be perfect and it's not a learned skill. That's just something I was born with. And so I think that's carried me a long way. It caused me issues at some point, but at times. But I think the biggest thing that you have to learn as a business owner is you have to be willing to try stuff and fail.
And I'm probably a little too willing to do that but I embrace it and I hire people around me who don't have that. They have a skillset of trying to make it more perfect. That's a great combination. So if you're someone who's a perfectionist, first of all know this, there's no such thing. You're not perfect, right? Perfect is getting results and you're not getting results. So there's no perfection there. Perfection is usually people hiding emotions. And I think it's really interesting because when people talk about being a perfectionist, they usually would say that they're very data-driven and detail-oriented people when in fact they're the most emotional people you'll meet. They're so scared of messing it up that they're petrified. I think that's really interesting. So think about it is that you, and if it is, know that that can't be an excuse anymore because it's not about being perfect.
You're just so scared to mess up. You won't even start, which is imperfection itself. And so the thing I would encourage you to think about is what's the big goal that you want? If you want a GR to grow a business even to get one employee is a feat that most people unable to do. But let's say you want to grow a business with 10 employees, you're going to have to mess up a lot along the way, mess up consistently. And people say that business success is just standing on a pile of all the mistakes you made along the way. And I think that's so true. And so it's a hard one to tell people how to do, but just know that the most successful business owners, I'm not talking about me, I'm so low on the success totem pole in terms of what people have done.
And so when I look up to people and they're saying that to me, people that have billion dollar businesses saying all the bad ideas they've done, all the bad people they've hired, the mistakes they've made, I'm like, perfect, I can keep messing up. It gives you permission. So good enough to move on is a quote that is out there and I forget who it's attributed to, but I think that's so important. Just get a good enough to move on and action is ultimately the only thing that really matters. It's not perfection is such a fool's errand.
Nathan Whitworth:
So good man. Alright. I said that was the last question. I got one more for you. I got biggest resources, biggest resources that you have learned a lot from books, podcasts. Where do you go for your continual education, for your continual learning? What would you recommend people, especially around this topic that we talked about today on the podcast, what would you encourage people to go check out and to learn more from?
Eli Jones:
Yeah, so I'm a big audio books guy. I love doing it while I'm driving or walking or whatever. So I'll just list off a couple books that I think are really good. This is an interesting one that's kind of left field. I'm going to start with it, which is the Almanac of Naval. I think it's super interesting. Let me see. There's a couple ones that are core that are down farther on my list. So Russell Brunson is the owner of ClickFunnels and a great internet marketer. And so tactically, his trilogy, his three books are really good. It's dot com Secrets, expert Secrets and Traffic Secrets. Those will give you basically the framework of what online marketing is and puts you in the top 1% of realtors in terms of your understanding of online marketing. I think 12 and a half by Gary V is a really good book for the softer side of business.
And then love him or Hate Him. I think Grant Cardone writes amazing books and is a world-class motivator. And so I think 10 X Rule is an awesome book that you should definitely read. Those are the ones I'd start with. And then last one, which is where I'm at currently, and I read this years ago, but I'm circling back on it and you've probably read it as well, but Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. I think if you start with those, you'll be great. That especially the trilogy from Russell Brunson as to what we talked about today, that will completely change your business and that'll get your brain going again. The whole thing here is you need to be in the driver's seat to do this, right? And so that's a great book to, I mean, you'll read it and you'll be like, I'm a billionaire. I've figured it out. It gives you so much good tactical advice where you're like, I know exactly what to do. So I would start there with.com secrets.
Nathan Whitworth:
Eli, thank you so much, man. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your time. I appreciate you coming on and sharing everything that you've spent years learning and that you've put into practice and you've seen great results from. I want thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you've done for me, and I appreciate everything that you guys have again, that you guys have built, and I'm excited to see where your next thing takes you. So it's really cool. I know that there's going to be a lot of agents who's really going to benefit from this conversation there. I think there's going to be a lot of light bulbs that go off, and I think there's going to be a lot, like you said, there's going to be a lot of ideas that start to be generated from this conversation, man. So again, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Is there any final worries that you'd like to say before we hop off?
Eli Jones:
Take action. I mean, that's the only thing, right? Do what we talked about, put it into practice, and that's the only way you get results. You probably feel good right now. I felt that way a lot in my career about new ideas, but the real results come when you do. So yeah. Nathan, thank you so much. It was awesome, a great talk and always good to talk with you, my friend.
Nathan Whitworth:
That's awesome, man. Thank you so much guys. Hopefully you've learned <laugh> a few things from this episode. I know I did. I came into this kind of knowing some of this content already and I was taking notes as we were going through and there's going to be a lot of really actionable things that I'm going to pull away from this and then go implement into my business immediately. So thank you so much for your time and attention. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it. Thank you for joining us today for this podcast. Go out there and crush it. Have a great week everybody. See you next time.
Eli Jones:
See you guys.
Nathan Whitworth:
Hey everyone, thanks for listening. Hopefully this was really helpful to you in your journey of building a business. If you like what you heard, please click subscribe and go to iTunes and give us a rating that helps us out tremendously when we are producing hopefully content of huge value to you. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it, and I hope that you have an amazing week. Go out there and crush it. I'll see you soon.
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